Road Maintenance and Sarcasm – The Response

Posted: Thu 19 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk | Leave a comment »

Following on from the post earlier this week about certain idiocy with roadworks near us, I actually got a response from Norfolk Council about it. In less than a week!

As Surfacing Engineer for Norfolk County Council Environment, Transport
& Development Dept. I was responsible for the construction phase of the
resurfacing operations at Church Steet, Hingham and your complaint has
been passed to me for action.

Firstly I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the
surfacing works in Hingham carried out over the last two weekends.
During our initial consultations with the businesses and parishes in the
Hingham area the Vintage Working weekend was not identified as a
potential issue.

The official diversion route for this scheme was extensive and required
traffic to be diverted along the B1077 from Carbrooke to Attleborough,
along the A11 to Wymondham and then back to Hingham via Wicklewood &
Hackford. Special advance warning signs were planned for various
locations along this route to intercept cross country traffic such as Gt
Ellingham crossroads.

Unfortunately the Traffic Management contractor did not identfy any
signage at either Bush Green Lane or Lt Ellingham Road junctions and I
apologise for this oversight. This has raised a potential issue with
publicity of local events and the need for NCC to consult in future with
all parish councils etc on the diversion route to check for any possible
conflicts.

If you have any further queries relating to these works please give me a
call

In fairness, that’s not a bad response, all things considered…

Festive Doom

Posted: Wed 18 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

I’ve just realised that last night there was a sign of the upcoming Apocalypse, and I missed it. Arses.

The sign was this : It’s August, and I had a dream about the Festering Season.

Not, thank the Deities, a good dream. Instead it was a dream about Festering Tat being in the stores way too early (again) and me going rather ballistic at the shop-owners/managers who had allowed it to happen.

Very very fucking weird, and I’ve no idea what on earth it’s meant to be about, or what it says about my subconscious.

That is all.

Road Maintenance and Sarcasm

Posted: Mon 16 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Stupidity, Travel | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend, one of the significant crossroads near us was completely closed for re-surfacing. The problem was that at least one route to get to that crossroads didn’t have any mention of said road closure.

Which means I get to send sarcastic emails to Norfolk County Council. (Again)

To whom it may concern,

I’d just like to congratulate the person(s) involved in sorting out signage for the road closure in Hingham this weekend.

If (as many people did) you took the road from Little Ellingham towards Hingham using Hingham Road->Little Ellingham Road -> Attleborough Road to the crossroads in Hingham, there was not *ONE* sign saying that the road ahead was closed. The signage was in fact before this junction (at roughly the spot of the red circle in this map)

This meant that anyone coming through on the route from Little Ellingham came round the corner to find the entire road closed off, and then had to turn round and go back. This also had the effect of stuffing a significant amount of the newly resurfaced road before the junction.

Of course, the road from Little Ellingham isn’t that heavily used. Except when Little Ellingham has its Vintage Working Weekend event- yes, the weekend just passed.

I look forward to any response Norfolk Council deigns to give in explanation of why there was no thought given to this route, or signage on it.

Sincerely

Lyle

I know it’ll do bugger-all good, but I felt better having written it. And that’s what matters.

Parking – Yet Again

Posted: Mon 16 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Driving, Parking, Travel | 7 Comments »

Another Saturday in Tesco, another tossbag who can’t park their car

This time it wasn’t even over the blank spaces for clear view lines, it was just slap-bang over two parking spaces…

Twat

KC51WTE, you park like a cunt.

Refuel 666

Posted: Sun 15 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

Related to Gordon’s post about his MPG figure, I filled up today, and got this as the “miles ’til empty” figure.

666

Fortunately I’d started the engine, but not pulled away when I spotted it.

It’s not about religion

Posted: Sat 14 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: News, Security, Thoughts | 8 Comments »

In today’s news there’s been a big thing about Barack Obama defending the right to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site in New York.

The best bit of it all though was the quoted parts of the speech…

We must all recognise and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan, Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear, as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as anyone else in this country.”That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

He told the group of US Congressmen, government officials and foreign dignitaries that America’s tradition of religious tolerance distinguishes it from “our enemies”.

“Al-Qaeda’s cause is not Islam,” he said, “it is a gross distortion of Islam”.

And that’s the primary point for me – Al-Qaeda is not an Islamic cause, the current phase of “islamic terrorism” isn’t about islam at all, it’s just about terror. Anyone who thinks that these terrorist episodes are about religion really is a bloody moron – religion is (as always) the convenient talking-point to support the ’cause’.

Rural Weekend

Posted: Sat 14 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Norfolk, People, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

This weekend the village down the road has their annual “vintage working weekend” event. It’s a bizarre thing – not quite a steam rally, not quite anything particular – but means that our road is pretty much constantly thronged by tractors running up and down.

Right now though there’s a parade of tractors going past the front of the house, some with passengers on trailers, most just being driven along as part of the parade. Completely mad.

So far there’s been about forty of the damn things…

Cost Less, Make More

Posted: Wed 11 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Another work(ish)-related post, but a subject close to my heart, and usually good for some thoughts and rants.

In this case, we’re currently considering buying one of the most-pirated pieces of software in Christendom, Adobe’s Creative Suite. The reason it’s massively pirated is simple – the fucking ridiculous cost of it.

If we look at getting one licenced copy of the full bells-and-whistles CS5 Master Suite, it costs no less than £2,700. For a piece of software that’ll be updated/outdated within a year. What small company (or even medium-sized company) is going to pay nearly three grand for CS5 ? Let alone what little one-man-band web design company. And yes, you can get a smaller/cheaper CS5 Web Premium for web design. That’s a mere £1,680.

Even more insane, that’s the prices if they send the software in a box. For download purposes, CS5 Master Suite is – um – £2,780. Yep – it costs you more to download the fucking thing than for them to box it up and stick it in the post. What?

Adobe are forever bitching that their software is the most pirated. There’s a reason for that – it’s priced itself out of the “reasonably affordable” market.

I’m pretty sure that if Adobe charged (for argument’s sake) £270 for the CS5 Master – 10% of the current price – the piracy figures for it would drop like a stone. £270 is reasonable for the software – perhaps even a bit more, but 10% was a nice example. Piracy wouldn’t stop completely – there will always be those for who even a pound is “too much” – but it would reduce epically. More people would buy the software – my own suspicion is that they’d actually sell more and make more by having the software at the cheaper price.

Sure, the price has been cut by 90%. But if you get 100 people buying it at £270 instead of one or two at £2,700, you’ve made a shitload more money on your bottom line than you have at £2,700 per copy. Even on the upgrades, people would be more likely to pay again for an upgrade, rather than pirating it.

And that’s the logic that seems to escape these companies. Reduce the price to a sensible/affordable level, more people will buy, less people will evade. Seems logical to me, anyway.

Getting Work Experience

Posted: Tue 10 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, Business, Design, Norfolk, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Over the last few weeks at work (roughly three months, give or take) we’ve been looking at recruiting a graphic designer – it’s the one area where the IT team lack skills, and with a lot of [currently unmentionable] big projects coming up, a designer is going to be a highly relevant part of the role.

What I wanted was a newly-graduated designer, looking for work experience, and getting them some solid commercial experience. I contacted two of the local colleges (including one with whom we’ve had a previous positive experience with getting in a web geek) as well as UEA and the STEP programme, both of whom have services for finding placements for graduates. Like a bell-end, I believed all the media pap about “[x] graduates applying for every job“. What a mistake.

The entire process turned into a nightmare. The colleges didn’t come back with anything – the one we’d previously used didn’t even bother responding – and UEA and STEP between them threw back ten applicants, of whom six were useless from the start, and not even qualified as graphic designers. Three of those had decided that “designing a new site” meant “developing a new site” – which it doesn’t and didn’t – despite us specifying that it was a graphic design role.

Of the four we interviewed, three were incredibly awful. I understand that they’re just out of university, but if that’s the level for recent graduates, it’s a real concern. Even the CVs they sent out were all formulaic and dull – if I’m looking at potential designers, I want to know they’ve got an eye for at least how a CV should look, something “designed” to make it stand out from the pack.

Now maybe it’s me being unrealistic – it’s certainly based on the other graphic designers I know and have worked with before – but if I’m interviewing a designer, I shouldn’t receive a blank look when I ask what things inspire their designs, or to name me a design that they really love. I wouldn’t have cared at that point whether it was something on cars, bikes, office equipment, technology, websites, anything – I just wanted to know what they thought of the industry they’d chosen to be part of, the sphere they had just graduated in. Three of the four responded to both those questions with a look of total incomprehension, no spark, no nothing. Not one of those three could name me even one designer they liked. Me, I could whiff on for ages about certain designers, concepts etc. – I love design, I just can’t draw to save my life.

We have finally found someone who I think will be really good. His work stood out from the first moment – a CV with a design to it, even though I personally hated the image used, it was still designed – and the projects he’d done at university, including his final project which was fantastic. In interview he brought in a portfolio (none of the others had) and could talk about what inspired him, the stuff he liked, the way he worked and so on. It was a reassuring interview after so many let-downs, and I’m really pleased that he’s come through.

It’s been an awesomely frustrating experience – one that’s put me to the edge of saying “Screw it” and going a completely different route. I find it utterly amazing how bad most of the people who applied for the role were. And it’s not even like we were trying to get the role as an internship, which seems to be the new ‘latest greatest’ way of getting work experience. We’re paying the designer – I believe that good work should be rewarded, not got for free as an internship – and while it’s not great money, it’s better than nothing. (We’re using the standard established STEP rates) So it’s not like we’re taking the piss, or taking advantage of the graduates – it just seems like they don’t know what the hell they’re actually doing.

D4D is Eight

Posted: Mon 9 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™ | 2 Comments »

Somehow, D4D has managed now to be being written for eight years.

I am simultaneously pleased that it’s gone on so long, and gobsmacked that it’s gone on so long.

Pick Your Own

Posted: Sun 8 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk | Leave a comment »

Over the last two weekends, we’ve been to one of the local pick-your-own places twice for raspberries. Sadly, they’re closed now or we’d be going another couple of times. We’ll know for next year.

In the mean time, over the two visits we got something like 17lbs (nearly 8 kg) of raspberries, which cost us the princely sum of £45. (£2.65 a lb)

From that little lot, Herself has made 55 jars of raspberry jam, and we’ve still got more in the freezer for general use. All told (including fuel, cooking gas and so on) it’s cost us at most £1 a jar – quite a difference to the usual price we pay. (I like the Bonne Maman stuff, which is usually about 150% of that price)

I’ll freely admit I’m a fiend for raspberry jam, and I reckon this little lot will probably last around nine months. Just in time for the next season, in fact…

Zero Fatality?

Posted: Sat 7 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Geeky, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Via a couple of other sites, I saw a thing today about Volvo’s “Vision 2020” project, which says (among other things)

By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo”. This statement from 2008 clearly formulates a long-term vision to create cars that will not crash. Volvo Cars’ strategy to achieve Vision 2020 includes cooperating with social partners, integrating preventative and protective safety systems into the car and, in particular, to better understands people in traffic situations. Driver behaviour is a contributing factor in over 90 percent of all accidents.

That’s pretty ambitious.

There’s a lot of technology out there making cars safer – ComputerWorld has an interactive view of car safety features in this ‘zero-fatality’ concept as well as a feature about how ‘zero-fatality’ cars are being designed and built.

But zero fatalities? That’s a leap. It might not be the driver (or even the inhabitants of the car at all) that die- but what about pedestrians hit by the car, for example? Sure, there’s stuff there to warn you of their presence, but if you ignore it, will the car slam to a halt anyway? And would that be potentially even more dangerous for other road users?

I still find the concept of driverless cars to be fascinating, the machine-logic necessary and so on, but I think it’s close to an impossible dream. After all, to do it properly would be one hell of an implementation, as (I think) all cars would need to have the auto-driving implemented at the same time. It would be far too complex otherwise, with the potential for auto-driven vehicles in direct conflict with human-driven vehicles.

Maybe that particular change will be driven by the HGV and road-train market – being able to reduce costs and improve efficiency would be paramount.

Daily Fail

Posted: Fri 6 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Design, Media, News, Pedantry | Leave a comment »

Always nice to see when the Daily Fail gets to screw things up. (again)

In this case, they’ve managed to forget to put two photo captions in on one story. (This may have changed on the page by the time you look at it)

First example

Second example

Way to go, Daily Fail!

So, So Tired

Posted: Thu 5 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic | 1 Comment »

I don’t know why, but this week I am just so tired.

Some of it is down to the usual suspects – bad sleep, disturbed sleep, poxy animals, the usual.

Anyway, today is where I’ve hit the limit. Hence, very little in the way of updates etc. A head full of rubbish and fluff.

See you later.

Security Hound

Posted: Wed 4 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Weather | Leave a comment »

Last night (technically this morning) Hound woke us up with full-on security barks. All very much “There’s an intruder, there’s someone/thing in the garden, something’s wrong, wake up!”

It meant I needed to get up, check the house, let her out into the garden to check what was going on, and all that crap.

It turned out – so far as we can tell – that the security issue was heavy rain, which she expected to turn into thunder. I took her basket into the living room, and spent the rest of the night on the sofa, with Hound in her basket.

She was obviously stressed about it though, as the first hour or so was spent with her right by the sofa, as close to me as possible without being on the sofa. A definite sign of stressy Hound.

It’s a good job that the sofa and chair we bought earlier this year are comfortable, and a good size. Between us we spend an inordinate amount of nights (or at least part-nights) on the damn sofa.

Renewing Prime

Posted: Tue 3 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Customer Services | 4 Comments »

In general, when I buy books or other odds and sods, my first port of call is usually Amazon.

It’s not the cheapest – although I’m not always looking to save pence on these things anyway – but I find that in general if I want something, it’s going to be available through Amazon.

I also pay for the Amazon Prime – £50 a year, and next-day deliveries for the year. Looking back, I made 31 orders in the last twelve months, and didn’t pay postage and packing on any of them. That works out as £1.61 per order for next-day delivery. Amazon charge £4.95 for Express “get it tomorrow” delivery. On 31 orders, that would be near as dammit £155 just on delivery. (Admittedly if it weren’t for Prime I’d be using normal postage for the most part, but you know what I mean)

Needless to say, I’m renewing my Prime subscription. It’s paid for itself a couple of times over.

Pawprints

Posted: Mon 2 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend (and particularly yesterday) my car was parked on the drive in full sunlight, which meant it got quite warm.

As you can see, at least one cat realised this…

Yep, muddy pawprints

I didn’t notice this ’til I’d left for work – I saw the ones on the windscreen, but not the trail all the way up the bonnet. It looks like one of those chavtastic ‘fast car’ stripes, right up the middle of the bonnet.

Bloody animals.

Toy Story 3

Posted: Sun 1 August, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: General | Leave a comment »

Yesterday we went to see Toy Story 3, in 3D.

And it was pretty good. I’m not a hardcore fan of the Toy Story movies, never have been – for one major thing, Tom Hanks’ voice just grates on me as being a whiny pain-in-the-ass, and that always detracts from a film. Ah well.

But it’s a good film – Pixar are stunning at telling the story, and the 3D works really nicely. I prefer 3D when it’s a subtle thing, when you only realise afterwards the sheer depth of some of the scenes, rather than the standard “Woooah, look, it’s 3D! Stuff’s coming out of the screen at you!” type thing.

For example, the credits – they’re all done in 3D, with the role ‘further back’ than the name of the person doing the job. It’s beautifully done. The same applies throughout the film – Herself was unimpressed with the 3D, expecting more “coming out of the screen” stuff, until we talked about it, and realised just how much of the depth was just assumed, taken for granted, and not done as a gimmick.

Personally, I wouldn’t go and see it again, which I suppose is always my benchmark – do I want to go and see the bits I missed, or just enjoy the film again? In the case of Toy Story 3, it’s a good film, but not one I’d repeat.

