I made the weather sit up and think, then. Last night the snow came heaving down in a way not seen in these parts for a while. All you need to do is moan a bit! There was an immediate but brief thaw and then a refreeze so that made driving and walking a bit tricky! Last night Mrs W openly suggested that I should be ready to give young Master W a lift to school (10 minutes from home on the hoof!) and I suggested it wouldn't be needed. This morning guess who chanced his arm by lolling in bed until 7:50 when he needs to be up and about by 7:30? Well for me the walk would have been OK but he sauntered in to the office straight from his bed and asked for a lift I said it wasn't needed. He came back later when dressed and asked again so I referred him to his mother: she said I could take him. I harumphed a bit and then the roof fell in. Suffice it to say that no one drove anywhere and someone has taken up residence in the house in which a dog normally resides! A clue: it isn't Mrs W or Master W who is sharing the canine quadruped's humble abode. I'm off to the library now. Anyone care to join me? Such is life! I haven't exactly been flooded with offers of work from you lot so where are you? The donation begging bowl is till out, too, so get rid of your loose change by throwing it in my direction. DW

Winter's arrived in some parts of the UK. The weather men have been forecasting howling gales and lashing seas for a while. So far, I can still go outside in my flip flops and cardie! There are pictures coming down from the North showing solid white rain (that's snow!) and slithering vehicles but here in outstanding Oxfordshire we are immune. Mrs W went for a hospital appointment on Monday and you can read the update to my file that has kept a record of her saga here. Want to see my name in other peoples' lights, again? Have a look here then! DW

The UK has a streak running through it that makes me wonder how sane we are. I've mentioned Charles Ingrams before: he's the former army Major who was found guilty of attempting to defraud London Weekend Television out of £1 million by cheating on their Who wants to be a millionaire programme: GUILTY in a court of law. Ingrams was then found to have attempted to defraud an insurance company out of £30,000 I think it was. GUILTY of attempted fraud. In this week's Radio Times I see that Ingrams is being flown out to Australia to appear as a "celebrity" in the ITV programme I'm a celebrity get me out of here. I also understand he will receive £25,000 by way of a fee. Then there is the British student who told security officials at Miami Airport that she had a bomb in her back pack: she said this three times so they whisked her off to jail and kept her there until someone posted bail of £2,700 on her behalf: a businessman I think. This stupid young woman's father went on television to bleat that her treatment was unfair and an over reaction but said his daughter was an immature young girl. Once she had been released the woman herself appeared and spoke with a fake American accent! Then I heard that a British Newspaper has paid her an amount of money to cover her air fare and other expenses ... in return for exclusive story no doubt. I ask: why are these reprehensible people given such status? Ingrams is a fraud and a cheat and now we call him a celebrity. Ronnie Biggs was a thief and complicit in a murder yet people treat him as just a cheeky chappie. Jeffrey Archer was guilty of contempt of court but he is still feted as a lovable rogue. The moral of the story? Get yourself thrown in jail or try to defraud someone out of huge amount of money and you too could become a celeb. DW

I watched the Panorama progamme on Wednesday night about the Hutton enquiry and whilst I thought it wasn't a bad programme I did wonder why they had made and aired it one week prior to the publication of Huton's report. I, along with others, wrote to Panorama with my views and they published part of what I said here. Scroll down to find my incisive comments! What worries me far more than anything the programme said about anything was the aftermath: how the programme has been treated by the media. Here's an example. On this page they say His [David Kelly's] view was at odds with the claim in the government's Iraq dossier that "military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes and to support this assertion they report, later on, Describing Iraq's weapons, Dr Kelly told Panorama: "Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days and weeks. Notice what they have missed out. Kelly started by saying that he agreed that Iraq posed an immediate threat: no doubt, no equivocation, Iraq posed an immediate threat. What journalists have highlighted. however, is what he then said: "Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today ..." Note the Even if qualifier. Isn't it as plain as the nose on your face? There is then this piece of nonsense from the above page Originally, the penultimate draft of the Iraq dossier had also suggested Saddam Hussein was likely to use WMD only in self defence. However, the Hutton Inquiry was told that a paragraph was re-written at the request of Mr Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, who e-mailed Alastair Campbell and others in Number 10 that it could be "a bit of a problem. It is true that a draft of the dossier did say that if under threat Iraq is likely to use its WMD and they did change the wording to make the phrase more direct. However, what the BBC has reported is tantamount to a lie: I think they have grossly misrperesented what happened. Overall, I thought the programme was interesting and both Andrew Gilligan and Greg Dyke came out of it astonishingly badly: I never trusted Gilligan to be honest and now I think Dyke should resign. Panorama made a relatively impartial programme that should, however, have been aimed at a post Hutton scenario rather than a pre Hutton scenario. DW

