The Wondering Brit

I’m eligible for a Phone upgrade, yet sadly Vodafone does not carry the Samaung i8910 Omnia HD.

However, after spending some time on the Vodafone website, there are a couple of phones that do roughly what I want, this is my list;

Quadband, Blutooth, Wifi, Modem, Camera and finally Video

The Phones are The Samsung Vodaphone 360 H1 and the Blackberry Storm2 that finally comes with WiFi etc.

The question is – which one?  They do also offer the iPhone 3g ’s’ but I’m fat, not stupid lol

As always, click on the images for a full size view.

Tomorrow night, I was going to go to see a comedy gig in London called ‘Boffoonery’. This is for the raising of money to help save Bletchley Park, the place where they cracked the Nazi Enigma code during WW2.

As well as many other comedic guests, my distant twitter acquaintance  Robert Llewellyn is also doing a spot of stand-up and I was especially looking forward to giving him a good heckle.
However, as things turn out, I can’t make it. So this blogs financial expert (i.e. she needs more than just figures to count) Fenny is going in my place.
The ticket, originally for a circle seat has been swapped yet again when Fenny learned of  friend who had a ‘standing’ ticket, but had either back or leg trouble – So good on Fenny for swapping the ticket with that friend!

I, instead of rolling around laughing will be hauling milk to Ashby de la Zouch up in the midlands.
But I do wish everyone a great time.

Well my two days off draw to a close with a 5am start tomorrow. Looks like a straight forward day picking up a load of hire trailers from Bristol – 3 in all.

Other stuff:
Gabrielle aka @Gabsatrucker has been added to the TWBrit Who’s Who page and furthermore she’s been most helpful in helping me pick what promo stuff I should get. As such a decision has now been made, so all I’m looking for is someone to help sort out the artwork – or I invest in the right kit to do it.

UK, or should say the governments Peter Mandelson is proposing to introduce a ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ for internet file sharers – yeah, that’s really going to work – and could render the said gentleman in a world of trouble. Shame really, he often sounds so bright – yet hasn’t got a bloody clue! (bless)

Watched NASA finally launch the Ares rocket today – really, a falling leaf would stop those guys doing anything. Needless to say it was highly uneventful and they seem to be unable to build a rocket that’s weather resistant against rain and thunder – hurricanes, that I understand, but nothing else.

I leave you now with the knowledge that the only problem I have with working tomorrow is that WKD will be sitting back with her feet up doing nothing while others have to go to work. If she comments on this saying otherwise – don’t believe her

Well I say that, but really – can I bothered?! 
There are a few minor things I have to do, but they take money – the thing I no longer like spending..

I bought a brand new Linksys wireless thing on eBay that should have been £80, that cost me £20 which has pleased me no end in my sad little way. I had to go to the Post Office to pick it up - but as I was half way through the front door I received a text and went to read it – here it is:

Did you remember to get the Milk?

I just rolled about laughing after yesterdays text from the ever formidable WKD – I certainly never expected to be looking a picture of cows butts! but I was almost in public view and there is no way I could let the outside world see my face with a genuine smile on it – they would throw up!!

Any way, I went up to the Post Office and picked up my Linksys parcel and headed home when I decided to see how Dave was getting on across the road with crack in the wall of the very old property he’d  bought.
After few laughs  I pottered home and for lunch I had a Choc Ice and a mug of coffee (bliss!!)
The Linksys router is exactly as describe and was indeed in a brand new sealed box – I love shopping on eBay, especially for computer bits!

I’m kinda chatting on tweetdeck at the moment – but really, that is the day so far – it’s certainly a better one than @gabsatrucker is having  on her way through Tennessee at the moment according to twitter

Having now not worked since a week last Monday, I almost fell over when the phone starting ringing today.  The voice on the other end simply said “do you remember me?”  ‘Vaguely’ I replied before being told that I’m off to sunny Oakthorpe in London, starting at 1am in the morning…

What is it about Friday’s and London?!  Anyway, just off the N.Circular is a car I want to have a look at, so all of this might fortuitous.  The downside is that while I’ll be flying in and will get there in good time – the return journey will be via London’s early morning rush hour

Never the less, I won’t be hanging about unless I have too. What are the odds that WKD isn’t working and I don’t get chance to annoy her a little.

Noticed my comment section wasa little quiet last night. Normally get dragged over the coals by Charlie and JennyK!

I’m not a great historian by any stretch of the imagination, but Trafalgar, while a Royal N…thing (sorry, can’t seem to spell that word) is one of history’s greats. It was important too. Nelson’s defeat of the combined Spanish and Fr**ch fleets and is one of the many reasons (and there are many) why the English language is spoken (or a form of it) in the USA etc.
But today is an important day in British military history – yet, typically, not much is going on about it.

