50+ and proud of it.

Sadly, my mother managed to break her left hip the Saturday before Christmas and we had to take an unplanned two day visit to Wolverhampton early last week. We always were going to visit for Christmas despite my Mom telling everyone that she was going to "be alone until January". So it was Wolves Monday/Tuesday, back home Wednesday and Wolves again Thursday to Sunday. We spent a very odd few days up there which included visiting the hospital on Christmas & Boxing Day and having Christmas Lunch in her house without Mom actually being there. Mom treated the injury with scant regard - "it is a bit sore" was the only complaint, despite the hospital having to fix it with a pin. It reminded me of the Black Knight in Monty Python And The Holy Grail - "It's only a flesh wound...". We took the opportunity to do some "sales shopping" on Boxing Day in the town centre. This included a visit to Marks And Spencer in Dudley Street. We were browsing the ...

Yesterday I searched for a long-standing problem to do with sending faxes automatically using a VB (Visual Basic) program. In a nutshell, I was using some software that had been written eons ago which printed documents to the Printer object (Printer.Print / Printer.EndDoc, that sort of thing). The trick was that if you "Set" the Printer object to an installed FAX printer (in the Printers Folder) then you could simply fax it off around the world. The problem was that no matter what fax software you used you always got prompted for the fax number - which of course is no good if it's an unattended server. So, the now-since-retired people who wrote it came up with the ingenious solution to use VB AppActivate and SendKeys to enter the fax number into the fax number dialogue. This works just fine when it's WinFax; and when you have a telephone line within earshot of the server - which we don't. The "modern" solution to faxing where I work now is to send an ema...

Here's a cautionary tale for all people with cars on the road - so, about 30 million of us. And it's especially for those of us with insurance too... The first question the man from the insurance company asked me after writing off my son's car last month was "Whose name is on the log book? (V5)" Why did he ask? Simples, in the dark world of insurance, the "registered keeper" (according to DVLA) is in fact the "owner" (according to the insurance company). This in itself is probably contentious, but continuing with this premise the logic now proceeds thus: The policy holder's name isn't on the V5. Thus, the policy holder is not the owner. Thus, the policy holder has no insurable interest in the car. Thus the vehicle is not insured (3rd party still is). Thus the company won't pay your losses in the event of an accident. My name was on the V5. I rang up the chap I bought it from - "Alan?" "Yes?" "Have you p...

Here's an extremely good reason why you shouldn't write off a car the first day you own it. Buy car; sign V5 to transfer ownership. Smash car into the back of a van on the way home. Call insurance company. Insurance company write off car who inform DVLA of this by phone or computer. Post V5 to Swansea - required to get insurance money. Man takes away, and crushes, written off car. V5 form arrives at Swansea. DVLA computer says "Hang on this car is an insurance write off, why d'you want a V5?" This form arrives in post a few days later: ...Please take your vehicle to the nearest Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) site and get a Vehicle Identity Check (VIC) before we can give you a V5... Tricky.

I arrived at work this morning to find the phone with a dozen missed calls and one of the management team in a panic trying to find the keys to the store room. "Err, there's been a flood in Sales & Credit Control, do we have any spare PC's?" "No" "Ok, do we have any spare PC's?" "Still no." The conversation went on like this for a while. I had to unlock the store cupboard to prove the point. "Look - none!" "Oh." and he rushed off. Soon someone with a little more sense rang me up. "D'you think you could bring the pool car round 'cos we need to bring all the wet PC's which were on the floor back to the IT Suite and dry them out." I duly drove the Skoda round to the offices and remember thinking that there wasn't much rain, if any, last night. I was intrigued. I arrived and the full extent of the problem became apparent, but first a little background... Paper is made from fibre (in our ca...