Repeatedly Released

Posted: Fri 30 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Sometimes you look at a story and think “Oh, there’s got to be a lot more than that behind it”.

In this case, the story was about Arran Coghlan, the Cheshire ‘businessman’ who’s now been cleared of murder on three separate occasions. That’s going some. But really, the guy’s either incredibly unlucky to be caught up in these types of situations, or he’s involved in some way or another.

The three cases were :

Cleared in 1996 of shooting Chris Little dead at the wheel of his Mercedes in Marple, Stockport.
Stood trial for the murder of drug dealer David Barnshaw, who was kidnapped and forced to drink petrol before being burned alive in the back of a car in Stockport in 2001
(The most recent) accused of shooting dead Stephen Akinyemi in a fight at his £2m home in Alderley Edge in February

Additionally, on New Year’s Day 2008, Coghlan was stabbed in the head, face and back in a frenzied attack in Cobdens Bar in Stockport.

There’s also the ‘small’ matter of an assault charge in an unrelated matter, for which he will be back at Liverpool Crown Court for a mention hearing in September.

You look at that story and you just have to assume that his businesses can’t be completely legitimate. That’s a lot of trouble for one businessman to be in, isn’t it?

Facebook Users

Posted: Thu 29 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, People, Technology, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

I love all the garbage being spouted about the ‘leak’ of 100million Facebook users publically-available details.

Radio One’s headline on this was “Facebook users details are available online” – which elicited a “Well, duh!” response from me. They’ve always been available online – at Facebook. All of the information held in this file was already available at Facebook – it’s just it would’ve taken a bit more effort to get it all.

Every one of the people listed in the file hadn’t set their privacy settings properly. That’s more of an indictment about either

how complex Facebook made their privacy settings
how stupid / lazy people are when it comes to those settings
how people really don’t think about their privacy and security at all

And that’s it.

If you can’t be bothered to check your privacy settings, you deserve to have your details published. After all, if one person can do it, so can others.

Learning to Read

Posted: Thu 29 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Stupidity | 3 Comments »

One of my recent discoveries has been Tropicana‘s “Orange and Lime” juice. It’s really pleasant (if far more expensive than my normal “4 for £2” stuff) so while it’s been on offer at [Local Supermarket] I got a couple in. Three for a fiver, rather than near-as-dammit £2 for one. (£2? For orange juice? They’re having a fucking laugh)

Except it turns out I can’t sodding read. Because one of the three cartons I purchased wasn’t Orange and Lime, but was instead Orange and Watermelon. Which is – well, not rank, but not that nice.

Most annoying. And quite a shock this morning when I finished an Orange and Lime, and topped it up with a new carton. Yep, the Orange and Watermelon one.

Orange Lime and Watermelon is – how shall I put this? – interesting. And not in an overly good way.

Speed Cameras

Posted: Wed 28 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, People, Politics, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

It’s currently looking like one of the victims of this new political Age of Austerity (AKA The”Can we cut it? Yes, we can!” years) will be the funding for speed-cameras. Sorry, ‘safety cameras’.

So far Oxfordshire is one of the first to say they’ll be turning the fixed cameras off, which will save them some £600,000 a year.

I have to say that I really don’t have an issue with this – I think that getting rid of the cameras will (in most cases) actually make the roads a bit safer. Yes, there are rat-runs where people are stupid and drive too fast – but in my experience, speed cameras cause far more dangerous driving than they prevent.

One prime example of this is the A11/A14 around Cambridge (and I think I’ve written about this before) – the intersection where they join has a speed camera just after it. I’ve seen far too many near-accidents at that point, where people have been feeding in just fine from the A11 at 70mph(ish) and then have to slap the brakes on because the people in front of them have dropped from 70mph to 50mph to get past the camera. Yes, it’s down to human stupidity to drop to 50mph – 70mph is fine for going past that particular camera – but it’s still a much more dangerous junction because of the speed camera.

You see the same thing all over the place – people suddenly slowing from an already-legal speed, just to “make sure” they don’t get done by the camera.

So yeah, I think that getting rid of the cameras might just be an improvement to road safety in general, rather than a detriment to it.

Photography Bits

Posted: Tue 27 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, NCFE Course, Photography | Leave a comment »

Of late I’ve been trying to get out a bit more with the camera, and fortunately there’ve been a couple of occasions recently where I’ve been able to do so.

The first of these was a couple of weeks ago, a Sunday in Norwich doing some photos for a local event, which went really well. (And that reminds me, I really must sort out those photos this week and send them in)

The second was over the weekend, a couple of hours in one of the local well-regarded plant centres, taking photos in their show garden. There’s the potential for some of the photos to go into their yearly brochure, but we’ll see how that goes.

Tonight is meeting up with the people I did the NCFE Photography course with – hard to believe it’s a year now since that finished – so it’s been a bit of a photoggy week all round.

Ferrari and F1

Posted: Mon 26 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend at the German Grand Prix Ferrari were deeply unsubtle about their team orders, and forced one driver to give way to the other, allowing Fernando Alonso to win the grand prix. For this, they’ve been fined $100,000 (approx £65,000) but haven’t lost points or anything.

The fine is pretty much insignificant to Ferrari, and this just sends out the message that it’s OK to run to team orders, you’ll just fork out a bit of cash. (In Formula 1 terms, £65,000 is probably a new engine or something)

If the race stewards had really wanted to send a message that running to team orders (and making it public knowledge) then they would have docked Ferrari all the points they gained from both Alonso and Massa, as well as all the manufacturer’s championship points from the race. That would’ve been a significant loss.

Personally I don’t have that great an issue with team orders. Sometimes they make sense – for example, if there were a standing order that if your team-mate is coming through, you’re not quite so aggressive at trying to block them, so you don’t wipe out both cars and stuff the team’s race completely. But the clear-cut engineering of who they want to win, that is (to me) not on. If you know there will be team orders like that, it puts F1 at the same level of competitiveness as professional wrestling.

Inception

Posted: Sun 25 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish) | 1 Comment »

Tonight we went off to see the new Chris Nolan film, Inception. It’s had good reviews, and I’m generally a fan of Nolan’s stuff anyway, although some reviews had said it was really complex and hard to follow. Mind you, that’s not normally something I worry about. (it’s generally A Good Thing)

As it was, I really enjoyed the film. Personally I didn’t find it hard to follow at all – although there were a couple of irritating plot holes/errors that nagged – and it didn’t feel like 2½ hours of film at all. Again, that’s definitely A Good Thing – I could name a few that felt like every damn second of their runtime, and were the worse for it. (Lord of the Rings 2/3, Matrix 2/3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, I’m looking at you – and a fair few others- here)

One of the things I liked about Inception was the insistence that you just go with the concept of being able to share dreams, and how the entire thing worked. I get irritated by films/books that explain everything and how it works – these things are about suspension of disbelief, of (in my opinion) just going with the story. Getting into the ins and outs of technology just makes you go “That’s not right”, and jars the experience more than it builds it.

All told, I thought Inception was pretty damn good. Maybe not “Best film of the year”, and probably not one I’d want/need to see again, but still good.

Weekend Timing

Posted: Sat 24 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Sleep - or lack thereof | Leave a comment »

I really wish that Hound would get the idea about weekends. I know, I know, she’s a dog, and dogs aren’t supposed to understand these concepts. But for a time-oriented and very insistent/herding animal, weekends are a real pain in the arse.

It’s my fault (of course). During the week I get up at 6.30, do all the morning things, let the chickens out, and go to work.

On a weekend, well, I went a lie-in. But Hound doesn’t care.

So by 7am she’s scratching on the door, effectively saying “You’re late! It’s time to get up and get back in the routine!”

If you tell her to sod off (or words to that effect) she’ll go and lie down for ten minutes. And it’s exactly ten minutes – you could set your clock by it.

7.10. Scratch scratch. “Sod off”

7.20 Scratch scratch. “Sod off”

7.30. Scratch scratch scratch. “Sod Off“. Scratch “You’re really really late now. And The Girls still need letting out”

7.40. Scratch scratch. “Sod Off”

7.50 Scratch scratch scratch. “Sod it“.

By now Hound’s up a height, stressed that all her routine is just ruined. “Daddy’s late, The Girls aren’t out yet, I haven’t had my pills yet, it’s just all going horribly wrong.”

Poxy fucking animals.

Harvest

Posted: Fri 23 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Norfolk | Leave a comment »

Around us at the moment all the farmers are harvesting the wheat/barley/cereal crops.

Norfolk’s pretty rural- you may’ve noticed – and harvest season is a big thing. There’s the cereal harvest now, and there’ll be the sugar-beet one early in 2011, as usual.

The downside of the harvest is the sheer number of effing tractors, combine harvesters and other assorted farm machinery that’s out on the roads at any given time of day. It fucks up the traffic completely – farmers preferring to be moving between 8 and 10am, although whether this is out of practicality or sheer mean-minded pettiness is up for discussion.

This morning I had no less than six different tractors in front of me on various occasions. It’s a pain in the tits – you overtake one, then five minutes later you’re behind another of the fuckers. Even the school run’s better than this. Grrrrr.

Public vs Private

Posted: Fri 23 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Thoughts, Travel | 1 Comment »

In my post about the mileage I’ve covered this month, Gordon pointed out

I use this invention called ‘the train’. Saves adding miles and miles to your car (cost).

And that’s a perfectly valid point. If I could, I’d use public transport – and particularly trains – a lot more. But there are some reasons why this month I couldn’t/didn’t/wouldn’t.

Among those reasons are :

Hound
Cost
Convenience
Time
Practicality

Let’s look at just one of the journeys I did – taking Hound down to Berkshire – Wokingham, to be more precise – and compare driving to trains.

Hound : There’s no way Hound could go on public transport without being muzzled. In the temperatures that were around when we did the journey, that’s just not going to happen – she’d be unable to pant properly or anything. She’d also be a complete pain in the arse – not just to me, but to everyone around – for the entire journey. And taking Hound through the London Underground while changing stations? You’re having a fucking laugh. In the car, she just slept in her basket, cool in the car’s air-con atmosphere.
Cost : The cheapest I could do the journey, for a return ticket is (at the time of writing) £48.40. That’s not including getting to the station nearest home, or the cost of getting from station to kennels at the other end. (And back again) The 300 mile round trip in the car cost me about £30 – £35 (I can’t remember exactly) all in, door-to-door.
Convenience : Again, door-to-door vs. all the fucking about of train travel, getting to station, travelling, three changes, getting from station to kennels, and back again. All while carrying dog stuff, my stuff, and the dog basket. Yeah.
Time : Just for the train journey is four and a half hours. One way. Driving? Three hours one way. Door-to-door.
Practicality : I’ll let you figure out which one’s best on this score. And we haven’t even touched on delays, travelling with other people, the ability to have peace and quiet while travelling, so on and so forth.

The trip to Manchester(ish) is an even better example, even if Hound’s not a factor…

Hound : N/A
Cost : Train (return ticket) £80.80 – best I can find. Car : £40 fuel.
Convenience : Train ? Office to Bury St Edmunds Station. Three changes. Manchester to Oldham. Oldham to [Village]. Car? Door to Door.
Time : Train (again, train only, one-way, not including sodding about) five hours. Car? 3 hours.
Practicality : Car wins. Again. And I don’t need to fix everything around when the trains run.

I would use public transport more. But when you look at the factors in this way, you can see why I don’t…

New Scam/Phishing Email

Posted: Thu 22 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Geeky, People, Security, Stupidity | Leave a comment »

Yesterday I noticed a new spam / scam / phishing email that seems to have appeared.

It purports to come from Amazon, and tells you that your order has been despatched, along with some links that are clickable. The links actually go off to a russian site, but I’ve no idea what that does, and have no intention of finding out.

The biggest clue that it’s a spam/scam are

the prices are all in dollars (which is a bit of a giveaway for us in the UK)
you haven’t ordered anything from Amazon
it’s got a link to “see the ordered items”, rather than just listing them in the mail
the email address it’s been sent to isn’t the one you’ve got listed with Amazon

But all told it’s one of the better spam/scam/phishing-type emails of the moment. Best to publicise it and be aware of it.

Buzzy

Posted: Wed 21 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk, Sweary | Leave a comment »

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in previous years, but in Summer our house gets a real influx of houseflies – particularly in the kitchen, but really through the place. And they drive me mad.

We can’t find a reason for them coming in – the walls have been filled with cavity-wall insulation, the kitchen units have been replaced, nothing’s dead/rotting/stinking/festering in the kitchen or house at all, and yet every year we get all these sodding flies. It’s not quite “Biblical Plague” of the buzzy little bastards, but it’s enough to drive me mental.

Hound’s not keen on them either – collies are renowned for their fly-chasing activities, so she keeps on chasing them and trying to eat them – and in that aspect I guess I must be part-collie. I use a fly-swatter rather than trying to catch the little flying shitbags in my mouth, but I admit I can get quite obsessive about it.

I don’t know what else we can do, though. Fly-paper is bloody ugly, the ultra-viole(n)t bugzappers are monstrous on power, and fly-spray’s even worse than fly-swatters- although spray doesn’t leave bug-bits on the walls/ceiling.

I think it’s just one of those things with living in the area – other people we know have similar issues here, so it’s not just our place. That’s some kind of reassurance, I suppose. Not much, though.

Mongrels, BBC3

Posted: Tue 20 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Creativity, Domestic | Leave a comment »

One of my favourite shows currently on BBC3 is a very strange and very rude comedy programme called Mongrels. It’s on tonight at 10:30 and is (in my opinion) well worth a watch. Of course, your views may vary.

For me, though, a bizarre puppet show with swearing foxes, offensive (and vain) poodles, randy streetcats and a psychotic pigeon is always going to be worth a punt. The sheer number of ideas – and the abusive nature of most of it – is awesome, and leaves both of us wondering how the hell the entire programme got made in the BBCs current super-correct hyper-non-offensive atmosphere.

Oh – and Christopher Biggins as God.

I’m so getting the DVD when it comes out in August…

Mileage Tot-Up

Posted: Mon 19 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Sociable, Travel | 3 Comments »

This month (as I’ve mentioned before) has been a bit of a hog when it comes to mileage done.

So far (and excluding the normal 350 miles per week for work/commuting) it’s involved…

Down to Berkshire to drop off Hound – 300 mile round trip
Odds and Sods for party organisation, ferrying stuff and the like – 50ish miles
Across to Peterborough to collect Herself’s brother for the party weekend – 75 miles
Down to Berkshire to collect Hound – 300 mile round trip
Down to London to deliver Herself etc. for her break – 200 mile round trip
Down to London to collect Herself etc. from her break – 200 mile round trip
Up to Manchester and back – 600 mile round trip

That’s just over 1,700 miles this month. If you include the work commute, we go up to just over 3,100 miles.

I don’t mind the driving, it’s not resented or anything – for the most part it’s actually enjoyable (except for a small dollop of aquaplaning on the A1, but the less said about that the better) but it does amaze me on occasion just what kind of mileage I do knock up over time – although this July has been pretty excessive, even by my standards.

I probably need to check when the car’s due for its next service, don’t I?

Home

Posted: Sun 18 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

I’m back home. I know, I didn’t actually say anything about not being home, but that’s because last week was chaotic, and I rather missed the opportunity to write any foreward-dated posts. Ooops.

Anyway, I spent the weekend with friends up in Manchester, and had a really good time. A three hour run from Bury St Edmunds up to Manchester, and three-and-a-half hours from Manchester back to home.

A really good weekend, just without access to t’internet (couldn’t remember the D4D password to use on the iPhone) which was also no bad thing.

Missing Options

Posted: Sat 17 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Catering, Customer Services, Thoughts, Travel | 3 Comments »

On Saturday, the Js and I went out to the Olive Branch in Marsden, which they’d been to before and highly recommended.

The place is/was lovely, and the food was really good. Well worth the visit if you’re in the area.

