Listing things.

I have seen people before blogging a month of a certain thing, for instance YouTube videos of songs they like, or classic albums, or favourite films.

I am thinking what I could do a month of blogging about. I am not up to date enough with music to really pull off the songs thing, would be pretty boring to have a month of James Taylor and Jackson Browne songs. I used to watch a lot of films, but have only seen a few this year, I read books, but at a rate slower than most primary school children (although to be fair Dr Seuss and The Very Hungry Caterpillar are pretty quick reads).

So what could I blog about? Could I manage 30 days of podcasts? 30 Days of beers? 30 Days of cheese?

Any other ideas for me?

While you are thinking here is some Jackson Browne...

Bucking the trend.

When Ivonne said that she had got a job in Aylesbury I was not even sure where it was. The internet told me that it was in Buckinghamshire, and other than Buckingham I could not have told you one other town in that county.

If you type "Aylesbury is..." into Google the suggested search "Aylesbury is a dump" is at number four of its suggestions.*

Now that I have lived in Buckinghamshire for nearly 9 months I can list a dozen towns in the county without too much thought (although I do sometimes get confused where the borders of Hertfordshire start).

Now that I have been in Aylesbury for the same period I have to agree with Google's suggestion that the place is a dump.

Harsh maybe, it certainly has some lovely parts in the old town, the new theatre is a splendid structure and there are a couple of half decent pubs. The main reasons people give for living in Aylesbury is that it is cheap to live in, and that transport is good. Neither seem compelling reasons for loving a place though, low rent and being easy to get out of are not exactly great selling points.

But it is not all bad, in fact after less than a year living here I have become rather attached to the area, not Aylesbury itself, which I would happily never visit again, but the surrounding towns and villages.

Great Missenden

I spent a happy morning in Tring Natural History Museum, and a happy afternoon wandering in Tring park, I have made 3 return visits to Wendover and Coombe Hill, Great Missenden is like a chocolate box village and a shrine to my literacy hero Roald Dahl, many evenings have been spent chatting with new friends at a pub in High Wycombe, the Chiltern Brewery is a great visit and it has a fine range of ales... and the list goes on.

Tring Park (Technically in Herts, I told you I get confused).

In fact when my parents came to visit a few weeks ago I felt a certain pride in showing them the sights, the Chilterns are as beautiful as any countryside in the West Country, and if anything more 'English' in its feel, and you get a free display of Red Kites thrown in for free!

Today maybe cemented the fact that I could settle here, on the train to Amersham today I bumped into one of my colleagues, and on the way home bumped into another colleague from another branch on the platform. Bumping into people I know was something that only happened in Exeter, and now it is happening here too. I am becoming a local.

In reality we will probably move on sometime in the next 9 months, work will dictate our location for quite a while yet, but perhaps I will move somewhere else that I have never heard of, and have a new range of places to explore and people to bump into?

Near Wendover Woods

*As an aside if you repeat the same with "High Wycombe is..." then "a dump" is the top suggested search.

You say it best...

Last night we went for a splendid curry with people from work (Chilli Masala, strangely lacking in green chilies, but still very nice). A few of us then went out and hit the town (well, went to The Bell in Aylesbury) and chatted about things that grown ups should know better than to talk about after a few drinks. (Politics, Religion and Work). The lively and loud conversation/arguments resulted in me waking up with a sore throat and no voice.

This has been fine on the whole, luckily I Sunday does not require much of me on the voice front. It was odd walking into town with Ivonne earlier in silence though, felt like we had had some sort of row.

So I have quietly spent the day reading the Observer, reading the month before lasts Wired magazine (interesting articles on the loan company Wonga, the rise of Andriod OS, and how Chernobyl has affected the local ecosystem).

Also watched many, many hours of touring cars on the TV.

I now just hope my voice returns for tomorrow, could be awkward at work if not.

Things I have seen around Aylesbury (Part Two)

Two shopping trolleys mating.

Things I have seen around Aylesbury (Part One)

Looks like the recent Aylesbury meeting of the Woody Allen Look-a-like association did not end well.

The end of the line.

Amersham is the end of the line, literally. When you go north out of London and run out of tube line then you are in Amersham. It almost has its own zone, Zone 9, shared only with Chesham.

For the next couple of weeks I will be working there, it is a fairly unremarkable place, but a change is as good as a rest (so they say, but give me a rest any day). It also gives me a chance to pretend to be a Londoner and read the Metro on the train on the way to work.

I do love this old clock at the station, the sort of clock lovers meet under in films.

Oh, and it is so posh it has a Waitrose and an M&S Simply Food practically next to each other.

A short history of blogging by me. By me.

Picture yourself back in the year 1992.

How Vain.

To think that anyone would care about you enough to want to read your diary, other than perhaps your parents and girlfriend. All those thoughts, all those little things you do each day that are of no real consequence - in 1992 they all stay firmly in your head, and only occasionally spill out in words, perhaps after a few drinks or written in a secret black book hidden under your bed.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and we have Twitter, each and every thought can be broadcast instantly on a mobile device in the place that you thunk it.

Rewind about 10 years again and we find ourselves in 2002, for me this is blogging year zero. Encouraged by many friends, especially Dave Walker, of Cartoon Blog and Wibsite fame, I started up my own blog, Neil's Slightly Random Wiblog.

I had already played about with websites for a few years, Neil's Slightly Random Webpage, first in a geocities form, then moved onto a real server. The long dead (and seemingly un-archived) site contained a few reviews of CDs I liked, and a few links to things I did. I updated it at least twice a year.

I liked blogging much more though, the instantness of it, people being able to leave feedback, and not having to worry about the technical side of things. My first blog post, in July 2002, read Someone just walked by whose mobile phone ringtone was set to "We wish you a Merry Christmas", Seasons Greetings!

I continued this blog for 6 years, and for a variety of reasons decided it was time to set up a new blog, exeblog, a blog themed around my home town of Exeter. This ran for just over 2 years, and then we decided to move to Aylesbury, making a blog about Exeter a little difficult for me to update. It was retired September last year, I may revive it if I move back.

Other than the blog that runs alongside the Words Fail Me Podcast. I have been blogless since September, the void filled by microblogging at my Twitter account and the timewasting sensation that is Facebook.

But here I am again, a new generically named blog with no real purpose other than being a space that has my name on it.

How vain of me.