David Ingham

2009 AMQP Conference

I spent the last 3 days in La Jolla Shores near San Diego for the AMQP Conference. Microsoft joined the AMQP Working Group in October 2008 and I’m our representative in the AMQP Project Management Committee. This was my first opportunity to meet many of the working group members face-to-face; it was good to put faces to the disembodied voices that I’ve been talking with on the phone every week.

The setting for the conference, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, was just perfect; right on the beach with the sun shining and sound of waves crashing in the background. Many thanks to Matthew Arrott and Rita Bauer for making us feel so welcome.

The first day of the conference was open to the public and I’m pleased to say that we were full to capacity. Representatives from a broad range of companies came to hear about AMQP and the details of the upcoming 1.0 version of the specification. John O’Hara (JPMorgan), the originator and Chairman of the AMQP Working Group, began with an introduction to AMQP that covered the motivation and real-world use cases that it’s designed to address. Mark Blair (Credit Suisse) then presented the findings of the User SIG - the features and characteristics deemed necessary by the end-users participating in the working group. Next up was an “AMQP in detail” session presented by Rob Godfrey (JPMorgan) and Rafi Schloming (Red Hat) that covered the new AMQP 1.0 messaging model and wire-level transport. The vendors of the main three AMQP implementations, iMatix, Rabbit Technologies and Red Hat, then described how their products were being used in real-world deployments today. Finally there was a chance for the audience to provide feedback. I’m pleased to say that response was uniformly positive.

The slides from the session are available:

• Introduction to AMQP and User SIG findings
• AMQP technical overview
• AMQP transport overview

The remaining two days were a closed session of the AMQP Working Group. Good progress was made on a range of subjects. I was impressed how a group of people with diverse opinions were able to work together productively and reach consensus on a range of issues.

The next few months are going to be a busy time for the Working Group as we finalize the 1.0 version of the specification. The pressure is on as if this event is anything to go by, there’s a real demand out there.

My SXSW 2009

3/17: Andy Friedman, Romantica, Freedy Johnston (w/Jon Dee Graham), The Savage Trip (w/Michael Hall), Grant Hart (from Husker Du), The Silos (w/Jon Dee Graham), Amy Cook, The Blue Aeroplanes, 3/18: Rebekah Pulley and the Reluctant Prophets, Ronnie Elliott, Hoots & Hellmouth, Jon Dee Graham, James McMurtry, Randy Weeks, Ladyhawke, The Heartless Bastards, The Avett Brothers, The Decemberists, 3/19: The Magic, Human Highway, The Hard Lessons, Lucero, The Hold Steady, Dead Confederate, Phosphorescent, The Black Lips, Primal Scream, 3/20: Little Steven (keynote), The Mighty Stef, The Brothers Movement, The Thermals, The Hold Steady, Howard Elliot Payne, Hamell On Trial, Ed Harcourt, The Whispertown 2000, The Felice Brothers, The Hold Steady, The Shys, The Chesterfield Kings, 3/21: The Hold Steady (interview), Delta Spirit, Fanfarlo, Wallis Bird, Echo and The Bunnymen, James Harries, Moriarty, Silversun Pickups, News on the March.

Microsoft joins the AMQP working group

I first heard about AMQP (the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) back in early 2005 when John Davies first announced its existence at the Web Services on Wall Street Conference. I loved the concept of an open standard for messaging middleware and was excited by the potential for wire-level interoperability for enterprise messaging.

I’ve been tracking the progress of AMQP ever since. The formation of the AMQP.org working group in summer 2006 was another great milestone. Today AMQP.org consists of a broad group of software vendors and end-users: Cisco Systems, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Börse Systems, Envoy Technologies, Inc., Goldman Sachs, IONA Technologies PLC, iMatix Corporation sprl., JPMorgan Chase Bank Inc. N.A, Novell, Rabbit Technologies Ltd., Red Hat, Inc., TWIST Process Innovations Ltd, WS02, Inc. and 29West Inc. Last

Last Friday, Microsoft joined the party by becoming a member of AMQP.org. You can get more information from the press release and Sam Ramji’s blog posting.

