Rome - Day 3

We set off early the next day, to walk westwards across the Tiber for about a mile to the Vatican City and St Peter's Square and Basilica.

St Peter's Square is one of those large impressive pieces of architecture that you can't see until you're right inside it.



Something about seeing priests travelling in large groups, and posing for photographs in the square (you can just about make out a group in the photo below) made me think of "Father Ted".



Queued for about 20 minutes to get inside St Peter's Basilica. Apart from the richly carved doors, the outside of this building only gives a few clues as to how over-ornate the inside is. Too much detail for the eye to take in. I soon began to realise that rather than being a big fancy church the whole place is in reality a splendiferous Papal Mausoleum. A bit like the Valley of the Kings, but for Popes, rather than Pharoahs.

I couldn't help but think that here's a religion that's really missing the point. The people that built this place would have definitely picked the wrong cup from the choice of possible Holy Grails.





People were falling down at their knees in front of altars to various deceased Popes. Some seemed to be more popular than others. At one point during our exploration we descended to the basement and tiptoed past a large crowd, kneeling at a big white slab under which lay the last John-Paul.

One of the spookiest, and most unbelievably fantastic sights is a monument to Pope Alexander VII by Bernini. Over a doorway to a chapel is what looks like a drapery of cloth - but is actually carved from marble. Not quite fully emerging from the cloth is a skeleton carrying an hourglass.




Most people were spending their time wowing at this sculpture, and completely ignoring the alter next to it, that commemorates the spot where the concept of the Immaculate Conception was defined.

Here's a picture of me. The chap wearing the crown that I'm standing in front of is Atilla the Hun



One thing that I didn't want to miss was The Sistine Chapel. It took us a while to figure out that you couldn't get to it from St Peter's, but instead had to go out of St Peter's square, and around the walls to the Vatican Museum - the Chapel features as part of the Museum - therefore attracting a fee to get inside it.

As we walked around the walls of the Vatican we came across a few beggars. We'd seen some the previous day too, hanging around some of the major sites. Not nearly as many as I remember from the last time I was here, but that was in the middle of the summer, and this time we were "off-peak".



We stopped off at a post office to post some postcards back home. Two were for Frodo and Samwise, with pictures of Gladiator helmets. Sat in the queue hastily trying to look up the Italian for "Stamp". It turned out to be "Stampe".

Paid our Euro's to get into the Vatican Museum, and started our trek, following signs for "Capella Sistina", through gallery after gallery of statues, paintings, frescoes, mosaics, pottery and other booty that the Popes have looted and stored throughout the centuries.

As is often the way with large collections like this, much to much to see and take in. You follow the crowd like herds of sheep heading for the Sistine Chapel, which is situated at the very end of the Museum.

We were really impressed with the Gallery of Maps - where the whole of Italy is painted as relief maps onto the walls. No pictures here, but we liked this place so much that we bought a book. There was a particularly good fresco of the Battle of Lepanto

After the Gallery of maps was a choice - either a shortcut to the Sistine Chapel, or a tour through the apartments of the Borghias i.e. the Raphael Stanze
We went for the tour. Glad that we did since the frescoes in these rooms were fairly spectacular. No pictures allowed again here (understandably). My favourite was The School of Athens, which is a who's who of artists and philosophers. The rest were various battle scenes, depicting the victories of Constantine, plus some other historical wars (I think that our pal Atilla featured again). Muscle bound blokes wearing gossamer shorts were a recurring theme - we tried to figure out if the shorts had been painted on afterwards as some sort of modesty adjustment.

Finally we arrived at the large, barn-like structure that is The Sistine Chapel. Immediately we joined the throngs of people milling about, getting a stiff neck by looking upwards. Michelangelo's ceiling artwork is everything it's cracked up to be - Literally as you can see where a couple of lumps have dropped out. The most famous centre piece with the Hand of God giving life to Adam has obviously dropped away in the past and been repainted by somebody else. The colours are really vivid, and the style is better and different to anything else that you've seen up to this point.

Obviously no camera shots allowed in here. There are seats around the edge of the chapel, so we found a gap and carried on gazing.
One picture was amusingly described in the Rough Guide as "God creating the Sun and Moon (and inadvertently creating a second Moon)".

On one of the end walls is a fantastic fresco called The Last Judgement. The blue of the background first catches your eye (the picture in the link doesn't do it justice), then you simply spend ages looking at the angelic and demonic figures fighting over posession of the figures representing souls.

There's a constant murmuring in the Chapel, as everybody discusses what they're looking at. This murmuring rises in volume every two or three minutes, at which point a loud "shhhhhhhhhh!" is issued by the Chapel guardians, and the murmuring dies down again.

We had about half an hour or so in here, before we were chased out. The Vatican museum closes at 13:30 in the early season, and on particular days, and at 15:30 on other days. We were visiting on a 13:30 closure day. Luckily we'd seen all that we wanted to see, unlike some who were arriving a little late and barely had time to step through the door, before they were ushered out of the other side. At least we got to see it. I've heard from relatives, and others that they'd missed seeing the Sistine Chapel because they got there too late.

Trekked back out of the museum, past lots of cabinets full of Papal Treasures that the staff were busy closing. We had time to eat in the Vatican Cafe before we left the museum - there wasn't a lot left, we had pasta, a cake and a drink. Couldn't help noticing that a couple of Priests on a nearby table, served by the same person, got a significantly larger portion than us.

Left the museum via a fantastic spiral staircase.



We left the Vatican and headed for the Castel Sant'Angelo. This was originally Hadrian's Mausoleum (ye knaa, the gadgee that built wor waall), but later became a treasure store for the Popes (there's an enormous treasure chest in one of the rooms), and a fortress.



I'd been here once before in 1984, probably because it's free entrance to students. A spiral tunnel, that was originally the funerary processional entrance leads into the heart of the castle.

You then find yourself wandering around several rooms, levels and bastions. At one point there's an enormous, stone ball flinging ballista.



There's a few museum pieces of armour and weapons. I was pleased to discover one that I remembered well from my last visit. It's a sword that has a flintlock pistol built into the handle, so that you can sneakily draw a sword, then shoot your opponent.

Finally we ended up on top of the castle, where there's a huge statue of St Michael drawing his sword (he was supposed to have been spotted up here, doing this at the end of a Plague).



There are some good views of St Peter's from here.



This is looking across Rome towards the Colusseum (although a dirty great 20th century monument gets in the way).



In front of the Castle is a bridge over the Tiber, The Ponte Sant Angelo, adorned with statues that reminded me of Charles Bridge in Prague.



The camera battery was drained at this point, so we didn't get any more pictures.

Headed back to the hotel. Decided we were too knackered to go hunting out a decent restaurant - so bought some snacks from a nearby shop and ate them in the hotel room, then debated what we would do on our last full day before we crashed.

Rome - Days 1 and 2

It's almost two weeks since we got back from Rome, and I haven't blogged much about the trip.

Here's my first post about what we did and saw on Day 1 and 2 of our 5 day visit to this ancient city.

We set out early on Sunday 11 Feb to drive down to Heathrow. Not being too bright eyed and bushy tailed at 06:00 in the morning I took a wrong turn after going over the Runcorn bridge. It took us about 15 minutes to find our way out of the unsignposted trap for the unwary traveller that is the area around Runcorn railway station, this involved going back over the Runcorn Bridge until we could find a place to turn around.

Panic over, we got down to the "Pink Elephant" car park at Heathrow by 09:00 with loads of time to spare for our flight at 12:30

A bumpy flight across to Rome (lots of turbulence) with the worst air passenger in the world sitting next to me and crushing my hand we arrived in Rome's Fiumicino airport around 16:00.

We usually save ourselves money when we can by not bothering with arranging airport transfers at extortionate prices - e.g. 37 quid each for a pre-arranged taxi as opposed to a train and tube journey for about 8 quid each. This invariably means that the first foreign word we have to learn on arrival in a country is the "ticket".

This didn't take too long to suss out, even though there appeared to be four places you could buy tickets from. We picked the one that looked like it belonged to the train company, rather than a newsagent/gift shop.

