Twang!

You gotta love GMail. Whilst sending a mail asking for advice on String manipulation in Java, I noticed that the sponsored ads gave me a link to a "Professional female string quintet" for hire and another to a site offering "Micro String Bikinis".

Of course, I put two and two together...

Are you *still* there

Thought I might knock out a quick post, just to see if it still works.

On little boys, herding cats and too many sweets

I spent a few happy hours on Saturday taking Sam and six of his mates to the cinema for Sam's birthday treat. I didn't manage to lose any of them, in spite of their very best efforts. Every few seconds they seemed to perform a co-ordinated "bomb burst" maneouvre - the phrase "herding cats" springs readily to mind.

I"m pleased to report, however, that I managed to make two of them sick by taking an overly relaxed approach to the number of sweets they were allowed to eat. Bertie threw up on the station platform after turning several different shades of green and white. Harvey saved it until he got home, which is technically out of my control: his mother reported that it was mainly chocolate based.

I suggest that you don't bother to see Arthur and the Invisibles – load of old tripe!

A daughter - Charlotte Williams Rose

Cathy and I are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl who was born at 01:16 this morning in The Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford. She weighs in at a might 9lbs (or 4.090 kilos if you're that way inclined). We haven't chosen a name yet but you'll be amongst the first to know when we do. Here's a photo to be going on with (there are a few more in my Flickr photostream over here on the right).

Last post

I haven't posted for ages because I've been a bit busy learning some Java - so...

public class HappyNewYear {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Happy New Year");

}

}

Impressed?

Suggest us up

With only two months to go until the scheduled arrival date of the next Neveratoss junior our shortlist of potentail names is erm… short. We don't know the sex of the baby yet but, if it's any help, the witches covens in both Haslemere and up London have a "feeling" that it will be a girl: we had three magpies in the garden the other day which just about clinches for them. Sam is convinced that we're having a boy and that he will be called Elvis. I'm convinced that it will be either a girl or a boy.

We need some suggestions, which is where you, dear reader, come in. Suggest away.

I'd better put me SQL hat on then…

We're loading an iSeries database from a bunch of flat files. One of the flat files contains duplicate records which cause a constraint problem on the database. This is rather handy...

delete from FILE a
where rrn(a) >
(select min(rrn(a))
from FILE b
where b.KEY = a.KEY)

The shortest distance from A to Beer

I came across a rather good site yesterday (via The Obvious). Walk it helps you plan a walking route in London. Fantastic for someone like me whose preferred means of transport around our capital is "Shanks' Pony". The site is still in its infancy but I predict good things. As Simon points out, it’s only a matter of time before it gets snapped up by those nice boys at Google so that we can all plan a stroll from anywhere in the USA to anywhere in the USA.

I'm meeting Simon for beers this evening (join us if you like): we’ve already planned out repective routes to The Anchor and Hope. I suspect that after a couple of pints of Wife Beater, Simon and I will be starting the initial design phase of Stagger it: a site which will plan the most indirect staggering route between two points in London, ensuring that you miss your last train home. For a small subscription fee it will also arrange for someone to spill chilli sauce down your shirt and wee on your shoes.

ERROR - Please fix

I just received the best ever error message...

Message . . . . : DATABASE ERROR in file , key , in , at