I used to think having a go-to name for Starbucks and similar places when ordering coffee was a little rare, but it turns out tonnes of people use one. I've been using one for years mostly because the staff can hardly understand my name at the best of times, never mind when there's noise from the coffee or ice machines. Then there'd be the slightly embarrassing moment when I'd have to spell out my name a little too loudly so they could write it on the cup. It took me a while to decide on "Kevin" - common enough that the non-English language staff will have heard of it; uncommon enough that the person in front of me in the queue is unlikely to be an actual "Kevin" (that happened one time when I was a "Chris", back when I chose a random name each time, and left me in a fluster). But I must have it easy compared to people with non-European sounding names who try and persevere with their real names.

Didn't realize there were a whole series of these; would love to have played this back in the day (even more if they could fit it on one floppy) via broadsheet.ie

Nice buzzfeed run down of all the tube lines in London, ranking them in order of usefulness. It's quite kind to most of them but being most familiar with the District recently this about sums things up for me: 8. District Line: ..A slowly trundling caravan of disappointment and crushed ambition.. The Victoria line was much higher until someone flooded a switching room with fast setting concrete the other day. via timeout

This sunshine map finally gives me a precise reason for being so pasty faced and also miserable in winter. I really didn't expect to see that most of Europe can't match even the least sunny places in the US, never mind somewhere like California. Would love to see similar results for Australia but I imagine it would be largely one colour. via reddit

Proof positive that London's the most expensive city in the world, as if I really needed any. Interesting to see Sydney is as low as 11th as well. However these sort of infographic's can't be that meaningful if they doesn't even take in to account the average local salary - I think that would skew things even worse for London (and probably better for Sydney too) via Sydney Morning Herald

I'd heard of this mythical condiment a few years ago and presumed that it was something confined to the more hipstery neighbourhoods of New York. So when I came across it recently, costing more in weight than the price of gold (or Vegemite at any rate), I had to buy a jar. Jam may be a slight misnomer though, as there's thankfully nothing jelly like here at all - more of a marmalade, and something close to caramelised onions, maybe even a little too close to caramelised onions. But damn does it nice on some crusty toast. Anybody wanting to go to the trouble of making it from scratch can find a pretty tasty looking recipe here.

Sunday evening is fast becoming the best part of the week for TV thanks to Chanel 5* here - in the past four weeks at this time they've been showing nothing but top class movies I'd never heard of before. First it was Killer Flood (Imdb: 3.8), then it was NYC:Tornado Terror (Imdb: 3.6), then Polar Storm (with that guy from Heroes and which actually managed to make the Core look sophisticated) (Imdb: 3.8), followed by Tornado Warning (which managed to feature both aliens and electric tornadoes!) (Imdb: 3.0), and most recently Ice Twisters (Imdb: 4.1). They've really been giving the Movie Mix channel a run for their money. That channel happened to be showing Meteor Storm (Imdb: 3.6) at the same time (a change from a lineup made exclusively of sequels to the movie Sniper - none of which I needed to know exist). These beautiful examples of cinematic majesty often feature middle shelf Canadian actors with Vancouver and its environs standing in for New York, Chicago and just about anywhere else. They do magic with their minimal budgets and minimal acting talent, often constructing some sort of crisis situation room, be it NASA headquarters or Army command, from about 5 people (probably half the cast) and 2 computers. In particular I wish I'd known the Guardian had been live tweeting a broadcast of Tornado warning: ...running away from an electrical tornado. Again, if you're not watching this, imagine a toilet roll made of clingfilm with a string of Poundland Christmas lights inside it. That is exactly what an electrical tornado looks like. So what fantastic made-for-tv disaster movie featuring the worst tornado special effects will there be next week? Can't wait.. Update: Well they really pulled out the stops for this one - Tidal Wave : No Escape (Imdb: 4.0) It promised a lot when it started with titles that looked like something from my Amiga 20 years ago. And the main star - Corbin Bernsen! Well, at that stage it looked so good I had to just turn it off right there.