Michael Blake has helped me to track down another one of my ridiculous File Not Found errors. Thanks Michael: my site is a better place now that you've been there and held out the hand of friendship. DW

Nicey, of NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown, wrote as follows: I'm very flattered that the Wife and I are 'wackbags', Hoorah! DW

There's web sites and there's web sites! Take a look at this one and be amazed: NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown. This is a web site all about biscuits and it gets my vote! There's a biscuit quiz that will have you reeling. There's a biscuit blog written by the Wife. There's a biscuit of the week feature. There's biscuits you've never heard of but will desperately want to find and try. Well done to the wackbags who thought of all of that: the cracking title's just the start of it. DW

I've been at it again! Following my meanderings on the web and talking to a few people this week I realised that I needed a new page ... and here it is: The Selling of Duncan Williamson You NEED to go to that page to see some of things that I get up to that will convince you that I am the man for that job you want doing to very high standards and in double quick time. Don't forget that you need to pay the going rate for the job too. I'm waiting for you! DW

One of those priceless I don't believe it moments happened last night. Sitting with the family eating away when there was a knock on the door and a tall young chap presented himself by standing a metre away from the door, standing sideways on to me. He blurted that he'd been down at number 111 and he knew that our house was new and he knew that we probably didn't want new windows and he knew that he was probably wasting his time but had we ever considered fitting new windows even though he knew that the house was new and that we probably didn't want anything but had we considered it? Maybe next year? I politely said no and we parted company. Mirth and merriment in the W household. Knock, knock, knock! Hello, not so tall, very thin beard thrusts leaflet at me and says you've probably heard of us, Reg Molehusband (or someone I'd never heard of) soap star advertises us on the telly, we're selling French windows and doors and they will make a lasting impression on the house and he knew that the house was new but had we considered it? I said your friend has just been here ... he stopped for a second ... I said young and tall ... he said short hair, glasses ... I said yes ... he said that's Nick, oh Nick was here ... so are you considering fitting French windows in the near future? I said we've already got them thanks. Oh, thanks for your time anyway! Who sent these people to a brand new housing estate to sell such things? Moreover, having got here hadn't they got the message after around, let's say, six properties? Life's like that as the Reader's Digest says! DW

Christopher wanted to know my views on the application of Max Weber's work to the work of call centres. I told him I'm not an expert but I'd have a look around. Here are some general Weber pages: sorry but I can't be more specific I'm afraid. Let's start here and follow up with more from the same author A lengthy page but it has some useful looking links at the end: some of which follow. Very long page: I didn't read it all! This page argues that Weber's view of the Protestant Work Ethic is fundamentally flawed. From Oz, Weber on Capitalism Also from Oz, Weber on Bureaucracy Bullet points of the major aspects of Weber and his work: could be useful as part of a mind map. The MacDonaldisation of Society Social interaction and social structure: again a bit listy so might be useful as ideas for headings. Is Weber still relevant? Critique of Weber An abstract of Call centre management: is service quality a priority? Looks highly targeted but it needs a subscription. There you are Christopher: hope it provides some nuggets of gold! DW

Tony asked what I know about real life implementation of activity based costing/management. Well, I've done it in real life many times as I designed and implemented my product cost spreadsheet systems in around 90 SMEs. Take a look, too, at my book Cost & Management Accounting ISBN 0-13-205923-1, chapter 7. In there you can read a few examples, albeit old now, of where ABC was tried ... not only successes but failures too. There is also a discussion on the implementation of ABC in the UK, the USA and France: big differences. I give references to many of the original papers in this discussion. However, a trawl of the web has revealed the following useful links: Another one of Chris Lamb's brilliant resource lists at UNL: Chris offers fantastic services in this respect! ABC systems at Anglian Water Several links relating to LYJ Liu at Newcastle Business School. Can't verify them as they need a subscription to read them but if your library has a subscription to them they could prove useful. Another one needing a subscription but here is the abstract: Activity-based cost management in financial services industry Here are some very useful looking PDF files that I've skimmed and that I think are all from the USA but none the worse for that. http://www.mixmbb.org/en/mbb_issues/09/Articles/Activity-Based%20Costing%20and%20Savings.PDF http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1066/MR1066AppD.pdf http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~roztockn/portland03.pdf http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~roztockn/washington00.pdf http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/usps/pdf/Holsen.pdf http://www.mikon.com/RTCM3.pdf I hope these are useful. DW

