Ikea do have some lovely stuff, even if it is mass produced and without character. I'm not 100% sure about this wicker style storage for writing materials, but I like the idea. I have a similar wooden organisation piece on my desk right now, also from Ikea, but I like that this one is nice and tall. You can get various different length pens to try and fit! Now we'll …

I have a thing about lady bugs because I call them lady bugs and Mr C insists that they are ladybirds. It's something we'll never agree on but every time I find something with bug in the title, rather than bird, it makes me a bit happy. That's why I would love to get these lady bug pins, rather than boring old drawing pins.

A while ago, my dad told me to check out a quiz show on the BBC called Only Connect, which I duly did. I watched one episode and gave it up immediately. I didn't even understand the questions. I'm one of those people that loves to watch University Challenge in the vain hope that I might get one question right, but Only Connect is on a whole other level. It …

I don't think I would ever find a use for an address book as I can't remember the last time I posted a letter anywhere, but that doesn't stop me ogling them. This is an interesting one. I like the handwriting design on the cover, and as a bonus, it's cheap! £1.99! Pocket Address Book

A while ago, Amy pointed out this fabulous stationery site - Kikki.K. They have the most gorgeous collections of pens, paper, folders, pots, anything you could want. It's all chunky and geometrical, and I love it! Here are a couple of examples of the greatness. A penpot: Sticky notes: Meal planning: I basically want everything on the site and I bet you'll feel the same.

I have never really heard of a stationery box before, but whilst investigating some rather posh pens, I came across this Secretaire box from Smythson. The box is made of leather, is lockable and comes with it's own rather fancy stationery, but I'm not sure that justifies the £5,145 price tag! I'm completely in love with all the little drawers, but really, I'd rather just get a pen pot, I …

The kind of thing I would never want to write in because it is just too precious. The Elite Writer's Journal (link no longer available)

I found this video on the Inside TWiT TV blog, posted by Dane Golden, who is unfortunately credited as Dave in the video itself. It's a 20 minute look inside the TWiT cottage including chats with Leo, Dane and Colleen - the engineering genius behind it all. Well worth a watch, particularly if you are crazy Leo fans like us. The video builds on something I wrote about previously - …

The very excellent, lovely, talented and creative Kat Hall made me a monster! After spotting Giles the monster on Kat's blog, I half-commissioned, half-begged for a monster of my very own. At Christmas I became the proud owner of the above monster, now christened Benjamin. Ben wears a tie as he works in the city and he carries a briefcase, although he's usually lost it somewhere. He's very smart, and …

Behold! I am back with another podcast, and in a relatively reasonable timeframe as well! I had planned to do this a few days earlier, but a sore throat kept me from my microphone. Hopefully all the stories are still relevant! I'm sure there are budgetary reasons for this as well On episode seven of Media. Future. Change. we investigate the buzz behind Google Buzz, who is living in a …

Just a quick admin note, I've updated the About Franck page to include his 2009 antics. I'm sure I've missed something, so please let me know if I have forgotten anything crucial. I've updated the About Me page as well. It was a bit cryptic before, pointing people at Sidepodcast but saying little else. Goodness knows why, it's not like it was a secret. Now I'm a bit more forthcoming …

I've mentioned in a couple of MFC episodes that YouTube are doing more and more to bring content into the site, moving away from the home video side of things, and dealing with broadcasters and networks. I've not really invested too much time in watching what's available, although I do keep my eye on what deals they're making. It came to my attention yesterday that our hero Leo Laporte has …

If you haven't seen the latest music video from OK Go, then you must view it now. I know. Wow. Right? It's taken me a while to be convinced that it is actually real but after reading a great behind the scenes piece on it, I'm gonna go with it. Some facts you need to know: It took about a month and a half of very intense work, with people …

There's been a story doing the rounds recently about the Billboard Top 40 Money Makers, with U2 topping the list. I mentioned this to Mr C, as he's a former crazy fan who now just keeps an eye on what they're up to. He questioned the idea, and that led to a fascinating conversation. I wanted to blog some highlights, as it raises a lot of questions. Credit: Andrew3000/Flickr Firstly, …

The official Franck site has updated with talk of what he's been up to for the past few days: This week FKM took part to his first official practice session with Peugeot at Paul Ricard circuit. The weather conditions were obviously not perfect, wet track and very windy, but still Franck was way too happy to complain! Being back at the wheel was just what he had been waiting for …

I requested some sticky tape and then made the mistake of taking a couple of days off. The stationery catalogue is hidden away in my filing cabinet, but someone must have found it and placed an order. When I mentioned this over on Sidepodcast, the reaction was instant and very divided. As an over-generalisation, the girls hate it and the boys think it's funny. I'm sure you already know what …

