In all the excitement I had missed the fact there was a preliminary vote and we weren’t certain of making it this far:

There are a few gasps in the press room as Madrid exits the vote, as some Spaniards at the back had earlier given some noisy support during its bid presentation. We now have the London-Paris finale that the whispers in the past few hours had indicated [source].

Aggghh … the tension.

On this day…

2005: A Few Moments Of Reflection
2005: 12:46
2005: What Have You Done Today?
2005: The G8 Summitt
2004: The Day F1 Came To London
2004: Formula One Comes To Regent Street
2002: Beer

I have two countdowns on the go right now. Today is the day for one of those countdowns to reach 00:00:00. Rachel Stevens and Melanie C will be performing live in Trafalgar Square later today (see here) as we wait to find out the result of the race to host the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Watch the London2012 videos and keep your fingers crossed for us. I’ll be updating later.

On this day…

2005: A Few Moments Of Reflection
2005: 12:46
2005: Preliminary Vote
2005: The G8 Summitt
2004: The Day F1 Came To London
2004: Formula One Comes To Regent Street
2002: Beer

I didn’t watch Live8 over the weekend. Unlike Live Aid, I didn’t get caught up in the moment. I am too cynical now, and while I believe it was set up for all the right reasons, it was hijacked. If every one of those performers had given up all the revenue from increased record sales in the next 6 months, then I would have been less cynical. If the ‘Multi-millionaire rock stars performing in Philadelphia’ gave back their free gifts worth $12,000 (£6,800) [Source], I would have been even less cynical. Alexis Petridis, in The Guardian, says, “even the most cynical observer would be forced to admit that, even judged on music alone, Live 8 has been a remarkable day”, but, unfortunately, I heard very little. Still, I have higher hopes for today’s G8 Summit. Really, I do.

On this day…

2005: A Few Moments Of Reflection
2005: 12:46
2005: Preliminary Vote
2005: What Have You Done Today?
2004: The Day F1 Came To London
2004: Formula One Comes To Regent Street
2002: Beer

Olympic Countdown: The Prime Minister has arrived in Singapore to join the London team ahead of the crucial vote to elect the Host City for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games [Source], and England Football captain David Beckham has arrived in Singapore to join the London team, hoping to secure the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games [Source]. The BBC has a summary of the final push to the big announcement.

On this day…

2005: Silverstone Circuit Weather
2002: Cows & Clothes

The editors of ten national newspapers have united to sign a good luck message to London 2012.

The message, which is running as a half-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, wishes the bid team good luck just two days before the result of the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games race.

The unprecedented statement has been signed by editors of broadsheet and tabloid papers with a combined daily circulation of more than 12 million.

So, while counting down to Silverstone, there’s another countdown that I am watching now – the London Olympic bid. I’ve mentioned before that it would be brilliant for London to win the Olympics. I’d think I might volunteer if we win, and I’ll say that now so that it doesn’t look like I am jumping on any bandwagon. Watch the videos and hold your breath! In the meantime, it’s time for some big news as I watch the countdown: The editors of ten national newspapers have united to sign a good luck message to London 2012 [source]. Has that ever happened before?

On this day…

2005: God Is Bored Of You
2005: Countdown is Progressing
2005: Powered By Rotting Fruit
2002: Did They Make It Up?
2002: It’s All Queens on 4th July!
2002: Amazon A-Go-Go
2002: Finally – CSS

Last week (or was it this week, time flies, you see) Tom wrote about: Supernova ’05: “Apps. for a Mobile, Connected World”, in which he noted Mena– of Six Apart fame – talking about memories,

Mena really brought memories to the fore. She stated that she wished she had a record of everything that had happened in the first twenty-seven years of her life, like she has since she first started weblogging

(source)

Occasionally, I realise that this site has a similar effect on me. I wonder how much more I will recall of the turn of the century than I will of my years at the end of the last century simply because of this site? The On This Day link for 26 June sent me back to watching the Olympic Torch cross south London on its way to Athens. I’d totally forgotten that. What’s more, I don’t recall Flickr’s pictures, so I haven’t seen them in a long time; I’m not too sure where I filed them. Flickr needs an On This Day app so you can see pictures taken on this day in history. It would really help the memory!

And while I am on the subject of Flickr, does anybody else find it annoying that the default sort and ordering is by upload date rather than by taken? You often upload when you get back from a trip, like I did last Monday after my trip to Zaragoza. All the pictures had the correct timestamps, but they were uploaded in a slightly different order, so I had to adjust them to display correctly. Am I missing something?

On this day…

2002: Scooby Thoughts

Last week I was asked to provide a reference for a friend I used to work with and perhaps don’t get to see as much as I would like. I have no problem giving him the reference. From the sound of it, the job he is after is right up his street, and I know he will throw himself into it in a way that he’ll be great at it. I have no doubt he will be an asset to the company that employs him. I just have one issue: the reference questionnaire I was asked to fill in. It has some pretty standard questions asking how long I had known him and in what capacity. Then it asked me to state his strengths (ok, no problem), but then it asked for his weaknesses and a number of other questions that encouraged me to rank the individual (although I was not told on what sort of scale).

And therein was the problem. If I were representing his current employer (and I am not), I would have to be careful as, under UK law (if I am not mistaken), an employer providing a reference to a prospective employer owes a duty of care to the employee, and criticisms can be taken as libel, etc. or, at the very least, leave you open to damages. Now, I appreciate this is more of a personal reference, but that’s not the point. There was so much I was being asked to fill in that I was beginning to think that the company in question could not trust their own judgment in any way as to his character.

The thing is, I had nothing negative to say. I am certain we could all find something negative to say about everyone we know. You know, we could find some small personal trait that irritated us, but it’s not relevant in this case. When I worked with him, he was diligent and performed as expected. So, I didn’t answer the question.

And, of course, by not answering the question, there is a prospective employer who is wondering what I left out. I didn’t leave anything out; I just had nothing to say in that box that I thought was anywhere near relevant to the reference I was writing. Reference-reading is all about the unsaid, not the said.

So, what should I have done?

On this day…

2003: Call God Now

There have been some very touching tributes to the news that Richard Whiteley, beloved presenter of Channel Four’s Countdown, died at the weekend. It’s always the unexpected that fill you with emotion. Anna’s written a wonderful tribute at The Guardian’s site (how I wish I could write like her) but Jerrard in that piece’s comment sections says,

I pulled in to a lay-by and cried. I’m a 50 year-old man who watched the first episode of Countdown in 1982 and was hooked, thanks to the unassuming geniality of its delightful gentleman host

[source)

And, for a moment or two, something about that just made me feel very sad indeed.

On this day…

2004: Learning From Others

I’ve spent half an hour trying to Google wi-fi spots in Richmond, South London, as I am off there tomorrow to meet some friends from Norway. Amazingly, it’s hard to find one, but I know full well that when I am there, I will find something. There was a wi-fi spot (or at least a sign for it) in the square in front of Zaragoza’s Nuestra Señora del Pilar. See, even in an exhausted state, I can perform the art of the tenuous link.

On this day…

2005: Fabulous Zaragoza