F# for C# programmers

Here's an interesting article to help C# programmers get used to F#.

Linux++

The tanks are on the lawn. (here)

Novelty note: Whilst we're on the topic of a browser as a multi-principal OS, let me mention my colleagues' work on Gazelle.

Spending 1p

One of the "features" at Glastonbury are the female urinals. If you're scratching your head at the idea, here's a picture to help you:

Kasabian

Respect to my buddy, Matt, as he was clever enough to book a couple of tickets ages ago to see Kasabian, who were playing at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last night. Wow! It was a really great gig. We caught a few tracks from them at Glastonbury, but it was fantastic to see them in a smaller (and much sweatier!) venue. They really are very tight live - reminded me of seeing Oasis at Earls Court with my brother in 1995. Tom is, I think, a modern-day Mick Jagger. Sergio plays a very nice Rickenbacker 481.

You should check out their new album (spotify link).

Glastonbury

About two weeks ago I got a phone call from The Guardian. In a moment of vanity, I wondered what they wanted a comment on! In fact they were calling to tell me that I had won a pair of tickets to Glastonbury!! Hurrah!! It took Mateja and me a little while to do some research to decide to go, but after a reassuring tutorial from Matt "Mr Glastonbury", we decided to go for it.

Thanks to the generosity of Jo and Luke, and Andrew and Lisa, we were able to cobble together enough equipment for the family to go last weekend.

We had a fantastic time! We set off late morning on Friday (luckily Hana's school was closed for a teacher training day) and arrived an hour later than expected at Glastonbury. Unfortunately everyone else had already arrived, so we didn't get into the car park we had a pass for, nor the next, or the next and so on. In the end we were about a mile and a half away from pedestrian entrance D :-( Moreover, it was a mile and a half through fields. In fact, a mile and a half through very muddy fields. After a long and painful hauling of the gear we got in, and managed - against all predictions - to get a great pitch in the family camping area by the entrance.

Although we were a little apprehensive to start with - we all had a wonderful time. We spent most of our weekend in The Kidz Field - which is a huge area full of children's activities. The girls had a ball. This was pretty much their dream location - rides, slides, music, craft activities, all-day entertainment on the stage (including Andy from CBeebies!). Mateja and I could relax and let the girls enjoy themselves.

We did get to see some music (although if you really want to hear lots, then you can't really go with children): Lady GaGa; The Ting Tings; Kasabian; Bruce Springsteen; White Lies; Status Quo. Unfortunately we did miss some acts that we were VERY keen to hear: Blur; Lily Allen; Little Boots (the girls' current favourite - we listened to "Meddle" around 10 times on the way down). But all in all, we returned home on Sunday night, tired, dirty but happy.

Here are some snaps:


Time to put the wellies on!


Did we forget anything? :-)

Let's go find the festival!

Waiting for Lady GaGa in the mud!

A tiny fraction of the tents (we had no idea what 140,000 people in tents looks like).

Andy from CBeebies with enthralled children at his feet:

The wonderful Kidz Field:





Making drums:


Making music with the drums:



The pyramid stage (Kasabian):



The coolest girls watching White Lies:

Muffins for breakfast!

There's a lot of rubbish left by the morning!

Quo-tastic:

A perfect day - tutus and balloons:

We made it back to the car!

Blue is the new black

It appears that I am thicker than even I thought. The other night, whilst getting the girls ready for bed, I managed to slip down some stairs, falling into the bathroom and landing with my head on the side of the changing table. It was pretty dramatic - a fair amount of blood, which the girls kindly wiped off me whist I lay on the floor. I expected to start feeling faint and pass out, but nothing much happened, so whilst holding a towel to my head I finished getting the girls ready for bed, read them a story, tidied up the bathroom and went downstairs.

Had I not been alone, I would have probably gone to A&E to have it checked, but Mateja was singing at Southwark Cathedral and didn't get back until 11:30. I could have gone then, but I decided to watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy instead :-)

The next morning, as it was still bleeding a little, I decided to go to the GP surgery. I took Hana to school, picked up my bike from its repair, and then cycled in. The nurse had a look. She called in the doctor. She had a look. She decided that it needed a stitch or two, as even though it's currently covered by hair "...how can I put this delicately? Maybe your hairline won't always stay where it is"!

I was send off for a coffee whilst the doctor cleared some of her list, and I then returned and had two neat stitches put in. This year's colour for stitches is blue; the doctor said "...so we don't miss any when we take them out". Nice. So I'm now a little punky for a week.

Congratulations Viktor!

In November 2007, Peter O'Hearn and I examined Viktor Vafeiadis' PhD thesis. Reading this dissertation closely, I was blown away with quite how brilliant it was. (Peter was similarly impressed.) It is thus particularly pleasing to see that the ACM SIGPLAN have announced it as a winner of its 2008 Doctoral Dissertation Award. [The first, and only, non-US winner!] Congratulations Viktor!