If you don't like sport or gambling, you can probably jog on at this point.

It can never be good news when it turns out an office colleague is a dab hand with Betfair - but so far, I'm not bankrupt.

In fact, thanks to Wimbledon I'm at least £4 in profit. I will probably be £10 in profit, might be £14 in profit and if hell freezes over, I will be £44 in profit.

There's a lot of fours, and a lot of uncertainty, in that statement. So let me explain.

Betfair is a bit different to your average bookies in that you can put your normal bets on things, yes, but you can also flip that around and act as bookie - setting the odds and accepting bets from other punters.

So if you're clever - or, like me, riding on a crest of beginner's luck which will shortly, and painfully, dissipate - you can actually bet for and against something happening, and come up trumps whatever the outcome.

Here's what has happened. On the first morning of Wimbledon, before any tennis had been played, Andy Murray's odds of winning the tournament were roughly 55/1 on Betfair. (For the totally unschooled, that means if I put £1 on that happening, I will get £55 back if I win, plus my £1 stake.)

I put £2 on Murray to win the tournament, guaranteeing me £112 back in my pocket if Murray went on to win the tournament.

I then put another £2 on Mario Ancic - unseeded for the tournament but a good grass court player - at about 200/1, in other words £402 coming back to me if Ancic were to somehow go all the way and win it.

I also stuck £2 on Roger Federer because he's obviously going to win and, in reality, all other bets are horribly, horribly futile. He is the Borg of tennis (not that Borg), he assimilates. The odds were 1/9,000,000, meaning I'd need to bet nine million pounds on him to get nine million and one pounds back. He is what we call the favourite.

So, how does this absatively posolutely make me money?

Well, fast forward five days later. Murray, Ancic and Federer are all still in the tournament - which suddenly makes them dead certs to earn me cash.

As they all progress through the rounds, their odds shorten. That's natural - if there are fewer players left in the tournament, the chances of any of my three winning must logically increase. In reality Federer is going to win but, mathematically at least, Murray and Ancic have a better chance of lifting the trophy.

Now I swap roles and act as bookie, offering odds to punters. Remember the odds have shortened, so Murray is now 25/1 to win rather than 55/1, by virtue of having fewer competitors. Ancic, similarly, is now 65/1.

If I accept £4 in bets from punters on Murray, I create what is called an exposure of £100. In other words, my wallet is exposed to the tune of £100 if Murray does win Wimbledon, because I have to pay £25 out for every £1 I accept.

But wait! I've backed Murray to win the tournament at 55/1, and am guaranteed £112 back if that happens. So even if Murray wins and I pay out £100, I still make £12 profit. If Murray loses, I don't win my £112 and lose my £2 stake on that bet, but I get to keep the £4 other punters gave me at the same time, so I still make a profit.

Meanwhile, over in the Ancic tent, I've got £402 coming in should he win the tournament, cast iron guaranteed. So now that he's down to 65/1, I can take £6 off punters by offering those odds. If Ancic wins I'll have to pay out something like £390, but that's okay because I will still earn £12. If Ancic loses I keep the £6.

So if Roger Federer now goes on to win, I'll make a tiny bit of money on my bet for him to win, and I'll keep the £10 in stakes I've received from punters betting on Murray and Ancic at the shorter odds. No matter who wins the competition, I am in profit.

That has never happened to me before. This system is incredibly simple and relies purely on knowing a little bit about players in a wide field - but I'd never cottoned on before, and needed my good friend and colleague to spell it out. All you need is enough tennis knowledge to have a vague stab at candidates to do well, and you're there.

At this stage I'd like to point out I do not condone gambling in any shape or form, and am about to get shouted at by my family for this post.

(PS You can always do it the old way, and just have a wild stab in the dark on ridiculous odds. Lest we forget the day I won £400 on a £2 stake...)

So Chris Moyles described Glastonbury on Radio 1 this morning.

Music festivals don't really hold much fascination for me. Listening to various presenters live at Glasto today, most of the conversation has been about queues, rain, ridiculous distances to get from stage to stage and what is uncertainly described as the "intensity" of trying to be in the right place, at the right time, to see the right band.

Moyles' comparison with the third world might be stretching things - your Walkman wouldn't last for three solid days of music, and I wonder if Ethiopia gets three days of Glasto rain in a year - but I'm happy enough in front of MySpace. And on that basis, not forgetting my claim to have spotted the Kaiser Chiefs before almost anyone else (a claim I will eventually shut up about, just not yet), I present to you three bands to watch this summer. Watch from the warm, clean safety of your own home.

MGMT on Myspace

MGMT's Electric Feel, doing the rounds on British radio at the moment, is a silky-smooth quiet summer anthem and a perfect partner to Dizzee Rascal's Dance Wiv Me, which I will confess right now I think is brilliant. It pains me that, aged 23, I sound about 50 when I try to talk about Dizzee Rascal. But both tunes have really strong rhythms behind them, an atmospheric vibe, and a chill-out feel.