This is gonna be a long post... and this is the first time I've had the enthusiasm to write about it. Last Wednesday week I came home to find a note on the mat - " Sorry we missed you, we've taken your Dabs parcel and you'll never see it again, signed, Home Delivery Network ". I rang the number on the card, got the automated system and rescheduled the delivery for the Friday. Now, their web-based tracking system doesn't and didn't even recognise my postcode. Now, I know someone was in all that Friday - Daughter, Daughter's boyfriend, Wife, Carpet Fitter etc. Hold that thought for a moment. Now jump back to the Saturday before when I bought my son a lovely one-owner, 7 year old Peugeot 106 for his birthday. Brand new clutch and cat for the new MOT:- I insured it with me as a named driver, waited for 2 days for the "Insurance Database" to catch up and then taxed it online. All legal - excellent. I decided not to bring it home during the week a...

I've just bust a mate's PC. Now that in itself was a really stupid thing to do - and this is how I did it (very briefly...). Try and speed up disk access by loading the correct IDE driver. Doesn't work, so remove the disk in Device Manager (Don't worry, it'll find it again when you re-boot. Oh no it doesn't). Reboot and get missing " ntldr, you're fucked, ha ha ha ". Reload Windows from the install disk and repair the installation. "Please enter the Windows Product Key?" - Ah, bollocks. Now I'm really shagged 'cos the PC won't boot now either except into "Setup Windows, please enter key" mode. Ask mate, "Have you got the Windows XP Disk or COA?", No?, bollocks, again. (Briefly what happened is that the PC bust after a power fail and he sent it away. They returned a nice new PC but crucially forgot to transfer the COA onto the new PC. He later showed me the unopened license pack with no COA - so a genui...

I heard this morning that two seasoned yachts-persons from Kent have almost certainly been hijacked by Somali Pirates near the Seychelles. This is admittedly a little way from the main part of the Indian Ocean where the pirates normally operate, but, nonetheless in the same ocean. I was just imagining the conversation in 1, Acacia Avenue, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. "I've got this great idea darling, let's take the yacht to the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles!" "Isn't that where a lot of ships and boats have been hijacked and held to ransom?" "Yes" "I'll get my coat then". And on a completely different subject, my friend got his smart Brabus Roadster mapped by Reddot in Watford the other day. They reckoned it was 116BHP before mapping (even after putting on a standard map) and 126BHP afterwards. It's important to note that prior to all this both cars were identical in performance. It is logical, Jim, that my car has 116 brake... ...

I watched Jenson Button drive a stunning race at São Paulo to win the F1 Championship last weekend. Why he hasn't driven like that before is a mystery, but hey ho, that's the way it is. I don't buy any papers to read, but I was musing over the different headlines that might appear: The Times Button seals F1 title at Interlagos in thrilling race. The Sun BUTTON FLIES TO WIN! BARICHELLO UNDONE The Guardian Button flies undone tow in Barichello. The Daily Star Button romps in Brazilian win! The Sport More Sex Please, We're British... There's a guy in the car park who has the number plate B13AWN. I think he's already emailed Ross...

We went to see my mom over the weekend and took the Egypt photos with us. She casually dismissed 7½ millennia of culture and history with one remark: "Pyramids? What's the point of them, they're not pretty are they?" I must admit, I can see her point. (Did you know that Freecell game 3885 can be solved without using the free cells?)

The highlight of the Nile Trip was to visit the famous temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel. In the early 60's, when my Dad first got a black & white TV, I used to come home from school and watch the BBC2 Trade Test Colour films. One of these was about the saving of the Abu Simbel Temples from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. I always wanted to go and see them after watching that film. (Although I can't find any reference to this particular test film on the net - so maybe I've got this bit wrong). We had a 3 hour drive across the desert which entailed a 03:30 start and a promise of "I'll wake you up to see the fantastic sunrise across the desert!". TBH, I've seen better at Herne Bay, but hey-ho, I was there at 04:44... These temples are just stunning. You're not allowed to take pictures inside the temples, but a little "baksheesh" to the man with the AK47 I got this one - along with several other people all taking advantage and jostling...

