Nick Hardcastle

Drought, originally uploaded by nick_hardcastle.

This photograph was taken about 12 years ago when I visited Flores (Indonesia) during a drought. The villagers came out to see me because they thought I was a priest. Something to do with the beard and speaking Indonesian.

So … I am on holiday … but in Saudi during Ramadan.

Yesterday I spent so long in my chair that I could hardly walk when I got up to fill my glass. Nothing to do with the home brew either. I did manage a run, just four sweaty miles on the corniche after dark. But for most of the day I was beating myself over the head with a stone. Not literally, of course – for some reason I decide to upgrade my website so that I can host my own WordPress blog and to learn how to use Flash Panorama Player. Neither of these things turned out to be simple.

When I bought the domain www.hobnail.com I purchased it from a reliable company in the UK. A short time later it was taken over by another company with more divisions than I have trousers. One of these divisions registers my domain name, another looks after my server and a third bills me for the privilege.

I spent two hours trying to find MySQL. Strange really, as I wouldn’t have recognised him if we had slept together. I had three and a bit, but needed four and apparently five is the latest and greatest. With little hair remaining, I did find a gracious gentleman who furnished me with a telephone number and salvation. Gratification was delayed however. My host employs Englishmen and they don’t work after five. Sometimes I would far rather deal with Delhi, even if the regional accents are not quite kosher. But then, eating regularly in Bradford, how would you define a British accent?

If that was all Dutch to you, I hope you are blonde, for my first attempts at Action Script were rather sluggish too. Simple, the website said, no experience necessary. Hm. Fascinating though. I didn’t get to bed until four. Good to have some action at last, even if it wasn’t scripted.