Colm's Random Thoughts

Sorting out your Android Battery Life

2010-07-28T20:39:00.011+01:00

I love Android. It's a real operating system, that lets you do proper multitasking, and has a ferocious pace of innovation from both Google and the development community.

It can be tough to keep the battery life up on most Smartphones. With Android, it's tougher. True multitasking means that it's possible for rogue apps to stay active in the background. Android exposes APIs for virtually everything in the phone, including the PowerManager to allow apps to wake it up.

In addition, when you first get your Android phone, you'll install tons of programs, set the update frequency to the max, and soon be very frustrated at your battery life.

This article documents some of the steps, techniques and apps that I've used to increase my battery life.

1. Know what's going on

You'll need to know how fast your battery is draining, and when it's doing so. Install a battery graph. I've used two:

Battery Graph

Simple, does what it says on the tin, easy to read, doesn't drain the battery itself, and can be "always on".

JuicePlotter
JuicePlotter has more information than Battery Graph, including radio state and battery temperature. This gives you a couple of more factors to look at when determining the usage. The big advantage of JuicePlotter, however, is that it has a widget which predicts how long your battery is going to last. This is really useful.

This will give you a basic idea of the rate of drain of your battery, and the times when it increases. You may be able to map this to what you're doing at the time, and what programs you're running.

2. Understanding Awake Time

Android is pretty clever, and tries to minimise battery use, but putting the phone to sleep, except for essential processes as much as possible. When it manages this, nothing's running except the operating system and radio.

You can check your awake time by going to Settings > About > Battery. You'll see two numbers: Uptime and Awake time. Uptime is the time since last boot, Awake time is time when the phone is active. If this is high, this is definitely the place to concentrate your efforts. You want this to be as low as possible - I aim for 20%.

3. Using Android's built in Battery Use Monitoring

In 2.1, if you click on Battery Use in this screen, it'll tell you what has used the most battery since the last boot. Expect to see Display, Wifi, Cell Standby, Phone idle and the Android system in here. If you see programs that you haven't been interactively using recently, they may be causing you problems, and you should try killing them (Using Advanced Task Killer, for example) to see if your battery usage decreases.

4. Use a Task Killer?

Google advises against task killers as a way to run your Android, and I agree with them. I have Advanced Task Killer to deal with extraordinary situations, but in general, I let Android deal with closing and destroying apps. It does it well, and you'll find your phone runs faster if you leave it to it. See Component Lifecycles in this page of the Android Developer Guide if you don't believe me.

What you might use a task killer for, though, is looking for programs that you haven't used in a while, or may not have used since you started the phone, that you wouldn't expect to still be running. I found a couple that seemed to always start up a while after I booted the phone, and stay there. I got rid of them.

5. Minimise Syncs

This is the big one. You've got a great smartphone, you want to now always be 100% up to date. You're installing multiple Facebook, Myspace and Twitter apps, because you don't know which one you like best, etc.

The problem is, that these apps probably don't respect the phone's sleeping, and will wake the phone up to sync on your schedule. How do you deal with this? 2 ways:

a. Sort out Android's own Syncing:

This depends on the version of Android you have; I'm working off 2.1, but I know it was different in 1.5. In any case, it's fairly self-explanatory. Go to Settings> Accounts and Sync. Anything you don't use (Weather? Come on, you have another Weather app...), disable syncing. Actually - even if you do use weather, do you need it constantly synced on your home screen, or just when you want it?

You may have other options in here, on my HTC Hero I have Facebook, Flickr and Stocks. I've disabled HTC's Facebook sync (I use a different Facebook app) and set everything else to the least frequent sync option.

Unfortunately, under 2.1 the option to tune how often Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts syncing happens seems to have disappeared. Still, if you don't use (e.g.) Google Calendar, disable it.

b. Look for other Syncing Applications

Have a think about all the apps you've installed. Look particularly at news, social networking, sports scores, RSS, etc. apps. Most will have their own preferences controlling syncing. What turned out to be killing me more than anything else was Bloo, a Facebook client, syncing my feed every 2 minutes! This is the default for that application. What that means is that every 2 minutes you are waking up the phone, turning on radio, connecting to 3G, opening a socket, downloading (probably nothing), and then waiting for the phone to tear all that down again. Make 15 minutes your minimum sync period for any app.