Clutching our "bigliettes" we boarded the train. We then realised that the ticket had to be "validated" (i.e. punched) but there was no machine on the train to do this, so I found myself legging down the platform, finding a yellow machine, punching the tickets and dashing back onto the train with a minute or two to spare before it left.

Half an hour later we were in Rome's Termini railway station. More fun negotiating the tube - sussing out the machines to buy a ticket from, and the right platform.

We got out at Flaminio tube station and turned the corner into the Piazza del Popolo which according to the guide book is the best first view of Rome that you should have if you can arrange it - it's an ancient entrance to the city from the North.

Our hotel was just off this square. The Hotel Piranesi on the Via del Babuino, which is on the left of the church, behind the obelisk in this picture:



After checking in, and sussing out our room we went for and evening stroll. The hotel is at the top of il Tridente, three streets that fan out from the north of the city centre and lead into the rest of Rome.

We went found the Spanish Steps, then carried on until we found a Roman column that looked remarkably like Trajan's, but turned out to be the column of Marcus Aurelius. We took some pictures on the following day.





Found somewhere to eat just around the corner. This was probably the first most touristy place we could find, but it looked easy enough for a first meal when we couldn't be bothered going further afield. Food was OK, but I think the waiter was taking the piss by giving me a stein, and a beer for the lady, rather than the two beers that we ordered. Decided just to drink it anyway (I was on holiday after all).

Breakfast was in the basement of the hotel. They made up for not having a roof terrace by painting a mural of a rooftop view of the hotel surroundings around the wall - kept us out of the rain that was drizzling down from time to time.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. Two funny things actually:

We went out and discovered the speediness(not!) of Italian banking when we changed our first travellers cheque. This was after walking into a building that had the words "Bank" carved into the wall on the outside only to be told "this is an office". I suppose if it was in the UK I'd have been trying to change a travellers cheque in a trendy wine bar.

We decided to visit the Trevi Fountain, which we passed on the way to the Forum. The last time that I was here in 1982 doing an Inter-Rail tour with a bunch of pals, I chucked a coin in this fountain. My return here thus proving the myth that chucking a coin in the Trevi Fountain ensures your return to Rome (even though some Italian urchins with magnets on strings probably retrieved the coin moments later).



Because it was first thing on Monday morning there was no water in the fountain, and a couple of blokes were mooching around the empty pool with a hosepipe and a broom.
We weren't disappointed with this, as it's a sight most visitors are unlikely to see - besides which it was easy enough to return later in the week.



By 10am we were at Trajan's column which Pope Sixtus V has adorned with a statue of St Peter - this particular pope seems to have renovated Rome, sticking his name on any antique or ancient building that he could find.



We spent the morning wandering around the building sites that are the Forum of Trajan
and the Forum of Augustus"




We also took a look at the Forum of Caesar



This is the back of the Senate House, so I reckon that this is the spot where Julius was stabbed to death by Brutus and co.



We entered the main Roman Forum which is just at the bottom of the Palatine Hill and wins the prize for packing in the most ancient Roman ruins in one spot.

Here's the House of the Vestal Virgins



This is the temple of Antoninus and Faustina. There are a number of temples like this in Rome, where they've used the original temple structure and formed a church out of it. Some had just bricked up the gaps between the columns. This one just plonked the church in the middle of the temple.



You can see how the Romans built the big temple steps here. Instead of spending loads of money on huge marble blocks, they built an arch of bricks, then faced the curve of the arch with marble steps.



These are the front doors of the Temple of Romulus.



We also took a look at the spot in the Temple of Julius Caesar where his funeral pyre was alleged to have been. There were indeed bunches of flowers laid at this spot - as the guide books says. Odd to think that he's being worshipped to this day, although I suppose the name has continued through time Caesar - Kaiser - Tsar etc - even though it just means "hairy".

Although it was a drizzly Monday morning, by midday the place was full of Geeks with guidebooks so we headed out of the forum at the south end and got our first view of The Colosseum




After fobbing off some middle aged Italian blokes dressed in Roman fancy dress costumes, who charged for you to take photographs with them, and ignoring the guides who were trying to persuade you to hire their services and jump the queue (which only took about 15 or 20 minutes) we entered the Colosseum.

Spent the afternoon wandering around this famous amphitheatre.

Novelist Supermum pointed out that although the place was a historical killing ground where thousands died there was no atmosphere of horror or sorrow about the place (I've been to Auschwitz, so I know what she means).

She was right.

My theory is that perhaps this is because it was primarily a place entertainment ("Are you not entertained?"), and people are still going there to be impressed by the scale and grandeur of the place, and the excitement that went on there, rather than to dwell on the terror.






A flame haired she-warrior.



Bought a few postcards in the Colosseum shop, to send back to relatives, plus a couple depicting gladiator helmets to send back home to The Hobbits.

There was an exhibition of Greek statues related to the Iliad inside the arches on the second level, plus a gladiatorial mosaic.






We also had a good view of the Arch of Constantine, which we'd looked at close up before entering the Colosseum.



Before we headed back to the hotel we went back into the Forum and walked up the Palatine Hill - since our Colosseum ticket also gave us access to this. Lots of orange trees up here, with oranges still on them - even though it was February.

We went down the Palatine Hill, back through the Forum and up the Capitoline Hill. There's a statue of a bloke on a horse up here, which I took to be Hadrian, from the word HADRIANVS, amongst others on the plinth. It's actually a statue of Marcus Aurelius.

Note that unlike General Maximus in the film Gladiator he has no stirrups. These weren't invented until the 4th Century AD - an anachronism which Novelist Supermum points out every time we see the film.



Had a snack and a bottle of water in a side street cafe before heading back to the hotel for a kip.

Woke up hungry again so decided to get changed, go out and look for somewhere to eat. Found a nice little Trattoria on the Via di Ripetta, not far from the hotel where we had a thoroughly decent evening meal, and a bottle of wine.

Picked up one of the books that I'd bought to read in Heathrow (The Malice Box by Martin Langfield), but passed out before I could get very far.

Hot Fuzz

If you like The Omen, Straw Dogs, The Shining, Mad Max, 28 Days Later, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Dusk 'Till Dawn, Bad Boys (II), Point Break, Commando, The Matrix, Superman (2), The Terminator and a host of other action films, if you thought Shaun of the Dead was OK, but you absolutely loved Spaced then Hot Fuzz is a film that you should not miss.

Even if you don't particularly enjoy the above, but you like a good laugh, with a lot of action, and some Hammer style horror thrown in, then you should see this film.

We went to see it on Friday. We laughed, we jumped, we laughed, we shrieked, we laughed, we were grossed out, we laughed, we shouted out the heroes response to the bad guy before he said it, we laughed, we named the reference to another film, we laughed, we kept on laughing, did I mention that we laughed?

Haven't enjoyed a film so much since the latest James Bond. I don't think that I've ever laughed at a film from start to finish as much as this one.

Went to see it with, amongst others, Novelist Supermum and impworks who both blog about the film here and here

Definitely one that I'll be getting when it comes out on DVD.

Shrove Tuesday

I've been meaning to blog about our trip to Rome last week - I'll get around to this later in the week.

In the meantime it's Shrove Tuesday which means that tonight I've been making pancakes.

I had two over-enthusiastic assistants, who helped stir the batter mixture. This resulted in two floury, sticky little boys.

They also seemed rather keen to see me drop the pancakes on the flour during the tossing process.

We applied freshly squeezed lemon juice and golden syrup and scoffed the lot! Yum! Yum!

Also made the annual promise of having pancakes again at another point in the year - somehow we never seem to do this.

Senatus Populusque Romanus

Here's the proof that we were there.

"What did the Romans ever do for us?"

"Er... The Drainage!"

(OK so I haven't rotated the photo - you'll just have to stand on your head).



Novelist Supermum has a couple of photos on her website as well.

All roads lead to...

Doesn't time fly?

It only seems like a couple of weeks ago that I was booking a short break in Rome.

