Scargill

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

We start the new decade, supposedly in a phase of global warming, meanwhile here in the Northeast of England we see one of the coldest, whitest beginnings to a new year that I can remember.

Lest anyone in the future tell you that around 2000 or so the world started to warm up, take a look at this lot taken this morning in sunny Wark on Tyne!!  I have to say, it’s quite good fun and for once not too wet and slushy – but it’s a good job few people are in a rush to get to work today! One of our cars is stranded with friends and there is NO chance of digging it out!

and of course, as the snow settles – families making the best of this great opportunity for fun – and why not!

Happy New Year from Maureen and I to everyone.  I wonder how your NYE went?

By teatime on 31st Dec in our part of the Northeast, the roads were freezing over and as usual the council were failing to keep with the programme.  The plan was to set off to our friend’s place and park the car there. They would then take us to our destination “Derwent Manor” – to celebrate the end of, for many, one of the worst years in living memory.

With roads reduced to blankets we set off, rarely getting over 10mph for fear of heading straight on into the nearest hedge. With the help of a little grit, we parked the car up for the night and headed off in Bob and Margaret’s Lexus which, I have to say handles icy roads superbly. As you’ll see in the pictures below, everyone had a marvellous time, dinner at 8pm (we sneaked in our own champagne) and after a superb show by a “Take That” tribune band, the party went on until the early hours of the morning.

On the assumption that a picture is worth a thousand words….

So, we had a great night and now it’s 2010, the start of a new decade – and hopefully a much nicer one. I’m busy reading a book by the founders of Ecademy, a leading social network..who quoted a speech by David Cameron, leader of the conservatives and for better or worse the guy who will head up the next government… and I quote:

“Today, in a speech to the Open University, I set out our plans for a radical redistribution of power back to the people: from the state to the citizens; from Whitehall to communities; from bureaucracy to democracy. This is a massive, radical change. But I believe that through decentralization, accountability and transparency we can take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street”.

Let’s hope that 2010 is the start of a new and exciting decade! Happy New Year everyone!

As we sit in the UK enjoying our traditional Christmas festivities, over in the USA once again someone is trying to blow planes up. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab fastened explosive powder to his leg and tried to set of an explosion using a syringe aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Fortunately he failed thanks to incompetence and the bravery of quick-thinking passengers.

Sadly, once again freedom suffers as airlines tighten up security, which means ONCE again because of a particular subsector of religious fruit and nut cases, all of us are to have delays increased and any shred of the “thrill” of flying removed, not to mention the renewed fear of something happening on OUR flight. Not THAT big a deal until you multiply it by the untold millions to whom this applies – and yet we have no say in his punishment!!

I cannot for the LIFE of me understand why they are treating this man in hospital!! Why on earth didn’t they leave him to the press and perhaps the passengers instead of saying to terrorists the world over “don’t worry, if you happen to strap explosives to yourself and have an accident, we’ll look after you in hospital”.

If someone has no regard for their life or the lives of others why on EARTH should we care if they suffer? Apparently he was TOLD to do this. Well here’s a simple solution – provide all the passengers waiting to board planes with a nail each and get a religious leader to come up and tell them to stick the pin in themselves-  and those who do – shoot them on the spot!

Our little kitten had his first bath the other day. Like his mother he’s taken to hovering around the bath and given the opportunity, drinking gallons of soapy bathwater (I know – Yechh). Anyway, I’d half filled the bath, turned the water off and was just about to leave the bathroom when in ran little Ollie (ginger, a few months old, half-moggy, half Main Coone) jumped up and immediately ended up under water.

Of course as this was his first time I was terrified of sticking my hands into the bath in case they ended up shredded but hey, Maureen would kill me if I returned a dead cat.. Amazingly although his immediate reaction was to swim to the side, he didn’t as much as put his claws out. Since then he’s had his first venture outside the house and seems to have taken to the rain quite readily. His mother likes nothing better than to get wet and it looks like she’s passed this on.

