Jon Curnow's Digital Home
This year’s London Open House weekend is in September.
Last September I visited Bush House, the home of the BBC World Service. It was part of the London Open House weekend which is an annual event allowing visitors behind the doors of buildings not usually open to the public. This year it’s the weekend of September 18th and 19th. The brochure can be ordered from the official site. If you’re in London that weekend I would encourage you to find something to visit!
A little update on the garden work.
I suppose that I should have given you a little update earlier in the week and I certainly should have recorded it for myself. So, as you can see, we managed to clear a great deal over the weekend – although I thought I had broken the hired shredder unit (but hadn’t). We cleared bags and bags of material away and flattened tons of earth. We placed paving slabs where the new shed is to go (it actually came on Tuesday but I have no pictures yet) and then, on Monday (after this picture was taken) this fence was replaced with a newer one (of the same style) which doesn’t look like it is about to blow over when the wind gets up.
Where wil Michael Owen end up now?
So Michael Owen was left on the bench last night for the Champions League qualifier in Austria (Liverpool won 2-0 over Grazer AK). So will he really be leaving British football for Spain?
This Is London: Owen shows his value on the bench
Givemefootball.co.uk: Benitez refuses to be drawn on Owen
BBC Sport: Owen’s future uncertain
Six month’s on and I reached my goal
At the start of February I decided you were to become my gym buddy. I didn’t drink alcohol in January 2004. The fact that I managed to survive a month against all the pressures from outside meant I knew I had the will power to attack my growing girth. On Monday February 9th 2004 we (you and me) commenced healthy eating (but not a fad diet) and, importantly, an exercise routine.
I do not think that I had exercised in any kind of serious way since I was about 15 when I was forced to take physical education classes (in my final years at school snooker and crown green bowling counted as gym class). Over the years I had been gradually buying larger and larger clothes but it had not alarmed me. I knew I was not fit, I knew I was getting fat but even chest pains in 1997 (when the doctor said ‘lose weight’) didn’t make me give up eating in the excessive quantities that I did.
So, on February 9th 2004 I exercised. And then I weighed myself for the first time in a half a decade. I knew I would be heavy and, to be honest, was not shocked by what the scales said to me. What frightened me was the realisation that if I continued at this rate of gaining weight I would be heaver than 20 stone in less than ten years. It was a little bit of a wake-up call.
On February 10th I ached but on February 11th I hauled myself back to the gym. The exercise was surprisingly easy. I followed my own programme which stuck to ‘fat burn’ routines on the various pieces of equipment (bike, treadmill, rowing machine) and gradually worked up to keep my heart at a good rate of burning fat and that left me out of breath. I did not want to push so hard that I would be put off or, worse, pass out. At times it has been hard to motivate myself to go but not too hard and I have been disciplined enough to ensure that even the occasional lapses were overcome. I promised myself I would not feel guilty about missed days or missed calorie targets – and I haven’t.
During the process I read a lot about other people’s experiences. Lance Arthur’s Fat Headed, from around the time I started this, was probably the most important. It’s all about mental attitude a little bit of will power/self control.
Fortunately for me I have always been a reasonably healthy eater. I do not binge on burgers, chips or masses of fried food. I just ate too much of everything. When I compare the quantity of pasta I used to eat in a single portion against a measured, calorie-counted healthy-eating quantity, I am embarrassed by the sheer greed.
Over the months many things kept me motivated. The laughter when my old trousers would no longer stay up; the move of my Body Mass Index from obese to healthy; the pleasure of buying new (and better fitting clothes) and the comments of people I meet (except for the one customer who told me he’d been scared to say anything because he thought I was ill). I’ve found new ways to enjoy less food and I flabbergasted myself by enjoying the light exercise I do. I have days when I consume more than others. I just know that the occasional bad day is not going to set me back.
I must say that it hasn’t really been hard. Sure, there have been harder days and difficult moments with temptations along the way but I just set my mind to it and the rest came as the results came.
Yesterday was six months to the day since I started this regime. I feel and look healthier and have a whole new wardrobe. I am no adonis with a beefed-up body. I could not say ‘swimmers build’ if I was in the mood to write a personal ad nor would you pass me in the street and notice me. But I am a fitter and leaner me. In some ways I am happier in myself – both for the changes that have occurred and for the feeling that I managed to do it. I lost four stone and so many inches from my waist I won’t even say. I have reached the target I set myself in a much faster time. I am a little spooked that it is six months to the very day!
