Persistent

Bravery

I never really had an opinion of Jade Goody, apart from the one that I have of most ridiculous wanabe's who decide to act themselves on reality TV.
I wasn't interested in her when she was on Big Brother, I didn't care about the headlines and the rumours but I did admire the way that she made money from the attention that she had. She did that in a way that most other BB hopefuls who are two weeks as a z list celeb before falling of the flatbed wagon manage.
She did it well and respect to her for that, she knew the game and the goal.
And now as she nears the end of her very young life she has made a concious decision to carry on playing the media game for the sake of her children. Jade Goody knows that the opportunity that she has been given will not be passed on to her kids and that before she goes she has to do everything that she can to assure their future. Like some old fashioned warrior Jade has decided to look the horde in the eye and knowing that she will not survive just face them down to the end.
Some people wonder if she knows what she is doing, she will be extremly sick, feel awful, she will at times look terrible and more than anything desire peace or solitude for her last days but instead she has decided to take the complete opposite direction and add the kind of harrasment and invasion of privacy that most people, celebritys included do not desire even when they are well.
It makes no difference to her life, but I have changed my mind about Jade, I like her. But I won't watch her die in a Big Brother style media frenzy. Everyone else can tune in if they want, but I am just going to ignore that and let her go. She will never know that I changed my mind about her and it wouldn't make any difference to her if she did but it makes a difference to me and I really hope she squeezes every penny she can.

While I was thinking about Jade I noticed a link on Google news to an article written by John Suchet

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/4641709/John-Suchet-My-Bonnie-is-gone-its-as-if-she-has-died.html

I started to read and just couldn't stop. I don't want to say anything about this article, except that it moved me to tears, and that really doesn't happen very often.

Meanwhile my desktop background is a picture of Emily taken just a few months ago, she is bright and happy and reaching for stars as they fall from my hand. She is in hospital again facing more operations and further long term illness and she is she brave, but is so young she doesn't realise it. She doesn't want the nurse to do tests and pants to supress her fear because she knows that tests must be done. She looks the other way as needles go in with a kind of denial "If I don't see it, perhaps it isn't happening" and there is nothing that anyone can do except say "be brave" and she is.
I can't write any more of this, its a mental image that i just can't do.
Here is a picture that makes things better.

Absence of life

We often see dolphins and porpoise offshore but it is very rare for one to be washed up. 

It was too late to save this one poor thing. Kieran was quite upset.

My name is Ian and I am a tek head

As I have written in the past I have at times played around with new operating systems to see how they compare to windows.
On the whole I have been pretty happy with how a free OS works, but I have always had to go back to windows at some point for some 'thing' that I needed to do.
But not anymore....
For a week now I have been playing with Ubuntu on one of the machines upstairs, then two, now two and a laptop. It seems that this is the one that I have been looking for. Its free, it works like windows, it is so easy to use.
At last after all these years I begin to understand Linux.
Is this what tekky love feels like?
:-)

:-)

What a great day yesterday was, I think that the stress of Xmas has at last lifted.

It started with me getting my tools out, and those of you who know me do know how much I enjoy getting those out.

I had the wheel straight off Mams broken car (see last blog) and found out that it needs a new shock absorber. Norhing fatal, and while a mild expense not as bad as it could have been.

Then while I was dirty I went to Jasons to nurse his poor sick beetle back into life. This is a duty as the beetle is only a year younger than me, and I know that I feel like I need a hand to get going sometimes. So we got it succesfully " Putt putt putting" and Jason has promised to write a song about it at a later date.

The I got to use the electric screwdriver and a hammer to put a bookcase up, this day just gets better and better.

Later on we went to Andys Soul Doubt party. Andy is the nice man who is the singer in Soul Doubt and on the occasion of his birthday he likes to squash the band into a tiny country pub and have fun. As Jason had to go and play the drums and as I don't have a working car we jumped in with him. This now gave me the opportunity to imbibe Guinness as I wasn't driving. Ohhhh Joy, how can all of these things be happening, in one day too.

