Apr 2004
30 April 2004 @ 20:38 in Work
I have just been invited to Cannes for a two-day
unveiling of 'a new digital concept' in June.
It's being held at Pierre Cardin's mansion, and the man himself will apparently be in attendance (wonder how much the company have paid him for all this?) along with the requisite gaggle of supermodels.
So: sun, sand, Cannes, supermodels.
Must. Lose. Weight.
It's being held at Pierre Cardin's mansion, and the man himself will apparently be in attendance (wonder how much the company have paid him for all this?) along with the requisite gaggle of supermodels.
So: sun, sand, Cannes, supermodels.
Must. Lose. Weight.
30 April 2004 @ 18:27 in Life
You get a better class of checkout assistant in Marks
and Spencer.
My lady today (and this broad was the definition of lady), who must have been in her fifties, had a full head of dyed hair and huge Coco Chanel specs.
My lady today (and this broad was the definition of lady), who must have been in her fifties, had a full head of dyed hair and huge Coco Chanel specs.
30 April 2004 @ 05:13 in Media
29 April 2004 @ 03:41 in Work
We missed our publisher so much... 
(And yes, we were perfectly aware that 'back' is spelled incorrectly. It's a welcome back gift to her, as she will adore proofing it for us. My suggestion of adding a giant Post-it® note was greeted with enthusiasm but was considered to be taking the piss just that bit too much...)
(And yes, we were perfectly aware that 'back' is spelled incorrectly. It's a welcome back gift to her, as she will adore proofing it for us. My suggestion of adding a giant Post-it® note was greeted with enthusiasm but was considered to be taking the piss just that bit too much...)
29 April 2004 @ 03:09 in Life
I do of course love Palnackie, but you do have a
better chance spotting celebs in London.
Working in W1 is very enjoyable; there are dozens of restaurants within spitting distance of MacUser (provided you can spit quite far and are happy to walk up to the deck on the sixth floor to give you that extra bit of elevation), we're a stone's throw from Soho and all its pleasures (again, sixth floor for best results) and the place is crawling with C-list celebrities. Sometimes literally.
It can make life a tad hairy. Not long after I had started at Dennis I had popped out for a ridiculously overpriced and underfilled sandwich from any one of the interchangeable achingly trendy sandwich bars around our offices when I saw a figure coming walking towards me on the street. I was sure I knew the guy; tall, white haired, large glasses and a slightly shabby air. But as I drew near I couldn't place him properly but didn't want to appear rude, so gave him a pleasant open smile and a friendly nod of 'recognition'.
He returned my greeting with a faintly bemused and slightly irritated nod of his own, but he was several steps behind me before I realised that I had just tried to imply close personal friendship with Dennis Norden.
A similar thing happened the other night in the torrential rain when I passed one of the Big Brother contestants on the street. He was, you know, the big guy. Asian. Chef. One syllable name.
I can only hope he took my inane grin of greeting as a thoughtful and considered acknowledgement that it certainly was pissing down.
Working in W1 is very enjoyable; there are dozens of restaurants within spitting distance of MacUser (provided you can spit quite far and are happy to walk up to the deck on the sixth floor to give you that extra bit of elevation), we're a stone's throw from Soho and all its pleasures (again, sixth floor for best results) and the place is crawling with C-list celebrities. Sometimes literally.
It can make life a tad hairy. Not long after I had started at Dennis I had popped out for a ridiculously overpriced and underfilled sandwich from any one of the interchangeable achingly trendy sandwich bars around our offices when I saw a figure coming walking towards me on the street. I was sure I knew the guy; tall, white haired, large glasses and a slightly shabby air. But as I drew near I couldn't place him properly but didn't want to appear rude, so gave him a pleasant open smile and a friendly nod of 'recognition'.
He returned my greeting with a faintly bemused and slightly irritated nod of his own, but he was several steps behind me before I realised that I had just tried to imply close personal friendship with Dennis Norden.
A similar thing happened the other night in the torrential rain when I passed one of the Big Brother contestants on the street. He was, you know, the big guy. Asian. Chef. One syllable name.
I can only hope he took my inane grin of greeting as a thoughtful and considered acknowledgement that it certainly was pissing down.
28 April 2004 @ 03:01 in Life
As a nation obsessed with all things meteorological,
we're the first to delight in the traditional
incompetence of weatherman, but Michael Fish and his
colleagues deserve full marks for predicting that the
weather was going to break today.
Quite how dramatic the break was I hadn't picked up, though. Thunder and lightning and a warm torrential downpour the likes of which I haven't seen since I was a kid in Avignon, watching prim French women tottering on chairs to keep their feet dry like mouse-espying refugees from early sixties sitcoms.
