A Short Fat Bald Bloke Writes...

Busy busy busy

2004-09-25T20:31:00.000+01:00

Before I start on today, I should mention that after work yesterday, I did the geocache Riverside Ramble. This is a two stage multicache, where the published location gives you a container with the location of the real cache in it. A lovely walk around a part of Hampshire I’d never seen before, through woods and alongside the upper reaches of the river Itchen, much prettier than those bits of the river we see in Southampton!

Rather than go straight back to the car, I made a circular walk of about 2½ miles, which meant I saw this pretty country church as well. Once I got back to the car I went and did The Claimant, one which I meant to do a few weeks ago but didn’t feel well enough. Another nice walk with an easy find at the end of it. Then I had a pub meal, and went to radio club where my mate Brian was giving a talk.

Today I had my hair cut and did some shopping: Then I visited the latest incarnation of PuzzleDonkey and solved a few puzzles in the company of my buddy Mort: I upgraded my internet connection to Broadband (pending the line being sorted etc), and did most (I hope) of the work involved in moving my blog to another site: Watch this space, I’ll bung a link in when the move is complete. HUUUUUGGGEEE thanks to SimonG for talking me through the process with huge patience!

Rhyme and Reason

2004-09-24T22:15:00.000+01:00

If you dig around on the SimonG website, you’ll find this atheist Christmas carol wot he wrote. There look, no need to dig – I’ve given you a link. Take the time to read his other poetry while you’re there, it’s good stuff.

You might think that as a Christian I’d find this offensive: Personally I’d like to stab with a big knife anyone who spells “anthropomorphize” with a “z”* – but then, anyone clever enough to write a poem including “anthropomorphise**” has a talent that needs to be encouraged. As for the sentiments expressed, well as Voltaire said, I disagree with what he says but I’ll defend his right to say it***.

At this very moment, there are countries in the world where to be a Christian means death or enslavement****. There are countries where being in possession of a Bible leads to imprisonment. Even in what we laughingly call the “civilised” part of the world, France has banned all religious symbolism in schools; in America public servants are banned from saying “Happy Christmas” in case they offend non-Christians, and here in the UK at least one Hospital Radio station has had to withdraw its religious music programme following complaints that it represented only one faith in a multi-faith society.

Christianity is popularly reviled as being either a weak, ineffective faith with no real firm beliefs, or a dogmatic right-wing attempt at theocracy with no relevance in the modern world. I may blog about both of those in the future, but to return to my original theme of this piece: SimonG has every right to choose his faith (and Atheism is a faith), and for Christians to try to deny him the right to express that faith would make us no better than those who would execute us for owning Bibles and going to Communion.

*Unless they’re American of course.
**Come to think of it, spelling it with an “s” doesn’t look right either
***Note I missed a bit out of the original Voltaire quote. I won’t defend it that much
****If you just thought “that sort of thing doesn’t happen these days”, read A Voice for the Voiceless by Andrew Boyd.

More Martin

2004-09-23T17:56:00.000+01:00

As expected, a number of comments from my blog about the Tony Martin book: Admittedly three of those were the same comment repeated (Tchoh! Wimmin! Or rather, one particular woman...), and two others were (friendly) abuse, but there's still been some comment.

To JG: Yes, the shotgun Tony Martin used was illegally held: He'd lost his shotgun licence following an incident where he shot at the wing of a car (the wing, please note), being driven by someone who was trying to run over his dog.

To LordH: I hope my response to your comment didn't offend, I didn't mean you personally were a fool! But to announce your presence to an unknown number of assailants, who may or may not be armed themselves, would be unwise.

Part of the "evidence" against Tony Martin was that he'd made comments to several people along the lines that all thieving gypsies (he used a different word) should be rounded up and shot (the teenager who died was from a gypsy family). But who hasn't said things like that? One member of the blogring consistently makes references to what he'd like to do to thieving scrotes with his big gun; another two repeatedly expressed wishes involving their bosses and big knives: Just two weeks ago I made a comment about an incompetent, but otherwise inoffensive, BBC sound engineer and a Big Gun, and I've often opined that the only way to stop the constant vandalism that our Hospital Radio studios are suffering is with a machine gun.

In fact, if I was to make a list of the number of people about whom I've said, in the heat of a moment "Grr, I'll kill him", I'd be here all night writing. Sadly, some day, some Socialist-Worker reading lawyer will probably use that statement as evidence against me.

Smiling Through the Pain

2004-09-22T22:44:00.000+01:00

I’d planned to go geocaching twice today.

My boss and I were called to a meeting near Slough today: The original plan was that Health and Safety people plus bosses would attend a huge meeting in the morning, then in the afternoon there would be another meeting just for the bosses: This, of course, would leave Health and Safety people free to, for example, go geocaching. I’d even chosen the cache I was going to do. Then the H&S bit of the meeting had to be postponed, and my boss went on his own.

This evening I had a meeting down a hole in the ground in Winchester. It wouldn’t have been worth going home first, so first of all, I called in at the final stage of Little Toe’s Trilogy Part Two. I’d already done this one, but I had a travel bug which needed to be dropped in a cache whose name begins with “L”, and this was the only reasonable possibility.

After that I moved on to the fairly recently-planted Harry’s Creepy Crawley, which was a really nice walk and a fairly easy find. Then I went to the meeting, which went more quickly than I expected, then I came home.

And for the record, my back still hurts, my wrist is sore and I think I’ve got a cold coming on.

2004-09-21T19:31:00.000+01:00

OK, I've finished reading "A Right to Kill?" by Tony Martin.

For our non-UK readers I should explain that Tony Martin is a farmer who, having been plagued by burglaries at his home, shot two burglars whom he surprised in his house. One escaped - but was arrested in hospital while being treated for leg wounds - the other, sixteen year old Fred Barras, died. Tony Martin was tried on a number of charges, and was found guilty of murder, which was reduced on appeal to manslaughter, and he served a short sentence.

After his previous burglaries, Martin had lost all faith in the Police, and refused to co-operate when questioned, which is a shame, as there's no doubt that initially, before Barras died, the Police interviewing him considered him to be a bit of a hero. He was also unco-operative in court, lying when he had no need to, and this attitude undoubtedly helped the prosecution build their case against him. There were also suggestions, never proved, of jury intimidation.

English law allows for the use of "reasonable force" to defend self and property, but there's no real definition of reasonable anywhere, and each individual jury has to decide each case. Martin was cleared of all charges relating to the burglar who survived, and he stated that he deliberately fired low, in order to only hit them in the legs, but was blinded by them shining a torch in his eyes and didn't know that Barras was kneeling (putting his booty into a holdall), which is why he was hit in the upper body causing more serious wounds.

The point, of course, is whether he was justified to be shooting at all: He said he was afraid he was going to be attacked and acted in self defence. Personally I think intent is everything - if he intended to kill, well I don't think that's ever justified. But if he was genuinely in fear for his safety, and couldn't see what he was shooting at, well that's fair enough. No doubt some of you will have other opinions!

Personally, if I discovered burglars in my home (or was attacked in the street, or whatever), and had some kind of weapon, I'd use it and worry about the consequences later. I'd rather be tried by twelve men than carried by six.

Arrrgh

2004-09-20T22:56:00.000+01:00

I appear to have shetland ponied my back.

No doubt heaving the caravan around yesterday didn’t help – for most of the journey I hitched it to the back of the Gruntmobile and towed it, but the getting-in-and-out-of-the-driveway bits are manual operations and I suspect that’s when it happened. It’s a shame because I’m supposed to be using the caravan this weekend, but if there isn’t some dramatic back-getting-better going on fairly soon, it isn’t going to happen. What’s worse is that not only was this going to be the caravan’s last outing for the season, it’s the birthday party of my ickle godson’s big bruvver as well.

Did I mention that I’ve been told I’m going to have an operation on my carpal-tunnelled wrist? Between five and eight months to wait now apparently. I was warned that between now and then I’m going to lose grip and dexterity in the fingers on that hand, and it’s true – I keep dropping things, and yesterday’s blog – where I was a bit tired on top of it all – took me an age to write, I kept hitting the wrong keys and having to go back and retype. I’m trying not to let it get to me, but most of my working life is spent bashing a keyboard; of my hobbies, I haven’t sent any morse code (my favourite bit of the ham radio thing) for nearly a year, and assembling a circuit board or holding a soldering iron is impossible.

Anyway, the extra-strong pain killer thingies are starting to cut in now, so I think I’ll go and tick-tock curly wurly cuckoo wibble…

Yawwwn

2004-09-19T19:50:00.000+01:00

Today I didn't do any geocaches at all.
My Raynet group were providing communications cover for the New Forest Marathon, and me an' my mate Roger were manning the control point: The picture shows the "control village": Front and centre is the Raynet control point, otherwise known as my caravan, with my Gruntmobile pulled well forward. Behind is Roger's car, and at the back is the motor caravan which was the St John Ambulance control vehicle, with one of their ambulances behind it. The Police control vehicle was over to the left, out of shot.

Then I came home, had a chinese takeaway with obscene amounts of white wine and lemonade (thanks to Jenny who tipped me off how nice this is when you're knackered), and now I'm about to have a shower and crash in front of the telly.

Paranoia

2004-09-18T17:50:00.000+01:00

I've been having a few technology problems today.

Just before lunch I was chatting in the worlds fabbest chatroom: I asked a question of hizonner SimonG, and everything went blank: Not only could I not get back into the chatroom, I couldn't do anything else either. My PDA refused to play as well, not taking files from the PC or anything.

Anyway, I finally regained access and Miss Sixty kindly explained what the problem was: Apparently, the whole of the internet hates me. From the tiniest connected peripheral to the largest server deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, every single electron has dedicated itself to making my life difficult. I'd just like to thank Miss for explaining that to me.

So, I'm now wearing a helmet made of tin foil, to protect me from the spy-rays from Venus, and I've moved my whole intermaweb connection gear into the cellar - harder than you think, as I had to dig the cellar first. But you can't be too careful can you?

Probably no blog tomorrow, I've got a really long day so I'll be too knackered I suspect: See you all Monday!

Commentitification

2004-09-17T20:10:00.000+01:00

It's tempting to keep the foxhunting thing going - I don't think I've ever had so many comments on the blog two days running. Mind you, I suspect next week things could get even busier: I'm in the middle of reading "A Right to Kill?" by Tony Martin, and I think when I blog about that (when I've finished it) there could be some little discussion...

Anyway, I'm advised by those who know these things (Lorraine at work, plus my Mum), that I'm coming due for a haircut. I don't really like having my hair cut - for one thing, every cut represents four squids I'll never see again - but I have to admit that since I started having it cut really short (grade two, for those who know about such things), the bald patch appears to be less noticeable.

I haven't always used the barber: For a year or so I went to a Personal Trichological Consultant. Actually he was only a barber really, but for thirteen quid a shot you expect a really long job title. My hair didn't look any better when I went there, but he had better magazines in the waiting room.

The barber before him committed suicide about an hour after cutting my hair. I wish that was a joke, but it isn't.

Anyway, back to the present, and in spite of the fact that it was lobstering down with rain I did a three mile walk this evening, encompassing the geocache Wickham Wander, planted by my good caching chums Paul and Judith*. I tried for a trig point on the way back, but it was on private land and I couldn't get to it.

*Positive thoughts 'n stuff to Judith, who was slightly hurt this morning when a dickhead car driver drove into the back of her motorbike. Hopefully Pompey will beat Blackburn tomorrow to cheer her up!

Part Two

2004-09-16T17:50:00.000+01:00

I guessed that last night’s blog wouldn’t go by without someone disagreeing with me.

Before I reply to the points that people have made, we must remember that the bill won’t only outlaw fox hunting: Deer are also hunted with dogs – at least, they are here in the New Forest – and whatever the justification for controlling fox numbers, deer, being vegetarian, aren’t known for killing livestock. Their numbers do still need to be controlled and around here, that’s done very effectively in an Autumn cull operated by forest rangers, and a small number of licensed sportsmen, using high-powered rifles.

The supporters of hunting* defend it as being part of a traditional way of life: That’s true, and I’m in favour of not losing the old traditions as far as possible. But similar arguments were made in favour of badger- and bear-baiting, keeping slaves and sending little boys up chimneys. Just because something is traditional is not necessarily a justification for maintaining it.

It’s been suggested that controlling fox numbers by removing the source of food only leads to foxes starving: Well, yes, that’s what happens anyway when foxes die of old age – they get too old to hunt for their own food, the vulpine NHS’s geriatric care is even crapper than its human equivalent and they starve. It isn’t nice, but it’s the way nature works. A number of people (not only JG, who said it publicly) also commented that “this ruling won’t save a single fox”: That’s also true, if you take it literally – one thing we can all agree on is that everything that lives, dies.

This one is going to run and run, and it remains to be seen what happens when the bill is enacted, if indeed it is – there are still stages to go through, particularly if it becomes necessary to invoke the Parliament Act, as seems likely. Many riders-to-hounds have said they will continue to hunt in defiance of the law, and police chiefs have reportedly told the Patronising Prat** that they won’t have the resources to stop it happening – although if hunters dare to drive their horseboxes a couple of MPH over the speed limit on the way to the hunt, they’ll probably be pursued by armed officers and summarily executed at the roadside***.

Interesting, though, that the PP didn’t himself vote. Surely our big brave PM, who wasn’t afraid to commit thousands of British troops to an illegal war, could have expressed an opinon on this one? Or maybe Boosh wasn’t around to tell him what to think.

*For “hunting”, read “hunting with dogs, regardless of what is the subject of the hunt”
**Tony Blair, for the time being Prime Minister
***Hyperbole. Just.****
****And yes, I know that “summarily executed” is tautology

Unspeakable

2004-09-15T21:29:00.000+01:00

Oscar Wilde described fox hunting as "The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Uneatable".

I'd question whether foxes are uneatable - five thousand crows can't all be wrong - but today's activities generate some questions about fox hunting. On the day that the House of Commons voted in favour of a ban on hunting with hounds, five people claiming to be hunt supporters invaded the chamber and, in the words of one MP, "shouted some pretty rude things". Meanwhile outside, in Parliament Square, a thin blue (and flourescent yellow) line of the Met Police's finest faced ten thousand hunt supporters, and ugly scenes erupted: From the news footage I saw, it looked like a Police officer struck the first blow, but seeing things from only one viewpoint can be pretty unreliable - especially considering Sky News's habit of taking a short piece of film and looping it, so that what looks like five minutes of pitched battle is in fact just the worst fifteen seconds they could find, repeated several times.

I've never really been sure where I stood on the fox hunting issue: I live in the city, and I'm not one of those townies who assume the right to tell country folk how to live. The place I like to visit at weekends is their workplace, and they have to make the best living they can. Also, a Saturday job on a farm many years ago let me see how foxes treat poultry, lambs, and even pregnant ewes, and it isn't pretty.

On the other hand, there's always seemed something wrong about fox hunting to me: I've shot pigeons for the pot (well, the pie tin), and I've pulled the neck of the turkey that later became my Christmas dinner; the only people who have the right to criticise me for that are vegetarians. But fox hunting has always seemed to belong to the world of badger baiting.

Country dwellers tell us that foxes are vermin and need to be controlled. I can't argue with that, I don't know enough about these things to judge, but if it needs to be done, why not do it in a way rather more efficient than killing one every couple of weeks? Given the way that nature balances population with food supply, the best way to reduce the fox population is to stop them feeding. Working, as I do, in a food factory, vermin control is very important to us, and our principal method of controlling pests is to ensure there is no food to attract them: Killing is a backup last resort. OK, I'm talking about rats and mice, but the principle is surely the same.