The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 was the most decisive British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Twenty-seven British ships of the line led (click map to enlarge) by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve off the south-west coast of Spain, just west of a place named Cape Trafalgar (oddly enough). The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost.
Nelson was mortally wounded during the battle, becoming Britain’s greatest war hero of the time and then only succeeded by Wellington himself. The commander of the joint French and Spanish forces, Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve, was captured along with his ship Bucentaure.

Needless to say with Nelson at sea and the Duke of Wellington on land chasing down and whooping Napoleon, the day or at least the campaign was won – then we had to go and do it all again and England, will forever be our England! (well, until Hitler turned up and we had to do it yet again – Doh!)

This post is for the Richie family in Houston

UPDATE:

Loraine mentioned something in the comments about the lamp posts in Trafalgar Sq in London were cast from the cannons of the Franco Spanish ships that lost the battle.

Firstly, the Column itself is topped off with a ‘Capital’ (thats the bit that finishes the top of a column off)was cast from unused bronze ordnance. Furthermore, as I mention in the comments section, each street lamp running from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Place has a ship on it that was defeated by Nelson.

Old captured weapons adorn the streets of London, it was indeed common practice to spike and use them or melt them down, using them as trophies of sorts. None more so than old cannons. All over London and indeed the UK you will see a certain shape of bollard on the sides of roads etc – these are often old small canons that were captured from the ‘then’ enemies of the realm – and there was a hell of a lot of them.

These days they even manufacture this shape of bollard in order to keep the continuity of local architecture in tact because of the sheer number of originals.

Had a welcome quiet weekend this week. simply kicking back and chilling out.
Last night however, I went out drinking with my friend Dave from across the road. Within 40 minutes we were already on our third pint and in our second pub, getting ready for the next one.
In the ‘Three Tuns’ we met up with someone who works for Dave and after she took to the Karaoke mic, I was out with the phone to take some suitably shocking photos of her.
Sadly, she chased us down to see the pics and asked nicely that I didn’t post them on the web (Doh!!). I don’t know how aware of the law she is, but with her asking so – I simply can’t post them
In all we hit 5 pubs, drank the best part of a gallon of beer and after 3 hours headed to the Chinese for a take out and look at his and Annie’s (his wife) holiday vid and discussions over the development of his property.
In all, it was a good night out, listening to two live bands (the 2nd one being much better than the first).

Upon arrival/stagger home I immediately set about drinking a couple of pints of water to stave off or at least lessen the chance of a hangover migraine this morning. This always works – however, it really does not do anything to prevent the feeling of being dragged through a hedge backwards. And then it was off to the land of nod where I simply dreamed about past beer drinking times – especially memories of Oktoberfest in Munich.

Today I’m reading my 3rd David Baldacci book in the last week and when I feel 40% human again, I’ll set about tidying up, buying a little plaster and a trowel to do some patching up around here. Also actually offering sudo-sympathy to Ex-Yorks twitter budy ‘Howlatthemoon’ in Ausse who has eaten something that does not agree with her – bless LOL

The TWBrit Car of Character is annoying me!
Yes I just bled the brakes through, replaced a piece of exhaust/tail pipe and had someone sort out my ever leaking nearside rear tyre… But the thing ‘hunts’ i.e. idles erratically.
There are only two things that make these engines do this and I have checked them both!
One of which is a small vacuum hose, so while pottering around tomorrow on my way to London, I’ll buy one anyway… other than that, it’s idle speed control valve – but I actually don’t recognise it on this thing.

So… while I personally don’t mind driving around in an embarrassing car (I just love the look on peoples faces) I think that I the time comes when I need to spend another penny on it – it’s gone, history and time to get another!

However, as long as it gets me to London and back, who am I to complain?

Talking of which – anybody want anything from London tomorrow?

Today there so much going on and things I have to do and keep up with – I really can’t focus. I have loads of pictures to transfer and stuff to write about, but can’t seem to actually get around to doing them.

As such, the blog is open to general comment and questions about pretty much anything today, so fire away.

While I have a busy old week, and there’s plenty in the news over here in Blighty – I can’t help but be a little stunned at what has been happening in the Asia Pacific region..
Yeah, we’ve had all sorts of email attacks via various phishing scams, politics are starting heat up here and WKD even came back from Fr**ce!! However she did bring some weird foreign illness or disease back with her and somehow managed to slip past Quarantine.

Anyway, none of this comes close to the multiple tropical storms, mud slides, earthquakes and tsunamis that have occurred in the last few days, displacing possible over a million people and killing thousands – as such (and if you’ve been living under a rock) I’ll let Rocketboom give you the update.