6. Widgets, Live Wallpapers, Cool stuff

I love widgets. I think they're one of the key advantages that Android has over the iPhone. I never got them on PCs, but on a mobile phone they're essential. I've customised my seven homescreens to death (and I need more!). Unfortunately, some of these come at a cost. Make sure to check any new widgets for auto update frequencies, and tune them to a reasonable level. Again - ideally you want them to just do stuff when you want them to, and if they have an update frequency, dial it down to 15 minutes or more.

7. Location Services

GPS is a significant battery drain, but fortunately it's usually only on when applications are using it. If you see the GPS signal on the task bar a lot, you may have an application that's doing background location updates. You may wish to disable this, or set those apps to only use Wireless location services, rather than GPS. You can, of course, get a widget to disable GPS, so that you can only turn it on when you want.

8. Y5 Battery Saver

Y5 is the best way of managing your Wifi. It remembers when you've connected to a wireless network, and what phone towers you were near at the time. It then turns on wireless when you're back in range, and turns it off when you're out of range. This is an excellent utility, as leaving wifi on and scanning all the time is a horrendous drain.

9. Install a Power Manager

I'm not sure why I put this last. It should probably be first - call it lack of editing. There are two power managers that I'm aware of.

Power Manager
Just install this, use its defaults, and it will save battery. You can, of course customise all the profiles, and you'll probably find that you want to change some of them, but the defaults it comes with are very effective.
Juice Defender
I haven't used this yet, but am planning to. This allows you to customise even more, including allowing you to enable radio every X, enable synchronisation every Y minutes. If you want to get even more life out of your phone, this will give you the control you need.

9's a pretty silly number for a list, isn't it? I couldn't think of a 10. Feel free to make your own suggestions in the comments. I've noticed that I've put some of the easiest things last, and this is because I was describing the process as I did it. Think of 5-9 as actions you should definitely do, and 1-4 as things you might want to look at to get more information, and monitor how you're doing.

Google Places vs Aloqa

2010-07-27T20:32:00.002+01:00

Google Maps was upgraded today. You can read about it here. They've added a new "Places" functionality, that looks very like Aloqa, which I've been using occasionally for a while. When I upgraded Maps, I was interested to see how it would stack up (and whether I still needed Aloqa).

I did some tests from my flat in Limehouse. When I looked for Bars and Restaurants, Google came out with some good suggestions, ranking The Narrow highly, which would be my favourite bar and restaurant in the local area.

However, it is basically a set of saved Google Searches, that search Google's places data structure, and is therefore at the mercy of those data. The shortcomings became very evident when I looked at some of Aloqa's more editorial categories, such as Music. It came back with suggestions about what's on around me, where, and what time. It included small pub nights (like Jazz in the local) and more established artists.

More surprisingly, is that Google's ATM search (included by default) was rubbish. It suggested my nearest ATM was in Moorgate. Aloqa correctly pinpointed the nearest ATM to be that at Tesco Limehouse, and included all the third-party cash machines in the area, and identified them as being charging. (It seemed to have a right-shifted decimal point in the charges, though, suggesting that they would charge an eye-watering £18 per transaction).

I've decided that there's room for both on my phone, and I like the new interface Google's given to data that it already had. However, as a result of performing this comparison, I think I'll find myself using Aloqa a lot more than I used to.

Test Post from GoogleCL

2010-06-20T14:59:00.001+01:00

This message was posted from the command line, using Google CL

Let me get this straight....

2010-05-10T21:42:00.002+01:00

The Liberal Democrats lose seats, but end up deciding who will be the next PM.
By way of persuading us that PR would not end up in uncertainty and confusion, they play both sides without telling the Conservatives and cause a huge surprise at this point 4 days later.
They are toying with going into coalition with Labour to make our elections fairer by changing our voting system without a referendum!
They would keep Gordon Brown as PM for the foreseeable future.
This would only be possible by relying on nationalists from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which would result in more English tax money going to those countries, and would make the difficult decisions that lie ahead even harder.

I'm in favour of PR (STV preferably) and coalition governments, but this is not likely endear either to the British people. There's too much low skullduggery, and not enough high principle.

Whoever you vote for, Vote.

2010-05-05T21:54:00.003+01:00

I haven't blogged the election at all. That's kind of odd, given my personality, and it was brought home to me that I hadn't when Tom blogged it yesterday. This is largely a reflection of how much micro-blogging has become more important to me. I mostly used Twitter and Facebook to disseminate my opinions on the race (so much so that, during the first debate, I got accused of spamming Facebook).

The way I've talked about this race is quite negative - I've concentrated on the negative aspects of Brown, my concerns about the Tories. But I've also enjoyed some of the positive moments - the rise of the Lib Dems, the debates (which were great fun to watch with friends getting drunk, if nothing else), Brown's speech to CitizensUK, mortydraw's takes on the debates.

