Merry Christmas

Living in hotels and guest houses for so long changes habits and perspectives. So for everyone who comes here let me say Merry Christmas.

Christmas is not guaranteed to be perfect for everyone but it's a chance to be calm, enjoy life at least for a day or two and be with friends and family if possible.

Reflections on the meaning of the festival ought to be a must too.

Merry Christmas everyone.

DW


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The Man of Steel!

A few years ago I took part in an online discussion and I mentioned that there were people in the former Soviet Union who revered the memory of Joseph Stalin. Stalin's time was the days when things worked, everyone respected each other ...

I told the truth, I met and worked with people who thought that so it was a matter of fact.

I was then subjected to a torrent of abuse from three or four people. One of them was a student at Oxford University who threatened me with physical violence if ever I was in Oxford. I wrote to him and told him that as I worked in Oxford it is highly likely that we could meet and that unless he withdrew the threat I would take matters further. I got a full apology in writing.

Another student, of English at Durham University, joined the fray saying the most ridiculous things. He burst forth with an entreaty that if I loved communists so much why didn't I go and live with them? When I wrote to him off list and asked him what he was really worried about he told me that what I had said made no sense! Hmm, how does a simple statement of fact expressed in very clear language make no sense?

The third student, a the LSE this time, proudly boasted that as he had worked in an office in Washington USA for two weeks during which time he was reading and dealing with papers from projects being undertaken in Central Asia, he knew I must have been telling lies.

So why did I tell you all of that? Take a look at page six of today's UK edition of the Financial Times newspaper and you will see rather a lengthy parade of "Russian communists queuing to lay flowers at Joseph Stalin's grave in Red Square, Moscow on the 130th anniversary of his birth yesterday." As I said before and can say again, as a matter of fact, there are many people in the former Soviet Union who hold Stalin in high esteem. Just a fact. Just reporting a fact. Not all of the people in that queue are old enough to have lived under Stalin either.

DW

Let's lighten the load a little

The teacher asks his students to write a short story in as few words as possible. The instructions were: the short story had to contain the following three things:

• Religion
• Sexuality
• Mystery

Below is the winning story:

"Good God, I'm pregnant; I wonder who did it."

Whoever wrote that, thanks!

DW

Far be it from me ...

Well I'm shocked! Here I am about to sing the praises of Microsoft. I downloaded and installed Office 2010 Beta version last night and I have to say there are some stunning advances there. I've not had much of a chance to play with everything new but in Excel, of note, there are

• sparklines
• data slicer

PowerPoint looks a bit niftier.

Outlook promises things that I haven't explored at all yet and the same with Word.

Worth a look I'd say.

DW

Dear BBC it's Milan not Meelan

I am dreading it! Man Spew have drawn a team from Milan in the European Champions League competition and I know, just know, that for some reason the sports reporters at the BBC will pronounce it MEElan.

I know people from Milan and I have asked them, just how do you pronounce the name? They ALL say Milan ... slight accent on the A and not one of them has said Meelan in the slightest.

Please, please spare us from your nonsense pronunciation.

DW

Terry Wogan Retires: at last!

I've never had much of a kind word to say about Wogan. He never appealed to me I'm afraid. I've just skimmed the headlines of a couple of articles in the Daily Mail and that rag was fulsome in its praise. I found him boring, pointless and condescending. I found his television Parky take off interview programme risible.

I thought he ruined the Eurovision Song Contest by taking it beyond the desperate state it could quite easily have got itself into without his nonsense smart alek remarks. One good thing has come out of Wogan's retirement from this contest: it's 1,000% unwatchable now as that Graham Norton takes over from next year. Eugh!

The bad news? Apparently, even though he's 71 years old, he'll be back next year. Thank goodness I never listen to any station that he's on!

The tin hat on all of this? I believe Wogan charges a fee for appearing on Children in Need. Like that woofter, no he isn't, yes he is, Dale Winton: charging fees for what are essentially charity events. Indefensible.

If you're a Wogan fan, good luck to you!

DW

End of year message

You don't have to be the Queen of England to want to say goodbye to the old and welcome to the new so I've done it as well.

Take a look at http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/old_new/old_new.htm

For web purists, I know there are a few rules being broken by that page: no indication of who I am, no menu or return button, no date although I do name the years ...

Merry Christmas anyway!

DW

Go on have a Laugh!

Try this, it really works. You’ll laugh your socks off.

Using a Windows Vista computer put it to sleep via the Start button (so that you can start working quickly). Then wake it up cos you want to start working quickly. That’s the funny part. See what I mean? It didn’t work did it? Mwuahahaha! Mwuahahaha!

Try it on another computer, same again eh?

Gets me every time that.

Thanks Bill Gates, you’re a real tonic.

DW

Time for a change … using Kaspersky

I have been happily paying for and using AVG anti virus software programs for years now. However, the free trial period ran out last week on this HP laptop and rather stay with the nightmare Norton anti virus program I opted to try Kaspersky anti virus 2010.

Don’t know if I’ll see any differences but Kaspersky has always been very highly rated, as has AVG.

Anything untoward happens and you’ll certainly hear about it.

DW

Sean Connery and Alan Shearer

Sean Connery

There’s an advert running wherever I go at the moment that features Sean Connery. Let me say that Connery is my all time favourite Bond, James Bond. Now, however, I think he is well past his sell by date. In the advert he is trying to convince us that the bank he is advertising is a green bank. His opening sentence is:

Time to get “back to common shenshe”! Thanksh Shaun, shome people will shee what you mean!

Alan Shearer

I was stunned when the BBC appointed Shearer as one of their football pundits. It doesn’t help that he was a Mag but that aside, his talents as a pundit are completely lacking and the passage of time does nothing to improve matters.

I just happened to stumble across an interview with Shearer and Dimitar Berbatov. Shearer began with this:

“Errrrrrm, Dimitar Berbatov …”

Mr Aticulate. Not. I have complained here before that journalists who are journalists because they are English language (or other language) graduates are not necessarily to be commended. The same with Shearer: an accomplished footballer but a journalist and pundit, come off it.

Berbatov speaks English to a high standard and he has just quoted the opening lines of a book that seems well beyond “The Sun’s Guide to Footy”. I wish they could have shown Shearer’s face at that point as it was probably intellectually way beyond him!

Sorry Shearer, not for me! There are many much more articulate former players, managers and the like in the game who should have got your job.

DW

Mice Pies

I sent a text message to a friend yesterday exclaiming that I had just eaten my first MICE pies of the season. When she told me what I'd said I replied by saying, look, I'm a veggie how could I even think of eating MICE pies. I asked if I hadn't really said RATatouille. Boom! Boom!

That's a true story.

DW

Political Pundits Down Under

I thought it only happened in Britain but it seems that there are journalists in Australia who live off the backs of politicians in the same way they do in Britain.

I am watching a programme at the moment on Australia Network and there is a coven of blethering types going on and on about politicians and politics as if they know what they are talking about.

Riddled with giggly comments and cutting remarks, it's dreadful television. No doubt these people are the Fleet Street equivalents who sit in their offices for decades and eventually rise to the top of the pile. That gives them massive salaries and a captive audience. Just like our lot.

There is currently a segment in which two ne'er do wells are guffawing at some photographs of some ne'er do well politician.

As the young Irishman I met last week might say, the should get themselves a ****ing proper job.

DW

The Irishman, People Watching at the Sheraton

The Irishman

As I was going through the trial of using the WiFi at the Business Centre at the Royal Orchid Sheraton, I spotted a couple who were, let's say, challenging each other. My assumption was that she was working hard on something and his expression seemed to say  something like, "Can't you see I've got to level 99 on Frogger ... ?"

The trial was that I had just logged into my free WiFi hour when it was cut off and after some stress, the technician told me that some bonehead electrician somewhere in the hotel had chopped off the wireless router ... aaaaaaggggghhhhh! Got back online later but didn't find out till half an hour before I checked out that they give one hour EVERY DAY free WiFi ... used to be 100% free WiFi in the business centre area. I ASSUMED the free hour was by way of welcome only! Clot!

