I’m in Aylesbury tonight. We’ve been out for a curry, watched some dumb telly and nattered. It’s lovely coming to visit and I like this town a lot. It reminds me of all the urban bits of West Lancashire thrown into a pot and turned into a single town. The population is about the same as Ormskirk and Skelmersdale and the town has similar proportions of historic parts vs new housing and new industrial. Of course, it benefits with being within the gravitational pull of London. It’s like comparing Milton Keynes vs Skelmersdale — they’re basically the same town but MK grew up with rich neighbours; Skem grew up in the shadow of Liverpool.

I’m popping into Regent’s University on Monday, hence my stay down here. The idea is that I’ll be helping some of the students with their projects and hopefully pointing them in the right direction, technically. I’m looking forward to it a lot. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing what they’ve done so far. It’s a web module, so the possibilities are endless.

I’ll be in London again on Tuesday, when I’ll be meeting up with a friend of 15+ years to work through a new project.

The two things are linked in that both are with good friends who I’ve known for a long time, both are relatively new ventures, and I’ve no idea how they will turn out — short or long term.

Also, last weekend I was down in this part of the world for the Oxford Swing Festival — another new adventure for me.

At the moment, it seems like travelling is all about the new opportunities and new experiences. That will settle back down soon enough, but in the meantime it’s good that all those new experiences are with friends who have meant so much over most of the past two decades.

I didn’t run or gym today, and it’s going to be difficult to do the gym work when I’m away from Ormskirk. However, we walked 5k late this afternoon. I was also down another pound when I weighed myself this morning. I’ve not been this weight in over 20 years, back when I was just a boy. I’m hoping that I can’t put on too much over three days… can I?

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Ah… Also, I need to clarify something from yesterday’s post. I think that I gave the impression that 20 years ago Universities were concerned about plagiarism more than they are today. It was just a badly worded example.

I know that Universities are still as strict on plagiarism as they were back when I was a lad. I’ve just been out of that world for such a long time. My intention had been to express how attitudes seemed to have become more relaxed about lifting internet content without attribution — that is, amongst the wider internet community outside of academia.

But it was badly worded and I should have been clearer. Hopefully this makes it a little clearer…