Vegetarian Breakfast?

Anyone fancy this for breakfast?

Grilled tomato
Grilled mushrooms
Baked beans
Spring rolls

OK up to the spring rolls?

That's what I got on the KLM flight from Muscat to Amsterdam this morning. What were they thinking?

DW

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Encyclopaedia!

At the end of the last day of my seminar in Muscat, a delegate came and chatted and said I am like an encyclopaedia!

I thought, hmm, does she mean too heavy, dusty and sits on a shelf all alone and unloved? No, she said I seem to know everything!!

I am for hire!!

DW

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Brilliant, another frigging tax!

Those Oxbridge boffs have hit on another spiffing wheeze to extract more money out of the unwary. There is a suggestion that

Every Briton with a fixed line phone will pay a "small levy" of 50p per month to pay for faster net access.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8102756.stm

Why? I have installed and run broadband internet access in my house and have been paying handsomely for it. I have been doing that for many years now. Even when I travel I leave it all switched on, the service that is, not my computers. so, I am hardly a drain on the system.

I am an exception and I don't want to pay even if it is only 50 pence a month.

I was considering taking my broadband mobile anyway and if that's free of this poxy tax then that's what I'll do.

One more thing: this is going to be managed by the government so it won't work will it? Their track record on IT systems is wanton so it will start at 50 pence a month and then it will soon get to £5 a month ... and will be overseen by a Politician who has even managed to dodge paying Stamp Duty on his own house such are the rules that he has managed to manipulate in his favour.

DW

You know you've been Gatesed when ...

... you create and save a Word 2007 file as a Word 97 - 2003 file and think you can take it to another computer running Office 2003 to open it and print it.

• Of course the first Windows computer will try to open it as a Notepad file. Then it will tell you that the file is corrupt.
• Of course the second Windows computer will be unable to identify your USB memory stick
• Of course the third Windows computer will open the file but be completely unable to open the very simple jpg graphics that the file has embedded in it

So, go back to your original file in Word 2007 and save it as a PDF file. Take it out of Gates' hands. I should have done that in the first place.

Ah but there's more.

Last night as I was preparing the document I knew I'd got a copy on my system: it just had to be there. I even knew the key words and everything. I searched in my main working folder and sub folders but Windows Explorer in Vista told me it didn't exist. I changed the key word a few times and each time I got the same result: nothing.

I used manual methods and found what I wanted.

This morning I thought I'd try the search again since it had failed on this file and on several others. Now it worked.

Something I have noticed of late, only lately, is that if I put the computer to sleep, it wakes up with a headache and often refuses to let me surf the web and download my emails: using a browser and Outlook 2007.

Let's all buy an Apple Mac

I see that Apple are releasing more of their wondrous products and I'm telling you, the next comp I get will be as far removed from Bill Gates as I can get.

Just one example of the ad I've see today says that I can get as much as seven hours out of an Apple laptop battery. That's as opposed to the hour - hour and a half I get and have only ever got from all of the laptops I've ever owned and used. Sorry, I don't want to hear that Jimmy Shand plc's laptops can last for a fortnight because that's just the start of it!

Apple has also SHRUNK its OS by 6 Gb ... when did MS ever shrink anything except our wallets and our productivity?

Apple has also shrunk the price of their OS to £29 from £150 (I THINK they are correct).

I will tell you what Windows laptops are good for: hand warmers in Winter as they invariably made the CPU run to capacity whatever else is on board and therefore generate many BTUs of heat.

DW

Take Care

I told a story yesterday as part of a brief discussion on Learning Curves.

I said I used to use my daughter's toys as props when getting students and delegates to assess their personal learning rates. Toys from when she was 2 - 3 years old.

After the session one of the delegates came to me and blithely said, without a hint of ageism, "Your daughter must be quite old by now"!!

Pshaw!!

DW

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Thatcher 'armless?

I see that woman Thatcher has broken her upper arm. Why stop there madam?

There are people all over the UK and elsewhere no doubt who feel no sympathy for that woman.

DW

Twisted People

There is a device available now that can be used to detect whether people have been taking cocaine by sniffing it. It's a device that uses ultra violet rays and any cocaine it finds stuck to skin or nasal hairs lights up green.

Bouncers at night clubs are using these drug torches as they are being called to see if anyone is trying to get into their club has taken any cocaine. The last thing they want is some moron high on cocaine getting into the club and then drinking something alcoholic. Apparently, cocaine and alcohol mixed in the same body at the same time can turn people extremely violent.