There was one aspect that was really disappointing, though – and that was the vegetarian options. Both of the Js are veggie, and they’d said that the Olive Branch usually had a good selection. On this occasion though, the option was pasta. Fair enough, it’s “Ribbons of pasta, sauteed with mushrooms, garlic & sundried tomato, goats cheese & pine nuts“, but all the same, it’s pasta.

I think it’s still tremendously disappointing to go out to a restaurant and only see one or two fairly desultory veggie options. It just shows a complete lack of imagination and/or interest in the veggie market – and there’s a lot of vegetarians out there.

Even more importantly, if Herself had come along as well, she’d not have been able to eat anything, as she’s a) veggie and b) wheat-intolerant. Now sure, the Olive Branch says that you can let them know about food allergies/issues when ordering, but by then it’s a bit sodding late in some cases.

Doing good vegetarian options doesn’t take much – even a vegetarian stir-fry with some nice spices and a sauce is easily doable – and there are plenty of options out there. I just don’t know why the options aren’t more imaginative. Sure, not everyone is going to run a business like Greens in Didsbury, Manchester which is entirely vegetarian, but any decent chef could get some inspiration from the ideas there, or in any other veggie cookbook.

Gone-age

Posted: Fri 16 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Sociable | Leave a comment »

Away for the weekend.

Little to no chance of updates.

Enjoy the peace and quiet.

Mileage – Done

Posted: Tue 13 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

All went fine last night. I got down to St Pancras in tons of time, and parked up to wait for Herself’s arrival.

Two downsides, as it turned out :

You can’t leave your car unattended. Big signs tell you that unattended cars will be removed/destroyed. That’s going to put a bollock on your day for sure
Turns out there’s two specific car parking areas, two big blue signs saying “St Pancras International” and two concourses (concoursii?) Guess which one I picked. Yep, the wrong one. Cue a conversation…

“Where are you?”

“Outside the station, in the parking zone, under the big blue sign”

“So am I”

“No you’re not”

Still, once all that got sorted everything was fine. And once Herself had appeared, I could nip in to St Pancras and find their toilets before another 2+ hour drive…

The driving was fine too – not too many idiots on the roads at that time, except for me – and we got home by 1am (having dropped off others as well – otherwise we’d have been home at midnight)

Mind you, today I’ve got the IQ of a stunned lemur, and could just curl up and go back to sleep right now.

Mileage

Posted: Mon 12 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

Once again I’m driving tonight.

This time it’s collecting Herself from London, so it’s going to be another late one.

Still, Hound will be happy once Herself is home.

Too Damn Hot

Posted: Sun 11 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

You know it’s too damn hot in the house when even the cat is sprawled out on the table, complaining he’s hot.

Comfortable(ish) but too hot

Mind you, he does look like an evil little git…

Glowering, evil little monster

Week Span

Posted: Sat 10 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

This time last week I was driving down to Berkshire to collect Hound

This time next week I’m going to be seeing friends up in Manchester

This week, I’ve already been up since half six because of Hound. She’s been awake at 5.30 every day since Herself went off to EuroDisney. At this rate, Hound’s days may be numbered…

Tired

Posted: Thu 8 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Hound woke me up at 5am today. In fairness, she was obviously dying for a shit, because she belted out of the back door when I opened it, and copped a squat pretty much immediately.

Needless to say, I’m a) knackered, b) grouchy and c) not really with it.

Hopefully by the time I get home I’ll be slightly more awake, as I’ve got some work to do for another client.

Driving (Again)

Posted: Wed 7 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Driving, Travel, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

Last night was the day I took Herself and Others down to London. I’d already worked all day (as usual) so it was always going to be a late one.

As it turned out, I got everyone down to central London (Kings Cross / St Pancras) in two hours flat, dropping them off at 9:50.

By that time I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but wasn’t massively hungry, so just headed back up, thinking that if I got hungry I could stop at the services near Stanstead airport. (Birchanger Green, not that it means much) It was 10:45 by the time I got there, and by that point I was hungry enough that I could’ve eaten a scabby donkey between two pieces of bread. (Which is, of course, why I was even considering something from Motorway Services)

Only it turns out that Birchanger Green pretty much shuts at 10:30.

Burger King – closed, cleaned up, and one lowly person wiping the surfaces.
KFC – closed, deserted
Waitrose – closed, deserted, barriers in front of the doors
“Eat In” – open, a poxy range of crap (and overpriced) sandwiches, with a queue of people that outnumbered the sandwiches available.
Shop – closed, barriered off.

And that was it. Nothing else. I assume it stays open for people in dire need of a piss, and that’s about it.

Bear in mind, Birchanger Green is the only services on the entire M11. And it shuts at half-ten.

Call me naïve, but I always thought services were supposed to be open super-long hours – if not 24-hours. That impression appears to have been wrong.

But I wonder how much business Birchanger Green loses by closing at half-ten ? The car-park was at least a third full when I got there. You’d think that being open ’til half eleven or midnight would make sense – particularly when they’re the only one in god knows how many miles.

Very strange.

One Word

Posted: Mon 5 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), The '10 Writing Project, Writing | Leave a comment »

A while back, someone (I can’t now remember who) drew my attention to the “My One Word” screenwriting competition, which really appealed to me.

MY ONE WORD is inspired by the proverb “a picture is worth a thousand words” and we want to inspire you to create fresh, powerful stories using images and just one word.

MY ONE WORD focuses the power of visual storytelling by creating a series of short movies with only one word. If you love to write, this is your chance to show off your talents!

All told, I’ve submitted two pieces to this competition- I don’t know if either one will get anywhere, but it’s worth at least a try.

The first one uses just one word, but used several times. It’s a bit derivative, but the idea’s there and would (I think) work.

The second one uses just one word. That’s it. The rest of the story is visual.

In their own ways I’m pleased with both submissions. They’re very different – which I’m pleased about – and (I hope) different enough to stand out. Of course on that score I could be completely talking out of my backside. We’ll see.

More importantly, it means I’ve completed two short screenplay things. Very short, admittedly – about three mins each – but completed, submitted, and out in the Big Wide World. Should make life interesting.

Independence Day

Posted: Sun 4 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: News | Leave a comment »

It’s July 4th, which means it’s time to celebrate The Day We Got Shot Of The Americans.

Enjoy.

Heavy, Heavy Mileage

Posted: Sat 3 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

The coming week is another one with lots of miles to go under my wheels.

Tomorrow I’m off back down to Berkshire (and, of course, back again) to collect Hound. It’s been a really nice ten days without her barky shithead presence, but I know Herself will be glad to get the poxy pooch back. Me, I’d happily leave her in Berkshire. But there we go.

During the week I’ll be doing my normal commute to Bury St Edmunds, which is just second nature now, but still adds 350 miles to the week.

And I’ve also got one night of driving Herself down to London, from whence she shall depart the next day with others for a week’s holiday. I’ll be looking after Hound – who will just be eating, shitting and sleeping, following her time in ‘kennels’. (The place she goes is really ace, with lots of running round rather than being cooped up for most of the day. So she’ll be utterly knackered, and won’t have eaten much, if I know Hound)

All told, I’ll be covering near as dammit 1,000 miles between now and next Friday. (And there’ll be another London run the week after to collect Herself from London again, as well as a weekend seeing friends in Manchester)

I don’t mind, fortunately – the driving’s something I can do easily now, and in a lot of ways I enjoy it. I’ll be playing my music quite loud, and just making progress through the motorway system.

Evil Shite

Posted: Fri 2 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Another picture of Psycho Cat.

Psycho Cat, asleep on the table, wrapped in curtain

The Sleeping Demon

Now really, would you stroke this cat?

Slightly more awake than in the previous photo

Targetting the camera

Missing Pink

Posted: Thu 1 July, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Introspective, Stupidity | 2 Comments »

Following on from yesterday’s post about Pink, Portman Stadium, and signs in general, some extra thoughts…

1) I can be a total arse. I know that’s not really news, but all the same, it’s worth re-iterating.

2) I fucking hate getting lost, being late etc.

3) If I’ve had a crap day, my tolerance for 2) is particularly low, leading to qualifying even more for 1)

Tuesday was, however I look at it, an exceedingly crap day. Stuff had come up at work that had affected me – nothing seriously traumatic of negative, it’d just been one of those days. In all fairness I really wasn’t in the mood for a late night – particularly with the knowledge of an early start in the morning. (For a number of reasons, last working day of the month is a big day in the current job, and requires coming in earlier than usual)

So the afternoon/evening didn’t start off all that well, and my mood wasn’t the best. Not being able to find the stadium just pissed me off a lot, and I didn’t do what I should’ve done, which was either

Stop and think a bit
Call someone else already there and find out how to get there
Use the iPhone to do the same as 2
Stop somewhere and ask someone.

I should have done one or more of those. Instead I got locked in to trying to find the place by driving along the A14.

Admittedly, I also didn’t expect the stadium to be in the town/city centre. All the other stadia (stadiums? I dunno) I know of are on the outskirts, not in the centre. Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Crewe, Stockport – all on the outskirts. I also kind of expect there to be signs to say where the hell to go – after all, it’s not like a stadium is somewhere that no-one ever goes to.

But anyway, I did get pissed off, and went home. It wasn’t my smartest move, but it was the one I did.

No excuses for it at all, just sometimes an extra explanation is worthwhile.

Hey Ho.

Pink, Portman Road, Ipswich

Posted: Wed 30 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish), Stupidity, Travel | 13 Comments »

Last night I was supposed to be seeing Pink at the Portman Road stadium in Ipswich. I didn’t see it.

Why? Because I couldn’t find the fucking stadium.

I’m normally pretty good on finding places, but must admit that in this case I’d figured there would be some signs to follow. After all, it’s a football stadium for fuck’s sake. Surely they need some signs for away fans to get there etc.?

Apparently not. I have to assume that Ipswich is truly embarassed about the stadium – they sure as shit don’t like to admit that they’ve got one.

Driving along the A14, I got to the first turn-off for Ipswich. There’s a sign there that says “Football Stadium” with an arrow pointing straight on (i.e. don’t take the turn-off). Fine. Second junction’s the same – “Straight on for Football Stadium“. After that, nothing. I got to the far side of Ipswich, no more signs. I turned round, coming back from Felixstowe direction to Ipswich, and there’s not one fucking sign. Not one.

All told I did that stretch three times, checking the exit roads, trying to see any damn signage whatsoever that pointed me in the direction of the stadium. Nothing except those two signs saying “straight on” from one direction.

So in the end I said fuck it, and drove home.

I assume Portman Stadium etc. won’t give a shit, as they’ve got their money for the gig already. But you can be damn fucking sure I won’t be going back there again.

I do feel like a right bell-end for not being able to find a sodding football stadium. But at the same time it’s not just me, others have said it’s a shit to find unless you actually know where it is. Personally, I’m not going to make the effort to try and find it again.

Superstitious

Posted: Tue 29 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, People | Leave a comment »

In the runup to the (as it turned out) last England match of the World Cup, one thing that amused me was Radio 1’s coverage about the superstitions of England Fans.

The number of idiots people who were saying about “Well I wore these clothes when they won, so I’ll wear them again” and so on was just hilarious.

I don’t honestly get the entire reasoning (if there’s any reasoning at all) behind this kind of thing, the apparent conviction that the team will succeed if the fans do all their little rituals. Maybe it’s just something about feeling a part of the entire process. I don’t know.

But to cynical old me, well, it made me laugh.

Covered in Crap

Posted: Mon 28 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Parking | 1 Comment »

Another sight from the weekend.

I'm willing to bet they park under a tree

Amusingly, it was only down one side, but that side was pretty impressive.

Sleeping Cat – again

Posted: Sun 27 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Yet again, Psycho Cat is sleeping in very strange places. I swear he likes being uncomfortable.

In the first instance, Herself was cleaning up in the kitchen, and put the kitchen chairs upside down on the table. Twenty minutes later…

Sleeping within the framework of the chair

In the framework, no padding, nothing.

Then today, outside the front of the house…

And inside the framework of a pallet.

Bizarre beast

Out Somewhere, Being Busy

Posted: Sat 26 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Shopping, Sociable | Leave a comment »

Out of action today because of

More Driving
Shopping
Sociable Stuff
Family Stuff
Barbeque Stuff (May be associated with the two items above)

Life getting in the way of writing. It happens.

Driving

Posted: Thu 24 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

Today’s another one of my big driving days. I’m taking Hound down to Berkshire to stay in the kennel that’ll have her, because of other stuff going on this weekend.

So it’s a day off work, and a day spent on the motorway. Long term it’s worthwhile, but it’ll leave me looking like a stunned primate tonight.

Enjoy.

How Not To Get Business

Posted: Wed 23 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

Despite currently being in the world of the “Properly Employed”, I still frequent some of the forums for freelancers and the like. If nothing else it’s useful for seeing if there’s other small projects etc. coming up that I can also do for a bit of money.

Among other things on these forums, there are sometimes people trying to get started in freelancing, or pimp for more work.

Yesterday had one of these examples, and it just had to be written about.

The entire content of the message was :

Hey pple? I need a article writing job, smbdy help

Now that really is a spectacular example of how not to get any work whatsoever through a freelancer’s forum. Or indeed through any forum.

In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s the single most awesome example I’ve ever seen. If anyone were to give this bell-end a job, they’d entirely deserve what they got.

Mistaken Location

Posted: Wed 23 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic | 1 Comment »

One of the better questions from brother-in-law while we were at the O2 to see Bon Jovi over the weekend…

“Where were we sitting when we went to see AC/DC?”

“Wembley”

Hectic Fortnight

Posted: Tue 22 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Animals, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, The '10 Writing Project, Travel, Writing | Leave a comment »

The next two weeks are – to say the least – pretty damn busy.

Among other things (and not all at the same time, obviously) it will involve :

Giving (another) statement to police re Emma Ward
Driving down to Berkshire to put Hound in Kennels
Driving to Peterborough to collect Herself’s brother
A big birthday party for Herself’s grandfather
Driving down to Berkshire to collect Hound from kennels
Finishing off a couple of short script ideas
Seeing Pink’s gig in Ipswich

There’s also a number of work-related things in the same timescale, which isn’t helping much.

So all told, a fairly busy couple of weeks…

Winning Writing

Posted: Mon 21 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, News, Writing | Leave a comment »

I’m a bit late to the game on this one, but I love it anyway.

Who wouldn’t want to read more after reading this opening paragraph?

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria when he ‘mooned’ a group of Hell’s Angels, hurled a puppy at them and then escaped on a bulldozer.

Just awesome.

TV Scheduling

Posted: Mon 21 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Apparently, Wimbledon starts today.

So at the moment we have :

The World Cup
Wimbledon
Big Brother

What the hell? Which kind of numpty fuckbag came up with having all of that shit at the same time?

Additionally there’s also some rugby thing, and probably other bits too.

And don’t forget there’s also the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 11th July – the same day as the final of the World Cup. Doh!

Different Paths

Posted: Mon 21 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Education, Geeky, Introspective, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, we went to see Bon Jovi at the O2. It’s their greatest hits tour for the “Circle” album, and they’re at the O2 for 12 nights all told. Now I have to say, I’m not a massive fan of Bon Jovi. Herself is, Brother-in-Law is, so we all went.

The gig itself was really impressive. Bon Jovi’s performance was pretty storming, deifnitely one of the better big gigs I’ve seen – even for someone who’s not a massive fan. I only recognised or knew about a third of the tracks performed, but still, that’s fine.

What was more impressive (for me, anyway) was the stage set, which really was impressive. Right from the start it let you know it meant business, with a massive high-res screen coming down to obscure the view while Bon Jovi came onstage, and which then split into individual columns to travel round the stage.

There were a number of other really stunning technical bits, including some epic lighting, and that same matrix screen also showing that the columns could also split out into individual screens.

