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1 September 2013
(Sunday) - Tidebrook
I had intended to make copious notes about
the various beers I drank yesterday on my tasting notes. However there were
no notes supplied so I have no idea how much ale I sank yesterday. I would
guesstimate it was somewhere between six pints and a gallon. Yesterday
evening was all rather vague; I can remember saying goodbye to Terry; there
is a faint recollection of bandying insults with the staff in Tesco, and I
woke up with my lap-top on my lap in sleep mode just after midnight. All things considered I woke this morning
feeling surprisingly well. I got up and was rather impressed with the tower
of plastic pint glasses we'd acquired. Having been told by the staff at yesterday's beer festival that hey were just
going to throw the things away we made a point of salvaging one or two. I
counted the pile that I'd brought home. Sixty eight. Can't be bad. After a quick brekkie
we set off out on today;s
mission. As we walked down the road we saw that the cars which had been
parked on the double yellow lines overnight had been ticketed. Again traffic
wardens strike at overtime rates. You never see them during routine hours,
but at weekend nights they are all over the place. We collected a fellow cacher,
and three of us and two small dogs set off to deepest Sussex for a walk. A
walk which did feature the occasional geocache (twenty, to be precise).
The walk was billed as being one of eight miles; those of out
party who brandish GPS units were of the opinion that the walk was closer to
ten miles. But it was a worthwhile ten miles. beautiful
scenery, and ideal weather for walking too. We started with a minor mishap as Fudge's
extending lead wrapped around my ankles and gave me a rather vicious rope
burn. And then in my hurry to stop my dog from rolling in fox poo I skidded
in the stuff and went base over apex myself. But such is life when you have a
dog. It was a really good day to be out and about, and we'd picked a good
place in which to be out and about. The route took us through some wonderful
scenery, but I got the impression that not many people walk these footpaths;
under one of the stiles we found a nesting bird. We made a point of dragging
the dogs away and crossing the fence several yards away as the bird had eggs
in that nest. I would have thought it rather late in the year to be
incubating eggs, but I suppose the bird knows what it is doing. And for those who enjoy hunting tupperware, the caches were varied and enjoyable (if
you like that sort of thing). I
even remembered to take photos this time. It's
ages since I last went on a serious caching mission. must
do it again soon. Maybe next Saturday... |
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2 September 2013
(Monday) - Dull
I am on the point of giving up watching Blakes Seven. The first two series were entertaining, but
it's now getting rather silly. Take this morning's episode. Our heroes were
on the way to a fight (for no apparent reason) when the fit dominatrix
tried to kill off a planetful of people and then
got the survivors to make clones of her. Why? In the end the goodies thwarted
the evil machinations of the baddies, which is all that seemed to be needed
in the way of a plot. This morning's news
on the radio was revolutionary. Rather than teaching the kiddies
namby-pamby arty-farty nonsense at schools, it's
now going to be compulsory for children to have a basic grasp of English and
Maths on leaving school. Apparently compulsory schooling in these subjects is
seen as being somewhat radical, but I would have thought that being able to
read, write and count was a pre-requisite for most things these days. I got to work a few minutes early only to
find that a new geocache had gone live near work. That never happens, so I
slipped out in a shallow attempt to be First to Find. I failed miserably.
Mind you shortly after I tried two other people failed to find it as well.
It's either incredibly difficult (which isn't indicated by the D/T rating)
or the C.O. has made a hiccup with the co-ordinates. I wonder which it is. I did my bit at work, and left just a
little too late for the astro club's committee meeting.
A shame - I would like to have got along to that. Instead I had another try
for that geocache near work (and failed again), then came home where I
microwaved my scoff and fell asleep in front of more rather dire episodes of
Blake's Seven with a small dog snoring on my lap. The last few days have been really good.
Today was a bit dull in comparison. |
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3
September 2013 (Tuesday) - Et Maintenant...
Historically reports in this blog about
"Furry Face TM" have painted him as a manic
beast; he has been described as "The Whirlwind" on occasion.
However I think that the passage of time is having an effect; he's no longer
quite the puppy he once was. When I came downstairs this morning he was fast
asleep (on the sofa!) and didn't react at all until I had to move him to open
the curtain. It wasn't that long ago that the sight of anyone in the morning
would set him into a frantic round of activity. As always I woke long before the time for
which my alarm had been set. I did smile when my phone alarm went off - Fudge
started howling at it. This is only the second sound that I have found which
sets him off; I shall have to experiment with other ring tones to see if I can
find more. His howling is quite cute really. And it sounds better than
listening to the nutter next door screaming racial
abuse at his Japanese wife. And so to work. Yesterday I mentioned that
I had failed (twice) to find a new geocache, and said that I hoped the
person setting it had given the wrong co-ordinates. It would seem that he
had. Revised ones went up today, so I stopped off before work hoping for a
"First to Find". But the new co ordinates
were no good to me; I had to give up after half an hour. I've since seen that
those co-ords have had a third revision and the
cache has now been found. Twice. I would have had a go after work, but it
was rather dark by the time I'd finished. I suspect all was fine in the first
place; I just made a bog of trying to find it. I did have the opportunity for
thirteen First to Finds; just before I left work a new series of caches went
live. But they were the wrong side of town and it was rather late. So I
contented myself with just a little detour and I went for a different cache
on the way home. It seemed odd that a cache with difficulty
level 1.5 gave me such trouble this morning when I then went on to find a
cache with difficulty level 3.5 in less than ten seconds of searching (in
the dark). Work was entertaining today; a colleague is
learning French. So in a spirit of helpfulness I spent much of the day
speaking to him in the language of his study. Malheuresment
il ne comprehend pas mon espirit d'helpfulness.
