My 100th Post

I cannot quite believe it, this is actually my 100th blog post! Never in a million years did I think that I could keep this going for such a long time. Something that started off as little more than a way to keep myself occupied during the long and boring summer holidays has turned into an everyday habit. Okay, maybe not quite everyday - sometimes I have to catch up with some missed days but it turns out that this has become actually quite useful for remembering what I did. I've actually had to refer back to posts on several occasions and each time it has worked.

I'll be honest, it has been difficult at times, first of all finding the time to write is (which I know is a lame excuse but sometimes I just really can't bring myself to write). Then when I do find the time, I have to decide what to write about. It was difficult at first and I never thought I'd manage to keep the (hopefully) interesting bits up and thought I'd end up just writing about the mundane things like "I woke up and had a shower" etc but I think I've started to find a use for it, TV reviews seem to take up a lot of the space and music is a popular tag. I quite like picking the single of the week although it has been getting harder and harder recently due to the complete lack of new decent music around at the moment.

I heard something on the radio earlier this week I think, when John Culshaw was on the Chris Moyles show and apparently, instead of keeping a blog or diary, he just takes one picture each day of something that sums up what happened that day. I thought that was a really original and frankly brilliant idea. Now that mobile phones have got such decent cameras on them, it would be so easy to just take a snap of the main thing that summed up the day. Of course I suppose it's easier when you are famous and lead a riveting and exciting life, a picture of a studio, a picture of a celebrity who you had lunch with etc. Not sure how well it would translate to the world of the ordinary, I think mine might be TV, bedroom, lecture theatre with the occasional snap of a night club thrown in there. There would be a few interesting ones in there I suppose but on the whole I'm not sure it would work for me. Besides, a picture only says 1000 words and yesterday's extra long entry was 1060 words! Okay so that probably wouldn't be so much of a problem but what would be more of a problem is that it would be 1000 words about one thing and my blogs normally cover at least three or four events.

The other major drawback is that my phone's camera isn't any good, it's an ancient (by modern standards) Sony Ericsson W200i and the camera is classed as VGA, not even crossing the megapixel mark. I'm reluctant to give it up though, it is by far the best phone that I've ever owned and up until a couple of weeks ago, it has worked flawlessly. Recently it has started playing up a bit but it is still working the majority of the time and even has functions on it that I'm not sure new phones have (I may be very wrong here, my knowledge of phones is VERY limited). Features that are a must have are Outlook sync compatibility - I use outlook's calendar all the time and all of my contacts are stored on their as well, I suppose I could swap this for Google Calendar sync however, as Outlook will sync with Google. Another great thing about this phone is that it runs Java. I know that is less important now with the advent of the apps store but it's nice to know that if I wanted to (and if there wasn't already one available) that I could write my own app. Since I've had free internet on my phone, I went mad and installed a blogger app, a gmail app and a twitter app all run from Java which I find quite amazing really.

The other major gripe is the move to touchscreen devices. I'm not sure I could cope with that all the time, I'm so used to my compact candybar phone that a huge touchscreen operated device would probably drive me mad. I like the tactile click response you get from a button although navigating websites is a bit cumbersome. I suppose I could cope with a qwerty keyboard on it like the HTC Dream or Touch Pro but then they are a lot wider than the one I'm used to. The other option is a Blackberry and I'm not sure I would get on with one of those either, I know someone who recently got one and she loves it but I'm not sure it's me. I think I'd need to trial the phone for a week before I committed to buying it and I don't think anyone lets you do that yet... perhaps I've just spotted a gap in the market?

I was going to finish with a review of last nights episode of Spooks but I'm not sure it has a place in this special entry... What the hell, it was a pretty good episode why not? So this was all about Lucas North and we got to delve a little bit deeper into his mysterious past. We haven't really learned that much about him since he was introduced as Adam's replacement last series but we know that he has been an agent for a long time before this and he was captured and tortured in Russia. This episode was all about his relationship with his captor and torturer and showed him experiencing a repeat of the Stockholm Syndrome he experienced when he was captive. The man responsible for his torture arrived in Britain having escaped the FSB in Russia and came to try and persuade Lucas to give him a British passport and some money to help him start a new life. He also came with insider knowledge about a planned bombing of a major target in London, this time the financial district - the Square Mile. MI5 accuse the FSB of withholding information and then it transpires that it was the torturer who had extracted this information and not told his superiors. He saw it as his way out and used it to his advantage. Of course, the British Government doesn't deal with terrorists and he was convinced - by Lucas to give up the code to the bomb and was returned to the FSB. Next week, we find out some more about this global shift in power that was briefly mentioned by the Home Secretary as coming from 'a very reliable source'.