By trying to limit every single debate to good/bad, black/white, yes/no questions, there becomes no ground to be moderate or pragmatic, nor in fact is there space for an intelligent and reasoned debate.  In my view, its this move into binary politics that gives extreme parties like the BNP credibility - since they just appear to some to be on the particular side of the question that they agree with - and hence of no difference to the mainstream parties who also come down on that side of the fence.

Professor Nutt described the drug Ecstasy as being less dangerous than horse riding, and Alan Johnson, in a typical knee jerk fashion, riposted with some ridiculous nonsense about not many people in his constituency owning horses.  I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make the fact that more people are killed each year in horse riding accidents than by Ecstacy go away, no matter how much you would like it to. 

Whilst all deaths are regrettable, simply because someone is killed by drugs doesn't make their death any worse than someone who has been killed by another means.  The point Prof. Nutt was making was about comparable & relative risks, and that is the point of his argument.

When questioned about this on Radio 5 at the weekend, the reporter asked Professor Nutt how Leah Betts' parents would feel about this comparison, and quite rightly, Professor Nutt retorted (and I'm paraphrasing here) "how do you think the parents of those horse riders feel?'

What is the point - I've often been heard shouting at the radio (its my age ) - of appointing a bunch of highly intelligent academics to produce a report into drugs of abuse (or in fact early years education policy, social services, weapons of mass destruction, asylum seekers etc) - and then to rubbish the findings simply because it doesn't agree with your personal tabloid view of the world? 

As Robert Keith Leavitt (US Advertising Guru) once remarked "People don't ask for facts in making up their minds.  They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts."

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I have to confess that I had mistakenly thought that this was a flattish course, with some pretty scenery, however it appears I have been somewhat mislead and it is rather more hilly, as evidenced by the height profile of the course kindly supplied by Barry (who I'm sure told me it was mostly flat in the first place!)

I've been running reasonably consistently over the last few weeks, and have now extended my 'normal' lunchtime run to be slightly over 7 miles.  Added to this, I've been whittling away at the time I take to complete the distance, so that now I'm clocking in at just over an hour.  I know this isn't particularly speedy in comparison to people like Paula Radcliffe, but I'm pleased about it, and in this case, that's the only yard-stick that counts .  Anyway, its her job - so she should be good at it

All in all I'm feeling much better prepared for this than than some of the runs I've done in the past, so am quite looking forward to it. Its only 10 miles, what's the worst that can happen?

So after tempting Fate so carelessly, you have every right to expect me to follow up with a post full of tales of pain, inclement and surprisingly unseasonable weather and multiple blisters in tender locations .  We'll see...

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On Friday afternoon, Jane, Emily, Georgia and myself set off to Coventry, which was to be our staging post stop on route to Cambridge, where Emily was due to start her University life.  We stayed at Jamie and John's because:

a) it was on the way and convenient for us to get to Cambridge at 10am,
b) it was a chance for Em to see her grandparents for the first time in a while,
c) J&J have just had lots of home improvements done so we could indulge in some house envy and
d) it was Friday night, and that means wine and beer at J&J's house .

So on Saturday morning, we re-packed the car and set off down the M6/A14 in order to drop Em off. The journey was completely pain free (unlike the night before - 3 accidents on the M6 in 30 miles , but that's another story) and we got to Cambridge, and more by luck than judgement, managed to navigate all the way into the centre without any problems, or indeed a map .  

On production of our specially requested permit, the very friendly traffic warden opened the barrier and allowed us to drive onto the pedestrian zone and right up to Trinity College - the outside of which was being completely swarmed by tourists - even though the college was closed to vistors.  Fortunately one of the college porters was on hand to shoo people out the way and let us park.

After a couple of minutes of very efficient paperwork Em got her room key and we found our way up the 4 flights of stairs to her college room.  First impressions, apart from the breathlessness of course , were wonderful - each room has its occupants name painted above the door (how nice is that? ) and had there was enough room to be both comfortable and studious - two desks and enough chairs for 4 made sure of that...Not only that, but Em's room has a great location - it overlooks the main entrance gate at Trinity, and also has a view over the outside world as well - here's a view from one of the windows:

After helping Em to unpack, we had a quick wander round the college (very impressive) and then we bobbed out to Pizza Express for lunch.  After a fairly tearful goodbye (from the girls of the family - its not a bloke thing ) Jane, Georgia and I set off home. 

So far so good seems to be the news from Cambridge - as the numerous texts and couple of calls have revealed - the college is really friendly, and food/drinks also are readily available.  Em starts her lectures and tutorials today, so that might be a bit of a coming-down-to-earth-with-a-bump moment, but I'm sure she'll cope in her usual understated, super competent ways.

I'm sure Jane will stop randomly crying in a few days too.