But the piece de resistance is the five mobile 6′ x 9′ screens at the back of the stage. They’re made (yes, I researched!) by ABB robots, who say the following :

ABB robots, accompanying Bon Jovi’s “The Circle” tour will be the first set of industrial robots to be a part of a concert tour. The visual intrigue of the show will be enhanced by the five ABB robots positioned toward the back of the stage, each with a 6’ x 9’ LED video panel attached to their articulated arm. The robots and screens will move to the rhythm and beat of the music while displaying real time video footage of the show and digital animations. At various intervals the five robot arms move into a formation where the LED panels become one continuous, five panel screen. The robots will accompany
the nearly two-year long tour, which features over 60 concerts in North America and Europe.

These screens/robots are simply amazing – they’re all articulated in all three axes, and move individually, in time with the music, as well as at one point becoming a staircase. It’s an exceptional demonstration of what can be done now with stage sets if you’ve enough money and creativity.

Stage sets, lighting and effects have always been one of my real geek-out subjects, and that geek in me was totally appeased by the Bon Jovi stageset.

Seeing things like this gig is one of the things that makes me think about What Might Have Been. If I’d stayed in school (and gone on to college, university, whatever) then I’d have gone on to do one of two things : Stage Lighting/Sound/Sets, or working with the Great Apes.

Stage stuff would’ve fulfilled my geeky needs bigtime, and I’d hae loved to do it. Working with Great Apes would’ve fulfilled other parts of me, and I’d have been equally happy doing either. In fact if I were to win a lottery or something, I’d go back to do one of those things. (Most likely the work with Apes, in honesty)

I don’t regret the path I’ve taken, not for one minute. But every so often I do think of the different paths available, the roads not taken. Last night was one of those times.

Union Street Urban Orchard

Posted: Sun 20 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Green, Green Garden, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

While I was in London last night, I had to take a walk to try and find the car park I had planned to use.

While doing so, I came across the (closed at the time) Union Street Urban Orchard. I think it’s a fantastic idea :

Designed by Heather Ring of the Wayward Plant Registry and built with the help of Bankside Open Spaces Trust and an array of other helpful volunteers the garden will regenerate a disused site in Bankside and create a place for exchange between local residents and visitors to the Festival.

As the above quote from the site says, they’ve taken a disused site on Union Street, and created an urban orchard in it. They’ve recycled pallets, tyres, wood, glass and more to make the orchard. Sadly it’s only in situ until the middle of August- although at that point the trees from the orchard will be transplanted to three or four other sites around Bankside.

Personally I’d like to see this done far more often, creating valuable green/growing space in disused plots and areas throughout cities. Of course I realise that London prices are huge and the cost of those plots is almost certainly prohibitive – but at the same time if you can make use of those disused plots that aren’t doing anything anyway, well why not?

If all else fails, I think that local authorities could/should do a CPO on some of these disused plots, and actually make solid use of those plots for the local community.

The Union Street Urban Orchard is a fantastic project. I hope it puts ideas in the heads of a lot more people.

Giving Details

Posted: Sat 19 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, People, The '10 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing | 4 Comments »

A while back I wrote about Emma Ward, who’s been missing from the next village for about two months now. The police have now charged her husband (ex-husband? Widower? What’s the term for someone who’s suspected of killing their wife?) with murder, even though as yet they haven’t found her body. I guess there’s enough other evidence for them to know it’s been done, just not where she’s been disposed of.

Anyway, the police are now doing door-to-doors for “correlation”, just to find out if anything else has been seen, who’s visited the house, who knows the Wards etc. etc. We got visited yesterday as part of this, and had (well, we probably could’ve refused, but it would’ve looked even dodgier) to give all our information.

In a way it’s quite interesting really – the sheer amount of information that they take, and particularly information about us. Supposedly it’s all locked into a database just for this case (and when was the last time you trusted anyone who says “Oh, the information’s only accessible to this investigation”?) and is ‘only’ used for correlation – for example if other people said they’d seen someone approximating my description walking past while another suspicious vehicle was toodling along, they’d be able to come back and ask me more about that particular time/incident.

It’s all done through HOLMES (or more technically HOLMES II) which is apparently a very good bit of database and data-mining kit.

I don’t know if anything will come of it all – I doubt we ever will, unless they find Emma Ward’s body – but it’s been an interesting insight into the entire “murder investigation” thing.

Upgraded

Posted: Fri 18 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, WordPress | Leave a comment »

D4D™ is now running on WordPress 3.0.

The upgrade process was remarkably simple – a couple of mouse clicks once I’d backed everything up – and job done.

Consider me impressed.

Weird Sleeper

Posted: Thu 17 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

As I’ve said before, Psycho Cat seems to prefer to sleep in some very strange places and positions. Even more bizarrely, he seems to prefer to sleep in the most uncomfortable scrunched up places possible.

Bear in mind that he’s got pretty much full run of the house, and could be sleeping on the spare bed, in the basket that he’s got, or in the living room on the sofa, chair or footstool thingy.

But no, he chooses to sleep (at the moment) on the dining room table, which also doubles on occasion as a desk, or a resting place for all kinds of tat. Last night, Herself had left a backpack thing on there. And this morning, guess what he was sleeping on/in…

Sleeping with the strap right round him

And obviously pretty comfortable / happy to do so.

Snugged *right* in. Weird little fucker

Weird beast.

Mouse Design

Posted: Wed 16 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Design | 1 Comment »

Via Yanko Design (which in this case isn’t the best of names) comes this new design of mouse…

Yes, it does look like that. Intentionally.

Some people really need to get out more.

Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

Posted: Tue 15 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

On the theme of sleeping animals, Hound has a decidedly odd sleeping method when she’s properly asleep.

Hound, fast asleep by the back door

She sleeps on her side, legs straight out. It doesn’t look comfortable, but she seems to be OK with it. Bizarrely, she can also sleep curled up on a chair or whatever, but this is definitely her preferred sleeping posture.

Hound, sleeping on the grass

Sleeping Cat

Posted: Mon 14 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Over the weekend, we left a quilt/throwover thing in a laundry basket in the utility room, waiting for it to be put into the washing machine the next morning.

When we got in there, this is what we found…

Cat sleeping on the quilt in the basket

A more close-up view of the little sod…

Cat closeup in the basket

We’ve lived here for three years now, and the furry little fuckpot has never slept in the utility room. Now though, he’s been in there for two nights on the trot.

I despair of these sodding animals, I swear.

@Media 2010 – Thoughts

Posted: Sun 13 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: @Media 2010, Geeky, Own Business, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Work-related | Tags: wdx. #wdx | Leave a comment »

So last Thursday and Friday I was in London for the Webdirections @Media Conference. It was the first time I’d been in a couple of years (I last attended the 2007, I think – holiday for the ’08 one, and tubularity stopped me from attending the ’09 one) so it was interesting to see what had changed – and of course what had stayed the same.

Of course the big difference was that @Media is now run/organised/owner by WebDirections, rather than through Vivabit as it has been in previous years. I’d not heard of WebDirections before, but apparently they’ve done a number of similar conferences in Australia etc.

To me, it seemed that the focus of the conference had changed quite a bit this year (or maybe over the last couple of years, I don’t know – can’t really comment on the ones I didn’t/couldn’t attend) to be more about design and programming, rather than the accessibility and user experience themes of previous @Medias I’ve attended. And that’s a disappointment.

The focus this year was very much on Javascript (which used to be a real no-no) and about telling designers to not worry so much about making designs work in all browsers and versions. There was virtually no mention at all of accessibility, except in one session through the two days. For a conference where accessibility and so on were paramount at the start, that’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

The other thing I really noticed this year was how corporate some of it seemed. In previous ones there’s been sponsorship from big companies and so on, but this time it was more going down the “stands in the public areas” type of promotion. Again that could be something that’s happened more in the last couple of years that I’ve missed, so it’s not such an eye-opener for other more regular attendees.

It was a good conference though, don’t get me wrong – I’ve got a lot of stuff to take out of it, bits that I’ve learned, bits that will make sites I work on better in anumber of ways. I’ve enjoyed it – it’s just been interesting to see what’s changed.

Blog/Tweet Meet

Posted: Sat 12 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, People, Sociable, Travel | Leave a comment »

While I was down in London this time, I organised to meet up with some long-standing friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen in far too long.

I’ve known Lori and Topper since before the first Mancunian Blogmeet (October 2003, fact fiends) , known Pix since I met her at Karen and Pete’s place in Wokingham in around 2004 (I’ve looked back in the archives and can’t find that one mentioned at all – how strange) and Sevitz since Mancuian Blogmeet 2 or 3, I think.

Since then we’ve all met on occasion – and I was able to meet Lori and Sevitz last time I was in London too – but it’s always good to do so again. We do all get on really well, and we really should meet up much more often I think – the time always seems to fly past (and so does the beer) while we all gas and put the world to rights (again).

As Lori says in her own post on it, it’s also interesting to see the way the technology has changed for organising these things. Where it used to be all done via blog and comments, this time it was initially done by email, with final decisions done by email, Twitter and texts on mobile phones/smartphones.

Anyway, it was (again) a really great evening with a dollop of beer consumed as well as some gin and wine (on the part of Lori and Pix) as well as meeting Carl, Pix’s fiancée, which was a joy too.

Hopefully we’ll organise another one within the year!

iPhone v4

Posted: Fri 11 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Geeky, iPhone, Thoughts | 3 Comments »

As regular readers know, I’ve now had my iPhone 3GS for a couple of months. I’ve been surprised by how well I do get on with it in a lot of ways (although it does have some epic frustrations as well, mainly based around the keyboard) and how much more I use it than I expected to.

But I’m still not an evangelist on the thing. I’m not addicted to it or obsessed with it, and if something better came along, I’d have no problem with moving away from the iPhone.

So – as someone asked yesterday – would I want the newly announced iPhone 4 ? Am I envious of the people who will have one? Do I feel the need to upgrade as soon as possible?

In short, no. There’s nothing really on the new iPhone that is a deal-breaker for me. In fact the only thing that I’d like from it is the more advanced/powerful battery. I don’t need/want any of the other little doohickeys. I don’t make video calls anyway – never have – and the rest of it was all a bit underwhelming, really.

So if this one breaks, I wouldn’t have an issue with replacing it with a v4 iPhone. But I’m not going to go out and upgrade for the hell of it, or to have the latest/greatest. It’ll be updated again in 6-12 months anyway.

Driving and Parking

Posted: Thu 10 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: @Media 2010, Driving, Parking, Travel | 2 Comments »

I got up to London last night, driving direct from work. It took me an hour to get from Bury St Edmunds to the junction of the North Circular Road with the A12. It then took 80 minutes to get from there into the city (near Southwark station). Utterly ridiculous.

[UPDATE : I actually did the maths/mileage on this last night : It was 70 miles from work to the A12, which took an hour. 70mph on the dot. It was 10 miles from the A12 to the Travelodge, and that took 80 minutes. 7.7mph.]

I’d planned to park in a close-ish NCP car park for the two days I’m here, which would’ve cost £18 per day. Better than lots of places, but not great. However, I couldn’t find that NCP carpark – and I tried twice, once in the car, once by foot. Fortunately, I knew I had options – I’d done my research.

As it was, I found a place right next to the hotel that cost me sod-all for overnight parking, so long as I was gone by 8am. By that time I’d gone down to the first of my two alternative options, found it was available, and done the deed. £20 for two days – yes, £10 per day – in a locked secure place. Bizarrely, it’s making use of some of the car-parking spaces in the building where I was working last year before I got the current job.

So I’ve managed to get 2½ days parking in central London (right by Blackfriars and the OXO Tower, for those who know/care) for £20. Pretty good by anyone’s standards.

iPhone + D4D

Posted: Wed 9 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, iPhone, Photography, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Since getting the iPhone a couple of months back, one development has surprised me more than any other. And that’s been the difference in how I use the phone and how D4D™ has changed since I got it.

Despite it’s comparatively crappy camera (bearing in mind that the previous phone had an 8Mp camera compared to this one’s 3Mp-ish) I’m using the camera part of the phone far more than on any other mobile I’ve had, and that has really surprised me. Some of it is, I suppose, the ease of taking photos off it – I primarily just email them to myself, and it’s a painless process, as opposed to that on the previous Sony-Ericsson phones. I don’t really know what the rest of the reasoning is, but whatever it is, it looks like D4D™ is becoming more photographic in nature.

That’s no bad thing of course. It’s just surprising (to me, anyway) that I’ve gone from pretty much all-written to having a noticeable portion of the posts having photos in them. Strange the way things work out, isn’t it? I don’t plan for D4D to turn into a full-on photoblog – I’ve got other plans on that score, thanks – but it’s just another change in the evolution of D4D™, I think.

Spinal

Posted: Tue 8 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

On Sunday, I put my back out. Not completely certain of how, but I’m pretty certain it involved a load of garden furniture in the car, then losing my temper while getting it all back out of the car at home.

Then stupidly (in hindsight) I sat down on the floor to assemble the new table – yep, I braved the joys of self-assembly garden furniture, and achieved it with no swearing and no pain. Well, not ’til I stood up again having done the job – or at least I tried to stand up.

At that point my lower back hurt enough that I nearly passed out – full-on black and white vision, the lot. Really not funny. Luckily I’d already unpacked all the new garden chairs, so I was able to road-test one of those while waiting for everything to get back to normal.

My pain threshold is pretty high. Not awesomely high, or “stick needles in me and I won’t notice” high, but high enough that I’ve been able to do stupid things like walk on a totally stuffed ankle, get annoyed with a nagging toenail and pull the entire thing out, or have various dental bits done without painkillers. And yet the pain in my back was enough – and I suppose surprising enough and sudden enough – that it made it almost unbearable at the start.

It’s got better since – looks more like a twisted muscle than a stuffed disc, for example – and while I was fragile yesterday, I was still able to go in to work and do most of the normal stuff. The only two things I actually wimped out on were a) walking Hound and b) getting the rest of the growbags out of the boot of the car. Walking would’ve been painful, lifting bags of compost again would’ve been truly, epically, weapons-grade stupid.

Today’s a bit better again, thankfully. But it’s made me rather more aware of my back for a while, and I’ll try not to re-stuff it. Frankly, it fucking hurts.

Football

Posted: Mon 7 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, Travel, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

Every so often while driving I hear a promotion on Radio One for the football coverage on Radio Five Live.

It’s of no interest to me whatsoever, but always grabs my attention because of the first line of the promotion. It actually says “Football on Five Live”, but I keep on hearing it as “Fook All on Five Live”.

Cat vs. Pond

Posted: Sun 6 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Green, Green Garden | 1 Comment »

One of the other events of the weekend was Psycho Cat finally discovering the pond – and being fascinated by it. The tadpoles intrigued him, but he can’t catch them.

Hunting Tadpoles

The frogs are interesting too, but disappear into the bits of the pond he can’t get into.

Of course, when he realises/remembers that he’s a Turkish Van (and thus quite adept at being a swimming cat) then he may spend more time in the pond than around it…

Frogs

Posted: Sat 5 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green, Green Garden | Leave a comment »

As well as the immense number of tadpoles in the pond, we’ve also got at least six frogs of various sizes/generations. All told, it’s been a remarkably successful wildlife pond, especially for having been in place for only a year.

Frog The First

Both the one above and the one below were sitting quite happy in the pond at the same time (and at opposite sides, so I know they’re different ones) – apparently they’ve decided that sitting still is one of the better defences, and they only move when you get too close.

Frog The Second

Tadpoles

Posted: Wed 2 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green, Green Garden | 1 Comment »

Just over a year ago (16th May, to be exact) we put a pond into the garden – nothing huge, but a little ‘nature pond’, with the intention of making it a useful home/habitat for the frogs/toads we seem to have all year round.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we looked in the pond, and there’s loads of tadpoles in there. No idea whether they’re frog or toad tadpoles – I guess we’ll find out once they’ve changed state a bit, as currently they’re just classic tadpole-shape. There’s also a load of tiny bug things (can’t you tell I’m a specialist in this stuff?) and larvae that they’re feeding on, and stuff at the bottom for them to hide in, so it seems like it must be a pretty good layout.

