Yorkshire ... Sorry there have been no uploads of my stunning videos yet but I've been away! I went home to the town of my birth to celebrate the family matriarchal birthday: sister Carol, that is. There is a video for that too and that is being uploaded as we speak. It's DVD quality and is large. It will only be there for a while as I don't have an infinite amount of web space to go at unfortunately. An interesting diversion came when 1 the car overheated 2 son Andrew arrived at Todmorden railway station with a Buddhist priest in tow The car is losing coolant at a rapid rate now and is in need of repair. By the end of my 185 mile drive from Abingdon to Halifax (where sister Susan and her family resides and where I lay my bonce!) the engine was overheating a little bit. Andrew trotted over from Salford (where he is at University) for the birthday party and we'd arranged for me to collect him from the railway station. He called to say he'd arrived and asked if I could take someone to Dobroyd Castle. It's not a bother so I said yes. It turned out that he'd met a Buddhist priest at the exit to the station who'd just arrived from Malaysia and was going to Dobroyd Castle for a retreat. Now, I didn't know that Dobroyd Castle was a Buddhist centre and has been for at least 10 years apparently. Still, I got to drive up to the castle (engine overheated again as I had failed on two separate occasions that evening to top up the coolant) and, more than that, got to go inside, something I had never done before: an impressive building that is still in good repair as far as I can see and was warmer than I thought it might be given the size of the hall way and the rooms. I should point out for anyone who has never spotted this sort of thing but these old mansions have fire places all over them: in this case, a fire in the entrance lobby; another one in the hall; at least another one would have been in what is now the mediation room ... Hence the need for a fire place maid. Keeping as many as 20, 30 ... 60 fires going must have been necessary at some times and that would have been a full time job! Had a marvellous time and the following day we took another walk round Halifax and the Piece Hall. Andrew needed a hair cut and we trolled him off to the £3 hair cut barber where they did the decent thing for him. There is an ice rink in the Piece Hall at the moment. What's the Piece Hall you might ask ...It's where weavers and traders would take their pieces of wool and worsted cloth for sale towards the end of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. If ever you're near Halifax, it's worth taking a detour to take a look round it. The original building is still there in its entirety as far as I know and the various rooms are now home to all sorts of diversions. Thursday evening saw me visiting sister Fiona and enjoying a good cup of tea with her and her family. Then on to Kipling's Indian restaurant in Bradford for an excellent curry with sister Susan and her husband Neville. Another winner, recommended by Andrew who had to return to Salford as we tucked in! We turned up without a reservation and had to wait around 45 minutes but it was worth it. It is a small and popular place to eat. Ready for new year now although I've got to file my income tax return today and have to catch up with lots of other things too. DW

Videos made by me ... Every now and again I get an urge to try to be creative. I do this using a camera and some image maniuplation software. Since my video camera is kaput I am using my new 3.2Mpx phone camera and my 5.3Mpx digital camera to do my work. What I am doing it walking around with a particular aim in mind:

• trees in relief either at dawn or dusk
• Abingdon at Christmas
• the A34 (I know ... why on earth ... ?)

Then I put the entire batch of files through Ulead software and turn a series of snaps into a semi aninated film that has titles, overlays and a backing track. Marvellous! Three files are ready to share and you will be the first to know when I have uploaded them. Size matters of course and I have prodiced a DVD standard version of one file that comes to over 120Mb in size. I won't be uploading that I don't think! Let's enjoy Christmas now. DW

My first time ... This is the first time I have ever logged on to the internet on Xmas Day I think ... and after wishing everyone merry christmas I'd like to say that I spent a successful day yesterday avoiding the result of Strictly Come Dancing, a patheric programme on BBC television in which people described as celebrities learn to dance with people described as professional terpsichorists. We are then invited to gawp at them in awe. Through force of circumstances I watched a few of these a year or two ago and found the following:

• these people don't do badly if you like that sort of thing but who wants to watch it?
• the panel of judges are psycholically interesting subjects
• the audience hoots and bawls at every score given to every couple

Anyway, it's a knockout process and on Saturday they held the final. What I managed to avoid is the result. You won't believe it but this result made headline mainstream BBC news on the telly. Luckily, they they gave warnings that they were about to tell us the result and since remote controls have been invented I was able to press the button sufficiently quickly. Well done! DW