That time has now come, Hoorah! Setting off tomorrow. I don't suppose that it matters which direction we set off in ;-)

Goldfish Rocks!

Almost exactly a month ago I blogged about a website design/editing/generating/publishing software tool that I had discovered - Goldfish by Fishbeam

I've been working on re-engineering Novelist Supermum's website using this software. The idea is that when I've finished she can use the software to edit and update the site herself - and she doesn't need to know much at all about HTML, XHTML, CSS, W3C etc to do this.

At the moment the software is only available for Windows as a Beta Test version (the earlier versions were for Apple Mac only) which means that I've come across a few bugs.

These were mainly in the correct rendition of text boxes in the WYSIWYG editor i.e. the rendition of the text layout sometimes screws up in the editor, although it's fine when viewed in the browser. Also in some yet to be determined circumstances you lose a hypertext link after editing it, and for some reason you have to destroy the text box and recreate it to cure the problem. This may be related to the text layout problem. I'm going to report this as bugs.

The generated code is supposed to be W3C compliant. I've found some bugs in the generation that means that it isn't, although it's pretty close. I also found a way of implementing a favicon (which isn't supported), and I have no choice but to include this code in the wrong place.

On the whole though it does what we want i.e. allow a non-geek to design a website, and generate and publish it straight from the design.

I think that the results are acceptable. I've released the site early (with one page outstanding to complete, and a single broken link) since we're off to Rome next week (Tax deductible research for a professional Romantic Fiction writer!), and an Ebook Challenge needs to be online before Valentines day.

Should be even better when they fix the bugs.

Anyway enough rambling - here's the new(ish) look website - www.romancefiction.co.uk

Reading Trauma

Frodo got a new reading book from school yesterday, but he was in tears when he came home with it.

It's only his fourth book, but they'd given him one with all new words in, and none that he recognised or knew from his previous books. Poor lad must have gone from thinking that he could read, to realising that he couldn't.

Managed to calm him down, print and cut out the 8 new words and go through the book with him, talking about the pictures and playing word matching games.

By the end of this he was recognising and reading 3 of the words, and having help with the others. He then went upstairs to draw and colour for a bit, so I dropped the new book onto his bed.

I little while later I was writing a note to the school to let them know that he'd lost his confidence because of the sudden jump to the new words. Frodo trotted down the stairs with the new book and read all of it to us - only stumbling over one of the words! I think he'd been reading it to himself upstairs on his own.

I saw his teacher this morning and told her what had happened i.e. that he may need a more gradual introduction to new words so that he isn't put off trying to read.

Snow Day

Thin coating of snow on the ground this morning. Enough to scrape some snow up, and make snowballs. Frodo was late for school this morning because Daddy was teaching him the rudiments of snowball fighting. Samwise was looking out of his bedroom window, so we lobbed a few at him - which he seemed to enjoy.

All melted away now. Novelist Supermum took a couple of photos from the living room window:

Sinking Ferry

Interesting view of out of the window at work this morning of a sinking ferry, the Sea Express 1. The news says that a cargo ship hit it in the fog. AIS says that the cargo ship was the "Alaska Rainbow" (can't find a pic of this one).

Right now there's a tug-boat (The Oakgarth) in place behind it (i.e. the end that's in the water), and their moving another tug (The Switzer Bidston) in front of it (i.e. the end that's sticking right out of the water).

All of the passengers got off OK - bit of a bummer for the people who's cars are still on board.

Will have to go and take a closer look at lunch time.

No Basketball Here

Cleared all the waste and rubble out of the now roofless old garage. Took the door that sticks when shut off it's hinges and removed all of the glass from the side window. Removed or hammered in any old nails and hooks from the walls and joists, then hosed the whole place down. Should be pulling down the walls that don't form the property boundary down next month.

In the meantime it makes a nice little enclosed play area in which Frodo and Samwise can kick a ball around.

Some kids are never satisfied. 2 year old Samwise asked me why his new playground didn't have any basketball hoops!

Frodo Reads His First Book!

Yesterday Frodo read all of the words in his first reading book - an Oxford Reading Tree Stage 1 First Words Story Book with the somewhat dubious sounding title of "Six in a Bed".

Spoiler Warning! Don't read on if you don't want to know the plot of the whole book! ;-)

Mum and Dad.
Mum, Dad and Chip.
Mum, Dad, Chip, and Biff
Mum, Dad, Chip, Biff, Kipper
and Floppy.

(note the sneaky trick of moving the last "and" to the last beach to catch out any kid who's spotted a pattern).

Fantastic! Today he's got a follow up book titled "Fun at the Beach".

Is it just my perverse mind, or is somebody having a Captain Pugwash Urban Myth style laugh with the titles? The others in the series are:

"The Pancake"
"A Good Trick"
"Floppy Floppy"

Probably the most powerful hand drill in the shop

Tried to fit a security light at Grandma Gandalf's house today, but came across the major stumbling block of being unable to drill a hole all the way through a brick wall. (I did try to use an existing hole where an old ariel wire was fitted, but found that the hole followed a staggered route behind plastic fascia. so I couldn't draw my wire through it).

Popped into the B&Q sale on the way home and picked up this little 1100 Watt beast ex-display and under half price in the B&Q sale - plus a 40 cm long 14mm diameter drill bit to go with it, and a laser spirit level for a fiver.

Ready to tackle the wall again tomorrow. "Go ahead punk. Make my day..."

Holiday Chaos (hopefully avoided)

It's become a bit of a tradition with us, that whenever we book a holiday something threatens to cancel the whole thing - usually the outbreak of World War III in the area that we're visiting.

This time it's a BA cabin crew and check in staff crew strike over absence management and pay.

And of course one of the proposed strike dates dates is slap bang on the day we're due to fly to Rome.

BA's advice last night was to re-arrange flights so lots of hasty phone calls last night to BA, travel agents, insurance and today to airport parking. We're now flying out the day before instead (we were already due to return the day after the potential strike finishes).

Had to fork out some more money for airport car-parking and another night in the hotel (losing a "free" day from the original deal in the process), with the only compensation being another day in Rome (checked insurance and we're not covered for this one).

Angry letters of complaint will be on their way to an airline and a travel agent very soon - also possibly the skivers union ;-)

Finally my Blog came good...

... and provided some useful information to somebody!

"Misirlou"

The "Black Eyed Peas" version of "Misirlou" (i.e. snatches of the tune, with them rapping "Pump It!" over the top) was just playing on the radio, which prompted me to Google for the origins of what I always thought was a relatively modern (i.e. 1950's/60's) classic.

The Wikipedia entry reveals a longer history and (IMHO) fascinating history.

(which explains why the Bazouki player at a Greek Restuarant I frequented in Brum used to break out into this tune on a regular basis).

Sometimes computers just really piss me off

Instead of a quiet night website building I've had to spend a good few hours recovering and reconfiguring Novelist Supermum's email, after her aging laptop crashed when the wire was pulled out (the battery is knackered so it didn't like the sudden power loss).

Somehow Thunderbird had lost the email account settings. It was simply a matter of reconfiguring the account settings, but most of the time was spent checking and double checking that the profile was still intact on the disk, and backing up the profile before I started. Once the account settings were back ta-dah! all of the emails were where they should be.

Library Thing

I've followed up cha0tic's post and started my Library Thing book catalogue.

Windy Miller

There's gale force winds all over the country today.

The Mersey is looking pretty rough. Sheets of water are being blown right across the top of the Albert Dock.
The ferry has given up trying to cross and is being buffeted about on it's moorings.

Cars that turn into Aeroplanes

A discussion at work about whether or not anybody had really invented a car that turns into an aeroplane resulted in me Googling up the moller skycar website.

Much debate about whether or not this thing is real. We expect that the concept is real, and they're trying to get investment. However take a close look at some of the "vertical takeoff" video's. Is that a wire I see above the skycar?

Even if it does work, and you can afford one, you'll still need a pilot's license to fly it.

Ikea Roller Blinds - Aaaaargh!!!

