Full disclosure: Once upon a time (8 years ago) my job description was “Flash Developer” and so I have fond feelings for the platform. But there’s no doubting that Flash is under siege. Adobe evangelists and Flash community pillars are talking about broader skillsets, Adobe has killed off the mobile Flash subsystem and mixed messages from the company itself suggest it would be a very bad decision indeed to start investing in a pure Flash dev career.

Fortunately, the sensible among us have long been broadening our skillsets. In the post above, Lee Brimelow mentions the idea of rebranding yourself as an Interactive Developer or similar and I’d posit that this has been a good idea for the last 10 years. There has never been much use in a “one size fits all” approach to interactive development on the web, but the old analogy that when you have a hammer in your hand everything looks like a nail is particularly true to our industry. Ask for a solution to a problem and the answer you’ll get is likely to be heavily influenced by the platform of choice of the developer if they define themselves as a “Flash specialist” (or indeed an HTML5 specialist, Swing specialist or Silverlight specialist for that matter). Broader skillsets help prevent this.

Whatever the future holds for Flash then, HTML5/CSS3/JS (henceforth “HTML5″) is likely to be running a major portion of the web’s front-end. It’s certainly common for me to receive a brief which 18 months ago would be expected to be fulfilled with a Flash application but which is arguably a fit for an HTML5 app instead – often it’s now just down to whether the target browsers are relatively modern. But there’s a psychological barrier here if Flash/AS3 have been your platform of choice for this kind of build. Losing AS3 and its class-based structure with proper inheritance and strict typing, in favour of JS and its prototyping system seems to be causing many of the ructions in the ranks of the Flash community (something which isn’t dispelled by assertions trotted out that many of a class based languages features “can be mimicked”), but there are other issues too – Adobe provided a decent centralised API for the Flash player with clear, consistent documentation. This is certainly not true of HTML5. Furthermore, the display layer for HTML5, while undeniably powerful, has several issues – Canvas contents are tricky to address and maintain, DOM elements are separated from them. The display can’t function in the unified way that the Flash stage can. And this is before we address problems with media.

I sympathise with this opinion, and with the members of the Flash community who are turning to native app development instead. But I think it’s misguided. I’ve been putting together a toolkit of existing web technologies which allow me to build Flash-style applications with smoothly transitioning views and states using a similar workflow to that which we use when building with AS3. In the next couple of posts I’ll outline it.

A plug for a commercial product here (faod I am not affiliated with them in any way!). The FlashEff2 filter pack turned out to be an absolute godsend for a project I was working on recently. It’s a bundle of AS3 components and a scriptable API for some *very* advanced graphic effects. The application I was working on needed user variable Vignetting and Colorizing tools and although you can achieve some reasonable effects with AS3 out of the box, the results I got from this are lightyears ahead. There are many other plugins included in the bundle and it runs well in CS4+. Well worth the $99 for me at least:

http://www.flasheff.com/

Adobe Labs have released Wallaby, an experimental application which converts .FLA timeline animation and artwork to HTML5 canvas. A neat idea, and a decent statement of intent from them. What it *needs* (and what will hopefully come with time – this is a pre-release version after all) is for it convert scripting too.

I’ve said before that the biggest loss from a move to HTML5 from Flash for RIAs is not the Flash plugin, but AS3 – the thought of moving from a scriptly typed, compiled, class-based language to a prototype based, weakly typed one for large scale development gives me the fear. This is why Jangaroo has been interesting recently, and why moves from Adobe to supporting HTML5 through Flash are a good sign.

You can play with Wallaby here

A demonstration of what’s great about plugin building for WordPress. Lovely little extension to provide any feed from a WP site in JSON (or JSONP) format. Something basic missing from WordPress implemented quickly and solidly using the API.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/json-feed/

Have been playing with this over the break a bit. While I’m quite happy working directly in Javascript, sometimes it feels smoother to work on big applications in AS3 – not least because I find the class structure more elegant and there are some great IDEs available for Actionscript (I love FlashDevelop for example).

