My World

• DVD, 125 minutes, 12A, 2004

Set in 1950s London, this film tells the story of Vera Drake who, it turns out, as been performing back street abortions, or as she puts it "helping girls out". The story is moving, both in terms of how unwanted pregnancies were a real issue for women from all classes, and also in how Vera and her family respond when the authorities uncover what she has been doing.

Rating: 3/5

Mum made some kind of layered dish out of the left over roast beef, egg, onions, and potatoes. Was excellent. Reminded me of the sausage pie that Penny used to make that also had sliced egg in it. Will have to investigate further, see if I can find some recipes.

Received a letter from the University dated 17th May, informing me that if I don't plan on submitting before 30th June, I need to apply for an extension 6 months in advance. Trouble is, this is all based on my original start date + 4 years, and fails to take into account the 6 month extension I was previously granted.

Looks like somebody couldn't be bothered with all the hassle the first time around and took shortcuts, so now I have to formally apply for an extension. It seems so futile having to chase your own institution to get permission to do something you are doing for their benefit as much as your own.

I've been using ndiswrapper on my two machines at home (euclid and mobius without too much hassle, however after rebooting euclid today, the ndiswrapper kernel module simply failed to start.

The problem turned out to be something to do with some kind of mismatch between the kernel module and the userland utils, although the error message was completely cryptic (as usual). Thankfully I happened to have the source code for the debian packages lying around, so I avoided the usual Catch-22 with getting network drivers.

ahh... that's more like it. Just had a real dose of sunshine whilst having lunch outside. It sucks to be back inside at my desk again.

I think nanoblogger has sufficient potential, and with a bit of tweaking I think I can get something that looks substantially better than my old site, and is much easier to maintain. I'm finding the command line syntax a bit unweildy though. It could be much friendlier....

• Author: Stephen Fry
• 574 pages
• ISBN:0-09-945706-7

I got this book for my birthday from my Sister, and was initially sceptical due to the lead character being a PhD student who is sadly delusioned about how good is thesis is. However, the book is a pretty light read, and has provided more than it's share of escapism. The plot is compelling, and Stephen Fry uses an interesting combination of styles to tell the story.

Rating: 4/5

Well, I've had a rudimentary website since 1996 I reckon, long before the term blog even came into being. I've always been happy to do it the homebrew way, but I thought I'd give something a bit more polished a go. This is nanoblogger which seemed to meet my requirements.
we shall see....