The world of Liam

etsting the rss feed

2010-05-14T20:37:00.000+01:00

testing...

2009-06-16T07:37:00.000+01:00

2009-06-16T07:26:00.000+01:00

Art from a burst pipe...

2009-01-07T10:47:00.002Z

There's a burst pipe in front of the house, it's a redundant outside tap.. I took this a couple of days ago. Converting to mono, and giving it just a slight tinge of blue for a more glacial appearance, and a little sharpening was all that was required.

Click on it for a larger image.

Cheers

Liam

Looking over to Windermere from Alcock Tarn

2008-09-13T18:21:00.000+01:00

Looking down on Grassmere in the Lake District

2008-09-13T18:11:00.000+01:00

Converting HTML quickly so that you can post code.

2008-05-31T17:30:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

as you may have seen in the last post, I put up some pretty HTML. In order to do this so that it knows it's just for show, rather than actual code that the browser needs to parse, I found a handy little tool here..

http://www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/developer-tools/quick-escape/default.php

that takes the brackets etc. and converts them to escape characters.. for instance < is written as <, and > as >

Just though it may be useful to some of you.

Cheers

Liam

For the Tapestry blog

2008-05-31T13:44:00.024+01:00

Hi Tapestry,

here's the code for your template to link to other blogs..

<br />
<h2>Other Blogs</h2>
<br />
<a href="http://www.theerrorblog.blogspot.com">The Error Blog</a>
<br />

then scroll down the code in your template untill you get to this bit... (It's about a third of the way down the template code) and put that chunk of code in where I've marked, making sure that it's above the

</div>

tag.

.....Code for links goes here.....

</div>

When you want to add more links, then just use the same format for the link..

<a href="the full url including http">The text you want to appear</a>
<br />

and add it underneath the previous one.

Cheers

Liam

Those robbing b...........s!

2008-03-12T19:33:00.002Z

Hi all, after a long break...

it takes a budget to get me going again. As some of you know I'm the Vice Chairman of a Social Club. It's part of a Community Centre and offers a nice little club to the local community. Since the smoking ban, trade has dropped off somewhat, and just recently, the suppliers increased the price of drinks by just under 4%. This happens once a year, and they're not a charity, but it's reasonable. We increased, for instance, a pint of Fosters/John Smiths by 8p to £2.23 from £2.15 last month. Now we have to put up the prices again from Monday by 5p to £2.28 for the same drinks. What they fail to mention in the hyperbole about increases in duty is that you also have to pay VAT on the rise, hence 5p not 4p. In 5 weeks, through no fault of our own, we will have increased the price of a pint by 13p.

Unlike our bigger commercial rivals ie. the pubs, we don't have a chain where we can play off prices across various establishments to keep ourselves competitive.. for instance put a few pence on Fosters in one pub, and sell it cheap in another. Do that across the range of products, and no one pub suffers a massive increase across the board.. you can always attract custom with one special offer or another.

We don't have that option, and really have three main brands, Fosters, John Smiths and our House brand spirits, which increased from £2.15 to £2.25 last month (per 50ml), and with the latest increase will now be £2.30.. 15p increase in 5 weeks.

This is a service that we offer the local Community, and make just enough profit to pay the staff and a token rent to our parent Community Association.. in theory. I reckon if we lose three or four regular main customers we'd struggle to stay afloat.. and these increases may just be enough to do this. At the moment we have three evening shifts staffed by volunteers (Mrs Liam and I cover two of those ourselves) as it is, to keep the wage bill down.

I have no idea why the sudden need to increase duty by so much, as it is, as all supplier increases provide an increase in current duties, and of course the VAT that increases automatically along side. I've checked previous budgets, and previous increases go as follows..

1998 1p
1999 0p
2000 1p
2001 0p
2002 0p
2003 1p
2004 1p
2005 1p
2006 1p
2007 1p
2008 4p

..more than half as much again as has been the combined increase for the last decade, in one fell swoop.

This budget, which does nothing for anyone really.. OK, they're looking for the grey vote with the increase in Winter Fuel Allowance; could be enough to finish a Not For Profit community organisation, and in the South at least, Community interaction is sketchy at best. Of course, as the profits generated are used to fund the Community Centre that we are the registered trading arm of by way of rent revenue, this has knock on effects for the whole place.. pre-school, playgroups, Guides, Brownies, and a hall for private functions such as weddings etc... you get the idea.. the hub of a community of 5,000 odd people could well become but a note in the annals of the Local Historical Society.

Well thanks Darling.. and organ grinder Brown.. nearly 2 decades of hard work by myself and three or four other hard working volunteers could go down the pan, just because you couldn't.. to coin a phrase, run a piss up in a brewery.

I may well post later.. I'll be spending much of this evening discussing the potential fallout with the treasurer and secretary (Mrs Liam). You'd probably do well to have your metaphorical earplugs at the ready.. I may use a rude word or two.. which will get edited by breakfast, as my Mum sometimes reads this. :)

Cheers

Liam

testing

2008-01-06T14:08:00.001Z

just testing something

Hey everybody, it's snowing.

2007-02-11T09:15:00.000Z

Here's a couple of pictures from Thursday's snowfall..

Click them for the bigger versions of course.

Cheers

Liam

2007-01-24T18:22:00.000Z

Hi all,

here's another sunset piccy.. this time at Bosham in West Sussex. Hope you like.

As usual, click to enlarge.

Cheers

Liam

Sunset at Southsea..

2006-12-18T06:34:00.000Z

Hi all,

on a visit to Southsea yesterday evening, I took these..

(as usual, click on them to get a bigger version)

Lamp Light

Lighting Up

More "arty" than my usual pictures, but I like them.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Old England in the fall

2006-11-14T19:13:00.000Z

Hi readers, :)

well Autumn seems to be upon us now, so I thought I'd better post up my latest couple of photos. These were taken at the weekend, at Winkworth Arboretum near Guildford in Surrey. I hope you like them.

Click for the large photos as always.

Cheers

Liam

2006-11-05T18:43:00.000Z

Hi all.. (optimism eh?)

I haven't blogged for a while, and you obviously don't feel the need to comment on Jimmy Hendrix, so how about a few more pictures..

These have all been taken over the weekend, at a local nature park.

The swan is a pretty simple composition but I think it works quite well.

Old England in the fall..

A kingfisher..

This is the best I've got so far of the kingfishers there. Taken with a 300mm lens on a 2x converter.. on a DSLR that's a focal length of 900mm.. handheld. So it's not that bad an attempt really. They're so fast when they fly, as this one shows..

that if they land you just have to snap away and hope that you got it. Still, that'll be my challenge over the next week or two.

I've got plenty more to show, so this will probably be a photo blog for a little while.

Cheers

Liam

Hendrix

2006-08-12T21:35:00.000+01:00

Hi,

just a quickie..

Not to everyone's taste, but if you like guitars this is a classic.

Click here to comment!

Cheers

Liam

Photos from The Lake District

2006-07-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

Only a fortnight between posts.. wow. :)

We went to the lake district last week, and here are a couple of images. The first being from Tarn Hows

and the second is of a bee..

er.. 'cos I like it. :)

Click them for bigger images, as usual.

I took in excess of 1100 photos up there, so I'll no doubt get around to putting up a few more eventually. If I get my coding head on at some point, I'll set up a couple of galleries on my other site.. which is in dire need of some more things on it.. :(

And I think I need smilies as well. So little time etc. etc.

Cheers

Liam

2006-07-02T19:26:00.000+01:00

Hi,

just a quick one, although I will at some stage get around to posting more.. :)

We went to Ypres yesterday, with it being the 90th aniversary of the Battle of the Somme this week (last week). Needless to say, I took lots of pictures. This one is one that was OK in colour, but I think this way seems to convey the mood of the day.. I hope. It's the war memorial at Tyne Cot cemetary at Passchendaele, in Belgium.

I'll post more of these as I go through my pictures. The whole area, when you set the day out to see, hands on, a little of what the horror of war can be, is something you won't forget for a long time.

Cheers

Liam

Only three weeks.. that's more like it.

2006-04-14T17:49:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

It was my birthday last Saturday, and I always like to go and see a few animals on my birthday. This year was no different, and so we went to Marwell Zoo. Although the forecast wasn't exactly encouraging, we had sunny weather all day, if a bit on the chilly side.

I took 320 odd photos, and you can see a few of the best ones here.

And although it's still in the almost there stage, I'm working on a series of posh galleries here.. well the first of a series, anyway.

As you may have seen, ifyou've been there before, my site has changed a bit.. again it's under construction, but at last I'm doing something with the space at last.

A short one this time.. I'll write something more tomorrow.

Cheers

Liam

WiziWig

2006-03-25T20:14:00.000Z

Hi all,

just a quick one for those that do digital photography, or indeed anyone that needs accurate colour rendition from your monitor, printer etc.

http://www.praxisoft.com/pages/support.downloads.html#wizi

Just pick the one you want and download/unzip and install. It takes a couple of minutes is free, and makes a hell of a difference to viewing your photos for instance. You know when you look at them and they just don't seem to have the same colours that you remember seeing, and being the reason you took the piccy in the first place for. I've reinvigorated my old 17" CRT. I've had it since my first ever W95 machine, and it now for the first time, does what it should.

This is the one recommended by the professional photographers that I chat to on the pentax user's forum.

Let me know if it makes a difference.

Cheers

Liam

The winner...

2006-02-19T13:13:00.000Z

Congratulations on winning SEF. I had a feeling it would be either you or Ciber that got it. :)

Here's the full piccy..

and at normal size..

I was trying out some very close-up macro photography. This is the full frame image with no cropping. The lens was pressed up against the monitor.. and I still had some range left in the macro setting, I just couldn't egt anything inside the front element. :( I've put together a little gallery of images here. They're all uncropped. I think that's as close as I'm going to get with the equipment I have at the moment.

Anyway, that's it. Well done again SEF.

Cheers

Liam

2006-02-17T19:17:00.000Z

Hi,

long time no see. Just a quick one really. A little game for you, with the winner getting nothing except the admiration of their fellow bloggers.

Identify the subject(s) of the following piccy, taken by myself. As many guesses as you want.

Cheers

Liam

I've no excuse now.

2006-01-14T18:17:00.000Z

Hi,

after following Ciber's advice, I now have an rss agregator. I haven't got everyone's blogs on there yet, but will have in the next hour or so.. if they are suported of course. Min-Data, Blogger etc. are fine, as is blogware.. but for some reason blog-city is a few months behind??

I've also put my Haloscan comments feed on there as well, so I won't miss a reply there now. I'll have to read up on how to implement it for my sites. I have a feeling that I may have to rewrite Liamsworld for that. That's okay though; I've had the domain for about 3-4 months now and really need to develop it soon. Unlike other sites that I've built, that have a fair bit of thought into the design, but little content, my own site suffers from the reverse.

It's not exactly packed with galleries yet, but there are some in there, plus the makings of an educational game. I'm sort of getting there.. just need a full day to really get stuck in to it. I haven't put much in the way of explanation into it yet, but it's basically drag and drop spelling for kiddies.. or anyone in the second year of their 3* McDonalds degree in food preparation. It needs some new tiles knocking up (they're all my own work) for blends as well. A friend at the club is a teacher's assistant at the local primary school and has said that when finished (or a close approximation) that she'd test it out on her charges. I'd also like it to read out the letters eventually, as they're dragged. That's going to get complicated though.. we'll see.

At some point it will also include some sort of basic numeric games.. counting apples and stuff, adding the contents of one pile of stuff to another pile of stuff; that sort of thing.

I'll be doing something with the gallery presentation as well. I haven't taken enough good quality pictures yet, but when I do, I'll have to sort them into categories etc.

Right.. I'd better finish loading up the rss feeds.. I just noticed that on my browser (Avant) that there is a drop down for feeds. So I had an agregator all along so it seems. Still, I like the one I downloaded, so I'll stick with that for now. To Ciber, SEF or whoever.. what's the feed url for the comments on Min-Data? I get a flag that a comment has been added, by the post going bold, and a count being added, but I have to go back to the site to read it. If this bit of the post dissapears soon, it's because I've found it. :D

Cheers

Liam

Edit: I've added NatSci to it, so I can keep up with that now SEF. And unlike the site, I get the pictures via rss, so have now seen them. :)

A little photography

2006-01-12T06:51:00.000Z

Hi all,

I've been trying my hand at macro photography for the last day, the results of which can be found here. The flowers are Mahonia japonica, and to give a rough idea of size of these images, the frame itself covers around 15mm x 9.5mm. The little flower buds are a little less than 4mm in height, and the flowers themselves are about 8mm across. That's fairly close up.. but I'm sure I can get closer. The depth of field (the bit that stays in focus) is down around the 0.25mm to 0.5mm area, which makes for an interesting challenge with manual focus. Especially when you're as blind as a bat like me.

I needed a flat surface to put the objects on, and just grabbed a CD. Then I saw the effects, which I thought helped in some (and didn't in others). It's a handy thing to use as you can move it slightly and get different colours for your background. All those oranges, greens and blues are the result.

Anyway, off to work now.

Cheers

Liam

Happy New Year

2006-01-03T06:44:00.000Z

Hi all,

Well, that's that out of the way for another year. Back to normality.

It's been 2 months since I've blogged. That's laziness, nothing else. It's not like I don't come here often either. I visit all the blogs I link to several times a week via this one, so there really is no excuse.

I'm not going to recount in detail the last two months, as to be honest there isn't much that springs to mind worthy of a tome of this quality.

Well, I got a new camera last Friday. A Pentax Digital SLR. You can see a small gallery of photos of the Hanworth Social Club's New Year bash by clicking here. I've also put a version here with smaller main images for those of you using a lower resolution display on your monitor. They've been reduced in quality as some of the original images are over 2.5Mb in size.

Not bad for a first attempt though, and now I've worked out which setting I needed to change in order to use my collection of manual Pentax lenses, I'm set to go. Due to the relative size of the CCD compared to the size of 35mm film in the camera, the optical length of my lenses is bumped up by 1.5x. This means that my 300mm and a 2x converter gives me an effective 900mm lens. That should make wildlife photography a breeze. I'll be trying that out over the weekend, so look back then.

I may even get around to doing something with my site soon as well. And I really need to do something to the HSC site to make it more modern.

Anyway, that'll have to do, as I have to go to work now. It's nice to be back.

Cheers

Liam

Playing silly buggers....

2005-11-05T14:21:00.000Z

Hi all,

(this is presumptuous of course, presupposing that there may be a plural figure of readers, but I live in hope)

I've been having a little play with my Gimp arty program thing. The result..

Now you may be wondering what on earth that is. I shall tell you. My van at work has no rear wiper. This means that the rear screen has to be cleaned manually on a fairly regular basis, and as it is a relatively large area..

(My van is white (of course)!! The above is for illustration only)

..I save time by removing one of the front wiper blades and squeegying the rear. A couple of quick wipes and it's done. I accidentally squeegied the window the other day in a fashion not unlike a real wiper, and it left a nice arc of clean shiny glass surrounded by lots of soggy dirt. Not having a wiper attached to the van made it look a bit.. err.. odd. So, the reason that the above arty piccy thing exists is so I can print it onto a white sticky label, and then adhere it to the van in a position such that with arc shaped dirt, and a bit of smudging here and there, it will look as though someone has the nicked the wiper motor, arm and blade..

.. sort of like that, only I rushed that and it's obvious that I need to work on my selection skills.. :)

When not driving around the Borough in an exemplary manner, we do other stuff around the various town buildings. My van is therefore parked up at the office with the rear facing the most popular of outdoor smoking haunts our building has to offer. My boss also enjoys a few minutes there having a ciggy. Hopefully it's convincing enough from anywhere further than say 5 feet, that I may have to be invited to said boss's office and asked the reason for my van's wipery incompleteness. I can then act dumb and see how long I can keep a straight face as various discussions on my future are enacted. (I won't point out unless necessary the fact that it is impossible to remove the complete unit without access to the inside of the van)

Yes, it's silly and childish and moronic even, and I've spent a couple of hours of my Saturday doing this, but I'm like that.

Cheers

Liam

Liam needs...

2005-10-20T19:08:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I've just been over to Alan's blog, and he's taken an idea from another blog and... well anyway.. the idea is to put your name into Google, followed by the word needs, and see what you come up with.. here's a few from my search..

Liam Needs Maps

With my job, they could be useful.

Liam needs our votes

Yes I do, but for what, I'm not sure.

Liam needs our prayers

Ah, how nice.

Liam needs constant attention

You know it.

Liam needs to learn not to rise to the bait

Well if it was good enough for Alan, it's good enough for me!

Liam needs to step-up and fulfill the potential he showed at the beginning of
last season

Ironic really, as the first match of the new pool season starts in a little over an hour, and you all know how much potential we have.. zero, zip, nada.

Liam needs all the positive wardrobe reinforcement he can get

Well excuse me. Cashmere will never go out of fashion.. I love that hat.

Liam needs a chance to rectify his one error

I don't remember making one, but as apparently not many of us is perfect, I'll let that go for now.

Liam needs to express his emotions and feelings

My therapissed told me to do it slowly, one at a time.

Liam needs detailing tweaks

A bit of Botox maybe, but that's all.

Liam needs to be burped

Goo-goo Ga-ga Buuurrrppp.. Ahh that's better.

Liam needs to go on a diet

Cheeky bugger that google!!! I maintain a sylph-like 200lb figure

Liam Needs Throwing In The Thames And Drowning

Well really! There's no need for that now, and anyway if the above is to be believed, I'd float all the way to Canvey Island being charted constantly by Greenpeace.

Liam needs his dragon familiar’s help to track down a stolen magical jewel

Yes I do. I lost the trail when that unicorn familiar of mine fell asleep on the job, bloody typical. You just can't get a decent mythical creature for love nor money.

Liam needs psychological evaluation

Wibble

Liam needs Noel

But I hate Christmas!!

Liam needs to have a social life outside his PC

Amen to that Brother

Liam needs both hands

I assume that that's some reference to poker!!?? :)

Well that's an easy way to fill up a few lines. It makes a change from stuff about computers anyway.

Cheers

Liam

Hello, long time no type..

2005-10-11T06:56:00.000+01:00

Good morning,

doesn't time fly when you're having fun. I know I'm not the most prolific of bloggers, but 6 weeks between posts is a bit lazy to say the least. I've spent the last couple of days trying to learn how to use GIMP, an open source image app similar to Photoshop.

I've never used PS either, having managed just fine with doing 'graphics' in MSWord..!!! It's quite a challenge for me as I don't consider myself to very creative, prefering a more technical approach to design. I am however slowly getting the hang of it, and it is a pretty powerful tool.

The main reason for this is that I decided after building the HCA website, and helping other people with theirs, I'd really like to spend a little time on one of my own.. I'm not going to link to it yet as there's pretty much nothing to see. I need some lovely graphics to make it pretty.. hence the above.. you get the idea.

Anyway, I'd best get my tea down my neck and tootle off to work soon.

Cheers

Liam

At flippin' last..

2005-08-20T11:13:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I finally got the classified ads to size properly, in a flash of (for me anyway) inspiration. I just nested the iframe inside another div, set to 100%.

Bloody marvelous.

This is probably my shortest ever blog.. :)

Cheers

Liam

IE, the buggy bugger.. again.

2005-08-16T18:33:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I've finally got the classified ads to work.. I have however found a strange quirk in IE (and Avant, basically a better version of IE). Have a look here.. it only does this in IE (or browsers based on the IE engine).

The link to the classified ads page.

When you first load the page in IE, the iframe that calls the script is about 1000 pixels long and runs out to the right of the content div. If you run the mouse over a link placed directly below the iframe it corrects the sizing. You will see that I've conveniently placed a link just for that job :).. any link does it, as long as it is straight after the iframe is closed. I found this out by accident. Minimizing then maximizing the page does the same thing.

It works fine in FF and Opera, so there is something wrong with IE's parsing somewhere.. no surprise there, but as many people who will be using this page only use IE, it needs sorting out somehow. I've spent several hours over the last couple of days poring over the ent to find a solution, and at some point have probably tried every css variable (local to the iframe) that I can find.

I thought I'd maybe missed a / or > somewhere, but it all validates via w3c, including the css. (Well I did have a couple of bits to tidy up, but doing everything long hand, that's to be expected, and I'm hardly an expert at this now am I) :)

But I can't see what else could cause this.. any ideas?? I did think just to bung the iframe inside a table sized correctly, but the iframe just wanders off to the top left of the page, leaving a blank rectangle where the frame should be??!!

Cheers

Liam

ps. I did start to write my "getting back off hols" post, but fell asleep.. for that you will have to now wait until the weekend, methinks. I've even got a few photos for you, can you believe!!!!

Err.. more ramblings really..??!!

2005-07-30T20:06:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I've been busy recently, but after spending the last hour or so catching up with my favourite bloggers (whose writings can all be found in the various links to the left.. have a read, they wouldn't be there if they were rubbish.. ):) I thought I'd better write something myself.

I now do gardening (you can see the progress so far, above), communing with nature an' all that. This isn't exactly a huge plot admittedly, but as I haven't touched a gardening implement in a couple of decades or so, it is a refreshing challenge.

It is the front garden of my grandmother's abode. Until last weekend it was home to 37 previously undiscovered flora, 3 new species of animal, including a proto-marsupial resembling a small hippo (now officially named the liamopottamus largekebabuswithsaladus, which I'm really rather chuffed about) and a quite ancient looking Japanese chappy who, despite my limited knowledge of said language, seemed to be satisfied with my explanation regarding VJ day.

It started really as a request for something to be done about the small green plastic covered wire fence thing, which was covered in about 5 ton of rosemary bushes. After comparing notes with Mrs. Liam, it was decided that I would play the parts of Tommy and Alan, and she would be Charlie.. (don't go there..) :)

With bow saw and other plant destruction paraphernalia in hand we systematically cleared the plot, and today we have been preparing the soil for planting. Adding 100 litres of farmyard manure to it will do this apparently. As an aside, being brought up in the country side, I was a bit dissappointed that it didn't smell of anything as, wierd though it may sound, there is something about the smell of horse manure that does a nostalgia thing for me. I'm sure that if I tried hard, I could find several sites that catered for me, and my fellow manurists, but that's probably for another day. ??!! :)

We even bought some plants whilst at the garden centre, and these will be inserted tomorrow, weather permitting. Last weekend I put up a baby fence, that if you look really closely at the first piccy, you can just make out on the left. It was tipping down with rain, so I didn't bother with an album full of views.

Well that's the gardening bit. I've also (as mentioned in a previous post) been having a few more meetings to sort out the licence for the club. Fingers crossed, that that is sorted now. It's been submitted to all the various agencies concerned, eight in total, and we just have to wait now.

In other news; We're off on holiday next weekend, to the Lake District. That will almost certainly mean people using up there monthly bandwidth limitations on having this page load, although I am getting a bit better at remembering this now, with both of the above piccys being only(!) 320 odd kb each, rather than the 2mb or so that I usually post up. A nice drive on Saturday should see us arrive around seven hours after leaving these sunny climes, obligatory stops for cheese jack-spuds not withstanding.

Oh, I almost forgot.. last Saturday was the night of the stars at the club.. well Karaoke anyways.

The above is a stunning action shot (being in the picture obviously removes me from any shame in taking this surreal shot) of; Mrs. Liam, myself, and Angie doing a triet (a made up word, in English anyway, but what else can you call a duet plus one), I'm not sure of which particular singer's career we ended with this performance, but they weren't alone that night. If you see a previously well known artiste selling the Big Issue, tell them we didn't mean it.

The fun track that we did, amongst others was "[The first time] Ever I saw your face" by Roberta Flack. I picked it, because I knew how the first line went, and I knew so much more than the others, We stood there basically making up what little we could as we went along, but mostly just mouthing a tuneless sylable every line or two.. I thought it was funny anyway. A week on and the pain is a little bit more bearable, although the bruising is surprisingly black still.

That'll do for now. As a person in his late 30's I really should go and do the honourable thing for a Saturday night, and go have a drink.. so I will; now; just as soon as I've clicked the publish button.

Ready steady.. g...................

(Oops, nearly forgot)

Cheers

Liam

ICE

2005-07-23T10:04:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

just a quick one today. I was reading this and thought I'd pass it on. For those that don't read the [many] links that are put in blogs, and I don't often to be honest, it goes like this. If by some chance you happened to collapse, get run over etc., and the paramedics turned up, what would be the quickest way that they, or the staff at the hospital be able to identify you and notify your next of kin? This scheme is recommended by Tom Reynolds who I'm sure you are aware is probably the most famous paramedic in the blogosphere. Get your mobile phone out, enter the name ICE, (In Case of Emergency) and the phone number of who you would want contacted. It seems that it would be looked for as a matter of routine.

I've done it, and as most people carry a mobile most of the time, it seems an eminently (I know SEF likes that word:)) sensible thing to do.

Cheers

Liam

More Darts

2005-07-17T18:44:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

long suffering readers of this blog may remember my darts competition back in February, where I became the club's mens singles champ.. and very chuffed about it I was as well. :)

Last night was the mixed pairs darts competition, and Mrs Liam and I managed to win it. So I'm the concurrent holder of two darts titles now. If we can get a men's pairs competition arranged before the next biannual comp, then there's a possibility of holding the full set at the same time.. the Hanworth Club's version of a grand slam. Mind you, there is such depth of quality in the men's darts at the club, that it would be a very tall order indeed.

I'm also going to congratulate the two ladies, Kath and Di, who organised it. They're new to the committee and this was their first go at staging an event, and they did a stirling job of it.. well done both. The only criticism I have is that with myself being a long serving member of the committee, they didn't fiddle the raffle in my favour. I will have to discuss their future standing in this regard.. :)

So, with bingo in a little while, I must just tell you about my golf day, as mentioned below. As you know, I'm an enthusiastic golfer, but all that enthusiasm doesn't make the ball go any further; I was quite surprised therefore to par the first hole.. a 517 yard par 5. I then parred the third, 192 yards with a lake from tee to green. A nice little 5 iron put me pin high about 25 ft to the right..

I then played what can only be described as complete and utter rubbish for most of the rest of the game. I did salvage something (pride mainly) from the last hole though, breaking my own record for a 4 iron.. 295 yards.. a 7 seven iron from there left me with a 20 yard chip and run to the green. The hole is 511 yards, so according to the yardage chart for the hole, I hit the 7 iron 186 yards'ish. Although I don't keep a record for every shot, 'cos that would be sad, that is probably the furthest I've hit a 7 iron as well.

I still managed to muck it up though and score a seven, but my iron shots are getting longer and longer.

I came last in the end, and was awarded the society's wooden spoon. It involved the wearing of a golf jumper both for the remainder of the evening, until leaving the club house, and also for the first hole of the following event. Imagine for a minute if you will, that your great aunt Ethel has found out that you play golf, and she's got a few balls of different coloured wool lying around. Being a bit artistic she knits a picture of someone playing golf, on both the front and back of said garment in colours that would put Cecile B Demile to shame in the technicolour stakes. The only real advantage of me in particular having to wear this superb sweater is that it is meant to look big and baggy on the awardee, to add to the foolishness of it all. I'm lucky, in that you'd need one hell of a lot more wool to make anything look baggy on me. In fact it does fit rather nicely, and I'm looking forward to getting out there next time to show it off. I just hope it isn't going to be as hot as it was last Monday. It could be a bit uncomfortable.

I will add a picture to this later to show you the jumper, but as I mentioned, I have bingo to attend to now, so you'll just have to sit there in anticipation for a little longer.. oh, and as far as I know, there were no cameras present last night, so you miss out on that one.

Still, never mind, eh!!

Cheers

Liam

A restful day at last..

2005-07-11T08:58:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

well, that was a busy weekend. Apart from the website, yesterday I had to read through reams of legalese ready for a meeting to sort out the new licence for the club. The local authority takes over the licencing of premises in which the sale of alchohol and/or public entertainment takes place in August. I can see the point in making sure that the premises are safe and that drug abuse and underage drinking etc. are controlled, but it took me three hours to read through, understand and make notes in preparation. I'm sure that my colleagues also have used up half of their free time to do the same this weekend. Every pub, theatre, cinema, sports venue, community centre and club in at least the Borough, and probably wider afield will have to do this as well. We're lucky in that our committee comprises several professional people who do this sort of thing for a living, but I dread to think how some places will fathom this stuff out, particularly community centres where the staff are in many cases not perhaps as experienced in such things.

Still, all good fun.

Anyway, today.. apart from this and a few other bits.. :) I'm not going near a computer. No, I'm playing golf at a rather select private course. The golf, albeit a strange course to me will be a case of hitting a ball, and then hitting it again, if I can find it. This evening though, it being a society do at said private club; I will have to don a jacket and tie. I wear a tie for weddings, funerals and New Years Eve, where I pretend to be in charge of the door, and like to look the part. That's around two or three times a year.. I will be weraing a blazer (for only about the first two minutes I hope), and to be frank, I just don't cut it as well dressed man about town. Those that have met me will verify this.

Still, with a lift there and back, I can enjoy a couple of beers afterwards.. (at £3 plus a pint) so that should take the edge off of having to dress like a badly put together shop dummy in Bentalls. Right, off to get supplies for the day. If you want to buy shares in Fanta, you have about ten minutes before the price rockets.

If you're really good, I may even go through each shot individually later.. on recent record, and given the difficulty of the course, that should be around 120 paragraphs.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Site check

2005-07-09T13:59:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

If anyone has a minute, would they mind just clicking the button provided and test driving the site, to make sure there are no glaring technical errors that I've missed.

There's still more content to put in there, but my poor little finger tips are numb from typing today.. so I'm going to have a bite to eat and a cuppa now, and then get back to it.

Cheers

Liam

Flippin' bloomin' fudgin' sugar..

2005-07-06T19:45:00.000+01:00

Am I the only flippin' person on this bloomin' planet that can't get a fudgin' script to work on a err.. sugary err.. website??

http://www.hanworthclub.co.uk/cgi-bin/atl.cgi

(Script supplied free by AtlantPro.)

I've followed all the instructions to the letter, and I just can't get it to work. You'll notice that it's a different script to the one mentioned in the previous posting. I gave up on the previous one, due to not being able to set it up. I thought I'd try my luck with a different script, just on the (very vague) offchance that it wasn't me, but a problem with the script.

I know that the parts of the server/site concerned with such matters are working, as I have set up a database in the cgi-bin for handling answers to the caption competition, and that works just fine and dandy. The path to the server (an uncommon path to me until recently) is definitely good as the above works. The script writes to the db and everything.

I've checked and rechecked the file and directory permissions on this latest script until I'm blue in the face. It all checks out, but the ads don't write to the database, meaning that you don't get to see them. The script itself shows no error messages, and seems to think that the ad is a done deal.. I've run out of ideas, and am starting to get a bit miffed.. :{

I haven't got a clue what to do next in the way of checking this. It's not like I don't at least have a passing aquaintance with the vaguaries of a computer is it?

I'm on my knees to you all.. begging.. no BEGGING...

Please.. pretty please..

Oh well, you get the idea,

Cheers

Liam

Perl/PHP/cgi/MySQL help... don't want much, do I?? :)

2005-07-04T20:15:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Anyone got a few minutes to have a quick look at this and let me know what I've got wrong??

http://www.hanworthclub.co.uk/cgi-bin/classifieds/classifieds.cgi

The page loads from the cgi-bin, and the graphics load from their own seperate directory, so I know that at least the paths are set in the script correctly (or to be more honest, 'seem' to be). One obvious [more than a little trifling] fault though is that I can't post ads. After filling in a test add (just rubbish in all the required fields) a click of the submit button gives me a blank browser screen and no mail notification is forwarded to me as either admin or seller. From what I've seen elsewhere, the titles of each category should be live links so a potential customer can look in each category seperately. They're not live??? It could be that until an ad is actually placed in the particular category, it isn't a live link.. the html of the page doesn't show any href's for them.. but until I can get an ad in there to have a look I don't know. I've set the permissions as per the instructions for each file needed, and also for the folders that contain them, and checked them several times, both via the ftp program (WS_FTP) and also via the site's own control panel (Plesk), and they are correct.. but alas, no joy as yet.

If anyone knows what the fault could be, I'll happily send them the content of the cgi script, but I have to limit that offer to those that I know here for obvious reasons.. in that it contains background details of the site that I'd rather not be made public, and by ****ing them out, it probably defeats the issue.

On a similar note.. well it's concerning the same site anyway.. I want to build a database for competition results to be posted to. I have about one hour's tinkering knowledge of MySQL, so if, to save me spending a day or three googling for the info someone has a good tutorial site (or even one that has some ready made scripts for download) in mind that they could supply the link to, I'd be most grateful.

Cheers in advance,

Liam

HSC Website

2005-06-26T19:51:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Long time no speaky. I've been a bit busy building the newest version of the Hanworth Club's new site. The background work is almost done. Here's the link..

The link

And to show you the difference, here's the old site..

The old site

You'll notice that the content is still lacking, but I'll have a fair bit of time this week to change that. As I new that I was eventually having a brand new name for it, and I'd have to do a fair bit of developing to get it running with SSI, I just sort of left it pretty much the same for the last couple of months. But, as you'll see if you have a look, there'll be competitions and everything.. sadly these can only be won.. a free pint, if they're lucky, by members of the club. Don't worry about that though, if any of you want to enter then do so.. you just don't get the beer.. or the recognition, although I don't see a problem with having a "Best Outsiders Contribution" sort of thing.

The other thing you may notice is the navigation buttons on the left. I was mucking about with those for quite a while, trying to get them looking as though you're actually pushing a button in. I'm quite chuffed with them.

If Ciber or Renegade happen to read this, they have a different effect depending on the browser. In MSIE or Avant (uses the IE engine) the 'depressed' button incorporates the entire length [of the button]. In Opera and Firefox (yes, I really did test more than one browser) the 'depressed' part of the button only encompasses the length of the lettering.

I'm also having a few problems with image placement across browsers, no browser shows all the images I have inserted. ???????

I've also checked it with the w3c validation thingy for both the HTML and the CSS and, with the exception of the two summer league pool pages, which are hastily thrown together tables, and will be meaningless in about a month, I'll probably just wait till then and delete them, cos going through the list of problems on them looks too time consuming.

Apart from the pool, can now proudly display both of the following on the site...

I don't know if I will or not, but they look pretty. Oh well, I've got Bingo now, so I'd better go and do that.

**[Edit, the logos don't display here.. ????????? Anyone see the irony}**

Another edit. They work now. Isn't that daft. I've just spent 10 minutes getting code from a validation site to work. Should I trust anything they say?? Probably yes.. :) It doesn't though, to be honest, inspire me with a full bucket-load of confidence.

Cheers

Liam

Shootin' frogs in a barrel...

2005-06-12T19:15:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I was going to put a techy blog about all the fun I'm having creating css buttons for a (yet another) version of the HSC website, but I couldn't get them to demonstrate here.. so??

I've now found something else to amuse me.

Shooting that darn frog

Have you ever wanted a chance to shoot that crazy frog.. No! Not Jaques Chirac, the other one. Well here's your chance. Click the link and have a play. You have to see how far you can shoot him. I've had a 91.5 so far. I warn you though, it gets addictive.. well I thought so anyway. Leave a comment with your highest score. If nothing else it shows you still love me.. sniffle.. :D

Cheers

Liam

I've been away again...

2005-06-09T12:51:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

As the title suggests er.. I've been on holiday again. Below are a small selection of the photos I took in North Cornwall. The complete set comprises 416 pictures or so. I got a bit trigger happy with the camera.. one of the benefits of digital. It would have cost something in the region of £80-£100 to do the same in wet film, and still only end up with a couple of dozen good pictures.

So, as I'm on my dinner break at the moment and about to go back to work that will have to do for now. I'll add a little bit of text to each photo later on in explanation. For those of you on dial up, they may have even downloaded by then. Sorry. I keep meaning to adjust the size of these before I upload them to the blog, but only remember afterwards.