There’s been lots of Flash vs HTML5/Javascript/CSS3 stuff around over the last year or so. I haven’t got drawn into either side because I love both but I admit to being resistant to losing AS. Jangaroo is an interesting attempt to address this. It’s a framework and set of compiler tools that takes AS3 and compiles it to HTML5/CSS/Javascript. You get to use Maven, which is always nice, and a lot of the core AS3 classes have been ported (including Events). I’m in the early days of using it but it’s certainly a quick and unified way of building big web apps.

Typeselect.js – a Cufon alternative, with selectable text. But really, this is 2009. Can’t we just have a decent browser standard for this? In fact I’d rather have that in html 5 than the video tag.

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of work for Palm. Haygarth was tasked with the localization of it’s US site for several EMEA countries and so I’ve gained a familiarity with the new Palm Pre. I’m not a huge fan of the iPhone as a developer opportunity because I think the bar is set too high but I’m hoping the Pre can solve this. We’re all familiar with web technologies as an application platform now – Adobe have been doing it for ages with AIR – but the WebOS implementation of HTML/CSS/Javascript for extending the phone is properly simple. The O’Reilly book is out now and the Pre emulator is nice and stable. Whether you’re into phone development or not, if you’re a web developer I reckon you’d have an entertaining afternoon playing around with it.

One of the strengths of the AS3 is that it makes a good fist of event management. AS2 was always lacking somewhat in this regard, even with event dispatching. Now in an ideal world we’d all be moving to AS3 for our development but in real life this isn’t always an option – AS2 is far from a dead language, whether because we need it to support legacy applications or because its less verbose nature makes development of smaller projects much faster. But there’s an issue with true flexibility in AS2 which is that while true OOP development preaches a total decoupling of objects, AS2 prevents this by requiring EventDispatcher to be attached directly to the target class’ method by the caller. This prevents proper code reuse and requires one class to have an awareness of another in order to send events. Very inelegant!

Fortunately, Jason Cook comes to the rescue with his EventCenter class which centralises event management in a singleton through which any class can subscribe to events. Now we can add an import to EventCenter to any classes, broadcast an event from one and have it received by any others, even though they may not be aware of each other. Very neat.

(13.5 Miles: “Lemonade flavoured ice-lollies are underrated”, “fishermen hate it when you ask if they’ve caught anything.”, “Let’s take it in turns to ask.”)
Up until now we’ve been massively unlucky with the weather – the first leg took place on a chilly March day, the two following have been soaking wet. So I can’t pretend that I wasn’t extraordinarily happy to see the sun shining on Sunday morning for a change – although it wasn’t quite the bonus it appeared as we shall see…

We’re properly outside the capital ring now so getting to the start point was a bit of a trek and two trains but finally we were down Teddington High Street and over the lock, side-stepping a collision between two cyclists and an angler which appeared to require much English tutting. Once onto the gravel of the path it immediately became obvious that the benefits that the sunshine brought were offset by the number of people out to enjoy the weather. We were ducking between other walkers and, more annoyingly, constantly jumping out of the way of oncoming cyclists [Fletch Anger Level: 2%].

The river meanders gently beneath a canopy of trees until it reaches Kingston where we were forced, for the first time, to cross to the path on the other side of the bank. We manfully braced ourselves against this though and, after a brief stop to examine a sad looking Mercedes W110, we were able to enter Hampton Court Park, by way of a regatta. The wide thoroughfare soon gave way to a pedestrian and bike only path – the smooth surface apparently encouraging the cyclists to floor it [Fletch Anger Level: 18%]. Despite knowing that Hampton Court was over our shoulders to the right, we were unable to see any evidence of it until we came out of the park at its northern extremity and were presented with a lovely view of the house itself in all its Elizabethan splendour… which was unfortunately somewhat spoilt by the massive crowds of people trying to get into the Flower Show which was on. Still, looking on the bright side, we were able to buy ice-creams from the van at the queue so it wasn’t all bad. Walking up the entranceway to Hampton Court Bridge, I was forced to point out to a horsey looking woman on a bike that no matter how much she rang her bell, I wasn’t going to leap into the river to allow her past [Fletch Anger Level 38%].

