Utility Man

Activity is guaranteed to grow your Business

2011-12-31T10:59:00.004Z

As some of you may know, I have been involved with a franchise business called The Utility Warehouse. I have been dabbling at this business half-heartedly for over 6 years, and I can safely say, that the income I receive from the business, has yet to overtake the amount of time and money invested into the business!

It does not mean that this business doesn't work, it just means that I have not taken it seriously enough to treat it as a proper business. Nobody told me that I needed to declare the business to the Tax Office, and be classed as self employed! As I was already working full time and paying taxes, I thought that it wasn't necessary until I started making substantial profits.

What I didn't realise is that had I employed a Chartered Accountant, I would have received tax rebates from my full time job to cover the expenses incurred on my business venture. I was told that in the first year alone, I could have expected up to £1000 tax rebate!

Instead, I finally declared my business 3 years ago, and I regularly get around £500 a year tax rebate. The income from the business is not very much at the moment, but it is beginning to go up month by month. The reason for this is I am finally doing some consistent action to promote the business. Let me explain what I have been doing.

At the end of October, I decided to invest in 10,000 A5 sized leaflets. I found a printing firm called GTEC online, and submitted this company approved advert below -

What I then did, was to set myself a target of delivering 200 leaflets a day, until I had completely delivered them all. But even the best laid plans do not always work out as you originally planned!

I soon discovered that it slows you down considerably if you try and do the leaflet drop in the dark! Also it is not a good idea to try and do a leaflet drop when it is raining (nobody will look at a soggy leaflet). Because I do shift work, my 200 a day plan was not a practical solution. As it turned out the system I finally worked out, seems to suit me best.

What I now do is deliver 200 leaflets on the days I am working late or night shifts. I do these in the morning, and it takes me approximately 90 minutes to complete the task. If it is raining, I will miss out doing the leaflet drop that day. When I have my rest days, or holidays, then I will deliver 400 leaflets. This will take me about 3 hours to complete. With earphones plugged into my mobile phone,I switch on the MP3 player, and it is surprising how fast the time goes by!

When I ordered the leaflets, I told myself I would be happy with gathering just 4 customers. The reason I chose this number is that the initial commission I would receive from those 4 customers would pay for the leaflets. Of course, every month onwards, I would continue to receive a monthly residual income (a form of royalty if you like). so far I have delivered about 6,000 leaflets, and I have successfully signed up 3 new customers. By my reckoning, I am well on target to achieving the goal I set myself.

I haven't done any leaflet drops the week before Christmas, or this week. If the weather is dry, I will be delivering another 400 leaflets on Friday 6th January. when this supply of leaflets have gone, and I have achieved my target of 4 new customers, then I will get in touch with GTEC again and order some more leaflets. What has surprised me is that I live in a small village (900 houses) on the edge of a large town called Milton Keynes. There is lots of green space, farmland, parks, and a river nearby, and yet I will have visited 10,000 homes, and travel no more than 3 miles (4.82 km) from my home!

So 2012 is going to be busy year for me, as I will be putting a lot more time and effort into my franchise business, than I have ever done before.

Is Britain becoming an unsafe place to be?

2011-09-22T13:22:00.004+01:00

While on the way to collect my wife from work, I was listening to the Jeremy Vine Show on radio 2. He was talking about how an Australian, by the name of Timothy Smits, was stabbed on a London bus in Dalston. I admire Timothy's bravery for trying to stand up to the 3 yobs, and I sincerely hope he doesn't have any long lasting post traumatic stress from the incident.

What amazes me about this incident is how the bus driver did absolutely nothing throughout the whole incident. I was a bus driver for 10 years on London buses, and I know what I would have done. The drivers are in control of the bus and make decisions on what to do. The drivers of today are protected by a perspex barrier, so the yobs would have had a much more difficult task of getting to the driver than at one of the defenceless passengers.

On one of my journeys on route 286 (now known as 340) from Edgware to Harrow-on-the-Hill, I had some disruptive youths causing havoc upstairs. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road, and using the Public Address system made an announcement that the bus would not be going anywhere, until the youths got off the bus. When one of them threatened me, I just told him I was getting paid whether I drove the bus or sat still. He was welcome to stay on the bus until the Police arrived to arrest him if he wished. At which point the youth and his mates then ran off.

My purpose was to inconvenience these idiots. Where I stopped the bus, was on part of the route where no other service travelled, so these Yobs would have had to wait for another 20 minutes before the next bus came along. As we had radio contact with our Garage, it was easy to send out an alert to other drivers to be aware.

In my 30 year career working on London Transport (buses and Underground) I have been assaulted only 3 times. It is only the first assault that I still have the odd nightmare over, and this happened nearly 15 years ago! It was my own stupid fault for not assessing the situation properly (that the Yob wasn't alone) realising that I shouldn't have tried to tackle the Yob smoking on a train! I ended up being headbutted by one of the Yob's mates! With hindsite, I would have acted completely differently. I would have still confronted the Yob who was smoking, but I would have used a different tactic other than trying to grab the Yob's cigarette from his mouth! Instead I would have gone for the fire extinguisher and used it on the yob! (well there was a fire, right?). More importantly, I would have had a very useful weapon to defend myself with if they decided to threaten me with violence.

What worries me about society today, is how the Liberal do-gooders have eroded all forms of discipline in this country. Now, young children grow up knowing that they cannot be touched by any adult, no matter how obnoxious, violent, and intimidating they be. As they grow older they think they cannot be disciplined by anyone. In this day of CCTV, I cannot understand why schools are still not allowed to discipline unruly children in class. If a child is being disruptive in class, why can't the teacher discipline them? With the CCTV footage available, the evidence will be there to protect both child and teacher. Surely it is in society's interest to show these Yobs that they cannot continue to terrorise everyone around them with impunity. By instilling discipline at an early age, will have major benefits of having far fewer troublemakers growing into adulthood, and creating an even bigger problem for society.

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Data

2011-06-20T10:33:00.009+01:00

There are times when I truly despair of ever really understanding the foibles of computers. What should seem easy turns out to be a protracted mess of damage limitation, and a desperate search for answers to your problem. Where is Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

What I am referring to is my previous blog (Computer Geek to the Rescue). After completing the blog on Saturday, I posted it without any problems. On Sunday, I noticed a few things I wanted to change, so I tried to edit the post, specifically, to add another picture. What happened was when I went to edit the post, all the data disappeared! All I was left with, was the title!!!

No amount of logging out, and back in again would magically restore my post!! So I started searching the web for any possible solutions.

What I discovered is that, again, I was not alone with this problem. In fact, it seems to be a major design fault with Blogger. Countless users are complaining about how the auto-save wipes out vast tracts of their data, and then they have no way to restore what has been lost. These posts have been going back years!!! Any mistake you make accidently deleting something cannot be undone!

It seems to be a problem with Blogger and Google have so far not done anything to resolve this problem. A lot of disgruntled bloggers are switching to Wordpress, which doesn’t seem to have this problem.

The other alternative (which is what I am doing at the moment), is to write your entire post as a word document, save it, and then copy it over into the data box in Blogger. This was what I had to do with my previous post.

The only thing I haven’t quite worked out how to do is get any pictures I have added to the word document, to copy over into the Blogger post field. I have just discovered a blog post by Robert Slater, that was created nearly 2 years ago, explaining how you cannot transfer pictures from word to blogger, and possible ways to to get around the problem.

Computer Geek to the Rescue!

2011-06-18T22:11:00.018+01:00

When I came home from work, my daughter informed me that our WiFi connection had stopped working. Now normally, this isn’t a problem, as the router has been known to freeze, and all you have to do is switch it off, then on again. So this was the first thing I tried, even though my daughter had already tried this already, I was too stupid to believe her that there was something more seriously wrong with the router!

What I did discover, was that it was the wireless part of the router that wasn’t working. The router (Thomson Gateway TG585 v7) was connected to my desktop computer via an Ethernet cable, and it could access the Internet without any problems. It just would not transmit any signal for the laptops to pick up!

So I had a brainwave. I started searching the web for forums that might shed a light on what was going on. I also dug out the flimsy instruction manual on setting up the router (about as much use as a chocolate fireguard). To my surprise, I was not alone in experiencing this problem. It seems that this router is prone to throwing a tantrum, and refuse to work!

One of the forum suggestions required me to reset the router, which I did using a wire paperclip in the recess at the back of the unit, and restarting the process. This also required me to input the username and password. So far, so good. I then had to use another username and password to access the routers settings, as it was here that I could try and get it to kick-start the transmitter again. As I was going into the settings, I was asked to change the username and password, which I did, and checked to see if all the settings were correct. They were. When I exited the settings, and checked the router, it still wasn’t working. To make matters worse, I couldn’t log back into the settings, as it wouldn’t recognise any of the username’s or passwords!

So I got out my trusty paperclip, and reset the bloody router to its factory default again. This time, I ignored any of the requests to change usernames, or passwords, and went back into the settings screen. This time I followed another forums advice to simply change the channel the router was broadcasting on. I changed the channel from 11 to 9 and “hey presto!” the router started working properly again!

My wife told me that when I first started to come to grips with sorting the problem, I was like a bear with a sore head, muttering curses under my breath, and a scowl upon my face. When I finally succeeded in fixing the router, she says I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat!!

Budding Film Mogul Bites The Dust!

2011-05-31T17:08:00.003+01:00

3 years ago, I was approached to invest in a new film production called "The Mortician". I was told that it was a high risk investment, as there is many hurdles to overcome, before the film is ultimately released.

Most films fall by the wayside before they even get to filming! With "The Mortician" everything seemed to be going well until last November, when we were invited to see a private screening of "The Mortician" at the BAFTA offices in London. Then we were told the film company was still trying to raise another £500,000 to pay their creditors.

Even though the film was completed and ready for release, we were told it was to be shown at the Berlin Film Festival, where negotitations would be made for the distribution rights around the world. Once the festival was over, I was expecting news of the films imminent release. Instead there was a sudden silence.

About a month later, I started to receive emails from one of Full Circle's directors informing me that he was starting up a new film company, and I was invited to come along and invest in the new project! I am not that stupid to be bitten twice!

I then tried to go to the web site of Full Circle Films, but couldn't gain access to it. I wasn't sure if it was a problem with my computer, or the website itself. So I left it alone, and continued to wait for some news to appear.

Today, I tried again; and again, I couldn't gain access to the Full Circle website. I then started a more indepth search and came across a statement published earlier this month in the London Gazette that Full Circle Films has ceased trading!

It now seems increasingly likely that I will never see my investment returned, unless the film gets a cinema or DVD release. The only saving grace is I got some money back from the Government via the EIS tax rebate scheme. I only decided to take this risk as the money I had in savings was forcing me into the higher (40%) tax bracket, and this was a way of turning the tables on the Government. Had the venture worked, I would have been happy with a small profit. Now, all I can say is I have learned an expensive, but valuable lesson, and I am glad that I invested only the minimum amount allowed, so my loss is not going to be as big as it might have been if I had listened to the hype about how succussful the film was going to be, and invested more money!

Now I will have to make money the hard way, by working for it!

My trials and tribulations on holiday in Spain

2011-04-24T09:51:00.030+01:00

This is my account of my first official holiday abroad since 1981. Yes, I did go abroad to Russia (3 days), and the Ukraine (2 days) in 2005. Also to Belarus on 3 occasions in 2006 and 2007. Those holidays had a purpose behind them. This was the first time I had organised a holiday for my wife, daughter, and myself to somewhere completely new to all of us. What follows are our attempts to create a memorable holiday for all of us!

First we have to go back to late November 2010 to understand why we chose Spain as our destination. Out of the blue, I received a phone call from a Company called Heritage Resorts. They offered us one weeks stay in one of their apartments at a special discounted rate of £49 in February, or £79 in April. The only date that all three of us were on holiday was April, so we decided to choose the week 16-23 April, although this would cause a problem for me immediately!

Heritage Resorts base their week from Saturday to Saturday. The Company I work for base their week from Sunday to Sunday! So on the Saturday we should be checking into the resort, I would still be at work! Worse, the shift I was doing was my late shift (14:30-22:30). We had to fly to Malaga, and the cheapest option was by Easy Jet departing from Gatwick. We decided to hire a car in Spain, so I booked a car through the website http://www.doyouspain.com/ who told us to collect the car at the airport from the rental company Record Go.

There were only 2 flights out of Gatwick available to us on the Sunday. One departed at 05:40, the other departed at 19:30. As the evening flight would not arrive at Malaga until 22:30, I was worried about driving a strange car, on strange roads, with unfamiliar road signs, at night! I chose the 05:40 flight, although it would mean I got very little sleep in the process. How little sleep, was a surprise to me, as events conspired against me to abort the holiday before it had even begun!

Now I will give a day by day account of our adventures.

It all started on Thursday 14th April. In the morning, I had to take my wife to the doctors for a blood test appointment. As I parked outside the doctors my Land Rover showed a warning light. The picture looked like a car with its doors open. We checked all the doors, but could not see anything wrong. After taking my wife back home, I had no more time to investigate the warning light that day before I had to set off for work.

Friday 15th April. When I took my wife to work in the morning, the warning light came on again. Once I got home I checked the cars operation manual and discovered that the warning light was to do with the ACE (Automatic Cornering Enhancement) system being faulty. I checked under the bonnet and discovered the ACE hydraulic fluid reservoir was very low. As I hadn't checked under the bonnet for a few months, I topped up the reservoir with fluid and then drove off to my local garage to try and get some bulbs for the dashboard that needed replacing. On the way to the garage the warning light came back on again! At the garage, a mechanic pointed out that the system was leaking fluid from a corroded pipe behind a front wheel. Now I was beginning to panic! The garage did not keep the pipes in stock, if they ordered them in, they would not arrive until Monday. To replace the pipes would take the best part of a day to do as the radiator would have to be removed first! There was no way my car could be repaired before we set out for Gatwick!
What I decided to do was stock up with loads of hydraulic fluid, and just keep topping up the reservoir frequently and hope that my car got me to Gatwick without any major mishaps!

Saturday 16th April started off OK, but once I was at work, my plans started to unravel. I was due to finish work at 22:30, and was looking forward to catching the 22:34 train home. Unfortunately my colleague was delayed getting to work and did not arrive until 22:40. To add insult to injury, the next train home at 22:54 was cancelled by London Midland. So I had to wait until 23:30 before I finally left London, heading for home. Once home, I managed to get one hours sleep before we set off to Gatwick.

Saturday morning started off relatively well. I made a single stop to top up the fluid in the car, and we arrived safely at the parking lot at Gatwick. When I handed over the car, I was asked if I wanted to have the car valeted and delivered to the airport when we arrived back. Considering the problem I have with the car, I declined the offer!

We arrived at the airport, checked in, and boarded the flight without any problems. I managed to doze for an hour during the flight. I couldn't discover how to tilt the seats back a bit so I could relax. So we arrived at Malaga at 09:30, Spanish time. I then had to go and collect the hire car. That's when the fun and games started!

