Miscellaneous from SimonCox.com

Gluten free veggie sausage roll recipe

Simon Cox — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 24:00:00 GMT

Here is the recipe!

Ingredients

Filling

275g breadcrumbs from a gluten free loaf – Shär Vitality Loaf
225g grated mature Cheddar cheese
1 large onion grated
3 tablespoons of The Coconut Collab Double Cream
3 tablespoons chopped sage
1.5 teaspoons mustard powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Pastry

Two 280g packs of Jus-Rol Gluten Free Ready Rolled Puff Pastry Sheets.

Method

With the sheet orientated landscape in front of me, I cut the each sheet across about 1/3 down from the top, and then joined the two thinner strips together using a paste brush and some water to have three strips of the same size.

All the filling ingredients were put in a bowl and thoroughly mixed, split into three equal portions and then rolled out to about the same width as a pastry strip.

These were then placed on a baking tray and placed in the fridge for 30 minutes.

When the mix is chilled one is placed on one sheet of pastry which is folded over and sealed using a brush and some water - I brush the water gently along the strip until the surface starts to go a bit sticky. Then press gown gently to get a good seal.

Turn the pastry over and then cut out the rolls - aim for 12 so cut halfway then halfway on each of those and then you can cut those four pieces up into thirds.

Repeat this for the other two mixes and sheets.

Lastly I cut a notch in the top of each roll with a pair of scissors and then place them all on a greased baking tray.

Bake

Set the oven at gas 7 / 220ºc / 428ºf for 10 mins to heat up. The tray of rolls will need 20-25 minutes. They don't brown that well as there is no egg glaze on them to do that - though I might try some olive oil in future.

When basked transfer then to a wire rack to cool and then most importantly of all, hide them.

The inevitable accompanying story

It seems every bloody recipe on the web has an accompanying story, usually before the recipe itself, so here is mine.

This recipe is adjusted from the brilliant one Delia Smith brought out in her superb Delia's Happy Christmas book many years ago and is full of excellent recipes. A few years ago my wife became gluten and dairy intolerant so I had to change a lot of what I had been cooking. Gluten free pasta is great - you hardly notice the difference.

She has missed out on these festive treats, so this year I thought i would try and make these so she can have a couple, ok, begrudgingly half of them then. My wife is able to have small amount of hard cheese occasionally but otherwise does not eat any dairy products.

This mean the breadcrumbs had to come from gluten free bread - she has Shär Vitality Loaf, and The Coconut Collab Double Cream which is very tasty! Surprisingly all the mix ingredients came together really well and the sausage was formed easily and stayed together - usually it breaks up a lot for me. Using pre-made gluten free pastry was a revelation - so easy! I'm not bad at making pastry but this was so much simpler.

Next year I think I will make the rolls smaller - I will try four rolls instead of three and cut the sheets in half and the sausage rolls a bit wider - will update then.

Update 2026-01-31

Made a new batch and used half a sheet per roll instead of a third - also cut the rolls longer and these look much better - still taste great!

Lightning Strikes

Simon Cox — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 12:37:35 GMT

Last week we were hit by a sudden storm. We missed the sky clouding over, it was very quick and then there was an almighty flash and instand thunder that shook the whole house.

Our power went off before the thunderclap stoppped. It was a bit of a shock but the electricity came back on failry quickly and that sometimes causes issues. I checked the lightning app I have and could see a couple of hundred yards up the road. We had not been hit but were shook up! Then we realised we had no broadband. After checks I realised we had lost a base powerline unit so I ordered a new one.

It wasn't for another three days with patch wifi cover over the house that I worked out that the ethernet ports in the Router had also been fried. Hopefully, the new router will arrive this week but we realised how much we rely on internet services for our everyday life - even the radio stations we listen to come through the internet.

I will be recreating our home mesh wifi slightly differently this time around and now have a spare base unit for the Lan - just in case! There was a second lightening up in the village and a lot of people getting replacement routers over the weekend!

