Life on Mars ... bladdered

And another thing ... in that episode of Life on Mars someone said they were going to get bladdered in the pub ... again, hardly authentic 1973 speak is it?

 

DW

Stair CASES, GOODS Trains and Life on Mars

First there was the stair case and now it’s the goods train.

 

These poxy people in the media have decided that stair cases no longer exist and neither do goods trains. AmerEnglish dictates that we must now talk about stairwells and freight trains. Well, I won’t: in the same way that a fireman is a fireman and not a fire fighter. A film’s a film and at the moment stays at the moment. At the weekend is not to be corrupted and here’s a good one:

 

Watching BBC Prime this week and I saw an episode of Life on Mars. Now, they have done a really good job with the decor, the knick knacks, the clothes and the cars but they can’t help themselves with the language. In the episode I saw they had one of the characters saying that things were “out there” ... that didn’t come along until the X Files if you remember ... 1990s, that. Another one was made to say that something would be done “right now”. Not even Michael Parkinson said right now in 1973.

 

Here continueth the fight against the doing down of our language by the 12 year olds that Ed Reardon warns us about!!

 

DW

It's a different world

Here we were again, on the way to Dubai heading for a week a week in Kuwait when the flight was delayed:

 

Late arrival

Technical fault

 

Well, it arrived and would have been ready almost on time I think but whatever the fault was, it did for the flight and I missed my connection to Kuwait. Saturday night is a relatively quiet time at Dubai airport but I still ended up in around four or five queues that I would not otherwise have taken part in.

 

However, I was more than calm for some reason: I knew that Dubai to Kuwait is just a short hop and that there are probably a few flights a day. Right then wrong ... not on Sunday anyway. So I needed to stay overnight in the Millenium Airport Hotel ... Emirates wing. A surprisingly big hotel given its frontage. So I got in the queue at the transfer desk to get a ticket for the next flight, at 1610 onSunday; I queued to have my passport stamped; I waited for the shuttle bus to get to the hotel and then there was a long queue for check in. It was 0430 local time before I got to sleep.

 

At the airoort entrance they were shouting out for passengers for Kuwait so I responded and changed direction. As I did so I stumbled a little, a little, over someone’s bag on wheels. I said sorry and he replied with, “You will be”. Englsihman, of course. I didn’t have the energy or desire to ask him what he meant since it was an accident, a very minor collision and no harm was done. Clown.

 

My luggage was checked through to Kuwait so I didn’t have it with me but a porter insisted on helping me with my brief case. When we got to the room he hovered and I said, I’m sorry I don’t have any Drhams and he replied, “any currency will do”! I admitted his steely nerve but told him that all the notes I had were big ones, eg £20 and I couldn’t let him have so much. OK, he said and left.

 

I slept for around 5 hours or so and forced myself into the shower and then to breakfast ... which, apart from the coffee wasn’t bad.

 

A three star hotel with 600 rooms. Quiet and tidy though but no BBC on the telly!!

 

DW

Who gets what?

China gets a lot and eats little

Britain gets a lot and eats a lot

Japan gets little and eats little

Australia get a bit and eats a bit

 

What are they getting and what are they eating and is there a relationship between getting it and eating it?

 

Need some help sorting this out? Take a look here then. Over 18s only, mind! http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=10700695

(This link will probably be changed fairly quickly ... it’s 7^th March 2008 as I write this).

 

 

DW

Great idea ... teaching English in Thailand

I got a link via google telling me how I can get to tropical islands in Thailand and teach English.

 

I can go for 2 weeks, a month, three months

I will sleep in a chalet on the beach

I will receive Thai language and cultural training

And more

 

Sounds great, I’d love to go but want to know if I can afford it: what’s the salary? Erm, what do you mean salary? This is a life changing experience.  You will give and receive so much.

 

What about air fares, you will get me there and back won’t you? Hmm, you’re not understanding this are you ... this is a life changing experience for you AND your students. You will come back vastly enriched. You will be working on a tropical island.

 

So, I pay to get there, there is no salary and the longer I stay the more I pay for housing and food and so on?

