Graeme Davidson speaks

I recently went on a long weekend to New York City and here is a picture of me on the escalator in Grand Central Station.  I am attempting to copy a scene from Carlito’s Way, where Al Pacino was being chased by some Mafioso.  Thankfully I wasn’t, and neither was I double-crossed by me old mate at the tracks just after, so I made it home alive.
The picture may not look like much, but trust me, it was exciting for me at the time.

Being Carlito

Posted on October 26th, 2009 in holiday with no comments

This may sound like some conspiracy theory but whilst reading a story today by Jonathon MacDonald (who I have seen speaking at a conference and is a wonderfully entertaining man) I noticed that the Telegraph had picked it up.

Here’s the Telegraph story which was published at 10:40AM BST 16 Oct 2009.  In this story they refer to a comment made by Boris Johnson on his Twitter account.  However, I saw the Boris comment on Twitter just a short time ago.

Here is the link to Boris’ comment which was posted at 11:32AM BST 16 Oct 2009.

Wait a minute there.  Did the Telegraph just guess exactly what Boris was going to say?  Or did they tell Boris what to say?  I don’t know.  It may even have been an update to the Telegraph page, but it doesn’t state that so I am keeping with my conspiracy theory.  They’re much more fun anyway.

Shocking story about the gentleman getting shouted at by the TfL worker.  Please read.

Posted on October 16th, 2009 in Play with no comments

I moved to London 2 and a half years ago.

Boris Johnson has just announced that bus fares are to go up by 12.7% and Tube fares will rise by 3.9%. Oyster card pay-as-you-go bus journeys are to rise from £1 to £1.20.

When I moved to London the pay-as-you-go journeys were only 90 pence.  That represents an increase of 33.3% since I moved here.  Is that not disgraceful?  If that happens again over the next 30 months then we will be looking at £1.60 for a single journey, which would represent a 77.7% increase over 5 years.

Read about the TfL price increase

Posted on October 16th, 2009 in Play with 1 comment

Apparently 36% of Twitter users polled say they do.

I wonder if these people are actually having sex or making the sex part up.  Surely these people that check their Twitter account more than 10 times a day don’t have time for sex?

See the rest of the results at Retrevo

Posted on October 15th, 2009 in Play with no comments

I’ve been way too busy to be posting to my blog recently, so I apologise to any of my readers (if there are any?!)

Anyway, I saw this today and thought it was funny:

Glaswegian Interpreter

A translation company is looking to recruit Glaswegian interpreters to help business clients who are baffled by the local dialect.

Today Translations placed an advert in The Herald newspaper on Tuesday seeking speakers of “Glaswegian English”.

Successful candidates, who could earn up to £140 a day, must understand “vocabulary, accent and nuances”.

The firm said, so far, 30 people had applied for the positions – some of them in Glaswegian.

Today Translations spokesman, Mick Thorburn said: “Over the last few months we’ve had clients asking us for Glaswegian translators.

“After some consideration we’ve decided this is a service we would like to offer.

‘Local dialect’

“Usually, the role would involve translating documents but in this case its more likely to be assisting foreign visitors to the city whose ‘business English’ is not good enough to understand the local dialect.”

Mr Thorburn said successful candidates may have to sit in on business meetings.

He added: “We’re not necessarily looking for people who are particularly skilled in linguistics, just candidates who can help out clients who may struggle with native Glaswegian.”

Today Translations said that depending on the volume of applications, it expected to contact the successful clients in the next few weeks.

Taken from the BBC website

Posted on October 14th, 2009 in Play with no comments