Making my Stadia controller work on bluetooth

Simon Cox — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 13:28:48 GMT

I don't have a games console but really wanted to play Cyberpunk 2077 when it came out and Google Released it on Stadia so I go the package. It included a Chromecast Ultra and a very nice hand controller. Sadly, as with many Google forays, they decided to Sunset Stadia and it closed down on the 18th Jan 2023. The controllers bluetooth was locked out but they have released instructions on how to enable it for use with any bluetooth device - happy gaming!

DandD Character Generator

Simon Cox — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 10:53:23 GMT

Many many years ago I owned a Spectrum +3 computer. For some nostalgia the Spectrum +3 operating manual is online. My friend Nick and I programmed a D&D Character generator in Basic on these. Took us months to do and then we added and added to it. Did it just for our own games. I then developed a font for use on our dot matrix printers for the output too! We also created a weather generator for our games so we could factor that into the game campaigns. At the time D&D was sneered at as being childish so we never told anyone what we had built. How times have changed.

Aperture tidy up

Simon Cox — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 24:00:00 GMT

I spent some of the weekend tidying up my photos in Aperture. I had realised that the the actual files are kept in Projects when you pull them into Aperture and I had a whole range of topics organised into folders with the projects inside them. THe problem with this is that some projects were based on individual trips and others as collections which meant that organisation of image files was not that strong.

What I decided to do was to organise the files by date and I created Projects based on years so I will fill each years project up with the photos I have taken that year. Then I would use Albums to create collections of images based on subjects. In Aperture Albums are simply collections rather than holding the files themselves and this was the important learning point. If I delete an album I don’t delete the images but if I delete a Project I DO delete the images. So the important thing was to store the images in one place and then use Albums to make collections.

What I then did was add albums with the same name as the projects I already had and then placed all the files in images in that project in the Album of the same name. Once I had completed that for all projects I then made Smart albums for each year which sorted the images into years and then I could move the images into their respective year Projects. Then I checked each of the old projects to ensure they were empty leaving me with a set of albums for each category I originally had.

25,000 files done. But I do have 8,000 of those that I need to sort into albums! Perhaps another weekend.

I never met Steve Jobs

Simon Cox — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:00:00 GMT

Steve Jobs was many things to many people. To me he was one of a handful of people who have had a profound effect on my life.

My thoughts and reflections on the influence of Steve Jobs on me.

I woke this morning to the sad news that Steve Jobs had died last night. Naturally I learnt the news on an iPhone using information posted over the Internet (invented on a Next). I first started using Apple products in 1988 in a small PR company and my life changed from that point. One day 3 SE20's with duel disk drives were brought in, with no hard drives. A box when unwrapped was found to contain QuarkXPress 2.1 and I rapidly moved away from traditional paste-up layout to computer publishing. I could see the writing on the wall for the design industry and learnt as much as I could about Macs. I will point out at this point that I did computer studies for O level and got an terrible mark - it was at the time all punched tape and applied math which I was not good at. I wanted to use computers rather than make them and Steve Jobs realised that the key to selling a lot of hardware was to make them easy to use. Later that year the company got smaller and I was made redundant. My Gran bankrolled me a new SE30 and I was freelancing! Later I moved up to London to work because that was where it was all happening apparently. I got some work with an oil industry newspaper creating the pages in Pagemaker on a Mac Plus.

Then I got a job offer at a bank that I couldn't refuse. I think I was the first one in a world leading bank to use a Mac (an LC - colour at last!!!) and I was creating artwork for point of sale and mailing materials. I was able to expand the team over the next few years and eventually brought a total of 17 Macs into the company. I remember them all as I had to write water tight business cases for each one and fight IT and purchasing who were very sucky teeth anti Mac but I was armed with a white paper showing how artworkers on Macs, at the time, produced up to 30% more output than PCs running the same software simply because of the user interface. However they were dark days and Steve Jobs had been pushed out of Apple it's fortunes declined and its boxes became grey. That actually did the world a lot of good because he was able to try out new ideas with Next and Pixar.

