No geek
is an island

Not had much time to blog over the last week, and still quite busy. Here’s a quick teaser for the Doctor Who fans in the audience. Simple question, which I expect to be answered swiftly: who is this?

BBC News: A man has been arrested in the loans for lordships investigation:

The man was arrested in the London borough Redbridge for an offence under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, [Scotland Yeard] said in statement. He is currently in custody in a London police station, it added.

The police have said the man is not an MP or a peer but would not say if he was a member of political party.

The Independent has this week begun its second UK sudoku championship. To enter you need to send in nine completed championship sudokus grids. These are being printed daily and yesterday’s was the first of fourteen. As last year, everyone who submits nine correct puzzles will be invited to a regional heat where they will compete against the clock. The top 100 will then go through to the final and the chance to succeed Ed Billig as the champion.

To pass the time before we find out who’s going to run Italy, some anagrams of the protagonists.

Did Silvio Berlusconi manage to con bilious livers, or did his vice sour billions? His short concession speech: “I, vincible. Our loss.”

Would Romano Prodi be one of Blair’s favourites: a primo donor? Because Italians overseas can elect senators to represent them, centre-left voters in Scotland will be hoping they get on and “ordain oor pm“. The anti-war brigade shouldn’t hold out too much hope though: Prodi could be an Iran doom pro.

How did I miss this? The Actor Toby Stephens - whom you may knowing from such TV series as Cambridge Spies and Waking the Dead, or as the villain in the awful Bond film Die Another Day - is the son of Maggie Smith and the late Robert Stephens.

Stephens, regardless of his other roles, was the evil Abner Brown in the BBC’s classic adapation of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights. And Smith, regardless of her other roles, was marvellous in Murder by Death.

First of all, it’s only fair to mention that I do like your Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.

Now that’s out of the way, let me suggest that you’ve enacted a strategic error by making your branch on the Strand in London part of an easyInternetCafé. This allow me to complain online about your service literally seconds after being subject to it.

To be fair, the service itself would have been it OK had your staff been willing to accept a Scottish banknote. For future reference, let me explain.

1. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom.
2. The currency of Scotland is pounds sterling - the same as in the rest of the UK.
3. There are lots of people in London who don’t live there. Some have travelled from Scotland.
4. Scottish banknotes are legal tender throughout the UK and therefore people travelling from Scotland need not go to a bureau de change to change “Scottish money” into “English money”. Gosh, it’s not true. See the comments…

All I wanted was a cookie. I didn’t even particularly want a cookie, but I needed change for the slot machine to get my internet access. So you’ve lost out on a transaction and you’ve annoyed me. To avoid this happening in future, I suggest you accept legal tender currency when presented with it.

Oh, and I don’t like your Phish Food flavour ice cream.

Love,
Will