The evening was great, fun music, very relaxed. I have a visual representation of the evening measured in Rebecca's gin intake below. (Not neccesarily in order)

 Rebecca full composure, very little Gin Intake.

Some Gin, but not too much.

Nearly there

Then, when full with Gin, it's off to the microphone and a very impressive warble.

What a great day and night. Just what I needed.

Final thing was half way through the night everyone decided they needed a curry. So the very honest curry house menu was opened. Anyone fancy a plain curry?

Belts & Braces and Bad Luck

You just can't cover yourself enough these days. A few days before Xmas the fan belt went on Rebecca's car while we were on one of the busiest and nastiest roundabouts on the Metro Centre during a xmas rush. Power steering stopped working, as did the hydraulics on the brakes and everything became a fight.

We got it into a safe space and called the recovery which comes with Rebecca's insurance. Meanwhile we are left with my little £700 car, Rebecca is in the busiest part of Christmas for deliveries and I have to get to work.

I call my mum and ask if we can borrow her old Skoda Felicia. Mams car never gets used unless either me or my sister have a car emergency. My sister had it last and it has been sitting on mums drive waiting for the next emergency. They bring it straight away and we have a car to get home in while recovery put Rebeccas on a truck to drop it off later.

Sadly we can't get Rebecca car fixed until the 5th January as the garages are closed or short staffed or anything else.

The one car borrowed and one car ours gets us through until the end of December when my car is due an MOT & tax, but asgain we can't get it done until 5th January. Then mams old Skoda decides to have a collapse on the front suspension which involves my poor dad and mum having to drive about 80 miles just so that they can call their rescue to the car and cold miserable son which is sitting by the side of the A1.

It is gettingthat the residents of Argyle Terrace know that we are back when the AA drop us off on a big truck.

So now I have three cars outside that I can't drive, and I cant get any of them fixed until Monday.

You couldn't make it up could you.

Anyone got a spare car ?

Scammers Scammers Scammers

Here are the letters from one scammer in Africa whio tried to get Rebecca to ship stuff out to him.
These are up for web search reference so anyone who gets contacted by this idiot can tell him to get lost.

Hi there,
 Am interested in ordering some gift hampers and i would like you to get back to me here with the contents and pricing of those that you do carry and let me know if you do take a surcharge when accepting either master cards or visa.

Regards
Joe Curran

(Rebbeca sent back a quote)

Rebecca deʼWessington,
            Thanks for getting back to me here and am interested in ordering 60 units of the The Priory Hamper
Quality Wicker Hamper (with straps) containing

One Bottle of Lindisfarne Mead 35cl Alc 14.5% vol A
One Bottle of Lindisfarne Mulled Wine 70cl Alc 14.5% vol
One Box of Lindisfarne Mint Fudge 170g
One Heckley Farm House, The Proof of The Pudding, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Medium
One Heatherslaw Northumbrian Fruit Cake 642g

Please get back to me here with the total pricing and let me know how soon you can get them for me soon after am through with full payments.I will be waiting to hear from you soon,

Regards
Joe Curran

(another email back to him)
Notice that now his name changes on the ship to address and the worldwide freight company has a gmail address...how boring. Of course before long we would have the "Oh my mastercard is full, I must use Western Union" rubbish.
Like anyone in business is ever going to be stupid enough to use Western Union.+


Dear ,
    Thanks for your patience. The Units I am purchasing is
for my orphanage homes in

Accra

Ghana

and i will like you to
contact a shipping company with the total weight of the Units
  and your Address and ask them for the shipping cost.The  email
for the shipping company  is Laylacfreight@gmail.com
 
