Found this on the interwebs…

The annoying old bag did it again. She got on the train at Cookham, sat opposite me, and kicked my feet deliberately. I moved, and she said something about needing room. I looked down, and while I was pushed back with my bag now wedged between my shins, she had all the room in the world. She also took up the entire seat next to her with the most gaudy gold handbag in the known universe.

I thought about sitting elsewhere – of standing up and mouthing “for f*cks sake”,or some other such comment on her behaviour. I didn’t. She spent the journey until Slough applying makeup with a trowel.

Her just deserts came when a businessman got on and sat next to her – his legs spread as wide as possible, and a broadsheet newspaper spread over the both of them. She said nothing. I began wondering if there exists some order in society that I have somehow found the bottom of? She felt fine imposing herself on me, and he felt fine imposing himself on her.

Whatever – I lost myself in my book once more, and wondered if it was better to be reading, or to be writing. Which enriches more – experiencing the record of other’s thoughts, or recording your own?

Leaving the train at Paddington, I walked towards the station alongside a pretty blonde girl. She was pushed aside by a severe older blonde woman in a “little black dress”. It struck me that sometimes London is pretty – and sometimes ugly. Today is somewhere inbetween.

Could this be a still from the forthcoming “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” movie ?

I think it could. I see Hermione is going to be promoting knitted scarfs and hats once again - and check out the Charlie’s Angels hair (which is going to cause groans from mothers across the world who will be fishing rollers and hair dryers out for their daughters).

After hearing so much about “On The Road” over the years, I thought it was about time I read it - and while wandering around London at lunchtime I stumbled across “Books etc” on the London Wall Road near Moorgate. “On The Road” was in among their summer reads promotion.

While sat on the underground travelling home this evening I eschewed my usual podcasts for the book, and while struggling through the first few pages, was soon sucked in.

Something funny happened too. Out of the corner of my eye, it became obvious that a couple of girls sitting nearby on the underground train were taking an interest in me - apparently because of the book. I had heard this happen because of “The Alchemist”, but never any other book. It would appear there are certain books that people like to see others reading.

So far I am enjoying “On The Road”. My only knowledge about Kerouac before was a visit to Cannery Row while visiting the US a couple of years ago, and my father in law talking about Kerouac and the beat poets back in the day (he is a huge Dylan fan, and saw some of his early performances). Oh - we went on something of a pilgrimage to City Lights book store in San Francisco too.

The journey home flew past. It’s the most I’ve been engrossed in a book for quite some time. I must admit that I find the story behind the writing of “On The Road” as interesting as the book itself… although the urban legend says it was written in the space of 3 weeks in a burst of frenzied work by Kerouac, it would seem the true timescale was closer to 3 years.

Of course, after reading the first 1/4 of “On The Road” I now want to find some Ginsberg to read.

Virgin and Scaled Composites have unveiled the first Virgin Galactic “Mothership” aircraft of their fleet that will launch tourists into space.

While squashed onto an underground train beneath London this morning it struck me how many unwritten rules I abide by while travelling on trains and buses; the same rules I secretly castigate others for not attempting to follow.

Among them;

• Make way for women. Call me old fashioned, and eccentric if you want - but for me this applies to all sorts of things - making way for others when you meet in crowded places, when arriving at queues simultaneously, and when seats become available on buses and trains. This morning I watched several businessmen take seats when women were standing right next to them on a busy underground train. Something in me says this is wrong. Of course some women will say that I’m causing inequality.
• Pregnant ladies should always get a seat. I watched this morning as a pregnant woman on the underground stood for a good part of her journey while businessmen sat all around her. It was hot on the train too. I almost spoke out, but given the animosity I would probably have met, I said nothing and now feel bad about my inaction. Letting pregnant ladies sit on trains and buses should be a given.
• Don’t invade others space. When travelling on public transport, or passing through crowded public areas I try to take up no more space than I am either allotted, or is necessary. On a train, I will put bags above my head (not taking the entire baggage rack), and keep everything about myself within my lap space, or between my feet. It therefore annoys the hell out of me when people kick, knee, and elbow you from adjacent or opposite seats, and/or spread their bags across nearby seats or floorspace. Their lack of consideration for others always shocks me.
• Be quiet. Nobody wants to hear your personal telephone conversation in a packed train carriage - therefore don’t have it. Tell the caller you will call back at a more appropriate time. Really. And don’t shout down your phone either. Just because you can’t hear them because of ambient noise around you doesn’t mean they can’t hear you.
• Do NOT litter. The worst I ever saw was a fat woman eat sweets for her entire train journey, throwing all the wrappers under her seat behind her legs. Second worst was two “yummy mummies” who deposited their run-wild children several seats away with McDonalds Happy Meals while they talked shoes and handbags for a couple of hours. The aftermath looked like several garbage cans had been tipped out - and they left everything for the train staff to clean up.