I’m ridiculously chuffed about this, as I didn’t really expect it to get to this state ’til next year, and possibly the year after. But no, we’ve got a working nature pond on our first try.

Now if only we can get birds in the nextbox, and owls in the owlbox. Then I’ll be really happy. (Admittedly I don’t expect anything in the owl box until Hound pops her clogs, because she’s so bloody noisy and irritating)

Comfortable

Posted: Tue 1 June, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

As I’ve said before, sometimes I wonder if the new suite we bought was actually just for the animals to be comfortable.

This one was taken over the weekend, while we were watching the Eurovision results – never bother watching the songs (except maybe that last couple if we get the timing wrong) but the results are usually good for a laugh. Depressingly Grahm Norton is nowhere near as funny on them as Terry Wogan was, but still it’s an amusing hour.

*Very* relaxed

Refitting

Posted: Mon 31 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Shopping | Leave a comment »

Our local big Sainsbury’s is in the middle of a refurbishment and extension – it’s a huge job which looks to be doubling the floorspace of the place.

Although why they’ve had to take the ceiling tiles out throughout the store is something else, and really makes the place look ugly.

Sainsburys at Longwater, Norwich, where they have taken out all the ceiling tiles

Ugly view throughout the Sainsburys store at Longwater Norwich

Pretty, isn’t it?

Parking – Mini

Posted: Sun 30 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Parking | 3 Comments »

Another spectacular piece of parking.

The Tesco store in Dereham really does appear to be a mecca for people who can’t park their cars within the lines.

A Mini, AO 06 ORK, more in the hatch-markings than in the space

That really is quite impressive, AO 06 ORK

Putting the “ORK” into Dork.

Village Life

Posted: Sat 29 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, News, Norfolk, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

This week has been fairly eventful in the life of one of the nearby villages.

On Tuesday Norfolk police arrested a man about the suspicious disappearance of his wife, Emma Ward, who hasn’t been seen since the start of April. Since then the house has been taped off, and there’s always a police person sat outside it in a car. He’s been released on bail for the moment, but it’s all a bit “wait and see if she appears”. Her friends have put up a Facebook group, and it’s had coverage in the local media too.

It’s strange really – I walk past their house every day with Hound, and you realise afterwards that you haven’t seen two cars there for a while, but you don’t really think about it ’til something like this occurs. I do keep an eye open as I walk round, but still you don’t think about that kind of thing. I wouldn’t know either of them in the street – while I know some of the people in the village,and others as I walk round, I couldn’t put names to most of them, and I certainly don’t know their life histories. Maybe I should- personally I don’t think so, but there we go- but I don’t.

I’m not one of these “Oh, it’s so shocking that it happens near where we live” merchants – this kind of thing goes on wherever you live. It’s just it’s not the first thing in your head – “Oh, the car hasn’t been there. I wonder what’s happened to the owner”.

Of course I’ve mentioned it to the plod sat outside, that one car’s not been there for a while. In a fit of community spirit I even remembered that Google StreetMap had gone through the village a while back, and was able to give them a printout of the StreetMap photo of the house with the now-missing car in the driveway. (No numberplate, but it gives them a colour, make and model to work from) I’m sure they knew already, but well, I’d rather they got told thirty times than everyone assuming they’d got the information already.

My personal suspicion is that she’s dead. If she’d just disappeared then you’d think the husband would be the first person to report it, and to take far less than six weeks to do so. Not reporting her missing just makes you look so suspicious anyway, but the entire thing just strikes me as strange.

Ah, the intrigues of village life.

Spillage

Posted: Fri 28 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Green, News | Leave a comment »

One of the things I find with all the news coverage about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the US is that you can’t really envision the scale of this oil slick.

via Twitter, I found this graphic which seems to really help

Graphic of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in context

Most of the south of england would be covered, if the spill had happened off the coast of France

You can also go here to see it for yourself, or choose where else to center the map in order to get some scale on this disaster

Road to Nowhere

Posted: Thu 27 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Driving, Norfolk, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Only in Norfolk.

Over in Attleborough, there’s a new road been put in which currently goes nowhere. It got used straight away as a place for a bunch of travellers. (and I believe there’s rumour of it being used as such on a longer-term basis) They got cleared out a few weeks back though.

Over the weekend I went past it, and there’s some road signs been put up.

30mph on a dead-end road with no houses or buildings on it

Strange Beast

Posted: Wed 26 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Not content with being a pain in the arse in general, last night Psycho Cat decided to sleep on the kitchen table.

No idea why, and he looked totally pissed off and angry about it this morning. Bear in mind there’s a comfortable sofa-bed he could’ve slept on, or any of the furniture in the living room. But no, the kitchen table was the location of choice.

Sleeping, on the kitchen table, right up against a rucksack. Strange Beast.

Wakefield Struck Off

Posted: Mon 24 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Health, News, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Today the GMC has struck off Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor whose ‘research’ caused so much of the tension and bad press for the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) innoculation jabs, and a purported link to induce autism-related conditions.

The GMC also said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London’s Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.

And the panel hearing the case took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son’s birthday party.

It also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.

Quite amazing, how this doctor’s research was both so universally accepted as Truth, and was so flawed from the start. That research has caused so many knock-on effects with the increasing incidence of both Measles and Rubella in children whose parents decided not to innoculate them because of the supposed issues.

Hard Life

Posted: Sun 23 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

It’s a tough life, being a Psycho Cat…

Psycho Cat, lying on the decking in the sunlight

Move from sunny spot to sunny spot, stretch and sleep

Parking – Again and Again

Posted: Sat 22 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Parking, People, Photography | Leave a comment »

Same day, same bit of the carpark. Possibly that was just the section for people who can’t park cars…

Car parked half in a spot, half on hatched markings

This isn't how it's supposed to be done

AP05HTG, you’re supposed to park in the bit between the lines, not on the bit with the lines through it. FFS.

Parking – Again

Posted: Sat 22 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Parking, People | 2 Comments »

Another trip to the supermarket, another bunch of twats that can’t park…

Maybe this one thinks the white lines either a) don’t apply to them or b) are just guidelines to be ignored at whim. Maybe that car is just too damn valuable to run the risk of getting it damaged by being too close to other vehicles.

Maybe they're a guideline

Or maybe – just maybe – the driver of YS05DBU is just a fuckwit cunt. Who knows?

Nearly Killing

Posted: Thu 20 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Today I nearly killed a child. That’s a pretty scary thing to have to write – and in this case there was nothing I could do about it, except avoid the situation.

On the way to work I popped in to the little supermarket to pick up a couple of things. No biggie. There’s a car-park right next to the shop for about six cars, and a bigger one on the other side of the (very minor) road, which is the one I use.

Coming back from the supermarket, there’s a family getting out of their car a couple along from me. There’s two adults and three kids, one of which gets put in a pushchair from the boot of the car. The mother (I assume) is managing the impressive task of talking on her mobile phone (which appears to be superglued between her ear and shoulder) while also talking to her partner, who’s getting back in the car.

To get out of the car park I have to reverse out and turn towards this group in order to get to the exit. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Yup, reversed out, keeping an eye on the two mobile kids. At no point did the mother even move from what she was already doing. No call to the kids to keep out the way, nothing.

It was as I was turning that I realised the kid in the pushchair was still behind the car – about three feet away from it, so pretty much slap bang in the middle of the carpark. Fortunately I was keeping an eye open, and missed everything by a good foot or two. Even then the mother didn’t move at all.

But – And there’s always those buts in hindsight, aren’t there – what if I’d done the turn closer to their car? What if there’d been cars parked on the other side, meaning I couldn’t roll back as far as I did? That pushchair was low enough that I couldn’t see it out of the rear-view mirror, couldn’t see it if I’d looked round and out the back window. It was only visible in the side mirrors as I came round.

If I’d been driving much faster, done the turn much tighter, or not been paying total attention, I’d have killed – or at least impacted with- a child today.

Fake Flying

Posted: Tue 18 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism | Leave a comment »

Awesome – a guy flies passenger jets on a fake pilot’s licence. For 13 years.

If you’ve ever flown with Air One (now Alitalia), he could’ve been your pilot.

And now he’s been caught, having flown hundreds of flights with thousands of passengers, what’s the punishment? A fine of $2,500 and being grounded for a year.

Yeah, grounded from flying – like that’s going to have an effect, as he’s not had a licence anyway. That’s like banning someone from driving because they don’t have a licence.

Return of Psycho Cat

Posted: Sun 16 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

While we were away, we had someone else looking after House, Psycho Cat and Chickens. She brought her own dog and Psycho Cat hated it, so it turned out that Psycho Cat stayed over at one of our neighbours.

It’s been one of the things about the road we now live in, that all the houses seem to be some kind of dormitory for cats – we regularly have visits from the neighbour’s cats, and Psycho Cat goes round there. In the run of eight houses I think there’s four that have cats, and they all seem to get on OK. (There’s at least one feral bastard around who tries to impose himself too, but in general that hasn’t been successful) So while we were away Psycho Cat has been at the neighbour’s place, and hasn’t been seen at home at all.

I went round to the neighbour’s place yesterday to let them know we’re back, and that it was fine to throw him out.

He’s returned today and is deeply deeply pissed off. He’s checking around the house to see if the other dog’s around, and generally making more noise than is usual, even for Psycho Cat. Hopefully he’ll have calmed down a bit by tonight.

Panels

Posted: Sun 16 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green Garden, House Work | 1 Comment »

Yesterday we got another couple of fence panels painted – only about another 85 to go. (We started off with 97 to do, and it’s a shitty boring job, but it’s going slowly)

One fence panel, half done

The wood is very dry, so it’s sucking in the treatment as soon as it’s applied. Probably means we’ll need to do a second coat at some point, but I need to get the lot done first.

Customer Perception

Posted: Sat 15 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

For some reason these anti-depressants also seem to be turning me into some kind of altruistic do-gooder. Pretty scary stuff.

Mind you, in this case I’m pretty sure I’d have dealt with it regardless, but there we go.

Anyway, in this particular instance I was at the till in the local Sainsbury’s, and behind me was an old couple, one in a wheelchair with one of the disabled trolley things on the front. They were having serious issues with getting the stuff from the trolley onto the till belt, so I offered to help them. It embarassed the woman a bit I think, to be seen as “needing assistance”, but still I did help, and got it all done with them.

The bit that pissed me off though is that this particular till was the one where the till “supervisor” stands, and at the time there were three members of Sainsbury’s staff at that position, along with the useless sack of shit known as a security guard. All three of the staff had looked at the old couple, seen they were having problems, and ignored them. Cue the red mist.

Once I was done, I got the till supervisor over, and really gave him a bollocking. I don’t know if it’ll have any effect, but I think it got through to him pretty clearly that I was deeply pissed off, that it was incredible for three staff (plus a useless lump) to watch that couple and do nothing, and for it to end up with another customer helping them out instead of the staff doing it.

Goatee

Posted: Fri 14 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er) | Leave a comment »

Over the week away, I grew a goatee beard. I had one years ago and it kind of suited me, but ended up making me look rather Satanic – it grew into a total point, and was cool but A Bad Thing. Well, it seemed to scare other people, anyway. I liked it.

Time goes by though, and this time the goatee was at least one-third grey, which I hated. I don’t mind having grey hair – my mum was totally grey by the time she was the age I am now, so I always knew it’d happen, and it doesn’t bother me. But I hate grey eyebrow hairs, and felt the same about the grey bits in the goatee.

So it’s not going to stay this time. In fact it’s gone already. I suspect it won’t be back, because I totally refuse to go with the “Just for Men” look.

Garden Produce

Posted: Thu 13 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden | Leave a comment »

One of the better bits of this gardening thing- spuds growing in their buckets

Potato plants in their buckets on the patio

No idea what the particular types are – I lost the labels, in typical style – but they’re all growing well, and I’m really pleased with how things are progressing.

Last year the buckets weren’t that successful when we bought spuds from Suttons – this year they’re from Homebase, and seem to be doing much better.

Malvern Spring Show

Posted: Thu 13 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, People, Travel | Leave a comment »

One of our main reasons for coming to Malvern this week on our break was to go to the Malvern Spring Show. My mum’s always recommended it as a good plant/flower/garden show, so we thought we’d give it a thrash.

We went to Chelsea show a couple of years back, and hated the number of people crammed in to too small a space, and being unable to see what we wanted without fighting our way through the people first. The show was OK, the size and people were awful.

By contrast, Malvern was a really pleasant experience. There were still lots of people, and plenty of shitheads with sodding tugalong trollies, but it didn’t feel crowded. In the indoor exhibitions there was plenty of space between stands, wider aisles, all told there was just space to spare. There was tons to see, lots of stands, exhibitions, products and the like, and it was a really good day.

We came out of it with plenty of ideas for the garden, shitloads of brochures and information, and sore feet from walking. We’ll be going back next year.

Extreme Skateboarding

Posted: Wed 12 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, People | Leave a comment »

I have to say, I love this…

Skateboarding down bobsleigh tracks. Insane, but fun.

Revisitation

Posted: Tue 11 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

Yesterday we went back to visit a pub I worked in at the end of ’95, the last pub I actually worked in. I was pretty much burned out by then, and the pub in Worcester was the last straw. It was a deeply negative experience, although it gave me the impetus to change things for the better.

It’s taken a long time to get even close to wanting to go back there. When we decided to come here, I had a look to see if the place even still existed – and it does, although it’s now been renamed “The Barn Owl” instead of The Poachers Pocket, which it was when I was there.

It’s been heavily redone since I last darkened the doors, totally refitted, old rooms closed off, new ones created. The place where I used to live (as a live-in assistant manager) has been sold off and is now a vet’s surgery. I could still all too clearly remember how it was, but it was interesting to see what’d been done to it, too.

All told, it’s really nothing like it was when I worked there – no bad thing. It’s still not a great place, and not one I’d choose to go to regularly, but all the same it’s a ghost that’s been laid to rest.

No bad thing.

Up On The Roof

Posted: Mon 10 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: General | Leave a comment »

Not a great photo – the iPhone was the only camera I had with me – but I saw this and it amused me.

Duck on the roof of a house in the village

Yep, a duck sat on the roof ridge of one of the houses in the village.

Made me chuckle, anyway.

Flowering Rhubarb

Posted: Sat 8 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

One of the stranger sights in our garden this week…

Rhubarb Flower - click to embiggenify

I’ve never seen this before, but our main rhubarb plant has created what appears to be a flower. It’s kind of broccoli-like, but with (as you can see) red bits and pale green bits.

In short, very strange, and very alien-looking.

Taking a break

Posted: Fri 7 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Travel | 1 Comment »

Today we’re off for a week to Malvern.

The house (along with Psycho Cat and The Girls) are being looked after while we’re away, but Hound’s going with us. Psycho Cat will be extremely pissed off though, because while Hound won’t be around, the house-sitter is bringing her own barmy dog, which should properly nark Psycho Cat.

No idea what we’ll be doing, but it’s going to be a good week off, I’m sure.

My Own Policies

Posted: Fri 7 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Thank the lord, we’re finally through all the election guff. At the time of writing this, I don’t know who’ll have won the election.

I do think, though, that a plainly-put list of policies and ideas would’ve been a far better idea than the wanky ethereal guff spouted in most of the manifestos this year. And I reckon that if a party had put forward the following list, they’d have had a pretty good chance at getting in. I could be wrong, but I figure it’d be a set of policies I’d vote for, anyway.