Then something astonishing happened - Steve Jobs went back to Apple and turned the company around and started producing products that have pushed the world into a far better place. Turning yet another grey box computer into a thing of beauty and desirability. At home I still have my SE30, a Performa 5200, a Dalmatian iMac, an iMac G5 and current work beast that is the 27" iMac G5. My home is full of Apple gadgets that make my life much happier and that's a great thing. We have had a Newton, one of the very first iPods in the UK and plenty of the new models, but it's the iPhone that really took Apple and Steve Jobs to global levels and changed the playing field for everyone. Androids are outselling iPhones 2:1 as I write this but without the iPhone there would be no smart phones yet - not really - not the mass market we have today. After all the Nokia Communicator, very advanced for its time, wasn't a big hit. And that's the point. Steve Jobs knew how to make products that sell - make it as easy as possible to do something difficult and make it look wow. The whole world is benefiting from this lesson and UX is in a place that it would never have been without Steve Jobs. He had vision and a great team to help him realise that.

I never met Steve Jobs, but if I had I would have said - thank you.

Star Wars Day is on the 4th May every year

Simon Cox — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:00:00 GMT

May the 4th be with you

The 4th day of May is traditionally Star Wars day where all Star Wars fans celebrate this ground breaking series of films. Not George Lucas though — he missed a golden marketing opportunity by missing the 4th of may and releasing the original film on May 25th 1977.

It was even mentioned in the Houses of Parliament — Hansard 4th May 1994

Mr. Cohen : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If that point of order was an allusion to me, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I was here for the opening speeches, and for some of the speeches that followed.

May the fourth is an appropriate date for a defence debate. My researcher, who is a bit of a wit, said that it should be called national star wars day. He was talking about the film “Star Wars” rather than President Reagan’s defence fantasy, and he added, “May the fourth be with you.” That is a very bad joke ; he deserves the sack for making it, but he is a good researcher.

To celebrate this momentous occasion here is the brilliant Eddie Izzard’s Star Wars Canteen sketch in Lego: Eddie Izzard- Death Star Canteen on Youtube.

The perfect angle to staple paper

Simon Cox — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 24:00:00 GMT

What is the best angle to staple sheets of paper at, I asked myself?

The best angle to staple paper is 67.5 degrees. This allows the pages to be flipped without causing too much disruption to the desk around where you are reading the document. Stapling paper together helps keep the order of the pages and makes it easier to file away.

This simple article on how to staple papers together was picked up by Metafilter and traffic went mad for a few weeks. Readers wanted more info and suggestions were that a thesis should be written, so I expanded it and I even had to change the original graphics as someone, quite rightly pointed out that one was technically incorrect. I was still getting searches through to the new website for this article several years later so decided to republish it. Here is the article:

I have just stapled four sheets of paper together in a routine that I do several times a day and yet it only just occurred to me that there may be a perfect angle at which to staple the paper together for ease of reading. For example, if I were to staple the paper at the classic 45 degrees would it interfere with my desk space more than a 90-degree fixing?

Firstly I checked my process to ensure I could repeat the paper stapling test accurately each time.

Process — how to staple paper:

Sort your paper, A4 or US Letter, into the order you need the pages.
Check the size of staples you are planning to use are sufficient for the number of pages you want to staple together.
Ensure the edges of the paper stack are aligned by picking up and holding loosely while tapping the edge of the stack on your desk or tabletop.
Check the top and sides of the stack you wish to staple and if there are any errant sheets of paper then tap in with a finger.
Choose your stapler, hand stapler for a few sheets, heavy-duty stapler for 8 to 20 sheets or electric stapler if available on a photocopier.
Offer paper stack up to your stapler.
Twist paper to the angle you require — see the guide below.
Firmly press the stapler to insert the staple through your paper.
Enjoy your newly stapled and secure stack of paper.

The best angle to staple paper being demonstrated on a print out of the Perfect Angle to staple paper

Testing the best angle to staple paper

So I set out and did some testing to see what the best angle for stapling paper could be used at and what advantages each had. I have only included the successful angles, in between angles were rounded out to the final ones. You can see from the results what happened:

0 degrees stapled paper

At 0 degrees the paper is thrown out to the side making it quite unwieldy and easily prone to unwanted movement if you are reading. Not recommended unless you have a shallow space at your desk.

22.5 degrees stapled paper

Our photocopier has automatic stapling and uses a 22.5-degree fastening and you would think that a large company would have tested this aspect a lot but it seems not, as I find this angle quite uncomfortable to use. Disappointing and certainly for me not the best way to staple paper!

