I appear to have grown a cucumber. I don't quite know how this happened. One minute it was all leaves, then the yellow flower, and suddenly there's a big, green cucumber growing. I did take some pictures last week but forgot to do anything with them, and I can tell you this vegetable has more than doubled in size over the course of a week. At either end, it looks …

I remember writing a piece for The BBC Blog when Being Human got recommissioned for BBC Three. At the time, I said: Personally, I couldn’t get through the first episode, but it was even successful on the iPlayer. The first two episodes were the most watched at the time, and the website has seen a soar in hits. Well, as it turns out, they have been repeating the first season, …

Not sure about the turn-ups, but if anyone can pull them off, FKM can. Credit: David Merrett/Flickr

Firstly, you must, must, must check out these very cuddly panda bears, and whilst you are there, you must buy me one. (Thanks to Andy for the tip.) Now, onto the good stuff: Credit: Karen/Flickr

It's been a bit quiet in Franck-land recently, but he hasn't been twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing. He was in France for a Peugeot event, and then travelled to Canada to spend some time with the Andretti Green Racing team. According to the official website: Franck was pretty excited to go to Canada to see his Dudes… His former mechanics and engineers kept in touch and the AGR team actually …

I was recently perusing the Podcasting News site and found an article with some new media tips from Trent Reznor. Now, I am only vaguely aware of Mr Reznor, not being a Nine Inch Nails fan, myself. However, it was the tips themselves that fascinated me. And by fascinated, I mean baffled. It starts off well. Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it’s dying and …

I just heard about the £12.5 million revamp of the London Eye. Do you know what they're doing? They're taking each pod off, one at a time, and replacing them with a temporary one that doesn't carry passengers. Each pod is then floated down the Thames to Essex, before being transported to Worcester. The refit takes place, the pod is returned to its rightful place and the next one gets …

Shock, horror, last Thursday was actually an acceptable day, as days go. I have a feeling today will revert to the usual Thursday fare, though, so Baby Panda Thursday it is! Firstly, make sure you check out the latest Zoo Borns panda post because there's all kinds of cuteness on there that shouldn't be allowed. Also, there is a superb set of panda photos on Flickr that are unfortunately not …

Today we have a new and unexpected bloom: I think this must be part of the bell pepper plant, but I can't be 100% sure. It's very pretty though, and so far I have spotted two of these cute little flowers. The tomatoes are coming on very well, growing nice and strong, bigger than I expected. They are still green, so I am waiting for them to turn a lighter …

I seem to be using Facebook less and less, but there are sometimes things that make me want to dive back into the blue and white world. My Desk Friend is one of those things. The little robot connects to your profile and can let you know when you have messages, when your friends log in, and when you've been poked. It also works for other generic services, such as …

It is all about the greens this week, as the strawberry crop seems to have become non-existant all of a sudden. I only had about three or four delicious strawberries to eat. The rest were too small and went bad before I could get to them. I believe there are some new buds beginning though, so I will be patient once more. Meanwhile, I have turned my attention to the …

I watched an episode of Doctor Who last night, with no real reasoning, except it was on the iPlayer and I needed a Doctor fix. I don't know about anyone else, but I feel cheated of a proper series this year, and even if these specials are the best thing ever, can they really replace a 13 episode run? Either way, I am one of those annoying people who has …

I would like to draw attention to this unusually serious but still excellent episode of The Buzz Report from CNET. I particularly find the conversation about Steve Jobs interesting. Naturally, all anyone wants is for Mr Jobs to get well soon, but it does raise some issues. The medical centre were very, very quick to clarify that Mr Jobs didn't get any preferential treatment and was at the top of …

The Hawk-Eye technology to record a tennis ball's movements and then review controversial line calls has been around for a while, and been included within the rules since 2006. The Wimbledon Championships are on right now, and we quite often see the players calling for a challenge on a call. Personally, I find the challenges a little bit disruptive. The player has to request it, we have to wait for …

As a big cheerleading fan of the iPlayer, I'm glad to see that other channels are gradually trending towards some of the innovative work the BBC have done. Channel 4 upgraded their on-demand service a while back, and now it is all good to work on both PC and Mac, has online streaming instead of just a desktop application, and is generally a lot better. I have only found a …

Last night, I was awake at 1am due to some pretty vicious lightning and thunder cracking right over my head. Thankfully I was indoors, but for the couple of hours I was awake, I was not amused. At what point does lightning cease being awe-inspiring and become more of an annoyance? When I was a kid, massive storms were great fun. There was one particular day, I was waiting for …

A few times recently, we've been asked the question: I'm starting a new blog, which platform should I use? Of the free software that is available, the two main ones are Blogger and Wordpress and I will always opt for Wordpress. Here are my five reasons: Wordpress just feels more professional. Even if you're starting a blog for purely fun reasons, I feel like the layout of WP admin is …

A quick shout out to current Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen, who remembered Franck whilst being quizzed by F1.com. The Ask the Expert feature puts tricky questions to F1 drivers, with the subjects being loosely associated with their lives. Heikki also managed to get the highest score of the ten or so drivers quizzed so far. He is officially now a friend of the site.