Back to the couple. I went over to near where they had been sitting and found that the young man at least was Irish: don't know about her as she had gone to another terminal in another part of the centre by then. He was seething and started to talk to me. "I'm sick and tired of this", he said. He went on the explain they had just been to Phuket and had met two men who were in their 40s and had been travelling around South East Asia for 20 years: they didn't own a house, no wives, no kids, no jobs ... nothing! She (pointing towards her indoors) thought the ****ing sun shines now. His fury came in the form of his being more than willing to pay to stay at five star places like the Sheraton but she's got it into her ****ing head that they should stay at much cheaper places. "If someone ****ing offered me a free ****ing five star room, I'm ****ing sure I'd take it!" I mentioned pony tail, tie dye tee shirt wearing Western old men who infect Thailand and he bounced back immediately with, "They should get their ****ing hair cut and get a ****ing job ..."

Richly entertaining and he was a young lad too: no more than late twenties so if he can afford five star hotels, he must be doing well enough. Certainly knows the kind of situation he is heading for over the next 10 - 15 years anyway. Good for him. I took to him!

People Watching at the Sheraton

Now, I am not a voyeur or anything but I do look at people from time to time to assess the situation they are in, given the place they are in. Take the Royal Orchid Sheraton: definitely a five star hotel and I have come to categorise their guests along the following lines

• people perfectly at home there: one gets a sense from some people that they have always travelled five star and nothing that happens to them is in any way unusual. Nothing fazes these people and they know what to expect. They don't cause a fuss unless something really unusual happens to them.
• people in retirement who are probably well off: I tend to be able to spot these people as the ones with masses of wrinkles but who dress like people who should have been using cold creams and night creams all of their adult lives. It is sometimes difficult to spot retired people these days because there are people who are well into their seventies but who look much younger than that. There is another batch of retirees who they are the ones who feel they MUST establish a familiar routine from the moment they arrive, such as the two old Israeli (I think) women who arrived the other day. In the restaurant at breakfast, they hunted shark like for "their" place but when they found it, the air conditioning wasn't perfect so they circled a few tables nearby and found "their" destiny. The following day there they were, in their comfort zone even though everyone else is placed by the staff and can be seated almost anywhere, at random.
• mid career people who are starting to be able to afford to move up the social scale: often youngish looking, late thirties or early forties and they usually look as if they should have children with them. Children will be with their grand parents as mum and dad venture off on a long haul break. I spot these people as the ones who sit down to a buffet breakfast before they realise that buffet means serve yourself. They normally sit with a beatific smile that announces some kind of arrival and peace!
• package tour people: sorry for my prejudice but in the case of English people, they usually have a regional, often Northern, accent and are often cor blimey types. You might remember the Monty Python Old Codgers sketch in which a group of bluff, old, successful Yorkshire businessmen talk about their bad old days before they made the grade. The sketch starts when one of them says the wine was very passable. I heard just the same expression here the other night: the wine was very, Barnsley or Sheffield accent, passable! These people often give the game away by wearing trainers with ordinary business socks or tee shirt and shorts with business shoes.
• business people: they go for breakfast in their suit and tie, ready to face the world of work. Usually quiet and unassuming but clearly not there to while their life away at the pool or on a coach to somewhere else exotic for the day. Someone else is paying their bill! They are respectfully shown to their table and immediately announce that they need tea or coffee as they then disappear without any further by your leave to get their cereal or bacon or whatever it is that they ALWAYS have for breakfast. Quite often these people will sit where they are told even though after years of travel they know where they are, what they want and where they want to sit to see it! Of course, some business people are boorish, you'll spot them too. Some of them like to give off the air of being important and knowing how everyone around them must behave with the appropriate degree of deference and reverence.

There are others, such as the Japanese, who will not be beaten to the earliest of early breakfasts by any other national or ethnic grouping; but that will do for now.

DW

Sting ... String more like.

They interviewed that primary school teacher turned warbler Gordon Sumner on Newsnight this week. What's that about lack of intellectual furniture?

Poor lamb, he went back to the Amazon rain forest after 20 years or so and looked acutely ill at ease having to sit next someone who isn't a legend in his own mind.

Paxman did his best but Gordy failed to see that his campaign to stop the building of a dam for a much needed hydroelectric power scheme is ill founded and seriously at odds with his own personal massive extravagances.

Like other long lived warblers, this one has got ideas way above his IQ level.

I know, he's filthy rich and lots of people like his warbling. Doesn't make his faux campaigning tolerable though does it?

DW

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Bad news for Arsenal fans!

Here in Bangkok there is an Arsenal shop and they are ALREADY having their END of SEASON sale.

DW


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The BBC in America and Hard Talk

BBC in America

The BBC has put Matt Frei in charge of BBC News America and I have to wonder why. Probably some kind of trained journalist but is his forte language or journalism? Does Frei have any skills other than his abilty to speak English and German?

I am watching a programme at the moment where already he has made three insensitive remarks about two separate people. I suppose he would defend himself by saying he was asking Hard Talk style questions ... pshaw!

What about Frei's Nazi question, currently being heavily advertised? "Here is a question that really bothers me, am I allowed to like a building designed by a regime like the Nazis" (My wording, might not be perfect).

Hard Talk

Hard Talk used to be very interesting: Tim Sebastian asked awkward questions of a wide variety of people.

Hard Talk has become a travel opportunity as they now go to the USA, South Africa, Hong Kong and to many other places, currently Trinidad and Tobago.

Moreover, they have replaced the word Hard with Rough. Sebastian got it right: well researched, hard, awkward, searching, incisive. Stepehan Sackur and Zeinab Badawi, current presenters, think hard means rough: often ill informed and downright rude rather than hard.

Back to Frei: he began yesterday's report with an introduction that his guest was able to over turn immediately as factually incorrect.

The BBC's standards are slipping everywhere.

DW

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Merry Christmas

Ho! Ho! Ho! As they say.

1st December and my Xmas season starts today. All my Xmas music is at home though; from the medieval Thys Yool all the way to Slade!!! What to do??

Merry Xmas everyone.

DW
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The 20 Year Rule

I might not necessarily be immune from the following.

You are 20 years late in coming to Bangkok/Thailand when

That grubby, home made head band around your head is the ONLY one in SE Asia
The tee shirt you insist on wearing is half the size it ought to be
You think your short longs/long shorts are trendy
The girl on your arm COULD be your grand daughter, possibly your great grand daughter
You think thongs and stubbies are a chick magnet
You are a man who thinks his pony tail looks as good on him as a pony tail does on a Thai girl/lady
You sit in a hotel lobby staring wide eyed and open mouthed at the young local ladies going about their every day normal business with your lovely wife of many years tolerantly and lovingly sitting next to you

All true!

DW
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What did I get?

Hotel in Bangkok and the waitress repeated my order:

"Spry with eye?"

What did she bring me?

Answers on a postcard please.

DW
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International Football Cheats … sorry Ireland!

Not only in England but international now. France have qualified for the World Cup Finals in South Africa as a result of a cheat having handled the ball that allowed France to get the ball in the back of the net and thus beat Ireland to the finals.

Thierry Henri has admitted handling the ball that allowed his colleague to score a goal. It was as clear as it can be to everyone on the pitch and in the video playback. Still, Ireland have been eliminated because Henri cheated and even though it was in his power to tell the referee what he had done when he had done it, he chose to remain silent and cheat his way through to the finals.

It’s really a disgrace now as every game that France plays will be soiled by this one event.

How can you not feel sorry for Ireland who grace these finals whenever they attend?

DW

A380 Model … so classy!

I took this photo in the Emirates lounge at LHR on Friday. Just love this plane. Hoping to go on it again soon!!

DW

Have you got a light Mac?

That tag line is the first part of an old joke … anyone know the second line?