The policies I’d put in are (in no particular order, but as they occur to me) :

Banning HGVs and coaches from the outside lane of all multi-carriageway roads. That would mean HGVs and coaches could overtake etc on three-lane motorways by using the inner two lanes, but wouldn’t be able to do so on dual carriageways and two-lane motorways like most of the M11
Reducing fuel duty
Reducing our energy imports by increasing our nuclear-power capacity and promoting green energy
Making Inland Revenue into an efficient organisation
Local authority management reductions
NHS improvements – removing managers, increasing “front-line” staff
Speaking plainly and clearly rather than evasive waffle
[Added later, because I forgot] – Electoral reform, making it law that everyone eligible has to vote, but there is a “None of the above” option on the ballot.
[Added later, because I forgot] – Enforcing use of fuel duty/road tax to maintain/upgrade transport and roads
[Added later, because I forgot] – Looking at re-nationalising train service, along with investment from the above point to upgrade rail network/rolling stock

How would this be paid for? By (to a greater or lesser degree) :

Increasing tax for earners of >£100,000
Chasing non-dom non-taxpayers
Increasing VAT by 2.5% to 20% – when it was dropped from 17.5 to 15% everyone said it was a piss-poor reduction – so will they complain if it increases by the same?
Improving efficiency – not by cutting costs, but by improving efficiency and reducing red tape and crap

There’s probably other bits I could add to this, but it seems like a pretty good list so far.

Mind you, I fully expect to be ripped apart on some of these by certain readers. 🙂

Voting Motivation

Posted: Thu 6 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Politics | 1 Comment »

Ever needed (another) good reason for not voting Conservative today?

Here you go – Robert Mugabe gives the Conservatives his support, and says we’d have better relations with Zimbabwe under a Conservative government.

Election Day

Posted: Thu 6 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Politics, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

In this democracy I as a citizen reserve the right to stand up for what I believe in
In this democracy I as a citizen I’m not accountable to the government
In this democracy the government is accountable to us, the people
In this democracy the government is elected by us, the people
To represent us, the people
In our best interests, on a national and international scale
And if they’re not doing so, In this democracy, I as a citizen reserve the right
To rise up

I will not move, I will not change
I will not bend or play their games
I will stand tall with a full frame
I will take pride to stake the claim

I swear, as a citizen of this country
To stand up for what I believe in
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To not just sit around, bitching and mourning
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To take action if action be needed
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To realize that the power is with us
And no one else…

I will not move, I will not change…

I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim

I will not move, I will not change…

Nagged

Posted: Wed 5 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised | 1 Comment »

Every night, I go up to the chickens (AKA The Girls) and lock them up for the night. It’s a routine, and as such Hound now has it in her head. If I don’t do it, she gets very stressy, and won’t settle until all The Jobs are done.

Last night I was going to do some shopping, and had put Hound in the car. I then went up the garden to put The Girls to bed. Herself warned me at the time that I’d have to go back up there when we got home, because Hound hadn’t seen me go and do it.

Lo and behold, we got back at about ten PM, and Hound wouldn’t settle until I’d gone back up the garden. Any time I moved she’d dash off to the back door, and wait expectantly for me to go up and put The Girls to bed.

I still don’t quite know who’s in charge in our household – whether it’s Hound or Us. In her head we’re definitely both the pack leaders telling her what to do, and also the sheep who need to be told what to do…

Contrasting Stories

Posted: Tue 4 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Looking at BBC News this morning, I saw this :

Contrasting Stories on the BBC

So toddlers watching TV causes them long-term harm, but more people are watching TV because they’ve no money.

Awesome.

New York

Posted: Sun 2 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Media, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

As always, I have a bit of an issue with the entire New York car bomb ‘plot’. Like the one in London, it’s a supposed car-bomb which fails to do anything.

What it does do though – if we’re to believe the entire over-arching terrorism theme of the last decade – is bring it all right back into the limelight (again) but with no casualties, no body count, no negative press, just front and centre in the media and stories where terrorism (yet again) paralyses a city.

I wrote a piece many many many moons ago (way before D4D was even an idea) about terrorism and PR which made the same kind of points, that if terrorism is about keeping one’s cause in the media, then the ‘best’ way is to do so without causing damage or loss of life. That way it’s all about how people are reacting to the threat of terrorism, not to the reality of terrorism. There’s a world of difference between the two.

After all, if you can “design” a device/event that can be the lead story in world-wide media for a week, and paralyse a city (even if only for a few hours) and do no damage whatsoever, that’s quite an achievement.

Even better, when people then go on TV to make big press/media announcement about how their country and their people won’t bow down to terrorism and it’s in response to something like this then I’m sorry, but terrorism’s won. You’ve already bowed to it, made people aware of those causes, and kept it in the mind.

Writing Plans

Posted: Sun 2 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Script Frenzy, The '10 Writing Project, Travel, Writing | Leave a comment »

It’s now May – and just how the tits did that happen? – and Script Frenzy is over.

I didn’t complete it – in many ways I didn’t expect to – but I did start it, and the idea’s good enough that I want to go on with it, even without the impetus of Script Frenzy.

Indeed I’m hoping to get more of it written while we’re on holiday next week. That’s the plan, anyway.

Motherf…..

Posted: Sat 1 May, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, People, Sweary | Leave a comment »

I love Tim Minchin – not all the time, but when he hits a target he really hits it.

Do NOT play the video if you’re offended by “Fuck”, or have serious positive views/beliefs about Catholicism, the Pope, and the entire Paedophile Priests thing.

Tim Minchin’s Pope Song

If not though, go for your life. You’ll need speakers on, but man is it worth it.

Craven

Posted: Fri 30 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Much as I was disappointed by Frankie Boyle when he played the Cambridge Corn Exchange (and wouldn’t bother going to see him again anywhere) I do still like a lot of the things he says, does, and jokes about. (We’ll also get past that thing about the Down’s Syndrome jokes, which were stupid and based on attitudes from about twenty years ago)

I’ve also been impressed with his statement here about the apology issued “on his behalf” (and apparently without his knowledge) by the BBC in regard to jokes he made on a radio programme two years ago…

In case you missed it, the jokes in question are: ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well…that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’

I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.

The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.

The full statement (as per the above link) is available here

Succumbed

Posted: Fri 30 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, iPhone, Media | 4 Comments »

Of all the temptations on iPhone, my downfall has been Angry Birds. It got recommended a while back in the Guardian, so I got it on Herself’s phone – and damn it’s addictive.

I did complete all of the first release, which was the first time I’d played to completion since the eighties.

Anyway, I’d done really well and not got it on my own iPhone – after all, I’d completed it on Herself’s phone, so I didn’t need to do it again on mine.

This week though Angry Birds has had an update, new levels and all. So I’ve had to get it on my own phone.

Of course, this also means I’ve got to get through the first bits (again) in order to get to the new levels.

So that’s my Bank Holiday weekend sorted then.

SNP and Equality

Posted: Thu 29 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Yesterday the Scottish National Party were told that they won’t get a plinth in the final televised election debate. And quite right too.

The debates are for the national parties, the three with a chance of national rule. The SNP (and Plaid Cymru) haven’t got a chance of that. They’re not running a national campaign – so why should they have a national mouthpiece ?

Photography Out’n’About

Posted: Wed 28 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Photography | Leave a comment »

Last night I finally got out and about with my camera a bit.

We’d organised an evening meet up with the people I went on the photography course with last year, and we met up in Norwich to have a walk around.

It was a really pleasant evening, and I got a whole bundle of photos. Haven’t had the time to check them out yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few good ones in there. Damn well hope so, anyway.

Dickheads Day Out

Posted: Wed 28 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

The last two days of driving in to work have been populated with complete idiots, and one really close near-miss.

Yesterday I was belting under the A11, and a (female) driver came down off the A11 and turned out in front of me, didn’t even look to her right. She was on her phone, which is apparently some kind of excuse for being a fuckwit. Even better, when I swerved round her – fortunately there was nothing coming the other way – and used my horn, she decided that it was me being unreasonable.

Other than that notable experience, there’ve also been a whole bundle of people pulling out in front of me – allbeit while looking – as well as incredibly slow-moving trucks and tractors.

With tractors and farm machinery on the road (as I’ve said before) it drives me barmy that so many people seem to be so nervous about overtaking- particularly when there’s a long sweep of straight road where several cars could overtake the sodding things.

Still, all’s OK, and you do get to your destination eventually. But dear lord, it’d be nice to have a dickhead-free drive home…

Extended Life

Posted: Tue 27 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, iPhone, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

One of the things that’s always irritated me about Herself’s iPhone is the piss-poor battery life it gets in everyday use. She has to recharge hers pretty much every day, which after a while just gets depressing. After all, it’s a step back to when I had my first digital mobile, back in 1994 (an Orbitel 902, if anyone cares) which needed charging daily. Since then my phones have gone up to being charged about twice a week at most, so going back to daily charging was always going to be a bit of an arse.

As a result, when I got my iPhone, I also ordered a Mophie Juicepack Air, which is an iPhone case with a built-in battery pack, which pretty much doubles the usable time of the iPhone. And of course me being me, it’s in a bright purple. You can get other colours, but once I saw the purple there wasn’t going to be any other colour that worked.

It’s taken nearly a week to get here, but it arrived yesterday and is in use now. And so far I’m damn impressed with it.

Battery life is definitely extended, it’s been easy to fit, set up and charge, and all told so far it’s a nice bit of kit.

A further review will follow in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure.

Censored

Posted: Mon 26 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic | 4 Comments »

Some of you may have noticed a post that got done earlier this week and has now disappeared.

I got asked to take it down by one of the people involved, because – basically – they didn’t like what I’d said. So I’ve taken it down.

The opinion I’d expressed was an honest one – it was how I felt, and still do feel. But it got deemed as being pompous and potentially offensive to a couple of particular people.

So it’s been deleted, in the name of family peace and all that.

I can’t say I’m entirely happy about it – if I’m honest, it makes me wonder whether I should just give up writing D4D entirely. Time will tell.

Writing, Script Frenzy, Etc

Posted: Fri 23 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Script Frenzy, The '10 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing | Leave a comment »

While I don’t look like I’ll be anywhere near completing the Script Frenzy project of 100 pages of script in April, I have at least started off an idea.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on it here, but even being able to have started it is (in some ways at least) more than I actually expected to happen.

I don’t know whether it’s related to the taking of the anti-depressants – I don’t think it has as they’re not really supposed to have built up to a usable/viable level til somewhere in the middle of next week – but equally they may have worked faster, or it may be a psychosomatic thingummywhatsit. Whatever though, I actually did sit down and write the first couple of pages.

It’s a start.

I do plan to continue with it, even once the Script Frenzy thing has closed up shop for another year. What I wanted was an excuse to start – no, not an excuse, a reason to start – writing something. I don’t know yet whether I’ll complete it – the idea’s a good one, but it might fizzle out, I have to be honest. Still, we’ll see.

And I’d rather have something started than for it all to still be just in my head. So I’m measuring little successes along the way. And for now that’s enough, when combined with all the other stuff that’s going on.

I’m just a posh boy

Posted: Thu 22 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Politics | Leave a comment »

Saw this today and loved it. Now if only we could get the Conservatives to use it…

The kind of thing Photoshop was meant to be used for (Click to embiggenify)

iPhoner

Posted: Wed 21 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, iPhone, Thoughts | 5 Comments »

I have to say, O2 are very impressive when it comes to delivering upgrade phones. I ordered the iPhone on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday it arrived at the office.

Of course, as I wasn’t in the office on Monday that made it a bit more awkward, but it was here on the desk when I came in on Tuesday, which meant that last night was spent setting it up, getting everything sorted and taking data etc. from old phone to new phone.

So far it’s all worked pretty well. Moving the contacts over is a piece of piss because I use Zyb, which is an online storage for contacts. Sync from old phone to Zyb, get the Zyb iPhone app and download from Zyb to new phone. That’s it. (And before any fanboys start piping up, that’s been easy because of Zyb, not because of the iPhone)

So yeah, it’s all OK so far. Set up the things I need, and I’m sure some other bits will get set up in the coming days.

But will I turn into an iPhone evangelist/obsessive? Somehow I doubt it. For a geek/techie I’m really not all that evangelical about technology in general. It’s a tool, not a belief system.

eTyres

Posted: Tue 20 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish) | 1 Comment »

So following on from yesterday’s discovery of a flat tyre, I booked in (and paid in advance) through eTyres.co.uk to get it fixed at home. eTyres offer their service at home, which is ideal when you’ve got a flat.

However, the motto of this entire story is that if you’re going to have a puncture and use eTyres, don’t do it on a weekend. Despite being able to book and order online, for some fuckforsaken reason they can’t organise things ’til the Monday morning. And at that point they’ve also got to deal with all the people who’ve booked on the Saturday.

I did try to change the tyre myself so I could get down to the local tyre place, but the wheelnuts were on so tight I couldn’t even move the sodding things. Insurance-wise I was going to be lowest of the low priority calls, and they couldn’t even give me a time expectation. So all told that left me pretty much at the mercy of eTyres.

Having made the booking online yesterday evening, they finally arrived at 5.30. Yep, a whole day. So much for the speed of booking via the internet etc. etc.

In the end they’ve done a decent job, and for a fairly decent price. Not as great as they make out in their marketing, but not bad.

But if you need a swift service that’ll actually get the job done, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend eTyres to anyone.

eScales

Posted: Mon 19 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Health, Weight Loss | Leave a comment »

via Twitter, I came across Withings scales – a set of scales that’s connected to t’Internet. (via wireless network)

I still can’t decide whether it’s a great idea or an incredibly bad one. I love the concept of being able to keep track of your weight, graph it out and monitor it. I hate the idea of it connecting to t’Internet rather than just recording the data on a card for uploading to your own computer. I get the idea of it, but yeah, that connection to t’Internet means I probably wouldn’t want one.

Interesting idea, though.

iPhone

Posted: Sat 17 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, iPhone, Technology | 4 Comments »

After 18 months with my Sony Ericsson C905, it’s time to update my phone again. The Sony Ericsson has been a good phone, and there’s lots of bits I like with it. It’s getting some problems with its keypad and so on now, but it’s been an OK phone all round. I haven’t used the camera on it as much as I thought/hoped I would, and really it’s been mainly used (as are most of my phones in the end) for the basics – calls, text messages and emails, and internet access.

So with camera-resolution being less of an issue, I’ve decided to take the leap and get an iPhone. Herself swears by hers, and the other people I know with one also swear by it. I’m still unconvinced by the touchscreen – I’m used to touchtyping text messages on the normal phone keypad, and it seems a bit weird to not have that possibility with the iPhone. But I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

It’s going to be an interesting experience. I’ve got reservations about it, but the iPhone is the best of the bunch at the moment, and there was absolutely nothing else that appealed at all, nor anything that’s coming out in the near future. Should be entertaining, anyway.

Electioneering

Posted: Fri 16 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Politics, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

So it’s the run-up to another General Election – don’t tell me you’d missed it!

This time round I wonder who people will vote for. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two main parties, they seem to be Siamese Twins (sorry, conjoined twins) rather than polar opposites. In both cases their policies (or lack thereof) seem only to differ in punctuation and tiny things to argue about while the main points lumber through regardless. The options seem to be a dour Scottish tosser that we know is a scumbag or a perma-tanned PR weasel who’s slicker than greased owl-shit, and who we simply are pretty certain is a scumbag. More a case of “whichever devil you know”.

All of which makes me think that perhaps this election is the Liberal Democrat‘s best chance ever.

I wonder how many other people are thinking “Well both Brown and Cameron are cunts I wouldn’t trust to run a bath, let alone a country. Maybe I’ll go for the Libdems, see what they’ve got“. (Or at least words to that effect)

All Nick Clegg has to do really is look like less of a fuckwitted u-turning scumwad than the other two and (in my opinion) he’s got a real chance at being the next PM.

Maybe it’s time for that third way.

Antidepressed

Posted: Thu 15 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Introspective, Thoughts, Writing | 2 Comments »

A couple of weeks back I wrote about making an appointment to see the doctor about depression, lack of motivation, lack of drive etc. etc. I didn’t – and still don’t – want to ask for help, but I know that in my current state I have/had to.

