http://www.neuroticcamel.com Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:52:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I received a call from West Midlands police on Saturday, the day after the theft. They told me that the suspect had admitted his guilt in interview, and was being held in police custody over the weekend, before being taken to court on the Monday morning. He had also asked ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2009/09/08/birthday-theft-the-aftermath/ For my 34th birthday yesterday, there weren't any big plans. The idea was generally to go down to visit my parents, get some gifts, do a bit of shopping, and then go out to Cineworld Birmingham in the evening with Dad to see District 9. Everything went fine until we ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2009/09/05/birthday-theft/ The author, Frank McCourt (no relation) has died of cancer. His obituary mentioned his book, Angela's Ashes, a story of growing up in poverty in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s. It quoted an excerpt from it, which said: "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood. Worse ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2009/07/21/an-irish-catholic-upbringing/ Beautiful blue sky day today, which had me walking to and from the cinema to see 12 Rounds. The lack of clouds got me thinking about them, and in particular about a teacher at school. Mr Dail was my class teacher at primary school in 1984/85. He was an American ex-pat ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2009/05/30/cloudy-school-days/ Tales of horror relating to travel can be quite common. Some are worse than others, but most go along the lines of airport delays, lost luggage, or hellish hotels. I've had more than my fair share of travel woes, and some of them are pretty high up there on the ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2009/05/24/terrible-travels/ The BBC News website has published a selection of photos as a year in review that makes for depressing viewing. Of the 17 pictures posted there, 13 of them are about bad news - violence in Kenya and the DR Congo, Amazonian land disputes, natural disasters, wars in Afghanistan, Iraq ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2008/12/30/bbc-pictorial-year-in-review/ How good is your perception of colour? Can you easily discriminate between and order hues? Test yourself here - http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77. The lower your score, the better, with 0 being a perfect eye for hues and shades, and around 1000 being the default (unordered) score. My best score was 12, with a ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2008/10/01/colour-iq/ I had a City Council Pest Control guy round yesterday to sort out a wasps nest I'd discovered in the electricity meter cupboard on the side of my house. He took a look at it in the corner of the meter cupboard, listened as I said they were entering underneath ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2008/09/26/wasps/ My youngest sister, Jude, got married on Saturday to her fiancé Liam. I think she looked gorgeous.    The wedding service was at St Chad's in Hopwas, a small but beautiful little church in a village just outside of Tamworth. Yes, I did shed a tear or two. Thankfully, I was sat ... http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2008/09/22/jude-and-liams-wedding/ Worldle.net lets you create images generated from the frequency of words on your website. Some of them are visually stunning. You can also tweak the colours, fonts, and layout of the images. [note that your website must have an Atom or RSS feed for this to work] http://www.neuroticcamel.com/2008/09/17/a-visual-holiday/