It is common policy for the car hire firms to charge you for a full tank of petrol, we were charged €75 (more about that later), and they wanted to charge us an extra insurance for any damage or punctured tyres we might have. If we didn't take the insurance, we would be liable to pay €300 for any damage. The first car they gave me had the nearside mirror casing practically falling off the car. Also there was a bolt in one of the rear tyres, and one of the rear lenses was broken. Not happy with the car, I went back to the hire desk who told me to take the car down to level -2 where they would change the car. This they did, only car number 2 had a bald tyre! Car number 3 had a broken front and rear lens, and extensive body damage down the nearside! Car number 4 had another bald tyre! Finally car number 5 was all in one piece and we could begin our journey to the resort.

We arrived at our destination at the Playa Real, Marbesa, around lunch time, and collected the keys to our apartment. The complex was called El Toro, and the views from the apartment were stunning! We had been given one of the top floor apartments, so we could see the sea in one direction, and the mountains behind us. You could only gain entry to the complex via an electric operated gate. Without our keys, we couldn't get in or out! We had our own communal swimming pool to use too! It was a very spacious 2 bedroom apartment. The fixtures and fittings were of a high standard too. As soon as we unpacked we all had a 3 hour siesta! Later we went for a walk along the beach. Although it was sunny, it was very windy, keeping the temperature down. In the evening we went to a local supermarket (OpenCor) to get some milk, bread and some meat to eat. Later in the evening we went to the restaurant in the main hotel complex (Roberto's) and availed ourselves of the special offer of 2 pizzas for the price of one, shared between the 3 of us.

Monday, we went to Marbella to visit their weekly market. The weather was overcast, but still warm. The girls bought jewellery, some strawberries and tomatoes. I bought 2 leather belts. Then we visited a larger supermarket and stocked up on food for the week. Then we went back to the apartment, cooked ourselves some dinner and had an early night.

Tuesday, was very cloudy. So we decided to go to Gibraltar. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy when we got to Gibraltar. The clouds were so low, the top of the rock was into the cloud base. We walked across the runway into the town. Had a stroll through the shopping precinct before taking the cable car to the top of the rock. There we had some very close encounters with the Barbary macaques! Once back down to ground level it started to rain, so we beat a hasty retreat back across the border, stopping off at a McDonalds for a hot cup of coffee, only to find their coffee came in tiny cups, two slurps and it was gone!

Wednesday, we ventured up into the Sierra Navada, and visited the delightful town of Ronda. We even found the sunshine too! The roads through the mountains twist and turn with sheer drops off the edge, and no barriers to stop you going over the edge if you made a mistake! On the way there, we saw farms with groves of Olive trees, orange trees, and a few lemon trees too. We passed through a small village that had some market stalls and my wife decided to buy 2kg of oranges! God knows how we are going to get through that many oranges by the end of the week! Once we got to Ronda, we had lunch in a local restaurant, then headed back to the apartment. In the evening we spent an hour in the fitness centre, because the indoor pool was full due to the bad weather. By the time we got back to the apartment, the weather had cleared up and I braved a quick dip in the outside pool!

As the evening progressed, my wife began to feel ill. So much so, my daughter and I had to go to a chemist to get some medication.

Thursday, we decided to visit Nerja, specifically an aqueduct at Maro. On the way there, we stopped to fill the car with petrol as it was nearly empty. It only cost me €40 to fill it up! How the car hire company can justify charging us €75 is something I would have liked to ask them! When we got there, we found the aqueduct was covered in scaffolding undergoing maintenance and repairs! We then went back to the apartment as my wife was still not feeling well, and now my daughter was feeling unwell too! The evening brought on a heavy thunderstorm, so we all snuggled up on the sofa and watched some TV.

Friday morning, we had to attend a presentation by the resort. They wanted us to invest a lump sum of over four figures, plus an annual top up for a weeks free holiday every year at one of their 31 resorts all over the world. Because of the Spanish anti-harassment laws, we could easily decline the offer. With my wife still not feeling well, my daughter had the sniffles, and being a very generous girl, passed the sniffles on to me! So now all three of us were feeling under the weather. Despite not feeling 100% we were determined to keep going! Later in the afternoon, we just went exploring along the coast in the car as it was still raining. The thunderstorm came back again in the evening, and we discovered the apartment had heaters in the bedrooms. So for the first time all week they were warm and cosy at night!

Saturday, our last day in Spain. After packing everything, I noticed our suitcase was a lot heavier than when we brought it out! My wife told me she would sort it out at the airport once she could weigh it. After handing in the keys to the reception, we headed for Fuengirola, to try and find the market. Unfortunately, my SatNav couldn't locate it, and driving around town for 30 minutes didn't help either. Then we headed up into the national park (Parque Natural Torcal de Antequera), north of Malaga and enjoyed some spectacular views - well we did if the clouds moved out of the way!

Finally, we made our way back to Malaga. My wife insisted on buying more food, despite my misgivings that we had more food than we could take with us. We arrived at the airport and returned the car. Once inside the airport, we found a check-in desk with the scales still switched on. The suitcase weighed 30kg, and my wife then started to empty the suitcase to bring the weight down. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't fit everything into our had baggage. In the end, we had to eat a loaf of bread, a packet of salami, a litre of red wine, a litre of yoghurt drink, and a couple of oranges! She also managed to split her brand new leather holdall trying to stuff too much into it! Also she broke the zip of another bag! She was not a happy bunny! When we checked in, all my wife's efforts paid off, as we sailed through without a single hitch.

With 2 stops to top up the leaking fluid in the car, we finally made it home without any further incident at 04:00 Sunday morning.

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Home decorating.... Again!!

2011-03-13T21:03:00.015Z

Last year, I had a major crisis when the hot water tank burst. The water poured through the ceiling and left stain marks on the ceiling and wallpaper. So during this holiday, I decided to make a start on redecorating our dining room. the picture above, is what the wallpaper looked like before I started the decorating.

First, I started to remove the radiator. Having done this before, I am becoming confident of doing this without any major mishaps. I just needed a couple of sauspans to drain the water from inside the radiator itself. This particular radiator made it even easier for me as there were valves at both ends to shut down the water supply, so I didn't have to go into the loft and shut down the water supply from there. Once I had losened the nuts at the base, all I had to do was open the bleed valve and let the water pour into the sauspan. When the saucepan was full, I tightened up the bleed valve to stop the water flow, emptied the saucepan, and then repeated the process until all the water was drained.

Soon, the radiator was off the wall. As you can see, there were loads of cobwebs behind the radiator. You can also see that when I last did the wallpapering, I hadn't removed the radiator. I hadn't even bothered to remove the original wallpaper either! I put special end caps onto the pipes to stop any potential leaks while I was doing the decorating. I also removed the support brackets for the radiator. One problem I did have though. The plastic grommets that held the radiator in place on the brackets had become brittle and disintegrated when I took the radiator off the brackets. Luckily, I still had some grommets left from when I had taken the radiator off in the hallway. Now I have only one grommet left, I think I will need to get some more in stock for my next decorating project!

Next, it was the infrared detector to be removed. This involved me shutting down the alarm system (which took 20 minutes of the external siren wailing before it shut up), then carefully removing the sensor, and making a note of the order of the wiring connections as I removed it. As you can see in this picture, you can clearly see the water damage, and also the last time I decorated this room I didn't remove the detector (I didn't have enough confidence in myself at the time to attempt such a task).

I then put masking tape arround the windows, floor edges, and light fittings. Then I commenced wallpaper stripping, with lots of help from my wife and daughter. Once the wall paper was off, I commenced painting the ceiling, window frames and the skirting boards.

Finally, all the preparation was completed< and with help from my wife and daughter, we started putting on the new wallpaper.

It took us two days to complete the wallpapering. We could have done it more quickly, but we only did a few hours each day, as we had other things we wanted to do with our time. As you can see from this picture, the room certainly looks different. Personally, I don't like the look of the wallpaper, but I let the girls choose what they wanted, and they seem very happy with the result!

Transparency of TV competitions

2011-02-21T15:32:00.003Z

Normally, I avoid watching the TV reality/celebrity shows, where the outcome of who gets voted off relies upon telephone voting. The only exception is Dancing On Ice.

I have always wondered why none of the TV companies will show the actual number of phone votes each contestant gets. They used to do it many years ago. So why have they stopped? I am sure if the audience actually saw how many votes their favourite performer received, they would be more likely to pick up the phone and vote, if their favourite was in danger of being voted off the TV programme. Surely it would be in the TV programmmes interest to increase the revenue it gains from the phone calls, and also it would be more transparent about the voting process. Then they couldn't be accused of fixing the competititon.

I have left a couple of messages to the Dancing On Ice presenter Philip Schofield, in the hope he may redirect me to someone who could actually give a valid response to my question. Who knows, I might be lucky and get a reply from him!

Spam E-mails

2011-02-08T19:20:00.002Z

Normally, when I get spam e-mails, I delete them immediately. I can also normally work out from which site I had given my e-mail address to, that has sold it on, generating the sudden increase in spam!

Today, I have been highly amused, as I have started to receive spam e-mails at work, and I am very curious to know how the spammers have got hold of it.

I have just received 3 love letters, almost certainly from the same person, but with different names and emial addresses. They all seem to be coming from a Russian girl Tanya/Lusine/Lusi, claiming she is a lonely girl searching for a man's attention. Then there is an email address to reply to.

Now, 6 years ago, I might have been tempted to reply, just to see what would happen next, and maybe have some fun pretending to be interested to see how far they would go to try and squeeze money out of me (learnt the hard way the first time around).

As I am a happily married man to a Belarusian woman, I have no intention of investigating this any further, unless I get my wife to write back to this girl, in Russian! I wonder what would happen then!

As to how this girl has got hold of my work e-mail address, I can only think of two possibilities. First was I had used the work computer 6 years ago to register on a dating website, and then closed the account 5 years ago, although that was extremely difficult to do as the company I work for had massivly restricted our internet access, so it took me a bit of time to find a way to redirect the e-mails to a computer that allowed access to the main website so that I could close the account and stop the spam e-mails coming through.

The other possibility, is that my daughter has sent me some e-mails with her homework attached for me to proof read for spelling and grammar. When I have checked and altered the homework, I send the e-mail back to my daughter. I have only been doing this for the last 3 months. So it seems more likely that the spammers have got hold of my company e-mail somehow through these correspondences.

When I get home, there should be an interesting and amusing conversation with my wife and daughter.

Governments Austerity Measures Hits The Working Class Hardest

2011-01-15T16:58:00.002Z

After my Land Rover Discovery had been in for repairs for an entire week, I finally picked it up yesterday. I now have a major crisis as I need to find the money to pay the bill!!

The reason for the repair was at first what seemed a minor problem of a fuel leak from the bottom of the engine. When I took the car to my local garage in early december, they initially thought it was an oil leak, and not a fuel leak as I had thought. Still, I booked the Discovery in for repairs at the first opportunity a week later.

The garage took a look at the car, and discovered that the cylinder head was cracked, and fuel was leaking into the engine oil. I was told that a new cylinder head would cost £1100. They couldn't do the repair before Christmas, so I had to book it in last week.

I had worked out that the cost of repairs would not leave me with much change from £2000. Imagine my shock when I was presented with a bill for a few pence short of £3000 !!!

Looking at the breakdown of costs, about £1600 was for the parts, £900 for labour, and a whopping £500 VAT charged! I had to pay an extra £62.50 to the Government because the car was repaired this month instead of last month!! The garage even refused to give any discount for cash!

The garage has now lost my custom!

I have also noticed that the price of petrol and diesel have gone up by 10p a litre over the space of a month. So now it is even more expensive to have a car than before. Of course, public transport should be a viable alternative, except, due to previous Governments privatisation policies, the cost of public transport has gone up enormously, and any route that was unprofitable, reduced or eliminated. Where I live, I would have to add another hour to each end of my journey if I switched to pedal power. Buses are of no use as they do not operate outiside of daylight hours!!!

If the present Government continues with their plans to reduce the deficit so rapidly, I think they will kill any growth in the economy, as more and more people find that they cannot afford even the smallest luxuries anymore. If labour get into power again, all they will do is spend, spend, spend, and ultimately bankrupt the Country!

I've just received notification that my electricity is increasing by 8.5%. I am sure that gas, water and telecommunications will follow soon, it has to, as VAT has increased. I am almost certain that this year, very few employees will be given a pay rise that will negate the erosion of their wages by the government taxes imposed upon them.

I heard a guest on Radio 2 a few days ago mention that a good way to beat the VAT hike is to buy items second hand, as they are exempt from VAT. As a form of protest, I am now going to look closely at items I buy, and refrain from buying items that have VAT charged, unless I have absolutely no other option available. Does anyone know where I can buy second hand petrol and diesel from?

An Evenings Entertainment

2010-12-14T11:54:00.003Z

Last night, my wife and I trundled off to London to see a special private (not a premiere as I had first thought) screening for investors only of the film "The Mortician".

My personal assessment of the film is as follows :-

I found the film was very slow to get started. I found it difficult to work out what was going on, and where the story was leading to.

The 3D effects were very good, although I did notice that when the camera panned along a street following a character, any graffiti writing on the walls went all blurry.

I found that Method Man's character, had very little depth to it. We learn he is a mortician and a taxidermist, but even with the flashbacks of his past, it is difficult to see what makes him tick emotionally.

The baddie in the movie is Dash Mihok's character "Carver". Again, I felt that more could have been done with his character, especially early in the film, showing more of his ruthless methods of keeping rivals and victims down. Then the second half of the film would have been even more tense.

Once the film got going, and the characters had taken on personalities, then it became interesting. I must admit I have never seen a movie where the principle character (Method Man) is shown as a coward, and basically frightened of his own shadow. Even with having to cope with his fears, he still manages to help others stand up for themselves. He eventually arrives at a position to help clear up any loose ends both physically and emotionally, as he comes to terms with his own demons.

There was one part that had me confused. When Method Man goes back to his home town to seek information about his mother, a woman who knew his mother informs him that she was murdered, and he was taken away without ever being given the chance to see her and grieve. So, why then is there a flashback of Method Man as a child looking at an open coffin of a woman, presumably his mother?

As an investor, I sincerely hope that people will go and see this film. In reality, It definitely will not catch on the way films such as "Slumdog Millionaire", "Ghost", and "The Full Monty" did. As the film was completed on a shoestring budget, it is quite an impressive achievement, and perhaps there may be a little profit in it for us, eventually.

Secretly, I was hoping that during the end credits, there would have been a special thanks to all the investors who had contributed to the film. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to remain anonymous!

We're off to see a premiere!

2010-11-26T18:58:00.003Z

As I have mentioned previously, I was lucky enough to be able to invest in a movie. This was three years ago. Now, on Monday 13th December, my wife and I have been invited to see the premiere of "The Mortician". We will meet the actors, directors, and other investors, and probably move on after the film to the celebration party afterwards.

I am hoping that I will be able to get an extra ticket, so that my daughter can also come along too!

Deed Poll Disaster

2010-10-07T12:28:00.002+01:00

My step-daughter wants to change her name, so she has the same surname (family name) that her mother and I have. To do this in the UK is fairly straight forward, or so I believed!

When I searched the web, there are numerous sites offering a Deed Poll name change service. All of them charge varying amounts from as low as £7.00 up to £35. There also was some information stating that changing your name is actually free!

Now that word "free" got me searching for a way to complete this task without having to pay someone else to do it. So I eventually found a site where you could download a template, fill in the information, and then print off your own copies.

I duly downloaded a pdf file, put the relevant information in, and then printed it. I got a witness to sign the form when my daughter signed it, and merrily printed copies off to take to the banks. That is when I discovered I had a problem.

