50+ and proud of it.

As you all know, there's something a bit odd about the Amy Pond character in the latest series of Doctor Who - like she doesn't know who The Daleks are and the like. We all know that "Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who" and Russell T. Davies threw in "Bad Wolf" throughout the earlier episodes, so I thought it would be a bit of fun to run "Amy Pond" through my anagram solver... Amy Pond = Mad Pony... Amelia Pond = Dope Animal, Impala Done, Opal Maiden... Oh, there are hundreds more, including "Apian Model", so, when there's an episode about killer bees, remember, you saw it here first!

Where to begin? Let's start with the Astra - 100k miles on the engine and a while ago it started leaking oil. "Hello sir, you're leaking oil, we need to look at it." "Ok" "Well, we've looked at it and we think it's coming from the main oil seal. But don't worry we've checked for ring blow-by and that's fine so we'd like to charge you £700 to fix it." "Ok" "Here's you car back sir, that'll be £700." "Ok, I notice that it still leaking oil from the same place." "Well, we need to look at it." "Ok" "Well we've looked at it and we think it's coming from the sump gasket." "It that the same sump gasket you replaced a while ago?" "Ah, well that was over a year ago and Vauxhall only guarantee a year yada yada yada, and it might be blow by." "Is this the same blow-by that you said was fine last August when all this lot kicked off? L...

Hmm, I think " interestingly wet " sums this one up. Made much better by the fact the Jensen won with Lewis second. Most interesting part? Possibly all the shenanigans in the pits. "You can't overtake in the entrance to the pits!" "Just watch me..." and "You move over!" "No, you move over!" "I really think you should move over." "I'm the pit wall, your call."

Hmpf. It's my birthday today, not a significant one mind but a birthday nonetheless - and still miles away from a bus pass. My wife recently suggested that I take one of my oldest friends to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford as we've been "meaning to go" for about three years. He's a mine of information, particularly about WWII and good company to boot. So, yesterday, we took the roadster up the M11. We got to the entrance and waited in line. "Two please" The lady took a long hard look at me. "Are you concession?" My mate was still laughing at lunchtime.

Well, the only thing I can say about this is " boringly dry ". It had all the makings of a great race after qualifying and promises of "it always rains at 5:00pm" and the like, but it failed to deliver. Most interesting part? Ferrari and McLaren getting Q1 wrong.

My two-word summary for this race is " Much better ". It was going to be " Somewhat better " up to point where Vetell's Red Bull brakes failed. Not that I don't like Vettell, not at all, but it did allow Jenson to win... Most interested part? Hamilton getting done by the Melbourne Police for doing wheelies in the car park. I admit to being on the edge of my seat at one point, but this was only as I was trying to get up to make a cup of tea.

We went to Paris over the weekend and I got conned into visiting the Musée de l’Orangerie to see the "really nice paintings" in there, when all I wanted to do was to sit in a nice warm Parisian bar with a bottle of red. The entrance had an airport-style scanner manned by a rather large guard. Presumably in the past they had problems with people smuggling in "really nice paintings". Predictably it went 'beep'. "Emptee yur pokeets please" "Ok, certainly" 'beep' "'Av you got a belt?" "Yup, I have" 'beep' "Put yur camera ovur there" "Ok" 'beep' "Take off yur jackeet" "Hmpf" 'beep' I was now nearly down to socks, shoes and underwear. The queue behind me started to mutter somewhat. " Mon Dieu, les fou Anglais ". The security man furiously glared at me. " What 'av you got that makes eet go 'beep'? " " I do nit kn...

I thought I'd try and come up with a two-word précis for each Grand Prix of this season - in the same sort of way that the Hitchhikers Guide described the Earth. Sadly, I could only come up with " Disappointing Anti-climax " for the much-anticipated opener. The most entertaining part of the BBC's coverage was watching the tumbleweed and listening to the wind whistling gently while Martin Brundle waited to catch Alonso's eye on the grid. Assuming I haven't died of boredom in two weeks after the Melbourne race, I'll give it another shot.

This took me ages to find a solution to this one. If you get: Load report failed when trying to load a Crystal Report into a viewer using VB.NET something like this: .CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = ReportName .CrystalReportViewer1.ShowFirstPage() ' Blows up here then you should try the following: In Solution Explorer, right-click the project (NOT the solution), Add / Existing Item / "file of type" .RPT / Navigate to, and add the report to the project. Then, in the properties of the (new) report change "Copy to output directory" to "Copy Always". Also, it was suggested that you try using the full pathname in "ReportName". Don't bother thanking me, no one else does... ;-)

I'm only writing this in case someone else has a problem upgrading their PSUS4 Printer Server firmware. If you get the error message: access to the target is in failure when trying to upgrade the firmware using the "BiAdmin Management Utility" program found in your start menu, then use the browser based utility instead (Default IP Address 192.168.1.93). Works for me using Firefox. Download the ".bin" from the Linksys website and extract it to (say) C:\Temp. Run the utility via the browser, browse to the file and job done. It is suggested that you temporarily disable anti-virus software during the upgrade.