When you're done with Electric Feel, listen to The Youth, which starts with the same kind of synth nonsense Idiotchild, God rest our souls, used to parade so anonymously well. There's bits of Architecture in Helsinki and Polyphonic Spree in this. MGMT have been around since 2002 (aww... I'm getting proper Idiotchild nostalgia now, this could be an issue) and they hail from New York. As do band number three, but first...

Sneaky Sound System on Myspace

This band are apparently - according to their site, at least - big in their native Australia, but they're not particularly well-known here.

That ought to change with Pictures, released in the UK on 21 July, which provides a beautiful vocal hook along the lines of, "I've got lots of pictures in my head, you'd better not TURN OFF THE PROJECTOR!" (they give that last bit some oomph). The radio edit, replete with comedy disco pop-popping, oozes dancefloor funk, and although you might need a bit of time to adjust to the lead vocalist, it's worth it by the chorus.

I Love It, also on their MySpace page, is the song that's supposed to have captured Australian hearts, but my favourite of the other tunes available there is UFO. Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd are all in their list of influences, which probably explains the attraction, but the sound is more reminiscent of other influences they name, like the Human League and Blondie. That said, watch out for the occasional line delivered in perfect Kate Bush style.

Five O'Clock Heroes on Myspace

I have a confession to make. I'm only naming this band in the hope that Agyness Deyn will sleep with me.

Alright that's not quite fair - Five O'Clock Heroes, back in New York territory, aren't quite as much to my taste as the first two, but they're still well worth a listen. Except the music pales into insignificance on their current top track Who, in which the band are fronted by Agy, who is the most beautiful person on the planet.

I spent half an hour listening to Radio 1 with Moyles this morning, enjoying what I thought was an interview with Agyness Deyn. But I had to wait half an hour for her to be namechecked, because I had never heard her speak until that point and, my God, I hadn't been expecting a thick Cheshire brogue! It's difficult to match voice with face but it's up there in my top five British accents so I'm not complaining.

If you don't know what Agyness Deyn looks like, you don't live in London. Click here to find out, and start reading more gossip columns.

Finally, a quick mention for Reading band The Race, in whom I am now a stakeholder.

Berkshire bands seem to do a good line in invention, and this lot in particular. They are in the process of circulating their Pass It On EP by doing what it says on the tin - passing it around their friends and asking them to pass it on. And they have now, in effect, 'floated' by putting a thousand shares in the band up for sale at £25 each.

As a reward for their investment, stakeholders will get a return (a tiny, tiny return) on each CD sale. They'll need to shift over 30,000 CDs for me to even get my £25 stake back, but I also get priority on the guest list for their gigs and various other perks. The target is to raise the band £25,000, which makes it an ingenious way to fund a breakthrough act. Good luck to 'em.

I promised you video of the great wading bird con trick, and here it is.

The ringed plovers we met on the island of Mingulay, in the far reaches of Scotland's Western Isles, have a unique approach to defending their nest from invaders.

When you get too close to their young, the plovers scurry away and melodramatically feign injury, pretending they have broken their wings and cannot fly.

The plan is that you - the predator - will spot this (you could hardly miss it), decide the adults are unable to escape and therefore easy prey, and leave the babies in favour of wolfing down the injured parents. That should buy the chicks some time to escape while you're distracted.

Play the video to see this in action:

So, how did I spend midsummer's eve? At a ball? Enjoying the summer solstice? Standing adjacent to druid monument dancing to the stars? Nah, don’t be silly. Tapping away at the computer… working.

I apologise for my absence. Work. Fabulous week, great fun, wonderfully fulfilling… very little sleep. And then slam dunk straight into a DofE weekend. Now this would ordinarily be fine, had it not been for the all-nighters and general hectic-ness of the preceding 14 days. But there we are. I awoke this morning at 5.45am to an email, sent at 1.18am, asking me to complete some work by tomorrow morning. But, not to worry, there was a caveat. It would only be ten hours work. All I can say, is it’s amazing how productive you can be whilst waiting for groups of young people to yomp around the English countryside. And then back to my parents to commandeer the study to work. The email has just been sent. Probably around 8hrs work all-told. Not a bad effort. And so the alarm is set for 5.45am… ouch. But I love it.

Actually, on that, I saw a friend today whom I was very close with during A levels, but we drifted apart when I went to University. She’s three years older. Worked in London. 2.5yrs ago found herself a fella. Got hitched. Now has a 3 month year old child. Has baggage. I found myself very pleased for her (on the basis she seems so happy). But. There. Through. The. Grace. Of. God. Go. I. I was more than happy to drive past in the beamer, young and free. At least the boot of this car is pretty large. I’m aiming to do DofE for the next two weekends so it’s a handy storage place for kit. So, sorry, Ol. I was asked for dinner this evening. The response? "In a field". Says it all.

I did manage to go shopping briefly on Friday though. But let’s face it, it was necessary. You see, I have always had a thing with lightbulbs. I let them all die on me and then I replace them in one go. On Wednesday evening I had one bulb in my entire flat. So, if I achieved nothing else, I had to purchase bulbs on Friday. I went into a well-known High Street general store and asked “do you sell light bulbs”. The response? “urr, yeah, but I’m new (pronounced, noo – this was Kent, after all) and I don’t have a fcking clue where anything is”. Great. That’s really so very helpful.

