Google London Site Clinic: a review

I attended the Google London Site Clinic at TechHub this evening. As I was expecting/fearing from the blurb on their site, I thought the talks by Christoffel Hiltermann and Lucyna Janas for the first half hour or so were pitched too low: very basic stuff that you can learn from the obvious channels: Google Webmaster Tools, Google Webmaster Guidelines, the Google Webmaster Central Blog, Help Center, Webmaster Help Forum, the Google SEO starter guide, and so on. So I didn't learn anything new here.

My sentiments are echoed on the #Siteclinic Twitter hashtag, which we were encouraged to use:

proactivepaul: Maybe need to check out Google guidelines #Siteclinic or maybe not? This talk needs to step up a notch for a @TechHub audience!

eagerterrier: If you're thinking about going to a #siteclinic probably don't bother unless you're a web junior. Shame.

Where it got interesting was when they did a Matt Cutts-style site review.

How to cook rice: the Delia Smith method

My good friend, Roman Krznaric, once showed me how to cook rice the Delia Smith way. Since then, I've never done it any other way. I taught my mum, who's an accomplished cook, and she was thrilled by the results. What's so good about it? It makes perfect rice every time. It doesn't waste any water. There's no need to rinse out the starch. You don't end up with leftover rice having made too much. It doesn't stick to the pan. Here's how to do it: