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1 November 2010 (Monday) - Speeling Mistayks
For the last umpteen years I have lived in Doctor Marten’s
shoes; they are great, comfortable and long lasting. Yesterday I noticed that
my current pair (which I bought in December 2008) had developed a
split on the side of the sole. It’s been my experience that about two months
before you wear the soles away to nothing, they develop a characteristic
split in the sole. This split is Gods way of telling you to get a new pair.
Or Blind Chance’s way of telling you to get a new pair, depending on your
personal religious persuasion. Doctor Marten’s shoes are reliable, hard wearing but
aren’t very cheap. Doctor Martin’s shoes (note carefully the spelling)
are equally reliable and hard wearing, but don’t come up in the same eBay searches
that Doctor Marten’s shoes come up in. The difference between an “e”
and an “i” is trivial to you and me, dear
reader, but to an eBay search the difference is about thirty pounds. It pays to try mis-spellings
when searching on eBay. I did exactly that this morning. Including postage
costs, a pair of these shoes (spelt correctly) was going for an
average of fifty quid. However a pair identical in all ways (except for
the spelling) could be (and was) bought for twenty quid.
Admittedly when buying DMs (of whatever spelling)
from eBay, they are usually postman’s shoes. And they come complete with the
Royal Mail insignia, but personally I quite like that on the side of a shoe. Whilst I’m on the subject of trivial spelling mistakes,
for the last two years this month for me hasn’t been November, but Mo-vember. In 2008 I grew a rather dreadful moustache which
hovered somewhere between Oliver Hardy and Adolf
Hitler. Last year I went for the full mutton-chops. This year I’m giving the
whole moustache thing a miss. My fellow moutacher
isn’t keen to do it for a third year, I don’t actually like the “facial
hair experience” and bearing in mind the whole thing is
sponsored-for-charity, last year only two thirds of the people who pledged
money to us actually stumped up. I might have another go next year, but for those of my
loyal readers who feel they might like to sponsor a moustache, might I
suggest you click
here to do so. |
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2 November 2010 (Tuesday) –
Efficiency
Yesterday I thought I might possibly be eligible to
upgrade my mobile phone, so I phoned the nice people at the G.P.O. I was
indeed eligible for an upgrade, and they suggested I might consider the new
Satsuma Castanet ZV5 phone. The thing comes with a 12 megadoodah
camera and an HDMI output that I can plug into my telly. It has WiFi (must learn about that), GPS, free windows
messenger and Skype. Every month I get 500 free
minutes to other people on the same network, 300 minutes or texts to people
on any other network, and 500 Mb worth of Internet. And my monthly payments
will be only two thirds of what they used to be. They posted the phone last
night and this morning I received a text telling me it would arrive between
1.30pm and 2.30pm. It arrived at 2.05pm. If only every other delivery service
could be so prompt. I had a minor hiccup in that the mains plug didn’t fit
into the mains socket, and had some fun lashing the phone into my PC, but
I’ve eventually wrestled the thing into sounding like the old one did. Now to
spend three weeks learning to use it. Especially the internet bits. I’ve
never had a phone that does Internet before. Well, I have, but I’ve never
done Internet on the phone before. I wonder if it is the same Internet as
this one…? On the other end of the efficiency scale is HM Customs and
Excise. Two weeks ago (20 October to be precise) I phoned the tax
office. I’d forgotten that I can claim tax relief on my professional
subscriptions, and they told me that I’d not actually claimed since 2004.
They said if I wrote to them they’d see about sorting out my tax codes. So I
wrote to them the same day. I phoned them today to ask if they’d received my
letter, and to ask if and when I might expect to hear back from them. The
chap at the other end of the phone laughed and explained that because of
their backlog, as post arrives it is being stockpiled in order of arrival at
their office. They currently have a backlog of two months, and said they
probably won’t open the letter I sent until Xmas Eve at the earliest… |
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3 November 2010 (Wednesday) - New
Phone (Still...)
On Monday I mentioned I’d bought some new shoes. They
arrived this morning, but I had a minor whinge about them. If you look at the
picture for Monday’s blog entry you’ll notice that there is a cushioned rim
round the bit where the foot goes in. This is so you don’t get sore ankles.
The shoes that arrived didn’t have that cushioned edge and clearly aren’t
that which was advertised. I decided to keep the shoes, as it’s too much
trouble to send them back, but I emailed a complaint to the seller. I
wondered if anything would come of it – and I got a reply almost right away.
She had no idea that DMs come with or without
cushioned edges, and she’s given me a partial refund. That was a result. I’ve also emailed in my meter readings to the power
company – the first leccie meter reading on the new
meter, and the first gas meter reading since I got the new boiler. I wonder
if this will make any difference to my bill. I suppose it doesn’t help that I
have absolutely no idea what my usage has been up till now. I’ve decided to
keep a record of meter readings and see how they go. And then I carried on fiddling around with my new phone.
During the course of the swap-over from the old phone I lost quite a lot of
people’s numbers, and somehow or other the SIM card seemed to remember a lot
of very old (and very wrong) numbers. I have mentioned this elsewhere
on the Internet, but could I ask that if anyone wants me to be able to
contact them by phone, could you please send me your phone number, Preferably
with a few words saying who you are. I got three anonymous texts this
morning. Each with a comment along the lines of “here’s my number you
asked for”. A minor disappointment – the quality of the photos the
phone’s camera produced wasn’t very good. After a lot of fiddling round with
the settings I realised I’d left the protective film over the camera lens.
Woops! I’ve tried to get the phone to connect to the house’s
wireless network. It seems to connect, but when I try to do web surfing I get
an “Invalid sever name” message. I wonder if that is anything I can
fix easily? If not, it’s no great problem – I get quite a bit of free
Internet usage anyway. I wasted some of that free usage on connecting my
phone to Facebook and Twitter. In retrospect it was probably for no better
reason than because I could. Trying to do internetty things
from my phone is a lot like fiddling about. I doubt I shall actually use it
very much. I also don’t like the way that you have to fiddle about to be sure
if I’ve actually logged off of the internet. I’m sure I’m going to forget to
do that….. |
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4 November 2010 (Thursday) - BA –
BSc
A few months ago one of the
leaders of one of the political parties went on record as saying that should
his party achieve power, then they would not increase university tuition
fees. Yesterday the coalition government announced that those same tuition
feesare set to increase
by up to 300%. One can possibly make a case for not ranting too much about
the Con-servatives for this – after all they made
no commitment about these fees, and (to be fair to Con-servatives)
this is really the sort of thing that they feel that shouldn’t be subsidised
by the public purse. But shall we take as read the rant
about the lies of the Dribbling Democraps? Although there are moves afoot to
shorten the length
of time students are spending doing degrees, the actual cost
involved must mean that a degree level education is once again only available
to the rich. (A traditional three-year degree will cost slkightly more than my first house did.) Let me rephrase that. A
traditional university education is once again only available to the rich.
There are other ways of getting one. I
paid for my own whilst both my children were toddlers and ‘er indoors TM wasn’t working (but was
being a full time mother). And there are degrees which can be done as
part of your employment. For no apparent reason, one
such degree springs to mind. Personally I’ve never been a fan
of the traditional style of university education. As a schoolboy at the Hastings Academy for Budding Geniuses
, it was made crystal clear to me that the only reason for my being at a
grammar school was to go on to a university, and I think that is what put me
off of the idea. Why on earth go to a university for three (or more)
years only to run up debts whilst putting off getting employment? Surely it’s
better to do some work, find out what you want to do for a living, then see about securing any relevant qualifications?
Perhaps that is why apprenticeships are on the increase again…. Last week at work we had a rant
about how rubbish It would seem I’m not alone in
finding the place wonderful - the county is listed in the world’s top
twelve holiday destinations. I was impressed – mind you, I’ve holidayed
there several times myself. Another reason why my home county
is so brilliant is that it hosts (at least) two of the best breweries
in creation. One of them is currently brewing thirty two firkins of black
nectar which should be in the pubs in a month’s time. Mind you with
only (slightly more than) two thousand pints of the porter being
brewed this year, I imagine it will sell out quickly. The brewery has
promised to email me a list of pubs who are selling the stuff when the time
comes. I predict an outing to a pub in early December… |
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5 November 2010 (Friday) -
Fireworks Night
Up at the crack of dawn and on with the ironing. Shirts
don’t iron themselves, you know. And then after work we set off to
Folkestone. The local
school was having a fireworks display. The weather wasn’t good, but
it would have been a shame to have missed the fireworks. We arrived in the
rain, but the rain didn’t last long. I’m not a religious blogger
but it did strike me more than co-incidental that with such a congregation
of left-footers,
as the fireworks started so the clouds parted and the rain stopped. And it
was equally odd that as the fireworks finished and the audience dispersed
that the clouds came back and the rain started. Divine intervention? Perhaps –
I’m not ruling it out. I’ve been to this school’s quiz nights in the past. For a
church school, the bar at their quiz nights is second to none. When my time
comes I may well turn left-footer myself. And then back to the Hoseys for
a smashing bit of tea, and to star in a home made video “Dave annoys Tina”
which will be appearing on You-Tube very soon. In fact it will appear as soon
as I can figure out how to get the video (that was bluetoothed
to me) out of my sexy new phone. Talking of sexy new phones, I see that one of my loyal
readers in Might I ask how you are getting on with the iPhone and the Internet? I must admit I’m on the point of
giving up with phone based Internet-ing – the keys
are fiddly, the screen is so small…it’s not really practical, is it? |
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6
November 2010 (Saturday) - More Fireworks
Among the hundreds of emails I received this morning was
one from the leccie company. On Wednesday I emailed
them my meter readings. They didn’t like them and had sent me a notification
of reject. And they asked me to phone them at my earliest convenience. So I
did. The nice man there read back to me the meter readings I’d sent them on
Wednesday and told me all was well with them, and asked what my query was. He
was amazed that I’d been emailed because there was no problem at all with my
meter reading. Another nonsense email was from Google, who reminded me
that the clocks go back one hour this evening. Didn’t we do that last
weekend? And seeing how I wasn’t working this morning, we went into
town. First of all to the post office to collect a parcel. The highly intelligent
operative behind the counter wanted som I.D. before
he’s give me my parcel so I showed him (from a distance of some six feet)
an out of date credit card. He seemed happy with this and gave me my package.
