The Line Between Stupid And Fun - Competition Result

Back in December, I was laid off from my Moderately Responsible Job In The Computer Industry, and chose to announce that in the Music section of this site (during a review of Half Man Half Biscuit). So it only seems fair that I should return to the Music section to announce that this week, I accepted an offer for a New Moderately Responsible Job In The Computer Industry. The paperwork's still to be signed off, but it's looking like my time as a gentlemonkey of leisure is drawing to a close. Thanks to everyone who wrote with messages of support: this seems like the quickest way of replying to them.

This news, of course, puts me in a pretty good mood for handing out a free CD: specifically, a copy of The Line Between Stupid And Fun, my compilation of the best songs of 2005.

You'll recall that the cover of this CD features a picture of a yellow line somewhere in South London. (And if you can't recall that, you're obviously not looking at the top of this page.) Candidates were given a link to a Google Map of the area in which the picture was taken, and were asked to pinpoint the exact location of the picture.

As has now become traditional, a grand total of three entries were received - this time from Dave Allen, JD Evans and Max Fischer. (Click on their names to open up a Google Map centred on the location they each chose.) And amusingly, they all made the same mistake: they assumed that the yellow line was a road marking. In fact, it's a railway platform safety line: to be precise, it's painted on the edge of platform 7 of Vauxhall Station, at a point just opposite from the MI6 building.

The picture below shows where I was standing when I took the photo (the purple asterisk labelled STM), and where Dave, JD and Max's guesses were in relation to this (the red crosses labelled with their initials).

As you can see, Max Fischer was the closest to the correct location. Although on closer inspection, he appears to have done it by picking the spot that the original map was already centred on, the lazy get. Luckily for him, the other two entries weren't as close, so Max wins the prize. Congratulations to him!

March 16th 2006