Me, me, me ... I said it first

This is a simulcast.

The latest of our "experts" to "confirm" that the UK is already in recession blethered forth today. Ernst and Young did it today.

This nonsense replaces the dash to be first "confirm" the downturn in the housing market.

That's not to say E&Y haven't got it right, it's the littany of reports all making the same predictions that's getting on my nerves.

DW
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Sex, Dad, Getting a Taxi

Sex and the City

I got desperate on the flight home and settled down to watch the Sex and the City film. Well, I know that many of you will disagree with me but after about 10 minutes I realised I couldn’t watch those middle aged women living as if they were 20 year olds. What with their love lives, the houses they were buying,their relationships and priorities.

It was like watching a geriatric version of Friends if you want an analogy. So I switched it off.

Dad

During my last few hours of my latest trip to Dubai I meandered into the Virgin Megastore to see what CDs/DVDs they might have that might be interesting for me. I bought a trumpet music CD and was happy with that. I then saw a CD entitled, Just for Dad. I picked up Just for Dad but when I started reading the names of the groups and the songs I realised that about a third of them were too recent for me. Gulp! That was a bit of a reality check!

Getting a Taxi

Some of the people who travel on aeroplanes have a problem with their mobile phone. These people feel the need to switch them on even whilst the plane is still in the air. For some reason known only to them, they seem to know that nothing bad can happen to the rest of us as they switch on their phone, so they do. Nokia phones are the biggest give away with their unique bing bing message announcement tune!

Well,as we arrived at Manchester, some clot behind me decided that it was safe for him to call his local taxi company as we were coming in to land and this is what he asked, Can I get a taxi … I wondered, how on earth is he going to get a taxi whilst he is still in mid air. Moreover, in what way did he think he could get a taxi? I think he was trying to be some kind of cool American by speaking like that. When someone asks me if they can, for example, get a cup of coffee, I say, no, don’t worry, the waitress will get it for you.

DW

New trend

Just been into Halifax and saw two young ladies walking around in bare feet. Is this a new trend or just a coincidence?

DW
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Singapore Airlines

Is it my eyesight or are the air stewardesses who work for Singapore Airlines tending to lard like the rest of us? Of course I am being a bit sexist as the majority of the cabin crew are female on SIA and I don’t remember seeing a podgy steward yet.

There are many very slim and of course attractive stewardesses working for SIA but I did notice the odd bulging and even split seam on one or two uniforms on last night’s flight.

Last night’s flight from Singapore to Manchester was, let the record show, my longest ever flight. It took us around 13.5 hours and my previous longest was Los Angeles to Hong Kong in 1992.

There you go!

DW

Brian and the Thai Bride

Now I have to be careful here but this story struck me as more of a warning than a happy ending. This story came from someone I met whilst travelling.

Brian went to Pattaya in Thailand and after a few days he met a young lady from the North of Thailand who was working in a bar. No comment or judgement at all, just reporting what was told to me.

At the end of that holiday Brian decided he liked the girl but made no commitment. The girl felt she needed to stop working in a bar and went home as Brian went home.

A year later, Brian went back to Pattaya for more good times with young Thai ladies. The story now says that last year’s Thai girl guessed that Brian would be back at that time and lo and behold was in Pattaya waiting for him when he arrived. Yeah, right!

Still, they did hit it off again and after a couple of years of romance, they got married.

Before you dismiss this as bile on my part together with assumptions and so on, Brian was on the plane at the time I was told the story so I did see him and his young wife. He’s 57 and she’s27.

DW

Software Woes

We need to rise up and be strong. I BOUGHT Dreamweaver CS3 the other day but after installation I spent 5-6 hours trying to get it to run. I sent a plea for help to Adobe and I have still heard nothing. I got onto a Dreamweaver forum and my sanity was restored by Dave who gave me the solution to the problem. Dave suffered like me and got his solution via has laptop maker, not Adobe. Without Dave I would be even more frustrated and as far as I know, Dave is not a geek and is just a victim like the rest of us. In the middle of this latest nonsense, I consulted a Solicitor (lawyer/attorney) over my rights when I buy goods that are possibly not of merchantable quality ... waste my time trying to get them to work ... and if I had not got a solution I might well have considered legal action. In the future, you might well see me in Court ... fighting for the little guy! DW

Where?