Want to read all about Community Interest Companies and a bit about Social Enterprises? Look no further, it all starts here. go to that page and look under Sundry my pearls of wisdom. A sorry call from a friend yesterday to tell me what has happened to their name in their passport. Blake has been transposed into Bleak! Many a true word! Mrs W was watching a programme on the telly yesterday about Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. A psychologist was trundled out and he put up a picture of the happy couple and said "This is the best full face picture of Brad there has ever been ..." It isn't as it gave a very unflatteringly unbalanced view of his jowls and made him look as if the left side of his face was much larger than the right side, "Just look at the way Jennifer is looking adoringly at her husband ... in that subservient way" Honestly, she was not looking at Brad at all: it was so obvious. I dread to think how much they paid that Pycho to say such ridiculous things. I would have done a much better job if only they'd asked. By the way, I am looking for work and will happily consider all reasonable offers: writing articles, case studies and so on is what I want to do. I will consider other good offers of work too of course. I will travel anywhere in the world, too, as that is what I have been doing since 1988! Email me at any time. Speaking of jobs, though, the phone rang yesterday: a recruitment agency that I had worked for said they needed someone for a week to ... ready ... load boxes onto a lorry: 6am - 2pm for five days. The rate of pay was FIFTH of what I earned for the last job. I declined their offer. DW

Yippee! I've almost sorted out my BlogArchive situation! Scroll down this page to the bottom (just hit the End key will do) to see a complete listing of my archive files. Just have to sort out the final URL of the first half of them and then we're up and away again. No idea why blogger.com's own coding wouldn't work and don't know why I put up with it for so long. DW

Have you ever had a stye on your eye? I used to get them all of the time when I was around 14 - 16 years old. Absolute corkers they were. People used to think they were black eyes that I got as a result of fighting: "What's the other chap like?" the postmaster said to me once! When I didn't have a stye, I had boils. Massive, red, pustulating boils on my neck or on my arm. I still have a small scar when my best ever boil resided: my doctor described it as "... a beauty!" I used to spend ages squeezing out the green pus: ages, you wouldn't believe! Anyway, that scabby past of mine isn't the subject of this meandering. Young Master W had a stye on his eye earlier on this week and Mrs W showed me her "cure". Take one of these and wave it with a circular motion in front of the offending eye. That's it. Cured. Don't forget, you heard it first here! DW

George wrote to tell me that when he was trying to buy some things from my eshop, there was blip with my PayPal buttons ... thanks George, this is all sorted out now. Such unsolicited help is much appreciated. DW

Have you ever noticed in the modern film: 1 if anyone ever does any typing on screen, they can type at least at 50 words a minute. The best was "Scotty" in a Start Trek film who typed at 200+ words a minute on a keyboard that must have been seriously unfamiliar to him as he did this by travelling back from the future to the present day. Surely, the keyboard will evolve. If you are a computer hacker in a film, you sweat a bit, swivel in your obligatory swivel chair and crack every single code known to man within minutes ... even Fermat's Last Theorem is well within your grasp. 2 if anyone ever does any packing, they never fold anything as packing only ever follows an argument, an ultimatum and running away or a threat thereof. This means that the world's most expensive dress, shirt or suit can be flung on top of the world's least expensive dish cloth but no one seems to care. No one ever says, "Do you realise that your blouse will need ironing when you get to your hotel?" or "Come on, love, that's no way to treat a D&G LBD now is it? Here, let me fold it for you." 3 if anyone has a bad dream they always suddenly sit bolt upright absolutely dripping with sweat and then sit glassy eyed for as long as necessary whilst hyperventilating. If they are sharing their bed with someone they only ever wake up slowly and lie propped up on one elbow and say something like, "Something the matter, darling". I think I would say "What the @!$*** has happened. J*sus!". This applies to adults who have seen the devil incarnate and taken tea with him only to find the secrets of the dark side now reside in their shirt. This also applies to children whose Harry Potter books have may have been mislaid for a second or two. Any offers of more? Although I am aware that there are entire lists of these things but these are my three of the moment. DW