Just in time for Christmas ... I feel you need to know that after paying my mortgage without let or hindrance for five and a half years I came to realise that I have effectively lost £21,000 (around US$40,000) in wasted payments. That is purely from an historical cost convention perspective of course: taking the present value of money into account and it's a lot more. How come? Well, I thought I had an endowment mortgage with an interest only element. It's true that I've got an interest only element but what I thought was an endowment policy turns out to be a very, very expensive life assurance policy. At this stage I am just too shell shocked at this to ask how I got into this situation; but in it I am! The effect of this? I have paid the interest element of the mortgage every month for the five and a half years without fail and what I owed in 2001 I still owe with no diminution whatsoever. As for the endowment element, I have paid this without fail month after month and not only will this give me absolutely no return whatsoever at any stage apart from my death or the death of that woman who is about to leave my life but also the amount it will pay out is reducing as time passes. Can't believe it can you? Me neither. It seems that when I pop my clogs and they have to pay out, they won't even pay out the full amount either in spite of the massive payments I am making. I was caught a few years ago by these people but fortunately the amount of money involved then was relatively small. This time, I have lost five years' worth of payments and you can see the impact of it. Yours in sanguinity DW

A Christmas Carol After a couple of very disappointing Carol services I decided to spread my wings and ended up in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in the High Oxford. I am very glad that I went along last Sunday to their Carol Service: in fact, the service of nine lessons and carols. I sometimes put together a response to a happy event by writing a commentary as if I were an eight year old. I have done the same again for this service and I hope whoever reads it will receive it in the spirit in which is was written. --oo0oo-- A nice carol service I went to the big church in Oxford on Sunday to sing happy birthday to Jesus. Well, we didn't sing happy birthday really but daddy said it was the same thing. There were lots of people in the church and I really liked that because the singing was louder and better. I can read now but there were some things I didn't get. They said that there would be a trollope reading us a story but I thought she looked very nice and smart. I think it wasn't kind to say that Joanna was a trollope. Mr Mountford the vicar wasn't busy either. He put on a big shiny coat and said hello to everyone but then he just sat down all night until he said goodbye to us all. Daddy said he must be a good manager to get away with that. He said to mummy something like make the money work for you. I didn't get it though. I love all of these Carols and am really happy that God was able to write them for us. The stories we heard were a bit odd weren't they because they weren't all about Jesus and the manger and the donkey. Daddy said I'll understand one day. A man called Professor told us one story and daddy said it would have been better if his name had been Stephen instead of Richard. Then he would be called S Pring. I didn't get it but daddy laughed. I liked his silver hair. It's like my grandads hair. Mrs Mountford read us the first story about Jesus and daddy said, keep it in the family Vicar. The handbells were lovely and I have asked Santa to get me a set now. Daddy said you'll be lucky. I hope so! I liked the way the boys all looked very serious when they were ringing their bells. They don't look so serious at school do they? Why did we only clap when the children did something? I wanted to clap when the choir sang but daddy said it's their job so best to keep quiet and not to make a fuss. Mummy said it's because he's from the North. I didn't get that. When we sang o come al ye faithful I did something scary. I sang o come let us adore him all three times every time. I didn't like that Herod man in the stories because he frightened me. Daddy said don't worry as it was all a long time ago and Jesus beat Herod anyway. That was the best carol service I have been to and I'm only eight. I liked the vicar's coat best and I also liked singing once in royal david's city especially when the choir sang the first part. That's why I wanted to clap. --oo0oo-- Well done everyone! Duncan Williamson