 

Yes, that’s it. Well done! Listen, this is especially ideal for young people trying to find themselves. You know the sort, they wear tie die clothes, they have dreadlocks or plaited hair, they often don’t wash for a week ... oh and they carry huge back packs ... it helps if they’ve got more money than sense too. Mid life crisis people are also encouraged to apply.

 

I wouldn’t do it under those terms and conditions.

 

DW

Putin Bows Out ... yes he does

There's a swarm of people from the BBC talking absolute twaddle at the moment. They have been galvanised by the Presidential election in Russia. They are so excited that they sent their WORLD Affairs Editor to Moscow to reassure the British people. The story they are pounding out is to ask that Medvedev has won the poll but who will wield the power? These clowns think, or want you and me to think, that they are so clever with their political insights and acuity. They thnk that Medvedev is so inexperienced that he cannot possibly govern Russia and that Putin is so desperate that he needs to retain all encompassing power over the land that clearly needs him and only him. Now, I for one don't think they are right for a single second. If Putin does become Russian Prime Minister then fine. I fully expect Medvedev to be a fully effective President. One thing they do NOT go on to suggest is that there must be someone behind Barack Obama too. Why do I say that? Well, what are Obama's qualifications for the highest political office on the planet? Very few ... well, the same as George Bush, the current incumbent, for example ... get the point? Where did Putin learn to be President of Russia, by the way? Oh, it was in the Kremlin as he'd never held high office either. Whilst the BBS has other competent correspondents in Moscow and so on, they still allow John Simpson to blunder from Zimbabwe to China to Russia and all points East and West with his faux analyses and out pops some drivel. I find his reports comprise regurgitations of the briefing papers he managed to wade through on the plane to his latest assignment. End of rant for today. DW

Fran Swims a Length

When I was in Cambridge last week I went with my daughter Fran to watch her training in her local swimming pool. As you know, Fran is a Paralympian and is currently training for the Beijing Paralympics. Strictly speaking Fran is training to qualify for Beijing: she has qualifiers in April. Best wishes to Fran for that. We got to the pool at 7:30 am and it opened at 8 am. It takes Fran a bit of time to get ready and by the time she got to the pool it was already pretty busy. However, I was delighted to see that when she got poolside she chatted to the attendants for a few seconds and they opened up a private lane just for Fran. Apparently they do this every time now in recognition of Fran’s devotion to swimming. I could also say it's the least they can do but I will not as that would be churlish. It's a good because of course there aren't enough training facilities in the Cambridge area so people like Fran have to use public facilities. So opening up a private lane for one hour for one athlete every now and again works out to be very cheap: it's very cost efficient. I hadn't seen Fran swimming quite a while and was delighted at her progress. Given her general abilities I would say she swims very well now. Fingers crossed we will all be together in Beijing in September. Set your video and DVD recorders are now! I hope you apreciate the photograph of Fran pounding away at the water in Cambridge taken by yours truly... DW

What's in a strap line?

I love things like this:

 

Our name means a great deal

 

I keep meaning to make a record of all such strap lines but never quite get round to it.

 

Here’s one that is currently resting in the SPAM section of my gmail account: PERMANENT RESULTS that will last.

 

Well, at least you’ve now got an example of tautology.

 

DW

Slate Loose

I know I am opening myself up to ridicule but last night I heard a crash outside the house and thought that something was being blown around the garden: a cardboard box or something. I took a look outside and saw a slate had come crashing down from my roof.

 

Until that point I was completely unaware that I had a slate loose. Still, always the last to know, eh?

 

DW

 

Why buy a new computer when ...

This post is also to be found on the ICT Blog of www.osltraining.co.uk

... your old one is perfectly good?

That self same daughter I mentioned in the previous post told me on arrival that she had bought a new laptop at Christmas because her old one was running so slowly. I asked her to show me what she meant and she was right ... it really was running horrifically slowly. Word took ages to open, web browsers took an age, opening windows explorer was a nightmare. I took at look for viruses and spyware and so on but found nothing.

I took at look at all the services that were running and didn't see much to worry about.

So I thought I'd tidy away all of the software that daughter Fran no longer used. Nothing outrageous and nothing apparently evil.

