It was a dangerous moment to drift to sleep, the train had just gone through Gerrards Cross station. What woke me up, from my afternoon nap was the sound of my thankfully empty chocolate milkshake, landing at the feet of the passenger in front of me. Trying to keep cool, as always, I quickly picked up the cup and regained my exposure. I don’t think anyone really noticed. As I got up to get off the train at the first stop, I tried to reflect on my day. The training with the client had been arranged a few months back and I had no intention to attend. My technical input was not required in any case a developer would be on hand to deal with any questions. However, as the poem goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, so my Manager explained mid afternoon that my attendance at the pilot event would be greatly appreciated. I cleared my scheduled for the day and grabbed a laptop and installed the new version of the software. Looks like another trip on the DLR tomorrow. When I got home I realised that this was in fact a blessing in disguise. I had been meaning to go into Maidenhead to pick up a present for a friend. I knew they were getting an iPod Nano from Pav, so had opted, after much deliberation, to buy the car kit. I was originally hoping to pick something up from PC World or Maplins but now could go over to the Apple Store in Regent Street. I wanted to be organised, so headed over to the Apple site and called their customer service line. Eventually I was put through to an operator but he was American and explained that any order placed would be delivered direct to my home and could not be collected in store. Never mind, I would just have to get what I needed after the client visit tomorrow. Thankfully we finished ahead of schedule, so I was waiting for the DLR, on a clear sunny, but windy and chilly afternoon at 2.45pm. I made the way back to Canning Town, where I took the Jubilee line across to Bond Street. Back above ground I was using my gut instinct to find the iPod store. I was eighty percent sure I was heading in the right direction as I went past Oxford Circus tube station. Sure enough, I turned the corner onto Regent Street and there it was, the black flag with instantly recognisable white fruit logo. My Dad has been bugging me to come here for years, having himself been on numerous occassions. Sure enough as I entered through the glass doors, I knew I was in a different store for a different type of consumer. It was relatively busy with each of the till operators (now that is harsh, I make it sound they are checkout girls at Tesco) serving customers. I asked about the car kits and was polietly directly to the far left handside of the store which had all the accessories. Now a quick phone call to Pav to confirm he had purchased the black Nano, so I could colour co-ordinate with the accessories. Great. Time to pay. Strangely within the few minutes I had been browsing and speaking to Pav, the queue disappeared and every cashier was free. I went to the nearest person and was intrigued, rather than shocked that he had an Apple Powerbook as a register to total up my items and then request payment. In an ideal world I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer, you never know, I could have shelled out on one of their popular mp3 players myself but I was tired and wanted to get home. I headed off into the West End, clutching my silver bag. No, this is not just a bag, it is a fashion statement. It is being part of a collective group of followers, a cult if you will. I iPod.

Following on from my comments on BBC blogging the other day, I had a comment from Jem Stone, who has a blog over at Common Users. Fantastic to hear such encouraging movements from the Beeb to embrace and develop the new citizen journalism. It cannot be ignored and if you ask me it has been a long time coming around. My hopes? That within the not too distant future, we will watch television programmes, such as Top Gear but then be able to read further information on individual episodes on Clarkson’s own blog and challenge some of his views on our beloved motorcars. Okay, that is an example taken to the extreme but you get the point. The aim would be for there to be as many blogs as there are personalities across the diversity of BBC broadcasting spectrum. I have contacted Jem via FlickR (as there was no other clearly visible way of contacting him) and hope to hear more from him and the background to the Beeb blogging.