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Usually things work the other way round and the Stafford leg of the V Festival is the one that gets the slightly soiled end of the stick (which is a two site affair like Reading/Leeds and all the focus/tv footage is usually on the southern leg of the event) - for example, a couple of years ago Peter Doherty was booked to play on the second night and got arrested whilst driving up from Chelmsford. Again. 

Although to be fair to Peter, he did actually make it this time around...

This year, Oasis played on Saturday in the midlands sunshine, then Liam gets laryngitis, which then morphs into a full blown case of end-of-tour-band-break-up fever - we never did believe the throat thingy anyway - and lo and behold, I get to see their last ever gig 

Ok, so I wasn't within touching distance of the Burnage Brothers, but I was there at the back, singing along with the rest of the crowd and avoiding the "warm rain" that seemed to accompany all the headline acts this year.

And so there you have it, and it will remain one of my claim to fame moments until Liam needs a new parka or Noel wants a bit more cash to buy the new City kit and they reform of course

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Anyway, they were so thrilled to be mentioned, that they wanted me to write a graduate profile for use in their marketing material.

Obviously I was happy to do this, as there's nothing like a bit of recognition along with a slightly fawning email to puff up one's ego enough to spend a few minutes composing some nice reminiscences around the course I studied, the location and general stuff about university life.

I did feel a tad fraudulent though, as the degree I studied is no longer offered at Salford, and I wasn't the most academically committed of students - although I certainly more than made up for that with my approach to the social side of university life .

Although maybe they want to illustrate that having 3 years of fun and ending up with a Desmond* isn't any kind of barrier to future success, of which I am living proof...

*To the uninitiated, a Desmond is a 2:2 - Desmond Tutu - geddit?

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What I'm really enjoying:

Lungs - Florence and the Machine
Hands - Little Boots
We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings

What I'm not sure about:

Two Suns - Bat for Lashes

The one I was advised not to get was Little Boots, which I think is great, and the nay-sayers have come round to my way of thinking now .  Florence and the Machine is the really stand out album though - with some slightly scary lyrics - but hey a kiss with a fist is better than none

Its a shame that out of these performers only the Ting Tings are playing V this year - as after a one year absence, we'll be at Weston again for the weekend of the 22nd.  Although this year I'm determined not to get stuck in the car park exit queue for 3 hours on Monday morning . 

(Who am I kidding? - its as much a part of festival going as rain, overpriced beer, and insufficient toilet facilities.)

Looking forward to James, Human League, the Killers, Elbow, Natalie Imbruglia and a whole host of others who are probably too embarassing to mention - like Will Young, The Specials, Keane and Snow Patrol . 

I won't be going to see the Saturdays though as they could never match up to Girls Aloud 

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So would I recommend the location? - absolutely - the town is located on the banks of a river that joins a big freshwater lake - actually the second biggest in Turkey - to the sea.  Almost everything worth doing in the area involves boats and along the river there are many of them - some just doing the 30 min trip to the beach, and others offering more extensive and complex itineraries.

The Dalyan town mascot/symbol is the turtle - mainly because there are turtles living both in the fresh water and in the sea.  The beach is actually called turtle beach because loggerhead turtles lay their eggs there, and as a consequence there are restrictions around where you can sunbath and also the times you can access the beach.  The town has realised that this unique place is a real attraction for visitors, so has resisted pressure to build hotels and other accomodation in the area, which will hopefully allow the turtles to survive.

Whilst sitting next to the river eating dinner, we saw two big river turtles and then later in the week, saw a loggerhead turtle that lives in the salt water lagoon next to the beach - this one is quite tame - allegedly it was injured as a youngster and so hasn't migrated, especially as the local boats feed it crabs and use it as a bit of an attraction.

The hotel we stayed in - the Alla Turca - was fab.  The rooms were great - with aircon - the pool was great, staff were great, food was good.  We even had the cricket on the telly at  the pool bar, so could sit in the glorious sunshine drinking beer whilst Ricky Ponting got increasingly grumpier as the Aussies took a spanking.  I'm now hoping for continuous rain for the remainder of the summer - I've had my sun fix now so I don't care

We took a boat tour of Dalyan on Wednesday that started at the town, stopped off near the tombs that are carved into the cliffs for photos, went to the beach (via the turtle) for an hour and a half, went back up river for lunch.  After that the trip went on to the mud baths for a 10 year rejuvenation treatment (everyone looks like a kid when covered in grey mud) and then up for a swim in the lake.  Finally we returned back down the river to the ancient ruins of Kaunos - which is a Roman settlement on the river banks opposite Dalyan, where we were free to wander around and into the Roman baths, climb up the 4000 seater ampitheatre and generally explore the ruins before finally returning to the town.  A really good day long diversion was had for the princely sum of 20 TL - so about 8 quid each (including lunch).