I'm idling away a few hours near here: N1 degree 16.8812 minutes, E103 degrees 50.3366 minutes ±13 metres according to the eight satellites my phone talked to.

That was at 13:35 local time. It's 15:39 now.

DW
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Google Maps

I just installed Google Maps on my mobile and, being a bit like that, I was excited to find that the little flashing blue dot on a point of the map EXACTLY where I am in the world, is spot on!

In the same way, I was excited t night to learn that by formatting a cell in an Excel spreadsheet like this,

#0 “This will be in the cell too”

you will see 20 This will be in the cell too if you just enter the number 20 in that cell.

DW

The Banana Leaf Apolo Singapore

Another winning meal in Singapore. I have just eaten an excellent curry at the Banana Leaf Apolo in Little India. Old fashioned in lots of respects, busy, big kitchen and loads of choice even for a veggie like me.

I have some veggie samosas to start with then black dal, paneer in a spinach sauce and steamed rice. Really good quality and brilliant value for money.

In addition to telling you about the restaurant, I want you to know about an award they have won. Take a look at this page to see the certificate you will find at the front of their menu: http://www.thebananaleafapolo.com/award.htm Don’t you just love it? Not only have they won the award but who else would have thought of serving 1,101 fish head curry dishes at one sitting? Isn’t it handy they had 1,101 fish heads lying around?!!

More than that, the fish heads in question are BIG: they’re not gold fish or sprats, they are big fish heads!

Little India is all dressed up for the Festival of Lights, Deepavali, too; and here is some proof of that, taken just before I got to the restaurant.

Uniquely Singapore as they say!

DW

Chinese Restaurants in Singapore

After many indifferent quality vegetarian meals in a variety of restaurants in the UK, it is a real pleasure to be here in Singapore to taste some excellent quality restaurant vegetarian food.

In the last 24 hours I have been to two Chinese restaurants here and whilst they were in different locations, they were both top quality. They were not expensive either: I ate lone at the first one and paid the equivalent of around GBP10 whereas tonight I ate with a friend and we spent the princely sum of around GBP20 for the two of us.

Good quality, tasty, well served and in nice surroundings. Not your chipboard, plastic fork and spoon jobs either.

DW

New Computer … Gates will get on your nerves

I am not alone but I am constantly astonished at the ineptitude of the Microsoft set of offerings.

My HP laptop has severely let me down for the the THIRD time in its short 10 month history. HP customer service is shockingly appallingly bad in the UK too. Given the work that I do, I have had to buy yet another computer: this time I went for a brand I know, Acer; and bought a good spec laptop in Singapore at a low price.

So I found a bit of time just before leaving my hotel in Bangkok to do some setting up work. That’s when I fell foul of Microsoft’s latest:

Outlook started by crashing

Then it wanted me to update some software that has so far taken me over an hour to download.

I also wanted to install Windows Live Writer (this MS offering SEEMS good!). I downloaded and installed from the relevant MS page. Then when I used it I was told that the software had expired and that I should download the latest version. I believed them so I did that. More wasted time. Then I started the software again to be told that it had expired and I should download it again. FFS as my nephew said the other day!!

I am now at the stage where I want to start suing these people for wasting my time and my money.

DW

Peter Mandelson

I see this gay blade is to return to the UK Government in some form. I give him six months. There have been knives out for this man before and they will be out again.

Gordon Brown is under attack too and this is another front of attack.

You heard it here first.

DW

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Coolpis

I kid you not: in Asia they sell something called Coolpis Kimchee.

Kimchee is a tasty and healthy Chinese cabbage salad ... What made them add the coolpis though?

DW
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MAN Breakfast

How about this for haute cuisine and health consciousness at Manchester Airport?