Anyway, young Master W brought along his Mac laptop to our rendezvous the other day and for the first time ever I was able to appreciate what all of these Appl Mac wallahs have been chuntering on about.

How about speed and design? Nothing looks or feels complicated on a Mac. You want to open iTunes on a Mac, you’ll have to wait all of less than a second for it to load AND run. Yes, so long! I just opened iTunes on my Acer Extensa as an experiment and it took 7 seconds to start. On this laptop, HP TouchSmart, it took 33 seconds to load and run: this included having to agree to the terms and conditions AGAIN, the file list being rebuilt AGAIN and being asked if I want iTunes to be my default player AGAIN.

I was shown a video demonstration and could hear nothing so I asked, “When will the screaming cooling fan start to operate as the system becomes overheated?” That didn’t happen. As I type this, the fan on the HP laptop is working overtime even though I am only using this software, Windows Live Writer, gmail is on in the background, Outlook is open and there is a file downloading from the internet. This is a 64 bit machine with a huge disc drive and 3Gb of RAM … and still it struggles to cope.

Ease of use, sleek lines, Steve Jobs probably doesn’t have anywhere near as many people taking his name in vain as that Gates has, reliability …

We then went to the Apple Store in Regent’s Street in London and took a look at a few things, including their new magic mouse. A magic mouse would be wasted on a Windows machine: far too clever and smart, it would be the highlight of your computing day!!

One day when my PCs have all died I’ll buy a Mac!

DW

Mushrooms, Beautiful Mushrooms

I love mushrooms and if ever you find yourself in the Emirates lounge at LHR, see if they still do canneloni with mushroom sauce.

Simply divine dahling!!

DW

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Give him a Break will ya?

I had lunch with someone the other day, let's call him D! A propos some business and a bit of chitter chat, I wrote to D's mother and said this: that and D's body building exploits have given him a 52 inch chest.

Thinking that would generate a bit of pride and so on, I was shocked and somewhat amused at her response:

"... well, good for him but i just wonder whether he spends all of his time in the gym now rather than studying hard ... have you talked  about his studies?"

There was a conversation earlier in the year between me and the mother in question to the effect that these comments are counter productive. I got a promise that she knew and that she would never make them again!!

DW

Fran BA (Hons) and her Papa

Had this photo taken outside the Corn Exchange Theatre, Cambridge yesterday just before Fran was admitted to the degree of BA ...

Who is that suave gentleman with Fran?

DW

Is this the World's Smallest Hotel Room?

The title asks the question!

DW

Sideways Look at an Hotel Room

Just for the record, here is my room in the Al Khafji Beach Hotel.

DW

Dali, my Emirates Heroine

Dali, my Emirates heroine!

I flew from Dubai to Heathrow yesterday and Dali was virtually my personal stewardess for parts of the flight. As I got onto the plane she spotted that I am a frequent flyer (they don't all spot that!) and made my stay a warm and inviting one.

Dali is from Japan, spent five years in New Zealand where she picked up their accent and learned perfect English.

We found that we have pies and Cadbury's chocolate in common. We chatted for a long time at the start, middle and end of the flight and she made me feel wanted.

Isn't that nice?

Well done Dali, my Emirates stewardess of the year!

DW

Backup Solution

That's Backup, not to be confused with Bacup which is a town in Lancashire.

I did lose a lot of data the other week when HP and Microsoft decided that all of my work should be in vain. Recent work, work for up and coming seminars and ALL of the one year's work that I did for Abingdon and Witney College ... gone or not entirely recoverable.

I was playing with the quick start button on my Acer Extensa laptop yesterday and came across a utility which I had not previously seen, in spite of owning the machine for almost exactly one year: acer NTI Shadow.

At the time of writing I have just backed up all of my main working files to a separate disk to the one the originals are on. Let's see what Gates can do now and OF COURSE I will backup to another computer AND another hard drive today/tomorrow.

Trust no one.

DW

Time to Replay the Games

I have just seen yet another blatant dive that turned into a penalty from one of England's supposed premier teams. A Liverpool player, surprisingly not SG, dived heinously badly to have a penalty awarded to them. The conversion of that penalty was taken by SG and it enable Liverpool to draw 2 : 2 against Birmingham City.

These cheats are driving me away from football.

Following simple/complex analysis by the Football League powers that be, points can be deducted, games replayed, wins awarded to the opposing team, players fined ... all of these things should happen because it's a disgrace and an embarrassment now.

DW

Fadge of the Berlin Wall!

No surprise the likes of Sarkozy are trying elbow their way into the celebrations. The PEOPLE of East Germany rose up against their nonsense leaders along with their brothers and sisters across the former Soviet Union. THEY drove their nonsense politicians out of office. THEY bravely faced their police forces and solders. THEY won.

I was sick the other day when I saw former politicians like Gorbachev and Bush Senior with the ailing Kohl being lauded for their contribution to the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was also an apology for the non appearance of the woman Thatcher: too ill to attend ... good.

No doubt history has firmly been rewritten so that these here today gone tomorrow politicians will get most of the credit.

Let's have another fanfare for the common man: it was them wot done it!

DW

Fabulous Sight

There were just two things missing from the equation:

• my good camera
• a clean window

On approach to Dubai International Airport this morning, just before 10 am local time, we came in from the North, over the Gulf and there to meet us was a prize winning photograph of a sight. The taller buildings of Dubai shrouded up to around one third of their average height with mist and the Burj Dubai rising skywards right in the middle. Fabulous!

If only I'd had my good camera with me and if only my window had been clean you'd all be swooning at the sight now.

DW

Next in Sequence

What is the missing number in this sequence:

1. 2. ? 32

DW


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Breakfast with Tom Jones

You know Tom Jones, the old Welsh warbler of course. Well, who woulld have thought you'd find him here on the Gulf singing Deliliah and several other hits. Let alone be with me for breakfast.

OK, not in person. But given the complete lack of anyone from anywhere near Europe let alone Wales, apart from me, I was surprised at the choice of today's music. Better than the rap music they played the other day though!!

DW

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Al Khafji, Saudi Arabia … video of the year?

Hello everyone, I am currently in Al Khafji on the Gulf for a few days and this video shows the beach just outside my hotel room. It’s a beachside paradise without people. Lovely view and gorgeous weather.

Enjoy this snippet!

DW

Cookery Programme Slop

I was desperate so I watched the Local Hero Cookery programme on BBC Lifestyle this morning and here are some of the things they said.

someone was passionate ... they said this about 8 million times

look at that ... eg look at that [piece of meat] ... when one looked there was nothing unusual to see, in my opinion

wow! ... said by the interviewer when a cook taking part in a cookery programme in which locally sourced ingredients was vital said that he was using local ingredients in his restaurant

a dish had 'Lavender going through it' What? WHAT?

Someone who said that even though he's a television chef (I'd never seen him before so I took his word for that) 'It's not just about cooking ...' We know!!

'He's so on my wavelength'

amazing is slipping down the list as it was mentioned only about one million times

Finally, not the best or the worst but the last one I noticed: reshtaurant!

I will renew my offer to the BBC to teach its presenters how to COMMUNICATE.

DW

Cheat, cheat, cheat ...

It's Saturday, it's Chelsea, it's a penalty ... the Chelsea centre forward ran into the penalty area along with a defender, slight contact possibly but then we see the arched back and the collapsing in a heap. It's bad enough that Chelsea were awarded an unfair penalty but the defender was sent off. Not good that.

In the same way, Kenwyne Jones was sent off in the Sunderland match as a result of an opposing player collapsing in a heap after a push by Jones. However, the opposing player collapsed while holding his face as if he had been punched by Jones. The replay shows nothing of the kind: Jones did NOT punch anyone. Not good that.

DW

Burnley 2 v Hull City 0

While Burnley were winning the game against Hull City at Turf Moor the BBC web site was persistently showing that the match was being drawn 1 : 1. Even when they put up the full time score it still said 1 : 1 draw. Just checked their videprinter and it shows a 2 : 0 win for the Clarets. Get in!

