When promotions go wrong

It's always difficult to know what to buy my wife for Christmas, but this year she helped me by dropping hints about a 'Soap & Glory' gift set called the 'Yule Monty'.

Boots were selling it for £60 but 'money-saving expert' Martin Lewis (bless him) had very cleverly let slip on TV that Boots were going to sell it for less than half price the week before Christmas.

Unfortunately, this has spectacularly backfired as Boots are now out of stock and the discounted gift sets have been bought and re-sold on ebay at double their purchase price and more. I really think it's about time we consider outlawing the re-sale of certain goods - especially goods such as these that have been specially discounted. It just goes to show that at a time of giving and good will to all, greed remains as strong as ever.

Our National Health & Smoking

Once again, smoking is in the news and once again it's another attempt by our health gods and our NHS to rid our hospital sites of smoking - specifically ill people smoking. Of course no amount of effort, penalties or wasted signage will stop people from doing it. Most will find a spot away from CCTV cameras and others will simply sit in their cars. It's a battle no one is going to win.
Of course a proactive approach (I know it's novel) could be taken which would certainly provide an incentive for patients to stop smoking, and that's to provide an e-cigarette for the duration of their stay.

I know they work, I use one all the time and having smoked in the past - cigars and cigarettes - I've never looked back. For me it's the ideal solution. I can use it anywhere, it produces no smoke or smell, there's no harmful tar or chemicals, no litter, gives me something to do with my hands (this is why patches don't work), saves me a fortune and it delivers the nicotine I need. That's my solution to this problem.

Doctor Who at 50

I wouldn't consider myself a Whovian, but there was something very special about last night's 50th Anniversary Doctor Who special. I grew up knowing Tom Baker as the Doctor, and it was quite some time before I discovered he was actually the fourth. 

For me, he'll always be the best and it was his surprise appearance which almost reduced me to tears. An amazing piece of British television history, for which all involved should be very proud.

Frazzle

It was a real pleasure to welcome 'Frazzle' to our group today. I must admit 'Frazzle' isn't a name I would associate with such a creature as he's not exactly built for speed. For 'Frazzle' is a tortoise, and rather a large one at that. I'm told by his keeper that he's 20 years old has many more years ahead of him.

His companion 'Gollum' had found somewhere warm to hide... Next week, we're hosts to a snake! No one can accuse Blue Skies of lacking variety...

Nigel Davenport

It's so sad to hear the news that Nigel Davenport has died at the age of 85. For me, he will always be one of our finest British actors and is possible one of the few actors with a face that 'everyone knows' through his many film or TV credits.

I 'grew up' with Howard's Way during the 80's and I'll always remember for him for his role as Sir Edward Frere, a role he was perfectly cast for. Others will have their own recollections.
Yet another actor to join the BAFTA 'those we have lost' roll... very sad.

We'll catch you...

I received a distressed call from my parents last Friday evening. A car had gone through their fence, the third time such a thing has happened. The last time it had happened, the car missed my father by a few inches as he tended his plants in his front garden.

The difference then was that the driver admitted her mistake and apologised. She was insured and details were exchanged. All was good. This time, it was quite different. The driver had stolen the vehicle, crashed it into my parent's house and fled the scene. There was no apology, no exchange of insurance details, just a wrecked fence and garden, and substantial damage to my parent's home. The police were of course very supportive, but there is no help or advice as to what to do next. They're just interested in taking away the evidence and catching the culprit - the victim just has to pick up the pieces, in this case literally.

We have a good description of the driver - early 20's, short ginger hair, slim wearing a blue top and trousers. He was apparently injured and limping. If there was an offence for leaving a vehicle unsecured, then this should apply to the vehicle's owner who idiotically left the keys in the ignition, an open invitation to any passing would be thief.
No doubt the insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding the corner of the house, for having had a structural engineer visit from South Holland Council, this is what we're told is needed. What isn't 'covered' is the shock, distress and damage caused emotionally. My parents are well into their 70's. They don't need this and an incident on this scale is too much for them to cope with.
The mindless idiot who caused this may be laughing now at having caused so much damage and distress, but the police have his finger prints and we have a good description from a witness. It's just a matter of time before you are caught, and you will be.
Yet again, we have another example of just how lawless this county of Lincolnshire is - particularly where driving and road safety is concerned. This isn't an isolated incident - it happens all too frequently. How long before someone is killed...?

