So last night I was tucking away into some poached eggs lovingly made by my good lady. The toast was well buttered and the eggs were perfectly poached (i.e. still a bit runny). All was well until I cut into the second of the two eggs and was presented with the following sight:

I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture (I’d already eaten the other egg which would have helped for comparison) but the egg yolk is completely white with not even a hint of yellow! The egg was well within its sell-by date and the other one (from the same batch) was just fine. Has anybody come across such a phenomenon before?

Update 1: Andy B has a better photo of a white egg yolk compared to a normal one in his comment below.

Update 2: The general consensus is that white egg yolks are perfectly safe to eat and the reason they’re white is a lack of pigment. Count yourself lucky if you ever find one – they’re pretty rare! Lots more information in the comments below.

After re-factoring the templates that generate this site I was randomly flicking through some pages just to make sure everything was working as intended. (I'm glad to say it is – in that nothing looks different). While on this page I accidentally clicked the spellcheck button that's part of Google Toolbar and was presented with the following message:

It reads: "The default language you have selected for spellchecking is English, but your text looks like it might be Portuguese. Would you like to change the language to Portuguese?". The nerve!

One of the most annoying aspects of being left-handed is the simple act of writing with a pen. You see, the pen – and more specifically the ball point pen – has a fatal flaw. They were designed by right-handed people. Let me explain with a picture and some arrows:

As you can see from the picture, I’m writing from left to right and I’m left-handed. The problem is that a ball point pen is designed to allow ink to flow out of the nib while it’s being moved across a page. This principle works well if you’re right handed since you spent 99% of your time with the nib facing away from the direction of travel. But write left-handed and most of the time is spent with the nib pushing directly into the paper itself, preventing the free-flow of ink to the page. Write a paragraph or two and the ball point pen will often dry up, you’ll need to scribble a bit and you’ll be able to carry on.

It’s like stroking a cat. If you stroke it from head to tail (and it’s a friendly cat) it will most likely purr and be nice to you since that’s the direction its fur grows. Stroke it from tail to head on the other hand and – unless it’s one of those mad cats that likes it – the moggie will look at you in a particularly unimpressed fashion before hissing at you / biting you / scratching you / walking away and ignoring you for a while / hissing at you then biting you / hissing at you, biting you then scratching you and so on…

Don’t even get me started on fountain pens. I don’t care what you say, it is physically impossible to write with a fountain pen when you’re left-handed unless you adopt some wrist-straining style of holding a pen. But the risk of arthritis in later life makes it a non-option for me. There are myriad other types of pen that have their own particular problems but there is one that turns out – completely by accident – to be the ultimate left-handed pen.

I am talking about the amazing fisher space pen. The incredible technological advances in the modern world are truly remarkable and none more so than the space pen. It was designed so that astronauts – whose pencils had broken and were stranded without a pencil sharpener in space – were still able to write shopping lists in a zero gravity situation. (At least, that’s what I’m assuming the design goals were).

I could explain to you exactly how it works by quoting the instructions but you wouldn’t understand it – I surely don’t – it’s just far too advanced for our human brains! But the bottom line is that the ink cartridge is pressurised so that even if you try writing upside down, or underwater, or… eh… upside down and under water, the ink will still flow. And of course, if you just happen to be left-handed writing from left-to-right (or right-handed writing right-to-left) then you’ll be thrilled to discover that the space pen won’t dry up on you mid-sentence! I bought one on impulse a few years ago and discovered this left-handed miracle and meant to spread the word but I’ve been too busy finishing all those sentences I’d half-written when the ink had dried up.

Even better, you don’t have to be left-handed to own one! Apparently (as you can see in the picture at right – click for the full version) if you dress like the Village People, then you can own one too!

[As an aside, the people who designed this brochure have the best job in the world. Imagine you've been given the brief along the lines of: "We want this flyer to show tough, rugged people that normal Joe's aspire to doing tough, rugged things with their space pens. Oh, and if you can make it a bit camp too then even better!". Must have been a real laugh.]

But on a more serious note (and being left-handed is a serious business), if you’re left handed and you’ve been left frustrated and let-down by pens in the past, then your choice is clear. You can either use a frikin’ pencil or buy a space pen! If you go for the latter (the right choice) then be prepared for other left-handed people demanding to know how you can keep writing paragraph after paragraph without pausing for breath. Just point them at this article and I’m sure they’ll make the right choice too!

My good lady and my wedding was a wonderful day. But we both have regrets from the day and things we'd like to have changed. It took her a while to admit to me that she really loved my white suit and imagined herself wearing it instead of her dress. But it took even longer for me to admit to myself and then to her that what I really wanted was to wear her dress myself for the day.