Back over the river onto the southern bank and our stroll developed into a route march – the midday heat was beginning to take it’s toll and the river provided very little of interest to take our attention away. Walled in on one sie by the barrier to the massive reservoirs which lie along the river here and with only a tunnel of trees in front of us our pace slackened and Don started to make pointed remarks about Ice Cold in Alex. Fortunately, before sunstroke set in, we arrived at the The Weir . Outside, a mass of posh Sunday-lunchtime pub goers were bustling about but on walking into the bar, we found the place deserted. We happily ordered the ice-cold good stuff and settled down a table. Looking up 30 seconds later a massive queue had developed in front of the bar as if the people outside had watched us go in and, to a man, thought “I say, look at those oiks walking straight to the bar. What japery! I shall do the same, haw haw haw!”. The downside was that The Weir is too posh to do chips on a Sunday, and faced with the choice of having boiled potatoes with a steak and ale pie, we declined and headed back to the path.

Beyond the weir, the path narrowed right down and cyclists became a total menace, riding up silently and giving us the full bell treatment as we leapt out of our skins [Fletch Anger Level 77%]. By now we were famished and scanning around desperately for an alternative pub. And then, like a beacon out of the glaring sunlight, we saw the Swan. No fanciness here, just a barbecue being manned by a couple of friendly Australians and a splendid bar which served beer to the outdoors through a hatch in the outside wall… and idea so brilliant I was tempted to ring the patent office.

Fully refuelled, we rejoined the path knowing, from reference to Fletch’s map, that our destination was going to be Chertsey Bridge. A short walk upstream on the south side left us, almost, marooned as we suddenly realised that we were some distance from the nearest bridge and the Thames Path on this bank was about to come to a grinding halt in a carpark. Fortunately we were SAVED by a minor reference on the map to a ferry at Shepperton Weir. No Sealink job this: to board the ferry, the customer must ring a little bell and ready £1.50 in change. This we duly did and were massively amused to see a lanky teenage lad come ambling down the slipway on the opposite bank and get into a tiny motorboat. He puttered across the river, performed an uncontrolled u-turn and let us aboard. £1.50 buys you 30 seconds on the boat, but we thought it worth every penny as we surged across the river, posing as though we were off to take on the Spanish Armada.

On the other bank, we picked our way through the general public sunning themselves on the towpath and followed the path along the side of the road and bending slightly away from the river. Fletcher’s beer and sun addled brain suddenly sparked into life and he became convinced that we were walking the wrong along the river. Rational arguments from Don and I relaxed him though and presently the path bent back towards the river through a meadow of cows, one of which came up to have a good look at us. The meadow ran down to the water’s edge, and it was through this pleasant rural idyll that we finally emerged onto Chertsey Bridge and (what we thought was) the final few metres to the station….

…But actually it turns out that the map we had lost all sense of scale once away from the river. And what looked like a pleasant 10 minute stroll to the station, actually became a less pleasant 30 minutes slog (with a mild detour when, ignoring Fletch’s lack of sense of direction earlier, we followed him confidently down an alleyway and became stuck in a corporate car park, much to the bemusement of a security guard standing in a window. The station came as blessed relief after that, and that can’t often be said of South West Trains.

I can’t believe I’d never heard of this before. It’s a piece of client/server software which shares a single mouse and keyboard across multiple machines. For example – at work, I have a Linux desktop with two monitors which is my primary machine. Next to this, on the right, I have a little Vaio laptop which is used mainly for testing front-end development in Internet Explorer. Without Synergy I had to use either a second mouse, or the cramped Vaio keyboard and trackpad. Now I can just slide my primary mouse off the right hand side of my right-hand monitor and it automatically passes focus to the little Vaio and attaches the mouse and keyboard to it seamlessly. Just awesome.

