People! Bugger off!
Well, I don't mean you, dear blog reader, but it has to be said that this site is becoming a victim of its own success.

Right now, there's 300 people on the bulletin boards and I can almost hear the server creaking and groaning from the strain - and it's situated in Germany!

The irony is that the site's non-profit, no-adverts philosophy continues to attract more people - and as the bandwidth soars every-skywards, it's becoming more difficult to keep it free.

The site relies on the generosity of our web hosts, but I fear their kindness is becoming strained with each pleading email from me saying: "the site's bombed again because of the traffic! can you help?!!"

Fingers crossed for the future....

Café 1 Work 0
It seemed like a good idea: go out for a walk in the spring sunshine and then go to The Lounge café to start work on an article I have to write for Internet Magazine.

It started well too - I got myself a large coffee and busied myself making notes for the article.

But then that café vibe kicked in, and reclining and chilling took over.

So I've barely got past a handful of notes and instead of getting on with work I'm fannying about with my blog. Again.

But I'm glad I'm not home right now - word is that the u75 server is bombing out again and I'm not sure if I can handle the stress of listening to any more 1980s poodle-rock 'on hold' music (let's just say that the server has been a tad unreliable recently).

Do you know how many times I've been forced to listen to Phil Collins this week? More than most mortals can stand, I'll wager....

Is there life on Mars?
David Bowie sang a good song about it back in the Seventies, but NASA scientists are reporting that the presence of methane on Mars could actually signal life.

Methane can only live for a short time in the Martian atmosphere which means the gas must be constantly replenished - and that only leaves two options:
1. active volcanoes (none of which have been found yet on Mars)
2. microbes
BBC

Great time-waster!
Bored at work? Check out the Yeti Sports Penguin-throwing game - version THREE!

Today's techie-spod site of the day!
Check out this anorakfull site, stuffed full of screen grabs of old computer operating systems.

I've already gazed longingly at the old Amiga screengrabs (ny first ever computer) and then shuddered at the memory of battling with Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

There's also a really interesting (no, really!) page full of computer icons...

A trip to Shepherd's Bush
The Actionettes were performing again tonight, this time in the fabulous elegance of the Bush Hall, a beautifully restored Edwardian music hall, fashioned in the French Renaissance style of architecture.



The evening was put together for contributors to some obscure 'all girl groups' mailing list to get together, and the web-gathered crowd was suitably offbeat, with a wide array of quirky hairstyles, baldies, oldies, hipsters, mullets and oddball outfits on show.



It was rather a curious thing to see people sitting around tables munching on snacks while the Actionettes did their thing - at times it felt a bit like a wedding reception!



The Actionettes did two sets, and although the 'relaxed', near-horizontal audience were loathe to leave the comfort of their padded seats, the dancers got a warm reception and a few members of the crowd dared to shake a leg by the end.



Just before we departed (with haste) to hot foot it down the Uxbridge Road to catch the last tube home, I felt obliged to capture my drinking chums. From right to left: Ilona, Eme and "an urban75 stalker" :)

Oh, and one last thing: the Slacker of the Week Award goes to Tim "no show" Fowler! Poor show fella!

Hanging out in Brixton
After my failed mission to sort out a new pair of pants, I returned to Brixton to check out a fund raising benefit for the Stockwell Skate Park. The skate park is just outside of Brixton (by the Academy) and is a much used resource for local kids.



Despite the stunningly obvious logic of local community resource = kids off the streets, the park has been struggling to raise much-needed cash to resurface the cracking tarmac.



Much as I wish the park every success, it's not too exciting watching people whirr around in circles, so we took a look in the nearby Brixton Cycles Co-Op (one of the finest cycle shops in London) before adjourning to The Lounge for a coffee with the chatty hatboy and the lovely Martine. And big up u75 boardster Jackdaw! :)

I would go out tonight...
Shopping for clothes? God I hate it! As anyone who knows me will testify, I'm not exactly Mr Fashion, but I try and dress vaguely in tune with the decade I'm living in.

But what to wear? I'm in desperate need of some new jeans, but I don't fancy paying £60 for the privilege. I don't want jeans with an arse around my ankles, neither do I want a pair that have been artificially 'distressed' or given some weird, muddy 'worn' look.