Yet another check box on my "things to do before I die" list was to visit the Valley Of The Kings. I guess it's to do with learning about Tutankhamen at school. So yet another early start, not because of the travelling distance but because the valley gets *so* hot you need to have done it by 09:30 else it's deep-fried Mars Bar time. Even at 07:30 it's hot - 'kin hot in fact. The valley is just rock and sand with absolutely nothing there except several holes in the wall and a few sun-shelters. Sadly, because people can't be trusted NOT to take flash photos in the tombs, they've stopped all cameras going in period. So, I stole this off the net (sorry): Now I have to admit to being a tad unwell due to too much food/beer night before and after visiting my first oven, sorry, tomb (KV 14 - Tausert and Setnakht), I was stopped by impaired breathing and a general "I'm going to die" feeling. I sat down in the shade outside KV47 (Siptah). One of th...

The days of the following week merged into one long day consisting of temple visits in the morning and lounging by the pool on the Sun Deck in the afternoons watching the Nile go by. This was followed by evenings of exactly the same but with a beer. To quote the Goons: "Gad it's hot". It was 30°C on the top deck at midnight... On the first night my wife woke up soaking wet. The air-con pump had failed and all the condensate had emptied onto her bed. She thought about going to reception to complain there and then. She wasn't too pleased when I suggested that the Arabic translation of "My bed is wet" may not get the correct message across. The next morning we headed off to see the Temple of Hathor at Dendera (north of Luxor). Everyone was fine about the visit until someone pointed to the back of the boat - Yes, that really is a machine gun. They mount it especially for the journey from Luxor to Dendera and you moor up four deep when you get there, two boats...

During "Cairo II" we also managed to fit in a trip to the Cairo Museum and I fulfilled a life-long ambition to see the famous Tutankhamun mask. It's jaw-dropping and you can get real close to it. You have to have a bun-fight with the crowd, but it's worth it - especially if you shout "fire!" first. (This wasn't a good idea as I completely forgotten about the man outside with the AK47). This day however, we thought it best to do something a little less intense and chose to visit the Pharonic Village (a living village on an island depicting Ancient Egyptian life). This consisted of a Disney-like tableaux of volunteers doing "stuff" as the boat went passed. However we caught this guy off guard. He saw the boat a bit late, jumped up as though nothing had happened and continued to "build" his wall. I'm not sure, but I think you can see the smoke from a cigarette in his right hand. Oh, no, it's weed... I think it was about this poin...

You shouldn't laugh but... Day Two and we took the guided tour of a few Churches, a synagogue and a mosque. You have to remember that this is the very end of Ramadan but devout Muslims still cannot eat or drink during the daylight hours of 6am to 6pm. We visited the Ben-Ezra synagogue... ... and the chaplet (sic) of St George (and the dragon)... ...and by now we're close to lunchtime, and hungry. "Is there anywhere we can get some food?" my wife enquired. "Yes", our guide replied, "the nearest is the KFC, we'll take you there. However, we cannot park outside, you must eat the food in the minibus while we drive." One quick visit and we're off into the manic traffic again. We were all merrily scoffing KFC down our necks when I was suddenly very aware that all the people in cars around us were staring at us through the windows. It suddenly dawned on me. "Ooops, this is Ramadan, these poor people aren't allowed to eat at all!". We...

For her 50th birthday present my wife conned me into booking a Nile Cruise with 3 days in Cairo with our friends Mrs "H" & Mr "K". On the first day we decided to "do" the Pyramids. I learnt a few things: Egypt is hot. Very hot. The sand is even hotter. Everyone wants a tip (baksheesh), especially if you look at them. This is why tourists always look at their feet or talk to the person to them even if they've never met them before. The inside of a pyramid has no air. Fat American Tourists have small lungs. Never take pictures of men in long robes. See "tip". Never, ever take pictures of men with AK47's. See "tip" as well. Men with AK47's can demand as large a tip as they please. Having run the gauntlet of pestering Egyptians selling small pyramids (or Pyramid Salesmen as my wife pointed out) we made it off the Giza Plateau and back to the hotel. We decided to go to the Cairo Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and duly ha...