I do know that this is a way of life now and not something I can – ever – deviate from. I must watch what I eat but it’s becoming instinctive rather than planned. I will continue to exercise and have set myself some goals to ensure I will enjoy it going forward.
As Lance said:
My advice, for those of you unhappy with your current physical situation and hoping for a miracle cure that’ll make you look like the A&F boys or the Conde Nast girls is stop looking for a miracle cure. It doesn’t exist. Eat better food, eat less of it, and get your ass in motion. Move your body in whatever you enjoy. Jog, bike, lift weights, kung fu, yoga, dance, kickbox, soccer, volleyball, swim, whatever, but go out and do it. Ask for help, encourage encouragement, change your life, be happier. [source]
I would like to thank you, my gym buddy, for the help and encouragement throughout the last six months. I think we should go out for a celebratory slap-up meal.
I spent a day searching the web for this number.
As a public service. Ericcson no longer make the DECT 260 telephone and it seems almost impossible to get support on the ‘phone. If, like me, you have been silly enough to lock it by not entering the correct PIN numbers at the right time, then you might need the universal IPEI code: 0000707402170
We started digging in the garden yesterday.
So, this was the scene yesterday morning. It’s proved to be a lot harder work than we imagined and I can hardly walk. Still, they bring the new fence tomorrow (which will look something like the old one really) and it’s starting to make he place look better. We had an enjoyable barbecue with the neighbours for an hour yesterday afternoon which gave us a break and – probably – saved PY and I from arguing too much about the laying of the paving slabs.
Thank goodness the weather has been great this weekend – although it has made the work a little harder. This past week has had two torrential downpours which have brought parts of the transport system to a halt. A little like on this day in 2002.
A coule of interesting stories from this morning’s Guardian newspaper.
I think perhaps I am now behind the times. Apparently, this should be a video site:
Mr Bouwman is the vanguard of the latest internet trend: video logging or vlogging. One step up from the now familiar internet blogger, vloggers upload personal video clips of everything from the US Democratic convention to what they had for their tea, via rants about tax rises and conspiracy theories. [The Guardian]
Luckily for you, I’m no good with movie cameras. However, if I was, perhaps I would head for Hull (you know that northern town famous for The Housemartins and the Deputy Prime Minister). Do I hear you ask, Why Hull? Well, apparently, some bright sparks want to make it the new gay capital as it, apparently, has the fastest growing gay scene in the whole of Europe’.
The city council has already consulted with its hoteliers to ensure that they will welcome all visitors, and next week it will host a weekend trip for journalists from the gay media. [The Guardian]
Now I wanted to joke about it, but I can’t really think of any reason to do so.
Silent for a while.
I posted 35-or-so entries in May and have been going down hill since. It’s been a interesting couple of months and there are some things that I should have written about. This upcoming weekend I’ll be doing a lot of working the garden (I might start with some before and after pictures) so who knows if I will have time to write.
Failing to write here is only one of the things I have not done in the past few weeks. Failing to watch any Big Brother 2004 was the other – although I am not so upset by that. Tonight, however, Nadia won and I will be waiting to see if a tv career beckons.
Finally, a sobering thought, do we still think of today as Hiroshima Day
Former Boyzone star Stephen Gately is set to show an evil streak as The Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
It’s a long time since I placed any comment on here about one of the Men of the Moment. I haven’t updated that section since Andrew Kinlochan and with all the spam comments the section gets I have thought about removing it. Still, I read Stephen Gately is to start in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I saw and didn’t really rate). According to the article in The Scotsman,
Gately begins a four-month run on September 7, with former Neighbours star Jason Donovan playing Caractacus Potts. [source]
So it may be worth seeing just to see both Stephen and Jason in the same show!
Getting a little warm in London right now.
So I opened an account with Flickr for no real reason other than to see what it did. As a celebration of the London heat I took a photo of our office water cooler. There really wasn’t anything else to point the camera at – which is slightly sad, don’t you think?