Unfortunately, all three main parties are lying to us about the cuts and tax rises that will be necessary after the election. This is clear to anyone who thinks, and has been warned by the IMF and the Bank of England. I think this is regrettable, but to be expected. Clegg's warning about "Savage Cuts" disappeared very quickly when it was discovered to be polling badly. It would be nice, however, to be able to make an informed choice -- effectively making the election a referendum on what cuts to make. Sadly, this didn't happen.

Like many, I cannot abide this New Labour government, and will be voting to remove them from power tomorrow. They did good things - most notably the Human Rights Act and Civil Partnerships. But elsewhere, they have been profoundly illiberal. They have created on average one new criminal offence per day whilst in power, have made us the most surveilled society on earth, and have generally tried to advance the intrusion of the state into our lives at every turn. They've spent like drunken sailors, and managed to squander the luckiest 10 years any Chancellor could have hoped for. See this Economist article for a good summary of the 13 years.

I'm not comfortable with either of the other two main parties -- I have no natural home in Britain, there being no truly Libertarian party -- but will be making an intelligent vote to block Labour. I've decided that, despite my wish to see a hung parliament and my preference for proportional representation, the current times demand a government that can make decisions.

I won't necessarily be celebrating any outcome on Friday morning. I guess I'd mutedly cheer a miraculous Lib Dem victory, but with nowhere near the gusto that I cheered Obama's win. I will, however be watching election night avidly all night, and for as long as I can stay awake on Friday. I'm a politics junkie, and this is my world cup final.

One final thought: It's become obvious to me that the more information we are supplied with, the harder it is to make a decision. I've had my mind more or less made up for a while, but I've been wavering continuously, and even as I type this, I am still waiting for the absolute cast iron reason I need to stop looking around.

If you have a vote - please cast it. This year, it's more important than ever. If you haven't decided, check out http://election.theyworkforyou.com and http://www.votematch.org.uk.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2009-12-24T20:17:00.002Z

I write, safely ensconsced at home in Wexford, having fled the snow in JFK and LCY. After all the stress about presents, and about cooking, and escaping from snow-bound airports, you're hopefully left with time together with your family or friends.

I hope everyone trying to get home this week was successful, and I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A rare 99

2009-11-10T23:36:00.000Z

It's a rare 100 list I agree with everything on, and this one is no exception. However, I agree with 99 of the items on this list of things Restaurant Staffers should know.

The one exception? The author exhorts "Staffers" not to bring the bill before someone asks for it. I personally love the fact that New York restaurant staff bring the bill when it seems appropriate. I understand that it might feel overbearing to some people, but if you've sat in an English restaurant for 30 minutes trying to get someone's attention to get the bill (and I've done this many times), New York style comes as a relief.

Maybe the half-way house is "Don't disappear after coffee".

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/one-hundred-things-restaurant-staffers-should-never-do-part-one/

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/one-hundred-things-restaurant-staffers-should-never-do-part-2/?em

On This Day

2009-05-06T00:22:00.000+01:00

Some notable events on this day in history....

1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp is valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1856 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist born
1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
1910 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.
1915 – Orson Welles, American director born
1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration.

1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.
1953 – Tony Blair, former British prime minister born
1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
1961 – George Clooney, American actor born
1979 – Colm Linehan born

Leinster are in the Heineken Cup Final

2009-05-03T01:52:00.005+01:00

I'm feeling conflicted right now. As the strongest Irish team for the last 6+ years, I've been supporting Munster. They've had most of the Irish national team playing for them, and have been extraordinarily successful. However, I'm from Leinster -- and I want to see Leinster do well. To have a Leinster-Munster game *should* create a "derby" feel, which it clearly did for some people, but oddly it did not for me. I wanted both teams to win. I really wanted the team that can win the competition to win. I didn't feel like we'd defeated an arch-rival (as I would in a Wexford-Kilkenny, Ireland-England or to a lesser extent, Liverpool-Man U match)

Leinster played a great game today. At the breakdown, they were awesome. They absolutely 100% deserved to win the game. Brian O'Driscoll was brilliant as usual, and showed what still makes him the Northern Hemisphere's most inspirational player.

I'll be watching tomorrow's second semi-final with interest. I hope Leinster can win the final (and have to find somewhere in Vegas that will show it). But for some reason, I still don't feel that it's my team in the final.

I'll get there, I'm sure. I guess it's a compromise I've made due to the reality of the situation.

