Poor Gareth Gates. It seems his career is on the rocks and his record company are trying to rebrand him. Perhaps something good has come out of all the Pop Idol shows. It was widely thought that Gareth was the industry’s preference for the Pop Idol when the public voted for Will Young. Will is still having hit records. I am not sure what it says about the Pop Idol phenomenon. In this instance the public got it right but where now Hear’say, One True Voice, Michelle …

On this day…

2007: Better In Just 14 Days
2005: By Ek
2004: Open House 2004
2004: Back Ache Update
2003: Oh Canada II
2002: Don’t Call Me Stupid

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!

On this day…

2007: Better In Just 14 Days
2005: By Ek
2004: Save A Pop Idol
2004: Back Ache Update
2003: Oh Canada II
2002: Don’t Call Me Stupid

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.

On this day…

2007: Better In Just 14 Days
2005: By Ek
2004: Save A Pop Idol
2004: Open House 2004
2003: Oh Canada II
2002: Don’t Call Me Stupid

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

On this day…

2005: 7 Million Londoners, 1 London
2003: Wonderful Weekend
2002: State Of The Town

As a public service. Ericsson 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

On this day…

2005: How Interesting
2002: The Night Ahead

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 the 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.

On this day…

2006: Changes At Red Bull Racing
2005: Swiss Re Tower, London
2003: More Gay Marriage
2002: Water, Water Everywhere

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.

On this day…

2006: Button Is A Winner!
2005: London’s Living Room
2003: RSS Feeds
2003: No More Clause 28
2003: July 2003 And All That
2002: Where Are You Now, Miss Boo?

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?

On this day…

2006: Dropped at 0815
2006: A Glass Pyramid
2003: Things To Say
2003: Five Live and Weblogs
2002: To Some People Enola Gay is Just a Pop Song

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,

This role is so unusual for me because everyone is used to me playing the cutey. It’s great to get my teeth into an evil role,” Gately said…

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!

On this day…

2006: Update
2002: A Weekend Airborne

It’s been quite a bizarre day as I have churned out a ton of documents at work. I particularly hate writing proposals to customers, work-orders and other documents related to my work but today i have cleared a nice backlog which makes me happy. There is, of course, no reason to tell you any of this except I feel I am ending the week on a high.

In totally unrelated news I am still trying to work out what to do with my new gmail storage. However, I did read a fantastic idea over at Jeremy Zawodny’s blog: Google should make an instant messaging product but make it open so other people could connect to it. Finally I would have to stop updating Trillian every time Yahoo changed a protocol or two.

On this day…

2005: Stories And Rumours
2004: Entertainment Trivia
2003: Shameless