See a dog will go in the back of a Z3 M Coupe.

A recent survey of what people consider to be 'cool' puts Xbox along with MTV and Scalextric as the Media and Entertainment brands of choice. As an owner and aficionado of Xbox it's great to see that it's now thought of as a mainstream brand but I'm always sceptical about surveys and especially those that label thinks as 'cool'. What does being 'cool' actually mean? As soon as you try and define it it's not 'cool' anymore. A bit like 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle' for brands.

Damn, damn damn. I've just remembered. The BMW Z3 M Coupe. Eye wateringly fast, handles like a go-kart, stuffed with kit and a second hand bargin. I could probably even get the dog in the back.

With the increase in company car tax and less need to drive thousands of miles every year I've take the decision to opt out of the company car scheme and buy my own. This is both an exciting and scary prospect. Exciting because it means I can drive around in something that I couldn't possibly afford on a car scheme but scary because I haven't owned a car for about 16 years. Yes I couldn't believe it either, but I've lived and worked in London since leaving university so didn't need one and when I did they were company cars or rentals. I've owned only two cars, a 1976 Ford Escort and a 1965 Triumph Vitesse convertible both of which died of rust poisoning. The poor old Vitesse was sold in bits and taken away in a van, but despite their propensity to rot away I've loved the quirky Triumphs ever since. What I hadn't realised until now is that the Vitesse has influenced my choice of car or at least type of car. A four seat convertible. This limits me to one of four vehicles, the convertible versions of the BMW 3 series, Mercedes CLK, Saab 9.3 or Audi A4. If only every choice in life like was like this. I've now driven all four it's not got any easier, each has it's merits and demerits and I could happily live with anyone of them but my employer whilst generous isn't profligate. Besides I've got no where to park them. So if I'm a bit more dispassionate can I let one go in a 'you-are-the-weakest-link' kinda way? Well purely from a cost point of view the Mercedes has to go. I drove one of the new shape 340 CLK and it's an aching pretty car wonderfully finished but costs significantly more than the other three when compared like for like. A CLK 240 with all the toys costs between 15k to 20k more than fully specced 2.4 A4. Is it worth that much more? No. If it was only a few thousand more it would be no contest. Pity. The BMW 3 Series Convertible is great car lets get that straight, problem is in the South East of England especially in west London they are more common than pigeons. Turn into almost any street and you'll find one sometimes two. But hey if I move out of London that wouldn't be an issue. Mrs C is looking for a new house as we speak. Which leaves the A4 and the as yet to be released Saab. When taking a price/performance comparison it has to be the Saab. Those clever Swedes decided to throw in leather, aircon and cruise control as standard. The Germans, not noted for their generosity when it comes to optional extras on cars, have just started to fit aircon to the A4 Convertible. The new 9.3 seems spot on. It comes loaded with kit, is super comfy to drive and the 2.0T Aero is no slouch. The problem, if it is a problem, is the wait list and Aeros don't go into production until November. But then I could go mad and get a second hand M3.

Intreguing article on IBM’s refusal to indemnify customers who use Linux. The last sentence is interesting.

With the Hutton Inquiry under way into the death of Dr David Kelly and it’s examination of whether or not the government ‘sexed up’ a document that contains the now infamous 45 minute warning, you can expect a million and one interpretations of what it all means most of which will be partisan. The Sun kicked it off today with it’s headline ‘Lies, Lies, Lies’ which made me choke on morning latte as the level of hypocrisy is breathtaking. Here’s a newspaper whose adherence to journalistic integrity is questionable at best and is owned by News International who also happens to own Sky. Sky as we all know is not a big fan of the BBC and strangely neither is it’s owner Rupert Murdoch. It’s been interesting to listen to the BBC coverage especially on the ‘Today’ programme which seems to go out of it’s way to be as impartial as possible, always interviewing two people together with opposing views rather than one at a time so one side won’t interpret the interview as biased. Would any Murdoch programme or publication be this balanced? I don’t think so.