The banks will only accept original documents, so any kind of seal mark downloaded via a pdf file and subsequently printed will always look like a copy!!! I have now gone through an official site, to get documents that have an official seal or watermark, that the institutions will accept.

Perhaps I could have gone to my local stationary supplier and tried to get specially embossed paper, or had an embossing tool made. I actually have one that belonged to my fathers business, hidden somewhere in the house, but somehow I do not think that the authorities would accept a Deed Poll document for my daughter embossed with "Abbotsbury Laboratories Ltd" on it!

What shall we do with the drunken vagrant!

2010-09-12T14:30:00.001+01:00

This morning, as soon as I arrived at work, I had to deal with an intoxicated vagrant totally unable to keep his balance. In fact he sat down in the passageway and refused to budge!

The vagrant sat there, semi conscious, refusing to acknowledge me or any other member of staff. That's when I decided to call the Police to come and evict the vagrant from the Station.

A few minutes later, the Police arrived. They proceeded to search the vagrant and discovered inside his jacket, a bottle of alcohol wash gel. The vagrant had stolen it from the hospital across the road!

This gel is used by hospital staff to clean and disinfect their hands after any contact with a patient, to prevent any cross contamination. The gel is not supposed to be taken internally as it contains toxins to prevent people from considering consuming it for its alcohol content.

The vagrant was so desperate to get his daily fix of alcohol, that he was willing to take the risk of killing himself by drinking poison! He even tried to make the soap gel more palatable by mixing it with ketchup!

The Police requested an ambulance to take the vagrant to hospital. Eventually a paramedic turned up, and with the help of the Police walked the vagrant across the road to the hospital next door.

What has me worried is what are we supposed to do with people who are clearly set on a road to destruction? This vagrant was treated in the hospital, and 6 hours later he is released and comes wandering into my Station again!

In this day and age where the liberal ethos holds so much sway, is it really being humane to allow an alcoholic wander the streets slowly killing themselves drinking anything that has a trace of alcohol in it? These people cannot function on their own. Therefore society needs to make a decision as to what should be done about them.

My views may be considered controversial but I can only think of 2 ways that would prove effective. The first is euthanasia. I know it is drastic, but surely and injection of morphine by a doctor would be better than months of pain and sickness through consuming poisonous substances. I suppose the liberals out there would suggest that we should provide free alcohol to feed their addiction. The question is are we not just providing them with another form of drug that will eventually achieve the same end as morphine would have done, only over a much longer period and probably psychologically more damaging to the victim too.

The other option would be to lock the away inside an institution. As they are alcoholics, they could never be released as they would immediately start drinking again. Would this sort of treatment be considered humane? Gone are the days of special mental hospitals which force addicts to go cold turkey. Now there are varying degrees of alcoholism in present society's eyes. If it is the early stages, maybe help from family or self help groups might be better. What I am on about are the addicts who have not responded to any form of help or treatment. Do we continue to do something that clearly doesn't work, or do we do something potentially cruel to ultimately be kind?

I sometimes wonder that the present "softly, softly" approach does more harm than good in these situations.
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Industrial Action by Underground Workers

2010-09-07T08:06:00.003+01:00

Today, the RMT and TSSA unions combined to instigate a withdrawal of labour by Union members working for London Underground. Having seen the propaganda put forward by both the Unions and Management, I feel I need to put my own views across as to why I believe that this dispute is necessary.

The management, quite rightly claim that this dispute is about the 800 job losses in Ticket Offices, and that in fact, no staff will be made redundant. What they have deliberately omitted, is that they have not covered any of the positions left vacant by people leaving the company, or retiring. So they have already reduced the current workforce by the necessary 800.

Instead of employing people to fill these vacancies, management have been covering the duties through overtime. When their budget was exceeded, they tried to cover the duties by relying on the goodwill of the staff to change duties and times at short notice. This is how they have been masking the reduction of workforce already achieved.

Having read the Evening Standard article about the strike yesterday, the way they reported this left me speechless as to the slant of their reporting! I thought that the press were supposed to make unbiased reports about events, not act as a glorified press release for the benefit of management!

Now, I fully understand why management want to reduce the workforce in an effort to reduce the cost of operating the Underground. What I feel aggrieved about is how they are not telling anyone the whole story. This is what I believe this dispute is really about....

London Underground have for the past few years concentrated on driving forward policies to reflect their catchphrase slogan "A World Class Service For A World Class City". With this in mind, they have set targets for customer service as a major priority. Staff are constantly being assessed on the quality of their interaction with the customers. These assessments are conducted through an independent company using mystery shoppers. On the strength of these reports, London Underground then decide whether to pay any bonuses to staff or not.

Last year, London Underground reduced the the frontline workforce by 1000. Customers using the service may have noticed that Ticket Office opening hours had been reduced, and fewer staff around the stations, especially early mornings, late at night, and at weekends. Management have decided to reduce the workforce the the bare minimum allowed to operate the stations. They leave no leeway for any unforeseen problems that arise. Management will tell you that the Oyster Card they have introduced is a runaway success and that is why their is no need for staff to be available in Ticket Offices, as the amount of sales through Ticket Office windows have dropped by over 70%. Of course this has happened. Management deliberately engineered this to happen. Don't believe me? Then think on this -

In the outer zone stations, they are staffed by supervisors who have Ticket Office licences to sell tickets to customers. Before the first round of Ticket Office closures, these Supervisors manned the Ticket Offices from 07:00 to 23:00. At present, management have instructed these same Supervisors to open only during the morning peak hours (07:00 - 10:00), and in some cases the evening peak too (15:30 - 19:30). The rest of the time they just sit in their office monitoring the station! Now this is where I believe the Unions missed a golden opportunity. There were some Supervisor's who tried to keep their ticket offices open as they originally had been. Management then threatened these Supervisor's with disciplinary action if they continued to open the Ticket Office outside the designated times. The Unions should have backed these Supervisor's, and forced a confrontation with management over this. I am sure that the media would have had a field day vilifying management over this ludicrous policy! It's still not too late for Union's to do this, so if any Union member reads this, then perhaps this idea could bear further scrutiny!

Now let's look at how these proposed cuts in Ticket Office staff will affect the customers (passengers) who wish to travel on the Underground. If you are coming to London for the first time, you will have two choices. If you go to a Station where the Ticket Office is closed (almost certain early morning, late at night), then you can buy a full priced ticket (minimum £4.00). You might be lucky to find a newsagent nearby, or possibly an Oyster card dispenser where you can purchase the Oyster card. Then you can use the Oyster Card to get a discounted journey for £1.80. There will be some stations, though, where you will not be able to purchase an Oyster card if the Ticket Office is closed. Management believe it is good customer service to tell the customer they must leave the station and go somewhere else to purchase an Oyster card.

Sorry, from a customers point of view, that is NOT offering a World Class Service!

O.K. You now have your Oyster card and start your journey. You try to "touch in" on the reader and it doesn't work. The staff member at the gateline tries to check your card, and finds that it is faulty. If you are lucky, you can go to the Ticket Office to get a replacement. At this station you entered, the Ticket Office is closed. Either you go and find a Ticket Office that is open, or you have to purchase a full priced paper ticket (£4.00 again), and then have to contact Oyster Card Helpdesk for a refund later. Or you can hope the staff member will let you travel for free (especially if you have no means to purchase another ticket!) to your destination, as at your destination, the Ticket Office there might be open. With the new proposed closures management want to implement, you might find the Ticket Office closed at your destination too! Now you have travelled for free to your destination, the staff there cannot direct you to an open Ticket Office, so they have to let you out of the Station. Result for you! You have just had a free journey, thanks to managements policy of closing Ticket Offices! There are a lot of savvy people out there who now take advantage of travelling very early, or very late, with faulty Oyster cards, knowing that they will get a free journey! I wonder if the customers who have to pay for their journey feel they are getting a World Class Service?

Now let's look at another problem. You have loaded up your Oyster Card with money, expecting it to last for all the journeys you intend to make. For some reason after a couple of journeys, it stops working due to insufficient funds. When a staff member checks your Oyster Card it shows there is unresolved journeys. Basically this means that the card hasn't registered the entry point or exit point on a journey. What a lot of people do not realise is the discounted journey is only given on completed journey's. If the card has not registered a complete journey, £4.60 is deducted instead of the £1.80 you expected. This can easily be resolved though, just go to the Ticket Office, and they can re-credit your card.... er.... sorry, the Ticket Office is closed. You can either add more money at the machine, or try phoning the Oyster help desk, only you will be held in a queue for a very long time before they answer, or even worse, this problem will happen outside their opening hours of 08:00 - 20:00 Monday to Friday only!! Again, do you consider this to be a World Class Service?

I could go on about all the different ticketing issues and problems customers face every day, that an open Ticket Office could quickly and easily resolve. If Management are determined to reduce Ticket Office hours, and ultimately close them eventually, why can't they be honest with the public and staff, and no longer promote their policy of providing a World Class Service. A World Class Service means that we should provide a service that does not inconvenience ANY of our customers AT ANY TIME. Closing Ticket Offices is doing precisely the opposite!

This is why I agree with the Unions fighting these job cuts, as I believe we will be providing a "Worse Class Service" instead of a "World Class Service". If the staff don't make a stand now, who's to say how far Management will go in their reduction of frontline staff in the future?

One busy afternoon

2010-06-24T20:32:00.001+01:00

After getting home from work, I decided to cut the grass in the garden. Then I used the electric rake to clear up the cut grass. I was just about to get the strimmer out, when the phone rang...

It was my wife asking me to collect her from work. I said I would be there in 15 minutes. As this was at 16:45, I had a brainwave to prepare for the Mystery shop I had to do near where my wife works. As this survey had to be done between 17:00 and 20:00, it seemed sensible to incorporate this task into my journey across town.

As I was about to get in the car, my daughter decided she wanted to come along with me on the mystery shop. While I was waiting for her to change into different clothing (typical teenage psychology), the dog decided she wanted to come along too!

So after leaving home, collecting the wife from work, conducting a mystery shop, we all ended up at a nearby park and spent the next 90 minutes walking round the lakes in the afternoon sunshine. This was the first time I have visited this park in the 15 years I have lived in this area. There we're Celtic stones, a Peace Pagoda, and a strange maze (just marks in the ground) to wander around and see.

We all arrived back home worn out and hungry!
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Currently Reading... Again!

2010-06-22T10:17:00.002+01:00

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Computer Gremlins finally beaten??

2010-06-14T10:59:00.002+01:00

After spending nearly a month trying to get my computer to record VHS video, I think I have finally cracked it!

After struggling with problems of no video, then audio clicking noises, and lack of synchronisation between video and audio, I was getting nowhere fast! Every time I managed to sort one problem out, I created two other problems to fix! As you can see, I am not very good with finding a simple solution to my problems!

I finally found what actually works for me. I had to upgrade my sound card, and install a newer version of Pinnacle Studio. By upgrading from version 10 to version 14, I have at last managed to successfully transfer VHS video footage onto my computer, and burn a test DVD from it. It all worked!

My friend Warren has been pestering me, wanting to know when he can have his DVD! I could have simply given him a straight forward video transfer to him, but I decided that I can do better than that! I am now attempting to break the video footage into chapters, and create a menu for the DVD. This I have finally achieved, and as I write this, my other computer is busy preparing to write the video footage to disk.

When the computer has finished processing, I have one final task to complete. I have to create some artwork for the Jewel case inserts! I don't think I should have any major problems doing this, but judging from past experience, you never can tell!

My computer has Gremlins!

2010-05-14T14:22:00.002+01:00

Last week, my friend Warren mentioned that he had a video recording that was very special to him and his wife. He had made enquiries about transferring it to DVD, but had discovered that the shops would charge a small fortune to do this, and also would refuse to touch any copyright material. I told Warren that I had a video capture card on my computer at home, and would be happy to transfer his video for him.

That's when the Gremlins came visiting!

Everything started off fine. I installed the software for the card, and connected the video. Picture and sound were showing on the computer, so I started the recording process.

After about 40 minutes, the computer froze. The keyboard and mouse would not respond. So I hit the soft reset button and restarted the computer. Once the computer was up and running again, I discovered that the video capture software had sound but no video!

I then spent hours un installing and re-installing the software numerous times. Eventually, the computer gave a message that essential drivers were corrupted or missing and that I would need to repair Windows!

I dug out my Windows XP disk and started the repair installation. The only problem was that all data would be wiped if I tried to repair Windows! The repair is no different from formatting the drive and starting again! Before I could repair the drive, I had to save all the essential data first.

I have 3 hard drives in my computer. What I did was to replace one hard drive with an old smaller one I had removed a couple of years ago. Install Windows on this temporary drive and then commence transferring data from the original C: drive onto one of the other hard drives. Once this was done, I formated the corrupt drive.

The next day, I started the slow process of re-installing all the software, and transferring the data stored on the other hard drive. I initially had a problem getting the internet to work, until I found I needed to load in some drivers for the motherboard.

This project had taken nearly 6 days to get to this stage (admittedly only 3 or 4 hours each day), but every time I sorted one problem, another took its place. Things were heading in the right direction until yesterday morning.

I had just loaded Microsoft Office onto the computer, and I decided to put the video capture card back into the computer. When I restarted the computer, I was asked to install the drivers. I put the CD into the computer and waited for the drivers to be loaded... And waited... And waited. Then I noticed that the computer had stopped recognising the CD and DVD drives!!!

When I resumed my battle this morning, I eventually found a website that explained what to do. I had to go into the Disk Management section and search for "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" and delete them. When I did this I got my CD and DVD drives back... Only to find all my PCI card slots had stopped working!

Next I tried to update the BIOS on the motherboard, only to find the computer crashed halfway through the process. Now I had to reset the BIOS by removing the graphics card to get to the on-board battery, remove the battery and temporarily set a "Jumper" to reset the motherboard. When I put it all back together again I found the video capture card worked... But the sound card didn't!

I tried to reset the BIOS again, only this time the computer refuses to start at all!!!

So its back to the drawing board again.
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Mystery Shopping Again!

2010-05-02T19:18:00.000+01:00

This weekend, I have undertaken to do a number of mystery shops. This time it is to visit some Tesco Express outlets.

Since the recession started a couple of years ago, the amount of money I get reimbursed has dropped substantially. Now it is hardly worth the effort any more!

I have been a mystery shopper for over 7 years now. When I first started, we were paid an allowance for the use of our internet (£2), mileage allowance (£3.50 maximum with T.N.S.; unlimited with N.O.P.), an allowance towards the cost of the purchase, and finally, a small payment for actually doing the work!

After about a year, the internet payment stopped. Then N.O.P were amalgamated with GFK. They changed their payment system to a one off payment, varying from as low as £6 up to £26 for the more involved and complex tasks. These prices now include all purchases and travelling expenses! To add insult to injury, I have to pay income tax on it too!

T.N.S have also reduced their payments too, but not quite as drastic as GFK. Now they no longer pay any mileage for the assignments.

So far, I have done 2 surveys, and have another 2 to do in the next few days. The first one I did actually cost me money. I think now with the second survey, I have made a small profit (£2)!

What I normally tend to do is wait until the agencies become desperate to complete a survey within a certain deadline, and they call me to see if I can help them out. That is when I begin to negotiate a better price with them, specifically including mileage allowance. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they will try and call someone else who might do it for less.