I’m excited. More on this to come…

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1

Announced yesterday, Power Pack 1 for the excellent Windows Home Server is finally available. If you have automatic updates enabled then you'll eventually get this via Windows Update. If you can't wait, you can get it now at the Microsoft Download Center. For me, the main reason to pick this up is the fix to the data corruption bug but there are a few bonus features too:

• Support for PCs running Windows Vista x64 editions
• Backup of home server Shared Folders
• Easier, enhanced remote access capabilities
• Better energy efficiency
• Improved performance

More info here.

I'm currently working from the UK and being able to access files from our server back in Seattle has been especially useful. It's a really great product.

Sequestered In Memphis

For those who doubt the redemptive power of rock'n'roll, I invite you to check out the new tune by The Hold Steady. It's called Sequestered In Memphis, the first single from their upcoming album, Stay Positive. You can listen to it over at their myspace page. It's got everything, great riffs, horns, Springsteenesque piano, great lyrics and a shout-out-loud chorus. Ben Nichols from Lucero on backing vocals too. Makes you want to turn it up to 11 and jump around. I just can't wait to see this live.

Sequestered In Memphis

It started when we were dancing
It got heavy when we got to the bathroom
We didn't go back to her place
We went to some place where she cat sits
She said "I know I look tired,
But everything's fried here in Memphis"

Now they wanna know exactly which bathroom
Dude it doesn't make any difference, it can't be important
Yeah sure tell my story again

In barlight, she looked alright
In daylight, she looked desperate.
That's alright I was desperate too,
I'm gettin' pretty sick of this interview.
Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis

I think she drove a new mustang
I guess it might be a rental
And I remember she had satellite radio
I guess she seemed a bit nervous
Do you think I'm that stupid
Well what the hell, tell the story again

In barlight, she looked alright
In daylight, she looked desperate.
That's alright I was desperate too,
I'm gettin' pretty sick of this interview.
Subpoenaed in Texas
Sequestered in Memphis

I went there on business

The album is out on July 14 and they're touring in the UK and the US - details on their myspace page.

Stay Positive!

Update: Listen here...

Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band

I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

[Thanks Robert]

Bruuuce!

Expanding interoperability

In case you missed it, Microsoft made a major announcement today regarding some significant changes being made to foster interoperability. A key piece of this is the publication of some 30000 pages of API and protocol documentation; here's an extract from the press release:

To enhance connections with third-party products, Microsoft will publish on its Web site documentation for all application programming interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols in its high-volume products that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers do not need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information. Open access to this documentation will ensure that third-party developers can connect to Microsoft’s high-volume products just as Microsoft’s other products do.

There has been a massive amount of effort invested in this documentation work. I've had the pleasure of working on some of these documents myself, specifically some of the message queuing ones, and so it's great to see them out in the open.

U23D

You’ve got to see this. It’s a U2 concert movie filmed over several shows on their recent tour of Latin America…and it’s filmed in 3D! We saw it on the huge screen at the IMAX in Seattle and it is just jaw dropping. One minute you’re on the stage, next you’re in the mosh pit, next you’re flying over the stadium. You’re all sat there with your oversized glasses on, looking a little like Bono himself, grinning from ear-to-ear as Edge plays his guitar solo right in your face or Adam’s bass lines thump your chest. It’s just an amazing experience.

Windows Home Server

Like many geeks I have a server at home that we use as a central place to store music, photos and documents. I used to use an old Fedora Core linux box to do the job, based on a vintage dual processor PIII. This trusty old box had served me well for several years and accompanied me on the trip across the Atlantic from Newcastle to Seattle. Well, a few weeks back it finally gave up the ghost, leaving me to look for a replacement.

My initial thought was to buy a few new components and resurrect the box, again as a linux-based server. Before I did though, I thought I’d check out the newly released Windows Home Server, you know, being a company man and all ;-)

For those that haven’t heard of it, Windows Home Server (WHS) is pretty different from the other flavours of Windows in that, rather than being a general-purpose platform, it’s squarely focused on being an appliance for the home. It’s intended to run as a headless thing that you can stuff in the closet, or, if you prefer, in the wardrobe.

So what does it do? Well, first it acts as a central file store. You can create a bunch of shares and make them accessible over the network by your client PCs. Not much new there I hear you say. True, not on the surface of it, but if you look under the covers you’ll see a few smarts in how the server is storing the data. Instead of using RAID-based storage for data redundancy, WHS allows a bunch of different sized discs work to work together as a single volume. If you mark a particular share as requiring duplication, WHS will make sure that each of the files are stored on multiple physical disks. If you need more storage just go ahead and add some more drives and WHS will add it to the pool. If you have a disc failure, pull it out, stick in a replacement and WHS will do the necessary re-shuffling to restore the duplication. Very cool.

