tomatediseno

Office Guests 1

2009-08-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Buyers Market

2008-11-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

"Excuse me sir, I couldn't help but notice that you're somewhat more than comfortably overweight, are you sure you should be making a purchase of pastry based goods?"

I was quite taken aback by this. A till operator in my local supermarket chain telling me off for my lifestyle and advising me on purchases! Jeeze! Some people have mas huevos.

"Ahhh, no I'm happy enough thanks" - I reply, guiltily sliding an apple turnover into my rucksack.

"Hey you!", shouts a proprietor of gentlemans apparel perpendicular to my exit, "Yeah YOU!", pointing towards me. "Those clothes you're wearing are SHIT. Seriously, how the fuck do you expect to get laid wearing THAT!? Come on, look at this! Fuckin' smart huh?"

The suit, shirt and tie he's pointing at in the shop window are quite admirable and I can see how my normally disheveled appearance would be addressed by such a purchase. But still… that's quite an aggressive delivery for a salesperson. Besides I've never had much truck with that "clothes maketh the man" line.

"Eh? Ah… no… no, I'm not really looking to buy a suit". I move along, the suit seller already yelling toward another shopper who seems to have irked him with their lack of dress sense.

The uncommonly cold (for this time of year) air hits my lungs and makes my teeth grit as I skip through the opening from the shopping centre to the towns main street. Looking up from my rucksack, having retrieved my wooly bunnet, I find a strangely lecherous young man standing in front of me. It seems he's a florist, his left hand clutches a bunch of decrepit looking flowers, his right is, well… 'occupied' at the front of his trousers.

"My sister's just turned sixteen" he says, "loves these flowers so she does, buy them and who knows what luck you might have!" I ponder over the daffodils he's clutching, and notice the sickly way light is glinting off the stems, realising they're made of plastic, further flaws become apparent, wire pokes though the faux stems, the edges of the cloth petals are frayed and close to being completely unraveled.

I express disinterest to empty space as he's moved on to another potential buyer for his 'flowers'.

"Your job is pointless!", shouts a woman from a recruitment agency window. "You make very little money and have no prospects!", "Selfish BASTARD!" - this particular retort emanates from one of the many charity shops I amble past, "HEY BALDY!" beckons a barber I've not visited in five years. "Kind cxc ind anal ymn inv" comes the muffled call from the owner of a corner shop, confused, I look at the magazine he's pressing against the window depicting a naked woman with what looks like a… is that a GOAT?

Have you ever wondered, as I do, what it would be like if the retailers of the worlds streets adopted the same strategies of those who attempt to sell to you from your inbox?

Counter Measures

2008-11-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

Lets discuss electric tit torture. OK, not the usual way one starts a post regarding the internet and it customer / user relationship. Unless that discussion is about spam.

The ways spam can be sent to you are many and varied: from the hijacking of your associates yahoo or hotmail accounts, unexpectedly allowing your email address to be added to an unscrupulous mailing list, or just displaying your email address on your website for all to see.

NEVER put your email address on the internet. You may wish to make it easy as possible for your customers to contact you or to attract sales. All you will attract is flies to your inbox.

The workaround for lacking an email address on your website is the ubiquitous contact form.

Even these are are vunerable - as is illustrated by the first sentence of this article, received by a client via a form on their website intended for inquiries regarding their wares. This, along with "amateur boy dick" and "young gays" had very little to do with their daily business.

It's a misconception that people visit your website in order to send these messages, fortunately not so. One of the points of spam (when it isn't an out and out scam) is that you will hopefully click a link in the spam email, go to that webpage and click legitimate advertising in that page, earning the owner money. For it to be worthwhile thousands of these messages need to be sent out. Even in the current economic climate it's still not worth it for an individual to find and fill in these forms. So it all happens with little programs that run around the internet, looking for forms to fill in and send. This may conjure up images inspired by the movie Tron, thankfully this software is considerably more dumb, for now.

I've developed several techniques to overcome this automated process.

