Jack journalistically describes a protracted interaction with our wonderful friends at City-Link!

It's Christmas, I want to go home to see my family. The media points out that there are terrible timetable delays to look forward to. I fear the "turn up at Euston and not get a seat, or even get on the train, because of overcrowding" scenario. I therefore try and make a seat reservation at www.virgintrains.com for travel tomorrow. I see things have changed, a new website design with a new fare matrix.

Bottom line: it used to be possible to buy a saver return on the website which meant as long as you picked the ...

Been a while since I posted, so thought I'd share a link that I found to a site listing all of the films shown in the Moviedrome slot that used to be on Sunday evenings on BBC 2. The selection is an excellent one and I really enjoyed scanning through and remembering watching nearly all of them from 1988 to 1993. Not totally sure that the list is complete as I'm certain I recall Alex Cox introducing The Wages Of Fear too. It was an excellent format with a quick introduction giving the historical context and things to ...

It's a rainy day in Hue so I thought I'd get down a few notes while I've got nothing better to do ...

Travelling in Vietnam by myself has so far been a varied and interesting experience mixed with lows and extreme highs. To spoil the ending, the best part of it by far has been interacting (ie. talking, smoking, drinking, bartering, clinging on to while riding scooters, joking) with the Vietnamese people (they (I hate using that word) call themselves Vietnami). The warmth, friendliness and genuine smiles just cannot be matched by any other culture that I ...

Gmaps Pedometer is undoubtedly the most useful application of Google Maps I have come across. You can calculate the distance you have just jogged and plot your route on a pretty map. Saves carrying a pedometer or a GPS! Simple to use, click "Start Recording" and then Double-Click for each of the vertices of your route. Brilliant!

Annoyingly the SQL CLR engine does not allow the use of the System.Web assembly and consequently you cannot use the very helpful HttpServerUtility.UrlDecode member in your User Defined Functions. Here is a quick hack which does something similar. Useful if you are in a rush!

using System;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data.SqlTypes;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;

public partial class UserDefinedFunctions
{
    [Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction]
    public static SqlString URLDecode(SqlString URL)
    {
       string[]Encoders=new string[]{" ","%20","!","%21","\"","%22","#","%23","$","%24",
           "%","%25","&","%26","'","%27","(","%28",")","%29","*","%2a","+","%2b",",","%2c",
           "-","%2d ...

From time to time I write a letter to my local MP when something really bothers me. Here is the transcript of my latest correspondence:

Dear Jeremy Corbyn,

I am a resident of London, having lived here for the last 7 years. I originally come from Birkenhead on the Wirral, but work in the capital as a Software Developer. I regularly travel back up North on the Virgin Train service to visit my family and have done so about 6 times a year for the last 7 years. I do not own a car and have no intention of doing ...

My combinatorics are a bit rusty but I reckon the chances of the number selections being so similar is fairly remote. I might contact the National Lottery and ask for some number facts! Will report back their reply.

I've been neglecting this blog of late, but promise to update soon with plenty of C# musings. In the meantime I'd like to draw your attention to the new location of my musings on allotments. Here you'll find myself and other plotholders tracking the progress of their plantings throughout the year. See you there!

I've neglected my blogging duties this week, mainly due to starting a new contract in Hertford. It has been interesting working again, equipped with all my recently acquired knowledge from studying the last few months. The work is extracting some useful information from a well known auction platform using their API. The power of web services is really highlighted when the possibility of automating processes based on real time information is explored. Automata that can provide a service ad infinitum (well at least until the API being used changes or becomes redundant) have an amazing possibility for generating a ...