45 degrees stapled paper

At the classic 45 degrees, all seems well but undue strain is put on the paper especially as you get to the back pages of a large document. The lifted pages wave about a bit because the paper does not know to flop up your desk to the side.

67.5 degrees stapled paper

A slight twist on the classic 45 degrees fixing. This has a little more flair as it starts to adhere to some of the Golden Mean rules. My personal preference and the one I think Da Vinci would have gone for (and he may have done — if only the Vatican would allow us to see the books.). Similar to the 0-degree option but this time goes forward rather than out to the side. Same problems but could be useful if you need to concentrate on the document as it stops you getting to your keyboard. People with attention deficiency should choose this.

The next question to arise is do left-handed people staple to the left or right of the document?

Do left-handed people staple to the left or right?

I have no idea but if you horizontally flipped the above angles, 0, -22.5, -45 and -67.5 degrees, then left-handed people should have the same, but mirrored, experience as right-handed people. If you did not flip them but used the same angle top right then you might get into some difficulty.

Later on, I will be examining what is the best angle to use if you intend to fold the page behind, such as if you are reading documents while on the train, and a lot of people do for I have read many interesting internal emails over people shoulders.

If you know of any academic references to this thorny problem please leave a comment with a link to them.

Other paper stapling techniques

It is possible to staple paper together without a traditional office stapler. I have seen techniques making tears in the paper and folding. There are paper fasteners that punch holes in the paper but I have never used one that keeps the paper together longer than 30 seconds. You could also use a nail gun to staple your paper but to be frank that’s a bit overkill and wire staples are a cheap, economic way and also reusable as long as you don’t extract the staples with pliers!

References

Surrey University Printer user guide including how to staple paper.

How to staple paper when using MS Word from Warwick University.

I originally published this article on July 2, 2004 but have improved it over time with this version being a major update and so is listed as being published in 2010.

You can lead a horse to water...

Simon Cox — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Last night on the very quite train home (during England’s match) my train was passed by the Brighton Express. As it passed at only a couple of miles per hour faster then we were going I noticed some very prominent T-Mobile stickers in on the windows and doors proclaiming the train had an onboard WIFI service.

I had read about this last year, WIMAX it is called and its free! Very nice for those lucky commuters!

So I peered into the carriage trying to see if any one was using it, or had the novelty worn off after a year? And the first thing I see behind one of the proud T-Mobile WIMAX stickers is... a woman knitting!

Oh the irony – absolutely brilliant.

Itsu bean and hijiki lunch roll

Simon Cox — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 24:00:00 GMT

This year I have been eating a lot more Japanese food - mainly because I really like it but also because its good quality food. Itsu who have a takeaway stall outside my office provide me with excellent miso soup and what they call a lunch roll nearly every working day.

The lunch roll is a tube of rice with different ingredients rolled up inside. Mostly I have ginger chicken - very spicy!

Since last week though I have purchased the Bean and Hijiki lunch roll and very satisfying it is. I was interested to know what hijiki is and looked it up on the web today and hijiki is a black seaweed finely sliced but I also to my horror read that hijiki contains inorganic arsenic that is known to add to the risk of people developing cancer.

I read this on the Food Standards Agency website - a UK government agency.

I have also pinged off a question to Itsu about the use of hijiki in their lunch rolls using the Itsu question form. Hopefully I will get a concise answer back as to the risks of eating Itsu's hijiki.

Update!

I got a quick email response from Glenn at Itsu :

Simon,
Thanks for your e-mail. Please rest assured we would not be serving
food with potential health dangerous. I know the FSA site well,
particularly the page you mention. The FSA tested five brands of
Hijiki, these are listed and include Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Tazaki
Foods etc. Based on reading this article, we took caution to have our
Hijiki brand independently tested. Results come back safe for human
consumption.

The product requires washing and cooking. The results shown on the site
do not take this into account either. Itsu washes, rinses several times
and steams it's hijiki to further ensure it's safety.

It is completely safe to eat, in fact I eat it all the time. The
flavour is delicious.

I hope this re-assures you?

