Well, hello. And, of course, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. I don’t know who you are, or why you happen to be looking at my wee spot ‘o’ t’Interweb, but nevertheless, thanks for being here. And for being you. Because without you, none of this would be possible. Fortunately, you *are* you, and this *is* possible, which is where we find ourselves, around about now.

What this is though, perhaps requires some definition. Alternatively it’s painfully obvious: it’s my travel blog. The _we_blog I am keeping, or, at least, endeavouring, to keep, whilst I am away travelling.

I actually don’t even have the energy to write a lengthy post about it all.

But having submitted my thesis I have now also successfully completed my viva which means (subject to making a few corrections to the thesis) I have done my PhD. And you can call me Doctor.

Not bad for 10 days in to the year, eh?

And for all the doubters, sod ya 😉

• The work took 4 years, the viva was 4 hours and I gained a 2 D’s a P and an H. (Though of course technically I lost an M. Hmm.)

It’s been traumatic, it’s been difficult, horrible… A NIGHTMARE. Countless days lost to my computer. No sleep. Too much sleep. Anger. Joy. Delirium. Short-lived self-confidence.

But I have finally submitted my PhD thesis. Done. Dusted. Gone. No more. Can’t do anything now.

All I can do now is await the dreaded date - the bit where I have to pretend I actually know what I’m talking about. The bit where 4 people, 4 insanely intelligent people, the type of people someone might write a “how many people does it take to change a lightbulb” type joke about, for that day have only one mission in life - to rip me to shreds. You’re nothing. You’re useless. What are you still doing here? (“Cos, I got no place else to go!”. - Remember? Wayne’s World. Classic.)

RIP Simon Wilson, 10/06/1981 - 02/10/2006.

I hope you find the peace you were looking for.

WE DID IT. A totally ridiculous challenge to ride from Southampton (Hampshire, UK) to Santander (Cantabria, Spain) in 26 hours. It was about 1800km, which on the face of it seemed easily doable.

The trip started badly - I’d invested lots of time and money into a bike cam - a video camera with a bullet camera mounted to my bike to try and take some stylish video of the whole affair. Before we even got going, it was broken with no sign of life. Needless to say we went anyway, and at 7am on Monday 24th July we left Southampton fully tooled up, heading for Folkestone to catch the Channel Tunnel for 1030am. Plenty of time. It was good to be on the bike again.

List of things that Matt majorly missed the boat on, part 287:

Flickr

I only just got into flickr-ing. And it’s such a good site. Very sophisticated.

Next month on the 4th at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be
01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won’t ever happen again in our life time.

D-Link, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of networking and Internet equipment, has had a bit of a shocker. NTP (Network Time Protocol) is a simple protocol designed to allow computer equipment to keep an up-to-date time clock - it’s done by a handful of hierarchical “time servers” around the world which individual computers are supposed to indirectly connect to to update their time. I say “indirectly” and “hierarchical” because the availability ot so-called “Stratum 1” servers, or those time servers at the very top of the food-chain is quite limited, and normally are only connected to by time servers further down the list.

On Saturday night, I was in London in the audience for the filming of an episode of new(ish) comedy quiz show, Petrolheads. Neil Morrisey is host, with Chris Barrie and Richard Hammond as team captains. It’s aimed at being a “Have I Got News For You” style quiz show in a car perspective, but it’s really more “A Question of Sport” in a car perspective. Moderately funny, and entertaining to see filmed. The usual routine is that whilst the crew and celebs are getting ready, we get the pleasure of a warm-up chimp, the type of idiot you’d expect on the Friday night at Butlin’s. In our case, we were told to give a biiiiiiiiigggg round of applause for the “brilliant” Rayyyyyy Tuuuurrrnnnnerrrrrrrrrrrr (“!!!”). Our instant reaction was “Whooooooooo?” Google is no help in finding him, and even though he repeatedly told us about his 20 years on the circuit, he’s nowhere to be found. He was humorous… though repetitive, and to be honest, I preferred Mark Little (aka Joe Mangel) keeping me warm when I saw The Weakest Link get filmed.

I was going through some old emails and came across this. It’s pure quality and deserved posting. In memory of Ronnie Barker. RIP. This was originally shown on BBC TV back in the seventies. Ronnie Barker could say all this without a snigger (though god knows how many takes). Irony is that they received not one complaint. The speed of delivery must have been too much for the whining herds. Try getting through it without converting the spoonerisms [and not wetting your pants] as you read …