I have never wanted to do this sort of work for peanuts. I don't expect a lot, but I will be dammed if I should be out of pocket for doing the work!
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Day Excursion to Hilbre Island

2010-04-24T19:55:00.014+01:00

Today, we decided to take a trip up towards Liverpool, or to be more precise, the Dee Estuary at West Kirby. The aim of our excursion was to visit Hilbre Islands. There are, in fact, actually three separate Islands. The only way to get to them is by either walking, or driving across the mud flats at low tide.

Hilbre Islands Ahoy!

As we walked across the mud flats, we were very glad that we had decided to wear Wellington Boots, as there were areas where we had to splash through water channels on our way to the Islands. Bonnie, our Golden Labrador, at first didn't want to cross the mud flats, and kept turning back heading for the shore. Once she got over her initial hesitation, there was no stopping her adventure!

Bonnie having a mad moment!

On the third and biggest Island is where the houses are, and the derelict lifeboat station, and the old Telegraph Station. The Lifeboat Station was decommissioned in 1938, and now is just the walls standing with no roof, and the slipway has half disintegrated. The house owners have to pay a ground rent to the Wirral Council. As soon as they stop paying the rent, the the Council do not renew the lease and remove the building. The Council's aim is to remove all the buildings eventually.

Largest, occupied Island

Whilst I was wandering around the Island, I got talking with one of the Rangers. The girls merrily went off exploring by themselves, while I chatted with the Ranger. This is where I got the information from above. He also told me that there were grey seals swimming off the end of the Island. I went out beyond the derelict Lifeboat building and had the pleasure of seeing a couple of seals swimming nearby!

Hello there!

Whilst watching for the seals to appear, a grey Heron decided to pay a visit, much to the annoyance of the sea gulls nearby. I managed to get a few interesting pictures of the gulls dive bombing the Heron!

Get out of here!

Finally, about five hours later we finally made it back to the car, exhausted!

Can I sleep now?

I am in BIG Trouble!

2010-04-14T13:13:00.000+01:00

This morning, I finally managed to see a doctor. He told me the bad news that my cholesterol level is at a whopping 9.6!! It should be below 5. The doctor told me that if I do nothing then I have a 22% chance of having a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years.

My blood pressure is also too high. It was 134/85. The lower number should much lower. I now have 3 months to try and reduce my cholesterol and blood pressure, otherwise I will have to take medication to reduce the levels.

First I am going to have to change the type of food I eat. The doctor gave me a list of good food and bad food to eat. Next I have to loose weight. The doctor suggested I join a gym, but knowing my own character, I would not go to the gym on a regular basis.

The doctor then suggested I should do a brisk walk for 30 minutes every day. So now I will be walking our dog, Bonnie, every day!

Over the past few weeks I have had a backache in my lower back. Hopefully my daily exercise will help cure this problem too!
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Currently Reading

2010-04-12T17:44:00.008+01:00

Synopsis:

With the American rebellion growing in intensity all around them, Jamie and Claire know they must navigate a difficult course to survive. For not only is being on the winning side no guarantee of safety; Jamie would also rather die than face his illegitimate son, William, a young lieutenant in the British Army, across the barrel of a gun - even as the chances of war conspire to bring them together.

Making their way back to Lallybroch with Jamie's nephew, Young Ian, to fulfil a family promise, might seem one way of thwarting fate. But in the chaos of war every avenue of escape is bristling with danger, and even the time-travelling Claire cannot foresee the tragedy that could tear her and Jamie apart forever.

Meanwhile, in the apparent safety of the 20th Century, their daughter Brianna and her husband Roger read Jamie and Claire's letters, breathlessly watching the unfolding of Brianna's parents' story - even as the past is sneaking up behind their own family to threaten them in the present.

This is the Seventh book in the series. I bought this book in January, and I have been steadily working my way through the series reminding myself of the story so far. The list of the books in chronological order are as follows -

Outlander (American title) / Cross Stitch (British title)
Dragonfly In Amber
Voyager
Drums Of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
A Breath Of Snow And Ashes

I have found that it is always better to read the first book in these sort of series and read them in chronological order, otherwise it spoils the adventure. Nowadays, some authors tend to write their story over a series of books, rather than in one self contained novel. The trouble is, if you like the story in one book, you want to read more adventures about the characters in that book!

The reason I am making this point is that the critics gave a poor review of "An Echo In The Bone" on the grounds that it was not a self contained novel, rather a continuation of the story told in the previous 6 books! That is exactly what this book was meant to be!

I always think of critics as frustrated artists, who do not have the inspiration or ability to produce something original themselves. Instead they can only write derogatory remarks in the hope that the more vicious the report, the more publicity they will receive, and thus give them the impression of increasing their own self importance.

Currently Listening to

2010-04-12T17:28:00.004+01:00

One of my favourite Billy Joel tracks. What I found interesting about this video, is the authors attention to the timing of changing the pictures and writing!

Home Accounts

2010-04-09T22:06:00.002+01:00

This afternoon, my wife asked me to find out how much money we spent on groceries for the last two years. This is quite an easy task as I have a Home accounts programme that I have been using for years.

I first started using an accounts programme back in the 1980's when I had a Commodore Amiga. When I eventually bought a PC, I started to use the Quicken accounts program.

Over the years I upgraded the program until 2003 when Quicken no longer supported the British market and just concentrated on their own American market. I then gave Microsoft Money a try, but having got used to the Quicken layout, I struggled to adapt to the Microsoft version. One aspect in particular was the facility to have the account show exactly how much money I would have in my account on any particular day in the future. Extremely useful if you get paid every 4 weeks and have standing orders spread throughout the month.

I could check this with ease using Quicken. All I had to do was check the scheduled transaction page and the information I wanted was immediately visible. The Microsoft version had a more complicated process to obtain this information. Consequently I have continued to use the Quicken program.

What I did discover today though is that it is not a good idea to delete old accounts that have been closed. I discovered hundreds of transactions from my live accounts that had originally gone to another account, such as credit card payments or mortgage payments, suddenly had no account to send the money to, so the transactions were no longer categorised as they had originally been.

I just spent the last 4 hours re categorising these transactions so that I can now produce accurate reports of where I've actually spent my money!

In case your wondering, our grocery bill increased by nearly £1000 between 2008 and 2009!
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Cherry Tree

2010-04-06T17:44:00.003+01:00

This afternoon, we purchased a Cherry Tree. Not the ornamental flowering kind, but the type that will produce juicy red cherries to eat! Now all I have to do is hope that it survives my ministrations and bears fruit one day! Admittedly, I was ably assisted in the planting by my wife and daughter.

I freely admit that I do not have any green fingers! 9 times out of 10 whatever I try to grow just wilts and dies. Though on the odd occasion something flourishes, despite what I do to it!

Gardening is not something I enjoy doing. I consider it a necessary chore that must be done. Maybe one day I will be in a position to pay someone else to do my gardening for me! Or better yet, leave it for my wife and daughter to do instead!

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Easter is not going to be fun this year!

2010-03-31T20:17:00.005+01:00

When I came home from work today, I discovered I had a letter from my doctors! Now last week I had gone for a blood test to check that I was still healthy. The doctors letter stated

"Please could you contact the surgery at your earliest convenience to discuss a message which has been left on the computer system for you".

Receiving a letter like this basically scared the living daylights out of me! Visions of me having some major health scare looming, crossed my mind. When I got through to the receptionist and asked what it was all about, she told me the doctor wants to see me about my cholesterol. There is no hurry, I can make the appointment in the next 2-3 weeks!

When I told my wife, she immediately told me that I will have to cut back on fatty foods. For some reason she has decided that it includes fizzy drinks and chocolate. So the nice Easter egg I was looking forward to eat on Sunday will now sit forlornly in the cupboard, while its mates get greedily consumed by the girls!

Upgrades to my local Station

2010-03-21T20:02:00.000Z

For the past eight years the Station where I work has been a partial building site, where we are supposed to get a new entrance with lift access from street level to platform level.

Originally, we were supposed to have lift access to both platforms before the Olympics come to London in 2012. Now we will only have access to one side of the Station, and only one platform.

The delays are a direct result of the Governments wonderful idea of instigating PPP (Public, Private Partnership) to London Underground. They decided to foist this scheme only on the maintenance and repair sections, leaving the operational side alone.

Ten years later, the private contractors have paid their shareholders massive dividends, and the directors have syphoned off money into their bonus accounts. Suddenly they realise that they don't have enough finance available to deliver the maintenance they were contracted to do. So they have the audacity to ask the Government and London Underground for more money to do the work!

When their request was refused, they craftily decided to go Bankrupt! They left millions of pounds of debt and forced London Underground to pay off their debts with money that was to be used in refurbishing the Stations in time for the Olympics.

That was one of the maintenance companies. The other has just failed a court action to get more money from the Government/Underground. No guesses as to what they are likely to do next! This time when the maintenance company goes bankrupt, London Underground will not be able to pay off the debts and being the maintenance back under its own umbrella. They have no money left!

Unless the Government dig deep into their coffers and pour more money into this fiasco (with all parties claiming massive cutbacks, this seems unlikely), you can expect a rapid decline in the reliability and safety of the underground through lack of maintenance.

I have been at my present Station for over 8 years. For the last 7 years a new exit has very slowly been built. Even now we still have no idea if and when it will ever be completed! During those 7 years the gas been built a massive office block above the station, and they have completely rebuilt the Hospital next door!

I managed to have a little look around the building site and took a couple of pictures. I apologise for the poor quality of them as they were taken on my mobile phone which doesn't have a high powered camera feature.
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The Mortician

2010-01-11T20:01:00.002Z

Nearly two years ago, I was approached to invest in a movie called the Mortician. Just before Christmas they commenced filming in 3D over in New Orleans. They also did a documentary "The Making of" program that will be included on the DVD release later. I was sent a link to a few clips uploaded onto YouTube. It doesn't show very much about the plot, just some of the actors and production crew. You can see the clips below -

Sometime in the summer the film will be premiered on London, and I will be invited to attend, and meet all the actors! I may have to hire a dinner jacket and bow tie for the occasion! I think I had better have a word with my wife, as she will also need to have a special dress for the occasion!

Just had one fantastic motivational day!

2010-01-10T20:03:00.002Z

This year, I have set myself some targets to achieve in one of my business ventures. It is a business I joined a few years ago, but I have never treated it seriously enough. I have always lacked the motivation to put in the effort to build the business rapidly, as others have done since I joined.

I have noticed that I am more focused and enthusiastic after I have attended one of the company meetings, as I get to meet so many positive, happy people. Some of it rubs off on me!

Today was the second major meeting I have gone to this year. The seminar was an all day event, but what really made me sit up and think that I make too many excuses why I fail was this video clip that was shown at the end :-

Nick Vujicic, Inspirational - The most amazing bloopers are here

I have been given a whole raft of ideas and skills to develop my abilities, to push forward my business at a far greater rate than I have ever done before.

There was one section of the seminar that made me smile. It was because it is also used in my main employment for London Underground.

In both aspects they use a mnemonic (S.M.A.R.T.) which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is the benchmark to assess your progress.

I now have to put an enormous amount of effort to build up a daily habit of working consistently on freedom from the Rat Race ticket! It is this part time business venture that will eventually give me the financial security and time freedom that all of us wish we had long before we become aware that that is what we subconsciously have craved all our working lives.

As one speaker said today - "Don't wait to dig your well until you are thirsty!" And as his wife chipped in "He dug the well, but I drink from it!"

All you need is to focus on your destination, the journey will take care of itself! I hope 2010 will be a more fulfilling and profitable year for you than last year. I know it will be for me!

European Laws are sometimes more hindrance than help.

2010-01-03T18:20:00.002Z

Yesterday, I had a Seminar to go to for my business. It was called a FAB Seminar (Focus, Action, Belief), it was about two and a half hours journey time away. I was excited about going to this Seminar as it would help increase my motivation to do more with my business.

To achieve my goal of attending this meeting, I had to work for 16 hours the day before, to enable me to obtain the day off I required. I felt a sense of achievement in the efforts I had made to realise my goal.

So the day started off well. First I picked up my colleague 6 miles away. Then we travelled to another part of town to collect another colleague, only he was not motivated enough to get up at 6 am to go to the seminar. So at 7 am only 2 of us travelled in my car to Runcorn, in Cheshire (142 miles, 229 km away).

Everything was fine until I came off the motorway onto the side roads on the approach to our venue, that was when the problems began. When I changed gear, I noticed the gear lever was very stiff and sluggish. I could also smell the aroma of hot gearbox oil. Then I discovered I no longer had 5th gear!

Five minutes later I managed to lump in to the car park of our venue. I had to negotiate a very tight corner that involved me having to reverse the car, that was when I discovered that my reverse gear no longer worked either. I then called the breakdown service (RAC) for assistance.

They arrived just as the seminar started, and very quickly diagnosed that one of the shafts inside the gearbox had broken (the one with 5th and reverse) and I would need to have the car towed back home. I arranged to have the recovery vehicle arrive at 5 pm after the seminar had finished (I might as well enjoy the meeting I had come all this way to see).

After the seminar finished, I had to wait I until 17:30 before the recovery vehicle arrived and loaded it up onto its back. That was when I discovered that the Brussels bureaucrats had changed the laws concerning the working practice of the breakdown and recovery service vehicles hours and conditions.

When I first joined a motoring organisation 26 years ago, my choice between either the AA (Automobile Association), and the RAC (Royal Automobile Association) was down to only one different point. The RAC would transport your vehicle from A to B with one vehicle, no matter the distance. Whereas, the AA would only do it in stages, greatly increasing the time and inconvenience to me.

I discovered that 2 years ago, the recovery drivers are not allowed to drive outside a 100km radius of their base. So my journey home would involve at least one change of vehicle to get me home.

Because of the cold weather over Christmas, the breakdown services were at full stretch. Consequently instead of having only one transfer change, I had to endure 4 of them! Each time a transfer took place, there was a further delay of at least 30 minutes before the next vehicle arrived to carry my car on the next part of my journey home. So what should have been a simple two 2 hour 30 minute journey, ended up as an 8 hour nightmare!

Tomorrow, I will discover the painful cost of repairing the car. Then I will have to make a choice of either selling the car quickly, and hope that the next car doesn't come with new and unknown problems. Or having fixed this problem, keep the car, knowing that this kind of problem should not happen again for a very long time.

My wife will have a few choice words to say about my ability to choose a problem free car! Having had this setback so early in the year, bodes well for me, as things can only get better!
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Not such a Merry Christmas as I had hoped for!

2009-12-26T09:24:00.004Z

This Christmas everything started off fine, but then things started to go wrong! On Christmas Eve, I had to work until 01:00, and then drive home. Earlier in the day I had stopped off at a supermarket and bought my wife some flowers. When I arrived home at 02:30, she was awake and waiting for me. My wife was overjoyed with the gift of the flowers!

On Christmas Day we were up at 07:00, to take my wife's friend home, after an overnight stay. On the way back home we discovered that someone had made a snowman in the form of a polar bear! Back home, we opened our presents, nothing special, as we already knew most of what we were getting already! (That's because we all went shopping together to get the presents!) It was while I was sitting in the kitchen that the first problem started to manifest itself.

