~ K . E . N . N . A . M . A . T . I . C .

 
CONTACT

Email
 
ABOUT

Kennamatic
50 Facts
Who's Who
 
WISHLIST

Amazon
 
REGULARS

£100lb Challenge
A Blogs Life
Bacon, Cheese & Oatcakes
Diamond Geezer
D4D
Getting On
Graybo
The Highrise
Kacroons World
Mad Musings of Me
Masher
Mikes Random Muses
Milky Lugs
Pure Land Mountain
Scaryduck
September House
Snowgoon
Stupidly Happy
Whereveryouare
Yorkshire Soul
 
MIRROR PROJECT

Xmas 2001
March 2002 no.1.
March 2002 no.2.
August 2002
 
BANNERS

Next Blog

GBlogs

« # Blogging Brits ? »


www.blogwise.com

Powered by Blogger Pro?

Proud to be a member of BlogSnob!

 

 

 
ARCHIVES


 

 

 


 


 

 






Thursday, January 31, 2002

 
In the last 48 hours there have been two searches for Lowri Turner that have been directed to my site. (I'm tenth out of 728 possible sites). So, I'm not the only one then.!







 
Just whilst I'm in "ranting against young criminals" mode I see that the "mugging for mobile phone" purpetrators are to be jailed. They wheeled out the normal do-gooder to bemoan the lot of the poor youth who finds himself imprisoned. There is a simple way to stay out of jail. What's that famous saying, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"?







 
An update on my cousins son.

Earlier this week, despite still being in a deep coma, the doctors decided to take Mark off the life support system to see if he could survive on his own. He can. They had to give him a tracheotomy to help him breathe, but he is maintaining his own body, at least for the time being. He doesn't seem to be responding to outside stimulus other than when, inadvertently, the tracheotomy pipe got pulled out and he started "thrashing about". The doctors see this as a sign that he might come out of the coma. We'll see.

There is some good news. The police have caught the two attackers. One is aged 17 and can't be named for legal reasons and the other is 20 and can, although I don't know what it is yet. The 17 year old appears to be the ringleader and is known in the Pudsey area to be a violent yob. Of course, he won't have been jailed previously because he's no doubt so hard done by. Initially they were just charged with the attack on Mark but have subsequently been charged with the murder of the first victim. This of course carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years. Hopefully they'll never come out, and there is still, of course, the possibility of it becoming a double murder trial.

Thanks for all the kind thoughts people sent after the first post.







 
Normal service is resumed. The tax return, by the time you read this, will be nestling in a giant in-tray of last minute returns. In the back of my mind I've a feeling there's a mistake in it but I'm not sure. Next year I must get an accountant, or at least one who has a more up to date knowledge than I do. There's still the V.A.T. return to do but that should only take an hour this afternoon.





Wednesday, January 30, 2002

 
Too much work, too few hours! The headlines in the last two days.


  • Rather nice meal at The Cadogan Hotel. Details to follow tomorrow(ish).

  • Kev returns to work, which of course involves a trip to the pub for us.

  • I forget to order Lindas food to be picked up at Tescos today. Whoops!

  • 50% of tax return done and 5% of vat return. Both need to be finished tomorrow, or Thursday very very latest.



When all is complete I shall return to you, my people, and spread joy and profound knowledge amongst you all. Or I might just whinge a bit!





Sunday, January 27, 2002

 
Mo's translator. The only worrying thing is that my site improves having gone through it!







 
My father and shopping don't really mix that well. He once went out to buy a stylus for an old record player and came back with a radiogram, (o.k. it was quite a few years/decades/centuries ago!), and on another occasion went to buy a plug and came home with a colour television. It must run in the family though because Linda and I went to buy a lightshade for the bedroom and came home with a £1000 stereo!

He's no better when buying music. He once went to buy a Vangelis l.p. and came home with Van Halen,(a bit of a mistake!). Also, having enjoyed 59th Bridge Street Song(Feeling Groovy) by Harpers Bizarre(originally by Simon & Garfunkel), he returned with *Harpists Bazaar* a medley of well known tunes played on the harp.