In fact, I know exactly what I want - another pair of the cheap Carhaart jeans that I'm currently wearing. The only trouble is that I got them from New York two years ago and I haven't been back since. Bah!

A trip....north of the river!
Being a dyed in the wool Brixtonite, I always feel mighty uncomfortable when I'm asked to venture north of the river, but tonight I made an extra big effort to haul my south London-loving arse up to the bleak northern territories of Stoke Newington (heck the place hasn't even got a tube station!!!)

After preparing myself for the journey with a comforting pint or two in the Albert, I embarked on the journey to Green Lanes, Stoke Newington to a lesbian bar/club called, 'Lower the Tone' in The Oak Bar.



I'd been lured up north to see The Actionettes perform and - happily - it was well worth the journey. They went down a storm with the lively, up-for-it crowd.



The bar was packed (it was the club's second birthday) and although the DJing perhaps wasn't the most discerning I'd ever heard, with such a warm and friendly crowd, it didn't really matter.



The Actionettes put in a lively set that had the predominantly female crowd a-whooping with joy. An all girl crowd can make quite a noise!



We stayed for a few beers and a shuffle ("Mirror Man": Human League - respect!) before contemplating the
expected unspeakable horrors of getting back to base camp Brixton at 1am.

Fortunately, we managed to grab a taxi in minutes and were driven back to the welcoming confines of south London at amber-light-jumping speed, courtesy of an impossibly large Turkish driver.

All things considered, it was a good night. North Londoners - check it out!

Tonight's pre-pub sonic delights!
Franz Ferdinand: "Take Me Out"
The Smiths: "Boy With a Thorn In His Side"
New Order: "Ceremony"
The Stills: "Lola Stars and Stripes"
The Who: "Cut My Hair" (from Quadrophenia)

The horrors of 'on hold'
Unhappily, as a result of the urban75 server becoming flakier than Cadbury's finest, I've found myself becoming heavily acquainted with telephone 'on hold' music and I can't say my life has been enriched by the experience.

My German server host seems to favour a particularly poor line in mid 80s stadium rock, serving up a diet of excruciatingly bad poodle rock that makes five minutes on hold seem like an eternity.

Perhaps it's a tactic to make callers give up: after all, what kind of man can sustain eight solid minutes of Phil Collins?

Spanking new 'urban75 updates & blog' page launched!
For too long, the blog was hidden away, only accessible by clicking on a tiny link lurking at the top of the page. Even if people found the link, they'd only get a measly little pop up window for their efforts.

But all that is going to change as I slowly unveil the brand-spanking-new urban75 blog/ site updates combo page!

Oh yes indeedy! Now all the info about site updates, new features, new photos and, of course, blog updates will all be tucked up tight on an information-tastic new page, with a new top bar icon to tempt urban75 surfers!

It's going to take a while to get it all sorted as I have to go through the entire site and manually update every single page: and that's going to take an eternity (the bulletin boards - being database driven - have already been updated), although the usually sharp-eyed u75 community don't seem to have noticed it yet.

Still, I'm making a start, and if you're still squinting away at the bijou pop-up box, click here for the full size version!

London showers
It's a windy, Spring day in London and I've been enjoying another of my mighty cross-town walks.

I got the tube to Warren Street, walked along Tottenham Court Rd (sneaking a peek at the glittering array of tempting 8 megapixel new cameras), grabbed a coffee at the Photographer's Gallery and then trotted over Waterloo Bridge to Southwark for a meeting.

An hour later, I was back on the move, ambling back through Covent Garden and finally managing to secure a decent pair of walking boots (I've been after a good, sturdy pair for years, but had found the prices waaaay too exorbitant).

Luckily, the Karrimor shop on The Strand was closing down and I managed to get a fab pair of Karrimor GoreTex hiking boots (Karrimor KSB 300 GTX) for £50 - less than half price!

Suitably chuffed with my bargain, I popped into the National Portrait Gallery to check out an exhibition called, 'We The People - postcards from the collection of Tom Phillips' and features postcard scenes from 1900-1950.



The exhibition shows hundreds of fascinating slices of long-disappeared British life, with images of scouts, soldiers, sportsmen, salvationists and charabanc-riding day trippers and more.

It's also interesting to note how perceptions and society has changed: the section showing male friends arm in arm definitely reads differently to the modern eye!

I was also intrigued by a turn-of-the century newsagent shop bearing the headline, 'Disguised man shot in London music hall'. I think I might have to investigate this story further!