I noticed that every time I moved my left knee, it was very painful. It was fine when standing, or sitting. It was only if there was any movement in the joint that it hurt. I decided to rummage in the cupboard, and dig out the bottle of Cod Liver Oil tablets, hoping that they might help improve the situation.

Later in the morning, it was my task to prepare the turkey for roasting. As I had never done this before, I first searched the Internet, and came across Delia Smiths recipe. So my wife and I duly stuffed, and basted, the turkey with butter, and wrapped it in foil, then put it in the oven at a high temperature for 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes had passed, that was when things went wrong. When I went to the oven to turn it down to slow cook the turkey, I noticed that the legs had stretched, and opened up the foil. I took the tray out of the oven and put it on the side I then got some more foil to seal up the turkey again. It was while I was trying to put the foil on the turkey that the tray decided to slide on the worktop and tumble on the floor. In an effort to stop the turkey ending up on the floor, I grabbed the tray with my left hand! That was when I discovered how hot the tray was. Although I managed to save the turkey, I ended up with blisters on my hand. Because of this accident, my wife banned me from the kitchen, and proceeded to cook a beautiful roast turkey dinner! I only wish that I had managed to cook the dinner as I had promised to do!

This morning, when I woke up, my knee was much worse. so I have included taking Ibuprofen tablets along with the Cod Liver Oil tablets. I am also wearing a heat pack on my knee to see if that will help. Personally, I think my colleague WarrenJoffre has been so generous, he has passed his affliction on to me! I just hope he doesn't pass on his back problems too!

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a prosperous, fantastic New year to you all.

The Governments plan to make the nation miserable!

2009-12-10T09:40:00.003Z

I have just read in the morning paper Alister Darling's pre-budget report. His idea is to tax the working population even more than before, borrow more money to shore up the crumbling economy, and worst of all delay any benefits as long as possible.

It doesn't matter who I vote for at the next general election, as these tax changes will still go ahead no matter which party wins. All I have discovered so far is that the Conservatives, might reduce income tax a bit, but have not bothered to reverse any of stealth taxes Labour seem to favour as their way to raise revenue.

If I could discover a politician who would try their best to reward the working population of this country instead of taking more away, I would vote for them no matter which party they belonged to. To give an example - Why is it that if you are ill and require medication you have to pay for the prescriptions in England? I know the Government will say that they have to fund the cost of the medication from somewhere, but I think that I have already paid for any medication I need.

We have been told that all workers will have to make increased NI contributions from 11% to 12% of their income. Now I was lead to believe that My NI contributions were supposed to support the NHS system. So why am I paying 11% of my income to fund the NHS and then have to pay again for medication to help me get back to work, when the Government is quite happy to allow people who are not working, and therefore are not contributing any NI into the Government coffers, allowed to get free medication?

I am beginning to wonder if there will come a time in the not too distant future, where those who work will be unable to provide enough taxable income to pay for all the benefits the government keeps paying out. Already we are told that the Government can no longer find the resources to continue to pay the state pension. What is the next casualty going to be?

The Governments drive to try and improve the NHS system doesn't seem to be working either. I have just discovered this week how it has affected me.

My daughter has been unwell since Friday (7 days) and I have finally managed to book an appointment for her to visit the doctor. Every day I have phoned the surgery, and every day I have been told there was no appointments available. It never used to be this way before. I could always get an appointment, if not today then at least the next day. Now I can only attempt to book an appointment for today. If I want one tomorrow, I have to phone tomorrow, and join the frantic queue of people trying to see their doctor! So tell me how this system is an improvement over the old system!

I have now got to the point where I am totally disillusioned with the political parties, and I am now unsure who I would vote for in the next general election. When the campaigning starts, I will have to discover what each candidate will try to achieve whilst in office, if they are elected. Then perhaps I might have a clearer idea of where to place my vote.

Currently Reading

2009-11-06T05:23:00.002Z

Synopsis:
The Industrialist
Henrik Vanger, head of the dynastic Vanger Corporation, is tormented by the loss of a child decades earlier and convinced that a member of his family has committed murder.

The Journalist
Mikael Blomkvist delves deep into the Vangers' past to uncover the truth behind the unsolved mystery. But someone else wants the past to remain a secret and will go to any lengths to keep it that way.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Lisbeth Salander, the enigmatic, delinquent and dangerous security specialist, assists in the investigation. A genius computer hacker, she tolerates no restrictions placed upon her by individuals, society or the law.

A Short Autumn Break

2009-10-28T08:05:00.004Z

On Saturday, we decided to go to Devon to visit my brother for a short break. Before we actually arrived at our destination, we took a small detour via Weston-Super-Mare. When we arrived the tide was out, so we had vast expanses of sand and mud to investigate. The weather was typically British, one moment rain, next moment sunny. What was constant though was the wind! It kept blowing the rain sideways!

We then continued our journey through Exmoor to our destination of Totnes, Devon.

The next morning (Sunday) we had a very early start, and made a dash for the coast at Slapton, in the hope of seeing the sun rise over the sea.

Unfortunately, the British weather didn't quite allow us to see a perfect sunrise. Although what we did see was pretty impressive.

As the morning progressed we went exploring along the beach, and my daughter decided to sit on some rocks and watch the waves break on the shore.....

...What she hadn't realised was the tide was coming in, and she got an unexpected surprise!!

Next, we went for a walk alongside the river Dart. This time the weather was beautiful and sunny. It was very relaxing and peaceful walk, apart from the steep climb up the hill to Dartington College! At least it was an easy walk downhill home again afterwards.

Later in the afternoon we trundled off to Start Point, in the hope of watching the sunset! We took a walk down to the lighthouse, and discovered that there was a path that continued along the coast westwards...

This was some of the most rugged countryside I have ever seen. One mistake with our footing, and we could have tumbled down the slope onto the rocks below! The constant wind didn't help matters either!

We eventually found a small sand cove with rocks strewn around. The rocks were absolutely covered with limpets! Although I searched some of the rock pools, I didn't spot any other interesting creatures there. Again, we were thwarted by clouds of seeing the sunset. We also discovered that there would have been another headland blocking our view too.

The next day, on our way home, we stopped off at the village of Beer, so that I could take a look at the model railway exhibition at Pecorama.

Then we continued on to Charmouth, and walked along the

Jurassic coastline searching for fossils. I think I found a stone that had grass seeds embedded into it. We didn't find any real fossils though, as we hadn't brought a hammer with us to break open the stones.

Finally we stopped off at Lyme Regis to see if we could find a cafe that sold fresh locally caught seafood. Unfortunately, the only place we found didn't open until 5 pm, and we were not prepared to wait another 4 hours! So I set the GPS for home and stopped off at Yeovil for some fuel, and a village near Swindon for some fish and chips. We finally got home about 9 pm that evening.

Currently Reading

2009-10-20T11:51:00.008+01:00

Synopsis: In the Micronesian Islands, a top-secret, US government-sponsored undersea lab conducting vital biomedical research on a rare jellyfish known as the Blue Medusa suddenly disappears. At the same time, off Bermuda, a bathysphere is attacked by an underwater vehicle. Stranded half a mile below the surface, its passengers - including Zavala - are left to die. Only Kurt Austin's heroic measures can now save them from a watery grave.

Austin, suspecting a connection between the two mysterious events, puts the NUMA team on the case. He has no idea what he has just got them all into - a hideous series of medical experiments... an extraordinarily ambitious Chinese criminal organization... a secret new virus that threatens to set off a worldwide pandemic... Austin and Zavala have been in tight spots before, but this time it's not just their own skins they're trying to save - it's the lives of millions.

And Pop! Out went all the lights!

2009-10-17T08:20:00.004+01:00

Ever since I had the burst immersion tank, I have had problems with my electrics! Because the water had poured through the floor below and affected the wiring to the smoke alarms and the downstairs lighting, I was advised by the boiler engineer to call out an electrician to check the wiring too.

I duly called in an electrician, and he checked the wiring and the fittings, he found that nothing was wrong with them. He did, however, discover that the RCD breaker on the fuse board would not trip every time he tested it. He then replaced it.

That was when my problems seemed to begin!

First it was the iron. I had no problems with it for the years before, now every time I used it, it would trip the breaker! I then called out the electrician believing that the RCD was too sensitive. When the electrician arrived, she did a whole range of tests, and informed me that the iron actually was shorting out, and this was the reason for the RCD tripping. I had to go out and buy a new iron!

On Thursday evening, I decided to clean the oven. First I removed all the metal shelves, and then switched on the self cleaning programme. It takes about two and a half hours to do this. When I open the oven, all that is left inside, is ashes, which can simply be wiped away! It certainly saves on elbow grease!

I discovered the next morning that the light in the oven had blown, so I tried to replace it. That is when I encountered a small problem. The glass cover protecting the bulb wouldn't unscrew! I then sprayed a little WD40 on the thread, and hey presto! the cover came off with ease. I replaced the bulb, and replaced the cover.

I still had not cleaned the shelves and brackets. So yesterday, I started to clean the shelves. It was when I open the oven to replace the clean shelves that I encountered my present problem. When I opened the oven, and the light came on, the RCD would trip! At first,when I removed the bulb, the RCD would keep tripping. At present, I can still open the oven door, without the light in it, and the RCD will not trip. I haven't as yet tried to see if the oven itself will trip the RCD when I switch it on. I was just happy last night to be able to open the oven door without the RCD tripping!

Later today, I will actually test the oven, although I still do not know why there is a problem, with the light. I now wonder if I call out the electrician again, he/she will tell me that there is a problem with the oven, and not with the RCD. I'm not sure if the maintenance contract I have includes repairs to ovens. If not, I then would have to find somewhere that could repair the problem, or worst case scenario, contemplate purchasing a new oven!

An Amusing act

2009-10-07T17:30:00.002+01:00

My daughter showed this to me and my wife. We had a really good chortle over this. It is very un-PC, which is why it was amusing. If you are sensitive to jokes about Jews, Catholics, or muslims, then, don't watch this. You have been warned!

Wedding Anniversary

2009-09-30T11:30:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary. I cannot believe the time has gone by so quickly! It ended up being quite a busy day for me, hence writing about it today!

When I finished my night shift, on the way home I stopped off at Sainsbury's and bought some flowers and chocolates for my wife. The look of pleasure on her face as I handed them to her as I stepped into the house gave me a real sense of pride and happiness! Then I went to bed, alone, and slept until 3pm.

Immediately, I got up, my wife and I drove over to Olney to pick up a mahogany office desk, for our daughter to use for her studying. We brought it home about 5pm, and set it up in the spare bedroom for her.

Next, my wife and I set out to go to a Carvery restaurant for a celebration meal. My wife liked the location of the restaurant, and the quality of the food, and she wants to go back there again, only with all 3 of us next time!

Back home, it was gift giving time. My wife gave me a silver tie clip. I gave my wife a bottle of "Guerlain Idylle" perfume, and we received from our daughter 2 wedding anniversary champagne flutes!

We then sat down with a glass of Baileys each, and watched a movie together. I chose the movie "Along Came Polly", but my wife was not very impressed with the movie. I still haven't quite found the type of romantic film she likes to see, but hopefully, I will get it right through a process of elimination. After all, if I stay alive long enough, I should have the next 40 years or so to work it out!

The waiting game starts today

2009-09-21T07:33:00.002+01:00

After a very restful evening yesterday, cuddled up to my wife on the sofa, I found it a real struggle to go to sleep. Partly this was because I worked a night shift on Saturday, and once home, slept until 4pm. I eventually crawled into bed just after midnight.

Now I don't think it was a very warm night, but I found myself bathed in sweat by 3am! And no, I didn't have a duvet over me! You might think it was because of the wine I drank yesterday, I certainly considered it a possible cause, except I break out in a sweat with the slightest exertion, and the wine was drunk over 4 hours before I went to bed.

I did have some strange dreams though. I dreamt that I had to take my wife to work, and the place where she worked was surrounded by a thick hedge of low gnarled trees and bushes. There was only one way in and we had to duck our heads, and twist our way through the trees to get to the entrance of the Hotel.

Now I wonder whether some of my dreams have any connection to today. At some point today, I have the Electrician coming to fix one of my circuit breakers. When I had the adventure of the burst hot water tank earlier, we had to get an Electrician to come and check the wiring where the water had poured through. There was nothing wrong with any of the wiring that got soaked. He did find that the main RCD breaker didn't always trip when the test button was used. He said it was probably through us not testing it once every 3 months as we are supposed to do. So he decided to replace it with a new one. Now I know this RCD works, because every time we plug the iron in to do some ironing, the bloody thing trips! Suddenly there is no power to the whole house!

I bet that when the Electrician turns up today, that the RCD breaker will NOT trip when I plug the iron in, just to spite us!

Sometime today I hope that someone will come to pay me for my old Landrover Discovery. He was the highest bidder for it on E-Bay on Friday, and he said he would come and pay for it today. It's hard to believe that I have had that car for 10 years, and did 200,000 miles travelling! What is even more worrying, is I never went abroad with it!

My wife is hoping that I will take a piece of the old carpet from our en-suite shower room and put it into the airing cupboard to replace the water damaged one. This is something that needs to be done, but somehow I have got to try and find the enthusiasm to get started. Thinking about what I will need to do is definitely not raising my motivation! Perhaps if I sit here and try to ignore it, my wife will forget to remind me. Then again, I think that will be a very unlikely option!

My patience is almost in shreds!

2009-09-13T08:23:00.003+01:00

It all started a few weeks ago. I had a neighbour knock on my door.

"Your hedge round the side of your house needs to be cut back. When are you going to do it?" He said.

"Er, hopefully later this week, if the weather is fine. Thanks for letting me know." I replied.

Of course, every time I had a day off, the weather put a stop to any possibility of making a start, until last Wednesday, 9th September.

The weather was beautiful, I had a couple of days rest from work, so I started to cut the hedge. That's when I ran into trouble. First I found that the hedge trimmer I had had for 20 years, just wasn't up to the task of cutting the woody stems of the hedge. So after searching the Internet, I finally decided to purchase a new on from Homebase, as I would also get an extra 5% discount off my household bills next month.

So far, so good. Then the garden shredder, I had, started to play up. It kept jamming. Every time I switched it off to clear the jam, it then wouldn't start again for another 10 minutes. I was steadily getting more, and more frustrated and annoyed with the machine. I couldn't continue to cut the hedge, without shredding the cuttings, as I only had a limited amount of space left in my wheelie bin!

On Friday, I finally lost patience, and decided to replace the shredder. Again, I searched the Internet, and I found that Homebase had a Sovereign shredder on special offer for only £120. Again I thought the £40 discount from the shop, plus the 5% discount on my home bills was a pretty good bargain. So off I trundled to the local Homebase store and brought home my new shredder. When I first started to use it, it seemed to work alright. Then my wife came out to help me, and that is when things started to go wrong.

This shredder had a capture bin for the waste. My wife didn't notice it was getting full, and continued to add more branches into the hopper. Eventually she could put no more in. Now this machine is supposed to automatically stop when the bin gets full. It didn't. After 10 minutes of clearing out the debris, I started up the machine again. This time, the machine would not shred the material at all! That was when I discovered that the cutting adjuster was broken!