I can't quite believe we've reached the final part already, and yet, so much has happened to Mitch in just nine short chapters! This final vote was a very interesting one for me, and as ever, I was surprised at the voting. Not necessarily at the result, but at the margins and at the fact that the lead didn't change hands once. I want to thank everyone who took the …

I was looking through some of the archives of my blog (don't you do that, I'm still in the midst of sorting it all out!), and discovered that I didn't actually write about mine and Mr C's wedding here on my personal blog. There are pictures and suchlike on Sidepodcast, and we even answered some questions in one of the episodes, but over here, it was all quiet. There are …

For a moment, I thought the Annette/Baby/Leon/Helen storyline was all done and dusted. Helen kept on shrieking until Annette left, and then Helen told anyone and everyone who came in to the shop exactly why it was that her young friend had fled. I read on the message boards someone who consumed The Archers via the email synopsis of each show, and assumed they were a couple from her scarily …

I've talked about Librivox on a few occasions before, and today I'm popping back to the topic to pass along a request for help. Although the time I can spare reading and recording LibriVox books varies throughout the year, it's always been really great fun. Time spent there is supportive and friendly, and the book selection is vast and fabulous. LibriVox has been giving away free audiobooks for several years, …

Once again, the voting on the last poll really surprised me. For a long while, the daredevil answer was winning - don't listen to the team, just go for it. However, a more sensible approach seems to have won: So, Mitch is ready to do what the team wants, but on his own terms. Where will that lead? Today's vote will be the last one, and whilst I'm sure it's …

The vote for part seven was interesting because the conservative approach was winning to start with, but then all the rebels appeared and gave us the answer we now have: I had to explain the difference between the two qualifying approaches to my mother who said she can't wait until I have a less motorsport related story going on. For now, though, we're about to qualify in Monaco. “Just wait,” …

Everyone has been talking about this, so I guess I should too. I tried to resist but it is impossible to ignore. More information is available via Kottke. When it's cold outside, people are using sausages on their touchscreens so they don't have to take their gloves off. I find the whole idea kinda gross and would much rather use something like the Etip Gloves. That seems like a much …

Peugeot Sport held a press conference this week to confirm their plans and drivers for the year ahead. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of Franck talk, but that's probably because a lot of the focus was on new boy Anthony Davidson. The 5live commentator will be getting behind the wheel alongside Marc Gené and Alexander Wurz. Davidson gets to be in the number 1 car, whilst Franck …

There's always been a lot of talk about Flash and how, to be polite, it's a bit of a CPU hog. In our house, Mr C will often be found bemoaning the existence of Flash, and it's understandable that the Apple universe of products is less than supportive of it. I never really thought about the problem too much, but that has changed. I watch the majority of my TV …

I really enjoyed the last round of voting. Instead of a moral decision, or something that defines Mitch as a character, it was simply a "what obstacle shall we throw in his path" and you got to make that decision. The voting changed drastically throughout, but there could only be one winner. It seems as though Mason has got under everyone's skin, whether it is for good or for bad! …

I never really spent much time reading newspapers, which is apparent if you ask me about world events, but now that I spend a vast amount of time online, I do stumble across the online versions of the dead tree counterparts more often. There are two media type offerings from The Guardian that I wanted to give a bit of a shout out too. In my quest to catch up …

And thus we begin the second half of our story, and part six is here. The voting was down a little for the last section, but I am not surprised. It's not really a difficult choice between partying and studying, is it? Ah, it was closer than I suspected. Good stuff. However, it is party time in Monaco, and Mitch and Bruno are ready to hit the town. Please note …

We have reached Part 5 of our story, halfway through, and I still have no idea how it’s going to end. I’m starting to get a vague sense of direction though, which is always good. Fun, isn’t it? The voting picked up again for Part 4, which was lovely to see, and the winner was also quite an outright favourite from the start: It’s interesting that Mitch didn’t get to …

Just a couple of things to note: I gave Chrome a try, I did, honest. I set it as my default and I used it for a couple of days. I really like the transition when you drag a tab to become a new window. Beautiful. I missed the Copy Link as Text Firefox plug-in something chronic. And when I was doing some F1 Minute stuff, Chrome was copy/pasting in …

It's all quiet on the FKM front at the moment, but there was an update on his official website by the man himself at the beginning of the month. He talks about when he first started getting interested in driving, and how he feels behind the wheel. He even takes a moment to thank us, the stalkers! (via Google Translate) I am happy to have people who support me, encourage …