Cheers

Liam

2005-06-09T12:38:00.000+01:00

2005-06-09T12:35:00.000+01:00

2005-06-09T12:34:00.000+01:00

2005-06-09T12:31:00.000+01:00

2005-06-09T12:29:00.000+01:00

2005-06-09T12:28:00.000+01:00

No pain, no gain....

2005-05-23T19:11:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I had an idea.. one which will probably illicit much complaint from the liberal elite. Which in itself is a good thing.

Through the history of evolution (YECs may as well bugger off now) nature has given us, and most animals, an extremely effective sensory capability for those times when we do something that is possibly dangerous, or irritating. Pain. How many people would willingly put a wasp in their mouth? Just the thought of the pain, even if you've never before been stung, is enough to stop all but the seriously certifiable from attempting such a proposition. People will generally not put their fingers near the fast moving parts of your own choice of power tool for the same reason.

Which brings me back to the original point that I haven't in actual fact made yet. We have all these namby pamby outreach muppets attempting to use various modern versions of the old "boys will be boys" adage to explain why thugs are running rampant on the streets of this country intimidating little old ladies, mugging people etc. and all because they know that if they did get caught, some do-gooder would always be there to stand up for the poor little mis-understood soul.

"He was dropped on his head as a baby", (not bloody hard enough, in my opinion) or that there is "..nothing for these lovely children to do in their spare time." That one cracks me up, and I'm sure those of a similar generation as me would smile also. I was brought up in the '70s and early '80s in a small town in the midlands. Money was something that we'd heard of, but didn't see in huge amounts. If we wanted some, we'd go and wash the neighbour's car, or go spudding/ fruit picking (dependant on season of course) and then we could buy a pint of maggots between us and go fishing.

(Warning, I'm about to sound positively geriatric)

We didn't have the things that modern kids take for granted today.. computers, Playstations, DVD players, top of the range mountain bikes etc.etc. We had to make our own amusement. Tennis, where the court was marked out on the ground with chalk.. the prior existence of Lake Mercia saw that we always had an ample supply. A football and an empty car park could amuse us for the entire summer. We had push-bikes, and anyone over the age of 6 could fix a puncture. We'd all arrange day trips, cycling up to Avon Dasset hills for the day.. the oldest of the group promising (and always being true to their word) that the younger members of the group would be looked after.

We didn't have time to get bored, we were always doing something. And now we have a generation of kids that seem to take the insult of being called a chav as some kind of term of endearment.. it's not, you brain dead twat.

Back to the pain thing. If these hoodlums were threatened with punishment by pain, administered harmlessly, say by clinical stimulation of pain receptors (or baseball bat, I'm easy on that score), until such time as they decided that it probably wasn't such a good idea to cause havoc and mayhem where-ever they go, then they may start to channel their energies into something more productive.

Certainly there would be some cause for concern amongst those of a more sensitive disposition.. mainly those who are in charge of our legal system; but if the threat of punishment actually made people cringe in terror then it can only be a good thing.

I remember the days when just the sight of a policeman would make me tremble with fear, and without having done anything wrong. Now they're more likely to be spat at, and chased out of town, leaving a police no-go area for them to thrive in.

I think it has always been understandable that a little old lady may not want to venture out after dark, more from the perception of fear than the tangible threat of it, but even I have found myself checking out the shadows more carefully than is to be reasonably expected. To put that into perspective, for those that may have some false preconceptions about my appearance, I'm a 5'10" and 200lb+ ex-bodybuilder, not exactly what one would consider potential victim material.

So, a short sharp shock (taser stylee) or more "soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime". What say you?

If this isn't controversial enough, I'm sure I can come up with better.

Cheers

Liam

The Election is over....

2005-05-06T14:56:00.000+01:00

Newsflash Michael Howard has stated his intention to stand down from the leadership of the Conservative party, once the system of renewing that position is put in place. Now would be a good time, in my opinion to bring back William Hague, the best leader of the party in many years.

There was an election yesterday.. as you may know of course. That Tony Blair was returned to power for a record third time earlier this morning was only really a matter of time once the campaigning had all but finished.

I, like many other people interested in politics, stayed up and watched it on TV.. until around 6:10 this morning. A quick check on the net for a few specifics and asleep by just after 6:30. I do this every general election, and so am now sitting in front of the screen having a well earned day off, having been up now for the better part of an hour.

Well, so Tony Blair has a vastly reduced majority. That can only be a good thing for this country. He won't have the ability, as he has in the past, of riding roughshod over parliament whenever the hell he wants. His majority is down from 167 seats to just 66, going by the latest BBC forecast. There are still some results yet to come in. The Tory's share of the vote has changed very little in real terms, yet they have secured gains of 35 seats as we speak, and with maybe a couple more to come.

The Lib Dems have had a fair turnout to be honest gaining another 11 seats so far. I did smile at Mr Kennedy's comments made in the early hours that "The era of three-party politics right across the UK is now with us". I'm sorry Charles.. what was that again?

Labour	353
Conservative	196
Lib Dem	61
Others	12

Even with gains of 20% on their 2001 results, His total representation in government is just 11% of the total number of seats, leaving 88% (12 "others" excluded) of parliamentary seats held between the two major parties. Okay, my maths is a bit rough having only had a few hours sleep, but it doesn't look like a convincing three way battle to me.

It seems that there were only two main areas of Lib Dem policy that have managed to gain them the extra support in the first place, these being that they were the only party to oppose unreservedly the war in Iraq, a key factor in this election, and that of a massive student vote in favour of the abolition of impending tuition fees. Tuition fees, if introduced will still be a major factor in those constituencies that have a large student population next time around, but with a few more vocal exceptions the war in Iraq, given that slowly the country is working towards a full democratic government, will be all but ancient history.

Well, let's have a look at how the spread of seats would look if we had proportional representation, which I'm sure will be mentioned in the coming days. This is of course an ideal that all but the winning party under current electoral policy will always agree with. So, how would the new parliament shape up if they truly represented the will of the people..

Labour	234	(353)
Conservative	214	(196)
Lib Dem	146	(61)
Others	51	(12)

(The results are changing as more results come in, but I'ts close enough for the purpose of illustration)

That looks a bit more representative of the real choice that people have made. Labour are holding on to their still very large majority of seats with a very narrow practical margin of popularity. If we ever did get proportional representation introduced in this country, I don't even think that they would be the leading party today. It's of course difficult to judge with so much tactical voting going on across the country, but I wouldn't be surprised if people voted for their party with no tactics involved then Conservative and Labour would be now in coalition with Lib Dems bringing up a rather poor third place.

You all know my political leanings by now.. for those new to this blog, that's conservative.. but I do have to mention one Labour candidate that I felt sorry for, on losing their seat this morning. Oona King, a very able MP for Bethnal Green & Bow for the last eight years, lost out to George Galloway. He's obviously become well known for his alledged ties with Saddam Hussein over the last few years. I can't comment on that, as I don't know the full story, but I saw his declaration this morning, and thought.. "Oh well, another Labour kicking.. whatever!".

Then he opened his mouth. I will be looking forward to PMQs with relish now. I dare say that I will disagree with much of what he says, but along with the likes of Tony Banks, Ken Livingstone and in previous times Tony Benn, I like any politition that says what they mean regardless of what others may think. He first praised the work that she had done over the last eight years and was as gracious in his personal victory against Ms King, as she was in defeat. I genuinely felt sorry for her. She has been doing some sterling work by all accounts, in one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in the country, and will no doubt be back before too long.

I have to say though, that how ever vociferous a candidate has been regarding other polititions, and they all play the game to some extent, it's a first to decry the presiding officer and call for their resignation within minutes of winning a seat. Yes, I'll be looking forward to his speeches in the months to come.

On a more local note, Andrew MacKay has made further increases on his previous results now enjoying the support of just about 50% of the area's electorate. Labour have managed to lose yet another seven percentage points, in their quest for total anihilation here. Congratulations to a job well done, and may you have further successes such as this in the future.

Admittedly, Labour are never going to be a big player in a constituency that is in almost full employment, and has no recent manufacturing history, or a high student population.

If I extrapolated this to say that Labour/Liberal seats tend towards those areas that have higher unemployment, strong histories of manual labour.. be that mining, farming or heavy industry.. or lots of young idealists, then that probably fits in with the general trends toward party loyalties across the country.

I've been writing for ages now (I've just looked.. this has taken the thick end of three hours. I must go and do something more practical), and I think I should stop.. so I will.. but don't worry, I've not finished my political opinionating over this election just yet.

More to follow.

Cheers

Liam

2005-04-30T20:42:00.000+01:00

Poker chums

Eastbourne in the spring time..

2005-04-23T09:40:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

I took a few photos while we were in Eastbourne last weekend, but this one came out pretty well. I was just taking a couple of close ups of the flower beds along the seafront, and due to the angle I took this one at, it shows an out of focus Eastbourne* in the background quite nicely.

A Rose by any other name.

Cheers

Liam

* Seeing Eastbourne out of focus was not a first on this weekend trip. :) Those sweet sherrys can be rather overpowering.

Sideblogging, across the universe..

2005-04-20T12:40:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Okay the title is a bit a bit dodgy (from "Startrecking", by The Firm), but what the hey..

As you may have seen, I stuck a side blog thingy on here a few days ago. Now I'm not entirely sure to what purpose it will serve yet, but that shouldn't stop me.

I've seen more than a few comments regarding sideblogs. One that appears often is the fact that once you sign up, it states that..

Your Sideblog will be wrapped in 4 tags:

1. DIV class='sideblog' for overall styles

2. SPAN class='sideblogtitle' for post titles

3. SPAN class='sideblogdatetime' for the date/time

4. SPAN class='sideblogpost' for the post body

Create classes in your CSS and you're off and running!

.. check out the last line??? "Do what with classes in my what??" Hands up, if you got that far and decided, "well it works, and I can always add a bit of HTML to make it pretty".

Of course most people who blog through a purpose built medium such as blogspot do so because all they need is to be able to type, and can run a blog without knowing anymore than the basic layout of a keyboard, let alone how to code web pages.

Well to demonstrate the relative ease with which you can do this, I've "Created classes" in my CSS to show you how it's done. Below is the code that I've used for my own sideblog.

/* Start of Sideblog Styling
----------------------------------------------- */

.sideblog
{
background-color:#FFFFFF;
border-style: outset;
padding: 5px;
height: 320px;
overflow: auto;
margin-bottom: 20px;
}

.sideblogtitle
{
text-transform: capitalize;
font: bold;
font-size: 85%;
color: #ee0000;
}

.sideblogdatetime
{
color: #0000ee;
font-style: italic;
font-size:62%;
}

.sideblogpost
{
font-family:"times new roman";
font-size:90%;
}

/* End of Sideblog Styling
----------------------------------------------- */

To begin with, CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheet". This is basically a site wide standard that keeps all your text, layout etc. the same over the whole site. When you type your posts to your own blogs, I'm sure that you've used the HTML codes to bold your text, or to change the size of a word or two. What css does is to cut out many of these local commands by adding them to the styling of the page. Right click on your own blog, and you will find the css code between the {style type="text/css"} and {/style} tags.

As a side note, and a handy hint, when adding your own custom styling, look for the closing style tag (/style) and put your styling immediately above it. This way, you'll find it again quickly if you wish to change anything. Also, you can see that I've inserted an opening and closing note to it, so I know when I've found it. To put invisible comments in your styles, just..

*/put your text inside an asterix and a forward slash*/

.. and then close with the same.

It's a simple enough task to add the areas to be formatted, to your css and then just insert any styling that you want. The corresponding formatting has already been added to your sideblog template (where you fill in your sideblog text, title etc.) but you can't see it. Don't worry about it.. :)

The first one you add will be the ".sideblog" class. This is where you can control the overall size, shape colour etc of your sideblog area. You start by typing..

.sideblog

then you insert as few or as many styling commands as you want to. The formatting is surrounded by curly brackets {}. Inside these you can describe background color (this stays transparent if you don't mention otherwise, keeping your original background color), borders size etc. You can see that I've designated the height of the sideblog area. I've then put in an overflow command. This means that I can add lots of text, and if it becomes too large to fit in the box, it will automatically create a scroll bar. This keeps the size to what ever you want it to be, to fit with your overall design.

The next three classes are all designed to control the formatting of the text that you actually see. Although it is probably obvious, these are for the title of your post, ".sideblogtitle" The date and time ".sideblogdatetime" and the body of text that makes up your post ".sideblogpost".

You do exactly the same as above, except that this time your are defining the text colour, it's size, font and weight. There are many things you can do to text to make it stand out. At the bottom I have placed a couple of links to help you with all this, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I'm not an expert at this, but I have been at it long enough to find most of the info I need.. :)

CSS Tutorial Site. This will explain just about everything you need to know about Cascading Style Sheets. Follow the links in the left hand menu to check out all the various aspects of styling.

Colour Chart. All colours are written in hexadecimal form (although for the basic ones you can just write the color) and as you can see from my own example are always prefixed by a #.

So, what are you waiting for.. lets see those pretty sideblogs come to life. Leave a link in the comments so I can check them out. I might nick your ideas. :)

And please don't be afraid to ask for help, that way I'll get better at this by looking stuff up occasionally.

Cheers

Liam

Disclaimer. The above works, but please copy and save your template, just in case you go wrong somewhere. And don't be scared off by this comment, you can't really go wrong, it just covers my bottom from hoards of bloggers with broken sites, kicking my door down in the middle of the night..

2005-04-15T06:59:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

I've just been having a quick read through the list of blogs I link to.. yes, I do read them all, and jolly good they are as well. This is probably why I link to them.

I was over at Alan's* blog a few minutes ago, and found this.. which was found here.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Conservative

Your actual outcome:

Labour -29
	Conservative 24
Liberal Democrat -5
	UK Independence Party 29
	Green 39

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

I'm fairly sure that those of you who read here often have a good idea of my politics, so it probably isn't that surprising that the chances of me voting for Labour are in the realms of pure fantasy, but I was surprised at the Greens coming out in first place.. hmm

Back in a minute. I'm just going to have a quick look at their pledges/manifesto. If it's been published yet of course. Grab a coffee, I won't be long.

...................

OK, I'm back. The overriding question to my mind, as was stated in an earlier post, was that of the view taken of further european integration. I did literally take only a few minutes to read the Green's position on Europe, but it looks vaguely in accordance with my views. Don't quote me, it was only a few minutes after all. It's a long document to digest in one go, so I'll read more fully later.

Second on the list were UKIP. I'm not sure. I certainly don't want us to have anything to do with Europe in a political sense, but if the agreement could be taken back to basics where there is a free market economy across Europe.. yes I know it'll not happen until France float out into the Atlantic.. then it might work.

In the past I've always seen them as the ideal protest vote, but again, reffering to my previous post, this is such a critical time for Britain's place in Europe, I have to be practical. The first step is to make sure that we don't slide further into Europe. At the end of the day, it will either be a victory for Labour or Conservative. The Liberal Democrats are third in the polls, and look attractive, with everything they are promising to do for you all.. and I'm sure that has as much to do with a general dissolusionment over the two main parties. They know however, that they can promise absolutely anything they want in the sure and certain knowledge that they won't have to deliver any of it.

My third choice (according to the quizlet above) is for a conservative government, and they are, surprisingly going to be the one I vote for. If you don't want to see this country being sucked further and further into the European Superstate, then is no other option.

On a related note, I found it incredible that, according to the news the other day that there was such a large scale problem with postal voting. This particular piece involves Labour, but even though I really have no time for them, I'm sure that it was a fairly isolated case. We have in this country a version of democracy, that although not perfect has been seen by most as an honest way to decide future governments.

You won't normally be threatened by the local militia into voting for X person, with the understanding that something awful is going to happen to yourself or your family if you do otherwise. I never knew though that political parties can and do collect ballot papers and forward them to the electoral registrar. I've never applied for a postal vote, so it didn't occur to me that it would go anywhere else other than directly to a presiding officer of some description. In my case, I am lucky to know, at least to some extent, every Councillor in Bracknell, and I would be happy to pass on my ballot paper through any of them regardless of political leaning, in the full knowledge that it would get to it's destination untampered, and I'm sure that that's the case for most areas of the country.

A quote from the linked news article states..

The [Electoral] commission says it wanted a requirement for applications to be returned directly, but the political parties wouldn't agree.

As I said earlier, the likelyhood of fraud is probably minimal over all, but if so, then why are the parties so against having an independant collection point for ballot papers? I think that perhaps if you feel so inclined, you could lobby your local MP with a view to getting this arrangement changed for future elections.

Oh well.. enough of this. There's a bunch of us going to Eastbourne for a long weekend today, and I have to pack.. okay, I'm packed. I also have to check my camera and have a cup of tea or three.

See you all Monday

Cheers

Liam

* I keep meaning to alter the css to save me having to manually insert the blue colour for text links.. maybe I'll do that next week. So much to do etc. I may even go a bit more radical with the template.. I'll see how I feel. :)

2005-04-08T18:33:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Well, it's that time again.. the general election has been announced for the 5th of May. As no-one else has blogged about this.. well maybe the odd couple of thousand, but hey.. it's my blog, and I can't think of anything else to write about.. I thought I'd add my views to those already committed to the ether.

One thing that really confuses me is the insistance on the importance of personalities. It shouldn't matter to domestic politics whatsoever, although I suppose there is an argument for a certain air of appeal when forging friendly links in the international arena. As far as we in the UK are concerened, it should be all about policy.

Now the first thing to remember, is that it is only really those more marginal of seats that will really make any tremendous effect on the outcome of the election. A sudden urge to singularly vote Labour in the Henley-upon-Thames constituency isn't likely to change the outcome any more than a Tory vote would in the Liverpool Riverside constituency.

Those voting for the Liberal Democrats are, with a few exceptions, only going to change the fortunes of Labour and Conservative chances at the election also.

So, what do they all stand for. This prompts me to paraphrase Tony Benn, (as I can't find the original quote) and in this case I whole-heartedly agree with him when he states that..

..no government should have the power or the right to introduce any law or regulation that cannot be repealed by a future administration, if the country so decides..

