Posted in Cars on 08/28/2007 07:34 pm by foolhandy
Following up this post, I’ve been doing a bit of online reading in between packing and sleeping.
Contributors to CAR Magazine’s online forum also thought it looked like a Buick or a Lexus. Helen thought Daewoo, Nissan or Chrysler. It is of course the new Jaguar XF. Hmmm…
A look through the mentions other car makers get in reviews of the Jaguar’s styling see Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, Saab, Chrysler, Buick, Volvo and Aston Martin all mentioned - but none as much as Lexus. Jaguar’s new make-or-break saloon has drawn creative inspiration from that most competent but bland of brands, Lexus. Lovely.
The XF is designed by Ian Callum, who has been responsible for a number of Aston Martins and Jaguars in the past. My feelings for him as a designer are probably best summed up by Sniff Petrol, so I leave you with their take on him…
CALLUM’S UNSURPRISING SALOON SHOCK
There was excitement at Jaguar this week with the news that top designer Ian Callum has finally designed a saloon car. Callum, whose work includes the Aston Martin DB7 coupe, the Aston Martin DB9 coupe and the Jaguar ALC concept coupe, had reportedly been struggling to translate his favoured design themes of a long thrusting bonnet, bold rear haunches and an elegant tapering tail onto a saloon body style, until now. “What he’s done is very clever,” said one insider. “Basically he’s taken the same old design that he’s been doing for the past few years and he’s sort of drawn some back doors on it”. A Jaguar source later denied that the reason for Callum’s delay in creating a saloon design was because someone had lost the key to the photocopier room.
Posted in Life, Travel on 08/28/2007 07:40 am by foolhandy
Yesterday evening I returned from my brother’s stag weekend which we spent on the Pembrokeshire coast at the excellent Upper Neeston Lodges. According to the AA, Google Maps and Dad’s TomTom the journey would take me about five and a half hours from Essex… On the way there on Friday it took me ten, as the M25 & M4 were both gridlocked. On the way back it took me nine hours on almost completely free-flowing roads, and even allowing for the hour I spent asleep in a motorway service station trying to recover from the sickness of the previous night (not drink fuelled I might add - most probably a stomach bug which I continue to be sore from) that’s some way off the AA’s suggested time. I would like to know what I was doing wrong and/or what car the AA man was driving to get there that quickly…
The weekend itself was very enjoyable. It wasn’t the most wild of weekends but it was supposed to be a group of my brother’s friends getting together for a relaxing weekend - and that’s exactly what I think it was. We went for a walk on Saturday and enjoyed the spectacular views through the thick sea-mist (but still caught the sun - be warned!) and on Sunday I was reminded just how inconsistent my golf is. The wedding is on October 20th, so I suppose I ought to think about committing the best-man’s speech I have in my head to paper…
Finally, a thought about how lucky I think we are in this day and age. Two hundred years ago ordinary people spent most of their lives in the town or village they were born in. A journey of ten or twenty miles would have to be undertaken over a weekend and, as most people only had one day a week off, not very often. This time yesterday I was at the far western point of Wales. Today I’m in Essex. This time tomorrow I shall be in Northern France heading for the Loire Valley. It’s not global travel but it does mean in excess of 1000 miles in three days, without too much prior planning, and would be far beyond the comprehension of mankind until relatively recently.
As I shall be travelling to wedding number three of four for the latter part of this week updates to foolhandy.com shall be by Twitter only, visible either on my Twitter page or in the sidebar to the left… Have fun!
Posted in Cars on 08/28/2007 06:53 am by foolhandy
All very lovely, and I’m all for not living in the past when it comes to car design, but it’s not in any way obvious what this brand new car is - is it?
A Lexus? With a Buick nose? A Hyundai even? I like the idea of throwing the styling rulebook out the window (it’s a well known fact that I love the Bangle-BMWs) but I wonder if the designers have heard of the expression “throwing the baby out with the bath water”? Click on the picture to see what it is and see more views of this make-or-break new model, launched today.
* Clue - The back end looks like an Aston Martin. There you go…you know now don’t you?!
