50+ and proud of it.

Whilst in Vegas, the four of us went to the "Cafe Bellagio" for afternoon tea and got slightly nosed-up because we weren't wearing dinner jackets and bow ties, but they begrudgingly let us have a table anyway. On the grounds that cocktails were only slightly more expensive at $12 than a coffee or lemonade, we decide to have one each and share a "Strawberry Cheesecake" between each couple. I think it was because of this that they gave us their *special* version. This consisted of cheesecake, ice cream and something on top they referred to as "spun sugar". This is, in fact, is barbed-wire. When eaten, this jabs with needle-point precision, any available gum, tongue or throat with the same reckless abandon as a manic dentist on speed. The bill came to $72 for four drinks and two razor-wire desserts. We left an $8 tip in case they gunned us down on the way out. Just out of earshot on the mall outside my friend remarked "F*** me, we just paid $80 for S...

My wife and a couple of lovely friends (WW and Hubby) went to Las Vegas the other week ostensibly to cheer on WW in her attempt to win an archery competition that was being run in the conference rooms 1 of our hotel. In reality, it was just an excuse for us all to get away for a week. TBH I was a little underwhelmed by it all as my wife had *seriously* hyped it all up in the weeks prior to us leaving, so when I got there I just went "Yup, this is what I expect". What I hadn't expected though was the distance between the Hotel Lobby and our room was in fact a short bus journey away through the Casino, down the "mall", past the (15th) buffet, round by the Wedding Chapel, up the express lift and onto the 19th floor - and we were in one of the smallest-sized hotels on The Strip at 2,286 rooms. I now know why they have Coke & Ice machines on each floor - if not, by the time you get to the bar for a drink and go back to your room, you're ready for another. I...

Since coming back from Las Vegas last week (more on this later) I noticed that my Internet speed was very slow, stupidly slow in fact - speedtest.net reckoned it was about 0.1Mbps download! I phoned BT Broadband Technical no-Support, presumably in India, there were a few clues to this. "Hello, my broadband is very slow." "Who are you, what is you phone number, what is you first line of address, have you tried resetting it, I will test line, line is OK, it's 8Mbps, have you tried our BT speed test?" "Yes, I've tried all that" "Oh OK, thank you for calling BT." *click* I read something about the exchange throttling and then resetting after 3 days. I waited 3 days and during that time I just about managed to watch a BT video on YouTube about wiring and the like. I tried again, and rang them back and got the same stupid-reading-it-off-the-crib-sheets reply. I tried everything - swapping ADSL filters, PC's and even got the same speed whe...

There are times when you just feel like running around the house naked shouting "yes, YES!" 1 . Last night was such a time. Now, I was on my own and I didn't get naked however, but I did run around shouting "yes, oh yes!" 2 . You see my Mom never knew her grandparents because (according to family legend) they died when her mother was only 3 years old, and consequently her Mom never knew them either. So sadly the family tree has looked like this for some considerable time now: Searching for gran's name has only ever turned up the one census record after she was living with her uncle (noted as "niece") and logically, as she was born in 1882 then there would be no census records for 1881 (not born yet) and 1891 (both parents already dead). I did some lateral thinking and (eventually) came up with searching for anyone in Wolverhampton born in 1882 whose name began "A* L*" and there, at the top of the list, was gran - but both her first AND ...