It really was quite spectacular, and though I did get soaked just walking from the office to the bus, it actually was pleasant. I did get caught up in a gaggle of squealing middle-aged women on the way to the theatre who were apparently willing to miss the beginning of their show in order that they didn't get their coiffures damp, and who, judging by their hysterical reaction to the weather, had never seen rain before.
They should have followed the example of everyone else on that stretch of Regent St who seemed all to have nipped into Boots to buy the same little black umbrella.
Quite how dramatic the break was I hadn't picked up, though. Thunder and lightning and a warm torrential downpour the likes of which I haven't seen since I was a kid in Avignon, watching prim French women tottering on chairs to keep their feet dry like mouse-espying refugees from early sixties sitcoms.
It really was quite spectacular, and though I did get soaked just walking from the office to the bus, it actually was pleasant. I did get caught up in a gaggle of squealing middle-aged women on the way to the theatre who were apparently willing to miss the beginning of their show in order that they didn't get their coiffures damp, and who, judging by their hysterical reaction to the weather, had never seen rain before.
They should have followed the example of everyone else on that stretch of Regent St who seemed all to have nipped into Boots to buy the same little black umbrella.
27 April 2004 @ 18:17 in Life
I was up so late last night tinkering with this site
that I arrived at work a good bit after 10 o'clock,
which was annoying.
The main reason for the delay wasn't designing the site (that was finished by just after midnight) but trying to troubleshoot the blog-via-IM capabilities of MindSay, the technology behind this site.
One of the neat things about MindSay (and the main reason I decided to use it after Nik told me about it) is the ability to post via an instant messaging client. This means in real terms that it's dead easy for me to update this site just by typing a message in iChat to a particular screenname.
However it's apparently not possible to use it with a .Mac screenname rather than a plain old vanilla AIM address, which I eventually worked out after a couple of hours. It's not actually MindSay's fault; it's an apparent incompatibility between certain AIM/.Mac screennames which seems to be down to Apple.
Don't worry of this confuses the all life out of you. It's all sorted now. The upshot is that, for various reason, anyone who gets in touch with me using IM should be aware that from 1 May I will no longer be using chrisphin@mac.com or macusercdeditor for instant messaging, though the latter will still be my main personal email address. You should alter your address books to include my new IM screenname phinbar2000 which will be in use from 1 May onwards for both personal and business use.
Apologies for the lack of personal news; this will be remedied in later posts.
The main reason for the delay wasn't designing the site (that was finished by just after midnight) but trying to troubleshoot the blog-via-IM capabilities of MindSay, the technology behind this site.
One of the neat things about MindSay (and the main reason I decided to use it after Nik told me about it) is the ability to post via an instant messaging client. This means in real terms that it's dead easy for me to update this site just by typing a message in iChat to a particular screenname.
However it's apparently not possible to use it with a .Mac screenname rather than a plain old vanilla AIM address, which I eventually worked out after a couple of hours. It's not actually MindSay's fault; it's an apparent incompatibility between certain AIM/.Mac screennames which seems to be down to Apple.
Don't worry of this confuses the all life out of you. It's all sorted now. The upshot is that, for various reason, anyone who gets in touch with me using IM should be aware that from 1 May I will no longer be using chrisphin@mac.com or macusercdeditor for instant messaging, though the latter will still be my main personal email address. You should alter your address books to include my new IM screenname phinbar2000 which will be in use from 1 May onwards for both personal and business use.
Apologies for the lack of personal news; this will be remedied in later posts.
27 April 2004 @ 06:07 in Life
To paraphrase Shakespeare and Joe Bloggs rather
neatly in one line, enterprises of great pith and
moment weren't built in a day.
So it is with this online diary. I hope to update it most days so that friends and family everywhere can keep up with what I'm up to in my professional and personal life. In deference to Bloggs' comment, however, it might take some time for the system to get up and running, as I make tweaks to the layout and just generally get things working and looking the way I want them to.
Bear with me and keep checking back, and to those cynics who suggest that this is an sly way to get around writing regular emails or letters to individuals, I have only this to say:
You're right.
So it is with this online diary. I hope to update it most days so that friends and family everywhere can keep up with what I'm up to in my professional and personal life. In deference to Bloggs' comment, however, it might take some time for the system to get up and running, as I make tweaks to the layout and just generally get things working and looking the way I want them to.
Bear with me and keep checking back, and to those cynics who suggest that this is an sly way to get around writing regular emails or letters to individuals, I have only this to say:
You're right.