Yesterday was the day of the appointment. 7am and I’m at the doctors. That’s never going to be the start of a good day…

Anyway, I talked through some of the stuff with the GP – who’s extremely wet and wanky, but means well. Better than being completely useless I suppose. But you never really get the impression he could give much of a damn one way or t’other. I suppose that’s one of the risks of being a GP though.

And now I’ve got a prescription for Citalopram, an SSRI anti-depressant. I’m going to take them, and see how things go.

I’m not happy about being on these pills, but I’m at the point where I know that I need something to break the cycle/spiral I’ve got into. This is the first step in that process. Well technically it’s the third step, I suppose- the first one was acknowledging I’m in that cycle at all, and the second was doing something about it by going to the GP.

I don’t like the thought of being reliant on pills or medication – I’m crap at even taking painkillers unless I really need them.

Also I can’t help but wonder what I’ll be like on anti-depressants. I’ve been living with depression for such a long time now, I wonder what changes there’ll be if it’s not around. It’ll be interesting to find out, anyway.

House Filming

Posted: Wed 14 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: News, Photography | Leave a comment »

Apparently, the finale of the current season of House has been shot entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II handheld SLR camera.

That’s pretty impressive, however you look at it.

I really like the specs of the 5D, but I know it’s way out of my current price-bracket and skill-set. I’m still enticed by the 7D though, and keep trying to figure out whether I can convince myself that it’s a worthwhile upgrade. I haven’t managed yet, but I can keep on trying.

I Am Such A Tit

Posted: Tue 13 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: General | Leave a comment »

Yesterday I saw that one of my favourite authors, John Connolly is doing some book readings/signings in the UK in May in support of his new novel, “The Whisperers“. The nearest event to me was in Bishop’s Stortford on Thursday May 13th.

By a happy coincidence, Alabama 3 are playing a gig in Norwich also on May 13th, so I thought I’d get a ticket to that as well.

Coming in to work this morning I’ve planned to book the entire day off, which’ll make it a good day out all told.

Except I can’t book it. Because I’m on holiday that week already. In Malvern.

Arseing cock.

Demolition Perfection

Posted: Mon 12 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: News, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

A quick link to a video/story of a quite spectacular – and beautifully planned/managed/executed – demolition of a footbal stadium in Texas.

I love things like this, and the video’s good enough that you can see the individual dynamite blasts happening in sequence to destroy the structure so it implodes and caves in on itself rather than exploding outwards. Really nice work.

Pheacock

Posted: Mon 12 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Norfolk, Photography | Leave a comment »

As I’ve mentioned before, our village has quite a colony of peacocks. In addition, the fields around here are filled with pheasants as well as partridge(s).

This year, we appear to have a couple of hybrid birds, taking bits from both. I’m sure it’s not the first time they’ve happened, but it’s certainly the first time I’ve seen one.

I’ve christend them Pheacocks, for want of a better name – and today I managed to get a couple of photos of them. They’re not perfect, and I want to keep on trying through the year because when you see them, they’re absolutely stunning. The head and tail are definitely pheasants, but the body colours are those of a male peacock – totally stunning in sunlight.

Pheacock - Pheasant/Peacock hybrid running across road

Pheacock 1 - click to embiggenify

There’s also the following one, which again isn’t perfect, but gives a good impression…

Pheacock 2 - again, click to embiggenify

Political Contacts

Posted: Sun 11 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Politics, Work-related | Tags: #debill, east falkirk, election, Labour, linlithgow, morons, Politics | 3 Comments »

via Twitter/TwitPic, another fine example of why politicians should never ever be allowed to control the internet, or access to it…

Contact details for Labour Party in Linlithgow and Falkirk, with a super-long URL, and errors on Twitter and Facebook names

How not to do it.

So a few pointers…

You really expect your voters to type in www.linlithgowandeastfalkirklabour.org.uk ? Get real.
And separate sites for each constituency? Really? I guess joined-up communications and corporate message just kind of got by-passed.
A hotmail email account? For politicians? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. (Mind you, the actual site doesn’t even appear to list proper email addresses, and just uses a contact form)
It really helps to have the proper names in your Twitter and Facebook contact details. Not “site.com/yourname”. FFS.

And these clueless fuckers are indicative of the type of politicians who brought in the Digital Economy bill? Jesus H. Christ on a shiny metal bicycle.

Cold Frame

Posted: Sat 10 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Norfolk | Leave a comment »

Today we’ve been assembling a cold-frame for the garden that Herself bought this week. It was OK in the end – Herself took the lead, which meant I was infinitely less annoyed/annoyable and sweary – but still a pig to put together.

While instructions usually prove to be sodding annoying, it’s still better to have some step-by-step instructions on how to build these things. In this case all we had was four pages with some drawings of how to put together certain bits of the cold frame. Other than that, we were on our own.

Still, it’s up now – it took the best part of three damn hours to construct, but it’s done now. Happy Day.

Fashion – in the loosest sense

Posted: Fri 9 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, People, Photography | 3 Comments »

Holy Jumping Jesus – sometimes I’m really glad I have no real interest in (or concept of) fashion.

Well, if this little lot are fashionable then I’m deeply glad I’m not.

Huge Egg

Posted: Thu 8 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | 3 Comments »

One of the chickens – I don’t know which one, as two of them lay eggs that look very similar – appears to have decided she’s a goose or something.

This is what we got yesterday. Apologies for the ropy photo, it was done quickly on the mobile rather than using a proper camera.

Goliath Egg

I’m sure it’s a double-yolker, but all the same, that’s one impressive egg…

[Updated 13/4/10 : Forgot to say, it was a double-yolker, and we haven’t had any more since. I’m hoping it was a rarity rather than the death-knell mentioned by a couple of commenters]

Bunnies

Posted: Wed 7 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, People, Script Frenzy, Weirdness, Writing | 1 Comment »

Sometimes it’s really quite scary seeing just how disturbing some bunnysuits are.

Bizarrely, I was doing some research on a writing idea to get me to that site. That’s quite worrying in itself…

Hypnotised

Posted: Mon 5 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Geeky | Leave a comment »

At home, both our laptops have the Electric Sheep screensaver running on them – it’s a fun screensaver, and we both like it.

However, it looks like Psycho Cat also likes it – or at least gets entranced by it…

Hypnotised by the laptop

Sad, but true.

In Eighteen Months

Posted: Sun 4 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

Eighteen months from today will be the last day of my thirties.

That’s kind of scary.

Another Cat

Posted: Sat 3 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | 1 Comment »

No, we haven’t got another cat – but it does look like another one has been added to the neighbourhood’s collection of cats.

The evidence? This, outside the back door today…

Psycho Cat facing off the new cat

That’s Psycho Cat facing off the new addition, having already kicked him out of the cat flap.

The noise that was being made was unholy – and mainly from Psycho Cat – and the altercation ended up with Psycho Cat chasing Ginger Bastard off and up the nearest fence.

I suspect it won’t be the last time this happens, there’ll be more time for more catfights before the proper pack structure (or whatever cats use in place of a pack, I dunno) is established.

Roofwork

Posted: Sat 3 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, People, Thoughts | 5 Comments »

One thing I find weird living out here in Norfolk is the times people get work done.

All three winters we’ve been here, a noticable number of properties get their roofs redone. I’ve never quite understood that – surely it’s better to get the roof of your house redone in summer when the weather’s better, rather than in winter when it’s cold, wet, snowy and nasty?

The same seems to be true of chimney work – there have been several chimney-stacks this year with scaffolding around them, and again I’d probably rather work on them during summer when the fires aren’t lit and there’s no need for the extra heat.

Of course I realise I’m not at all practical and there’s probably some other very good reasons for roofing to be done in winter. I hope someone can explain it to me.

Conflict and Surrender

Posted: Fri 2 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Health, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | 1 Comment »

It won’t give up, it wants me dead
Goddamn this noise inside my head

© Nine Inch Nails, “The Becoming”, Downward Spiral album

That’s not quite where I am at the moment – but somehow it still seems to be the best lyric for describing things at the moment.

I’ve written before about my regular issues and history with depression, and the way I normally fight my way through it. Recently though, that’s not been the case. If I’m honest, the last three or four years have involved fighting, but only getting to an impasse, a holding action to keep ground, rather than a victory.

I’ve made lots of plans, and had the intention to do things. It’s just that I never seem to find the time or the final motivation to get them done. I keep on trying, and I keep on failing – and at the moment there’s no good reason for Why. I just don’t get to it. That final bit, that final push, is missing, AWOL.

So I’m working on getting through it, but I’m also going to go a different route this time. I’ve a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks time, and I’m going to aim to get some anti-depressants. Not something I’m overly happy about, but I think it’s time for me to try them again.

I had a very negative experience with them many moons ago, so I have some really serious reservations about them. But if I can give them a go and they work, so be it. If not, it’s another avenue tried and I need to find other options. But at least I’ll be trying the avenues this time.

Unbelievable

Posted: Thu 1 April, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Hard to believe that these two normally appear to hate each other, isn’t it?

Studiously ignoring each other

It’s a bit of a ropy image – I may have a play and see if I can get a better copy, but it came off Herself’s iPhone, so it’s not great in low light anyway.

Ouch

Posted: Wed 31 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, People, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Ouch. The mind boggles as to why you’d do this to yourself…

Just why?

Hardly a Shock

Posted: Tue 30 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, News | Leave a comment »

So, Ricky Martin has come out as gay.

And this is news?!?

Writing Plans

Posted: Mon 29 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Script Frenzy, The '10 Writing Project, Writing | 4 Comments »

One of my challenges for April is to take part in Script Frenzy – a challenge to churn out 100 pages of screenplay during the month.

I don’t yet know if I’ll manage to do it – there’s a lot of stuff coming up over the next month what with one thing and another – but I’m going to give it a go. I had my reservations back in November about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) but this time round it’s something I feel a bit better about having a go at it.

I won’t make any promises or guarantees about this right now – I had intended to have some plans and idea in place before the start of April about what’s going to happen and where it’s going to start/run/go, but I haven’t. We’ll see.

Peter Gabriel at the O2

Posted: Sun 28 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish) | Leave a comment »

As has been mentioned before on here, I’m a bit of a fan of Peter Gabriel – not hardcore “all the way back to the 70s”, but I like far more of his stuff than I dislike, and I’ll usually go and see him live. Mind you, I’m gobsmacked that it’s now six years since I’d seen him live – although I did end up missing (OK, not going to) the concert a couple of years back at Blickling Hall in Norfolk.

Anyway, when I saw about tickets coming available for a concert at the O2, I was there. It was in promotion of the “Scratch My Back” album which hadn’t even been released at the time, but *shrug* I don’t worry about things like that.

The gig itself was always going to be slightly strange. Gabriel’s done away with the general band stuff, and instead gone with a total orchestra, stripping down the songs and then orchestrating them. It had been billed as being no support, an hour of the new album, an interval, then another session with older stuff. It didn’t work out quite like that – everything started late, there was then a short (three song) intro by Anna Lünd – who’s also doing a lot of the backing vocals in the rest of the show. At that point the lights went back up, an interval of about ten-fifteen minutes, and then into the Scratch My Back section of the show. A fifteen minute interval that stretched to nearly thirty, then back to the final “older stuff” section.

All that aside though, it was a really good gig. The visuals were really impressive, doing stuff I hadn’t seen before with multi-layered screens, and almost holographic at some points. The sound was fantastic, and the orchestra were stunning. Some of the songs were just fantastic – particularly his versions of Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage” and Magnetic Fields “Book of Love”. The entire album was done live, which is quite an achievement in itself.

The second section was more of the same, but orchestrated versions of older tracks, including the crowd favourites. There were a couple I wish he’d done as well, but I think that’s always the way when it’s a gig covering nearly forty years of music. But he played (among others) “Digging in the Dirt”, “Signal to Noise”, “Mercy Street”, “Darkness”. “In Your Eyes” and (of course) “Solsbury Hill”, which still managed to be as whimsical as ever.

I’d have loved to see Sledgehammer done in this gig, or Growing Up, but I guess they’d be hard to do in an orchestrated version.

All told, it was a pretty great gig – allbeit a very different one to most of the ones I see, and very different to the previous Peter Gabriel concerts. But still, fantastic to see.

Spring Forward

Posted: Sun 28 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Don’t forget to put your clocks forward…

On a side note, I won’t be sodding about with trying to set D4D™ to use BST instead of GMT. It’s a pain in the tits, and I really can’t be arsed. So posts will be appearing earlier/later/whatever than they should ’til we return to GMT. Live with it.

Changed Plans (Again)

Posted: Sat 27 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Geeky, Getting Organised, Sociable, Thoughts, Travel, WHC2010, Writing | Leave a comment »

This weekend I was supposed to be at Brighton Shock, the 2010 the World Horror Convention.

Next weekend, I was supposed to be at Odyssey 2010, the SciFi Eastercon.

As it happens, plans have changed (now there’s a common theme) and I won’t be at either.

This weekend ended up clashing Brighton Shock with both WebSourceEast and the Peter Gabriel concert at the O2, plus I figured I couldn’t really justify being away for two long weekends on the trot with work and home. So Brighton Shock got the boot.

As for Eastercon, when I signed up for it I hadn’t realised that Easter was the date it was, and it would’ve meant being away for Herself’s birthday. (Less charitable souls might suggest that me not being around would be a good present in and of itself, but that’d be nasty) Additionally I did some maths and figured out that the cost of it all would be feckin’ expensive, as it’s at the Radisson hotel at Heathrow – not a venue known for its low prices, I think it’s fair to say.

So instead I’m at home for the next two weekends and not travelling round the country like a loon. In some ways that’s disappointing, in others it actually makes a lot of sense.

NewlyWeds

Posted: Thu 25 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Media, Technology, Twitter | Leave a comment »

One of the funniest Twitter things this year was NewlywedsOnTJob , a prank by a best-man, automatically recording every time the newly-married couple went at it – start, stop, times, “frenzy index”, “Judge’s review”, the lot. It was very funny to just get the updates saying they were at it again – sometimes in the middle of the working day – and ended up with twenty-odd thousand followers all told.

Things went quiet at the end of February, when Best Man had said he’d be telling the groom about the prank. I hadn’t heard anything, so today did a quick search and found the end of the NewlyWedsonTJob story at I Am Staggered.

It’s well worth the read – made me laugh, anyway.

Budgetary Concerns

Posted: Wed 24 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics | Leave a comment »

So, the 2010 Budget then…

A “staggered” 3p rise in fuel tax – great, that just means the companies will add on 2 or 3p per rise, rather than one big rise. Overall it’ll mean about 10p on a litre, rather than the 5p that would’ve come from a 3p rise
No stamp-duty for first-time house-buyers on houses <£250,000. – Big deal. The entire “first-time buyer” thing’s a bag of shit anyway in my experience. My “first-time buy” was nullified by the fact it was Herself’s second buy, so we couldn’t get any of the first-time buyer deals. Cunts.
No changes to allowances on incomes <£100,000 – Well thanks a bundle for fuck-all.
No other changes to VAT or income tax – that does surprise me, as a change to these would’ve been an almost certain vote-loser, and I’m still generally convinced that Labour want to lose this election, which’ll make the current shit-fest “the next person’s problem”. But then, I’m a cynic.
Wine, beer and spirits up by 2% – Guess they’re not wanting us to drink our way out of recession then
Tobacco tax up by 1% – Or smoke
Cider duty up by 10% – Seriously? 10%? Guess Labour aren’t worried about the cider-drinking voters then.

Political Baby

Posted: Wed 24 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, News | Leave a comment »

While David Cameron might bleat on about how his wife’s pregnancy “isn’t ideal timing” with it being in an election year, I’m willing to bet that he’s pretty chuffed.

After all, a baby in an election year? That’s got to be a pretty good dollop of votes right there…

Time Leaps

Posted: Tue 23 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Time, Travel | 5 Comments »

And along with it being nearly April (OK, they’re connected in a way) it occurs to me that come this weekend we’ll be doing the spring forward time change to BST instead of GMT as well.

