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Yeah, but you have to be really careful not to mix up the tubes.

Have you ever seen the government advice for "vulnerable and elderly people" on how to keep warm? It's hysterical. I've been a vulnerable or elderly person for six years now and it still makes me smile, every year, without fail.

I think the crowning glory is the way they constantly contradict themselves. On one page, they advise you of how to seal up all the gaps. Clingfilm on the windows, keep the curtains shut, invest in draught excluders, get that foam tape stuff for the doorframes, stay in just one room that you keep properly warm. On the next page, they stress the importance of good ventilation and how you should keep all the internal doors and at least one window open at all times.

I'm also sure the advice keeps changing on hot drinks. I know that some sources have told me "drink hot drinks, keeps you warm!" and others have said "don't drink hot drinks, makes you pee lots and you lose body temperature!" so I think I'll just stick with having a cup of tea as and when I fancy one. And a biscuit, dammit!

Also last Christmas I was given a Slanket and a USB-powered footwarmer, which may not quite be the professional image I want to project, but I'm quite looking forward to using both of them as the chill sets in.

I'm also a big fan of the notepad-on-the-desk method, and I tend to take an A4 paper notepad to meetings, too.

There's an app called CloudList that my other half and I had a play with for household stuff - we can both edit and check off the lists, it's good for things like shopping lists.

I'm working on a bigger project and that makes huge use of Google Docs, in particular the spreadsheets. I control the permissions for who can view it, who can view and edit it, etc. It's very useful if you're not all on the same network. I can also get at it on my phone, wherever I am. Well, almost. I can get at it as long as I have a mobile signal or wifi. That, for me, is the big kicker. It's so annoying. Something comes up, I think of a new task, I have a new piece of information to add to something else, and I'm all "aha, I will just whip out my phone and add that to my... oh."

So there's also a couple of virtual post-it notes on my phone that get edited on pretty much a daily basis, basically because while I *can* email or SMS them to other people, they don't *require* connectivity to just work within ten seconds.

The one I'm angriest about doesn't affect me personally (if you want to know I'll tell you but it might be better in the Rants section), but I'm very aware that if I wasn't such an exceptionally jammy git then I would have been sliced to ribbons by this review. As you can imagine, this makes it hard to view the issue dispassionately...

The thing about most government services from welfare to defence to the NHS is that it might not affect you personally for 99% of your life but by the gods, when you need it, you NEED it, and you need it to be already there, and already working, and already ready to catch you.

What would I have done? Well, I'm no economist. But I would have made Vodafone pay their

The bit that's really grinding my gears is that there's no realistic opposition. The Conservatives are being Conservatives, no surprises there, they are doing what Conservatives do and no one expected anything else. But Labour can't protest about the cuts they started, and anything they do attempt to protest can be batted away with "you got us into this mess". The Lib Dems, who might have been able to make a credible Opposition, are instead trying to pretend that they can change the Conservative party from within, possibly by making the tea and crumpets for the bigger boys.

There *has* to be an opposition, shouting loudly and obliging the ruling power to justify their position in the public arena. Otherwise you've just got a powerful few doing whatever they like.

On my personal feed, I love it. It makes it easier to use and navigate, it increases the information on one screen at any given time, and it looks less... twee?

But for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I really dislike having it on the business feed. Possibly it's because there's less background visible so there's less distinction between the two.

In the last four years I've had exactly one PDA that used Windows. It was so awful, we ended up passing it round just so that everyone could marvel at the awfulness. I don't believe I ever got 24 hours of uptime from it.

My Android phone, on the other hand, has a current uptime of 331 hours, which is very nearly two weeks - and that reboot was when I chose to turn it off to conserve battery. I got it on an 18-month contract and I'm due for a renewal (and another 'free' phone) any day now, but I don't want a new phone.

And definitely not one running any form of Windows.

Hooray! Happy birthday Kip

I followed it quite closely via the BBC stream - just had the audio in my headphones all day while doing other things, so that I could flick over when something was actually happening. I think I watched about a dozen of the emergences in real time which is amazing. And waking up this morning, straight on to BBC news website on my phone to the joyful news that all miners and all of the rescue team were safely back on the surface.

The drilling and rescue work over the last couple of months has been astounding, of course, but I was also impressed with the other aspects.

I think events like this are what enables the BBC to shine. At the drop of a hat, they had experienced journalists continually broadcasting, those guys were not just able to speak both languages but also able to translate (no mean feat when the interviewee speaks one language, your audience speaks another, and there's not just background noise but also a controller gibbering in your earpiece while you're trying to keep track of events in areas you can't see) and to keep going, although I hope someone has given them some serious aftersun today. The commentary, whilst not always gripping, was respectful and sincere. I especially liked the delicacy with which they handled the case of the chap with the "interesting" love-life, when conflicting reports were coming in about the identity of the woman who had gone to meet him.

I was also really impressed by the Chilean media/govt making the whole thing so very accessible - like for instance not allowing a media scrum at the top of the shaft, but sharing the continuous feed from the top and bottom so that no one *had* to try and fight their own cameras into the miners' faces. Top work all round.

hahahaha!