I’ve discovered a genuine use for “Internet of Things” devices.
If you happened to twist your back in a funny way yesterday (as I did) with the result that you are now propped up in bed and rather immobile, it’s very handy to be able to turn on and off the music, adjust the heating and switch on the lights from your phone!
Normally, it’s much easier just to go and press the button on the wall, but not when doing so involves increased consumption of painkillers well in advance. 🙂
OK – it’s not often I’d post an advertisement here. But then it’s not often I’d voluntarily watch one twice in a row, either 🙂
We stopped at the rapid chargers at the multi-storey car park in King’s Lynn yesterday.
As I was getting out of the car, I heard a passer-by tell his son, “Yes, but they have to wait 20 hours for them to charge up.”
Tilly and I set off on our stroll, and we met them on the pavement.
“So how long does the charging take, mate?” I explained that it depended on various things. I expected to be there for 20 minutes, but it could sometimes take as long as 45 mins if you needed a lot of charge.
“So what’s all the fuss about, then? I saw that thing on Top Gear…”
My brother sent me a nice picture of my niece and nephew yesterday, with the title, “All that really changes is the technology.”
If I get too snooty about how we electric vehicle drivers are living in the future, you can remind me of this. An advertisement from 1912.
Right – I’m off to glide noiselessly down the boulevard and through the park.
(Thanks to Plug In Sites).
I wonder if this came about as a result of courtship or combat? Rather a wonderful video, anyway.
Some late-night photographic fun. It seems amazing now that I thought some of my previous cars were good, despite a total absence of blue LEDs.
I needed some staples.
I went to my stationery cupboard.
I discover that, in the past, I used to get everything from the same bricks and mortar stationery store, so everything in there is labelled ‘Staples’.
Most confusing.
Jessamy Caulkin interviewed David Attenborough for the Telegraph Magazine.
At one point, he talks about scuba diving, which has long a favourite hobby of mine, but Attenborough, of course, explains its appeal much better than I can.
‘People say, “What was the most magical moment in your career as a naturalist?” and I always reply, “The first time I put on a mask and went below the surface and moved in three dimensions with just the flick of a fin, and suddenly saw all these amazing multi-coloured things living in communities right there.”‘
His initiation into scuba diving, he tells me, is indelibly printed on his mind. ‘You suddenly realise you can move in any direction. You’re not harnessed by gravity any more. You’re free. It’s bliss. An extraordinary experience, like going into space. There’s no equivalent anywhere else in the natural world of such splendour: all of these things moving through an architecture of coral.’ ‘You never know what you’re going to see when you turn the corner – it’s far more obviously exciting and visually thrilling than, say, the tropical rainforest, which is the nearest biological parallel. In the rainforest they’re all hiding, so you have to be quite a good naturalist to really see what splendours are there. But on the reef they’re all on display. It’s like the Christmas windows at Harrods.’
Some years ago, by a happy coincidence of flight timings, I spent my 40th birthday on the Barrier Reef. I didn’t have quite the same photographic capabilities with me as Sir David, alas!
© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser
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