Entre-temps notre ami
monsieur le singe est dans
l'arbre encore un fois
avec l'oiseau. Le singe n'aime pas l'oiseau. Il fais le peau-peau sur la tete d'oiseau.
L'oiseau n'est pas
chuffed. "Sacre bleu!" il dit. (L'oiseau,
ne pas le singe), et il frappe le singe sur son ballons vigoureusement. Is it only thirty-three years since I
achieved a grade "B" in "O" level French? |
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4 September 2013
(Wednesday) - Rather Busy
In a novel break
with tradition I slept through to 7.40am this morning. Absolutely unheard of.
I had a quick spot of brekkie, and on hearing that “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM ” was not visiting
today I popped the lead onto Fudge and we set off on today’s Fudgey Adventure. Regular readers of
this drivel may recall that six months ago I hid a series of geocaches on the
footpaths between Sevington and Mersham.
They act as waypoints on a guided walk through some rather scenic
countryside. I put them out hoping that other people might enjoy the walk. To
date they have been visited by over sixty different people. And seeing that
it is six months since they went out, and bearing in mind I had a report that
one of them had a full log, I thought I’d do cache maintenance today. That
entailed visiting each cache, checking it was still there, changing the paper
log, and making sure the hide was good. When I hid the caches last March
there was thick snow on the ground. Today was glorious sunshine. But the
series did for me that which I intended it to do for others. It marked out a
very good walk. Me and my dog had a couple of hours
out in the sunshine. Fiddling about with plastic boxes was just an extra. On the way
home I popped off to find a cache for the day. Having found one every day in
August I have this plan to see how long a “finding streak” I can
manage. So far I have found a cache every day for the last thirty five days.
And having got home I checked my emails only to find that I’d been within
yards of a newly released geocache whilst I was out. I zoomed back out
and again failed spectacularly in my effort to be First to Find. And so home again
where I got the washing onto the line to dry. ‘er indoors TM arrived, and
left. She had the afternoon off work to visit family for a barbecue. I would
like to have gone along, but I had chores to do at home. Or I would have once
assistance arrived. While I waited for assistance to arrive I ironed shirts
and made a start on my latest on-line course. I had enrolled in a
course on Mathematical Philosophy which started a few weeks ago. I
un-enrolled form that course last week. It was dull. Dull in the extreme.
There was a very earnest German gentleman who was taking great trouble to
prove the blatantly obvious. I really couldn’t stay awake though any of the
lectures. And all of the lectures seemed the same – going into extreme detail
in set theory to prove that which any reasonable person could see was
self-evident. Perhaps it wasn’t self-evident. Perhaps my degree in maths
isn’t as buried at the back of my mind as I thought it was. In any case I
studied maths at degree level for five years. I’ve done that. With Coursera I want to learn new things. Today I started Dino 101
an introduction not just to dinosaurs, but to paleontology,
biology and geology. Well, at the risk of sounding egocentric I’m no stranger
to biology, but the rest is relatively new to me. So far the lectures have
kept me awake. “My Boy TM ” arrived, and so I was able to get on with
chores for which I needed help. First of all we got the top box off of my car
for the winter. And then we looked at the back fence. It has developed a hole
through which Furry Face TM escapes and terrorises the
natives. We bodged a fix temporarily, but it is only a bodge, and a temporary
one at that. Especially loyal readers of this drivel may recall me building
that fence. Anyone else might like to call up the report on the day by clicking here and
calling up October 2006. That’s where today’s photo comoes
from. I built that fence
on Sunday October 8 2006, the day after I (allegedly)
downed twenty one pints of London Pride. It’s lasted seven
years. I would have liked longer. But it needs repair. Or replacement. If any
of my loyal readers have any fence panels they don’t want, or can get jiggy with a shovel I’m looking at doing the fixing a
week this coming Sunday. Feel free to join in… The provisional
plan is:
It will be hard
work so if anyone wants to help, or better still do the hard work for me,
please feel free to join in. We might just have a barby
afterwards. And with ‘er indoors TM still out I felt peckish so
I foraged for tea. In the diection of the KFC. The
“Mega Bucket for One” looked interesting… |
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5 September 2013
(Thursday) - Stuff
Yesterday I mentioned that I was going up
the KFC shop for my tea. The "Mega Bucket for One" was
rather tasty. And at just over a fiver it wasn't especially expensive as a
treat. However at one thousand two hundred calories it rather counteracted
any healthy intentions I'd had on my walk earlier in the day. As I scoffed my
"Mega Bucket for One" I watched a film I'd recorded onto the
Sky Plus box - "Full Metal Jacket" is a strange film. It's
effectively two films. The first part about an army training camp is quite
engaging. The second part, about a war in Vietnam some time later isn't. I then had a relatively early night, but I
was still up and watching Blakes Seven DVDs before
5am. This morning our heroes were at each others'
throats again. They seem to squabble a lot at the moment, but it passed an
otherwise dull hour before I left early for work. I took a rather circuitous route today;
failing to find one geocache, but locating another. "Gunners"
eluded me, but I found "Gunners 2". I can see (or know of)
no artillery-related reference to the location in which the caches are
hidden. I can only suppose that "Gunners" is a football reference.
I hesitate to roll my eyes in despair, but even so... What is it with football that people find
so fascinating. I can understand playing the game;
like I can understand participating in any sport, recreation or pastime. But
watching someone else doing it? And declaring undying allegiance to some team
based miles away; the members of which are utterly oblivious of your
existence? I wish I could see the attraction. After
all millions of others do. Mind you apparently four per cent of the
British public think
Elvis is still alive That's two million nutters...