Then again, as Fulham were winning 3 : 1 over Liverpool, the BBC site was showing a 2 : 1 lead for Liverpool.

DW

Still Hounded by HP

Let me be optimistic and say that the new Touchsmart tablet pc I got from HP recently is working well.

Today we bought four new HP printers and I set out to install one for myself. On my HP tablet all is well. As for the Acer Extensa laptop, pshaw! Not only would the printer not behave itself but when i uninstalled the software that came with the thing and then carried out a system restore, I found I had lost a LOT of vital data. For some reason, the files I have lost are, by and large, those that I had not backed up on other computers/hard disks.

It’s weird and driving me wild.

I am trying another route to sanity.

DW

Yet Another Cheating Premiership Player ... well, one of the Usual Suspects

I am working and keeping an eye on the Chelsea v Blackburn Rovers match on the telly.

I heard a call for a penalty and turned to the screen to see Didier Drogba in close up. Immediately I said to myself, he just dived. The replay shows the archetypical arched back collapse in a heap cheating dive that is the hallmark of English football these days. He dived.

The sad thing is that Chelsea were leading 3 : 0 at the time. There is just no need for cheating at that level of the game.

DW

What?

I have just prepared and published two posts here but clearly there is something wrong with Blogger at the moment as I cannot access this blog: I can access Duncan's Diacritical Discussion, my other Blogger based Blog.

This is what I saw when I opened this Blog ... no use to me at all so I have written to Blogger asking them why they assume I can use the language local to where I am simply because I am where I am. Clots!

DW

Do Tectonic Plates SLAM into each other?

I read a report this morning about an earthquake: not the BBC but a site whose name has already gone. Well, they said that earthquakes in the region under discussion have come as a result of one tectonic plate slamming into another one several million years ago.

Now really, can something moving at maybe one centimetre or even one metre a year really be said to have slammed into something?

DW

You're Having a Laugh Mr Gates!

I have fallen for this one AGAIN! I like the idea of booting up a computer and then, rather than cold booting after a break or at the start of a new day, warm booting via the snooze/hibernate button.

Well, it's a right laugh. You might be able to do that once. No, let me be kind and say twice. Then you will find that after it has been warm booted three times it cannot cope: addins stop working, even MS's own programmes stop responding and we get the blue spinning wheel of death for up to five minutes at a time, access to some apparently running programs freezes.

So, you have to restart the computer.

This comes 24 hours after the launch of Windows 7 and although I will buy Windows 7 and I have read and heard A LOT of marketing guff about the new system, I am not that confident that it will give me the kind of experience that I know the average Apple Mac user is experiencing. Don't know about Linux and other OS users but I'll bet there is a lot less frustration with other established OS than there is with most flavours of Windows.

Windows XP seemed good by comparison with what went before: I saw the BSOD very rarely, things seemed more reliable. Of course boot times are slow and they get slower and slower very quickly as you load and use your computer more and more. Against the grain, Vista impressed me by the way it did things in a better way and more efficiently too: even error reporting and recovery seemed more impressive than before. Now, this Vista driven laptop is coming up to one year old and a 5 minute cold boot is fast for it: I even gave the thing an 840Mb boost by letting Windows use a 1Gb micro drive to speed up my system. Pah! (See my post, Gatesed Again!) The blue spinning wheel of death is a more frequent visitor now.

These Windows people often promise that the launch of a new version of their products is a new build, relying on nothing from before: I think they have given the lie to that now. Moreover, things like menus that are used throughout MS products are not consistent: they can look and behave differently even within Office products let alone between Office and Window and so on.

What really irritates me is that I know from my work that even now only 25% or so of the Office population has upgraded from Office 2003 to 2007. I also know from my web stats that 90% or so of my visitors are using a Windows platform to do so.

Gates and his colleagues took the microcomputer world by storm and by aggression throughout the 80s and 90s and we are now suffering from the monopoly they have created. I wonder what will happen, what will MS do, if Windows 7 flops like Vista did and like Office 2007 did?

We need a knight in shining armour. Along those lines, take a look at the Apple iMac just announced: stunning if everything they say is true. Then look at the new mouse that comes with the system: it's called a Magic Mouse. This magic mouse seems to me to be the new iPod/iTouch: the free thinking development that makes anyone wearing a baseball cap say, Wow! Amazing! It IS an astonishing mouse that Gates and his team could never come up with. Start here and no, I am not working for Apple or anyone connected with them ... http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?cid=&cp=2712&sr=em

I have mentioned before that apart from Windows Live Writer, which is just one tiny application really, there is nothing about MS products that make me think that's amazing; and I mean amazing in its true an literal sense, not in the sense that is used by people of limited vocabulary who infest our screens and newspapers now.

Rant over!

DW

Gatesed AGAIN!

Why did I want to believe that Microsoft would keep a promise?

As with many people I accumulate odds and ends and one of these is a 1Gb micro memory card that I used to have in a phone until I bought an 8Gb card to replace it. I then put and kept that 1Gb card in this laptop to use it as and when necessary. Every time I switched the computer on I got a message announcing that it had found something new ... offering to let me look at the files on there or offering to use the card to help to speed up my system.

I fell for it and said, OK use the card to speed up my system. Windows told me it wanted at least 840 Mb of the 1,000 Mb on the card. Initially I thought that's just stupid because I can only use the remaining 160 Mb on the card for files and so forth. Anyway, I gave it a go and watched as the computer booted for the first time under this new and speedier regime.

Did I say speedier? I meant, under this new and completely unchanged regime. NO discernible change in performance at all that I can see. Maybe there are some hidden things happening that Microsoft is really proud of. As for me, I just feel more anti Gates frustration. I still keep wondering how the world fell for this chump so hard and for so long. Moreover, where is the competition to break the cycle of Microsoft domination to get rid of all of this Microsoft nonsense?

DW

Oxbridge and the Aristocracy

You may not have noticed the changes taking place in broadcasting and the media.

For centuries the aristocracy and Oxbridge graduates have dominated or les Fleet Street and then the BBC. You might not know that many comedians, cooks, actors and warblers are from the aristocracy and Oxbridge. Not just the obvious ones like the Monty Python team and the Goodies either. A LOT more than that.

DW


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Look at that and more!

In addition to amazing and passion and basically I am adding 'look at that' to my list of words and phrases to be banned from the language when the revolution comes.

'Look at that' is uttered by just about everyone on the telly who even so much as lifts a pan or a skillet let alone prepares something reasonable.

The extreme case was when the least good of the Hairy Bikers said 'look at that' when he had put some uncooked rice grains in a pan with some butter. I thought, look at WHAT?

I should add that any programme that remotely hints at DIY or building face lifts stays unwatched as I cannot bear to see EVERYONE at the end of such programmes as they open their eyes and say, 100% guarantee of this, 'Oh my God!' I find that so unnecessary and offensive.

Just been reminded of yet another one: national treasure. Grossly over used and mis applied. There are very few national treasures as it is a highly reserved concept. Thora Hird is the last one I can think of. What these media types do is to confuse frequency with treasure trove. Simply seeing someone like Stephen Fry everywhere ALL of the time does not, NOT, make him a treasure.

DW


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Don't Bathe your iPhone

Please be advised that I do NOT own or use an iPhone; but don't let that stop you from reading on.

If you feel you must use your iPhone whilst taking a bath, keep it OUT of the water. Unless, of course, you want it to stop working from time to time, to lose its signal from time to time, to drop calls frequently. If you are happy with that, drop it in the water.

DW

My new Home Office

I am now within a gnat’s nadger of finishing the complete refurbishment of my office at home and here’s the film to prove it. I chose Frank Sinatra singing the background song to reflect the fact that the office is very nearly finished (… and now, the end is near …), it’s a one off … unique in all respects!

DW

Come on Ireland

Watching Republic of Ireland v Italy and Ireland have just scored a belter. Keep it up lads.