UPDATE
This did finally reach the attention of our local newspaper the Spalding Guardian.
The article can be viewed here: http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/latest-news/terrific-bang-as-car-hit-our-house-1-5702001

Harvest (in a tin)

We've just received the latest newsletter from my son's school which, among things, gives details of the annual 'harvest festival'. Now, when I was at school, a harvest festival was, as its name suggests, all about the harvest, i.e. fresh vegetables and things that people had grown. I can still see the school stage festooned in carrots, cabbages, lettuce, giant marrows and potatoes.
How ridiculous, it seems to me, is the instruction to all parents that NO fresh produce is to be donated and that food items must be either tinned or in packets, and to assist, the school have provided a list of 'acceptable' food items;

Why on Earth aren't they contacting the local supermarkets who routinely dispose of anything dented or past its sell-by date? Surely this would be be a better idea rather than expecting those who can barely afford to feed themselves to empty their larders. Is it any wonder our children have no idea where our food comes from...?

Music & Memories

If there's one thing that takes me out of the current world and transports me back in time to relive distant locked-away memories, it's a music compilation. I stumbled across such a compilation only the other day - a folder full of MP3 files, most dated from the mid to late 90's. A lot of it is 'techno', a type of music I was oddly enough quite into. Some is electronic trance and the rest can't really be adequately described. One or two are in German and date back to my visit to Germany in 1995. The fact that they are in German is no handicap to their enjoyment. It's the tune that brings back the memories and unlocks the images of fondly remembered times. For anyone who knows me, it would be hard to imagine that I once hankered after the latest downloads of Torley Wong, Blumchen, Das Modul and Scatman John to name just a few, but I did.
A lot of the music I collected I heard for the first time on MTV's Most Wanted - a programme hosted by Ray Cokes from 1993-1995 gaining cult status among its loyal fans throughout Europe on what was then the first pan-European satellite network. I was pleased to see that Ray Cokes is still broadcasting at 55 and can be found on a small radio station in Belgium.
Each track carries with it its own set of memories, whether sat at my desk in the IT department of Churchill Insurance trying to look busy whilst secretly downloading masses of MP3 files over their super-fast Internet connection, driving my Volvo 760 Estate with newly installed CD auto-changer or hurtling down an autobahn in Germany or touring Berlin in my pen-pal's Volkswagon Golf MKI. These are cherished memories of good times and each MP3 tells its own story with it's own unique set of feelings, images and events from a time gone by.
I imagine there are many who can relate to this and have records, tapes, CD's and MP3's that when played unlock fond memories or perhaps still have the power to produce feelings deep inside - the butterflies, the tingling sensation and the heart-skipping elation. Of course this is all very personal and entirely unique to the person concerned and their own mental libraries of memories and images, images that the camera missed.
Maybe one day we'll be able to retrieve these memories... or perhaps they should stay where they are and remain forever personal.

River Post

I really love this story on the BBC News site of a letter box that's mysteriously appeared in a bridge at Sonning-On-Thames, Berkshire. It could only happen here...

Farewell to thebox.bz

It's so sad to hear the news that thebox.bz is closing on 1st September. The site has been an invaluable source of TV torrents for many years. Much of what is available simply cannot be found anywhere else and niche interest means that much of it will never be made commercially available. For ex-pats living oversees, thebox.bz has been a lifeline and the only way to watch British TV programmes.

I daresay a similar site will emerge to take its place, but for now it's a fond farewell to one of the best sites on the the Internet.

A couple of days away

I've just returned home from a couple of days away down in Lowestoft. Now I'm not going to write about where we stayed as it will only depress me - suffice to say that it was awful and the only place I have written about it is at tripadvisor.com where my negative comments have joined the ranks of countless others.

