Best Use Yet For Incognito Mode

Among the many other signs of ageing, one of them must be the increasing frequency with which bands from your childhood spring up on shows such as Never Mind The Buzzcocks as the 'remember these from so long ago that noone actually remembers, and can you even recognise one of them now?' ... rounds. This week it was one of the girls from B*witched (yes, that asterisk is important, and I have no idea (1) why and (2) why I remember that keenly).

After the short snippet had given me a bit of an earworm, I did search for the video on my phone - here if you want to inflict it upon yourself by the way - before immediately realising that I've now cursed myself to have random Irish 90s cheese-kiddie-pop acts appearing in all my search options and adverts for the next few months.

It was worth it though. I'd forgotten how bad the video was - the entire premise seemingly sold on a 'just dance, girls, and we'll CGI in a load more people doing the exact same dance on either side later so it doesn't look too silly' basis, when the budget ran out and they decided to just go with the four of them in a field, doing their very best to prove the theory that just because four people are doing the same synchronised movement it doesn't stop it from looking total bollocks. It's an unstable field, too - occasionally the entire ground tilts and the girls roll off into the fiery pit beneath. That, or it's some terrible camerawork - it really could be either. The dramatic masterpiece of the video - and my particular highlight - is, however, the dramatic zooming out at the 19 second mark when the treehouse is revealed to be ... right next to them!

But! Don't let my justified mockery of the terrible video distract you from how bad the lyrics are. Bragging about a house with windows and doors? Call me old fashioned if you must, but a house without windows and doors isn't a house. It's a box. Or a bunker. Either way, not a selling point. The worst part is that listening through the entire song, that's actually the lyrical highlight. Not to mention the fantastic random pieces of dialogue interspersed throughout, which in no way at all utterly stereotype Irish people, speech or cliches.

This entertaining and distracting diatribe aside - nothing like being topical by cynically tearing down a 15 year old pop video - does lead me to believe that I have inadvertently discovered the best use yet for the Incognito mode in browsers: watching embarrassing old pop videos, while still avoiding it cropping up to humiliate you in later searches or histories. To prove the point I followed this up by watching the linked video for Mmmbop, by Hanson; and yet Google is none the wiser ...

A Drive Home, Or, Why Navigating From Terminal 4 Is Like Using A Compass At The North Pole

This evening I took my cousin Armaan to the airport to allow him to fly on to India for the next leg of his holiday. He was departing from Heathrow Terminal 4, an unusual choice (although I will concede not one of his own choosing) and one that is not quite as straightforward to get to - in fact, we managed to miss a quite well hidden sign on our way in and ended up doing an entire lap of the airport before we arrived at our destination.

This, however, was (a) forgiveable, (b) understandable considering the hidden nature of the sign and (c) nothing compared to my efforts on the way home.

For those unaware, this is the rough journey I should take home:


However, I decided to do things ... a little differently. I set off like this, following the signs to both the A30 to Staines and to M25:


Reaching the roundabout I had no choice but to go straight on, as far as I thought - I knew the roundabout but didn't usually come at it from that angle, but all was, as far as I thought, well. I opted not to go onto the M25 and took the "easier route" continuing on the A30 - it took me round a bit of a loop as I went under the M25:


At this point I missed the exit the first time round and so went for a second circumnavigation ofthe roundabout to add a bit of slapstick to the utter farce that my journey was rapidly becoming. I managed to leave the roundabout slightly better at the second attempt, still faithfully following the signs for the A30 to Staines, now going in the other direction:


Continuing to loyally follow the signs for the A30 to Staines, I persisted onwards with retracing my steps - a fact I was at this point completely oblivious to:


And not long after - fifteen minutes after I was here the first time - I returned to the Crooked Billet roundabout, this time from the direction I should have been, and managed to go back where I thought I was going the first time (and a review of the Streetview on Google Maps shows me that I could easily have turned here at my first visit):


Proceeding at a leisurely pace now once again comfortable with where I was, I rejoined the original route after a detour of a mere 20 minutes:


From here the journey was fairly routine - but to illustrate the utterly ridiculous journey I made, this was my route in full. Sadly, the zoom doesn't show up the ridiculous amount of time I spent driving in circles:


This is why people shouldn't fly from Terminal 4.