DW
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using the Tablet

This post has been written on my H P Tablet laptop. I am writing this by hand using a stylus: on the screen. No typing. All magically.

Except. I just typed that last full stop.

I hope now that this computer will give me long a faithful service.

Au revoir!

DW

CAPTCHA

Ever heard of CAPTCHA? I'll bet you have! It stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Did you know that when you use a CAPTCHA, which is where you do what you do on a web site and then have to type in those numbers and letters that are shown in a box before you press enter or submit, you might actually being used to solve a problem?

Apparently, some of the words/phrases used in CAPTCHA boxes have been causing problems arising from scanning texts: so, if you get it right, you might have solved a particularly difficult transcription problem for someone.

I got this from this month's Harvard Business Review which says that this wheeze is helping to transcribe the equivalent of 150,000 books a year, labour that would otherwise require 37,500 full time workers. Don't take that too literally as I think the operative word there is helping.

I think this is such a good idea.

DW

My new office

I am building my new office along with my neighbour Malcolm. We have been enjoying learning how to measure and saw and paint ... the biggest learning event for me was learning how to saw a piece of wood perfectly squarely. How did I do that after decades of misshapes?

The answer is that I learned to use a try square and a saw at the same time: hold the try square right up against the saw and take it carefully and as if by magic both horizontal and vertical sawing actions seem to behave themselves.

The office is really coming on now and I have already tested out the built in desk and so on. By the end of the weekend everything should be finished. I will reveal all here don't worry!

DW

Is that the Piece Prize?

Is it time to step off the planet now? The Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Obama? Are they joking? So far Obama has proven himself a decent sort of a chap but how on earth can he be said to have done enough to warrant such recognition?

Then again, at least they didn't give it to Kissinger again. Now there was a travesty if ever there was one. Actually, probably the biggest travesty in the whole of human history.

DW

Windows Live Writer is good!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now that I have just received my replacement HP tablet pc and have just set up Windows Live Writer on it: Live Writer is very good, very impressive and I am writing this with it! I know, not that advanced but it set itself up and works with no bother.

DW

What a Surprise … good!

I was just pointed to a video on YouTube in which two drunken slobs from Swansea are seen fighting and making a nuisance of themselves in the town centre. We then see them walking through the town. For some reason they then turn back on themselves and decide that they need to pick on some men dressed as women who are standing in the street minding their own business.

We see one of the drunks trying to punch one of the trannies only to find that the trannie dodged the punch and instead of him lying prostrate, the drunk and his friend both end up prone.

What happened is that the two transvestites were both cage fighters on a night out! Needless to say, they despatched the drunks with ruthless efficiency and good for them.

The last thing we see is the police arriving, the drunks caught and the trannies turning up to tell the truth about what had happened.

There’s a lesson in life that these two numpties hadn’t learned: know your enemy!

DW

Hiccups ... pah!

I think this is a first.

I've got a memory of waking up during the night last night suffering from hiccups.

For the first time ever I stayed in bed, went back to sleep and stayed asleep.

How about that?

DW


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Billy the Beer

He used to lead the party and he was praised for the way in which he delivered his party conference speech without notes and without the need for hiding behind a microphone. Heseltine said, He is right at the top of his brief.

Well, how times change! Billy the Beer gave something akin to a speech this morning to the Tory Party conference and not only did he read it from his notes but he stood behind a microphone and was politely applauded for little more than 15 seconds or so when he had finished.

Why such a paucity? The answer is, the content: it was rubbish. He misled his party and made little sense, especially considering that in a year or so he might be our foreign secretary. What a frightening thought.

It can only get ... worse. The shadow chancellor speaks tomorrow!

I thought Boris Johnson's speech was enjoyable but focused in a micro political way on London matters.

I only watched those to fill in the time between a full plate of food and an empty plate!

DW

A Nap?

Just listening to my iPod when I fell asleep. I've got a nap for that! Original stuff from yours truly. DW Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Jet Setting Bores ... the aerobore

Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot abide those people who spend their lives talking about their latest flight, that stewardess whom they put in her place or their latest upgrade. These people are aerobores.

I have to admit from time to time the odd aeroplane or airport story can be entertaining. I am concerned, really concerned, with those people who think that after 5, 10 or even 30 or more minutes of retelling (they are CERTAIN to have told them many times already) tedious stories it is time for their piece de resistance ... their Humberside Airport Story.

Honestly, there has been such a Humberside Airport Story in my life and I am pleased to say I walked away from it. I could not afford to waste the time in listening to such rubbish.

This morning I was sitting in front of someone, a scale 8 aerobore, who was trying to impress and outdo the person he was sitting next to with his MOSCOW story. When I got to look at him: obese, not so smartly dressed ...

Then when we arrived at Manchester we were deposited on the apron and not at a stand. Of course, that usually means being carried to the terminal by bus. Now, for some reason there was a loud mouthed boorish oaf who felt he ought to vent bile on the lady who met us and was organising our carriage to the terminal. There were two buses there and when the first one was full, our organiser told our driver to close the doors and drive on. This oaf then said something like, well done madam, can't you see that when a bus is full, there is no room for anyone else ... erm, yes, she had already closed the door and was preparing the second bus.

This buffoon was then behind me in the passport control queue and he said, this is the worst airport I have ever been to. I wanted to say to him, well, if that's true, you haven't travelled very far have you? But that would have involved a negation of my own anti aerobore rule. Why did he say this, do you think? The reason is that there was a slightly longer queue than normal and that was because just before our plane arrived, a Qatar airways 777 had arrived ...

I should ban my own aerobore stories now shouldn't I really?

DW

A Prediction

I have made a few predictions this year, including one or two about Barack Obama, that have been proven prophetic. Well, here's another one.

There will be a Stephen Fry cook book on your coffee table and book shelf before too long.

Fry, that tall omnipresent, gay, comedic person, has recently lost around 6 stone in weight and as he is the darling of lahlahland, there is doubtless a queue of cook book publishers baying outside his door as I type this. This is a repeat of the situation in which Nigel Lawson (the formerly fat but still fumbling former Chancellor of the Exchequer and father of that inanely grinning cook Nigella Lawson) found himself.

Lawson was very fat, lost a lot of weight such that Rhinoceros wrote letters to him asking him for advice on beauty treatments for a Rhino!!! Then someone thought he might have something to contribute to the health and girth of the nation and he published a book on how to stop being so fat. Can't wait for the sequel, how to stop being such a fumbler.

Could be worse, could be a book by Nigel Slater on how to make yourself appear to be sincere.

DW

Talk about biased reporting

The news this morning on BBC World News included an item on the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The bidding cities are girding their loins as bids have to be in very soon.

Then sent Roland Buerk (son of BBC reporter Michael) out to Tokyo to cover the event since Tokyo is bidding for the 2016 games. Buerk said this:

... only 56% of people living in Tokyo want the 2016 Olympics ...

Erm, ONLY 56% Mr Buerk? 56% is the majority of people who want the games to go to Tokyo.

DW

Is this an "Only in Britain"

So the Attorney General reported herself for a breach of the law. She admitted to employing an alien cleaner and was duly fined £5,000 for her pains.

The low life politicians then round on the woman and say she herself has to resign because she's no good now.

But then, here's the only in Britain part: the alleged illegal immigrant cleaner signs up with that Max Clifford, a PR wallah. Now,lo and behold the cleaner is not only not deported nem con but will probably end up considerably wealthier than all of us and a British resident/citizen.

Makes me want to emigrate again.

DW

Making the unmissable news unmissable

If you live in or have been to the UK recently you may have seen the advertisement on BBC television for the BBC iPlayer. The strap line for the iPlayer is that it makes the unmissable unmissable: missed something and you can often watch it at your whim an pleasure when you want via the iPlayer via the internet.

Well BBC World News has gone one better: if you have missed a news item, don't worry, it will be repeated every 15 minutes or even less. Even if you are a day or sometimes two days late, don't worry because the chances are it will still be running.