Oldest printed document ... and the Abingdon connection Let me shamelessly rip this from our National Archives. This is the first item printed in England. It was made by William Caxton, who introduced printing into England. It is an indulgence - a certificate written in Latin and issued by the Church. It gave the person who received it a reduction in the time that they had to spend in Purgatory (the place where souls were thought to go after death to spend time suffering before going on to heaven). John, Abbot of Abingdon, signed this indulgence for a couple called Henry and Katherine Langley. William Caxton was born in Kent in 1421 and worked abroad as a diplomat and merchant. While in Europe, he became interested in the new technology of printing developed by Johannes Gutenberg during the early 1450s. Caxton returned to England and set up a printing shop near Westminster Abbey. He printed over 100 books before his death in 1491, including Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. The design of the flat bed wooden hand-press used in Caxton's printing house remained the same, except for minor changes, for over 350 years. In the printing process, ink was spread over the raised surfaces of individual metal letters held within a frame. The printer then pressed this against a sheet of paper, screwing down the press by hand. Printing presses were first invented in the Rhineland in Germany. The craftsmen there were used to building grape presses for making wine and applied the same methods to building printing presses.Printing revolutionised life in Western Europe. Previously, all manuscript books had to be copied out carefully and slowly by hand. This was very expensive. Now it was quick to make lots of copies of books. This meant that books circulated faster. People had easier access to new ideas and new views of the world. Early printing copied the look of manuscript books, which is why Caxton's indulgence looks like it has been written by hand. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=9 DW

She's done it again: well done Fran! Fran's won Gold at the Worlds in Durban. Fastest in the heats and clear winner by 4 seconds in the final. Bloody well done, gel! The medal will look a bit like this one! A proud and doting dad! DW

Fran Pulls it off ... again! Daughter Fran is going great guns in Durban, South Africa, at the IPC Swimming World Championships. Seeded 5, she won the SILVER medal with a cracking time in her first race. Details follow and I hope the layout of the graphics that follow look good: DW

The Straits Times 266 pages in nine parts: a mighty newspaper for a Saturday morning. The adverts caught my eye, I have to say: the news is fine but rather parochial for the most part and of only passing interest for an erstwile nomad like me. 45,000 people have signed up for the free wifi broadband service now opening up across Singapore. 600 hot spots started up yesterday and there will be 4,400 more by September next year. Read about it here. Those adverts, then: digital products are definitely the order of the day. Of the 40 pages in the first section of today's edition

• there are mobile phone adverts on pages 2, 3, 4, 13, 17 (this advert for Sony Ericsson is ruined by including a large mug shot of that odious Robbie Williams), 18, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38
• there are adverts for other digital products on pages 5, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 29, 30, 32, 34

I must say that there are some really good looking bargains here too. DW

BBC World? Wouldn't give you tuppence for it! The BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation? Don't think so. Along with all other news services that I know of, BBC World has a strapline running across the bottom of the screen that keeps us up to date with latest developments. It's filled with stories to keep us interested or keen to learn more. So, Sport come up and I fully expect the first cricket story to tell us the lastest score in the world's most important match going on at the moment ... The Ashes. No, they start with India and South Africa. So, it's the second story, then: no, that's reserved for the Pakistan WIndies match. Then there is no third cricket story. I really can't believe it. It took them years even to begin acknowledging the English football league so cricket clearly has a long way to go. Singapore's cloudy this morning: just thought I'd tell you that. I'm reading Alan Bennett's Untold Stories at the moment and although it's a tome, a lot of it keeps the interest but I have just read two shocking chapters in which he talks about the art wot he likes. Truly shocking. I should finish the book 'ere long and will review it in full then. DW

The course in Singapore has ended now and it went quite well. Not perfectly as the needs of the delegates and the content of the course didn't match perfectly. However, the spirit in the room was good at all times. Well done and let's hope I'm invited back for more. Went to the local IT mall again and bought a gift for someone. Well done again! I learned that those oafs from the House of Commons blagged their way over here on a "fact finding mission" to study Singapore's ERP, congestion charge system. It has taken me two conversations with two taxi drivers to sort it out. I could have told them all they need to know. Every car and bus and lorry and motor bike is fitted with a card and receiver/transmitter. Every time it goes into the charging zone it clicks off the relevant price: time zoned. If you try to beat the system by "forgetting" to put your card in the reader, your transmitter sends a signal and you are awarded an automatic S$10 fine. Well done! I'm in the middle of receiving almost 3,000 messages for some reason and it will not be stopped. Singapore needs 15,000 extra workers over the next three years so the feelers are out and you will be offered permanent residency if you are suitable and accepted. Civil Servants here are about to be paid a 2.7 month bonus for their hard work and efficiency. Ahem, imagine the bonuses to be paid over in Blighty: negative. Sorry, couldn't resist!! All employees here pay 25% of their salary to pay for their housing when they need it and their pension for later on. So, start paying in when you're 18 and then take out a mortgage when you are ready to put down roots ... If you want to own a car you have to buy a permit and that can cost upwards of S$10,000 (£3,333) and that's just for permission to buy and it's in addition to the car itself. You will then pay the equivalent of £300 - 400 a year road funlicensece. Want wifi for your laptop? Come to Singapore as they have just opened up the first batch of the planned thousands of Statewide FREE wifi hot spots. The freebies will be available to anyone who signs up for three years. After three years the funding runs out but who knows, someone could well pick up the bill from then on. Just a few things I discussed with my taxi drivers today. DW