Here we are with part four of our story, a day later than expected. Sorry about that, there was podcasting to be done. So, how did the vote go for part three? I was quite surprised with the result: I thought perhaps the voting would be more adventurous, this is fiction after all and anything can happen! It seems as though reality was more convincing though, and we all know …

The first episode of 2010 has a brand new look, and covers a wide range of topics that have caught my eye over the past month. It doesn't work like that anymore From the Apple iPad, to the Amazon Kindle and everything in between, MFC gets a fresh look for 2010. Topics in this show also include how to keep wiki sites in business, and what would happen if you …

Here we are with Part 3. The pattern seems to have evolved to a chapter being posted, voting for a day, and then a day-ish for writing. I hope you're enjoying the story so far, I've certainly been impressed with the voting. Speaking of which: I thought love was a bit of a long shot, but with Valentine's Day just around the corner, you never know. Anyway, rivalry it is, …

Hi, my name's Christine and I'm a blogaholic. My global dashboard in Wordpress is looking pretty scary right now. I started a brand new blog called Ten Step Stories [link defunct], and it's fiction. This is quite a big deal, although I don't know why. The basic premise is a story, told in ten separate parts, and at the end of each, you get to decide what happens next via …

Here are a selection of photos from tostie14 on Flickr. They are cute!

Thank you to everyone for all the encouraging feedback following Ten Step Stories’ debut. I haven’t really written fiction for a couple of years so it was a bit of a push to hit the publish button. I’m glad I did though. Thank you. The voting was close. On the first day, it looked as though Mitch would be heading over to beat the living daylights out of his rival, …

This was it. This was the moment John Mitchell had been waiting for. His heart was thumping, he could feel it in his temple, could hear his pulse echoing in his ears. A crackle of static interrupted the rhythm. “Don’t forget to breathe, Mitch,” came the raspy voice of his engineer. Mitch gripped the steering wheel tighter, his gloves hiding the white of his knuckles. From fourth on the grid, …

I've always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It's no surprise to me that they returned …

Recently, I drove past one of those building sites with white boarding all the way round. It was early on in the building process, as there was no sign of any brickwork, and merely a crane or two ready to get going. On the white boarding were some advertising hoardings, preparing you for the new supermarket that will appear at some point in the future. The slogan read something like: …

One of my personal resolutions for 2010 was to try and eat five new foods. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's harder than you might imagine. I'm not all that adventurous when it comes to food. I don't mind trying new things, but it turns out I'm quite picky about what I eat. I either like something or I don't, there isn't really a middle ground, and I can …

Hi there, I am testing out the new Wordpress App for Android with a random post. To make it slightly worthwhile, here are some snippets of thought: Why is it people never ask what you did the previous evening or weekend when you actually have something worthwhile to say? What is the etiquette on retweeting someone who has their Twitter account protected? I really need to do a Media. Future. …

Yay for Groundhog Day! I didn't know I was particularly bothered about Groundhog Day before, but apparently it is something that makes me keep an eye on a Twitter search to see what Phil decides. I am ascribing this to the fact that over the past year or so, I discovered marmots were ridiculously cute, and of course, Groundhog Day was the first Film Watch movie I covered. So, now …

Note: I enjoyed writing my little Christmas thoughts post on the Archers, and thought I could turn this into a monthly thing. I have long been saying how I would love to keep a blog on the soap, but as I'm constantly running about a week behind, it doesn't seem worth trying to start one. However, I do like to discuss it, and I think it would be fun to …

At my first proper job, I was the youngest on the team, I was crazy shy and wouldn't go to the pub with them, plus I did double the work everyone else did. It is conceivable that they hated me. My one saving grace, though, was that being such a swot allowed my team a bit of leeway when it came to... well... messing about. As long as we got …

I'm currently listening to some old episodes of Net@Night, one of the TWiT stable of podcasts, and Leo Laporte was talking about feed readers. The episode is about a year old now, and even back then he was discussing the fact that everyone gets their news from Twitter, they choose a few key sites to visit every now and then, and that having a news reader is just too much …

A conversation about skiing over on Sidepodcast got me thinking. I have only ever tried skiing once, on a dry ski slope and it was during a school trip. My school had this Activity Week thing, where you forked over a lot of money to go on nice trips abroad, and if you couldn't afford to do that, you stayed in school and did something like chess club for a …

A video for you today, from a couple of years ago:

Here's a video that my dad found mentioned in one of those computer magazines. It's always difficult to listen to someone moan about the trials and tribulations of being famous, but if it's got to be done, you'd want it done this way. I have to say, if I saw Biff and summoned the nerve to speak, I'm pretty sure my first question wouldn't be: Was it real manure? I'm …

This time Franck is actually on stage, no ice cubes in sight! Also, love the "just woke up" hair.