I was in London today, shopping.

Walking from Trafalgar Square, towards Pall Mall there was this really tall women coming towards me and I’m thinking, “hmmmm, you look kind of familiar… oh… wait, you’re Jodie Kidd!” By this time she was right in front of me and we started doing the left, right, left shuffle trying to get past each. She stopped, put on an enormous smile and said, “sorry dear” and stepped past me.

“Quick!” I thought, best get my camera out or nobody is ever going to believe me. I switched it on as quick as I could, but by now she was half way down the street and I managed to get three very out of focus absolutely rubbish photos. If she wasn’t so distinctly tall, it could have been anybody.

I went to the start of the Gumball Rally 3000 (I think that’s where Jodie may have been going too) and did manage to get a few slightly better pictures of some almost D listers. Still, I don’t think I have a future in the paparazzi.

People in England don’t do breakfast meetings. We’re much more likely to do the lunch time pint meeting or the afternoon tea and cake meeting, it’s just the way it’s always been. It may be starting to change though. We have a clubhouse at Hursley that has started serving breakfasts and I’ve now had a couple of team breakfasts down there. It’s been much more social than work related, but still, it makes us feel all important having a power breakfast before walking back to the lab to fix Java bugs and hack together PHP scripts.

I can see it turning into a regular nerd-break-fest with the rest of the people at eight bar.

Why is it that so many small red cars seem to suffer with their paint fading? Vauxhall Corsas seem to get it the worst, though Ford Kas aren’t too far behind. There seems to be a whole batch of them on the road. Maybe Enlgand just has bad atmospheric conditions for red paint, or maybe the distressed look is just in.

Everyone at work is still very into Second Life, they’re all busy building and scripting stuff. It’s all very geeky but kinda fun, they’ve blogged about some of the things they’ve built here. I work with some very smart people. Just wait till Roo and Rob blog about the things they’ve made. Anyway, I’m not really into the scripting/building thing yet, but I did just have another look around and look what I found. A virtual water chute! It’s funny. Ok it’s nerdy and funny.

It just got really warm this weekend, ok Sunday it rained, but it was still warm. This is a little odd as we seemed to have skipped Spring completely. I was trying to do some work and this little chap kept crawling on my keyboard. I’m not sure what it is, but he was a persistent little bug. Look at his jagged little antennae.

I went up North, home for the Easter weekend to stay with the family. We did the normal Shaw family holiday activities, most of which my Dad organises around various pubs, cafes and restaurants he likes.

I did make everyone go to Southport on Saturday for lunch, as it has the best restaurant. Ever. It’s a fish and chip place called, “Chip-A-Hoy” - get it? Now, it may not be the classiest place in the world. Your chances of bumping into P Diddy or Kate Moss here are somewhat remote, but they do the best fish and chips. It’s down a dark back street and you wont find it unless you know where to look. It’s very English, very Northern English, normally full of old people and you can get a meal for about £2. This place is one of the things I miss about being away from home.