He's not the only one to make mistakes with group names. I once received a claim for some stolen L.P.s from a broker when I worked in the insurance industry, and he'd obviously copied it out from notes given by the insured. One of the stolen items was by the now curiously named group Muff the Hoopie. Painful!







 
Vaughan mentions the non-Socialist stance of the Labour Government. Earlier today on the radio there were a number of people who were expressing dissapointment at the way the government had let down the traditional Labour supporter. I can never understand why. Long gone are the days when your local Labour M.P. was an ex-miner or other manual labourer. A few years back there were more public schoolboys on the Labour front bench than on the Conservative. I once picked up a hitch-hiker, a young man of about 19-20 who was at universty who was telling me that when Labour got in they were going to make everything o.k. At the time Neil Kinnock was leader. I asked him why he thought a man who owned three houses to my knowledge, would be sympathising with the lot of a student. I suspect by now his eyes have been opened.





Saturday, January 26, 2002

 
Tomorrow I'm having a trip to Bournemouth with Kev. We're off to look for a new car for him but he particularly wants to look for a car from here as they import a strange Japanese import mpv from Mitsubishi.

If there's one thing I like if I can't be spending money myself it's going out and helping others spend theirs.







 
Daisys' son is 15 tomorrow. He is apparently aware now of the embarrasment that parents cause you. He's in for a shock, it is never going to get better. Last year I went to my cousins silver wedding anniversary party and had a fine old time. I was one of the first to leave as it was a long journey home but as I got up to say my farewells, my mother, who was sat at the same table says, " Don't forget to say thankyou to them for inviting you!". Mother, I'm 45! I know how to act in polite company! The problem is I'm still her little boy, and secretly, I probably wouldn't have it any other way, as exasperating as it can be sometines.







 
Today was all work but this evening it was the second reunion of my Friends Reunited group. I don't care what people think, we all have a great time. Why do people not want to meet up with old school friends? Could it be, not that they are wary of others, but that others may judge them, and not for the better.





Friday, January 25, 2002

 
Daisy has had a re-style and very good it is too.







 
Took yet another personality test. Is there a special syndrome for addiction to taking online tests? The results.

Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest... Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it if that trust is ever broken.

The first half I don't think is how others see me. They tend to see me as the "loveable buffoon" as I tend to make a joke out of everything, (not that you'd know from this site!), and don't think I should be left in charge of anything too long. I am actually much closer to this analysis than they know. They know I'm good at trivia, the only thing my brain as ever held, as can be witnessed by my attrocious showing in my "o" levels.

I would say the second half is very accurate for me. I hardly ever fall out with my friends, but somewhat like an elephant, if they did upset me I wouldn't forget easily. In the "Kev breakdown" debacle last May things were said and done which nearly destroyed our friendship for good. It was a good few weeks before I could speak to him with anything near normality. I found it very difficult to get over the attacks that he made on me, even though I knew it wasn't the "real Kev" who was attacking. As perhaps my closest friend ever, it certainly provided one of the biggest earthquakes in my life to date. I'm not proud of how offish I was with him for a time until I could get my emotions sorted out, but I am pleased that I did work on getting over it as our friendship has survived and is as back to normal as I think it ever can be, but there will always be one tiny part of me that carries that hurt.







 
My old mobile phone is going to look a bit shabby compared to some of these proposals, but I suppose is you've got vast quantities of money you've got to have something to spend it on. No doubt they will also have very loud ringtones so we don't miss seeing the owner.

All I've got to do is to make sure Linda doesn't find out there is a platinum version.







 
So now we're crossing pigs with spinach . When are we going to learn, if we mess about with the natural order of things we're going to get our fingers burned. Animals are animals, not vegetables, they are not meant to be a hybrid of the two. Apparently we've learnt nothing from the BSE scandal when it was decided no harm could come of feeding herbivores feed which contained animal products.

Science is a wonderful thing and it advances and improves our lives in many ways but every now and again someone needs a slap.







 
Right, enough of morbid things. Today's my day off so I'm going for a surf, (internet not "sur la mer"), let's see what rubbish I can find to cheer myself up.

Later on I've got to do my Tax Return. Every year I promise myself I'll do it early but it always comes down to the last few days. Procrastination rules...... eventually.