Then on to the Gorge for a fry-up. Martin joined us just as we were leaving,
and we then wandered round the rest of the town. Wilco’s
had a bargain – home brew kits. I’m seriously tempted to have a go at home
brewing. Once I’ve forked out thirty quid for the fermentation tub and the
pressure barrel I can brew up beer at less than three quid pre gallon. To CEX where I got a load of cheap DVDs, and then to the
toy shop followed closely by a visit to Cheesey
Computers. At this point we’d been in town for nearly three hours and I was
shopped out. My nerves could take no more. But seeing how it was on our way
we had a look in “Hopeless” (anyone who’s heard their advert on
local radio will know the place!) where I was intending to pick up some
fireworks, but instead came out with a sledge. I *know* there’s no snow, but
it’s been my experience that if you wait for snow, then sledges will have
sold out, and those that are available are vastly overpriced. So I’ve got my
sledge. All I need now is the snow. Home, where I put on one of my new DVDs and slept in front
of it for an hour or so. And then to Folkestone to collect people, and on to
the evening’s fireworks session. Steve and Sarah had invited us to a
fireworks party, and it was great!! We met up with old and new friends, and
chatted over some beers, and as people arrived, so the pile of fireworks grew
and grew. And then we wandered into the garden for the start of the
pyrotechnics. The first rocket was spectacular – it reached a height of about
six feet before it exploded with an earth-shattering ka-boom. I was
impressed, but was desperately hoping it wasn’t one of the rockets I’d
bought. Most of the other fireworks behaved themselves though. Apart from one
errant Roman candle which escaped and did its thing from inside a shrubbery. After an hour we adjourned for food – hot dogs, soup and
chilli jacket potatoes were enjoyed by all, and then back for more fireworks
and sparklers. Oh, it was great fun, and the weather was good too. I do like
a good firework display. Same time next year…? |
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7 November 2010 (Sunday) - Bit
Dull, Really...
Last week we had the draw for
work’s secret Santa for Xmas. When I saw who I’d got in the draw I knew
exactly what gift to get for him, and so I had a look on eBay, found what I
wanted and ordered it. I came home from work on Friday to find a note saying
that the parcel was at the post office, and I collected it yesterday, but
what with one thing and another I didn’t open the package until today. With
packaging from Amazon and an invoice from Amazon, I find I’ve been cheated. The seller is advertising products
on eBay, and when people buy them he posts the buyer what they’ve ordered.
But he doesn’t have them in stock. He just orders them from Amazon for five
pounds cheaper than what he’s selling them for on eBay. He tells Amazon to deliver
the goods to whoever’s ordered it and he pockets the profit. I suppose I should have looked on
Amazon first. This bloke’s not technically done anything illegal, or even
wrong, but I feel as though I’ve been swindled. For what it’s worth he’ll get
negative feedback, but because he’s a Power Seller on eBay, I can’t leave him
negative feedback until a week after I received the thing. I shall bide my
time. Talking of eBay….. Yesterday I
mentioned that I’m thinking “Home Brew” (again). I quite like
the idea of knocking up five gallons of stout for Xmas. But I was amazed to
find that I can buy the home brew kits in the town centre shops for about
twenty quid cheaper that I can get them on eBay (or on Amazon!).
Internet shopping isn’t the bargain it once was. Browsing the net I’ve found
that there’s a home
brew shop which as opened less than four miles from home. I shall
have a look in there tomorrow. And talking of beer, regular
readers may recall a blog entry from June when I whinged about a pub in Warehorne. The Woolpack used to be a very good pub,
but in June we found it to be pretentious and serving vastly overpriced tat
in place of reasonably priced food. Since then we’ve heard all sorts of
rumours about the place from all sorts of sources. Whilst gossip is hardly
the most reliable means of communication, I heard so many stories about the
place from so many people I soon came to the conclusion that my bad
experience in June was in keeping with what most other customers had found
about the place. Today I received a message about
this pub through a website I
used to use a lot. The message read “You may be interwsted
to know that there is a new tenant in the Woolpack, Warehorne,
Give it a try, its much better and the new guy is great.” I was very “interwsted” to know this, and I may well pop back
to see if things have improved. Even though it was Sunday I was up
with the lark today, and I spent the morning helping with the last bits of
house moving. Fridge freezers don’t move themselves. In a better plane of
reality, they probably do move themselves. But not in mine. In my world they
are dependent on the likes of me to elevate them to the second storey. As are
tumble driers. But it’s all good exercise. After moving stuff to and fro and
up and down we came home via Lidls (it was
Sunday after all) and I spent the afternoon doing what is fast becoming
my standard Sunday afternoon ritual: dozing in front of a rubbish film. Tea
was good – home made soup then roast dinner. And then back to NeverWinter
where my character (a particularly foxy elf) has lost her girlfriend
in the sewer. Which was careless of her… |
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8 November 2010 (Monday) - A Day
Off Work
‘er
indoors TM had the day off work today, so I took a day’s
holiday as well. As I’m a supporter of the Aspinall
Foundation, periodically I get free tickets to the local zoos, and so we’d
planned to go to Port
Lympne today. I plan a lot of things, and mostly things go according to
plan. So I shouldn’t be *that* miffed when occasionally things go wrong. The
weather was against us today. With torrential rain and winds gusting up to
50mph, we decided that we didn’t much fancy walking round a zoo in a monsoon. Having said that, we weren’t going to waste a day off, so
we went to The first floor was rubbish. To be fair to The second floor featured an impressive stuffed Polar
bear, and there were two main displays here. One was all about Lunch time: as we came out of the museum we found KFC. The
rain was still torrential, so we popped in, if only to shelter from the
elements. But KFC always makes for a good lunch. And on the way back to the
car we made time for a crafty half. Two years ago I visited Blakes of Dover and wasn’t impressed. I would so
dearly love to have this place in my top ten list of
pubs. It has everything I rate in a pub. It’s off the beaten track. It’s
downstairs in an obscure basement. It has decent ale from the best breweries
– and some of the ale is poured from the barrel. It even has pickled eggs. However it also has bar staff who know
how marvellous their pub is. And rather than clientele or regulars, it has an
“in-crowd” who make a point of staring at the
newcomer. On my last visit I rather slated the place on a certain pub
reviewing website, and today’s visit gave me no reason to change my opinion
of the place. On the way home we stopped off at another seaside town
where a branch of Maplins has recently opened. I
thought it might be worth a visit: I was wrong – it was dull. But whilst we
were in the area we thought we’d go visit the most recent fruit of my loin.
Unfortunately she wasn’t in, but “Thing Two” from Doctor Seuss was
there in her pyjamas to welcome us. Or that was my initial reaction. I am
told that they are very nice pyjamas, and who am I to argue. Over the last few days I’ve been mentioning making my own
beer. We called in to the local home brew shop today. Getting all the kit and
caboodle looked a bit pricey, so I got a starter set which in only fifteen
days will give me twenty litres of stout. If it works I will have managed to
knock out the stuff for seventy pence a pint (which is even cheaper than Lidl). And if it doesn’t work I will console myself
with the thought of how much money I could have wasted if I had bought the
bigger kit. Loyal readers are very welcome to point and laugh at my box of “Stout
Fellow” as it bubbles away in my kitchen. And loyal readers who respect
the stout are very welcome to try some when I open the box in a couple of
week’s time... |
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9 November 2010 (Tuesday) -
Another Day Off
Many years ago (1985), as
part of my studies at None of that stopped me getting up
at hourly intervals during the night, getting more and more worried that my
home brew wasn’t doing anything. Fortunately for my nerves, when I got up (properly)
this morning it was bubbling away quite happily. A regular “blopping” followed by periodic
more extreme releases of gas. A bit like
my stomach, really. A phone call: “My
Boy TM ” had gone
beach fishing this morning. I heard him going. I expect my loyal readers
in And with the weather being against
us again, we again decided against going to the zoo. Instead we settled for
second best by having a look round the snake shop in Bethersden.