Lowestoft wasn't really what I had been expecting. For a start there are too many roundabouts. There is literally a roundabout every few hundred yards and the place is a nightmare to navigate.
We did have a couple of trips out to local 'attractions'. The first was to Pettitt's which is an 'animal adventure park' at a tiny place called Reedham. It is quite off the beaten track and our journey to and from the place involved a very short ride on a chain ferry across part of the Broads. We were literally on the thing for a minute or two as it took its maximum load of two cars from one side to the other - for a rather inflated charge of £4 (each way).

I've read the reviews for Pettitt's, and they are mixed. Some seem to like the place whilst others clearly hate it. It's fair to say that I was quite impressed with the place once I was inside. I must admit, having parked in a field a few hundred yards from the entrance, I had visions of that 'Christmas Wonderland' that was anything but a few years ago that got closed down by Trading Standards. Once inside though, I was pleasantly surprised. It was far bigger than I expected it to be and there is enough there to keep the average family occupied and amused for a good 3-4 hours. Our son particularly enjoyed the miniature train ride around the park and I'm pretty sure we went on it eight or nine times. The facilities are pretty good, though items in the gift shop were massively over-priced as was the food in the cafe/restaurant.

The other place we visited, on the Sunday, was the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville just outside Lowestoft. I don't know why but I had in my head a huge place with long rides on buses and trams. The reality was quite different, the place being a lot smaller than I'd imagined. However, there was a lot crammed into a small space with trips on trolleybuses and trams which basically did a circuit of the museum.

There is also a little train which I thought would do a loop of the site, but I was disappointed to find that it only went to the next station a hundred yards away and came back again.
For anyone interested in trolleybuses and trams, the place is a must. The effort and dedication by those running the museum is plain to see and for the entrance fee (£7.50 each), it's great value considering you can have as many rides as you like. We opted to tick the Gift Aid box when we bought our tickets and this entitled us to a season pass granting free access until next August.
It's not really a place you could spend all day in. We were there for about three hours by which time even I was tram'd out.
For our second visit of the day, we called at Great Yarmouth. This was on our way home as we had decided to vacate the place we were staying at a day early. Great Yarmouth was very busy but we managed to get easily parked. Many people, we found out, were gathered there to see the East Coast Truckers convoy pass through. Apparently this happens every year and is in aid of a children's charity.
No trip to Great Yarmouth is complete without a ride on the 'snails' and we spent much of our time in the amusement area where I gave in to my son's begging and joined him on a couple of the less scary rides.
Again, everything there was massively over-priced and the whole place is designed to make you part with as much money as possible. Thankfully, we had a limit and this was strictly enforced by my wife.

I do like Great Yarmouth. OK, it is full of shops and cabins selling all types of multi-coloured rubbish, screaming teenagers (and adults) being thrown around on rides, the smell of hot doughnuts mingled with fish, chips and vinegar, but it is typically British and I would miss it if it wasn't there.

We left Great Yarmouth at about 9pm. I was exhausted and our parking ticket was about to run out. I'm pleased we had a couple of days away. It certainly felt like longer, but I am so glad and relieved to be home. It really does take a stay somewhere else to appreciate the things you have.  

A Day Out to the Capital

Yesterday we took our son to the Natural History Museum in London. It's been years since I last visited the museum - I think I was at junior school during the early eighties.
It's some time since I've been on a long journey anywhere, though I do find I tend to enjoy the journey more than the object of our visit. We opted to catch the train from King's Lynn to King's Cross and the journey was problem free until we had reached the section of line between New Barnet and Alexandra Palace where engineering works had overrun. Here we were delayed about 50 minutes while we were forced to reverse back to New Barnet and on to another line before continuing our journey at reduced speed to King's Cross.
King's Cross has changed a lot since I was last there. I think there was a lot of improvement work going on when I last visited London as I recall the building being covered in scaffolding. The station resembles a flight terminal more than a train station. It is smart, clean and efficient though there were two things missing - bins and seats. The absence of bins is a sad indictment of the age we live in and our understandable paranoia following the events of 2005. The absence of seats is something I find more difficult to understand - it was impossible to sit down and improvisation was everywhere with people perched on whatever they could find or sat on cases and jackets.
Our first visit was to the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 where a huge number of people were queueing to have their photograph taken with the infamous 'trolley in the wall'. Like anything that has the potential of making money, this has now become a cash cow with a professional photographer charging £8 per photo. Looking at the number of people queueing, I wouldn't be surprised if more than £10k a day is taken from domestic and international tourists desperate for their chance to be photographed at the iconic spot. After queueing for what seemed an eternity, my son had his moment of fame clutching the trolley with his scarf of choice around his neck.