Well, we decided the only thing to do was to recreate the entire day and do it a bit differently. We booked the venue, re-invited the guests (most of whom we were delighted to find attended) and this time she wore the suit and I wore the dress. I think you'll agree this is how we should have done it first time around:

She looks amazing in my suit doesn't she? We stopped short of re-issuing a wedding list but if you feel like you'd like to send us something to congratulate us, then don't let me stop you!

I spent today at the MSDN Technical Roadshow in the fair town of Harrogate. It's strange but wherever I go – even back home to the place that I grew up – I never bump into anyone I know. It's like I'm permanently anonymous and I've kind of gotten used to that fact. I remember going out on a stag do once where one of the guys there was the sort of bloke who knew everybody – wherever he went someone would come up to him and ask him how he was – I've always been the opposite.

So imagine my surprise today when I bumped into an ex-colleague. As if that wasn't surprising enough, I then proceeded to bump into a guy I play football with over in Skipton (whom I didn't even realise was a developer). Just as my eyebrows were returning to their normal position from being raised well beyond recommended safety levels another ex-colleague walked up to me and said hello. He then pointed out that he was in fact there with yet another ex-colleague! His first words to me after not having seen me for a year or so was "you've got more grey hairs than me!" which made me laugh. (Note: I disagree with his assessment).

I was starting to get the hang of picking out people I know and it was just as well as I then spied another ex-colleague I'd rather not have to speak to so I kept my head down. "You ain't seen me, right…".

The roadshow itself was very interesting. I make it a point to not look at pre-beta Microsoft software since it's invariably got some really cool features that I wish I could use now but won't be available publicly for a year. Now having been forced to see some of these things I can see a lot of it will be quite useful, particularly LINQ in C#. I look forward to checking it all out. But the real surprise for me was meeting so many people I know – I guess I've been living in Yorkshire too long that I feel I'm starting to belong here!

When my brother came over from the States at Christmas he brought with him an 8GB iPod nano that he gave to me – he’s a kind chap. I proceeded to load a selection of my favourite music on to it – 85 albums from 57 artists from ABBA to Belle & Sebastian to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to Dire Straits to Editors to Interpol to Kate Tunstall to Mogwai to Radiohead to The Shins to… You get the idea, a broad cross-section of music. This totalled 1049 songs and 5GB of space.

The idea then occurred to me to play the whole lot on shuffle mode and see how long it took. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried it – I gave it a shot a couple of years ago on my previous iPod and got about halfway through before stupidly hooking it up to my computer which restarted the shuffling! D’Oh! This time I wouldn’t make such a mistake.

I’d listen to the iPod in the car on the way to work, at work, on the drive home and anywhere else that I could. I started in January and, almost 2 months later, I finally got all the way through them in one go!

I’ve come to the following conclusions after completing this imposing task:

1. It’s a completely pointless waste of time and after a while it became a battle to keep going so when I’d hear a song and think “oh, I haven’t heard that album in a while, I’ll play it now” I had to resist, which is no fun.
2. Random really isn’t random. I know Apple say it’s random, but it’s really not. I found that you’d get 4 songs from the same album within 15 songs so frequently that I stopped counting!
3. It really is possible to predict the future. On several occasions I’d think “hey, it’d be cool if that song came on soon” and within the next couple of tracks it did.
4. You can’t beat hearing Deacon Blue followed by Queens of the Stone Age, then Sigur Ros, ABBA, the Doors then Muse. You’d never buy a compilation CD with that broad a range of musical styles!

What to do now? Maybe playing all the songs in alphabetical order…

I've never been into cricket. It always seemed like a tedious waste of a day. Nothing ever happened as far as I could tell, bowlers spent all the time polishing the ball and throwing it every now and then. Even the highlights were dull.

Then, while on holiday in Australia I sat down and actually watched one of the Ashes tests (the third one as it happened) and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I never appreciated the tension, the skill, the concentration required, the grit and determination you need to win. I hadn't even watched a single match before and it was clear I was completely wrong about cricket.

Unlike football, where you can make a mistake and rectify it with a lunging tackle or by scoring a goal, there's no margin for error in cricket. You can be batting for hours, receiving ball after ball, and if you lose concentration for a second you're out – and there are no second chances. My good lady and I were on the edge of our seats watching Australia demolish England and it was awesome. And like that I was hooked.

Of course, if you want to watch cricket in the UK, you need to subscribe to Sky TV and as regular readers will know, I cancelled that the other month. So it was with no regret at all actually that I phoned up to renew my subscription and within an hour I was able to watch the Simpsons and football any time I like again. Life without Sky was a brave experiment but in the end a fruitless one, especially as my love affair with cricket has just begun. And I always try to follow my heart!