Another very useful feature is the integrated support for automated backups of the other computers in the house. By installing some ‘connector’ software on each client box, WHS will automate their backup using a nice incremental backup scheme. Using the server console you can configure the backup schedule that you want. The machines then wake up in the middle of the night and back themselves up to the server. You can open any of the backups and restore individual files or you can restore a complete machine using a special recovery disk. As the guy from The Fast Show’s Jazz Club would say, nice!

But wait, there’s more. WHS also provides a remote access feature that allows you to get at all your files or remote desktop into any of your home machines through a remote desktop protocol tunneled through HTTP.

One of the nice things about WHS is that it’s based on Windows Server 2003 so, if you know what you’re doing, you can get under the covers of the very simple-to-use interface and get to the real server underneath, allowing you to install other software on the box. I installed my streaming music server which works great; I’ll talk about this in another post.

Anyway, I’m sold, WHS is a really great product. If you’re looking to centralize your family’s photos and music or implement a backup strategy for all your precious data, I’d recommend that you take a look at WHS. You can buy pre-built, typically headless, machines from the likes of HP and smaller specialist providers, or you can buy the software and install it yourself. I’m running mine on a relatvely beefy system (2.33GHz E6650 Core2Duo) but others have reported respectable performance on some really old boxes. You know you’ve been looking for something to do with that old PC you’ve got lying around. You can register for an evaluation at the Windows Home Server website.

The Hold Steady are the saviours of rock and roll

If you read The Guardian you’re probably well aware that they love The Hold Steady. A couple of weeks ago they proclaimed their Glastonbury appearance to be “The gig of the festival.” Earlier they gave rave reviews to their records, Separation Sunday and Boys and Girls in America.

For me, The Hold Steady is just the most exciting band around. A month or so ago, Helen and I went down to Portland to see them play at the Crystal Ballroom. They played the Monday of the Memorial Day long weekend. We’d spent the weekend over in Hood River hiking and relaxing and when it came to the evening of the show I’d almost forgotten we were going to see a band. They weren’t playing til late and we sat in the downstairs bar having a few drinks til around 10 or so. We made our way upstairs and jostled for position, still pretty relaxed. When they finally came on stage and started playing, I was overcome by this complete sense of energy, excitement and joy. I was leaping around like an idiot (along with many other idiots!). The show was everything I expected and more; I was 18 again, feeling how I felt when I first heard bootlegs of Bruce’s live shows from the 70s.

Craig Finn, singer with The Hold Steady, understands this feeling too - check him out at the Springsteen tribute show from back in April.

In The Guardian’s latest piece on the band (from where the title to this post comes), Michael Hann shares his experiences:

But in the end, I guess, I love the Hold Steady because they make me feel like I did when I was 18. I don't mean girlfriendless, uncertain about the future, and prone to adolescent moodiness. I mean excited about the possibilities that music can offer, that someone you've never met can sing to your soul.

Don’t miss them if you get the chance.

The Hold Steady

From this week's edition of Seattle's The Stranger.

Couldn't agree more ;-)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at The Showbox

Dirty, that's the best way to describe the guitar sound opening the new Black Rebel Motorcycle Club record, Baby 81. It reminds me of the John Squire riff that opens The Stone Roses' Love Spreads. It's a sound that we haven't heard from BRMC for a while. Their last album, Howl, had a much more low key, alt-country feel than their first two records. I loved Howl, it was my album of the year for 2005, I bought copies for friends and everything, but I missed those dirty guitars and awesome rolling, rumbling bass lines. Well they're back and were in full effect at their Sunday night show at The Showbox in Seattle.

They played most of the new record and the new songs came over strong, better than on the record in many cases, especially "666 Conducer" which I thought was just brilliant live. They played just a few songs off the first two records including "Whatever Happened to my Rock and Roll (Punk Song)" which was as great as ever. Throughout the set they switched instruments a fair bit with Robert playing bass, guitar and piano and Peter playing guitar, bass and trombone - very cool.