I took the machine back to Homebase on the same day that I had bought it. They immediately exchanged it for a new one. I went home that evening, vowing I would return the next day with the shredder in it's box unopened, and try and get a refund, as I was not impressed with it's ability to do the job. My wife, persuaded me to give this new machine a try, as she thought that she might have been the cause of the previous machine failing. So, the next day, I assembled the shredder, and gave it a try.

Immediately, I discovered that this machine would not shred anything. No matter how much I tried to adjust the cutters, it simply just kept feeding the branches straight through into the capture bin! This time, when I took it back to Homebase, I got a full refund.

Now my old shredder, had been a Bosch model, and it had worked fine for about 10 years without any problems. I decided that I would go for another Bosch model this time. I spent an evening searching the Internet, to find which one would best suit my needs. I finally settled on one of the top of the range shredders, that will be happy to mulch leaves, as well as thick, woody, branches. My only problem was that I could not find any shop that had this particular model in stock. They all seemed to have sold out! So I have had to order it from an online retailer. Hopefully, it will arrive within the next few days, and I can then continue to cut the bloody hedge again!

Currently Reading

2009-09-12T21:49:00.006+01:00

Synopsis: They watch you through mirrors.....

'Your mother was twenty-seven when it came to her. Now you're twenty-seven, and it's come to you.'

The skin of Alex's arms tingled with goose bumps. By her twenty-seventh birthday insanity had come to his mother...

Turning 27 may be terrifying for some, but for Alex, a struggling artist living in the mid-western United States, it is cataclysmic. Inheriting a huge expanse of land should have made him a rich and happy man; but something about his birthday, his name, and the beautiful woman whose life he had just saved, has suddenly made him - and everyone he loves - into a target. A target for extreme and uncompromising violence...

Where do you turn when your own reflection spells doom?

This book was a birthday present from my wife, and I am already halfway through the book already! If you have read Terry Goodkind's Sword Of Truth series, you will find this book has some connections to the series. I will have finished this book by the end of this week, and then I will have to wait for another year before I can read the next instalment! Damn!!

Today's a special day for me.

2009-09-10T08:13:00.003+01:00

Once again, I have reached another milestone, or is it millstone, in my life. Today is the day when I will be inundated with offers from companies who cater for the more senior end of the age cycle. I HATE being constantly reminded that I am now over 50 years old!

My daughter, once again has completely surprised me with this birthday video clip. I did not realise that the Beatles had even done this. I think it must have been from one of the BBC recordings, or from one of their special records given out to only their fans each year.

I should have a fairly quite day today, just taking my wife to and from work, my daughter to and from school, trimming the garden hedge... Now that is going to take the best part of the day to do! It is a glorious sunny day, so it will actually be quite nice to do. I may even get a bit of sunburn for my efforts!

This evening, I am being taken out to a Chinese Restaurant for a birthday meal. Yum, yum!

Oh and one last thing, yesterday, I have finally completed my en suite shower project, and here's the picture to prove it!

My next project is to wallpaper the hallway, stairwell, and upper landing. I might do this on my next holiday in October, unless we all go away for a real holiday instead!

Golden Oldie Song of the Week

2009-09-03T11:56:00.001+01:00

Some light humour!

2009-09-02T07:39:00.013+01:00

My daughter found a website that does strange things to pictures! When she showed them to us we fell about laughing. Here are a few of the ones we found amusing, or interesting.

This one is of my daughter.

This is my wife. I didn't realise that she was a time traveller!

This is me during the swinging sixties!

I haven't quite worked out where this advert is in the world, but it looks strangely familiar

Celebration time!

2009-08-27T19:04:00.002+01:00

Tonight I am going to have a celebration. I will be taking my first shower!!! This afternoon, I finally managed to get the hot and cold water to work! The problem had been the 2 flexible hoses that connect the shower unit to the pipework. Because they were so short, they kinked and stopped the water flow. So yesterday I purchased longer hoses, and now everything is working fine... Well almost!

I now have a new small problem. One of the body jets has split, and water just pours out. I have not been able to find a replacement cap for it, so I have just had to order 6 new jets. I will simply replace the existing ones with the new ones, and then everything will be in full working order.

I have also just bought a new carpet for the shower room, and I will probably fit it either on Sunday, or next Tuesday, when I have my day off from work.

Almost done!

2009-08-22T07:37:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was a very busy and long day. I started the final completion of the installation of the shower and towel rail at about midday, and went to bed at about 23:00 when the work was completed.

As you can now see everything is now connected!. On the towel rail, one of the pipes might have a slight leak, which will mean I will have to tighten up one of the nuts. This is a major improvement from when I first tried it out with running water through it! Nearly all of the joints leaked! What has cured the problems was jointing compound.

Now all that is left to do is to test the hot water flow to the shower on Tuesday, when the new hot water tank is replaced. Then I can consider the last addition to this room, a new floor covering. This will be chosen by my wife, both the colour and the texture. So I have absolutely no idea what it will be! She is already looking through the Argos catalogue for inspiration!

Hopefully, later this weekend, I will make a start in tidying up the shrubbery alongside the house (I had a neighbour politely ask me to cut it back). Perhaps I might even be able to sit down, take a rest, and give myself a small pat on the back for getting this far along with my project. Although I will think long and hard about attempting something like this again!

It sometimes pays to be insured

2009-08-18T21:45:00.002+01:00

Today, I had a day off work to stay at home and wait for the plumber to arrive. Eventually he arrived at 13:30, and very quickly informed me that it was NOT a water pipe that had burst, but the water tank itself had split at the bottom! Considering that the tank is only 13 years old, I am very surprised that something like this should happen to a copper tank!

I thought the plumber would disconnect the tank and remove it ready for when the new one arrived. Instead, he spent 3 hours draining the remaining water from the tank (the drain valve wouldn't open properly!) and then told me that he would not disconnect the tank, as he was not allowed to leave the pipes unconnected, in case the valves stopping the water flow failed.

Next, he gave me the news that did not make me a happy bunny. A new hot water tank has to be ordered, and will not be delivered here until Monday! Then on Tuesday morning, another plumber will arrive to remove the old tank, and install the new one. Until then, we have only cold water supply in the house. The only way we can have hot water, is by boiling water in a saucepan on the cooker! So for the next 7 days, I will be reduced to strip washes!

The only real good news out of this disaster, is that I will not have to pay anything for the replacement tank, or the work carried out by the plumbers. I had the good sense to set up a contract with British Gas to maintain, my gas appliances, central heating, plumbing, and electrics. The policy costs about £28 each month, but I have been told that the tank and plumbing work alone would cost over £1000. Then there is the cost of the electricians afterwards to repair or replace the damaged smoke alarm.

My daughter now has a job to do for the next 7 days. She has to use a hair dryer to attempt to dry out the floor underneath the tank, and the ceiling downstairs. I may even decide to call in the house contents insurers to see if I can claim on that insurance to repair the water damage to the downstairs ceiling, and the dining room. I'll have to think about that one, and make a decision tomorrow.

Drip, Drip!

2009-08-18T07:51:00.003+01:00

This morning, I came downstairs to find that water is still dripping into the bucket. Also as you can see the ceiling is looking decidedly wet. The dining room has water seeping down in the corners, so God knows how far the water has spread from the initial problem. Even more worrying, how do I dry out such a vast area? Answers on very absorbent material please.

Now I have to decide whether to detach the pipework from the hot water tank, and remove it, so that the plumbers can get to where the broken pipe is underneath. Or do I wait for them to come and do it themselves.

I think I will go and have a cup of coffee, and mull this one over for an hour or two. Hopefully the plumbers will turn up before I make a decision one way or the other!

Disaster!

2009-08-17T21:12:00.002+01:00

I switched off the water supply while I connected the shower to the pipes. First I switched on the cold water supply, and everything was fine. It was when I switched on the hot water supply that disaster struck. A pipe burst underneath the hot water tank! This is an area that I haven't been anywhere near! All I can say is it was just waiting to happen, and it was the weight of the water filling up the tank that caused the pipe to burst!

Now I have to wait for the emergency plumbers to arrive tomorrow morning to try and find and repair the burst pipe. Once they have done that, I then have to find a way to dry out the whole area around the hot water tank, before the electricians will then come and check that all the electrics are OK. I know the smoke alarms have shorted out, as I can smell burnt plastic downstairs. I just hope that nothing major will go wrong with the electrics tonight, as the fire alarms are disabled until the electricians can come and fix them again.

I contacted my manager at work, and he has allowed me to stay at home tomorrow to deal with the plumbers, and whatever other problems that might arise.

Things were going so well up until now, I now need to let off steam, so ... BOLLOCKS, SHIT, BUGGER, FUCK!!!!! There, now I feel a little bit better!

At Last, The Tiling Is Done!

2009-08-13T20:38:00.002+01:00

After getting way behind schedule, I have finally completed tiling the en-suite bathroom! It looks very nice now, apart from the grubby carpet. I am very pleased with the way I managed to drill holes in the tiles for where the fixings should go. the only thing I am a little disappointed with, was my inability to make the tiles match up at the corners!

The next thing to do is install the shower screen. I have no idea how complicated this is going to be, as I haven't even opened the package containing the screen yet! I will open it tonight and start to read the instructions, and probably make a start on Sunday afternoon.

Currently Reading

2009-08-12T20:11:00.000+01:00

Synopsis: Autumn 1541

A giant cavalcade a mile long is wending its way through the Vale of York. Following the uncovering of a plot against the throne in Yorkshire, King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to overawe his rebellious subjects there. Accompanied by a thousand soldiers, the cream of the nobility and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, the King is to attend an extravagant submission of the local gentry at York, the climax of the greatest Progress of Tudor times.

Also travelling to York at the behest of Archbishop Cranmer are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as assisting with legal work processing petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Cranmer - to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation.

But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but also to the royal family itself. As the Great Progress arrives in the city, Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could shake the Tudor throne, and a chain of events unfolds that will leave Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age...

Progress is slow but sure!

2009-08-09T10:19:00.003+01:00

At last I have some progress with the en-suite shower room. At least the most important and difficult part of the room has been tiled. Half the room is fully tiled and grouted. Before I went to work, I managed to Plumb back in the toilet cistern, and the sink. The wall cabinet is also installed. I just managed to find time to continue tiling along the other long wall. I think that I should complete the tiling by next weekend.

Then I will have fun trying to install the shower cubicle frame and panels. That is going to require me to start drilling holes on my nice new tiles!!

Finally, I will then connect the shower up, and hope that when I switch it on, the power pump actually works and increases the flow to the shower! If it doesn't, I will have to admit defeat and call a plumber in to fix it!

The final part to this renovation will be to replace the carpet! I have already told my wife that she can choose what she would like. what material she wants it to be, such as linoleum, carpet, cork, or tiles.

Any one got a time machine?

2009-08-03T20:46:00.004+01:00

I am rapidly running out of time every day! After failing spectacularly in completing the redecorating of the en-suite shower room (hence the reason for no more new pictures), I am trying to complete the tiling, whilst also embarking on a month of "Win a Mini" events at various DIY stores.

Also I have had to collect my wife and daughter from the airport last Friday, take my car in for repair, this morning, and find time to take the dog for a walk, take my wife to and from work, go grocery shopping, eat, sleep....

Tomorrow, I have planned to take my wife to work, cut the grass in the garden (subject to it remaining dry), commence tiling the second wall in the en-suite. Collect my wife from work and take her to the doctor in the evening, and finally head off to Northampton for my first appointment with a potential new customer!

I am feeling very nervous about taking my wife to visit the doctor tomorrow, as the problem she has could at best result in a course of ultrasound treatment, or possibly an operation! We wont know until we have gone through the process of seeing the doctor first, then being referred to a specialist at a hospital somewhere before knowing what the prognosis is likely to be.

The Tiles are slowly going on!

2009-07-28T23:01:00.005+01:00

I have finally started the tiling in the en-suite! I decided to begin on the wall with the most problems, such as the pipes for the wash basin, the window, and the shower cubicle. Also I will have to relocate the wall cabinet. I am not sure if I want to replace it exactly where it was last time, or perhaps lower it a bit.

I am finding the progress very slow as I have to wait for the adhesive to dry a bit before I can grout between the tiles. So far, I have placed 88 tiles on the wall, and I intend to do another 44 tiles tonight before I call it a day and crawl into bed! I then have just 2 more days to complete this project!!

Can I turn back the clock?

2009-07-27T13:53:00.005+01:00

This project, has been very slow and fraught with niggly problems. After finally connecting all the pipes, I first placed the shower tray on the floor and connected it to the waste pipe, then I tried to temporarily connect the shower and see if it worked. No water came out at all!!!

I then searched through my DIY book for an answer, and basically I have an air lock in the system. All I need to do is connect a hose from a tap connected to the rising main and the affected pipe, and then use the water pressure to dislodge the airlock.

So once again I trundled off to the local DIY store and purchased some tap connectors to connect the hosepipe to. I then successfully cleared the airlocks in the piping I created. Even better, it doesn't leak either! I now have another problem though. The hot water tap in the kitchen has an airlock somewhere, and I couldn't get it to shift using the rising main pressure. I seem to remember I had this same problem when I replaced the kitchen tap a few years ago, but I cannot remember how I cured the problem last time.

My next problem was with the shower tray. It came with some panels to go round the outside between the floor and the bottom of the tray. If I tried to lower the tray sufficiently so the panels would fit snugly I found there was no room for the waste sump to fit. If I raised the tray to fit the sump, then there was about a 10mm gap! I decided to fill the gap with silicone sealant, as the other alternative would be to cut a hole in the floor, and completely reroute the waste pipe!

Whilst I was busy sorting out the shower tray last night, right at the end, I got a sudden pain in my right knee. Any movement was sheer agony. I had a long hot soak in the bath, and then limped off to bed.

I was woken up at 06:00 this morning by the pain. So I hobbled downstairs and microwaved a heat bag, hobbled back upstairs and crawled into bed, placed the pack on my knee and promptly went back to sleep.

When I woke up again at 09:00 I found that my knee still hurt, but I could at least move it. Throughout the morning, it has been improving, to the point where it is now a constant ache. I personally think I may have pulled a muscle or ligament somehow, and I should be fully recovered in a day or two.

This morning I have successfully replaced all the skirting boards. This afternoon, I commence tiling. Although it is going to be challenging to mark out the exact spots where the screw holes are to replace the sink and cistern again! I will take a picture of my progress later this evening, and post it on this blog so that my wife and daughter can see what progress I have made so far.

Finished work in the loft!

2009-07-23T21:27:00.006+01:00

Trying to sort out the pipes to the water pump has been a slow hard slog. The heat in the loft meant that I had to keep going downstairs every half an hour to wipe away the sweat, and have a drink ow water!

As you can see by the picture, I have finally connected the water pump to the pipes. I haven't tested the connections yet, as I still have to connect the hot water pipe to the extension I made in the shower room. And before I can really test the system, I will need to put the new shower tray in place so that the water can drain away when I turn it on.

The final part of connecting the pump was relatively easy. I had to find a power source to connect the motor to. I found a cable that goes to the immersion heater, and created a 3 way spur. this feed then goes up to the circuit breaker box you see, and then it goes to the pump. This spur has a 5 amp fuse in it as per recommendation.

Again I cannot test it fully, as the pump has to have water going through it before I can switch on the power supply. I am pleased to say that electricity is going to the switch, and is definitely not going any further, as I planned.

