A quietish weekend. Friday I went go-karting and then took a trip to Silverstone to watch some cars going round and round a track. Surprisingly, considering I have never watched a Formula 1 race, the behind the scenes bit was fun. One of my company’s brand is sponsoring the Mercedes McLaren team come August and we went to have lunch and take a very close look in the pits at the team in action during one of the test days for the cars at Silverstone. Take a look at my photos if you are interested in fast cars. We got really close to the cars and must have spent a good few hours watching them come and go from the pits. A never realised how LOUD the cars are, or how small they are. The cars are tiny and it appears the race drivers are, taking a look at both Juan Pablo Montoya or Kimi Riakkonen who looked very small compared to some of the pits team. And then, as I was half way there, went up to see the parents to fix a computer problem and have a restful weekend doing nothing.

My parent’s left earlier than expected, so I spent most of yesterday doing spring cleaning. The rubbish is easy – boxes and stuff that just add clutter. Clothes are a little harder, but I’m trying to set a rule – if I have not worn in a year, out it goes. But the most difficult are the books. I’m quite comfortable geting rid of the ‘holiday reads’, the random books, often thrillers, I buy in airports to keep me amused whilst travelling. But for some reason, it’s difficult to get rid of the really old stuff. I had a box of books I bought as a child (prices starting at 40p, 50p or 75p) which for some reason my mother had kept and then presented back to me when I moved somewhere (here or Amsterdam, I can’t remember. They are all childrens stores, mainly horse stories; today I could read them in about 40 minutes. But it’s funny, I picked then up and I remembered these stories, most of which I probably have not read for over 20 years. I can also recall more of who I was at that time; so getting rid of them is a wrench from childhood. But they’re going, next trip to the recyclers. And I’ll carry filling up the gaps with more books and more toys.

My mother has an interestng job sometimes. Starting off a nurse, she’s moved slowly more towards the social aspects of that role. She usually has some funny or scary tales to tell and today there was one that can be shared. It started off with her team lead deciding that the place needs a tidy and all the paperwork around the office needed to be tidied and filed, so that in no way could it construed as a Health and Safety risk. So he personally started to remove things, put them in boxes and take them to the archives. In the process, he lost the box of condoms which normally sits in the drawers. They’ll find them again; eventually. So as part of the clean up, Mom decided she would get some shelves put up in a cupboard next to her desk. Off she went to measure up (or at least to look, I think a tape measure would be going to far) and opened the door, to find, of all things, a full size coffin standing upright in the cupboard. Luckily, it was empty, otherwise I think there could have been some questions asked. On emailing the whole team, it turned out that the coffin belonged to policemen who were running a road safety campaign – it’s a prop for their roadshows. The reason for it being in the cupboard – “there was nowhere else to put it”. The shelves are organised and the police are looking for somewhere else to put the coffin when they arrivce. Meanwhile, it’s being used as a coat stand!

Lots of things to write about, just little time. My parents are visting and don’t quite get blogs or anything like that. So need to wait until they are gone. Meanwhile wander over to the photostream and take a look at some photos from a wedding I was at yesterday.

It’s going to be the hottest day of the year in the south today, with predicted temperature reaching 28-30 C. So I’m guessing that in the usual British tradition of failing to predict autumn leaves on the line or the impact of snow and ice on the roads we’ll be completely unprepared. The Tube lines and trains will have their heaters on and the buildings will not have the air conditioning set up correctly. It’s going to be an uncomfortable day.

can you say any more?

Whilst the US Homeland Security has signed a deal with Websense to provide anti-spyware software, one legal interpretation on The Register concludes that it may be illegal in the US to install anti-spyware as it breaches an assumed contract. More work for the lawyers.