At the end of the day, it just seems wrong to kill purely for fun.

Food Glorious Food

2004-09-14T19:17:00.000+01:00

Something Carol said in her blog last night reminded me of an embarrassing occurrence a couple of years back.

I went into KFC with my friend Jenny, who was giving me a good telling-off for eating too many takeaways – I have to admit I was eating a lot more in those days than I do now, but not to an excessive amount. I was explaining this non-excessiveness to Jenny when we got to the front of the queue and the counter assistant rather demolished my defence:
“Evening Paul, usual three-pieces-and-regular-fries is it?”

Two weeks later and by coincidence we were going into a Chinese takeaway: This was Jenny’s first takeaway since the KFC, but I suspect it wasn’t mine. Anyway, needless to say I was getting a good nagging again about my culinary lifestyle, with the KFC incident rolled in as extra ammunition. Any thoughts I may have had about protesting my innocence were toppled by the guy taking orders:
“Ah, Missah Duell, is sweet and sour chicken wiv boiled rice, yeah?”

As I said, I don’t eat anywhere near as much takeaway now.

Meanwhile, I’m not now on a diet, but I am trying to be a bit more sensible about what I eat: I’m starting this campaign by reducing my chocolate intake. Since last Thursday, compared to my usual weekday- and weekend-chocolate intake, I’ve eaten 11 bars less: That’s probably the equivalent of four extra visits to the gym! I have a feeling my trousers are just a little looser today…

Where?

2004-09-13T22:59:00.000+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I had a fiddle with the ham radio gear in the car.

This is good news, as one of the radios that hadn’t worked for a while, now works again – turned out it was a connection-to-the-aerial problem. This now means that my “where am I?” works again.

For those of you who don’t already know, the radio referred to above is connected to the GPS in the car: As I’m driving around, it “beacons” my position once a minute (it doesn’t beacon at all when I’m stationary). These beacons are picked up by suitably equipped radio hams whose computers then display my position – and that of loads of other radio hams who use the system – on a map on the screen. You’re probably asking yourself “Why? What’s the point?”. I guess like most hobbies, the answer is that there is no point other than “Because I can”!

One radio ham, cleverer with software than most of us, has written a website where folks without ham radio access can keep an eye on thoseof us who have the beacons. To check out my latest position, go here, then follow the “here for Europe” link.

Note that the system isn’t perfect – it’s run by a bunch of busy people who do it for a hobby and have other priorities – but it’s generally accurate enough. When I get a minute I’ll stick a link up on the left hand side of this page.

And in other news…thanks to Jenny for e-mailing me the name generator. This is an Excel spreadsheet into which you type your full name, and it tells you what your ideal job should be. Apparently I’m going to be a porn star (or if you leave out my middle name, a sewage worker). Omally is a Nice Old Man, and Miss Sixty, depending which version of her name you use, is either an astronaut, a jungle explorer or the village idiot. Once she marries Adam, she’ll simply be unemployable.

Anyway, it’s all a load of monkey – if this is to be believed, SimonG is “Emperor of the Whole World”.

Pardon?

2004-09-12T14:54:00.000+01:00

So, Last Night of the Proms last night, eh? I'd like to meet the engineer responsible for the sound mix for the television feed. I'd like to take him to Byfleet to meet Henry and his Big Gun. And in case that engineer happens to be reading this: I know that audience participation is all part of the LNOTP, but it's traditional that we should be able to hear the orchestra. Oh, and the commentator - I know that most of what Titchmarsh was saying was a load of old toffee, but either turn his mike off, or turn it up so we can hear it.

Yesterday was an exciting day: There's a huge set of roadworks on the road that leaves Southampton heading West. They've been there since May, and were recently extended to cover a further stretch of the road. There's a totally unneccessary 30 MPH limit in force (it's normally 50 MPH), complete with tax camera. Anyway, what's exciting is that heading out that way yesterday, I actually saw someone working! OK, it was only a man picking up litter, but it's the first time I've seen anyone doing anything there at all since the roadworks started. And we've got another two months of this.

Note to Southampton Council: If you actually got a few blokes working there, maybe you could take away the stupid cones and ridiculous speed limit a bit sooner. Or maybe they're making too much moolah from the cameras...

And on the subject of notes to the council, I must write to Totton Town Council and tell them about this illegal sign I spotted during the week. Yep, contrary to the regulations (I can't be ostriched to look up exactly which regs), it shows a height restriction in metric without accompanying imperial measurement. If I wanted to live in wombatting Brussels, I'd move there.

101 Things To Do with Peanut Butter

2004-09-11T20:51:00.000+01:00

Tonight's blog subject was suggested by SimonG in the world's fabbest chatroom, when I confessed I was struggling to come up with a subject.

Anyway - it reminded me of a friend of a friend who was having mouse problems in her house. Someone tipped her off that peanut butter was a good thing to bait mousetraps with. As she didn't like it, she had to go and buy some specially, and found herself in the Sainsbo's Peanut Butter aisle wondering "Now would they prefer crunchy or smooth?". So there's one.

Other than eating it, that's about all I can think of to do with peanut butter. Actually, there are a couple of other things, but this blog is meant to be for all-age reading, and who knows, we don't want to corrupt the Milk Monster before she's even old enough to read.

Ooh, I've just thought of another one, although this is probably a subsection of "eating it": next time Simon is making home-made pizzas, he could experiment with peanut butter instead of tomato puree in the topping. In fact that's given me an idea...

Hmm. Bit sticky and sickly, but I think might have another one later...possibly without the anchovies next time.

So, to summarise:
1) Bait mousetraps with it
2) Eat it conventionally
3) Use it instead of tomato in a pizza
4 and 5) Suitable only for X-rated blogs.

There we are, five things to do with peanut butter. And if you convert five (decimal) into binary, I think you'll find I've achieved the assignment. So if you'll excuse me, i'm off to try a peanut-butter-and-strawberry-jam flavoured pizza.

Nick II

2004-09-10T20:53:00.000+01:00

A couple of months back, Jenny, in a comment on my blog, referred to me as a “Pompey Scummer”.

Apart from being not very nice, it’s also totally untrue: A Scummer is a Southampton supporter, so a Pompey Scummer would be a Southampton supporter who lives in Portsmouth – the exact opposite of what I am. If anything, I’d be a Southampton Skate. A propos of not much, when I was looking for a second claim team to follow I decided on Derby, because of the amount of time I spend in Nottingham: Supporting Derby in Nottingham is about as risky as supporting Portsmouth in Southampton, so it made me feel at home.

Anyway, the origin of these nicknames goes back to the thirties when there was a huge docks strike. Both Portsmouth and Southampton docks were on strike, and there was much hardship and deprivation all round. Eventually, without waiting for the official end of the strike, Southampton docks went back to work. From this, Portsmouth dockers started to call Southampton dockers “the Scummers”, and so the nickname spread to encompass the whole of the city, then shrinking again to just cover the football team and its supporters.

The nickname was enshrined in song in the seventies when Portsmouth supporter and folk musician Shep Woolley (not to be confused with american singer Sheb Wooley, of “One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater” fame) recorded a song called “Pompey Rock”, currently available on this album, which included the lines
You can keep your Scummers, you can keep your Aldershot
‘cos what we’ve got is Pompey, and Pompey’s got the lot.
It created quite a furore locally at the time, with Southampton supporters claiming that the song encouraged football violence – thereby proving that not only do they support a rubbish football team, but they’ve got no sense of humour either.

The nickname “Skate” for Portsmouth supporters allegedly comes from the belief held by Southampton supporters that we have sex with fish. It isn’t true.

And in other news: Tonight after work I took Rob (TV) – who’s never geocached before – to two caches. He’s currently at home trying to buy a GPS online. The ones we did were K.I.S.S. - although we had to phone Omally for some help with the maths – and Holly Hill and Beyond, where, if we’d taken any longer, we’d have needed the torch!

Subject Matter

2004-09-09T17:40:00.000+01:00

Like most bloggers, I have a list of emergency blog subjects, timeless items that I can witter about whenever nothing particularly exciting happens. My list lives on my PDA, and is partly a list of subjects, partly phrases that I've jotted down because I liked the sound of them.

"Lottery Numbers" is one of the subjects I've got noted down, and I think I can remember what I meant to write about when I made the note - although to be honest, El10t could do the subject far better, being a statistician and all. Another is the Alpha Course, and you'll probably get that one soon. Oh, and of course I've been promising you all a blog about why I don't eat wholemeal bread for ages.

I've also written down "There is space under your seat for small soft bags", which I spotted on a moving message display on a Virgin Train a few weeks back: My first thought was that we'd found a new nickname for Jenny, but I'm sure I can do better than that. But what's really puzzling me is why I chose to note the phrase "He took the precaution of groining himself with an iron bar before going any further". Where was I? What was I doing? Why did I think it would be good bloggage?

Anyway, I was going to use one of my emergency subjects tonight, but I seem to have managed without.

...As Others See Us

2004-09-08T21:18:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed how many on-line personality tests there are these days? Recently I’ve found out what flavour I am (coffee), what movie superhero I am (Frodo Baggins* – huh!), what food item I am (half a pound of lard**) and from this website that I’m an idealist. Idealists are apparently made up of:

Spontaneous, not a planner
Ideas not facts
Heart not head
Introvert not extrovert

and apparently we:

Make sense of the world using inner values
Focus on personal growth and the growth of others
Think of ourselves as bright, forgiving and curious
May sometimes appear stubborn

I’d be interested to see what those who know me think of this little lot – of the eight items listed I only really agree with two of them, or three if you include the “inner values” one. Not sure if that’s right or not, as my values aren’t inner ones, they come from the Bible – although I’d be first to admit I often don’t live up to them. Come to that, what are inner values anyway? Surely even the ones we think up for ourselves are influenced by something outside?

For reference, the two I agree with are “Introvert not extrovert” – although psychologists tell us those terms are wildly overused and don’t actually mean what most of us think they do – and “May sometimes appear stubborn”. As for the rest…what do you think?

Anyway, that’s enough bloggage for today – I’m about to go and do a quiz to see which “Great public building of the Victorian age” I am. Knowing my luck it’ll be the public loos on Southsea sea front.

*I still say I’d be better as John McClane (the Bruce Willis character in the Die Hard films)
**I made that one up

To See Ourselves...

2004-09-07T19:10:00.000+01:00

I mentioned the other day about SimonG dressing up as me in the dressing up game. Here's the proof:
As you can see, he's given himself a bald head and glasses, and is wearing a Geocaching T-shirt. He's holding a GPS in one hand and a Bible in the other...at least, he tells us that's what it is. He also mentioned that he was acting being short and fat as well...

It's a funny thing, but SimonG's impressions notwithstanding, it's happening more and more often that I look in the mirror and my Dad looks back at me. I saw a photo of me taken last weekend, and there's absolutely no doubt whose son I am. If I'm not careful, I can even hear his voice when I talk, and see his mannerisms in the way I act.

And in other news...Graham-the-Boss came back from his holiday today and had half an hour's rant about all the things that had happened while he was away - but he did acknowledge that none of them were my fault and he was only letting off steam. I've got a feeling that tomorrow he's going to find the things that were my fault.

Miscellaneous Happenings

2004-09-06T23:01:00.000+01:00

Sorry about yesterday’s rather rubbish entry, but I really was pretty tired y’know! Anyway, yesterday I planned to meet up with a few caching chums at Snelsmore Common near Newbury for a barbie, some Penguin Bashing, and a Supersoaker fight. Oh, and hitting some caches, needless to say. Sadly the first one on my list didn’t get done, because the church wot it’s close to was having some work done and the car park was full of builders’ vans. I was going to have a look on the way home, but I was too tired by then!

Anyway, during the day I did the caches Donnington Castle, (that’s the castle in the headline pic),
A Common Adder?, and a brand new cache of which I was the first finder, Warden’s Rest.

Much fun was had at the Barbie itself: As you can see, His Drunkeness the King of Sweden* graced us with his royal presence (he was even wearing his “King of Sweden” T-shirt!) and all told there must have been about fifty of us there**, including some cachers we’d never met before and some we hadn’t seen for ages. Much food was eaten, penguins bashed, spacehoppers raced, and everyone (well, me and Bob anyway) got soaked in the Supersoaker fight, and then we all went home.

And in other weekend news…BBC’s “Test The Nation…The Great Music Quiz” on Saturday night revealed me to be a music genius. And in the Dressing Up Game on Friday night, SimonG dressed as me, which was quite…um…interesting. Pics of that are here

*aka “Omally”***
**No responsibility accepted for accuracy of guess
***Omally isn’t really the King of Sweden, but we like to humour him****
****And besides, he’s made me an Honourary Knight of Sweden

No blog today...

2004-09-05T19:47:00.000+01:00

I'm hot, sweaty, and knackered. All I really want to do is have a shower and go to bed, but I still have a lot to do before work tomorrow.

So let's just say I've had a great day with some brilliant chums, and I found three geocaches: I'll tell you all about it in tomorrow's blog.

Repeat Performance

2004-09-04T18:26:00.000+01:00

There was a programme on the radio this morning which I particularly wanted to listen to. However, I knew that if I just sat down with the radio on my knee, something would happen to distract me, and I'd end up missing half of it. The obvious solution - record it, and listen as many times as necessary.

I'm sure that if you wanted to record a radio programme, you'd press a few buttons on your stereo, and come back in half an hour and switch it off. Nothing so simple for me...I have access to a three hundred thousand pound* Hospital Radio studio centre to play with, conveniently close to Tesco. The master plan was hatched - go to the studio, set the machine recording, go to Tesco and do my shopping for tomorrow's barbecue, come back and collect the minidisc and go home.

Amazingly, for any enterprise involving me doing things, it went flawlessly. I'm now going to sit and listen to the MD and try to imagine what it must be like to be in that situation. And for those of you who have such access, can I recommend you go to The Radio 4 Listen Again Page and have a listen to today's Unsung Heroes. Especially Scotters J, who I know will feel a real connection to it.

I was going to blog about washing the Gruntmobile: maybe another day.

*Latest insurance value

Sighting

2004-09-03T21:10:00.000+01:00

Laydeez and Gentlemen...today I made the year's first sighting of the lesser-spotted yellow breasted council gritting lorry! OK, I know it's been a bit autumnal, but really...

Anyway, to start at the beginning...I awoke full of joy this morning and leapt out of bed full of gusto - it's POETS day*, it's sunny, there's a great forecast for the weekend and on Sunday I'm meeting up with some really good chums!

Then I realised that today I had an all-day meeting at Head Office, came over all depressed and went back to bed.

Still, eventually even this meeting was over so I went caching! Someone recently planted a new cache, Portus Adurni, fairly close to me so I headed off to grab that one. It was by the sea so I thought binoculars and a camera would make a good disguise - but before I'd even left the car park I was quizzed about birdwatching. I babbled a bit about being interested in boats (which I know enough about to be able to bluff) and escaped as quickly as I could. There were some nice boats there but I avoided pointing the binoculars out to sea as there were a load of small children swimming: I'd already aroused one person's suspicions and I didn't want to come back to the car to find "Peedo Skum" aerosoled on the side. Anyway, I found the cache...

So I went on to another (the picture shows the locale of the second cache, from the car park at the first). This next one, Underground Radio Station -Portsdown Underground 2, is located from the Paulsgrove housing estate, so I knew I'd have no such problems here...if they were slightly suspicious, they'd just burn the car, probably with me inside it**. So I found the cache fairly rapidly and headed on my way.