(9.8 Miles: “Bloody hell!” Look at the size of that bloke’s dog”, “That’s his daughter Don…”, “Sponsored by Doncaster Carpet Warehouse”)

Well it’s been a while since the last one, largely due to a couple of false starts. But a determination to put another leg behind us saw a meeting on a typically dripping wet Bank Holiday Monday. “What bridge is this?” asked a confused looking Australian, as Fletcher and I awaited Don. “Umm, Hammersmith mate”, I replied, as Ian looked pointedly at the 6 foot tall nameplate above us. A stealthy crunching of gravel announced the arrival of Don, in his newly purchased Navy SEAL boots. Wishing to avoid a potential combat situation, we stomped off westwards into the drizzle.

Fortunately, we’d chosen a good section to do in the rain – between Hammersmith and Teddington the path is only rarely out from under cover of trees, and in the late spring the shelter is good. Aside from a few splashes through puddles, we managed to stay reasonably dry. We skirted the private school grounds which back onto the river along it’s Castlenau stretch and were given a beady eye by an enormous Dobermann and it’s diminutive female owner. Emerging from the trees into Barnes Village triggered something in everyone’s memory. Fletch told us he thought he’d been here before. “A girl made me march all the way out here for a date once”, said Don, looking miserable. “Then she made me walk all the way back again afterwards. I think she might have been a bit peculiar”. Under the rattly Barnes Railway Bridge, and the path dropped back alongside the river. A group of girls jogged past in the mud, arms and legs flailing uncontrollably. We smirked in a superior way but our attention was soon drawn by the appearance of the enormous Stag Brewery around a bend in the river. Sadly, no entertaining smell of hops in the air so we were just moving in when an exclamation made us pause. “What. The. HELL. Is. That?!” said Don, pointing frantically at a tiny, bloated, muddy corpse lying on the ground. I told him I thought it was a dog but he muttered darkly about a missing tail and cloven hooves. Fighting the temptation to poke at it with a stick, and with a hint of Lovecraft in the air, we left the poor bedraggled thing to nature’s embrace and walked on.

A small community of beautiful cottages and a lovely pub sits on the bank at this point. Phenomenally expensive of course, but God knows that the residents must think about the monstrous industrial park that forms their other boundary. We passed under Chiswick Bridge and I caught the familiar sight of Strand on the Green on the opposite bank. Having lived along this section for nearly 6 years, I immediately began boring the rest of the party with local gossip and history – including the apocryphal story about a tunnel between Oliver’s Island and the Bull’s Head/Bell and Crown (as told to me at least a dozen times by various drinkers over the years). Fletch managed to put off my local history lesson by pointing out a Cadillac Escalade in a car-park next to the path.

Between Kew Bridge and Richmond, the path runs along the outside of Kew Gardens and the Old Deer Park. The weather made this stretch deserted and eerily quiet, when normally it would be nose to tail bikers and prams. Happy to have the path to ourselves, we found a spring in our step and were soon powering past Brentford and drawing up next to the splendid wrought-iron sight of Richmond Lock. The weir was fully closed, presumably due to the heavy rain, and the river was boiling and frothing madly as the full flow of the tide attempted to push it’s way upstream. West of the lock, calmness reigned. The path is littered with commemorative benches (“Charles and his dog Moët loved to sit here”) and the pleasant sight of Richmond Bridge on the skyline quickened our pace. Having walked for two hours, we decided a spot of lunch was in order and so trudged muddily through the town to the Cricketers on the green where pub food and Bargain Hunt provided sustenance as we discussed the irony of a condom vending machine with the plastic cover splitting open…