Unrelated to water coolers but my entry from this day last year – listed under the On This Day Link below – is interesting to me as I’ve been trying to remember what I felt before we started battle in Iraq. I am often grateful that I wrote something here and, yet again, I have been surprised by what I do get round to writing about.
Spam from one of my mailing addresess. wasn’t me, honestly.
Well it would appear that some malicious spammer is using a mailing address @musak.org to mail people. I know I’m not the only one affected at the moment but there’s very little I can do about it.
It’s taken hours and hours to get to Sardinia. I’m here for a two hour meeting tomorrow morning before I take the plane home. I am in a reasonably nice hotel but right now I really wish it had a pool as it’s so hot. There’s also some kind of concert that is taking place just outside my hotel window – you can see the stage on this picture. They are rehearsing right now and the walls are shaking. I am hoping that it doesn’t go on into the night.
UPDATE: 21 JULY – By the time I got back from the excellent meal with the customer and some other interesting folks the music had stopped.
I have a lot to say about PIMs and have decided to start to vent here. Oh dear.
At some point – I do not remember exactly when – I needed to start to organise my life. I was, no doubt, a typical teenager and needed to keep addresses and ‘phone numbers for friends in a book. Then I needed a diary to oragnise my life (in fact, I am fairly certain my first diary was about 1984). So, I started to keep an appointment diary. The addresses and telephone numbers were in the back. Of course, back in the dark ages, I didn’t need to keep track of email addresses and mobile numbers. Each Christmas as a new diary was purchased for the forthcoming year the addresses/phone numbers were cleaned up and entered into a new book. Life was easier.
When I went to University then my diary started to become more of a necessity as I needed a way to organise. Sometime after I started work it morphed into a Filofax which helped oragnise a little more but wighted considerably more. But still the pages with the telephone numbers kept getting cleaned up each year. When I lived in a flat I started to need to keep more names and numbers (you know, the people who you have to pay bills to, the man who fixed the leak in the roof etc.).
In 1997 (I have the exact date somewhere) I bought a one of the original generations of Palm Pilot (specifically the Palm Pilot Professional as it had more memory than the personal version) and life – at least when it came to diaries and personal data – changed forever. Seven years on I can conclude that the addition of a digital diary (or personal information manager as they are known) has both made life easier and more frustrating in equal measures. Now, with the addition of mobile telephony to the device, I yearn for a simpler way.
I will be writing more later and when I have done I hope that somebody who develops these devices will come across my words and think about ways to come good on the promise of making the management of our personal data banks easier.
More pictures from the Formula One event in Regent Street, London
One thing is certain: the crowds arrived. There were thousands of people lining Lower Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street. People were on the roof, balcony or hanging our of a window. People were climbing lamp posts and traffic lights. People perched on almost any structure that didn’t move and on top of many that were plainly unsafe. We waited until almost seven o’clock until the great roar of the F1 race cars was to be heard. Mansell, Button, Montoya, Coulthard and Brundle – to name but a few. The noise, the smell: it was fantastic F1. To be honest I eventually moved to the big screen on Piccadilly as they passed so quickly that you missed a great deal and I wasn’t at the front of a crowd. The atmosphere was pretty good humoured – apart from some lunatics climbing on top of a newspaper sellers wagon – and everybody seemed to enjoy it. After an hour it was, more-or-less, finished but the crowds seemed to hang around central London for a good while. Perhaps, one day, a race really will take place in London.
See also: Formula One Comes To Regent Street
BBC Sport: What price a London GP?
This is London:Eddie supports London Grand Prix
London-based fans of Formula 1 racing are in for a treat today as the Regent Street F1 parade takes to the streets at 6pm.
There is a real sense of excitement in the air around central London today. My office is at Piccadilly Circus and today is the day that Formula 1 comes to town! F1 cars will be parading (as there really is no racing) around the area (basically Regent Street and Lower Regent Street) from 6pm tonight. As I went to buy my lunch there were already people taking up their positions. The roads are being closed, the barriers put in place and the inevitable advertising signs going up. Jensen Button and David Coulthard are among the current F1 drivers taking part. Nigel Mansell is driving for Jordan and I saw team boss, Eddie Jordan, being interviewed (left) on Lower Regent Street while out walking. I just need to decide what time I am leaving to get a view.