Ok I have to admit it properly – I miss Comms and IT and going to and from work in a clean state. Oh and the money of course.
I also miss the Middle East.
However, with the news just in that I’m starting at 05:00 tomorrow morning for a steady run into London, or should I say – hauling another 28000ltrs of milk to arrive around 10:30am to Oakthorpe dairy in Palmers Green, I shall tell you of the yesterdays run.
It wasn’t a remarkable day really, I had to drive up to Shepton Mallet, pick up a tank of cider and take it back where it came from in Cornwall.
Bemused as to why this was needing to be done, the chap at Shepton Mallet informed me that it gets sent to them to be filtered and bonded, then returned for bottling. I couldn’t help but think just how expensive a process that was.
Coming out of Shepton I headed for the town/city of Wells (where they filmed the movie ‘Hot Fuzz’’ – a somewhat disturbingly accurate depiction of rural living). On to Glastonbury and then to the M5 southbound.
The destination : The Cornish Scrumpy Company at Penhallow – way down in the bottom of the country.
They make particularly strong cider, one of which is called ‘Rattler’.
Some time before midnight I was back on tight narrow lanes, finally squeezing through farm gates in the dark. I reversed the trailer in an area with literally only an inch to spare either side with a floodlight blinding me all the way back.
As I off loaded, the guys there educated me fully in the world of cider and what makes a laughing cider, singing cider, sleeping cider and or course – a fighting cider.
I retuned home at 3am this morning, much wiser and less tired than normal – yesterday was a good day.

Unlike one lady trucker’s fateful day on the other side of the pond – who’s trailer wheels caught fire and who also got her tatts touched up by some old guy- glad you’re ok G.

I don’t normally get political – but here’s my feeling of frustration.

Do you remember when this country stood for something? When people had pride? Acted out of a knowledge of what was right and not self interest and greed?

Do you remember when the law truly meant something and that hitting someone over the head with an iron bar would get you 15 years in prison – not 2 months.

Do you remember when schools installed discipline and kids knew right from wrong because they knew that punishment was the response to wilfully doing something wrong?

Do you remember when defending the realm meant having an armed forces big enough to protect this Island and all of it’s protectorates?

That if a nationalised industry made a profit, it was money that would be re-invested and/or release the burden from the tax payer?

Do you remember a time without CCTV cameras – the daily street corner proof and symbol of the break down of law and order.

When a Prime Minister was a genuine statesperson?

Even the ownership of Firearms, when police would make sure you weren’t a loony and no one felt threatened. When people used to shoot safely for fun at a local gun range – now they are illegal because a police force didn’t do it’s job properly and now -  even the kids have guns.

When I look back at governments I supported, and the one I didn’t – it’s easy to see that all of them did both good and bad things.

Mrs Thatcher was to me – the last true statesperson we had, but her war with the miners and privatisation of the utilities was a huge mistake. Mr Blair I have no time for at all – the fact he claimed Kosovo as victory is enough to make me want to punch him – the reason, he said we were going to act decisively and then sat back and did nothing for months until the US came along – so all the Serbs did was ramp up the killing and raping machine.

Since 911 our country has died, the rules and regulations brought in are archaic and wrong. We fort terror long before most countries so the ensuing changes did nothing other than dissolve the freedoms of the people.

We ban smoking – but never demand the tobacco companies to make safe cigarettes, we impede traffic when the whole nation wants more roads, we tax at an unbelievable rate and then give money to other countries.

The NHS… It’s not an NHS is the you can’t get dental treatment because GP’s are paid so much more than Dentists. There are far, far too many managers and the arrogant lack of communication between health authorities is nothing short of criminal.

Education – the LEA’s have so much money it’s crazy – they just have no idea about what things really cost!! As such they pay five times more for everthing.  Why are the kids doing ‘Computer Studies’ and learning about the history of it all – when they could esily leave school with A+, N+, MCSE, CCNA or CCNP and be indusrty ready and employable?!

House prices – you’re joking right! where on this earth can you glue to 6 pence bricks together with a little mortar and the result is then worth over £100?!  We need to bring in property taxes to curb the house pricing!

Spend any real time in another country and you will learn things like;

1. No one respects Britain any longer.

2. The UK is one of the most expensive places on the planet.

3. You dare not intervene with anything in the UK without fear of being shot

To me Britain is - sorry, was the open handed Bulldog – we were good and yes – great and with the power to back up our threats and keep our people safe. 