Good idea then? Well, not for everyone it seems. Some clowns from the drug charity Release say the drug torch could be illegal as it could be an invasion of privacy. Even some police officers are worried about the torch because they fear it might be a breach of human rights. One woman interviewed by Newsbeat for the BBC told their reporter, "I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I'm not a cocaine addict. We've just had a cocaine torch shoved up our noses for no reason."

Are all of these people mentally ill? They worry about a drug abuser or drug addict's privacy and human rights when it is more than well known that drug addicts are costing us all billions in NHS treatments and time off work. Drug addicts who drive are many times more likely to crash their cars and kill and/or maim than a drunk driver let alone a sober one. Even within the privacy of their own homes, druggies are a menace.

I want to say here and now that if anyone who needs to protect society feels the need to use a drug torch on me, they are free to do so. I have nothing to fear in the slightest. More than that, they have my permission to do that to anyone else they see fit. If we all say the same, we can rewrite the definition and application of privacy and human rights. After all levels of privacy and human rights are set by people for people.

This is why many aspects of modern life are intolerable for so many people now. Moreover, several layers of our society are free to to what they want at the expense of the rest of us because of these tree huggers.

DW

Bulk Buying?

In a department store with my companion recently and we saw a couple and their baby triplets. Of course,the triplets received loads of attention.

I said it’s just one baby … but buy one get two free! Oh how we laughed!

DW

Gordon Brown WILL Survive

I feel the need to let you in on what appears to be a massive secret in the UK’s political world: Gordon Brown is our Prime Minister today and he will be our Prime Minister tomorrow and even at least up until the next general election.

Brown became PM because of an apparent deal done many years ago. Moreover, the Labour Party went through a sham election to put him in place as it fielded no candidate to oppose him. They are seriously regretting that action now.

Brown is commonly referred to as being unlikeable and difficult to work with. Well, he’s been a senior member of the Labour Party for a very long time so that can hardly be a surprise to anyone now can it? That’s not to defend Brown in any way since I don’t known him at all. Additionally,the people who say he is difficult to work with might be the very ones who have lost out to him in some way and are therefore venting bile. The same happened to Tony Blair who was criticised by the likes of that Claire Short who fell foul of Blair at some stage so she decided to vent bile against him.

Let me also say that Brown was a dreadful Chancellor of the Exchequer at least for building an Economy on sand: the sand of over extensive credit, loans and mortgages … just look at the car industry and the housing market now. The market for cars has collapsed by an average or around 30% over the last year as the availability of credit has collapsed … the car industry propped up by credit and not prosperity. House price inflation raged as the easing of the mortgage market took off: self certification, 100% – 125% mortgages and so on.

As to Brown’s Prime MInisterial life, he will survive for the simple reason that if he is thrown out, the Labour Party will be forced to hold a general election, whether by law or by political machination doesn’t matter. If there is a general election now the Tories will get in despite the fact that they unelectable as is the Liberal Democratic Party. Don’t forget, MPs are politicians first so they will not shoot themselves in the foot by ousting Brown.

What will happen is they will give Brown a slapping. He will be allowed to stay in post until the next General Election and then he will be ditched. Labour will probably lose the next Election next year anyway but at least by waiting for a year or so, they might be able to regain some of the ground they are currently losing to the opposition parties.

Finally, we have been hearing over the last few weeks that Labour MPs have to rally round and unite for the sake of the Labour Party. Aye, there’s the rub! These people in Parliament are more worried about the Party than they are about the country and the likes of you and me. I have written before about the demolishing of the Party system and stress again: political parties lead to party politics which lead to in fighting and short term politics. Get rid of it.

Brown is here to stay, for now!

DW

RIP Grasshopper

You probably know that David Carradine, alias Grasshopper from that ancient television programme*, died in an hotel in Bangkok last week. Sad as the news is, I want to share this with my readers.

Grasshopper died in the Nai Lert Park Hotel which is on Wireless Road in central Bangkok. He checked in on 31st May and although I didn't know he was there and didn't meet him, I was staying at that hotel at the time.

I checked in on 29th May and checked out on 1st June. So for a few hours I can say that I shared some space on this planet with super star David Carradine, Grasshopper.

You might have read that Grasshopper died in rather unusual circumstances but that doesn't diminish my memories of his acting career as far as I knew it.

RIP David Carradine

DW

*Carradine, a martial arts practitioner ... was best known for the ... TV series Kung Fu which aired from 1972-75. He played Kwai Chang Caine, an orphan who was raised by Shaolin monks and fled China for the American West after killing the emperor's nephew in retaliation for the murder of his kung fu master.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ipVUX_BySIOm7FCTgbyATYx9NrywD98LL9I80

It's Just not Cricket! And what about the Football?