 
Have decided I will write something about Joan but probably not until the funeral.

Is it just me or does everyone hear about deaths in threes. It always seems to be that way. Normally it will be a close contact, in this case Joan, a "friend of a friend" connection, (last week a colleagues' father-in-law died), and a medium connection. Although I haven't had an update for Stevens' son yet, he would fall into that category. We'll see.







 
Just heard from my Dad that my Aunty Joan, (his sister), died yesterday. They think she was having a nap and just died in her sleep, hopefully that's the case but we'll have to wait for a postmortem.

I'll write more about her later, I just can't face it at the moment.





Thursday, January 24, 2002

 
For anyone who uses GPS (global positioning system) for leisure activities and you're not aware of EasyGPS I heartily reccomend you get across there now. It makes waypoint management an absolute cinch and works equally well with Garmin and Magellan equipment.







 
Yesterday can be pretty much summed up as

yAWn..........S-T-R-E-S-S..........yAWn..........S-T-R-E-S-S-..........yAWn

and I suspect more of the same to come today.





Tuesday, January 22, 2002

 
Just been to pick Linda up at a new Tescos at Kensington, well, new to us. One of the customer service managers was telling us that she can't get the stuff she wants for the store because, despite what she tells Head Office, they are convinced they know the demographics of the stores customers better than she does. No doubt they did their research by watching Notting Hill and are convinced the entire clientelle look like Julia Roberts or Hugh Grant.

Management, don't you just love 'em!







 
O.K. Who's got my snooker cue! It's not in the loft. If I don't find it in the next couple of days I'll have a temper tantrum and throw myself to the floor kicking and screaming. Then no doubt I'll just go out and buy myself another although perhaps paying the telephone bill would make more sense. Never have had much sense though.







 
On with other things though. Linda may be going out later and this gives me the chance to go into the loft where I think my snooker cue might be lurking. I need to wait until she is out as we had suirrels up there last year and she doesn't want to know about the devastation they might have caused. As long as they didn't get my snooker cue!







 
The police have no leads to go on with these two attacks as there were no witnesses. They are convinced that the two attacks are by the same, I was going to say person(s) but it doesn't seem appropriate. No doubt if they ever get them, there will be a really good reason why they've turned to crime, something about their homelife being unhappy. Well, I can't see how their homelife would be much unhappier than Stevens has been and he hasn't felt the need to kill people, rob or thieve, and destroy other peoples lives as they have now done to his.

For now, all we can do is to wait for the outcome, both medically and with the police investigation.







 
I hoped to find links to this post in The Yorkshire Evening Post but their online archive doesn't run back enough.

On Christmas Eve, a young man left a pub in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, to return to his family. He never made it. A person, or persons, unknown beat him to death. On New Years Eve, another young man left the same pub to see the New Year in with his parents. He didn't make it either. Again, this boy was attacked and left for dead. In his case, he is now on a life support machine. If he survives, and it is by no means certain that he will, he will perhaps have brain damage, he has lost an eye, and has a broken jaw, ribs, pelvis, and assorted other injuries. That second young man is my cousin Stevens son, his only child.







 
In 1964 my Auntie Sheila died of cancer. She was in her thirties and left two children, Christine, who must have been about 6, and Steven who can't have been more than about 2. In order for to keep their home life relatively stable, my Grandma went to live with them and their father and spent the best part of the next 10 years bringing them up. My Grandad had died a short while after Sheila and I think this arrangement suited my Grandma as well to help her get over her loss.

Both Christine and Steven grew up and eventually got married and had children, I'm not sure if their father ever knew of this as he also died whilst they were still relatively young.

I spent a lot of my holidays in Leeds playing at Christine and Stevens house. They were nice kids.







 
The following posts are all part of the bad news I mentioned the other day. I have had to split it into sections as Blogger doesn't always allow long posts although I also rather like the format of distinct paragraphs anyway as they are both connected and seperate.

There was also to be a further paragraph with some other information and views but I have decided to leave that until another time.





Sunday, January 20, 2002

 
Sunday Snapshot

The River Thames flows swiftly.