So overall would I recommend it?  Yes indeed, although its not a typical tourist destination with noisy bars and discos, so not the place to go if that's what you want.  Its a friendly place with plenty to see and do if you feel the need to venture away from the pool or the beach.  After talking about my experience, one of my colleagues has booked an identical trip in September.  Hope it doesn't all go downhill now...

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Apparently someone with my surname has died in Nigeria without any relatives leaving a balance of $32m in their bank account.

In order to save this money from falling into the greedy pockets of some politicians I have been invited to act as next of kin and claim the money, and as a result I would benefit to the tune of 20%, whilst the upright and legitimate bankers line their own greedy pockets with the rest

I must say that the standard of scamming letter has improved - the text is now in an almost official looking pdf, and also the letter has been spell checked, but there are all the signs of just another phishing scam...no address, no contact details other than a gmail email address, no logo, and an implausible story to trap the gullible and greedy

I also Googled the alleged name of the bank - obviously it doesn't exist - but all the search results were from anti-scam websites with examples of my letter (with different surnames for the dead relative), and some replies that had been sent back to Ade Daniel - the source of my letter.  I particularly like the reply from Mr Rush who, as an Australian, has a particularly brutal turn of phrase in his signoff:

http://antifraudintl.org/showthread.php?t=21909 

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We deliberately chose somewhere less busy to go to, and settled on Dalyan after it was recommended by both family and a few travel guide type websites.  It has both a beach with turtles and archeology to satisfy both 'kids' requirements, plus the hotel we are staying in has a pool and all the necessary amenities - although the slight downside is that the hotel is slightly out of town - about a 10-15 minute walk apparently (or 2 mins by hotel shuttle ).  I've used the dreaded inverted commas around 'kids' (that's twice now ) because they are more young-adults-who-share-our-fridge than anything else, and have a firm opinion about everything - one of which is that holidays must both have water and historical sites to visit, otherwise its not a proper holiday...

Personally I'm a bit concerned about going to Turkey though, since my last couple of visits (albeit with work - never as leisure) have been somewhat coloured by negative experiences - namely always losing my luggage whenever I have been there, and two horrendous cases of food poisoning .  The last time I went, my luggage made it to Istanbul an hour before I was due to board a plane home - so I had enough time to get my suitcase and check it in for the return - which it didn't make, but at least I had a change of clothes to get home in.  I also ended up losing about a stone in weight over the subsequent 2 weeks in a way that I can only describe as very unpleasant for both me and anyone in the nearby vicinity...

To prepare myself for the coming trip, I've been dieting for the last couple of weeks so that my belly doesn't embarass me too much when lounging at the pool/beach etc - or at least it won't for the first few days anyway  - and so far I've lost about 7lbs if the bathroom scales are to be trusted.  A combination of less booze, low fat meals, no bread and plenty of walking, as well as the occasional run seems to have done the trick - which means that I'll be a cheap holiday date next week, and will, with any luck, undo all my good work before we get back.

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Not for any bad reasons mind you, she's 18 now and will be heading to university after the summer. This week she's gone off on holiday to Cyprus with 5 of her mates - which is giving the rest of us a trial run of what life will be like without her in the house.

I'm glad that she's getting a bit more independent and I think having to rely on her own skills will be good for her - having a bar job in the local social club has also helped to give her a bit of financial independence too.

I think it will help Georgia too - she gets promoted to the rank of Eldest Child in the House, plus she won't have Emily's shadow falling over her at school - its never easy to have to compete with your sibling's achievements and establish your own identity when they are still about.

Things we still need to work out are - what job does Georgia get as part of her monthly allowance - currently Em cleans the bathroom once a week, and how many times a week will we have macaroni cheese - its Georgia's favourite dish that Emily absolutely hates, so we rarely have it, but I'm guessing we'll be making up for lost time fairly soon .

Other issues like making the tea won't be resolved, mainly because neither of them are very forthcoming in the brew making department, so it'll be left to Jane and I as usual...Although as a parent, having a lack of putting the kettle on as the biggest complaint you can make about your kids is not such a bad thing at all

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The event was hailed as Oasis' homecoming gig when the tickets went on sale, so I was pretty keen to go...and then another couple of dates were added which kind of took the exclusivity of the event away.  Anyhow, the weather on Saturday morning was terrible, so I was expecting the venue to be pretty bad - but as luck would have it, the rain stopped about 2:30 and by the time we arrived at the park at about 4:15, most of the water seemed to have drained away and it was mostly ok under foot - no major swamps and quagmires to speak of.

Now, anyone who saw the coverage of the farce of the Thursday night performance would know that the generators broke down, and Oasis finished the set about 40 minutes after their license, and as a consequence were probably in for a fine, as well as the financial hardship of promising the fans that they would get their money back - which we subsequently have been told isn't now going to happen...