Anyway. Congratulations Leinster! Win the Heineken Cup, and it might just click into place.

Andrew Sullivan

2009-04-14T01:28:00.003+01:00

I've just learned a lot more about Andrew Sullivan than I ever knew before.

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/andrew-sullivan-thinking-out-loud

Englishness

2009-04-04T22:02:00.003+01:00

An excellent speech by the Archbishop of York on Englishness, and the need to create a new kind of Englishness is worth reading.

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/04/archbishop-of-york-be-proud-to-be-english.html#more

Charts in the Senate

2009-04-02T21:19:00.004+01:00

Jon Stewart (Essential viewing, btw - the first thing I look for on my Sky+ box every night) skewers Senate Representatives for their clunky use of charts and placards in their debates. I've noticed this over the past year, and been wondering how long it's been going on. It's symptomatic of our PowerPoint culture, where good speaking doesn't matter so much any more, as to put together a deck of slides that tell the story. I detest this as a means of communication. Everything that happens in my company uses PowerPoint. It is not possible to communicate with management except through the medium of PowerPoint.

What is particularly pernicious about this is that if you use PowerPoint, your audience won't be listening for half of your presentation. They'll be reading your slides, thinking about the way your slides are put together, thinking about the formatting. Worse, is when a presenter gets up and reads his slides. If he's not adding colour to it, then what's the point of him talking?

Don Tapscott gave a presentation at a conference I attended last year, and it was great. Sure he used PowerPoint (gotta justify the fee, right?), but each slide had one, simple graphic, which served as a theme. There were no words on the slides, and all the content was in his speech.

Now, charts are a great way of communicating. A well chosen chart can make your point better than a year of talking. I've seen this in work too.

So... My call to arms is this - down with lazy PowerPoint. Use it if you want to make a point that you can only make with graphics. Otherwise - put together notes, and just talk!

Enjoy the clip.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

The Ever Spending Story

comedycentral.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

I may have to start listening to Radio 4

2009-04-01T01:20:00.002+01:00

Russell Grant is currently on 5 Live doing chart readings for the leaders at the G20 summit. This is what passes for sensible radio on the BBC's news channel.

Brilliant

2009-03-16T20:36:00.001Z

Via Dizzy, I love whoever did this:

Obama's Staff let him do what Bartlet's Staff Would Not

2009-02-25T21:39:00.003Z

In the West Wing, before the biggest State of the Union of his Presidency, President Bartlet decides he wants to announce that his administration will cure cancer. Sam Seaborn proposes:

Over the past half century, we've split the atom, we've spliced the gene and we've roamed Tranquility Base. We've reached for the stars and never have we been closer to having them in our grasp. New science, new technology is making the difference between life and death, and so we need a national commitment equal to this unparalleled moment of possibility. And so I announce to you tonight that I will bring the full resources of the Federal Government and the full reach of my office to this fundamental goal: We will cure cancer by the end of this decade.

In his not-quite State of the Union last night, President Obama said:

Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives. It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American by seeking a cure for cancer in our time.

Bartlet's staff were divided on the idea:

BARTLET: So I ask you, why shouldn't I stand up and say we are going to cure cancer in ten years?

Silence in the room. No one responds.

BARTLET [CONT.]
I'm really asking.

JOSH
Well, how close are we to really being able to do this?

BARTLET
Nobody knows.

JOSH
Then...

BARTLET
Toby.

TOBY
It'll be seen as a political ploy.

Sam, however says

"I think ambition is good. I think overreaching is good. I think giving people a vision of government that's more than Social Security checks and debt reduction is good. I think government should be optimistic."

President Hope is still being optimistic.

Ryanair Customer Service

2009-02-25T21:02:00.002Z

Now, I don't fly Ryanair. And I'm not going to say "this is why I don't fly Ryanair", but it absolutely epitomises what I hate most about their corporate culture.

Via Gulliver

Peston

2009-02-18T23:14:00.002Z

Don't become the story.

The Newsnight piece tonight was ridiculous.

Gastronomic Delights in Boston

2008-03-02T16:29:00.006Z

Tom, Riad, James and I went to Boston last weekend to sample the delights of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, and take advantage of the Bush Peso's continuing weakness. This was my first time in the LHR Clubhouse, and I've got to say - it's extraordinary. It puts any other airline lounge I've ever been to in the shade. I can understand why people rave about it, and why it gets people hooked on Virgin. It won't change my flying patterns for the most part, as I value the onboard service much more highly, but I do hope to get in there again some time.

