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When BT rang up and invited me to come along to Cowes Week - it's rather involved in sailing sponsorship, what with the Extreme 40s, sponsoring Ellen MacArthur, and all that - the weather in London was sunny, hot, and  with no wind to speak of. So, in all honesty, I expected Sunday to be a rather dull affair, drifting slowly around a racing course watching the sails flap idly in the breeze. It didn't really turn out that way.

Instead, Sunday morning was grey and a bit ominous, and by the time my boat hit the water with an intrepid crew comprising of one skipper, one BT employee and five journalists, the wind was blowing up impressively. Within a minute of getting the mainsail up I was wrestling with the helm, which seemed determined to pull away onto a reach with the sails too far in, and the boat was tipped over at least 45 degrees going close hauled. I've spent enough time sailing to find this interesting rather than alarming, but I'm not sure it'd be so much fun on your first time out and with barely a few minutes' briefing, as it was for some of the crew.

We missed the start of our race spectacularly due to unfortunate scheduling - the ten minute signal went when we were barely off the jetty and half an hour from the start line - but things were kept interesting by a fender flying off over the stern and some increasingly drastic efforts to get it back. After four passes, a couple of breakneck turns and a few very soggy crew members, myself included, we admitted defeat. Short of getting the sails in and resorting to the motor, the plastic balloon's bid for freedom was bound to succeed.

As the afternoon went on the weather got a little rougher, with the wind gusting to around 25 knots and the tide (I assume) creating some deep, choppy waves down by the coast. As we came back, wind behind us, into Cowes alongside the main racing fleet boats were broaching wildly, a few had lost spinnakers, one appeared to have lost his forestay and was hastily re-rigging the mast with the stays pulled forward, and another was completely dismasted, floating just off the course as its crew attempted to pull the rigging up out of the water. We didn't even attempt to fly the spinnaker - with the wind veering a little behind us on a very broad reach I was getting seriously nervous about the possibility of an unplanned gybe that would send the boom hurtling over the cockpit.

Fortunately we made it back entirely in one piece and managed to get the sails down, despite the best efforts of the red line ferry which appeared looming behind us as I attempted to hold the boat head to wind and out of the way of the other yachts. And speaking of other yachts: I've never seen so many. Coming into the town all you could see both ahead and behind was a mess of spinnakers and mainsails, ranging from tiny twenty-something footers hastily attempting to reattach their outboard motors to enormous racing craft built like giant dinghies hurtling along behind asymmetric kites. The whole thing really was amazing to behold.

Despite a few hairy moments the whole thing was incredibly enjoyable, and I'd certainly go back for another shot given the chance. In fact, yesterday served as a reminder of why I used to enjoy sailing in small yachts - you don't quite get the breakneck feeling of speed that comes from hanging out of a dinghy with your head inches from the water, but there's something very satisfying about it. Oh, and you get coffee making facilities on board, too. What more could you want.

Photos here, slideshow here.

It's hot in London - hotter than our office air conditioning and public transport can comfortably cope with. The tourists have come out, too - big groups of them, marching around Charing Cross behind some berk with a flag, standing on the left on the escalators, stopping abruptly to stare agog at Planet Hollywood (yes, really) and filling Trafalgar Square each and every evening to hear the dodgy reggae busker, admire the man who dances the moonwalk to an invisible soundtrack and give financial encouragement to the "pavement artists". Sheesh.

Bearing in mind the effect these factors have on Tom's third law of city living [(Heat+Tourists) * Lenth of Commute = Increase in impotent rage] it was time to get out of town. So today we scuttled off to be beside the seaside, de dum de dum.

I haven't really had much experience of British seaside resorts. Helen, on the other hand, visited just about every single one as a child and has fond memories of several, so she picked a resort and off we went - an hour and a half down the A2/M2 to Broadstairs, Kent. And here it is. Isn't it pretty?

As it turns out, Broadstairs had pretty much everything I'd imagined that one would find at a British seaside town on a hot day: beer, food of dubious nutritional merit, crying children, sunburnt pensioners, and those funny portable wind shelter things that British people seem to cart around the world. On the other hand, it also had a few things I didn't expect: a beautifully clean, sandy beach, and people happily paddling and swimming in the sea (which given the stiff breeze must have been freezing). We marvelled at the array of condiments served up with lunch, watched kids feed scampi to the seagulls, and counted dog pawprints on the beach - it was all very nice, and you'll find a lot of photos on Flickr here.

