Onward

Well Christmas has been and gone, rather uneventfully for me, but that’s pretty much how I like it. I like to keep away from the materialistic masses and just have time to myself, review things and plan ahead for the New Year, also take time out to reflect about people that aren’t here anymore.

I’ve had a couple of good nights out and got to see my friend Gary that works in Hong Kong and came back to see his parents bringing his new baby over with him. He bought me the newest gadget from Hong Kong, a rechargeable remote control Helicopter that’s really tiny, its so fragile looking I’m scared of breaking it, though I have took it for a hover around my kitchen.

I went to Birmingham for a day out, maybe a blog coming on that one but it was rather uneventful to be honest.

There’s possibly a lot going to be happening in the New Year, that require separate blogs really, one being major surgery I have to face, the other being very much work in progress at the moment, so more later.

So all that remains is to wish all my friends a Happy New Year in 2007 !!!

Onwards and upwards!

Theory

Yay! I passed my driving theory test today, next is the practical test. The test itself was ok, though the test centre was a bit austere. On finishing the test the computer screen asked if wanted to volunteer to do some questions they were thinking of adding to future tests but I was more interested in my result! They give you the result in a folded piece of paper and the red certificate made me instantly think I'd failed, I hadn't, I'd got 34 right out of 35 so was well pleased.

With a broad grin I left the test centre and got hit by the No.38 bus !

Comments

It seems the new Blogger Beta has problems, especially with people trying to add comments. I'm not sure if this is fixed yet but perusing other blogs it would seems it is a wide spread problem. People on the old blogger can't seem to comment on the people that have switched to Blogger Beta. All I can say is after switching to Beta I haven't noticed a deal of difference, there are a couple of new features but things remain the same. I did have problems on the old blogger with photos occasionally but Beta seems again, ok.

So, sorry if you can't comment but keep trying or my ego will deflate!

Lincoln

Did some christmas shopping in Lincoln today with Pete who I used to work with and had a fab day. Though I've been through Lincoln lots of times and even stayed there for a beer or two in the past I've never really explored it.

Lincoln is a lovely city, though it doesn't really feel like a city, population wise it is smaller than where I live. Not being the largest of places its easy to navigate, apart from the steep hill leading to the cathedral but all the main shops are there plus a great variety of places to eat. Hopefully if I move over to Newark in the near future I'll be spending more time over in Lincoln.

The Cathedral
The road called 'Steep Hill' leading to the Cathedral area

Lincoln Canal leading to the marina

Quote Of The Week

I was in Newark yesterday (and Starbucks opened there on Sunday - yay), Anyway I was browsing on the flea market and chanced upon a cd by The Mission for a bargain price. So when I handed my purchase over to the middle aged stall holder he said with a little cackle;

'Hehehehehe... little goth'

Well it made me smile anyway!

Ale !!!

Just some of the hand pulled ales available at one of my favourite pubs in Newark The Fox and Crown, the Hobgoblin being especially dangerous - I can personally vouch for that! In fact there's a slight blur on the second photo, I wonder why?

Farepak Fiasco

I’ve been reading about the Farepak fiasco over the last couple of weeks and shaking my head in disbelief at the whole debacle. For those that are unsure what I am on about, Farepak was a hamper company where people paid in cash amounts to a scheme to receive a hampers and food vouchers for Christmas.

I must confess to thinking hampers were a thing of the past and just not in vogue anymore but it seems they are still in demand, surely with advent of massive supermarkets and internet home shopping they are surely to become defunct?

Anyway, people do still pay into hamper schemes – by the thousands. Farepak it seems had a good reputation, they had been established since 1969 and sold electrical goods as well as hampers, they employed over 35,000 agents across the UK.

The real reason why they have gone under is unclear as there seem conflicting stories but it began with a statement from representatives of the company who said “We have conducted an immediate review of the Farepak business and it is with real regret that it has been necessary to cease trading”. The end result More than 150,000 customers mainly on low incomes lost an average of £400 each, although some lost closer to £2,000. Following that stories were rife, the boss of Farepak Mr Gilodi-Johnson, whose father founded Farepak said he regretted the situation, and blamed HBOS which the bank denied, hardly comfort for people that were going to have a bleak Christmas. The day to day Boss of Farepak Mr Clive Thompson took a holiday to Argentina whilst speculation arose as to the whereabouts of 40 million of savers money. So following that a fund was set up to help the victims, HBOS the bank that refused to support Farepak because of a 1.5 million shortfall contributed (some said out of guilt), among many others but the contributions have hardly come thick and fast. The end result being that the fund is due to close soon with the schemes clients expecting to get 15p back for every pound they paid in. Only 10% of the money lost has been recouped by donations. There is of course and enquiry under way by the trading standards though this is little comfort for the people having to find cash all over again for Christmas.