Later on, I strolled up to Rays Jazz Café for a cappuccino and to plug into the free internet wi-fi hotspot listed on WiFiHotSpotList.com.

After several moments looking like a demented Magnus Pike waving my Sony TH55 PDA around in the air, I gave up and decided to connect (expensively) to the web via the bluetooth on my mobile. And you're now reading the results!

Odd stat attack!

Some oddball facts for your delectation...

Germs – where they lurk
Microbes per square inch:
Phone earpiece 25,127
Desk surface 20,961
Keyboards 3,295
Mouse 1,676
Fax machine 301
Photocopier 69
Lavatory seat 49

When technology bites back!
- accidents caused by technology
cookers, ovens 15681
tv 11523
telephones 10644
vacuums 9785
irons 6614
wash mach 4941
saucepans 4629
fridge 4394
hi fi/radios 4062
light bulbs 3476
vcr 1326
tapes,disks cass 840
(uk hospital admissions 1988)

Ban cars? Terrible accident on Brixton Hill tonight.
(my rant posted on the bulletin boards last night)

There's too many emotions spinning through my head right now to construct a coherent post, so i'll describe what happened instead: me, Eme and Han were walking down Brixton Hill after a fabulous, friendly and fun night at PROD (at the Windmill).

Half way down the hill, I noticed a speeding silver car accelerating so fast up the hill that I muttered to myself, "wanker".

Two seconds later we heard a massive 'crump' and turned around to see the silver car smashing into the shop frontage next to the old cinema, sparks coming off the car and acrid smoke filling the air.

The car had smashed, head on, into a black car coming down the hill which (I think) was stopped at the red light. It looked like he'd jumped a red light, swerved to avoid a car coming from the left, hit the black car and bounced into the shop.

Huge sparks continued to come from the wheels of the silver car that, initially suggesting that the driver was trying to make an escape. I rang the police as we walked up to the car.

Before I'd finished the call, the police were there, anxiously smashing the crashed car's windows open: apparently the speeding driver was seriously injured. Moments later, I heard one cop ask the other "is he still breathing?". I didn't hear his response.

So here's why I feel such a mix of emotions. If han hadn't been with us, we may well have been walking on the side of the road that the driver smashed into. In fact, had we left a few moments after, the car could have hit us.

Much as I hate to see any human suffering, a part of me has no sympathy whatsoever for the driver. He was hurtling up Brixton Hill so fucking fast that he may as well been waving a knife around and threatening pedestrians. He clearly didn't give a fuck.

But another part of me wants to rant and get angry about the whole fucking car industry that promotes fast cars. Why should any car need to be able to accelerate so fast?

Why should it be acceptable that cars can go so ridiculously fast? They're fantastic tools for transporting people, but why the need for dangerously high speeds?

Cars pollute. Cars can destroy village life and separate communities. Cars are noisy. Cars kill children. The car industry encourages people to drive faster.

There's no denying that cars are useful things, but as oil reserves dwindle, is it right that car culture is still aggressively promoted?

Maybe the speeding twat tonight was just another victim of smooth, persuasive advertising that convinced him that driving fast made him a bigger man. Maybe peer pressure dictated that driving recklessly marked him out as a big man. Or maybe he was just another drunk driver.

Fuck, I'm too angry and upset to be able to offer a coherent argument...

More bloody records
Once again, I was unable to resist the lure of the fabulous FOPP records store in Covent Garden.

I've never managed to leave this excellently-curated, cut-price record store without at least five CDs under my arm, and now that I'm running my own club - and valiantly battling with my limited DJ skills - I've been given all the excuses I need to keep on buying CDs!

At least I managed to restrict myself to just five CDs. This time!

Dark Side of the 80s (double CD for a fiver stuffed full of goth/alt rock gems like The Mission, Pixies. The Fall, Zodiac Mindwarp, Cure, Cult etc)
Teenage Kicks (another cheapo double CD rammed to the brim with fantastic post punk/underground tunes; Velvets, Ian Dury, Stranglers, Undertones, Aswad, Jam, Slits etc)
Generation 80s (a bit tacky, but only a fiver and redeemed by including Frankie's 'Relax', Associates, XTC and the Redskins)
Grandaddy: 'Sumday' (I've recently rediscovered their fab 'Sophtware Slump' CD. They seem to have a thing about mis-spelt titles)
Franz Ferdinand (I'd been avoiding them because of the hype,. but heard a song and was hooked)

Walking through the West End
Today I had to take a series of 360 degree panoramas around Paddington for a client, and boy was the security badgers-arse tight around the station!