I heard this story the other day. “There once was this small software company that created this revolutionary piece of software that some people called a ‘spreadsheet’. They didn’t invite ‘spreadsheets’ but they did something much more interesting, they made it popular so eventually almost everyone used them. They then made enough money to buy another small software company which allowed people to do ‘email’. On a roll they even found the time to invent a new type of software application called ‘groupware’, not everyone understood what it was those who did thought it was very ‘cool’. Meanwhile on the other side of town a very big hardware company was talking to another small software company about something called a ‘GUI’ that used ‘icons’ and ‘menus’. This was nothing new as yet someone else had allegedly invented the ‘GUI’ but because it was named after a raincoat it only proved popular with creative types in the ‘meeja’. Eventually the big hardware company and the other small software had a falling out and decided to develop their own ‘GUIs’. To cut a very long and very dull story short the small software company became a big software company and the big hardware company somehow managed to destroy its own software business. History records that our original small software company whilst still ostensively known for the ‘spreadsheet’ had actually became famous for ‘groupware’ and ‘email’ and was the market leader in both. It employees were well motivated and actually like working there. Things weren’t going well for our large hardware company and with margins akin to those found in a child’s exercise book they posted, until WorldCom and Enron, the largest corporate loss in history. A new boss decided that it was time to offer ‘services’ and ‘consulting’ as well as ‘hardware’ and also could try their hand at ‘software’ again but this time buy some companies who were already quiet good at it. As luck would have it, for the big hardware company anyway, the small software company looked like an ideal candidate. It was doing well competing against the now large software company who suddenly looked like dominating the ‘software’ market. The small software company didn’t seem to make a lot of money so would be cheap and give the large hardware company the opportunity to not only to have a credible ‘software brand’ but also have a go at the people who they had the falling out with over the ‘GUI’, who ironically where the very same people the small software company competed with. The deal went ahead and the big hardware company, now a big services company as well, purchased the small software company and things worked well for a while, the small software company competed very successfully against the large software company but alas they still didn’t make a lot of money and often lost some. So as big companies do they decided to totally absorb the small software company and make everyone drive cheap cars from General Motors, after all they’d done this to the other small software companies they had acquired so why should this one be any different? That wasn’t the end of it though. They now started to believe they understood software better than the people from the small software companies they had purchased and decided that everyone in the whole world wanted a ‘portal’ based on some technology that had been gathering dust on a developers hard drive for a couple of years. So rather than develop the cool ‘groupware’ stuff customers loved they threw it away for something name used to make cappuccinos, even trying to mimic the small software’s companies products. None of them worked very well or could do half the things that ‘groupware’ was capable of. So the big hardware, services and software company ended up with just a brand but as someone pointed out by removing the people and the technology it’s probably worthless anyway.” Could never happen in reality could it? No one would be that daft.

So Tom Kelly thinks David Kelly (no relation) was a modern Walter Mitty. Well apart from his crass insensitivity he obviously needs some basic press training. What’s the first thing you learn when dealing with the press? That’s right. Nothing is ever off the record.

Since joining Microsoft I have been using an Orange SPV Smartphone as my primary means of mobile communications and I thought I’d let you know my initial thoughts. The Ups Having a phone that at long last has PDA functionality allowing me to deal with my mail, calendar and tasks is great. It works well, really well. For me this is the sweetspot. GPRS – works well too, even in the US. I can download music to it and not get bored on the train. Sound is top notch. SD card support for music, pictures and games. Battery is life better than an iPaq. You can customise it to death. I must upload my Kylie Minogue backdrop! The Downs It’s not that pretty. Mobile devices must look sexy. The keyboard is a bit fiddly. No Bluetooth support. Screen could be better. Can be slow at times. On balance if you can get past the rather teutonic styling it’s a useful device despite some of the…er…idiosyncrasies. The SPV E100 is out about now and having played with one it answers many of the origianl SPV’s shortcomings. The screen is much brighter, the keyboard is a vast improvement and most important of all it looks much, much better. All I have to do now is persuade my boss to let me have one.