Make exact measurements as per instructions. Drill holes in correct place. Plug holes with screw fixings. Fix plastic blind fittings with screw. Click blind into place. Test by gently pulling on pull cord. Whole thing comes crashing down! Unscrew one of the plastic blind fittings. Drill new holes 5mm from the old ones. Repeat fitting process. Whole thing comes crashing down, crumpling the bottom of the blind and making a tear in the right hand edge. Rant and rave at blind, tools, crappy instructions and any sympathetic member of the family who happens to cross my path. Drill a further set of new holes. Repeat process. This time the blind works, but the fixings look as if they are straining. Run the blind up and down for about 15 minutes like some sort of manic semaphore until I'm convinced that it isn't going to free itself from the over-strained fixings. Fit the pull cord bottom guide (2 more holes into solid brickwork). Novelist Supermum then hides the tear buy the strategic application of planet, alien and robot stickers (the blind is in Frodo's room).

Decided to leave the more difficult, larger blind to be fixed in Samwise's room for another occasion. Probably need to book an Anger Management course first.

Xmas Thank You's

OK, I've got some pictures of gratefully smiling hobbits, and have pasted them into the top of a word document, with a large THANK YOU logo in the middle.

Now all I have to do is write a letter, and adjust it to suit relatives/presents as appropriate, with a little information about what the hobbits have been up to this year . Also how much they are enjoying the present that was given (not mentioning any that have been broken already), or what worthy goods they have spent the gifted money on.

Then print it off, bung it into envelopes, add stamps and post.

Why do I do this arduous task every year? Mainly because showing gratefulness ensures the continued supply of future presents :-)

Also it's actually a nice thing to do, and keeps me in touch with several relatives who did a lot for me when I was younger, and are continuing to be good to my kids.

Mind you, as soon as they learn to read and write I'm getting the boyz to do the writing themselves - although by that time they'll probably just be sending a text message "Dr Anty. Thx 4 Prez. F&S. L8er Dude!"

Conspiracy Theory

So Mr Blair was supposed to break his silence regarding his thoughts on the execution of Saddam Hussein this week?

Do I detect some diversionary items in the news? - problems with Home Office records, interest rates going up etc.

Thanks for a shitty working week Tony. I must have one of the few jobs where I can turn on the radio and find out exactly what I'll be asked to do when I get into work.

Evidence of a God with a cruel sense of humour

I think that I've finally found a true WYSIWYG HTML editor that generates decent XHTML and CSS code to ensure browser compatibility. It can use templates to easily apply similar styles to different web pages, and can save whole sites to disk or publish to the web with a couple of mouse clicks.

There are other editors around that claim to be WYSIWYG, but many are just a front end to HTML text editing, rather than a pure drag and drop layout/publishing editor.
Others have the drag and drop editing, but produce naff results and poor code.

This means that Novelist Supermum should be able to edit and modify her own website, without having to enter into the darkart of HTML and CSS editing (or bothering me to do it for her).

And what is this editor? By a cruel twist, given recent events in our household, it's called Goldfish!

It was originally produced for Mac, but there's a trial Windows Beta version available. Hopefully this will be ready for purchase soon (The Mac version costs just over 20 quid).

We've managed to create a basic template based on the Romance Fiction Website in a couple of hours. We need to spend a little time revamping this template, but once the template is set up the way we like it Goldfish should be a really useful tool.

Hammer of the Gods - Final Blow

As suspected, found Thor dead in the water. Buried him first thing this morning.
That's it - all gone to Fantail Goldfish Valhalla.

I don't think that we'll try keeping any more fish for a while, and then it's probably going to be just two bog standard, super hardy, no frills goldfish, rather than fancy, disease-prone fantails.

Ragnarok

Angraboda now dead and buried, which means that Thor is the winner of Aquarium Ragnarok.

I suspect that this will be a short lived victory though, the fish medicine doesn't appear to be having too much effect. Looks like he's given up the will to feed and is lurking at the bottom of the tank, rather than actively swimming.

Depressing fish news.

Fenrir died yesterday afternoon. Buried him last night.

Angraboda looks a little better in quarantine, but still can't right himself. I suspect that the methylyne blue cure may just be prolonging the agony, rather than providing a cure.

Thor is starting to show the same symptoms as the rest of the fish - so it looks like I'm going to lose all of them.

I've tested the tank water and all Nitrate, Nitrite, Water Hardness and PH levels are showing as being OK. Perhaps they've just had too many cycles of various diseases and cure, that have taken them to the point of no return. I can't pin down what's killing them off. I've removed the plants from the tank - which may have been the initial source of the bacterial infection, since we planted new ones from a shop we hadn't used before a couple of months ago. Previous plants had all come from the same shop that we bought the fish from.

A financial thought - the fish cost about 2 quid each. I reckon I've spent about 3 or 400 quid on them, but then that's what you do with pets, the cost doesn't matter, it's the care that counts.

The thing about pets is that they teach you about life and death. Mainly death.

I suppose that we've had them for 2.5 years, which is a little longer than the average hamster.

Twelfth Night

Christmas decorations all taken down. Got the hobbits to help me drag the sacrificial tree (we kill one every year in the name of Christmas) to Calderstones Park where it will be "recycled". The Park Rangers chip up the Christmas trees, and use the chippings to renew parkland pathways.

Quarantine

2 fish now in quarantine - Fenrir and Angraboda. 1 fish still in the tank - Thor.
Thor still looks OK, but is now on his own.

Fenrir was in a really bad way, and I didn't expect him to last the night. He looked almost dead this morning, floating on his side, but still breathing, and I could see that Angroboda was starting to go downhill fast too, with signs of infection.

Took Fenrir out of the tank water (treated with anti-bacterial medicine) and into quarantine in water treated with the traditional sick fish remedy "methylene blue". He is able to right himself in the water - although he still spends time on his side, and may be fairly exhausted. He is also feeding, from the bottom as well as the top of the water.

Angraboda is in a worse state. I'm trying the same remedy, although initially he was in the anti-bacced tank water, which has now been changed to just water with methylene blue. He's quarantined from the other fish and is still breathing but has taken to lying upside down.

Farewell Odin

Odin got steadily worse throughout the day today.

He was feeding a little, but gradually lost control of his ability to swim, so kept on adopting a position reminiscent of Shrek's goldfish. I kept on adding small amounts of food at appropriate intervals and noted that he was swallowing them, but I'm sure that he was labouring to breathe - I suspect that the infection has led to gill rot, as well as fin rot.

He was still alive when we left for the Panto (which was great by the way) at 17:00 today, but had finally expired when we returned just after midnight.

Dug a grave in the garden, and buried him near Loki - with the Police Helicopter hovering overhead, no doubt checking what I was up to ("I'm burying a body officer").

3 survivors left. The infection appears to have pretty well cleared up on Thor and Angraboda, and they look OK, however Fenrir has an infected spot that is gradually clearing. He isn't carrying his tail too well, although the trauma of a dead fish in the water may have been causing distress. I'll have to keep a close eye on them.

Happy Birthday

To Novelist Supermum.

Flowers and main gift have already been handed over. Rest of pressies, cake plus meal and theatre trip (OK - so it's the Everyman Rock'n'Roll panto) to follow.

Touch and Go for Odin

I've had the light off on the fish tank whilst the bacterial infection medicine does it's stuff. This morning I decided to turn it on again, and leave it on for the best part of the day, to give the plants a chance to grow.

This could have been a big mistake, since the light warming the water appears to have started up the bacterial infection again. By teatime fungus was appearing on the fish, and Odin looked in a really bad way.

Hastily I changed two buckets of water, and applied the next dose of bacterial control medicine. By my reckoning the next dose was due tomorrow, but today could be on the fourth day, rather than just after so this should be OK. Odin was still breathing, but could barely swim upright whilst I changed the water. After the water change he lay gasping on the bottom of the tank for a while.

Eventually he moved, and came up to the surface and appeared to be trying to feed. I've been monitoring him most of the night, and supplying small pinches of food when it looks like he's searching for it. He's managed to eat a few flakes and perked up a bit, and can manoeuvre himself better than he did before, but still gets swept around the tank a bit, and is having trouble righting himself. He does seem to be able to swim under the swamp root ornament for a rest though.