And so with midsummer. Downhill slope to Christmas, everybody!

Our friends in the West haven’t had their troubles to seek on the rails of late.

Against a backdrop of general discontentment with First Great Western – for a while, the worst performing train operator in the country – there have been protests and fare strikes galore. There’s even a blog dedicated to venting the woes of the weary FGW traveller, entitled “I Hate First Great Western”. First has been contrite, practically dishing out compensation with the seat reservations, and acknowledging its shortcomings with bold ‘must do better’ promises for the future.

That’s what makes one of their recent moves all the more astonishing. Here’s Westcountry TV with the story:

In essence, First Great Western has made a mess of its fleet planning. Like other UK operators, it leases its rolling stock from a third party who, presumably, allocates particular types of trains to whoever puts in the highest bid. And so it is that FGW and its passengers have lost a number of their smart Class 158s – “everybody’s favourite”, writes one contributor to this railway forum – and gained… erm, some of these:

Looks rather like a bus, doesn’t it?

For the uninitiated, these ‘newcomers’ are railbuses – ‘Pacers’ as they were known when they were new, 22-years ago – designed as a solution to 1980s suburban travel. Only ever intended for the short hop, they could afford to be as rough and ready as their road-going counterparts, the kind of thing you’d find on your local bus route. The ‘Pacer’, then, revived an old British railway fascination for putting what is essentially the body of a bus onto a lightweight railway chassis. In the case of the Leyland-built 'Pacer', it was effectively a Leyland National:

Along with their express equivalent, the ‘Sprinter’, they’ve given sterling service over the years, and I have to admit to being quite fond of them. I vividly remember, aged six, coming home from my local model shop with the new Hornby ‘Pacer’ tucked under my arm, pleased as punch that it fitted my collection of toy buses just as well as it did the trains. I also remember going up to Leeds to ride on some of the earliest ones, these days to be found enjoying a second ease of life in Iran.

That’s not to say I’d want to ride on them day in, day out; I don’t think anybody does. In a recent issue of RAIL magazine, a letter highlighted the state of the ‘Pacers’ working on Mersey rail, and spoke of water leaking into the saloon through light fittings. “Nobody deserves this”, said Mr Angry of Wirral.

The people of the West seem to agree; and I’m here to tell you, it’s not for the first time. The world - the passenger groups, the forums, even the Westcountry TV reporter with the jacket – seems to have missed a crucial point in the story of the ‘Pacer’ heading West. They’ve been there before!

22-years ago, thirteen brand new ‘Pacers’ (or ‘Skippers’, as these particular ones were designated, for obvious reasons) were allocated to the branch lines west of Exeter, supposedly to replace trains which had worked them for the last thirty years. Immediately, they were hated by crews and passengers alike; unlike their predecessors, they had no forward vision by which to enjoy the scenery of Devon and Cornwall, and because of their fixed frames, they screamed like fury on the tight bends of the Western Region. The 30-year old trains were duly reprised, and the ‘Skippers’ were sent away with their couplings between their bus-like legs.

Now, their cousins are back. To my knowledge, they’re not working the small branch lines for which they proved so unsuitable two decades ago; unbelievably, they’re actually working longer journeys. Exeter to Barnstaple – a line close to my heart – buys you a 90-minute ride on one of these things. On a recent visit to Torquay, a friend and I caught one on the Paignton line; I enjoyed the nostalgia value, but she was just about ready to be sick by Newton Abbot. Like most of the West, she doesn’t like travelling backwards.

It’s good to see, though, besides the army of people fighting for its demise, there are some who still enjoy the Pacer - enough, even, to sing about it…

(And when you’ve recovered, here’s “Take A Look At My Bus Doors”)…

Finally, the first video from Barra, the Scottish island where I recently spent a week on holiday.

Oystercatchers are found all over the British coastline, and they're dead easy to spot thanks to their bright orange bills and often incessant calling.

We spent a day on the uninhabited island of Mingulay, just south of Barra, where all the only remains of human activity are stone ruins left when the last inhabitants abandoned the island in the early 20th century.

Where humans no longer dare, puffins have taken up residence in their thousands. One even took the time and trouble to poo all over me as I got off our landing craft. I can report that puffin excrement is yellow, bubbles a little on impact, and stinks to high heaven. Surely not many people have had the pleasure of puffin faeces in the hair.

The puffins are joined by the likes of guillemots, ringed plovers and oystercatchers. More about ringed plovers in the next video, but watch the one above for the unbelievable sight of an oystercatcher nest at close quarters.

There is a photo of the nest here. You'll see the newborn chicks are so young, their shells still lie beside them - normally the parents move the shells almost instantaneously to ensure predators can't easily see what has happened.

The next video will show how ringed plovers deal with it when predators do find the nest: they feign injury...