The unchallenged highlight of the holiday was our meal at L'espalier in Boston. A fantastic French restaurant, with impeccable service, I can only highly recommend it to anybody. We had Chef McClelland's Tasting Journey - a surprise tasting menu over 7 or 8 courses, with matching wines to each course. There's an example menu on the site, but the menu changes every night.

For our menu, we started with an amuse bouche of bass with remoulade. The first course (served naturally with French rosé champagne) was Boston oysters, served with American caviar, and fried breaded sweetbreads served with Italian caviar. There are so many worrying words in that sentence, that I was quite nervous about the course, but it was fantastic. My first experience of oysters was great, and the sweetbreads weren't anywhere near as strong as my previous experience with them.

We moved on to lobster claw, served on a bed of potato puree, with (as some kind of foody joke) a little piece of smoked beef, held in the claw of the lobster. This last piece was unannounced and came as a real surprise. The lobster was, of course, topped off with more caviar - French, I think.

Next up was a delicious serving of sea bass, on a crab risotto with (you've guessed it) Italian caviar. This also came with some kind of breaded shellfish (bigger than a clam), which I entirely failed to catch the name of. This was one of the early highlights of the meal.

We had an intermezzo of Miso ice cream, served with cayenne pepper and wasabi. This was my first experience of savoury ice cream, and it was amazing. Not so much of a palate cleanser - it was incredibly lively and exciting to eat.

The gastronomic highlight of my life was coming up: Fois gras and ginger cake, with a pineapple piece and a pistachio coulis. This was served with an astonishing Riesling, without the sickly sweetness that you associate with the grape, but coming very close to a desert wine. The pairing was fabulous, the meal was surprising and delicious. At this point, I ran out of superlatives to describe the meal.

On to the main courses, and first up was Guinea fowl with wild mushrooms and shaved black truffle. They actually brought a rather huge truffle, which must have been worth a fortune, and shaved it liberally over the mushrooms. I was surprised at quite how much we got. The fowl was perfectly cooked, and the mushrooms and truffle were gorgeous.

Next, the disappointing lamb medallion. It was served with a carrot puree (and something else that slips my mind). It would be perfectly acceptable in any hotel meal, but it failed to stand up to the rest of the meal. (Also, I'm not a huge fan of lamb)

The final savoury course was Venison, with a chocolate and orange sauce, served with a Winter casoullet with blood sausage. This was fantastic, and was the richest course in the meal. Naturally it was served with a huge meaty red. (I wish I'd take a notepad to write down all the names). I loved it - there was a very small amount of blood sausage, but that small amount so infused the casoullet with its flavour that it was the perfect amount.

A good cheese board, with two excellent cheeses and four good ones followed, and then a pre-desert and a trio of deserts. The deserts were unfortunately not up to the standards of the meal, and I suspect that Chef McClelland isn't particularly interested in desert.

That said, by the time we finished, we were well stuffed, and quite sozzled. It was an amazing experience, and one I'd love to repeat. As I mentioned at the start of this post, if you find yourself in Boston, I strongly recommend it, as a blow-out. If you're celebrating a special occasion, it would be perfect!

On Linux

2007-11-11T13:11:00.000Z

Nice ad from Novell. Pity about SuSE. If you're interested in Linux for the desktop, I strongly recommend Ubuntu. I've been trying to use Linux as a desktop on and off for maybe 7 or 8 years, but I always ended up going back to Windows. Since installing Ubuntu at home, I boot into windows maybe once or twice a month now.

It's extremely user-friendly, has great support for all manner of hardware, and because it's based on Debian, installing new software to do new things is a piece of cake. Check it out.

Dear Politicians and other uneducated people

2007-11-05T23:30:00.000Z

...please see this blog entry from Evan Davis of the BBC, where he discusses in simple terms the likely impact of immigration on the economy and the people in it.

Now stop talking about this subject and move on to something more important.

Like the fact that the government wants to be able to lock you up for 56 days without charge, because clearly 28 is not enough, even though there's not one documented case of the police letting a terrorist go free because they reached the 28 days. It's astonishing to see that this government repeatedly failing to learn from the mistakes of the past.

While we're on the subject of human rights, this article in the observer was quite interesting, and gives a bit more insight into Cameron's thoughts on liberalism.

Finally, I've been reading Prospect lately. It's a fantastic magazine, which I strongly recommend if you like reading original, insightful, and provocative writing (from whatever political viewpoint). I have been itching to discuss their recent article on Making National Identity Work by David Birch (of a company that makes software for governments to do things like....Identity schemes), since it was the first article I've read that spelled out positive reasons for a national identity scheme that I could at least believe (if not entirely buy into). Unfortunately, I've been unable to find my copy of it, so I can't go into it in enough depth to do it justice. But if you happen across last month's copy in your local library/dentist's, it's well worth a read.

