space ... there's nothing to it

I read yesterday about a space craft flying four billion miles in ten years to rendezvous with a comet. Here are my thoughts on that.

forgive the typo in that second screenshot.

DW

Cambridge 2

More Cambridge photos ...

DW

Cambridge

Cambridge is a very photogenic city ... take a look.

DW

Fran: the wedding

Daughter Fran got married on Saturday ...

DW

Oi! Oi!

Some people just don't see the world around them do they?

There I was posing and that old man just stuttered past.

DW

Luanda Done!

In the airport waiting to leave Angola where I have had a good week. I couldn't take many snaps but here are some.

DW

In flight snaps

The usual snaps!

DW

Buriramtastic: the video

Here is one of the videos I made of the Buriram v TOT CAT match the other day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2TahzeqdQ&feature=youtu.be DW

Buriramtastic

I think the level of football is about English league 1 but the atmosphere was equal to the premiership. Organised singing that goes on for beyond 90 minutes.  We left at full time but the choir stayed and carried on singing.

Three decent goals but the opposition was very weak. Two goals were lobs. The second lob almost from the half way line that the keeper had covered.  The ball floated for a long time and as it was about to land in the keeper's arms, the poor lad slipped. 3: 0! The first lob was done really well.

I don't know any of the players but my man of the match turned out to be an Englishman: Jay Simpson. Well done!

Can you spot the ball in photo three?

DW

From Manaus to Buri Ram

Look at this! Find it on a map.

England Unwin

Here i am watching England about to lose to Italy in Manaus.

DW

Doha Airport

Doha Airport has been like a zoo for years. Until now.

After so many trips in which I thought, why do I need this. Moreover, why did we put up with it?

I suppose we were just waiting.

Well, it's definitely better and these few snaps give just a hint of what they have done.

Ginger as I live and Breathe

As I was walking through In Battuta Mall yesterday I saw a cat that looked like a fully grown version of our own Ginger. She saw me taking her photo and immediately came to me to say hello!

Nice!!

DW

Visa ... NO!

I have been swanning around for decades and whilst i have not been everywhere, I have travelled extensively.

I came to Bangkok almost a week ago to get a visa to enable me to go to work in SA.

I did everything and presented it to the agent. The visa agent presented my application to the relevant consulate.

Cut a long story short, they refused me a visa.

No reason. No explanation. No help.

That has never happened to me before. I have had many visas for SA before. Many.

I had three jobs lined up for SA this year ... all evaporated now.

DW

Don't you Just ...

So, your car is ready, parked properly and next to a wall. That wall is about three quarters of a door's width away from the car. You noticed that.

You open the door and make sure you don't hit the wall with it. You make sure the door stops moving in the middle open position.

Don't you just hate it when you do all of that and then crunch, the door decides of its own free will to open fully and as it tries to do that, of course it hits the wall.

Another small chip in the paint work ><

DW

Thailand Coup

I am a guest in Thailand and i am happy to be here.

I have lived in a wide range of countries and although i have lived in a war zone and in unstable countries, i have never lived under curfew before or in a country that is undergoing a coup.

I am happy to say that all i have seen is peaceful people leading peaceful lives even though virtually all power is now in the hands of the military.

I saw the motivation for a coup after months of political paralysis at the hands of people with various motivations.

Thailand relies on tourism to a great extent and i really hope this business does not suffer. Bangkok is the centre of attention and will remain so. The rest of the country should remain calm and relatively free.

Thailand has undergone many military interventions and i hppe no one is killed here and that life can go on as normally as possible.

My long range photo shows soldiers around the MBK Centre, Bangkok.

DW

head in head!

I did this ... using some of the features of Photoshop!

DW

hot dog?

i can across this the other day!

DW

legs alive!

it's Bangkok. it's an hour and a half until curfew time. it's foot massage time!!

DW

Pongo at Three and a Half Months

here she is ...

DW

Bookkeeping Coach Book

These are the links you need from Hodder, the publisher; and amazon, a bookseller, to help you to buy the book!

https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781471801587 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bookkeeping-Accounting-Coach-Yourself/dp/1471801586/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1399766934&sr=8-16&keywords=Duncan+williamson

I would love your feedback on this book as and when you have bought and read it.