But I digress... As I drove to work I could see autumn had
arrived. Keat's "season of mists" was
never more evident than along the A28 to Canterbury this morning. The fogs
were particularly beautiful along the Stour by Godmersham.
The same fogs also caused a pile-up involving over a hundred cars which
constituted one of the most serious emergencies the county's emergency
services had ever seen. Bearing in mind the stupidity I see every
morning with people speeding past me on blind corners, this pile up can
hardly be surprising. Why do people drive so dangerously.
Every day on my journey to and from work I drive at the speed limit on the
ten miles along the A28, and there will be at least half a dozen people who
fly past me at speeds in excess of seventy miles an hour. As I drove I listened to the radio, as
always. The pundits were wittering on about the antics of various
politicians, and were treating this trivia with respect, regardless of the
fact that in two weeks time no one will remember
anything about what these politicians were up to. Then there was an article about the latest
findings in deep space. Astrophysicists have apparently mapped magnetic
fields in the galaxy's core. There are untold implications for this news, not
least of which is that understanding massive magnetic flows may ultimately
help us fuel the space ships which will save the human race when the sun
explodes. But the news pundits treated science as though it were mere
vaudeville comedy. I've ranted about this in the past. The most fleetingly
trivial antics of celebrities and politicians is
always given centre stage by the media whilst that of importance is never
treated with respect. I suppose the media is pandering to those
who follow football, drive like an idiot, or think that Elvis is still alive. Once at work I continued assisting my
colleague in his efforts to master the French language. Maintenant
le poisson est dans l'arbre avec le singe. Le
lapin est invitee dans l'arbre, mais il ne veux pas etre dans l'arbre.
L'oiseau n'est pas dans l'arbre. Le singe a mange l'oiseau parce que l'oiseau a frappe le singe sur son ballons. Le poisson n'aime pas l'arbre. Et son velocipede, qui est
dans l'arbre aussi, est plien
d'anguilles. It's all going on up that tree... Needless to say my colleague is struggling
with his studies. Perhaps I should stop helping him. And so home where I found a very ill dog... |
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6 September 2013
(Friday) - Poorly Pup
Fudge didn’t get any better overnight. I
decided to let him be, and I tried to sleep. At 5am I couldn’t leave him any
more so I went to see him. I couldn’t find him. Eventually I found him – he’d
made a nest under a table and was looking very sorry for himself. Leaving him with ‘er
indoors TM took my car to the garage to be with them when they
opened at 8am. In March when I had the service done they advised I should
have the brakes checked in September. So today they checked the brakes; or to
be precise they checked what was left of them. They had a gap in their schedule and
suggested they did the fix-it there and then. They even offered me a lift
home. So I left the car with them and came home. My dog looked ill when I came home, so I
took him to the vets to be with them when they opened at 9am. Perhaps I’m
just getting old - the vet looked so young. But to his credit he was
wonderful with Furry Face TM and gave him a once over. The
vet found what I had found; that Fudge’s tummy was rock hard. It was possible
that he has pancreatitis, but more likely that he’s eaten something that he
shouldn’t have. The vet then explained the next steps in great detail, but I
can’t remember all that he said. The bottom line was that Fudge was to spend
the day in dog hospital where he would have blood tests, ultrasounds and X
rays together with antibiotics and intravenous fluids. I don’t think anyone saw me blubbing as I
walked out of the vets. This is *exactly* why I never wanted a dog. I then effectively wasted much of the rest
of the day. With no dog by my side I didn’t want to go for a walk; and I had
to wait for the garage to call to let me know when my car would be ready.
They had told me it would be two hours; it was three. But to their credit
they sent someone to give me a lift so I could collect the car. Over two
hundred and fifty pounds later I was driving away. I needed some campden
tablets, and as I was in the area I popped round to the home brew shop.
Whilst passing I had a look for that geocache I failed to find on Wednesday.
Today I found it in less than a minute. Some days I can see the things; other
days I can’t. With heavy rain having set in I went back
to the computer. On-line dinosaur lectures, Candy Crush Saga, and Facebook
for the afternoon. I saw something on Facebook which really
boiled my piss. Kent Police posted something on their official page about
catching dangerous drivers. In the comments on this posting various people
gave them examples of other places where dangerous driving is rife. I myself
cited the traffic along the A28 every morning at about 7am. Kent police
responded with a wonderful line: “Police staff manage
this page so we cannot take reports of crime or record specific local issue”.
So police openly admit they cannot do the
job they are paid to do…. My phone rang - it was the vets. I could collect
"Furry Face TM" at 6.15pm. The vet said loads
more, but I couldn't take it in. I was better when I actually went to the
vet's. Fudge has had various blood tests that have ruled out problems with
kidneys, liver, pancreas or any other organ system. The X-rays and
ultrasounds showed nothing bunging him up. The vet was honest - he could find
nothing amiss, He suspected that somehow the silly pup has poisoned himself.
He often eats grass when he's out - it's possible he's taken in some
insecticide or weed killer or something. The pup's tummy is now nowhere near as hard
as it was earlier, and his ears aren't as low down as they were. He's home
for the night, laying on the sofa looking as pissed
as a rat. I'm told this is the after-effects of teh
pain killers and anaesthetics. He has a shaved tummy where the ultrasounds was done. He has some special tea for later,
and an appointment back with the vet at 9am
tomorrow... So far this has cost six hundred quid.. In years gone by I would have blithely told others in
the same position that I would have had the animal put down. Now I’m just
thinking that it would be nice if the insurance covers the cost, but if it
does, that would just be an added bonus to getting my dog back. |
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7 September 2013
(Saturday) - On The Mend ?