We went to the smart festival yesterday. I almost threw away the invite - well, you do don't you? Something shiny drops through your door with "You have been invited..." written on it, you think "Oh, 'eck another bloody scam..." Anyway, I registered by pure chance - I rang up the FreeFone number to "...get more information..." and ended up being told that "...if I didn't register, I wouldn't be eligible for my free bacon sandwich" at the Merc dealer from where we were going to start. Already I had slight misgivings. This was the smart festival, not the smart roadster festival. "Going up together" meant "going up in convoy ". I'd done this before with the Yanks - '55 Cadillacs only do about 50 flat out, we used to do about 45. smart 600cc ForTwo's ain't that quick. Sure enough, we ended up going down the M26 at *precisely* 40 mph - much to the annoyance of foreign lorry drivers who just had to ...

So, it was GCSE "results day" yesterday - the 3rd and last one for us. When #1 son did his, we had to bribe him (with cash) in order for him to take the remotest interest in work whatsoever. It cost me £70 and we were very proud of him. Unfortunately for us, smart cookie #2 girl remembered this, "Well," she said haughtily, "you have to treat us all the same!". It cost me £180. #3 son bought a BMX bike at the start of the summer with his own money and we 'subbed' him the rest in a strange belief that he would get good grades... Yesterday cost me £220 - 4x"A", 4x"B", 2x"C" and an "E". I send him a text - "I owe you £220, you owe me £121 for your bike. And, you owe me £100 for the "E". So that's a pound you owe me ... ha ha ha" (Note to the shocked: I send him another 30 seconds later - "Well done, terrific!") He sent a text back - "And just what did you and mum get for you...

The other day I was driving to work and noticed a small white van about 5 feet off my stern. I wasn't in a particular hurry but, as you do, gave the Brabus a quick blip to put a few more yards between him and my exhaust - I quickly caught up the bloke in front. In typical style, Small White Van Man nailed it to catch up. The bloke in front slows for the roundabout, I lift off and SWVM nearly collects the back of me. I take the first exit and SWVM disappears past McDonald's with his hand out of the window shouting "WANKER!!!". He was good at it - I think he must practice that a lot. Yesterday I was driving (my wife said 'posing') down the sea front and was doing 15 - 20mph 'cos the speed humps are so large that most of them catch the turbo radiator intake if you hit 'em too hard. They're really close together - by the time the smart's dropped into 2nd it's time to brake for the next one. They're designed to stop the Boy Racers annoying t...

Yesterday was the wife's 50th birthday. Not many people knew that - well, they do now. We had a party at home last Saturday and my daughter put up a big banner saying "Happy 50th Mom" - much to my my wife's annoyance. I also spoilt the image by buying her a large flashing badge that said "50" in little coloured LED's. To be fair she wore it for a while, but then it accidentally fell into the fishpond. All I could hear was goldfish laughing. On her actual birthday (yesterday) it was decreed that we would, definitely, have a barbecue on the beach. After all, the MET Office had predicted earlier this year that a Barbecue Summer was indeed on the cards. Hmm, right. At one hour after it was predicted (they can't even get that right) the rain fell and the wind blew. Imagine the scene - 15 adults huddled under various beach hut verandas and my father-in-law cheerfully cooking beef burgers alone on the beach under the shelter of a golfing umbrella. "An...

This isn't funny, but. My big beef is that people (i.e. my family) use kitchen knives and never sharpen 'em. So when it's my turn to do some cooking, I end up having to sharpen them all - properly - before I can carry on, otherwise I end up simply squashing carrots & broccoli into pieces and making soup instead of side-dishes. I sharpened them again, and because I had some time, I used the oilstone to get that marvellous Bate's Hotel honed finish... My wife cut herself. Not badly - only a small plaster required - but enough to elicit some interesting expletives. I got yelled at. "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE THEM THAT SHARP?!". Now this brought up an interesting concept - to me that implied she was intending to cut herself anyway... "How sharp do you want the knife dear?" "Oh, fairly blunt please, I only feel like a small scratch today, thanks."