Yes it does reassure me! I can continue to choose the Bean and Hijiki lunch roll for my lunch without any worries!

Sports and Drugs THG

Simon Cox — Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Suddenly sport is about to change, big time - all sports. Why? Because someone has invented a way to detect a drug used for enhancing ability. The THG scandal is going to rock sports in all disciplines and it is no wonder. The only reason that the test came about is because a sports coach in the US blew the whistle and supplied a sample to the World Anti-Doping Authority, WADA, who have written to all International Sports Federations and all National Doping Agencies encouraging them to analyse stored samples for the presence of tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).

Understandably there are many drug companies that must be researching in these areas for all sorts of legitimate reasons and like wise there must be many sports people who have used non-traceable drugs to enhance their performances. After all the difference between a superstar and a 'also ran' is forever getting tighter. Sports stars are also big celebrities and enjoy a fantastic lifestyle and they have a lot of excess wealth so it is tempting and easy for them to keep their lifestyle by enhancing themselves.

Is it possible that they have been using enhancement drugs for years? Is it possible that certain countries are not actually that keen to see all drugs eliminated from sports as without them they would get fewer medals? If it has taken years for WADA to even realise that THG existed then I have to ask what other designer drugs are out there being used to cheat to get to the top?

Concorde's final supersonic day

Simon Cox — Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:00:00 GMT

24th October 2003 - a sad day for aviation as it is Concorde's last commercially operational day. Three flights will be landing in succession at 16:00 at Heathrow today, the last scheduled flight from New York, the Round Britain trip from Edinburgh and the staff flight round the Bay of Biscay where the original test flights were made.

Yesterday from my lofty perch in Canary wharf I was able to view the planes taking off and landing at Heathrow, with my binoculars - I don't have elvish site! But today the weather is a bit hazy so although I will be looking out for the three Concorde's' I may not be able to spot them - unless they do a fly past down the Thames which would be awesome.

The reason I am interested is that I flew in Concorde last year, before its demise was announced, on a flight back to London from New York and it was an experience I will never forget. Today I am wearing my Concorde cufflinks which I purchased onboard at 1500 miles per hour at over 63,000 feet! Supersonic!

Review of The Darkness gig Folkestone 20th Oct 2003

Simon Cox — Mon, 20 Oct 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Well I was hoping to be writing a report on a fantastic nights gig at the Lees Cliffe Hall in Folkestone with The Darkness headlining. However...

We set off Monday afternoon and were tanking down the motorway when I got a call from the office telling me that Ticketmaster had rung and the gig was off. Justin had got a throat infection and cancelled the gig. How disappointing was that! I had bought the tickets early July well ahead of the furoar that the Darkness were about to impose on the world.

The only saving grace was that "3 Inches of Blood" might not be able to make a rescheduled performance and likewise, but unfortunately, the Webb Brothers might not be either - we were really looking forward to seeing the Webbs again...

The cancelled gig at Liverpool has already been rescheduled but perhaps Folkestone, and Plymouth, are just too insignificant for a A&E; department of a band such as The Darkness who are about to claim the world... I am sure the band would have loved the Lees Cliffe Hall.

New baby and it's platinum

Simon Cox — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Well I treated myself and purchased a new PC for all sorts of reasons. I decided this time I wanted a machine that could run graphic intensive games properly. Occasionally my chums and I get together for a Lan party and spend all day and night playing Unreal Tournament and Medal of Honour. It's great fun blasting away at your mates around a big table with a few tins of beverage. I decided the best way to get a PC with all the stuff in that I really wanted was to build it myself. A fairly big task. Having looked around the web and read some stuff I decided that I very much liked the Shuttle Small Form Factor PC cases - as they are quite small and yet are superb.

Then I read an article in a magazine that had a PC with a fridge inside to keep the chips cool - I had to see it so went to the SavRow website and discovered to my delight that they build a bespoke Shuttle - calling it the Baby Platinum.

I went through their configuration and came up with a system that sounded pretty cool and then I researched the same or equivalent parts on the web and the SavRow PC was not a lot more expensive with the hugely added advantage that they not only put it together, install all the software, overclock the chips to get them to run fast but balanced and trouble free, test it all and paint it the colour of your choice. I spoke with them several times to clarify details and their customer service is second to none. They even couriered the system to me to ensure I had it in time for my latest LAN weekend.