Hopefully the medicine is clearing his gills and stopping the fin rot / bacterial infection. I didn't think he would last an hour at teatime, never mind the night, but it's looking a little more promising at the moment.

The other fish appear to be OK and the fungus is clearing.

Wireless Central Heating Thermostat

Our central heating doesn't have a thermostat.

I've considered installing one myself in the past, however the thing that has put me off the most is lifting a number of floorboards and trying to route a wire from the kitchen, through the morning room, through the hall and into the living room.

I discovered the answer in B&Q - a wireless (radio frequency) thermostat for 50 quid.

I've managed fit it myself, and surprise surprise it appears to have worked first time.

The fitting was hastened by the discovery of four little holes in the wall above the boiler heating timer/controller, fitted with wall plugs, and the words "RF" pencilled beside them. The previous occupant/owner had one fitted, and must have removed it before we bought the property.

The RF receiver that I had bought fitted these holes perfectly (the thermostat and RF receiver are sold together). Had some trouble figuring out the wiring diagram for the timer controller and the receiver (and checking/confirming that my assumptions were correct), but essentially this was simply a matter of connecting live/neutral feeds from the fused supply that goes to the timer/controller to the receiver as well. The common terminal of the timer/controller is already linked to the fused live supply. I connected the switched live from the timer/controller to the common terminal of the receiver.
(previously this had gone directly to the boiler). I connected the switched live from the receiver to the boiler.

So the heating timer/controller switches on the supply to the thermostat, which switches on the supply to the boiler.

Followed the manual, tested the receiver hard wiring connection, then tested the radio frequency connection from the thermostat to the receiver - all OK.

The beauty of a wireless solution is that we can easily move the thermostat around whilst we determine the optimum position for it in the living room (or we can easily move it to any other room). There is a bracket that we can screw to the wall and clip the thermostat on and off this as required. I'll fit the bracket once we're happy with the best location.

Hopefully this should save a little money on Gas Bills - I wonder how quickly I'll get my 50 quid back?

Fish update

Odin is still alive. Still lurking for most of the day under the mangrove swamp root ornament, but definitely looks a little healthier. He still doesn't appear to be feeding much, if at all, but he's had the odd little swim around the tank, so perhaps the medicine is working. Second dose in a couple of days.

It's 2007!

Just poured myself a Bourbon Whiskey and Coke, (Novelist Supermum had another glass of wine), shouted Happy New Year!, snogged Novelist Supermum, kissed the sleeping Hobbits, then went outside with drink to watch the impromptu firework display (there's a house at the top of the street that puts on a spectacular 10 minute show every New Year).

Met some of the neighbours, who like me were in the street, glass in hand doing the same. Shook hands with the bloke from number 5, kissed his wife (at least I think that it was that way round) then chatted whilst watching the fireworks. Found out some new info i.e. their names - they've only been living there for 10 months or so, and I've met them at 2 parties. Should remember this time (hopefully).

Got back in to find Marc Almond singing on the telly - Aarrgh! Somebody I've never grown to like - even though he's singing a good song ("The Games People Play") with Jools Holland.

Roland Rivron (my hero - some people say that we are similar in look) didn't manage to predict anything for 2007, but has promised to do more for "Global Worming" (not a typo).

Speaking of predictions, where are the 80mph winds? Probably just as well that they haven't materialised.

Ade Edmondson has just trumpet played and sung his way through an easy listening, big band version of The Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK". This went down a storm.

Also I thought that Seasick Steve was superb - this guy played a 3 string electric guitar and provided a rhythm section by stomping on a wooden crate - the song was "Dog House Blues" (reminiscent of John Lee Hooker's "House Rent Blues").

Hootenanny (Happy New Year)

Well it's that time of year again.

Spent a couple of hours trying to get Frodo and Samwise to settle down and go to sleep (they're still thinking that because there's a Christmas tree downstairs somebody might leave some more presents for them under it).

Sitting around with a few drinks waiting for Jools Holland to start the "Hootenanny".

Where did 2006 go eh?

80mph winds predicted tonight, so the fireworks might not be so good tonight - they've already cancelled the ones in town.
Having said that, I can hear a few early starters going off already.

Happy New Year everybody! - hope 2007 goes well for you all.

Fish Husbandry

Have changed 2 buckets of water and used the bacterial infection control medicine in the fish tank.

The fish are looking "chirpier" already - No that's wrong, fish can't look "chirpy" - how about "bloopier"?

Odin swam about a bit and settled down at the bottom of the tank again. He comes out now and again. Doesn't look great, but at least he survived the night, and looks a bit better than he did yesterday.

Have to wait 4 days for the medicine to do it's stuff, before applying any more.

I've also renewed the filter-pad on the air-filter (although I did have to buy a pad for another brand of air-filter and cut it down to size, since they didn't stock one that fitted my 'Tetratec' air filter.

Spent 23 quid on fish medicine, air filter pads, water quality indicator strips and a new book on goldfish husbandry.

Odin doesn't look well.

Odin is looking a little unwell. He's lurking around the bottom of the tank under the Mangrove Swamp Root feature. His tail is riddled with veiny blood streaks. His face looks off-colour and the base of his fins look red. He doesn't appear to be feeding very well - he's not darting after the food but half heartedly looking around for it. Not a good sign at all. Half expected him to have croaked when we returned home tonight but he's still OK and having the occasional swim about.

Fenrir has a sizeable, red, infected sore on his side, and I think that this isn't healing quickly and may be infecting the other fish.

Hopefully Odin will last the night. I'll do a partial water change and buy some serious fish medicine for bacterial infection control in the morning.

This medicine is labelled "carcinogenic" and contains formaldehyde so I've been somewhat reluctant to take this step as although it may cure the fish, it seems likely to polish me off too (rather them than me).

Pre New Year Night Out

No baby-sitter tomorrow night, so we had a night out tonight instead at "Vinci's" on Allerton road.

Trendy bar - recently done up to expand into what was the corner shop next door, so it's now got a huge door and some great big windows designed to open fully in the summer. The result is that it's bloody freezing in the winter.

Spent a pleasant few hours chatting, and observing
1.) A drunk man who couldn't get a lift home.
2.) A couple of women who were dropped off by a bloke in a 4x4. They waltzed in and headed for the bar. They didn't buy any drinks as 60 seconds later when the coast was clear (i.e. the 4x4 had gone) they waltzed out again, and straight into a taxi. Dunno what they were up to, but had some fun speculating.
3.) Several people who on a night out with friend spend most of their time talking to other people on their mobile phones.

Is this Firefox I see before me?

Just installed a bunch of Windows updates, which included Internet Explorer 7.
Clicked it up to try it out, to find tabbed browsing, security warnings, RSS feed detection. All seems very familiar...

Haven't you had enough yet?

Nipped out this morning to get some petrol and buy a loaf of bread.

Why were the shops full of people buying food? I don't mean just a couple of small items, but huge cartloads stuff, several joints of meat etc. Didn't they get enough to eat at Christmas? Why aren't they munching their way through a fridgeful of everything that was bought in "too much" quantities?

Demise of Loki

I've been fighting a breakout of a nasty fungal infection in the fish tank all week i.e. water changes, filter media changes, dosing with fish medicine etc.

Unfortunately none of this has helped Loki, who appeared to be the worst affected. Found him dead at the bottom of the tank when we returned from a visit to my younger step-bro's today. I must admit I was expecting this, since Loki's condition hadn't improved much when I checked him this morning.

So alas the Bug Eyed Trickster is no more(Loki's fishy incarnation was as a "Black Moor"). Held another fishy funeral in the garden tonight - buried him next to the grave of Grendel (see previous posts below).

• Fishy Tragedy


• Survivors


• Fish Rescue Drama 2

Boxing Day TV laughs.

Parents left this morning. Followed them to my Bro's in Blackburn for a Boxing Day get-together.

Got back home a little knackered, and full of good food. Thirty minutes after putting two tired hobbits to bed we were having another glass of wine, and tucking into a Ham sandwich.