Posted in Cars on 08/24/2007 09:30 am by foolhandy
After slagging off Renault for the new Laguna here, my head has been turned. If the nose is as good as the tail & sides this could be the first closed car I’d want to own since the Fiat Coupe…
Posted in Music on 08/23/2007 09:52 pm by foolhandy
At some point this evening broadband returned to my life, and to celebrate I post this - the second piece of music I recorded for posterity. Some of you may have had the displeasure before. It was recorded in Seychelles in 2003 and it’s called Number 2. Partly because it’s the second piece of music recorded for posterity and partly because its an appropriate name considering its quality…
It’s me playing guitar, and if you have to blame anyone remember it was Martin Kennedy who taught me how.
Ladies and Gentlemen I present : Number 2
(I’ll embed it to play right here if I ever find a way that works nicely…)
I mention this here because earlier in the week I collected from my Mum the cassettes featuring a six-year-old me singing songs I had learnt at school - the first part of my recording career, soon to be committed to digital remastered mp3ness, coming to foolhandy.com this fall. In a world…
The entries (eleven of them) are in, and although I’ll post the ongoing results on the 3rd of each month I thought I’d post the current leaders after just 2/3 games and silly things (like Man City topping the table) are happening.
I’ve altered the scoring system slightly in that now I’m using a simple correlation equation in Excel rather than doing it all manually - that way I’m more likely to get the results out when I say I will. It won’t effect the winner, just my ability to get the scores out on time.
As it’s a correlation 1 is the perfect score and -1 is the worst. To make it less ungainly I’m then multiplying each score by 1000 so if you predict the table 100% correctly your score will be 1000, and the further from perfect you are the nearer to -1000 (the lowest possible) your score will be.
So, here we go…
1. Rob 469
2. Alex 454
3. Murph 414
4. Gay 403
5. Helen 397
6. Kymee 359
7. Karl 313
8. Alfie 304
9. Kyle 293
10. Steve 244
11. Colin -47
Early days yet of course, and so still much to play for.
On the request of Rob (who might change his mind looking at his current position) I have created a January Transfer Window rule. As follows : Players can swap the positions of two teams once during the month of January. The swap can take place on any day in January but once made can not be undone or added to.
And that’s it until the evening of the 3rd September when I’ll update the scores/positions.
** Cambridge United are top of the Blue Square Premier. Irrelevant to this post, but I had to mention it!
(Apologies if this looks a bit rough - it’s been typed up in Word and copy/pasted here when internet connections allow.)
Posted in Computer, Internet on 08/22/2007 04:10 pm by foolhandy
It’s amazing how much you rely on something so virtual.
I’m at school trying to squeeze getting bits of must-do-internet-jobs-for-home done & must-do-internet-jobs-for-school into a very small window. I have so many things I want to say here and have only had time, briefly, for a Cambridge gloat whilst at Dad’s yesterday.
We’re in, we’re surrounded by boxes and I’m wearing clothes that haven’t seen the light of day in years because they’re all I can find.
And I’m feeling slightly guilty because I’m hijacking someone else’s wireless connection. I’d feel more guilty if they’d have made it in any way difficult though…
Coming soon : Transformers, Apple, TV Licensing & Cambridge United.
Posted in House, Life on 08/08/2007 07:14 pm by foolhandy
Before I go off to have my dinner, here is the first mention of our new house and it’s a somewhat random post. But I’m posting it because I’m pleased with what we achieved today.
We almost paid a bunch of arrogant timewasters (I’ll post the company name here when I get it off Helen) nearly a grand to do what we’re now doing ourselves for less than £100. And it’s looking good…
And so you can see the effect the sanding has had here’s a before (the right hand room) and after (the left hand room) shot…
The other two rooms, the bathroom and the fine sanding gets done tomorrow. Haven’t we done well…
Posted in Life, Music on 08/06/2007 07:32 pm by foolhandy
Now I know that I shouldn’t really buy Cheestrings (note missing ‘e’ - it’s a trademark you know…) as I’m a grown adult who should have more cultured tastes, but I like them.