It's a fantastic PC and if your looking for something special try SavRow!

And yes I still use my Mac on a daily basis for most things!! (When is someone going to start making customised Macs I wonder?)

Knickers to the Darkness

Simon Cox — Tue, 23 Sep 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Reports are coming in that the Darkness played a superb sold-out show at the Bowery Ballroom in the USA. Justin Hawkins ripped off his shirt and threw in into the crowd and the delighted crowd responded by throwing their underwear on stage! judging by what New York ladies are wearing this season, Sex and the City lets us know all, Justin will not have run out of G Strings for his guitar!

More at the New York Times

Best show on the radio today

Simon Cox — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Adam and Joe are sitting in for Ricky on XFM today and are doing a very good show so far, considering. And they do actually look like hobbits.

Update

Well it got even better, and to top that I won tickets to see OKGO in Camden next week!

MA Course relevant links

Simon Cox — Tue, 13 May 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Relevant links for my Media Management MA course (put here for my convenience!) http://www.culture.gov.uk/default.htm http://media.guardian.co.uk/ http://www.mpaa.org/home.htm http://www.screendigest.com/ http://www.skillset.org/intro.html http://www.cios.org/ http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/ The media bit : http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/category_editor.asp?L2=17 http://www.mediajournal.org/ Note in particular: http://www.mediajournal.org/modules/issue/view.php?id=13 http://www.nesta.org.uk/inspireme/

Gary Kurtz talks

Simon Cox — Thu, 08 May 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Our masters lecture got diverted tonight as we went along to a talk by Gary Kurtz, producer of American Graffiti, Star Wars and Empire Strikes back, The Dark Crystal and Two Lane Black Top amongst many many films and projects he talked about. Most of the 30 students there were fairly young so will not remember half of the stuff he was talking about but it was good for the older ones like me!

Kurtz said that the Star Wars DVDs will be coming out after the 6th (3rd) episode has been released. He also stated why he didn't like the Extended edition Release of Star Wars - and they were very valid reasons and he was trying to persuade the powers that be to release the original Star Wars along side the Extended version on DVD.

It's not often I get to listen to people talk about their work with Kubrick, Welles, De Niro, Hitchcock, Oz, and so many many other greats.

A genuinely nice chap and a splendid evening.

Not well :(

Simon Cox — Sat, 03 May 2003 01:00:00 GMT

I have had a really really sore throat since tuesday and it really hurts and I has kept me away from work. It's feels practically raw - every time I swallow I am racked in pain.

I can just about speak but it even hurts to do that.

Looking great for the bank holiday, probably rain as well. :(

What kind of thinker are you?

Simon Cox — Fri, 02 May 2003 01:00:00 GMT

**"For many years, people used IQ tests to try and determine someone’s intelligence. However, some researchers believe that IQ tests do not take into account the fact that different people might think in different ways, and have different strengths and weaknesses.

Most people would agree that Mozart was a genius - but Mozart would probably have struggled with Einstein’s theories just like the rest of us. This doesn’t mean that one man was more clever than the other – they just thought in very different ways."** BBC

BBCi - Leonardo - Thinker quiz

Many psychologists now believe that what we call intelligence can be subdivided into different categories, all of which can all be measured independently. Different kinds of thinking are needed to solve different problems.

I am a spatial thinkerIt turns out I am a spatial thinker! Like other spatial thinkers, Leonardo had a talent for designing buildings and machinery. He also invented a new style of map making.

Spatial Thinkers:

Tend to think in pictures, and can develop good mental models of the physical world.

Think well in three dimensions

Have a flair for working with objects

Other Spatial Thinkers include Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Careers which suit Spatial Thinkers include Mechanic, Photographer, Artist, Architect, Engineer, Builder, Set designer

Peyps online diary mentions Deal today

Simon Cox — Thu, 01 May 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Dean who pointed out that the online diary of Pepys mentions a trip to Deal, "a pitiful town" for the ale today.