And then we went to Margate.

Margate, just around the corner, had pretty much everything you'd expect from a run-down seaside town, and then some. On the plus side, it too had a lovely beach - a great yellow bay of gleaming sand, packed with families enjoying the intermittent sunshine. Walk down the front, however, and you'll likely wind up depressed.

We went looking for the Scenic Railway - an old wooden roller-coaster that Helen remembered from childhood visits. We did eventually find what's left of it - a few wooden tracks rising up above a kind of metal shack, tucked away behind Dreamland. Here's Dreamland, or what's left of it:

Dreamland must have once been a striking art deco building. Today it's covered in strikingly ugly plastic signs (CASH BINGO!), and mostly shut. Walk down past the closed cimena (showing OO YEM ARGATE, apparently) and you'll find the entrance to the amusement park, which is missing a giant plastic letter from its giant plastic sign. Inside the glass doors we could spot a lot of dust and a haphazardly abandoned Time Crisis arcade machine - it looked like it had closed in a hurry. In fact, it turns out that the Scenic Railway was earmarked as a listed building before it caught fire earlier this year. I can't find any reference to the main Dreamland site opening in 2008 at all; presumably the owners gave up.

Dreamland isn't the only thing that's evidently suffered in recent years. We passed a shopping arcade that now held just three stores (a joke shop, a burger shack and a not terribly subtle "bong shop"), and the biggest amusement arcade on the road - the Tivoli - was completely closed. On the way out of town we marvelled at the Shell Ladies of Margate (who I presume have left town) and listened to a drug addict complaining in a loud, public manner to his dealer about the quality or otherwise of his merchandise. It was clearly time to go back to London.

So, the moral, or something close to it: if you have the time, go to Broadstairs. Eat fish, see the sea, avoid the gargantuan seagulls. It's all very nice. Margate, however, is an experience. Go for the beach, but unless you happen to have some sort of economic rescue package in the boot of your car the town's probably best avoided. Southend on Sea is nicer, but then so is Lewisham.

And Ralph has all the toys.

Seen on the walk to work today: an LP lying in the gutter in Hither Green, titled "BBC Sound Effects: Even More Death and Horror". Apparently it's something of a rarity. Sadly we're short a camera at work, so my D40 was locked in the office. D'oh. (Updated - took the camera home, and it was still there).

Album cover can be found here.

One of my better excuses for not doing the washing.

I'm still embarassingly amused by taking photos with really shallow depth of field - it's what vastly overpriced and overcomplicated digital cameras that weigh a ton and fill up your entire carry on baggage allowance were made for.

.. and all I got were these lousy photos. And a news story about antivirus software, which was really the point of the exercise, but never let the truth get in the way of a bad pun.

Anyhow, I went for a walk, got lost, took photos, somehow found my bearings again and made it back to the hotel for the press conference, which was something of a relief.

On an only vaguely related note, I've tweaked the Wordpress template to make it play nicely with Flickr pictures (which are 500px wide by default). Looks OK to me, but please let me know if I done broked it.

Spent yesterday at the Culham Science Centre, deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. I was there to play with viruses (details on workblog), but most of the research park is engaged in fascinatingly mindboggling nuclear fusion research like the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak, which I assume will one day take over the world. With this in mind, perhaps, the park has its own special police force.

It's also an interesting clump of buildings - built on a former RAF base, the main centre has that kind of 1960s municipal building feel to it, all polished wood and aluminium, but because it's frequented by scientists rather than schoolkids the whole place is in incredibly good repair and the original fittings have survived. I particularly liked this flicky clock in the seminar room (and have found that you can still buy one from Graysons - a snip at £250).

Saint Peter: Welcome to Heaven. I'm afraid there's just a little form filling before we open up the pearly gates, but it won't take a second. So, tell me - what brought you into the church? Were you born a Christian?

Lewisman Resident: No.

SP: Did you convert at a church school?

LR: No.

SP: Did you have a moment of revelation? Witness any miracles?

LR: No, and no.

SP: Okay then - did you perhaps find comfort in the church after a traumatic event?

LR: Not really.

SP: Well then, perhaps you could tell me - where, how and why did you convert?

LR: Well, I saw this oddly-capitalised sticker on a lamp-post on the Lee High Road.

SP: Oh, right. Actually, you're the third person today to say that. [fills in "other" category on holy clipboard]