Look at the contact form of sites I've recently developed and you will find a question: "What colour is grass?" ("¿De que color es el pasto?" on websites en Español). Within my programming that sends the form contents to you is a bit of code which makes sure this is answered correctly, if not, the entry is rejected. As the form requires physical interaction with the page (clicking on a pulldown menu and selecting the answer) this cannot be carried out by an automated process.

The benefit of this over the more standard "Captcha" method (where you have to type in the numbers and letters displayed in an image) is that Captcha can be so obscure at times it's too confusing for even a human to decypher, and at some point Optical Character Recognition software (OCR) will become sophisticated enough to overcome this.

To counter any future developments in spambot software I'm extending this feature to generate a random selection from a large pool of questions, so until we have artificial intelligences patrolling the internet trying to sell you "Herbal Male Enhancement Pills" from a canadian pharmacy, your email should be quite immune to spam, at least where your website is concerned.

So, if you're looking at my customers websites and wonder why they want to know the colour of the sky, or what sound a cow makes before contacting them, it's all just part of the fight against online villainy.

Aren't you glad I'm on your side!

Chart Topper

2008-11-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

There are many misconceptions I've found people have about the internet and the relationship their website has with it, these generally revolve around how people find their site and if applicable, start buying their products.

The main aim site owners seem to want to achieve (myself included) is a position on the first page of a Google search. There are many companies who will promise this as part of their services, but here's where that promise may prove to be somewhat misleading.

Say I sell Broccoli and have a website doing so. I may be the first website on earth that has relevant results for a search for "broccoli sales", so you'd expect me to be No.1 in a search engine ranking. Of course there is a huge amount of detritus out there on the internet that will impede that. Eventually once my site has matured it will likely crawl up the ranks and get to a more noticable place than the 54th page of results.

Meanwhile, I recieve an email from a company offering Search Engine Optimization services (SEO) saying - hey, we can get your site into the top ten of Google search results. So yeah, sounds like a plan to me. I pay them and sure enough, my website is listed in the top ten, well, my company is. Via their directory website. Which is full of advertising.

So OK, all's well enough, I have the online presence I desired. What happens though when another Brocolli seller decides to sell online? do they automatically get the No.2 Position? I've been around longer, sure my site only has two pages which haven't been updated since the site was launched, but I was there first. Sorry, wrong.

And here's the real crunch. What if I'm the eleventh company selling Brocolli to approach an agency offering SEO that 'guarantees' me a place in the first page top ten of Google search results?

SEO is internet snake oil. If you want your site to be reaching your potential audience it takes work. There's no magic button or switch that announces your arrival on the internet with a gala opening, no queues of people lining up to see what your selling, you have to knock on the door of every one of your potential customers and let them know you're out there.

A search from "Digital Ink" currently brings my website in at fourth place out of 1,250,000

Customer Subservience

2008-06-19T03:36:00.000-07:00

So I walk into my local shop, take up a paper and 1/2 Litre of milk to the short queue and pay my £1 with a nod and a smile to the same guy who's stood there and taken my money every day for the past 4 years. I don't know the mans name but we know each other, I'm a good customer, he's a good shopkeeper. The papers are always nicely arranged and belong to the current day, the milk is fresh and nowhere near its due date.

So one day, waiting while he checks the age of some potential minor looking to buy a bottle of MD 20/20 a man walks up to the counter (he has the same paper and milk as I do), puts 90 pence on the counter and walks away. "Hang on a second!" cries the till attendant, you forgot this! The seemingly belligerent customer returns and instead of, as I suspected, being berated for his un-british queueing conduct, is handed a fresh pack of Hubba Bubba picked from the counter display. "You forgot your free bubble gum sir, or would you prefer chewing gum? We've got some nice cherry menthol airwaves here".

The surly man grunts his approval and stuffs the pink and lime green packet into his jacket pocket before marching off to his destination.

Rather bemused, I wait for the aforementioned (probable student) customer to prove he's the legal age for the purchase of toxic liquids, make his purchase and leave, putting me to the front of the line.

