140 bottles sitting in the hall...

Got back from my visit to France yesterday with 140 bottles of wine. And the odd bit of liver paté. That should keep me going wine-wise for the next 18 months.

I was very delayed by the events at Buncefield and missed my train by a whisker, but the staff were very helpful and re-arranged my booking. The return journey was also delayed - by an hour - due to an incident. No details, alas.

I visited Cité Europe where I got the plonk, then beetled round to Auchun for the better stuff, though I found myself rather disappointed with the lack of the good names. Never mind - I'll visit the right places next year.

I was bl**dy knackered after carry all those boxes from my car into the house. So I cracked open a can of cider!

Oooh! X3!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x3/

Looks awesome.

In what Hogwarts House am I?

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Only edged Hufflepuff by one point, though.

Holiday!

Better late than never. I now have 2 weeks off work. And boy do I need them. I haven't had a real holiday all year. In between the fsckwits who create and distribute viruses and a distinct lack of cooperation from people within my own company, I'm plain bushed. I was thinking of visiting Istanbul but for reasons I won't detail that's not very sensible right now. So it's a booze run to Calais sometime this week.

We had the works Christmas do last night and we went to an Indian restaurant in Harpenden and it was very good. Well done Gareth! Good company, good food, good drink - for what more can one ask? I've been regretting it today, of course - spicy food doesn't really agree with me - but tonight's steak and chips should settle things down.

I have been so angry

Grrr...

This is work-related so I have to be discreet

Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, so why can't people get their bloody fingers out and get someone to help me?

GRRR!!

Thank goodness it's the weekend.

I love it when the citizen fights back

Citizen fights against fine.

He hasn't got a hope of course, but at least he's trying.

What Guards character am I?

Apparently, I'm



Discworld: Which Ankh-Morpork City Watch Character are YOU?

It's been a hard week

Why are bureaucracies so bl**dy minded? I just want something done, so why can't my colleagues extend me the same courtesy that I extend them? It looks like it's all going to get sorted, but slowly. Grrr...

Armistice day

Today is the eleventh of November. On this day in 1918, at 11:00 the guns fell silent after four years of war.

At the going down of the sun.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, War Sonnet V, The Soldier

I almost lost my father

Yesterday I had an alarming call from my mother.My father's nearly 80. He caught a late night (arriving past midnight) train to return home. He fell asleep on the train and missed his stop, but woke in time for the next stop. At the next stop he got out and slipped and knocked himself out on the platform. Nobody noticed - or if they did, didn't bother - and the station was unattended.

He severely grazed his face. Fortunately the grazing by his eye didn't break - that can be very bloody. When he came to, he decided to walk home - only a few miles, but he is nearly 80. There were no taxis and he didn't have the means to call one.Fortunately it was a warm night, otherwise he'd be dead of exposure, either from when he knocked himself out or during the walk home.I'm much relieved that he got home safely. He now looks like he's gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson.

Car problems followup

It was the exhaust - a baffle up near the gearbox.

Car problems

Just today my car (Y reg Kia Shuma) has started behaving rather oddly. When the engine is cold it behaves just fine, but once the engine is warm, it really doesn't like being below about 2500 RPM. If that happens, the gearbox makes 'chr-rrrr-rrrr' noises. This makes driving smoothly and slowly very difficult.

I think it's the gearbox because if I put the car in neutral, the noises disappear. My car didn't used to do this. It's done less than 30K miles. It normally does 30 miles a week, with the odd 100-mile trip. What's happenned?

An excellent cartoon about Islam

http://pics.jp.dk/nybillede/default.asp?id=2253&pixid=31783

Just so apt.

Nano Review: Hero

A sumptuous film shot through with communist Chinese propaganda.

And everyone dies.

Go, man, go! #2

Murray's in the final! Good luck and good hunting.

Review: Van Helsing

I bought this DVD yesterday. Enjoyable hokum with a decidedly non-Hollywood ending, though it's telegraphed early in the movie.

This is a copy of a post I made on the SDMB.

Is it just me, or could NASA's new moonshot program be easily improved? The idea of sending up the crew seperately to the transit vehicle is good and cool, but would it not be better to repeat the exercise at the other end as well? I mean that there should be a station in lunar-stationary orbit with which the transit vehicle docks, then the astronauts transfer to a landing vehicle and descend to the lunar surface, returning with the whole vehicle to the the station in lunar orbit, transfer back to the transit module, then back to Earth - or to a station in Earth orbit and then back to Earth.

I see a number of key advantages:

Nothing left on the lunar surface - a longer term cost-saving.

Transit vehicle is also re-used - another cost saving.

Fuel for the landers and transit vehicle can be sent seperately.

The stations can have multiple landers and transit vehicles attached - handy for rescues. And other emergencies.

The station can be used to build a test beanstalk. I mean, we're not going to build the first one on Earth, are we?

Goodwood Revival

I went to the Goodwood Revival on Saturday. Quite fun dressing up in blazer and tie; the alternative - dressing up in a sports jacket - felt too much like normal. Good spectacle and an opportunity to meet a good friend. Yay!

But why are people such numpties on the road? I was tailgated by some idiot whose numberplate ended in VNU in some BMW(?) penis-extension, and a kid almost autoDarwinated in front of me. That resulted in a visit to the local police station.

Oh well...

Ear infections suck

So I've had an ear infection. It's going but it ruined my Bank Holiday Weekend. It's also made it very difficult to get to sleep - it hurts and then it feels all squishy - so I've only been getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night. This means that I only have two speeds at the moment: slow and dead slow :( .

England win the Test Match

And it was a close-run thing. A typical England batting collapse left me on tenterhooks. But Australia are too dependent upon Warne and he can't bowl every over.

Do we still need the BBC?

Never mind accusations of bias, with the proliferation of channels via satellite or cable, do we still need the BBC as originally chartered? Why not just cut it back to the World Service and two Parliamentary channels - one for the Commons, and one for the Lords?

Edward Heath

So he's dead. Regardless of his other qualities he was a dreadful Prime Minister.

Oh no!

Kim du Toit is taking a break.

Well done, Murray

Well done, sir! I'm sure Wimbledon will see you back next year.

Go, man, go!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/4124764.stm

There's life yet in British tennis

Good cartoons

http://www.coxandforkum.com is a site I always enjoy.

First post

I wonder how long I'll keep up at this?