The perfect G+T

2007-09-04T20:32:00.001+01:00

....From the blurb for the Economist's new sister publication Intelligent Life:

"In our autumn issue, learn about the engineering brain behind molecular gastronomy and how it has led to the creation of the perfect, but $10,000, gin & tonic."

Sounds fantastic. Now how do I get one without paying $10000?

RMT Members Should Lose Their Jobs

2007-09-03T23:08:00.000+01:00

I'm fed up of being held to ransom by the RMT. Right now they're striking because they claim they haven't been given assurances that their members won't lose jobs, pay and pensions despite their company collapsing. The mayor disputes this. Now, this sounds like a reasonable concern, and when the employer is under contract to the government, it's a vaguely understandable tactic. However, in the six years (since last week) that I've been in London, there's been an RMT strike every year. For a bunch of people who make very good money, under very cushy conditions, for a none-too-stressful job, this is unacceptable.

The government should say "Tough", allow the company to fold, and hire new staff to work the lines affected until a new bidder can be found to run the remaining lines. They could perhaps pick up the tab and have Tube Lines run them until they can get a new bidder. It is, however, time to take out the RMT. I'd happily put up with a month of "crippled" London if it meant that the RMT was never again going to affect my journey to and from work.

The Big Lebowski - F***ing short version

2007-07-03T23:06:00.000+01:00

(NSFW)

newsKinght with Trevor McDonald

2007-06-24T23:43:00.000+01:00

Trevor McDonald does satire with the aid of Marcus Brigstocke in ITV's great new answer to Have I Got News For You. Instead of trying to ape the panel-quiz-format that BBC have done to death (QI, Mock the Week, They Think it's All Over, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and even Never Mind the Full Stops for flips sake), they've made it much more straightforward. It's basically Sir Trev doing straight-to-camera jokes, with the panel of guests butting in when they have something funny to say. Like the other shows, it's all in the writing and editing, which is fantastic here. The fact that it's Trevor McDonald delivering the jokes makes it all the more hilarious. Check it out. (Link)

A famous victory

2007-02-25T19:02:00.000Z

Ireland scored a record 43-13 victory over England in Croke Park yesterday.

In the context of all the history, the anthems were respected perfectly, and Amhran na bhFiann was very emotional. The stadium proved an excellent venue.

Ireland were clinical, with a tightly locked defense, and ruthless finishing delivering 4 tries. Ronan O'Gara had a great kicking game.

Irish people can be proud today, as they deal with their hangovers.

Come the day and Come the Hour

2007-02-24T09:56:00.001Z

After all the talk, and all the years' preparation, the hour is upon us. At 5pm today, England will return to Croke Park for the first time since Bloody Sunday. It's going to be a fantastic occasion, and I just know I'm going to be teary eyed (at least) at the anthems.

Make us proud Ireland!

UPDATE 02/01/2010 - I notice that this post gets a lot of hits from Google - I assume that people landing here are looking for Ireland's Call.

King of the Cliches

2007-02-04T20:00:00.000Z

Irish Coach Eddie O'Sullivan, on today's victory over Wales.

Well it was a battle royal from start to finish.
I'm very happy to have got the win. I suppose we're going to be hard on ourselves; at times there we created a lot of problems by not being accurate and Wales were thriving on our mistakes at times, and putting us under fierce pressure.

But at the end of the day, when the chips were down, we dug out a result. we scored three tries; we didn't give up any tries, and I like to think it wasn't a vintage performance but something we can build on for next week.

Craig Doyle: the intensity of the game was really unbelievable, wasn't it?

I think when you come to Cardiff you've got to expect that. Wales come here and they intimidate you in their own stadium by upping the pace of the game; by getting the crowd in behind them. we couldn't hear the line-out calls for most of the first half, it was so intense out there. You expect that, you know, and we made our mistakes as you do here in a rough and tumble game.

But you know it was very tight right up until the end. I think once Ronan scored, it was a question of running the clock down and keeping control of the game, but eh...I won't say I'm over the moon, but I'm happy to get a result here. If you'd told me yesterday we'd win [and] we'd get three tries, I would have taken it.

Craig Doyle: Ok so it's a bit of a rollercoaster ride. You've opened up your account. France next week. You must be feeling pretty good about your grand slam and your 6 nations ambitions now.