I think that this is one of the biggest strengths in a democracy, and a fundamental right of the people of this country. It means that at any time, with the consent of the people, a law or regulation that has outlived it's usefulness in these changing times can be negotiated or even struck from the law books, should the need arise.

With this in mind, consider the control that the powers that be in the EU already have over us. Our own laws are being dictated to us by faceless polititions sitting in Europe. Remember the red lines that Tony Blair said were set in stone, over our taxation systems? Did you know that we already have mandatory minimums on taxation levels imposed by Europe? Well we do, and we have to abide by them.. although with the amount of tax that this government takes from us, you'd never see these, as it's highly unlikely that Gordon Brown would ever get into trouble for not taxing us enough.

We also have minimum thresholds set by Europe on immigration and border controls.. again a red line set in custard.

Lets consider the most unlikely election result first.. namely that the Liberal Democrats win by a large enough majority to form the new government on May 6th. With their, admirably honest admission, of intending to throw us onto the rails and thus head on into the headlights of the gravy train known as the European Federalist Superstate, that will be the last time that any domestic election will make any difference whatsoever. From that moment on, there will be NO meaningful policy for this countries electorate that doesn't hail directly from Brussels. There is no turning back from it, as without a complete withdrawal from the EU; we will have little, or no, effective control on domestic policy whether we like it or not.

A vote for the Lib Dems will be your last democratic vote ever.. end of story.

Lets now turn our attention to New Labour. I make this distinction because along with many, I fail to see any real connection with the Labour party of old.. except for the government thinking that they can invade every facet of our lives, because they are under the mistaken impression that they know what is best for us in everything that we do, be it concerns of work, family life or any other matter that makes up our daily lives.

Their only real success as Tony Blair will agree, because he is the veritable scratched record on the subject; when questioned on all points of failure in his dismal premiership, is the strong economy.

An open letter from me to Gordon Brown..

Dear Prudence,

you were given the purse strings to the strongest economy in Europe, and the fourth strongest in the world. You would have to have been a pretty poor chancellor to screw it up, especially when most of your successes have been in the main, due to relinquishing the government's powers to set interest rates, and let an organisation.. namely The Bank of England.. who know what they're doing manage that vital part of fiscal arrangements. This was a good thing, but once done, you've not really had that much to do, except to tax us to the hilt twice a year, and any day with a Y in it just to make absolutely sure. Oh, and due to measures brought in early on in your first term in office where you removed the tax benefits from pensions, we have seen a reduction of more than £50billion in funds and lost double that in investments.

Yours sincerely

The old and skint..

What else have we got.. the council tax. This all came about from the community charge, which it still is.. a thorn by any other name. I remember the days of the supposedly dreaded poll tax, as I'm sure most reading will. That was a good idea run badly. The householder of a three bedroom house with Mum, Dad and three grown up children, will pay exactly the same council tax bill per dwelling as a 65 year old female pensioner living on her own in the old family home. Who do you think should pay more?

The poll tax, although badly engineered attempted to level out this anomaly by billing all people over the age of 18 equally. This meant that in the former example, the large grown up family would effectively pay five times the money that the pensioner would. If we take a sample figure of £900 per annum under the current scheme, this would mean that under the old scheme, all things being equal, the pensioner would be paying only £300 or a third of the current bill. The five occupants of the family house, using in effect, five times the services would be paying £1500 pounds a year between them. And that was deemed to be an unfair tax? Of course there would be no payment for those still in full time education etc, but I think that it was.. in principal at least.. a good idea. The protests in the '80s were largely based on all people who'd never had to pay a household bill in their lives suddenly being asked to pay, if I remember correctly, around £300 a year that they never had to before pay.

Yes I realise that there are various credits that can be applied for, but this is basically nothing short of an admission that too much tax is being taken from us. They take all our money, and then grudgingly give back as little as possible, when they have to.

Of course, even though they are much more deceitful in their intentions than the Lib Dems, New Labour are slowly but surely moving us closer and closer to a federal Europe, where once in, we can't get out. It is after all, Tony Blair's dream, and his only possible legacy to get us into Europe and go down in history on the back of it. He's got little else that, in years to come; he could in his own twisted mind look back and be proud of.

So, who are the alternative? Well I can see only one party that at least want to stop us spiralling ever deeper into a United States of Europe, and that's the Conservatives. Tony Blair always warns us of the eighteen years of Tory government that supposedly wrecked this country. Anyone remember the late '70s? Probably the darkest days of this country. Margaret Thatcher, for all her faults, turned this country from a failed socialist state, where the unions had more power than any other single body, including the Labour government, into one of the most powerful and respected economic powers in the world. Not everything went right, but what we were left with in 1990, was a world economic power.. then we had John Major. That was the start of the downfall of the Conservatives, mainly due to this being around the time that the European Socialist Agenda started to roll on a grander scale than seen previously.

Remember when interest rates went up to 15%, for a day? We got thrown out of the EMU. This is shown as a bad thing by both the Lib Dems (no surprise) and also New Labour. I think it was probably the luckiest get out in modern history. Since then, through no fault of his own, the current chancellor has been able to just sit back and take our money. It was only our escape to monetary independance back then, that we still have some modicom of control over this country's budget. We've still paid tens of billions of our hard earned money into Europe in the last few years.. that's several thousand pounds per person, that you've paid to feed this ever enlarging almost completely unnaccountable regime.

If you don't want us run entirely by the EU, then I see that there is only one real choice, because whatever they do, they at least want to wrest some semblance of control away from Europe, and give the British people the chance to do for themselves, rather than be dictated to. Didn't millions of people have that very thought just 60 years ago? They didn't give up their lives for our freedom, only to see it flushed down the pan for their grandchildren.

For those that would like to think that the union of European nations has given us the longest era of peace ever seen in Europe, think again. Russia lost far more than any other country. They decided that it would never happen again, and became the strongest military in the world. They were never going to give up the lives of another 25 million of their people. That was the start of the cold war. The very real (at the time certainly) threat of Russia and the US going to war was enough to stop any piddling country in Europe wanting to join in.

I feel as though I've been writing this for ever.. well I have.. :)

I'm now going to sign off as it's my Birthday today, and I've got a new toy to play with. A wireless tablet to draw lots of pretty pictures with.. I'll see if I can get it up and running quickly enough to post my first one here this evening. I have yet to install it, let alone know how to use it.. :)

Cheers

Liam

ps. As you asked, I'm 38 today. So in true style, I'll mark the occasion with a pint for each year. It may take a week to do, I'm not as young as I was.. but I'll do my best.. :)

Gobsmacked..

2005-03-25T14:05:00.000Z

Hi all,

I learnt something this week, namely that the education system in this country is probably going down the pan. As you may know if you've been here for a while, I work for our local council. The job adverts came out on Wednesday. These are all in the public domain, as can be found here.

One that caught my eye, was for the modern apprentice scheme. An honourable way to start your career, and in so much as I know nothing about them, I'm sure it's a sterling idea. I was at a loss though, to understand the following..

"MAs allow a young person to earn as they learn and the scheme includes working towards a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ), technical certificate and appropriate key skills in communication, number and IT."

.. or more specifically what on earth "number" was. I guessed it may have something to do with err.. numbers. As I visit the library most days, I thought I'd find out. I found a very informative book.. and left it at work, as you do. It was basically a slightly older version of this one.

And here is the description..

"GNVQ Key Skills: Application of Number

Introducing a concise guide to all the Application of Number techniques required by Level 2 and 3 students in any subject. This book covers all the essential knowledge and techniques required to pass the Application of Number tests by showing students how maths can be applied in the real world. Maths is explained in a real-life context, using everyday examples that bring the subject alive. Unlike traditional maths books it focuses on the application of mathematical theory to the world around us.

Starting with basic principles the text works through to apply mathematics to relevant examples and applications that bring the subject into a clear and understandable context for students and teachers alike. Explanation is followed by exercises, turning knowledge into learning. The book’s emphasis is on learning and practising techniques, rather than portfolio-building. Use it for revision and external test preparation, making use of the practical definitions, clear explanations and numerous of practice opportunities provided."

Now I realise that along with a few others that visit this corner of my planet here, I have an interest in the sciences and am probably above average in the understanding of maths, taking the whole population into account. I also don't wish to insult anyone who has learning difficulties or any other problem that could hinder their educational development.

However, this book, and the whole thinking behind "number" is an insult to the people who have to learn it.. in my own humble opinion. You should remember that this is not a school book, but a post full time educational supplement, to help you acheive a nationally recognised employment qualification. And I've not told you about it yet have I? This book is the sort of educational book I'd feel happy in lending to my 4 year old nephew. I'm seeing him later and wished I had remembered to bring the book home, so I could do a little experiment.

If you're an adult reading this perhaps doing an NVQ/GNVQ, or even better someone in secondary school, would you need your maths text book to give you the full 1-12 list of the one times table? It does go into slightly more complex areas, and let's face it, it would only be a pamphlet otherwise; but there is nothing in that book that I could see that would trouble your average year 7 student. Or certainly not when I went to school.

Has dumbing down reached an all time low? If this is the sort of stuff that someone who's left school hasn't yet learnt, then what on earth has this government been getting teachers to teach their charges. I know the teachers are told what they have to teach, and do the best job they possibly can under increasing legislation and bureaucracy, so they must be tearing their hair out at having to follow dumbed down rubbish. If Kiteman's reading, what say you?

And why call it number in the first place? It just exudes "stupid politition, in this PC world, changing a perfectly good term for a new hip, trendy one, in a pure New Labour stylee", doesn't it. If I was looking to explain maths to someone using the term number, then I would be looking for a small child, and starting with the number 1 on their left thumb, continuing to 5 on the pinky before feeding them some blended food, and settling them down for their nap. I certainly wouldn't be aiming it at people who probably already have GCSEs in maths and maybe a science or two as well.

Anyway, that's enough ranting for now.. I have other subjects to rant on that are vaguely topical, but they will have to wait for now..

Cheers

Liam

ps. If anyone from the photo blogs wants to critique my photos below, please feel free. I'm about to burn all 180 odd to CD now, and show them off to Mrs Liam's family.. they just don't realise it yet.. :)

My holiday diary, by Liam.. aged 37 and 11 1/2 months

2005-03-21T16:55:00.000Z

Hi all,

well those of you that have just waited 5 minutes for the page to load because of all the photos, now get the words to go with them.

As I mentioned previously we took a short 4 day break in Llanberis, which if you want to locate on a map, is just North West of Snowdon. A six hour drive and we were there. We had a 6 berth caravan all to ourselves, so there was plenty of room to stretch out and relax. Being too lazy to cook anything that first evening we trooped over to the bar to see what was on offer grub wise. It was their "curry-and-a-pint-for-a-fiver" night. That was damned lucky we thought. A tenners worth later and we retired to the "library bar" for more beer. A book shelf adorned one end of the room filled with lots of the classics.. Dickens and Stevenson to name but two, and some not so classic.. someone had been so kind as to donate several TV style interior decorating books. Nice.

There was a 9 hole golf course on site, and we played 18 holes on the Friday. Tiger Woods vs Jack Nicklaus it wasn't. I seem to remember being at least competant at golf, but for some reason I could barely hit the ball out of the way. I parred 3 holes out of the 18. If anyone's in the slightest bit interested, my stableford score was 35. This is not a bad score really, but it looks a bit desparate when you see the individual hole scores. Bored yet?? :)

We spent most of the time out and about, looking for photo opportunities. The ones below are just a small selection. I'll save you from the whole collection.. around 180, but I'll probably post them on Flickr or somewhere, and you can see the rest at your leisure.

That's about it for now. I've got to catch up on my telly. The only downside to the caravan was the TV's ability to only show 4 channels. Like a lot of people who have cable, Sky etc. even the basic packages will provide 30-40 channels, and I currently have around 150. I never knew that you got so much dross on the major channels. I almost looked forward to the adverts.. almost.

Right.. Peak Practice is just starting, hopefully.

Cheers

Liam

A tribute to Rorschach

2005-03-21T15:16:00.000Z

Corny use of reflection.

Still water, mountains, early evening.. I couldn't help myself. I think it looks like a butterfly.

Photo of a tree.

2005-03-21T14:17:00.000Z

Knarled wood

The trees were startlingly different to those I've seen elsewhere. I don't know what exactly it was about them, but they all had that faerie forest look to them. This isn't perhaps the best photo technically, but it does give a good idea of what I mean.

Photo of a daffodil

2005-03-21T14:15:00.000Z

Couldn't do a welsh blog without the obligatory daffodil.

Yes, I know.. it's hardly original, but I like the freshness of it. The background doesn't interfere with the flower and pushes it to the front of the frame. Do I sound particularly luvvey here?

Before digital.

2005-03-21T14:14:00.000Z

I took this one back in 1884.

Here I tried to produce a convincing old time photo. It seems to work. The old sepia photos tended to be a bit grainy, and on full digital zoom the camera does tend to degrade the quality somewhat.. perfect for this style of picture.

Landscape.

2005-03-21T14:13:00.000Z

Sheep Country.

This one, I think, gives you a good idea of the countryside of North Wales. It's not as mountainous as the Highlands of Scotland, but there is a similarity nonetheless. There's little in the way of suitable agricultural land, but it makes perfect grazing land for hardy animals that don't mind standing on the sides of hills all day, and if you like sheep, you'll be more than satisfied here. (Stop laughing at the back.. )

The clouds roll in.

2005-03-21T14:12:00.001Z

On the cliff face.

While having a drive up in the hills, as you do, we stopped in a layby due to the lack of visibility. This was the view look down into the valley below.. we were above the cloudline by a couple of hundred feet. This is the resulting photographic effort. Rocky outcrops and the odd tree determined to grow, whatever obstacles they were faced with. I'm perhaps 30 feet above the base of the central tree looking down into the valley.. and you wonder why we pulled over. Extreme driving.. that's lovely isn't it.

Atmosphere.

2005-03-21T14:12:00.000Z

Moody.

These pictures aren't in any sort of order, but this was taken on a bright sunny afternoon. The bright sun tends to flatten out the landscape, and makes it more difficult to take good colour pictures. They just look like snapshots, which they are of course. I had a little play with the B&W switch on the camera. This is one of the better ones.. I like it anyway.

A tree

2005-03-21T14:10:00.000Z

A tree..

I'll probably change this photo. This tree was just standing there all on it's own minding it's business when I started taking pictures of it. The sky was a bright blue and the tree looked good standing out against it.. so I posted a B&W picture..hmm. I'll post the colour one a bit later, I just like the look of this one... and yes, that's the right angle, the camera wasn't crooked.. :)

On holiday..

2005-03-15T09:21:00.000Z

This is the life.. 9.20 on a Tuesday, and I'm just lazing around, blogging. I have a bar of dark chocolate in front of me, fair trade of course. The local convenience store is a Co-op, and they stock a good range of these products. Go for the dark chocolate though. The milk chocolate is just bland. It's difficult to detect any real flavour.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, nothing to do and all day to do it. Well almost. Mrs Liam and I are off to Wales tomorrow for a few days, so carefully filling a holdall with clothes etc. is going to take up ooh! around two minutes. For the female of the species I'm sure, this could take a while.. accessories, does this go with these.. etc. whereas I am of the lucky gender. Washbag, jeans and T-shirts, a pair of trousers and a decent shirt or two for dinner out, trainers and a pair of shoes, and a random handful of gentlemens personal attire. Packed and ready to go.

I just have to put a suitable amount of effort into making it look complicated and stressful, so as not to make out that us blokes are actually capable of doing these simple tasks blindfolded. It would upset the balance of power to a degree that I'm not sure I'm ready for. Could you chaps reading take that risk.. I couldn't.

And of course, two essential items. Golf clubs and a camera or two. As I'm going to be away from my PC for almost 5 days, I need to get myself another memory card for the camera, just in case. I may want to take more than 500 pictures, and so should be prepared.. :) I will of course post up a few of the best on my return.

I haven't blogged for a while now. I could put something here every day, I suppose, but would anybody want to read it..

"I started on an idea for a puzzles and comps page to the HSC website, in an effort to entice a wider readership, it's not online yet, as I want to change servers before doing anything more to the site structure" or "I won £750 playing online poker yesterday", besides being true, albeit play money; isn't all that facinating for others possibly. I tried similar phrases face to face, and my suspicions were confirmed.

Talking of poker, I started getting in from darts, pool, meetings, and all the other evening stuff I do, and ended up watching lots of poker tournaments on the TV. (Challenge TV.. channel 307NTL) It looks easy I thought, but as my idea of gambling is to put 50p in a fruit machine twice a year, I didn't fancy using my own hard earned to put this to the test. I had a look round the 'net over the weekend and found partypoker.com. You download the program and in a few minutes you're playing real games with real people all round the world.. for free (or for real, if you are of a gambling ilk). If you like card games, you'll like this. And I got paid nothing for that blatant advert, which is a shame.. :)

Well that's about it for this thrilling episode.. tune in another time, for more err random stuff. I may blog again tomorrow, as I have all this time on my hands. Enjoy work.. I'm going to go and win some more money.. hopefully :)

Cheers

Liam

To Snafu

2005-03-05T09:32:00.000Z

Hi Snafu,

Here's the code you need for the BB logo. I've changed all your ID refs, so all you need to do is just copy and paste the following straight into your template. You need to include everything inside this text area.

<!--Start of Blogging Brits Ring Code--><br /><br /><p><br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=prev" title="Previous Site"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/259/2227/640/lastbbl.jpg"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=prev"></a></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=list" title="List Sites"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=list"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloggingbrits.co.uk/" title="Ring Home"><a href="http://www.bloggingbrits.co.uk/"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=rand" title="Random Site"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=rand"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=next" title="Next Site"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1927;action=next"></a></a><br /><br /></p><br /><br /><!--End of Blogging Brits Ring Code-->

Cheers

Liam

It's about time I wrote something..??

2005-03-01T18:38:00.000Z

Hi all,

Long time no see. As the title suggests, it really is about time I put finger to keyboard.. but I'm not sure what I'm going to write yet. I figure that I ought to mention the snow we've had. Bracknell has a freebie paper called the Midweek News. The front page had a full page spread (minus the ads of course) piece about the snow here in Bracknell. I'm paraphrasing, as the paper is at work.. but the lead sentence went something along the lines of..