*Lobster Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday

**For those who don't know the story: a couple of years back a mob on the Paulsgrove estate tried to burn down a doctor's house, because they were too stupid to know the difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician.

Buzzz

2004-09-02T17:41:00.000+01:00

Apparently, there is a plague of flies everywhere at the moment. Last Summer was so hot that a huge number of Queens were hatched, and as a result we now have a greater than usual number of flies, which are now all moving indoors seeking shelter from the autumnal mornings.

(Disclaimer: The above may be a load of old toffee, I’m just passing on what I was told)

Anyway, for whatever reason there are a load of flies buzzing around my office at the moment, and this morning I decided to do something about them, partly because I’m fed up with the buzzy little scumbags and partly because killing flies is better than working. My first approach was to pick them off individually, thwapping them with a rolled-up copy of the Safety and Health Practitioner - possibly the world’s most boring magazine, but the job ads are good. This was a bit of a slow process, and the noise was in danger of waking up the people in the office next door, so I soon moved on to plan B.

I went along to the Hygiene department (because we’re a food manufactury, we call our cleaners “the Hygiene department”) and borrowed a can of industrial-grade fly spray. This was much more fun, blasting the little hippoptami out of the sky as soon as they appeared – the downside was that the air soon became unbreathable, and I had to don my safety goggles and dustmask.

Then I hit on the master plan: Sitting in the middle of my office, in my swivel chair, I was able to spin round and round, and tilt back and forth, blasting aerosol death at every flying insect within microseconds of its appearance. I suppose making “Dakka dakka dakka” sound effects was a bit over the top, but it certainly seemed like an efficient process.

Did it work? Don’t know, the air in my office was so polluted I had to spend the rest of the day sitting in the car park.

Turned Out Nice Again

2004-09-01T20:03:00.000+01:00

One of those days. One of those monkey days that come round at the end of every month, when figures have to be submittd to Head Office, but departments don't send in their returns so I end up scrabbling around at the last minute and submitting *ahem* "estimated returns". And the thrice-damned network kept chucking me out.

And I had to do another job which needed the co-operation of unco-operative people. So that may have fewer percent of fact than perhaps it should.

And the traffic jam meant it took me an hour to get from work to the gym (it normally takes 15 minutes). And when I got there the steam room was out of order.

Then I got home to discover that Postlady Peg had brought me a lovely card from two lovely friends. Suddenly the sky was blue and it was a great day after all. If they happen to be reading this (and I think at least one of them might be), thanks - you never know the full effect a kind word might have!

Nick

2004-08-31T19:18:00.000+01:00

Last night I was discussing nicknames with a couple of my Hospital Radio chums.

At school, Mark was known as "Olly", becasue his middle name is Oliver, and Brian was called "Slim", because he wasn't. It sort of started me thinking about the nicknames I was at school with, and was surprised how few I could remember. Tony was called "Mavis", after Mavis Cruet, the Little Fat Fairy in the Willo the Wisp cartoon, and we had a "Saggy" because his initials were S.A.G. For reasons I can't now remember, my year had a "Runt", a "Gerry Gerbil" a "Baby Face" and a "Baggy".

The teachers didn't escape either: There was a Charley Farley (the most inspiring teacher I ever met anywhere), two female teachers called "Squeak" and "Squawk", and a pair of teachers with the same surname: One, because he taught Divinity, was "God" - amazingly I don't remember us calling the other "Devil".

I too had a nickname - in fact I had a few, but the one that seemed to stick was, for some reason, this one

Protect and Survive

2004-08-30T16:33:00.000+01:00

I used to have a copy of Jethro Tull's seminal 1980 album "A". Thanks to Amazon and their wonderful music department, I'll soon be the owner of a copy once again, but that, as they say, is another story. My favourite track on the album is "Fylingdale Flyer", which I've been wandering around singing all day, and when I get to Hospital Radio this evening I'll be searching our collection there for it.

The album also contains a track called "Protect and Survive" - "They said 'protect and you'll survive'...but our postman didn't call...dah dah dah DAH DAH!" The track was named after a government booklet, advising citizens what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Basically it said "Hide under a table, then put your head between your legs and kiss your ostrich goodbye". Rather more useful - though not much - is the current government booklet that many of you will have seen by now, as it's being delivered to every household. It says things like "In the event of an emergency, phone 999", and "If someone isn't breathing, and if you know how, try to give them the kiss of life*".

Much more entertaining, and indeed the whole point of this blog, is this spoof, which is only marginally less useful, and a lot more honest, than the original. Maximum respect to Rob (TV) for telling me about it.

*Not always the best advice, but if you were trained in the kiss of life you'd know when not to attempt it. Probably.

Clearing Up

2004-08-29T16:33:00.000+01:00

Following my blog of a couple of weeks ago,in which I mentioned my successful career as an Ice Thespian, a few of you (well, one anyway) was kind enough to insist on a photo. OK, then, here you go.

The taller of these two annoying dweebs is me - the shorter one is my mate Steve, last heard of being a bus driver for Southampton City Transport. We were dressed as Eskimos (I believe "Inuit" is the current politically-correct term) for a sequence best described as a parade of nations. Unfortunately this one is much too far in the past for me to remember which year it was, or the name of the show, or anything, although it may conceivably have been the year we did "Showboat". I may be able to dig out some more pictures of my other attempts to entertain the folks of Southampton - a city so short of amusement that we can't even get Channel 5.

Today I was minibus man at church this morning: Most of this afternoon was spent doing more sorting out in the caravan after New Wine. And that's about it, really.

Sick

2004-08-28T22:37:00.000+01:00

I think I might be ill.

I've just come in from a very enjoyable evening down the pub, with my mate Mark the Buddhist. And no, no alcohol was consumed - I was driving. Anyway, as our discussion ranged over a vast miscellany of subjects, MtB slipped in the question "So what gadget are you going to buy next?" Do you know, readers, I was flummoxed.

A new computer? This one does the job just fine. A new GPS? Hardly, I think the six I've got are probably adequate for the time being. A new camera? No, got three of those. A PDA? OK, I've only got one of those, but how many does a man need?

Astonishingly, there are no gadgets I actually need. We considered a geocaching robot, which would go off and find the caches while I stayed in the pub, but decided that programming a robot to forge my signature in the cache log book was probably harder that actually doing the cache. I'd like a mountain bike, but I've got nowhere to keep one. I'd really like a boat, which has the potential to introduce all sorts of extra gadgets: Radios, radar, yet another GPS, etc. However, boats - or at least, boats big enough to accommodate all those gadgets - don't come cheap, and since I haven't got enough time for the hobbies I currently do, even I don't think that would be a good value purchase.

So for the time being, there's no gadget in my immediate buying-sights. Hence why I think I must be ill.

TGI Friday

2004-08-27T19:31:00.000+01:00

Well, yesterday's blog got a good response...I must remember to tell more tales of how people abuse me - you lot obviously enjoy them. Funnily enough, tonight's "Word of Mouth" on the radio was discussing schadenfreude (hope I've spelled that right, but I'm too lazy to check).

Anyway, I was listening to the above named radio programme while sitting in a traffic jam after work, heading for another geocache*. While I was on my holibobs, some sneaky devil planted a new multi-cache, Uncommon, within a mile of my house: It's a set of three very well hidden clues leading to the final location. On Wednesday I got to the third clue before lack of time (and non-lack of rain)drove me to give up, so tonight I went back and finished it. Then I went to the gym and sat in the steam room for a while...and now I'm home. Ooh look, it's nearly time for the Dressing Up Game!

*Did you see that smooth link between subjects? I'm good at this aren't I?

Mistaken Identity

2004-08-26T18:09:00.000+01:00

At work today I was hailed by a lost-looking lorry driver.

Him: 'ere mate, where's your Goods In department?
Me: That depends, we've got three...what are you delivering?
Him: Dunno, hang on...(checks paperwork)...something for the print shop.
Me: That's odd, we haven't got a print shop. Let me have a look.
(He gives me the paperwork)
Me: Ah, you want Manor Bakeries up the road...we're British Bakeries.
Him: Are you sure?
Me: Yes, look...(turns around so he can read the company name printed on the back of my hi-viz waiscoat)
Him:That says "Fat W**ker".
Me: What?

It did too. I must remember not to stand too near the Despatch guys when they've got permanent marker pens in their hands.

Educational Video part 3

2004-08-25T19:41:00.000+01:00

Hello again! You’ll know by now that I’m Paul and these are my friends Chris and Martin, and in this educational video we’re taking a break from Man-Shopping to bring you “Man-Gardening: Getting Ready for the Barbecue”. Obviously if you’re a proper bloke you won’t normally touch the garden with a long-handled something-or-other, but for special occasions like barbecues, building a new shed, or chopping down trees it’s allowed. As an aside we should mention that blokes who do gardening for a living are also exempt from the normal rule, partly because humping around with wheelbarrows and rotavators is a macho thing to do, but mainly because most of them are a lot bigger than me.

Anyway, here we are in Chris’s girlfriend’s garden, and as you can see, there’s a lot of preparation to do: for a start the lawn is covered in plums that have fallen off the tree. Chris’s girlfriend thinks we’re gathering these up and putting them in a dustbin bag, but it’s much more fun to hurl them over the back wall and listen for the splash as they fall into the canal. Two tips here: If instead of a splash, you get a bloke shouting “OI!!!”, it isn’t unblokeish to run away (actually it is, but survival takes precedence). And if the bloke shouting “OI!!!” has a beard and has come off a boat called “Charlotte Rose”, you should run very fast.

With the lawn clear, it’s time to dig the barbecue out of the shed. Needless to say it’s packed right at the back, but that’s OK as we have to get things like the garden bench out anyway. Oh look, a bag of charcoal – we needn’t have bought that one in Asda this morning. Ooh, this one is self-igniting charcoal: Needless to say, no real bloke should use this stuff – not only is it an insult to your manhood to need to use it, it also stops you having fun with lighter fluid, petrol*, flamethrowers**, nitroglycerin*** etc.

So there we are: The barbie is nicely set up alongside next door’s wall, where we’ve got a good chance of setting the ivy on fire (like we did last year). The tinnies are chilling in a bucket of ice, and Martin is just putting the finishing touches to the garden lights. I hope he knows not to plug them in while he’s still standing on the ice bucket…

What was that bang? Martin? Speak to me, Martin?

Well that’s it for this time folks – look out for our next educational video, “Visiting your Mates in Hospital the Bloke Way”.

*Don’t try this at home. Note that we tried it at someone else’s home.
**Or this
***And definitely not this

n'Ice and Easy

2004-08-24T17:57:00.000+01:00

Earlier today I mentioned in the chatroom that I used to be an ice skater, and that in my heyday had appeared in a number of Christmas Shows organised by the skating club in Southampton. Since nobody took me up on it then (apart from some rather unkind comments by SimonG), you can all read about it now.

The first show I was in, I was only knee high to a very short thing: I was a teddy bear and if the photos weren’t around to torment me, I wouldn’t remember a thing about it. In my long and enjoyable Ice Thespian career I progressed through being an eskimo, a weightlifter, Guy Fawkes, the number “6” on a roulette wheel, the vicar in the “Flash Bang Wallop” scene from “Half a Sixpence” and a waiter (“Hello Dolly”). I was an American Sailor (“South Pacific”), a villager (“Fiddler on the Roof”) and a cowboy (“Oklahoma!”). The shows were all tremendous fun (although the 6 AM rehearsals on Sundays were a bit of a bugger), made even more so by the cameraderie between those taking part. The ages of the performers covered the whole range from “just old enough to stand up” to “too old to stand up” – I started when I was about seven, and I was 24 when we did our last show just before the Southampton Ice Rink closed its doors for the last time.

Needless to say, with all those sporty youngsters about, there was some bitchiness between the Mums as to whose little darling had the best roles, but that was business as usual, really. None of the adult skaters could be bothered with any of that nonsense really, which might explain why we had the rubbish parts.

And for some reason, the finale was always the Christmas scene from “Pickwick”, which might explain why all these years later I still know all the words to “That's What I'd Like For Christmas”.

Educational Video Part 2

2004-08-23T23:00:00.000+01:00

Smello chums: I’m Paul and these are my friends Chris and Martin, welcoming you to our latest educational video, “Man Shopping Part 2: At the DIY Store”.

Once again, our challenge has been provided by Chris’s girlfriend, and she’s asked us to get a paving slab, a spade, and a bag of assorted cable ties: Since the cable ties don’t appear to be related to the paving slab and the spade, we’re not sure what they’re for – maybe Chris is in for a surprise later. Anyway, time to start our challenge, so follow us into the store.

And straight away you can see the hardest part of this challenge: There are no power tools on our list, but here we are right inside the door faced with a complete armoury of them. Obviously we’re going to be in severe trouble if we go back with Power Tool City in the back of the car, so we’ve got to resist the temptation somehow, and here we’re using the method of “Reminding ourselves how much trouble we’re going to be in already when she sees how much booze we bought in Asda”. You may have your own favourite method, but whatever you do, have your tactics ready before you enter the store.

OK, we’re past the power tools: There’s another similar challenge for us later, though, so we need to stay alert. In the meantime, you can see Chris has found a spade, although he did it by asking a member of staff: We’ll have a word with him about using girly tactics later. And look, here are the cable ties – we weren’t told how many, or what size, to get, which gives us the opportunity to buy the biggest multipack in the store. Just the paving slab to go.

Yes, I know we haven’t got a trolley – if we were wusses we wouldn’t be presenting a video like this, would we?

You see what I meant about another challenge? They’ve put the paving slabs right next to the concrete mixers. I suppose if we went back with one of these we could use it as a mega-food mixer for the barbecue, but we’d be in so much trouble we really have to resist. So here we are with our paving slab, and all we’ve got to do is pay and go. You may have noticed that Chris’s nose is bleeding: He’ll remember next time not to go asking for directions, and the spade’ll clean up a treat.

So that’s another video made – break the tinnies out, Chris. And stop whinging about the bloodstains, it’s only a Swindon Town shirt for goodness’ sake.

Educational Video part 1

2004-08-22T20:26:00.000+01:00

Hi, I'm Paul and these are my friends Chris and Martin. In this video we're going to show you how to shop in Asda the man's way. As you can see, we have a shopping list - provided by Chris's girlfriend - and you'll also notice that our trolley is full of booze. Later in the video we'll show you what Chris's girlfriend did to us when we got home with this lot.

Of course, the best way to do man-shopping is buying stuff for a barbecue, as we are here today. Novice man-shoppers should practice on this easiest version of the art before moving on to the more difficult "bachelor" shop and the almost impossible "family" or "household" shop. This last, incidentally, is something you'll be made to take part in on a regular basis, but you can abandon any thoughts of ever getting it right.

Anyway, back to the "barbecue" shop, and this is something that men are genetically programmed to be good at. Like the barbecue cooking itself, it appeals to the primeval caveman urge (incidentally, I'm writing this pile of pooh on the train, where a small child who wanted to watch what I was doing was dragged away by his mother with stern warnings about talking to strange men. I'm not strange...although given the shirt I'm wearing I suppose it's an easy mistake). Where was I? Oh yes...shopping for a barbecue is easy, as long as you remember the key rules: Loads of booze, loads of meat, and none of that poncey salad rubbish. Extra-hot barbecue sauce is good, but it's more macho to make your own: our approved recipe is a splash of tomato ketchup, the same amount of tabasco, and two "Scotch Bonnet" chillies. Put the whole lot in a liquidiser and thrash until it hurts.