So what's this then? Well, a prize for the first right anwer: DW

How about this, then? A representation of the wife ... Bangkok Airport Thailand Nov 2006. Three headed monster! Hope I won't be punished for that now! DW

Wouldn't you just want to hear this over the public address system? Welcome to Singapore everyone on Wednesday 29th November where the local time is 2:55 pm and the temperature outside is 32 degree centigrade, that's 89 degrees Fahrenheit. I did, this afternoon, on arrival from Bangkok where I have just presented a successful training course. Doing the same here too. Here's me out on Orchard Road this evening, in front of some of the Christmas decorations that are festooning the city. Firstly, the picture refused to upload even though it said it had! I'm trying again. Secondly, as if to be punished for showing off, I received a phone call last night from someone in the UK who didn't know I am in Singapore ... At 1:40 am. I then couldn't get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Sorry, I didn't mean to gloat. However, there is an IT mall here that would go down a storm anywhere in the UK. Moreover, that mall has a bookshop with the biggest selection of business books I have ever seen anywhere. In another part of the mall there is the biggest and best collection of computer books I have ever seen anywhere too. What a place! Let's try that picture again. DW

My Reading Trip I wrote a long post yesterday on this topic and lost it. Let me try again. Whenever I go to Reading by car I get lost. Always have and probably always will and I can't explain why. Yesterday was no exception and this happened: after an hour of driving around I stopped the car and asked a lady for directions: she was wearing two hearing aids and tried very hard to help me asked a Scottish lady who didn't know where I should be but exclaimed that the layout of streets around there was a disgrace drove on again and asked a security guard: he knew where I wanted to go but I'm convinced he missed out a few turns and I ended up where ... a student type gave me a long list of twists and turns to send me towards a school that had the same name as the House I was going to ... I think he was the nearest ... but most vague a man who told me he'd lived round there for years and have never heard of my destination the porter in a nearby office block who knew where I wanted to go but whose directions I managed to mangle I then drove to and parked at the Oracle: I know it and I thought it gave me a good chance. Decided to call my destination only to find that my mobile phone battery was dead. No phone charger in my car. Set off to find a pay phone: got there to find I'd left the phone number in the car. Went to the O2 shop and bought an in car charger for the phone. Called my destination and the receptionist I was going to see told me that she walked to work and couldn't guide me in. She transferred me to the lady who had organised what I was going there for and she started by announcing that she was in a meeting RIGHT NOW but after asking if I could walk there from the Oracle, she said I could and gave me some landmarks. Now got to the Information desk in the Oracle where another Jock was eager to help. After saying that I was looking for Deloittes the accountatnts he asked what a dee loyt was as he'd never heard of one!! Honestly! Anyway, he set me off on the right track but I still couldn't fnd the building althougha t one time I was within 75 metres of it. I went into another office block and asked another porter for help and even though he was so near he didn't know for certain. He told me to go through a glass arch across the way ... he should have told me to go through the STONE arch a little further down the way! After TWO hours of being in Reading I found my destination and did what I went there to do. All I was doing was collecting some booklets and it took me less than ONE MINUTE to do that. That's life! DW

You can see from the dates on earlier posts just how long it is since I posted on this version of my blogger blog. My intervening blog disappeared about a week or so ago and I decided to come back to blogger since I know it behaves much better now than it used to. I went on a trip to Reading in Berkshire today and it was a nightmare. To cap it all, the long post I wrote about that trip has disappeared into the ether too. It was good as well. Anyway, I'm back with a blog and firing on all cylinders again. DW