DW

More on Language

I have been noticing over the last week or two how people on radio and television are using these nonsense nouveau words in their every day speech:

• amazing
• passion
• about

It has got to the pitch where I am making a mental note of how early in the day it is when the first of these linguistic strangulations occurs.

Usually it is the mangling of the preposition about that gets in first: everything is about these days, not only the grossly offensive,

it's about rain, it's about clouds, it's about weather

but reporters and ordinary people use about when another preposition is far more appropriate.

Amazing is usually number two in the list and has normally been uttered by someone well before 7:30 am.

Passion is being very heavily used in the context of a competition and the one I tend to mention most is a cookery competition but I have seen trailers for those so called talent shows in which someone will regale us with their passion for their warbling talent. This week I watched a couple of the BBC's Masterchef: the professionals programme and not only have I been horrified at what supposedly professional chefs are happy to cook but every single one of them felt the need to tell us that they were passionate about food. I beg to differ and if I am wrong, they would not be such inept cooks.

However, yesterday, passion got in first, before amazing; and that was as late as 9:00 am. How about that?

By the way, if you are wont to say something is amazing, I urge you to take a look at the definition of the word. The fact that Anne Battenberg's daughter used the word amazing about 3 or 4 times in a sentence when she "won" the BBC Sports "Personality" of the year award the other year should not be taken as a signal that we can all do the same.

DW

Oops!

I sent my CV to someone last night and he just called me to ask whether I was a child prodigy since I seemed to have started my teaching career at the age of 12!

Oops! I'd inadvertently chopped 10 years of my age.

I've been using that CV for ages and no one else has mentioned that before. That happens with some of my teaching/training materials too ... as if anyone ever reads that!!!

DW

Camera Focus Tip

When you are trying to focus the lens of an SLR camera and it seems to be constantly out of focus, check that you are wearing your spectacles, if you normally wear them.

DW


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Burnley v Sunderland

Mixed feelings today as Burnley entertain Sunderland at Turf Moor in the Premier League.

Burnley by birth and Sunderland by adoption, having lived there for nine years and having been a regullar at Roker Park throughout that period.

Up the Clarets!

DW


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My Operation

When we talk about medicine and doctors and the NHS we all say how vitally important it is to maintain the confidentiality of the doctor patient relationship. However, you can travel on a bus or train, walk down the street and even sit in a cafe or restaurant and hear people discussing their most intimate details of their medical history.

Well, I'm not going to do that save to say I had an operation on Wednesday: keyhole surgery. The benefit of it being keyhole surgery is that I was operated on at around 8:30 am and was home by around 3:00 pm. Alternatively I would probably still be in hospital two/three days later and would need six weeks off work rather than being able to go back to work immediately.

I say immedidately but I got tired very quickly yesterday and today because of the lasting effects of the anaesthetic. The pain is minor, however. I am also fit enough to wander the streets a little.

Then again, I recovered a lot quicker than the much younger man in the bed next to me!

So now you know and here is a photo of the key holes they used to operate on me. If you are squeamish, turn away now!

DW

Excel 2007 with Excel Master

It's official: www.excelmaster.co.uk ... I can now reveal the address of my new web site. This is the web site for my up and coming book which will be called Excel 2007 with Excel Master.

The site is up and running but it is a work in progress at the time of writing. There are some good and useful things there already but there are going to be a lot more.

The book is more than half written now and it's going well.

Take a look at the web site: www.excelmaster.co.uk

Let me have your feedback and let me have your ideas: if there's something you want me to do, let me know and I'll do it if I can.

DW

Crisp Packets and a Glorious Walk

I put myself on a diet a while ago and lost 2 - 3 kilogrammes. I stepped on the scales last week to find I'd put that weight back on and a bit more. I was heart broken and a bit surprised. I eat loads of high fibre food, loads of fruit and veg and of course beans and peas.

I do eat other things so in the end I am concluding I am eating some rubbish things and not taking enough exercise.

I noticed in my kitchen bin last night there was an empty crisp packet and an empty Bassett's liquorice allsorts packet. What does that tell me?

I am going to be more strict and last night I went to the house of an old friend from school: we hadn't seen each other for over 30 years.

Steve and his wife Jan live in Mytholmroyd and I decided I'd walk to their place and I did. About 4 miles and it took me an hour and 20 minutes or so. It would have been a bit quicker but my map and the lack of a street sign let me down at one crucial point. Never mind, extra exercise.

I hope this will upload: a 1 minute 22 second video of part of my walk. It should make you want to come up here and take a closer look at the Yorkshire Dales even though I took the film with my phone and the lighting was a bit awkward.

DW

Congratulations England

England have just beaten Croatia 5: 1 at Wembley which means they have qualified for the World Cup Finals next July.

Well done lads!

England expects this day that every Englishman will do his duty ... Who said that?

DW


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Scotland the Brave

Sorry to see that Scotland lost to The Netherlands just now. A shame as it would have been good to see them in South Africa.

Hard luck lads!

DW


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The new Home Office

I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up my second bedroom which is the room that I have just had remodelled. Now my home office takes up the space liberated by the two cupboards that used to be in between bedrooms one and two.

It needs decorating now, once the plaster has dried, but I needed to move in today because the sun is shining (I know, almost incredible) too brightly in the conservatory where I have been working for the last two weeks or so.

Well, I'm in and even though I added two more electric sockets and I haven't connected everything up yet, it's already mini spaghetti junction with one laptop, second monitor and printer connected.

I will post photos here once I've finished everything.

DW

Well done Scotland!

Scotland 2 v 0 Macedonia

This keeps Scotland's World Cup 2010 hopes alive.

Good to watch, second half especially.

The Netherlands next week lads!

DW
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This could be the last time

I am reviewing my online presence as I am now running three web sites. www.duncanwil.co.uk, my original web site; www.excelmaster.co.uk is NEW and I am putting a lot of effort into it; www.oxbow.org.uk is being allowed to die as it was a commercial venture that didn't work I'm afraid.

I also manage two blogs: this one and Duncan's Diacritical Discussion, my business blog.

I have been checking the world's response to this blog and it is woeful: I am gathering readership figures now but no one is linking to it and there are only two followers. If the readership is as low as I fear it might be, this blog will cease to be by the end of this month if not sooner!

In spite of that I do enjoy putting the blog together and will probably continue to do that privately if this one has to go.

My business blog will probably stay as I want to use a blog with excelmaster.co.uk. Alternatively, the business blog will go and a new one, based on Microsoft Excel, will replace it.

DW

BBC Proms: whatever happened laddie?

Last Friday night I thought I'd take a break from my usual habits and listen to the Proms on Radio 3. I tuned in, all excited like, only to find a talking programme in progress that went on ... and on ... and on ... I went back to my old habits.

Last night I tried again. There was chatting going on  but only for a few minutes. Then I settled down to listen to the Proms proper. Not my kind of music at all. Can't even remember what it was. I then went to YouTube and found Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus as I told you earlier.

Third time lucky? I went back and tuned in during some piano concerto. Not that good but tolerable. That finished and then what started after that I cannot begin to describe. It was one of those tunes that someone wrote while they were defiling a sheep or something. The kind of music that no one understands but thinks they are the only one who doesn't so they listen politely and talk loudly and effusively about it over the Champers.

In all honesty, I could have played that "tune" and I can play no notes of merit. I wondered how on earth the composer wrote such a thing down.

DW

Guestbook Gone

I installed a guestbook on my site a while ago and whilst it's not something I do seriously or ever really open, I left it there. Today, for some reason, I was driven to take a look at it and found that it had grown to almost 1Gigabyte in size.

So I downloaded it, opened it and found a third of a million messages in there. Every 3, 4 or 5 minutes it received a message for months. So, some clever dick found the guestbook and did whatever he (baseball cap wearer, ponytail sporting and spotty young man no doubt) wanted, over 300,000 times.

Well, it's gone now and won't be back.

