Follow your own advice laddie

I wish I had!

Just before he set off on a monster trip of the Far East, my nephew asked me for some advice. He wanted to know the best strategy for foreign exchange for his trip: he asked about taking dollars, traveller's cheques and so on. I told him, whatever you do DO NOT get your currency here in the UK.

As I was leaving Dubai I checked the rates there as I had a little bit of foreign currency with me. Why oh why did I not follow my own advice? I ran out of time and opportunity to change my money in the end although I did change a little bet at Dubai International Airport. The rate there was a bit worse than I would have got in town but I changed it.

Anyway, when I got to the bank here at home I found their rate was £:$ of 1.74 ... in Dubai the rate at the time I SHOULD have changed my money was £:$ 1.61.

Just imagine I was changing $1,000 ... in Dubai I would have got £621, here in Halifax I would have got £575, a difference of £46.

Don't do what I do, do what I say! What a clot I am!!

DW

Daisy, Daiseeeee ...

I find the gross over use of the word amazing extremely irritating and here is the latest.

On Radio 4 this morning there was an article on a woman called Daisy. I didn't hear the start of that article but the only thing missing from Daisy's persona was a speech impediment: that would have been a nap hand!!

Daisy seems to be someone who pans for gold in rivers. She was married in the highlands of Scotland in a place where all of her guests, fellow panners, could pan for gold the day after the wedding. Good for them.

BUT I heard Daisy saying that many people in Scotland panned for gold a couple of centuries or so ago and then some of that gold ended up in the crown jewels of some Jock King. Daisy said with rising, excited, inflection, that incorporating that gold in that King's baubles was amazing! Why on earth was that amazing Daisy?

People pan for gold. People find gold. People do various things with the gold they have found such as

• sell it
• keep it for themselves
• turn it into jewellery

NONE of those objectives is amazing.

I don't suppose Daisy will read this and I don't want to write and ask her what was so amazing because she will undoubtedly write back in a bilious manner.

Here is a picture of Daisy I have just created:

Eeesh! New programme now and the very first guest said that even walking round her garden when it is covered in snow is amazing. WHY is it amazing?

From www.dictionary.com:

• a⋅maze –verb (used with object)

• 1 to overwhelm with surprise or sudden wonder; astonish greatly.
• 2 Obsolete. to bewilder; perplex.
• –verb (used without object)
• 3 to cause amazement: a new art show that delights and amazes.

DW

Don't Even Like Kids!!

I was walking down the road this afternoon when a couple of boys on the opposite side of the road threw a snowball at a man about 50 yards in front of me. He turned round and looked at bit angry so I pointed over the road and snitched on the kids!

He let me catch up to him. I said there were two boys thinking they were clever ... he said, kids, never liked 'em!

Having noticed that he was wearing hiking boots, winter clobber and was carrying a ski pole, I said he looked set up for a long walk. In rather a dejected voice he replied that he was killing time! I asked, what does that mean? He said he was supposed to be going home to Penzance but his wife had broken her ankle. He said they were out in the snow yesterday and as his wife came towards him, she went over on her ankle and it broke!

I asked if she was in hospital and he said it needs pinning but they can't do it before Saturday and they're stuck here for another two weeks.

As we got to my bus stop we parted and I wished him well and he wished me a happy new year!

Nice chat all brought on when two boys threw a snowball at a complete stranger!

DW

Ed Balls and Michael Gove ... where are you?

In October, before I went on a two and a half month trip away from home, I wrote to Ed Balls and Michael Gove in relation to the cheating and corruption inherent in the GCSE and A Level Examinations system.

Balls is the Minister responsible for education and Gove is his Tory shadow.

The problem I have been campaigning on for a few years is a real one and I have presented a lot of hard facts and evidence of cheating and corruption and yet two MPs and various civil servants have been happy to turn a blind eye to what is happening. I have even been threatened with legal action by one Examinations Board who then had to slink away from their position when they realised they had tried far too hard to bully me into silence.

These wretched people who are presiding over this abuse of position and privilege have to be hounded out of office and in the case of Gove, prevented from getting into office. Neither of them has replied to my letters.

I need a Tiananmen Square moment to get these people out into the open and this corruption solved and stopped.

DW

Liar Liar

The great thing about the internet and living in the UK is that I can say what I want, within the law and within the realms of decency, truth and so on.

Let me note that the Tories have openly admitted that they have started their general election campaign. We were treated on day one to the sight of a number of ne'er do well Tory politicians trawling the country as they seek to persuade us that we should vote for them.

The film Liar Liar sprung to mind: we should all watch that film again with the general election in mind.

I like the idea of the three week general election campaign and really resent the Tories, or anyone for that matter, deciding that we need to suffer their perorations longer than that. The two YEAR Obama campaign was far too much to suffer and we don't need that here.

DW

Cluedo? Clueless more like!!

So Dima and I settled down to play a game of Cluedo last night. Neither of us remembered how to play so we read the rules and set off.

We set up the board, the cards and the characters and although we didn't initially follow the rules properly we soon got up to speed.

In the end Dima decided he had all the evidence he needed so he said he wanted to make his accusations:

• the rope
• the kitchen
• Miss Scarlett

OK, we turned over the cards in the centre of the board:

• the rope ... good!
• the kitchen ... very good!
• the dagger ... Doh!

How did that happen? I have to confess that I had sorted out and selected the three cards to go in the middle!

Clot

DW