Induction day

Simon Cox — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Have just got back from our Masters induction day. A lot to take in and mull over. I may well join the National Union of Students and get cheap rail tickets - which will help with the cost of books etc!

The Media Management MA team attended a book launch elsewhere at the London Institute tonight - I didn't meet the author but got to talk about some marketing issues. Great day, if somewhat long.

I've got to Zingo home

Simon Cox — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

This new service in London I just have to try out. Zingo will be especially helpful when I have been out on the town with the boys and need a cab.

I love the idea that they can pinpoint the nearest available taxi to where you are - even if you don't know where you are (could be useful!). It's great when technology is used for useful everyday things.

Apple iTunes 4

Simon Cox — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Its rare that I lose it with Apple but this time it's more of the same. Last night I downloaded iTunes 4 and the new version of Quicktime to enable it to run properly. iTunes 4 offers a few improvements over an already great programme. The best thing so far has bee the ability for Paula to open iTunes on her 15" Powerbook and get the play list on our iMac and stream the music over our home WiFi network. It's brilliant - she can listen to music wherever she is in the house or garden - whilst keeping one central store of music on the iMac - who wants to spend hours feeding in all your CD's into the laptop when we have all our music on the iMac.

However there is a fly in the ointment. iTunes now comes with Music Store - where you can search, listen to and buy tracks for $0.99 which has actually made me interested in the potential for buying music online. But you can't buy any music if your in the UK (and plenty of other places)!

This is exactly the same as the photobook in iPhoto where you can pick the look and feel of a photo album and download your images to a supplier who will print out and make up the album. Only available in the USA. Well its back to Limewire then.

Altered Carbon – Richard K. Morgan

Simon Cox — Mon, 28 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Just finished this quite outstanding first novel from Richard K. Morgan. Very Cyberpunk although it is set well into the future. Humans are defined as a digital conscious and that is kept in a cortical stack which can be implanted into the neck in a human body - a 'sleeve'. This allows travel to distant colonised planets by sending the digitised information via a needlecast transmission. The original colonists on each planet had to fly by space but once they are there they can get back to earth in moments but ending up in a different 'sleeve'.

The main action happens on Earth and is essentially a detective story but in a very noir fashion. Takeshi Kovacs, an Envoy, is the main character and he is hired by Bancroft to find out who killed him. Bancroft is still alive because he is rich enough to hold several cloned versions of his body and also back up his cortical stack every 48 hours - things that ordinary people can't afford. There is a nice religious twist to this in that the Catholics (the only remaining religion) are not allowed to resleeve and therefore when they are killed they die.

Excellent plot and action. Would make a good film but the sleeving would make it difficult for dweebs to follow what was going on and who was actually who!

Simon Cox meet Simon Cox

Simon Cox — Sun, 27 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

When I first bought the domain name simoncox.com I did a search around the web looking for any references to me, I sure you have all done it, and I discovered a lot of other Simon Cox's. To check how many of you there are in the UK check out the Your Not Me website. For me there are currently 382 in the UK alone and Google brings up 5,340 references.

A list of Simon Cox's from in April 2003

I have decided to list a few references to the others around the world. If you are a Simon Cox and have a web page Let me know!

Dr Simon Cox.

Bespectacled hatted genius geologist, Perth, Australia.

Simon F.T. Cox

Partner with Norton Rose law firm in London.

Simon J Cox.

Partner with Norton Rose law firm in Munich - it must cause problems when they work together on a project!

Simon John Cox

Lecturer in Physics, Trinity College, Dublin.

Professor Simon J Cox

Professor of Computational Methods, Southampton UK.

Simon Cox

Australian Rules Football player with Hawthorns. Best season so far in 2002!

Simon Cox

Brewery Director in Leeds.

Simon Cox

Works in aerospace, Southampton UK.

Simon Cox

Financial Accountant, Upper Wellow, Somerset, UK

Simon Cox

Legoland Chef's site can be found at www.simoncox.biz

Simon Cox

Vice-president of advertising sales at Turner Broadcasting, gets a mention in a media week story.

Simon Cox

Biology Student at Nottingham University.

Simon D Cox

Self employed builder and renovator of period property.

SARS - how will London cope?