They had some nice beasts, but I wasn’t tempted to get any. I’m not keen on
doing the whole “reptile thing” again. (Been there,
done that!). Whilst we were in the area, we’d heard that Tenterden
garden centre had their Xmas decorations out, so we went to have a look at
those. They weren’t overly impressive. But whilst there we had a look at
their reptiles and Koi too. For me, seeing the reptiles and the Koi at a pet
shop is every bit as good as a zoo. I get to see the animals I’m interested
in, and I see them much closer up too. We then drove on into I’d heard reports of a pub that
was under new management that I wanted to check out before this coming
weekend. The Queens Head is
probably now in my top twenty pubs, if not my top ten (must actually write
that list!). In the past I would suggest changing our plans
for the weekend to relocate to this pub, but it is right on the bonfire route
and will be heaving. Our usual haunt for And talking of our usual haunt, whilst in And then home to find that in my
absence my box of stout had had an episode. Presumably there had been a
rather excessive build up of fermentation gases; water from the air lock was
sprayed everywhere, and one of the corners of the box was rather soggy. I’ve
given the thing a larger air lock, and am hoping that over the next two weeks
the box will dry out somewhat. If it don’t I shall boss it together with
packing tape. I suppose that I shouldn’t
complain really. As the first brew (possibly of many) it is in many
ways something from which I will learn. And lesson #1 is that wet things
shouldn’t be kept in cardboard… |
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10 November 2010 (Wednesday) -
This and That...
I’ve just had two days off work:
it rained constantly. Today I went back to work as the sun came out. I was so
tempted to ask for today off as well, but I thought better of the idea. In
retrospect I wish I had asked for the day off – we had I.T. issues which were
problematical, to say the least. Enough of work: yesterday I
mentioned that my box of stout was somewhat damp. I came home this evening to
find that it has completely dried out. That was a relief. The thing is still
bubbling away nicely, and despite the fact I’ve not tasted the first lot yet,
I’m having ideas about what to brew up next. The idea of a barrel of porter
for Xmas is appealing. I had an email from Svetlana this
evening. I’ve had several emails from her recently. Apparently she is
nineteen years old, is “a man’s dream” and she is “looking for man
to have a strong family”. She asked if I was too. Funnily enough I’m not
“looking for man to have a strong family”. Not with my back (!) She even sent me a picture of
herself. She looked cold; it has to be said that when I pose for photographs
I wear more than just a smile. She told me she was on-line and suggested we
chatted, but I thought it best not to encourage her sort. We could have had Chinese for tea
tonight. A gentleman of oriental persuasion turned up on the doorstep and
proudly announced he’d got my meal. I was quite happy with that until he
wanted paying. I’d eat it if he was giving it away. He wasn’t. He claimed
we’d ordered it over the phone. We hadn’t. He started a rant about how we had
ordered from his restaurant, and when he eventually paused for breath I
explained to him the difference between where he was (Beaver Road) and
where he needed to be (Beaver Lane). For those not familiar with the
area, the difference is just under a mile. He wasn’t happy with my
explanation, and asked if I was sure I was in the right place myself. I
thought I was being helpful by giving him directions to And then we settled down to watch
the last episode of Downton Abbey. I love costume
dramas and stories set in grand houses. Where the nobs
upstairs have more money than sense, and the serfs downstairs are equally
dumb for putting up with the nobs upstairs.
Electricity, telephones and the war came to Downton
Abbey this evening. It was a brilliant series. A shame it’s over, but I
understand there is to be a second series next year. That will give me something
to look forward to. Regular readers of this drivel may
recall I had a new leccie meter fitted a month ago.
Today I received a leccie bill. It would seem that
in one month I’ve got myself £112.27 in credit with the leccie
people. I phoned them up and asked for one hundred of it back. They seemed
quite happy with that idea. I’ve blogged in the
past about how I’m financially stuffed at the moment, and that hundred quid
would be very much appreciated. The fact that I’m probably going to spend it
on home brew gear to make my Xmas porter is neither here nor there. I also tried another way to recoup
my fortunes today. One of my trainees at work is football mad. But not in the
way that most football fans are. Instead he intently studies each team’s form
and scoring records, and regularly predicts the outcome of matches with
uncanny accuracy. By “investing” relatively small amounts, this chap
often wins over a hundred pounds at the bookies with his skill. I asked if
he’d “invest” a (relatively) small amount for me. Tonight’s
prediction was that Everton would beat Bolton and thatSwansea would
beat With a tenner
stake I could have made a profit of twenty five quid. If only |
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11 November 2010 (Thursday) -
Sterility, Dole..
My mind has been on home brewing rather a lot lately. I
can’t help but suspect that in years gone by, my
home made wine was rather variable in quality because contaminating bacteria
got in to the stuff. Maintaining sterility can be tricky, and errant microbes
can be problematical; as anyone who’s ever eaten a dodgy kebab can testify. Making wine was a very “open” process. The stout I am currently
brewing is more “closed” in that you sterilise the inside of
your container, chuck in all the ingredients, close the whole thing up, and
that’s it. Once fermentation has finished you just tilt the box and start
drinking the stuff. With a closed system it is far easier to maintain
sterility. So investing in fermentation vessels and plastic kegs and
trying to perform aseptic siphoning isn’t the way forward. Obviously the
trick is to make beer is the way I’m doing it at the moment; brewing it in it’s own polypin. The drawback
to this is cost – a twenty litre polypin costs
about fifteen quid. It can be re-used a few times, but it has a finite life.
But re-using the thing runs the risk of contamination. And once you’ve bought
the second polypin it’s already cost more than all
the fermentation vessels and plastic kegs would have cost. And then I had a stroke of inspiration. I know someone who
uses saline (salt water) which is delivered in polypin-like
boxes, and the boxes, once used, are thrown away. With a rinse out, such a
box would be ideal for home brew – the only expense would be the beer making
ingredients. And since the boxes are made to be disposable, I’d not even have
to clean the thing out afterwards. I’d just chuck it away and get a new one. I could knock out ale for as little as forty pence per
pint. I have already obtained such a box. I shall buy a beer kit at the
weekend. ‘er
indoors TM went out flogging candles tonight, leaving me to
forage for my dinner. From experience I’ve found that foraging in the general
direction of the KFC is usually successful. With the house to myself I
watched a movie. “Bronson” wouldn’t
be everyone’s cup of tea: it’s in the same vein as “I.D.”,
“Scum” and “Clockwork I’ve posted several times over the last few months about
the many and various failings of our coalition government. Now, much as it
pains me to do so, I’m going to sing their praises. As a child I can remember my uncle once grumbling that a
friend of his had left work. Because of this chap’s various personal
circumstances the bloke was five pound per week better off on unemployment
benefits, housing benefits, family allowance, etc than he was if he stayed in
employment. Today the government has announced radical
changes to the welfare system so that it pays to work. I’m not
pretending the new system will be perfect, but I quite like the idea that
long term unemployed people will be asked to do voluntary work, if only to
get them back into the “working” frame of
mind. There are no end of local charities who could
benefit from such people’s efforts. Our local scout hall needs a lick of
paint. There are those who feel the measures are
a tad harsh. But I can’t help but think of the leader of our local scout
group who can run one of the most successful scout groups inKent whilst
being paralysed down the entire left hand side of her body. Or the leader of
the Beaver Scouts who runs the most successful Beaver group for miles around,
even though she is blind. Perhaps under these new measures they might
actually be rewarded for their efforts? |
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12 November 2010 (Friday) - Fixing
My Computer
In previous blog entries I have regaled my loyal
readership with tales of woe regarding my ailing computer. The poor thing is
(nearly) four years old, and over the last few months it has rather
began to struggle to do its job. Having installed Windows Defender and
C-Cleaner I’ve attempted to sort the poor thing out. I’ve defragmented
my drive and deleted my orphaned files. I’ve salvaged something from the
tattered remains that was once my Windows registry file, and I’ve bunged out
all manner of conflicting software that I neither needed nor wanted. I’ve
scanned and scanned, but still the poor thing sounded like a helicopter
trying to take off. Time and again the computer would freeze; the only option
being for me to pull out the mains plug and start again. Desperate times called for desperate measures. So I opened
up the computer, blew all the dust out, and then put it back together again.
I won’t pretend the thing is fixed, but it certainly seems a lot better than
it once was. I heard something of arky-ological interest on the radio today. It
would seem that whilst hunting for dull bits of broken pots, an arky-ologist stumbled upon King Herod’s tomb. And whilst
investigating this tomb, said arky-ologist stumbled
over a railing and fell to his death. Destroying various artefacts on the
way. I did laugh when I heard. And of astronomical interest is Another British triumph…. |
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13 November 2010 (Saturday) -
I’m going to start off today with a rant. I am sick and
tired of people knocking the NHS. Take today’s
news – one quarter of all cases of cancer are only diagnosed when
the condition finally becomes so severe that the patients are so ill that
they are admitted to hospital as an emergency. And this rate is far higher in
leukaemia cases. Over half the brain tumours are found at such a late state.