I have found myself analysing blogging a little too much recently, but one thing has occurred to me that I hadn't really thought about before. The blogs, or entries therein, that are based around a specific structure are very, very interesting. For example, on this very corner of the interweb, I have a couple of ongoing projects - the Film Watch live blogs, and the Great Gardening Adventure. Now, I …

This year, there are more ways than ever to keep up with what's happening at the hallowed tennis grounds, and I am grateful because each year I get more and more scatterbrained. I extolled the virtues of the BBC's coverage last year, and there's more of the same going on for the next two weeks. From what I can tell, we can enjoy: The Wimbledon live blog, giving updates from …

If you trace the origins of our eating habits back far enough, you'll find that a man would knock a rabbit on the head with a club, and bring it back to his cave for eating. Fast forward a few millennia (have no idea about the timescale of humans?), and I had a pizza delivered to my house as a result of typing for a few minutes. Of all the …

I have learnt many things this week, but the most important one is regards to keeping control of the plants. Up until now, and perhaps in response to being grateful they survived at all, I had let the plants grow and grow and keep on growing. The strawberry pot was reasonably restrained. It grew to a certain size and then some fruit popped out. However, the tomatoes got taller and …

Recently, I have been making time to record more stuff for Librivox. The collaborative book that I was co-ordinating is nearing completion, so I have started a new solo effort, and am participating in some of the other group projects as well. More on that another time, what I am here to say is that a rather cool iPhone App has been rocketing up the application charts. It is simply …

Finally, there is word on the official FKM site regarding the Le Mans race. A couple of days ago, The Joker (site admin, I believe) posted reaction to the 24 hour race. On the entire day: Sweet and sour... that’s what these 24 Hours in Le Mans taste like. But with three podiums for his three last participations, I think the stats and figures are pretty good! FKM wants to …

Since I watched Rain Man, and learnt about this Abbott and Costello phenomenon, I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I keep bugging Mr C by saying "Who's on First?" and then getting annoyed when he doesn't know what to say. Not that either of us know any of the sketch to carry on with, but it's fun catching him off guard. It is amazing to …

Ugh, Thursdays really are awful. Here's some cuteness to cheer things up: Credit: Fiona Jones/Flickr Waiting for someone? Credit: Jodi/Flickr What is up with pandas hanging upside down from trees?

I've noticed a couple of posts recently, in my feed reader, that suggest apps that will help to keep track, and even publish your own lifestream. I sat back for a minute, and thought, how many social networks can there be? I know there are some niche ones out there, book clubs, wine groups, things like that. But how many actual social things are there? Then I discovered one of …

Don't you just hate those blogs where people analyse what they're doing to such a degree that they actually talk about little else? Well, I apologise in advance for this post, which is just a quick thought about why people blog. As far as I can tell there are three reasons, and these are quite general categories. To connect with people. You want to find people that are interested in …

And there it was, Le Mans in all its glory. Franck started the race, Bourdais finished it, and between the three drivers, they came in second. It was a race of high attrition, with the Audi's struggling, giving Peugeot their best change to break their rival's run of victories. Good for Peugeot, they managed a win, bad for Franck it was the other team. The #8 Peugeot at the hands …

Do you remember The Man Who Cycled the World? The crazy but impressive Mark Beaumont thought it would be smart to visit all the continents, travel 18,000 miles and do it in under 200 days. I wrote about it after seeing a repeat of the accompanying programme on the iPlayer, and now, Mark is back. I hadn't noticed this initially, but the Beeb have set the man up with a …

It seems like social networks are suddenly starting to realise that if people are going to put their lives on the internet, then they might want to have a proper identity. Facebook have introduced what appear to be called "vanity URLs" to your profile. It seems a bit mean to say that having your profile accessible by something with your own name rather than a bunch of random numbers is …

When it comes to getting up and about and trying to exercise, I tend to flit from one thing to another. Nothing really captures my attention, except swimming. I do not like to go to the local swimming pool because (and this is probably another of my weird traits) there is no way of seeing how busy it is before you go in, and yet I don't want there to …

It seems like every five minutes now, there is a new feature to Google, or a new search engine making it's debut. They all proclaim to be the next big innovation in searching, and some will even revolutionise the way we find information on the web. I have already taken a quick look at Wolfram Alpha, which says it is not trying to be a Google killer. Mahalo has always …

