Haven’t felt inspired by any Cluster-ish stuff for a while, so have been concentrating my writing energies elsewere: mostly on the occasional piece on BigShinyThing. Some of those posts should probably get elaboration here, as they rapidly get too abstract for the audience over there to be much interested in them, I suspect. Stuff about channels, brands and content which might get somewhere eventually: I’m interested in watching what happens to that trinity as networked individualism (Barry Wellman’s phrase, not mine) really sinks in… Closer to home, I’ve also been hacking at some blog tools, some of which have already …

…from Cérét market for lunch last Sunday with Mary and Ann in Laroque des Albères. Can’t find the poppy jelly anywhere online. Anyone know where I can buy it in London?

Just in case anyone missed it, a few of the requests that the US has made for protecting President Bush during his state visit to London this week: immunity from prosecution should any Secret Service agents kill anyone (or, indeed, everyone), shutdown of the London Underground system, use of miniguns for crowd control (!), and a sterile zone patrolled only by US personnel. These requests have all been turned down by the UK government. The jury is still out on whether they will shutdown the mobile phone networks to stop those sneaky terrorists using peer-to-peer to organise their movements. Given …

On the Eurostar on the way back from Antwerp. I love it: I have no idea how their economy really works, but the city feels almost empty of people, yet somehow accomodates not just the Antwerp Six and their successors, but some of most lovely restaurants, bars and design shops I’ve ever seen. Oh and of course the art. They’ve somehow jumped straight past the service and information economies to some impossible present where all this is somehow self-supporting and profoundly civilised.

At the end of the sevententh century it was estimated that beer accounted for 28 percent of the nation’s total expenditure …according to Pete Brown’s Man Walks Into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer. He is of course talking about Britain. I’m on a train to Birmingham for the weekend (with a beer). Been busy hunting for a new house, and working. Moving next weekend to just around the corner from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. View of Docklands and the City. We need to buy architectural salvage gryphons for the corners of the terrace for that Ghostbusters effect…