That's the end of this video: I know we haven't told you much, but if you can't do a bit of barbecue shopping you probably aren't a man - go and buy our companion video "Man-shopping for Wusses:-The Bluffer's Guide".

Anyway, I spent this weekend in Nottingham at me mate Jenny's birthday barbecue. As well as the shopping we sneaked off and did the geocache Risley Glebe, but don't tell Jenny as she thinks we spent all the time in Asda.

The Man from UNCLE

2004-08-19T16:03:00.000+01:00

I really don’t like it when people I’m not related to make their children call me “Uncle Paul”.

I’m not their uncle…the parents wouldn’t make them call me Steve, or Geoff, or Bob, so why “Uncle”? It’s been suggested that it’s to do with teaching respect for elders, but I don’t buy that – if I deserve the child’s respect I’ll get it, regardless of what they call me. And if I don’t deserve it, a false name won’t help.

My ickle Godson’s Mum takes a delight in making her boys call me “Uncle Paul”, not because she believes in it but because she likes to tease me. Daniel’s still a bit young to join in, but his big brother takes great delight in bouncing round the room chanting “Uncle Paul, Uncle Paul, Uncle Paul”. He doesn’t really know he’s winding me up, but he understands that it’s part of a game between me and his Mum.

Why don’t I like it? Don’t know really. When I was a kid I had to call my cousins (who are all rather older than me) “Uncle” and “Auntie”, and I remember when I reached a certain age being very embarrassed at not being sure whether I was yet old enough to call them by their given names or not, and a year or so later, the same with the other adults in whose circles I moved. When I was about 12 I had a friend whose parents insisted that everyone, regardless of age, call them Pete and Phillis, and it seemed so much more natural.

There’s also the whole “pretend uncle” thing, which always reminds me of those films they used to show us at primary school, about not getting into cars with strange men (oddly, those films all said something like “If you’re worried, ask a lady for help”, in spite of the fact that they were made within a few years after Myra Hindley was prosecuted).

So, my friends’ children all call me “Paul”, which is after all my name. Except for Alice and Elizabeth (Gill and Geoff’s girls), who for some reason call me “the Short Fat Bald Bloke”

The Games People Play

2004-08-18T19:14:00.000+01:00

I had to be at work ridiculously early this morning - not early for some, but a lot earlier than I normally start. The reason was that I had to meet my lift to the ferry terminal for a meeting on the Isle of Wight, after which I had to go to Chichester for another meeting. That's a fair amount of buzzing about, but the fact that I was a passenger did give me a chance to think about the games people play to help long car journeys pass.

The first one of these I ever learned as a little lad was "Public Houses". This is a game for two players, each of whom takes a side of the road, and every time a pub is passed on "your" side, the number of legs in the pub's name counts as points. For example, "The Black Pig" would score four (because the pig has four legs), "The King and Queen" is also four, and the "Coach and Horses" gets a massive sixteen (four horses with four legs each). There's also a version of this played to cricket rules.

Consecutive Number Plate Spotting, of course, is already well known, and needs no further description from me.

Car Snooker is another good one. You need to spot a red car, followd by a yellow, brown, green, blue, pink or black one, then another red one, and so on. A white car means the end of your turn and the other player then starts scoring with the next red. It may or may not be an urban myth that bored traffic police sometimes play a version of this where they have to stop-check cars of the appropriate colours.

But a current favourite of mine - which you can really only play as a passenger - is to wait until you're overtaking a car. Stare fixedly at the offside front wheel until you attract the driver's attention, then look shocked. If you've played it right, you should be just far enough ahead that he can't see what you do next, and will spend the next thirty miles worrying.

Unfolding

2004-08-17T19:26:00.000+01:00

Well, at last I've achieved a few things: I've finished a letter to my friend Mark the Buddhist (which I might remember to post tomorrow), I've got the caravan sorted out after my holiday (although the fridge is still a bit of a biohazard zone), and my holiday blog is ready for you all to read. There's a link over there on the top left.

I still haven't found the postcards I bought while I was away, which is a pity...there was a nice aerial view of last year's event, and if you looked really carefully you could just see my caravan in the bottom right hand corner. My Mum has one (which I posted to her) stuck to her fridge, but I really wanted one of my own for the office wall. Ah well, I can always scan hers.

Something else that's still to be located is the source ofthe odd smell in the car. Can postcards go manky? If so, that might kill two birds with one stone, although it seems a bit far fetched doesn't it. That'll have to wait however...I've got an early start in the morning so I think I've done enough for one day.

Proper Blog

2004-08-16T23:15:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm not sure about Proper Blog, but it's as good as you're getting tonight...

It's been a bit of a strange day really...of course, the fact that my holiday has left me about as tired as it's possible to be without being dead hasn't helped. I made the effort to be at work early to get a head start on the day, and then the person I'd left my office keys with (in case they needed access to my files) didn't come in until late. My post in-tray was full to overflowing (I threw half of it away unread), and several things that should have been dealt with as soon as they cropped up, had been left for me. Oh, and the mega-boss is visiting on Friday and expects a presentation.

Anyway, on to subjects you lot might be interested in, I've done some more work on preparing the holiday blog for publication, just some pictures to sort out and you can all have a look at it. That may happen tomorrow, altlough I do have the caravan to sort out: among other things the bed linen I've slept in for two weeks is in there, and I need to at least get some air to it before it glutenises into a SimonG-esque mess. And I really do need to locate the source of an odd smell in the car...

Homeward Bound

2004-08-15T16:33:00.000+01:00

I'm homefrom my hols. I'm very tired, I've just had my first proper shower for two weeks, and the washing machine may well go on strike in the next 24 hours (as indeed the fridge did while I was away).

If you're lucky there'll be a proper blog tomorro, and the holiday blog should go on lne Tuesday evening.

Zzzzzzzz

(Heads off, Omally-style, to the Chinese takeaway)

Meat is Murder

2004-08-10T21:49:00.000+01:00

Don't worry, I've not gone all pinko-liberal on you (no offence to any genuine vegetarians out there, it was only a joke). I heard someone the other day describe themselves as "almost completely a vegetarian" How the wombat does that work? I reckon that, excluding preparation time etc, I spend about 45 minutes a day eating. That means that for 97% of my time, I'm not eating, and 97% should be enough "almost completely" for anyone. That means that I'm not only almost completely vegetarian (in spite of eating meat three times a day), I infact almost never eat. Quite how I stay at 18 stone is beyond me.

And in other news, I did 5 geocaches today, but I'll have to wait and log them when I get home, as the Internet cafe is so popular that on-line time is being rationed.

I've Got The Power

2004-08-06T16:06:00.000+01:00

Last night I had the best shower I've ever had at New Wine.

Rather than showering in the gents, like I usually do, I investigated the power showers in the portakabin round the back. Hot water, loads of pressure...it was great! Also there was no queue, although the fact that it was midnight might have had something to do with that.

Most people are packing up to go home today, but some of us are lucky enough to be doing another week...in fact we've already been given our application forms to work on team next year! I've filled mine in, needless to say. Only 50 weeks to wait, and I've got another week here yet!

A Little Bit of Soap

2004-08-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

I'm not a major consumer in the "gentlemen's grooming products" market.

For shampoo and shower gel, I normally use either what's in the free dispensers at the gym, or if I'm at home, whatever free samples the gym have been giving away. If I do need to buy anything it's whatever's on offer in Tesco, or better still, Superdrug, and I haven't used either mouthwash or aftershave since one horrible morning when I splashed on one and gargled with the other rather than vice-versa.

But when I come down to New Wine, the showers and washing facilities are so awful that I always treat myself to something a bit special, some nice shower gel and decent shampoo. I'm a great fan of Timotei's Orange flavour shampoo, but I couldn't find that this year so I bought some Tea Tree and Mint instead.

First evening here, and after a sweaty day of caravan rigging and medical centre cleaning, I was looking forward to a shower. I hadn't reckoned with the effects of mint flavoured shampoo on an almost bald, sunburned head.

Let's just say...don't do it.

By the way, I'm keeping a holiday diary on the PDA so if you're lucky, the day I get home I'll upload it all in one lump, to keep you busy for a while...

Holiday Blog 1

2004-08-02T13:45:00.000+01:00

Well, I found the on-site internet cafe, but at a quid for fifteen minutes you're not getting much...

So far so good...weather is nice, and I've been geocaching twice...OK, it was two fail-to-finds, but at least I got some exercise. Actually, one of the ftfs was a "failed to find anywhere in Glastonbury to park", which doesn't really count.

In reply to various comments received: MarcB, I haven't got a white van, but I've got a white 4x4. Did you see me somewhere?

Mark the Buddhist: Received your letter just before I left, I'm getting through it. The tracker isn't working at the moment, I'll explain in a letter.

I was going to blog about cereal Variety Packs today, but I can remember the whole story except the punchline. Maybe another time.

Bysey-bye for now.

Toodle-pip

2004-07-29T17:23:00.000+01:00

Well, all being well I’m off on holiday tomorrow.

Of course I’ve not been organised enough to arrange any guest bloggers: The site I’m staying on had an internet café last year, and while I don’t propose to spend my entire holiday on line, I’ll be calling in every so often to check my (non-work) email, so I’ll probably send a couple of blogs up the line as well. I’m going to a Christian event called New Wine, where there will be 11 000 or so Christians from all over the country, camping on the Bath and West showground – this is the ninth year I’ll have been, and I’m really looking forward to getting there.

I don’t just go for holiday – all of the event staff are volunteers, and I’m going to be one of the first aiders on the medical team, looking after the delegates and dealing with the inevitably little things that go wrong. We work together as a team of first aiders, nurses, paramedics and doctors and it’s a lovely group to work with. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, I really enjoy it but it isn’t restful!

Don’t miss me too much, folks…

Treasure Hoard

2004-07-28T17:51:00.000+01:00

Last week I blogged about the potential consequences of someone trying to psychoanalyse us from our blogs: Today I’d be interested to know what an analyst would make of what I found while clearing out one drawer (yes, only one drawer) of my work desk this morning:

Contents of My Drawer, by Paul GØTLG

Three books:

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss
An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

A cat toy and a cat collar
Three empty Altoids tins, plus one with Altoids in and one with Aspirin in
Two payslips
Assorted medical supplies:

Three sachets of Blackcurrant Lemsip
Two Lemsip capsules
A pill bottle containing six Flupenthixol tablets dated April 88
Another pill bottle containing seven Pharmaton tablets
Four Beechams throat pastilles
Two Natracalm tablets, probably of the same antiquity as the Flupenthixol
Nine Enterocalm tablets
Four Gaviscon tablets
Two “Throaties” throat tablets
Six “Strepsils” throat tablets

A twenty year old notebook, with notes of my New York adventures
The callout list for my Raynet group
A KFC clean-up tissue
Seven mysterious keys
Three sachets of tomato ketchup
Two sachets of Demerara sugar
A stapler and staple-removing tool
A Pritt “Roller” correction fluid thingy
An eighteen-inch ruler
A plaster
Two identical Pizza Hut menus, and a Pizza Hut special offer leaflet
An electric razor
A Filofax (not used for 4 years)
A cassette tape labelled “Native Heath”
Six trim panels from a walkie-talkie radio
An A5 envelope stuffed with postcards (unwritten)
A plastic container which ~~would~~ will make a good geocache

Zoom

2004-07-27T18:19:00.000+01:00

Many of my readers already know that I’m a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists - and I suppose now the rest of you do as well. And before we go any further, let’s clear something up: The IAM isn’t an organisation of perfect drivers, or of people who think they are: Rather, it’s for people who know their driving isn’t perfect and want to do something about it.

And as an aside, to prove that I know my driving isn't perfect (and before Jenny tells the story in the comments)...Yes, I did this...

Anyway, the reason why I mention it is that yesterday’s post brought my latest copy of “Advanced Driving” magazine, in which the Chief Examiner, Brian Lunn, discusses this whole thorny issue of “merging in turn” – when approaching roadworks or whatever, where the road goes from two lanes down to one or whatever, everyone will get through a lot quicker if everyone uses all available lanes right up to the cones, then everyone merges one from the right, one from the left, one from the right and so on. Of course what currently happens is that nearly everyone moves into the correct lane as soon as possible, leaving one lane with a queue of slow moving traffic, and the other lane empty for a handful of BMW drivers to scream up at 90 MPH and then bully their way into the clear lane.

But I think Brian’s missed the point here: what matters is not what happens on the approach to the restriction, but at the restriction itself. If the first couple of hundred yards of the restriction, because of temporary speed limit, road condition or whatever, can only pass sixty cars per minute, then that traffic rate will apply all the way back down the queue, and whether you have two queues each moving at thirty cars per minute, or one moving at sixty cars per minute, only the same number will get through.

What will speed traffic – but not by much – is for everyone to do the same thing, be it zip merging, merging early or whatever. Anyway, rant over…back to normal tomorrow with a bit of luck.

*I don’t want to make generalisations here, and let me stress that I only know a few BMW drivers. But with the exception of our chum Lordhuttonqc, all the Beamer drivers I know are arrogant, selfish testosterone-overdosed prats who will be first against the wall come the revolution**

**In a loving, Christian kind of way, obviously

Money for Nothing

2004-07-26T23:04:00.000+01:00

Today I renewed my car insurance. This evening I sat outside Tescos, playing the guitar and passing a hat around, until the manager came and chased me away. I suppose since my only previous experience of guitar playing was a few strums while lining up a sound desk, I was being a bit hopeful.

But it's funny how we spend so much money on something we hope we'll never use: Car insurance is a particular rip-off, we have to have it if we want to drive legally so the industry can charge us whatever it wants. In return we get rubbish service, and insurers wriggle out of paying up at the slightest provocation.

I have a lot of contact, in my working life, with our employer's liability insurers, and I'm always amazed at how they work: Cases where I'd happily say "Yep, we did it, we're going to lose, so save hassle and pay up", they want to fight tooth and nail, thereby racking up the costs. In other cases, where it's obvious to me that he claimant is "trying it on", for want of a better term, the insurers try to persuade me to admit liability (on behalf of the company, not personal liability!).

Of course, what's good about what I do for a living, is that when I sue the company over my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...I get to manage the company's defence!

Criminal Record

2004-07-25T16:10:00.000+01:00

This morning I attended a Child Protection Awareness Session at church.

All those of us whose work in the church brings us into contact with children, vulnerable adults, or elderly people, have had to submit to a Criminal Records Bureau check: Basically this means that our details are compared with the Criminal racords database to make sure we're not paedophiles, granny-bashers etc. I have my own opinions on that - all it really does is make sure that none of us has been caught, not that none of us has ever done anything wrong, and I think that it can lull parents, carers etc into a false sense of security.

Anyway, I've now been CRB checked by the church, by New Wine, by Hospital Radio, and by Raynet, so I think we can be pretty sure that I'm a Good Bloke. The next stage in the process is to attend an awareness briefing session, and that's what we did this morning. Amongst other things, a load of advice was handed out relating to taking photos - I suppose it's fair enough that you shouldn't take photos of children without the parents permission, but it really annoys me that when I'm taking pictures in a public place, I have to make sure that no-one thinks I'm photographing kids or they'll think I'm a weirdy perv. It also annoys me that if I happen to include a couple of kids while photographing a view, I have to think carefully before posting the picture on my website incase I'm creating an attraction for paedophiles.

I know that it's really important to protect all vulnerable people - not only children - but we're in danger of creating a world where everyone is so protected that common sense becomes a redundant capacity, and every innocent action has a sinister interpretation.