"Hi, so is the paper on a special offer today? 10p off and a free pack of gum - I'll take that cherry menthol thanks!"

"No sir, that'll be one pound, do you want some chewing gum, that'll be one pound 49 pence."

"Ahhh no - just that and that. But the guy before last, he got the same as I did except it cost less and he got the free gum?"

"New customer, just moved into the area."

"Sorry?"

"New customer, just moved here, from up the road. To make sure he buys his milk and newspaper from here rather than his old shop I offered him ten pence off, free gum and the right to just barge in front of other customers. He just had to agree to come in here every day for a year."

"And what if he doesn't?" I ask.

"Well we told him we'd sue his ass!", he laughs "but of course we wouldn't really, not worth it in the end, you seen how much a lawyer costs these days! License to print money so it is, wish I'd listened to my mother on that one!".

So I'm pretty puzzled by now. "Hang on, he's just come to the area and gets all these offers? I didn't get any of that stuff when I started coming here!"

"Welllll… there's more local shops now… more competition… we have to do something to make sure our customers are loyal."

"But I've been loyal!, heck I've spent a pound in here every day of the week for the past four years… that's… that's like… a LOT!"

"One thousand, five hundred, and twelve pounds - thirteen if you'd like to include todays purchase".

"Well there you go! Christ! you wouldn't HAVE a shop if it wasn't for customers like me!"

He pulls out a form from under the counter: "Well if you'd just like to sign here, I can offer you the same deal."

"Ohhh no" says I "What if I loose my job? What if I have to move, or I break my leg and can't make it down here every day?"

"Well sir" he says, putting the form back under the counter, "In that case we'd have to sue your ass."

Pissed off, I left the paper and milk on the counter and walked out, empty handed for the first time in what was apparently 1512, sorry 13 days. I might have been mistaken but I'm sure I heard his voice echoing into the street "Bye! My name is Kamal, this conversation may have been recorded!"

So now I'm looking for somewhere else to buy my paper and milk. I'm thinking of just going to the library, I'll read the papers there, it's free and you know what, coffee doesn't taste too bad without milk, think I prefer it really.

That's a true story, you just need to swap "Local Shop" for "British Telecom", paper and milk for "Broadband" and let your imagination do the rest.

Meeting of minds

2007-07-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

When living in Edinburgh I was always entranced by the amount of wildlife present in the city. The only thing to be seen in Stirling are rabbits and the seemingly solitary grey squirrel in the gardens over the road. None of the foxes, hedgehogs, even a deer once, to be found foraging in the more urban Edinburgh setting. Querétaro is an abundance of the weird and wonderful insects and lizards only seen in the UK on television.

And of course rodents.

I've no problem with the smaller and furrier of our earths co-inhabitants, most people seem to feel the need to kill them upon sight, something I'm not too keen on.

One night, while living on Morrison street in Edinburgh, I woke up. There was no audible or physical reason for my stirring, I just opened my eyes and there directly in my line of sight was a mouse. I should point out that I sleep on the floor, albeit on a mattress on the floor, just never seen the point of buying beds - digression.

So there, sitting on the floor, illuminated by the moonlight bleached orange streetlights and looking directly at me was this tiny 'intruder'. We stayed like that for all too short a time, my mind filling with questions as to how was it I came to be woken at that very instant, what was this little visitor thinking, who had more right to be there, was it actually looking at me and more to the point, directly at my face, my eyes, or just staring into amorphous space.

Ten years on and I still have ponderous moments about that encounter. If ever there was a time that made me believe there's more to "Life, the Universe and Everything" than what we perceive through our supposed five senses, it was then. I just hope should a similar event occur my guest isn't of the exoskeletal variety.

Yeah, we get scorpions round these parts.