Each panorama needs around 16 photos to be taken from the same spot, and I felt very conspicuous swivelling around holding a chunky Sony717 camera, so I decided to use my super-compact and ultra discrete Sony F77DX instead.

I had to photograph a route from Paddington station to Edgware Road and it was a nightmare trying to capture a scene at the busy junction between Praed Street and Edgware Road.

When you're creating a panorama, you need to avoid photographing moving objects as they make it really hard to create a seamless 'stitch' (so if a street is full of rapidly moving cars it's going to be impossible to get the two 'ends' of a panorama to match up).

I had to spend ages lurking on a traffic island looking for a break in the traffic (looking very suspicious in the process) and I'm not sure if I was successful in capturing this last panorama, but I'll be going through all the photos tomorrow - all 200 of them!

Tech note: the panoramas are stitched together using iseemedia software. You can see hundreds of my panoramas here.

I fancied a walk afterwards, so I trekked all the way from Paddington to Leicester Square - and what a lovely walk it was too!

Living in grimy south London it's easy to think the entire city must be covered in graffiti, but I barely saw a single tag during my entire walk - just street after street of well preserved Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian houses and bijou mews.

Walking through London rules....

A late night test!
Checking out my new Sony Clie TH55 with its funky new wi-fi feature!

Dreadful link of the Day
If u lik txting u'll luv this: Ellie's Journal

What a hangover!
I'm still recovering after night's Offline party at the Brixton Ritzy: see the pictures here

It was the first time I've put the club on a Saturday night, but it went really well and the late licence meant more drinking time and more DJs - and the PA system managed to behave itself too!

And if that wasn't enough to make it a fab weekend, Cardiff City's unexpected 2-1 defeat of league leaders Norwich most certainly was! Woohoo!

Tonight is Offline night!
Tonight I'm putting on the second Offline Club night at the Brixton Ritzy. The first one went really well, but I always get nervous beforehand. What if no-one turns up?! What if they boo my terrible DJing skills?! Thankfully, these doubts usually disappear after a few beers!

Site update: I've just finished posting up my photo-report on my trip up the BT Telecom Tower.

Domain Registry of America: dodgy SCAMMERS!
I've just received two official looking letters from the Domain Registry of America telling me that the various urban75 domains are up for renewal and failure to do so could result in the 'loss of my online identity'.

And that's bullshit.

These dodgy letters are clearly designed to panic inexperienced users into filling in the form and switching to their (over-priced) domain hosting (the form asks for credit card details, natch).

A search through Usenet reveals that these tossers have been trawling the internet registries and spamming domain owners en masse: so be warned if you receive one of these letters!

Oh look! I notice they've included two return envelopes.

Now, what shall I send them in return for their 'offer'.... ;)

More photos!
I haven't had time to post up the pics from the BT Tower today, but I've just managed to finish off a new 60-photo section called, Brixton: Signs and Graffiti...

Spun out!
There's no question about it- it was worth enduring the swivel-action presentation for the ride to the top of the BT Tower!

I've wanted to go up there for years - ever since I was a kid, in fact - and to experience the floor rotating was an unexpected treat (apparently, they don't get the thing revved up that often).

Even better, there was a top freebie in the giveaway pack at the end of the presentation - a 128 meg USB memory stick! Respect!

Next stop was a quick coffee in the Photographers Gallery before walking to Waterloo and Southwark to take some commissioned panoramas in the f-f-freezing cold (it even speckled with snow for a few minutes, but - sadly - there were no big snowdrifts coming my way)

I used my 'big' camera (the Sony F717) to take six separate panoramas (each one one is comprised of about 15 shots, photographed in a big circle) but found the man sized zoom lens and 'tech' silver finish attracted far more attention than the pocket sized FX77 camera I normally use.

That last thing you want to do is to start catching people's eyes when you're swivelling around taking panoramas, so my next camera will definitely be smaller. And black!

Powerpoint-tastic!
Pie charts! Flow charts! Statistics! Strap lines! Lots of blokes in suits!