Now I am off to have a long soak in the bath, and get ready for bed, as I am off to Kings Lynn tomorrow morning using public transport. It should take about 4 hours to get there!

I am one frustrated Bunny!!!

2009-07-22T19:39:00.003+01:00

Today has been a day where nothing has gone according to plan! Yesterday I received a phone call from someone who was looking to join my business. So I had an 11:00 appointment this morning. This meant i couldn't really get started on sorting out the plumbing in the shower room.

The person I met was a young lad, and although he seemed interested, he wanted to discuss the business opportunity with his mum! I do not think he will be contacting me again!

When I got home, I started to prepare some lunch, and start bringing in some more tools from the garage. While I was carrying some of the tools upstairs, our dog, Bonnie, decided to go for a stroll! I received a phone call shortly afterwards from some people who had captured her. So off I went to fetch Bonnie back, which was about half a mile away.

I finally got to work on the plumbing this afternoon. First I had to drill some extra holes in the joists so that I could pass two copper pipes up into the loft, ready for connection to the power pump. That is when things started to get frustrating.

Although I bought a 3 metre length of pipe, there is not sufficient amount left to cut to supply the extra piping to and from the pump! Plus the instructions for connecting the pump state that the flexible hoses must be in an upright position. This meant I had to go and get some more elbow connectors. So off I merrily trundled to buy another length of copper pipe, elbows, and a fused spur connection for the electrics.

When I got home, I thought I would start cutting some of the pipe and fitting some of the elbow joints. Then connect the pipes to the pump. That is when I discovered that the connectors to the pump require 22mm copper tube, not the 15mm that I had! Grrrr!

So once more I had to visit the DIY store, and this time I had to buy 22mm copper pipe. The shortest length I could purchase was a 2 metre length! I then had to buy 4 reducers to get the 22m down to the 15mm the rest of the piping in the house is. Finally I remembered just in time that I only have a 15mm pipe cutter. So I bought a universal cutter that will cut the 22mm diameter pipe.

After all that, all I have managed to do today is fit 2 pipes from the shower room to the loft. Nothing is connected yet. I am now going to sit down, have a drink, and a bite to eat, and relax Tomorrow is when I start reconnecting the plumbing.

Halfway There!

2009-07-21T10:57:00.014+01:00

I can now take off my "Wrecking Crew" cap and put on my "Repair Crew" cap! At last all the tiles, wallpaper, fixtures and fittings are out. Now all I have to do is repair the holes on the wall where the plasterboard came away with the tiles, or is completely missing. Then I have to extend the hot pipe upwards to the loft, so I can connect it to the power pump. Then I will have to cut the cold water pipe to divert it through the pump as well.

My next task today is to put all the rubbish into the car, and take it to the Refuse tip. Then I go shopping. Items I need to purchase, are - a power pump, plasterboard, plaster (hopefully ready made to patch up the holes), skirting board, copper pipe, assorted compression joints and bends to attach the piping, and finally a heated towel rail. This last item is going to be an ambitious project, as I do not know how I will connect it to the existing central heating pipes. I will go and ask a few experts on the best way forward.

Problems, Problems!

2009-07-19T09:02:00.008+01:00

Today I started to remove the old tiles. I started behind the toilet, planning to work my way across to the shower cubicle. It was while I was removing the tiles that I came across my first set of real problems!

I discovered that when this house was built, the workmen tiled the wall, and then glued the skirting board onto the tiles!! Now I have to decide whether to do the same with the new tiles, and replace the original skirting board (this would require me to remove the entire skirting board around the room). Or since I have to remove the skirting board where the tiles are, which is half the room, I could remove the remainder, and replace the entire lot!

My next problem is where the shower tray is. Over the years, some of the water has seeped behind some of the tiles and made the plasterboard damp. So when I removed these tiles the plasterboard came away with the tiles!!! So before I can think about putting new tiles onto the wall, I have got to attempt to replaster the holes!!!

Finally, I managed to get to the mixer tap for the shower, and remove it from the recess in the wall. My next problem is to figure out how I am going to fit a power pump to the pipes. I think I am going to have to extend one of the pipes up, or down, to be able to connect a pump. All I have to do is decide if I want the pump in the loft, or underneath the shower tray. I will make a decision, when the old tray has been removed and I can look and see what state the wall is like behind it.

My only worry now is that this project seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I am finding that I am going to have to do tasks I have never done before. I am a little scared that I will botch the work to such an extent that I will have to call in the professionals to put it all right again!

Day 2 of the wrecking crew!

2009-07-17T17:52:00.008+01:00

When I got home form work today, I decided to continue ripping out more bits from the en-suite!

This time it was the turn of the radiator. After turning off the taps at each end, I losened one of the nuts at the base, and put a small bucket underneath. Then I undid the bleed valve at the top and left it to drain.

Meanwhile, I decided to tackle the shower cubicle. This proved to be my first real problem. I could not see how each segment was attached to each other. In the end I had to remove the

Entire glass panels all at once, and then set about trying to dismantle it! I left the shower tray alone for the time being, as I will again have to turn off the water supply and drain the water to the shower unit. Before I do that, though, I will need to remove the tiles to get at the shower mixer unit and the pipes connected to it. That is a task I will leave until I have more time.

My wife took a look at the pictures of my progress today, and was alarmed at what I had done! Her daughter wants me to promise that I do not go anywhere near the other bathroom! Maybe next year I will send them off on holiday again and secretly go into the other bathroom.....

Day 1 Of My Bathroom Project.

2009-07-16T16:59:00.004+01:00

Today, I decided to make a start on the en-suite bathroom. I took this picture, to show what it was like before I started wrecking it!

This Picture Shows how the toilet looked before I got my grubby hands onto it! My first task was to remove the cupboard above the sink, and the toilet roll holder. These were easy, as I had put them up originally.

Next, I attempted to remove the cistern from the toilet. This proved to be easier than I expected, with only one minor problem. I discovered that there was an special tap attached to the inlet water pipe, which made turning off the supply easy. After disconnecting the pipes to the bottom of the cistern, I turned to the two screws attaching the cistern to the wall. as you can see from this picture, the screws had badly corroded. Luckily, the first one came out without any problem, and the other one had corroded completely away and it wasn't attached to the wall any more!

After I removed the cistern, I noticed that they hadn't even tiled the wall properly! Talk about cutting corners!

My next task was removing the sink. This now required me to find a way to turn off the water supply to the sink and shower. After spending an hour in the loft trying to find a tap that would isolate the en-suite, I had to admit defeat, and resorted to turning off the entire water supply to the house.

I then merrily got to work on removing the sink. The most difficult part was trying to cut through the silicone sealant enough to prise the bowl away from the wall.

As I had turned off the water supply, I had an idea to try and cap the pipes off in the en-suite, so I could turn on the water supply to the rest of the house.

I dashed off to Homebase to get some end caps, and came home and fitted them to the pipes. After turning on the water supply, and finding that I have no water leaks, I am very pleased with my efforts so far.

As I am back at work for the next two days, I will probably tackle the next instalment on Sunday. Then I hope to remove the radiator, and the shower unit. Finally I will get to work on removing the shower cubicle. How much of this I will do in one day, I don't know. I am not going to rush myself on this project.

Some Light Entertainment For Me

2009-07-16T16:49:00.004+01:00

As the girls are away on holiday, I decided to treat myself and go to the theatre this evening to see this play.

Currently Showing:

Until 18th July
Chalkfoot Theatre Arts
presents

LAUREL and HARDY
by
Tom McGrath

Tuesdays to Saturdays 7.30pm
Saturday and Sunday Matinees 4.00pm

Call the Box Office on: 020 7287 2875

Laurel and Hardy are dead. So how come Stan and Ollie are the last to know?

CAST:
Neil Bromley and Simon Lloyd

Trapped between this world and the next, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy pass their time in a limbo-like waiting room, reprising old comedy routines, swapping gags, bickering and making up.

They will only earn their passage to "The Other Side" by undertaking an emotional journey through their personal lives and screen careers: but are they prepared to re-live the bad times as well as the good?

All by myself

2009-07-15T21:31:00.002+01:00

After getting home from work last night at midnight, I was up again at 05:00 this morning to take my wife, daughter and a friend of my wife to Heathrow and Gatwick Airports, so that they can start their holidays. After dropping the girls off, I then travelled up to Kings Lynn to look at a new motor vehicle. As it was a dealer, I pointed out numerous faults with the car. The dealer promised to rectify all the problems, so I have left a deposit and will return next week to see if he has made good his promises.

If I do purchase this new car, then I will confuse my wife and daughter, as they will not recognise the vehicle when I go to collect them again at the end of the month!

I arrived home at 18:00 this evening, and fed the dog. For some strange reason I did not feel hungry myself, until 21:00. I then raided the fridge and nuked the leftover food from yesterday. I still have one more day of food prepared by my wife and daughter before I will have to start cooking for myself!!

One step closer to my holiday project!

2009-07-12T12:33:00.002+01:00

Just bought 16 boxes of ceramic wall tiles for the bathroom! Nearly broke the shopping trolley bringing them out to the car! The type of tile I bought is a Natural Marble effect. I worked out that I would need about 700 tiles to do the entire room, and each box contained 44 tiles. I may have left myself very little room for any errors or breakages!

I will take some pictures of the en-suite before I start my decorating project, and hopefully I will report on my progress as I go along (my wife and daughter are on holiday abroad for 2 weeks, and they want to know what I am doing while they are away!).

At the moment, I keep thinking of all the things I need to do in the form of preparation, for instance, removing the cupboard, toilet roll holder (these are easy), radiator, toilet cistern, and basin (these involve playing with water pipes!). Then I will have to remove the old shower cubicle, and remove the wallpaper (could get very messy)!

I have a DIY book that I am looking into, to help give me some hints and tips to make my task as risk free as I can possibly make it. The only unknown element in this project is my own ability to do the work! Whatever happens, I will have an interesting couple of weeks ahead of me!

Currently Reading

2009-07-11T22:39:00.000+01:00

Synopsis: It is 1537, a time of revolution that sees the greatest changes in England since 1066. Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church. The country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers it has ever seen. And under the orders of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent throughout the country to investigate the monasteries. There can only be one outcome: Dissolution.

But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's commissioner, Robin Singleton, has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege - a black cockerel sacrificed on the church alter, and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great Relic.

Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform, has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death, accompanied by his loyal assistant Mark. His duty is to uncover the truth behind the dark happenings of Scarnsea.

Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything that he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes...

It's a learning curve.

2009-07-06T23:52:00.002+01:00

This afternoon, my wife has just enrolled for another term at the local college to study her ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) course starting in September. While we were going through the process of registering, my wife was told she had passed her level 1 exam and would start her level 2 course in September! I am thrilled to bits that she has done so well!

Also today, I set in motion a training course for myself of a very different nature. In two weeks time I will be attending a "Trial and Error" course in bathroom plumbing!

About 3 years ago I purchased a new shower unit. This unit also has extra jets for a body massage incorporated into it. It has been sitting in my garage patiently waiting for me to decide to do something about it. Every time I start thinking about doing this project, the more difficult I seem to make it for myself!

If I replace the shower, I will need to replace the tiles in the shower cubicle, as I will need to get to the pipes hidden behind them. To remove the tiles, I will have to remove the shower cubicle. That is why we chose a nice curved shower cubicle to replace the old one today.

Now the next item on the agenda is to choose a new design of bathroom tiles, to replace the old ones. Finally, comes the hardest task of all. I have to try and locate the piping hidden in the walls from the hot and cold tanks to the shower head. Then I have to find a way to stop the water going through these pipes without having to switch off the water supply to the rest of the house! Also I have to find a suitable point to install a power pump to increase the water pressure. It is this part of the project that has always been the reason I have delayed attempting this task. All my previous attempts to follow the piping around the house has been extremely frustrating due to my lack of any real progress in solving the puzzle.

So in a couple of weeks time it will either be do or drown! I will have a two week window of opportunity to complete the task whilst my wife and daughter are away on holiday.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

British Justice... What British Justice??

2009-06-26T07:40:00.007+01:00

Whilst walking home form the bus stop in the next village with our dog Bonnie, I came across some damage to a building caused by some mindless vandals. This made me consider the state of the British Justice system.

There is seldom a day goes by when there is an article in the daily press highlighting the inconsistencies of British Justice. It all depends on how convincing the defence or prosecution Lawyers are in twisting the evidence in their favour.

I would love to see a change in the way some crimes are treated. For instance theft and vandalism. In most cases, the criminals are given a fine, or community service orders. Only the most prolific offenders are given a custodial sentence. Even then, they may be given a few years, possibly 3 or 4, but the sentence is invariably reduced, for a variety of reasons. In reality they will only serve less than half the original length allocated by the Judge.

I know this would never be accepted by Human Rights brigade, but why not have a simple system of Justice for thieves and vandals. Any thief or vandal must pay back the cost, of what they stole or damaged. The court costs should be included in the total amount to be repaid.

Now most of the criminals, would be unable to pay back that sort of money. So then they are sent to prison, and must work at some trade within the prison. Their labour is given a value that is consistent with the value payed to law abiding citizens who get paid with board and lodgings included in their pay. The criminals will then have to stay in prison until the debt is paid. It is entirely up to them how quickly they want to get out of prison. The harder they work, the quicker they get out of prison. More importantly, the criminals will know exactly how long they will be incarcerated for. It will be entirely up to them how long they stay in prison for, and not a decision for some parole board that the British Tax payer has to pay their salaries, so that they can make the decision to let the criminal out prison early, to allow the criminal to continue his/her life of crime.

This system would have many advantages. It would discourage repeat offending, as most criminals steal because they don't want to work and buy the items they covet. Vandals have no idea of the cost of the damage they cause. I think they would certainly think twice about causing more damage knowing the consequences of their actions.

The only problem I can see with this idea, is that there is simply not enough prison space, to implement this kind if Justice. Also, probably the Prison service is not geared up to provide this form of punishment. I am also sure the thieves and vandals would not want this sort of Justice!

Utility Man goes International... Well, sort of?!

2009-06-22T21:48:00.007+01:00

My colleague WarrenJoffre had added a link to another blog called "Along the Central Line". Out of curiosity, I took a look at the sight, and I was immediately struck with the language translator gadget available. Between WarrenJoffre and myself, we tried to install our own translators to our sites, with out any success.

Every time I installed a translator, either it would not show the little flag icons, or it simply wouldn't translate at all! At first I thought it might be because of the computer at work, which has severe Internet restrictions, but I had the same problem when I got home.

I then spent a couple of hours searching the Internet for the html code that would actually do what I wanted it to do. Eventually I found the code, and now I have the translation facility placed on my Blog! The original code only had 9 languages available. I needed it to have one extra language - Russian, so that my wife's family could read it if they wanted to.

Another hour of Internet searching, and I finally found the code for the Russian translator. Now if anyone knows how to find the code for any other languages, then I would be glad to hear from you. For some reason, when I try and add the code on this page, it changes when it is posted. So I don't know yet how to get the HTML code to stay as it is when posted and not get partially executed, as it seems to be at present.

It's Fathers Day!

2009-06-21T09:46:00.005+01:00

This morning before I went to work, I received this fridge magnet from my step-daughter! I am absolutely thrilled to bits that I have received such a gift. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened!

On a more interesting note. Is Father's Day always set to happen 9 months before Mother's Day?