This is (apparently) shocking and disgusting and typical of the
failing NHS. Or is it? Consider a specific form of cancer – skin cancer. Only
3% of skin cancers go undetected. Why is the NHS so better at detecting skin
cancer as opposed to (say) tumours of the pancreas? Do I really have to spell this out? Skin cancer gets
detected early because people with this condition can see their skin going
manky. It’s not so easy to see small lumps deep inside your body. Or take
leukaemia (a condition with which I have a passing knowledge). This
can only be diagnosed from a blood test – there are no lumps in leukaemia.
Unless someone makes arrangements for their blood to be scrutinised, then it
will go undetected until it is so far advanced that the lack of functioning
white cells and platelets gives rise to the symptoms. Aren’t we supposed to be in a time of austerity? Cutbacks
all round? A mass physical screening of the population is going to cost a
fortune. Whilst at college (in the early 1980s) I can remember being
told of such a pilot scheme that was done in Orpington. Tremendous public expense, and no new cases of cancers found at all. And
surely the general public must bear some of the blame. If they feel unwell,
or have an odd lump, then they should go see the doctor, and not put it off
whilst the lump gets bigger. Or am I missing something? I went to work for the morning where I did a wonderful job
which is utterly undervalued by the media (sulk, sulk!) and then popped in to
the home brew shop to have a chat. They seemed to think that my plan to brew
beer in closed containers is a winning scheme. I bought a hydrometer whilst I
was there. It would be nice to know how strong the beer I’m brewing will be. And then to the railway station to meet up with the
Ashford based contingent of our party. “Daddies Little Angel TM ”’s mate was back from Eventually everyone was together and I shepherded thirteen
of us onto the train, and then we had a crafty half. I’d brought a back-pack
full of beer, and it was rather heavy so I thought I might lighten the load.
And with the first bottle drunk I could see the lights ofRye out
of the train window. Having been emailing and messaging people about the
event for a couple of weeks I thought I should take some responsibility. So I
diligently ensured that all of the Ashfordians got
to Having checked out the pubs mid-week we then made our way
to the Union Inn. Or that is some of us did. As is always the case, trying to
organise people is somewhat akin to herding cats. And I must admit to
wandering off myself when I saw the stall selling flashing rabbit ears. But
the advance party of half a dozen of us found the pub and made a start on the
ale, whilst the stragglers and chip-eaters eventually found us later. After five pints we decided we ought to take up position
to watch the procession come past. As fish and chips was
passed round we met up with more of our group and exchanged insults. This
year our group was perhaps the smallest it has ever been, with only twenty
three of us. But we had a great time. It was at this point that we started
making serious headway into the bottles of beer we’d brought along, but
having drunk a gallon of ale from the pub meant we could use their facilities
with a clear conscience. The best part of using their facilities was
smuggling the ladies in our group into the cubicle in the pub’s gents to
avoid the queue for the ladies. Great fun! The procession came past – burning torches, everyone in
costume, floats and noisy drum bands. I loved it. And then with the
procession over, we made our way up to And then we made our way back down the hill as fast as the
crowds would allow us, and having said our goodbyes to friends who’d driven
up from deepest Sussex, half a dozen (or so) of us made our way to the
railway station. As is always the way at There was some minor unpleasantness whilst trying to get
to the railway platform. The place was very crowded, but the police didn’t
need to be quite so disagreeable. We’ve been going to Rye Bonfire Parade
since 2004, and in those six years the only bad experiences I’ve had have
been from the arrogant attitude of the police there. Would it have caused the
silly constable physical pain to have given me a straight answer to a
straight question? I am considering making a formal complaint about the
attitude of the police at the station, but it wouldn’t achieve anything. The train ride home was fun, and I passed round the
remains of the bottle of port I’d bought, and we eventually staggered to be
some time after midnight (I think – it was all rather vague by that time). Same time next year… plans are already being made… |
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14 November 2010 (Sunday) -
Remembrance Day
I woke up feeling somewhat under
the weather today. I know I shouldn’t drink to excess. But I do. That’s the
kind of guy I am. Perhaps (in future) I might lay off the port
somewhat? Today was (in a very small way)
one of life’s milestones: over time I’ve developed something of a routine to
my life. Certain annual events are great fun and so I make a point of putting
them into my calendar – kite festivals and beer festivals spring to mind. And
from October to November it’s the bonfire season. I love the torchlight
parades and fireworks. And I especially like the bit where we get to meet up
with friends and family who we rarely see because we all live so far apart.
And now with Rye Bonfire Parade but a happy memory and my hangover fading,
this year’s bonfire season is over. I rather wasted the day today – we
had vague plans to go for a walk round the Brabourne
estate and look for deer. But the rain didn’t stop, and so I alternated
between sleeping in front of the telly and sleeping in front of playing
NeverWinter Nights. In previous years after the Rye
Bonfire Parade I have dragged my carcass (and my hangover) to the
Gardens of Remembrance to be with the cubs and scouts for the Remembrance service. When I have been to remembrance
services in the past there has been representation from pretty much the
entire town. Wreaths were laid by all armed forces, scouting, guides, all
three cadet forces, St John's, the council, the police, fire brigade, ambulance
brigade, chamber of commerce, rotary club... anyone who wanted to take part
would seem to be welcome. Whilst standing there shivering I would look at all
the old servicemen with their medals. We would remember those who weren’t
there. And I would reflect on the fact that I’ve never been in the armed
forces. It’s because of what the old soldiers did in the past that I have
never had to be. Or that is I would try to reflect.
But I never felt comfortable at those services. Whilst I am in no way whatsoever
undermining the idea of remembrance services, it annoys me that they have
been hijacked by organised religion; specifically the Christian Church. Am I
alone in seeing the Church as being hypocritical here? I can’t (in all conscience)
go to a service in which I (and everyone else) intend to remember the
sacrifices of heroes, but instead we are forced to put up with a vicar
contradicting himself whilst spouting religious gibbering. Gibbering to which
(quite frankly) the vast majority of the audience are not listening
and do not believe. Why can’t the local remembrance
service be lead by the Mayor or by some other local dignitary? Or better
still a retired soldier who knows what he’s talking about? |
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15 November 2010 (Monday) - The
Legal System
To Tesco to get lunch. On my
receipt I saw that they asked me “How did we do?” and they asked me
to tell them about my shopping
trip. Well, since they asked, I posted on their feedback form: “I wasn’t happy when I arrived
at the store – I had to navigate my car through the trolleys that were strewn
around the car park. In years gone by I would have been met by a smiling
member of staff. Today I was met with a surly grunt from a surly grunt who
was openly watching me to check I didn’t steal anything. The staff filling
the shelves made it crystal clear that I was in their way. And when I came to
use the self-service tills I had my goods snatched from my hands by a member
of staff who clearly didn’t’ think I was using the checkout fast enough. Even
though no one else was queuing. “How did we do?”:
0/10. Must try harder. I also feel that I should point
out that I’ve been to this store many times over the last few years, and
today was typical of my experiences.” They did ask for my ClubCard number – I might get some free tokens off of
them for my troubles. We shall see. On my way home I was listening to
the Justice Secretary on the radio. He was outlining the government’s plans
to shake up the legal
aid system. The tax payer will no longer have to foot the bill for legal
squabbles arising from relationship break-ups, school admissions and
expulsions quibbles, and clinical negligence. Apparently these can mostly be
dealt with outside of the court system, and if they can’t then the public are
referred to the “no win – no fee” scheme. The Justice Secretary said
"it cannot be right that the taxpayer is footing the bill for unnecessary
court cases which would never have even reached the courtroom door, were it
not for the fact that somebody else was paying". He went on to say
that the government is unhappy with the fact that we have a very litigious
society, and that the government isn’t going to subsidise it any more. That is twice in less than seven
days that I have found myself agreeing with the government. Perhaps I’m
sickening for something… However…. I might invite my loyal readers to
consider the point of view that rather than subsidising a very expensive
process, the government might like to address the question of why is it that
only the extremely rich can afford to use the justice system…? |
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16 November 2010 (Tuesday) - In
The Future
One of our trainees was griping today about how she’d
suffered as a child. She wasn’t allowed a mobile phone until she was fourteen
years old. How things have changed… When I was a lad we didn’t have mobile phones. In fact
most people didn’t even have a phone in the house. And those that did had a
phone with a dial on the thing. Not buttons, but a dial. Not that the dial
actually did anything. Today everyone has a mobile phone in their pocket. A
device which is a phone, a camera, a satellite navigation system and a games
console all in one. And less than a quarter of the size of the phone which I
had as a child. For many of us the TV programs we watched as children were
in black and white – colour telly was for the elite. Breakfast television
programmes did not exist. We had three channels of TV. Schools programmes ran
in the morning; there were kids programmes, the news
and Crown Court at mid day, then the telly closed down for the afternoon. It
came back at 4pm, and closed down (playing the National Anthem) round
about midnight. Today we have a thousand channels of 24/7 drivel. All
available in most homes on High Definition screens and in Dolby surround
sound too. And calculators. My first calculator cost my father a
week’s wages. Kids today don’t have calculators as such. They use the
calculator function on their mobile phones, which are far superior to what I
had in the mid-1970s. And the Internet – a world of information at my
fingertips. I have instant contact with friends all over the world. Teenage
boys will never need to attempt to illegally buy or steal jazz mags because of the smut on the Internet. The world today isn’t at all what I imagined when I was
young. Technologically we are (in many ways) streets ahead of where we
thought we’d be. Look at the science fiction of the time. I’ve recently been
