This is horrible - a light aircraft has crashed in a residential area while taking off or landing at Biggin Hill airport. The crash site is less than a mile from my little brother's old school, and about a mile from my parents' house:

(click to enlarge)

It's horrible when something like this happens; it's worse when it's practically in your "back yard", and my thoughts go out to everyone affected by the incident.

More news coverage is online at the BBC and Sky News. 

News editor Jacob Leverett was given the potentially career-defining opportunity of interviewing the minister, with a clean-slate interview (i.e. we weren't proscribed any questions), and Jacob, after the inevitable nervousness, handled the task with aplomb. At one point I thought there was going to be a punch-up - you'll be able to see what I mean in the video - but overall, the interview, which we video'd and recorded - went very well indeed.

Throughout the interview, I was sat off behind camera and, as the grilling drew to a close, and realising the need to get a photo of the occasion, I grabbed the only camera to hand: Jacob's Nikon D-something-or-other (D40 perhaps? I dunno...). I managed to turn it on and ask, in my best "meeja-related-person" voice, "ehhm, could I ask you gents to pose for a very quick photo please?".

Both Mr Denham and Mr Leverett agreed and, putting on their best grins/grimaces, turned to the camera. Yes, I managed to take a photo... But no, I hadn't got as far as figuring out how Jacob's damned flash worked.

Bugger.

Of course, I bravely soldiered on and did my best to give the impression that I knew exactly what I was doing, and that my command of the camera's manual configuration meant I didn't need such paltry technological aids as a flashgun... Until Jacob shattered my carefully-crafted illusion with "You have no idea how to operate my camera, do you Alex?"

"Err, no... Not exactly" I replied.

Bugger. Again.

Still, I think you'll agree the photo below is singularly one of the most impressive pieces of photography this year:

... ahem. You can read the University's more coherent take on the visit here, or read our teaser article-thing here. Or you could check back on Monday to see the video of the MP's interview, in our news section. 

Cheers! /al 

p.s. As I type this, a massive fight's kicking off outside (i.e. outside Portsmouth's fabled Scandals). I'm off to watch... Or, more likely, hide under my bed...

Apologies for the 50-in-1 update, but I've got loads of equally important (or, if you're a normal human being, equally boring) things to ramble on about...

Gamel - Pugwash mag editor and graphic designer extraordinaire - has finished the image which will adorn the back of the Pugwash hoodies this year:

I particularly love the dig at my Mac "obsession" - the monkey is typing away on a Banana laptop. In my defence, and as far as I'm concerned, I spend a lot of time on my laptop because I'm doing work - everyone else, however, has christened my laptop "Alex's girlfriend" (much to my better half's amusement) because of the amount of time I spend on it... Cheers... Gits the lot of you! ;o)

It's been a bit cold lately, and I grabbed a shot of the sunset over Biggin Hill while I was home visiting the 'rents. Apologies for the quality of the shot - I blame the camera - but the sky was like cut glass and I could see clearly right across London (about 40 miles) from the back window of the house...

Talking of photos, on my way back to Portsmouth, my carriage stopped next to this frankly ridiculous waste of a sign yesterday:

On the subject of bitching, I don't think I'll ever understand why some people feel the need to rip other people's work apart in a public forum just because they don't understand its purpose; it's like me accusing Aston Martin of selling overpriced rubbish just because their cars cost more than a Ford Fiesta... Meh... Sorry for the oblique rant, but it's frustrating when you pretty much live and breathe your media presence and sometimes the only feedback you receive is complaints!! Still, it could be worse... ;o)

In webgeekery, I've been tweaking our "news wizard" - a (very) basic wizard-style web tool we use to create news articles:

Where we used to be quite limited in terms of what we could do with the images in news articles - you got a 200x150 pixel image in your news article, with or without a caption, and that was it - you had to know a bit of HTML if you wanted to tweak it - now our online news editors have the ability to create news articles which have a widescreen image right across the article:

The main application for this will, I hope, be when we start putting more of Pugwash magazine's features online, as it will allow us to make a bigger feature of the article image, since the magazine is very much a visually-led medium. Unfortunately, with only two more issues of the mag left this year, I can't help feeling time's running out very quickly already!

A quick stop press: Digitially Imported 'net radio - I've been listening to...

Just found this shot of Banksy's double yellow line flower (you can find the original here on Flickr). Nice work :o)

Image (c) Dave Gorman

Going through my cameraphone photos - almost a year's worth - I found this pic of a rare OS X "kernel panic" on my laptop, which is the computer's way of saying "that's it, something's gone massively wrong and I've had enough. If you're stupid enough to want to keep going, be my guest, but you're going to have to reboot me first"...

Not having experienced this on a Mac before, I guess that's one of the warning signs a more experienced (or geeky?) owner might have attributed to what was about to happen next. Unfortunately for me - but brilliantly for you if schadenfreude is the only thing that gets you through the day - I took no notice of this warning sign.

The photo was taken on February 14th. A few days later, my laptop's hard disk karked it in spectacular style.

Ah well, you live and learn... There's another 82 random photos in the set including a couple of excellent bits of graffiti that made I chuckle (which I'll write a separate post about shortly). Bored or suffering insomnia? You can find the rest of the pics here on Flickr :o)