The same happened when I started a Discussion Board on another site. It looked good and worked really well until the porno and spamming people persistently got into it.

I knew in the case of the discussion board that security was likely to be an issue but I decided to see if I could control it all with a weekly tweak or something. I couldn't. That's a shame too as I wanted to build up that site with people who wanted to engage with my and the team I as working with.

Fortunately I have lost nothing particularly tangible from my experiences and if ever I do want a serious guestbook and so on, I'll buy a secure service.

Bleeders!

DW

Stunning Ceramics

About 20 years ago I started to buy some limited edition plates from the Matfen Hall pottery in Northumberland: images of inspiration, Neus Design. I took a drive there one day only to find it was closed ... I couldn't go back and now there is a hotel there!

I have tried for years to track down any more of these plates or even anyone else with them. The plates were always limited to a run of 5,000 pieces and the lowest number I got was almost 600. So there are many of us about.

I followed a new lead this morning and have found someone else, in fact two other people, with these plates. However, I like the plates and really would like more of them. They are not massively expensive and from what I have found they have not held their value.

Here are the plates I own: if anyone knows anything, please let me know via a comment here or via my email address duncan_at_duncanwil_dot_co_dot_uk. The background to the plates is my dining table!!

DW

Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei Deus

Years ago I went to a performance of Rachmaninov's Vespers at King's College Chapel, Cambridge. It was utterly divine in every sense. I bought the CD too but really one needs speakers of the size and quality of the Chapel to appreciate the music.

I went to Salisbury Cathedral one Sunday afternoon about three years ago and entered to the kind of music that we think is reserved only for heaven. I went back a couple of weeks later but they were singing something different and it wasn't as good for me I'm afraid.

Well, yesterday I listened to Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei Deus on the radio and although I had heard it before, I have never shared my experience of it before. I am currently listening to a version of this work recorded at King's College Chapel and while the quality of the recording is not too good, it still transcends the ordinary. I love choral music anyway, as just a few people know; and this is among my favourites.

You can listen online to the version I am currently listening to here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZL3POaATn8&NR=1

There is another version that I have just listened to, too, that sounds better but is shorter. This version has the score to read along to: if you're lucky enough to be able to sing along too then that's excellent for you! Here is that version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C4xmB1QWYk

Someone wrote a note that this is not music to listen if you're sad. I can see why they say that but I'm not sure I agree!

DW

The Navigation Sowerby Bridge

What have the following got in common?

• two Milky Way bars
• a Curly Wurly
• a Fudge bar
• a Sherbet Fountain
• a Swiffels Matlow Drumstick
• a Flumps
• The Navigation Pub in Sowerby Bridge

Give in?

The link is the Sweetie Pub Quiz they hold on Sunday evenings. Nominally starts at 9 pm and it's a shout out loud quiz where the first person to shout out the right answer to a question earns the right to dip into a bag and pull out one of the above sweets.

The list above is my personal haul from last night's quiz: I got the answers to the first two questions right and thought, better not answer too many more!!! Over the quiz I got seven questions right myself. The fundamental rule is no shouting out until a question has been asked in full. In that case the young girl with the sweetie bag gets to dip into it rather than anyone else. Well, I did that: what position did Pope John Paul II play in his football team in his younger days? I bellowed out far too early but got the answer right ... what position did he play, then?

There's also a separate play your cards right game and since no one won it last night, next week's cash prize will be £260. Buy a sheet of raffle tickets for £1 and that gives you five chances to get into the Play your Cards Right game. Gail from our team got the right to have a go but she drew a pair very quickly so we were disappointed! Shame!

I don't drink alcohol these days but the beer and cider and so on seemed to go down well so there you are.

When we arrived at the pub I asked Nev, brother in law, to buy me a strong lemonade. It was a joke and he understood but for some reason it absolutely threw the girl behind the bar and I ended up with a tiny bottle of bitter lemon!! We didn't make that mistake again!

A good night out with nine of us and a full pub: celebrating another brother in law's birthday: happy birthday Danny Butt.

DW

Modern Script Writing Jokes!

On Radio 4 this week there is a story at the end of Woman's Hour to do with the Holy Grail that seemed to be set in medieval Europe and in modern day England, as far as I could tell.

Yesterday there was a medieval character on there who was made to say the following:

Now you got money don't you.

I ask you!

DW

Noctua Pronuba

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I have just found two Large Yellow Underwing moths in my conservatory. They were both dead and now that I have found them I realise they have been dead for a few weeks.

I don't use the conservatory very often and I had seen a blob on the carpet at the far end of the room. I thought the blob was a bit of fluff or dust.

I found the one behind the blinds first and then took a second look at the blob on the floor and found it was also a dead moth.

From Wikipedia:

The Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba) is a moth, the type species for the family Noctuidae. It is an abundant species throughout Europe, one of the most common and most familiar moths of the region. In some years the species is highly migratory with large numbers appearing suddenly in marginal parts of the range.

This is a quite large and heavy moth with a wingspan of 50-60 mm. The forewings are quite variable from light brown to almost black. The darker individuals often have a pale streak along the costa. The hindwings are bright orange yellow with a black sub terminal band. As with other Noctua species (and numerous other insects), this contrast of drab at rest and bright in flight is used to confuse potential predators. This species flies at night from July to September and is attracted to light, sometimes in huge numbers. It will also visit flowers such as Buddleia, ragwortand Red Valerian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Yellow_Underwing

Here is my photo of one of under side of the two moths:

DW

Taking Spreadsheet Orders

I have mentioned a few times already that I am writing a book on Excel 2007 and have already uploaded and am working on a new web site to go with it.

I want the book and the site to be as relevant and user friendly as possible so I am asking people, anyone, if there are any spreadsheets they would like to have developed, free of charge. Please bear in mind I do not program with VBA I am afraid.

There are and will be loads of spreadsheets aimed at accountants and bookkeepers. In addition there are already a few spreadsheets for manpower planners as I have been working with a manpower planning expert to develop those. There are spreadsheets to deal with statistics and data analysis. I am waiting for some engineering commissions and will be preparing some spreadsheets that marketing people might use.

So, anything you think I might be able to help with. It could be something that needs finishing, something that needs updating from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007, something that you have got ideas for but that you don't know how to do.

This is a genuine and open offer and if I can do what you want and it fits within my objectives then I will do it.

Please write to me at duncan at duncanwil dot co dot uk ... address coded to keep the SPAM to a minimum.

DW

Don't know who to blame

Someone must be blamed but I don't know who!

I have been making excellent progress on my new Excel 2007 web site: soon to be unveiled. I have uploaded some video to the site and I have created a couple of pages, of many to come, with Spry tabs. Then I knew that the home page to www.duncanwil.co.uk needed a bit of tlc so I gave it some!

Then for some reason that I spent around two hours trying to fathom, the layout of the home page collapsed. I thought I'd repaired it at one stage but to no avail.

Anyway, I really have no idea what the problem was so I did the only thing I could do. I rebuilt the entire Spry tabbed section and now, tough wood, the home page is back to normal.

Praise be!

DW

A First Class Young Lady

Just heard from daughter Fran: she got her results and she's just been awarded a FIRST CLASS HONOURS degree.

How good is that?

Pleased as Punch and Proud as a Peacock

DW

From Catherine Slack to Brighouse

You wouldn't want to be my legs today!

For the first time in a long time I joined my sister, her husband and other family members on an 8 mile cross country walk on Saturday. Now, I have been going to the gym every other day and going on the treadmill for a couple of miles and then the bike for another 2 - 3 miles but it did not prepare me for that expedition.

We didn't rush at all, taking about four and a half hours in all and we stopped a couple of times but it took it out of me! I woke up on Sunday in creaky mode and walked a bit like John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn. Today I woke up even creakier and the muscles set solid when I sit down for any length of time but they do loosen up fairly readily when I start moving around.