I wouldn't get carried away. I think we're going to have to up our performance on today. I think if we play like we did today against France, we'll be in trouble. A few guys carrying knocks: Brian O'Driscoll came off with a hamstring; Gordon Darcy carried a groin most of the way through the game, that he picked up early doors. So we'll have to circle our wagons tomorrow and see what the body count is. It was a hard day at the office. But, you know, job done. Pack up our bags and move back to Dublin, and face down the French in a week's time.

Link
Nice interjection from Craig there too. I feel a 6 Nations drinking game coming on.

Blair doesnt care any more

2007-01-28T13:19:00.000Z

Tony Blair is losing the plot. His decision not to attend a Commons debate on Iraq was an astonishing one. It's hard to see, as Matthew Parris pointed out , how he thought about it and decided that it would be better for him to be seen not to be there.

And this morning comes an interview on the Politcs Show from Davos. You can see it here. Iain Dale thinks that he's drunk in the interview. I'm not sure, but I can well believe it. But what's completely clear is that he doesn't hold himself accountable to anybody any more. During the interview, he comes across as extremely flippand and smug. He laughs off serious issues like the Home Office, Cash for Peerages, and the dropping of the BAE enquiry.

The Great West Coast Adventure

2007-01-22T23:22:00.000Z

Damn. I've been slacking off blogging again. I'm sorry, but it's just too hard to keep thinking about it. Anyway. I guess the most important thing I need to update you on is our recent trip to the States. I'm busy ~~censoring~~ organising my pictures right now. But to tide you over until then, the reviews:

American Airlines FIRST
An absolutely awesome experience from start to finish. The AA Flagship lounge in LHR is a bit small, and a bit fusty. It feels like you should be wearing a smoking jacket and smoking a pipe. They had a fairly simple breakfast spread of croissants, pastries, etc. and the Champagne was passable. I didn't try the Cathay lounge, as I'd been intending to do, because I didn't arrive quite as early as I meant to.

Unfortunately, I got a coffin configuration at the last minute (my reading on FlyerTalk had prepared me for last minute changes like this), but I was pleasantly surprised with how good the seat was, for such an old seat. The Bose QC2 headphones were amazing (I've since bought a pair of QC3's, on the strength of this). The service was spectacular, with the First crew taking very personal care of me. I'm seriously considering making AA my transatlantic airline (as long as they continue work's "Book Business - Fly First" policy). The food was easily as good as anything I've had on BA, and the Champagne (Pommery) and wine (Penfold's) were very enjoyable.

Los Angeles
...or mostly..... Hollywood! da da da da da da da.

To be brutally honest, I wouldn't go back to LA. Hollywood was fun, for a day; the de rigour tour of celebrities' homes was fun, but mostly LA is a sprawling mess of a city that doesn't really have a coherent centre, and that is virtually impossible to do without a car. We went to a few bars in Hollywood, a few clubs in Sunset Strip (including The Standard, owned by Cindy Crawford, and Voodoo Lounge, once owned by Christian Slater), and took a trip out to Santa Monica beach. When we did actually manage to get to places (and get into places), we had a great time, but it was all a little too much like effort.

Las Vegas
Oh my God. How can you describe Vegas?? Well, basically, I'm not going to try, because many people more qualified than I have, and yet I was completely unprepared for how good it is. Suffice it to say that I had a blast, and that I'll definitely be going back. I loved the Disney-ness of the whole place. It's basically an entire city designed with the objective of your having fun.

Prince on New Year's Eve was very special - he's an amazing performer, and he was channeling the ghost of the Godfather. The club was really well set up, and the DJ really got everyone going. The set was a mixture of 3121 and Musicology stuff and classics. And by classics, I mean real classics - Purple Rain, Kiss and Alphabet Street were all on the menu.

Oh, and I guess I should answer the obvious question. I lost. I didn't have one good win the entire time. I'll beat them next time!

San Francisco
I've been to SFO before, so I knew largely what to expect. I'm a big fan, because I feel that it's got a real European feel, mixed with the best of American. I got to go to Alcatraz this time, which I missed last time - I strongly recommend the night tour; It's gives you lots of time to experience the prison and the island, but wrap up warm.

San Fran is apparently the hardest drinking city in the US. In an entirely unrelated fact, there's a large Irish influence in the city. Anyway, we basically spent the three days in San Francisco drunk, and it's a great place to get drunk in. It suffers a little from the standard U.S. problem of bars being far too far apart from each other, but not to the extent that other American cities do.

