Russell Davies

our own little morrisey

Arthur and I were mucking about with the ukulele (which he insists on calling a piano) when he started making up these fantastically odd songs and we started recording them.

He's currently experimenting with micro-tonalities and quite Morrisey-like lyrics ('it's hard when you're five').

What was even more fun was the look on his face when he listened back to himself on the headphones.

MP3

fat controlling

Great excitement in the house today. We got an email from Sir Topham Hatt. We're going to the Thomas The Tank Engine 60th birthday celebrations in a week or so and The Fat Controller himself emailled us with suggestions for the day. More brands should have fictional characters who can email you and cause this much excitement.

out late

My mate Ben took me to see The Chemical Brothers last night. fantastic to see that the Great British public are rejecting all this nonsense about dance being 'over'. The place was packed.

I always like the desultory dancing acts like The Brothers Chemical do - especially when they raise a single arm like a platform inspector announcing the departure of a drum pattern.

the force is strong in this one

more

soft play, vader cake, birthday

Arthur's 5th birthday party today. 5. Already. Blimey. In a big church-hall-like place with lots of big soft-play things. Soft play is a one of those things that's better than it used to be. We didn't have soft play when I was 5, just hard play.

Even at a party for 5-year olds, I end up in the kitchen. Beyond the counter and the parents you can see The Great Custardo working his magic on the kids. A top man. The children adored him.

The Vader cake. This was Sainsbury's response to the Star Wars cake dilemma. We're going to try making a Millennium Falcon cake next week.

You can guess what he's wishing for.

28 channels

Is this getting boring yet? More hotel television - the Crowne Plaza, Schipol.

fun at Schiphol

I'm a big fan of Schiphol. Though I'm there too much at the moment.

This is a Kodak printing machine at the airport. It sits in the corner and intices you with its cheery voice. It even tells you to 'share and enjoy'. Just like a product of the Sirus Cybernetics Corporation.

They have a nice museum, with work from Mondrian and De Stijl.

And who would expect an airport to use words like Meditation and Comfort?

This little WiFi station's nice too. Like an old-fashioned cafe table.

24 channels

Hotel telly - the Krasnapolsky, Amsterdam

on taking a new job

One of the things I’ve noticed about starting a new job is how all disorienting all the little things can be; especially if you’ve been at your previous employ for a long time. You expect all the big things to be different; you’re doing something different with different people in a different place, you’d be a fool not to expect difference. But the little things throw you.

Like the way you lose all your informal status. If you’ve been somewhere for a few years people know you, they know your status, they know what you’re allowed to do and say, they know if they have to listen to you or not. Not in the formal org-charty way, but in the little casual complexities of company life. Yes, you may be in such and such a position, but are you going to be around for a while? Do you matter? Do people listen to you? When you’re new, they don’t know this and they don’t know how to deal with you.

And you don’t know how to operate in you new place, you don’t understand your own informal authority. Again, not the formal systems, but the informal things that you used to know so well; how to get IT to do stuff for you; which meetings are essential, which are disposable; who you should listen to; who you should pretend to listen to; who you should ignore.

As ever it’s the little things that make life interesting.

more fun in camber sands

Doesn't that look like perfect happiness? And here's a little video along the same lines.