I've just come back from a week in Portugal on the Algarve. And very nice it was too. A significant feature of the weather was a constant wind which increased during the day and continued throughout the evening - so much so, that if you ate outside you had to nail the lettuce to the plate. We spoke to a local (in fact the skipper of a little boat that took you on "trips around the bay") who sagely said "It's due to Global Warming". Well me old mate, why am I having to put on a jumper then? In the hotel complex was a large tree. The buildings formed a square and shielded the tree from the wind. That tree had probably been there for ages and was on the glide path for the local bird life. It didn't matter what was on the disco, 8,000 sparrows were going to roost there every night as they had done for millennia. Jeez, it if it's not budgies it's sodding sparrows. Fortunately, they got up early and were quite quiet leaving. Not so the seagulls. They ...

So there I was merrily finding some information about a Tribute Night 1 we went to on Saturday when I noticed 3 very small black sticks crawling around my screen. Bugger, I thought, I've got some virus thingy. I did a load of research and couldn't find anything matching what I had. After about 20 minutes of searching I gave up when one of the little blighters crawled off the screen, out onto the plastic surround, down the side and fell onto the desk. The other two have since died in the middle of the bloody screen and under the glass. Anyone know how to take apart a Flatron 563LE ? Don't all rush. 1 This involved getting rat-arsed in the gardens of some large house listening to a bunch of people who thought they could dance & sing like their idols. TBH, the Michael Jackson guy was absolutely excellent and the Elvis chap was very good too. I'm a Beach Boys fan and the top-of-the-bill "The British Beachboys" were unfortunately, well, crap. I vaguely rememb...

Normally I dread my mobile ringing when the caller id says "son #1". He seems only to ring when it's "err, I've crashed the car", "can you lend me some money?" and the like. All has been quiet for a couple of weeks since he moved out. It's the daughter who's been a slight trouble with the Peugeot recently. It took me 3 attempts to get the 106 through the MOT. Everything was OK except for the emissions. I eventually found (I think) that it was a sticky idle control motor that had caused over-fuelling and subsequently burnt the cat out. Anyway, 'ring', 'ring', (tentatively) "Hello Son", "'Ello, what number should the fridge be on?"

I heard this morning that the great Michael Jackson died yesterday, aged 50, from a heart attack. There are those people who loved him, those who hated him and those who, quite frankly, didn't did a stuff. Will MJ be remembered for his great music, or his horrific upbringing? Will MJ be remembered for his great music, or the allegations of child abuse? Will MJ be remembered for his great music, or his alleged attempt at being white? Will MJ be remembered for his great music, or that he died at the same time as Farrah Fawcett-Majors? Will MJ be... & etc etc etc. My wife was devastated, she had failed several times to get tickets for the (obviously now cancelled) MJ tour in the UK. Whilst watching the TV coverage this morning she suddenly remarked "Oh, I don't now how much shopping to buy now!", "Why?", I asked, "Was he coming round for tea?" There was rumour that he was in fact Latoya and MJ are/were the same people. Now we'll find out. I ha...

Just how long had all this gone on for? I mean this ridiculous 'budget-cap-breakaway-threat' mess that Formula 1 has got itself into? I read with great interest today and some relief that Max has finally announced that "it's all been sorted out". Fortunately, "sorted out" also includes a new FIA president in October ;-). I was watching Eddie Jordan before Sunday's race (Silverstone) and he remarked to Bernie Ecclestone something along the lines of "can't you just go and bang a few heads together?" It reminded me of that great Fawlty Towers sketch : To Manuel 1 : Pointing to Sybil: "This, Basil's wife." Pointing to himself: "This, Basil. This, smack on head." Now why couldn't they have done that earlier? 1 Substitute names as you think appropriate!

My son left home again yesterday. I say "again" as he tried this before and it all went pear-shaped - something about his flat-mate owing money to a drug-dealer and his mate getting beat up, we never did hear the whole story, but at least he had the sense to move out pretty sharpish. Anyway, he and his girlfriend moved in together yesterday and we went round to help. "I wonder how long it'll take for him to mess this place up like he has at home?" my wife asked. Normal coming home procedure was to kick off his work boots, covering the hall tiles with concrete dust & sand, throw the yellow jacket over the stair rail and then make a sandwich leaving crumbs and butter over the work surface. "This is a really nice place. I'm going to have a 'shoes-off' policy", he remarked, "I don't want dirt all over my floor!" I had to rugby-tackle my wife to the floor who was just about to kill him...