Sunny Evening

2004-07-23T20:25:00.000+01:00

Today, I was going to blog about the patronising prat Bliar, doling out sinecure jobs to his buddies again, but I've had a lovely evening and I'm in too good a mood to get angry enough to do the subject justice. Maybe tomorrow, after I've had a stressful day holiday-packing and I haven't won the lottery...

Anyway, remember I mentioned a few weeks ago, that I failed to find a geocache which subsequently turned out to have been stolen? Well, this morning I had an email from the cache owner saying it had been replaced, so after work I went and found Cache with Stile. Then, as you may have noticed from the picture at the top of the entry, I did a trigpoint on the way home as well. The block itself was a bit pants, but this was made up for by the group of deer I spotted on the walk from the car.

Oh, and my missing holiday tickets arrived.

Choo Choo

2004-07-22T17:51:00.000+01:00

As previously recorded in these pages, it’s my buddy’s birthday in a few weeks. This not only involves me buying cards and pressies, I also get to travel to the far frozen north* for the giant birthday barbecue. I don’t expect I’ll be allowed to cook this year – last year Jan and I shared the cooking duties and set fire to the back door**. I also suspect I won’t be allowed to spirit Jenny’s man away to the shops in the afternoon…last year we came back with really horrible shirts*** which we insisted on wearing to the party.

Anyway, this party comes after two weeks of holiday (I do a semi-working holiday in the Summer, and although it’s enjoyable it isn’t restful), followed by a week back at work trying to catch up. Three hours driving on a Friday evening isn’t really what I’m going to want, and luckily some research on Trainline has revealed that I can ride in more-or-less comfort for a little less than the cost of the diesel I'd use in driving! It also means that I’ll arrive back at home on Sunday fairly rested and having eaten****, rather than stressed, hungry and tired.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that after ordering on Trainline, they asked me to complete a satisfaction survey: In the “About you” section, I was asked what leisure activities I enjoy. The nearest I could get for geocaching was “Extreme Sports”. Oh well, the direct mail should be interesting.

*Well, Nottingham anyway
**In the unlikely event that Jenny’s landlord is reading this…um…it wasn’t me really!
***In Jenny’s opinion
****Railway catering permitting

Beep

2004-07-21T22:12:00.000+01:00

So, I see speed camera detectors are going to be made illegal.

I’ll probably still get away with mine: It’s so useless at actually detecting speed cameras that I expect I could claim that it doesn’t fit the definition of what’s banned. It’s good at warning me of those little radar things at temporary traffic lights, or telling me when the shops I’m passing have got automatic opening doors, but it’s supremely useless at detecting speed cameras. I’ll whip the back off sometime, see if I can re-programme it to detect something else – any suggestions as to what I should try for?

Apparently what the guvmint is complaining about, is not people knowing where speed cameras are, but knowing when they’re switched on. So the add-ons that you can get for satellite navigation systems, that tell you when you’re approaching a known speed camera location, will still be legal. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but I wonder if it’s anything to do with the fact that it’s possible to detect speed camera detectors* (in much the same way that TV detector vans can tell whether you’ve got a TV), whereas the sat-nav add-ons can only be detected by getting in the car and looking for them.

So why would anyone want one? Apart from the obvious reason, there’s also the factor that our wonderful caring government only allow these cameras to be placed where excessive speed has been a factor in accidents (cough gerbils! cough). So by knowing you’re approaching a speed camera, you know you’re approaching an accident black spot, and take more care.

Of course, this isn’t true: If cameras were only placed where it’s not safe to exceed the speed limit, they wouldn’t catch very many people. They make far more money where it’s quite safe to go a few MPH above the limit, because then there are more people to catch. And if there’s still anyone in the world who believes that speed limits are the ultimate definition of safety, consider this: Do you feel safer doing 75 on a motorway in good weather and visibility, or 65 on the same motorway in thick fog?

*In fact, it’s possible to detect the devices used to detect speed camera detectors: Many detectors sold these days have built in speed camera detector detector detectors.

Read my Blog...

2004-07-20T22:20:00.000+01:00

I’m a huge fan of the BBC series “Waking the Dead”*. I find it moderately inconvenient that the second part of each two-parter is broadcast on Mondays, when I’m at Hospital Radio, but I find that by failing to concentrate on what I’m meant to be doing, I manage to follow the action fairly well.

I have to say that I don’t find the programme remotely believable. In this week’s programmes, Dr Frankie Wharton, the forensic pathologist, revealed that she’d done a course in bomb disposal. Of course you have, dear. And a couple of weeks ago she just happened to have a couple of spare dead bodies hanging around in her lab. Spencer’s promotion was turned down, but his boss had a word with a mate, and it was all sorted.

Of course, what’s most unbelievable is that the Police would spend so much money on high-tech facilities to solve crime. Think how many speed cameras they could have bought with that money…

Anyway, what I was going to blog about was that in this week’s episode, the psychological profiler Grace Foley produced a character assessment of their dead body, based on his diaries. Can you imagine if anyone ever tried to profile us lot from reading our blogs? The Milk Monster would come out it very well, she’s very advanced for a six-month-old, but my profile would have me down as a serial mobile phone thief and compulsive geocacher…and what a psychiatrist would say about my love for my huge car is frightening. Mort’s Mom, of course, is bonkers in a friendly kind of way, and they’d have SimonG locked up for his own protection in seconds…

Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all

*To be strictly accurate, I’m a huge fan of Claire Goose

Gasp

2004-07-19T22:56:00.000+01:00

A good chummington of mine has a birthday soon.

Because I try to be organised (even if I often fail) I went looking for birthday cards this morning. We have this card shop not far from me, which in spite of being full of cards, never seems to have an ideal one. The ones with perfect words have pictures of footballers on them (she doesn’t like football, she’s a Brighton supporter), and the ones with perfect pictures tend to have words like “…and I’d like to cover you in great sloppy kisses”, which she probably wouldn’t like. Anyway, I eventually found a card I was happy with, although I’m pretty sure it’s a duplicate of the one I sent her last year.

I remember being astonished a few years ago when I noticed card shops selling cards saying “Happy birthday from the cat”, and later “Happy birthday to the cat”, but this morning I spotted cards saying “Happy birthday from me and the houseplants”, so I guess the market is developing. It’s only a matter of time before Hallmark start making “Happy sprouting day to my favourite geranium” cards.

Anyway, I got Jenny’s card four whole weeks before her birthday, and I’ve had one of her prezzies for ages. All I’ve got to do now is remember to post them in time…

Parp Parp

2004-07-18T16:46:00.000+01:00

As many of you will know, I love my Gruntmobile.

There’s just one thing I don’t like about it*…it’s got a really wimpy horn. A car that weighs two tons, and is described on the V5 as being fuelled by “heavy oil”, should go “BLAAAART” when you press the horn button, not “peep peep”. It should be the trumpety equivalent of Jack Regan in “The Sweeny”, not Rodders in “Only Fools and Horses”**. It meets the legal requirement for being able to make a noise, but frankly I’d do better to just rev the engine, or maybe lean out of the window and shout.

So, I’m investigating suitable replacements. A pair of air horns, with compressor and fitting kit, will cost me fifteen quid from our local branch of “Bolt-On Goodies Inc”, and will certainly rack up my BLAAAART factor. I might be able to adapt the compressor so it also pumps high pressure air into the air intake, although I can’t think of any reason why I would do that. More usefully, it may be possible to blow up the tyres with it.

Mind you, the same fifteen quids will buy me a replacement set of electric horns, which ought to be easier to fit, and which are advertised as “Really Loud”.

Of course, if I wait until the next time I’m in Nottingham, fifteen quid will probably buy me a big gun, so I can tell the cyclist to get out of the way, and punish him for not doing so, all at the same time.***

Anyway, today I manned a checkpoint on the Basingstoke Big Wheel Sponsored Cycle Ride, then on the way home did the geocache Up A Lazy River, which was very nice. Now I’m very tired, so I’m going to have a Chinese takeaway, shower, and go to bed. I may even miss The Archers.

*OK, two things, if you include the really crap fuel consumption
**Sorry to our American readers, some things just don’t translate
***Bean – could you start wearing a T-Shirt that says on the back: “Don’t shoot me, I’m part of the BlogRing”?

2004-07-17T17:43:00.000+01:00

Our Long Eaton correspondent recently inquired "What is a sea magnet?" - if I'd been thinking a bit more quickly, I'd have said "It's like a fridge magnet, except you stick it to the sea, not your fridge". But I didn't, so there we are. Anyway, my new sea magnet wot I won on eBay arrived this morning, and here it is. As you can see, it's manfully rescuing a bunch of keys from the living room carpet, so it should be perfectly capable of dredging up tools, gold doubloons etc from the sea, or from the bottom of the Earwash Canal*.

Guess what happened after I blogged last night? I had a text message on my shiny new mobile, saying "From Vodafone: Your new mobile is now in stock and will be with you in a couple of days". I hope to goodness that's just a duplicate of Thursday's, or I can see a kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice scenario developing, with an endless line of Business Post vans outside the house, delivering an endless number of increasingly high-spec mobile phones. The neighbours will start to complain that the vans are blocking the road, and I'll have to build a bigger garden shed to accomodate the phones that have arrived that I haven't yet managed to sell on eBay. Of course, a shed full of mobile phones is a high security risk, so then the neighbours will start complaining about the barbed wire fence, the floodlights and the guard dog patrols. I'll have to take on an assistant to help me move all this stuff about.

Before long, the council will be round, wanting to know why I'm running a business in an area zoned for residential only. I'll be forced to move, to the delight of the neighbours who will at last be able to park outside their own houses, and of course my new home will have to be in the middle of an industrial estate, because of the constant stream of delivery vans, which will now be arriving around the clock, seven days a week. I'll have to take on yet more staff, build a bigger car park, start a pension fund and a social club - the list is endless.

I wonder if my staff will accept payment in surplus mobile phones?

*Tee hee. That'll wind her up.

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

2004-07-16T19:18:00.000+01:00

Well, as predicted yesterday, I now have a new phone. It's the one I originally ordered, the one Vodafone told me they didn't sell any more. It's been suggested that I should ring Vodafone and tell them what's happened - I suppose that would be the honest thing to do, but frankly I've had enough experience of their customer services phoneline for this lifetime, and if I was to ring and tell them that they've sent me two phones when I only wanted one, they'd probably apologise and send me another two; if I then rang up about those I'd quickly end up with phones arriving quicker than I can sell them on eBay. So I've decided to keep the bonus one safe for a couple of weeks* and see what happens.

I also received in today's post some travel bug tags I ordered (it's a geocaching thing), and my ticket for the second week of New Wine, the Christian camping fortnight I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. All I need now are the week one tickets and I'll be happy. Oh yes, and I had a session in the gym tonight, so now it's time for a lay-down before the Dressing Up Game. Goodnight all.

*The games on it are pretty monkey anyway

Ring Ring

2004-07-15T17:42:00.000+01:00

I was just sitting down and wondering what to blog about, when an incoming text message on my mobile diverted me. It came from Vodafone, and read thus:
From: Vodafone
Subject: From Vodafone – your phone is now in stock and will be with you in 48 hours.
To: (my mobile number)
Message=from Vodafone – your ph
That was it. Apart from only being half a message, it’s a little bit intriguing isn’t it? You may remember that I recently acquired a new mobile phone, having lost my old one while out geocaching. The one I originally wanted wasn’t available, so they sent me my second choice instead.

I wonder what’s going to happen now? The most likely explanation is that they’ve simply sent me this message by mistake and nothing is going to happen, but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a new mobile phone will arrive – possibly the one I ordered originally, possibly a second one the same as the one I received, or maybe some other possibility altogether. I hope they’re not going to want the two-week-old one back, as I’ve thrown the packaging away…also, I seem to have spilled something sticky and brown all over it. Oh, and it’s got my name and home postcode written in permanent marker on the inside of the battery casing. And on the battery.

If they HAVE sent me another phone, thinking that they’re fulfilling my original upgrade request, it also raises the interesting possibility that Business Post will attempt to deliver it to work (where the original went) on Saturday, when there’ll be no-one there to sign for it. That means it’ll go back to the depot, initiating another cycle of confusion.

It’s also just occurred to me that this phone came with a SIM card programmed with my number, so presumably any replacement would as well…which means I could end up with two phones apparently on the same number. Anyone who understands how the cellular network operates will see the endless possibilities for entertainment in that!

Watch this space.

Diversion

2004-07-14T19:21:00.000+01:00

Today I didn't go geocaching after work, nor did I have a church meeting, and it isn't my Hospital Radio night until tomorrow. I went to work, but as usual nothing exciting happened there (except for the shetland pony from head office, who came to see me and waltzed off with a ream of confidential paperwork that isn't supposed to go off the premises.

I did go to the gym, but apart from a go on the treadmill until my knee gave out, followed by ten minutes in the steam room, not much happened there either.

So, dear reader (and this is where the story really starts), since there's nothing to see here, go and read Henry the Thirst's blog instead. I know some of you will have done so already, but some of my readers don't, normally. It needs to be read.

Oh, and a big "up" to Mark the Buddhist: I should have been seeing him and June this weekend, but Mark's Dad has an infection, and Mark's at that stage in his chemo where he can't risk infection, so they're wisely staying at home.

You still all here? GO AND READ HENRY!

Puff

2004-07-13T20:21:00.000+01:00

You'll excuse me if I'm a bit distracted at the moment...there's much excitement going on over in the chatroom (Omally is about to behead Simon); An eBay auction that I hope to win ends in a few moments, and my neighbours have just learned the hard way that their new motor-caravan won't go through their back driveway gates!

Anyway, in all the excitement of other things going on, I didn't tell you that I went geocaching last Friday, doing a big multi-puzzle cache around Winchester. Because I was due to do a talk at the Radio Club, I ran out of time to finish it off, and I went back tonight after work. The cache is called Winchester Treasure Hunt, and while I can't say too much, because it would give too much away to anyone reading who hasn't done it yet, I puffed up and down a nice couple of hills!

Because I'm too cheap to park in the middle of Winchester and pay £1.50, I parked in a free car park at the foot of St Catherine's Hill, and had a nice riverside walk into the City. I took this pic near where I was parked:

Night night all.

(PS...I won the eBay auction and am now the proud owner of a sea magnet...watch this space)

Matters Arising

2004-07-12T23:02:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will no doubt recall that a couple of weeks ago, I lost my mobile phone while unsuccessfully searching for the geocache “Cache with Stile”. Since then, four cachers have failed to find the cache, so it looks as if it’s been stolen, and while I don’t feel such a numpty – there’s no shame in not finding a cache that isn’t there – it’s flippin’ annoying that people feel the need to nick geocaches.

Caches going missing isn’t unknown – indeed, my own cache “Waterside Wander” (the link is over there on the left) went missing not long after it was first planted, and I replaced it with another in almost, but not quite, the same place. I’m amazed that “A Walk In The Park” has stayed unmolested for so long, since it must have been spotted by one of the council gardeners by now. On New Year’s Day this year I took two friends geocaching, and the first one we went after had been stolen.

Oh, and my mobile phone was found by one of the unsuccessful hunters, and although I’ve now replaced it, we’ve made arrangements for him to return it to me. Being geocachers, it’s a rather roundabout method so it could be a while before I get it back!

Sometime this week, I hope to finish a big multi-cache that I started last Friday – but more about that if and when it happens!

