Keith's 'nother new hobby

Regular readers will probably know that Keith is a man of many talents and is always 'fettling'. Recently, this has mainly involved doing things with pieces of metal and lathes and mills in the shed - sorry, his workshop. Every so often, he emerges to tell me what he has been doing, scattering tiny shavings of metal and plastering door handles and walls with black handprints in the process. I do sometimes think back with great sympathy and understanding to Thora Hird's character in 'Last of the Summer Wine' as she refuses to let her husband in the house before she has laid down copious sheets of newspaper. I'm just not quick enough!

Anyway, this week, he has discovered a webcam focused on Trondheim port and has spent many happy hours watching the comings and goings there. Actually, that's not strictly true. Ships not generally being fast moving, he can spend hours watching very little, so then he progessed to www.marinetraffic.com, which he has used a few years ago when he was tracking the journey of the Delica which he had bought from Japan. (Yep, don't ask. I can't believe I didn't blog about that!)

However, he can now follow and identify the ships and ferries that travel up and down the Norwegian coast. Remember Slartibartfast of 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' fame? He spent a lot of time designing the fjords and coastline of Norway and, looking at the map, he could be justly proud of his efforts.

So, from there, we progressed to another site which shows air traffic and Keith had just identified a Virgin plane on its way from USA to London, when, hey presto, we heard it outside and managed to catch sight of it as it passed overhead. I kid you not! Big Brother is watching you takes on a new meaning when Keith's on the case.

Of course, he didn't do anything useful, like book us a Norwegian cruise, but maybe he'll get round to that tomorrow ...