OK, that's enough detail for now. Pictures are on the way - expect to see a link here in a couple of days time. Oh, and there'll be a video of the Bellagio Fountains, you lucky lucky people you!

Singapore

2006-12-02T07:55:00.000Z

So, I've not been able to blog quite as much as I thought I would, simply because we've been so busy all week. I haven't really had time to do much apart from work.

My main impressions of Singapore revolve around the weather, the food and the people. The weather is very hot and very humid. I guess that's not surprising when I'm 1.5 degrees north of the equator. I haven't really done too much walking, but when I have, it's been very hot and sweaty stuff.

Eating seems to be the number 1 pass-time in Singapore. There is food from everywhere available, and it's all fantastic. I've been eating buffet style virtually the whole time, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I get the feeling that I would be huge if I stayed here for very long.

The Singaporeans themselves are fantastic. They're so welcoming, and polite, and the service ethic is quite simply the best I've experienced in the world (yes, Americans, I said the best!). Granted I've been staying in five star hotels, and paying heavy prices for drinks, but even still - I've done that before and received sub-standard service.

I can't praise The Oriental hotel highly enough, and strongly recommend it to anyone travelling to Singapore. As I write, I'm sitting in the Oriental Club Lounge on the 19th floor, looking out over the city, enjoying a complimentary coffee, and (literally) having my needs aniticipated before I even think of them. If you're travelling on business, and can stretch to it, the Club is fantastic: the breakfast alone is awesome, but everything about it is well designed, and the staff bend over backwards to help you out.

We didn't do too much drinking, but I must mention the New Asia bar on the 70th floor of the Swisshotel. It has a super view of the city, and the club itself is great fun. "Brash excess" was how an Australian colleague accurately described it.

I'm off to do some shopping, and then to prepare for the onward journey to Frankfurt.

Off to Singapore

2006-11-25T13:01:00.000Z

I'm flying to Singapore tonight for a week-long visit with work. I'm looking forward to it - it will officially be the farthest away from home I've ever been. I hope to get some time to take some photos to share.

The PMOS is getting testy

2006-11-22T21:22:00.000Z

I subscribe to the RSS feed of Number 10's press briefings. The daily answer to "Has the PM been interviewed by the police yet?" is getting funnier and funnier. On Tuesday, the update was
"Asked if the Prime Minister had been questioned by the police, the PMOS said that the Middle East was a bit far for the police to travel. Asked if that was why the Prime Minister was in the Middle East, the PMOS said he would see everyone tomorrow."

Yesterday, under the headline "Police Inquiry", the simple answer:
"No."

I think the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman is getting a little tired of the newspapers asking a legitimate question.

P.S. Check this out. It's very wierd.

irrepressible.info

2006-11-12T23:00:00.000Z

There's a new piece of content over there on the left hand side of this blog - it contains some words that somebody somewhere doesn't want people to read. It's part of the Amnesty International/Observer irrepressible.info campaign, to highlight censorship of the Internet by regimes around the world.

I support this cause, because it chimes with my support for freedom of speech and freedom of information. I hope that as more and more people support the campaign, we might slowly change some peoples' minds, and advance the cause of Human Rights. If you agree, you can find out more and join in by visiting irrepressible.info

Betting while drunk...

2006-11-07T23:01:00.000Z

....is silly. You end up having positions on the Democrats taking the Senate!

Double or Nothing

2006-11-06T23:56:00.000Z

I've re-invested the (not yet existant) profits from my Democrats House bet on the Democrats Senate at 2.9 on Betfair. It'll make Wednesday morning much more interesting :)

Remember Remember.....

2006-11-05T20:17:00.000Z

Well, this 5th November is going to be remembered for some time. In the spirit of Qui Bono, one has to marvel at the sentencing of Saddam Hussein being two days before the United States Mid-Term Elections. I hope it doesn't affect my bet on the Democrats taking the House, but I suspect that the Republicans can do with as few reminders of Iraq as possible. Any Americans reading, do me a favour on Tuesday - get out and vote for your nearest Democrat. Ta.

Oh, and anyone more adventurous than me can take 2.72 on the Democrats taking the Senate at Betfair (Could be good value if you believe that they can take three out of four toss-ups).

Finally, I invite you to raise a glass with me to the last man to enter Parliament with honourable intentions, on the anniversary of his doing so.

Hello World!

2006-11-04T19:06:00.000Z

HELLO WORLD!

Unfortunately, those nice people at MSN Spaces have broken my blog in all kinds of wierd and interesting ways, so I'm migrating to here. Welcome to my new home!