The knock on effect of the events of Thursday seemed to be that every band on the lineup were massively rushing to get their sets finished - like they were trying to claw back the time from the previous performance - Oasis themselves were on stage early and finished early too.  Also (probably due to technical difficulties) the screens at the sides of the stage were stuck on the ground, meaning that you couldn't actually see what was on them unless you were close enough to see the stage...and so making them completely pointless.

Toilet facilities were pretty useless, as you'd expect for any outdoor festival type event - it always puzzles me why organisers can't ever predict that selling beer at an event means that a lot of people will need a wee .  Providing enough toilets for about 200 people is never going to prevent everyone else from using ad-hoc facilities instead (like fences, the sides of catering vans, behind the wheely bins etc) just because they can't wait the required 40 mins.  I have to say this is definitely one area where being a bloke has a major advantage .  I've been to  a fair few festivals, so I wasn't expecting much, and I wasn't disappointed.

Anyway, the bands were good, but not epic, and seemed to be trying to wrap up the whole thing as soon as they could, which meant that at the end the 70,000 people in the park could leave and try and get on one of the 10 buses waiting outside.  Yup that's right, 10!  Whoever organised the transport for the gig needs a kick up the whatsit

For some bizarre reason the nearest tram station was closed (for safety apparently) and the promised loads of buses to shuttle people to Manchester city centre seemed the best option, except that whoever was doing the planning must have pressed the wrong buttons on their calculator - for 70,000 people, 10 buses holding about 70 people each isn't going to be enough.  And having only 4 marshalls to try and regulate the boarding of these buses was also pointless, and actually loads of people just climbed in through the emergency exits on the buses, which meant that joining the queue was also a complete waste of time.

The upshot was that we walked from Heaton Park - which wasn't too bad given it was dry and mostly downhill, and got a lift from Jane's Dad who very kindly got out of bed and met us at Agecroft and saved us the last 4 miles of the journey back, meaning we were back home by 12:30.  I doubt anyone waiting for the bus would have had as much luck. 

Hopefully all the bands will be better when they play V in the summer.

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After much consideration I decided that I'd make a list of all the cars I've ever owned in historical order, with a few details and colours, more as an exercise in testing my memory as anything else . 

1) Mini Clubman 1000 - L reg, in that orange colour that BL did so well - cost £100.
2) Mazda 323, 1300 - S reg - given to me by my sister, I painted it black and orange stripes with hammerite.
3) Saab 99, 2000 - P reg, blue - lasted 3 months before the floor fell out.  Cashed in the tax for more than I paid for the car
4) Triumph Toledo 2 door - N reg, red - was stolen once, but found round the corner the following day undamaged
5) Saab 99, 2000 - S reg, red - exploded core plugs after Jane drove it with no water - used for spares for:
6) Saab 99 turbo, 2000 - T reg, red - immense fun - took cylinder head from car 5) after overboost japes broke it
7) VW Golf 1600 - D reg, blue - solid, reliable, back doors leaked, dull
8) Saab 9000 turbo - Y reg, gold - enormous car that really shifted - massive mileage but became too expensive to fix
9) Peugeot 205 1800d - H reg (new H), blue - always suspected this was a 'cut & shut' but cheap to run, back door leaked
10) Fiat Coupe Turbo 2000 - N reg, green - in many ways both the best and worst car I've ever owned...
11) Rover 416 1600 - M reg, green - bought for us by my father in law to replace 9).  Never wanted it. Way way duller than the Golf. 12) Mini Cooper 1600 - 51 reg, black & white - first ever new car - still got it and still great
13) Audi A4 Cabriolet 3000 - 05 reg, red - proper cruise monster, great to drive, fabulous stereo & quick enough too, still got it.

So, what does all this information tell me?

All blue cars let rain in, so never sit in the back or you'll have a wet arse. I like turbos.  A lot.    Honestly if you've never driven one, have a go - you'll grin like a loon everytime you drop a couple of gears and give it the loud pedal.  Out of all of them, the Fiat was the most outrageous one I owned. Stooopidly fast (0-60 in just over 6 secs) and a chassis to match.

Everyone should own at least one Mini in their lifetime.

I have bought more red cars than anything else.  Not exactly sure why, but generally red cars have been good to me..  Taken in conjunction with the blue car theory, maybe this is why my kids support Man Utd and not Chelsea?

Saabs are hugely expensive to fix - often better to cut your losses and send it to the heap.  An alternative strategy is to buy two - one as a donor car to keep the other going - cars 5&6).  Prices of spares are so high that I sold number 8) as a non-runner with no tax or MOT for £400.

