Steve McCabe: from island to island

It's not often I feel compelled to review a website, but I've just been to The Times Online Travel site at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel And boy, what a mess. 'E-mail this story' links that opened an e-mail with neither Subject or link to the story, Destination sections that were 'unavailable'... 3 out of 10, The Times

Carnival parade, Monday Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . For a while I was reluctant to even get the camera out - it all seemd so much like past carnivals. But it's hard not to maintain one's grumpiness for long...

Searching Blogger is nearly impossible from within your own blog. In fact, you have to exit to http://blogsearch.google.com/

Spider: Argiope Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . .... would be easier if I hadn't swamped Google images with photos of me, Spider and our motorbikes! Try searching for +Dominica +spider and you'll see what I mean

Morne Trois Pitons Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . View north across the valley to Morne Trois Pitons. Another shot taken on my late afternoon cycling trips.

Tired of navigating through endless directories everytime you need to open the same files? Change your default Open shortcuts! http://www.puppypc.com/windows/rt/comdlg_placebar.htm

New Dominica website Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . Launched the new DiscoverDominica.com website yesterday!

Bad and really Ugly I was watching The Good The Bad & The Ugly tonight and boy does it have the cheesiest opening sequence/credits in cinematic history.

Dominica's Independence celebrations Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . Dancing at the Cultural Gala

£13,000 a day I had to cross-check before I posted, but it's true. Sven Goran-Ericsson, ex-England manager, is still on £13,000 a day since he's still unemployed. That's US$ 24,793 for being out of work. Or EC$66,190. A day. For not working.

Girls in national dress, Dominica Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 .

Tracking down a film I've always prided myself on being able to track down a film I see on TV. You know how it is, you come into it half-way, maybe you recognise an actor but can't recall the name. Anyway, by a process of deduction I can usually find the name of the film using a combination of IMDB.com, Yahoo TV listings, etc etc. Only last night, a grainy English B&W had me stumped. It was on TCM, which ought to have made it really easy to find it - just go to the Schedule on tcm.com, right? Only every one of their schedule listings - US, UK, France, Latin, had not the film I was watching. IMDB character name searches pulled up nothing. General Google searches failed me. What was going on? So naturally I just sat through the movie to the end, for the credits. It was the 1964 'classic' "Children of the Damned". But why didn't it show up on TCM's schedule? 24 hours later I figured out to search TCM's database (which by the way is almost as go...

Children in national dress, Dominica Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . Love this photo; it dates back to my slide days. It was taken outside my then office at the grandly named Dominica Banana Marketing Corporation in Roseau, circa 1988.

Shower at sunset Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . This was takien on one of my late afternoon cycling jaunts, up to the heights above Morne Prosper

Soufriere view, Dominica Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . One of my fave viewpoints in Dominica, the village of Gallion which is high above and between Soufriere & Scott's Head villages.

Dominoes in Dominica Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . Spent Sunday with the guys at the Cool River Bar in Bagatelle. I play d last time; this time I just watched - those guys are too good for me.

PICT1226 Originally uploaded by Pirate 605 . Summer 2005.. got this shot across the bay as the weather moved west at sunset. One of my favourites.

View of Woodford Hill looking south. This is one of a series of photos I took on a small plane - we went around the island to take photos and we got plenty - Dominica is wonderful from the air!