a7eleven

Urban Paint Festival - Bristol, 2008

andypowell — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:11:40 +0000

The Urban Paint Festival (UpFest) took place on Oct 19 at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol:

The raw images are on Flickr. The soundtrack is Murda a Star by Sickman D.

A wet day out at Thorpe Park

andypowell — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:03:48 +0000

I took Stan and one of his mates to Thorpe Park on Sunday. It was pretty wet but we had a great time. Here’s the evidence…

The pictures are on Flickr.

Updating your Technorati blog thumbnail

andypowell — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:06:24 +0000

A quick howto… in case anyone else is struggling to work out how to update their blog’s thumbnail image on Technorati.

The thumbnails are served by Snap.com, so you have to get them to update their snapshot of your blog home page. This can be done by going to question 14 of the Snap.com FAQ and plugging in your blog URL.

Simple, huh!

Father’s day paella

andypowell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:05:32 +0000

I invited my dad over for lunch yesterday and we had tapas (including barbecued asparagus with goat’s cheese and apple balsamic vinegar) followed by paella cooked on the barbecue with chicken, squid and prawns.

‘Twas very nice, even though I say so myself!

Comments and spam

andypowell — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:52:07 +0000

A couple of you will have noticed that I’m not very quick at moderating comments on this blog.

Why? Because my spam to comment ratio is very high and I have, up until now, had to moderate all comments manually.

For the record, I’ve finally gotten round to moderating everything to date. I’ve also added Jeff Barr’s little trick of asking people that are making comments to type in my first name as part of the process. This should, I hope, weed out most/all of the spam.

We’ll see… I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

TwitStory #3 - memories

andypowell — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:32:03 +0000

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
http://twitter.com/photomatt

Finding it amusing and yet slightly disturbing that I recite the Patapon beats to any instrumental song I’ve been listening to lately.
http://twitter.com/courtneyp

Couldn’t resist stopping at an open house on my way home. Cute 3/2 a block from my place in noe. $1.2mil
http://twitter.com/andykaufman

waiting for train nj. Have to attend a wake for a member of my sister-in-law’s family.
http://twitter.com/gadgetboy

ok - spinning way too many plates - anysecond one is gonna slip and crash
https://twitter.com/debs

Great minds thought alike. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.
http://explore.twitter.com/charles_hope

ok, its redbull time. im going to be up for the next three days straight.
http://twitter.com/kroosh

And with that, I am off to save the world.
http://twitter.com/kristiewells

Bummed. Found out that a friend passed away. I should have made more of an effort. : -(
http://twitter.com/BizGirl

Lost
http://twitter.com/memory

*achoo!* Ok, so maybe I’m not *entirely* over this cold thing yet..
http://twitter.com/encaf1

Memories!
http://twitter.com/chrisabraham

“I like llamas because of the way you spell their name” - yep OK, I admit, that was one of mine, how did you guess?
http://twitter.com/MelKirk

The Dutch are absolutely out of their minds. It’s awesome.
http://twitter.com/cubedweller

Ok. Now what?!
http://twitter.com/OldBroad

TwitLyrics - 3rd April 2008

andypowell — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:17:42 +0000

Space travel’s in my blood / And there ain’t nothing I can do about it / Long journeys wear me out but / I know I can’t tweet without it

Kiva.org - loans that change lives

andypowell — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:57:31 +0000

I occasionally use kiva.org to make small loans to people in developing countries. Seems like a nice thing to do. What follows is the text that Kiva suggests to its members to send to people via email. Rather than spam people I thought I’d just share it here…

I wanted to let you all know about a cool non-profit that is doing great things: Kiva

Kiva is a non-profit that allows you to make a small 0% loan to low income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). Individuals like you can help provide affordable working capital for the poor — money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc. — and empower them to earn their way out of poverty.

The way I see it, I get a higher return on $25 helping someone build a future than the interest my checking account pays.

Thanks for reading! And feel free to spread the word!!

Dance Umbrella

andypowell — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:29:35 +0000

Bath and North East Somerset hold a dance festival every year, aimed primarily at schools, though there are also some dance clubs taking part. This year’s event happened on Wednesday evening this week. As a chair of governors I get invited along and I always try to make it. It’s a fun evening, even if my own kids haven’t taken part for some years.

If nothing else, the excitement and enthusiasm of the children taking part is amazing.

This year’s best dances, IMHO, were Widcombe Infants and both the Newbridge Primary offerings (though I guess I’m biased in choosing the latter). Whatever, the Newbridge upper-school dance looked to me to be one of the most well rehearsed and together dances of the night.

Well done to all concerned.

Sara and I went out for a meal afterwards to Yak Yeti Yak, a Nepalese restaurant in Bath. Lovely food and not bad prices either. The dahl and watercress and spinach curry were both especially good.

Unfit for purpose?

andypowell — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:59:54 +0000

According to the NASUWT I am unlikely to be “fit for purpose” in my “well-meaning” role as chair of governors of my local primary school. They might well be right - certainly in the general case. Schools, particularly the larger ones, are complex organisations with a complex set of funding, pedagogic, staffing, social and political pressures to navigate. Keeping on top of it all in your spare time, while also trying to do the day job, is a non-trivial undertaking.

The union wants the government to look at other modes of governance, e.g. that used in the UK health service.

I have to confess that I don’t quite know what that means… but, it seems to me quite likely (to badly paraphrase Winston Churchill) that using “well-meaning untrained volunteers” to help run schools may well turn out to be the worst option, apart from all the others.