They were on offer in Somerfields today so I bought a packet of the Twister type. They are currently running a competition to win an iPod Nano with speaker set, and so I excitedly went to the Cheestrings website, entered my code and…
I won a runner up prize! According to this ad on eBay (hence the nicked picture) it plugs into your TV via the scart socket and you get to exercise on it so you can work off all those Cheestrings you’ve eaten. I am very excited, as I’m sure you can imagine…
Posted in Football on 08/02/2007 10:01 pm by foolhandy
A few weeks back I had an idea that it might be nice for us to go and watch England play at the new Wembley Stadium. I’ve looked at the fixture list and identified the match against Israel on the 8th September as a possible.
This is how you get a ticket :
a) Register with the FA to get a FAN number and enter the ticket ballot for the right to buy a ticket for something in the region of £25-£55. This isn’t too bad, but you have to enter the ballot more than two months before the match (I missed it by three days) and it’s 1 FAN:1 ticket so if three friends (or a family) enter the draw it may be that only one of them gets the right to buy a ticket. You can apply in groups of up to five, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to sit together so it’s not a lot of use to a family.
b) Join EnglandFans. If you join EnglandFans you can buy tickets with up to £5 off in the same way you might buy tickets in the normal way. Great! But the cost of joining EnglandFans is £45 per adult and £25 per child for a two year period of which we’re currently half-way through. The sweetener on this deal is this : “Remember too that The FA is a not-for-profit organisation and any surplus revenue generated from englandfansmembership is invested in the game at all levels.” I don’t want to, and couldn’t afford, to go and see every England game for the next year but if I want to see just one match I still have to join EnglandFans. That means that for the three of us to see England play Israel next month it would cost around £200, and that doesn’t include travel, food and trimmings such as a programme.
c) Wait until there are 24 hours before the match and try and get one of the tickets remaining once the priority booking periods have been removed by the FA. I’ll put my plans for that weekend on hold until the Friday evening on the off chance then eh?
So that’s how to get to see England live. You either risk being allowed to buy a ticket without the rest of your family joining you, get ripped off by the FA in the name of philanthropy (and get to see a player who’ll earn more next week than I will in next five years - I wonder if he has to join EnglandPlayers before he pays to pull on the shirt?*), or keep a weekend free on the possibility that you might be able to get one of the last few tickets available.
Part of me feels that it’s the consumer that allows the FA to get away with this. If we didn’t show the willingness to jump through such hoops they’d stop creating them. Another part of me feels that the FA have a cheek moaning about ticket touts when they make it so difficult and expensive to buy tickets the official way. Mostly though I think it’s a shame that a game that started off as a group of men kicking a pig’s bladder around a field has turned into this monster.
* It may be of interest to note that if John Terry had to pay an equivalent percentage of his wages to play for England as I’d have to pay to watch he’d be coughing up £52000 for the privilege. Nice.
Posted in Cinema, News on 08/01/2007 06:34 pm by foolhandy
We watched Jaws again earlier in the week. It’s one of the few ‘classic’ movies I’ve seen and I love it. It’s a masterclass of suspense which outclasses a movie like The Birds so easily it’s hard to believe it was so early in his career. The framing of camera shots and the use of silence help make me jump every time, even though I know what’s going to happen next!
In a case of life imitating art do these quotes remind you of anything?
Cornish shark conservationist Richard Peirce, who saw the footage, said the possibility it was a Great White could not be ruled out. He said: “If one accepts that White sharks are occasional vagrant visitors in UK waters, these animals could not be ruled out.”
Coastguards have dismissed the claims as “scare-mongering”. A spokesman for Falmouth Coastguard said “The poor tourist industry this year is having a really hard time. The last thing we need is scare-mongering over some footage.”
They are taken from the BBC article Great White sighting ‘possible’ and you wonder if the spokesman from the Falmouth Coastguard as ever seen Jaws. I don’t know if there’s a Great White out there or not, but do you really want to tempt fate like Larry Vaughn?
Finally as a side issue, am I the only one who thinks that the BBC Cornwall icon, which presumably shows the Eden Project, looks like a pair of stylised buttocks?
Isn’t it funny how 9-year-olds can sit through something giggling and enthralled, but because it’s old refuse to accept afterwards that they enjoyed it?!
