Status-Q

I think my iPod has ideas above its station.

I got a new car today. It's rather nice. And it has an iPod adaptor cable.

When I plugged the iPod into this gleaming tonne-and-a-half of throbbing sports-tuned German engineering, it said, "Accessory attached".

Quite a few of my readers will know Seb and Abi Wills. They popped into the Ndiyo/CamVine office today with 12-day old Tabitha.

She's very sweet.

We did our best to impart a few words of wisdom to set her on the right path. Linux good! Yes! Windows bad!... that kind of thing. She'll thank us one day...

Another great picture of her here.

The ‘Grand Arcade’, Cambridge’s new shopping mall, opened its doors at 10am this morning. At one level, it’s just another shopping centre. But they’ve done a nice job of burying some quite pleasing stone- and wood-clad modern architecture…

behind the old shops on Regent Street:

There were pretty girls wearing Grand Arcade sashes, inaudible speeches by the mayor, and aerial acrobatics:

and there were balloons falling from the sky.

All mildly entertaining, but for me, the most amazing thing was the genius of the Apple marketing machine. I didn’t even go into the shiny new Apple store – I’ve been into plenty of those in other places – but hundreds of other people did. Dozens of new shops opened their doors for the first time today, but the centre was dominated by the long queue waiting to go into Apple and get their free tee-shirt. The Apple employees outside cheered and applauded the first customers to enter. People lined the galleries wondering what was happening and asking each other why this was the most exciting thing in the arcade. Sheer brilliance.

Michael and Laura must have been around number 150 in the queue but still got the VIP treatment.

Compare this to the ‘Coast’ store as photographed by Geoff Jones…

The sign says, We’re really sorry, we’re unable to open as our till system is not working.

Some amazing skies this weekend, all kinds of weather, from snow and sleet to bright sunshine.

A tree in Grantchester Meadows this afternoon.

Yesterday I visited the Møller Centre here in Cambridge.

Interesting architecture, and a great view from the tower:

There's some other quite interesting architecture visible if we zoom in to the right:

The buildings on the right are the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, and the other tower, on the left, is the University Library, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who created several other rather Stalinist-looking buildings but redeemed himself by designing the iconic British red telephone box.

Giles was continuing in the family business - his father was also an architect responsible for some notable buildings, and his grandfather designed the Midlands Grand Hotel which formed the front of St Pancras' Station. Now, that is something to be proud of... take a look!

Can you guess what this is?

It's a display. Rather a big one, from Palami, and these are a few of the pixels. If you stand up close to it, I found, your eyes go squiffy.

Here it is from a bit further away, with Michael and Sarah being the squiffy ones:

Quite cool.

Amsterdam Central Station last night.

I met this splendid chap on a walk today. From the look of his hooves he must be at least part Shire (I'm no expert). Very friendly, very gentle, and very tall. He looked down upon me from a great height. I'm about 6ft and I didn't crouch down at all to take this one.

Staying at my in-laws' over Christmas, there weren't enough computers to go round, so I had to share my laptop with other members of the family.