Jet Setting Bores ... the aerobore

Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot abide those people who spend their lives talking about their latest flight, that stewardess whom they put in her place or their latest upgrade. These people are aerobores.

I have to admit from time to time the odd aeroplane or airport story can be entertaining. I am concerned, really concerned, with those people who think that after 5, 10 or even 30 or more minutes of retelling (they are CERTAIN to have told them many times already) tedious stories it is time for their piece de resistance ... their Humberside Airport Story.

Honestly, there has been such a Humberside Airport Story in my life and I am pleased to say I walked away from it. I could not afford to waste the time in listening to such rubbish.

This morning I was sitting in front of someone, a scale 8 aerobore, who was trying to impress and outdo the person he was sitting next to with his MOSCOW story. When I got to look at him: obese, not so smartly dressed ...

Then when we arrived at Manchester we were deposited on the apron and not at a stand. Of course, that usually means being carried to the terminal by bus. Now, for some reason there was a loud mouthed boorish oaf who felt he ought to vent bile on the lady who met us and was organising our carriage to the terminal. There were two buses there and when the first one was full, our organiser told our driver to close the doors and drive on. This oaf then said something like, well done madam, can't you see that when a bus is full, there is no room for anyone else ... erm, yes, she had already closed the door and was preparing the second bus.

This buffoon was then behind me in the passport control queue and he said, this is the worst airport I have ever been to. I wanted to say to him, well, if that's true, you haven't travelled very far have you? But that would have involved a negation of my own anti aerobore rule. Why did he say this, do you think? The reason is that there was a slightly longer queue than normal and that was because just before our plane arrived, a Qatar airways 777 had arrived ...

I should ban my own aerobore stories now shouldn't I really?

DW

A Prediction

I have made a few predictions this year, including one or two about Barack Obama, that have been proven prophetic. Well, here's another one.

There will be a Stephen Fry cook book on your coffee table and book shelf before too long.

Fry, that tall omnipresent, gay, comedic person, has recently lost around 6 stone in weight and as he is the darling of lahlahland, there is doubtless a queue of cook book publishers baying outside his door as I type this. This is a repeat of the situation in which Nigel Lawson (the formerly fat but still fumbling former Chancellor of the Exchequer and father of that inanely grinning cook Nigella Lawson) found himself.

Lawson was very fat, lost a lot of weight such that Rhinoceros wrote letters to him asking him for advice on beauty treatments for a Rhino!!! Then someone thought he might have something to contribute to the health and girth of the nation and he published a book on how to stop being so fat. Can't wait for the sequel, how to stop being such a fumbler.

Could be worse, could be a book by Nigel Slater on how to make yourself appear to be sincere.

DW

Talk about biased reporting

The news this morning on BBC World News included an item on the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The bidding cities are girding their loins as bids have to be in very soon.

Then sent Roland Buerk (son of BBC reporter Michael) out to Tokyo to cover the event since Tokyo is bidding for the 2016 games. Buerk said this:

... only 56% of people living in Tokyo want the 2016 Olympics ...

Erm, ONLY 56% Mr Buerk? 56% is the majority of people who want the games to go to Tokyo.

DW

Is this an "Only in Britain"

So the Attorney General reported herself for a breach of the law. She admitted to employing an alien cleaner and was duly fined £5,000 for her pains.

The low life politicians then round on the woman and say she herself has to resign because she's no good now.

But then, here's the only in Britain part: the alleged illegal immigrant cleaner signs up with that Max Clifford, a PR wallah. Now,lo and behold the cleaner is not only not deported nem con but will probably end up considerably wealthier than all of us and a British resident/citizen.

Makes me want to emigrate again.

DW

Making the unmissable news unmissable

If you live in or have been to the UK recently you may have seen the advertisement on BBC television for the BBC iPlayer. The strap line for the iPlayer is that it makes the unmissable unmissable: missed something and you can often watch it at your whim an pleasure when you want via the iPlayer via the internet.

Well BBC World News has gone one better: if you have missed a news item, don't worry, it will be repeated every 15 minutes or even less. Even if you are a day or sometimes two days late, don't worry because the chances are it will still be running.

DW

More on Language

I have been noticing over the last week or two how people on radio and television are using these nonsense nouveau words in their every day speech:

• amazing
• passion
• about

It has got to the pitch where I am making a mental note of how early in the day it is when the first of these linguistic strangulations occurs.

Usually it is the mangling of the preposition about that gets in first: everything is about these days, not only the grossly offensive,

it's about rain, it's about clouds, it's about weather

but reporters and ordinary people use about when another preposition is far more appropriate.

Amazing is usually number two in the list and has normally been uttered by someone well before 7:30 am.

Passion is being very heavily used in the context of a competition and the one I tend to mention most is a cookery competition but I have seen trailers for those so called talent shows in which someone will regale us with their passion for their warbling talent. This week I watched a couple of the BBC's Masterchef: the professionals programme and not only have I been horrified at what supposedly professional chefs are happy to cook but every single one of them felt the need to tell us that they were passionate about food. I beg to differ and if I am wrong, they would not be such inept cooks.

However, yesterday, passion got in first, before amazing; and that was as late as 9:00 am. How about that?

By the way, if you are wont to say something is amazing, I urge you to take a look at the definition of the word. The fact that Anne Battenberg's daughter used the word amazing about 3 or 4 times in a sentence when she "won" the BBC Sports "Personality" of the year award the other year should not be taken as a signal that we can all do the same.

DW

Oops!

I sent my CV to someone last night and he just called me to ask whether I was a child prodigy since I seemed to have started my teaching career at the age of 12!

Oops! I'd inadvertently chopped 10 years of my age.

I've been using that CV for ages and no one else has mentioned that before. That happens with some of my teaching/training materials too ... as if anyone ever reads that!!!

DW

Camera Focus Tip

When you are trying to focus the lens of an SLR camera and it seems to be constantly out of focus, check that you are wearing your spectacles, if you normally wear them.

DW


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Burnley v Sunderland

Mixed feelings today as Burnley entertain Sunderland at Turf Moor in the Premier League.

Burnley by birth and Sunderland by adoption, having lived there for nine years and having been a regullar at Roker Park throughout that period.

Up the Clarets!

DW


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

My Operation

When we talk about medicine and doctors and the NHS we all say how vitally important it is to maintain the confidentiality of the doctor patient relationship. However, you can travel on a bus or train, walk down the street and even sit in a cafe or restaurant and hear people discussing their most intimate details of their medical history.

Well, I'm not going to do that save to say I had an operation on Wednesday: keyhole surgery. The benefit of it being keyhole surgery is that I was operated on at around 8:30 am and was home by around 3:00 pm. Alternatively I would probably still be in hospital two/three days later and would need six weeks off work rather than being able to go back to work immediately.

I say immedidately but I got tired very quickly yesterday and today because of the lasting effects of the anaesthetic. The pain is minor, however. I am also fit enough to wander the streets a little.

Then again, I recovered a lot quicker than the much younger man in the bed next to me!

So now you know and here is a photo of the key holes they used to operate on me. If you are squeamish, turn away now!

DW

Excel 2007 with Excel Master

It's official: www.excelmaster.co.uk ... I can now reveal the address of my new web site. This is the web site for my up and coming book which will be called Excel 2007 with Excel Master.

The site is up and running but it is a work in progress at the time of writing. There are some good and useful things there already but there are going to be a lot more.

The book is more than half written now and it's going well.

Take a look at the web site: www.excelmaster.co.uk

Let me have your feedback and let me have your ideas: if there's something you want me to do, let me know and I'll do it if I can.

DW

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


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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