Yep, I'm at an industry presentation and the air is alive with buzz words.

We're talking 'convergence', 'empowerment', 'communications paradigm','vibrant choice', 'synergies', 'integrated marketplaces', 'call stimulation effect', 'intuitive possibilities', 'monetised content', 'revolutionary platforms'' and 'focused multimedia strategies'.

What does it all mean? Who knows! So why am I here? That's easy - the conference is taking place in the BT Tower - a building I've been trying to get inside for years!

And now I'm enjoying some top quality, freebie posh food in the revolving restaurant on the 34th floor. Woohoo!



(Both pics taken with the built in camera on my Sony Clie NX70V palm pilot)

Coffee in the Lounge
I'm currently relaxing on the deep leather sofa in The Lounge and giving this mo:Blog Palm blogging software its first 'road test'.

So far, its looking like the best Palm blogging tool I've tried yet, although it's not without its quirks (thankfully, the author seems open to new ideas on how to improve the program - and I've been pestering him with my ideas already!).

To add pictures to my blog, I'm using the built in camera on my Sony NX70V palm pilot to grab the shots, tweaking the exposure using Resco viewer and then uploading the image to my server using the freeware ezFTP client.

It's all a bit fiddly,

And here's an idle reflection: up until now I was against the banning of smoking in public places. However, after enduring a face-full of Woodbines for the past 10 minutes I'm not so sure!

Testing a new app!
I'm doing a review of Palm blogging tools, and this is my first test with mo:Blog

So far so good!

Sniff...snivel...
Arse! I've got a bit of a cold a-looming and it's made me a bit too lethargic for my liking.

I was hoping to add a few new photo sections and get to work on the huge backlog in my Brixton photos section, but at least I've finally managed to redesign the photos homepage, adding a short new section on Human Billboards.

In my nose-blowing, grouchy mood, I've been pottering around on my palm pilot and finally worked out how to upload pictures on my Sony Clie NX70 and then include them in this blog.

My test photo was of my sock, so I figured it wouldn't be worth keeping - but expect some proper outdoor photo blogging soon!

Simultaneously inspired and depressed!
I took a look through the art books at Shipley's on Charing Cross Road (formerly known as Zwemmers) and got both inspired and depressed by Chris Ware's 'Acme Novelty Datebook: Sketches and Diary Pages in Facsimile 1986-1995'.

Chris Ware is the cartoon genius behind Jimmy Corrigan and his Acme Novelty Datebook is a collection of smudged illustrations, wry observations, half finished ideas, short strips and witty sketches from his sketchbooks.

And it's good. Bloody good! Such a body of work can only inspire, but the depressing bit came when I looked at my pitifully under-used sketchbook when I got home. It's crap! I felt completely 'umbled!

Truth is, I've barely used a sketch book for ages and reading through Ware's book makes me realise how much I used to enjoy sketching.

When you're sketching a scene, you can become completely immersed in what's going on around you - the architecture, the light, passing people's faces, the sounds and the weather - and it can be a great feeling. Time flies by and you're left with a really strong memory of a certain point in your life.

Heck, it doesn't even matter if the end result is crap - like a lot of things, it can be the sheer joy of just doing that makes the experience worthwhile...

(Mike makes note to self: must sketch more!)

Knackered!
Phew! The last 24 hours have been a bit hectic.

First off, I had to write a late night review of the free Mozilla Firefox browser and I was more than a tad impressed; fast, lean and sporting an intuitive tabbed interface with a set of features that may finally threaten Microsoft's dominance.

Then I had to put together a set of designs and ideas for a client pitch meeting today.

Now, I'm not into this 'pitching' business - almost all of my web design work has come from clients hiring me directly, so I've never done any of this flip-chart bollocks - and I never want to either!

Instead, all I can do is tell 'em straight what I can with their site and hope for the best!

Fingers crossed!

CDs currently enjoying 'heavy rotation' in Chez Urban75:
The Stills: Logic Will Break Your Heart
Tom Waits: Closing Time
Boo Hewerdine: Baptist Hospital
Roddy Frame: Surf
Snow Patrol: Final Straw
Innocence Mission: Birds of our Neighbourhood

Happy St David's Day!
(Or, as we say in Wales, Dydd Dewi Sant)

There's lovely for you, isn't it?!

Check out our Interactive Map of Wales!