That Elusive Sense of Achievement II

2007-07-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit of a 'completest', just hate to leave things undone, suppose it's what's now come in part to be known as obsessive compulsive disorder. While a lot of video games are 'without end' like Space Invaders, Pac Man (though that's not entirely true, seeing as it crashes at level 256), the vast majority are story led, they have an end and for someone like me that can become a bit of a problem. I recently came into possession of an xBox 360 and found the interesting "achievements" feature. Play 100 Games of Hexic and get an achievement activated, complete a level in Prey, and get an achievement.

While many of these can be a simple case of just starting the game, a number of them require some dedicated amounts of gameplay or a convoluted number of combinations of otherwise pointless actions.

As with most things these days there's a seemingly large online community of people dedicated to getting 100% of all these achievement points in each game they purchase, unfortunately I imagine there's a number of real life achievements they're possibly missing out on in their quest for online bragging rights.

So I guess my own problems with being a completest arn't that great, I still would really really love to know what happens when you finish Frankie goes to Hollywood on the Commodore 64 though…

Who's supposed to be watching who?

2007-07-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

So far in my life I've bought one TV set, a 23", 4:3 aspect ratio, by some unknown manufacturer, which rarely showed the correct colours and had from the day of purchase an annoying line right down the middle of it's highly convex screen. Prior to that, visual media was fed to me via a 14" portable which I'd dragged from abode to abode since I got it as a parental gift aged 16.

Recently I had purchased for me a whopping 32" Samsung HD LCD which I'm sure uses more electricity than the rest of my household appliances combined and I'm sure will make a fantastic radiator come the winter.

Not long after I received a letter from the TV Licensing 'people' telling me they were aware of the fact a TV had been delivered to my home yet no licence existed for this address. The following is my response to them.

I recently received a letter saying that you had found that a TV had been delivered to my address having been bought on DABS.com.

Yes indeed my girlfriend bought a TV for me from there, I do however believe no license is required for the following reasons:

I have NO intention of watching broadcast television.
The TV has NOT been tuned into to any stations and shall remain as such.
I have a collection of around 1,000 DVDs which I could quite comfortably take the rest of my life to watch, plus I have a subscription to the lovefilm.com service, so receive around 4 films a week that I actually WANT to watch.
I have seven games consoles from the past 3 decades and a collection of more videogames than I can be bothered counting.
I am not likely to be spending much more time in the UK.

I would ask that you look at the current TV listings and tell me if there is ANYTHING that is likely to appeal to my 'demographic'. I'm a 36 year old male, single (as in unmarried and live alone), with an I.Q. in the top 5% for my age group. My entertainment interests are centered around Sci-Fi, Korean horror and what is generally termed 'extreme' music or 'Power Electronics'. I am also capable of reading something other than OK, Zoo or Loaded, my favorite author being Philip K. Dick.

So I am NOT interested in the increasingly popular (and highly disturbing) gossip culture, reality TV 'stars' or the bovine stupidity inducing monotony of continuous repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please I didn't have a TV for almost a year and STILL somehow managed to see that episode with the haunted pub about six times!

So if you can point me in the direction of any TV show I'd find to be beyond sickeningly banal then I'd GLADLY pay for a license, provided of course that the cost of such is in comparison to buying said series on DVD about a week or so after it's been broadcast - a la Doctor Who… which while it's a bit infantile I do still have a soft spot for.

As a web designer I'm very familiar with the huge amount of on-demand entertainment resources online. I am an avid exponent of youtube and recently joined the Joost beta program, which thankfully has many shows that I've been wanting to see for years but have never been broadcast in the UK nor made available on DVD.

I don't wish to come across as some sort of 'elitist asshole' suggesting that TV is for 'The Proles' (Orwel, 1984, Big Brother - the book, not the alarming popular TV show (Channel 4 sticks a camera in a womans bedroom and it's called entertainment - I do it and get 6 months and a restraining order (joke)) but the fact is TV is aimed at the lowest common denominator and I am firmly outside of any form of classification that the BBC is willing to 'entertain'.