The Aussies are in town and the battle for the Ashes is upon us: England won the Ashes the last time battle was engaged on English soil, the Australians won them back shortly afterwards, in Oz.

How has England been preparing for the up and coming Ashes series?

• A poor Test series in the West Indies last Winter
• A poor one day series in the West Indies last Winter and early this season in England and now, ignominiously
• By losing to the Netherlands in the Twenty20 game in rather an embarrassing way

It's embarrassing that England has lost to the Netherlands but to lose when firing on one out of four cylinders is unacceptable.

It's trite now to say that England took cricket to the world, although of course it is undeniably true; but we really ought to be unbeatable by a country mile by the likes of the Netherlands.

Football

As an aside, the England football team takes on Kazakhstan this weekend in the qualifying rounds of the World Cup to be held in South Africa next year. When they played the Kazakhstan team at Wembley they got a shock as it turned out not to be so easy as they thought it would. Then the Kazakhstan team did what lower level teams do, which is to run out of steam. Up until that point however, the likes of Terry and Rooney were in danger of suffering significant embarrassment. No doubt England will take at least a point away from Almaty this weekend and leave all of the embarrassment to the England cricket team

DW

Oh! Windows 7, Windows 7, wherefor art thou Windows 7?

Good question!

I am using my HP Tablet laptop as an experimental computer these days since it has proven so useless and unreliable otherwise (Pavillion 1350ee). I am testing Windows 7 Beta there but thought I'd give Windows 7 RC a go.

I went to the Microsoft (MS) site and after a bit of bother I managed to get the download of the massive file started. It took well over an hour but I was patient, I choose the location of the file and it finished downloading successfully as far as I could see.

After the file downloaded I went back to check what I had to do to install the thing. I needed to create a DVD of the ISO file I had downloaded ...

I went to the folder I had selected for the downloading of the file. Erm, empty, nothing, nada, zilch, nul. I thought, that can't be true so I went to windows explorer and searched for the file: nothing.

In similar situations I often go back to the source, start the downloading process again and then see where the file had really gone. Well, I've been Gatesed! I am unable to start the downloading process again.

So, Gates being Gates, the process of testing MS software has proven impossible. Astonishing innit?

DW

Screen Writers are Getting more Ridiculous

Everyone who comes here regularly knows that I bemoan the ruination of the English English language. Well, I watched the film about Dylan Thomas on the plane last night. British film, British cast, set in Wales, many people spoke with Welsh accents. Even Keira Knightly spoke with a Welsh accent, eventually that is.

Very early in the film, Knightly's character appears as a singer in war time London. Then as she gets home to Wales she explains to Dylan Thomas, a childhood friend and one time lover, that she is "Singing in the Underground right now"!

I couldn't believe that the screen writer would make a war time Welsh girl say right now in any situation whatsoever. I am surprised that Knightly herself didn't spot how out of place it is and I am shocked that the director or editor or someone didn't think to change that to what she would have said. She would have said something as simple as now or at the moment ... but certainly not right now.

FFS as my nephew is wont to say!

DW

Emirates what have you [un]done?

My impressions of the A380-800 inaugural from from Bangkok to Dubai are that I was very disappointed.

I have followed the development and launch of the A380 with everyone and I have seen promotional videos of the various cabins on the aircraft as they are offered by various airlines.

When I got into the Business Class cabin of this A380 I was very disappointed. So disappointed that I invented a new word: Emirates has sardinised its business class passengers for this aeroplane. In the Emirates Boeing 777ER, on which I have also travelled business class, there are far fewer business class seats and the level of personalised service is much higher. Fair enough, they don't know how to make a decent vegetarian sandwich but there you are, a trifling detail!

Last night, I felt let down: so many seats and it seemed to me that we were being serviced by the same number of crew as in Economy Class. Not what I upgraded for!

They had not registered my vegetarian meal request although there was a generic vegetarian option on the menu. They asked me, however, what I wanted and I did stress my vegetarian requirements: the stewardess said no problem and wrote it all down. Then she brought me my appetiser that included some sea food. She apologised and promised me the vegetarian alternative but it never came.

The meal itself was fine: the mezzes were good. I like Middle Eastern food anyway so there was never going to be a problem with that! The tortellini was basically poor as I could have made/prepared better myself. Dessert was good, a chocolate cake with custard ... foreigners, however, fail to appreciate the English appetite for custard and around 15 millilitres is far from adequate! I have to say that by the time the meal service had finished it was well past midnight and getting rather late for me. We had a nominal take off time of 2125 and took off at almost exactly 2200.