All green cars are trouble.  The Rover was trouble I never wanted - I was given it and then asked for the money.  Dodgy electricals, awful drive.  The Fiat was unbelievable trouble, and expensive trouble at that, made worse by unbelievably useless dealers who gave me nothing but trouble (and bills).

Never buy an Italian car.  Ok, buy one once to find out why everyone says never buy one, and then never buy another one. My Fiat was gorgeous to look at, fabulous to drive, but it spent more time in the garage than on the road. I think I spent as much on repairs in the 3 years I owned it  as I spent on buying it...never again.

And finally - never buy a green Italian car.  You're just asking for trouble

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..at least I can have a salad

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(Just waiting for tomatoes, carrots and peppers to show themselves.)

The sun's out so I'll drive home from work with the roof down on the car in a bit.

And its my birthday too.

Its all good.

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After resembling a builders yard for several months whilst our still-not-quite-finished extension was nearly-but-not-quite being finished, our small plot of garden has started looking up - mainly because all the piles of rubble, ladders, scaffold, boards and general paraphenalia that were strewn across it have been removed, and a nice new green and mostly weed free lawn has been laid.

In order to make the rest of the garden match up, I've spent a good few hours over the bank holiday weekend taking the garden in hand.   Now I'm not the world's most patient or competent gardener, but I can use secateurs and can dig out weeds with the best of them, so I embarked on a program of cutting back the ivy that pretends to be a hedge, removing all the weeds and sundry from the raised beds and generally filling the green waste wheely bin we have from the council.

On top of that, I also harvested our second crop of home produced compost.  As its been pretty difficult getting across the garden whilst the building has been going on (seemingly without end ) we've not been adding to the compost since last summer, and so the bin has had a chance to work its magic and has produced a rather decent looking pile of non-smelly, well rotted and chock full of worms compost that I have dug into the existing soil.

Now as I am definitely in the category of occasional gardener - you'll notice I don't list it as one of my interests, I decided that low maintenance gardening is the way of the future, and after watching Gardener's World on Friday for some inspiration (I know, sad but true ), I hit B&Q with a vengence on Saturday. I bought some weed prevention membrane to cover up my newly tilled soil, some chipped bark to weigh down the membrane, and to try and stop the cats crapping there, and also cover it up with something vaguely more appealing, plus some plants, seeds, potting compost and a growbag.  And a hose.

So now the garden is tidy, free of obvious weeds, and has carrots, tomatoes, mixed lettuce, sunflowers sown with the idea that it'll serve not only as a resonable place to sit with the odd summer beer, but also to provide the occasional vegetable too, without much more effort needed than pointing the hose at it on occasion...and judging by the queue to get into B&Q car park on Monday morning it wasn't just me who had decided that gardening is the new cool thing to do.

Or maybe its just me trying to justify being an old fart

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Having grown up during the Thatcher years, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I have regularly voted labour all my adult life, so in some respects I realise that I must bear some responsibility for the current lot . 

That said however, the constant banging the drum over terrorist threats being used to both increase Government sponsored snooping and as a way of trying to hide bad news has really niggled me.

Just yesterday, when we had the rather unpleasant spectacle of another cabinet minister being caught (at least morally if not legally) with his nose in the trough of MP's expenses, and the news that actually inflation is increasing in real terms as the general members of the public understand it, we had another suspected dodgy expenses claimant telling us that we were facing a severe terrorist threat.  And the best way of dealing with it?  Another Government foray into the details of our private lives this coming from the lot who want to keep their un-audited and self certified expenses claims secret - now they want to have access to all your contacts from twitter, facebook etc etc.

Time and again we hear that the innocent shouldn't have anything to hide - well actually that's not the point - I didn't give you permission to log all my calls, trace all my contacts, monitor my movements, review all my banking transactions - specially not give that the reasons for the whole war against terrorism in Iraq has subsequently been proven to be a complete fabrication.

Suspicious timing?  Burying bad news in another pseudo plot?  Come on Labour, you'll have to do better than to try and work that one over on us again.

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OK, so Paddington used to eat marmalade sarnies, but its only right that his tastes would evolve to encompass the wondrousness of marmite!

If you haven't seen the ad - its here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y3qgi3Og8&NR=1

As you can probably guess I'm firmly in the "Love It" camp

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(earlier post: http://col-zone.blog.co.uk/2008/10/23/big-house-project-4918328/)

All the while we've been paying our builder as we went, but as we got close to the end, we said we'd pay the last part (~10% of the total) as soon as he finished. 

The downside is that he seems to have taken this as a sign that he no longer needs to finish the job, and instead of being on site most of the time, has barely been seen.  Which wouldn't be so bad, if there weren't some big jobs left to complete.  Like the roof - which has plastic sheeting over sections instead of slates, and the doors - which we have the glass for, but not the frames or doors themselves.  Each time we ask him to give us a finish date he says "next week" - which would be pretty hard to believe even if he did actually show up.