In order to save money by not hiring an "I know all about Satellite TV" specialist I set about installing a brilliant bit of kit I bought from the local Screwfix store (FreeSat install kit # 85448) . I checked it out by clamping the dish to the patio table and running the cable through the lounge window. This did not go down well with the wife as she thought that this was the final install. I tripped up the cat too, because the cable ran underneath the kitty-door... Also, there are no instructions with the kit 1 , only an exploded diagram of the assembly, a small device intriguingly called a "satellite finder" and a compass that would be laughed out of a Boy Scout meeting. I found out later that the compass was attracted to any metal object, including the dish itself. That's why the dish always seemed to face dead South. I had already installed the cable in the loft and down the cavity wall when I removed the fireplace late last year. The cable was coiled and ...

10 years ago I bought an Hitachi TV from Currys. It was superb, brilliant picture and so on. The only problem with it was that because it was a traditional CRT, it was as deep as it was wide, oh, and damn well heavy. Time passes and LCD TV's and FreeSat came along - and so did the Panasonic Vieras. "I want one of those", I said to my long suffering wife, "but I can't justify the cost when the TV I have is so good!" I kept tabs on the price (as you do) and eventually they hit rock bottom at about £699 what with the crap pound/yen exchange rate an' all that - or should that be dong? Last Thursday the Hitachi expired, not in a blaze of glory or anything to signify the end of a glorious career, it just failed to turn on. The little red light came on and then off and that was that. I rubbed my hand with glee - " YES! " The Panasonic beckoned. My wife glanced over from making tea, "Why can't we just get it repaired like we did 5 years ago? I...

Having eventually escaped from the traffic queues we finally made it to " Holiday-In-France-Part-II " - Le Manoir De Gourlay near the Somme Valley. We turned up only slightly fried and parked on the lawn. We walked in and found ourselves in someones back garden where the family were sitting around drinking. I looked at my friend ("are we in the right place?") I whispered. "Guess so, that's why it says Manoir De Gourlay on the gatepost". "Ah, this'll be it then". We were invited in. "Sit down, make yourselves at home, beers are in the fridge, wine's in the dining room, we're having a barbecue, are you eating with us?", "Um, yes?" During the evening meal, the host almost invisibly replaced the empty wine bottles with full ones. We got fairly trashed and I'm ashamed to admit, the same thing happened the next night. When we came to settle up the bill, we realised that each meal had cost a flat €25. Later on w...

Last Sunday on the way back to our next stop in the Somme Valley we detoured via Bayeaux to catch a glimpse of the Tapestry. It's something that's been on my Things To Do Before I Die list since junior school. I took my camera in, but was politely referred to a notice that read "No Cameras" and that little camera sign with the bar through it. Very good it was too. I was examining the cloth with great interest when I overheard the American next to me say "Gee, didn't they write funny in those days?". "That's medieval Latin", I said, "that says 'Harold Was Here' and that says 'Harold went over to France'". "You speak Latin bud?", "Yes, I learnt it at school". There was a man next to me intently focusing a Nikon on a section of the cloth. I heard him mutter "Smug git!". "Yes, but at least I can sodding well read." I spy with my little eye... something beginning with "A...

Having visited Mont St Michel on the Friday we attempted to get back to the hotel. This involved sitting in the queue on the causeway as everyone else desperately tried to not get drowned too. By the time we actually made it onto the mainland, high tide had "been and went". We spent a timed 27 minutes to go about 3km - 2 minutes doing the last 1km. When we finally made it to the hotel 1 my mate in the top-down MGF behind had had enough, his clutch foot still trembling and his wife nicely cooked, announced rather firmly "I think we'll eat in the Hotel tonight." The €23 menu looked rather good, my French was good enough to understand everything on it apart from one of the starters " Araign é e Mayonaise ". My electronic translator came up with " spider ". "Shit, the French'll eat anything" I thought. We called over the waitress. " Err, bon soir, ce qui ne signifie araignée? " " Eet means speeder " "What a...

