Currently Reading

Book 4 in a series of 5. This one is the hardest to read, as it has very little action, and endless descriptions of the environment the characters are travelling through.

Can Britain Choose Talent?

For the first time, I succumbed to watching the TV show "Britain's Got Talent". At present there are 5 semi-final shows spread over this week, with the final to take place on Saturday. After all the recent revelations of competition fixing by various shows, I am wondering how truthful and accurate this actually is.

The winner of this show is going to perform at the Royal Variety Show in front of Her Majesty, The Queen. Now what I am curious to know is does Her Majesty ever watch TV? If she does, would she watch "Britain's Got Talent"? And what would happen if she contacted the producers of the show and tells them that she likes a particular act? We are never told how many votes were cast for the individual acts. How easy would it be for the producers to make sure an act favoured by Her Majesty would go through to the final and ultimately win despite what the public vote might be?

Also, why do the producers think that 3 celebrities, would be able to choose the best acts to continue towards the semi-finals. I would have thought it would have been better if there were different judges at each stage of the competition. Then you could be certain that the acts chosen would entertain a greater percentage of the public.

M.O.T. Time For Me.

There is nothing worse than having to attend a medical inspection simply because you have now reached an age where your employers deem it necessary to find out if you are still alive and kicking! Although there is a distinct advantage in finding out that I have a clean bill of health completely free of charge.



One part of this process had me puzzled though. Why did they require me to list all the jobs I have done since I left school? I have been working for my present employer for nearly 14 years, and have been working for 33 years! If I had known the questions they would ask, I could have brought in my CV for them to read!



The end result of my medical examination is that I am unlikely to break down or have bits fall off for another 4 years! Does that mean I can pretend to be 21 again?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Accentuate the Positive!

So far, this morning has proved to be quite enjoyable. After waking up about 15 minutes before the alarm went off, it was really nice to cuddle up to my wife and wake her up slowly. By the time the alarm did go off, we were both sufficiently awake to jump into the shower. Not bad going when you consider the alarm went off at 04:45!

After a quick bite to eat, and a cup of coffee shared between us to get our bodies stimulated, we both put on our motorcycle gear and set off to work. Because of where I live, and where my wife works, she has to catch two buses to get her to work. My wife is supposed to start work today at 10:00. The buses in our area do not start until after 09:00, and it takes her two hours to get to work by bus! It is not because of the journey times, as each bus journey is no more than 15-20 minutes. It is the frequency of the services of one every hour, and having to wait nearly an hour between bus journeys.

My wife decided she would prefer a 15 minute motorbike ride to work and wait for 4 hours to start work, rather than have to face using public transport. So after getting a 15 minute cuddle taking my wife to work (there are definite advantages to having a female sitting behind you on a motorbike), I then made my way back to the train Station to catch my train to work.

When I arrived at the Station, I was met by two Police Officers, who were turning away all vehicles except coaches from the station fore court. Fortunately, as I was on my bike, they waved me straight through. After parking the bike up, I went and got onto the train waiting at the platform.

The time came for the train to depart and suddenly we got an announcement "Ladies and Gentlemen. We apologise, but this train is now cancelled as we have no conductor for this service. Your next service to London will be at 06:20" After a few muttered expletives, I collected my belongings and got off the train. I was about to go and search for a phone to inform my work colleague that I would be late for work, when the train driver approached me and asked "Do you work for London Underground?"
"Yes" I said.
"You can get back on the train. The conductor is waiting at the next Station". The driver replied. I would not have received this courtesy if I had not been wearing my full Uniform! Sometimes life can be very enjoyable.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Practice Makes Perfect!

Today has been a glorious warm sunny day. Apart from having to go to work at a place where the sun doesn't shine, this afternoon has just got better and better!



On the way home I picked my wife up from work (after dropping her off to work at some ungodly hour this morning) and once we got home we had another visitor. As the weather was so nice, my wife trusted me to attempt to cook on the BBQ again!



This time I paid attention and waited for the flames to die down before I started cooking. I then tried a technique that proved to be successful! As soon as I put food on the grill, I kept turning it over and over every minute. This way I got the food to be thoroughly cooked without being cremated! We even enjoyed eating the food in the garden, washed down with a nice glass of wine, or beer, depending on personal preferences.



I took a couple of pictures of the event, and I am also attempting to upload this blog from my mobile phone for the very first time!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Who said BBQ's were easy?

I was persuaded by my wife that instead of cooking a nice dinner for our guests, it would be a good idea to have a BBQ instead. So I rummaged through the shed, and dug out the trusty old BBQ grill, dusted off the cobwebs, and gave it a thorough good clean. "So far so good" I thought. The weather was a bit blustery, and overcast, but there was no sign of rain yet.