But this is was bugs me; Only 70 politicians made donations. Why is so much given in foreign aid yet little given to our own in times of need? My dear gran capped it all off for me with a phrase she often uses “Charity begins at home”. Though in this instance it sadly isn’t right, people, businesses and organisations happily donate to people abroad, because it raises their profile, yet thousands will go without this Christmas in this country. To me that is truly shocking one of the worlds most giving nations cannot give to their own in times of need.

Dawn by the Trent

I woke early this morning and decided to have a walk down by the river Trent, so camera in pocket and a warm mint to suck on I headed off into the dawn to take some photo's. The river was really serene and calm, the air was invigorating.

This first shot is near the Barge pub (on the left...and yes the pub is a real barge) as the light was just breaking, the light of the clocktower still illuminated. The next shot is a view from town lock looking back towards the castle, there's a bit more light and one if the buildings to the right is another pub called the Navigation whose windows are river level. The last 2 photo's are of the weir just past town lock.

Scenes of Winter

These are some photo's I took back at the beginning of the month when I was up on the north west coast, they show winter is definately here. In the first photo you can see a van where a man is trying to fish near his van, despite the rough sea. This was as close as I got. The second photo in a different location shows the sun trying to break through the stubborn clouds, it looked bleak but was quite beautiful.

From Decorator to Squatter

Many of the new wave of Polish builders and tradesmen claim to be hard working and reliable and I’ve no doubt that the majority are skilled and honest. The knock on effect which several of my friends have noticed who work the building trade is they are losing jobs and work in general as the influx of immigrant tradesmen continues. Mercenary employers are of course reaping the benefit of a new market of readily available and cheap labour willing to work around the clock if need be. Companies who employ Polish tradesmen can obviously charge the same prices but pay their Polish workers less, the Polish are of course happy as they earn more money here than back home but resentful as they know they don’t earn as much as British tradesmen normally do.

So, employers are happy, the Polish tradesmen are happy and you’d think the punters would be happy too – not always!

Take Surrey based graphic designer Nita Bowers for instance, who hired Polish decorators to work in here newly acquired Dockland flat, which she bought for £215,000 with a view to rent.

At first all seemed fine until she visited the flat with her estate agent to find the Polish workers had changed the locks. She was then presented with a crude document which looked liked it had been copied from the internet that stated the Polish tradesmen were demanding squatter’s right. The police were informed but said they could take no action as it was a civil matter (of course police would be much happier handing out traffic tickets for minor offences). Fortunately the tradesmen left soon after, but not until after causing damage to the property.

In closing Polish prime minister Lech Kaczynski who visited Downing Street a couple of weeks back said ‘Britain was now the destination of choice for his “feckless” countrymen’. Sounds like the Polish government are as apathetic as ours with dealing with the current situation then as its recent been revealed that many coming here to work are claiming benefits back home as well as here.

Having a break

Not been blogging so much of late, mainly because I've not had much to say really. I have been spending a lot of time on my lovely aqua limited edition Playstation 2, playing my fave game Disgaea 2 - cursed memories. Here's the opening movie from the game, for anyone who is interested....... which I'm sure won't be many, apart from my friend Pat of course who rushed out to buy it as soon as it was launched.

Oh go on have a look, it's pretty, with a cute Japanese girl singing !

Jackson Dropped

I sat watching the ‘Return of the King’ the last part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Sunday night and thinking how the series of films has never really worked for me.

I think director Peter Jackson did a good job of all three films; most of the actors are excellent with a couple of exceptions. The setting of New Zealand is also idyllic.

So why doesn’t it all work for me?

Firstly they should have made the Hobbit first, the book being the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy should have been the opener, and this could have been used as an ideal platform to set the scene before the trilogy of films and be used to explain previous events. Instead Peter Jackson uses flashbacks in the trilogy and wastes valuable time in doing so, this time could have been used to include scenes and indeed whole episodes of the trilogy he omitted. Ok, so we know the books are vast and it wouldn’t be practical to include everything but he misses the scouring of the Shire chapter out and that’s not only one of my favourites but it’s a fitting end to the whole story as the hobbits through experiencing their adventures have to deal with one last twist of fate at the end of the book. The last chapters are where the hobbits come of age so to speak, where they come into their own without the help of wizards and rapid arrow shooting elves.

For me there are just too many pointless bits in the films and too many important bits left out. That aside the films are still amazing and a great technical achievement, maybe I’m just too fanatical about the books and a bit of a purist.

So, I was surprised to see this snippet of news today that states Peter Jackson will not be working on the prequel film ‘The Hobbit’ to read why click here.

I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing? Needless to say I should be signed as the star!