DW

Bookkeeping Book

my latest book has been published now:

Natwest Bank: sack him

I have to say that I find the level of service and competence of the online and business teams is well below what anyone needs. I don't suppose I am alone in receiving consistently dire service.

My conclusion is that these people need a lot of training and whoever is at the head of these teams probably has no idea of what is happening and should resign.

DW

Natwest Bank: why bother?

Twice in the last year Natwest Bank has caused me problems with international payments. Now there's a new one.

Case 1 was investigated by the complaints department and ended with their report containing outright lies from a business team member. I responded to them, they did not reply.

Case 2 cost me money as they made a big mess, transferred weeks later than planned and effectively stole money from me. I lost a business opportunity too that probably cost me £2,000. I talked to Imran about this two weeks or so ago. In the end he essentially called me a liar. I told him I had documented the whole process, which I have. He told me three times that he can find no evidence for what I was telling him. As usual, rather than listening, he tried to talk over me and said things that just weren't true.

Case 3 NEW! A waiter snapped my debit card. A few days later and my credit card chip failed. After going through umpteen people, all with varying degrees of competence and listening ability I was told they could not make an urgent transfer to me because of "all the bank holidays in your region". I asked, what bank holidays? I got back on the phone to them and they then promised to make the transfer immediately. I told my wife, just watch: I think I have just been fobbed off. No immediate transfer made. There IS a bank holiday here, on Monday 5th May ... six days after I made my urgent transfer request. But guess what, the date they gave me for the arrival of my money? 5th May ... just when I can't get it. I am about to check my account again now but I am not holding my breath.

Another Satisfied Visitor

Bora wrote to me last week and asked for my Excellent help. I responded by saying, ok, I can do this on Monday. She replied to say, Wow! I didn't expect you to reply!!

It was an interesting problem: a database with over 41000 rows needs to be interrogated using four variables. I offered two separate solutions: use and sort on an Excel Table and use SUMIFS()

Both solutions worked a treat and Bora was delighted I am happy to say.

Good stuff!

Duncan Williamson

Froggie. You could have looked the other way!

Froggie was just sitting there as I had a peepee. Didn't see him until I had finished!

UPDATE 24th April 2014 ... I found Froggie on the floor in the dining room this morning. He looked very unwell but not dead. Within an hour or so he had died. He dried out very quickly.

This is the second frog to take up residence in the toilet. We caught and evicted the first one!

I have forgotten what I was going to say!

I came here to talk about something specific but got sidetracked for a while. now I cannot remember what my topic was!!! ok! Istanbul. Siri and I went there this week: I was working there. nice city. easy to get around. very busy city. lots to see and do. my work went well, too! I will remember my topic soon!! DW

Solved!

We suffered a massive lightning strike the other day that tripped the fuses but did no damage except that our wifi system fell apart.

Engineer came, changed routers and we had a connection BUT iphone, ipod and ipad couldn't connect. Grrr!

Did some research and found a lot of discussion that left me miserable.

Then I found a post that said, reset your network settings on your devices ... so I did ... it worked and we are all connected again.

I then researched a problem with the Find my iphone utility and found that if you set dates and times to help to get you more lives on candy crush, it won't work. Put the correct date and time back and all is well!

DW

Fighting and Accidents

I met a Scouser a few years ago and we spent a few breakfasts together at the hotel we were both staying at. This man was full of himself and his achievements although I could not say whether he was exaggerating or lying. What struck me most, though, was his fighting stories. Every other day he told me a story about a fight he'd had or how he flattened someone who'd got on his nerves. These were not childhood fights but recent fights. The man is in his fifties!!

Now I spend time, fortunately infrequently, with a Scandinavian. When I first met him he told me a story about the time he punched a man three times for a reason I can't remember. Oh oh! I thought. He doesn't tell me fighting stories any more but he tells accident stories:

The paramedic story ... He told that story twice and each time it was different

When we meet now he tells me he witnessed an accident on the road today, for emphasis it is usually a big one! He suggests that he stops and gets involved in some way but I think he does that when he sees that I am not overwhelmed

Last night he put himself at the centre of the story when he told me he came within a gnat's nadger of smashing into a buffalo on the way from town. The buffalo here are big animals and a collision with them, at speed, would be bad news. Did it happen? Of course not!