My wife and daughter were busy in the kitchen preparing the salad and the drinks. So now all I have to do is light the charcoal, and cook the food. "Easy peasy" says I. "Learn from my one other attempt last year to use a BBQ. Now what did I do wrong last year? I remember! I tried cooking the food before the coals had died down, and consequently the grill was too hot and cremated everything". So determined not to make the same error, I lit the coals one hour before the guests were due to arrive.

After about 20 minutes, the flames died down and the BBQ looked ready to start cooking. So being a bit cautious, I put a couple of items on the grill to see if if they would cook without being cremated, and discovered that it was still too hot. I then made my first mistake. I left the grill for another 40 minutes!

The guests duly arrived, and I went to check on the BBQ grill. To my dismay, all the coals had burnt down and there was hardly any left! I probably had about 10 or 20 minutes left before it went out. In a panic, I added more coals, and soon enough, up it flared again. Now it was too hot again to try cooking. The guests were here, hungry. My wife wanted me to start cooking the meat. I tried to cook the food without cremating it too much by putting the food round the edge of the grill. Even there it was still too hot. So by the time the food was cooked on the inside, it was well and truly burnt on the outside!

My wife suggested that she put some water on the BBQ coals to cool them down, but thankfully, she thought maybe it wasn't such a good idea, as it may put the fire out completely. Instead she kept the guests happy with topping up their glasses with the various alcoholic beverages of their choice.

With the alcohol taking effect, the burnt food became a little more edible than normal. By the end of the evening, everyone had thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

At the end of the day, I had to clean the grill, myself, and wash my smoky clothes! I also have the dubious task of eating the remainder of the cremated food the next day!

Who let the MP's out of the Asylum?

I was looking for something topical to do with the current mess the British MP's have got themselves into over their expenses. How they bleat about how they have done nothing wrong as it was within the framework they had previously agreed. Of course this would be the case, as they can make up any Law they want to (especially if it is to their own benefit). All they need is to convince enough of their colleagues of the benefits and hey presto! you can lead a a very wealthy life at the expense of the taxpayer!

It is fortunate that the politicians can be replaced come the next general election. Although I wonder how many of them will promise you one thing while trying to be elected, and then do something completely different when they have gained a coveted seat in Parliament!

have been trying to find out if some of the daft laws passed by the government over the centuries are still actually active, and have not been repealed. Every now and then the media dig up some interesting titbit that makes you wonder why Parliament do not actually allocte a certain amount of time each year to go through the statute books and repeal obviously outdated, and useless laws.

One such law is that it is illeagal to die in the Houses of Parliament! The reasoning behind this is that a rumour was spread that if you died in the Houses of Parliament, you were entitled to a State Funeral. Maybe this rumour started because on the site of the present Parliament used to be the Palace of Westminster, home for many of the medieval Monarchs, who would have been entitled to a State Funeral. What puzzles me, is that no one has discovered any concrete evidence about State Funeral entitlement, so why the need to make a law about something that doesn't exist!

Another daft Law is that "All English Men over 14 are meant to carry out 2 hours (or so) of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy". Again I can understand the need for this Law after the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Why hasn't this law been repealed? Perhaps the law could be amended to fit into todays society by changeing the word Longbow to Darts, and Clergy to Publicans! Then at least we would become a nation of darts champions!

Does anyone actually know if there is an official website that has every currently active British Law avaiable to see? Or is that a closely guarded secret that only the Politicians and the Lawyers are allowed to know about?

Currently Reading

Book number 3 in a series of 5

Am I becoming a Movie Mogul?

About 18 months ago, I got involved with movies in a completely new way. First I was approached by a film company called Full Circle, who wanted me to buy shares in their next project. Normally, I wouldn't consider risking money on a venture like this, as the chances of receiving your money back, or any profits are entirely dependent on the success of the finished product. You hear of successful films such as Slumdog Millionaire, The Full Monty, and Ghost, that were made with very small capital investment, and the shareholders will receive a big return on their investment. You also hear of the big flops that should have been successful, but do not recoup the initial investment, such as Heavens Gate. Those shareholders lose their money.

What convinced me to take a risk, was the British Government. If I invested in this project, I could offset the investment against my taxes! Basically, this means that over three years, 66% of my investment will be paid back as a rebate in taxes. So yes, I could lose my investment completely. Also I stand a chance to gain enormously on my investment too! The film I have invested in is called The Mortician, so it will be interesting to see how successful it will be when it is released in 2010.

Another aspect of investing in this film, is that I get a chance to go to the premieres, and meet the stars. Also I could visit the film sets, only it is going to be filmed mostly in the USA, so maybe I'll pass on that offer!