After the end of the main set, they reappeared for an encore without Nick. I think they said he was suffering from allergies or something. It was definitely unplanned. Anyway, whatever the cause, the result was great. First Robert played "Mercy" (in the dark) and then Peter came out and played "Fault Line" from Howl. Then we had a great version of "Promise" before an all acoustic version of "Ain't No Easy Way" with Robert playing guitar standing behind the drum kit, pounding the bass drum with his foot - very cool. Then, a real surprise, Robert played Dylan's "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol" - an excellent version too.

The impromptu acoustic encore reinforced the point that while BRMC make the most beautiful dirty garage rock, they still sound great when stripped down to the bone. Go and see them if you get the chance.

OneNote Live Sharing

I've been using OneNote 2007 quite a bit since I joined Microsoft. It's a really nice tool for taking and organising notes. I particularly like the way it integrates with Outlook so that I can right-click on an Outlook meeting and automatically create a new note with all the meeting info (participants etc.) right there. Anyway, it has a bunch of cool features but I discovered a new one yesterday that blew me away, it's called OneNote Live Sharing. Using this wizzo feature it's possible to share a note with a group of others over the network. You can either use this in broadcast mode where the group see the changes the owner is making, or you can enable it so that the group can collaborate on updating the content - it's very cool. A copy of the note gets also saved in each user's notebook. I think it synchronises offline updates too but I haven't tried that yet.

I was in a Scrum planning meeting yesterday and we used this Live Sharing feature to collaborate together to edit the plans - very agile! It's kinda like a giant whiteboard that everyone can update. If you have OneNote, give it a whirl.

SXSW 2007

Just back from Austin and another fantastic few days of music at South By Southwest. This was our forth year and it was especially sweet for me this time to be able to catch up with my music-loving chums from Nottingham and Newcastle that I don’t see often enough anymore. We spent a few days in New York on the way (well, on the way for the UK folks anyway) and I managed to catch up with my friends Fiona and Neal there too.

It’s very easy to overdo it at SouthBy; the first couple of years it was like drinking from the fire hose, so much to see and do and you wanted to see and do all of it! This year we took it a bit easier, did slightly less running around but still managed to see some great music. Out of the 1400 or so bands that played Austin last week, here’s the few that I managed to catch:

Tuesday Swollen Circus: Teenage Prayers, Michael Hall, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, The Silos, Carrie Rodriguez, PreNup, Patty Hurst Shifter

Wednesday Pete Townsend keynote, Simple Kid, Barbara Kooyman & The Texamericans (w/ Carrie Rodriguez and Michelle Shocked), Ian McLagan & Bump Band (Ronnie Lane Tribute w/ Pete Townsend), The Scanners, Willowz, Patty Hurst Shifter

Thursday The Storys, Amy Winehouse, Justin Rutledge w/Luke Doucet, Attic Jam (Rachel Fuller, Pete Townsend, Mika, Willy Mason, Joe Purdy, Alexi Murdoch, Martha Wainwright), Stax 50 Revue (Isaac Hayes, Booker T & the MGs (featuring Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn), William Bell, Eddie Floyd and Jimmy McCracklin), Mika

Friday Michelle Shocked, Freedy Johnston, Joe Purdy, The Watson Twins, Buffalo Tom, The Drams, Steve Earle, Hoodoo Gurus, Justin Rutledge

Saturday Patty Hurst Shifter, Buzzcocks, Kings of Leon, Spoon, Iggy Pop & The Stooges

SXSW 2006

For some reason this didn't get posted last year; anyway better late than never here's what I saw at South By in 2006.