I’m sure there are lots of other things I’ve not thought of straight away - but the above list covers the basic tenets.

What behaviours annoy you while commuting ?

For those not involved in web design, I thought it might be interesting for you to see how a site “comes about” - the first steps, if you will.

Step 1 - Get the Sketchbook Out

Before starting to sketch ideas, you will inevitably have talked to the client - about their hopes, their aims, and perhaps given input on focussing those aims in terms of their web presence. Better to do a few things well, than many things poorly.

The sketch naturally takes on board the myriad websites, typography articles, and artwork you have recently seen. While imagining the site you take into account what is possible in HTML and CSS - this is where pure designers often fall down. You will also be thinking about search engine optimisation, and human user interface issues.

There’s a great maxim that’s worth printing on a wall in front of you - “KISS” - Keep it Simple Stupid.

Step 2 - Conceptual Digital Artwork

Using your graphic applications of choice, you “invent” the digital version of the sketch. An onlooker would probably think they are looking at a real website - and indeed, many early website prototypes are a sequence of fake screenshots.

Once the artwork is finalised with the client, it may well end up being chopped up - to turn it into elements more suited to the eventual HTML bounded version.

I’ll do another post soon with how the HTML, CSS and Javascript gets written - and possibly even how that version of the site gets ripped up again to suit Wordpress, Drupal, or some other content management system.

If you arrived at this blog post expecting to see a fan-boy posting about the enigma that is “Britney”, you’re going to be disappointed. This post is a cynical exploitation of the crowd to investigate the effect Miss Spears name has on website traffic.

I did it once before, also mentioning the words surrounding Britney’s behaviour of the time - which effectively read like a George Carlin’s banned word list… among them of course were such innocuous words as “commando”, and “camel” - both of which spiked the traffic results last time. There are some truly strange people out there.

I’m wondering how the results of this test will compare against my test of a couple of years ago. I seem to remember that a certain Pamela Anderson was the most searched for “term” several years ago, as was Britney a couple of years back.

In some ways it’s a shame that the analytical tools expose such base behaviour in the great unwashed masses, but at the same time the information available to us helps target legitimate communication with the community.

I will of course write up the results of the traffic spike (or lack of it) in the next day or two.

You’re wondering why this post is titled “Headless Robots”. Wonder no more - head on over to “We The Robots” and identify with the message.

I did.

In other news, I cycled into the office this morning for the first time in ages to bring my time recording up to date, and to pay back some petty cash I borrowed for one lunchtime several weeks ago. Stretching my legs on the bike was fun, and got me away from this infernal chair for a while. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a nice chair, and I don’t actually mind sitting in here - it’s a nice work environment - but I’m spending a huge portion of my life in this room at the moment.

I’m starting to sound like Woody Allen, aren’t I. Must stop that now, before I start worrying out loud about the most mudane introspective subjects in the universe.

This evening is going to be filled with crap movies and crap food. We have begun this somewhat regular tradition of meeting up with some of my colleagues who live a few minutes away for pizza, beer and a movie - almost every week. I invited another colleague along tonight who lives nearby too. It’s nice because everybody is within walking distance. I have to go raid the Blockbusters bargain bin later to find something for everybody to watch.

I also need to go and buy 5 pizzas from the supermarket after work - and have the psychologically damaging situation where the inevitably pretty girl on the checkout looks from the pile of pizza boxes to me, and shakes her head - and I make everything worse by blurting out “they’re not all for me, honest!”