Splash

2004-07-11T19:40:00.000+01:00

A summary of today's achievements:

I overslept, yet somehow still made it to church in time.
I fitted the new air filter (which I bought yesterday) to the car
I put the new bed linen (which my Mum had made to measure) on the bed in the caravan
I tested some equipment which had been donated to the Raynet group
I got some order into the shambles that masquerades as a hobby room round here.

It doesn't sound much, but now I'm very tired and my bad wrist is very sore, so I'm going to spend the rest of the evening in front of the telly. Hopefully better blog tomorrow.

Oh, and I made the inside of the fridge much tidier by eating all the chocolate that was hiding there...

Brrrmm!

2004-07-10T20:01:00.000+01:00

It's been a full day.

First thing this morning (9 AM, which is first thing enough, for a Saturday) I had an opticians appointment down in the city centre. The last few times I've had my eyes tested, I've seen the fat, old, ugly optometrist who's scared me monkeyless by telling me that my test results are a good indication of incipient glaucoma, and I should be careful to have regular checkups. This morning I saw the young, attractive optometrist who told me that my test results are typical of someone who hates eye tests, and that I have no signs of glaucoma at all.

She also told me that in time I'll need to consider varifocals, but I'm too young to think about that at the moment. I can't remember the last time I was too young for anything!

Then on my way back to the bus stop, I passed through Matalan and bought a new pair of shoes! Four bloody quid...but I suppose you have to pay that kind of price for quality.

The rest of the day was spent at a 4x4 show in the New Forest, where I spotted my next car:

To give an idea of scale, I'm 5'7" tall (170 cms), and the top of the door mirror was on my eye level. Unfortunately it was £37000, which was rather more than I had with me at the time.

I rounded off my day with a visit to a trig point, near which I found an odd metal stud set into the ground: Anyone know what this is?

Finally, I was busy on the phone with Jenny this evening, as a result of which I missed seeing the gorgeous Katie Derham in a swimsuit on the telly. Wombat!!!

Squelch

2004-07-09T22:24:00.000+01:00

...but first, a correction.

Rich said, in the comment to my blog of yesterday, "There's absolutely no way that site is comparing your name with 2001 Census material. All 2001 Census individual records are confidential." And he should know, what with him working for The Office of National Guesswork. In fact, they don't claim to be using the 2001 census, it's the 2001 electoral role (sic), so sorry about unintentionally misleading you all there.

And so to today's offering...

My feet keep getting wet. I suspect that this may be because my shoes each have a big split in the sole.

Y’see, I really have only the one pair of shoes. I’ve got my walking boots, for when I go geocaching, and I’ve got trainers which I wear in the gym. I’ve got another pair of trainers, but I rarely wear them because they’re white and I don’t want to spoil them. So basically, I have this one pair of suede slip-ons that I bought in the Clark’s factory outlet shop when I was on holiday last year.

Jenny, Jenny’s man and I were recently discussing the fact that Jenny has more shoes than anyone really needs: She was saying:
“You have good shoes…”
(I point at my suede slip-ons)
“…work shoes…”
(I point at my suede slip-ons)
“…comfy shoes…”
(I point at my suede slip-ons)
“…going-out shoes…”
(I point at my suede slip-ons)

This went on for some time. The truth is that when it comes to clothes I’m pretty minimalist, and as long as I’ve got a pair of shoes that work, I don’t really see the need for another pair. I’ve got dozens of pairs of shorts, but always wear the same ones – those of you who’ve seen my shorts may say “that explains it”. About the only thing I keep buying is polo shirts – I like polo shirts, and since my employers relaxed their dress code I can wear them to work, so rarely wear anything else, above the waist at least.

In the meantime the splits in the soles of my shoes are growing. Still, I’m on holiday, back near the Clark’s Shopping Village in three weeks. I think they’ll last.

Snap

2004-07-08T17:46:00.000+01:00

There are seven people in the UK with the same name as me…presumably, I’m one of them. The reason I can be so sure of this is that I looked myself up on this website, which checks any name you type in against the 2001 census data and tells you how rare your name is. Apparently being one of seven makes me “as rare as a wombat’s wingnut”, which I suppose is pretty darned good. One friend of mine has an absolutely unique name – AND he’s the partner of someone who I know reads this (hint - because you’re comparing with census data, you have to type in a full name, e.g. Christopher, not Chris).

The reason I mention this is because something I occasionally do to pass the time, is type my friends’ names into Google, to see what comes up. Recently in an idle moment I Googled the name of a young lady I knew years ago, with whom I’d been developing a friendship until she suddenly had to abandon her university course and go back home because of a family problem, and we kind of lost touch. Anyway, she (or someone of her name) came up as the author of a book, on a subject which I know she was interested in. Further research, on the site mentioned above, tells me that there are only two people of that name in the UK, so it seems likely that it’s the same lady.

Spooky, innit?

Tingle

2004-07-07T22:04:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I blogged on the subject of losing things, and mentioned Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in passing, to which Morty commented “What’s that?”. Since I haven’t responded yet, and I can’t think of anything else I want to blog about, we present: The Paul GØTLG Guide to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.*

In your wrist you have a cluster of tiny little square-shaped bones called carpals. You’ve got some in the other wrist as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One of these bones has a hole in it, but don’t worry – it’s meant to be there. Through this hole passes a bundle of nerves, which carry messages between the hand and the brain, and under a variety of circumstances one of two things can happen: The nerve bundle can swell up, or the bone can grow making the hole smaller. Either way, the effect is like putting one of those long balloons inside a napkin ring and blowing it up – the nerve bundle is compressed where it passes through the hole.

Symptoms are a sore wrist, tingling in the fingers – particularly the thumb and first two fingers – loss of feeling and weakening on the grip. One of the causes is too much time on keyboards (computer, piano or whatever) with the hands held in the wrong position. The old-style telegraph operators, who spent their whole working life sending morse code, used to get a related complaint which they called “glass arm”, which sums the feeling up nicely.

The treatment used to be to send an imp called Maurice down inside the arm with a miniature Black and Decker** to enlarge the hole in the bone and relieve the pressure. Unfortunately, Maurice seems to have found lucrative employment elsewhere, so now the choices are a steroid injection (which I’m told hurts like wombat), or an operation performed by a proper, non-imp surgeon.

And to be serious for a moment, if anyone reading this thinks they may have the early stages of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Don’t think it’ll get better by itself, because it won’t. OK, it isn’t life threatening***, but it’s blooming inconvenient and a bit unpleasant, and unless you can go private it will be at least a year between first seeing your GP and getting treatment****. So make that appointment!

*I’m not a doctor: Much of this may be a pile of old toot.
**Other makes of power tool are available
***Unless you regularly hang by one hand from high ledges
****If you live in Hampshire, anyway

Boss Moment

2004-07-06T22:38:00.000+01:00

Today I'd like to blog about my boss. This is partly because I can't think of anything else to blog about, partly so that I can show him this when I get to work tomorrow and score a few brownie points, and partly because I'm hoping to get a couple of cheap laughs out of it.

My immediate boss is the Site Manufacturing Manager. Since Boss From Hell was promoted to higher things, we haven't actually got one of those, so my boss is Graham, the Acting Site Manufacturing Manager - except for the one day a week I work at our other bakery in Byfleet, when my boss is Sean, the Site Manufacturing Manager there. This double-bossness causes so much confusion that my performance appraisal for last year still hasn't happened.

Sometimes I refer to Mike, the Area HR Manager, as my boss: He used to be, when Health and Safety was a support function rather than being an integral part of the Manufacturing side. He was also going to be captain of the factory quiz team, the other two members of which were going to be me and our mate Dave, whose claim to fame is that he was on 15 to 1. Amazingly, he tells me that when you meet him in the flesh, William G. Stewart does actually have a personality. Anyway, the factory quiz team came to nothing when the inter-factory quiz league folded, because none of the other factories put a team up.

Oh, and many years ago, when I first started there, I had a boss called Fat Boy Roy, whom I once heard expertly summed up as "If you've got a black cat, he'll have one that's blacker". Actually he didn't have a cat - he had a dog, and naturally it was bigger than anyone else's dog, and better behaved. Just before he left, he took up growing bonsai trees for a hobby, and within a week he was the world's greatest bonsai expert.

I think that'll do for now. What? My boss Graham? Oh, great guy - even if he is a Southampton supporter.

Crash

2004-07-05T23:10:00.000+01:00

Hospital Radio tonight, straight after work in fact, and the first thing to greet me was evidence that the local yobbery have been at it again: A glass pane in the front door smashed, and one of the windows to the engineering workshop damaged as well. As I think I’ve mentioned before, incidents like these are a regular feature of life at the studio: Unlike many hospital radio stations, we aren’t located within the grounds of a hospital, we’re on the boundary of a Tesco superstore and a housing estate: The estate is one of those where the council send people who’ve been thrown off all the other estates for being bad neighbours, and they vent their ire on us.

Anyway, it wasn’t all bad: Our mate Treez, one of the Monday team when she isn’t off on maternity leave, brought her new little baby in to see us: Joshua is two months old and absolutely gorgeous! Poor ole Treezie had a bit of a rough time with him, but she’s doing well now and hopes to be back with us on Monday nights fairly soon, which is good news.

Sorry it’s a bit of a diary blog tonight, but I couldn’t think of anything funny to blog about. I’ll try to do better tomorrow.

Happy Birthday

2004-07-04T22:23:00.000+01:00

Does the above picture give you a clue what I did today? Well, it was the 3rd birthday party of my ickle Godson Daniel - his actual birthday is tomorrow, or probably today as most of you read this. Well, anyway, I skived church, slept late, and drove down to Burgess Hill, where much fun and enjoyment was had by all, especially Daddy Gary, whom we abandoned in the garden to do the barbecuing in the rain, while the rest of us stayed indoors watching "Finding Nemo".

Oh, and needless to say, I did a couple of geocaches on the way: Firstly Portsdown Underground Number 1, then down in Sussex Beggars Bush. The picture below is on the South Downs very near the cache.

And now I'm home, and I'm very tired. Night night.

Monkey

2004-07-03T17:53:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid today's blog is a bit of a pile of monkey*, which I suppose is kind of appropriate since most of the blogring / chatroom crowd are at GoApe today. Anyway, it's either read about the leaflet I got yesterday, or about today's adventures failing to get served in the pub. And since in the comments to yesterday's offering, Henry said he'd have liked to have heard about the leaflet...

So anyway, yesterday evening I had this leaflet through my door. It was advertising a firm called “University Student Painters and Decorators”.

Leaving aside the obvious pun about who wants to paint a university student, I read on: Apparently their workforce is centred around employing “conscientious university students” (some oxymoron surely) who “learn fast” and are “fully supervised by qualified tradesmen”, and they’ve taken the opportunity to survey the front of the property, and could enhance it aesthetically for the modest cost of between £450 and £600. Or, they can paint an average size living room with two coats of white or magnolia (colour costs more) for just £400.

I don’t know how good a job they do, but if their leaflet is an example of their professionalism, I wouldn’t let them paint my house if they were paying me. As it is, I don’t need to worry because my living room was recently painted – in colour, and for less than half that price – by a proper tradesman, whom I’ve known for years and trust implicitly, who did an excellent job.

Oh, and the company claim to have a website. Don’t bother looking, there’s only a placeholder page there, or there was when I looked.

Sadly, of course, some poor sap is going to think this is a real bargain.

*According to the SimonG profanity filter

Ring Ring

2004-07-02T19:08:00.000+01:00

My new mobile phone arrived today.

You'll remember that last Sunday I was a bit daft and dropped my mobile phone while out geocaching. I never found it again, so as soon as I got home I phoned the mobile company and blocked the phone.

On Monday morning I rang them again, and discovered that as I've had the phone for over a year, I was entitled to a free upgrade, as long as I chose from a fairly restricted range. I chose the one I wanted, and was assured it would arrive on Tuesday.

Well, to cut a long story short ("Too late!"), they didn't have the one I wanted so I had to choose a different model, and it didn't arrive till today, but I've got it now. And the good news is that it fits the old hands free kit, so apart from a few phone calls it hasn't actually cost me anything. Now I just have to programme about twenty million numbers...

I was going to blog about this leaflet that came through the letter box this evening, but that can wait for another day now.

Absent

2004-07-01T18:16:00.000+01:00

No blog today folks.

Sorry about that, but I'm really busy today: On a Thursday I normally blog in between having my tea, and heading off to Hospital Radio, but tonight I have to be at the studio much earlier, as we're auditioning new presenters this evening, and I'm on the audition panel.

They've already done their six-Thursday-evening presenter training course, so they should be up to standard, but it really depends how much notice they've taken of what the trainer was telling them. Sometimes we have new people who refuse to do things the trainer's way, insisting on their right to be "individuals". They tend not to pass the audition! As part of their audition, they'll present a request programme, do a news read, interview a "celebrity" and do a bit of unscripted talking. They each have to pass each element, to get their pass.

The lucky ones who pass will then guest present with an experienced presenter for six programmes, and will then be allowed to "fly solo", assuming of course that their six sessions go OK. It will then be up to them to convince they head of Programmes that they have a good programme idea which fits in with agap that he has in the schedule.

Anyway, time for me to go and do that, and now you know why I'm not blogging tonight.

In Defence of Grunt

2004-06-30T19:21:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, some reactionary twit wrote in the Daily Mail that Gruntmobiles – big 4x4 cars like wot I have – should be banned. I’d provide you with a link to the story, but in spite of diligent searching on the newspaper website I haven’t been able to find it. Anyway, his reasons for this were such gems of wisdom as:
1) They look silly
2) They’re all driven by short women who can’t see over the steering wheel
3) Bull bars murder pedestrians in cold blood
4) They're only ever used for the school run, where they take up too much space, and they never go off road.

The case for the defence:
Well firstly, they're not as big as they look - my Gruntmobile is shorter than the Nissan Primera which preceded it, although it is admittedly a bit wider. It's certainly higher, but the only person who's inconvenienced by that is me, as suddenly I can't use multi-storey car parks.

Bullbars: Well, maybe they're a bit pointless on most 4x4s, but people who have them certainly pay, through extra insurance. And bull bars never hurt anyone, unless they were hit by the car the bars were fitted to: It's being hit by a car that injures people, not the fact that the car has bull bars.

School Run: The best car to use for the school run is your feet - any car is inappropriate (unless it's lobstering down with rain).

On the other hand, the high driving position gives much better visibility, especially in the urban setting where I'm much better able to see if small people are about to run out between two cars. In poor weather conditions (snow, ice etc) four-wheel drive is much safer, as the roadholding is better.

On the economic front: I, and many other Gruntmobile owners, need a big car to tow my caravan (or their boat, horsebox etc). If it was economic to run two cars (a big one when needed, and a mini the rest of the time), my Gruntmobile would hardly ever be used, but thanks to the ridiculous way British road tax and insurance rules work, I can only afford to run one vehicle.

Meanwhile, to those people who think Gruntmobile owners should be financially punished: We are. My fuel consumption means that for every mile I drive, I buy nearly twice as much fuel as the driver of a smaller car. And 80% of that is tax.

Oh, and look silly? At least it's not a Smart Car

You Kan't Get Krapper Than a Krap-Fit Fitter

2004-06-29T19:30:00.000+01:00

I've been researching getting an oil and filter change on the Gruntmobile.

Obviously it isn't due one yet, but I like to plan these things in advance, and through the on-line forum of the Pajero Owner's Club I've discovered that a certain chain of tyre and exhaust centres have given owners great satisfaction, for a really good price.

I phoned my local branch of the chain - for brevity, let's call them Krap-Fit - and asked about booking my Gruntmobile in. "Ooh", said the guy, "We don't keep those filters in stock. Can you ring in a couple of days and check that I've got it in, then bring your car in?". I agreed that I would.