The service of the food was rather offhand and the level of service I felt was in direct proportion to the number of crew on duty.

I did like the bar area as that attracted a number of people, including me. I took an orange juice and could have eaten snacks all night. The good point is that it strikes me as a good opportunity to get out of your seat and meet someone who might be interesting. I met a man in the bar from Bangkok in there, originally from St Helens, who was on THE inaugural A380 flight with Singapore Airlines that flew from Singapore to Sydney. He had all his certificates on display for everyone to see: it's one of 4 such inaugural flights he's done now.

No other refreshments were served although they were always available in the bar and each seat has its own little bar with water, juice and so on available.

One thing that they might have to change is that many of the men travelling last night had rather large stomachs so the slide out tables will be unusable by many of them! That's a fundamental marketing and design flaw in my opinion! Of course, I didn't have a problem!

The entertainment system is excellent, I have to say. The large touch screen is excellent and the controls on screen are a doddle to use. There is even a mini control pod thing for each seat that controls the video and audio as well as the seat.

The seat is heavily marketed as being 100% flat bed: nope! Mine did not go 100%, not far off but not far enough for me to be able to sleep in it as if it were a flat bed. I did sleep a couple of hours though.

One nice touch: after I had paid a visit to the bar I got back to find that someone had made up my bed with some sort of mini mattress and they had folded my blanket really nicely. That was good!

Here is my certificate of having flown that inaugural flight:

One final thing: this is my first ever inaugural flight and I have to say I thought that Emirates would have made a bit more of a fuss of us than they did!

DW

Inaugural A380 Bangkok to Dubai Flight: EK373 1st June 2009

I have just taken my seat on the inaugural flight of this monstrous plane.

Since it's my first time on this plane and it's the inaugural BKK - DXB flight, I decided to upgrade to business class.

Seat 6G ... Front row. As befits my station!!

The wings are absolutely immense, made in England. There's a camera in the massive tail fin.

Will report more later.

DW
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Uncle and Neice do Bangkok

When there a few people in a family who can't sit still, it's great when travellers' paths cross.

As I came back to Bangkok for the final leg of this two month stay in Thailand, my neice was also here on her stopping off point as she tripped off to Bali for her hols. We arranged to stay at the same hotel in Bangkok and met up on my arrival last night.

Had a nice dinner at the Metropolitan Hotel and then on to the Brown Sugar jazz club cum pub on Sarasin Road.

From the Met, we zig zagged across Bangkok trying to find a taxi driver who knew where we wanted to go.

Eventually we ended up in the lively Brown Sugar. During a conversation I got animated and started flailing my arms. I accidentally knocked my glass (Sprite!) and it ended up smashed on the floor.

We didn't hear that much music due to the lateness of our arrival and we realised it was time to leave when they turned all the lights out.

A late night but a good one.

DW
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Sweet Sue Cupcakes 2

Following my earlier post on Sweet Sue's cupcakes, take a look at the photo below and then go to this web site again: http://www.sweetsuecupcakes.blogspot.com/

Don't forget, if ever you're in Kuala Lumpur, you probably need to buy some of Sue's products.

On the screen of the laptop(!) is the word Acer ... attention to detail or what?!

Nice cakes.

DW

Burnley Promoted!

Fantastic Burnley have just beaten Sheffield United at Wembley and they are now a PREMIER League team.

Can you see how it's done Shearer?

Brilliant Owen Coyle's the man!

DW

Back the Losers why don't you?

I wrote in my Blog this morning about the FORMER Premier League football team Newcastle United and its latest manager. Well, I want to say how sick to death I am today. On the BBC there has been Shearer this and Shearer that. Shearer coy about his future. Shearer says we weren't good enough.

We KNOW you weren't good enough because you were relegated. Two other teams were relegated. More than that, what about the teams that achieved something. What about lauding managers like David Moyes at Everton and Martin O'Neill at Villa? Two great managers for whom I have huge amounts of time and respect.

Let's have an interview with Martin O'Neill. After all, even the late great Brian Clough was in awe of O'Neill's vocabulary and use of language. Unlike the burbling, erm, Alan, erm, Shearer, erm.

I really do despair at the agenda of these oafs at the BBC. Everyone loves an honest John but why do they want to ram the losing Newcastle United down our throats?

DW

Sweet Sue CupCakes

You've got to go here http://www.sweetsuecupcakes.blogspot.com/ and if ever you're in Kuala Lumpur, you probably need to buy some of Sue's products.

I am working with Sue this week and I have ordered a cake for later in the week and I will report back. They look fantastic.

Well done Sue, a new small business that deserves your support I think.

DW