Full English Breakfast and a pint of Lager £9.99 ... astonishing bilge.

DW
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Grassington

In the Square in Grassington there is a shop called the Rustic Rabbit and next door the shop is owned by Robert Bunney.

I kid you not!

DW
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Scabchester United

I was horrified and disgusted yesterday when I watched the Manchester United v Bolton.

 

I switched on to see a penalty area and Cristiano Ronaldo falling to the floor inside the area. I said, I didn't see what happened but I know it CANNOT have been a penalty. I was right but referee Styles awarded Scabchester Utd a penalty. That man is a penalty cheat and yet he wins penalties far too much for ANYONE's liking.

 

Scabchester is such a good team, they do not need to cheat.

 

Simply awful.

 

DW

Mortgages as they used to be

I have just come across this and thought it was so good and so simple that I had to share it. Please remember that anyone who is around about 45 years older and more will recognise what you are about to read: this is exactly how it used to be.

“One case in point is Hudson City Bancorp, a 140 year old company based in Paramus, New Jersey that has managed to avoid the mortgage meltdown and continues to post tremendous results. Business journalists have discovered this quiet little outfit and marvelled at its strategic insights. Its shares are up 50% since last August, when the credit crisis really kicked in. "Hudson City banks the old-fashioned way," Newsweek marvelled. "It takes deposits and makes mortgages to people who buy homes in which they plan to live. And then it hangs on to" the mortgages, rather than sell them in the secondary market.

Imagine the brilliance! Take deposits. Make sensible loans. Repeat over and over again, until your market capitalisation approaches $10 billion.” PLEASE NOTE THE IRONY!!

The New York Times tried to unpack the secrets of Hudson's success and offered this analysis: "The bank carefully screened loan applicants to ensure they would be able both to afford a new house and reside there, rather than flip it. And the bank demanded hefty down payments ... as a cushion against any sharp drop in home prices, because it planned to hang on to the loans."

What a formula! Make sure borrowers can afford their loans. Insist that they make a big down payment. Favour owners over speculators. AGAIN NOTE THE IRONY!!”

The real benefit of what this traditional, safe and sensible mortgage provider does is easily seen in the following figures:

“The bank has written 100,000 mortgages worth $26 billion and has a grand total of 15 foreclosures. Not 15%, just 15 mortgages out of 100,000.”

Source: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/2008/09/why_the_mortgage_meltdown_hasn.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-LISTSERV-_-SEP_2008-_-STRATEGY

So, here is the model of what we used to do in the pre Thatcher days. So what went wrong? It’s obvious isn’t it?!

DW

Windows Live Writer

I am always one to try something new and to be as up to date as possible in the computing world. I don’t necessarily have the biggest and best hardware but I like my software to be up to date.

I run Office 2007, I have just upgraded Smart Draw to version 2009, I have reinstalled Dreamweaver and yesterday I installed Acrobat Reader version 9. Just a few examples of my software world.

Here’s another example: I have just installed Windows Live Writer (Beta) and this message is coming to you, together with the following photo and table, courtesy of WLW. Let’s see if it’s any good. I am not going to stress the system, just testing as uploading photos to this Blog is a bit of a faff: not difficult but a faff.

I like this photo of some arch ways to be found in the Forbidden City: I call it Cloisters.

WLW also claims to be able to include tables in a posting so let’s try that too:

Destination	Duration
Geneva	6 days
Beijing	9 days

There you are and if I can shrink it down enough, I am going to upload a video of yours truly walking around a part of Beijing. The title includes the phrase Hapless Tyke, so that gives you a clue of the flavour of the film.

DW

Wise Words from Henry Ford

Remembering the apparently ongoing financial crisis, how prophetic are these words?

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

True!!

DW
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Britain's Finest

Although I spend a lot of time abroad I do appreciate some of the finer things that Britain has to offer. To whit, I have just enjoyed a meal comprising wholemeal bread and butter with a plate of mushy peas. You can't beat that!

Please note, proper mushy peas made from dehydrated marrowfat peas and not, never, from a tin!

DW
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