Toby McCombe arrives
Toby McCombe
You know, it was only a few years ago when Nick and I were constantly out dancing the night away, drinking fine beer and regretting it the next morning. Now, he’s married, settled down - and has now become a dad!
Congratulations to Nick and Sarah - you are awesome. We’ll be visiting very soon…
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Taken down
It’s funny - tragedies only become real when they involve someone you know. And so it went yesterday afternoon, when I was forming an email to colleagues about a particularly burning upcoming issue. “Dear Michael and Gerd,” I’d managed to write before Lorraine sauntered into the room and announced, “So, heard about Gerd Mrodzek?”. I hadn’t. “He was in the Madrid plane crash. With his wife and two children. All missing.”
It was one of those moments when shivers go down your neck and words fail to appear. I’d been with Gerd a month earlier when he’d flown over for a project, and had spoken to him just 2 weeks ago. He was a happy man - always smiling, and amusing despite the language gap. He was always talking about his family, and was very proud of the things he did. And now he is missing, and everyone at the office knows what that means.
It’s strange when people you expect to be there just… aren’t. I gazed into the distance, remembering our meetings and his someones misplaced colloquialisms and amusing phrases on email.
My gaze lowered to the computer screen. I deleted “and Gerd.”
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Linkblog - July 24th to July 30th
Linkblog between July 24th and July 30th:
- Mike Tyson Abandoned Mansion - Erie and yet beautiful. Which is more than can be said for the decor.
- Robot restaurant mystery solved -
- Cut and paste one line of code to make any website editable - Still believe those get-rich-quick screenshots?
- TEDTalks - Top 10 talks at TED. Awesome stuff - I recommend all of them, especially Sir Ken Robinson…
- Pictures From the Sky - Awesome shots. Hopefuilly not by the same person - imagine the fuel costs…
- Jorge Garcia from Lost sings Here's To You - Who knew he could sing? Awesome song…
- BBC News: The squeeze: key factors - Excellent visual representation of why we are all screwed…
- Skateboarder Has Terribly Painful Landing - I DEFY you not to wince…
- Jonathan Harris: The Web's secret stories (video) - Another TED video - this time purely for geeks. This guy has built something semantically incredible - my only concern is… why?!
- Jennifer Lin: Magical improv from 14-year-old pianist - My regular trawl through the TED archives unearths another gem - this girl is 14. If you can't stand 24 minutes of it, skip to the Improvisation section…
- Horse Quartet - A great way to waste 5 minutes.
- Daft Punk - Harder Bodies Faster Stronger - With body parts. Utterly brilliant.
- 36 Cool Business Cards You Should’ve Seen -
Just so you know, this is an automated recent overview of the Linkblog, a collection of interesting links I find on my travels. The archives are here: http://www.wibbler.com/tag/linkblog/
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Comedy Commuting
Yesterday, I have to admit, was out of the ordinary. I’d been needed at a client site in London, so I toddled off to a taxi at around 8.30 to catch the train. The next door neighbour managed to poke his head around the door at the same moment, and so we drowsily shared a taxi into town. The driver looked familiar, I thought as my bleary eyes started to focus. It bothered me all down the hill, and it continued bothering up the next hill. And then, sadly, the reason struck me - it was the same taxi driver who my good friend Jac, months earlier, had annoyed intensely by drunkenly eating a pizza in the car at 2am when being expressly asked not to. I sheepishly paid the fare immediately on arrival - rounding up to the nearest pound as a conciliatory gesture - and scarpered into the train station.
It was here that thinks went a little more unexpected. There, in front of me on the floor, were two ducks. Live ones, thank goodness - quacking and waddling away as if they were rushing to get a vital train. Even more unusual was the fact that no one else was remotely bothered by the spectacle. I attempted to be similarly blase about it, stepping over the waddling creatures just in time to get to the ticket machine before a rather portly gentleman, who looked as if just crossing the foyer would take a good hour. As usual, the train fare defied belief, and feeling financially raped I got a bottle of water and boarded the train to London.
Denmark Hill is not an easy place to get to, and after 2 more train changes I arrived, dripping slightly. A nice black suit combined with sweltering temperatures and a degree of lateness is not ideal, and as I rushed round the corner to their offices, I sipped the final swig of water before bumping into Jo Brand. Unusual, I thought. As I was staring at her, dishevelled, panting and unkempt (me, not her), a man started singing Opera extremely loudly from a balcony to my left, before being bundled inside by two men hiding behind a small balcony-based bush.
I wouldn’t have been surprised at this point if Jeremy Beadle, freshly reincarnated, popped out from behind a car with a microphone in his small hand, grinning inanely. As it was, I had to get on with things and, barely skipping a beat, carried on round the corner.
The rest of the day, thankfully, was less eventful. Apart from the man on stilts, but that’s another story.
