I gave my second speech at Windsor Speakers Toastmasters in January 2014. It was for Project 2 "Organise your speech" from the Competent Communication Manual.

Listen to my speech or read it here.

I came across the following exchange when clearing out some files.

It's a series of messages sent via sixdegrees.com with someone I used to chat with online.

I kept the messages because I thought they were hilarious. I still do.

I wonder what James Sparshott is up to now.

I gave my first talk at my local Toastmasters in July this year.

It was the first time I'd actually chosen to stand up and speak in front of people. Up until then I had tried to avoid it. But when I couldn't avoid it, I always got very nervous and did very badly.

Listen to my speech or read it here.

My 7-yr old neighbour just spent some time wandering around our lounge, exploring.

He found the electric floor-sweeper and spent 5 minutes cleaning my floor.

We found out that it spits out dirt if it flips upside down but Marcus found a way of twirling the stick as he cleaned it all back up.

He asked to have it when I was done with it.

In July, the BBC morning news programme did a short feature on Facebook.

A psychologist was concerned that people were spending time in a compelling "virtual world" rather than interacting with people in the "real" world.

Frank taped the segment for me to see how long it'd take before I started shouting at the TV.

I was playing with a 7-yr old neighbour on my front lawn one summery day, making origami animals, when he noticed my bare ankle.

"You have to shave your legs," he said.

I found the addictive Jyte.com via OpenID. Registered users post any claim that other users can vote and comment on. I thought Jyte had great potential to explore people's attitudes.

I had a question I sometimes ask at dinner parties and thought that Jyte was a good place to ask a wider audience: What order would these be accepted as the American President: a black man, a white woman, a Jewish man, a homosexual man?

After a couple of days, I was surprised to the see the votes regarding claims regarding Jewish people. Read on for the results after 88 votes.