Two little gems that were shown tonight on lennyhenry.tv Both made us laugh - a lot.

The first one, "Daniel Chesterfield" is a magician with extraordinary powers, mostly involving mind over matter. How does he do it?

The second "OK Go Treadmill Dance" is a bunch of guys who have taken "Dad Dancing" to a new level. Don't try this one at home (do try it in the gym though).

Daniel Chesterfield



OK Go Treadmill Dance

Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to all of my readers!

Both Frodo and Samwise had been given pyjamas and nightlights on Christmas Eve, but this didn't help them get to sleep.

We put out a carrot for Rudolph, plus a mince pie and a large glass of Bourbon Whiskey for Santa.

Frodo got out of bed at 22:00, so I got him to scatter a bag of "Reindeer Food" on the front path to guide Santa's Reindeer to our house.

We were woken this morning at 03:30 by an excited Frodo.

We managed to get him back to bed another 2 or 3 times, but eventually we had to give in when Samwise awake at 05:00. They got to open the torches that they'd asked Father Christmas for, and spent an hour playing with them, waving the lights about the ceiling, before we got up.

06:00 and downstairs to discover that Santa had left a wooden castle, with a number of knights on the coffee table. A frenzy of present unwrapping followed.

Goose and Ham went in the oven at 10:00. Grandma and Grandad Saruman arrived at 11:00, and I went off to fetch Grandma Gandalf. Little Blister had stayed with us last night (she was awoken by powerful torches being shone in her face).

Kitchen hectic activity for a few hours, resulting in a pleasant family meal, further present unwrapping, Christmas pud and after taking Grandma Gandalf home, booze and Dr Who. Snoring on the couch for half an hour, then a spot of any old program that happens to be on telly with wine, snacks and chocolate.

Finally a bit of blogging before bed.

Visits to relatives for the next 2 days, then it's all over, bar the consumption of the cold meats and remainder of the veg.

Electric Six

Jolly good afternoon yesterday. Went to the pub for a couple of hours.

Followed management instructions to return to the office, so that they could do the magnaminous management gesture thingumy of saying officially that we could go for the afternoon. Stayed a whole 10 minutes at work before we left again for the pub.

We tried a couple of other pubs too. Must return to "The Lion" on Tithebarn Street sometime, as the beer selection was **excellent**

Phoned home and checked the expiry time of my "pass out". Good until 17:00. Everywhere
was absolutely jam packed with Christmas drinkers so we ended up in a gay bar just off Dale Street that wasn't as crowded as the run-of-the-mill pubs. Wished everybody a Merry Christmas and headed for the bus stop at 17:30 full of Christmas joy (hic!)

Busy Last Day at the Office.

Last day at work before Xmas, so very heavy schedule putting things in order before I'm off for a couple of weeks (I've got Xmas week and the first week of January off).

Will probably be tied up in important business meetings all afternoon ;-)

Veg, Fruit and Nuts

Got the lot today, ready for Xmas from the stall outside the Ann Summers Shop*, just off Church/Lord Street near the entrance to Matthew Street.

In my humble opinion this is the best/freshest fruit and veg stall in Liverpool City Centre.


*Historical note - the Ann Summers shop was once a record shop, and this was where Brian Epstein was working when he discovered the Beatles.

Space 1889

Drifting past the office window right now is this little mechanical monster, reminiscent of HG Wells "Ooolah!"



(actually it's the "Irish Sea Pioneer" an operations support vessel, heading for the Douglas Platform).

Light Fitting Frustration

Did the bulk of the Christmas food shopping on Saturday, followed by a second expedition on Sunday to locate a Goose. We've had goose (rather than Turkey or other festive meat) for a number of years now, and though these days a lot dearer (gone are the days when you could send out a small urchin to fetch you one) than the alternatives, I still think that it's worth it. (The checkout girl shrieked when she saw that it was 30 quid, then asked me if it was nice, with the comment "it should be at that price").

Spent the best part of Sunday replacing the light fitting that shorted itself out last week. Bought what we thought looked like a nice fitting from B&Q. The fitting was called "ORBIT". Spent about 5 hours fitting it!

There was the usual trouble with drilling holes in crumbly ceilings, and trying to work out how the household wiring relates to the given circuit diagram. I took these problems as par for the course.

What I wasn't expecting was having to assemble in place on the ceiling, what can only be described as a large dalek eyepiece crafted in glass, joined together with screw-in metal rods and plastic transparent washers.

The joys of trying not to shatter the glass, make the rods fit into the holes drilled into the glass, find the transparent washers dropped on the floor, hold the whole thing in one hand whilst trying to do up a nut with the other.

To top this, if when I need to change one of the two bulbs I'll have to disassemble all 3 glass rings of the "dalek eyepiece", remove the glass eye/diffuser, change the bulb(s) then fit the whole lot back together again without breaking anything. Not looking forward to this.

I'm also going to have to remember to be very careful when swinging ladders around to get into the loft hatch, or there'll be a shower of broken glass, reminiscent of scenes from the first Superman film.

Amateur Drinkers

Met Novelist Supermum in town at lunchtime to get some photos and pop our passport renewals into the check and send service at the Post Office.

Decided to have lunch in "The Cornmarket". Food was OK, but we were slightly delayed by amateur drinkers at Christmas time. The sort who never usually come into a pub at lunchtime, or socialise with the other bods in suits that they are out with, so stand around in large groups at the bar, being indecisive and generally getting in the way.

Christmas Cards

Mostly done, apart from the odd few stragglers, people who have moved and I don't have the new address or for various reasons I've lost touch with, or only talk to them in cyberspace. Popped 29 cards into the postbox today.

All are made from recycled card, and have a message on the back saying where you can recycle them again.

Took me 3 evenings to write them. Still wondering why I keep on with this tradition (A Victorian Post Office promotional activity from the 1840's). Actually I know why I do - it's a way of just saying "Hi I'm still here" to old pals. I've got back in touch with a few people this way.

Great Start to the Day

Exploding light fittings, grumpy-screamy-contrary Samwise at breakfast, window cleaning lorry preventing access to the car park at work, system diagnostic checking panic ("Captain I'm running diagnostics". "Arrrroooooghaaa!"), only 1 buttie in the machine worth eating, trip to B&Q if I ever get out of work today to buy a new light fitting. Roll on bedtime....

On the plus side I won the EuroMillions lottery draw on Friday.

"We have some exciting news about the ticket that you bought for the Friday 08
December draw. Please sign in to your account."

I signed in to see a huge banner image saying "YOU HAVE WON!". Scrolling down there was my prize =£8.50.

Proof of the Existence of God

The Gods of Booze were favouring me last night.

I got out of the taxi from my Xmas do, and whilst walking past the local restaurants I discovered a full, unopened bottle of Shiraz that somebody had left on the pavement.

This sort of thing has happened to me at least twice before.

Once on a very, very hot day, whilst traversing the Pennine Way an unopened bottle of coca-cola appeared in the middle of the path.

On another occasion a housemate reported that he'd seen a full bottle of whiskey in the phonebox. (He didn't touch it due to having his stomach pumped as a child from consuming a large amount of the water of life). Cha0tic and myself legged it to the phonebox to retrieve it.

Not a Good Idea

Working until after midnight tonight on a major system release tonight. Still "Hanging Over" from the Xmas do the night before. Not a good combination....

Office Party

Office "Party" tomorrow. A meal at the Pan-American bar in the Albert Dock, followed by a visit to the Comedy Club in the basement of "Blue" just across the way.

I'll probably heading back after that, rather than trawling various Dance Bars with the die-hards to end up with "Flanagan's and Flares to pick up a one-eyed hunchback." - as one of our contractors described the end of a typical Liverpool night out a couple of years ago.

Come to think of it, I've only ever been to one Offic Party that was actually held in the office - That was a really good one held on Xmas Eve when I was doing the industrial year of my Sandwich Course.

Reason being that I've got to take Frodo to a Sports Party on Saturday afternoon.