re-reading sci-fi from the fifties and sixties. The novels of Asimov and
Clarke now seem rather outdated. Or look at Captain Kirk’s communicator. A
rather pathetic device compared to my Nokia N8. As a teenager I was so impressed with having a colour
telly and a calculator. And I had several friends who were jealous of me
because of that. And now I look back in a rather condescending sort of way. I
wonder what my blog entry in November 2050 will make of today’s technology…. But then again, look at what we haven’t achieved. As a
child I watched the moon landings. I remember the Apollo 13 disaster: I was
there. And it was common knowledge that men would be walking on Mars by the
mid 1980s. Didn’t happen. It doesn’t look like humanity will even have the
ability to get back to the moon for at least another ten years (at the
soonest). I’m sadly coming to the conclusion that I will not live long
enough to see people land on Mars. Matter transportation, “beaming up” and warp drive remain still theoretically
impossible. Or look at Star Trek again. And the 2001 books and
films. For all the computing power that is now so readily available,
HAL 9000 and Daystrom’s M5 are still in the realms
of fantasy. Perhaps my blog in forty years time might tell a different
tale…? And in closing, this
video seemed somewhat appropriate for an aging |
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17 November 2010 (Wednesday) –
Religion
Today I renewed my ordination. For
those of my loyal readers who were unaware of the fact, I am an ordained
minister of religion, and I am entitled to use the title “Reverend”. I have actually been able to do
this for some time. The other day I realised I’d not heard from my Church for
a while. It turned out they’d had a major I.T. failure and lost all the
clergy’s details. But now I’ve re-registered, I am raring to once again take
up my ministry. As a minister of the Universal Church Triumphant of the
Apathetic Agnostic, I am available to do pretty much everything and
anything that your average vicar gets called on to do. I have formal
guidelines on a wide range of duties I might perform, including visiting the
sick and housebound, conducting weddings and civil partnership celebrations,
ceremonies for the naming of children, funerals, the saying of grace before a
meal, and even on taking confessions. In short, I can do anything your
average vicar, priest, rabbi or any religious leader can do, but without “the
God bit” thrown in. (Mind you, we don’t do circumcisions on minors!) There are those who say that the
entire concept of Apathetic Agnosticism is silly. To which I would answer by
quoting the three main tenets of my faith:
(However, our apathy to the
question of God's existence does not necessarily mean we are apathetic about
promoting agnosticism.) I would suggest that most of my
critics couldn’t express their religious views so succinctly. And I would
also ask that if this is a ridiculous viewpoint, then how would one describe
the banning of pigs from
kiddies farmyard toy sets for fear of offending the religious…? |
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18 November 2010 (Thursday) - This
and That...
This morning I received a very complimentary comment on
yesterday’s blog post. “Good work! Your post is an excellent example of
why I keep comming back to read your excellent
quality content that is forever updated. Thank you! armani watches for men”. And the chap then went
on to add a link to a web site where he is selling watches. They could be
good watches; they could be rubbish. I neither know nor care. All I know is
that I’m not going to advertise his tat for him. You’d think he’d get the message; after all he’s posted
the same comment (complete with spelling mistake) to several of my
blog posts over the last week and followed each one up with a link to
websites selling either watches or handbags. It’s a shame that the software doesn’t seem to have a “report
spammer” option. Oh well, if the nuisance posts continue I’ll just tweak
up the settings on exactly who can make comments. Or specifically who can’t. From email to snail mail. My post piles up so quickly. And
it’s mostly all rubbish. I’m sure I don’t ask for these people to write to
me, Two magazines from the scout association. It’s now over
two years since I packed up with the cubs, and still they send me their literature. A letter about an ISA. I’ve absolutely no idea what that
is all about, but it says about large sums of money. I shall keep that
letter. The mortgage endowment is finishing within the next year, and far
from being the moneyspinner that our financial
advisor (father in law!) claimed it would be, it’s actually been money
down the toilet. This ISA might help cover the shortfall. BT again offered me their Broadband cheaply and Aviva again offered to insure my motorbike (eight
years after I last rode one). WyeVale wrote to apologize to me that I’ve
not spent enough with them recently (i.e. anything at all) to warrant
getting any money-off vouchers this quarter. Bovvered? The mobile phone people wrote to confirm the agreement
under which I’ve got my new mobile with them. Apparently part of the package
is something called “top shelf”. No one mentioned that before. “Top
shelf” sounds a bit dubious. Free smut? I phoned them up to find out
about this. Apparently I can use my phone to download filth. That’s nice (!) Regular readers based in the I found an envelope full of screen protectors for my new
phone. I’d bought them on eBay and forgotten all about them. And I found an invitation to take part in the KM charity
walk which took place on Sunday June 13 this year. I couldn’t have gone
anyway (I was in Teston), but where had that letter been all these
months? I was on a late start this morning, so with the house to
myself I watched a DVD. A couple of weeks ago I went to the CEX shop in town
and bought some DVDs. One of them was the first season of “Gavin and
Stacey”. Over the last few months various people had commented that they
thought I’d like it - I can’t believe I’d never seen it before. I finished
watching the DVD today. It was brilliant. I actually blubbed
when they got married. I think I might just put the complete DVD set onto
my Xmas
list. You never know your luck. And then I had what I can only describe as a “Brown
Trousers” moment. Having watched all the devastation in And I’ll end with a little bit of politics. In my thirty
years in the NHS I’ve seen some changes. The way the NHS is run changes all
the time. The
latest plan is to re-organise so that the entire NHS is commanded by
the GPs. But this isn’t a new idea - am I the only one who can remember that
this has already been tried. Does the phrase “GP Fundholders”
ring any bells? Did it work when it was introduced in 1991? I don’t know. It’s been shown that there was absolutely
no evidence as to whether it might have worked or not. Instead the
decisions to implement the scheme and the decision (under a different
government seven years later) to abolish it were taken purely
on political and ideological grounds. It’s rather strange that if I want to make the slightest
change to how I perform my professional duties I have to fulfil a myriad of regulations to prove
beyond any doubt that the proposed change is for the better. If researchers
have ideas for new treatments, these must be radically tested to destruction before
they can even reach the clinical trials stage. But the entire structure of
the NHS can be reformed on the whim of current political opinion with no
evidence whatsoever as to whether or not the idea is good, bad or just plain
stupid… How many other decisions in government are made this way?
How are the police, the armed forces, schools, the nation’s transport
infrastructure organised? Are they subject to sensible management? Are they
run on sound financial principals? Or are they run at the whim of political
ideology too…? |
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19 November 2010 (Friday) - Perrins and Windsors
I don’t watch much telly these days. Instead I prefer to
find out what other people have watched. And then on other people’s
recommendations I beg, borrow or steal entire seasons of shows on DVD.
Thereby watching the entire lot in one go, and missing out all the dull
adverts. The drawback with this scheme is that one is rather dependent on
other people actually telling me what’s on the telly. Zaphod Beeblebrox
once said “See what you miss if you don't stay alert”. Clearly I’ve
not been alert. Did you know they’ve re-made Reggie Perrin? Yes? So did
everyone else except me. And to add insult to injury I’ve been watching the
originals on UK Gold at silly o’clock in the morning recently. As for the remake, I’ve only seen a couple of episodes so
far (on the BBC i-player), but I like what
I’ve seen. Martin Clunes makes a good Reggie, and
it’s got the bloke from “Game On” as C.J., and (in an improvement
on the original) Reggie has a fit bird to fantasize over. I shall add this program to my “want list” for
Xmas… Also on my “want list” for Xmas is (realistically)
a new PC. My current one is now four years old, and is beginning to creak. It
keeps freezing and it currently sounds like a helicopter trying to take off.
I can’t help but wonder what’s hot and what’s not in the world of new desktop
PCs. Any advice from loyal readers would be welcomed. And amid the excitement of Prince William’s forthcoming
nuptials, Prince Charles has intimated that when he becomes King he would
like his wife to be crowned
Queen. Even though he’d bowed to perceived public pressure in the past
and said she’d be a Princess Consort. It strikes me that this move signifies either one of two
things. Either Charles won’t become King at all and
when the time comes he will pass the monarchy on to William, making a show of
taking offence rather like Edward VIII did when he couldn’t have Mrs Simpson
as Queen. Or finally the general public have finally realised that “Diana
Queen of Hearts” wasn’t quite the saint that the press had painted her to
be. Either way, the royals are back in the news with a minimum
of republican furore being stirred up. Which is a good
thing... |
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20
November 2010 (Saturday) - Beer and Cakes
“My Boy TM ” was doing overtime this
morning. I expect most of my loyal readers heard him getting up quietly at
6am, then silently coming downstairs before making
his breakfast (as quietly as a mouse). I breathed a sigh of relief as
he finally thundered out of the house at 6.30am. To work – I too was doing overtime, and after a (thankfully)
quiet morning and a quick sandwich I popped round to the home brew shop. They
were having a demonstration of how to brew and bottle and generally “make
the stuff”. I thought I’d better put all my beer-making on hold until I’d
seen today’s demo, and I got there with quarter of an hour to spare, just in
case there were loads of people. In the event there was a rather
disappointing turn out. There were a pair of mates, one of whom had bought
the other a beer-making kit last Xmas and they thought they’d better use the
thing. There were a pair of hippies, one of whom claimed to make marmalade
beer, and there was a rather quiet chap who seemed to be a friend of the
bloke giving the demonstration. The chap giving the demonstration was very good;
knowledgeable but without being condescending in any way. He showed us how to
sterilise all the gear and make up a kit of beer. Then we had a “Blue
Peter” moment when he produced a barrel of beer he’d made earlier; two
weeks earlier. That brew was ready to be bottled, and he showed us how to
bottle the stuff. This bit was very “hands on” and I got to have a go.
