As football stadiums go.....

.... Arsenal's Emirates Stadium is quite nice. Large scale development, good conference facilities etc... Just a bit of a bastard to get to. Waterloo, Northern Line (3 stops), Piccadilly Line (7 stops) and a 5 minute walk in the sleet & rain.

Coffee was good, food was shite. Speaker at lunchtime was brilliant - Tim Smit. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, go along, particularly if it's your third invitation.... (You will find out what I mean by this when you go!)

His irreverant tinted spectacles and ability to communicate are clear for all to see, well worth seeking out.

How many workmen......

....... does it take to change a speaker on Andover train station platform 1?

You might think the answer is 5. As in the 5 you can see in this picture [2 feet on the ladder shows workman number 5!] but I didn't photograph the 3 other pillocks stood on platform 2 watching from afar!

What a sorry state of affairs, no wonder the infrastructure provides such a shit service.

Cool plates.....

As a number plate fan & owner of what I think are some pretty nice vehicle registration plates, I saw two plates this week that made me smile and think how good they were - 81 RDY was seen on a VW Touareg in central London & WE57 HAM was on a Bentley GTC on the M3 heading northbound.

The BBC have just reported on the plate F1 which has been sold at auction for Essex County Council who had it since its first issue. It was apparently sold for a total of £440,625 to car designer Afzal Khan from Bradford, he runs the Project Khan business that does bespoke Range Rovers etc. The previous UK record for the most expensive plate was M1 which went for £331,000 in 2006 to a Cheshire businessman who bought it for his sons 6th birthday!?

The article gives some examples of who & how much has been spent on some amazing combinations such as the plate COM 1C which is owned by Jimmy Tarbuck (don't know why?), K1 NGS for which the Sultan of Brunei reportedly paid £231,000. In April 2006 a Sikh businessman paid £254,000 for the number plate 51 NGH.

All of the UK records pale into nothing when you consider that £3.5 million was paid last year at auction by Talal Ali Mohammad Khouri for single digit 5 plate in the UAE state of Abu Dhabi. This however might be trumped later in the year when the single digit 1 comes up for sale in Abu Dhabi.

UPDATE : Edited to appease local resident and ex-college class member. Respect? Remember the word "Germanic" Mr B? It's term I used at Cricklade one day in lecture with Mr Lees, you seemed to take the piss at my then superior wine knowledge. You have earn respect, if you start with a deficit, you have a longer journey...

UPDATE 28/06/08: MDB 64 is still for sale Mr B! NewReg want £8k for it.

Gate to nowhere.....

.... spotted this on way home from work today.

Seems a shame that such a nice gated entrance is now bricked up & forgotten. Logical if no longer is use, and an alternative entrance is in place, but still a bit weird.

I have plans (in my own mind) to have such a gated entrance to my house fairly soon, but with electric gates, rather than bricked up!

1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA

They're right....... it's the most depressing day of the year.

The formula is made up of the following variables....

W = Weather
D = Debt
d = Money due in January pay
T = Time since Christmas
Q = Time since failed quit attempt
M = General motivational levels
NA = The need to take action

Some, but not all apply, but nevertheless, what a grim day this is.

STOP! - Stop Tesco's Oversized Plan

As a resident of Andover I have long known about the proposed Tesco development of what was the now disused RAF Andover site, but only recently found out more detail, sounds hideous......

Tesco plans to build its largest distribution centre in Europe - you might claim this to be good news locally with perceived investment of £120m & lots of jobs. Reality is local contractors won't get the work to build or manage the development. The warehouse is highly automated, so when completed, employment opportunities will be scarce. If as is thought Tesco close two other depots in the South of England and relocate to Andover, a lot of the skilled workers such as management & drivers will migrate with the depot.

The site concerned has outline planning permission for a business park but on a much smaller scale than that being proposed by Tesco. As is usual Test Valley Borough Council Planning claim that a small business park & hotel will be built adjacent to the Tesco development, but in reality who in their right mind would build a a hotel & business park next to a traffic junction that is choked to a standstill with Tesco HGV's? The business park & hotel won't ever happen, they are just a distraction in the plan to make it sound more attractive. (Much the same tactic as when TVBC suggested building homes on Andover Golf Course & they reassured people that they made provision & plans for a Golf Course in the new housing development planned for Picket Piece - sadly TVBC were never going to fund the construction of a new course & were looking for private investment to do it - again, it was never going to happen, but TVBC could state in their plan that they had made provision for another golf course to be available for the displaced membership of Andover Golf Club).

Estimates vary massively between 1,200 (Tesco estimate) & 3,200 (campaigners estimate based on other Tesco depots) vehicle movements in every 24 hour period. There are two direct results of this massive traffic flow, the first is increased levels of road noise from the biggest HGV's on the road, the second is that the A303 will become choked with traffic desperate to overtake convoys of Tesco lorries blocking each other as HGV's do today on roads like the A34. Net result will be businesses moving away from Andover as their productivity declines & costs increase due to more time spent travelling to & from customers.

It looks like a well thought out plan when viewed in the Tesco & developers glossy brochure as seen below, but all the gloss & proposed development mean nothing, the biggest impact will be to every single driver that uses the A303 in increased journey times.

Sticking to what you know....

... and like, sometimes isn't a bad thing.

I've been a fan of Taittinger NV for 20+ years, I was first introduced to it in my college days, when I was given a bottle as a gift for working extra long hours at a now defunct arts centre near Winchester called Sutton Manor.

Taittinger was the house Champagne served to the masses at the evening classical concerts where I was lucky enough to see such artists as Andre Segovia & Yo-Yo Ma, but at the time I didn't really appreciate who they were. Krug NV was the sole choice of the estate owner and his personal guests, a certain Mr Alex Herbage who later served at the US Governments pleasure for fraud.

Don't know where Alex Herbage is now, but he employed his brother Mr Peter Herbage to run the catering on site. "Mr Peter" as he was known (so as not to confuse with brother Alex Herbage) was an absolute gent, he was a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Cooks and was hugely generous with his knowledge to all the staff he employed, he also appreciated the long hours some of us worked to get things done, hence the gift to a few of us who finished clearing up at 3am one night.

After consuming several hundred bottles of Champagne over the years, a large proportion of which have been Taittinger, I can now identify Taittinger NV in a blind tasting, with my eyes shut and hands tied behind my back just by the smell of stuff, to me it's like nectar.

I have for years been wondering about the Cuvee Prestige of the Champagne House - Comtes de Champagne, but never had the impulse to put my money into some investigation and actually buy a bottle or two at £100 each to do a tasting... until now.

Clearly I can read a label & should have known what I was in for. Blanc de blancs means made entirely from white grapes, which in this case it is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes. Taittinger NV is made from 40% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir and 30% Pinot Meunier, so a completely different wine is to be expected, but my blinkers were clearly on & I had over looked this.

My favourite wine merchant BBR reviews Comtes de Champagne as follows... "Its top Champagne is Comtes De Champagne - first produced in 1952, it is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes from 6 Grand Cru sites in the Côte de Blancs. This is finely aromatic, rich, creamy Blanc de Blancs at its best, though patience is required as the wine should not be approached for at least ten years."

Other reviews were equally impressive.... "This wonderful vintage champagne from the very good 1995 vintage scores 95/100 Parker points and the hugely impressive 1995 Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs displays ripe apple and pear scents. Broad, rich, deep, and medium to full-bodied, this dense (yet admirable balanced), powerful wine is packed with concentrated layers of white fruits, flowers, and toast. Notes of tangy green apples appear in its awesomely long finish to reinvigorate the palate. Drink now - 2012."

Great I thought, splash out on a bottle or two & give it a whirl at a special occasion or fine meal. I can only say now that having tasted it, I'm disappointed. My over riding view is that it was sharp on the palate, not particularly rich and in my mind very much over rated. I should have known, I have bought other vintage Champagne in the past & been equally disappointed.

From now on, I think I'll stick to the NV.

PS... Sutton Manor Arts Centre as it was known was previously the private home to the late Lord Rank of the film & business fame. I have fond memories of the place and a few wonderful stories.... one of which includes an alledged interlude between the butler, a certain (now departed) flambuoyant male jazz artist and a £1200 bottle of Armagnac. Needless to say, the butler got sacked and the keys to the private cellar under the house were kept well away from the staff afterwards. Sutton Manor is now a residential care home & some of the grounds now form the base for Naomi House.

A plank from the past.....

.... or to be precise an Optica Industries OA7, which started out life as the Edgley Optica EA7 but after crisis after crisis followed by a few ownership changes (Brooklands Aerospace, Lovaux, FLS etc..) things weren't going too well & they stopped production.

Such hopes had been pinned on this aircraft as a viable surveilance platform, but sadly the fatal crash of the Hampshire Police aircraft put an end to that scheme and was probably the nail in the coffin.

The last 3 remaining registered aircraft have turned up at my local airfield at Thruxton, so very unusually for me I took a photo of one, even though its a plank wing & very much against my better judgement to snap things with wings on them.

