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