He also showed us (me) the ins and outs of keeping beer in pressure
barrels, which I found useful, and a bit of a though-provoker. I’d been told that the session would probably last for
about half an hour: it actually went on for an hour and a half. It was really
good. Everyone joined in and chatted, the chap running the show involved
everyone, I learned loads. I’ve decided against my original idea of brewing
beer in recycled saline boxes. Since they were offering 10% off of purchases
for people who’d been to the demonstration I got a fermenter
and a pressure barrel. I also got a complimentary bottle of the beer we bottled
this afternoon as well, which (I thought) was a nice touch. The only reservation I had about the demonstration at the
home brew shop was the turn out. I was there because I’m keen on my new-found
hobby. I got the impression that the hippies and the friend of the
demonstrator were also keen beer brewers. But I don’t think that that the two
mates were really going to spend a lot in the brew shop. And in retrospect it
was somewhat disconcerting that during the course of the demonstration, not a
single customer called in. It has to be said that the shop is more than a
little off the beaten track. I hope they stay in business, but they can’t
really be described as doing a roaring trade. And then to Friends were organising an Xmas
fete to raise funds for their scout group, and ‘er
indoors TM was running a candle-flogging stall. I
thought I’d wander along to add my (im)moral support. If nothing else, fetes are good places to
get cake which is both cheap and of good quality. The fete was running from 4-7pm. My initial reaction was
that that was an odd time to have a fete, but then none of the fetes I’d been
involved with when I was a scout leader had been especially lucrative.
Perhaps the 1st Park Farm scout group knew something I
didn’t. I arrived to find the fete pretty much set up. In fact all that was
missing were punters. There seemed to be quite a few people milling round,
but most of them seemed to be like me – “hangers-on” of the various
stalls. Of the few customers we had, few were remarkable. There was a rather
aggressive looking lady who refused to part with any money on any stall
because “it would be a waste of money as I don’t live in Ashford” (!)
I laughed as her child started eating the make-up products on the Body Shop
stall. And there was a visiting child who was a dead ringer for Draco Malfoy (of Harry
Potter fame). Unfortunately There was a respectable turn-out from the astro club, and I had a good chat with friends. I had a
go on the badge making stall, and then I made myself rather ill from eating
too many cakes. And then with someone else calling the raffle (makes a
change!) we packed up early and came home. Was the event profitable for the scouts? I don’t know.
Talking to stallholders I got the impression the thing wasn’t a washout. I
hope they made enough. If anyone deserves cash, it’s the scout association. And then home. I’ve got my fermenter
filled with sterilising solution ready for tomorrow (when I intend to get
my beer for Xmas started). And I’ve lifted my barrel of stout into
position for dispensing. The formal launch of the produce of “The Manky
Brewery” will be on Tuesday evening, but I have to admit I’ve had a
crafty sip of the stuff. I’m reasonably impressed. I’ve tasted worse… |
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21 November 2010 (Sunday) - Lamberhurst Xmas Fayre
Once again an early start. ‘er indoors TM had
arranged to flog candles to an unsuspecting public at the Lamberhurst Village Xmas Fayre,
And I’d arranged to go along for want of anything better to do. We arrived to find consternation. It turned out that “George” showed us where we could set up our stall.
We were squeezed in between someone selling really hideous tat on one side,
and a fit bird flogging silver jewellery on the other. The tat was truly
awful. It was home made papier mache
vases and jugs (starting at fiufteen quid each).
The only conceivable use these might have would be that when the charity
collectors call, you might have something that you can give away. The fit
bird had jewellery for sale which wasn’t too shabby, but she wasn’t giving it
away. Mind you, no one was giving anything away. There was some woman
knocking out stuff from “My Secret Kitchen” – the ingredients to make
(most of) a loaf of bread cost a tenner.
Another stall was flogging home made linen hobby horses for twenty quid. And
there were some truly terrible floral arrangements to be had for thirty quid. And again this place summed up what is wrong with the
entire concept of running a stall at a village fete. The idea is to get cash
from the general public. But the general public don’t come to these things to
spend money. The general public (by and large) stay at home. Those
that do venture to a show such as today’s come along, grumble how much it all
costs, and then go home again. Most (all) of the punters who were parting with
their hard-earned cash today were spending it on stalls run by their friends;
having arranged in advance to come along to support their friends’ stall(s).
I couldn’t work that one out at all. If you’re going to be selling to your
mates, why bother paying for a stall in a draughty village hall? Why not just
invite your mates round and flog your stuff to them from the comfort of your
own living room? It was very obvious that those stalls making money were
those run by people who had got all their mates to come along. Every sale
made on any stall was accompanied by a ten minute chat about old times and
mutual friends and relatives. Those of us (and there were quite a few of
us) who had travelled a long distance didn’t get a sniff. The only good thing that could be said about the day was
that when the raffle was drawn, I won the Xmas cake. We packed up and on the way home we stopped at Biddenden Vineyard where I got a tray of Blues. If my
home-made Stout fails, I’ll have a back-up plan for Xmas day. And then to Lidls. Lidls were knocking out
bottles of MasterBrew at a pound each. It’s not my
favourite beer, but I’ve had much worse in my time. And then home where I’ve now got the next batch of stout
on the go. Five gallons of the stuff. It is just sitting in a huge bucket in
my back room at the moment. I hope it will turn out OK… |
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22 November 2010 (Monday) –
Frustrating
A rather frustrating day at work.
In early September I mentioned that the management were trying to arrange for
us to record our continuing professional development on commercially
available software. At the time I said in a meeting that this would be a
waste of valuable money when there was something almost identical available free. At that
meeting I was rudely dismissed and openly laughed at. Today that meeting
reconvened for an update. Those advocating the commercially available
software were rather reticent in their progress report. They felt the firm
they were dealing with might be ready in a few months time (or it might
not). I “engaged gloat mode” and told the meeting that my freebie
version had been running for over two months. After the meeting the lady who was
pushing to spend the money amazed me. She had to go to another meeting. It
turned out that she’s a school governor, and there was a meeting at the
school to go over the details of the second round of redundancies being made
at that school. Apparently it was going to be terrible and heartbreaking (I
imagine it would be!), but there was nothing anyone could do about it. I
naively suggested that there might be something she could do; namely not vote
for the redundancies. But that wasn’t possible. You weren’t allowed to be a
governor unless you voted for what “they” wanted to do. I asked who “they”
were, but was met with a confused stare. “They” would seem to be the
people who run the school. I thought that was the governors…? One of the chaps at work was
relating his worries; his girlfriend wants them to get engaged. This couple
have been together for ten years, have bought a house together, have had two
children together, but he absolutely refuses to get engaged to the girl.
What’s that all about? And then on the way home I heard
something on the radio which put my sad life into perspective. Wei Jinpeng was until
recently a fisherman on the The radio article was rather vague
on the details of how there comes to be so many corpses floating down
the |
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23 November 2010 (Tuesday) - Home
Brew(s)
I was up at 6am this morning, and watching Star Trek on
telly. Star Trek: Enterpriseisn’t really that
bad. To work, which was the same as ever, and
then home again. With a dozen shirts ironed and the tribes gathered I
formally announced the opening of the first batch of home brew. “Stout
Fellow” turned out reasonably well, all things considered. Certainly
better than first attempts at other hobbies have gone in the
past. I’d made twenty pints of the stuff, and this evening we
probably shifted half of that lot. I have mentioned that the second batch is under way. All
that lot needs is a name. A couple of possibilities come to mind. And so to bed. It will be interesting to see how my head
is in the morning after five pints of home brew… 24 November 2010 (Wednesday) - A
Roman Villa
Up with the lark, remarkably chipper bearing in mind the
amount of stout that I saw off last night. I watched another episode of Star
Trek: There was an interesting article on the radio today about
the place of
sport in schools. Again I find myself in the embarrassing position of
agreeing with the government. They want to do away with money specifically
earmarked for school sports, and let individual schools decide where to spend
the cash. I’d go further. I’d do away with sport in schools (in its
current format) altogether. Instead let “sport” be something that
kids formally study. They can do this over the course of one year. The
schools could invite experts and/or local sports teams, and the kids might
have a go at badminton, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, karate, archery, all
sorts of sports. All the children would get to learn about the sport and all
would get a go. Rather than the traditional way of only encouraging the
half-dozen who excel at sport. And then all the kids would have an idea about
a whole range of sports, and may be more inclined to pursue something they
otherwise might not have. I have some small experience of this – for my third year
at secondary school there was no P.E. teacher available for our forty minute
P.E. lesson. So the biology teacher stepped in. In his past he had played for
the Home for a bit of tea and then the doorbell rang. Chip was
there saying something about “Bonus knockers” (!), and then we were
off to the arky-ologee club. We started with mild consternation in that the
club has been infiltrated by metal-detectorists.