After an hour and a half or so, however, I handed the computer to Fran to ask her to try to do again what she used to to ... open Word ... she did and found it was now back to the way it was.

You can guess what I said next! Why buy a new machine when a bit of TLC would have (and did) solve the problems?

Here's a funny thing: as I was about to hand over the laptop to Fran I asked her if the battery was OK because I wanted to pull out the power cable to hand it over. She said, yes, as far as she knew it was fine. So I pulled out the cable and ... INSTANT BLACK SCREEN ... followed by howls of laughter from the pair of us!! I checked and found that whilst the battery was 97% charged, it had not been seated properly in its housing.

Mirth, merriment and a newly invigorated laptop computer.

DW

 

Some top tips for the computer age ... or take a breath first

This post can also be found in the ICT Blog section of www.osltraining.co.uk

Two very valuable lessons learned this weekend: one by yours truly and one by someone else!

Predictive Text

Being of a certain age, I have spent the last few years ruminating on PREDICTIVE TEXT in sms messaging. Of course, it's rubbish we all said. Whoever designed that should have been sent to Siberia someone else said.

Well, I was with my daughter this weekend and in the space of ONE MINUTE she showed me how wrong we all are who don't understand and use predictive text. The key is to type away pressing just your key once per letter (not three times as yoiu otherwise do for the letter 'o' or 'i' for example) at a time and then wait until you get to the end of a word, whatever rubbish you think you are reading in the meantime. Once you have got to the end of the word, you will be surprised that for the vast majority of times, your predictive text has PROPERLY AND ACCURATELY predicted what you wanted to type.

Marvellous: that was not a complete user's guide but do read your phone's manual more carefully and you WILL find that predictive text is really very clever and it will probably save you loads of time from now on.

Lesson Learned ... the hard way

Imagine the scene: desktop on the desk, laptop on the chair and your external hard drive containing ALL OF YOUR IMPORTANT DATA FILES, PHOTOS AND MUSIC, is balancing on top of a bin bag containing your dirty clothes. Suddenly yoou trip over a wire and the external drive crashes to the floor. Not bad you think, just two feet or so ... couldn't have done any damage could it? Then again, you have frequently backed up your files haven't you?

WRONG AND WRONG for someone I know ... and no, it really wasn't me.

Two major lessons to be learned: when you hard drive is switched on and running, you can break the drive beyond your ken by dropping it from just two feet. Dropping the drive when is is switched off and the read/write head is parked is likely to do little or no damage ... now I will admit to doing that myself last week, purely by coincidence and I lost nothing.

A major computing crime, though, is not backing up or archiving your files FREQUENTLY. The more files you create the more backups you should do, as a very general rule. I also recommend for those absolutely vital files that you have one backup on your comp and one more on portable media. If it's very, very important then have another copy off site ... at home and at work, for example, in addition to your other two copies.

There is a young man in Bristol at the moment really wishing he'd taken the few minutes a week it takes to back up his work.

DW

Lorry drivers

I wonder whether there is a session that lorry drivers take part in during their training. You know the session I mean: the one in which they are taught how to overtake another lorry on an incline or ever a hill. The crucial aspect of the training seems to be that the overtaking lorry must be capable of going only one mile per hour faster than the overtakee lorry. Otherwise, how could the overtaking lorry block an entire lane of a motorway or other road for what are normally considerable times and distances?

 

Just wondering as I have completed a 650 mile round trip during which I saw such actions as I have just mentioned!!

 

Over to you, lads!

 

DW

China ... anti political

This is a simulcast: on the duncanwil and oxbow blogs.

 

We all knew it was going to come but we weren’t sure how it would start. So Steven Spielberg started it by resigning from the post of artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics. He’s entitled to his opinion of course and on the one hand we have to admire him for taking a stance in the way he has. However, I wonder if this was just a stunt: I wonder if he took the job knowing that he would later use it for political purposes. If this is the case, then shame on Spielberg.

