Mathew Browne » london

Orange Lamborghini London Docklands

admin — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:58:35 +0000

Some absolute tosser has spent the day tearing around the area in his orange Lamborghini. While I appreciate his taste in vehicles, I don’t appreciate the fact that the offensively-loud engine is drowning everything out – comparable to the planes going over from London City Airport – for the 2 seconds he has to speed up between speed bump and traffic lights and/or roundabout.

The title of this post has been shamelessly SEO’d in the hope that he’s vain enough to input “orange lamborgini” and “london” or “docklands” to see if anyone’s mentioned him. Well congratulations pal, you got my attention. Now fuck off to Silverstone where you can race it properly without interrupting my conversation.

P.S. My grumpiness has nothing to do with England beating Australia at the rugby. Honest.

Tutankhamun London Tickets

admin — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:22:21 +0000

Someone sent me an email asking where I got my tickets to the Tutankhamun exhibition in London, as they’d seen prices on various sites fluctuating. It appears that some companies are charging hefty premiums, being ticket resellers. I can confirm that Ticketmaster are the official ticket sellers.

Get your (official!) London Tutankhamun exhibition tickets from Ticketmaster here.

Tutankhamun London Exhibition – Tickets Now On Sale

admin — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:36:04 +0000

Just a reminder to those on you in the UK – tickets to the Tutankhamun exhibition at The O2 in Greenwich go on sale shortly. The exhibition runs November 2007 through August 2008. That sounds ample time, but when the exhibition ran at the British Museum in the 1970′s, people had to queue up to 8 hours for tickets. (An ordeal my Dad likes to remind me about every so often.)

Get the tickets with Ticketmaster

Rugby World Cup 2007: The First Weekend

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:02:19 +0000

I’m drafting this post on the train from Swansea back to London, reflecting (seething, actually) about some of the performances of this weekend’s Rugby World Cup games. Let’s reflect on some of the matches:

France v Argentina - What an upset! France, hosts of the World Cup, and in the first game of the tournament – in Paris – choked big time, leeting the Argies win a hard fought game.

New Zealand v Italy – Let’s be clear: Italy aren’t bad at all. Yet New Zealand walked it. Hopefully they’ll choke at a crucial point and be denied the World Cup yet again, despite being heavy favourites from the start.

Wales V Canada - The first half of this match hurt to watch. Wales, who were 1/100 favourites before the game started, leaked three tries en route to being on the losing side at half time. James Hook seemed struck by stage fright, and the introduction of Gareth Thomas and Stephen Jones finally turned the game around.

England V USA – England, the defending champions no less, were bossed about by the Americans and rarely showed any inclination to put some real points on the board. The commentators, meanwhile, went on about how they thought it was a psychological ploy to make the South Africans think they have an easy time this Friday. England aren’t that clever.

Ireland V Namibia – Either Ireland were really awful or Namibia played a great game. I haven’t decided

Scotland v Portugal – A dull performance from Scotland brightened up by the obvious joy that the Portuguese took in just being at the World Cup.

Samoa V South Africa – Brian Habana is simply outstanding, I feel that Samoa’s heavy loss might have turned out a little different if it weren’t for him. A hard-hitting game, I’m sure they’re all incredibly sore today.

Australia V Japan – Australia racked up a truly enormous score against the Japanese, utterly dominating and looking a massive threat to the Welsh on Saturday. (I’ll be there.)

WordPress London meetup, October 2007

admin — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:01:03 +0000

After the Future of Web Apps conference at Excel London there’s supposed to be a WordPress meetup but the choice of bar yet to be decided. I decided to wade in on the discussion and volunteer my knowledge of the area in finding such a bar. ExCeL’s own site lists a few such places but omits The Fox which is practically on ExCeL’s doorstep. (In fact, it’s called The Fox @ Excel which makes their omission even more intriguing.)

Above: the view from my window (Excel is the big white building in the background)

Here are some of the nearest pubs/bars, along with some relevant links.

The Fox About a 20 second walk from Excel’s main entrance. HUGE bar but it has to be seeing as most visitors to Excel try this bar first. Can get very busy on event days (or rather, after the event has finished for the day).
So Over the footbridge from Excel – which is a pleasant walk in itself. Outdoor seating if it’s decent weather. Likely to be less busy than The Fox on an event day.
Caribbean Scene (highly recommended if it’s sunny)
Failing the above, the hotels – Ibis, Crowne Plaza, Novotel – all have their own bar (though I haven’t been in so can’t vouch for quality on way or another)