Last month a couple of blokes turned up and said that they were into
arky-ologee and they owned metal detectors. Apparently (in arky-ological
circles) metal-detectorists are akin to Satan.
They would seem to infiltrate arky-ologee clubs to suss out where to go detectoring and then get rich on their profits. Now I
think that his conspiracy is somewhat over-exaggerated. Firstly because I
can’t see anyone getting rich on the dull bits of broken pot that our bunch
finds. And secondly if any malignant metal-detectorists
were to attempt to infiltrate the club, I doubt they’d be dumb enough to
admit to being a malignant metal-detectorist in the
first place. Tonight’s talk was surprisingly interesting. It was about
the Roman villa on the east cliff at Folkestone. Did you know there was a
Roman villa there? No? Neither did I. I’ve actually
walked over the top of it a few times over the last few years. I shall have
to go back with my dowsing rods and see if I can find it. And following my suggestion of how successful the
constellation game is at the astro club, something
similar was tried tonight as a fundraiser. Rather than selling
constellations, they sold names of towns of historical interest. I asked for
a rude sounding one. The chap selling the thing was bemused by that. He had
no idea what a rude town sounded like. I went for “Ribchester”
because (as I explained) it’s got rib and chest in it, and that’s
where you find tits. The logic was unassailable because I won the tenner. Same time next month…. |
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25 November 2010 (Thursday) - PCs,
Rants....
With “My Boy TM ” away
for the night and me being on a late start today, I was looking forward to a
lie-in. So today would be the day that next door’s dogs started screaming at
6am. And then the post arrived. Waitrose
have sent us an Xmas card with a money off voucher.
If I spend forty quid with them, they will give me a fiver off the bill.
That’s nice. If I use the voucher and spend forty quid with them, then they
will be only “rather more” expensive than Tesco. I then had a go on-line for a bit. My poor old PC is seriously
struggling. The anti virus updater was having “General Errors”. After
a bit (a lot) of fiddling around I eventually uninstalled the
anti-virus and the re-installed it. I would like to say “successfully
re-installed it”, but that would be tempting fate. Let’s just say that
the thing managed to update itself, which it hadn’t before, and I’m hoping
for the best. Mind you, it still sounds like a helicopter trying to lift an
extremely heavy load. To work, so as it was on my way I stopped off at Comet and
PC world to look at their new computers. A few months ago I was keen on the
idea of a “micro” computer: a tablet or a laptop. Having tried the
Internet on my phone and found it to be impractical, I think I am looking to
replace my PC on a “like for like” basis with another deskyop style PC. The problem is that when I got my current PC four years
ago, it was the cat’s cock as far as PCs go. And in the intervening four
years I’ve rather lost the language of PCs. Looking at what was on the
shelves in the shop, the specifications of the various machines might as well
have been written in Greek for all the sense they made to me. And for the second day running I found myself in agreement
with the government. As I drove home this evening there was an article on Radio
Four about how the government have decided to put a cap on how much housing
benefit people can claim. The radio program featured an interview with Manni. Manni is twenty
eight years old, has six children and rents a five bedroomed
house in central The radio program then went on to interview a local
community leader where Manni lives. Abraham Pinter
(who runs many nearby schools) said how the government’s plans to
restrict the amount of housing benefit people can claim will force people out
of areas where housing costs are high. People will have to move away to areas
where housing is affordable. He wasn’t keen on the possibility of this because if this
happened he wouldn’t be able to see so much of his grandchildren. I could
understand that, and I sympathised. Until the interviewer asked Abraham how
many grandchildren he had. Go on – guess. I nearly crashed my car when I
heard. This bloke has twenty eight grandchildren. Twenty eight
!!! The entire radio program can be downloaded and listened to
as a podcast here. Please could someone listen to it and
explain to me how it can be fair that as a taxpayer I subsidise everyone else
to breed like rabbits, whist having made a conscious decision myself to only
have two children because (much as I wanted more children) I knew that
I couldn’t afford a third. And having had a rant, I’ll end on a lighter note. Over on
Twitter there is another
tweeter. He has yet to do his first tweet (or “twit” as he prefers to
call it), but I’m reliably informed he’s enjoying the whole “twitting
experience”. Why not send him a “twit”?... |
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26 November 2010 (Friday) - Astro Club
I had a wonderful sleep last night, and awoke feeling
really refreshed and raring to go. As I rolled over I checked the time. It
was five past two – I’d only slept for three hours. I then dozed
intermittently for the rest of the night, seeing every hour as it passed. At
half past five I gave up laying awake, got up and
did the ironing whilst watching Star Trek. To work, where I heard a malicious rumour that wombles are now actually extinct. Surely that can’t be
true? Endangered, maybe. But extinct? And then to the astro club.
Again I was proud to be a part of the astro club –
despite a shaky start three years ago, the thing is now really good. We
started off with a talk about the sun from one of our youngest members. Katie
is seven (I think), but her talk was excellent. I learned something.
Twice each year the sun lines up with household satellite dishes, and using
the Sky Plus box’s diagnostics you can see how the signal to noise ratio
changes for fifteen minutes as the sun comes across. There was then a five minute interlude on the so-called “Goldilocks
Zone” – with extra solar planets being found so rapidly, science is now
looking for planets in the “Goldilocks Zone” – that area round a star
where a planet will be neither too cold or too warm to support life. The
hypothesis was ventured that life is so tenacious that it can occur pretty
much anywhere, and various “extremophile”
animals were quoted as examples. It was suggested that the idea of a “Goldilocks
Zone” is perhaps wrong. There then followed a discussion on the issue. I
agreed with some of the ideas being proposed, and not with others.
Realistically until the concept of “life” can be defined to the
agreement of all, such discussions will be somewhat open-ended. The main talk of the evening was something that (in all
honesty) I didn’t think was going to interest me. But in the event, “The
Trials and Tribulations of an Amateur Astronomer” was a fascinating
insight into the speaker’s hobby and life. We then had the raffle – arguably the best part of the
evening. Most people seem to join in when I get hawking the thing, and we
took over thirty quid for the club. I’m always pleased with the success of
the raffle and constellation game. A silly bit of fun pays to keep the club
going. And then with raffle hawked and coffee drunk we went outside for some
stargazing. The night was very clear, and we saw Andromeda, the nebula in
Orion, and Jupiter’s moons. We even used the club’s very own wobblyprop to hold the binoculars still. I spent a little
while watching As the evening went on, I was approached by a couple of
people who wondered if I would go back to scouting. It would seem that the
leader of a local cub pack is giving up, and a leader is needed. Would I take
up the reins once again? For a moment I was tempted. But realistically I’m
not keen. I originally went along because the local group needed help, and my
son was a cub in that pack. I originally went along with my eight year old.
He’s now twenty three. I was a leader there for thirteen years. I’ve done my
bit…. |
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27 November 2010 (Saturday) - Miss
Scarlett Did It !!!
According to the NHS website,
gout affects 1% of the male population. Just my luck. My right foot has been
swollen up like a balloon for two days now. I really shouldn’t have gone to
work today, but I either have a sense of duty or a sense of stupidity. On the way home I drove past the G.P.’s
surgery in case they were open. They weren’t. I tried the pharmacy next door.
I asked if they had anything for gout. They asked how I knew I had gout; had
I had it before? I explained that I wouldn’t
normally self-diagnose, but with the G.P. being closed, the Internet seemed
to make me think that gout was my most likely (immediate) problem. The
nice lady sold me some ibuprofen to relieve the swelling, and suggested I
went back to the Internet to get some ideas about how I might control my gout
through changing my diet. So I went back on line. Guess what causes gout? I nearly
cried, but I expect my loyal readership with laugh. Stout
!! I’ve spent quite a bit of money on making stout over the last few
weeks. I’ve got another five gallons of the stuff brewing for Xmas. And it
turns out that I shouldn’t really touch a drop of it. So if any of my loyal readers should happen to pop in over
the festive period, feel free to help me empty out the barrel of stout. It’s
a good job ‘er indoors TM likes
the stuff. For myself, I’ve visited the brew shop and have some light
coloured wheat beer to make up. Other than cutting out the stout, I wondered if there was
anything else I could change about my lifestyle to sort out this gout. I
don’t really eat a lot of red meat, and I have poxy salads quite a bit
already. I could lose some weight. Well, I could in theory. In practice that
is easier said than done. The
internet says that celery and cherries and drinking loads of water
are supposed to help. The internet however doesn’t say where you can buy
cherries in late November. Tesco’s didn’t have any when we went there this
afternoon. They had celery, though. They didn’t have much in the
way of canvas shoes, which was a shame. I slept for much of the remainder of the afternoon, and
then whilst Miss Blue got ready I assumed my alter ego of the Reverend Rose.