Having reached Richmond with much time to spare, we voted positively in favour of walking onwards towards Teddington (only 4 miles away) so we returned to the path and wend our way through the Italianate gardens which run slightly to the west of Richmond. Beyond here, the riverside turns to meadow and we caught our first proper sight of livestock (as opposed to the grubby, boring kind seen in the City Farm). We also saw a family of geese and goslings grazing happily on the bank. Our way was blocked by a fallen tree, it’s roots having been washed away by the rain and high tide – the route seemed impassable but no problem is insurmountable to a member of the special forces…

As we drew closer to Teddington Lock, the nature of the river had changed dramatically. This was no longer the industrial river of the East End – traffic was limited to pleasure craft and private hire boats, and the banks were lined with expensive houses with private moorings. We felt strongly that this was likely to be the dominant style for the majority of the rest of the walk, but for now, dampened and soggy, we really wanted a pint and a station. And Teddington provided both after a crossing of the river by a splendid bridge just below the lock.

Photos Here!

I’m off to see Portishead at the Hammersmith Apollo tonight. As a livener for that, here’s the version of Glory Box they did for the Roseland NYC gig in 1997

(12.5 Miles: “The secret to a good bacon roll is the roll”, “I can see a deal going down… CALL IT IN!!”, “There’s no elephant in this zoo”)

Having made such a good stab at distance on the last section, we decided that in order to carry this advantage forward we would make an earlier start for leg two so that we didn’t get too tangled up in the swathes of tourists that amble around the Thames on this section. With this in mind, the rendezvous with a fresh-faced Don and a catastrophically hungover Fletcher took place at 10am. Fired up with enthusiasm and raring to go… we stopped almost immediately for breakfast in the smallest greasy spoon in London, refusing to leave until fully stuffed with fat and bread.

Eventually we were sufficiently refuelled to make a start and followed Fletcher’s lead over the road, bypassing the gastro-toff hell that is a Saturday morning at Borough Market by splashing through oily puddles in an alleyway behind Tooley Street before emerging onto Bankside at the replica of the Golden Hind, directly into a massive crowd of tourists, boy scouts and assorted panhandlers. Bankside is old London in the best sense, tiny narrow cobbled streets hemmed in on all sides by massive buildings. If it wasn’t for the ubiquitous presence of Starbucks, it wouldn’t be unexpected to see Daniel Defoe coming the other way scattering pamphlets on public flogging. So it was rather disappointing to find the path opening out from Southwark Bridge past the (admittedly stunning) Tate Modern and the wobbly bridge. From Southwark to Westminster Bridge the Thames flows through probably it’s most famous stretch and for this reason we found ourselves ducking from side to side in order to avoid the massive family groups sightseeing. Obvious jokes were made as we passed the Oxo Tower, we found two books about pandas in the book sale at Waterloo Bridge and an overloud trad jazz band featuring a frankly unnecessary number of accordians (three!) gave me the fear by the London Eye. From there it was only a small step to get past Westminster Bridge and some blessed peace, as Big Ben struck midday.

Freed from the shackles of the crowds the pace picked up and, after a brief pork scratching halt at a petrol station in Vauxhall, we were soon at the imposing MI6 building next to Vauxhall Bridge. “They’re watching us” whispered Don, reaching for his camera and noting the irony of photographing the photographers… Fletcher and I sensibly ducked for cover, mindful of the chance of being mistaken for Brazilian electricians. From Vauhall Bridge onwards, we meandered past identikit housing developments, blank faced, anonymous and populated by persons unseen. The river has enough draw to ensure that people will always want to live beside it it seems, despite the lack of romance involved in a house squeezed between a cement factory and a liquid effluent disposal facility. However, just as this dead zone part of the river was beginning to take it’s toll on the group, we crossed into the cool green relief of Battersea Park. Now surrounded by trees and joggers, we were back on nicer territory and paused for a second at the massive pagoda in the middle of the park. Fletcher climbed up to have a look at the sleeping Buddha and we voted him the best of all deities due to his lazy, good humoured nature. Clearly happy at having our support, we became briefly blessed by good karma, which narrowly saved Fletcher from a coming together with a Mk4 Golf at Battersea Park roundabout. Phew!