Of course the relation is that GMT always starts on the last weekend of March. I still find that the mnemonic of “Spring Forward, Fall Back” is the best one for remembering whether we’re gaining or losing an hour, despite the horrific Americanism of “Fall”.

It’ll confuse things for us a bit, as we’ll be coming home from the Peter Gabriel gig at the O2 at the time, but I guess that might help too as we won’t be missing an hour while asleep. Still, makes for an eventful weekend.

Time Flies

Posted: Mon 22 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, General, Thoughts, Time | Leave a comment »

It hadn’t occurred to me ’til just now that April is just round the corner. A week on Thursday, we’ll be out of the first quarter of 2010.

How the hell did that happen? Where’ve the last three months fucked off to?

Night Drive

Posted: Sat 20 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Last night I had to do a late(ish) night drive – a delivery from Herself to some friends who are testing out some of her cake recipes. (Don’t ask) They’re in a village the other side of Dereham from us, and a drive of about 20-ish miles. Not much, but enough. Because the roads are seriously winding, the AA route finder estimates that the journey takes 57 minutes. For 20 miles. No idea how they work that one out, it as it’d mean (hey, no shit Sherlock) an average speed of 20mph. Suffice to say, I wasn’t driving at 20mph…

Running late, Herself had said she’d be there by 10pm, and I didn’t leave the house ’til 9.45pm. I volunteered to do the drive/delivery, as I knew I’d be faster than Herself, but also that if Herself came with me I’d knock her sick, as she doesn’t travel well…

In the end the delivery was made at 10.10pm. 25 minutes to do 20miles. That’s quite a lot faster than the AA’s expectation then.

I love night-driving – in fact it’s probably one of my favourite aspects of driving. There are bits that are dodgy about it for sure- and night-driving in snow or fog is no fucking fun whatsoever. Well it is, just in different, and not entirely positive ways – it certainly highlights both how stupid other people are, and how easy it is to zomb out in those situations. But anyway, night-driving in general is just fun – in my opinion, anyway.

Strangely I tend to drive faster at night where possible – I think it’s because you can effectively see round corners a bit, in that you can see approaching headlights a significant time before you can see a car. In daylight you’re reliant on line-of-sight a lot more, but at night there’s a bit of advance warning. Of course, I could still come a cropper with animals in the road, or some twerd driving without lights, or a stopped car by the side of the road round a blind corner. Or something.

All told, I made it both ways in one hour dead – including conversation time at the delivery point. And thoroughly enjoyed the drive – particularly with it being soundtracked by the new Massive Attack album, “Heligoland”. Excellent stuff.

Unbelievable 2

Posted: Fri 19 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, News | Leave a comment »

Just a short filler, this – but YouTube’s chief counsel has written a post about YouTube’s current battle with Viacom about hosting ‘illegal’ videos.

The best bit is this :

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt “very strongly” that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

That’s pretty stunning, however you look at it.

Unbelievable 1

Posted: Thu 18 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, News | Leave a comment »

Over the last two days there’ve been two news stories about some truly incredibly bad driving – they really do have to be seen to be believed.

First there’s the story of the person caught driving to the garage – with their bonnet up in front of the windscreen. How they were able to see at all is beyond me.

And then there’s the one (with video footage) of the truck driver pushing a car along the motorway. Not just pushing – the car is sideways-on, and the entire thing is happening in the outside lane. I didn’t think truck drivers were even allowed to use the outside lane…

Gob-smacking.

Double Standards

Posted: Tue 16 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

A few days ago I noticed that a certain hate-filled hypocritical shitrag had a big story about how shocking the latest Lady Gaga video is. And then goes on to have screenshots in the story of all the pieces of the video for Telephone that people should be shocked or offended by.

Anyway, now it’s time to make your own mind up, as the video for Telephone is available online. Choose for yourself, not based on what the hate-rag says.

Mondeo Is Three

Posted: Tue 16 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

Well OK, I’ve had the car for three years today, but it’s actually six years old.

In the time since I bought it, I’ve doubled the mileage on it (57,000 to 114,000) which means I’ve averaged 19,000 miles a year in the damn thing. Thank God last year was a lower-mileage year, or I’d be well over the 20,000 per year. At the moment I’m doing about 350-400 miles a week in it, which is going to break out to be about the same again this coming year.

In that time I’ve had one serious clonk (December ’09 with the fence) and three lesser ones (two involving deer, one just a smashed door mirror) as well as a range of scrapes that got documented a while back, although they’re all gone now thanks to the bodyshop farce after the December ’09 crunch.

Somehow I’ve managed to not get any points on my licence – not even ones for speeding, which is nothing short of miraculous – and I’ve done well.

The only downside is that I’m back to square one with the insurance, having lost my two years of no-claims back in December. Ah well. Swings and roundabouts, and all that.

I don’t know how much longer the Mondeo will go for – it’s started having issues and needing work, as I mentioned when it got the MOT last week. But I’ll keep it ’til it becomes either too expensive or too much of a pain in the arse.

Footsore

Posted: Mon 15 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Health | Leave a comment »

Yet again, my foot is sore, to the point of making me limp when I walk. (Ooer, matron, Fnarr Fnarr, etc etc.)

I don’t know what the hell I do to it – I woke up yesterday morning with it being a bit sore, and it’s progressed from there.

Most annoying. It’ll sort itself out over the next couple of days, but in the meantime it’s a pain in the bits.

I Am A Twat

Posted: Fri 12 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, Stupidity | Leave a comment »

In a couple of weekends we’ll be going to the O2 to see Peter Gabriel in concert. (Again) So I booked the car-parking a week or so ago.

To be fair, booking the parking spot is pretty easy, and they even give you the name of the gig, so you can check you’re booking for the right day.

Only it turns out that Peter Gabriel’s now doing two nights at the O2, right after each other. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

So yeah, I need to find out whether I can refund the one on the wrong fucking day.

What a twat.

Yuck

Posted: Fri 12 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Few things say “Good Morning” like putting your foot into a still-warm pool of dog vomit in the dark.

Mind you, I suppose it can only improve from here. It’d fucking better improve from here, anyway. If it gets any worse I’m going to give up completely.

Unplanned Acceleration

Posted: Thu 11 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving | 2 Comments »

I’ve found myself being repeatedly annoyed by the stories recently about people in Toyota cars suffering from “Unplanned Acceleration”, where the card supposedly won’t slow down. All of the drivers keep on saying that they were using the brakes but not slowing down, and I’ve always wondered why those drivers don’t just turn off the engine, or put the car in neutral.

I still don’t get why they can’t put the car in neutral and coast to a stop, but I do understand more about why they can’t turn off the engine or pull the key out. Put simply, it appears there isn’t a key. The cars involved all appear to have these keyless start buttons.

I’d never really thought of keyed ignitions as a safety feature, but it sure seems like it might become one…

[Updated, 13th March : This YouTube video shows how to fix the problem of ‘Unplanned Acceleration’ in epic style. Love it.]

MOT Passed

Posted: Wed 10 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

The car finally passed the MOT yesterday.

It needed a new brake caliper on the back which wasn’t expected, but that’s how these things work out sometimes. ( I was going to say “Them’s the breaks”, but decided I couldn’t be arsed with the pun) I was quoted £280 to get the replacement caliper supplied and fitted, plus the £[whatever] for an MOT test.

The final bill somehow worked out to be £260 – including the MOT test and re-test (as it failed first time round due to the brake caliper) and also a check/fix on why my rear-washer wouldn’t work. (the bodyshop had fucked up and not reconnected the pipe somewhere along the line) I’m not quite sure how that works out, but I’m not going to complain…

MOT Time

Posted: Tue 9 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving | 1 Comment »

Once more, it’s time for the car to get its MOT test. That means I’ve had the car three years now – how time flies.

No idea how it’ll do – pretty much all of it should be fine. And if anything’s wrong on the front nearside, I’ll be exceptionally displeased.

[Updated : Report back from the garage – I’ve got a knackered brake caliper on the rear, so that’s getting replaced.]

Beach Aftermath

Posted: Mon 8 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

After yesterday’s visit to the beach, this is how Hound spent her evening…

Sleeping on the sofa, knackered from her run on the beach

She’s getting old, knackered after only an hours running about.

Day Out

Posted: Sun 7 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

Today dawned effing cold but clear and bright, so we decided to take Hound off to the beach. Well, we were up in the area anyway for other stuff (delivering bits that Herself will need next weekend, of which more at some other point) so it made sense to go up to Wells-next-the-sea as well.

Hound loves the beach, and thinks it’s a fantastic way to spend an hour or two. And to be honest, I’m hard-pressed to disagree with Hound on that score. Even in early March, a day at the beach is ace. Many many moons ago I lived in Weymouth for two years, and the ability to go and sit by/on the beach whenever I wanted was probably one of the best bits of living there.

So Hound spent an hour running round the beach and then walking back through the pine barrens between the beach and the car-park.

We’ve had other stuff to do this afternoon, but Hound thinks it’s been a good day anyway.

Connections

Posted: Wed 3 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, News, People, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Two stories in the same day… [UPDATED : OK, as Andy C points out in the comments, they weren’t on the same day, just one linked from the other, and I can’t read…]

Number One : Jon Venables, one of the two who killed James Bulger, is taken back to prison “for breaching the terms of his licence”. People are surprised, one quote being

“He could have been recalled on licence if he committed an offence, it could be that he returned to Merseyside, it could be he might have approached the family. There is no evidence so far that he did any of these things.”

Number Two : Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger, tells how she found Robert Thompson, the other one who killed James Bulger, and stood within twenty feet of him, although she couldn’t confront him.

Mrs Fergus said it was now her aim to find Venables and track him down in the same way.

I wonder if there’s a connection? Particularly if the News of the World is in on the act/witchhunt…

Hubcaps – Again

Posted: Mon 1 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Travel | 6 Comments »

It seems to be becoming a bit of an annual event – the same thing happened this time last year – but once again I’ve lost a sodding hubcap from the car.

I don’t know how, I don’t know when. I assume it’s been to do with potholes, big puddles in the road and all that. But I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is that for whatever reason I seem to be really good at losing the sodding things. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a spare in the garage at the moment, but once that one’s used, it’ll be time to buy some more.

Fucking things.

Bridge and Terry

Posted: Mon 1 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, News, People, Stupidity, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Am I the only one that thinks both John Terry and Wayne Bridge need to grow the hell up?

To me – and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a great team-player, and don’t give a tin shit about football in general – Bridge’s stepping down from the England team (and thus international football) is a self-destructive dummy-chuck of weapons-grade proportions.

And besides, why on earth does Bridge (and/or the media in general) think Bridge has got any fucking right whatsoever to throw a strop about who his ex-girlfriend decided to be with once they’d split up? Let alone do the full petted-lip and “taking my ball in” strop about it. In the same perspective, what right has Bridge got to throw a strop about who John Terry decides to shag?

I must have missed something relevant in this entire farce, because it seems to me that this is all the kind of thing that most people got over in secondary school.

Popcorn

Posted: Mon 1 March, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Stupidity | Leave a comment »

In yet another “Well that’s not really news, is it?” moment, the Food Standards Agency have said that – shock, horror – food in cinemas isn’t all that healthy. Who’d have thought.

The nutrition watchdog is concerned about the portion sizes of cinema snacks which are often high in fat, sugar or salt

So popcorn, being served in either salted or sweet ‘flavours’ – amazingly that might be high in fat and sugar or salt. What a revelation. Next they’ll be telling me that those hotdog things aren’t good for you either…

Potholes

Posted: Sun 28 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

I think I must be getting old. This week I’ve been spending some time online reporting potholes in the roads I use on my daily commute.

It turns out that Norfolk have a form for reporting these things, which has been pretty useful. I don’t yet know how efficient it makes things, except that the road I made the first report on was repaired within two days of me reporting it. Of course, it could be coincidence, I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when it comes to how long it takes to repair the other.

Changing Behaviour

Posted: Sun 28 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

Yet again, the animals have proved this weekend that they are very very weird.

In at least the last six years, Psycho Cat has never come into the living room – he’s always been a solitary little bastard, only really coming in to the bedroom for a fuss or a stroke at night. In Bracknell his domain was always upstairs, and here he’s got one room where the dog never goes, and free run of the rest. But he’s still never come in to the living room.

This weekend though, that’s all changed. With the new living-room furniture, he’s been in to sit on both of us at one time or another. Hound isn’t really happy about this – she’s used to having dominion over Herself’s time in particular, so there’s been some serious jealousy going on.

As I type this, Hound’s lying in her basket in one corner of the room, and Psycho Cat is asleep (and purring) down by the side of my leg. This is, frankly, unheard of.

I’ve no idea what’s changed Psycho Cat’s mind about this state of affairs. It’s not necessarily the new furniture, because we’ve done that before and he didn’t change his behaviour. I’m not complaining though – it’s just very very weird.

Litrucy

Posted: Sat 27 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Education, Literacy, News, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Via Margo and Phiala I came across this story about literacy in Americans, which says that in America someone reading 4-9 books a year is classified as an ‘avid’ reader, and that 1 in 4 [American] people read no books at all. As Margo says, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar figures for reading / book buying habits here, too although I can’t currently find a link or evidence of it.

As with Margo, I can’t really recall a time in my life that didn’t have books. My parents read stories to me every night, and that’s where I started learning to read, by learning the patterns the words made and linking them to the sounds they made as my parents read them. I was more than able to read by the time I started school, and I’ve been reading ever since.

I don’t have anywhere near as many books as I used to – if I’d kept all of them over the years, I could probably stock a decent-sized library. Even so, I’ve probably got around four to five hundred books all told, and they’re all the ones I’ll go back to and read more than once. Additionally I’m a regular visitor to the local library – on Herself’s persuasion, admitterdly – but normally get through about 10-20 books a month just through that. If I see books I want to read now – particularly new ones or new authors – I try to get them through the library rather than buying them outright as an experiment, which is what I used to do.

I can hardly even imagine only reading even 9 books a year. I mean really? One book every six weeks? Jesus.

Just as a current example, this week I’ve read (or am currently reading)

Steel Beach by John Varley (in the car, reading at lunchtimes)
The Shift by George Foy(also in the car, finished this week before starting Steel Beach)
Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss (at home, in the bedroom)
Missing by Chris Mooney (also at home)
Spider by Michael Morley (really really crap)
The werewolf’s guide to life : a manual for the newly bitten by Duncan Ritch
Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffmann (just about to start)

And that’s a quiet/slow week where I’ve been doing a ton of work as well. Even so, that puts me near the top end of the American average book level for the year within a week. I don’t honestly know how many books I read a year – on that level, it must be a couple of hundred per year.

But more to the point, if that’s my reading level, and the average number of books read per year in the UK is (hey, let’s be charitable) 20 then that still means there’s a whole bundle of people at the other end of the scale who are reading maybe one book a year, or less. And to me that’s really quite scary.

Quiz Night

Posted: Sat 27 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, People, Sociable | Leave a comment »

Last night we went off to another quiz, this time in benefit of Dereham Operatic Society. It was a quiz night with fish-and-chips, and turned out to be quite a fun night all told.

In the end we came second (well, joint second although we’re not quite sure how) and had a lot of fun – along with a fair amount of alcohol for the non-drivers.

The query about coming second was/is because the other team with the same score were right next to us – and we’d scored their sheets, so we’re pretty damn sure that they did worse than us. It’s not something worth protesting – we’ve seen that happen in other quizzes, and know that our reaction is always “What a bunch of tosspots – it’s not that serious!”.

Even with that minor doubt on the scores though, it was a fun night.

Crimewatch

Posted: Fri 26 February, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Another month, another episode of Crimewatch.

What I don’t get with Crimewatch is how it gets away with

Glamourising crimes – and usually violent ones
Making crime and violence into entertainment.

I dunno, maybe I’m just too cynical.

A drop of blood in a sea of piss