Finally, an article which proves something we’ve always known. Cornflakes really are cardboard. I’m not a cereal lover, but this morning I did consume a small packet of honey nut loops. I stayed at my Aunt’s last night and this was the only breakfasting food available. Well, the only half-tempting one, anyway. Now, honey nut loops don’t claim to be healthy. They’re not muesli, or organic, or full of fruit and fibre. They’re packaged in a yellow box, with a “spot the difference” on the back, and are clearly aimed at young children. It’s not surprising that the article (as above) in yesterday’s Guardian states that, apparently, “about a quarter of the money you spend on breakfast cereal goes on the cost of persuading you to buy it”. You’d need a pretty good marketing strategy to purchase these sickly tasting, obscurely textured rings of E-numbers and preservative.

But this is fundamentally wrong, on many levels. We should encourage children to eat breakfast. Whilst I didn’t always agree, I’m now a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Eat breakfast and we’re less likely to snack later on during the day. But it’s not going to work, especially not for children, if we feed them crap. And if we advertise this crap with bright colours and games.

And so the doom and gloom continues. High salt. High sugar. But if you decrease the sugar content, then, well, the cereal then just tastes more of cardboard than it did in the first place. You’d probably receive more nutrients if you just gave into temptation and ate the box. So much for the Kellogg’s Special K Diet – where you’re meant to be able to eat a bowl of the said cereal for two of your meals each day, for two weeks, and lose 2” from your waist. Whatever.

Now, whilst I found the article fascinating, what it neglects to praise is the alternative cereal. My own special K(ay) e.g. my Mum, eats a healthy bowl of muesli each morning (how she does it, btw, is besides the point - it looks like bird seed and takes ages to eat because you spend ages munching through it all). It's organic. No artificial anything. Fruit, fibre, nuts. It’s genuinely “good for you” – and it’s cereal – and it’s never advertised. The goodness of organic muesli doesn’t come in the colour of the package – it’s good, perhaps because it is understated. And when you come to think of it, so are many foodstuffs. The decent stuff is never advertised. Just as the most traditional and high-end brand names in fashion rarely have to advertise, nor do the decent foodstuffs.

So, well done for the article. But don’t reject cereal all together. Sure, ditch the cardboard in the recycling bin. Yet don’t loose sight of the fact that decent cereal does exist. Albeit at a price. And in a dull package.

Look, Mum, look! I filmed that, and it's number three in the "most popular" list and it's above some of the Euro 2008 highlights and and and...

BREATHE.

However proud a temporary stay at number three in the sport video chart makes me, I bet Tom Daley's pride this morning beats it tenfold. Tom - the 13-year-old diver going to Beijing - was the spearhead of today's Olympic kit launch, with photographers baying for "Tom at the front", "Tom with the girls", "Tom with his thumbs up" and more. I can barely remember being 13 but I know it didn't involve that.

His dad was next to me in the throng behind the cameras, occasionally shouting his son's name then taking a photo when Daley junior obligingly looked at him. What a journey they're going on.

Update: I've written a bit on the Olympics Blog about this as well, except with more detail about important things like crop tops and chafing.

Today could have been the first day of Summer. With the sun “beaming down on the upturned apple cheeks”, as Wogan put it, al-fresco diners lined even the dusty pavements of Reading, while at work there wasn’t a long-sleeved shirt in the house. Or out of it.

Except for mine; I’m still mourning May. I love June and all its summery promise as much as the next Pimmsoholic; but May, wonderful May, was the month for this:

This dark cocktail of indulgence, sludge-like in appearance, is no ordinary brew. The Mild, as it’s known, is a breed of real ale with its roots anchored in World War I, when a reduction in beer strength was decreed in the interests of rationing (and, probably, in an effort to keep a fighting nation on its tits). What wasn’t reduced was the flavour, richer and more rounded than most stouts, and a bit less bitter than your average, well, bitter.

These days, this most characterful of pints is an endangered species. For the less discerning punter – and, of course, I include Guinness drinkers in that – Milds are not necessarily the easiest of pints to enjoy. At Reading’s Beer Festival a few years back, I met up with some unsuspecting female colleagues (journalist types) who, falling for the name, had decided to “break themselves in with something mild”. Needless to say, the pints lasted longer than they did.

But, with the nation’s gradual reawakening to the beauty of real ale (and all its obvious benefits to one’s health…), Mild fans are fighting for the survival of their ambrosia. And in a quartet of Bristolian pubs, May was the month for Milds.

Meet The Victoria in Clifton, so much my local pub at one time that we literally shared a postcode. Back in those days, it was nothing to write home about. The bar staff were frosty, it was bereft of friendly clientele and, save for the ubiquitous Courage Best, of real ale too. In three years, I hardly went there.

Today, it’s one of four pubs that make up the Dawkins Taverns ‘chain’ (I use the term loosely, for reasons that will become apparent). Not only has it been properly renovated – it’s part of the Victorian Grade II* listed Clifton Pool building which, as a student, I fought to save from demolition – but it now serves up to twelve different real ales from independent breweries, including a range of much revered Milds. And, naturally, the place is always alive.

In a bold attempt to boost the profile of the Mild, CAMRA introduced a “Walk on the Mild Side” campaign in May, and when Dawkins unveiled a special Mild trail, it just had to be done. With 30 Milds on offer across the month, the basic task was to try six different ones in four weeks, receive a stamp for each, and exchange your stamps for a complimentary pint of Mild. Plus, if your stamps revealed you’d visited all four pubs, you’d receive a souvenir t-shirt in the post; an ideal way to flaunt your mild-drinking prowess next time the journalists and Guinness boys are in.