Another night spent
listening out for sounds from the dog. I heard him chewing his cannula at 5am
and I stopped that for him. I took him outside, and he tiddled;
which was a good thing. I then laid him on the sofa, and he watched me
watching Blake's Seven. Today's episode was an improvement on what has gone
before. There is still no sign of Blake, and his five would seem to have
blown up his space ship. We both had brekkie. I
always scoff mine. I was so pleased to see Fudge scoff his up right away. 9am soon came; and
we were on the vet's doorstep. We went straight in, and the vet was pleased
with his overnight progress. Whatever was bothering his belly hopefully seems
to be in abeyance. The pup was still shivering, but that was probably related
to his medications. They took the cannula out of his paw, and gave him some
more distalgesic which probably accounted for his
being spaced out for much of the day. But not too spaced out to look
hopefully in the direction of other people's toast. The plan for the
day had been a serious walk around the Sussex countryside, but the vet had
advised against anything too strenuous. we will definatelly do that wallk
another time. Instead we sat at home for a bit. After an hour or so
Fudge became very fractious; and was whimpering. I was all set to take him
back to the vet, but er indoors TM"
suggested that he was on the mend and was going stir-crazy. So we rallied
some troopps and went geocaching on the Romney
Marsh. We did half a dozen caches; mostly as drive-bys.
None really needed much walking to be done, but getting out and about was
enough for the little dog. As we drove about and walked about he visibly perked up. From a cachers point of view, if ever
you are on the Romney Marsh look out for any cache annywhere
near a footbridge. They are usually something special. er indoors TM" spent a
little time looking at renewing car insurance. She's good at that. After a
bit of to-ing and fro-ing she saved nearly three hundred quid on the
insurance on my car. I was quite pleased about that. It's effectively found
half of the money I've spent on vets bills over the
last two days. I could have gone
with er indoors TM"
to the Saturday film show tonight. It would have been good to have seen a
Star Trek double bill. But there was no way I would leave my poorly dog thiis evening. So I sat with him and watched some of the
stuff I'd recorded onto the SkyPlus box. Some of
what I'd recorded was quite good. And I watched the film "Alien
Nation" for the first time. I say "watched" - I turned
it off half way through. It was dreadful... |
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8 September 2013
(Sunday) - Challock Goose Fair
Our little dog spent the night downstairs
where he should be last night. That was a good sign. He looked at me
hopefully as I ate my toast, and I let him have a crust. Only the one. He
slept on my lap as I watched Blake's Seven. I'm now on to the fourth season;
the foxy bird with the haircut has croaked, and today our heroes have managed
to steal someone else's space base. A space base is a useful thing to have,
especially when your own has gone west. Whilst I watched TV my little dog lay on my
lap and farted a lot. He can be smelly, but this morning's
were particularly pungent. I'm hoping this is all part of his innards getting
back to normal. He took his medicines, but didn't seem keen on his breakfast.
So I tricked him. I put his breakfast on my plate, put it in front of me and
carried on watching telly. After a minute or so as a treat I offered him a
little of it,and he yummed it up. Over the course of twenty minutes he ate
the lot; being offered a morsel at a time. Steve and Sarah arrived, and I went with
them to Challlock. The astro
club was running a stall at the goose fair. Or so we had arranged. We turned
up to find they had no record of us at all. After a lot of fiddling about it
turned out that they had us down as being "The A.A.", and our
contact person was Geoffrey (!) Apparently we were "like the
owls". Eventually we found the area they'd set
aside for us, and after a few minutes we were all set up and having coffee
and doughnuts. There was a dodgy five minutes in which Steve lost his
custard, but we were soon "all systems go" and dealing with
the public. I was expecting some problems from the hippies in tthe stall opposite; they had some wierd
angel costume made from a pair of seagull wings. But they kept themselves to
themselves We had dozens of peoople
looking through our telescopes. The solar scope was especially popular; it
was a shame there was so much cloud. It was an even greater shame that it
rained several times. But we had a good time. I raided the stall of the
Giggling Pig Company several times for their freebie samples, and had more
than a few hand-outs from Rosie's chutneys. I
took some photos of the event as well. i met a couple of
old friends from years ago at the event, and got some gossip. A mutual friend
is apparently preparing to do a flit. A week on Thursday her and her entire
family are decamping to Wiltshire (permanently!). And following much
discontent all of the Beaver leaders from my old socut
group have resigned and are decamping to another local scout group. I have always said that there is never
anything as interesting as someone else's life. Home to an empty house. er indoors TM" had
taken "Furry Face TM" for a walk. So being on my
own I did a quick cache before they came home. And once home I learned
something about my dog. He's clever. He had been out with er
indoors TM" all day and had mostly been OK. On seeing me his behaviour reverted to being very sorry for himself
and subdued. He was seriously attention-seeking. He doesn't do it for er indoors TM" because she
don't put up wiith it.. He
does it with me because he knows I'm a soft touch. With er
indoors TM" off bowling I settled down for an evening of
"Jeeves and Wooster" on UK Gold with a small dog asleep on
my lap. Farting like a fruit bat... |
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9 Septemper 2013 (Monday) - Stuff
Blake’s four were
having all sorts of problems with a booby trapped door today. In between the
door which was rigged to a nuclear explosive which was going to explode
within the hour they were scrapping with natives and getting jiggy with ladies who seemed more interested in getting jiggy with other ladies. I rather lost the plot about
half way through; which is probably where the script writers lost it too. I put “Furry
Face TM “’s collar and lead on him and took him round to the
vets. He seemed to be on the mend, and the vet agreed. We never did get to
the root cause of what had laid him low, but the vet was under the impression
that it was probably something that he had eaten. I didn’t realise that dogs
actually have delicate stomachs; onions are poisonous to them as are leeks.