I've discussed this with a few of my mates/family and all are of the opinion that its always very tricky to get a builder to complete anything whatsoever.  One of my friends paid a premium to a builder so that he was exclusively on her job from start to finish...and he kept swanning off to other sites without any sign of embarassment.

The one slight upside of the whole thing is that our builder lives on our street, as does our architect.  the downside is that we've heard that one of our other neighbours is no longer speaking to the builder as he still hasn't finished a job he started for them before Christmas too.

Ho hum.

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What can I say? Other than it was the best gig I've seen this year by quite a long way

Athlete were supporting, so no complaints there, although we didn't arrive until 8:00 and so missed a big part of their set.  Sorry.
Christmas shopping traffic and office parties being the main culprits for our late arrival, along with Jane's bad back.
 
Then, just as we were queuing up for a beer, James kicked off their set at a surprisingly early 8:45 - with Tim Booth singing from the disabled viewing platform in the middle of the crowd.

Thereafter followed two-and-a-quarter hours of pure musical joy, interspersed with large chunks of massed-crowd-karaoke.  The set list was a real mix from way back until right now, including a song that was so new, the band all had cheat sheets for it , as well as all the old faves - yes they did play "Sit Down".

F***ing awesome night.

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Christmas proper will start this Friday though, as Jane and I are going to see James at Manchester Central (or GMEX as it used to be called) in the evening and staying over in town afterwards. Ironic that we had tickets for the James farewell concert at the MEN a few years ago, at a similar time of year - Jane went, but I missed it due to a last minute work trip to somewhere-a-long-way-away...it was very good apparently .

On Saturday afternoon, we're off to Banbury, for the now traditional pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with various family members who we won't see on the actual day.  The only downside - apart from the doubling of the Christmas turkey intake of course - is that presents have to be bought and wrapped ahead of the standard deadline, so a big thanks to Amazon for facilitating that

A quick dash back up the M40/M6 on Monday will see out my last day at work this year, followed by a few sociable beers in Manchester with a couple of mates - it seems appropriate to plan a lie in on the first official day off of the holidays.

Christmas is going to be at home again this year - we've been invited to Jane's brother's, but we've decided to go there on Boxing Day instead - even though the kids are big, they still like pressies in the morning and chocolate money for breakfast.  I must admit to being partial to a buck's fizz breakfast, so having to organise whose turn it is to drive would definitely not be a discussion in keeping with 'goodwill to all men' .

Emily is 18 this year, so we've organised a family party for her birthday - which happily co-incides with New Year's Eve - that seems to happen every year too...her grandad has bought her a rocket as a present, which should impress the neighbours, specially given that the thirty pound one he was initially offered in the shop was rejected on the basis of being not big enough.  Just how much of a bang do you get for fifty quid? 

On second thoughts, its probably best not to answer that

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Not so bizzarre or even freaky you might think, lots of people have accidents, particularly in the winter months, but this was different owing to the fact that no one was actually driving either car involved.

Yesterday, just after lunch, Jane and I went to visit Joanne and Keith in Ramsbottom - Joanne just had a knee replacement opearation last week, so is not hugely mobile and still suffering the after effects of major surgery.   Ramsbottom is a market town just north of Bury, and is a hilly, rural place, and at this time of year is also cold and icy.  It also has a schoolboy comedy name, but that's beside the point

So, we arrive at about 1:15, and park the car in a little cul-de-sac opposite as the path outside Joanne and Keith's has snow/ice on it and looks a bit treacherous.  The road we parked on happens to be a shady road which is also quite steeply uphill, get the flowers out of the car boot, lock the car and then go in for a chat and a cup of coffee.

About 5 minutes after we arrive, I hear next door's car alarm going off - and being a nosy person, I stand up to see what's happened.  Its at this point I notice that our car is no longer parked where it was, and is now blocking the road having slid backwards down the hill, coming to rest in the side of Joanne and Keith's neighbours car . 

Its at this point that you start to wonder what went wrong - did I put the handbrake on?   I ran out to the road, unlocked the car, and found that the handbrake was still securely on, and thinking back after we'd arrived, we got stuff out of the boot, so would have noticed if the car was staring to roll, owing to the fact that it would have flattened us first. 

Next door were fairly stoic about the whole thing - apparently its not the first time this kind of accident has happened, and thinking about it, if their car hadn't been parked where it was, there's a good chance our car would have ended up in their living room.

Our car doesn't seem to be very badly damaged, the rear bumper is a bit out of shape, and the light cluster has been damaged (but the lights still all work), however the Rav 4 we connected with doesn't look particlarly well with an Audi shaped dent in the drivers door.

In another ironic twist, it also turns out that one of the next door neighbours is a teacher at Emily and Georgia's school.  Hopefully their grades won't suffer too much...