Following the sports I'm carrying out my first major production code release at work, so I'm in for a 7 hour stint.

In addition, we have our first ever web-enabled system going online on Sunday, so I'm in again at 10 am for 3 or 4 hours to switch this on and support the user acceptance tests.

All of this overtime of course will help to pay Santa's bill when he comes round with some threatening elves in January.

Speaking of Santa, we took Samwise to Alder Hey hospital for a 6 monthly checkup and saw Father Christmas visit the hospital in an RAF Helicopter. (Perhaps his reindeer are on strike).

Frodo's Nativity

Frodo really enjoyed being a shepherd in his school nativity. He was grinning away and waving from the stage and acted out his part in the story in his costume (shepherds robes and head-dress).

He didn't have to learn lines, as there were several children acting as narrators passing a mike between them.

They sang a number of songs based on nursery rhymes and other childrens songs. The best one was "no room at the inn" done to the tune of the "Hokey Cokey". They did this as an encore.

At one point Frodo was stood in the "Bethlehem hills (lots of different shades of green drapes) " surrounded by a heavenly-host of angels.

So I've got him on video, wearing a dress with a mob of girls. One to show him up with when he's older :-)

Pax Romana

Just booked a short break holiday in Rome. Getting all slushy in my old age as we're going around Valentines day, but this appears to be keeping Novelist Supermum happy.

Looking forward to standing in the middle of the Colosseum and shouting
"Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together, we survive"

"Single column!, single column!"

"Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?!"

"Those giraffes you sold me, they won't mate. They just walk around eating, and not mating. You sold me queer giraffes!"

etc

2nd Santa Trip

Samwise had a second opportunity to visit Santa yesterday, as his nursery school had a trip to the same grotto.

He happily trotted in again, pointed out to Santa which sack the chocolate was kept in, clutched his chocolate gift tightly, stopped listening to Santa and stared longingly at the chocolate then asked for a torch for Christmas again, quick photo and trotted out.

Elvis has left the airport

Some places really know how to hold an office party

Mello Yello

Mello was OK, but a little small as it used to be a dry cleaners and a butty shop, which doesn't give a lot of floor space.

Nice little tables to sit at, but with large designer chairs, which means that you're not particularly separated from the crowd standing at the bar.

Will probably try the place again, as it's about 1 minutes walk away, and opening night is probably representative of a typical evening there. There were others from our street in there, and I suspect that the blokes jawing at the bar had wandered over from "Crichtons".

They'd obviously rushed to get the place open in time for the December punters. We noticed that the kitchen door didn't appear to fit the door frame, and that fire extinguishers were just standing in corners - they haven't been attached to the walls yet.

Plus the staff were a little OVER attentive. Then there was the great British "waitress service" dilemma. She's brought me my change on a tray - do I tip/not tip? Why doesn't she just let me go to the bar anyway?

Sunday afternoon, we collected the Hobbits from Grandma Gandalf's and took them to see Father Christmas at our local riding stables (not that we ride horses there, but we might book the kids in for some lessons sometime soon).

They weren't fooled by the so-called reindeer - a horse with a pair of "stag" antlers, but they trotted in to see Father Christmas in his grotto, sat down beside him, told him their names, each asked for a torch, had their photo taken then trotted out again, clutching selection boxes of chocolate. Very cute in an "ahhhh" sort of way, so I suppose it was worth the 1 hour wait in the freezing cold gale that was blowing on Sunday afternoon.

I completed my "plastering job" on Sunday night. Good job it's just a temporary repair, since I'll never make a living out of this particular "skill".

Mello

Saturday night. Hobbits have had their haircuts and are now keeping Grandma Gandalf company at her house.

I've spent the afternoon wrestling with the last piece of shed roof, so we're now chilling out after a tasty Chinese take-away.

It's the opening night of a new Cafe-bar/bistro on Allerton Road called "Mello". Looks like it's not the sort of place that's going to be full of rowdy yoofs, so we're going to try it out later on this evening.

Went past it on the way to the chinese and it was full of middle aged women who looked like they'd just parked up their "Chelsea Tractors" for an after-shopping G&T.

Friday On My Mind

The end of the week, and the end of my first full weeks stint of early morning system checks (07:00 am start).

Currently yawning my head off.

Another action packed weekend approaches. Haircuts for small boys, removing the last really awkward piece of shed roof, a Barney Bodger temporary plastering job to a wall that's gradually crumbling away, Xmas present wrapping ready for posting, and a visit to see Santa at our local riding stables.

Speaking of Santa, my Christmas present from the family arrived via one of his little helpers yesterday - a nice new NAD C542 CD player to replace the ageing hi-fi component that gave up the ghost last year.

I gave it a quick test, without hooking it up to any speakers or amplification and it looks like it's working OK. Need to dust off the amplifier and speakers, find a child-free zone and give it a sound test, before putting it away until Xmas day.

Thwock! Thwock! Budda! Budda! Budda! Kaboom!

The new Bond film "Casino Royale" is ace!

Daniel Craig portrays a ROCK HARD Bond as the sort of Brutal, Vicious Nasty Thug that a paid assassin should be.

Action scenes are superbly done. There was probably some cgi in there, but very difficult to spot.
None of that martial arts crap either. Lots from the school of dirty tricks instead.

A lot of the "old genre" cliches were completely knocked on the head, or if alluded to the Mick was taken in a "this guys not like that any more" sort of way.

Dave Arnold did the music and as always did a job worthy of John Barry. Mainly incidental rather than a big musical score, but fitted the action well.

On the downside Novelist Supermum thought that the opening credits were cheesy. I thought they were OK - no women, but they could have tried something different from silhouettes.

There was also a long drawn out romantic bit, that could have been a lot shorter. At this point you were basically waiting for a character who'm you'd sussed was soon to be "Deadmeat" to come to whatever sticky end might be waiting.

Loved the end. Simple but very, very effective.

Found myself whistling the theme tune this morning, zooming into work, and booting the door of the office in :-)

My name is Dwarf, Dark Dwarf

Looking forward to seeing Casino Royale at "the flicks" tonight.

I think that I saw my first James Bond Film when I was 8 or 9 years old (Live and Let Die). The chap who took us to see it was a bit of a Sean Connory fan, and was disappointed at Roger Moore's "reliance on gadgets" as he put it.

So he treated my Brother and I to a double-bill showing of Dr No and Goldfinger the following week. I can still remember our chuckles and "what did you say about gadgets" comments as the Aston Martin was taken through it's paces, with revolving number plates, bullet proof shield, oil slicks, machine guns, rotating knives in the wheels and ejector seat.

Having said that Goldfinger is probably still my favourite Bond film.

Incidentally, more evidence that the future is here, satellite navigation used to be issued only to 00 agents by Q department. Now you can buy them in Halfords. Perhaps they'll be selling Giro-copters next week?

Full House

Early start at work 07:00am to check the system before the start of business all this week. Usually a lonely job, but plenty of company this morning as a number of colleagues had done an "all nighter" to resolve a system problem.

Chim chiminee chim chiminee chim chim cheroo

I added "Chimney Sweep" to my skillset on Sunday.

We've got an open fire, which we put into service for the first time around this time last year, but it was smelling a little smokey.

I was going to call a Professional Chimney Sweep to do the job, but didn't get around to it since the fire isn't our main source of heating (but nice to have at Xmas time, since you can't roast chestnuts on an open radiator).

I bought a set of drain cleaning rods last year, with which came a Chimney Brush giving the rods a dual purpose.

So I decided to save a little money and do the job myself. With me those are usually famous last words before having to call in a professional to sort out the mess I've made.

This time however I made a "clean sweep" of it. I didn't get the brush stuck in the chimney (as expected - although it did get a bit loose on the end) and there was only a light coating of soot to remove from the mantelpiece and ornaments on it - which I hadn't bothered to shift.

I cleaned out about half a bin bag of soot.
The soot was mainly on me, and not on the carpet so job done.

Told the kids that I was "cleaning the chimney for Father Christmas". I think they believed me - guess I'll have to do this job every year at this time for a while.