For any Mild lover, that’s never going to be arduous. Unless, of course, you have under 24 hours to spare…

After the swiftest of swift ones, next on the agenda was The Miner’s Arms, apparently on the edge of nearby Montpelier.

The walk would have been easy, if only the maps provided had somehow joined up. There, somewhere in the lost land, I scouted a bit of Bristol I thought I knew reasonably well. Soon, it became all too apparent that the missing no-man’s-land between maps was actually several miles wide. After 20 minutes of soaking up conflicting directions from three different people in a petrol station, I eventually left them to squabble amongst themselves as to whether it was left or right to Mina Road. Instead, I decided to walk blindly towards where I feared the pub might be – some 5 miles away – in the hope I might be guided by stupidity and the smell of Mild in equal measures. I suppose it did promise a walk on the mild side…

By those means, I eventually found it; twenty minutes before closing time, and ten minutes before the last bus home. Yes, it was on a bloody main bus route all the time…

My albeit brief experience of The Miner’s was that it was yet another gem. The landlord of The Portcullis in Clifton – the final pub I visited, the following day, itself mighty fine – named it as his all time favourite.

I somehow managed to enjoy the requisite number of pints to qualify for my freebie, which I claimed at The Hillgrove on my way back to Temple Meads. The landlord there could scarcely believe I’d completed the task so swiftly, and eyed me with some suspicion. He’d clearly not met a Mild drinker with OCD before...

More important than the challenge, I hope I did my bit towards making a success of the campaign. In times when even our friendly local pubs, let alone our favourite brews, are increasingly threatened with extinction, it’s marvellous to see some initiatives to try and safeguard them both – the two great bastions of sensible, sociable drinking.

Meantime, I’m looking forward to the arrival of the t-shirt; I really should be in short sleeves by now. Mild for the time of year…

There's something satisfying about picking up a bargain, isn't there? Especially, given rising food prices, if it's in a supermarket. Naturally I was pleased that last week, Tescos "Pork and Apple Organic Sausages" were on special offer. Now, this delight would be extended if they looked and tasted delicious.

I haven't tasted them yet, but look at them:

Cooked no differently to usual, the sausages look awful. They have shrunk to nothing - I mean, if you were a bloke, you wouldn't be writing home about your jumbo sausage, would you? - the apple has oozed out, in places the skin has split and there's enough fat in the pan to make an anorexic obese. Yuck. It's just like buying a £9.99 bottle of wine, reduced to £5.99 and when you taste it, finding out you're drinking red-wine vinegar. The cliche is true: there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Only a very quick one - go and watch this video of rescue dogs in training for the Olympics.

About five seconds into the clip you'll see German Shepherds throwing themselves through wooden hoops, looking very butch about it.

Then you get a side view of the same activity - one German Shepherd... two German Shepherds... then WALLOP!

What would appear to be a heroic, if aerodynamically challenged Jack Russell throws itself gamely through the hoop!

As mentioned earlier this week, I've made a few purchases from Amazon lately. One such purchase was an AA Road Atlas and an A-Z of Kent Streets. My old copies disintegrated - you see, it turns out that if you spill washer-water in the boot of your car (from a leaking canister), it soaks your maps, you don't realise, and then you come to look at the maps two weeks later, you'll find they're coloured bright blue, smell awful and are beginning to grow a dubious type of mould.

Anyway, so a new set of maps it was. I went to collect these from the porter's lodge on Friday. It took them a while to find my parcel. I was pretty sure it would be a relatively flat affair. I couldn't be more wrong. See below for the box - and packaging - and then see the next photo down for the maps sitting alongside the box.

Surely they could have got away with slightly less packaging? I'm all for Amazon ensuring my parcels arrive safely... but... really?!

Evening!

Tonight's post takes the form of a mish-mash of easily digested tidbits:

Today's lesson is that parks close. I spent from 5pm onwards in Regent's Park celebrating a friend's birthday, primarily involving a heated boules contest (possibly petanque, nobody was quite sure), innumerable demonstrations of my inability to throw a frisbee, and - by contrast - my surprising level of badminton skill using a Pringles can as a racquet.

It got to 9.30pm and while the other stragglers headed off north, I went south... and promptly found the park gate shut. I tried to climb it for ten minutes then, in a fit of growing panic, jogged the length of the fence looking for anything resembling a foothold. With no such luck I started to properly run down paths in the gathering gloom, briefly entertaining the notion of having to spend the night in Regent's Park, sleeping through the drizzle in a t-shirt and jeans with just a rucksack as a makeshift pillow.

Eventually I put paid to that nightmare by stumbling across an exit and making a beeline for the nearest road and safety. It had never occurred to me that parks shut. This tells you I do not spend much time in parks. The last time I spent that long in a park, I was probably four.

I watched the Big Brother opening night on Thursday. You were spared the usual opening night live blog, which is probably a good thing since I've been away from a television since and have no idea what's been happening. Already my interest has waned. I think I need to be parked in front of Big Brother for a solid week at its start to have a hope of caring.

