Speaking of Greasy Spoons

London has some great greasy spoons and here are two of my favourites:

The Breakout Cafe & Sandwich Bar on the Caledonian Road, N7 9BQ. It is located opposite Pentonville Prison so great choice of name. If your travelling by car, there are a few pay & displays which I'd recommend you use - there are loads of traffic wardens hanging around to catch you out.

The Breakout Cafe & Sandwich Bar
Caledonian Road
London N7 9BQ


Terry's Cafe on Great Suffolk Street.
As you walk into this cafe it is like walking back in time. The cafe has a real old London charm about it, the staff are really friendly and there are old pictures of Southwark placed around the walls and other various nic-nacs. They do a great breakfast - just order whatever you fancy. You can usually grab a table and the regulars seem to be on first-name terms with the owners. If you're driving you can park for free in most of SE1 on Saturdays.

Terry's Cafe
158 Great Suffolk Street
London SE1 1PE
Tel: 020 7407 9358
Not open on Sundays

Nincomsoup - Old Street Station, London EC1Y

If you live / work / visiting the Old Street area and looking for something filling and healthy for lunch or dinner, there is a great soup place located in Old Street Tube Station, Central London called Nincomsoup. The decor is really interesting and minimalist which they won the Retail Interiors Award 2001.

The soups are made from scratch with natural ingredients and seasonal produce. They also serve a great coffee, smoothies, veggie juices, icecream shakes to name a few. I'm always running late for work so have never had a chance to stop for brekkie, which although is not as inviting as a greasy spoon, is a great healthy alternative if your watching those calories or fancying being healthy.

The soups are delicious and flavoursome, which you can sample before you buy and top it up with either a roll or corn muffin - eat-in or takeaway. Note: Eat-in is subject to VAT.

Location: Old Street Tube Station Concourse, on the Northern Line, Central London
Web address: http://www.nincomsoup.co.uk/
Daily Soup Menu website: http://nincomsoupoldstreet.blogspot.com/

New Tayyabs - Punjabi cuisine in the London east end

A friend recommended we try New Tayyabs. It is located at 83-89 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1JU, just off Whitechapel and not far from the hustle and bustle of Brick Lane (which, if you have not been to before, is well worth a visit on your next trip to London or fancy eating in a different part of the city).

New Tayyab has been established for over 30 years and started as a daytime cafe, it became very popular with the locals and folks from the city, families and East End creatives, so they expanded into the adjoining Victorian Pub. Their specialism is Punjabi dishes from Pakistan.

We rang ahead to order some take-away (full menu available on their website). Next time we'll stop and have our meal there - the atmosphere was vibrant, busy and full of buzz. Lots of good food and chat going on from very large to small groups of people enjoying their Saturday night meal. The place was full and people were happy to queue to wait for their table, they also had a few tables available outside.

The food was just simply delicious, we ordered a selection of vegetarian dishes, rices, naan breads and starters. What I love best about getting curries is you get to sample a range of different flavours, spices, textures and New Tayyabs didn't disappoint. Their menu has a great selection for both veggies and non-veggies. I am really looking forward to my next visit.

The Details:
New Tayyabs
12:00 - 11:30 pm (7 days a week)
83-89 Fieldgate Street
London E1
www.tayyabs.co.uk
020 7247 6400 | 020 7247 9543 | 020 7247 8521
info@tayyabs.co.uk

London Geek Dinner - 7 July 2006

I attended the London Geek dinner, organised by Ian Forrester in Central London last night.

Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief for Wired Magazine gave a talk on his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More which was very interesting.

The event took place at Bottlescrue on Holburn Viaduct, which had a great outdoor space so we could enjoy the beautiful London evening. It is part of the Davy wine group, so the selection of wine was a winner. There was a great supply of nibbles, good company and chat.

The evening was a great success with about 90 people turning up. I was lucky to be sitting near the front so I could hear Chris talk.

A big thanks to Ian for organising it. You can read Ian's full report on the 7 July London Geek Dinner and Geek Dinner photos on flickr

Sol Campbell to leave Arsenal

Sol Campbell has decided to leave Arsenal to seek new challenges. The Arsenal centre back made 197 appearances for Arsenal and helped Arsenal win five major trophies.

He has not yet been linked with any club and commented that he would also be interested in moving abroad. He will be sadly missed and it was a pleasure watching him play at the old Highbury Stadium.

