Boris Johnson now has a blog. Hurrah!

It’s official - the whole chav thing has now jumped the shark (via Small Values…)

I got score of 3, by the way.

Took a trip yesterday to the controversial (and incredibly expensive) Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood. It’s certainly, er, different.

Plenty of it I managed to like though, while they overdo the concrete in the reception lobby (which is also too gloomy for my liking), the debating chamber itself is wonderful, especially the trussing that keeps the roof up. And the public gallery is (even in these times of terrorists T-shirted toffs and condom-throwing blokes) very close to the MSPs and with no screens or barriers.

The whole theme of the building is based around sharp corners and gently curving edges, which by itself make it look very odd. It isn’t until you look at the building with Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat in the background, do you realise how the inorganic and alien look is actually quite complementary to the surrounding landscape (itself inorganic, and pretty alien to an English intruder like myself), if not any of the surrounding buildings.

Still can’t believe the damn thing cost ten times the original estimate though. The souvenir shop is suitably pricey, though you’d have to pretty optimistic to reckon they’ll claw all the money back with sweets and postcards.

Greetings from Scotland. Apologies for lack of any blog activity of late but what with moving house and (re)starting University I’ve been a bit, erm, busy.

The move has not entirely been a smooth transition (I won’t bore you, but suffice to say my letting agents are bunch of incompetent cowboys), and my distemper has been exacerbated by severe Internet withdrawal symptoms (This is an actual medical condition. Seriously).

So, deprived of memes (and for another few days until Mr Broadband graces my flat with his presence), I have very little to tell anyone about, although Tom’s Swiss Army Knife-themed short story is a dinky little diversion.

But only a mere diversion - according the the Daily Mail, we’re on the brink of civil war! Presumably there are thousands of toffs in chavvy T-shirts all over the land, lined up to wreak havoc and throw England into years of armed turmoil. My idea of moving to Edinburgh was obviously a prescient one.

I would like to say a massive Thank You to (in no particular order whatsover) Ros, Matt, Chris, Claire, Andy, Am, Ruth, Tom, Andie, Graham and Marion, for attending my farewell do in London tonight, which was wonderful and (just slightly) drunken, at Bünker in Covent Garden, then the lovely Sam Smith’s pub that is The Chandos near Trafalgar Square.

I’m off to Edinburgh on Monday morning and it was a lovely sendoff, and I’m dead chuffed at having so many friends attend. Anyway, though I am moving across the border, I shall blog from the other side, as it were. But it will take a few days before I report again, so in the meantime you’ll have to wait. Sorry. In fact, double-plus sorry.

See you soon.

I have seven (Haha! Seven! Respect my geek authoritah!) Gmail invites and no-one to give them to. Email me if you want one.

Had a wonderful evening’s entertainment going to see Jerry Springer - The Opera, to celebrate Ruthie’s birthday. While not exactly a high-brow parable of morality in modern times, it was a total riot and very very funny. David Soul of Starsky & Hutch fame was a very good Jerry, and the supporting cast were all great and wonderfully choreographed.

Oh, and as I was up in the upper balcony, there were handy little binoculars attached to the seat in front of you, which you could hire by putting 50p into a little slot. I thought it was really cool!

Right, have you ever needed to email someone a map of where you live or where you plan to meet? You go to Multimap, navigate through, get the map, it’s covered in ads so you get the print version. Then you find the URL is ridiculously long and unemailable, so you put it through TinyURL, and it’s one big boring chore.

Well, I’ve done it enough times, and I got bored of it, so I’ve written a little script called Post2Tiny which does it all. Type in a UK postcode and it will automatically generate a TinyURL that links to a map covering the local area. Some people might find it handy, I hope.

Disclaimer - I have nothing to do with either Multimap or TinyURL, apart from being a satisfied if slightly impatient user of both sites. The source code is available and GPL’ed so feel free to develop further if you want.

Update: I’ve renamed it from ‘Postcode to TinyURL’ to ‘Post2Tiny’, as Tom had christened it, as it’s snappier and more funky.