Now, not so much…

A few years ago when I was busy working in Comms and IT, I used to have a pet hate – using Mobile/Cell phones in meetings…
Of course, we all hate the ever-loud users who stand in your way, in a check-out line, or across from you on a bus or train. So much so that Comedian Dom Joly made a living from sending up this all too common anti-social behaviour.
So, it may come as no surprise to you that I now carry a Mobile phone blocking device.
Living on a High Street in the middle of a busy rural market town therefore presents a few small opportunities to have fun with such devices with the passers by.
None more so than an irate woman trying to shout at her partner on the phone – right outside my window…. No problem!
The thing is, the as you switch it on and then off again straight way, this simply breaks up the conversation – not until have it switched on for a few seconds does it cancel the connection.
So, once you work out when the person the other end is speaking – that’s when you get the most of this fun, especially when you watch the frustration levels grow in the person at this end.
But the great thing is this – once they get to the point of realising there’s little hope of a clear conversation – they calm down completely.
I do highly recommend them, they have a short range – realistically to about 25-30 feet.

Not so long ago I mentioned playing my guitar so loudly in the confines on my small livingroom – my teeth rattled and I got toothache!
Just a few moments ago, at a volume I deemed ‘safe’ I played Slade’s highly covered ‘C’mon feel the Noise’…
Now, what is really bizarre here is I was singing to it as well – but couldn’t get the right mix of guitar volume and voice (no mic).
So, I’m typing this with a very raw throat, rattle teeth with added bruised eye sockets… And deafness.
I might have to stop doing this – I’m getting way too old for it!

Here’s the Oasis version of the song

For Gabs : the original Slade version

So I finished work at 8am this morning after starting at 4pm yesterday (Sunday). I knew it would be a long day and the limit would be pushed in pretty much every way.
What I mean is, we are only allowed to do a 15 ½hrs duty time, the company will only pay on a 15hr duty and the maximum actual driving time by law is 10hrs. Well, those 10hrs turned into 10 ¼ and I left work 16 hrs after arriving.

For some reason, I purchased a microwave oven on the way home and I’m not actually sure why. I didn’t have one because I have nowhere to put it, so it’s sitting in the corner in it’s box at the moment and if it could think – it’d be bemused.

Upon returning home, I ended up spending a couple of hours across the road looking at a building my mate Dave has just bought. It’s literally hundreds of years old and has never truly been brought up to date since the 18th century – this may develop into an interesting story in the weeks and months to come.

I  finally returned  home and to finally found rest in sleep – I think I should buy an energy pod like this.

Now, down to business… WKD is going to be absent for what she terms ‘her nine day weekend’!
Now, in full knowledge of how I feel about certain locations on this planet – she gleefully mentions that Mr & Mrs WKD will be taking a short vacation with friends in…. wait for it…. (f-kin)Fr**ce!!
I have to be fair here and say that for the most part the country of Fr**ce is a pretty awesome place. From the Med, Atlantic wall to the English channel – it only has one problem and I’ll leave you to guess what it is.
Obviously, as a work colleague one has to demonstrate the fact that you have each others backs and in this case some sound travel advice is offered.

When travelling in Fr**ce, there are three things that you truly need to take with you: 1. A clothes peg  2. Ear defenders and 3. your return ticket!
There are of course other recommendations like the wearing of a suit of armour and the carrying of a longbow – however, this may be seen as offensive in some way. I would though, take seriously the concept of Kevlar and carry or wear as much of it as your budget allows.

Of course, if she’s not back  in nine days, no search party will sent as it’ll deemed that she succumbed to some dastardly indoctrination – and that wouldn’t be good. Also, if she were to come back with stories of eating frogs – this will also be taken as some far off deviant sexual practice which will most certainly have her banned from the work place, Devon and the entire UK (Wales not included)…This too goes for a sudden fashion change by he way of a sudden desire to wear striped t’shirts, a beret, have hairy armpits and carry onions!

Have a great time WKD & C

Ribbit!

Just remember the home is to the  North!

Yep, in the previous post I wrote about how tired I was likely to be last night and by the time I hit Bristol on the M5 – I was hit by a blanket of tiredness! For those who know me, they’ll know I happily go 22hrs without sleep and not even be tired, but as any driver will tell you, the accumulative effect is not so desirable.
I did briefly see WKD yesterday wielding her Jolly-mallet which, apparently when it gets too happy – is monitored by what she terms the jolly-ometer i.e. someone in the office coming out to tell everyone to be quiet. I left her bickering happily with a work colleague as I set out to Ashby de la Zouch again. I had previously said it was in Nottinghamshire but apparently it isn’t – it’s in Leicestershire (pron: lester-shire) as WKD pointed out.

Today I’m back at work for the last day (3 days off coming up) and have to trip the light fantastic doing a double Westbury – the first one after a run to North Tawton. This pushes the hours quite a bit, so I need a clear head and a heavy right foot – oh the joy of it all!

Other Stuff

I see our present un-elected Prime Minister is joyfully underlining the UK loss of respect with global leaders that his predecessor Mr Blair stated – go figure!

Anyone seen the movie ‘Surrogate’ yet?