So, I'd quite gladly have one of your officers round to inspect my property and the equipment here, should I be incorrect in my assumption that having the TV for purposes OTHER than watching broadcast television still requires a license then I appologise for my misunderstanding but would wish to see documentation to clarify why this is the case. If it is so then I shall dispose of said television and return to my previous methods of watching films on my 6" portable DVD and letting my consoles continue to gather dust until such time as I take myself abroad.

Food Glorious Food II : BD IV

2007-05-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

The fruits wrought from carcasses of swine are regarded here in much the same way as hardcore pornography back home. It's there if you want it and know how to find it, but kept out of sight from children and self-respecting members of the community.
Plenty of poor substitutes are available in the form of beef or chicken luncheon meat, chicken hotdogs and rashers of breakfast veal. Stocking my food cupboard has become considerably easier in recent months. Having discovered larger chain supermarkets outside Manama, vast quantities of ready-made meals and cooking sauces are now at my disposal. Cheese is ridiculously hard to get hold of. Coldstores only seem to stock 'Happy Cow" a Dairy Lea type of product and processed cheese slices that the locals can't get enough of. Jawads (the local name for the Tesco brand), has a nice little deli section with a good range of mouldy cheeses and it was while perusing these nuggets of creamery gold that I stumbled across a shrine.

Barely noticeable was a gap leading to a secret treasure of more pork produce than you could shake a pot of apple sauce at. Pate, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, chops, loin, ribs, even that pie with the egg in the middle. Filling my basket like Hong Kong Phooey would, I slowed when the display degenerated into a pork autopsy. I was at an exhibition of body parts more suitable for grinding down to fertilizer than human consumption. Knuckles, bags of tails and icepops of blood, rinds, tongues and testicles - you name it, it was there, pink and frozen.  Already stilted I halted abruptly when presented to the 10.23kg, cling film wrapped head of the creature who's anatomy was commonly disguised as a desirable accompaniment to egg, beans, grilled tomato and tattie scones.

Must admit, it looked quite serene…

Dichotomy : BD III

2007-05-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the Manama Souq looking for a suitable vendor from which to purchase beds for some friends imminent and much anticipated visit. In an alleyway I saw a woman sitting with whom I presumed was her offspring. The child was obviously suffering from borderline malnutrition, barely aware of its surroundings, skin and threadlike muscles sagging from it's bones. I observed, while passing, as she tried to slide bread into the child's mouth which was just a slack opening to a head lolling about in her arms.
I found exactly what I wanted, paid BD30 (£50) of the 60 I was carrying, went home and ate a meal of sundried tomato and oregano pasta in a red pesto sauce with a glass of freshly juiced mango, while waiting for the delivery of my acquisitions.

Two days ago I found a dog lying outside the office, protecting itself from the afternoon sun in the shade of our building. The animal was obviously suffering from borderline malnutrition barely aware of its surroundings, skin and threadlike muscles sagging from it's bones. I went back into the office and took from the fridge the packet of sliced roast beef I had planned to make sandwiches from for the forthcoming weeks lunch. I threw the meat to the dog and cautiously it emerged from its shelter, sniffed the food and with a swift jerk of its head threw it down its throat.
The next evening, on my way home, I saw the same dog sniffing beside one of the many restaurant bins which pollute the afternoon air. As I reached out to pat its head, it turned sharply, snarled with a vehemence I'd never before witnessed in an animal and ran off.

Food Glorious Food : BD II

2007-04-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Baked Beans, staple side-dish of the UK. So what's your favorite brand?

I've never liked Heinz myself - too sweet, always preferred Cross & Blackwell. Here Heinz is king, which makes me wonder just how many cans of beans are sold every day? A rather dull ponderance I admit, but what I'm trying to say is that undertravelled as I am, it's never struck me how huge the world is population wise, but how small it now seems related to consumer goods.