The vet said it was probably best to leave off al vegetables. I then took the
convalescent dog for a small walk. A small series of caches had gone live
yesterday and they made or a good walk for an hour or so. Or that is they
would have done had it not been cold and raining. The convalescent dog in
question had his tail between his legs for most of the walk; only perking up
when we came home. Once home I did the
accounts. There’s no denying they would have been better had I not spent out
on repairs to the car and the dog, but what is money for if not to spend
foolishly on cars and dogs. And fences. Regular readers of this drivel may
recall the fence is in need of repair. “My Boy TM
” helped me acquire much of the ingredients for the new fence I
hope to build on Sunday. He’s a good lad. And with my lap top
going seriously west (user profile not found) I think I’ve found my
third serious expense. They say problems come in threes… |
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10 September 2013
(Tuesday) - Broken
I woke at 3.02am this morning, and lay in
bed wide awake for some time. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up
at 4.50am. My little dog was still fast asleep as I did the washing up. I
checked my lap top. Nothing had changed since last night. When I booted up I
got the option to put in my password. I did that - correctly (!) - and it told me that it couldn't proceed. I had been given
one or two pointers which I thought I might try out when I had a minute. But
they all looked rather technical. So I had this rather better idea to smile
pathetically in the direction of people who know about computers... Over brekkie I
watched some telly. Blake's cronies have found a friend; there are now five
of them. They've also found an old enemy. Today they were helping various
people blow up assorted swamps for no reason that I could work out. I watched
their antics with a small dog curled up on my lap; spending much of the time
squeezing his tummy in an experimental sort of way. That belly was rock hard
last week; it seems to have gone back to normal now. Mind you, Fudge himself
seems to be somewhat soppier than ever he was. I expect he's still
convalescent, or he knows that he can get away with it with me. I set off to work ten minutes earlier than
I might have done. Having found a geocache every day for the last forty days
I thought I might just get one more day on to this streak as I knew of a
cache in Little Burton Farm I might try for. I was within twenty yards of
that cache when my phone pinged that a new cache had gone live only a few
hundred yards away. I abandoned the cache I was after (it will keep till
tomorrow) and ran off on the chance of a First to Find. Having failed
miserably to FTF twice last week I was rather smug
this morning to get an FTF. Today's cache was... I
won't spoil the surprise. I'll just say that it was rather out of the
ordinary and I was amazed that I found it in less than a minute. In fact I
was rather amazed that I found it at all. But I did. I was FTF at 6.46am; sixteen minutes after it was published. FTFs go quickly in Ashford... usually. Interestingly
another cache went live in Ashford today. Five minutes before the one I
found; a mile and a half from it. That one didn't get found so quickly. That
one took twelve hours to be found for the first time. It's on my to-do list
for Thursday; providing nothing else crops up in the meantime. And then on to work .
As I drove the radio spouted its usual tirade of drivel. Amongst this
morning's snippets was something of interest. A
recent survey of opinions of people in the UK has shown that as a nation
we are becoming more tolerant of other people being different in a variety of
ways, be it attitudes towards homosexuals, children born out of marriage,
racial relations. And the Royals are more popular than they have been for
some time. Interestingly it turns out that as a nation
we are more tolerant, but as individuals we aren't. The pundits on the radio
were saying that it is the upcoming generation that is more accepting; the
older generation is still stuck in its ways. Apparently the survey showed
that most people seem to keep their opinions unchanged on a range of subjects
for years. Again I would seem to be in the minority;
anyone reading this blog will know I change my opinions on all manner of
subjects with annoying regularity. Once at work I discovered that il y a un elephant qui veux
manger le singe qui habite dans
l'arbre. (Le pauvre
singe). Heureusement le singe
est tres vite et l'arbre n'est pas tres dur et l'elephant ne peut pas grimper à l'arbre. "Hurrah!" dit
le singe et tous son amis.
Les amis du oiseau morte ne dit pas "Hurrah!". Ils veux
assister l'elephant pour manger le singe. Mais nous n' aimons pas les amis du oiseau parce qu' ils
sont tous batards comme etait l'oiseau. Or so I am reliably informed. As well as finding out the latest
developments in the tree I did my bit at work, and came home via Morrisons because they have the cheapest petrol for miles
around. Despite having spent a small fortune on car and dog repairs and
despite the possibility of having to shell out for a new laptop, I found
enough cash for a bar of choccy whilst getting
petrol. Petrol comes off of a different budget... |
|
11 September 2013
(Wednesday) - Stuff
I came home last night to find the contents
of the bin strewn across the living room, and also to find a very sheepish
looking dog. Perhaps rooting in the bin last week is what made him ill. He's
not been in bins before. We shall have to watch that. I had a better night's sleep; I woke at
5am, and then decided against Blakes's Seven this
morning; preferring to doze instead. I got up shortly before 7am to find a
certain dog had spent the night on the sofa again. I had brekkie;
or most of brekkie. Now that "Furry Face TM"
is eating again he gets the crusts from my toast. He probably shouldn't, but
it's good to see him eating something. On checking emails I saw a geocache had
gone live overnight. Not only gone live but had already been found. There are
those in the geo-community who wouldn't bother looking for such a cache; for
them the FTF is everything. For myself, an FTF is nice, but having someone else find
the cache first means that I can be reasonably sure that the cache is
actually there, and that the listed co-ords are
good. So I left for work a little earlier than I might normally have done,
and went to work via a minor diversion into Westwell
where (after quite a serious bit of searching) I found the cache. Day
forty-two on my caching streak sorted (!) I then made my way to work. Slowly. As I
drove through Challock I was amazed at how empty
the village green appeared. Was it only four days since the place was alive
with the goose fair? There was barely the slightest trace of it this morning. I stopped off in the Canterbury branch of
Staples to have a look-see. They had some interesting Android tablets. If
they had one with wi-fi/internet and GPS I might
have a use for it. Not right now though; I'm too skint. But it never hurts to
see what is available. I looked hopefully, but none of the assistants wanted
to come and assist. Oh well, that will be their loss. If and when I get one I
shall take my money elsewhere. And that will be money; not extended credit. I
looked at their credit agreements. They were advertising a laptop for sale at
just under four hundred quid - available on easy terms; but when you finished
paying those easy terms you would find that you'd stumped up over six hundred
quid. I then went into the Cheapo-Bargains shop.