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Bye bye Mark and Julia…
My friends Mark and Julia left for South Africa yesterday, and they’re clearly bonkers. South Africa, as I’m sure you know, is just beside Zimbabwe, the Worst Country In The World ™. It is also home to Johannesburg, proclaimed as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. We all met on Saturday at The Woolpack in Bermondsey Street to wish him and Julia well. Apparently they could be anything between 3 months and 2 years. I’m guessing that it may be sooner rather than later…
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
The Beautiful Game
Football, frankly, has never been my thing. From the early beginnings of my football experience, cold and shivering on a rock-hard football pitch at school with many other more naturally-talented football schoolfriends weaving their barely-formed skills around my big feet, I have never been a football fanatic. As far as I see it, a ball gets kicked around a pitch for 90 minutes, and it *might* go in a goal once or twice. Meanwhile, the sideshow involves who can fake injuries the best to get undeserved penalties. Where’s the fun in that?
My good friend Jac was always raving about it, and that only cemented my stance even more. Michelle is also a big fan - imagine her bad luck at landing one of the few men in the world that is anti-football. In some strange role-reversal, I sometimes end up being the football widow…
It turns out, however, that I’m not the only one. David Mitchell wrote an awesome article in The Guardian this weekend, expressing his bafflement at football’s enthusiasts. “I want a long rest from a game that never sleeps” expresses my feelings about the Beautiful Game in a way that only he can. Footballers, in my view, should down tools and take up a more worthwhile sport.
Like rugby.
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Break a Leg - picture update
So Michelle and I visited Shunta on Sunday night with a surprise takeaway idea, and promptly found that he wasn’t hungry.
Still, Shaun and I pottered down to the local chinese, spotted a dog looking for all the world like it was driving a car (yes, DRIVING A CAR), got the chinese meal , laughed for about 5 minutes - breathless - at the dog again, and drove back. We discussed Lucy’s impending baby, Simon’s complete inability to help her at all, and how Buzz Junior is really quite a good game.
Simon also kindly dug out an x-ray of his leg break, and a fine break it is too…
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Say what you need to say
A song I’ve grown to love from the very first time I heard it 15 minutes ago (!) - “Say” by John Mayer.
Disclaimer: I actually first heard it on Alex’s site.
Disclaimer: In fairness, Jac has been raving about John Mayer for ages, but I callously ignored him…
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Break a leg
“Simon was playing football today,” Shaun told me in hushed tones. “He’s broken his leg in three places and is in the Royal Surrey.” The was a moment’s pause. If I’m honest, I was waiting for a punchline - The Hunter brothers are notoriously hilarious, and this could well have been another in a long line of pranks.
But, unfortunately, it wasn’t. Simon was holed up in the Ewhurst Ward of the Royal Surrey County Hospital, his legs in bits after a swingeing tackle against his Police colleagues. Broken in three places, for crying out loud - he never does anything by halves.
And, as it turned out, the timing leaves something to be desired. In a month’s time, his wife Lucy is due to produce a second child - leaving her with an enormous tummy, one awesomely active child and a one-legged husband. And Simon is due to graduate to full policeman duties - which will now have to be delayed for months.
I’m told Simon produced several top-class jokes while he lay on the football field, dosed up on laughing gas. “I’ve broken my leg in three places”, he told Shaun over the phone. “I’m not going back to those three places again.” He asked his colleagues if he would get sacked from the Police as he “hadn’t got a leg to stand on.” Now he’s at home, feeling a bit down and in need of phone calls and visits. As he mentioned on the phone tonight, “whenever you come, I’m likely to be here.” So, send him emails using this form and phone messages of support if you can. Brighten the little fella’s day.
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
Baldy inspires to the end
Awesome - this is officially the low point in post frequency on wibbler.com! And it’s ironic that it’s another blog’s epic posts that have prompted me into action.
A month or so ago, I watched BBC Breakfast through half-closed eyes, attempting to find the will to get up. A guy of roughly my age was grinning and talking through my haze, and then he mentioned the word “blog”. It is like a technological red rag to a bull for me - this must be about geeky stuff! I sat up and listened.
In fact, it was something much more inspiring than that. Adrian Sudbury, the guy talking, has leukemia. In fact, it’s worse than that - he has two forms of it, running at the same time, making him both unique in the world and one of the unluckiest men I’ve heard of. He had been maintaining a blog all about his experiences, in order to document hope and inspiration for other sufferers when he got better. Unfortunately - very unfortunately - this eloquent, well-meaning guy had just learnt that the fight was over. He was going to die.
He still blogs - in fact, he blogs more than me (not hard), despite the increasing suffering he describes. It’s more inspiring than distressing. The blog is called Baldy’s Blog and it is in turns funny, uplifting, informative and distressing. I urge you to read and subscribe to it - before its too late.
To keep up to date, subscribe to the wibbler.com feed...!