"Bracknell was brought to a standstill, with traffic gridlocked and several accidents, when a centimetre (about 0.4 inches for those that prefer to deal in proper money) of snow fell on Bracknell."

A centimetre.. I've been to Norway, and Austria several times. How come they can manage to run as smoothly as ever, when an overnight snowfall could lay down a metre or two of the white stuff. There were complaints from angry residents of Bracknell, unable to attend work.. and reports of twenty odd schools closed.. that's almost half the schools in the Borough! I, and my two fellow couriers somehow managed to weave through the carnage that was the muppet show on wheels, and alight at work without being late, and two colleagues also made it in, and they travel in some distance of a morning.

It's amazing what a bit of foresight can do. The forecast says snow; you look out of the window before going to bed and the ground has snow on it; you might just think to yourself.. hmm, there may be snow on the ground in the morning, plus some to clear off the car. You have two options, wake up as normal, leave the house for your ten minute drive to work, and look down in utter despair and realise it wasn't a draem afterall.. and then turn up an hour or two late. On the other hand, you could take into account the facts that you've accumulated over the previous evening, get out of your pit a bit earlier, and look out of the window. The worst that can happen is that it's melted overnight and you get an extra twenty minutes of breakfast telly, and a second cup of tea before you go out.

The driving skills of some, making the treacherous journey to their place of work that morning, were of a standard not seen outside of the city streets of Rome before. I went thirty yards from my house to find some poor sod straddling a chicane bollard. If you stick your brakes on going round a tight corner, with snow or ice between your wheels and the ground, you effectively switch off your steering. That's the theory, and it was nice for some kind person to give a live demonstration for all to see. A bit further up the road, I drove cautiously past a TVR, proving to all around that 400 horses pounding under the bonnet doesn't get you up a hill any quicker. On the roundabout, another unfortunate had managed to accessorise the front of his '54 reg BMW estate with an eye-catching decorative trim in the shape of a traffic light. Yes, it's the first time I'd seen an orange flashing light on a beemer as well.. :)

Sadly, all the roads were clear of both snow and muppets by about 10 o'clock, but we've still got a small chance of some more in the next day or so.

I've also been playing around with the website a lot recently, hence the [relative] lack of posts here. Thanks to loads of advice from Renegade over at Min-Data, it's looking pretty good at the moment. I do have a bit of a problem with the content filling at the moment. Like this place, I seem to spend at least as much time buggering about with the mechanics and appearance of the site as I do in actually adding any useful stuff to read and digest. With the blog, it's probably not quite as fatal as the site, as quiet a few of you (thankyou all) link here, so I'm still getting new visitors popping in. The site though, needs to be kept fresh, dynamic and engaging in order to attract a regular supply of readers to it.

I want it to be all those things, but I also want it to be as good technically as I can make it, and as I only have so much time in any one day, the content does seem to come second to me playing around with display settings; that.. and the fact that I've only been a webmaster for the better part of 5 weeks, and what would take an accomplished site builder a matter of minutes to do, could realistically take me an day or more, especially if I have a great thought on improving the layout, and not the faintest flippin' idea on how to actually accomplish it.

As an aside, and I've only had a quick google, and couldn't see anything; is there a js cross-browser compatabilty script anywhere. A thought occurred to me, as my site looks less than perfect in Firefox, and closer to rubbish in Opera (I downloaded it to test the site only.. and after seeing what it does, I won't be using it again) that if it's known what differences there are in each browser on actioning a line of code, it would be relatively simple for a script to be written that you can just add to the head of your page(s) that could adapt the various code parameters depending your browser. Perhaps I'll teach myself Java.. I have a book and the couple of CDs that came with it.. it can't be that difficult.. can it?? hahaha

I've just finished my first online form as well. This is for work, and was a case of me being asked for my views on the questions to be used and going off and building the whole form from scratch. It works as well.. surprisingly. I can get it to submit all the relevant info back to me, or anyone else for that matter, via email as a simple data string. What I'm going to be doing in the next day or two, is to [try to] get it to upload all the data into a spread sheet, or if it's more feasable, to an Access database. I've completed my obligatory half day course in basic Excel, so I'm obviously more than qualified to take that to the next level, and having just done a quick folder search whilst writing this, have found that I do indeed have Access installed on my machine. I now know more about the application than I did a minute a go. Should be fun. I picked up a book on Access today, so along with Google, and some luck, I'll be an expert in building databases come Friday or Saturday.

You see what I mean about being more interested in the mechanics of something, than in interesting monologue. This blog is a testament to this fact. I thought I'd say it before anybody else did. :)

Righty-ho, it's darts night tonight, and I should be half way through my first sweet sherry if there was a God, which must mean that He's keeping quiet, or Vardy et al. must be lying toerags. Well I had to put in some controversy, and it makes a change from Europe or Blair. With the elections probably happening in around nine and a half weeks (if I was better at this, I'm sure I could have put an hilarious coment in there, but I'm not so I won't) I'll be spleen venting with the best of 'em shortly.

As another aside, my local MP, Andrew McKay sent me a nice letter thanking me for my previous support of him in other elections. That was nice, but I thought my vote was secret, so how did he know that. I've never been on the payroll of the Conservative party, or even stuck the poster in my window before?? How strange, and yes I'm being a tad facaetious here.. :)

Where was I.. oh yes, darts..

Bye!!

Cheers

Liam

Biannual Darts

2005-02-19T11:09:00.000Z

Hi,

Last night was the biannual darts tournament held at the Hanworth Club. Somehow, I managed to win. Below are a couple of photos of me. Simon was the runner up, and a worthy opponent. Phil was the winner last time around, and the cup he's handing over to me will grace the mantlepeice (or top of bookshelf to be more precise) for the following six months. The other cup, which you can see in the piccie with Simon, I get to keep forever.

Me and Simon

Me and Phil

A fuller article will appear in the darts pages of the Hanworth Club website, along with a few more pictures. The main difference between this blog and the article will be the distinct lack of subtle, yet unabashed links to the Hanworth Club, or the HSC as it is more commonly known by the members of the Club. (I think I've worn that joke out now) :)

Cheers

Liam

Ding Dong, the bells are going to ring..

2005-02-12T00:27:00.000Z

Hi all,

another busy week, with little time to write anything.. more work on the website.. still no content as such, but that's changing once I've honed my typing skills for a few minutes here.. and cheers to Ciber and Renegade for their help so far.. :)

In the news this week, it appears that our heir to the throne is getting hitched. Congratulations to the both of you.. and assuming of course that you haven't lost the link to my blog in the meantime, I look forward to the invite.

Most of my contact with the media (outside of the 'net) tends to be listening to verbal radio stations such as R4, R5 and Talk Sport.. except for the sport. Radio Five have had a multitude of rabid monarchists, vapid republicans and zealous religionists of various flavours all having their say on what the rest of us think about this marriage. The more vocal republicans are a particularly hilarious bunch of people who I'd rather not have standing near me in a quiet bar. They would like to see the Royal Family summarily executed in a French Revolution style.

They see as the major problem, the fact that we pay for them, and as such they are our property to do with as we see fit. We do pay for them.. they cost us roughly £40 million, or less than 80p each.. in a year; two thirds of which are for the upkeep of buildings such as Windor Castle, Balmoral and of course Buck House, which would be paid anyway, monarchy or not. The price of one decent newspaper or two redtops.

The returns that the treasury receives from the Crown Estates etc. come to around £170 million a year. Net gain.. £130 million, or around £2.10 per person. If I were a gambling man, and I'm not, I would think that a pretty much guaranteed return of 3-1 on a given investment is money well spent. To put it into some sort of perspective, for the same money that we pay to the Royal Family in a year (ignoring the fact that they pay it all back again threefold) we get Europe for around four days, and that's net contribution.. we don't see it again.

So, I have the choice of putting my meagre individual contribution towards an outdated, out moded, out of touch corrupt and inept bunch of inbred twats, or.. tadum tish.. the Royal Family. I'd have the Royals any day.

And just as a side issue, certain members of the Church of England have voiced concerns about changing the rules to allow divorcees to marry. This, if I remember correctly, is the exact reason this subset of Christianity was invented in the first place, when old 'enery fell out of favour with the papacy for much the same thing.. :)

Apart from which, of course, is the consideration of an alternative to the Royals? It's been done to death elsewhere, but the phrase "President Blair" still sends a shiver down my spine. If we have an elected President he will have a political agenda to follow, irrespective of the ruling democratic power of the day. I agree that we should have a democratically elected body politic to decide how best to ~~squand..~~ distribute our taxes for the benefit of all, but why should the head of state need to be a political position? Surely we have at the moment, one of the most widely respected heads of state in the world. Completely apolitical, of a financial worth so great that even the biggest of multinationals aren't going to be able to buy favour with Her, and of a character that is unimpeachable. Nor, in five years time will all those qualities be used to prostitute herself and her soul to the public, in order to reign for another session.

Compare that with the fine work being done in Westminster at the moment. They couldn't give a toss about their public.. any of them. They just want to be voted in as the ruling party next time. Nothing else is on their mind. Certainly, as the much hinted at election comes nearer we get an increasingly ugly policy battle going on, with all the party leaders promising a positive utopia.. if only you'll give them a chance. Well realistically anyway, two of the parties, as I can't see old Chucky Lush being Prime Minister anytime soon, can you?

You only have to look at the US to see what can happen with elected heads of state. I'm sure Blair would love to be president, and have all that power at his hands, and to an almost complete extent he does. The Queen still has to give Royal Assent to new laws of the land, but that's pretty much academic, as I know of no instance where there has been a refusal to do so.. even with the crap that Blair comes up with.

We have in this country The House of Commons, and the House of Lords. Bills voted on by the democratically elected Commons, have to be agreed also in the Upper House, which if you ever watch parliamentary TV, is always referred to in hushed tones by the members of parliament as "The other place". Of course if Blair and his oiks want to force through a peice of pet legislation, and if the Lords reject the bill, he uses a facility known as an Act of Parliament to acheive his goal. This a useful thing if emergency legislation had to be agreed on, in the case of war or other disaster that may befall this country.. Blair prefers to use it as a handy little way of appeasing potential voters, such as the ban on hunting with dogs. I will add that although I agree with that bill, that's not what the act was meant for. It was also used to lower the age of consent for homosexual males from 18 to 16. It does strikes me as odd though, that neither of these was a national disaster, unless you like watching animals being ripped limb from limb by other animals, or have a penchant for young boys.

Erm, I got a little side-tracked there. My main point for mentioning the wedding, is that it's going to be on Friday April the 8th. That happens to be the day of celebration heralding in my 38th year of existence on this rock. Although I've never been particularly fussed about birthdays etc. I've always maintained the tradition of taking the day off, and have never worked on my birthday, since leaving school. This year a colleague has taken that week off, and it looks as though I may have to break with tradition.

With the Royal Wedding coinciding nicely, and with Blair looking for as many cynical votes as possible, I think it would be nice to make it a public holiday in joint celebration of me becoming a little bit older, and err, some wedding or other.

Write to your local MP asking that the day be made a holiday.. if not for your future King, then for me.

That's it really,

Cheers

Liam

2005-02-05T20:42:00.000Z

Hi all,

I've been busy setting up a new website for the past few days, hence the lack of blogging. You may have noticed a new feature to the page.. yep, music. I've been playing around with some music on the website I've been writing, and thought I'd have a play here as well.

This first peice, (I'll change them on a regular basis, or source them to some sort of random music player) JS Bach's Air on a G-String (go on, snigger.. then move on. It's not clever or funny) :) I chose this peice simply because it seems very apt for one particular page on the site. The Pool team's page. (click and see.. our team is marked in Red)

I guess only the brits reading will get the joke, but to quickly explain, a certain cigar manufacturer used the music in a long running series of adverts, while you could still advertise cigars here, with great success. When everything went completely wrong, the person concerened would just sit down and light up a cigar.. fade to coils of rising smoke, and simple contentment.

I'll happily play any requests I can find a midi file for; and although I'd prefer classical or more modern pop classics, you can suggest more up to date stuff.. but I'll be unlikely to play much off of the Now series of derge compilations. Also, with midi files, anything much other than classical music tends to sound tinny (or even relatively tuneless).

I'll also be quite happy to show anyone how to put the music on their blog. Ask in the comments section, and I'll blog it next time. I'ts just one line of script.. you just need to know where the music comes from. This file is only 9kb, so there wouldn't be much worry with bandwidth issues if you stuck the music on your own sites and linked it to here, as I have.

Well.. suggest away. I'd like comments on the website as well, if you feel the need.

Cheers

Liam

Blogging Brits..

2005-01-29T19:31:00.000Z

Hi,

You may have seen that my Blogging Brits logo..

..has evolved somewhat from the original..

«#Blogging Brits ?»

I emailed the originator at BB, and at some point, I'll be hosting the logo so that it can be linked to the automation that gives everyone their individual identity upon joining.. but for now, (and this is only for those of you that use the Blogspot based blogs, such as mine) here is the script to enhance your own blog, with this err.. logo. :)

<br /><br /><p><br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=prev" title="Previous Site"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/259/2227/640/lastbbl.jpg"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=prev"></a></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=list" title="List Sites"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=list"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloggingbrits.co.uk/" title="Ring Home"><a href="http://www.bloggingbrits.co.uk/"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=rand" title="Random Site"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=rand"></a></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=next" title="Next Site"><a href="http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=next"></a></a><br /><br /></p><br /><br />

This is of course specifically for me, my identity on the ring being 1801. If you want to use this (remember.. blogspot sites only) then all you need to do is to change the eight instances of your ID number to your own. Hover the mouse over any of the following symbols on your blog's displayed BB link... « # ? »... and look at the link shown in the status bar at the bottom of your browser. It will show as..

http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=blogging_brits;id=1801;action=rand

The number highlighted in RED is the number you want. Replace the number 1801 with your own number, paste in over the top of the existing Blogging Brits script, that you were given when you first joined.. (it will look like this..)

..and you're ready to go. The Arrows on each end will send you back and forth in the webring, one at a time, RAND will send you to a random blog, and LIST will take you to the complete list of sites in the webring. You'll notice that the arrows have a black border, making appear as rectangles, but on a blog with a white background, they seem to dissappear.. (from what I can tell from my text field here while composing this post anyway.. no promises though) :)

If you want a bit of help with this, then just leave a comment, and I'll be happy to help you.

Cheers

Liam

Trees vs Fence.. Trees win..

2005-01-29T17:52:00.000Z

Hi all,

I bought a new digital camera a couple of weeks ago (more later), and although I'm still practicing the finer points (like focussing) :), I went out this afternoon to take a few photos of some trees I saw on my travels earlier in the week. The fence had obviously been there either before the trees were planted, or at some time early on in their life. The trees have absorbed the fence, and I thought it looked quite good, so here is a small selection of the photos I took. I hope you like them. (Hover mouse over pictures)

I'll no doubt return and take a few more when the light is better. The fence runs for some 300 yards along a private driveway, so there are loads more weird and wonderful combinations of metal and wood.

Cheers

Liam

Starting a lucrative home business based on sliced bread

2005-01-23T14:04:00.000Z

I just had to press the button again.. :)

Starting a lucrative home business based on sliced bread

This is of course a veritable quagmire of posible dissolusionment, leading to either fame and fortune or more likely winding up with your only friend being a cheapo Tesco's sauvignon, wrapped up in a brown paper bag.

I'm talking about setting up your own business, and one at home at that.. to seamlessly blend the context of this diatribe into the general text.. as t'were.

So I, and my (or is it my {whatever] and I??) personal banking advisor (who miraculously becomes a small business consultantcy executive, for a couple of hours on Wednesdays and Fridays) put our heads together and come up with.. A lucrative home based business based to some large extent, on sliced bread. I like to point out at this time, that should I want to talk about the nigh on infinite possibilities of one-man business ship, that the next time I embark on a round of expert consultations, I will ask a grown up.

Anyway, we have this business plan put together, and it has more than one facet, you'll be pleased to hear.. (for the next hour or so, I've got nothing better to do than to sit here writing this drivel, so I'm going to make it as arduous a task as possible for my readership as well, in the vain hope that I can achieve some perverse satisfaction from knowing you are writhing in mental anguish at the futility of my prose) :)

Facet 1. You know those envelopes that you send photos in with Photos. Please do not Bend written on them in red ink, (that I've most cheekily presented in a genuine red colour for your optical delight), well, they are no more than a peice of toast wrapped in brown manilla. The secret is out, and you heard it hear [or here, but a typo with irony, do you not think] first. Yes, a commercially sound product, that for a fraction of the cost can be used to send your precious prints anywhere in the world. I haven't yet decided though, whether to just market the envelopes from here, boxed in 100s, or if I should reap more profitability from them by stuffing them at home with useful commercial infowear, for a [TBA] corporate clientele. More thinking to be done on that score.

Facet 2. (At this point, you're hoping that this faceted thing isn't going to be a didodecahedron aren't you) Window event covers. Not as absurd as you may think at first glance. (No, really?? No.. really) Sliced bread arrives pre-packed and of a shape and size that lends itself oh so naturally as a windproof(ish) vent de-draughticide (don't laugh at the made up words, they may be on the submission list for your next lazyblog) :) They could even be resold in smaller packs, for those purchasers who have only one or two vents to seal. Much in the same way as Hovis now do those little packs of bread for the single professional. They have only half the allotted wheat-based snack food contained therein, but surprisingly work out at around the same price-per-slice.

Facet 3. As pistores (not to be confused with the slightly salty-sweet spicy Pis Pis mentioned in earlier comentaries), an early middle eastern custom of using stale bread as a makeshift plate. Pizza Hut do the same thing, serving cheese and tomato puree (with a selection of other toppings at only a £1 for one fifth of a diced green pepper, now that's business sense for you) on them. It just became more of a tradition to eat the pistore, so much so, that they even now supply you with a china plate off of which to eat the bread one.