Email them and ask them for the shipping cost to  the
orphanage homes in Accra Ghana.Country code 00233.Ask when they can pickup,what needs to be done before they pick up and their Method of
Payment.I was on a flight as at the time I contacted you and as
at that moment,I was thinking I could come get that Units
picked.Unfortunately I will be staying a little longer than
expected..Make sure to email them the weight and address to be
shipped from to get an accurate freight quote.Email me a total of
the freight and I will email my credit card info for payment.
Thanks and i am really looking forward to having a successful
business with you.
Regards........
Joe Curran
Let me know immediately you email them and get a price.Here is the
delivery address..
Mr.Joe Lamptey
Kanda Children  Orphanage Homes

66 Slave Street

Accra

..

Ghana

...00233.
 
May God bless you abundantly for the wonderful customer service rendered.
Thanks

The 51st State

The invasion of Iraq has been a success, the people of Iraq have embodied all that is needed of the American people, the infidel and their ways have won.

How do we know this, because a man threw a shoe at the President and ends up sueing the Iraq police. They may not want to be American, but they certainly know which of the best parts of the American culture to pick up, and compensation culture seems to be one of them.

I do wonder if the same man would have thrown a shoe at Saddam just a few years ago, and if not perhaps he should wonder at the kind of freedom that he now has that allows him to take off his shoes in public and lob them at foreign dignitaries.

I’m not saying that Bush doesn’t deserve a few well placed shoes flying in his direction, but I do think that if this particular Iraqi journalist has any concept of change he should be walking around remembering that just a little while ago with a different leader in place he would now be hanging from a piano wire and most of his family would be beside him.

No time for my hands.

I was just reading Sandy’s blog and I felt a great kinship with her frustrations.

I get huge urges to make things and see an end result. It started with the arrows then the leather armour and now the bows. I really wanted to take some me time over xmas this year and start learning how to carve wood which is something I have always wanted to do, but I don’t think free time will be available now.

I sometimes feel very silly about these urges to make and learn new things. In today’s world it seems strange to some people and perhaps even to me to have an interest in new but outdated skills.

Day to day life pulls me down into a sea of washing, ironing, feeding children and all the other family stuff, and when I get irritable and Rebecca says “What’s up with you”  it is a little difficult and embarrassing to say, I haven’t had the chance to start learning how to flint knap yet, or I want to try putting some footers on some arrows.

So I find that I end up handling a piece of flint for 2 minutes wondering how it will chip away, but not getting beyond that point of imagining, or in a ten minute space I screw a piece of wood to the work bench in the hope that just by it’s presence in the right place I can start to draw a pattern to carve later. But it always ends up that I look at the screwed down wood for weeks  as I walk past with another load of washing and another bag of rubbish for the bin.

The problem with what I want to do is that it will take many hours of concentrated effort, and like Sandy’s writing it doesn’t want half an hour here and there. The wood or stone that I want to carve, shape or give purpose to demands that while I change it I give it the worship that it is due, and I imagine Sandy’s blank page demands the same of her.

 

And so for now I can’t examine the wood to search out the secret patterns it holds, and I have to leave the flint in the back yard, coming to no harm in the winter weather as it waits for my attention, it has already waited a million years I suppose.  And again, like Sandy, if I did get a day off someone would probably have other plans for me anyway.

DAMN YOU SILVER LINING ! ? ! ? ! ? !

http://www.mcgov.co.uk/riddles/level1.html

From the makers of.....

You really can't knock the Japanese for their inventiveness.

After pushing the boundries of toilet roll technology with the hay fever hat

And the ever popular portable fresh air mask (1 plant supplys all of the fresh air a grown woman needs)

And that very useful personal rain saver, to save the water that has fallen through the air that you can't breath.

We bring you....

Drum roll.....................................

Presenting...............

The Pileus Internet Umbrella

You can check out the development website here www.pileus.net
As yet I am not sure how they get over the problem of 'daylight' and 'it not raining' but I am sure with enough time and funding.

Please. lets get these guys onto dragons den.