The Harry Potter shop was far smaller than I'd imagined it would be. It nevertheless stood as a temple to the many hundreds of Potter fanatics who are drawn to it ever hour seeking wands, broomsticks, pens, postcards and other trademarked trinkets at vastly inflated prices.

It was here that we collected our photograph, presented in a smart Hogwarts frame and handed over £16 for two prints - one for us and one for my in-laws.
The Natural History Museum was a few stops westward on the Piccadilly Line and we sat amongst seasoned travellers well accustomed to Tube etiquette some staring straight ahead, some immersed in their favourite novel and others eyes closed able to switch off from the noise around them. It was probably obvious that we were strangers. We looked interested and we reassured ourselves by announcing each station name as we arrived. I really don't cope well with crowds and confined spaces so I was pleased when we had finally arrived at our South Kensington destination. As with the overground, the underground has changed a lot since my last journey on the Tube. It is clean, slick and efficient with trains just a minute or two apart.
Departing the station, the Museum was just a minute's walk from the exit and we joined another long queue of people made up of visitors from home and abroad. Many clutched cameras though it was clear that the majority are content to use their smart phones, instantly uploading their snaps to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for the world to see and comment on.

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long before we entered. As with everything in London, the Museum and its exhibits have grown in size - massively. There is so much to see and do, and considering admission is free it's frankly incredible given this age of over-charging and inflated prices.

To fully appreciate everything that's on offer, a full day is needed - and this was with one of the newest exhibits about our home planet closed until September. The only down-side to the visit was the sheer number of people - the museum was pretty much full to capacity and it was warm, very warm. I can only imagine at the height of our recent heat wave, that a visit to the museum would have been quite unbearable. I was struggling with a mild 22 degrees!

By 4.30, we had seen everything and our legs were telling us it was time to head for home. My ability to endure long spells without a seat has suffered during the last ten years and my back was crying out for its all too regular fix of Tramadol.
Fearing the earlier engineering works would have caused major disruption, we were surprised to find that all the services from King's Cross were running to time. Again I was struck by the huge number of people patiently stood or sat on the floor staring at the vast departures and arrivals board. Our service for King's Lynn wasn't due to leave for another hour so we bought some drinks and tried to make ourselves comfortable, but this was a fruitless task given the acute lack of seating. Instead, we made our way back to the Harry Potter shop as my son had decided he wanted a poster.

Negotiating our way through the crowds, we reached the shop and I opted to wait outside as my wife and son were swallowed up to emerge a few minutes later poster in hand. Needing hydration, we headed for W.H. Smith, a stalwart of every mainline rail terminal. The unmistakable smell of new books and newsprint is quintessentially British yet self-service it seems has found its way into the nation's favourite newsagent and an assistant ushered the impatient and hurried to the next available machine herding them like cattle. This was no place for anyone who simply wanted to pause and look, you simply had to join the stream of people bound for the exit.
By now, our train service home had been assigned a platform, it would be platform 8 where our train was sat its face blackened by the many insects that had strayed into its high speed path. We knew to head for the first 4 coaches as these would become separated from the rest of the train at Cambridge to continue its journey to the end of the line at King's Lynn.
The journey home was fast - everyone wanted to get home including the driver. Looking around our coach, I wasn't the only person washed-out from our trip to London. Everyone it seemed looked tired, and some had no problem sleeping - practised at blocking out the sounds of travelling by train and the beeping and whistling of the smart phone. Cambridge soon arrived and with it my own memories of being stranded on a freezing winter's evening during my working past, feeling lost and not knowing when I would be back in my warm home. Those still asleep were soon awoken by a sudden jolt as the train was pulled apart.
The relatively short distance between Cambridge and King's Lynn, its flat scenery all around, was made to feel a lot longer by stops at every station where our train deposited the majority of its weary passengers.
It wasn't long before we were at King's Lynn and the end of the line. A half hour drive and we'd be home. How quiet everything is compared to where we had been. It's a different world down there. A visit every so often is fine, but could I live there? No.

