Harvey's Christmas Ale.

Oh my god. I tried some of the Harvey brewery Christmas ale yesterday, two pints at 8.2%. The rest of the day just flew by! Touch it at your peril, or at least have a day off work planned first!

The Ashes!

This happened last Thursday….

I thought I would treat myself to a late lunch and catch the match down at the local pub between 2pm and tea.

A Rowley Birkin wing commander The Fast Show type comes out of the disabled toilet and comes up to me...

"Are we sticking it up them?"
"Pardon?"
"Are we giving those damned Aussies a sound thrashing like the 2nd test?"
"Well looking good at 195-2 at tea......
"Good because there is nothing better than giving those b@stard Aussies a big poke in the eyes with a short sharp stick!...Christ I maybe putting my foot in it ...are you an Aussie?"
"Do I look like a bread thief?", I replied.

Laughs and Japes all round!

My favourite tipple of the moment...

with ice...nice.

Live 8 Yesterday!

Live8 London! Well its about as close as we could get but still good fun, apart from Snoop Dogg who has a foul mouth!

Goodbye Wildfire!, Thankyou Goodbye!

Today sees the very last day of Wildfire! the voice activated voicemail service from Orange, that allows you to control the entire experience using your voice.
For example you could ring your voicemail on your handfree in the car and go:-
WF: Oh hello, you have 1 new message.
Me: What does it say,
WF: Wildfire plays message
Me: Give them a call.
WF: Dialling, WF then calls using the number they left
Once call is finished
WF: They hung up
Me: Call
WF: Call whom?
Me: Derek
WF: At which place, home, work, mobile or other?
Me: Work.
WF: Dialling...
and so it continued, seemless call handlnig throughout the entire journey, I only had to press and hold 1 to do all this at the beginning of the call.
Now the bright sparks at Orange, and the wonderful Chinese Wise Man think that rewarding their existing customers should be to discontinue this service BEFORE putting in any comparable replacement service. I had a wonderful letter from them explaining I was being UPGRADED to their standard service.
Hang on I paid £10 a few years ago to be UPGRADED from their standard service.
So now my voicemail experience will be on the road:-
VM: You have one new message.
Me: Press a button to play message.
VM: Press another button to return the call.
Me: Hang up from voicemail
Me: Locate Dereks phone number in phone whilst driving
Me: Dial number

What a difference a change of ownership can make to a company, when owned by Hutchinson Orange was an innovative company with many unique selling points over their rivals, France Telecom have reduced this to your run of the mill network which now fails to compete on price against the likes of Vodafone or indeeed network reliability, especially 3g.

"Goodbye Wildfire, thankyou goodbye!"

Grumpier Old Men

Here's an excellent web site I was shown the other day. Brilliant for getting those gripes off your chest.

http://www.grumpieroldmen.co.uk

Isle of Wight : the quick bank holiday review.

OK, so I found myself giving the Isle of Wight a spin over the whitsun for a mini camping holiday. Well what an amazing feast of talking points, some of which will need more detailed discussion, however the rough overview is as follows:-

• Alum Bay: Over-rated, hard to get to if its windy and the chairlift is out of action. The chair lift base station on the beach makes a lousy photo shoot for the Needles. 5/10
• The Needles: couldn't find the road the 42 bus takes to them, so couldn't even get close. 5/10
• WightLink Ferry: Very rude staff at Lymington, still that's New Forest monkeys for you, not IOW. Between themselves they would find it hard to organise that annual pissup in the local brewery. "Just bring your reservation number, don't need a ticket, do need a ticket, come onto boat without ticket, now with ticket...." ah forget it!
• General coastline scenery, amazing....9/10
• Road direction signs: sporadic at best, you need the map, and the ability to read writing on the road at speed, as most direction signs are missing at major junctions here.
• Commerical Radio : plummets to the depths that GWR group is still trying to find.
• Newport = ChavTown, customer service in shops not selling kitch bling, 0/10
• Osborne House : Well worth the visit, 9/10, amazing house and grounds.
• East Cowes : Ferry terminal and little else.
• Adgestone campsite, good staff, very near to golf club with ents in the evening, so getting to sleep when "Slade-esque" or any other wannabies are playing is hard.
• Ryde and its Pier: Yeah I liked this place, very unique especially the pier itself which is comprised of three piers placed against each other, the promonade (open to cars as well), the tramway (long since closed) and the railway.
  

All in all the IOW does deserve another visit. It's got some strange customs which we found out at breakneck speed. Also being able to to circumvent the entire island in around an hour head f**ks you slightly. Apart from some desperate types in Newport people are very friendly. I think that if you take time to stop and look at each tourist opportunity on individual merits, its actually very good!

The Lanes Hotel

The wonderful seaview at Brighton as from "The Lanes Hotel" last week. 

90% of cyclists are colour blind!

Having conducted a recent survey of my travels it does appear that cyclists in the UK suffer with extreme colour blindness, in particular at junction where traffic lights are present.

The inability to distinguish between red and green appears to be the most prevelant, and also determining when a light is at the top or the bottom of a traffic light sequence.

I find it a continuous source of amusement that a cyclist will bomb straight through a red light in the vain hope that the number 7 double decker won't be hacking through their green light at the same time.

Other road signage cyclists seem to have visual problems or intellectual misunderstanding with include:-

No entry signs....apparently this is only for powered vehicles.
Zebra Crossings...cyclists always have right of way over pedestrians apparently.
Pelican Crossings...colour blindness kicks in here, and red definitely gets confused with green.
Pavements...even if not designated as a pedestrian/cycle path these do appear to be for the exclusive use of cyclists.

Cambridge and Oxford (understandably) appear to be the hardest hit, with a varying array of skill and talent to misinterperete every road signage.

My suggestions, lets get back to proper policing, on the spot fines for these morons! Let's bring in a license plate scheme for bicycles and cycling licenses so there is some goddam accountability for these muppets!

Comments welcome!!!

Can someone PLEASE explain to me the purpose of CHAVS!?

This is just something I will never get!

Why does it seem that for any male in their teens or twenties need to explore their "individuality" and not conforming to peer pressure by going as far as having a different design of baseball CHAV cap to there fellow CHAVITES!

For all you Chavs and waana-chavs out there, listen up!
1. In this country the national sport is Football (not Soccer as the North Americans would have it). The national sport is not Baseball. Why the stupid cap?

2. It's neither too sunny or rainy indoors, therefore it is quite ok for you to remove the damned cap indoors without the braincell being affected.

3. A bunch of you filling a knackered out Vauxhall Nova, capped up!, listening to a stereo that costs more than the car isn't a very useful expenditure of time.

4. Sticking pretend petrol cap stickers over the Nova's, putting fake spoliers, bafflers or bloody blue lights on the bottom of your car, won't make it go faster, make it appreciate in value or raise your level of self respect.

So please Chavs, baseball cap wearers everywhere, get a life, be individual and appreciate that you live in the UK not the US.