Have fun with Flickr on a website called Tag Galaxy. Enter any keyword you like and the results are displayed like planets in a starfield, then as individual stars or planets with photos mapped to the surface. Click any photo to enlarge it. Very clever, even if it is the sort of thing you try for three minutes then forget about.

I saw Guillemots at London's Forum on Wednesday night. It's not often I've thrown caution to the wind and danced like a wassock at an indie gig, howling every lyric like a possessed seal, but Guillemots had the power to get me doing that.

If you have never heard their music, they have two albums out - Through The Windowpane and Red - and both are well worth your money. Red is the newer offering and may be a better bet, or if you can only afford one song, I recommend Don't Look Down - the penultimate track from the new album. It's difficult to describe the music, hearing it will do you far more good.

The main attraction for me is the genuine variety from track to track.- support act Royworld were also good (I love Man In The Machine) but each song carries the same Eighties reverb-tastic flavour, just as every Coldplay track has a funny little atmospheric hum in it at some point. I'm not knocking that, it's good for bands to have a trademark to the way they play, but with Guillemots the big draw for me is the vast difference between, say, the wandering twelve-minute piano ballad Sao Paulo and pacy, bassy floor-filler Last Kiss.

Finally, I'm aware that I promised many things from my trip to the island of Barra and have largely yet to deliver. I doubt you've lost too much sleep over this but it's all coming up, just as soon as I can sit down in front of a computer and gorge myself silly on the video footage. One or two slices of action are definitely worth the wait.

Once upon a time, ordering from something via the internet was rather novel. For instance, skeptics raised fears over internet security - but now we have insurance and enough security mechanism that most of the time things go to plan and some people worried about whether goods would be delivered on time or would "fit their description" - but due to online feedback and the ability to raise concerns over website legitimacy, sharks often find themselves drowning in their own deep water. It seems that due to a dedicated bank of e-commerce lawyers and providing you use an ounce or two of common sense (by which I mean you don't order an Ipod from Uzbekistan and expect it to be genuine and arrive in perfect working order the next day) then you'll probably be OK.

So, on a short analysis of my credit card statement this month (yes, I actually looked at it in detail, must be the banking lawyer seeping through) it was not particularly surprising (though I admit I'd never thought about it before) that second to Tesco (where the largest percentage of my disposable income appears to disappear - on food and petrol) was Amazon (for both books, cds and dvds in my case). Interflora online was also in there. Now, for books and the like it's easy to order online because you know what you're getting. But I'm less enthusiastic when it comes to buying presents. But is it so easy to order gifts online - where do you start? It seems this company have come up with a good idea, listing popular websites where products - suitable for gifts - can be delivered the next day, or the same day. One thinks it may prove popular around Valentines Day or when you suddenly realise it's Father's Day (apparently that's soon?) and you've not had chance to run to the shops.

I had a discussion with someone about whether the above (e.g. the concept of buying gifts and the like online) was making us lazy. They were adamant that internet shopping was a curse. I disagree, in part. I think this is a two-pronged debate. First, yes it is making us lazy in the "physical" sense. Shopping in the High St is meant to burn a ridiculous number of kcal per hour compared to sitting at your computer screen and drinking a can of Coke whilst snacking on jelly babies. Part of the wider obesity-clad and unfit nation? But I don't think it is necessarily indicative of laziness in terms of thought or idea. People have always shopped at the last minute. People will always forget Birthdays. Men will never remember their partner's anniversary until it's 10pm and they're a stone's throw from home. The internet hasn't encouraged the above - instead it just provides a means to delivering a present (especially if you have a website, as per the above, which is going to indicate how quickly gifts can be delivered) quickly without the need for late night shopping in Tesco. In addition, surfing around websites can often take more effort than popping to the shops. All that searching and settling on a idea, and then the actual payment etc. process. It can be a hassle (especially if you get so far down the line, input delivery details and then the website has a fit and packs up on you) and may induce so-called "technological stress", not to mention body posture and RSI. So laziness isn't the key.

Overall health and happiness, though? In the ideal world I'd suggest getting down to the local shop, having some exercise, breathing in some fresh air, and then choosing a present feeling virtuous. Posted at your local Post Office and you're also helping to secure the future of this humble establishment. Even better, if purchased from a local shop e.g. not a chain, but a genuinely one-off shop and you're also supporting the local community. My God Mother's lives in Hadleigh in Suffolk where the community are currently fighting off plans for a large Tesco to plant itself in the corner of the traditional market town. I know why. The butcher would go, the baker would go. At the same time... with food prices etc. increasing, wouldn't you rather pay £1.00 for a loaf of bread in Tesco verses £1.30 in the local corner shop? If you bought one loaf of bread each week for one year, that's a saving of £15. If you support the local garage where petrol is being sold at around 129p/litre (like my Dad) rather than the 115p offered by Tesco, then you would spend an extra £7 if you bought 50 litres to fill up your tank. See, it makes a difference.

Tesco and Amazon topping my credit card statement? It's not that good really though, is it? It doesn't provide me with a warm and fuzzy glow. Farm shop and local bookshop for me this weekend. Despite the price.