It carries three swans downstream at a speed which seems to startle them.
Three distinct groups of seagulls whirl and descend to find food and fight amongst themselves when one is more successful than another.
A lone jogger bends into the wind as he runs, a wind that has sprung up in the last hour bringing rain, surprising all those who find themselves caught in it.
Two Canadian Geese land, honking, and take shelter under a willow tree whose tendrils flick at the water with the breeze.
A small white cruiser, soft canopy up to protect the occupants, manoeuvres from one side of the river to the other, trying to find a little shelter and smoother water. It is followed by a longboat, "The Mrs Halifax", and three young men in canoes.
The son of one of the riverbank occupants stands on the deck of their houseboat and casts a fishing line into the waters, reels back in, and then puts down the rod, deciding in an instant that the effort won't be worth the reward, a cold perhaps being the only thing to be caught today.
The swans swim slowly back to where they started.

Walton-on-Thames 14:00







 
Ran out of time yesterday to do anything else as by the time I got in it was time to go out to Ian & Jacquis. For me though it was then on to a surprise party for Kevs 40th. He'd know for about a week that something was going on but he hadn't realised it was that big, about 100 people.

My lager-o-meter now teels me I am full so it's diet coke or wine for the time being when socialising!





Saturday, January 19, 2002

 
It was a strange day yesterday, with both very good and very bad news. I'll make a seperate post or posts for the bad news later today, but the good news is wonderful. Jacqui has had the results of her scan for her brain tumour following radiotherapy and the tumour has definitely "shrunk". It is no longer pressing into the speech area of her brain, something that was worrying her, and this evening when we see her we'll have all the news. Whilst there is never going to be a cure for her, this was possibly the best that could be hoped for.

Thankyou to all the staff at The Royal Marsden at both the London and Surrey hospital branches.







 
After about 5 years, Kev and I finally got to play snooker yesterday. Not an earth shattering event I agree, nor something that should really have taken us that long to get round to, but we won't be leaving it that long again as we've both joined the local club. Now we can get on with a mis-spent middle age to follow up the mis-spent youth.

What with that, the swimming, and by the way we did 20 lengths before we played snooker, and all our other activities, I have now definitely run out of space to fit work in.

Now all I have to do is to work out how to earn money without working!





Friday, January 18, 2002

 
George Bush strikes again......... In a recent interview he gave, he came up with;

I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them.







 
Only in America......... At a celebration for Martin Luther King ther was to be a plaque unveiled to honour black actor James Earl Jones. The only problem was, the plaque said James Earl Ray, the man who shot Martin Luther King! Red faces all round.





Thursday, January 17, 2002

 
Back to the subject of Kev's present. A couple of days back whilst looking through the geocaching site it suddenly occurred to me. Kev enjoys it as well so why don't I pay for us to go to France or Belgium or somewhere else for that matter and hit a couple of foreign ones. It win't happen for a few weeks yet but he knows I've got something planned for him and luckily, despite his first steps in computing and the internet, he doesn't read this so it'll still be a surprise.







 
The problem is I've got too many things to post and not enough time to write them. I've got to find a way to post when I'm out. I know you can use wap to post to Blogger, but I'm not sure how to do it. I'll sort it out tomorrow, next week, next month, never.







 
Went swimming again today as part of the new get fit regime. New as in, it was vaguely happening all last year but didn't work. I'm finding it much easier than I thought I would but I still haven't signed up for The Swimathon. I'll give it another week or so and then I'll have to do it or forget it.







 
I hadn't realised how long it's been since I posted something. O.K., it's only two days but I just feel horribly absent from things. It's mainly been works fault except for today when I met up with Kev to celebrate his 40th birthday.

Natal anniversary felicitations mate!





Tuesday, January 15, 2002

 
Thanks to Myrtle Bramble of Willowbottom for the link to get your hobbit name. I'm apparently Drogo Loamsdown of Deep Hollow. Now go get yours, you know you want to, and you're only going to feel left out down the pub when everyone else is sporting their new names!





