Hornimoans
22 March 2005. Inspired by .
If you've ever been to Spain and ordered a cup of tea, you'll understand our pain.
Give that man a medal. No, that man.
21 March 2005. Inspired by .
I was having a brief scratch around the National Archives and found a scan of the form confirming my grandfather's WW1 service medal. Isn't the web great, etc. However, on the form itself (pdf, look in the bottom right), our name was spelt wrong. Not a huge surprise, people do that all the time.
And then I realised. I'd searched for exact matches to my surname. I went back a did a search for the misspelling on the form. Nothing. So the question is, how did the National Archives know that the form had been misspelt, and then how did they know to file it under the correct spelling? There aren't any other records in the public catalogue for my grandfather, by the way. Does this suggest they have other files on him that haven't been released? Or is there some other explanation?
Mergers and acquisitions
21 March 2005. Inspired by .
In a rather neat twist, it turns out that two apparently distinct ARG games are in fact two halves of the same whole.
Narratively speaking, that's something fantastic, as it changes everything. Players of each are now frantically starting to share information across games. It's not a cross-narrative cameo, it's a really really cunning plot twist.
Imagine, say, that Lord Voldemort actually turns out to be an Opus Dei monk called Silas, and you'll get an idea of how interesting that moment was for all concerned.
Meanwhile, following a trip to a second-hand games shop to treat my new DS, I've graduated from comic books to playing point-and-click adventures in Spanish. Still yet to find a good translation of the word "Threepwood", but it does sound more manly with a Spanish accent.
One year on
11 March 2005. Inspired by .
It's a beautiful day here in Madrid. Spring is finally coming, and the friendly Moroccan butano seller was even humming as he carried the replacement gas canister up to my flat.
Virgin, Olive Oil
10 March 2005. Inspired by .
Snapped yesterday in Mallorca. As good a choice as any, I guess.
Speaking of photos, there's a new self-portrait linked in the sidebar ("See my pic"). Autofocus was broken, so it came out somewhat differently to what I had planned. Somewhat better, too.
Game and watch
09 March 2005. Inspired by .
"I just got fascinated by that game [Resident Evil]. I didn't play it - my assistant played it and recorded it so I could watch it" -- George A Romero in this month's Edge
"Top left. Reload. Oh, nice shot." -- Shaun in Shaun of the Dead
Cartography before the horse
07 March 2005. Inspired by .
Blogosphere call-out: anyone seen any cool printed city maps lately? Not interested in great online interfaces, I'm thinking unusual but useful ways of laying out street information in print, without being Ordanance Survey (which I admit is pretty cool in itself).
Bonus link: Lots of online maps. Hot-maps in particular very cool. But not what I'm after.
Biografalse
07 March 2005. Inspired by .
Man of wisdom that he is, Nick points out the piss-poor accuracy of my favourite email of each day, the Oxford DNB. Still, it doesn't affect me so much - these are important details for scholarship, but I'm just revelling in learning something about these people who I'd never heard of before. But worth bearing in mind, I suppose. And no, I don't think it would be better written if it were a wiki.
While mentioning my fellow Florentian sprinter, it's worth noting that while I've put such madness behind me and moved on (at a hobble), he hasn't. Mad bastard that he is, he's running London this time along with his dad, for a really excellent reason and a very good cause. Go read that link and then give very generously.
He was alright, Jack
04 March 2005. Inspired by .
"On 16 September, after a set of tools had been found concealed in the rushes of his chair, he was moved to a formidable fourth-storey apartment known as the Castle, where he was isolated from other prisoners and where visitors were carefully watched. He was also fettered and handcuffed, and his fetters were secured to an iron staple in the floor by a great horse padlock.
Despite these precautions..."
Today's ODNB Life of the Day is Jack Sheppard, a man who made Houdini look like some kind of sideshow distraction. I'll stop quoting them when they stop sending amazing lives my way.
Elswhere, Jon puts us in our place (and things into perspective), and Dumbarton is where dogs go when they've had their day.
She's a card
01 March 2005. Inspired by .
If she wasn't Codename Amazon, she was well worth buying a drink. While things go quiet in government circles, a quick flash of secret papers released under the 50-year rule is always fun. On an unrelated subject, can someone in London please go check the number 83 bus stop in Wembley, to see if I left some microfilm there? I'd go myself, but I have a morbid fear of men with umbrellas...