Facet 4. Are you getting worried now, as to how much time I have in which to finish this blog? You should be.. but I think I'll end it here with the last facet, and that is to sell them on eBay for £0.99, plus £8.50 p+p. No one ever really considers the price of p+p when buying on eBay, and at the end of the day, if someone dislikes receiving a slice of best Kingsmill (for with the profit margin so high, you can indeed sell branded bread) you give them their 99p back, plus they have to pay the postage to return it to you. That's £8.50 minus, say 20p for an envelope.. (quick mathematical calculation) £8.30 for each slice pure profit, less eBay's commission, of perhaps 4p per sale. 20 slices per loaf, at 60p a loaf, and you're looking at a clean profit of £164.60 for every pack you buy.. and if you use the handy protective envelopes from Facet 1, that increases the profit/loss margins of the business again.

On that last point, I feel hungry, and will now go have something to eat. (Which is why it's not been fully proof read.. any mistakes you find?? well that's what the comments bit is for.. :)

Cheers

Liam

This blog post fulfils the assignment Starting a lucrative home business based on sliced bread at lazyblog.org. You can rate it here.

The time I left school because of Pis Pis River

2005-01-23T11:24:00.000Z

Why do I do this to myself.. :)

The time I left school because of Pis Pis River

As you all know (in the voice of Frank Muir, a hero of our time) the Pis Pis (pronounced Pie Pie) River is in Nicaragua. It has a strange tendency to drain every so often. The water just runs out to the sea. It is when this phenomenon happens that the locals rush out onto the dryish river bed and harvest the Pis Pis. Pis Pis is a water weed found only on the bed of this one river, and is a local delicacy, fetching up to 45 Cordoba (around £1.50) per Kilo**

When made into a Pis Pis chiffonade (chopped up a bit), it is used as a light garnish on a local dish known as Piricipinia, made from small parcels of raw dried Echelloto (a local river fish) in much the same way as caviar on rolled salmon. It has a salty-sweet taste, and a slight spiciness to it.

It is also famed for it's medicinal qualities, being high in iron and potassium.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, this particular plant was covered in a Natural Science lesson at school. I was fourteen and full of dreams, and so after waiting until a Geography lesson the following day, in order to precisely locate the whereabouts of Nicaragua, and of course more specifically the Pis Pis River, I shouldered my belongings and set off from school as soon as the dinner break bell sounded, to go in search of the source of this near mystical plant.

I had ideals back then. I thought I could help the locals to farm the Pis Pis, perhaps help to erect some sort of sluicing system in order to have a more productive harvesting regime.. ah, they were the days.. the freedom of the open road, the weariness that comes from a long day's walk.. and more to the point, the fact that not only did I have no money to get to Nicaragua, it was unlikely that after stocking up on sweets from the tuck shop for the journey, would I have even the bus fare home.

So I returned to school just in time for double maths. It was one of my greatest adventures, and one that will live with me in glorious Black and White (we didn't all have colour back in those days) until my last breath.

And that is why I left school because of the Pis Pis River.

Cheers

Liam

**Can you believe it, I'm actually researching on Google for the info for this.. :)

This blog post fulfils the assignment The time I left school because of Pis Pis River at lazyblog.org. You can rate it here.

The long term effects of chocolate on the water supply

2005-01-23T09:53:00.000Z

The long term effects of chocolate on the water supply

Hi,

It should come as no surprise to anyone by now, the damaging environmental effects that chocolate has on the water supply. In a recent EU commission report, it was suggested that the seepage into the natural water table in areas such as Bournville in Birmingham, England; a town renowned for it's chocolate production, of cocoa products, is at an all time high.

The biggest immediate problem facing the locals is the water turning brown. It's not too distressing, as with Birmingham being at the heart of the Black Country, industrialisation has more than once wrecked the natural water resources. The situation can not be ignored in the hopes that it will go away on it's own. The local EECRT [European Emergency Chocolate Recovery Team] have this morning issued a statement, stating {as that seems to be the thing that statements do best} that..

"The current situation is such that as of Thursday the 4th, we will begin to take radical action to ensure that the safety of those living locally to any such chocolate hotspot, will be of paramount importance to us. We will attempt to accertain all that needs accertaining in order to accertain which way to proceed from therein forthwith and maybe hereafter as well, in an effort to capitalise on the resources available in order to resolve this issue."

As is usual with any European organisation, they have said nothing. Locals note that the next Thursday 4th to appear on their calendars is in August 2005, and as the kids have just broken up for the summer holidays it would cause too much disruption to the local area having a bunch of inspectors resplendent in white paper overalls running amok in the streets.

Failing this we are looking at May next year. This is a very complex time, as it is the day when the Galaxy, Mars and Milky Way factories will all be trying to outdo each other for the highest sales quota for the previous year. This is affectionately known as the Chocolate Star Wars, after the brand names. It is perceived that this will be a time of great uncertainty for all, so on a personal note can I just say..

"May the Fourth be with you"

(May 4th.. gedit) :) hehe

Enough already.

Cheers

Liam

This blog post fulfils the assignment The long term effects of chocolate on the water supply at lazyblog.org. You can rate it here.

An analysis of submitting a resume with respect to modern safety standards

2005-01-22T23:38:00.000Z

Hi,

QUOTE An analysis of submitting a resume with respect to modern safety standards. UNQUOTE

I state the above as I need to know what I'm meant to be blogging about. The heading is too long to read in one go, in the title field of my blog. And yes [it is actually proven to be a sackable offence to start a sentence with the word AND, under current HSE regs, but this being a perverse way of spending good sleeping time, I won't ring ClaimsDirect.com if you don't] I know I could delete it, but I have a word count to acheive, and the quote; along with the explanation for requiring the quote, helps nicely, thankyou very much.. :)

In my day, they were called CVs, as opposed to resumes, after that famous old Citroen, the 2CV.. as that was the minimum number of said documents needed to even get a letter of refusal, let alone a firm offer of employment. Now of course times have changed, and things have moved on, to the point that it is compulsory under the Health and Safety at Work Act, to politely refuse someone a fair day's pay for pretending to know how to do the job they were originally applying for. Of course under these guidelines, you don't have to even know how to do the job. Just claim unfair dismissal at the first sign of not having recieved the letter of refusal, and watch the money roll in.

But the Health and Safety directive starts to rear it's ugly head long before you get to the post box at the corner of the next street. The very first dilemma you encounter is whether to use pen and paper, or to type your resume.

[I will, from now on use the term resume, as that is the featured title after all, but I don't have to necessarily agree with it]

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and although in principle there are arguments for and against, the pen could do irreperable damage to soft tissue, if you inadvertantly stabbed yourself in the eye or any other more tender parts of your anatomy. This will systematically lead to possible reprisals from the watchdogs of health.

The typewriter/keyboard is your other option but again, you still risk serious injury from RSI. Using a PC will considerably lessen the problems, as you can type out the whole lot and just change a few bits to personalise each application. The job of Nightclub Bouncer will probably mean that you don't have to explain in too much detail, your fondness for flower arranging; but for a possible career of a more creative nature [although, to be fair, face rearranging could be deemed to contain some creativity, at some level at least] such as Teacher of Poetry to GCSE (and possibly AS level for the right candidate), it would be irresponsible not to mention it, even in passing.

You must understand though, that whichever medium you choose to relay such information, the stress involved would surely have an effect on you. Safety is of paramount consideration to those wishing to seek gainful employ, and I cannot stress too highly the implications of a resume that hasn't been risk-assessed to the Nth degree. You owe it to yourselves to remain vigilant at all times to the inherent problems associated with such an endeavour. If in doubt about any of the above factors then I'd suggest that you hasten down to the local FashionMart, and get yourself fitted with a Burberry baseball cap, and learn to love daytime TV. If the TV in question happens to be reruns of Lilly Savage's Blankety Blank, then so be it. We're not here to sit in judgement, but just to make sure that whatever path you follow to fulfillment and enlightenment, you do it at a standard of safe passage such that the phrase "well, it's 'is Human Rights.. innit Guv" does never need to be uttered in a court of Law.

So sayeth I.

Cheers

Liam

This blog post fulfils the assignment An analysis of submitting a resume with respect to modern safety standards at lazyblog.org. You can rate it here.

Feasible ways to improve the modern kitchen

2005-01-22T20:50:00.000Z

Hi,

To improve the modern kitchen in a feasable way.. (do you remember when you had to write the answer to a question in your English lessons, by starting off with a rewrite of the original question?.. well I do) you would obviously want to install more labour saving gadgets. That means having an eye-level Gordon Brown, to work out budgetary concerns for the filling of the pantry. This is obviously a New Labour saving device and as such may take a while to catch on, will work out quite costly, to the point where your pension contributions may have to be purloined to finance the unit, and eventually end up on the scrap heap, without ever having achieved it's real aim in life.

On a more serious note, a pizza oven would have to be installed, along with a bed, television and computer.. a small bar is obviously a requirement, and a vice.

A vice you ask (you did so, I heard you)!! Of course. Being male, a vice is a necessary peice of kitchen equipment. How many times have you, or your partner, needed a hand in the kitchen? And I bet not once did you consider that a vice would be a good thing. Stick a rotary drill in the vice, with a wire brush bit fitted, and you'll never have a problem with burnt on food in the caserole dish again. This alone means that instaed of buying expensive detergents that actually do the job they say they will, you can buy the special offer stuff from the local supermarket for £0.23 a gallon. It doesn't normally have the degreasing qualities of water, but now.. you don't need them. Just use it as the lubricant for the wire brush, and you're sorted. A quick rinse and the washing up is complete.

So, apart from the vice, which although I see as an incredibly useful item, would be considered a luxury by some, we have as the main components of our new and improved kitchen..

A Pizza Oven
Computer
Small Bar
Television
Bed

Oh, and a kitchen sink.

Job done. The ideal modern kitchen is a bedsit.

Next article later. If I do this right, there will eventually be a box proclaiming that I've written this blog for a project known as Lazyblog, just in case you think I've lost it completely, although on proof reading this.. well you may have a point. :)

Cheers

Liam

This blog post fulfils the assignment Feasible ways to improve the modern kitchen at lazyblog.org. You can rate it here.

A bird in the hand..

2005-01-19T00:05:00.000Z

Hi all,

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I'm owned by five of the finest feline specimens known to humanity. Although they insinuated a desire for anonimity, I felt that as Alan's Tigritsa came out in public stylee, I feel it only fair that I should introduce.. Jennifer (or, more affectionately Fennijer); mother to Tigger (boy son), Molly, Smudgy (daughters) and Tom (no relation, but has obvious feelings for Molly, in a purely platonic way (a vet's cut being by far the cruellest)).

I popped home for lunch today, and after a few minutes was treated to the sound of claws on woodwork. It was, much to my dismay, Jennifer bringing home something for the pot. The something in question happened to be a young adult blackbird. At first glance it looked dead to the world, lying as it was, motionless on the front path.

Of course, on opening the door, the family (of a purely four legged variety) trooped out en masse to see what the fuss was about. At which point, the aforementioned (supposedly dead) {although it's tempting, I refuse to do any Monty Python type references here}.. (well; except that one anyway) blackbird, (hereinafter known as Lazarus) decided that he'd had enough, and flapped a lot, all the way to the neighbour opposite's front garden.

Of course the tribe of intrepid hunters followed, sensing the fresh blood of a kill (and free food into the bargain). I scurried out to find this wretched animal cowering in some sort of leafless shrubbery, surrounded by the supporting cast of "Born Free".

I was brought up in the country, and I know that cats eat products other than Whiskers, but I don't like to see them playing with their food. Frankly, my babies couldn't kill a living animal any more than I could. They just seem to play with the catch until it dies of natural causes.

So, to cut a long stor... nah, you know me better than that.. :)

I retrieved Lazarus from the shrubbery (no, I still refuse to do MP). The tribe watched anxiously from the side lines, I guess hoping that I'd divide it into individual portions for them. Couldn't do it, and wouldn't do it. I picked up a very frightened bird (again???) :) and held it in my hands. It was sort of breathing, and it sort of had a heartbeat, but I figured that the shock of the last 10 minutes was enough to see it out..

As is the case with most slaves to their pets, I love animals. I held this little bird in my hand, (it barely covered my palm) and felt it's claws clutch at my finger. I swallowed.

I'm not exactly a qualified vet, but I reckoned that it was on the way out from shock. I thought I'd at least let it go in a more dignified fashion than as a starter for a piggy bunch of pussies (more about our Crib team another time). I held it my hand for around 30 minutes (outside in the cold, as Tom, being the only genuine Hunter/Gatherer in the brood was inside and would be quite happy to get me to pass the sauce), watching it slowly deteriorate.. or so I thought. I stood there stroking it's neck, watching it open and close it's beak. I dreaded it dying, but at the same time, hated to think it was suffering.

Then it started making little noises. It wriggled a bit, and then a little more. I didn't know if this was the final act, or whether a recovery was in the offing! As it turned out, Lazurus was doing the full reincarnation bit, and struggled, then flew off. He only flew a few feet before landing.. with a gentle curse about some bloke called Newton, and why couldn't he keep his mouth shut about those bloody apples..!!

I picked him up, and then had the dilema of where to put him until he was fully recovered. Well I found a place well out of the clutches of the cats, and he did indeed recover. (I've already nodded off once while typing this, it's late and I'm knackered)

I'll continue this tomorrow, if I feel it needs it.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells..

2005-01-13T19:13:00.000Z

Hi all,

Some of you may have seen a couple of comments I made [on Garvan's blog] concerning the moral minority and their utter indignation at, amongst other things, the Jerry Springer Opera being shown on BBC over the weekend.. if not, here they are for your delictation..

On Friday (or Saturday), a big group of evangelical christians turned up at the BBC studios in Wood Lane to have a TV licence burning party. Reporters interviewed some of the participants , and not one of them seemed to have the first idea what the show actually contained in the way of offensive material. I haven't seen it, I hasten to add, although I was going to, but it was such an important event that I forgot all about it being broadcast even.

There was a lot of fuss over a Sikh playwright a couple of weeks ago, whose play (performed somewhere in Birmingham) portrayed scenes of rape and murder in a Sikh temple. The show was cancelled because a few people protested.

It's laughable really.. Griff Reece Jones commented at the time about how it should be an absolute right to be able to offend people [when questions were asked about religious hatred.. that's the media for you]. I agree. If I felt that I would be offended by either JS or the Hindu play, then I have a choice of not watching. Equally, the furore that ensued when Billy Connolly made a joke about Ken Bigley.. I don't remember what it was, but what was the fuss about? Billy Connolly is a rough tough ex-welder who tells rude jokes to a paying audience that know who he is.. if they got a bit peeved by the content of his show, so 'kin what. They're obviously too stupid to be let out on their own. I've been to see Jim Davidson before now.. he was extremely offensive, and probably offended every single person in the audience that night.. absolutely bloody marvellous it was.

Keep on offending our moral values Auntie Beeb, and all you outlandish comedians. That's what we want. And if you can seriously offend people without them even seeing the much maligned works, even better.

[The more discening amongst you will see that I corrected one particular gaff from the original] :)

And now we have it all over again. Anyone who has seen even a snipet of news, or a glance at a paper today will have seen Prince Harry dressed up as a WWII German soldier at a fancy dress party. On Radio 5 today, they have had a procession of the professionally outraged, ring in and tell everybody how upset we must be at these revelations. I know I must be offended to my very core, because the bloke on the radio said I was, in some sweeping generalisation or other.

Anyone would think that he turned up on Rememberance Sunday, dressed as he was, in designer Afrikawear. He was at a friend's private party, letting his hair down.. as would most young men of his age on a Saturday night. Some idiot present obviously had the financial nouse to click away with his cell phone, and get the photo out to The Sun as a matter of urgency. According to Arthur Edwards [the Sun's Royal Photographer] this morning, the lucky photographer was more than likely looking at around £100k for his piccie. I'm not an historian by any means, but this wasn't the uniform of the Gestapo or the SS. This looks like the standard issue uniform of a desert soldier.

As I type, I can hear more about this scandal being broadcast on the news.

Does anyone think for one minute that Harry condones the actions of those involved in the Nazi genocide, and proudly wore the uniform, in the same way that a fat lad from London prides himself on wearing a Chelsea shirt every waking moment? Of course not. Is every person who wore a pair of flashing red horns on Halloween a potential satanist? Of course not.

This is a twenty year old lad getting pissed up round his mate's house, on a Saturday night, and having a jolly good time.

Perhaps, in hindsight, if he'd known that someone was going to try and make a few quid out of his chosen attire, he might have gone as Elvis instead. But so what.. there will always be people out there ready, at the drop of a hat, to become mortified by the actions of anyone who doesn't quite fit in with their own particular rose tinted point of view.. but it won't be me.

I refuse to become "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" just because someone else thinks I should be. What is disgusting is having those with too much time on their hands, telling me what I should be thinking.

Comments please.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Hyper-Linking your pictures

2005-01-03T18:09:00.000Z

Hi all,

I've now deleted the previous couple of blogs in favour of this one, in which English at least, seems to prevail in the main.

The following, although I specifically used it to get a live donation link running on this site, is perfectly applicable to any picture that you wish to create a clickable link from, just like anywhere else on the web. This could be a piccy of your favourite meal, linked to the URL of the resaurant that you eat it in.. or something else even.. :) But I digress..

Here we go, a little class in html for you all.

<a href="https://www.donate.bt.com/bt_form_dec.htm"></a>

Above is the text string for the linkable image in my sidebar. I've put it in a text box, so you can copy, paste it straight into your own blog template.

<!-- Begin #sidebar :: left column :: blog archives, links --><div id="sidebar">
<br />INSERT IMAGE STRING HERE
<br /></div>

The above text box shows where you should place the image, ideally so that it can be seen as soon as you have a visitor. Scroll down your template (on the Scribe template that I use, this is around 3/4 of the way down the template) until you get to the div id="sidebar" tag, as seen in the above text box. Enter the string as a copy and paste, immediately after that tag, click preview and check it out. Don't worry about the preview showing being a bit out of kilter, it seems to be a regular thing for me. You want to see it in real life.. open up your blog from your favourites. You may have to refresh a couple of times, but it'll turn up eventually.

If my piccie doesn't work on your site then you can upload your own picture to a new post, and create the link around the picture as follows, and this goes for any image that you want to link from.