I have just finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and over the next few days I will post and you will be able to read my review of it. In general it's a good book and it's both detective story and religio historical mystical cryptographical ... well done! A lot of hearts do a lot of pounding, which seems to be very common in the modern novel and in the modern film. There's an online cryptography game on Dan Brown's website that provides a reasonably tricky set of questions to solve. One lucky winner will be drawn from the hat on Good Morning America on 12 January 2004 and will be whisked off to Paris. I cracked all the codes and entered my details to find ... you have to be American to enter. I left my details and put my friend's Californian Zip code instead of my UK Post Code. If I win, I will apologise but I didn't see any disclaimers anywhere and I felt they ought to know that I cracked all of their codes. By the way, if you have a go and want some help and you are American, I will help you for a mutually agreeable fee. Can't say fairer than that can I? DW

Following on from my New Year's Day computer tosh, I had another two hour stint yesterday. The day before, I found that despite being protected against viruses, I had acquired two of the barstewards. I got rid of them but then in the middle of my latest two hour session, I found that I had another bleeding virus. Time to act: I upgraded my anti virus software from freeby to a paid for service. I did that, ran it and it gave me the all clear. When I logged on this morning I let it run again and it didn't report any problems. Moreover, I opened up Outlook and switched on to Braodband and IE and all worked well enough: first time for ages and I hope I haven't spoken too soon! Also during the two hour session I deleted all of the software that either I don't use much and/or that I don't really know where it came from. They all went, although I do have the *.exe files to reinstall them if I want to. I still have the shutdown problem with Windows, however, that seems to be well known and that has my computer saving my settings, closing down and then just hanging with a blue screen and a movable mouse cursor ... nothing else can work and a manual switch off seems to solve the problem. Still, I have to hang around to flick the switch. I'm told it's due to a driver conflict somewhere on my system and I did install some software that Microsoft recommended but it only solved the problem once. Ah, Gates! DW

Here's a bit of a whinge. Have you seen that programme on British television called Room 101 ... very George Orwell but the idea is that a "celebrity" goes on the telly and moans about his or her pet likes and dislikes. These objects of hatred are then consigned to a dustbin and we all live happily ever after. Well, here are my four items, people in fact. Dale Winton Graham Norton Charles Ingram Chris Tarrant Dale Winton has been reviled on this blog before: I find him odious and talentless yet he adorns the television screen ad nauseam. He appeared on prime time Christmas Day television on BBC1 and again later that day; but he came in the top three of a poll recently as one of the three people that viewers most want to be thrown off the telly. I would have voted for him to be thrown off too. Sorry to be so negative but I don't like his lack of personality wafting across my screen. Moreover, he published an autobiography a while ago in which he came out as Gay. Then beggar me, two or three months later he married a young lady. @rse! Graham Norton is one of those wild people whose real persona is probably 180 degrees removed from their public persona. I don't like his antics, his effeminacy, his loud jackets. He was also in the top three of the poll that wanted rid of Winton. @rse! Michael Barrymore was the other top three candidate for being chucked off the telly but I am indifferent to him as he as almost sunk for the moment. If he came back I would still be indifferent. Major Charles Ingram is the man who was found guilty of having cheated on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?: having taken along a knowledgeable man to sit in the audience and who coughed at the right and wrong answers. As Ingram thought about his answers, his friend would cough to say yes or no ... absolutely blatant and absolutely bang to rights. They were taken to court and lost. Ingram maintains his innocence. Then he was found guilty of attempting to defraud an insurance company ... all told a bad lot. Then lo and behold I saw that he was on the telly as a "celebrity" taking part in some kind of poxy reality TV programme. Needless to say I didn't watch it but if reminded me of Christine and Neil Hamilton, that reviled couple who are making a very handsome living out of being both bankrupt and odious. @rses! Chris Tarrant hosts Who wants to be a Millionaire? and had I been writing this rant last year or the year before or the year before ... he would have been on my list of get rids. For what it's worth, he got onto children's television in the 1970s I think it was on the strength of his having applied and having been a school teacher. I always felt he had no depth to his character, his sense of humour is immature and his ability to carry on a decent dialogue is woeful. I heard a review of his morning radio programme on Capital Radio recently and he was generally slated for that by all and sundry: ratings and quality couldn't go much lower than he has taken them was the general concensus. Still, three out of four of these men are doing very well for themselves and the fourth one probably will become a millionaire now that he has become a "celebrity". The word celebrity has become a misnomer now. In the old days we had stars then we needed a superlative, superstar, then we needed megastar ... now they are all celebrities. To be a celebrity means that one is celebrated, surely. Who celbrates the people discussed here I wonder? DW

Heard of Bollinger Champagne? It's the one that James Bond and I both drink. Anyway, I realised last night that BOLLINGER is an anagram of an L of a Bog Liner. Don't know why! DW