Monday, July 7, 2008 at 8:37PM Interesting article. Apparently the Americans at least try to talk the local language. Les Frogs struggle. Seems counter-intuitive to me.
Monday, July 7, 2008 at 3:36PM I know I'm not exactly clean as a whistle when it comes to food moderation (food is one of my few vices!) but read what they ate:
Lunch
White asparagus and truffle soup
Kegani crab almond oil foam and green olive tapenade
Supreme of chicken served with its stuffed thigh, nuts and orange savoury with beetroot foam
Special cheese selection with half-dried fruits
Peach compote, ice cream and raspberry coulis
Dinner
Corn-stuffed caviar
Smoked salmon and sea urching "pain surprise" style
Hot onion tart
Winter lily bulb and summer savoury
Folding fan modeled tray decorated with bamboo grasses
including
Kelp-flavoured cold kyoto beef shabu-shabu, asparagus dressed with sesame cream
Diced fatty fles of tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce and Japanese herb "shiso"
Boiled clam, tomato, Japanese herb "shiso" in jellied clear soup of clam
Water shield and pickled conger dressed with vinegar soy sauce
Boiled prawn with jellied tosazu-vinegar
Grilled eel rolled around burdock strip
Sweet potato
Fried and seasoned Goby with soy sauce and sugar
Hairy Crab "Kegani" bisque soup
Salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with vinegary water pepper sauce
Milk fed lamb from "shiranuka" flavoured with aromatic herbs and mustard
Roasted lamb and cepes and black truffle with emulsion sauce of lamb's stock and pine seed oil
Special cheese selection, lavender honey and caramelised nuts
G8 fantasy dessert
Coffee served with candied fruits and vegetables
Wine list
Le Reve grand cru champagne
Japanese saki
Corton Charlemagne 2005
Chateau Latour burgundy
Ridge California Monte Bello 1997
Tokaji Essencia 1999 from Hungary
Full article courtesy of Timesonline from the UK:Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 9:53PM Looks like I'm a heavy user of the internet. Apparently I used 54 Gb of bandwidth in the last 30 days. Hmm. I rather suspect it's a combination of my podcasting downloads, Chris on his forums, James playing Eve / WOW and Janet doing her stuff. Anyway, here's what Demon sent me.
Reference: Customer Hostname [pxxxxxx]Dear Mr Parkinson,
At THUS plc, we take great care to ensure a high standard of service is provided to our Home and HomeOffice broadband customers. We provide this through ongoing performance monitoring of our network, including regular analysis of customer bandwidth usage.
While we encourage our customers to take full advantage of the excellent quality of service we offer, we are also obliged to ensure that our service is used in accordance with our Fair Usage Policy, a copy of which can be found at http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/aup/thusfup. This forms part of the agreement between THUS plc and our Home and HomeOffice customers.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind you that in circumstances where bandwidth usage exceeds what we consider to be reasonable, we will be required to take steps to reduce usage to a more equitable level.
THUS plc currently regards 50GB as being a fair maximum usage level of downloads during a rolling 30 day period for Home 8000 customers and 60GB for HomeOffice 8000 customers. Please note that these limits are guidelines and are subject to change.
We are writing to advise you that our use analysis shows that over the past 30 days you have downloaded 54.00GB. If your usage increases above your current levels you may well exceed the limits outlined above and as such we will take corrective action, in accordance with our Fair Usage Policy.
Corrective action would involve limiting your download speed to 128kbps between the hours of 9am and 11pm. No limitations will apply outside these times - you would be able to use the maximum download speed that your line will support. Upstream speeds will not be limited at any time.
Having brought this matter to your attention, we hope that your bandwidth usage will not increase and restrictions in the future will not be required.
May I take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of THUS plc for your custom and offer my apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause. As this is an unmonitored email address for notification purpose only, please do not reply to this message. Should you wish to discuss this further, please contact our Customer Services team on 0845 2722333.
Yours Sincerely
Demon Customer Services
This is the first one I've received but it's a worry. How do I keep under the 50Gb limit? Anyone out there got any ideas?
Any help or ideas gratefully received
Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 11:04AM 
Oh man, this bites me hard.... I've been there done that.