Andy had organised a murder mystery evening, and I’d been looking forward to
this for some time. Once Miss Grey and Colonel Mustard had arrived I drove us
all round to Blackwater Manor. The vicar drove,
because the vicar wasn’t drinking that night. Because of the tablets he was
taking for his gout. We arrived to be greeted by the butler, who soon
disappeared never to been seen again. Professor Plums and Lady Blackwater were in residence, and very soon we were
joined by Mr Green, Major Strangely-Brown (he was!), Miss Scarlett and a shifty looking Russian. After a welcoming
cocktail, everyone wandered off and the lights went out. There was a scream
from “Latrine” (the French maid); the shifty looking Russian
was dead. Despite having a lump on the back of his head and stab wounds in
the chest, as our investigations proceeded we speculated on the possibilities
that the deceased had been variously shot, smothered, hung, garrotted and
poisoned. To begin with we were rather hampered in our investigations by the
fact that Mr Green seemed to have an unholy fascination with what Major
Strangely-Brown had been doing in the lavatory. And then we found that the
hallway was filled with feathers. Bird feathers (as opposed to cow
feathers!). But with the help of some rather cryptic clues we eventually
got past that stage. Eventually we found the closed circuit TV. In the hour
before he was murdered, everyone had had dealings with the shifty looking
Russian. He was a nasty piece of work, that shifty looking Russian. He was
trying to bribe and blackmail everyone there. Miss Blue was secretly running
an escort agency featuring ladies of loose morals and even looser knicker elastic. Colonel Mustard was in the fiddle;
selling arms to Chechen rebels. Professor Plums had been guilty of research
malpractice. The vicar turned out to be still in the closet. In fact the only
one who wasn’t being blackmailed was the environmentalist Mr Green, who
wasn’t happy that the shifty looking Russian was going to bulldoze the ducks
and stuff. Eventually we figured out what had happened. As the lights
went out Professor Plums had tried to shoot the shifty looking Russian, but
had missed. As the shifty looking Russian ran away, Miss Blue smacked him
over the head with the candlestick, and he staggered into the kitchen. This
was where Miss Scarlett did for him with the glass
shards from the broken poison bottle so that he wouldn’t reveal the fact that
she was a secret MI6 agent. A brilliant evening. Great fun,
and we had to think too! Andy did wonderfully with the plot. I can’t wait
until the next one. But next time I’ll spend the evening sitting down.
Because standing up played up my gout…. |
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28 November 2010 (Sunday) – Dull
I suppose that I had a reasonable night’s sleep. Certainly
better than some I’ve had recently. I would have liked a bit more of a
lie-in, but the foot was throbbing. Seeing how you can’t take ibuprofen on an
empty stomach meant I needed to have brekkie before
taking anything to ease the throbbing. So I got up. I tried sitting with my
leg up, but I’m not sure that actually helps. Having sat with my leg up for
any length of time just means that when I go to stand my foot *really* hurts.
If I just sit, then the throbbing is bearable. Some time ago I’d offered to give another talk to the astro club; I’ve been working on a presentation about
comets for a little while. At last Friday’s meeting I found that I’ve been
pencilled in to do this talk next October. So I spent a little while this
morning doing some more work on my presentation. Comets have always been a
fascination of mine. If any loyal readers would like to know why, then I
suggest they book a date in their diary for next October… I spent some time in NeverWinter, and then we went to
Tesco to get some Xmas pressies. What with double clubcard voucher points refund offers we went to the
checkout with nearly a hundred quid’s worth of stuff, and only handed over
thirty five quid. I shall start taking my clubcard
a bit more seriously. Mind you I have it on good authority that the BOGOF offer
in B&Q needs careful scruting if you don’t want
to get ripped off. The Rear Admiral phoned to have a grumble. H’ed bought a dozen items on “buy one, get one free”.
It doesn’t work like you’d think: buy one of something, get something
identical free. It works that for everything you buy, you get something free.
But not just any something. Specifically the cheapest something. So if you
buy two Xmas trees and two bags of crisps thinking they are “buy one, get
one free”, you pay for both Xmas trees and get the crisps free. I thought
that was a con. The way round this is to pair up your purchases, and do
loads and loads of transactions with the store; each transaction being of
only two similarly priced items. Each transaction also costs the store eight
pence (or so I am reliably informed). If any of my loyal
readers hear that B&Q have changed their policy, do let me know…. And then home where I slept through “I Am Legend” on the
DVD, and woke to find that James Bond was on the telly. I remember Goldfinger being a much better film thirty years ago. Sundays for me seem to have got into a rut. Following a
really good Saturday, Sunday just seems to be a day to waste before I go back
to work. I had hoped to have done more with today. But a combination of
sub-zero temperatures and an inability to walk more than ten yards without
needing a break made today somewhat dull. Perhaps I’ll do more next weekend… In the meantime I’m having problems in NeverWinter. Does
anyone have any tips for dealing for a stroppy manticore…? |
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29 November 2010 (Monday) - Stuff
In theory burglar alarms on cars and houses are a good
idea. In practice I honestly think they should be outlawed. Surely it would
be better to have a silent alarm which goes off at the police station to
alert them that something’s going on, rather than having something making a
god-awful racket in the street where no one is going to do anything and which
everyone ignores. Several people along our road have them, and when they go
off at 4.30am (like one did today), they ring and scream for over an
hour. No one comes along to see what the noise is about; the police certainly
don’t. All that happens is that everyone suffers the noise until the battery
finally goes flat and the noise stops. It was just as well that I was on a
late start today – I got a bit of a lie-in to catch up on some missed sleep. I had planned to be at the doctor’s for opening time for
them to have a look at my gout-ridden foot. But over the weekend a
combination of no beer, celery and ibuprofen had reduced the pain somewhat.
The foot was still rather red this morning, but I could move it about better
than I could yesterday. And from what I can gather, I didn’t think there’s an
awful lot the doc can do other than prescribe ibuprofen and tell me to avoid
the stout. And it had snowed a bit overnight and I didn’t want to drive in
the snow. So rather than waiting on their doorstep I thought I’d
give them a ring to ask their opinion. I started phoning at the surgery’s
opening time. After over two hours of chasing round their automated
switchboard I gave up and drove down to the surgery. I hobbled in and
explained that I’d been phoning for over two hours, and asked if I could see
a doctor. The old bat on the desk clearly hadn’t listened to what I said; she
told me there were no appointments available, and that I should have phoned
earlier. I asked her if she’d ever tried phoning the surgery herself, and
re-iterated that I’d been trying to get through for two hours. She merely
stared at me, and repeated that there were no appointments. She suggested
that I might like to try again tomorrow. “Try” being the operative
phrase, as they could offer no guarantee of an appointment tomorrow either. I got to work, and just out of curiosity I phoned the G.P.
surgery just down the road from my house. The phone was answered on the
second ring by a nice lady who told me that they are taking on patients, and
suggested that I popped in tomorrow morning to talk to them. I might just do
that: I’ve not been happy with my current surgery for some time. They weren’t
overly helpful with my creaky knee, and they couldn’t have been less helpful
with my (possibly) broken arse bone. Mind you, my G.P. might be rubbish, but my hospital is the
best in the country. And
it’s official!!! |
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30 November 2010
(Tuesday) - This n That
We’ve had a
seriously heavy snowfall overnight (three inches), and as usual the
country has ground to a halt. Normally when it
snows I walk to work, but being on a late start (and finish) meant I’d
be walking home at 8pm, which is a bit late for that. Also my foot’s still
sore, and probably not up to walking the four miles to work. Mind you, my
foot’s a lot better than it was, now that I’ve squeezed a pint of pus out of
it (yuk!). I’m now wondering (hoping) that my recent problems wasn’t gout at all, but was actually an
infection. That would suit me – an infection would just be one of those
random occurrences, rather than something which is directly related to my
home-brew (which gout would be). If only I had access to a G.P. to
find out. After a morning
wasted in NeverWinter I extracted my car from the snow, and set off to work.
I spent a little while in the car park taking some photos, and then it was on
with the work where I was amazed to find that this time no one had phoned in
trying for “snow-leave”. This winds me up a
bit. I blame the schools entirely for this. The schools close down at the
mere mention of the word “snow”, and children have come to expect it.
We have brought up a generation here in the Normally late shifts
at work are dull, but this evening “Daddies Little Angel TM ” rang for a chat. She was on
the And then this
evening I found something on-line that made me stop
and think. It would seem that my old Boys Brigade Company is no more. I was in that Boys
Brigade for nearly ten years – I was one of the first four of its members to
get the Queens Badge. I’ve still got my Queen’s Badge. Although I left the
B.B. in 1984, I went back every year to help with the hiking-camping contest,
up until the last one in 1990. I was one of the guests at the retirement of
the Company’s founder in 1995. Ten people on my Facebook list are from the
halcyon days of the B.B. I even met ‘er
indoors TM because of the B.B. And once we’d left And now the 8th |