When I phoned back I spoke to someone different; "Ah, you shouldn't have been told that, sorry sir. What it is, some of the four wheel drives we can't do, because it needs a special tool. Can you bring it in and I'll have a look, and let you know". I agreed to do this, not thinking there'd be any trouble becasue of the POCUK recommendation. When I arrived, it turned out that he couldn't fit me in - not even for a Kwik...sorry, quick...zip up on the ramp and have a look. So I was asked to go back on a weekday evening.

So today I did. I saw yet a third person, who told me some convoluted tale about how they don't fit that type of oil filter, because they don't use the manufacturer's own make, and the one their supplier makes is prone to leaking and causing engine damage. Very sorry.

So, at one branch of Krap-Fit, I've spoken to three different fitters and been given three different stories. I think I might try a different branch. Or maybe do it myself.

Lost and...um...

2004-06-28T22:57:00.000+01:00

I have this real talent for losing things.

If you read yesterday’s blog – and if you didn’t, why not – you’ll know that while geocaching in rough country just outside the New Forest, I lost my mobile phone. Somewhere, in one of the many patches of rough bracken or heather, it slipped out of its case and was gone for good…or at least, until someone finds it. It’s just the latest in a line of things to go missing.

Those of you who know me will know that I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist, for which I wear a wrist brace. The brace is really awkward to type with, and rather than just accepting that I shouldn’t type with it so much, I take it off and “manage” without. I also try to do without it in hot weather, or while doing anything that might get it dirty: As a result, I’ve now lost two braces in six months.

I once typed a letter and put it down on the table while I went into the next room to fetch an envelope: The letter was never seen again. Videotapes, library books and CDs all vanish into thin air within hours of being handled by me. I once drove home from a weekend away and discovered that I’d left my trousers in Eastbourne, and on a Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition I became the least popular person in the group when it was discovered that the tent pegs which had been in my rucksack that morning were now spread over fourteen miles of Dartmoor countryside. My parents bought me a whistling keyring once: I couldn’t find the keys to put them on.

I don’t suppose I could borrow a pen, could I?

Woe upon woe...

2004-06-27T16:53:00.000+01:00

This afternoon I went geocaching.

Cache with Stile is just outside the western boundary of the New Forest, and it's quite a nice walk of just over a mile from the recommended parking place to get there.

As soos as I arrived in the area of the cache, I spotted the likely hiding place - no cache. I thrashed around for a few minutes, then decoded the clue. Admittedly it wasn't much help, but it focussed my search a bit, but I still failed to find.

I sat down on the stile to read the instructions again - there's often a subtle clue hidden there if you look carefully - and that's when I noticed that my mobile phone wasn't on my belt. I was sure I'd had it recently - I have this affectation of every couple of minutes, checking my belt for mobile phone, PDA, keys, camera etc - but much rooting around in all the places I'd been didn't reveal it.

While I was sitting on the stile, trying to calm down and think clearly, the end fell off of my banananana and rolled in the dust. It says much for my state of mind at the time that I picked it up, wiped it on my shorts, and ate it.

Then on the way back to the car, I was chased by what I can only describe as a load of bullocks.

So, I'm currently mobile-less, although my Mum has kindly loaned me hers for a couple of days while I get things sorted out. Meanwhile, those of you who have my mobile number, I'll email you with my new number once it's working. Oh, and if you got a text or message pretending to come from me after lunchtime today...it wasn't me! The phone, needless to say, is now blocked...

And finally, by tradition, here's a pic I took on the way to the cache: See you later folks

My Glass is Half Empty

2004-06-26T19:22:00.000+01:00

I can't believe the weekend is half over already...

I was woken at an ungodly hour this morning (9 AM) by the plumber ringing the doorbell. Luckily he was impressed with my amateur efforts earlier in the week, and only found enough tasks needing doing to cost an arm and half a leg. Then once he'd gone, I went geocaching.

I think I've mentioned my geocache map before: I have a map of Southern Hampshire, with bits of Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex creeping in at the edges, and all the geocaches that I hadn't found at the time I prepared the map are marked with red sticky dots. Those that I've found since then are red sticky dots with big letter "X"s on them. There's a huge patch in the middle of the map with no un-done caches in it*, and borrowing from the old Colgate ad, I call this my "Ring of Confidence".

If someone plants a new cache anywhere in the map area, my personal rule is that it doesn't go on the map immediately, but if two weekends pass by and I haven't found it, it gets a red sticker.

Anyway, this week, a cache was planted well within the ring, and knowing that I wouldn't have time to do it next weekend (among other things, it's my Godson's birthday party on Sunday**), I headed off to do it as soon as the plumber left. Hedge End Hideaway didn't take me long, then I went home. And to be fair, I have no idea what I spent the rest of the day doing.

Oh well, here's a pic I took while looking for the cache. Very green and lush, isn't it?

*Not 100% true.Please don't mention the geocache known as The Orange Tree

**Note to Daniel's Mum: Does saying in my blog that I'm coming count as my RSVP?

TGI Friday

2004-06-25T22:51:00.000+01:00

Today I went to work.

After work I was due to go to a Radio Club Treasure Hunt, starting in Lyndhurst, but with an hour or so to kill, I went and did a geocache first. Today's was Ziegler Passage: There were lovely views but for some reason the digi camera was playing up*, and the only decent picture I took, I can't post (because it would spoil the cache hunt for anyone reading this who hasn't yet done it).

Anyway, then I went to Lyndhurst (via the cashpoint in Brockenhurst), and did the Treasure Hunt with my friend Sheila. After an hour and a half of tramping round the village, we came second! A nice meal in The Crown Hotel (who were hosting the prizegiving ceremony), a quick log of a trigpoint, and home.

*Because I'd been fiddling with the settings

Bleeurgh

2004-06-24T17:56:00.000+01:00

Not much to blog today: I've been feeling a bit crappy all week, so I was pleased to blog early last night, so I could sit in front of the telly with a good book and veg.

Then our neighbour rang the doorbell: Did I know that there was water pouring out of my overflow? No I didn't, so bang went the next hour as I scrambled around in the loft messing with the water tank. I think I've sorted the problem, but I've got a plumber coming Saturday morning to check over what I've done, just in case.

Normal blogging service will resume soon. At least, I flippin' hope so.

Overseas Mail

2004-06-23T17:17:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago, ScottJ was kind enough to express an interest in my caravan, after I posted a picture of it in my blog. Admittedly his interest was mainly linguistic – since he resides in that great country across the pond he didn’t recognise the word “caravan” – but he did comment on the fact that it’s a “pop-up”.

Since he was kind enough to be interested, here’s what it looks like when it’s folded ready for towing…

(The car in the picture is the Gruntmobile’s predecessor), and here’s a better picture of what it looks like popped up ready for living in:

As you can see it’s a bit little, but adequate for one. It’s ten feet long and a two-berth, and in the usual caravan arrangement the dining-table-and-two-bench-seats arrangement converts to a double bed for night time: When I’m away for any length of time I use the awning as a living room and leave the bed made up in the caravan all the time to save hassle. It also has a two-ring cooker with a grill and a small fridge, and a separate toilet compartment.

Ooh, and on the subject of ‘merikans, I’ve just remembered that some Americans were kind enough to post a comment in my blog asking for advice on places to visit in England: If they’re still reading, I promise I’ll reply soon.

Other than that, this morning I had a horribly early start to go to the Isle of Wight for a meeting at our distribution site there: Since there was a severe gale blowing in the channel at the time, the crossing was a bit rough!

Interesting Times

2004-06-22T22:40:00.000+01:00

I was going to blog again about nothing exciting happening today...but then I noticed that I've been chosen as the winner of the latest SimonG caption competition (see SimonG's site)! With this victory behind me, can a lottery jackpot be far away?

Other than that, not much happened (not that I can blog about, anyway), but I did, for the first time in ages, go to the gym this evening, not because I felt the need for exercise, but because it was raining so I didn't feel like going geocaching or trigpointing after work. As nothing much happened even then, I thought you may like to hear a tale of what happened there a year or so ago.

I'd done my workout, and was in the changing room shaving, in front of the washbasin mirror. Now at the risk of upsetting those of you of a delicate sensibility, I was shaving en route from my locker to the shower, so I wasn't perhaps wearing as much as I might have been. Let's put it this way...if the Dressing Up Game this Friday chooses the theme "Paul G0TLG in his Tuesday Night Blog Story", it'll be a fairly simple costume, but it might get Simon's site closed down. Anyway, there I stand, face covered in shaving cream when one of our more excitable members rushes in from the steam room / sauna area:
"Quick, does anyone know first aid? Someone's had a heart attack in the steam room"
Now the major thing that's drilled into you, in first aid training, is that in a heart attack situation, literally every second counts, so for our hero there's a difficult decision to be made here.

And that, yeronner, is why I was in the mixed steam room area wearing only what was possibly the smallest shower towel in the world, with my face masked in shaving cream.

Oh, and Norman hadn't had a heart attack at all...he'd fallen asleep.

Team Work

2004-06-21T23:11:00.000+01:00

I feel I have the same problem that Simon did yesterday: Nothing much to blog about. It was just another Monday, Ostrich Monday at work: At Hospital Radio we had a giant chinese takeaway eating session, but that’s only really exciting for those of us who were part of it, I can’t really expect all of you to be climbing the walls in delight.

We were hoping that our mate Treez was going to be along this evening with New Baby Josh, but she phoned up and said a man was coming round to mend her computer. I even had my camera with me so I could have posted a picture of Josh for you all – well, the females anyway – to gurgle over.

Oh yes, one exciting thing happened today: I made a suggestion to Simon for the fillum script wot he’s writing, and he promised to consider it! That’s only one step away from me being a collaborationist on an Oscar-winning script! OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I got hold of the latest version of the script and had a little read, and it is very funny. I suspect most of my friends and family are going to be getting DVDs for Christmas. Even my Mum, who hasn’t got a DVD player*.

Of course, that all depends on Simon’s props department finding a Colobus Monkey with a liberal attitude** towards Duck-Billed Platypi.

*Don’t even think it. She’s only just mastered Betamax.

** Where “liberal attitude” = “acts a bit tarty”

2004-06-20T19:11:00.000+01:00

Since nothing particular happened today, I thought I'd let you all have a look at my caravan.

As you can see I'm very domesticated with all that washing been done (SimonG take note)...it was the first nice day after a week of rain and mud.

The picture was taken last year at New Wine: This is a Christian event which happens at the Bath and West Showground every Summer. Lots of music, seminars and other good things, or of course you can just chill out. People camp usually with other members of their church in a big group, so it's really good for togetherness and all that touchy-feely stuff. Last year there were over ten thousand people camping and I'm told that this year there will be slightly more.

For the last few years I've worked there as part of the volunteer medical team, a group of Christian doctors, nurses, paramedics and first aiders who work together to take care of the welfare of the delegates on site. It's really worthwhile and satisfying, and the team are a great bunch to work with.

I mention all this because New Wine will be increasingly mentioned over the next few weeks as I start to get ready to go...

Finally, here's a pic of the med team from two years ago.

I'm the short fat bald bloke on the far right in the hi-viz top.

Happy Talk

2004-06-19T22:34:00.000+01:00

The day started well...Postman Prat brought an invitation to my Godson's birthday party. It's a couple of weeks away yet, but something nice to look forward to, all the same.

Then I went to the barber. In spite of my all-too-apparent youth, he's been giving me an OAP discount for a couple of years, on account of how little he has to do: Normally this would mark him down for a couple of months in hospital, but at four quid he's a lot cheaper than any of his nearest rivals so, up to now, I've let him live. Also, he doesn't make any sarky remarks about sticking it back on.

Almost as soon as I got home, I had a phone call inviting me to go and visit some friends I haven't seen for a couple of months, and when I came home I put in a couple of hours on PuzzleDonkey, where thanks to the help of my good chum Mort (Grand Duchess of Sweden, Most Ferocious Pirate in Shropshire, and Honorary Total Bloke), I defeated the evil puzzle 1.07, and progressed as far as 1.13 before retiring for the day. Yarrrrr Morty!

Then I washed the Gruntmobile, and put my feet up for the evening.

Oh Ostrich, forgot to mend the washing line: That'll have to wait for the morning now. Goodnight all.

2004-06-18T20:29:00.000+01:00

Simon's blog from yesterday was about his Mum not noticing things, and in the comments I mentioned that it took my Mum ages to notice when I shaved my moustache off. I also mentioned that there are enough stories about my Mum for a month's worth of blogs.

I suppose the archetypal "my Mum" blog concerns the night she was watching EastEnders, when there was a power cut at the transmitter and she lost all TV channels (but still had power herself). She set the video to record the programme, so she could play it back when the transmitter came back on...

Having said that, I love my mum to bits and wouldn't swap her for the world.

Anyway, after work today I went and did a virtual geocache, Ibsley WWII RDF Site. A virtual cache is one where there isn't a cache hidden there (because of landowner rules, or because it's environmentally sensitive, or whatever), but there's something worth looking at. You take a photo of yourself at the site, or answer a question about the location, and claim it as a normal cache. This one had great views

AND I managed to bag a trigpoint while I was there!
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Then I watched the Dressing Up Game with the other SimonGophytes, and now I need a beer!

It goes both ways

2004-06-17T18:57:00.000+01:00

You'll remember a few weeks ago (May 14th actually) I blogged about being a bit cheesed of with work. They'd refused to fund the second part of my diploma course, telling me to go off and research getting an NVQ Level 4 instead. Apparently that's cheaper because I can do it locally, thereby saving the accommodation cost that goes with the diploma course.

Well, maybe I'm a snob, but I'd rather have the Diploma than the NVQ, although obviously my preferences count for nothing in this situation. Anyway, I put theresearch off for as long as I could, but today I didn't really feel like working too hard, so I did a bit of Googling. Apparently the nearest I can do the NVQ course is in Dartford (for those who don't know, I'm in Southampton)! While the point of NVQ is that you do most of the study in the workplace, there would still be some attendance down there, and I'm sure accomodation in Dartford will be no cheaper in Dartford than Birmingham. The person in Dartford who can give me the exact detail is on leave for another month, so I'll have to wait till then for the full scam.

Other than that, I've put three items on eBay: I'm not sure if they'll sell, but it's free listing day so it's worth a try.

Toodle-pip folks.

Shrug

2004-06-16T19:01:00.000+01:00

Well to be honest, not much happened today. I was so tired when I woke up this morning, that I decided not to go out this evening: So I came home straight from work, took a few photos of things I plan to sell on eBay (free listings day tomorrow), and now I'm listening to the radio.

Sorry if you're bored - can I recommend you visit the football badgers*, or the SimonG chatroom for more entertainment?

I'll try to do better tomorrow.

* Have the speakers turned on

...Bork Bork Bork!

2004-06-15T20:13:00.000+01:00

Can anyone remember all the words of the Swedish Chef Song from the Muppets?

Today was one of those days at work. I've been set a couple of tasks, neither of which I really know how to do, so I've spent the day alternately fiddling (unsuccessfully) with the world's rubbishest database programme* for one task, and researching on the internet (equally unsuccessfully) for the other.

Oh, and I had a letter at home today, addressed to the Membership Officer of a national charity, a job I stopped doing twenty months ago. I opened it, intending to ring the new incumbent and tell him what I'd received: It was a membership application form, with the new bloke's address clearly on it. Makes you realise maybe there ARE people thicker than Jade Goody out there.

