Golden oldies

I'm not usually a fan of reruns or old stuff being rehashed but this looks like a winner! From the same site - the new system of threat level is revealed, don't go there if easily frightened or offended.

The footy is over and the climax was totally unrelated to football and all to do with thuggery but thankfully it didn't feature English players or English fans. Whatever excuse Zidane rolls out I'm afraid I find it hard to believe it can be used to justify an assault. Anyway, on Memex I found a link to some fantastic portraits of footballers - wonderful stuff.

That's me for now - Test Match starts Thursday :-)

[Current sounds: Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited [Remastered]"]

Heute

Feeling German this evening - not sure why but It may have something to do with some sort of 3 to 1 occurrence.

Anyway.

Not mentioned The Mermaid for a while so I thought I'd big it up as The Mermaid is a super pub. You might have missed the post about it being redecced and now having a large non-smoking room as well as an outstanding range of cask conditioned beers and palatable lagers.The beer garden is beautiful but can get busy at weekends so arrive early to make sure you find a table and well cooked but sensibly priced food is available at lunchtimes Monday to Saturday. Always a warm welcome at The Mermaid.

Hopefully Jackie will let me have photos of the redevelopment work so that I can update The Mermaid page on the website but in the interim you can always get your lazy butts down to The Mermaid and enjoy a traditional, friendly, country pub the likes of which is sadly disappearing in this age of bland commercialism.

PS

Playing with w.bloggar again and the "Insert stuff about what you are playing in Windows Media Player" intrigued me so that's why you may get a wee bit about what I'm listening to every now and again. As a piece of information it's probably as boring as stamp collecting but I like the idea of these connections - media player talks to w.bloggar which talks to Blogspot which publishes the whole shooting match.

[Current sounds: Smile Like You Mean It, The Killers, "Hot Fuss"]

Mozart and I

So. I got a mail from someone who had seen the Bishopsbourne site and wondered whether I had a shot of Bourne Park House. I didn't but I said I'd grab some over the weekend - it's the work of a minute and I took a few. Now I'm famous in the world of Mozart!

[Current sounds: Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, The Killers, Hot Fuss]

Sad indictment?

Maybe I'm getting old but I find it disturbing that the lead news story is the resignation of the England captain on a day which saw two more soldiers dying in Afghanistan, the discovery of two women murdered in Shrewsbury, the escalation of conflict in the Middle East and four young people dying in a road accident in Northern Ireland.

Beckham is a wealthy man, and good luck to him. He's been very astute in his business dealings and marketed his looks and skills very wisely. I don't doubt he is very upset to give up a job that is the dream of many boys (and girls) but I'm reasonably confident that he and his family will eat tomorrow and the day after that and for many days to come.

By the way - why oh why does anyone think we can control Afghanistan through force of arms? Our own history and, latterly, the history of the Soviet Union show that an indigenous guerilla army can hold off all comers in that difficult terrain.

I think we all know what is meant by "massage parlour" but I don't remember it being used as a euphemism by the police and national news in the way it is with regards the apparent murders in Shrewsbury. The place the bodies of these two unfortunates was found is described as a Health Studio but, and I quote, "police believe it may be a massage parlour". I'm left to wonder where those of us who might need a nice massage can safely go without innuendo.

It's coming home

England's World Cup excursion is over. £5 Million/annum and the "Golden Generation" of English players didn't get Sven past big Phil, the bloke who should be replacing him. I hope I'm proven wrong but I'm afraid I don't expect great things under McClaren either.

Fiery Fred

Fred Truman has finally succumbed to the lung cancer he's been fighting for a while now. Fred was a fearsome fast bowler but is known to later generations for hosting the lunchtime pub games programme. He was a great speaker on cricket and both brusque and knowledgeable and a great character.

Outdoors!

Jemma and her friend are doing their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award hike/camp/hike today so I collected them and Calum last night. Cal has been sleeping in the tent all week and because Jemma is using it this weekend he decided to come over here and use my small tent in the garden - that's where he slept last night.

Dropped the girls off this morning, they are starting out 5 miles from here, and they met up with the others in the group - 30 in all, split into teams of 6. It was already 20 degrees at 08:00 so they've got a nice day for it!

Europe

Writing this in the car. The M20 is shut and I'm stuck! I can see Germans, Poles, Swiss, Dutch, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Italians, Spanish, UA? and Luxemburgers - a truly European jam!

In the news

Two news items, side by side, on the BBC site this evening.

Charles Clarke has started to explain the steps he took, as Home Secretary, to deal with the thorny issue of foreign nationals being released after serving time in UK prisons.

"As others have already made clear to the committee, it was only in late March 2006 that ministers, including myself, were made aware of the failure to consider for deportation some foreign national prisoners at the end of their sentence, and when we were aware of this action was then taken."

The next item deals with the jailing of 69 year old Miss Josephine Rooney for not paying her council tax. She has withheld it in protest at the conditions in her neighborhood .

I'll let you join the dots.

That the released prisoners are foreign nationals and eligible for deportation isn't racist - the number of UK nationals released on licence after committing serious crimes who then "disappear" is even more worrying but it's great that our over-crowded jails can find space for yet one more "easy target". If only real criminals, the ones who steal or kill or harm people, would be as high profile as those who draw attention to local problems in this way.

