Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

Rebecca and I were walking to the station this morning and saw this!

I have no idea how this car got flipped like this; we couldn’t see any obvious impact marks and there didn’t appear to be any other cars…

Micro tornado, maybe?

It appears the people in the car got out safely…

I met some london-dwelling online buddies last night at the Bankside Bar near London Bridge. We met online playing a game called Planetside, which has been going since mid-2004. The game stresses teamwork in order to win, and I’ve met many people through the game.

From left to right: Matt (Morgy), Me, Jason (Darkstalker) and Arron (Arron).

Despite the fact that we met online, our conversation was not limited to online things, even if it did veer that way occasionally.

Many people cite the stereotype of a spotty teenager sat in front of a computer with no life. This might be true in some cases, but not all. What’s obvious is that I’ve met some nice, like-minded people online, and we’ve taken this offline as well.

Plus, I consider it a far more stimulating and social medium than gormlessly sitting in front of the TV. I’m interacting with people, using my brain and socialising. I also keep it in balance with the other commitments in my life.

Ten years ago, people who surfed the web were regarded as “geeks”. Now it is mainstream.

Five years ago, people who dated online were regarded with pity as “losers”. Now it is mainstream.

Currently, people who game online are attacked with negative stereotypes. A recent discussion on the BBC “Have your say” forum threw these attitudes into relief. I think these media are the future.

Why?

Well, with richer graphical interfaces, passport profiles etc. I think maybe one day, the whole web will be represented using concepts from online games.

But back to the evening at hand. We got quite merry, had a good few laughs and vowed to meet again soon. Who knows if that will happen as soon as we hope, given the nightmare of getting around London and our respective busy diaries, but I’m sure we’ll try!

Got a webcam from a friend recently – more on that in another post. Tried it for the first time with my friend Myles, who runs a gym in East Molesey called Riverside Gym.

His cuddly rhino is called George!

My friend Joe at work sent me this. Made my morning!!

Rebecca’s sister Dinah turned 30 on Saturday. The theme was supposed to be Celebrity Come dancing, but no-one really paid any attention to that! Rebecca and I turned up in some kind of cross between Celebrity Love Island and I know not what.

Some people even arrived as “An unknown, waiting to be discovered”. In other words, they hadn’t bothered to think of an outfit.

I’m not sure whom Dinah was impersonating with her shocking pink candy tracksuit and blonde fright-wig, but she looked every inch the chav starlet, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?

Dinah’s house was jam-packed. You could barely move for the people trying to get it on in the lounge as the DJs played some funky tunes. Caz, who was also celebrating her birthday, had brought her new dog with her and he was frantically trying to avoid getting stepped on, tail wagging like mad…

It really was testament to the huge amount of friends that Dinah has.

There were some gatecrashers too. I passed three girls as they came through the front door and said “hello”. They introduced themselves as Bree, Kylie and Sheila. Guess what – they were Australians! After asking me where I was from (Answer: “London”), they asked me if the whole party was full of English people as they wrinkled their noses.

I was inclined to point out that it is hard to avoid English people in England and if the English had got used to meeting English people maybe they should give it a go.

Unfortunately, I was inclined to say this with hindsight – I’m always cleverer after the event!

Another contributory factor to this jam-packing was that people came from very far away: Rukeya came down from Leeds, Jeremy and Helen came down from Cambridge. And I thought I was making a Herculean effort going to the party in Croydon from Harrow!

You can see the full glory of our fancy-dress frolicking here: Gallery.

Were you at the party too? Leave a comment below!!

On Saturday, we met our friends Amy and Phil to visit Battersea Power Station. Apart from the usual lateness in getting out of the house, I was unfortunate enough to step in some enormous, steaming dog crap. This delayed us even more, but we got there in time for some beautiful views of the station in the autumn sunlight, trying not to get lured into Battersea Dog’s Home.

As ever, Amy and Phil were great company. We queued for a short while to get in because there is a limit to the weight the structure can support, but this gave us ample opportunity to photograph low-flying planes next to the impressive chimneys.

Immediately inside was a tank! It appeared that some monstrous force had crushed the barrel of the tank. It turned out that the tank was nothing more than a sculpture and that some tourist had decided to swing off the barrel, crushing it in the process.

The inside of the power station is like something from 28 Days Later: lots of biology overtaking the old technology. Grass is abundant on the floors of the station and birds soar between the chimneys, which you can see thanks to the absence of a roof. It is eerie and beautiful. Surrounding the power station is a vast wasteland. I haven’t felt this dwarfed and exposed since standing in Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

There was an art exhibition featuring the work of Chinese artists. It was very strange and included a wall made out of rotting apples and some rather amusing animations.

You can see photos from the visit here.

You can see a satellite photo of the Power Station here.