There are a plethora of Twitter apps for mobile phones, and I know the iPhone is over-run with them. As a G1 user, the Android platform has less options, but there are a few worth looking at. The one I have settled on is Loquacious, which is actually a paid for app. It's only a couple of dollars, though, so that didn't put me off. There's a 14-day fully featured …

Back in December, I discovered Picnik, an easy to use photo editing web app that pretty much made my day. Just recently, particularly with the introduction of my gardening pictures, I have returned to Picnik and love it even more than I did last time. The best thing about Picnik is that it is unbelievably easy to use. If you are editing a lot of pictures, or particularly massive ones, …

More strawberry news, as this time... I ate one! That's right, the reddened strawberry was red enough to eat, so I tried it out. It wasn't perhaps as sweet as it could have been, but it was nice and juicy, with a great texture. Must be all that water! In other news, the remaining plants are still green and growing, and not a lot else. I want to see some …

Much as I will always say Franck is the star of the show, he does have teammates, and they make a good trio! Credit: mansalio/Flickr

After the first session of qualifying, Audi were on pole, with our man Franck second. However, once the second session was complete, it was Peugeot all the way, with the #8 car on top at the hands of Stephane Sarrazin. #7 was third and #9 was fifth. Naturally, the Audi of McNish, Kristensen and Capello was second. After the shock news that Franck had broken his leg, it was even …

It's unclear exactly how this slipped through the net, but it turns out even Radio Le Mans didn't know until they asked the man himself why he was limping. That's right, Franck has only gone and injured himself. During training in the Alps, Franck made it through all the rock climbing and dangerous stuff with ease, but then stood on the ball during a game of footie, and broke his …

Remember I told you about the Zoo Borns site? They recently had a feature on a newborn Panda at Thailand's Chiang Mai Zoo. It was too much of a baby to be cute and cuddly, but I figured 'yay for the expanding panda population'. However, the site then posted an update featuring the same baby pandas just a week or so later, and boy are they cute now!

Free Practice ran for six hours last night, with teams getting a feel for the circuit both in daylight hours, and during the night. The requirements were for new drivers to run at least ten laps, and all drivers to complete three in the darkness. I watched some of the live timing screens but couldn't dedicate six hours to it (sadly). Instead, I've scoured the web for news regarding our …

Apparently, the Sims 3 is breaking all kinds of records, and I don't own it yet. Grr. According to this CNET story, EA are reporting that the game sold 1.4 million copies in the first week, is topping the PC gaming chart, and the iPhone app chart, plus it has been EA's best game launch ever. Now, CNET suggest that whilst this is something of a surprise, it does fly …

The Le Mans site has confirmed that all the cars got through the second day of scrutineering successfully, with the following words of wisdom: None of the cars had any problems today and will all be expected to appear in the first free practice sessions tomorrow (Wednesday) from 18:00. The forecast is for yet more rain, but it will get warmer and dryer for the weekend and the legendary 24 …

If you are not already subscribed to The Boston Globe's Big Picture blog then you should go there right now and do so. Bookmark it, copy and paste the RSS feed, do whatever you have to do so that you don't miss an entry. And when you've done that, go back through the archives and enjoy what you have already missed. The Big Picture is a collection of photographs around …

Although the race isn't until the weekend, preparations for Le Mans have been taking place for a long time, and the action really begins this week. Yesterday, Monday, the cars began to face scrutineering, with Audi going first. Peugeot are due to be inspected today. Scrutineering isn't just a chance for the regulators to check all regulations are being met, but it's also a time for the fans to get …

Last week, I was reading about this Youth Centre in the US that has bought up some podcasting equipment to offer kids the chance to try their hand at recording themselves. It seems to be a summer holiday and half term kind of thing, a place to send your children - for a fee - to mingle, socialise, and learn things. According to the story from The Detroit News, the …

Only my second update and I am already running a few days behind schedule, however I come to you with good news! My strawberries are not only surviving, but gradually turning red. In the end, I had to call the experts in, and my parents came to save the day. It turns out I really wasn't watering the plants enough, and they needed a lot more than I provided. I …

We're listening to Last.fm of a Saturday night, with the 80s tag plugged into the radio station option. Don't Stop Believing by Journey comes on and we get about two seconds into it before Mr C says: "That's the 4 chords." We had to pause it, drop everything, and watch the video again, because there is nothing more amazing than this. I think I may have blogged it already, but …

You can always spot Franck with that iconic helmet, splashes of pink. Here, he's behind the wheel of a Toyota F1 drive. Credit: Eugene Moore/Flickr

I was not having a particularly good day, and I left my desk for just a couple of minutes only to return and find the world had ended. Newly installed in my office, I discovered... a clock! I have two issues with this: I already have a clock on the phone, on my mobile, on my iPod, on my PC, and on the air con. There is a reason I …