I’ve had cats all my life and never come across anything like these two.

As you can see by the photo on the right, Newcastle Central Station now has itself a shiny new set of people control booths. Apparently the idea behind this is to keep scruffs without tickets away from the trains. It certainly can’t be to stop them boarding trains without tickets as they pester the life out of people every single time I get on the train for their tickets.

Unless there’s a more sinister background to this?  Reducing staff levels on the trains? Allowing them to employ hapless, untrained kids without fear of them being attacked by ruthless, ticketless passengers perhaps?

The problem with all of this is priorities… clearly the rail authorities feel that this is where they want to spend their money. The fact that when waiting in Newcastle station you generally end up freezing your PARTS OFF unless you happen to have an open first class ticket (they don’t let the unwashed riff-raff with discounted tickets into the first class lounge, the only place that is even remotely warm in the station apart from Burger King. The only other place is the excuse for a lounge you see on the right, a few plate glass windows and a large sign that says “no eating, drinking or smoking” -  I’m surprised they don’t add “or having sex or breathing”

So they COULD have spent the money on a decent “second class” lounge for us commoners, OR they could have spent the money on a TOILET (the attached pub doesn’t take kindly to non-customers using their facilities) – or HEY – here’s a thought – how about some BINS!!!  Having encouraged us to buy food and drinks, once out of the shop we’re faced with a total absence of anywhere to put our rubbish… leading most of us – and I include myself as a matter of principle, to find little nooks and crannies to shove our empty packaging. Hey – if they don’t like it – give us some bins!

Still at least now we won’t have to suffer the INDIGNITY of standing next to someone who doesn’t have a ticket.  That’ll be a relief then.

Of course I don’t actually believe in runs of bad luck but sometimes… let’s see in the last couple of weeks, we discovered the new house needs re-wiring, our son-in-law is deathly ill in hospital, in our own home the heating system is bust and need replacing – some leak in the back of the oil boiler. We found out tonight that the place in Spain has been burgled… and just to round it all off I’ve just had my first Windows 7 blue screen.

What next… outbreak of nuclear war…… flue pandemic (oh yes we already have that)….

I hate to make an association between Aldi (who I’ve always thought of as somewhere to buy cheap biscuits) and good food… but next time you’re in – they have these little packs of “Del Continental” Sliced pork Choricitos and Pork Pinchitos  -  a grandiose name for chorizo on a stick.  1 minute in the sealed pack – in the Microwave… that’s it.. that and a glass of decent white wine… lovely.

p.s. I KNOW, I should say RED wine but I gave up on that stuff ages ago… I prefer white wine, full stop.

I’ve a real problem with this.. they’ve taken the steel from the Twin Towers attack – and made a ship. Ok. personally I think the Americans should have built the world’s largest EVER building in it’s place – but maybe they’ve already lost that battle….   and so now it’s a ship instead.

And what happens if some enemy blows up that ship?  This looks to me like a fairly normal affair, surely it should have been the most advanced ship in the world to make SURE that such an attack could never happen? Terrorists (I should clarify that … religious nuts) have proven that America is not invincible.. .or at least had a first stab at it. SURELY if any symbol is to replace the twin towers, some special effort should be made to ensure they can’t repeat (with devastating results for western moral) such action?

We’re on our way back to the UK after 5 weeks of incredible weather in Spain (see the Spanish blog) to rain, recession, flu and on a brighter note, 4 new kittens – which is quite exciting. I’m assuming our cats have forgotten all about us by now – I think this is the longest single stretch we’ve ever left them alone (well, not alone, friends have looked after them at our place in Wark).  I’ve a week of intense meetings to come one after another so maybe I won’t notice the tan disappearing.. got the phone packed with stuff to watch on the plane. All that remains is to turn off the computer, package it up and put it in the car.. it all seems far too final… but then, it’s only a matter of months before we’re back in the sun. Maybe just 10 minutes more tanning….