Shopping here has so far been a bit of a sod, supermarkets just ain't that super, selling the same limited range of canned goods - except for one which stocks Chicken Tonight - bless 'em. I guess the main problem is that convenience food hasn't quite made it here yet, the decline of the Traditional Nuclear Family and Stay At Home Mum in the West has truly left its mark. Sure, there's take-aways, McDonalds, KFC, Dairy Queen, Hardies and a whole list of other burger, pizza/kebab shops and stalls, but there's a severe lack of stuff like Dolmio, Uncle Bens, and Balchelors cooking sauces. I just like to come home, chop up a lump of dead animal flesh, fry it until golden brown, add sauce and simmer for 15 minutes, serve with rice and my preferred vegetable of choice.

The equivalent of finding something easy to make for tea out here is like hunting wildlife with a slingshot in the UK.

OK, slight exaggeration.

One night I went to do a bit of shopping. Collecting the coconut oil, herbs, spices and the other bits 'n' bobs needed to make a Korma presented little effort, I then went on a quest for chicken. Having found the butchery department I noticed some nice, plump, juicy looking chicken breasts.
Making a bee-line to the chill cabinet I thought to myself, hmmm, chicken breast shouldn't have lumps like that all over it… shouldn't have red veiny tracks running around those lumps either and now that I think of it, it most certainly shouldn't have long strands of what looks decidedly like spinal cord running from it whatsoever at all.

I settled for vegetables in my curry that night.

Sheep's Brain Korma was definitely not on the menu.

House Guests

2007-04-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've never understood the term "ignorance is bliss". How can a lack of awareness, to someone with any intelligence and sense of the world around them, be anything other than terrifying?!

And yet it seems every day I, in the business of web design, run into clients who are blissfully ignorant to the fact they have uninvited guests running around their stores, their homes, their business.

I am a homeowner - at least partially. My first action when parted with my deposit and exorbitant solicitors fees was take the keys, MY keys to MY home and keep them safe, secure and always within easy reach. I didn't approach the nearest stranger who's bearing suggested they knew which was the business end of a hammer, saw and chisel, hand them my keys, thinking they must know all about houses, their care, upkeep and billing requirements, then saunter off to enjoy my daily life without a care or worry about where my keys are, who can get into my home and what they may do there. After all, I've given my keys to some one who "looks like they know what they are doing".

That scenario - preposterous as it may seem, is one I encounter almost every time I meet a potential new client with an existing website. They have no idea where their keys are. That triumvirate of FTP, username and password supposed to guard their webspace; their business, went missing the very day they made the purchase. Once I eventually find my way into that business premises - with their permission of course, I've yet to fnd the previous occupants have made off with the combo TV/DVD, scrawled over the walls and left an unpleasant 'souvenir' on the fireside rug, but it's only a matter of time…

goto 10

2007-04-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Back in the halcyon days of home computing (idyllic despite a Commodore/Spectrum brand loyalty war raging amongst the nations teenagers), a ubiquitous sight was that of a lonely C64 on display it's output dedicated to the sole task of repeating "Moz Woz Here" until someone felt charitable enought to put it out of its misery and press the RUN/STOP key.

People have forgotten what computers are REALLY for.

The traditional school punishment of "writing lines" would be meaningless to a computer, what is a dull tedious grind to a human is the bread and butter of a computer. It's MEANT for dull repetitive tasks, but it seems now to be making our lives more complicated. I get Word files sent to me with each word spaced immaculately out in individual key presses instead of using a tab or even a style sheet, Powerpoint presentations with each page background placed individually instead of using master page designs, all the dull repetitive time consuming things that the whole system is there to save you from doing people gladly plough on in expecting the task at hand to be complicated because computers are (seem) complicated.

While always preferring to take the shortest possible route to finishing a task I recently looked into Applescript, a function of the Mac computers I've known used and loved for well over a decade. If you use a mac, look into it… it's gonna change your life.

That Elusive Sense of Achievement

2007-03-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

I've found something often asked during the interview process is,"What do you think is your greatest achievement". I'm unfortunately, due to the situation, forced to bite my tongue and refrain from a comment such as, "Get that one out of Holding Interviews for Dummies did you?" and respond with a not untruthful but perhaps not overly considered answer.