By now, the bright sunny start had been left long behind us. Dark clouds were gathering and a chilly wind was whipping up as we passed the QVC building and it’s 14 carat gold sign. The river was resolutely residential here… apartment blocks to one side of the path and houseboats to the other. None of us could put foward a brilliant argument for living in a houseboat, but we were even less able to put forward a reason for living in Battersea Power Station: despite the exhortations of the bright advertising hoardings surrounding it suggesting lush green landscaped gardens, the reality was a trashed concrete shell with massive holes cut in the sides. It’s hard not to assume that frankly it should be allowed to crumble into dust and be swept into the past.

As we neared Wandsworth Bridge, the heavens opened so we took shelter in the first pub we came to, Young’s The Waterfront. On the plus side, it was quiet and warm. On the negative it was completely devoid of any atmosphere. Also the staff looked a little odd. No hanging about then… and as soon as the rain cleared up we were underway again. Roudn the Wandsworth one-way system, via pitstop at Chelsea Cars to look at the Mercs.

Now at this point, I need to confess something. I didn’t really think we’d get quite so far along this time… and so I’d ignored the fact that it was boat-race day. It became harder and harder to ignore this as we got closer to Putney though, as the number of people around steadily increased. As we crossed the road at Putney Bridge and a sight reminiscent of a bad day at Glastonbury hove into view, I had some feelings of regret, but we pushed on through the thousands of people by the boat clubs at Putney Embankment regardless and then, as the path crossed the Beverly Brook and we left urban London behind for the first time, the people dissipated and we were left alone to slither along in the mud. By now, Fletcher was having some trouble maintaining forward momentum and Don’s footwear was re-enacting a Traffic song. Deciding that a sensible approach was best here, we marched on as far as Hammersmith Bridge, passing waterlogged boat race goers all the way (most even less sensibly dressed than us… suede shoes for goodness sake) and fortunately reached the haven of the Hop Poles in Hammersmith before becoming completely soaked through (and in time to pay no attention to Oxford winning). WIth two legs, and a good 20 miles behind us, we celebrated with several pints and a fervent hope that the next section will take place in better weather.

(10.2 Miles: “Do people actually live in those flats?”, “how can we STILL see Canary Wharf in front of us?”, “Pigs are the best animals – they’re clever and they taste delicious”)

Ah, section one. And given that further down the river I may be walking alone a lot, it was with great relief that I saw Don and Fletcher stomping out of Charlton railway station on a chilly February morning to at least start me off with some company. Charlton is home to a massive retail park, a breakers yard (complete with battered Ford Fiesta) and the Thames Barrier, which sits in the middle of a rather tired area of South East London about as comfortably as an elephant sits in a hen-house. Managing to duck aside Fletchers school-trip suggestion of a trip round the visitor centre (“Come on! They might have buttons we could press!”) we snaked through the park on the riverside, under a somewhat daunting sign advertising that Thames Head was a mere 180 miles away and onto the path.

It became immediately clear that post-industrial London is alive and well in the eastern reaches of the river. Between the barrier and Greenwich, we walked through an apocalyptic landscape of cement works, disused warehouses and the sad washed up detritus of the city bobbing gently in the tide (“Bloody hell – look at all the old tennis balls. Where have they all come from?”). Grit and grime covered the path, a hole torn in a doorway suggested crack den to all of us, Don found an abandoned moped, The area made me feel sad – This ought to be docklands, an area of bustling waterside activity. Whether this activity is loading and offloading ships as it used to be, or a more modern interpetation in stainless steel and caffe latte, it has to be better than the tangle of weeds and rust we could see. Fletcher, predictably, loved it and had to be restrained from taking photographs of disused cranes and burly workmen.