I'd just like to point out that Warwickshire Police use an unmarked dark blue/black BMW 750i that they're rather quite good at driving - especially where the M6 joins the M1 southbound. The conversation at the Watford Gap Services last Saturday went along the lines of: "In a hurry sir?" "Um, not really, why?" "We clocked you at 95, but we're not going to take it any further, 'cos everyone else was doing the same." "Err, thank you" "I'm now going to ask you to provide a specimen of you breath, you do not have to say anything...." "...yeah, yeah, I know all about the "legal" speech bit, I've watched Police Camera Action y'know." "That's where I get all of my training from sir, good night." "It's a fair cop, good night".

I was told to go on a course this week - "Introduction to the IBM AS/400". I viewed this with great suspicion as I consider anything non-GUI to be, well, slightly crap and therefore not worth using. Dear Diary: Day 1: Hire car turns up a day early, man throws keys through letter box and buggers off. No probs, it's a new Skoda Octavia, we use one of these at work. Day 1+1 hour: Eventually work out how to adjust the wing mirrors and unlock the passenger door. Day 2: Work out how to use the touch-screen radio and climate control. Drive to course up M1 - really could use cruise control. Day 3: Course starts, can't park anywhere except in very tight spot, get trapped by the wing mirrors. Day 4: Park miles away, at least I can get out of the car. Day 5: Can't remember, brain fried by 3 days of TLA's. That's TEN letter acronyms. Day 6: Last day of course! Hoorah! Discover switch for the powered fold-in wing mirrors whilst driving out of the car park. Drive back d...

It suddenly occurred to me today that Gordon Brown will never be able to fully enjoy the movie Avatar. :-)

I've had my family tree on G/Ru for ages and because my surname is quite common, ok very common, I get loads of hits from other trees. I had this one come through today (and it's by no means a one-off): "Dear PeteTheVan, we've found an amazing match on our database with someone who might be your relative - Why don't you pay us squillions to contact that person?" Even I can do the SQL for that one: SELECT .... WHERE MY.FIRST_NAME = HIS.FIRST_NAME AND MY.DOB = HIS.DOB AND MY.PLACE = HIS.PLACE How hard can it be?

Well, not friends, but an impressionable chap in the office who bought a smart roadster because I had one. He's now sold it and sort of regrets it. So, when a chap's down there's nothing like kicking him a bit further is there? I recently discovered that my new Garmin Nuvi (an amazing bit of kit) has a trip log of some sorts that remembers amongst other things, what your top speed is. Similar to this: So with appropriate misleading comments such as "Gosh, look how fast I've been", I showed him the relevant screen - 141mph. "Holy ****". He walked off muttering something about changing tapes in the Server Room. I sort of neglected to say that I'd been on a course the week before and had taken the unit on the the Javelin train on HS1 to St Pancras. I might just forget to say anything.

We ordered a nice display cabinet from Argos last December. We spent *weeks* choosing the one we wanted. Its primary purpose was to hold the drinks that were cluttering up the kitchen worktops - the bottles were moved when the original 25 year old unit fell apart last year. It arrived today, and I watched the men carefully carry it in from the lorry into my lounge. They didn't hit anything and I didn't move it later. You can probably see where this is going can't you? I unwrapped the bottom half, moved it into position and adjusted the bottom doors and fitted the handles to perfection. I unwrapped the top half and upon removing the last bit of protective cardboard found a dent in the top rail. I planned a strategy that went along the lines of "Hello, my unit's bust you bastards, send out another by tomorrow or else, or, you can refund me the price for the top half." **ring** **ring** "Hello, this is Neil, how may I help you with your Argos Order?" ...

My beloved Garmin i3 broke the other day - some cheap aerial I bought a while back on eBay left the plug part in the socket part and, despite valiant efforts with a pair of tweezers and eventually a soldering iron, I couldn't get the bit out. Ok, so it works without an aerial; in fact I don't actually use an aerial in any of my cars so really there's no difference... But, I do use the aerial for Renaults and going-on-holiday-cars and this is where it all started. I drove Mum & Dad-In-Law to Southampton last week in their Renault and that did have a metallised windscreen hence the aerial, hence the bugger-it's-just-bust aerial. Now, it costs about £75 to have it fixed and, more importantly the maps are 2 years out of date, and they're about £60 for the latest update. Ergo, a new Garmin please. I tried this logic on the wife who asked me this important question - "What's wrong with the old one then?". Never mind.

I found an identical Peugeot 106 to the one I crashed after 300 yards (or metres in new money) last November. One owner, & etc blah blah blah. I picked it up today. At lunchtime. In the light. I drove home at 30mph all the way even in the derestricted parts. I blamed it on the snow that wasn't actually on the road but it was an excuse. Did you know it's very difficult not to blink for 5½ miles?

An open letter to Mercedes-Benz: Dear Sirs, Thank you for fitting ABS and ESP on my smart Roadster. Yours snowingly Pete The Van.

I watched the good ol' Beeb tonight with some concern regarding the 1994 Mull Of Kintyre Chinook crash . I've worked for the MOD - and written software for them. Indeed, my software is still flying in the Typhoon 1 . It works like this: Write some software. Test it. Fix it. Repeat 2 & 3 until you run out of time/money etc. SAVE THE SOFTWARE TO DISK/PAPER TAPE/CD/DVD etc etc. Deliver the software. Here's the point: If they're really concerned about finding the cause of the accident - grab the flight software from backup in Step 5, chuck it into a Chinook simulator, enter the flight parameters that are known from 2/6/94 and Bob's Your Uncle. 1 Not quite, but it would take too long to explain...