Currently Reading

2009-06-20T22:31:00.007+01:00

This is a very short book, so it will probably only take me a day or two to read it.

Synopsis: Few of us can resist the lure and fascination of a genuine mystery - the unsolved crime, the inexplicable disappearance, strange gifts and powers, the enigmas of past and present.

Who or what killed nurse Helen Smith? Who was the real Jack the Ripper? Can people have out-of-the-body experiences? What is really behind hypnosis, miracle healing, acupuncture? How did the Dogon learn the secrets of Sirius?...

This intriguing book examines some of the most celebrated and puzzling mysteries that have baffled the scientists, medical experts, historians and criminologists of the world.

Update: I have just discovered in one of the chapters about Amnesia, is an article about my father!!! It is about his battle with Alzheimer's disease, and how he volunteered to be a human Guinea Pig for the new drugs being tested. I am not sure if it was such a good idea though. The drugs couldn't reverse the the disease, only slow it down. So instead of taking the average 7 years to die from the disease, it actually took him nearly 20 years to die!!! Not a very pleasant experience for the rest of the family to go through though.

Modern Electronics Guru Required!!!

2009-06-20T10:03:00.002+01:00

I have just spent the last 5 days trying to sort out a couple of problems at home. More specifically, my computer and my TV.

Let's start with the computer. Recently, I noticed that every time I used Windows Explorer it would take up to 30 seconds to execute a command, such as move, rename, copy, paste or delete. Basically anything that required a right-click of the mouse.

I had checked on various forums, and the general consensus of this problem was caused by the DNS or DHCP settings on the internet connection. After trying to discover exactly whereabouts on the computer these settings were stored and finding how difficult it would be to change, I decided to leave well alone and just live with this problem.

My brother sent me an e-mail last week and when I replied to him, my e-mail was bounced back with the cryptic message that an IP address had been blacklisted because the computer was being used remotely to send spam e-mails! I phoned my brother and told him of the message as I thought the IP address belonged to his computer. He checked his computer and found the IP address wasn't his, it was mine!

After spending a day running every anti-virus, spy ware, and firewall program I had, without finding the Trojan implanted on my computer, I decided there was only one option left. Format the Hard Drive!

It took me 2 days to get the Operating system and essential programs and settings set up once again. I am pleased to say that the computer is now working properly again, and I did not lose any of my data files in the process either, as I have done on previous occasions!

While the problem with the computer was unfolding, I discovered I also now have a problem with my TV. Every time I try to watch anything through the Co-Axial cable (RF cable) the sound and picture keeps appearing and disappearing every few seconds. At first I thought it might be a fault with the TV. Then I discovered that I had no problems if all the equipment was connected using scart leads.

As I do not have enough scart connections on my TV for all the equipment I have (digital tuner, satellite receiver, VCR, and DVD player), I visited my local electronics store to see what I could do about it. While at the shop, I learned that the probable cause of the fluctuation is that "the RF signal is looping back on itself".

The state of play now is that I have managed to connect everything back together but I now have to leave the VCR on permanently if I am to get anything to show on the TV! It is by no means a perfect solution, and I know I will not be happy until I have got everything working the way it was before!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Teenagers! Who needs them?

2009-06-15T10:38:00.003+01:00

Although I recently got married, and I now have a teenage stepdaughter, I have also had another teenager living here for just over a year. I have discovered the dubious distinction of what it is like to have someone who thinks they can do as little as possible within the house, and treat us as if we were a free hotel!

Basically, I was railroaded into providing accommodation for the grandson of my ex partner. Last year he was in the middle of his GCSE exams when his mother decided to move out of our village and relocate to Chesterfield (about 100 miles away, or 2 hours driving). As it was too far to commute to and from his school, I was asked if I could allow him to stay at my house for 2 months while he completed his exams. I discussed this with my wife and daughter, and we all agreed to let him stay until he finished his exams.

Once we had made this agreement, one month later we were dropped another bombshell. The boy had just been accepted into the Motor sport College at Silverstone Race Circuit, to train as a Race Mechanic. This College course was for one year! As we live only 10 miles away from Silverstone, the boys mother basically told us that if he could stay with us he could go to college. If we refused, then he would lose the opportunity for a career in motor sport.

Now, for the month that he had been with us, he had been very helpful, cooking the odd meal, cleaning the house, cutting the lawn. He was also very polite to all of us. After discussing the situation with my wife and daughter, we all agreed to let him stay for one year to give him a chance at a lucrative career.

When we asked his mother to provide some payment towards the cost of supporting her son, she told us that she would transfer the child benefit over to us, and that her son would have to provide the difference himself!!! So far, in the 60 weeks he has been with us, he has only paid us the difference for one week!!! We deliberately set the amount that he should pay very low, so that he could easily pay the amount if he wanted to. Now he seems to think he can help himself to anything in the house, without asking first!

Within a few weeks of him starting College, his character started to change. He became very moody, and stopped being helpful around the house. My wife and daughter used to prepare sandwiches for him to take to his part time work, or College. At first he used to say "thank you" to them. Then he wouldn't say anything. The final straw came when the girls had prepared some sandwiches for him, he took them with him, but returned home without eating them and promptly threw them into the bin! Since that day, the girls no longer make any sandwiches for him anymore!

Another thing that has me extremely puzzled, is how items within the house strangely disappear. I have no proof of any individual person taking them, and when I have asked all members of the household, no one admits to being responsible. The most expensive item to disappear has been the webcam from my computer room. I still harbour a faint hope that perhaps it will miraculously reappear one day.

As the year progressed, he started missing lessons at college, because he stayed out well into the night with his friends. Many weekends, he was too lazy to go to his part time work, and consequently, when his employer was looking to reduce the number of staff, he was dismissed because of his poor timekeeping. Even now, with his present part time work, he thinks nothing of turning up for work at 10 O'clock when he should be there at 9!

The only light at the end of the tunnel for us is that the boy has been offered a trial as a race mechanic in Brighton. He tells us that the trial is for 2 weeks, and is supposed to be happening immanently. He has been telling us this for the past month now!! If he does go for this trial period, I hope that it proves successful, then he will have to find somewhere of his own to live.

One thing is absolutely certain though. His college course finishes in July. He will then have two choices to make. Either he moves to Brighton and commences his career as a Race Mechanic, or he goes home to his mother. He will NOT be staying with us any longer!

Currently Reading

2009-06-13T08:55:00.002+01:00

Book 5 of 5. I've read this book once before, but I cannot remember anything about it now. So this one should be almost as good as reading a brand new book!

Where's the Grease Monkey when you need one?

2009-06-09T14:55:00.001+01:00

Where I live, there has been very little vandalism in the area over the past 13 years. So it was a surprise to discover some mindless idiot had decided to break off the aerial on my car right at the base. I now cannot receive any radio signals until I do something about it!

It is many years since I had to replace a car aerial. and I know it is never an easy task to do, as the wiring is always a sod to get connected from the aerial to the radio. As my years advance, I find the thought of contorting myself into the inaccessible places within bodywork is distinctly unappealing.

Now I could probably cheat and find an old wire coat hanger and shove it into the remains of the present aerial. Or I could pay someone else to do all the work. For some reason, I decided to attempt the task myself! Big mistake, HUGE mistake!!!!

First, I had to take the old aerial out. I had to remove the plastic wheel arch cover over the front wheel to gain access to where the aerial was attached to the bodywork. I discovered that where the plastic was attached, the metal had all corroded, and I got a massive shower of rusty wheel arch all over me as I tried to remove the plastic! Now there is no way I can re-attach the plastic to the wheel arch again, unless I go and get new metal welded back on again!

Oh well, now I have got this far, I might as well continue and worry about putting everything back together again later. Inside the car, I managed to get to all the wiring behind the dashboard, and located the aerial wire. The next thing I did was attach a piece of string to the wire securely and then went back to front of the car and successfully pulled the wire with the string attached all the way out, and removed the old aerial completely. Phew, half way there!

After all the trouble of getting the old aerial out, I though I might as well make it worth my while and replace the old aerial with a new "motorised" version. "No one will be able to break this off" I said to myself. When I purchased the new aerial, I discovered that I had a new set of problems to overcome!

When I got the aerial out of the box, it had about 1.3 metres of aerial cable attached. It also had 3 wires for the electrical operation. These wires were approximately 6 inches (15cm) long. How I am expected to connect these wires to the radio, live and negative points, in the car, is something I couldn't work out. Now I have to rummage around the garage to find some extra lengths of wire to extend the wiring so that I can connect the aerial to the correct parts of the car.

Putting everything back again, has definitely been a challenge for me. The weather hasn't been of much help either. Every time I go out to the car, somebody turns the tap on and I get a soaking! For some reason electricity and water do not mix! So my attempts at finishing this task is now dragging on over a number of days.

Having managed to add extension wires to the original ones at the aerial, I then start rummaging around inside the car to find the correct wires to attach my new leads to. At first it was quite easy as I had plenty of space to get to the wires under the steering column. It was when I needed to connect a wire to the radio that I came across a major obstacle.

There simply was no room to feed a wire through behind the dash board to anywhere close to the radio. So I had to remove the centre console to be able to get to the wiring behind the radio. Only after removing enumerable plastic bits, and dozens of screws, was I able to peer into the dark depths inside. (I am now distinctly worried! I didn't realise that the car had been secretly trying to build its own version of "Short Circuit"!)

I managed to connect all the wires to the correct places. I was even smart enough to test that the aerial actually goes up and down when I switch the radio on, before I started to put everything back together! So after about 5 days, I now have a fully functioning motorised car aerial, a rusty wheel arch that has suddenly become more religious than I will ever be, and a mixed sense of accomplishment, tempered with chagrin that I have caused more damage to the car than the vandal originally did!

Water, Water, Everywhere!

2009-06-06T15:21:00.005+01:00

A colleague of mine sent me an e-mail with a link to a PowerPoint presentation about bottled water. With all the media hype of how global warming is going to ruin our planet, and how we must all do something about it NOW! This message about how much energy and resources are put into the plastic bottle of water you drink, is scary!

I have personally hated paying an extortionate price for bottled water, though I have bought a bottle or two, especially on a hot day when I haven't been able to get any water to drink in any other way. I understand how many people find it so convenient to carry a bottle of water with them.

What I cannot understand is why we cannot go back to the days where drinks were always sold in bottles. Nowadays, all your milk comes in plastic bottles, all your fizzy drinks are sold in cans or plastic bottles. When I was a child, I can clearly remember buying a glass bottle of fizzy drink, and when it was consumed, I could take the empty bottle back to the shop and receive some money back. The bottle was then sent back to the manufacturer for re-use.

Take a look at this presentation and perhaps one day we might return to glass bottles that can be be re-used over and over again. If enough of us change our habits just a small amount, then perhaps, collectively, we can all make a huge difference to our environment.

Secret Squirrel at Work!

2009-06-03T16:17:00.003+01:00

This week, I have been quietly doing a Mystery Shop assessment on a high street bank. The work involves two parts. First I had to make a personal visit to the branch, and assess the cleanliness, friendliness of the staff, and their ability to answer certain questions accurately. Next I have to wait to see if they call me back on the phone as requested.

I have been doing mystery shopping as a hobby since 2004. So far, my reports have not been challenged, either by the venue or the companies I work for. Only once, have I made a mistake of going to the wrong venue, and basically wasting my time and effort on the survey.

Since the onset of this recession, the number of different venues, has begun to shrink, and more to the point, the payments for the time, and effort have reduced considerably. The biggest cutback has been the travelling allowance. One of the companies I worked for was called NOP. They had a policy of paying a mileage allowance to all destinations. So I was quite happy to travel over 50 miles to visit a venue. Sadly, NOP is no more, and the current employers either have a maximum payment of £3.50 for travelling, or sneakily include the travelling expense into the overall payment. So now I have become very choosy as to what venue I will visit.

Because I seem to provide good quality reports on the venues I visit, I often get contacted by one of my employers to visit a number of venues further away than I would normally accept. Then the employers are happy to pay the full travelling expense! It is actually quite fun to receive a call and get them to negotiate a price that is favourable to me!

Doing this kind of work also proves very helpful where I work for my main job. Here the tables are turned and we get mystery shopped on a regular basis! It also allows me to understand that every survey is always going to subject to the individual assessors viewpoint, and no two assessors can be truly similar. I am also very quick to challenge any result that shows that the assessor hasn't done his or her job fully.

When I first started doing this work, I was given the opportunity to visit a loan company. Now at the time, credit card companies were offering interest rates around 20%. Bank loans were about 10%, and mortgages were about 7%. This loan company specialised in giving loans to people who did not have a good enough credit rating to get a loan from the usual places. My task was to ask for £1000 to buy a new TV. I would only need to borrow the money for 1 year. As I went through the process, I discovered the sales person was trying to hide something from me. Whet she was trying to hide was the staggering 59% APR they were charging for the loan!

I never realised that if you you are in full time work, and pay your bills on time, you can get low interest credit, which you probably don't need, very easily. For those people who are in desperate need of credit to help sort out the mess they have got into, they are the ones who end up paying extortionate rates they can ill afford to pay! No wonder you hear stories of vulnerable people ending up with nothing from having out of desperation gone to loan sharks!

How difficult would it be for some institution to offer to help those in need by offering them a loan at a reasonable rate with the condition that they are taught how to manage their money as part of the deal. Most people in financial difficulty, do not want to face up to their problems, and let the problem continue to get worse until it is at a stage where they either lose everything, or they become so depressed that they seek solution in committing suicide.

There was a TV program a while back that had a financial advisor help families sort out their financial problems. Although this an interesting way to do this, it would only help a few people, lucky enough to be chosen to go on the show. There are thousands of other people in as much need of help, and don't have the luxury of waiting until a TV company might or might not choose them for its next broadcast.

It has puzzled me that everyone of us has to attend school from the age of 5 to 16. Everyone of us has to deal with income and expenditure, savings and loans, credit, and debit. Yet none of what we have to deal with on a daily basis in our adult lives is ever taught during our school years. I doubt much emphasis is placed on how important it is to budget your finances.

The present Government seems to think that getting further into debt is the answer to stop this recession biting deeper. Surely they would have been better off offering better incentives to businesses, so allowing them to continue trading, or new businesses to start up. Yes, there a large number of businesses caught up in the borrowing spiral, borrowing more than they can pay back. I still don't understand why banks would prefer to write off the debts to these businesses and lose all the money, rather than work with the directors of the company to work out a way of first stopping the hemorrhage of money disappearing, and then work to slowly get the business back towards profitability, and then to pay back their loans.

Currently Reading

2009-05-28T05:19:00.004+01:00

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?

2009-05-27T18:40:00.003+01:00

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.

2009-05-26T15:30:00.002+01:00

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!

2009-05-25T07:20:00.001+01:00

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!

2009-05-24T19:14:00.001+01:00

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?

2009-05-23T05:07:00.013+01:00

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?

2009-05-21T12:03:00.003+01:00

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

2009-05-19T11:45:00.002+01:00

Book number 3 in a series of 5

Am I becoming a Movie Mogul?

2009-05-18T08:24:00.005+01:00

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!

2009-05-17T15:01:00.008+01:00

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!

2009-05-16T08:29:00.005+01:00

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!

2009-05-14T20:06:00.005+01:00

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!

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2009-05-12T08:46:00.003+01:00

Utility Man

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