Monday, January 14, 2002

 
Whilst looking for a card for Kev there was one which heralded the "joys" of growing older. One of them alluded to the short sighing noise that you make whenever you have to bend down to pick something up. They're being positive. I'm now at the point where if I have to bend down I need to hold my breath, as all my internal organs are squeezed to the maximum rendering anything as useful as breathing an impossibility.

As any male in their forties will tell you, there are two breath noises that become totally necessary. The first is the long "aah!" exhalation as you sit down, preferably into a comfy armchair, particularly if you've just been dragged round the shops for 8 hours! (he says with feeling). The other is the intake of breath through the teeth, not unlike that of a builder sizing up the extent of work needed and price to be charged, for what you thought was a slight crack in the plasterwork. This noise is employed not only when standing up from the aforementioned armchair, but when straightening your body from any position and must be carried out regardless of whether there are any twinges of pain, cracking of joints, or general aches at that particular moment.

All you youngsters out there in their thirties sitting thinking that you'll be escaping such rituals, it's only a matter of time!







 
One of the main features of selling for a living is that from day to day it is either the greatest job in the world or the worst. Presently it is the latter, but I'll try not to let it show through too much.





Saturday, January 12, 2002

 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Dead Ringers on Radio 4 is just too good, particularly the "Doctor Who" phone calls. There are some "best of" compilation c.d.'s out so I'll be putting those on my wish list, and then I'll be putting a link to my wish list in case you all feel generous! No, I didn't think so.







 
Tony David the Australian Darts player is through to the finals of The Embassy World Championships. Not such big news except he has a blood disorder that affects his arms and legs, which by no means renders him disabled, but doesn't exactly make it any easier for him. I hope he wins.







 
Don't like to say I told you so, but nearly all the tabloids had pictures of the Browns at the funeral.

Not necessary!







 
I understand the comments are down for routine maintenance, still it would be nice to get them back soon.







 
Coming home this evening I decided to stop and have a bag of chips. I haven't had one for ages and once the thought got into my head I couldn't get rid of it. I was good though, I only had a small bag but with lots of vinegar. I'd have had fish as well but no-one knows how to cook it down South!







 
Hell, I'm tired, that seemed like a long day, however, starting at the other end, I went off on my first geocache trip of the new year. It was only up in Acton, about 3 miles away, by the Grand Union Canal but still worth logging.

I have three strong pre-school memories. The first is of my mums wicker basket on wheels, shaped rather like a barrell which I would ride in when we went shopping, the second was of the woods in Boston Manor Park because it was covered in bluebells, the only time I have seen so many in one place, and the third is of the Grand Union Canal near where I live. When I was three or four, our next door neighbour would take me out for a walk each day and we'd often go down to the canal where they still had horse drawn barges. This makes it sound like I'm about 100 but they still used them in the early sixties. They'd mostly be pulling coal as there was a depot for one of the big distributors in Brentford. Thinking about it, I still remember going on steam trains as well. Oh my God, I am old!







 
Typical, Blogback's comment system is down. Let's hope it's on by the time I get home tonight.





Friday, January 11, 2002

 
Just before Christmas I ordered a printer and some consumables from Novatech. These were despatched via Parcel Force who promptly lost them. I'm assuming it was promptly lost although it has taken three weeks to find out they've disappeared.

Knowing that I would have to make a compensation claim against the Post Office and couldn't afford to re-order the goods until the compensation came, I threw myself upon the mercy of Novatechs customer service department. Having explained the circumstances they promised to have their local parcelforce rep give me a ring to discuss it. I've just had a phone call and he's arranged for the new goods to be sent straight out to me and he will deal with the compensation claim internally.

Hooray, good service! And well worth shouting about, rather than have to be complaining about the opposite.







 
It's Kev's 40th birthday this coming week and I want to get him something unusual. Oh, and reasonably cheap as well! Any suggestions? What's the most unusual present you ever received?







 
I was just looking through a book of 1960's news stories when I came across a piece about the introduction of epidurals for childbirth. It mentioned that this was a great leap forward in pain relief and would allow women "to read a newspaper whilst having a baby and to watch the birth in a mirror".

There, just as men have thought all along, all that sweating and screaming is just playacting!