I received an email this afternoon from a well-known legal publication asking me to complete an online questionnaire. In a free moment of curiosity I decided to answer the YouGov-prepared set of questions. Worrying, very worrying.

For starters, it asked my Nationality. I had the option of "Great Britain" or "Ireland" as top choices. Followed by a string of other countries. "Great Britain" is not a nationality. It is (and yes, we've been here before) a name describing the geographical term to describe Britain (being the island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales) together with outlying islands including the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, the Orkney Isles and Shetland. My Nationality is British. Thus indicating that I pertain to be from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Now, seeing that Great Britain doesn't include the Isle of Man or Channel Islands (whereas "being British" does by virtue of the fact that these Islands are included in the definition of the United Kingdom), I don't know how you would be expected to complete the supposed "Nationality" box on this questionnaire. And "Irish" arguably means someone from the Republic of Ireland and not Northern Ireland (also not included in Great Britain). Completely nonsensical. How can it be so hard to get these simple things right? Especially considering this questionnaire was sent to lawyers, from all levels of seniority, across the country (by which, I mean the United Kingdom - yes, this can rightly be described as a "country" or sovereign state)

Second, one of the questions asked something along the lines of "where is your firm based". It then listed London, South East, North East, Wales etc. etc. There was also the option of "other" and "don't know". Now, these may be pretty standard... but "don't know"? You don't know where you law firm is based? That's a pretty frightening response.

Last but not least, one question asked my opinion on a possible future development in a particular field. One of the response options was, "it's a fad and doesn't mean anything". Urr, could we be a little more technical / formal, here? The questionnaire ended with "Congratulations, you've completed the survey". No shit. And not without agitation.

There are people. Paid. To write these things.

Jess Ennis: High Jump
Originally uploaded by BBC Sport

bunloverjosh says:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Women's Sports Briefs, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

Pictures of adult female athletes in bikinis, bunhuggers, bloomers, swimsuits, or leotards. No nudity, porn, children, or cropped close-ups of body parts.

At least one woman in the photo must be wearing a visible brief bottom outfit (bikini, bloomers, leotard, bunhuggers, etc.).

Appropriate content for the group would include female runners, cheerleaders, volleyball players, triathletes.

Boris Johnson is stepping down as Tory MP for Henley today, now that he's moved sideways to look after the next village down the Thames.

Cue political anoraks with obscure facts about how MPs actually resign, because it's not straightforward. In the good old days most MPs, representing rotten boroughs having been "elected" by three sheep and a cat, were desperate to resign and go back to leading more exciting lives. So to prevent the Commons being emptier than a ten minute rule bill on marmoset fondling, it was made incredibly difficult for them to resign.

This means that Boris doesn't actually resign at all. Instead, he accepts a daft, all-but-non-existent Royal post of the kind only Britain could concoct. Boris becomes Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.

There are currently two of these obsolete posts in existence, the other being Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds. The idea is that holding a post in the paid employ of the Queen while being an MP is a conflict of interests, so you must give up your natty Commons office and uppity, over-educated junior researchers. Ergo you have resigned as an MP.

In actual fact you don't really get paid - bar perhaps a nominal £2.50 and a kebab - by Her Majesty, and you hold the post as bailiff and steward of either Northstead or the Chiltern Hundreds until the next outgoing MP needs it to complete the formality. The next MP to resign, notably, will inherit the Chiltern Hundreds job from one Tony Blair.

If every Lib Dem MP resigned tomorrow in a fit of defeatism/realism, by the way, this is still how the system would work. It would simply be staggered throughout the day, so each MP would become Crown Steward and Bailiff for approximately three minutes.

It's not often I link to other blogs / websites that take my fancy. Post Secret is one of my past offerings. Today we have the work of Slinkachu found here.

It's a fascinating - and very cleverly thought out - idea. Captioned as "Little People - a tiny street art project - little people, left in London to fend for themselves" the work has, so it seems, been around for a couple of years. Loosely speaking the website includes photographs of tiny models of humans, positioned doing different activities and in various locations throughout London. Not sure? Sound a little naff? Think again. Somehow it throws a completely different perspective on the City.

Channel 4 aired a live advert for Honda on Sunday night, showing a group of skydivers spelling out the company's name in the skies of Spain as the sun set.

That knowledge in itself is impress enough - the ad is the latest in a line of top quality Honda commercials, and has gone down very well.

What I didn't realise is that one of my best friends from school starred in it.

Had I been looking closely enough at the telly, I might have noticed that the gentleman on the top left of the "H" formation is my friend Chris.

We went to school together for nearly five years, during which time the only real sign of his future inclination to throw himself out of planes was his becoming an RAF cadet.

Once he reached university this skydiving streak emerged, and he has now become one of the top young skydivers this country has to offer.

I spoke to him just now about the dive for the live ad. Apparently two of the top skydiving teams in the UK, plus a selection of "up and coming stars" (of which Chris was one) were selected to attempt it. Chris was approached in person, which is a pretty good sign of his skill level.

The squad had twelve attempts at the dive before the big night, not all of which went to plan. The "N" in Honda is particularly tough to pull off in the air - you can even hear a voice in the advert say words to the effect of, "this is the tricky one" - and that failed once or twice.