They were advertising singing model garden birds for sale. Two pounds each a
few weeks ago; today they were reduced in price to fifty pence each. But they
didn't actually have any. I refrained from asking what else didn't they have at rock bottom prices, and came to work. At work I had a shock. Mon camarade me dit comme il est
un ami d'oiseau est il pense
que le singe est un batard. Moi - j'adore le singe. Je le dit que l'oiseau est un tres grand batard avec le sucre au-dessus. Mon camarade etait confusee parce qu' il
ne comprendre pas "tres
grand batard avec le sucre
au-dessus". Il a dit il y a un fete dans l'arbre ou le singe et l'oseau est amis.
Aussi il y a un giraffe dans l'arbre maintenant. Qu' est-ce qu'il fait? Est ce
qu' il est ami d'oiseau?
Est-il un batard aussi? Et l'oiseau... J'ai pense que
le singe est mange l'oiseau le semaine derniere. Est ce qu' un autre
oiseau ? It has been suggested that I am confusing
my French-learning colleague deliberately.. |
|
12 September 2013
(Thursday) - Dinosaurs, Vets...
I
had a reasonable night’s sleep for once. I usually do when I have nothing
planned for the morning. Over a spot of brekkie I
saw that a new cache had gone live overnight some two miles away, so with
little else to do I sped out in pursuit of an FTF.
I failed. Again. I found what looked like the obvious spot, but no joy. I
came home, collected "Furry Face TM" and took him
for a walk. As we went through the park I met up with a caching pal, and we
chatted for a while. I was rather pleased that I had to put my dog on a lead;
he’s getting back to his spirited self. Whilst
we were out I found myself rummaging in ivy in pursuit of plastic. And
amazingly I found what I had thought was going to be challenging in less than
a minute. We
came home, and over a spot of lunch I watched a film I’d recorded.
“Neds” looked like it was going to be good.
It wasn’t. Set in Glasgow the film needed subtitles to understand most of the
dialogue, and the film got worse as it went on; ending with the hero being
bashed up by Jesus who had climbed off of the cross specially. I then did
on-line dinosaur lectures for an hour or so before scoring full marks in this
week’s test. Did you know that dinosaurs probably had feathers. Cheryl
and Lacey called round and we went to the costume
hire shop. I look the business in my suit; I won’t go into too many details –
suffice it to say that I will touch on the costume in a future entry. And
then we took Fudge to the vets. We completed the paperwork for the bills we
incurred last week, and pup had his annual injections. The vet was especially
pleased to see Fudge. As he said, he only gets to see animals when they are
ill or for injections. Having seen how ill he was last week the vet was
really pleased to see the improvement in him over the last week. Fudge
had his injection and didn’t bat an eyelid. I
ran Cheryl and Lacey home. In retrospect I sould have collected the barby
whilst I was there. I didn't. Instead I came home for domestic trivia.
Ironing, hoovering, washing up. And then er indoors TM" came home
and boiled up a rather dcent bit of scran. She does that. We scoffed it whilst watching
"The King's Speech" - which was rather better than "Neds"... |
|
13 September 2013
(Friday) - This n That
I had a phone call from work yesterday to
ask if I could do the late shift today. Being an obliging kind of chap I was
happy to do so, and so wasn't out of my pit quite as early as usual on a
working day. Over brekkie i
watched Blake's Seven with a small dog asleep on my lap. Today our heroes
were having a fracas with Space Rats. Space Rats were clearly supposed to be
an inter-galactic version of Hells Angels. They were supposed to be scary.
However they came over as being akin to the fan club of Co-Co the Clown's
hypothetical stunt double which wasn't scary at all. Whilst watching lame early 1980s sci-fi I
was very conscious of today's date. September 13. The late 1970s lame sci-fi
show Space 1999 all started off from the events purported to take place on
September 13 1999. When I watched that program on Saturday
mornings as a teenager that date seemed to be so far into the future as to be
unreal. Now it's fourteen years into the past. Where have the years gone? As I had time to spare I took a scenic
route to work (through the fog) via Elmstead
where I picked up a geocache. The description of the cache said to look out
for the llamas; I was rather disappointed not to see any. As always I listened to the news as I
drove. It is now official - the space probe Voyager
1 has left the solar system and is in inter-stellar space. The pundits
made great show of the announcement, and glossed over the fact that the
actual exit took place over a year ago. They also had tame experts being
interviewed who explained about galactic distances and the impracticality of travel
to other stars with today's technology. And in a novel break with tradition
the people presenting the show took what was being said seriously. The pundits rather glossed over proposed
changes to the Post Office. Apparently "thousands of our remote
communities rely on the national mail network as a lifeline".