Thursday, January 10, 2002

 
Linda and I went into Mothercare yesterday, (don't panic, or in my mothers case, don't get excited, Linda isn't pregnant). They had a great cot. At each end was a toy train consisting of an engine and a carriage which were coupled my a pair of magnets. It was great, you could separate them and slowly move the engine up to the cariage until it would suddenly lurch forwards, you could practice free wheeling the carriage to just the right position so as the magnets would take over and pull the carriage the final distance to the engine. If you're expecting a child I can highly recommend this cot as it will provide hours and hours of entertainment. Whether the kid will ever enjoy it I have no idea, but fathers everywhere will have a whale of a time!







 
Hmmm, I have a dilemma. Whilst work is so manic and stressful, should I eat comfort foods such as sausage and mash or egg and bacon sandwiches and to hell with the diet, or should I be good and stick to healthy eating (not that there's been much yet), and take no mental benefit from it. (Feeling righteous does nothing for me). I don't somehow think it will be troubling me for long as I have a feeling tomorrow holds a rather fine sausage, egg and tomato wedge sandwich from Messrs Tesco for breakfast.







 
Last night I had written quite a large piece, or rant to give it it's true colours, about my opinion of the British tabloid press publishing photos of the Browns leaving hospital after the death of their daughter. When I posted it Blogger couldn't cope with the size so that one's not going to make it. Never mind, rather like buses, if you miss one chance to comment on the tabloids insensitivity, self-aggrandisement, condescension and general loathsomeness there bound to be another chance coming along shortly. I think it might be Friday when little Jennifers funeral takes place which I dare say will be for family, close friends and telephoto lenses!





Tuesday, January 08, 2002

 
Have set up Extreme Tracking which seems very good at supplying many and varied stats. One of the downsides appears to be that their graphic gets itself into as prominent a position as possible rather than where you might want it. Off course, that might be because I'm not putting the code in the right place. Where it is now will have to do for the time being, but I won't be defeated in the long run!





 
Faye Tozer, one of the members of the recently defunct Steps, is in the middle of writing songs for her solo album. According to her fiancee they are going to go down a storm as they are really like Bob Dylan.

Now, I know we ought to wait until the album's out before passing judgement but I think it wouldn't be a major mistake to hazard a guess that her songs aren't quite going to match some of Mr Zimmermans, such as All Along the Watchtower, Just Like a Woman, Forever Young, The Hurricane etc.





Monday, January 07, 2002

 
As anyone who's followed this blog over the months knows, Kev, my best mate and colleague has been off work for the last 8 months. Whilst I've obviously missed him during this time it is now, when the pressure really builds up that I'm going to miss him most if he doesn't come back. When we were flying about all over the place we would always try to catch up for an hour in the day to grab a bite to eat or have a quick pint before going on to our next appointments. It helped to calm us down stresswise and just get any gripes out of the way. I shall miss that, but perhaps my waistline might benefit. I still know which I'd rather have though!







 
Graybo has started a thread on astrology and it's use by governments following a report in Pravda.

I'm a great believer in proper astrology which obviously doesn't cover the rubbish you get in the papers, the "you will meet a tall dark handsome stranger" variety. A well constructed natal chart can be very accurate and can also be useful to the subject, not so much for the predictive aspect, but for understanding the way you react to different things and how you feel about different parts of your life.

Take this as an example. A person has a natal chart which says they will be very outgoing and extrovert. If you meet them and they are shy and introverted then you may well say that this is proof astrology can't possibly work. If however, that subject has spent many years being bullied or put in other demoralising situations, then they are going to be introverted even though their natural state is to be the opposite. Often these people feel as though they "want" to do extrovert things and admire others who are. They don't feel comfortable with that introverted bit of their personality.

Using it a different way, if you look at your own chart and then work towards the personality it "predicts" then you tend to feel much more, to use an awful new age Americanism, "centred". By the same token, trying to change one of your bad traits won't work out, evntually you'll fall back into your old ways. It's one reason why people don't keep New Years resolutions. Using myself as an example, I should be dreadful with money. I am. I have a "spend now, bother about the future later" mentality and always have. It has got me into trouble in the past and I'm never far away from having mini financial disasters. This doesn't mean I shouldn't try to be good about paying bills, trying to put money aside, and not spending money the moment I get it, but what it helps me to realise is that I shouldn't beat myself up when things do go pear-shaped. That is not a cop out for not being responsible. By the same token, by accepting some of my faults, I have been able to manipulate them into improving other areas of my life. I'm not overly sure that I've explained myself properly, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.