 

I have no particular candle to burn for any country in this respect but I detested the anti Soviet boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Then there was a stupid British politician on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme this week who said that it is impossible to divorce politics from sport. It’s people like her who cause far more problems than they solve. By being unable to divorce sport and politics in her own mind, this woman is clearly saying that anything goes. Moreover, if anyone thinks of any link between China and anything they want to talk about, then the Olympics are fair game to be included in any potential action. This is the sort of mentality that ruined much of the Moscow Olympics and other Olympiads.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you may fundamentally disagree with what I have said. Consider the honest, jobbing athletes, though. What about the young person who has been training for the last 4, 6, 8 and more years to be at the peak of their condition as they try to win an Olympic medal. These people make personal sacrifices, family and career sacrifices, to get to the Olympics. Do you really think that some poxy politician has the right to get in the way of that? I don’t.

 

Here’s a test for you: where is the Republic of Georgia? Could you pinpoint Georgia on a map without studying the index of an atlas for five minutes. Now, can you find China easily? Whatever you answers, here’s the reason I ask. In 2001 I unearthed a story in Georgia relating to the theft of money from pensioners across many parts of the country: thousands and thousands of pensioners were potentially involved. What happened was the nominees of the then President Shevardnadze whose job it was to hand out monthly pension payments would keep 50%of the pensions for themselves. Imagine someone stealing 50%of your income, let alone your pension. Would that be a serious matter for you? Would you want to take action to stop such thefts? I genuinely believe I was the only Westerner to know about this situation and I told my MP about it: he managed to achieve nothing for the poor pensioners of Georgia. I wrote to the Prime Minister, John Major and didn’t even get a reply. I wrote to the Foreign Office ... nothing. I wrote to Mary Robinson at the United Nations, Oxfam, Amnesty International and many organisations whose details I have now forgotten. I chased this story for a year or more and in the end the extent of my achievement was a copy of a letter from an EU Commissioner who said what I had found was terrible but don’t worry, the EU was watching Georgia.

 

So I failed the pensioners of Georgia despite my best efforts. My point here, though, is this. Substitute China for Georgia in the above story and what difference might it make? I think you know the answer. China is large and growing and an important country economically ... and politically. Ay, there’s the rub: China is a threat to other world powers and so we turn full circle to see why China MUST become a victim in the minds of Spielberg and that stupid British politician on Radio 4. Mia Farrow, a second rate actress from years ago, is also anti China and is attracting a lot of attention for some reason with her ill thought out campaigns.

 

China may be doing something iffy in Sudan but consider the following:

 

What iffy things are the following countries doing and what is Mia Farrow, Steven Spielberg and that stupid British politician doing about it?

 

The UK

The USA

France

Germany

Italy

Australia

Canada

Singapore

Brazil

Russia

Kazakhstan

 

You name any country you like and ask the same question.

 

Of course, two wrongs don’t make a right; so my point is, why are these narrow minded people being so selective in what they choose to make a stand on? The answer is, like my Georgian story, where they can extract most publicity for THEMSELVES.

 

DW

Thailand II

Here are a few observations about my trip to Thailand.

I started out in Bangkok (BKK) then went to Pattaya, back to BKK, then down to Phuket and finally back to BKK.

The Sex Trade

On the plane over I sat next to Steve from Huddersfield who was on his way to Pattaya. He is retired and goes to Pattaya twice a year or so for three weeks a time for sex. He told me unashamedly that he will be spending the next three weeks sleeping with 20 year old girls by night and drinking with them or eating with them by day. He mentioned that he might have a different woman every night or stay with the same woman for two or three nights before moving on to another one. When I told him that I had never been to a Thai bar or a go go bar, he was stunned. I confirmed I had never done it and he asked me why. I told him that I never had the need and don’t anticipate having the need to make such visits.

Steve also told me that he has a girlfriend in Huddersfield who knows where he is going and she puts up with it. I asked him how many of the girls in Pattaya will escape by going to live abroad with a man they meet in a bar and then go back to a hotel room for sex. I was told that hundreds if not thousands of the girls escape in this way. He said he went to a bar one night and found a girl knitting scarves ... her British boyfriend was taking her away from it all and she had heard that it was cold in the UK.

Steve was quite proud of the fact that he can sleep with a 20 year old Thai girl with the figure of a model whereas in the UK he said he got messages from an online dating site from women who looked worse than his mother did when she was 92 years old. Cruel, methinks!