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7735439.stm

Typical that Welsh Water have condemmed this - especially given that Wales is one of the worst countries in the world for access to good canoeing rivers...(see http://www.riversaccess.org/ for details)

You've got to love the somersault at the end

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Apparently there's a Commons Select Committee that has been looking into the energy market in terms of dodgy dealings in switching suppliers and also the lack of competition that the current commercial arrangements bring to the market.  The view expressed was that OFGEM was not speedy enough in reacting to some cases of mis-representation by energy supply companies and also that the market wasn't working - as evidenced by the view that gas and electricity prices are linked to the price of oil when it goes up, but apparently not when it goes down.

I'm not going off on one (again) about that - but lets just recognise that the price of oil is now around $56 a barrel and has been below half its peak value for the last month...

Anyway, before I stray too far, the point of this post was that the other night, I answered the door to a couple of youths purporting to represent one of the electricity companies.  One of them had a list with my name on it, and after confirming my name and that I currently paid my bills by direct debit, launched into an immediate patter about how he could save me £120 a year on my gas and electricity bill.

He also mentioned that 'Jane' from Number 24 had signed up and was going to take advantage of this major saving opportunity, which apparently was all the evidence I needed that this was the deal of the century, because everyone knows just how astute 'Jane' is..    He then told me that all I had to do was read the meter in about six weeks and that would be it, so could I just sign on his sheet...which was when my internal scepticism alarm went off.

I was a bit suspicious of this whole doorstepping sales approach - I personally don't feel happy when someone tries to give me the hard sell  - and its rare that anyone will talk me into a decision without letting me see any evidence to back up their claims.  So I refused and the aforementioned youths wandered off to pick on someone else on our street.

It was only afterwards that I thought about what I was being sold - basically they knew nothing of my circumstances, which tarriff I was on, did I have insulation & double glazing, how much I paid per month, what the state of my boiler was, whether I primarily used gas or electricity for heating etc... so the only thing he could have been referring to when talking about my potential savings was the fact that I paid by direct debit.  Which leads me to the conclusion that all he was selling to me was a £120 discount per year for paying using this method.  There was no comparison of tariffs, no talk of usage, only that I would save simply because I didn't pay cash or cheque.  The salesperson on my door step wasn't telling me any lies, but was extremely careful only to promise a £120 discount on my bill, not a reduction in what I was currently paying to my existing supplier. 

This is exactly the kind of mis-representation that was being talked about on Radio 5, and the reason it stuck with me is that this issue was supposed to have been addressed by the industry, and yet it seems to me that this mis-selling is still going on.

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Jamie and John had bought 6 tickets to see Scouting for Girls at Wolverhampton Civic hall on Saturday night, so at lunchtime we closed the door on our dust fulled house with its still-not-finished extension and drove down to Coventry to J&J's.

After a restorative cup of tea, followed by a livening beer, we walked to the station, and got the train to Wolverhampton at 4:45.  This is the first time I'd ever been out in the city, having previously only used Wolverhapton as a cut through between the M6 and the M5 on the occasions when there is midlands motorway gridlock - anyway I digress (as usual ). 

When we got off the train it became fairly obvious that the Wolves had been playing at home, which meant finding somewhere to get food was slightly tricky as most venues that sold both food and drinks were busy and also were manned with door staff.  Anyway, after asking a policemen, we found our way to a bar/restaurant that managed to meet our needs for pre-concert food and drinks.

As it was Georgia's first gig, it was decided to let her get the full money's worth from the tickets and so we wandered over to the Civic Hall at about 7:45 - as luck would have it this was a good move as it was now raining, but the door queues were very short, making it easy to get in out of the rain.  On the under card was some bloke with a guitar (sorry whoever you are if you read this - I didn't catch your name amongst your rather bizarre waffling intro) and a band called The Days.  Both were competent performers and did the required job of warming up the gradually filling hall. 

In addition a couple of pints of cider also did the required job of warming up yours truly.  Georgia and Emily decided to leave us old fuddie duddies and go further forward towards the stage as SFG came on.  As you'd expect from a band with a large teen following, there was lots of good humoured shouting and singing along - mainly by the accompanying  mums, which made the whole thing very enjoyable, although my impression was that the band have written a lot of their songs to a plan with the same theme...they do all sound pretty similar.  Anyway all good fun. 

That is until Georgia found herself feeling a bit hot and sicky because of the crowd and heat, so had to go out for a cool down - Jane took her out so they missed one of the songs, but managed to get back in right at the front next to the stage.  Cuh!   True to form Jane also got told off by security for climbing on the speakers for a better view .  Unfortunately we had to leave the hall at 10:35 to make the last train back, so missed the encore, but had that was tempered by the happy experience of meeting The Days who had decided to meet and greet everyone leaving in the foyer - nice touch lads - and it must have worked cos I still remember who you are

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It was really nice to get away for a bit of a wind down.  I've been travelling rather more than I like with work recently - I've had 4 trips in the last 8 weeks - 3 to the US and one to Hungary - so it made sense to spend the half term week away to just chill for a bit. 

