Chris Worfolk's Blog

Panorama from the balcony of Ambiente. Click for full size image.

The 11th novel in the Discworld series, Reaper Man tells the story of what happened when Death was retires and goes to work on a farm. This is bad news for senior wizard Windle Poons who finds himself stuck between the world of the living and the dead.

Of course, any novel with Death in is going to be a good one. But I’m not sure how much I enjoyed the other half of the book – the parallel story of Windle Poons. At times it felt like the Fresh Start Club had been invented just to fill a bit of space in the story before getting back to Death.

DJ Lomax performs an electro swing set at Meg’s house party.

This morning, we released the first of at least three new podcasts that will be going out over the coming weeks. The first one looks at PRISM, the US surveillance programme of which details were leaked by former analyst Edward Snowden.

Head over to the podcast page to listen.

I say rivers, it’s just one river. In Goathland.

It’s the 4th of July, which can only mean one thing… Happy Higgs Day! It’s one year since we officially re-classified the Higgs boson has “discovered”.

Heading back from my weekend away, looking forward to watching the Grand Prix on BBC iPlayer, I walked into a pub and saw Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso standing on the podium. Race ruined. Why would you put that on the TV behind the bar? It’s just inconsiderate!

Still, upon arriving home Norm said it was worth watching anyway. I joked that technically I only saw a Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari on the podium, so I’m holding out hope it is Rosberg, Webber and Massa.

Little did I know, such a result turned out to be entirely possible (almost). As the race went on, Hamilton had a tyre blowout and Vettel’s car died – even having had the result spoilt for me it turned out to be an amazing race!

No Patrick Stewart on the grid, but you can’t win them all.

Last week Editors released their new album The Weight of Your Love. It follows a similar sound to their previous works and while none of the songs instantly buried themselves into my memory, it does have the appeal of an album I would want to listen to again and again. It’s too early to say whether I actually will or not, bur definitely well worth a listen.

Last month, a paid a visit to one of the other Area 15 Toastmasters clubs, Doncaster Speakers.

Some of the other clubs I have visited have not been able to match the standards of Leeds City, but Doncaster did an excellent job – it was well organised, professional and entertaining. I also came away with a few ideas I’m considering for Leeds.

I did feel a little guilty about cleaning out their awards though – I took home the best table topics ribbon while Anthony, our Division Govenor and Leeds City member took home the best evaluator ribbon.

After the meeting, we decided to get some dinner locally, so wandered down the street until we came across a restaurant named Cactus Jack. It was American themed and did some amazingly tasty ribs – fall off the bone TGI style, but with more flavour! I think next time I visit Doncaster Speakers, it will be more accurate to say I’m visiting Cactus Jack’s, and stopping by Toastmasters on the way…

Here are some of the photos from last month’s BHA Conference.