For the full article visit the Arsenal website.

Robert Pires to Villarreal

After six years with the Gunners, Robert has decided to end his career with a move to Villarreal FC who offered the Frenchman a 2 year deal. Pires, who is out of contract next month, had hoped to negotiate a two year deal with Arsenal, who have a policy of a 1 year contract for players who are in their 30s.

I have really enjoyed watching Robert Pires play at Highbury and was disappointed for him that his last match in the Champion League's final was cut short to make way for the Almunia when Jens Lehmann was shown the red card. He will be missed ... Read Pires joins Villarreal after six-year stay on the Arsenal website.

Flash games

I am a big fan of accessibility, web standards and designing sites with CSS. At the same time I have a bittersweet relationship with Flash and the right environment for it's use - we all remember the days of Skip Intro. Flash designers and developers seemed to have found the right environment for Flash with various RIAs, movie presentations and online games.

Here are some examples of Flash Games on Thumbcandy

Zing Media new site launch

Zing Media has relaunched their website. Services on offer include:
- Accessible web design and build to web standards
- Workshops in CSS, accessibility, x(html) and web standards
- One-to-one training sessions
- Consultancy

World Wide Web Conference 2006

The 15th Annual World Wide Web Conference 2006 is currently taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The event runs from 23 - 26 May 2006 at the Edinburgh Internationl Conference Centre. They will be releasing a series of Podcasts on lead items surrounding the event. For more information visit WWW2006 Edinburgh Scotland and details on WWW2006 Podcast Series

Notes of suggesting link styles

David Baron works for the Mozilla Corporation and on the Mozilla Browser. David wrote an article with suggestions for link styles in CSS

Arsenal new signing - Tomas Rosicky

Arsenal confirm the new signing of Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky from Borussia Dortmund on a long-term contract. The Czech Republic international said "This is the best club in Europe and I will give everything,".

Read the article about Tomas Rosicky on the Arsenal website who will join the squad in the new Emirates Stadium after the World Cup.

AJAX for mobile (mobile web 2.0)

Interesting article by Open Gardens on mobile AJAX becoming the preferred platform for mobile applications development. The article is in two parts:
Part One
Part Two

CSS Books

New to CSS, get started with some good books on the subject, from introduction to stylish design layouts:

Designing With Web Standards (New Riders Press) by Jeffrey Zeldman
CSS Cookbook (O'Reilly Press) by Christopher Schmitt
The CSS Anthology - 101 Essential Tips, Tricks, and Hacks (O'Reilly Press) by Rachel Andrew
Zen of CSS Design, The: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Peadpit Press) by D Shea & M Holzschlag

Ticket for the UEFA Chapions League final in Paris

My ticket for the UEFA Chapions League final in Paris - Arsenal Vs Barcelona

Silver Surfer Week

UK seniors have been given the opportunity to try out the web. As part of Age Concern's Silver Surfer Week, organised with BT and Microsoft, over 1500 IT taster sesssions have been set up. Invitation for silver surfers article on BBC and Age Concern Website

Looking forward ... latest advances on World Wide Web

Computer scientist Dave Re Roure reflects on how far the web has come. He talks on the BBC technology section ahead of the world's largest web conference. Building on the future of the web on BBC Technology

Henry Stays at Arsenal

The rumours started first thing this morning that Henry was committed to staying with Arsenal. AFC called a press conference at 2pm to confirm that Henry has indeed decided to stay and has signed a new 4 year deal. I am delighted he is going to stay and run out at the new stadium at the start of the season in August. It appears from press reports that the majority of fans / supporters from other clubs are happy with the news ... until of course he plays against them ;-) ... full coverage available on the Arsenal website and most media websites.

W3C Announced Introduction of Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL)

On the 16 May 2006, the W3C announced the introduction of Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL) .

With the vast range of mobile devices on offer, DIAL will provide a markup language for content authoring. It's aim is to facilitate the authoring of content on the thousands of different handsets and has been developed by the W3C's Device Indepence Working Group which members are indstury leaders. View the full DIAL Press Release and also the W3C Working Draft on DIAL

On the Road to Paris

We are just about to set off to Stansted to catch our flight to Paris. We were lucky enough to get tickets to the European final with Arsenal against Barcelona.