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we took the smart Roadster and my friend's MGF over to France. First stop Le Mont St Michel . Nice place, trop cher at €5 per half pint of 1664 but certainly has entertainment value. It's like this. MSM is perched on an island in the sea and you can't drive onto the hill. So, you park at the end of the causeway, on the beach in various parking areas - P0, P1 -> P6. These areas are just below high tide level depending indeed upon the height of the tide. The nice people put up a sign indicating when the next tide is and which areas are going to get flooded. Last Friday it was "P0" at 17:30. They also provide a service to prevent people from drowning. The tide can come in at the speed of a galloping horse and as such, if you're on the beach at 'high tide - 5 minutes' then there's strong possibility that you're fish-food. This service is in the form of a man standing on the ramparts with a whistle, blowing it madl...

Not a particularly staggering piece of news but here we go... I was counting the engines 1 in the smart roadster on Saturday in a pretence to spray some protective grease over the rear chassis when I noticed a missing bolt in the lower exhaust bracket. Not a huge problem, get another bolt, shove it in and job done. However, when the holes failed to line up it occurred to me that it may have been AWOL for sometime. This was borne out by the fact that both mating surfaces were highly polished and worn. A "friend of mine" 2 has access to the Merc. Workshop Manual. It said "before tightening everything up, make sure that all the bolts are in place". That's easy for you to say Mr Benz - when you're lying on your back and require arms and hands like a demented octopus it ain't that simple. It also required loosening the turbo outlet-to-silencer clamp. And then it dawned on me - the exhaust was hanging on by virtue of the strength of the turbo and the top sil...

No, not the lens... (see previous post), but a programming problem I've had for, well, months. I'm only posting this here 'cos if anyone else is going bonkers about how to connect to a Websphere (MQ) remote server queue when you've got both client and server 5.3 installed on your PC and you're using Visual Studio 2005 and you're using VB.NET and you keep getting ReasonCode = 2058, ReasonName = MQRC_Q_MGR_NAME_ERROR and you can connect to the remote queue OK using the Websphere explorer and you're using Windows XP (phew). Go to this link for a code snippet that demonstrates how to open a queue, check for content, read the message and finally close the queue. How you process the message is obviously up to you. The code only shows how to read ASCII messages. I converted the original code from C# code to VB.NET. The short answer is to use the MQEnvironment object and not the MQSession object. It's found by Import ing IBM.WMQ and using AMQMDNET.DLL ...

I'm fairly meticulous about planning trips. Dunno why, I just hate rushing and end up being late for ferries, aircraft etc etc. I also like to know where I'm spending the night - hence pre -booking hotels, locating them on the map and entering the coordinates (twice) into the Garmin . We're doing a tripette to France with our friends at the end of May, they're going in their MGF -180 and we're going in the smart Roadster. Should be fun... However, the French seem very keen to keep the English out (no change there then), because the first hotel directions are "turn right at the D976" but fail to specify which particular right turn. The booking website gives one location and the one from the hotel chain website lists another, neither of which are in the Garmin database. I have two manual Garmin entries "Hotel1a" & "Hotel1b" just in case. You never know, I may even get an answer to my email before we go. The second directions ar...

We went to Scotney Castle today, very nice too. The house has "recently opened to the public" and has "been preserved for our National Heritage". However, w hat was real scary was that we walked around going "we had one of them in our house" and "my Mom had one of those too" and "I can date that Radio Rentals Telly for you if you like". There was that defining moment somewhere in the master bathroom when we looked at the Dimplex Electric Fire on the wall and realised that our lives overlapped those of whom we had paid good money to see. It gave me an idea. Shall I donate Mom's house to the National Trust? I'm glad this wasn't me. Whilst waiting for entry to the house, my dear wife dropped the spare camera lens down the steps. Did you know that Nikon 55-200mm AF-S VR DX lens can bounce down three granite steps and survive? Neither did I until today. I tested it when I got home. Now bear in mind that a D40 is an SLR and there...