As I briefly mentioned in the comment I left on Graybos site, the ancient civilisations of the Egyptians and the Chinese, both far more advanced that Europe was 4000-5000 years ago, used astrology on a day to day basis both in their personal lives and as a community. They were tremendously successful in what they did. Nowadays in the West we dismiss astrology as nonsense, however, we can't even get the trains to run on time!







 
Coming back home tonight across Kew Bridge all the street lights were out. When I first learnt to drive I much preferred driving in unlit streets and on the motorway as I found it easier to work out the positions of other motorists by their headlights. Now, some 25 years later I find if I don't have the extra light that overheads give I can't judge others distance at all well.

I still reckon to have pretty good vision although I'm due an eye test. The last time they were checked I had 20/18 vision which is pretty near perfect. I'm expecting it to have dimished a bit from that but I know from my parents that as you get older different types of vision change. This light issue is obviously going to be one for me.





Sunday, January 06, 2002

 
I'm going to be a bit hit and miss with postings for the foreseeable future. 20% of our annual turnover is done just in January which means we're working pretty much flat out. Today I was away by 9:15 and didn't get back till 7:00 and thats just for a Sunday. Tomorrow already looks like a 14 hour day as is Tuesday, although that's Lindas day out at the sales which will no doubt be more stressful than if it was work!



Saturday, January 05, 2002

 
Blimey. it didn't take them long to remove the ad. They obviously have someone there desperately waiting for money to come in.





 
Finally got round to getting my PayPal account set up so that I can go ad free. It's so cheap to do it doesn't seem worth bothering about, even if I then go and set up independent hosting, but knowing me, even if I decide to do that it'll take me ages, so it's worth doing if only to reduce the download times on my archaic 28kbps connection.







 
I'm getting fed up to the back teeth with Abbey National. It is now not possible to pay anything in across the counter unless it is into your own account. You can't pay bills, you can't pay anything into a friends account, I can't even pay my Abbey National Credit Card over the counter. They appear to be moving towards telephone only and internet banking. I wouldn't mind if they came out and said it but just systematically withdrawing various banking facilities doesn't seem a particularly good way of doing it from a p.r. point of view. Nobody yet has managed to tell me what the advantage is for the customer. That would be because there isn't one! I'd also be a bit worried if I was a counter clerk.

They are also starting to do up some of their branches. Do they add more tills, more cash machines, more internet points? No, they have a tie up with Costa Coffee which means that the Kingston Branch, the largest branch in that part of Surrey/S. W. London, is now basically a cafe with some banking facilities added on.

Well, it's costing them my account. Not that I think they'll be bothered about that, but I can't be the only one. It looks according to the finance news as though A.N. and Alliance and Leicester are going to merge. If you're with Alliance and Leicester and your happy with their facilities at the moment, vote against it if you get the chance. You have been warned!







 
It's a heatwave!

Well perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration but 10 degrees extra centigrade when I left this morning was much appreciated.





Friday, January 04, 2002

 
Hurrah! First sale of the New Year! It's good to get that one under the belt even though I'd have been hard pushed to not get it. All the same, when you haven't sold anything at all there just seems to be a giant yawning chasm right in front of you just willing you to fall in.

Also good news was meeting up with Ian at lunchtime for a drink and a go on the old quiz machine. We did o.k. taking out £8 just on one go! Pretty good going. Playing the machine was just about self sufficient so it was only the drinks that cost today.



Thursday, January 03, 2002

 
That's it then, my first proper day back from the hols and despite having the best part of a month to chill out it's taken approximately 12 hours to push the stress levels back to where they were way back then. And it would help if we could stop the new Ice Age that appears to have arrived. Right that's it, no more moaning, well not for today anyway.