Presently though, we reached Greenwich and things immediately looked more pleasant. The river meanders dramatically and the sky is dominated by Canary Wharf. Don pointed out his office, an anonymous tower block at the feet of the big tower. We posed by the statue of Nelson, who was shorter than expected (“it’s the diet…”) and barged past the tourists taking photos of the Meridian, narrowly avoided getting our feet wet as the tide splashed over the path edge and stepped into Deptford.

At Deptford, Canary Wharf dominates the skyline. Don realised that he’d pointed out the wrong office block before, and changed his mind to another anonymous looking tower. I thought it was the same one but kept quiet. We then discovered that one of the annoyances of the Thames Path is that often it doesn’t run along the Thames at all. Although the river carried straight on, the path forked off left and delivered us into Deptford for a short stroll past a petrol station and along a trunk road. It then veered towards the river again, in time to show us a statue of Peter the Great (who had a tiny head) and his midget sidekick (who appeared to be suffering from Hydrocephalus). Buoyed up by our meeting with Russian Royalty, we followed the path through the seamy end of Deptford via a large housing estate and fortunately finding a rather splendid pub, the Ship and Whale, in which to relax and regain our strength via the medium of beer and pork scratchings. We also found a stuffed owl – is he yours?

From Deptford, the river meandered again and we entered Rotherhithe where the skyline is dominated by Canary Wharf. This is where yuppy housing comes to die. Houses that spoke of 80s housing boom with their proximity to Docklands, sat forlornly with tatty paintwork and a variety of cheap cars outside. However the area was saved by the presence of the city farm (“look, a pig!”) through which the path wound, taking us past chickens and cows looking happily at the HSBC tower. For the next couple of miles we had trouble seeing the river at all. Whenever we were lucky enough to find the path actually on the riverbank, we were almost immediately sucked back out onto the road instead. The hulking giant of the Hilton Docklands blocked our every attempt to get through and although there was a certain temptation to marching our muddied boots through their foyer, we took the easier option of doubling back on ourselves and following some pensioners until they took off like rockets into the distance. Finally, feeling slightly disorientated, we reached Shad Thames.

At Shad Thames, London’s love affair with itself is wrought in stone. Canary Wharf dominating the skyline to the East and Tower Bridge to the West, we walked past the Design Museum and down the narrow alleyway of Shad Thames itself, as seen in the romantic endings to a thousand rubbish British films. Fletcher pointed out the idiocy of paying 7 figures for a flat in an area that is flooded by tourists at weekend, and where your neighbours are attached to your front door by a bridge. Still, London in the early evening is a lovely place and the smells from the local restaurants put a spring in our step as we realised we were on the home straight. Past a hundred estate agents all advertising the same flat, up the steps onto Tower Bridge and across the river to the Tube station just before Don’s feet gave up the ghost altogether. As we trudged down into the realms of TFL and the dominating vision of Canary Wharf finally disappeared from view, I remembered why I love this city so much. Then the tube doors opened and I was faced with a pile of someone else’s vomit.

Photos Here!

Update: Yes yes… I know I’ve repeated “Canary Wharf dominates the skyline” several times. That is the point… look here

Ooh, first post for a while. I’ve just added this as a feed to Facebook so hopefully I should be better about updating…

I’ve recently been playing with the SAJAX library and I think it’s genius. It’s basically a combination JS/PHP library for creating AJAX calls. Aside from it’s tiny footprint (because the library is rendered out through the PHP layer, it automatically only loads the required stuff for the Javascript end) it’s chief strength is the speed of development. You create the PHP end of the transaction and include the library, and SAJAX creates the JS end for you. You then just need to write the functionality to trigger the method calls in your front-end code. I was able to create a basic example in less than two minutes – one function to write in the PHP end, two in the Javascript and it was up and running.

Having tried this, and the Mootoolsframework recently, I don’t think I’ll need to use Prototype or jQuery again.