50 years ago, give or take a year. my Dad bought a small axe for chopping wood for kindling - we had coal fire in those days. (No one knows what Jack Frost is on a bedroom windows these days). Me being me, decided that chopping wood and everything else was quite fun. My father sensibly decided to hide the axe from a manic 5 year old. He hid it. He hid it from me, and, ultimately, hid it from himself. I remember when I was a teenager my Mom mentioning something about "when Dad finds that axe". The lost axe slowly merged into family legend. Did Dad hide it on the Allotment (a mile or two away)? Did my Uncle borrow it a not return it? Did we actually have an axe in the first place? The shed at the top of the garden - itself over 40 years old (shed, not garden) - finally collapsed into a heap of rotten timber last winter and a couple of weeks ago Mom paid a couple of men to dismantle what was left and remove it. Can you guess what they found? Wrong. They found nothing. But what t...

Dear Diary, Monday, The war is over and I've been sent back to London for another course. Another hotel, another set of problems - which of the two real ales to try? Whether to have the Full English Breakfast or the Continental One? Shall I have the shower on hot or really hot? Life's hard in The Tavistock. Tuesday, I've just spent the last two hours discussing "Religion And Its Place In Science" with the course tutor. I only asked him how to get rid of "dbo." 1 at the start of a function call and ended up discussing that the first word of the Bible in Hebrew 2 supposedly could mean "In A Beginning" (and not in the beginning); and where the Jedi fit into all this. Gosh that London Pride looks inviting. 1 Something to do with schemas - maybe Wednesday will enlighten me some more. 2 כראשיח

Now I know you shouldn't blow your own trumpet, but, I feel quite pleased about this one. We took the Astra for it's 120k mile service and told the bloke that none of the remote key fobs were working reliably. You could do the standard re-program 1 and then next time you used either they wouldn't work. They charged me £3.50 for a new battery and, spookily enough they worked. The next day they failed. I took the car back and asked 'em what they were going to do about it. The service manager suddenly "had an idea" 2 , took the fob apart, had a good look, gently jiggled the battery cage and spotted a small crack in the "battery-pillar-to-circuit-board" connection. "Hang on for 5 minutes, I can solder this" - sure enough, it now works just lovely. That gave me an idea for the second fob. Sure enough, I took it apart and it too exhibited the same cracked battery pillar posts 3 . The challenge was to find a small enough tip for my low-wattage so...

Went to Lydden Hill today to see the first round of the European Rallycross Championship. Met Murray Walker - nice bloke, looks like my Dad.

Dear Diary, Thursday Get up after picture on wall swings around accompanied by the company song. Shower in *exactly* three minutes. Check cell for bugs. Grab packed suitcase; rush through lobby throwing room card into box on exit whilst guard's back is turned. Skip breakfast. Sidle into road attempting to fit in with locals. Someone stops me. " Goood Luck " "Thank you" DOH!!!

Dear Diary, Sunday Went to London for a course. Booked into the Royal National Hotel - seems like a nice place, staff are friendly but mildly incompetent. They took my money in advance for four nights and then decided the "office was closed" and promptly reversed the transaction. I had to pay over at the Concierge desk. Got three receipts. Room is small but seems nice & clean. Monday Get up at 7:00. Woken by sounds of traffic and large motorbikes (even at seven stories up). Go into shower - ceiling still has stains of cigarette smoke on ceiling. One bar of soap and two towels. Go to breakfast early; guard at restaurant lets me in when I show my pass. Fried eggs can sole my shoes; bacon resembles leather. Go for a walk in the evening - feel distinctly scared. Decide to surf the net in my room instead - room has no Wi-Fi. Go to bed early. Tuesday Get up slightly later. Woken by herds of tourists rushing down the stairs. Go to breakfast; Filipino soldier lets me in after fr...