Theory

For many years I've clung to the theory that technology will cure itself if enough swearing and sweat is expended. Today my theory is again borne out. Since buying the new router Outlook and Mailwasher have not been able to get out whenever the dodgy connection, it's a "Connect at whim" service, has decided to play out.

This weekend I looked forward to lots more tinkering with settings and spent some time at work printing off the stuff from forums and MSKB and DLink support and such like.

This AM I brewed a cup of tea and started to prepare for battle. The connection worked first time and Mailwasher downloaded the headers for a few hundred emails (I've been relying on webmail) and zapped the spam. I've got 105 emails to read (most I've already dealt with online) and now I don't know if it'll work again in an hour because I don't know why it's working now :-(

I've run "Shields Up" and that suggests that I'm still in stealth mode so I've not killed the firewall so I'm at a loss but hey ho, I'm here again - at least for now!

Connecting

Connection is still up and down - this from the phone :-( For our friends in the States - Ghana is in Africa.

Connection problems

Sunday night - Gentle thunderstorm somewhere but not overhead.
Monday morning - no Internet connection but had to swap cars so not fussed. During trip through Canterbury notice lots of traffic lights not working, word of powercuts.
Tuesday - Still no connection, spoke to BT Internet. I imagine that being circumcised without any pain relief would be more fun.
Wednesday - Lack of connection is getting in the way, I had assignments to upload!
Thursday and Friday - Working in the office so able to use connection for other stuff.
Today - shelled out for a new wireless router. All sorted!

Beyond belief

Sorry but I'm finding it literally incredible that the Bush administration is suggesting that the suicides in Guantanamo are acts of war or a PR stunt - this is just sick! How can it be an act of war when these people aren't prisoners of war? How can it be PR when none of the detainees has been charged with anything let alone proven to be supporters of any form of extremism.

"Detainees had access to lawyers, received mail and had the ability to write to families, so had other means of making protests, she said, and it was hard to see why the men had not protested about their situation."

Shit! It's like a real home from home so if we ignore the fact that these people have been forcibly detained for four years, without charge, in contravention of international law it's hard to see why they might be getting upset isn't it?

Joy!

Great joy - kill the fatted calf! The spud-faced one will play!

For anyone living outside these fair shores, and for that alone you have my deepest sympathy, this may not mean much or even anything but this sceptered isle has been holding its collective breath worrying about a metatarsel. In fact we've not had any other events over the last few weeks with which to trouble journalists - even the antics of Pressa (the fifth and X-rated Teletubby) or old "what's his name", Bush's friend, you know - the bloke who smiles and sweats no matter how embarrasing his latest faux pas has been, have been pushed off the front pages or down the news agenda while we all studied the delicate bone structure of a millionaire's foot. But now we have the news we've been waiting for and there will probably be talk of a new Bank Holiday so that generations to come can look back on this day and remember our deliverance. So far Kofi Annan's thought on this haven't been sought but everyone else in the world has been interviewed and their views known.

So, brothers and sisters, remember Agincourt, Waterloo and Trafalgar. Remember Rourke's Drift and the Charge of the Light Brigade and but remember today more than anything - if the news is to be believed this really is a day of great portent.

666

Shortly the date will be 6/6/06. Not that fussed about the number of the beast but it's Angie's birthday! Happy birthday Angie.

Blogroll

Looks like blogroll has collapsed which is a bugger because I'd just decided to sort out my list - it's very long and I know a few of the links go to blogs that are moribund. D'oh!

Memory stick

Make sure you read this page rather than just taking it at face value :-)

There is concern over the current driving standards in England, so the Department of Transport have devised a scheme to identify poor and dangerous drivers.

This system will allow all road users to recognise the potentially hazardous and dangerous ones, or those with limited driving skills.

From the middle of May 2006 all those drivers who are found to be a potential hazard to other road users will be issued with a white flag, bearing a red cross.

This flag clearly indicates their inability to drive properly.

These flags must be clipped to a door of the car and be visible to all other drivers and pedestrians.

Those drivers who have shown particularly poor driving skills will have to display two flags, one on each side of the car to indicate an even greater lack of skill and limited driving intelligence.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Department of Transport.

When two ideas clash

Okay I have to admit that I should be working on a late assignment but I fell asleep reading one of the set texts (gosh but it's dull) and woke with a start to think about turning off the PC and heading to bed. Just afore I did that I checked a few links and found the story of the Wandering Scribe on Ollie's blog (lot of pink happening there Ollie!). Wandering scribe's blog is here.

Got me thinking about some students I've worked with in the past including one who lived in a camper van and split their time between the south coast and Scotland. It made studying an online course a tad difficult but they ploughed on - I don't know if they made it (they weren't in my group but I was roped in to offer additional support). From there it's a short hop to thinking about some of the things we let get in the way of our own success and the idea that fear of success is often a big hurdle for many of us to overcome - that's a technical term a friend shared with me, the friend is a v clever psychologist and therefore to be trusted.

So............ don't keep finding reasons not to do something - just do it! Right, off to me bed for a few hours before whizzing round the M25 for another day of fun for which I get paid :-)