One evening recently looking out onto passing trains I noticed one of the neighbours from the house next door throwing slices of old bread into the grassy area behind the apartment building. This backs onto a fence which in turn has bushes narrow strip of briars behind it to the train tracks. Who does that, basically emptying food rubbish into someone else's garden!? When I looked out later in the evening some of the bread seemed to have disappeared. But then I noticed right at that moment some of the bread was being taken away by what I thought first was a cat but then noticed was actually much bigger. I've never seen a badger in real life, bar maybe at a zoo, so it was very odd to see one methodically picking up slices of bread, one at a time, from the grass and bring them through the railway fence into the bushes beyond. And I especially didn't think city badgers existed, or at least ones that made a living shoulder to shoulder with foxes in tiny parcels of waste ground.

Another few months, another move. It had to happen given that the price of everything is rising faster than my wages. We've had to moved out of our respectable flat in a nice boring neighbourhood close to shops and a park. Now we're in a much cheaper and more inconvenient place. The floors in each of the rooms seem to slope in random directions, as do the walls which makes the furniture look like its going to topple over. It kind of makes for an uneasy feeling and though it's not quite like a fun house room we're still slightly concerned is going to mess with our balance. More annoying than that however is water condensing on surfaces everywhere. I used to roll my eyes a little when getting advice on accommodation - make sure it's not north facing! - but it seems to make a huge difference in this country of mold and damp. A kitchen with a window is also a luxury I'd never had it my own place (they're invariably little kitchenette things stuck on to the living room) but now its more of a chore than anything. Having to wipe down the windows before they become dripping wet and chasing the mold creeping out of the corners of the ceiling is demoralizing. And the front door has swollen so much we have to kick it in like a police raid every time we come home. But it's not all bad. We're off the ground floor now and have a chance of seeing the sun from the window in the winter, however briefly.

Who has the money these days to buy new gadgets. That's right, not me. And though my old Android phone after a few years is looking a little chunky, scratched, and underpowered compared to what's in the shops these days it works fine and does everything I need it to do (which admittedly is not that much). But lucky for me I recently had the chance to accept a work phone that didn't really require much work on my part and, more importantly, money. The last time I had a Nokia it had a tiny green screen and it seems things have come a long way. This new one is quite big and looks pretty nice next to the other one. Its way faster thanks to all it's MHz and it's "Gs". It's quite pretty to look at on the table. The only major downside (besides being slippy) is its very shiny screen which, when turned off leaves me looking at the worst possible reflection of my own face, invariably looking down towards the ground and sagging; every single wrinkle looking like a chasm, exposed and exaggerated. It's not the most flattering look and every time I can feel a tiny part of my soul is crushed.

Plenty of time on my Japan visit to watch tv because of the too-hot-to-do-anything weather and it's reminded me how I'd love to read a comparative study on Japanese vs. English language tv. Commercials in any English speaking country I've been to more often than not show you a lifestyle and then associate their product with it. In Japan it so often seems like they concentrate on showing the product, and sometimes they don't even do that - just a bunch of kids in costumes (giant fruit or anthropomorphised characters) singing and dancing a jingle - very fast with usually with a a micro jingle at the end. In some ways if feels more wholesome or at least less cynical and insidious. Maybe it's related to how short the individual commercials are. Beer is advertised as a thirst quencher - always the actor drinking giant gulps at a time - the gulping sound itself seems vital, just as vital as the large head on the beer. Even whiskey is advertised with the gulping, refreshing sound, and by young women instead of grizzled old Hemminway types.

Summer holidays this year were a quick trip to Japan to show off the newest member of the family. The flight over was as trying as I'd feared - absolutely impossible to watch a movie or sleep when there's a crying child nearby, and especially when that crying child is yours. Air France didn't help though - rubbish service to go along with their rubbish food. The cold indifference of airport security staff was worse than all of them though. In Japan, despite being the so-called "rainy season" it was actually an even 35 degrees the entire time and really humid. The kind of weather where you just sit on the ground staring into space, sweating. It was too hot to do anything much other than loiter in convenience stores, abusing their air conditioning and looking for new exciting Pepsi flavours or Happoshu brands. I did get to have a look at the now tallest skyscraper in Japan (not including the sky tree) and had a quick trip to a Kyoto shrine, thankfully cool under the maple leaves).