While eating a meal at some friends the other night I managed to accidentally bite the inside of my mouth, which was rather painful. It always surprises me (although it shouldn't) how good human teeth are at chewing through the inside of your mouth – I guess the inside of my mouth is no different than a steak cooked rare so there's nothing stopping my teeth slicing their way through, that's what they're for.

As with all cuts to the mouth, it takes a while to heal and every time you eat an apple or biscuit, you get stabbed in the wound and feel a sharp pain. But that's nothing compared to chocolate.

I was eating a snickers bar and a piece found its way onto the wound and it was searingly painful – like acid burning! That set me thinking so I tried various different things to see what hurt the most. Irn Bru (which you'd think would do loads of damage) was fine, just a little stinging. Salt obviously hurt quite a bit, but that was a good pain since it dulled the pain afterwards. A satsuma (or was it a clementine?) stung a little but it was only short-lived. The apple, as I mentioned, hurt but that was more from being stabbed by the skin of the thing. Terrible decaf coffee from my work vending machine has no effect aside from the heat and dreadful taste. Bonjela, which has long been my treatment of choice for mouth ulcers and the like, is rather painful for a short time too, but as with salt it does it some good so it's not a bad pain.

So chocolate is still the winner on account of the pain and lack of positive benefit from the pain. Any other suggestions before it heals up?

It isn't easy being a teenager these days. For starters, your body hasn't finished developing yet. You're probably suffering from acne and no matter what products you see advertised on TV, none of them work. Your weak and puny body probably makes you feel inferior compared to Hollywood hunks like Brad Pitt (but you'd never admit it to your mates). If you're a girl you probably hate what you see in the mirror and wish you looked like the girls in glossy magazines. Oh and you think you're fat even though you are literally skin and bones (the bad news is you most likely won't ever grow out of the negative self-delusion).

Worse than the physical aspects is the fact that your brain hasn't finished developing either. This means you have no empathy – you are incapable of appreciating other people's points of view. It's not a deliberate thing, it's just the part of your brain that figures these things out doesn't work yet. This is why your parents keep telling you you're "selfish and don't think of anybody but yourself" when you don't think you are. Hint: they're right, you just don't have the capacity to see it (and some people sadly never do). You're also barely in control of your emotions, that's why you have mood swings and temper tantrums. These emotions are all new to you and you haven't had much chance to understand and come to terms with them.

You hate school, you hate the teachers and you feel like everybody is telling you what to do and what to think. And worst of all, you think you know it all and it should all be up to you. Your only respite is being out with your mates. Perhaps there's a comfy bench on the corner of your high street you like to hang around on. Maybe you'll down the odd bottle of cider or do something harder so your mates think you're tough. It's all just a laugh really and there's no harm in it, you're just letting off steam.

Except when you're hanging around with your mates, everybody you see looks at you like you're a criminal. Just because you're wearing a hooded top (so you can hide your embarrassing acne from the world) doesn't mean you're about to rob someone. But people don't give you a chance, they treat you with no respect, like you're scum, like the real trouble makers who wear hooded tops. And after a while you start to act that way, if they're going to treat you like dirt, you might as well treat them the same way.

You see, what bugs me is that I used to be a teenager. When I see a bunch of them hanging around making a bit of noise, I remember doing exactly the same thing. But apparently Britain is in danger of becoming a nation fearful of its young people. Since adults spend so little time with teenagers in the UK (as opposed to countries like Germany and Italy) they see them as a threat and are unlikely to intervene if they cross the line instead of remembering that teenagers are in fact still just children pushing their boundaries (as children do), instinctively trying to find their identity by breaking out of their parents mould. The thing is, if you just let children do what they want as they grow up, never giving them limits, then they'll really turn into everything you fear.

Sort of a vicious circle really. I guess life doesn't get any easier once you've grown out of the acne and stopped being a teenager! 

I was going to a friend's house after work yesterday to do some light fittings. This required me to bring along a selection of power tools and my toolbox in addition to the kit I normally bring into work. I never leave home without my camera in its bag and I also have a rucksack with work-related things in it (including my snacks for the day).

Since I have a pretty small car, boot space isn't something I have in abundance. My other problem is that I hate things rattling as I go around corners so I have to make sure the boot is packed neatly and with everything balanced in perfect harmony. Fortunately I've spent a long time playing Tetris and this enabled me to easily fit everything in place so snugly that nothing could move under heavy cornering or braking:

I swear I could hear the incessant music that you get from a Gameboy when you play Tetris as I was loading up. And to think, parents are always complaining about all the time kids spend playing video games! Never did me any harm. Well, except that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but that's another story…