Simon Cox — Thu, 24 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Bioterror plans could be used to fight SARS

Is it me or have everyone gone mad about the SARS outbreak. More people are killed each year by common cold than SARS (at the moment). Or do we have a situation on our hands just like the classic TV series Survivors that ran between 1975 and 1977?

Paula has had a bad throat for a couple of days and one or two of my work colleagues are looking peaky…

No frontiers!

Simon Cox — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

From William Gibsons blog

Gibson is flying over to do a few appearances in the UK for his book Pattern Recognition. I may well go to the Foyles event - see you there!

Masters

Simon Cox — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 01:00:00 GMT

Finally got my start date through for my part time Master of Arts Degree in Media Management. I start at the end of April and by 2005 I should be a white haired wizened guru, or abject failure drop out - that will not happen!

Sarah Cox

Simon Cox — Mon, 17 Feb 2003 24:00:00 GMT

It is with deep regret that I have to announce the sudden death of my cousin Sarah. She died in hospital last week and was only in her mid forties. We shall miss her deeply.

Winter is upon us

Simon Cox — Fri, 03 Jan 2003 24:00:00 GMT

We have not had any snow or ice yet and only a very little frost. The garden is getting ready for a cold Jan and Feb.

I have moved a few delicate plants under cover and Paula has been planting some evergreen clematis up near the elder.

The Mind Your Own Business has grown very well during the latter part of 2002 and the Acer over the waterfall put some new shoots out so that has rooted well.

Happy New Year to everyone

Simon Cox — Fri, 03 Jan 2003 24:00:00 GMT

Hopefully this year will bring lots of happiness to everyone. We started off in good style by attending Mike and Nancy’s 1950’s News Years Eve cocktail party which was great fun - thanks you very much Mike and Nancy!

I still think there was some girlie shenanigans with the charades but they did beat us boys square and fair.

Happy New Year to you all

XFM hoarding going up over the pond

Simon Cox — Tue, 24 Sep 2002 01:00:00 GMT

Just sent an e-mail to Christian on the XFM breakfast show who is looking for unusual advertising spots. He read it out on air so I am expecting a 20ft XFM advertising hoarding to turn up in the next few days to put over the garden pond.

Won't do anything for the garden but it might make the neighbors change to XFM and get the greatest show on earth up to the 13th most listened to breakfast radio show in London. Hurrah

Miscellaneous from SimonCox.com

Gluten free veggie sausage roll recipe

Here is the recipe!

Ingredients

Filling

Pastry

Method

Bake

The inevitable accompanying story

Update 2026-01-31

Lightning Strikes

Making my Stadia controller work on bluetooth

DandD Character Generator

Aperture tidy up

I never met Steve Jobs

My thoughts and reflections on the influence of Steve Jobs on me.

Star Wars Day is on the 4th May every year

May the 4th be with you

The perfect angle to staple paper

What is the best angle to staple sheets of paper at, I asked myself?

Process — how to staple paper:

Testing the best angle to staple paper

0 degrees stapled paper

22.5 degrees stapled paper

45 degrees stapled paper

67.5 degrees stapled paper

Do left-handed people staple to the left or right?

Other paper stapling techniques

References

You can lead a horse to water...

Itsu bean and hijiki lunch roll

Update!

Sports and Drugs THG

Concorde's final supersonic day

Review of The Darkness gig Folkestone 20th Oct 2003

New baby and it's platinum

Knickers to the Darkness

Best show on the radio today

Update

MA Course relevant links

Gary Kurtz talks

Not well :(

What kind of thinker are you?

Peyps online diary mentions Deal today

Induction day

I've got to Zingo home

Apple iTunes 4

Altered Carbon – Richard K. Morgan

Simon Cox meet Simon Cox

A list of Simon Cox's from in April 2003

Dr Simon Cox.

Simon F.T. Cox

Simon J Cox.

Simon Cox

Simon James Cox

Simon G Cox

Simon John Cox

Professor Simon J Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon Cox

Simon D Cox

SARS - how will London cope?

No frontiers!

Masters

Sarah Cox

Winter is upon us

Happy New Year to everyone

XFM hoarding going up over the pond