Much more importantly, after work I went and found my 150th geocache, McToy, planted by my good caching buddy Paul Blitz and his family. I left a travel Ludo game in the box, in exchange for a McToy of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets...hence my opening question.

Oh yes, and I did some research on Broadband connection, to replace my creaky dial-up. One day...

*Yes, worse than MS Access. You never thought that was possible did you?

I Don't Like Mondays

2004-06-14T23:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday Blogger did something very strange…it made me try three times before it would publish my blog, then it published it three times. Anyway, hopefully it’s sorted by now.

After all that blogging I did, encouraging people to vote in the elections, I haven’t yet said anything about the results; well, Blair and his bunch of lying, cheating bushbabies were given a right good kicking, which is obviously a good thing. Hopefully the Labour party will now dump Blair and his thuggish deputy in a dole queue somewhere, although frankly they’re all responsible with the exception of the small number of them who had the bottle to rebel against their ludicrous policies.

And of course we now have 12 MEPs from the UK Independence Party*. It will be interesting to see how they develop, will they stay true to their stated principles and oppose Euro-expansion at every turn, or will they stick their noses in the trough and ride the gravy train** like all the other Brussels leeches? Only time will tell, but for the first time in ages I actually have hope that the Euro-sceptics can win over the British public, in the crucial referendum on the Euro-constitution (assuming Blair keeps his word and lets us have a referendum), and at whatever time in the future we get to vote on saving Sterling.

And finally, on matters European – I see our footballers let us down last night. Who on earth had the brilliant idea of letting Beckham take the penalty against the goalie who used to be his normal penalty practising partner? Still, we won the cricket and that’s all that really matters.

*at the time of writing, it may have increased by the time you see this
**What a horrible image

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

2004-06-13T19:48:00.000+01:00

It's too hot to think, and it's certainly too hot to produce much in the way of quality bloggage, but we'll see what happens.

Yesterday was the Grand Cachers' Barbie up in Savernake Forest near Marlborough. Basically, the Tates and I booked a barbecue site, told all our caching mates that we'd booked it, and sat back to see what happened. About fifty people turned up, most of whom did some caching while they were there, and it seems like a good time was had by all.

Needless to say, I couldn't resist the temptation to grab a cache while I was there, the aptly-named Savernake Forest. Actually, "Waist-High Nettles" would also have been a good name for it.

As you'll know if you read Friday's blog, I was planning to stay up there for the weekend in my caravan, but circumstances prevented that. I was invited to stay in the Tates' campavan last night, but I'd not really been well on Friday anyway, and really wanted a night in my own bed, so I drove home. Lucky really, as I slept in until ten this morning. Then I went to the caravan shop to buy the bits I needed to put right the damage to the caravan, and this afternoon did the work, and (touch wood) the caravan is better than before. Oh, and I did some fiddling with the barbecue-photos website (link in yesterday's blog) and watched England make a fantastic victory in the cricket. Let's hope our footballers can wallop the Froggies tonight as well!

Yaaawwwwnnnnn

2004-06-12T23:08:00.000+01:00

No blog tonight folks...I'm tired and I smell of barbecue so I really need a shower. Instead of reading what a nice time I had today, you can see the evidence at this website.

Goodnight!

Surprise Blog

2004-06-11T19:38:00.000+01:00

Well now, I wasn't expecting to be here providing you with top-quality blog this evening, but there y'go. See, a bunch of my bestest chums are having a barbecue tomorrow, with a few staying on a nearby campsite: My plan was to haul my caravan up there after work today, staying until Sunday and enjoying the barbie, finding a few geocaches and enjoying a couple of beers.

Anyway, I was up early this morning, getting the car hooked up to the caravan and things like that - it saves over an hour in the evening if I take the caravan to work, y'see, 'cos I would otherwise have to fight through heavy traffic back into Southampton, collect the 'van, then fight through more heavy traffic to get back out again, to more or less where I started from.

Anyway, I skived off work a bit early and was heading up the M3 when I noticed in the mirror that the gas bottle box cover was flapping open. I thought this was strange.
"Strange", I thought (see, I told you I did). I pulled onto the hard shoulder and got out to close it, and that was the point at which I noticed that the wire which controls the caravan lights (indicators, brake lights, stuff like that) wasn't connected. In fact, it had been ripped out of the plug (and looks intentional).

Well, I wasn't staying there to fiddle with it - more people are killed on the hard shoulder of UK motorways than in actual carriageway accidents*, so I drove on to a place where I could pull off the motorway and stop in a layby. A quick examination showed that the necessary repair was beyond the tools I had with me, so I headed for home**, and will head up to the Barbie in the morning.

*May not be true, but it's something like that

**By a route I expected to have no Police cars

Still Sunny

2004-06-10T23:47:00.000+01:00

Just a quick blog tonight, as my evening meeting went on a bit and I have an early start in the morning. But I just had to tell you...I finished the geocache Little Toe's Trilogy Part 2! This is the mighty multicache that wanders around the Hampshire countryside, which I've done over a few evenings. At the last location before the final cache, I met up with the local landowner, who was fascinated with the idea of geocaching and made me explain it in great detail. we may have a convert there, folks!

And then I had a Raynet meeting, and now it's bedtime. There may be no blog for a couple of days - normal service will be resumed as they say...

Full of Hot Air

2004-06-09T19:20:00.000+01:00

I mentioned on Monday that I've been bought an air jack for the Gruntmobile.

Sensibly - for once - I decided that I didn't want to be using it for the first time when I really needed it, when it might be pissistently raining, so I dragged it out of its box and read the instructions. Seems simple enough, I thought, so I took the component parts - and the instructions - out to the driveway.

You start the process by connecting the long hose to the airbag, and then slide the airbag under the car's jacking point. So far so good. The other end of the hose has a rubber cone-shaped thing on it, which you plug onto the end of the exhaust pipe. Then you start the engine.

BANG!!!

That was the sound of the rubber cone being blasted off the exhaust. Oh dear, disconnect and try again.

BANG!!!

Ah. Oh, I see...where the hose is new, the sides are stuck together. Soon fix that: Rubber cone against face in the manner of a WW II bomber pilot, and blow hard. That seems to have cleared it!

Neighbour falls over laughing. Oh, I see, I now have a black ring around my face. Anyway, position bag under car, re-connect, and start engine.

By gum it works. When jacking the car up for real, the jacking point is under the differential, but I didn't fancy working that far under the car to let the jack back down, when I didn't have to.

And now I'm going for a shower, and to scrub my face with a pumice stone.

Diversion

2004-06-08T23:14:00.000+01:00

Another gloriously hot day, putting me in a bit of a quandary.

Normally on a nice evening, I go geocaching after work, but tonight I have a meeting in Totton at 7:30, and my nearest "Not done" caches are all in the other direction. I'd be unlikely to get there, find a cache, have something to eat and get back to Totton in time, so an alternative plan is needed.

I know, I'll go trigpointing.

Lots of geocachers also trigpoint: A trigpoint is usually a big concrete pillar which the Ordnance Survey have put somewhere with a good view of the surrounding countryside, to use as a base for map-making. Trigpointing means visiting a trigpoint, making a note of the condition it's in, the number on the plate etc, then when you get home, logging it online in the same way you would with a geocache. I've logged half a dozen or so trigpoints already, mainly ones I've passed on my way to or from a geocache, but there are loads fairly local to me that I've not yet bothered with.

So this evening I did two - here's one of them.

Then I went to Lisa's for the Bible Study group meeting, which was really good, then I went home.

Give Us A Lift, Mate

2004-06-07T23:24:00.000+01:00

I really wish I'd carried my digital camera with me today. It's one of those small ones that lives in a pouch on my belt, so not having it is actually more hassle than having it, because it involves the conscious action of taking it off my belt. And having it with me at work is often useful anyway. Anyway, this morning being the first of the working week, I was putting on a clean pair of trousers, and didn't transfer the camera to my other belt.

I was showing the Gruntmobile off to my Mum yesterday, and pointing out all the really clever ways Mitsubishi use space which might not be so well used in other cars. The tool set is concealed behind a flap in the back door, which means that no matter how full the luggage space is, the tools are always readily available*. There's loads of hidden spaces for bits 'n bobs in the car itself, and theres a purpose-made space for the jack, in one of the rear wheel arches: Not quite so convenient as the tools, but you'd hardly have to move anything from a full boot load to get at it.

This was when we started talking about jacks, starting with the fact that the jack was one of the things that my car came without**. The standard Mitsubishi jack - the one for which the space is designed - is a bottle jack, but Halfords only sell a 1½ ton bottle jack, and the Gruntmobile is 2 tons. They DO, however, sell a lovely device called an airbag jack. It's a kind of super-toughened balloon, which you slide under the car's jacking point. You then attach a hose from the balloon to the exhaust, run the engine for fifty seconds, and voila*** - one jacked-up car. It's rated to lift three tons, and rather excitingly, according to the blurb "can be used to right overturned cars". That sounds like the kind of gadget a serious off-road Gruntmobile owner should have! Its also considerably lighter than the trolley jack which I inherited off my Dad, although that's so easy to use I was planning to stick with it until I could afford the mega-jack.

When I mentioned that I havent got one yet, because they're rather expensive bits of kit, my dear old Mum asked if I'd like my birthday present early - since my birthday is in October you'll realise we're really stretching the "early" concept a bit here - and gave me the money to go and get one. So at lunchtime today I tootled round to Halfords and bought a big balloon.

And so we come to the camera: You see, I went straight from work to Hospital Radio tonight, so I could have tried out the jack in the studio car park, and taken some pics to show you how fab it is. But I hadn't got my camera with me, and by the time I got home it was dark.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to fit in the space reserved for the jack, so you can bet that when I need it, it will be buried under loads of stuff.

*Assuming the car came with a full tool set, which mine (like most second-hand cars) didn't.
**I know, I know. But this is a blog for goodness sake, not high literachoor.
***Or other stringed instrument of your choice

Sunday's Blog: On Time and Timely

2004-06-06T15:59:00.000+01:00

Today is, of course, the anniversary of D-Day.

This morning I was doing the minibus run for church, and one of the elderly lady passengers told me that her fiancé had been killed on the Normandy beaches sixty years ago today. It wasn’t only those who fought on the beaches who made sacrifices.

Near my home, on Southampton Common, you can still see the concrete bases of the huts where some of the troops lived while they trained, and waited for D-Day. I remember going to see them on a school trip – our school was within walking distance, back in the days when schoolchildren were fit enough to walk a mile or so – and thinking how remote it all was, how long ago it seemed. That was thirty years after D-Day, so it was really no more remote then, than that school trip is now.

I think that, in spite of the films, books and articles, no-one of my generation – and I include in that anyone too young to have actually lived through it – can really appreciate what those days were like. Britain had been bombed and starved to within an inch of its existence, and had already suffered a huge defeat in Europe, leading to the horror of Dunkirk. This was the Allies only chance, and but for a miracle of the weather, they’d have lost it.

Hopefully you’ll have noticed that this blog is serious, for once: It’s my salute to those who fought, those who died, those who suffered deprivation, those who came home with horrific injuries and disabilities. As a consequence of their sacrifices, my generation lives in a world that, for all its faults, is better than it would have been. God bless them all.

Saturday's Blog, A Day Late

2004-06-06T15:07:00.000+01:00

I was fairly busy today, hence why this blog isn’t appearing until tomorrow (eh?).

Raynet were covering the South Downs Way Relay Race: Teams started at Beachy Head at 5:30 this morning, and had to reach the outskirts of Winchester by 20:30 tonight. My task was to man a message relay station on Cheesefoot Head, just outside Winchester, so I had time to go geocaching first.

Cheriton isn’t far from where I was going to be located, so I went and did The Battle of Cheriton first. This is a magnificent multicache starting in the village, and exploring the area of the civil war battle. The pic was taken on the village green near the start.

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After an ice cream I moved back to a car park near where I was going to be located, and after a nibble of lunch, went and found Resurrection of a Big Toe. This is a subscriber-only cache, so I suspect that non-geocachers may not be able to follow the link. Anyway, that was a nice one too. Then I moved to the highest part of Cheesefoot Head and set up my aerials.

Then when it was all over, I went for a pub meal with my friends Jan and Bob (who had been the co-ordinators of the Raynet effort on the day), and then went home to bed.

What a Fuel I Feel

2004-06-04T21:01:00.000+01:00

After I blogged last night, I went off to Hospital Radio - as I think I may have mentioned, our studios are next to a huge Tescos, where I usually do my shopping. I had my 5 gallon can in the Gruntmobile, intending to fill up with diesel ahead of this weekend's fuel crisis, but whe I got there, tescos were advertising all fuels at 5 pees per litre off, so there was a queue all round the car park. "Ostrich that", I thought, "I'll fill up after I've finished at Hospital Radio". Instead I went to pick up a few essentials in the main store.

Forget the fuel crisis, this is far worse: Tesco were out of Orange and Passion Fruit J2O! Just my luck that I'd let the stocks at home get a bit low, in the interest of stock rotation; let's hope they get some more in soon, I've only got nine bottles left.

Anyway, when I finished at the studio (and Rob had provided me with nearly enough material for another "Great mistakes on the wireless" blog), I tried again, and this time the garage - which never closes - was closed, with big signs up saying "Sold out of everything".

You can imagine my relief when on the way to work this morning, the first garage I passed:
a) was open
b) had diesel
c) let me fill my can.
Things I learnt today: 1) There isn't going to be a fuel protest after all, 2) my 5 gallon can leaks.

Then after work I went geocaching, and did three more stages in the mighty multicache Little Toe's Trilogy Part 2 (the link is down below somewhere). Then I came home and enjoyed the dressing up game in the chatroom, and now I'm going to have a shower.

There probably won't be a blog tomorrow, look out for bonus bloggage on Sunday.

The second X

2004-06-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

We're now just one week from election day...not that that matters to me, I've already studied my postal voting forms, my Mum and I have witnessed each other's proof of identity forms, and my vote has been posted. Of course, based on normal performance the envelope will now disappear into some secret Post Office vault and reappear when it's all too late for the votes to be counted, but I've done my best.

Last time I blogged about the elections I mentioned that I always voted with one exception: The exception is European elections. Since I don't believe there should be a European Parliament (or at least, that Britain should be no part of one), I've always thought it would be hypocritical to vote for someone to represent me in it. I wonder how many of the other non-Euro-voters (counted by the government as too apathetic to vote) are actually witholding their vote for a similar reason?

And while I'm on matters controversial, this weekend it is rumoured there will be fuel blockades and protests. The last time we had one, I was lucky in that, without knowing it was going to happen, I'd filled up the day before the garages started to run out of fuel. I was also luckier than many in that, as an employee of the food industry, I count as an essential worker, and once a small amount of fuel started to get through I was able to fill up. I said at the time that if the problems caused contributed to bringing down Blair, it would have been worth it, but it seems that all that was proved was that Blair will soldier on down his own sweet little path without caring what anyone thinks.

So, this weekend, the few HGV operators that can afford to stay in business in this tax-mad country, will be bringing the country to a standstill: Blair meanwhile forges ahead, his eyes firmly set on the Presidency of the first European Superstate, where he can implement the wishes of his Lord and Master Boosh.

For God's sake, vote next Thursday, or before if you do it by post. If everyone who doesn't normally vote were to do so, they'd outnumber those who do normally vote. I don't care who you vote for, that's your business, but vote. At least we have the power to ensure that the politicians who rule in our name, were chosen by the majority of us.

And yes, I did break the rule of a lifetime and send in a Euro-vote.