First Look at Our New Allotment

Today, I visited our new group allotment along with some members from Blue Skies. The allotment has been kindly donated to the group by one of our members and it is hoped that we will be able to grow our own herbs and vegetables with a view to selling them and using any surplus ourselves.

The site actually stretches to the trees just visible in the distance though we will only use the section that's been cleared to begin with.

There is much work to do, but I was hugely impressed by a couple of Polish chaps who had cleared a large area of weeds and overgrown grass and were busy constructing six plots for our members to tend themselves. Once the plots are complete, I'm told that they are to set about building a conservatory (the stack of wood and windows) for us to sit and relax in, or to shelter from the rain. A wood burning stove will provide warmth on cold days and provide the heat for a kettle and frying pan. They've thought of everything!

It's the thought that counts...

... though I do ask myself what this person was thinking

My wife received this today for her Birthday later this month. I told her it would be back luck if she opened a gift early - and it was as this has to be one of the most hideous things I have ever seen!

Perfectly put...

Says it all really... Perfectly.

A phone call I'd never want to make...

I really wouldn't have liked to have been the driver explaining this to his depot manager... Easily done though.

We have the technology...

We have all seen in stark clarity one of the worst rail disasters of the modern age. Quite how something so terrible could happen despite the technology and fail safe systems available to us today, is frankly incredible and does fill me with a sense of anger and frustration.
There can be no doubt that the tragedy was caused by excessive speed. You don't need to be a rail industry expert to see that something travelling so fast around so tight a bend will try to leave its tracks. After all, the only thing holding the train to the track is gravity - nothing else. I know, as does many a youngster, how easy it is to crash a model train on a tight bend. Go too fast and off it comes, and it did often, much to the frustration of my father who would have to put the train back on the track each time.
Something clearly went seriously wrong. Why did the safety systems fail and how was it possible for a driver with, so it is claimed, so much experience to drive his train at such speed into a bend that already had gained notoriety for its extreme curvature?
It would be so easy to fit a system that automatically reduced the train speed in time for the bend, overriding the regulator, until it was safe for the driver to resume control. This technology exists - and it is used. We only have to look at our own driver-less Docklands Light Railway to know that it works - and has done very well for many years. A roller coaster has this technology fitted by standard. I find tragedies like this, and the needless loss of life, harder to accept as it would have been so easy to prevent the train from going too fast.
As with all tragedies, we need to learn lessons from them and this is no exception. But in my mind, the lesson is a simple one, and that's simply to use the technology we have.

Peterborough Bus Rally

Last Sunday the 14th saw us at the Peterborough Bus Rally held at Sacrewell Farm. The weather was perfect unlike last year when the field was flooded due to the incessant rain. There were a good mix of vehicles on display this year though notable by their absence were Leyland Nationals though there was one Olympian in the form of Stagecoach's MegaDecker stretched wheelbase vehicle which ran the shuttle to and from Peterborough Queensgate. Stagecoach also had their Bristol Lodekka's running trips to and from Wandsford Station and these were a real joy to ride. From their modern stock, Stagecoach had two of their ADL Trident Enviro 400's on show with Lincolnshire Roadcar livery. One ran the trip to and from Wandsford and I have to say it was the most uncomfortable ride that day. Despite its relatively young age, there was no air conditioning and the bus was a greenhouse on wheels - literally - given its panorama top deck windscreen!

I'm already looking forward to next year when I hope to enter our own E213 WBG NC Leyland Olympian, assuming we get her roadworthy.

A few photos from the event...