But the real deal went without a hitch, and Honda laid on a sumptuous feast afterwards... up to a point. Having eschewed the food, beer and wine in favour of Cava, Honda stopped the tab when the seventh bottle of the stuff disappeared inside the opening twenty minutes. So the skydivers were left paying for their own bubbly. A bit of a comedown for the boys with their heads in the clouds.

Well, yes, if you're referring to the fact that my good friend returned from three months in Moscow on Sunday (meaning that, given my time in HK, we haven't lived in the same country for nine months) . We celebrated last night with an extravagant quantity of bubbly, but sometimes these things have to be done. Even on a Monday.

But no, according to a report in the Telegraph here. It seems the powers-that-be in Russian have announced plans to ban foreign toys and Valentines Day in a bid to uphold the spiritual values of children by protecting their morals. You what? It does seem a little silly, even for Russia. At the same time, I can see the point. It's reported that the legislation envisages a ban on the sale of children's toys that "provoke aggression", "model actions of a sexual nature", "justify extremism and a criminal lifestyle", "depict horror or unbearable pain" or are created "on the basis of the psychologically incongruous".

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom of speech / liberty / expression etc. and the proposals to smell faintly of a dictatorship and infringement of basic human liberties but at the same time, you know, maybe the concept, or the idea at least, isn't a bad thing? Surely children are unnecessarily influenced by violent books and computer games. Why should girls as young as ten wear lipstick, high heels and mini-skirts? Even in Britain there are proposals afoot to guide parents as to the dangers of letting their children drink and supermarkets are considering preventing parents from buying copious quantities of alcohol in front of their offspring. It seems a particularly sad state of affairs that we've actually got to this. So for all those Brits who've cried out in rage over the 10pm curfew, the blocking of text messages from children containing obscenities… well, just have a think about whether you like the direction a significant percentage of today’s youth appear to be heading, and then consider whether some of these restrictions may not be for the better. Saying “everything borrowed from the West is condemned” is clearly unsupportable, but the underlying tone doesn’t seem all that bad, to be honest.

Now, if you've read this post and not scrolled down then I urge you to do so and welcome back the bustling presence of a certain esteemed Mr Sheppard.

Next time you find yourself trying to justify an extravagant purchase, take a little trip to the world's best-known internet auction site.

Not only will you probably bump into the same thing at a vastly reduced price, but these days your financial conscience can be easily cleansed by checking up on the kind of rubbish everyone else is buying.

The profile pages of friends and strangers alike now provide a detailed and humiliating record of all recent transactions, as well as the odd clue about how desperate buyers were to get hold of their items. Feedback like “Payment received instantly” presumably means the buyer had swept aside all diary commitments to be near a PC at the moment the auction ended. Gagging for it, then.

I like to think I provide excellent value in this respect, with my rows of ostensibly unnecessary shellings out on items for which very few (except, perhaps, the wisely anonymous ‘Bidder 1') would normally give tuppence. As you’d expect, my page exposes me as an obsessive collector of bus memorabilia, and many’s the day the postman will arrive at my door brandishing an old timetable, some tickets or other noteworthy lump of transport history.

Here’s one of my latest acquisitions:

When it comes to something like this, you can never afford to ask too many questions about how it came to be up for auction. Just be glad that somebody, somehow, managed to ‘acquire’ it all those years ago and keep it alive long enough for me to spend my money on it.

A few months ago, I had a tremendous eBay result with a much older bus stop, a rare Thames Valley one from the 1950s. So eager was I to get hold of my prize, not only did I rack up “Payment received instantly” acclaim, I actually offered to collect it in person that night. It turns out the seller – a listener to my show, incidentally – was a son of the man whose job it was to take these things down in the ‘70s. “A few” had been saved from the crusher, he said, and he wondered if I might like to take a pair home? That was a good night.

With this experience at the back of my mind, I couldn’t bring myself to pay the £8 postage charge on this latest purchase. The seller’s location suggested the bus stop hadn’t travelled too far in its life, and as I was due in Bristol that weekend on other business (more on that soon), I again offered to collect.

Here’s what I hadn’t bargained for:

Ironically, the remote village of Monkton Farleigh (near Bath) is about two miles from any current bus stop, and several hundred metres higher too. Travelling on foot, the narrow 1 in 4 climb was never going to be welcome…

I finally reached the home of the seller, who was completely unflustered by the panting husk which appeared before him. Instead, he opened the door and literally ‘modelled’ the bus stop as though it were a handbag.

“Haven’t I made your day?!”, he asked, spotting the one glint of enthusiasm left in my tired eyes. Goods were exchanged, and within seconds I was on my way back down, as though it had been the most ordinary transaction in the world.

It was certainly an exciting experience catching the bus back to Bath; part of me was tempted to unleash my new acquisition from its Waitrose bag and use it to hail the driver’s attention.

Needless to say, in the manner described, I’ve since managed to justify putting my £8 saving to good use elsewhere, on a little something which should be arriving imminently…

Yes – I’m having this one delivered.

Need I say any more? My impulsive purchase of a couple of weeks ago arrived yesterday. Such fun!