Revolving.

I was at the National Archives in Kew yesterday where upon I found that the main revolving door was shut and no apparent way of getting in. I knocked on the side door to which one of the guards eventually let me in. I asked him why the revolving door was shut and he answered "It's been too windy." TOO WINDY?! It was designed to withstand storms and wind for crying out loud! The beauty in the revolving door is that it is silent, keeps the noise and wind and rain out of the building and offers an elegant solution to stormy weather invading indoors. The only thing I can think of is that the revolving door they have at the NA is electronic and therefore was suffering some sort of malfunction in the stormy weather. Which in itself is ridiculous. You take a foolproof way of ensuring a steady flow of people are able to get in and out of the building at will and add the 'need' for electricity to it for no real reason - it reminds me of the time in Perth when Stagecoach (who are based in the Fair City and run by the fragrant Ann Gloag and Brian Souter*), it is rumoured, 'persuaded' the council to replace many of its roundabouts with traffic lights and designated bus lanes to ensure a steady flow of traffic and access (for the buses). I'm all for public transport, but the roundabout is probably the most simple and sophisticated form of traffic management there is and it was co-opted for no good reason causing all sorts of unnecessary difficulties in trying to get through Perth. Much like trying to get into the National Archives! Honestly, why take a perfectly good working existing system and change it about for no good reason? Change for change's sake it would appear.

* Yes I know Brian Souter is a donor to the SNP. No I still don't like him.

Social networking, Sonic and my youth.

So social networking is all the rage these days- facebook, myspace, bebo and so forth are all worth stupid amounts of money and used by stupid amounts of people. I put my hands up, I love playing scrabulous on facebook and it is a great way to keep in contact with people as well as finding people you haven't seen in donkey's years. However, even more fun than any of that is finding ancient console games that you haven't played since you were 11. Like Sonic! Anyone with a facebook account can play it here. Anyone without a facebook account can play it here. It reminded me of Saturday afternoons spent in Perth walking from the Scottish Power shop to John Menzies to CA Games in the hope that one of their console advertisement games would be available to play. Scottish Power had Sonic, John Menzies had F-Zero and CA Games had the holy grail of SNES gaming, Street Fighter II Turbo- imported from America! I remember watching a Street Fighter II tournament of all the supposedly best gamers in Perth in this crammed little shop and being quite jealous that I wasn't involved. In saying that these guys were in their twenties and clearly total geeks so in retrospect there's not so much jealousy going on now. I do still love Street Fighter II though- I think it's unmatched in terms of one on one fighting games. That's not bad going for a game that's about 14 years old or so. Or I've just not gotten over it. So, in honour of my misspent youth (and not so youthful) game playing, my favourite games in no particular order are:

1. Street Fighter Two Turbo (SNES)
2. Goldeneye (N64- is there a more fun four player game?)
3. Championship Manager (PC/Mac- I've lost months of my life to this)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 4 (XBox- probably my favourite football game)
5. Metal Gear Solid 2 (Playstation- so good!)
6. Mario Kart (SNES- Best. Driving. Game. Ever.)
7. Final Fight (SNES- although a poor relation to the arcade version that allowed you to play Guy)
8. Smackdown (Playstation- Royal Rumble option was AMAZING!)
9. Tetris (Gameboy- everyone's favourite right?)
10. Urban Strike (Sega Mega Drive- how much fun was it flying about Washington?)

Man, why can't there be one system that plays all the old console games you love with interchangeable joypads? Now THAT I would buy.

Chucking Buns Across The Fence? Governmental Planning and Regeneration Projects in the Scottish Highland Economy, 1945-82.

324 pages.
107,358 words.
2665 paragraphs.
11,031 lines.
4 years.
6 homes.
2 broken relationships.
1 wonderful engagement.
3 cities.
4 conferences.
£83.60 in binding charges.
3 soft bound copies.
2 electronic copies.

As Gordon Ramsay might say, DONE!