The other project does not involve any financial investment, only my time. This is where I Co-Produce a film with thousands of other people, through an e-mail questionaire. Here we are asked to work out the story, in what diresction we want it to go. What kind of music score we want, and even if you are really enthusiastic, to write the script! The end result is we will all be given some shares, depending on how much input we have provided, in the movie for free. Again, I have no idea how successful the movie will be, but this time, I guarantee to make some profit!

Picking someone elses brains can be very useful!

Yesterday evening, and all this morning, I have been trying to connect this blog to Twitterfeed. For some reason I could not get Twitterfeed to recognise the RSS feed from this site. I asked for help on both this Blogger forum and also on the Twitterfeed forums, and then headed off to work expecting to get an answer later today or tomorrow.

When I arrived at work, and told my colleague of my problem, he explained to me exactly what to do in about 30 seconds! So now every time I update this blog, I should have a nice shiny new Twitter update informing other Twiterers that they can see my blog update if they want to!

Not so much Tortoise pace, more like snail pace!

Back in January, I went to 2 seminars for the business I am slowly building up. I decided to take my camcorder with me to film the events, with the view to creating a DVD to pass on to my active team members.

The first Seminar was nearly 5 hours long, and I made the mistake of not bringing enough spare tapes with me, so consequently I didn't capture the last hour of the seminar! The second seminar, I took enough tapes, but forgot the mains lead! So again, I missed the last hour of the seminar. Next year I will do much better!

The videos were successfully transferred onto my computer using Pinnacle Studio. When I tried to edit the footage within the program, I kept losing the audio which makes the editing process impossible! No matter what I tried, I constantly lost the audio, and could not edit it.

Every few weeks I would go back to it and try something different, hoping I would discover a solution. Earlier this week, I suddenly began to make progress at last!

First I had to combine all the video clips to make one movie of 3 hours. Then I had to convert it from an AVI file to an MPEG file, this time there was audio in the converted product. Next I had to the 45GB file through DivX into a 1.5GB file. Finally, yesterday, I loaded this file into Roxio Easy Media Creator, and started to edit the movie, creating a menu, and adding chapters. This last process requires me to actually watch the footage in real time to place and name the chapter headings. I hope that in a few days time I will have managed to complete the task, and have a fully functioning DVD of the event, that will be fully accessible to any particular bit of the seminar for someone to watch and learn from!

A Twit of a Twitterer!

This morning, I walked with my wife and the dog to the next village so that my wife could get a bus to work. As she has to be at work by 08:00, she cannot wait for the bus from our village, as the first one doesn't come through until 07:30, and she would miss her connecting bus to get her to work!

So when I can, I walk with her for 30 minutes to the bus stop. Once she is safely on her way, I then walk back home, with the dog, by way of the river. This is a very tranquil and peaceful time, as the daily hum of the traffic is replaced by all the birdsong, the honking of the Canada Geese, and the noise from the sheep and the cows. Occasionally, you might hear the gentle gurgle of a small tributary running into the river.

While I was walking beside the river, I thought it would be nice to take a picture, and upload it to my Twitter account. I took the picture at 07:00 this morning, and tried, and tried to upload it, without any success. My mistake was that on my BlackBerry phone I had the option of "Send to TwitterBerry". This did not work, and after 3 or 4 hours trying I gave up. It was only when I got to work and looked on the TwitPic site, did I discover that I need to Email the picture instead!

So I have successfully uploaded my first picture, and have learned not to try and send another one via TwitterBerry!

Currently Reading

Flushed with success!

The reason I chose the title above is that two things of interest happened to me yesterday.

The first was, I listened to the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 that had the subject of toilets, more specifically, how to clean yourself after you have finished. The old addage "The jobs never completed until the paperwork is done!" certainly fits this subject perfectly.

I discovered that it is mainly British and American people who use toilet paper to clean themselves. Muslims, and a large proportion of the rest of the world, tend to wash themselves afterwards! In France, the Bidet is commonplace on most dwellings, but in the UK with very little space allocated to bathrooms, there is seldom enough space to have both a toilet and a Bidet.

I decided to investigate a little bit further, and discovered a company that provides a custom built toilet that washes and dries you after you've done the business. It is even self cleaning, as it has a reservoir of disinfectant too! I then looked to see how much one of these super dooper toilets would cost.... that's when my excitement got flushed down the pan, you have to stump up over £2000 for this toilet! I am not even going to attempt to try and work out how many toilet rolls £2000 would buy, or how long it would take to use them all! So I think it will take a long time before the UK wakes up to the more hygenic and comfortable way of going to the toilet.

The other success I had yesterday, was successfully persuading my wife to play a new board game. The game we played was called Cashflow. It was a very close game, and ultimately it was simply a throw of the dice which determined who won the game (me this time)! Hopefully we will be playing this game a few more times over the next few months.