Wednesday, January 02, 2002

 
Phew! The c.d. drive on my laptop had jammed and Head Office warned they might need to keep the machine for a couple of days but by luck they managed to unjam it otherwise I'd have been without a computer and getting dreadful withdrawal symptoms.







 
I can't decide whether I'm concerned at the idea of joining the single currency or not. It's certainly not the notes and coins that bother me as we would be able to retain the monarchs head, as have Spain, Netherlands and Belgium, because it's no different in those terms from when we converted to decimal currency. I suppose I'm not sure that I want to hand over economic power to the Central Bank. It's not xenophobia, but it's going to be such a large economy whilst it might equalise the individuals peaks and troughs for individual countrys there is the potential of a major crash which could be a real problem.

Originally I was totally against it but now it's here I may not have been so bothered. A friend of Kevs was across from Spain a few months back and he was asked what the Spanish thought about the Brits not joining. His reply was that, quite honestly, most Europeans couldn't give a toss whether we were in it or not. Now that's an interesting reflection because I'm sure most people here think that our inclusion is tremendously important and that without us it can't possibly work. These days Britains role in anything is diminishing and we have to realise that, otherwise our role as "Little Englanders" will continue.







 
Listening to Radio 5 earlier today they were commentating on the introduction of the Euro from different countries and the commentator in, I think, Belgium, was most put out that nobody could care less that thier own currency was dissappearing, a trend which seems to have been followed across all the countries presently converting. I had the feeling that he'd spent most of the morning trawling the local markets looking for someone who was going to moan and failing in his task. In addition, it appears to be going relatively smoothly considering the size of the operation. This really isn't what the British were expecting from "Johnny Foreigner" without our help.







 
Back to normal then after the Christmas and New Year festivities. I need to get back quickly as the money is running out way too fast. I need a couple of quick sales to kick the year and my bank balance into gear.

We ought to get lots of enquiries as again, this mornings temperature is a few degrees below freezing. This is really unusual for London and I think makes 4 maybe 5 days of early morning heavy frosts. I certainly wouldn't want it to be any colder but I've got a friend out in Calgary to whom I suspect freezing point would probably feel like a heat wave right now.





Tuesday, January 01, 2002

 
Further to my earlier DVD post, the reason we haven't presently got one is that Linda really wants this! Oh, and she'd like me to pay for it too. Ho ho.

Still that's the cheap option. The other choice is a plasma t.v. between £7000 and £14000!!!!!!! They're wonderful, but people are going to have to buy an awful lof of windows, doors and conservatories before that happens, believe me.







 
Have spent the afternoon getting to grips with The Radio Times christmas crossword. It's a swine but now have only 5 clues to go. The chance to win a dvd player is somewhat of an incentive to completing it. However, as part of checking things up in my Chambers Dictionary I've found some wonderful stuff.

I think my favourite opening three letters for words must be "hob". In a relatively short list of words you get hobbledehoy, hobday, hobgoblin, hobjob, hobnail, hobnob and Hobson-Jobson. Wonderful.

There is also a short run of words beginning with "il" which reads ileac, ileum, ileus, ilex, Iliac, Iliad, Ilium, ilium, ilk. Reminds me terribly of some Latin declension I had to learn at school which I don't think I've used from that very day. Amo, amas, amat and all that!

Lastly, I'm greatly amused by an entry "Feast of Trumpets", the description of which is a Jewish feast in which trumpets played an important part. What else were they going to call it? What did the trumpets do? Why am I amused? I think I need to start the bottle of champagne that I have been chilling all day, it can't make me any more silly that I appear to be at the moment!







 
A further purchase yesterday of Angel, series 1, brings our DVD collection to about £500. Still no DVD player!







 
Watched Pleasantville last night, a film I hadn't seen before, then again I don't see that many anyway so it's not surprising. It certainly made it's point on racism! For those who don't know the film, it is about 2 kids who end up inside their television in an old black and white 1950's sitcom. As they change things then various bits of the film, be it objects or people, take on colour. It was very strange seeing a screen predominatley black and white but with a few splashes of colour. It made the colours vibrant but also seemed to distort them in the way we normally see them.







 

Happy New Year