My achievements are so inconsequential in the face of what I regard as being globally important. Sure I've progressed, and seen each goal I've reached as an achievement but seldom does anyone else. Not that I'm one to measure my own success against the views of others, but the admiration of peers is never going to be treated with distain.

That said: learning the skills I have, gaining the friends I have, finding people wishing to employ my talents, these are the equivalent of finding sentient life on Mars in comparison to someone who heralds their success by announcing "FIRST" on an internet message board.

Funny Man : Review

2007-03-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

The problem with facts is they're generally boring. They may be great and indeed a necessity if say, producing a documentary, but when detailing otherwise mundane daily activities, where's the harm in adding a little salt and pepper?

Such it was with the previous story.

Funny Man was indeed in. Who else on an almost barren 253 square miles of former oil-rich land was going to be inclined to hire it? So I got it out, watched it and took it back. Life went on. While it's no great milestone in budget movie making I did enjoy it and the memory of the experience did linger on for many years. Recently I had the opportunity to watch it again, this time of course on DVD.

So how did it stand up? Not badly, not badly at all. Perhaps this is aided by my love of the 'B' movie genre, especially those Hammer Horror style anthology movies that so often starred Peter Cushing. Rather than having what would commonly be referred to as 'plot', Funny Man is a series of tableaus where the titular character (a jester clothed Goblin) disposes of intruders upon his territory, employing a series of increasingly outlandish means. There's just a little something lacking though that's hard to place, I can see greatness lurking in there, it just needed a prod in the right direction to become apparent.

The biggest surprise was in the actual DVD itself. Throughout my collection of several hundred films, from the most banal of budget releases to extravagant box sets, Funny Man has, with no doubt, the finest set of extras I've seen. All were completely watchable and had something to offer in their own right. Of special note was a documentary on the diminutive star Tim James. Who? Yeah - me too. This had the potential to be as interesting as a documentary concerning your postmans sock drawer, yet is truly fascinating with some fantastic footage from the time of the films release and the promotional drive at Cannes.

So I suppose hiring that DVD was the final part of the odyssey: My Quest To See This Film. It's not been a bad ride but it'd been nice to have someone who'd have enjoyed the journey with me.

Lights, Camel Action! : B.D. I

2007-03-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

I like a good film. I like bad one even more. I have a tendency to get a bit obsessed about the occasional movie and a prime example of this is "Funny Man".  I saw a review for it years ago while on coffee break at St Georges and decided I had to see it. Described as a black comedy schlok-horror, destiny decided to stand in my way and disallow me the pleasure to be gained from this potential B-movie classic. The girl I was seeing at the time refused to go point blank, nobody else was interested and foolish pride prevented me from going to the Filmhouse on my own.

Eventually it came out on video but every time I saw the case, it was on loan. It presented itself to me on a shelf in Virgin once, like the Holy Grail, but I didn't have any money (I always went to record shops when I was down due to lack of funds) and when I returned with the fiscal requirements for the purchase somebody had beaten me to it.  A slightly more than casual interest in this film was becoming a distinct need to see it, a need that was put to rest my last Saturday in Edinburgh before departing for Bahrain when I paid Virgin one last visit - to no avail.

Enter Queen Video stage left.

Let me first introduce you to the world of video shops in Bahrain. They may have about 30 films on display that they actually own, the rest are pirate copies that you select from ring binders filled with hundreds of photocopied video covers. Queen video has more films in its horror selection than the average Blockbuster has in its entire Library. Now lets see if you can guess what film they have?

 Approximately 3,700 miles from when it was filmed, I found a copy of Funny Man. Where Edinburgh had failed me Manama, Bahrain was welcoming me with open arms, granting my desires and putting to rest a borderline obsession that has lasted almost three years.

It was out.

Retrospective: Bahrain Diaries

2007-03-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

A few years back I was working in Bahrain, the details of my arrival and departure are of little consequence but while there I was so struck by my first real taste of international travel and culture shock I was compelled to record even the most mundane of events. These became my 'Bahrain Diaries", resurrected here occasionally in no particular order and where appropriate with introductions and epilogues.