Unusual aircraft with local connections to me, as they started out life being produced at Old Sarum near Salisbury - until a suspicious fire burnt the hangar & its contents (including a number of OA7's and a civil registered Gazelle helicopter [G-SFTE]) down to the ground.

UPDATE : Looks like my anonymous commentator is right.... link. I wonder if the presence of the aircraft at Thruxton is linked?

Working for a living again....

... back on the road.

I get to go to all the nice places - even those that charge you £5.20 to get in!

Yes, I've been to Wales. Bridgend in fact to see a customer data centre, all very interesting [yawn].

I did however discover the The McArthur Glen Bridgend Designer Outlet just off J36 of the M4 motorway, I'm sure a visit there when I have more time will be on the cards & make the whole journey more bearable, retail therapy whilst on a business trip always seems to make the day go along a bit better.

New Year....

...... New cookware.

It's been time for a change for a while, but I've finally taken the plunge and replaced my pots & pans.

May not be important to everyone, but as I enjoy my cooking and spend a fair bit of time in the kitchen it's important to me.

Loads of bargains to be had at the moment, but the best place to buy I've found is Cookware Online or Bhs Home in Reading.

For once the marketing blurb is spot on.... "Tefal and I see these as the ultimate set of pots and pans, giving you control and comfort, ease of use, value for money, durability and the versatility so you can be the best in the kitchen you can possibly be" - they are also dishwasher safe (unlike the Tefal Circulon ones which end up going white!!).

So far, I'm very impressed with them.

The coolest camcorder in the world so far.....

.... from Sanyo!? I've been looking for a while for a new camcorder to replace my Sony DCR-PC5E which uses MiniDV tapes and is a bit of a pain in terms of digitising the clips.

I've arrived at the Sanyo Xacti HD1000, seems the only place that stocks it is Jessops. High Definition recorder that uses SD\SDHC cards & can record 85 minutes of full 1920x1080 HD MPEG-4 material on a single 8Gb SD card.

A stunning 38-380mm optical zoom range (35 mm equivalent), with 10x digital zoom added make it a combined equivalent of 100x zoom total.

Battery life is good, but the best bit is the way it handles, ergonomically it's just perfect, sits in the hand very comfortably. It really is easy-to-hold and easy-to-shoot with.

Loads of other features such as adjustable resolution modes, image stabilizer, in-camera editing, super fast startup at under 2 seconds, easy PC connectivity and a HDMI output built in all stack to make this a very impressive small camcorder.

Car of the future......

.... I have often wondered about what to do about my next step in the car market. I currently drive a 4.2 litre V8 audi A8 that isn't very carbon footprint or wallet friendly. I also expect these types and size of cars to be priced off the roads in the next couple of years by the Scottish interloper and his cronies, so it's days are numbered.

I've thought about getting the next generation of Smart car with an electric motor for local journeys, but then the electricity bills will spiral, so if I invest in a wind turbine and\or solar panels for my house I could be close to self sufficient in motoring terms, albeit with a hefty upfront investment. I would also have to hide a small petrol sports car away in the garage for high days & holidays!

But then today I hear of a car that runs on hot air (honest!), all I need to do now is find a wife who can power it!! No really, it's a new French (oh dear) designed small car that runs on compressed air, with a range of 200km on one charge & speeds of 110kph it sounds interesting, particularly when you also find out that one of the of worlds largest car manufacturers has bought into it - Tata Motors of India - they have a massive market to tap into and with the worlds oil reserves dwindling, could this be the small car of the future? The greens are already complaining that creating compressed air from electric compressors isn't very energy efficient or eco-friendly as most of the electricity is coal, nuclear or gas power station produced! But in my mind, it's a start.

Link to BBC News website with video of car & designer is here.

Designer shite.....

I had the misfortune of finding these in the interweb today.... As you will have seen from my previous posts, I'm into conspicuous consumption and excess, I even have a passing interest (okay, great interest) in guns, but these caught my eye as a complete load of old shite.

The sales patter...... "Philippe Starck's intention for the Flos Gun Lamp for was to create objects which remind us that our state of well being is the result of somebody else dying - contentious maybe?"

"The gun light has a body made of die cast aluminium with an injection moulded polymer overprint and gold plated finish. The diffuser or shade is matt black plasticized paper with a silk screen gold printer inner."

The reality - artist trying to cash in on tools of war made from die cast aluminium with an injection moulded polymer coating (plastic coated gold plated aluminium replica to you and me). Hurry now, they've been reduced in price! No suprise there then! And given the artists name the price tag is ludicrous - the full set will cost you £2,830.00