Really? In this modern electronic age do people really use snail-mail quite
so much. And if someone chooses to live in the back
of beyond then they must be able to afford to do so. Why should people who
live in sensible places subsidise them? It transpires that it actually costs
seventy quid to post a letter to the more remote parts of Scotland, but
currently all that is actually paid on such a letter is the price of a stamp.
Presumably everyone else posting letters to sensible places is subsidising
those who can already afford to live in the back of beyond. Why should I
subsidise those who are already demonstrably far better off than I am? Meanwhile can anyone honestly say that they
are surprised to hear that more money is to be milked from the
Harry Potter franchise. Whilst Harry himself
won't feature in this latest round, there will be enough of a crossover to
ensure that millions of fans will hand over more of their hard-earned cash. I wish I could come up with a money-making
idea like Harry Potter. Somehow I don't think "Les Aventures Du Le Singe Et L'Oiseau
(qui est un batard)"
will somehow catch the public's imagination. Talking of which my French-learning
associate had a day off today so I was not able to inspire and enthral him
with the latest exploits of our simian friend and its avian nemesis. I'm sure
it will all keep till Monday. Without being able to impart my linguistic
skills, the day was rather dull. As I came home tonight the weather forecast
made me sit up and take notice. The BBC radio people said that Sunday would
be torrential rain and howling winds all over the country. When I got access
to the Internet I saw that the same BBC said light winds and dry until 7pm on
Sunday on it's weather
page. I wish they would either make up their minds, or be honest and say they
have no idea what the weatehr is going to do... |
|
14 September 2013
(Saturday) - A Party
The
morning's sci-fi DVD fix was ludicrous. Blake's cronies would seem to have
declared war on the fix dominatrix and so in their attempt tooverthrow the galactic ampire
they are gatering allies. For no adequately
explored reason they neded someone who specialissed in training monkeys. I rather lost the plot
when the fix dominatrix caaptured the one with he gun andhypnotised her to
kill th monkey trainer. With
er indoors TM" off to
sell candles to the mases, I put the lead on to
"Furry Face TM" and we went off for a wlk with Chris. Chris had thisidea
to set a huge series of geocaches, but said (understandably) tat it was a huge undertaking. DId
I want to assist with the venture? Yes - I did. We went out and between us we
hid over twenty caches. I won't say where. Suffice it to say that there is
still a third of teh ccircuit
to be done, and what we did do took about four hours. Whilst
we were out I was so pleased to see that my little dog was well enough to
roll in fox poo. We
came home via the day's cache, and then I hosed the fox dung off of the pup. an hour was wasted playing Candyy
Crush Saga until er indoors TM"
came home. We got on our glad rags and went round for "My Boy TM",
and we all set off to my nephew's eighteenth birthday party. We
were told that fancy dress was optional. I thought we looked quite good as
the cast of "Grease". About a third of the people the had
made the effort to dress up in soe wy. Many of the younger ones had turned up in onesies for no reason that could detemine.
My nephew looked wonderful as the Joker fro the latest
Batman film. My brother looked remarkably at home in a sparkling dress. There
was an interesting young lady in tight red knickers and very lttle else. There was a particulary
interesting catwoman in a wipe-clean suit. And
there was a coven of smurfs who were sitting in the
corner radiating an aura of frank malevoloence. It
was good to meet up with many family mmbers that I
haven't seen for years; being the designated driver it was entertaining to
watch the antics of everyone else. There were those who patrolled the food,
those whoo patrolled the jailbait Wario. It was quite funy
watching seventeen year old blowing into the urinal (especially when they
were not my problem). The music was far too loud; it always is. But they
played soome good tunes that I knew. All
too soon it as time to come home. We staggered intto
bed shortly after 2am. I wish I had taken some photos of the event. |
|
15 September 2013
(Sunday) - Fence Fixing
Despite a late
night I was awake at 7am this morning. Last night when we got home my phone had
had a fit. The battery had gone doolally and despite a new geocache having
gone live a mile away, my phone wouldn't have it. Over brekie
another cache went live in Folkestone so with nothing else on the aganda for a couple of hours I thought I'd give the phone
a field trial. It worked OK - and I got an FTF.
Can't be bad. Mind you it still refuses to find that cache near the cinema. I
wonder what that is all about.
Lisa then got the barby going and we had sossies
and ribs and lager until mid-afternoon when everyone set off on their various
missions.
|
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16 September 2013
(Monday) - Bosoms, Sheep and Opportunism
Having woken before 3am and lain awake for
a couple of hours I was up and watching the antics of Blake's Seven (well,
five) at 5am. This morning they had rescued the woman from the gravy
adverts of twenty years ago. I'm not quite sure what they had rescued her
from, or what her role in the plot was, but having her waggling an epic bosom
at the camera from time to time livened up an otherwise dull episode. For any of my loyal readers who may be
shocked at such unbecoming an action from the gravy advert lady, I can
vaguely remember her doing much more graphic things with her "charms"
in one of the "Confessions" films from the 1970s in which
she was running round in the nip. Not that I am any expert on the waggling of
epic bosoms. I then had a look down the garden. The
temporary fence we bodged into place had survived the night and was still
standing. I suppose that is good; when we first put the temporary bodge in
place yesterday it lasted for half an hour before collapsing. It's got to
last until tomorrow; hopefully I shall be in a position to sort it properly
then. I set off to work. For today's geocache I
tried one I couldn't find last time. Two weeks ago I tried to be First to
Find, and despite several visits I couldn't find the thing. Today I found the
cache immediately. How did I ever miss that? As I arrived at the cache site there was a
sheep loose in the road. By the time I'd parked up the sheep had wandered
off, which was a shame. That would have made a good photo for the day. As I drove I listened to the news. Today's
news was being broadcast from the annual convention of the Dribbling Democrap party. And my piss boiled as I listened to them.
