E-envoy can't surf

It's into the drink for UK gov's Mr Internet...

Britain's groovy e-envoy Alex Allan is at it again, this time with a splendid array of photographs on his personal Web site. The site -- already a home for the lyrics of all the Grateful Dead songs -- shows four pictures of Allan in the 1980s in an ingenious attempt to get into work at Her Majesty's Treasury during a train strike. Sporting a bowler hat, pin-stripe suit and brolly, Allan can be seen windsurfing down Old Father Thames with the Houses of Parliament in the background. Sadly the windsurfing exploit does not go according to plan and Allan can be seen falling off his board and well and truly into the drink. Alert readers looking for metaphorical significance might care to ponder that clearly Allan's track record at transplanting Californian culture into Britain leaves a lot to be desired. Or that more simply that surfing is a mite too tricky for our own e-envoy. But at least his Web site has been endorsed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who in appointing Allan last year described him as "one of the very few senior civil servants with his own Web site - and certainly the only one whose Web site has a comprehensive guide to the lyrics of the Grateful Dead!" ® Related items: Follow the links to find the pics… Surf's up Going… Going… Gone Allan's site