Happy 100th blipday

This is actually my second attempt to blip a picture today. I had to take down my first go because it was illegal (please see below).

This blip is of one of the cards that I received for my recent (real) birthday. It was painted by my father, inspired by one of my recent dreams where he interrupted the vote of thanks at one of my lectures with farmyard noises. This birthday was also billed as a 100th - in base 7 (work it out...)

So what happened to my first blip today? Please read on...

The tale of the missing picture

For a while I had planned to photograph a £100 note for my 100th journal entry. Today was the day to it - but who would let me "borrow" a £100 note for the tiny amount of time that it would take to blip?

Here's some advice: don't walk into the local branch of your bank and expect the cashier to happily hand over a £100 note for the purposes of photography! At my own bank I was subject to some stern questioning as to why I couldn't just download a photograph from Google... Still, they couldn't really refuse a request from me to take out £100 in the form of a single note, even if they knew that I would redeposit it in my account two minutes later, could they? The only problem then was the staff at this branch suddenly discovered that they did not have a single £100 note in the building so there was nothing to issue to me (allegedly...)

It was amusing how the staff in another bank just 100 yards away (where I am not a customer) were interested in what I wanted to do, and even went to the trouble of going to their safe to get me the cleanest £100 note that they could find.

When I blipped my bank note photo earlier this evening I was really happy to receive lots of friendly comments. But then Duncan Brown pointed out that it was perhaps illegal. After a phone call to the Royal Bank of Scotland, another to a lawyer friend and - eventually - some hunting around on the Internet, I discovered that Duncan was right. See section 18(1) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.

And there's more!

Today I also updated my about page to reflect on my blipping experience to date. I hope you enjoy reading this.