It was back to Skills London at the ExCeL Centre this morning.  I’ve just looked at the Google map of the area, and it’s quite a way out of the city.  Past Whitechapel, past the Isle of Dogs, even past Greenwich.  There’s more space out that way, I guess.  Space enough to build a exhibition centre, with huge halls, cafes, bars, hotels, transport links and an off-site delivery coordination area.

I’ve travelled more on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) this week, than I have in my entire time in London so far (which, as of today, has been two years).  Today, I made the disturbing discovery that they don’t have drivers.  I was sitting up the front on my way to Canning Town, looking out the front window at the roller-coaster like tracks ahead, and suddenly I realised that there was no driver in front of me.  Reading this BBC news article, I learnt that there’s supposed to be train attendants instead – but so far, I haven’t seen one of those.  Without a driver, who’s going to be the voice on the intercom telling us that there station ahead is closed/there’s a person under a train/we’re being held at a red signal/to please mind the gap.

For anyone who’s more interested in the actual event than the London public transport system, I’ve blogged about it for work here.

Tash

So, I went to Manchester for the first time today.  It was a work trip, and I met people I’ve been working with online, and learnt a lot and got things done.  But, being a work trip, it was a long day, an early morning train trip, the shiny Manchester Piccadilly train station, a few back streets, an office block, a walk back to the train station through the dark and then two and a half hours back to London Euston.

I’ve added a pin for Manchester to my ‘Cities I’ve Visited’ map on facebook and I’ve talked to some people who live there.  Beyond that, I’ve seen some very pretty Christmas lights near the station and learnt that £3.10 buys a lot more lunch in Manchester than it does in London.  And I hope that I will be able to go back again.

Tash

I was experimenting with Facebook advertising at work the other day.  In the past, I’ve been able to create ads targeted just at people in high school or ‘college’, but I wanted to see if I could target people who were employed as well. 

Since there wasn’t a check box which said ‘employed’, I decided to try typing ‘working’ into the keyword category.

No luck.

The way facebook phrased the results made me laugh though.

Tash