Goodbye old friend

Last night I turned off the UKChat server.

UKChat was a chat site that I co-ran and has been running for 10 years. It's been a part of my life after work and at weekends for a long time, so it was a bit of a wrench to turn it off.

Why did we do it? A number of reasons. Chat has had its day. IMs and Social Networking sites have taken its place, and the amount of effort required to keep it running was getting beyond that which we had available.

It was good while it lasted. I made a lot of friends and even had a couple of good relationships as a result of it, but nothing lasts forever, so it was good going out on a high.

Posted at 19:38 | Comments (0)

Malta

I've just recently returned from 11 days in Malta. Photos here.

It was a relaxing holiday, the weather was variable, but with enough nice days to be not too disappointing.

The main stories of the holiday are the travelling.

I was due to fly out with Alitalia via Milan. I checked in nice and early and was halfway through my breakfast when I heard my name on the tannoy..... My flight to Milan was cancelled!!!! I had to got back through immigration and collect my luggage before queuing up at the Alitalia desk..... Much to my delight, as I was a transit passenger, they re-booked me on the direct Air Malta flight, and apart from the frantic dash from terminal 2 to 4, it was excellent as I arrived two hours ahead of schedule... two more hours to my holiday.

On the way home I was flying via Rome and Milan. Plenty of lost luggage opportunity there! The first two legs were fine, then for the last leg I was bumped up to business class!! Result!! We then sat for an hour on the tarmac at Milan as they had one more passenger on the plane than they had seats! Eventually they persuaded someone to get off.

When we arrived at Heathrow, so did my luggage!! second result!!! As a final quirk to the holiday, on the luggage carousel was a large pink suitcase from the previous flight, very noticeable. Imagine my surprise when I got to my local tube station, there waiting for the bus was the guy with the pink suitcase. He then proceeded to get on the same bus as me and off at the same stop!! That was a big coincidence.

Posted at 19:48 | Comments (0)