Pattaya

I did go to Pattaya and went into just one bar but since I was not alone I wasn’t assailed by any bar girls. I wouldn’t have engaged with any of them anyway: not my style at all. We were treated to the sight and sound of a Thai trumpet player singing What a Wonderful World in the style of Louis Armstrong: he did very well!

We went for a foot massage this afternoon: a very popular thing to do out here. Being ticklish, the massage got off to a silly start! Then it was OK.

I have to say I was perturbed by the sight of some big and fat and ugly foreign men wandering the streets in search of a girl. I realise that business is business but these men are coming from all over the world to inflict themselves on girls who are probably too desperate to refuse to do the business.

After another night in BKK we went down to Phuket: flying with Thai Air Asia.

Phuket

Phuket is a lovely area with glorious weather and beautiful beaches. We hired a car and that turned out to be a smart move for such a short and busy trip. We stayed at the Secret Cliff Resort that was very nice. Lovely rooms in a glorious setting. There were elephants nearby and I went to take a look at them.

This region is as I have described but then it has been turned into Blackpool on the Andaman Sea. Crowded beaches, kiss me quick hats and restaurants selling pizzas, burgers and other western food. Difficult to find Thai food restaurants and cafes here. Looks like we have done to Southern Thailand what we did to Blackpool and then Spain and the Balearics.

Went to a small temple, sat on a beach ... lovely!

Back to BKK

Was taken to a fantastic local restaurant where they serve food in a fascinating way. Good and wholesome food, too, that is far removed from burgers and pizzas.

A full Thai massage this time ... in spite of anything you might have heard to the contrary, a respectable Thai massage is sex free but no quarter is given! I am not sure I am a fan of a massage in general but I enjoyed the Thai massage and the hour during which I was being pummelled flew by.

Went to the north of BKK to a large and very busy Temple that is a bit like Knock in Ireland and Lourdes in France by the look of it.

Flight Home

Back to Manchester with Etihad Airways via Abu Dhabi. We took off on time and I managed to get myself bulkhead seats on both legs of the journey: loads of leg room!

On the first leg of the journey I sat next to a German couple and her television wouldn’t work. She tried, bless her, to get something to watch and after two hours was given a portable DVD player which was hooked up to the plane’s video system. The woman was aghast when she found that the films were only available in English although she spoke English pretty well. Her partner sat watching his own television with nary a care in the world while she was distressed. I should say he did try to help a bit by hitting his partner's television set with his hand at one point: just like we used to do when the "picture tube" on tellies of old went West! Made no difference of course!!

What do you want to watch I asked as I volunteered to let her plug her earphones into my socket ... I would watch her portable DVD player and she would watch my television ... fully synchronised?! I thought she might want to watch something sensible or slushy or even compromise given the huge favour I was doing her. However, I almost reeled in shock when she chose The Bee Movie: a cartoon type film.

I fell asleep to the Bee Movie and remained asleep for much of the rest of it ... how could she choose such a rubbish film? Didn't even say thank you either.

I got home at 9am on Friday having had a good week.

DW

Thailand

I have just spent a brilliant week and a bit in Thailand ... got to go to the shops now, though, so more later!!

 

How’s that for the world’s best blog entry?

 

DW

Manchester United and the Frances Spencer woman (again)

Now, I’ve made it plain enough over the years ... I am far from being a Manchester United fan. I am also as saddened as the next man over the Munich Air disaster of 1958. However, I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m afraid I am becoming disaster weary.  I have been watching the 1958 disaster tributes for many of those 50 years and appreciate how sad it was, how lucky Bobby Charlton and the other survivors were ... but as time passes, the greatness of the likes of Duncan Edwards seems to get more and more inflated. It was a sad event now let them rest in peace.

 

A bit like that Diana woman: at least everyone can see via that complete waste of an inquest that she died as a result of a car accident AND NOTHING ELSE. The salacious aspects of her life are being given a tawdry airing too and even I think that it’s sad that such a thing has befallen her memory. Don’t speak ill of the dead but she was a good time girl, let’s be honest.