We'd already decided to move flat a while ago - what with the impossibly high rent and low salary combination we're sporting, and the new family addition - but with the arrival of the St. George magazine in our letterbox it almost felt like we were being told to leave. I had no idea that the apartment complex that we've been living in was aimed at such high rollers. This is a free magazine that advertises only the most luxurious accommodation in the most expensive London boroughs. Kind of the property equivalent of the pretty disgusting Square Mile magazine, it was full of ads for super yachts, private jets and luxury penthouses - perfect investments for those looking to keep large amounts of cash away from prying tax collectors. The cover of this issue features some ugly new apartment tower that's going to be build right on the river in central London, near the Tate modern gallery - a huge blight if there ever was one. Who do they think is actually living in our apartment block?! I guess it's not totally surprising - some of the properties that are worth well over a million pounds around London look drab and crap. Of course everywhere looks drab after 8 months of winter. link

I hate going to the dentist - I've had too many fillings and multiple teeth extracted (thankfully I wasn't awake to experience it) and the waiting room is enough to trigger some Pavlovian response. Except for anything other than getting my teeth cleaned at least - I used to actually enjoy that rumbling sound inside my head like a car wash that was made by the dentist's tooth brush. Now however, this cleaning stuff is done by a dedicated hygienist instead. But still I haven't minded going to one - they're the dentist where you don't need anesthetic, so that's good right? No.. From now on I'm going to be cowering in fear when I have to go to one. It's bad enough when they just use the probe to check things, and it feels like they're sticking a pin in my gums and leaving it there to see how long it takes me to scream. But when they bring out the machine to get rid of the tarter crap I know now I'm entering a world of pain. I wish they'd give me something; oil of cloves or anything. I hate the shaming thing too - you're probably brushing too hard, you're probably not brushing hard enough, you're not flossing correctly, you should use these floss brushes instead.. Thanks so much - It's completely my fault that I'm paying you to put me through agony and spit mouthfuls of blood. Afterwards my clothes were drenched in fear sweat. Lying there in the chair, without any way to wince away from the pain like in any other occasion, just amplifies everything. The hook catching on some gum, yanking it in a direction it was never supposed to go. Ouch

A great map here showing you whether it's actually quicker to walk between two underground stops than it is to take the train. There are a load of stations like this, probably down to the deep tunnels and escalators you need to travel to them. And of course, delays.

Never heard of the Axis of Awesome, and I haven't actually read all of these books either, but this is still pretty good: via Cynical-C

Our first trip with a baby in hand was a bit of a disappointment on all fronts. It probably could be nice - a visit in to some to some prestigious college or museum, some ancient looking pub, a walk along the river - if it wasn't still stubbornly winter. That kind of vague pleasant afternoon was what I had in mind but the (in hindsight unsurprising) logistical nightmare of sightseeing in a medieval town naturally not set up with babies in mind was a real drain. Doubly so when it's only 4 degrees outside. Between not wanting my hands to freeze in the cold weather and managing a stroller over the cobbles and kerbs, I hardly took any photos in this most famous of university towns. I did at least discover that as old as Nero coffee chain may be, it might even be predated by Pret a manger We probably spent more relaxing time in the motorway service stations on the way there and back. They were warm, had baby changing facilities and hot food. Is this what it's going to be like from now on?

The clocks go forward this coming weekend for British summertime. Summertime!!? Everyone is still busy freezing our asses off. It was snowing the other day and I bet this Easter weekend I'll see snow again. Nothing to do but stare out at the bald trees and gray sky. Take me back Sydney, all is forgiven.

The latest meat-related scandal news is that meat pies in Iceland don't contain horse meat, or any other kind of meat at all. This link from CBC news however looks a little familiar. Pretty sure the meat pies in their photo below are actually from the Pie Face chain in Australia. Which I very much hope DID have meat in them at the time I was eating them