<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/259/2227/640/6.jpg"></a>

..is similar to how the html text for your picture will look, once you've uploaded it, as seen when you click Edit HTML in the compose section of your blog. The bit you need to replace is the URL string, between " and ", not forgetting to include the full URL, including http://, or (https:// in the case of a secure site, such as in this example). You can see precisely what I mean if you go back to the first text box in this post. Once published it will link to the URL you want it to. Before publishing, click on preview, and just hold the mouse over the image in your post. You should, all being well, see the URL you have linked to, in the status bar of your browser.. (look just above the Start button)

This is the original image..

.. and how it behaves with nothing further done to it. (hold the mouse over the image and check the status bar at the bottom of your browser..)

..while this is the correctly linked image, as will be confirmed by checking out the status bar this time

Check back occasionally for more handy stuff like this. I'm no expert but if I find out how to do something useful, I'll always pass it on.. and if you have any questions about this, feel free to ask. If I don't know the answer, I'll try and find out for you.

Cheers

Liam

NB. Please only use this script, containing my picture if you are posting it via.. http://www.blogger.com ..as it's linked from their server. If you choose to try using this script on your non-blogger site, the chances are you will be graced with the presence of an image placeholder containing a red X. Not very aesthetically pleasing really :)

Donations to the Asian Tsunami disaster..

2004-12-30T21:41:00.000Z

Hi all,

This Link gives everyone all the info they need to start helping with donations. I know there are probably only a handful of people who read this site, but Alan's post is a good way to get a bit more in the pot. If only one of the people who reads this puts in a couple of quid, then if that happened on every blogsite, well it'll help somehow.

The direct link to donate online is

www.dec.org.uk

The link can be confirmed in the BBC link above. I just donated, and my "reference number" was 16000 and something. In a country of 60 odd million, that's pretty pathetic, and they'll need every penny they can get.

I think the media need to start changing the angle of reportage as well. It may not be as pretty, or saleable, but they need to concentrate on the living. Announcing 100,000 dead may sell papers/advertising revenue, but doesn't show the enormity of the problem for several million people that are still living. They are homeless and left with nothing but what they are wearing. Many need medical help. With no clean water and little sanitation, disease is bound to account for hundreds, if not thousands of extra lives in the coming weeks.

I really don't know what the banks are faffing about at, if I've understood correctly, taking all this time to set up accounts. If I can go into the bank tomorrow and have an account up and running in 10 minutes, how the hell is it taking so long for the CEOs of the Big 4?

Also, donating via Paypal or similar would be handy for a lot of people. If just the people with a Paypal account on ebay put in a couple of pounds that a few hundred thousand worldwide. Set up an email address, and stick a link somewhere on the website "Donate with Paypal". Job done.

I'll post up a more permanent link in the side bar later, but for now, there's plenty of info above.

Cheers

Liam

Christmas comes but once a year...

2004-12-27T22:43:00.000Z

Hi all,

Well that's Christmas over for another year.. thank the invisible pink unicorn. I spent a rather enjoyable one at home on my own. Garvan's done a diary (A link to Garvan's blog can be found to the left) of what he did and when, so here's mine.. in a totally plaguaristic way.

Christmas Eve;

3.30pm Left work.

7.00pm Went to the Hanworth Club and supped more than one pint at our Xmas Disco..

10.30pm Compered the raffle, wildly hilarious that was.

12.30am Staggered homeward, fed the cats, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Christmas day; (The pedantic amongst you will have noticed the last entry above could be inserted here, but it wasn't.. so there) :)

7.00am Awoke to 5 cats who were trying to remove the front door one scratch at a time. Noted that head was thumping. I get a hangover about once every 4 years.. my lucky day.

8.00am Fed the cats, and myself. Being a survivalist at heart, I found a microwaveable pizza (more than one actually.. more later) in the fridge, and had that.

Then watched TV until around...

12 midday Strolled over to the club on my annual pilgrimage to the Statue of Her Lady of John Smiths of the Smooth. Had 3 pints of holy water, and a good natter to everyone. Nobody stood out as wearing a brand new Christmas jumper, as knitted by their great Aunt Ethel.. although she may have been more subtle this year.

2.00pm Strolled home, and fed the cats.. and had another pizza. I had some spuds ready, and 15 minutes could have seen a wonderful meal appear.. but I really couldn't be bothered.

2.30pm Unwrapped prezzies.

3.00pm Queen's Speech. She sounds more like Emperor Blair each year.. I was glad that her Annus wasn't quite so Horriblus this year though. The cream must be working. (Liam; Looking forward to a headless New Year)

Settled down in front of the TV for the afternoon.

7.00pm Went round to Ros' Mum's. Her sister gave me a bottle of Rasberry Beer, the name of which escapes me at the moment.. it was gorgeous. I'll post up the name as and when.. We also took part in an impromptu quiz.. which rather embarrasingly, I won. I must spend too long listening to R4 and being online.. :)

11.00pm Got home to a hoard of cats screaming for food. Anyone would think they don't eat from one month to the next. Tigger, one of the boy cats, decided he wanted to stay out for the night; and as he can run faster than Linford Christie on acid, I had little say in the matter.

Boxing Day:

2.10am Tigger decides that he in actual fact, doesn't want to stay out for the whole night any longer, and meows for England at the door. I'd been asleep for the best part of half an hour by then.

7.00am The cats want to go out, and announce the fact most emphatically.. it's a good job I was going to get up anyway(7 o-bloody clock on Boxing Day.. I ask you). :) It wasn't so much a dawn chorus, more the screams of those doing breaststroke in the lake of fire.

8.00am Fed the cats.. Fed me.. Ah pizza.. yep, had to be done. Then watched TV, shook out the rugs etc.

1.00pm Popped up to Mum's, in the frozen wastelands better known as Coventry. For those that drive often, you'll know the sort of people that congregate on our motorways on public holidays. The ones that will use the M40 perhaps once a year. They haven't got the first [insert expletive] idea what they're doing. On a general day, I'd say that perhaps 10% of motorists shouldn't even have a driving licence. Public holiday motorway drivers.. 50% minimum. I drive for a living and see, on a daily basis, what mental incapacity and the DVLA's unforgiveable doling out of driving licences to all and sundry look like when combined.

I have cruise control on my car. A (relatively) empty M40, should see me kick it off maybe 3 or 4 times between High Wycombe and Banbury. I switched it off in the end and drove using my feet.. mainly because of the idiots who like to go flying past me at 90 and then slow down immediately to 70 directly in front of me. This means that should I wish to stay at the same speed (usually set at 75-80, officer), I have to overtake them within a minute or two. My speed is constant, but they think I'm trying to race them.. they then have to go past.. you get the idea. Why some 18 year old numpty driving an 'F' reg 1.1 Nova, 4 up; whilst wearing a woolly hat, thinks for one minute that he'd win a race anyway, against my Scorpio on a motorway, is beyond me. It might not be quite as nimble on a C road, but when I can still use 3rd gear at a speed where his piston crowns are starting to melt, it seems nonsensical. I just pull back and let the twats get on with it.

I did have to laugh once though. Mrs. Liam and I were on, I think, the M6 going on holiday. A Renault Clio went past doing about 90-95. It was already smoking quite admiribly by then, and a few hundred yards later the engine just gave up the game entirely.

95 mph to smoking oily wreck on the hard shoulder.. Priceless. For everything else there's the AA card. :)

Then there are the err.. older generation, all wearing trilbys (trilbies??), driving at 65 mph in the middle lane, completely and utterly oblivious to anything that isn't happening in the 10 feet of road directly in front of them. These prats, I'm sure, cause more accidents than any amount of brain dead Clio/Saxo driving youngsters, on motorways. The teenagers are at least aware of their surroundings to some extent. You're travelling at 75-80, on the inside lane of a quiet motorway and you suddenly catch up with Volvo Man testing the claims for fuel consumption at a constant 56mph, in the middle lane; whilst trying to tune into Radio Luxembourg, swearing that he listened to it the last time time he'd made the trip up to Great Aunt Morag's in the summer of '62. Inside Lane, Middle Lane, Overtaking Lane, Middle Lane, Inside Lane. To overtake this one idiot, you've added 7 miles (approx):) to the journey.

Then, 2 miles down the road is his female contemporary in a Chelsea Tractor doing the same.. you know the ones, they have a Little Person Aboard sucker cup board hanging in the rear window, causing a 60% blind spot in the rear view mirror. The first time in a year that they've driven far enough for the automatic choke to switch itself off, and they want to enjoy every precious moment of it; while little darling Johnny pulls faces through the side window, after having managed to extracate himself from the confines of Britax's finest.

Phew.. did you notice any pet hates emerge from that little diatribe.. :) No? Oh well.. onwards:-

2.30pm Mum had platefuls of my favourite food ready for me.. I bet you can't guess.. yep Pizza. :) It was the traditional gathering of the clans. The latest addition to the family, my brother's gorgeous little daughter, is now walking. The last time I saw her was at her first birthday party in October. She loved Uncle Liam then, and liked giggling whilst pulling on my beard until my face resembled Joan Collin's's..is (whatever). This time, she wouldn't go near me..

"..scary bloke.. ahh.. Mummy, Daddy.. save me from the horrid wierd person."

(It sounded more like sniffle-gurgle-burp, but you can tell these things instinctively, can't you)

5.00pm Travelled back.. Basically the same idiots, only they now had to drive in the dark, staring out of the 5" circle they'd scraped out of the ice on the windscreen.. I could, as you well know, go on (and on, and on) but I'll refrain.. :)

8.00pm Another pilgrimage to the Hallowed Hanworth Grotto (or grotty even). A few pints and a game of darts ensued. The darts was going quite well until my mate Duncan put his name down for a game. He's arguably one of the best players in the club. I played him three times. The first I won, having been playing without loss for about 15 games, I was in good form and warmed up. However.. I played him twice more, and notwithstanding the fact that I hit a 180 in each game.. I lost both, such is his prowess with the old arrows.

nb. For those that have read previous ramblings herein, my right elbow had been playing up again.. but, with the aid of some anti-inflamatories seems to be back to normal-ish, which is very good news for me, given my liking for the game of darts.

11.50pm Went home.. I've been typing this for a good while now, and I can't really see any point in prolonging your agony any longer; so this, being the end, seems a good time to stop. :)

Cheers

Liam

Happy Xmas everyone..

2004-12-24T19:17:00.000Z

Hi all,

Just a quick one, as I'm off out in a minute..

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Cheers

Liam

Gadgets

2004-12-18T14:26:00.000Z

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the minicam that I bought. I've just got myself a new gadget as well. A 128Mb USB Flashdisk built into a wristwatch. That'll save me having to carry a bag full of CDs with me if I have to check out someone's machine for them, or just want to take my photos or documents somewhere with me.

New PC

2004-12-18T12:53:00.000Z

Hi all,

My computer gave up the ghost last Sunday, so I've been shopping.. :)

Bought a new one, and it's all sparkly and shiny. Tech details for anyone interested follow..

ASRock K7S41 Mobo
AMD Sempron 2600+
80Gb HD
512Mb DDR Ram
DVD/CD-RW Combo

XP Home SP2

And the guy also threw in a spindle of 50 TDK CD-Rs. I asked if he could take something off the price.. as you do. He couldn't as the price was set by the accountants, but was happy to throw those in to the deal. That's saved me a tenner anyway.

I was looking at the Dell site to start with, but although they advertise on telly with complete systems for only £370 etc, once you actually go to the Customise section and put in what you want, the price rockets. You have to buy the whole package as well. As this is a replacement for my other machine, I already have a 17" monitor, and all the other stuff.. speakers, keyboard, mouse etc, and could save loads just buying the base unit.. but I couldn't.

My new machine did come with a standard PS2 keyboard and mouse bundled in. I've already sold the keyboard at full retail, (£11) to someone broke theirs.

And it's all up and running now. I've just installed the scanner. I bought a UMAX Astraslim SE on Ebay for £6.50, yes £6.50 last week. I'm trying to get a laptop for £30 next. :) I figure if I bid up to £30 on every laptop that shows, eventually one will slip through the net.

I haven't really explored XP yet, being an advocate of W98 all these years, but at first glance, I'm wondering why I so stubbornly hung on to 98 for so long. The first thing I did though, before installing anything was to get rid of the tellytubby hill wallpaper. And install Avant Browser, Adaware, Spybot, AVG and Zone Alarm of course.

I didn't quite realise how noisy the old machine was either, but thinking back it sounded like a jet engine on take off. :) This one by comparison is a glider.

Now for the next blog..

TW3

2004-12-05T01:57:00.000Z

Well, this week I've been to the doctors, and then been sent off to Heatherwood Hospital to have my elbow x-rayed. I spent from around May/June last year to around April this year with my elbow strapped up due to tennis elbow. Well, after a fall last week, the pain came back and I was made to go get it checked out. :) I'm a bloke after all. If I can get to work, I'm not ill.. end of story.

It's back again, although thankfully I didn't crack my elbow as I thought at first. I'm meant to rest the elbow, but how I do that and work, I'm not sure. I think I've had around 4 weeks sick in my entire working life (three separate events), and I'd feel pretty silly having time off work for this, but I'll know more later in the week after a return visit do the Doctor.

I have to seriously think about either giving up darts for the moment, or at least limiting the amount of matches I play in a week. At the moment, being close to Christmas, I can get away with only playing one more match this year.. I had to stop for most of last winter's season in the Ascot league.. it was just too painful to play more than one match a week. Still, I can drink left-handed. :)

The one thing I can't complain about is the service I got from both the Surgery and the Hospital. It was a sameday appointment at the Doctor's, and the X-ray was a "turn up and wait your go" affair. I got to the hospital the next day armed with a book, wondering if I should have brought two, and read about three pages. That's what I call service. :)

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Cheers

Liam

2004-12-05T01:20:00.000Z

The camera in question

Well this is it.. I can't find the link to it now, so it must have been a sell out. I like the software as well, one click and you can grab all the photos off the camera, one more to save to the PC. I also just found out how to put nice little borders on the photos before uploading them as well. :)

You'll also be pleased to know that following a thaw, the snow has dissappeared from the blog.

Next blog coming up.

Cheers

Liam

Just bought a minicam

2004-12-04T09:20:00.000Z

Testing my new camera

Hi,

just a quick, as I'm off out for some lunch. I bought a mini digital camera for £14. It means that I can just leave it my pocket in case something interesting happens. I'll post a link up for it later, but to give you an idea it measures 57x41x13 (mm), comes with a carrycase, USB lead, keychain and software; although it was a bit of a pig trying to install the drivers.. the CD's default installation location for setup.exe was the F:\ drive.. yes, the CD drive itself. I downloaded the software elsewhere (DSC(2700) chipset, so easily available). a link to which I'll also post later.

I stuck it out the window and took the above. David Bailey will sleep easily tonight, but I think it's good enough for blogging, especially as I now have no excuse for not taking photos while out and about. The decent camera can be used just for the proper pictures in safety.

Off out for pizza now, so I'll post later.. and take out the snow script. I'm bored with it now.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Is it that long since I blogged..?

2004-11-28T18:34:00.000Z

Hi all,

What do you think of the snow? It only works at the moment if you're using an IE based browser or Netscape. (Ah, whatever happened to Netscape, the Betamax of the web) :)

This was just a quick tester, to see the effect. The next incarnation will be better. This one didn't involve uploading a *.gif first.

Anyway, what have I been doing.. well, I have another darts trophy. Runner up in the Ted Brown Memorial darts competition held at work. And on the same subject.. Tuesday saw me through the first three rounds of the Bracknell and Binfield Darts; singles competion. Enough of that.. :)

We lost at pool on Thurday, so we're back to our normal level of success.. it was close at only 1-8, but I still see a little room for improvement in certain areas.. ie. hitting the ball.

Last night was the big night at the club. We aranged for a musical duo and a comedian to do their stuff, and it went down a treat.. once they turned up. To be fair, they got snagged in traffic on the M4, but once there they were absolutey brilliant. If both the readers of this blog need to find an entertainer for their function, then I can recommend both the Ricky Anderson duo (no web mention that I can find), and George Saunders, the comedian. My upper cheeks are still aching from the permanent grin during George's act. And yes, I will put up a few of his jokes when the effects of the second sweet sherry are alleviated.

The huge amount of hard work that went into the night was done almost entirely by Mrs. Liam, and as such.. well done. I'm not knocking the fact that, as she's my other half, it may look as though I had played a significant role in this as well. I can't help what people think now, can I. :)

That'll do for this one. Comments are welcome, if only to show that somebody reads this.. :)

Cheers

Liam

More computery stuff..

2004-11-21T04:55:00.000Z

Hi,

It has been six days since my last confess.. err.. blog. My how time flies. I'll blog up an abridged (you wish) :) version of events that have been going on around me later, but for now I thought I'd offer my tuppence worth of advice on a subject I actually know something about.. keeping your machine free of viruses, spyware and the like. I did all the main work to this blog first (why on earth did keyboard manufacturers put the < > brackets in "upper case"???), and I'm meant to be going out in a minute, so this bit's rushed. If you have got problems follow the advice below before doing anything else.. (out of time, so I'll tidy up this intro later on) :)

Download AdAware SE from here.

First, in the main window, look in the bottom right corner and click on Check for updates now and download the latest reference files.

Next, we need to configure Ad-aware for a full scan.

Click on the Gear icon (second from the left) to access the preferences/settings window

1. In the General window make sure the following are selected:
· Automatically save log-file
· Automatically quarantine objects prior to removal
· Safe Mode (always request confirmation)

2. Click on the Scanning button on the left and select :
· Scan Within Archives
· Scan Active Processes
· Scan Registry
· Deep Scan Registry
· Scan my IE favorites for banned URL’s
· Scan my Hosts file

· Under Click here to select drives + folders, choose:
· All of your hard drives | Proceed

3. Click on the Advanced button on the left and select:
· Include additional process information
· Include additional file information
· Include environment information

4. Click the Tweak button and select:
· Under the Scanning Engine:
· Unload recognized processes & modules during scan
· Include additional Ad-aware settings in logfile
· Under the Cleaning Engine:
· Let Windows remove files in use at next reboot

5. Click on Proceed to save the settings.

6. Click Start and on the next screen choose:
· Use Custom Scanning Options

7. Click Next and Ad-aware will scan your hard drive(s) with the options you have selected.

When finished, mark everything for removal and get rid of it. (Right-click the window and choose Select All from the drop down menu and click Next).