• The Resentments (Saxon Pub)
• Steve Wynn (Flipnotics)
• Cordero (Swollen Circus - Hole In The Wall)
• The Silos (Swollen Circus - Hole In The Wall)
• The Herms (IODA Party - Emos)
• Phosphorescent (IODA Party - Emos)
• Magneta Lane (IODA Party - Emos)
• Cordero (Industry of Music Party - Taproom)
• Patty Hurst Shifter (Industry of Music Party - Taproom)
• The Silos (Guitartown Party - Mother Egan's)
• Patty Hurst Shifter (Guitartown Party - Mother Egan's)
• Collin Herring (Exodus)
• Willy Mason (Antones)
• World Party (Exodus)
• The Plimsouls (Exodus)
• The Go! Team (Exodus)
• Newton Faulkner (Radio 2 Party - Brush Square BBQ)
• Marah (Twangfest Party - Jovitas)
• The Guillemots (Eternal)
• The Spinto Band (Eternal)
• Boy Kill Boy (Eternal)
• The Flaming Lips (Eternal)
• Jon Dee Graham (Whisky Bar)
• Ian McLagan (Whisky Bar)
• Willy Mason (NME Party - House Of Mean)
• Phosphorescent (End Of An Ear)
• Patterson Hood (No Depression Party - Cactus Cafe)
• Teddy Thompson (No Depression Party - Cactus Cafe)
• Beth Orton (No Depression Party - Cactus Cafe)
• Tim Fite (Antones)
• Billy Bragg (Cedar Street Courtyard)
• Marah (Antones)
• Brian Jonestown Massacre (Bourbon Rocks)
• IV Thieves (Pop Culture Press Party - Dog & Duck)
• Peter Case (Pop Culture Press Party - Dog & Duck)
• Steve Wynn (Pop Culture Press Party - Dog & Duck)
• Marah (Yep Roc Party - Yard Dog)

There are a few photos with notes here and the full set is over here.

Come on in, the water's fine

It's been eight months since I started work at Microsoft and it's been an excellent experience so far. I'm working with a great bunch of people in the Messaging Platform and Services (MPS) team which is part of the broader Connected Systems Division (CSD). (It's TLA-tastic over here!) I can't reveal too much about what we're doing as the plans haven't been announced yet but I can say that we're focused on messaging services and that we're working with some genuinely innovative technologies as part of project. There's still a lot of work to do and we could use a little help!

We currently have open positions in program management, software development and software testing. Here are the details of one of the Program Manager positions:

"Are you interested in revolutionizing how distributed enterprise applications get built and run in the industry? Want to be part of a V1 that will solve key pain points for our customers and better compete in the industry? The Message Platform and Services team (MPS), part of the Connected Systems Division (CSD), has an excellent opportunity for a senior program manager. The charter of MPS is to design and deliver the market leading messaging platform and premium messaging services to Microsoft’s connected application platform. Come work in a diverse & fun environment that gives you opportunities to solve complex problems in the enterprise computing space.

The team is looking for an experienced technical program manager to help deliver a set of messaging services scaling from a single machine, to the enterprise, and to the cloud. Responsibilities include working with engineering & customer teams to build a vision, scenarios, and requirements for the messaging services. You’ll also be expected to write technical specifications that you’ll work with development, test, UE, and marketing to get implemented and shipped.

Candidates should have a strong passion for customers, excellent oral and written communication, and strong people skills. The candidate should also have experience in shipping complex software on time and in delivering on objectives requiring group coordination and negotiating. Experience with messaging technologies such as WCF, MSMQ, BizTalk, JMS, Tibco, WebsphereMQ, etc. are a plus. A bachelors in computer science or related field is preferred."

If you're interested you can get in touch with me directly and I'll make sure that you get hooked up with the appropriate people. Alternatively, you could apply directly through the Microsoft Careers site. Either way, it's worth having a browse around that site as there is a lot of information about what it's like to work at Microsoft along with a directory of all the current openings. Good luck!

The Big Day!

Tuesday, the 19th September 2006 was the Big Day; after seven and half years together, Helen and I decided to tie the knot and get married. It was a great day.

We had an intimate celebration with our two sets of parents and Helen’s sister, Kate. The ceremony was held at the Woodmark Hotel at Carrillon Point on the shore of Lake Washington in our new hometown of Kirkland. We were married by Annemarie who did a great job; we had just the right mix of seriousness and fun. After the ceremony, the wonderful Gretchen took some more photographs by the Lake and we then went for lunch at the Beach Café. Many of the other diners in the restaurant came by to wish us well and two very friendly couples even bought us Champagne! After lunch we headed over to Seattle and took our visitors up the Space Needle. The views were great especially as the sun starts to set over the Olympic Mountains, very romantic. So part one of our wedding celebration was great. We’re now planning for part two, a party for our family and friends in Newcastle. Helen is with me here for a few more weeks and then she returns to the UK for a while before joining me here permanently in the New Year. We’re planning a few honeymoon skiing weekends!

If you're interested, there are a few more photographs available at Gretchen's web site.