We rented a cottage that slept 6 (2 doubles and one twin) and we went away with Nancy and Tony.  The cottage was really lovely - about 265 years old, but it had been decorated and fitted out immaculately.  I'd attach some photo's only Emily forgot to pack the camera charger, and so we didn't take any .   In lieu of our own photos, here's the online brochure: http://yorkshirecoast.sykescottages.co.uk/cottages/2001.php

Anyway, there were two bathrooms, 4 loos, a really lovely sitting room plus a fab kitchen/dining room.  Also it gave us the chance to road test our new kitchen as the sink and cupboards were identical to the ones we are currently having fitted.

The village of Thornton Le Dale was lovely - a small river runs through the village, plus it has all the amenities you'd expect - 3 pubs, two bakeries, a general store, two tea rooms and a chocolate shop .  It was also only 2 miles to Pickering, which has more of the same, but on a bigger scale, so we walked there a couple of days too - so we could work off some of the calories gained by lazing about.

We had a couple of trips out to Scarboroough (not all that impressed), Whitby (really fab with fantastic fish and chips), Eden Camp (WW2 Prisoner of war facility, now a museum) as well as the aforementioned trips to Pickering.  the weather was cold but mostly dry - apart from one snow shower and a little overnight rain.  Whilst we were in Whitby, we encountered a rather higher than usual proportion of Goths - our arrival just happened to co-incide with Goth Week, with various music entertainments being available for those who like to wear black.  Why would Whitby be associated with Goths?  I puzzled over this until in the tourist information shop I found out that Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in Whitby.  Now it all made sense .

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Rather bizarrely we've engaged people only from our street to plan and build an extension, so it feels more like a co-operative effort than a typical project.  Its been mostly painless, although its taken a bit longer than we originally planned, and I've learned a few things about the workings and mechanisms for doing big scale building works, mainly cos I went through the process of contacting the council building inspectors after the planning permissions had been granted.

One of the reasons for the slight delay was that when Frank - our builder - was checking out the existing structure, he noticed some big cracks in some walls.  Now a few years ago, we had also noticed these cracks and had our insurance company investigate them, but were told they were caused by the house settling.  This time, however, our current - and different - insurance company determined that the cracks were in fact caused by subsidence, but also decided that because we'd already notified the previous insurance company, that it would be their responsibility to stump up the cash. 

Clearly this wasn't exactly good news for us or the previous insurers, and all in all meant we had about a 4 week delay in the big build.  Fortunately though, it has all been agreed and they also engaged Frank to carry our the remedial work - since he was already working on the house and so was going to be way less cost and fuss for him to underpin the two walls that were slowly sinking into the ground. 

Right now we're in the last couple of weeks of the build and now have a new kitchen (in boxes) and are just waiting for the cooker.  Also - rather luckily - we're going away next week which should mean we'll avoid some of the dust and mess as walls are being taken down and plastering happens and the water goes off etc.  In addition to a new kitchen we also gain a utility room, and a wet room, both of which will be accessed from the back room.  This has the effect of making the back room a little like a separate guest suite, so we'll also be upgrading the sofa bed to one that is bigger and more comfortabler than the existing one.

The best bit about the new kitchen is going to be a rather extravagent new cooker - so extravagent in fact that it doubled the price of the kitchen :

Which will certainly make cooking Christmas dinner easier.

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Any change that OFGEN will step in and ask why our gas and electricity prices haven't followed these commodities on their downward spiral? 

The generating companies made such a big deal about global markets and prices linked to oil costs when putting prices up- well in that case isn't it about time we saw some reductions?

Seems the Government can only deal with one issue at a time...and clearly bailing out banks is far more important that calling a halt to energy companies highway robbery

Maybe now Gordon's found an appetite for nationalising things, he could do the same to the power companies?  I'm not holding my breath...

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Not a peep out of the petrol companies or our energy suppliers though.

Nor has there been any comment from our so-called energy regulator.

Maybe they think with all the noise about HBOS, AIG and XL going to the wall that we won't notice?

Why am I not surprised?

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So, apart from him being the ex-keyboard player in D-Ream, and having to leave labs at uni in the afternoon and trundle down Oxford Road in order to support Take That at GMEX, there was one thing in the article that caught my eye, and showed Prof Cox to be the kind of bloke you could go for a few beers and engage in good banter with...this being his thoroughly scientific riposte to the above-mentioned oblivion predictors.

"Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat"

Good call Brian. Looks like Physics is cool again.

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