Since abandoning any principles they may have had in a shallow attempt to be
given political power at the last election, their popularity has dwindled.
They have lost a massive part of the electorate's confidence and have also
lost a third of their paid-up membership. The delegates being interviewed
this morning made no secret of their
current policies; namely to rubbish the two main political parties. This
would leave neither of them capable of ever again being in a position to form
a majority government. Therefore leaving Dribbling Democraps
in perpetual power in various coalition governments with the political
partners of their choice. I might not like what the Con-Servatives stand for, or Labour come to that (!) but at
least they both have the courage to have policies on which they will be
judged. The Dribbling Democraps are rather making a
mockery of the entire so-called democratic system. Given a hung parliament,
the leader of a minority party will get to decide with whom he want to chum
up, and consequently who governs the nation. Once at work I did my bit, and then came
home. I popped into Morrisons on the way back for
petrol. And sweeties. As I drove home the pundits on the radio were
discussing what was wrong with the National Health Service. As always they
spouted fine-sounding platitudes whilst skirting round the core problem the NHS faces. Which is... let me use an analogy. Imagine
giving your credit card and PIN to me, pointing me in the direction of the
pub, patting me on the head, then when the credit card bill comes in
pretending to be surprised at where all the money has gone. Free healthcare for all is expensive, The NHS needs to either decide or be told what it can treat
and what it cannot. And (for all that it sounds heartless) it needs to
have a list of things it will not treat. I won't go into specific examples;
I've done that before. We can all think of services which the NHS should not be offering. And it needs less change. Not more. There has
been too many shake-ups in the NHS over the course
of its history; very few for anything than other than to pander to the
current political fashion. But knocking the NHS
is always a good way to make content for news and current affairs radio
programs... |
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17 September 2013
(Tuesday) - It Rained
I had a vague plan
to lie in this morning. I got up at 6am which (I suppose) is a lie-in.
Our sci-fi heroes were stealing crystals in this morning's sci-fi DVD installment. Stealing crystals is an old sc-fi theme; Captain Kirk did it twenty years before
Blake's gang even thought about it. And like most sc-fi
crystals, stolen ones explode rather more readily than the average crystal.
But even the most gratuitous explosion won't make up for the lack of a plot. er indoors TM" set off to
work so me and "Furry Face TM" scrounged a lift
part of the way with her. A new cache had gone live near one of the town's
four McDonalds (I love Ashford!!) so I thought we'd have a go for it.
We tried. And failed. When looking suspicious in a public car park it helps
to have a small dog and some poo bags, but there is a limit as to how long
you can lurk by a fence. We gave up and went for another cache. There was one we
tried for last Thursday (couldn't find it) and went back to on Saturday
when we found the clue. Given the clue (and a hint), today I thought
I'd get the cache. The clue led us to an obvious place, but I couldn't find
the cache. I logged a third DNF (Did Not Find)
and went home in a sulk. Mind you the sulk didnt
last long. As we walked through the park I let "Furry Face TM"
off of his lead and he immediately found a new friend; a small brown poodle
we'd not met before. I know we'd not met this one before because I would have
remembered the rather fit bird (patent pending) accompanying said
poodle with whom I exchanged pleasentries
for an entertaining ten minutes. Campared to the rather fit
bird (patent pending), Orangehead and her
chunky little friend rather paled into insignificance. When I was three
quarters of the way home my phone beeped. An email. The chap who had hidden
the cache I'd just so spectacularly failed to find had thrown me a bone. A
small hint, but enough to make me realise that when I'd been searching I had
gone along having already decided what I was looking for. And having decided
to look for the wrong thing I didn't look for the right thing. That all sounds
rather cryptic, doesn't it. I'm not going to
give any spoilers, but if you read the
cache description do you pick up on the same line that I did? Now that I
knew that my initial premise was wrong we came home and (being rather lazy)
drove back and found the cache in a matter of seconds. This has taught me
a valuable lesson about my caching technique. I assume an awful lot. Just
lately I've DNF'ed quite a few caches because I get
the idea that I'm looking for a fake leaf, or a
magnetic keyholder when actually I should be
looking for something completely different. Home again, where there was a discarded supermarket trolley in the street. I stuck it in the front garden and used the "Trolleywise" app on my phone to report it. I have now used this app to report eight loose trolleys. I don't know if any have ever been collected, but having left this one in the front garden I can keep an eye on it to see if this one gets collected. After all, every time I report a trolly it uploads the photo that I have to take of the trolley. And there is only so many megabytes I can waste on being environmentally friendly. |
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18 September 2013 (Wednesday) -
Stuff
It would
certainly be a disaster for the Dribbling Democraps. There would
seem to be a hungry bunch of characters up that tree. |
|
19
September 2013 (Thursday) - Pirates !
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20
September 2013 (Friday) - Busy, Busy...
|
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21
September 2013 (Saturday) - Old Peculier (hic!)
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22
September 2013 (Sunday) - Wherigo
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23 September 2013 (Monday) - Rather Dull
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24
September 2013 (Tuesday) - Busy
I have had
one field test of project #1 around Viccie park; so
far so good. |
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25
September 2013 (Wednesday) - Grease Is The Word
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26 September 2013 (Thursday) - In Trumpington..
|
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27
September 2013 (Friday) - In Outer Space
|
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28
September 2013 (Saturday) - Early Doors
Over brekkie I watched an episode of a new program. Well, new
to me. "Early Doors" I shall have to have another look
at that when I get a minute. |
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29 September 2013 (Sunday) -
Working
|
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30 September 2013 (Monday) - Et In
Arcadia Ego...
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