Profiterolemania

The same chaps who were having a Cucumber Eating Contest a few weeks ago are today having a profiterole eating contest.

They've bought a catering box of profiteroles each (60 profiteroles in each box) from the Cash 'n Carry, defrosted them, added 8 sachets of chocolate sauce and have started to eat.

Comments so far are:
"Know we know why they only give you six on your plate".
"25 left and I'm hitting the wall!".
"How are we going to explain the chocolate stains?"
"Groooarrrgh!"

Our new manager (who is unaware of the competition) has just walked in with complimentary cream cakes for our efforts this week! ROTFLMAO!!!

Firefoxed at Work

I've managed to find a way of getting Firefox onto my Internet PC at work. Hooray! Makes life a little easier than it was yesterday.

New Moby

I've been given a company mobile again.

"Free" calls again, hooray! - Actually not quite free, the payment is that they expect to be able to get hold of me any time of the day or night.

Comes with a set of cheesy polyphonic ringtones. Tried to download something that suits me a little more but discovered that they've blocked most of the popular download places.

Most of the so-called "Rock" tones sound like Jan Hammer covering Heavy Metal hits on a Bontempi organ, anyway.

I did come across a rather amusing instrumental version of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades", which sounds like it's being covered by a keyboard based Bluegrass band.

I'll make that one my main tone, if I can get hold of it.

Character Assassination

My previous team leader finally wrote up my first quarterly appraisal - which has been outstanding since early August.

I've long suspected that the run up to Xmas is the time of year that the bean counters REALLY decide what rise you're going to get next year (and that the end of year review in April is just lip service), since the review comments always appear to be a little harsher than usual at this time of year.

This one was a classic. Apparently it's a problem that my "behaviour is strongly influenced by financial goals"!!!
(They must want me to work for free?).

My current team leader isn't doing appraisals yet. Hopefully this gives me a chance to write my own towards the end of the year.

The Goose is Getting Fat...

This weekend we have been mostly... Xmas shopping.

By some organisational quirk we've managed to get the bulk of our Xmas shopping done.

It probably helped that we started early for a change - trying to spread out the cost a little, rather than having a big hit on the wallet in December.

Usually I only just start to think about it in the second week of December, then it's all a last minute panic.

Now I can be one of those annoying people who's all prepared by the end of November.

(Not quite actually. Still got 3 or 4 to get for the rest of the family - plus Novelist Supermum's pressies).

Have you been called by a Bum?

I managed to text a number of people today by sitting on my phone - which I'd left in my pocket.

One of my pal's can't imagine how I managed this - he thinks it would make a great circus act.

Motorhead Sponsorship

I wonder which Motorhead track this kids football team come running out to? Hope it's not "Iron Horse/Born to Lose" :-)

Urban Fox

Saw a young fox last night. It was standing on the grass verge on the corner of the street. I stopped the car and watched it trot up the verge, hugging the trees, before crossing the road and disappearing into a garden.

Return of the King

We finally found a spare 4.5 hours or so to watch the final DVD in the Lord of the Rings trilogy last night.

They've done a spectacular job again. Still a bit peeved that they dispensed with "The Raising of the Shire", which I've always thought was a great twist at the end of the book. When you've watched something for 4.5 hours, what's an extra half hour? They could have cut some of the long slow boring elf scenes.

At least they did do the pipeweed scene at Isengard (although because of the dropped section of the book nobody mentioned where the pipeweed had come from, which should be the second hint that Saruman is up to something in the Shire).

Watch it again? we certainly will, but probably not as much as "The Fellowship of the Ring".

On Safari

cha0tic has just bought a Mac Mini, so I've asked him to check how Novelist Supermum's wesbite looks in Safari.

Looks like all is OK -

cha0tic on November 8, 2006 at 3:09 PM
Looks fine in Safari to me. Nothing looks out of place or obviously wrong. Links work etc.

Dr Who Trip and Bonfire Night

Old friends, and their kids arrived as expected on Saturday, so after a bite to eat we all set off via bus and ferry the Dr Who Up Close Exhibition at the Spaceport.

Glad we didn't go when the Dr Who exhibition wasn't on as although the Spaceport was OK I think it was trying to educate, rather than to entertain, so on the whole I found it a little dull. Having said that, the planetarium show was good - they went through the planets and Frodo was transfixed by this - especially the asteroid belt (he loves asteroids). Samwise was tired by this point, so got a bit tearful half way through, but luckily calmed down quickly, so I got to see all of the show.

There's also a simulator which lets you experience the thrills of a simulated pod race (similar to Star Wars Episode I). Frodo really enjoyed this one and is still talking about "riding in the spaceship that crashed into the water".

The Dr Who bit wasn't disappointing. They had an Auton, an Ood, a Slitheen, a Clockwork Robot, and of course a Dalek and a Cyberman, plus a few others. You had to go right up to the Dalek and press a large black button to activate it. Samwise didn't mind at all, but Frodo was much more wary of being ExTeRmInAtEd!

We missed the ferry back by 5 minutes, and had to wait an hour for the next one. To justify the charge the ferry cruises up the river to Woodside and Rockferry before turning round and heading back down to the Pier Head. Still it was a good evening for a night-time ferry trip, with fireworks going off on both sides of the river.

Walked past the Liver Buildings and across town back to the bus stop, carrying exhausted kids on our shoulders.

Back home for a cup of tea, and waved our pals goodbye, with a promise to visit them at their place in the New Year.

Tonight's the night that the British public show their disdain for terrorists i.e. we hang, draw and quarter them and 400 years later we're still burning their effigy.

Samwise is a little too young for fireworks, so as he was being put to bed tonight, I sneaked out with Frodo and took a taxi to the display at Sefton park. We took Frodo to a children's display when he was still in a pushchair, and he bawled all the way through it. This time he was really excited about going to see them.

The music accompanying the display started out with "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet, which I thought worked rather well. A full half hour of spectacular pyrotechnics. Frodo was absolutely gobsmacked. He was a little tearful at the end, but only because it had finished - he said he wants to go again next year.

The only thing that spoilt things a little was the number of idiots setting off fireworks amongst the departing crowd after the event. I'm sure that there's a correlation between the number of idiots and the location of this years event, which had moved across the park from last year.

The traffic was solid leaving the park, so it wasn't worth getting a taxi back. We walked back to the main road, but as the buses were all full I carried on all the way home with Frodo on my shoulders (had some practice at this the day before).

I bought Frodo a battery operated, fibre optic novelty toy to wave about in the dark. I also remembered to buy one for Samwise too. We had fun waving them at people sitting down in the restaurants and wine bars that we passed on the way back.
We scored at least 6 returned waves, including two double wave bonuses from the barman in Crichton's, and a waitress in the Eastern Diner.

Ship Spotting Geekiness

Ever wondered what that passing ship is called?
Where is it going?
How fast is it going?
What is it carrying?

Then this website is for you.

There's a page to tell you what it's about and how it works.

I can spot ships out of the window and then followed their progress on the map.

It only shows ships of a certain size i.e. the one's required to provide Automatic Identification Data.

If you click around the site you can find several views. The best summary view that I've found appears to use Google Maps (click the flags option, rather than popups).

Pretty cool I think, in a geeky ship spotting way.

Sorry cha0tic, but, for some reason it doesn't work in the Wolverhampton area ;-)

Reasons to be Cheerful

Old Friends have confirmed that their visiting us on Saturday. We're going to take a Ferry 'cross the Mersey with her kids and ours for a trip to the Dr Who Up Close Exhibition at the Spaceport at Seacombe on the Wirral, so looking forward to that.

We've also booked two family holiday breaks next year, at the "Holiday House" that we went to earlier this year.

We're also thinking of booking a short break in Rome, just for Mummy and Daddy, with the Hobbits staying at Grandma's - although we'll have to get our finger out and sort this soon.

And finally - I've got to be in work at 07:20 to learn how to do the morning system checks. Why am I cheerful about this? Because I get to leave at 14:30 of course (although I have to pick up Frodo who's leaving school early - we have to go back to the school for parent's evening later).