Willy Mason / The Magic Numbers

Last night I went to The Crocodile Café, probably Seattle's most famous music venue, to see Willy Mason who was supporting The Magic Numbers. The Crocodile is a great place to see live music. It's an intimate room with a great vibe that holds about 300 or so people. The stage is nice and high and the sound is excellent.

When I'd seen Willy play before he'd either been solo or accompanied by Nina Violet on violin. Last night though we had a real treat; Willy's cousin Zak lives in Seattle and he'd put a band together for the show so it was a five-piece that took the stage with guitar, violin, dobro, double-bass and mandolin. The band sound really changed the feel of the songs, adding texture and vitality. The set was mainly from Willy's great record, Where The Humans Eat, one of Nina's (a beautiful song called something like The Dog Tomorrow) with a couple of covers thrown in (Hank Williams' Lovesick Blues and a Merle Haggard tune). Willy was in great form and the audience was very appreciative. I think he made a lot of new friends. Hopefully word will spread as he's nowhere near as popular as he deserves to be over here.

The Magic Numbers were up next. I hadn't seen them play before and I've only listened to their album a couple of times so I didn't have any expectations. They're a 4 piece band (two brother and sister pairs) with guitar, bass, drums and, err, melodica, chimes, tambourine and occasional keyboards. They have some great tunes with catchy hooks and a general feel-good vibe. Some of their songs have a laid-back west-coast feel that reminds me of The Beachwood Sparks. They played most of the songs from their debut record and 3 or 4 new ones that will be on their next one. The new songs sounded very good so I reckon the new record will be worth checking out. The Crocodile crowd loved them. Apparently they had been there last year also and many who'd seen them then were back last night.

So, all in all, it was a great night of music. I don't think it'll be long before I'm back at The Crocodile.

Back Online

I’m back online after a couple of months in the dark. This blog was originally hosted on an old Linux box from my attic in Newcastle. That box is currently somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic making its way, along with the rest of our possessions, to our new home in Seattle. It’s taken me a while to get around to it but I’ve now moved the blog, together with the old postings, over to the Typepad hosted service so connectivity should be a bit more consistent from now on.

What’s been happening? Well, after leaving Newcastle I first spent a week at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, TX (I’ll post a separate entry on this later) before heading up to Seattle to properly begin my new job at Microsoft. I’ve just finished my third week here and things are going pretty well so far. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and talking to folks here to try and start to understand the Microsoft technology stack and the plans we have for the next releases. I’m working as a Program Manager in the Connected Systems Division, specifically on enterprise messaging and business process management - in Microsoft terms that means Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and BizTalk.

I’m currently living in a nice apartment in The Olympus complex in the Belltown area of downtown Seattle. I’m up on the tenth floor with a great view over the Puget Sound. Getting from here to work in Redmond is a reasonably long commute which involves crossing Washington Lake on the 520 bridge, which gets very clogged at peak times. I’ve experimented with early starts, late starts and the bus to try and work out the best option. Late starts seem to fit best with my natural biorhythms ;-) I’m currently driving a Ford Taurus rental car which is the US equivalent of a Mondeo. I only have this for one more week so I need to find a car pretty quickly - US car salesmen are pretty much exactly how you’d expect them to be. I also need to pass my Washington state driving test; there are 3 parts to this: eye test, knowledge test and practical test. I’m taking the knowledge test next week, wish me luck.

I’m also starting to get my head around the practicalities of living over here. Tea has been a bit of a problem to date. They have plenty of varieties over here (you know the sort of thing, bags of fruit, herbs and sawdust that have never been anywhere near a tea plant) but finding proper English builders tea has been a challenge. Until yesterday that is, when I found the British Pantry, a little emporium of all things Blighty. You can get all the jams, breakfast cereals, and Jaffa Cakes that you could possibly wish for. The only problem is the price; I spent $16.09 for 160 Tetley tea bags and $11.59 for a jar of Marmite! They also have a restaurant selling traditional English fare. I’ll be back there for bangers and mash sometime soon.

Oh and the TV here is very poor in comparison to the BBC and UK TV in general. Now you probably knew that already but it’s not until you live here that you realise just how bad it is. I’ve given up. Instead I’m listening to FiveLive over the Internet and watching DVDs of The Sweeney that Helen kindly sent over in an emergency parcel!

More updates soon...