DW

At the Printer's

I was told yesterday that my bookkeeping book is at the printer's. 'ray! DW

Two Snakes Day

I have seen snakes around the house, on the road, in the bushes. Yesterday I saw TWO snakes around the house. One small, grey/brown, slithered under the gardening things at the back of the house and I left it alone.

A much larger, grey speckled snake, was meandering around the house and I couldn't ignore that one. I have tried to identify both snakes but without success so far. With this one, whilst appreciating that it eats mice and rats and so forth, I took the view that it could be poisonous and a threat to the family. I dealt with it.

No photos!

Duncan and Namwan

Sunglass Hut NOTHING

You know those cushions you get on earphones? Those foam rubber covers, I mean. Well, did you know they make for great substitutes for the lenses of sunglasses. Here is the proof.

DW

Tactless but we don't care!

We had a couple of house guests in February and it went disastrously. Nothing we did was wrong but they, man and woman, had serious relationship problems. Seeing as how they are who they are, everyone was dragged into the fray in one form or another and it became acrimonious for some people. In the end, if I never see the woman again, because of what she did and said, it will be a day too soon. The man is a very self centred and immature man who was probably guilty of inappropriately touching at least two if not three females and I pledged that if I saw them arriving I would lock the doors and refuse to let them in: he has caught me unawares twice. That's the introduction! The second part is that our dog died a week ago and everyone knows the story. Namwan has started thinking about a replacement dog more than I have but she was destroyed for a while when Reddy died. Last night that man arrived at the house with a puppy and announced that it's theirs and his woman had insisted and got it. I didn't recognise the breed and asked what it was ... no answer!. Will it grow big ... small. Is it a pedigree ... no answer! Trying another tack, have you got the certificate for it (Thailand Kennel Club is what I meant), blank stare, the certificate, the piece of paper ... Oh yes! we've got that. I am interested in the little thing to the extent I want to know if it is safe for our cat for that dog to be in our house. They sat and sniffed each other for a few seconds and seemed fine. In the future, the cat will become exceptionally territorial so the dog must learn that if ever it returns! For me, the conversation was over ... but then, as Namwan was showing no interest in the dog at all because of what I said in the introduction, the man put the dog on the settee next to her so she couldn't miss it. She touched it, smiled and that was enough, he took it back. From a psychological point of view this was a monstrously tactless thing to do: to take a new dog like that to a house that might still be grieving. Then to force the dog on to someone who is clearly not interested told me ... I've got a dog, have a look at my dog, what do you think of my dog, have you got a dog??? It's a bit like what happened when this man went shopping: he would return with his bags and wherever we were, living room, kitchen or somewhere else, he would take the items out one by one and say, I have bought bread ... tomato sauce ... sausages ... all ghastly but it's his motivation for doing this that told me more about him than what he bought. There you are: off my chest now! DW

Reddy the Dog

He was sick for just two days but in that time Reddy, our not quite 6 months old labrador retriever, deteriorated so quickly he couldn't be saved. The vet seemed good and we cannot and will not blame him.

The blame lies with the flea or tick that bit him and gave him whatever it was that killed him.

In true parasite style, we noticed that very soon after Reddy had died, these insects started crawling out of his fur. We had seen a couple of those fleas on him over time but we had no idea what they could do.

Anyway, nice dog, fantastic temperament. Just not meant to be with us very long.

The photo comes from the day we collected him.

DW

Reddy Hospitalised

We were watching Reddy all day and whilst he was very iffy, he seemed to be improving slowly. Then he had a catastrophic event where he passed a lot of blood. That turned his situation into an emergency. We cleaned the place up, washed the poor lad and set off for the local vet. The vet is a young man and seemed very confident and competent. Shaving the leg to get the drip in, finding the vein, injecting various chemicals and taking blood for a blood test ... They kept him overnight and as we left he was just a floppy doormat on the floor. We called this morning and he has not vomited any more but his poo is still flowing. He is rehydrated now and behaving a bit livelier ... so that's good. I will report back later: we should bring him home this evening. DW