 

DW

BSOD

Remember the acronym BSOD? I suppose a lot of younger people don’t know what the BSOD is: it’s the blue screen of death and that screen was often a multi daily event for many of us before Windows XP came along. Only in extreme conditions did I ever see a BSOD with XP: when I did, my laptop died a thousand deaths.

 

A BSOD was an error message from Windows that told us that a massive and usually unrecoverable error had occurred and that we should take notes and solve the problem being notified. Of course, the screen ALWAYS disappeared well before the shock had worn off and well before we had the chance to make a note of the error ... unless the error kept repeating when we did come to be able to make a note.

 

Why Blue Screen? Well, the background of the screen containing the error message was blue and the colour of the font was white ... it’s still the same with Vista!!!

 

Well, shock horror then when I saw the BSOD with Windows Vista yesterday. Via a memory stick in my printer I was looking at some pics when BSOD descended. I don’t really know why I generated the problem except to say that of course all of the pics on the memory stick were then utterly deleted from human view. And no, I didn’t get the chance to read and inwardly digest what the problem was!!!

 

DW

 

 

Hospital 3 ... some regrets

Let this be a warning to anyone who needs to heed it.

I don’t know the other men in the ward I was in in the hospital this week so forgive me if you think I am being judgemental; but there is a lesson to be learned.

One gentleman got cancer of the larynx and had to have it removed: a major operation and now he cannot speak, he breathes though a hole in the bottom of his throat ... and all because he was a smoker. He regrets being a smoker now that the quality of his life has collapsed so drastically.

The gentleman in the next bed is suffering from severe nose bleeds as a result, they think, of very high blood pressure. He is 40 years old and already his BP is 166/118. He said yesterday that he knows that his high BP has been caused by his excessive drinking. He regrets that now and wishes he didn’t have to have massive cotton wool plugs up his nose, bad sleepless nights and nose bleeds lasting days on end.

I will also mention that some of the nurses were quite young but obese: now, I am middle aged and a bit overweight ... when I was in my 30s I was nowhere near obese and couldn’t contemplate such a situation either. For a nurse to be obese is not a good thing and one day they will regret it if they don’t already.

I got talking to an old chap with very red eyes. He had had two cataract operations. The first one went well and he can see again out of that eye with no problems. On Thursday he had his other cataract removed but for some reason a blood vessel at the back of his eye burst and they sent him to Halifax the same day to be sorted out. They hadn’t put a new lens in the second eye so he needs more surgery. Overnight, from Thursday to Friday, his news improved and as I left him today, Friday, he was quite optimistic. He did tell me for some reason that when he was a lad he learned nothing at school and was always being caned for being the class clown. He said he regretted behaving in such away and given his time over again ...

 

DW

Hospital 2

Here’s one for all you Mystic Megs.

When I was 16 years old I went into hospital in Halifax, the Royal Infirmary it was then, to have a right myringoplasty. Sad to say I never had the thing done because when they got me to the operating theatre they found that the ear was infected and they couldn’t do it. So they would send for me again.

They never sent for me again.

Anyway, about a year ago I started seeing a consultant ENT chappie because the ear was flaring up again and that is why I ended up in The Halifax Royal Hospital this week ... the Halifax General as was.

Now this time, I was supposed to have a major rake out and clear up because of the bad infection I’d got in there: a cholesteatoma and possible mastoid infection ... well, would you believe it, they got me down to the theatre, wired me up, put me to sleep only to find that my infection was just about gone and I only spent around 10 minutes in theatre.

What do you call that!?

 

DW

Hospital Stay

I won’t carp on at the negative but I have to tell you this with the promise of better to come.

So, in the Royal Halifax Hospital, you have to pay to watch the television and listen to the radio: each bed has its own special set. The chap in the next bed didn’t know where to buy the card needed as someone had got his for him. So I set off. I got to a desk where there were three people: a nurse on the phone and two chaps, not on the phone. I stopped and asked the two men where I could find the Pay TV Card Machine and the seated man said,

“I’m a doctor, I don’t know.”

Those were his exact words. He got back to his work and when I looked at the other man, he turned his head away as if I’d asked to borrow his wife or something.

 I found the machine with the help of some helpful and much friendlier women thank you.

 

DW