Next, please reboot again and download Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3 from here: if you haven't already got the program.

Click on Updates | Download Updates, and follow the prompts.

Next, close all Internet Explorer windows, and click Check for Problems. Once the scan is complete, have SpyBot remove all it finds marked in RED.

Other useful programs to include in your Security Kit.

SpywareBlaster

SpywareGuard

IE-SpyAd

You should also make sure that you have both a Firewall, and an up-to-date Anti-Virus program installed. Here are a few links to some free Firewall programs...

Zone Alarm

Sygate

Kerio

..and Anti-Virus programs...

AVG

Avast

AntiVir

Of course having the latest Windows Updates is vital. Go here, click Scan for updates in the main frame, and download and install all CRITICAL updates recommended, being careful to follow any recommendations for individual installation, where appropriate.

There are many other programs advertised on the web, and to be honest, most of them are a waste of disc space,but all those above come highly recommended by the security community.

If you want to read about the growing pile of useless, fraudulent and downright rubbish programs available online and purporting to be anti-spyware utilities, then have a read here.

Hopefully there's some helpful info there. If you have any virus/spyware related problems, then there are some good online forums that will help you for free. Of course, if you know me from any of the other blogs or forums, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. I can't offer this service to everybody, but I'll always help a mate out. :)

Cheers

Liam

All things computing.

2004-11-14T12:30:00.000Z

Hi,

well I've sorted out the harddisk problems. I used Restorer2000 Data Recovery Software 2.0 to find the important stuff.. documents etc. The trial (free) version could recover up to 64Kb per file, which was plenty for what I needed.

Job done.

This morning Oi 'ave mostly bin playin' wi' Foirefoxx.

I haven't used IE for a long time now, prefering Avant for it's speed and reliability and security and well it's just better than IE is all. But as anyone who's been near the 'net in the last few days will have seen, Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0.

Not being your average luddite, I thought I'd get it and have a look at it. Well.. err, it's a browser. It's very basic so you can go on the net without all the added bloat of IE, but there are scores of people writing all the little extensions that you'll need for more advanced surfing.. ad-blockers, TBEs (Tabbed Browsing Extensions) and a whole host of other things. I did notice one for Blogspot a bit earlier. I'll have a look at it in a bit, and review that at a later date.

So far, I've imported my bookmarks to Firefox, but the most important plugin I needed was for Roboform. If you use Roboform to store passwords for your various forums, sites, blogs etc, then the ability to use it in another browser is going to be extremely important. Can you remember every password you've ever used? Nope, nor can I. You can get the plugin for Roboform to work with Firefox, and many other browsers from here. It all works.. although as soon as you use Roboform to fill in any passwords, Firefox's own password manager grabs a copy as well. Belt and braces is a good thing.. :)

One thing I am going to have to sort out is the skin. Dull and boring are decent adjectives, and wholly apt in this case. I'm used to Avant. It's pretty yet functional, and all the useful buttons are neat, tidy and accessible. Even IE looks nicer than Firefox. This will give me something to do this afternoon. I can't possibly make it any uglier than it already is.

Cheers

Liam

Long time no see..

2004-11-14T03:21:00.000Z

Hi all,

Well, a quick rundown of the week..

Tuesday: Team lost at darts, I won my games.
Wednesday: Darts pairs comp. We lost, but played afirly well.
Thursday: Pool: Back to normal.. lost.
Friday: Work, Beer, Kebab.

Today, I've been trying to recover after a computer crash. This happened last weekend, but I still have a functioning C:\ drive, so didn't worry too much. Drives D: and E: though are mysteriously missing. Their tags appear in My Computer, but at 0 bytes. DOS can't identify their existence. D:\ only has (well to be more precise did have, as I've just formatted it) a few programs on it, so no great loss there. E: however has stuff that although not disastrous if lost, I'd prefer to see again. Old documents etc. I think I can just copy the system files onto the drive, but am waiting confirmation from one of the tech sites I hang out in.

Still, never mind eh! These things are sent to try us.

The other thing that I was wondering about was how I get recognised by Google (or any other search engine for that matter). Do I need to put a meta search string in the template somewhere, with various keywords? That could be fun depending on the keywords used. I could have a huge audience of lonely, frustrated people here inside half an hour, if I choose carefully.

I coulds I 'spose, even put up yon link directly to Trev's Niagra retail outlet in Dypwitch

A thought certainly.

Cheers

Liam

Darts Presentation night

2004-11-10T02:43:00.000Z

My (rightly) proud darts team.

There's Nabeel now.

Top row: Nabeel (fell off the end of the picture, hence the need for two) Steve, Paul, Tony, Ron, Your author, and Malcolm.

Bottom row: Derek, Kath and Karen.

Just a quick one here. On Saturday night our team was granted an extended day pass, to attend the presentation night of the darts summer league. As you can see, we went away with a fair amount of (strangely plasticky to the touch) silverware. There are also three major trophies on the table, that can go in the cabinet at some point. (I didn't realise at the time, but you can also just see the team board for the pool victory on Thursday, mentioned further down the blog.)

Well, we're in action again tonight, and let's hope that we can keep up the good work.

Cheers

Liam

Handy stuff to customize your blogging template..

2004-11-09T04:00:00.000Z

Hi all,

As you may have seen, I'm starting to redecorate my basic blog template. After getting some very much needed initial help from Jeremy, I'm off and stumbling with a few additional tricks. I realise that I may be trying to teach many a granny to suck eggs here, but if you find either of the following links useful, please comment.

One that can really help to jazz up your blog is to change the colour scheme of the various areas of text. To change the colour of any text, simply place these following tags around it (I've had to change the < > to [ ] to kill the html, so you'll need to replace accordingly)..

[span style="color:#xxxxxx;"]your text goes here[/span],

The xxxxxx is where you insert the six character color code. This link explains the html colour charts, and gives you the codes to insert in the above tag.

The other handy site I found is this one. It list the most commonly used tags, and what they do. For instance, this one will drive people potty, but is fun..

Cuddly toy.. err, toaster.. err, pot plant.. err, Cuddly toy, no, I've already said that... etc.

..okay, I've mixed in a few different ones there, but you get the idea.

{Disclaimer: If everyone's blog suddenly sprouts whole paragraphs of scrolling text, don't blame me, I didn't invent it.. I just told you about it.}

There are also all the tags for putting in music, video clips etc.

Hope that was helpful.. I certainly enjoyed writing it.. :)

Cheers

Liam

EDIT: I've just had a look at this post in Mozilla, as the scrolling text tags are meant to be primarily for use when viewing IE driven browsers. It does work, in a fashion, but would need some parameter settings added into the script. Apart from that, Mozilla users will see roughly what I can.. :)

My Sunday..

2004-11-08T04:05:00.000Z

Hi all,

Well firstly we attempted to have lunch at Tescos cafe. This is Tescos at the Meadows in Camberley, Surrey. What an utterly pointless trip (foodwise anyway). A queue a mile long and hardly any staff at the counters. I don't mind waiting normally, but they have a system where you queue, get your food, queue, get your coffee, queue.. pay. And then you go and sit down to tuck into your cold meal. When it's busy and shortstaffed you can sometimes wait for up to 10 minutes between getting your food and eating it. In an air conditioned restaurant, you have absolutely no chance of still having a hot meal by the time you sit down to eat it.

However, although we turned around and headed straight back down into the shop proper, Mrs Liam wanted to look at some Norman Wisdom DVDs.. I found the books and went on a mini shopping trip all of my own and bought..

Dark Winter: Andy McNab
Toll for the Brave: Jack Higgins
The Teeth of the Tiger: Tom Clancy

.. all for change out of 12 quid. Not a bad bit of shopping on my part. If I can move away from this computer for a little while I may even get the chance to read them.

Well, as there is a branch of M$S attached to Tescos, Ros thought it would be a good idea to have a look in there while we were there. Oh goody thought I. I can never get enough of looking at old women dressed in leopard skin print, and pushing trolleys around as though they were the only people in the shop. It's scary to think that they will drop off their trolleys outside (I just had some horrible imagery spring to mind then, but I won't elaborate) and get into a car, driving it in exactly the same way.

It was pointed out to me how lovely their bags of pot-pourri refills looked. The suggestion that Camberley Council would quite likely collect garden waste if approached, and would save M&S clogging up their already full shelves was met with much hilarity.. on my part anyway. :) That was the red stuff. On another shelf they had some yellow stuff. Have you seen the feed trays in a chimp's enclosure at the zoo? That's the one, with all the half eaten fruit. I reckon Monkey World tops up it's funds by selling the leftovers to M&S as yellow pot-pourri. :)

Well that's two shops and still no food. It's a good job I carry reserves of energy. So off we go to Aldershot, home of the British Army. It's also home to one of the few Pizza Hut's that is staffed by friendly, helpful and efficient staff. I love Pizza Hut's food, but would rather make a return trip of over 30 miles to Aldershot than go to Bracknell's pathetic excuse for a restaurant. It seems to be staffed by people who failed the job interview for McDonalds. It is also stuffed full with as many tables and chairs as they can physically get in the building. And then they close half of it off to customers. I'm sorry, but if I wanted to eat within rubbing distance of a dozen or so other people, I'd eat my pizza on the tube at rush hour.. far less intimate. This is of course assuming that they even make the slightest effort to seat you. The staff all wander around completely oblivious to the fact that you and three families of screaming kids are queuing out of the door waited to be attended to. Then when they do stumble their way over, it's..

"Good afternoon Sir, I'm afraid there will be a 45 minute wait for food. Would you like to take a seat and wait anyway, Sir?"

You have to be polite, because that's not their fault. That's down to a prat of a duty manager, who couldn't find his arse with both hands, a compass and a good OS map. So you gently decline his offer, while inwardly thinking lots of naughty words to yourself.

..err, oh yes. We had a very nice meal and left. Ros wanted a scale model of a Christmas tree for her dolls house, so we went to a garden centre. No point in mentioning which one as at this time of year they are indistinguishable from each other covering, as they do, at least half the shop with Christmas decor, trees etc. I have to take a bucket into shops with me at this time of year. I absolutely detest christmas.. absolutely and utterly, utterly and absolutely and completely hate it. That's my trouble, ambiguity. There was a life sized Santa thing, dancing away and singing jolly Christmas songs. I'm not a violent person.. but.. I'm thinking big fat red punchbag here. Ros heard me thinking (outloud) about this.. still, the anti-imflamatories have just kicked in, so that's taken the edge off the pain for now. :)

Still, there is still over six weeks to Christmas, plenty of time to vent my spleen about it as we creep ever nearer.

Cheers

Liam

Accountability..

2004-11-07T02:08:00.000Z

Hi,

You may have noticed a couple of subtle changes to the site this afternoon. The most noticable being a hit counter. It stands at one, as I write. I came in off Alan's site, just to see if it worked. And it does. Let's try and get into double figures by christmas.. :)

Cheers

Liam

One for the petrol heads..

2004-11-07T00:27:00.000Z

Triumphant beastie

I saw a review on some program or another about this bike. It's the new Triumph Rocket III. Engine size.. 2.3 litre. On a two wheeler?? That's mad.

I drive a Ford Scorpio. The engine's a touch smaller, but my car weighs around 3250lb. The Rocket on the other hand weighs in at a relatively lightweight 660lb. It's got 140 horses to push it along as well. This is, at the moment, the largest engine ever fitted to a production motorbike.

I'll try and get a picture scanned in and posted, of me sitting on an even bigger machine, although not a mass produced one; the engine is a 3.5 litre V8. :)

If I ever get around to building my Trike, I think that just to give it street cred, it's going to need the Audi A8's six litre motor, if it wants to spend any quality time in the company of the above behemoths.

Cheers

Liam

Labour's European dream gone for a burton..

2004-11-06T23:35:00.000Z

You may have read in the news yesterday that Labour got a bit of a slap in the face in their charge toward their European dream. The people of the North were given the choice of whether to accept yet another tier of government. They said NO, in a big, bold upper case sort of way. Good on you; the people of the North.

Why does this have anything to do with that stinking political cess-pool we lovingly know as the European Union, I hear you ask? Well, if you didn't already know, England is to be divided up into nine regions, each able to send four representatives to the "European Committee of the Regions". These regions will then be at the mercy of any decisions that are made there, whether that is in the interests of the people of these regions or not. Labour agreed to this. They are selling us out to Europe by the backdoor. Anyone read much about the greater involvement in Europe that the forming of these separate devolved regions would lead to? Nah, didn't think so. It's been kept quite quiet hasn't it.

Did anyone think it strange that Uriah Heep (sorry, Charles Kennedy) should be there supporting Prescott's efforts to secure a YES vote? Ole' Chucky makes Jaques Chirac look like a euroskeptic. It must be seriously in Kennedy's interest to support the regionalisation, considering that to back it, he must sit side by side with polititions that took Britain to the war in Iraq; something he disagreed with wholeheartedly.

I doubt for one minute that Blair, Prescott et al, will have given up on this. They want us in Europe any way they can fix it. I would think that they've pretty much given up on the referendum for the EU constitution for a while. They know that if they held it tomorrow, then they would lose by a country mile. They definitely thought they were in with a shout by holding referenda for regionalisation, but that has now left Prescott with egg on his face (again). The people of this country don't want to ruled by an unelected, undemocratic bureaucracy. They want to be run by a err.. undemocratic.. bureaucracy err.. that was elected. At the moment we can vote in or out, whoever we as a country choose to. We should also be able to vote in a new administration that is able to overturn any decisions made by their predeccesors. The moment we throw ourselves into the idiocy that is the European Union, we can kiss all our democratic freedoms goodbye. Never again will we as a country be able to decide for ourselves what is in our best interests.

I for one, do not want yet more meaningless legislation forced upon me by some autonomous authority, that I have no voice in. At least with our own government, however much I disagree with them, I can have a say in who runs the country every four years or so.. This is not the case with Europe. They will run our country as they see fit, and if we don't like it.. we can jolly well lump it. Why on earth should I have to live my life according to how Polish, German, French or even Turkish polititions think I should?

Oh well, rant over.. :)

Read this and this for more info on the splitting up of Britain's regions to facilitate us becomming part of the grand United States of Europe.

Cheers

Liam

The pool team stands victorious..

2004-11-06T21:59:00.000Z

Hi all,

Well, all that pessimism about our pool team now seems a bit ill-founded. We won 6-3. The first time we've won since February 2003. We went 2-0 up, and unlike previous matches, just kept adding to the score. Could this be a new beginning??

Watch this space.

Fame at last..

2004-11-05T03:39:00.000Z

Hi,

Two entries in one night.. you lucky people you. (It could've been four, so think yourselves very lucky indeed) :)

On Monday at work, myself and my two colleagues will be having a driving assessment. I should explain to those who don't know, that I'm a courier with Bracknell Council. We deliver mail and all sorts of other oddities to the various buildings in the Borough. The Borough is pretty vast being mostly rural, and so needs three people, each with a white van, to cover the area. We will be driving the van with an outside assessor in the passenger seat. He will evaluate our driving skills and report back to the boss. As I have a few money-off tokens for McDonalds, and have my assessment at 12:30, I do have the added advantage of culinery bribery at my disposal.. :)

The fame bit in the title is because, as we are the first of many to be involved in this scheme, we will be getting our piccies taken for, I assume the staff magazine. Being that we see, at some point or another, most employees of the Council, I suppose we are already fairly well known. To be photographed for all to see, resplendant in our uniforms, standing proudly by our trusty steeds is another matter entirely. I say steeds, although it will almost certainly not be my van. It's old now, (W reg Suzuki) and though I polish it lovingly day after day, and hoover it on the hour every hour (just in case my boss should ever read this) :) the two newer vans will no doubt be called upon to represent the mechanical element of this great vocation of ours.

I think the picture of me further down is a lucky fluke, but if not, I shall post this one up when I get it.. for posterity.

Well, I must quickly check out the rest of the WWW, and then lead my astoundingly successful pool team to victorious defeat once more. :) This will be against the team who stuffed us silly in the first round of the League Cup, last week.

My bit of fun is in the fact that I use black cue chalk, and it makes a right mess of the cue ball.. :D

See, as Garvan et al mention incessantly, I am truly evil.. Nyahahaha.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Darts and stuff..

2004-11-05T03:10:00.000Z

Hi,

Well, as I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I played darts last night.. again. I won my games, and the team won 6-3. Not a bad result. We played against the Old Comrades Club in Sunninghill. I mention this because it was a good night and they're a good bunch of lads. And I won £12 on the card.. :D

The Card, for those that don't play in pub team games, such as darts, pool or crib is a scratch card with usually around 40 little boxes on it. These may be football teams, or whatever. Everyone has a go or more for 50p, and the sandwiches are paid for, and usually £10 or so goes to the winner once the card is err.. scratched. Wigan were the unlikely winners for me last night.

Tonight however is a different kettle of vegetarian fish shapes. Tonight is Pool night. The Hanworth Social Club pool team are famed in this little square of the world. We haven't won a match this season, although we are only 3 weeks into it. Last season we didn't win a single match; the season before, I think we won one match.. etc. You get the idea.

I'm captain of this team, and as far as results go.. I couldn't care less. We go out every Thursday throughout the winter months, enjoying every match. We all of course, try to play our very best while at the table, and we really aren't as useless as the results sheet would have everyone believe.. but it just doesn't happen. Still, the beer, food and company more than make up for any shortfall in our actual combined skill levels. And frankly, as none of us will ever earn a red cent at the game, why ruin a night out by worrying about the empty shelves in the trophy cabinet.

(That sounds like I'm trying to wipe away tear with a smile, doesn't it.. sniffle) :)

I'll post up the (inevitable) result later on. I just know that all my loyal readers will want to rush back here to find out.. please..?? :)

Cheers

Liam