In spite of that and in spite of my legs almost giving out at one stage as we scaled over 100 steps on a steep hillside I really enjoyed the walk, the countryside and the effort. I will happily go on the next trek.

Here are some photos to keep you going.

The view down the valley from near Catherine Slack:

A tunnel through the trees about half way round!

It's Shaun the sheep!

I love dry stone walls!

DW

Brilliant?

I have written about this before but was still surprised to come across the example, from a Radio 4 programme about lottery winners this morning:

Lottery Winning Caller: I feel physically sick
Lottery Rep: Brilliant

Now, why was that brilliant I wonder?

DW

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I were away ...

... When we did fractions and that.

I am standing next to a map of Halifax town centre next to the bus station in Halifax and on the map I can see

The town hall quarter
The George's quarter
The market quarter
The theatre quarter
The Piece Hall quarter

Erm, FIVE quarters?? There must be a good explanation.

DW

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The only man?

Why is it that every time the BBC mentions Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi they call him THE ONLY MAN TO HAVE BEEN CONVICTED OF ... ?

Do they ever say, for example, Jack Scroggins, one of 500,000 benefit fraudsters ...

Or even, Elizabeth Battengurg, the only crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ... currently reigning??

Clots!

DW Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The Wonders of Modern Technology

Here I am working away in my office at home and I can do my work on this laptop and at the same time I have plugged in a spare monitor and am keeping an eye on the final test match, England v Australia via skysports.com ... a must win game for England.

Marvellous!

DW

Burnley ONE Manchester United NOTHING

Burnley's first game at home in the Premier League and they have WON!

Fantastic!!

Come on you Clarets!!

DW

I Love Work ...

I could stand and watch it for hours. Name the author!

I am working away on my new book and across the road there are three people painting the fence of a house and digging up the front garden and moving some large paving stones around.

The people involved are

• a 30 ish woman, the owner of the house
• a slightly older woman, sister or friend?
• a young boy, 14 years old ish and possibly the son of the second woman

When they started their work, they all began by painting the fence and they made good progress.

The owner of the house then moved away and started to dig the garden, leaving the other two to continue painting the fence.

As the work got too heavy for the house owner, the second woman moved from painting to digging and moving the heavy paving stones.

That left the boy alone. He painted with some gusto as he leaned on the hand rail that goes from pavement level to garden level. Having lived with three teenage boys I predicted to myself that this boy will be in serious difficulty when he can no longer lean on that hand rail. And so it proved to be!

As the women are digging and sweating their way across the garden with spade and paving stones, the boy has been drinking orange, consulting with the women but now is sitting on the steps leading up to the garden and throwing  a hammer across the garden in an attempt to get it to stick in the soil as if it were a knife! Painting activity there is none!

The boy is uncontrolled and apparently shameless!

DW

I put it in, I did, I did!

On Saturday I got home to find a new viewing card for my Sky television set up. All I was supposed to do was to take out the old card and put in the new one. I looked at the box and could see a slot but there was no card in it and I couldn't see any other slot for any other card.

I put the card in the slot anyway and even though there was no message on the screen as there was supposed to be, nothing broke or stopped so I was happy.

Then last night, Monday, I started seeing a message on the screen telling me to put the card in the box! I said, I have ... This kept happening: maybe half a dozen times in 24 hours so I decided to do some research on the Sky web site.

I found what the message meant and what I should do about it: put your card in the box, it said. Well, I was flummoxed. I read through the instructions and then the extensive FAQ and could see nothing I had done wrong.

Then in the corner of the web site I noticed a photo of a Sky box like mine and lo and behold right next to the slot where I'd inserted my card I could see a flap behind which was another slot! I had known nothing about that slot before.

I scuttled over to my box and found the flap, took out the old card and inserted the new one. Instantly I was presented with the message I had been promised. I did what I had to do and now all is well with my television world.

So there you are and it's Celtic 0 v Arsenal 1 as I type this. C'mon Celtic!

DW

Some Photos What I Have Took

Here are a few photos I have taken over the last few days. They come from my phone camera so may not be up to my mega camera standard!

First photo is an oddity: the warning of death by suffocation is to be found on a safe in an hotel room in Geneva. The size of the safe is far too small for me to get my head in and moreover it is around five feet off the ground so a child hell bent on suffocation would have to be extremely determined!

The next photo subject caught my eye outside Bradford Forster Square railway station, West Yorkshire. I liked this one:

Again from Bradford, this is a sand sculpture of Charles Darwin. My guess is that it is around 10 - 12 feet tall. Very impressive and the photo that follows explains the purpose of the sculpture.

Bit of fun there then and well done Bradford for livening up our lives a bit.

DW

How did that get there?

I think I need a cleaner when I know the reality is that I only want one. Well, judge for yourself as you read this story.

The fridge in my house is small and around five years old. It was a cheapy, cheapy fridge for young Master W's room in Halls. When we all went our separate ways and he no longer needed the fridge, I took the fridge.

This fridge absorbs water from the atmosphere like a sponge and it gets deposited and frozen in the tiny freezer compartment at a rapid rate. Consequently, because I am not fully sorted out domestically (I am really but I don't want to be), I have been squeezing the few frozen things I buy into a smaller and smaller aperture. When I got back from my trip on Saturday I resolved to defreeze the thing and start again.

It has taken until today for me to be able to get round to mopping up the water and cleaning the fridge. However, in the freezer compartment I found some vegetables that I simply cannot remember ever putting there. More seriously, there was half a block of LARD in there. How on earth did that get there? Lard? I never buy lard cos I'm a veggie. Do I? Did I?

Anyway, I know I need to defrost the fridge much more often as I think that was the first time in two years.

Hands up if you think I need a cleaner!

DW

Forgive the Aeroplane Story

On the flight from Zurich to Manchester today I was happily minding my own business when an elderly well spoken woman got on and started talking about her seat and that of her husband, also an elderly person. She announced that he couldn't sit in the seat assigned to him, a window seat, because he needs to have the arm rest lifted ...

One of their seats was the seat next to me and the other was the seat next to the man in front of me. Good egg the man in front of me, he selflessly moved to another seat, the one in front of him and not the one next to me.

The old man slithered his way into the seat in front of me and all was well with the world.

Then one of the stewardesses came out from behind their curtain and said to the good egg man that he couldn't sit in the seat he was now in because it was a business class seat. He said he had given up his seat for the gentleman behind him. The stewardess insisted that it was a business class seat and he couldn't sit there. The man stood up, announced he'd never heard anything more ridiculous and came to sit next to me. He then had a strop on for an hour or so!

The old woman said to her husband, "These people don't seem to want to be very helpful do they." I think in their case, they were helped sufficiently well. Why they accepted a window seat for the old man is something I would have questioned.

The next time I looked at the old man he was taking a mighty swig from his duty free gin bottle.

End of story, such as it is.

DW

Lausanne here we come!

Your ace reporter is currently ensconced in the first class compartment of the 1327 train from Geneva Airport to Lausanne. On time and so far, we have just arrived at Nyon, a very smooth ride.

The journey is scheduled to take 48 minuted and, perhaps not surprisingly, the railway line hugs the coast of Lake Geneva. There are alpine heights to be seen across the lake and into the distance.

On Wednesday from Geneva city I could see a snow covered mountian but today's mountains are bare.

On this showing, Switzerland is a very neat and tidy place. Even the maize plants, sunflowers and fruit trees are very tidily arranged in their fields.

More later.

DW


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What's Wrong with me?

How about this? Young Master W trolled off to Kazakhstan for a few weeks and as I got involved in booking his ticket and saving him wads of cash, I got him to use my KLM frequent flyer card details. He did!

As he checked in to come home they said, good evening Mr Williamson I see you've got a frequent flyer card with us.

Dima replied, it's not mine it's my dad's ...

They said, no matter, we're upgrading you to Business Class anyway.

WHAT?

What about me? Never happens to me!!! Even with my Gold Emirates card I've NEVER been upgraded on long haul.

Well done that lad but for goodness' sake!

DW


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