I read a brief but interesting article on the Akismet blog today offering an insight into the current state of web based spam.

While Akismet isn’t a blocking service I personally feel that the large IP ranges identified by the article as solely in use by spammers could do with being blocked.

On Sunday I met up with Shweta in London to visit the Michelangelo’s Dream exhibition being hosted at Somerset house in Aldwych. Featured were a number of his paintings but the gallery was populated in the most part by his sketches which showed a fascinating insight into how he composed his works and also the lengths to which others have gone to create copies.

The gallery visit was followed by a wander round the streets of London and afternoon tea at St James Restaurant on the fourth floor of Fortnum & Mason.

The photo of Shweta was taken on the terrace at Somerset house looking out over the Thames and the second photo features the back of Somerset house taken again from the terrace.

Joined by Shweta, Tara and Oli I went on a 10 mile hike along the White Horse Trail, just south of Avebury, Wiltshire

Merlin, my family’s cat, takes a long drink directly from the kitchen tap after a long, hot and sunny day in St Albans

Over the weekend I stayed with Matt Revell in London. With the fantastic warm weather it was the perfect opportunity to wander round the streets in a tee-shirt, snapping photos on the camera and taking in the arts and culture.

We visited the sculptures of Ife exhibition at the British Museum, took afternoon tea in the friends room at the Royal Academy of Arts and then browsed the Van Gogh exhibition seeing as it’s the last week when all these wonderful paintings and letters will be in London.

A splendid day of culture then, rounded off by an Italian meal and a few pints of ale in a local watering hole, complete with some music on the sound system that took me right back to my school days. Great fun and big thanks to Matt.

The photo below was taken of an old corner shop in Walthamstow on our way to Blackhorse Road tube station. Note how it still sports the original frontage complete with name and advertising in tiles!

Over the Easter bank holiday I took part in a race across the English Channel and back with a team of people from the Offshore Cruising Club. The weather was rough and I was sea sick on the first day of the race, but the second day and the pre and post race sail went fantastically and all in all I had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

The high winds offered us the chance to frequently exceed 10 knots and the clear skies made for tanned faces and superb star gazing at night. What better way to chase away those chained to a desk computer blues!

Thanks to Anne Warren for taking the above photos, two of which show me at the helm of Overlord, the boat owned by the OCC.