Scargill

I thought yesterday was bad enough… the twin car batteries I use for handling mains drop-outs here in Wark had been acting up for some time and I’d been getting unexplained drop-outs where our broadband router would just drop out for no reason – but it wasn’t until yesterday I put it all together – the batteries were dry as a BONE. I’ve refilled them but I’m thinking it may be too late for them. But today has been FAR more interesting.

It certainly has been one of those days. The Merc collapsed last night – front legs gave up altogether. Maureen woke me up to announce that it was sitting on the front driveway with the front wheels buried in the wheel arches. Merc in their usual “make a mountain out of a molehill” manner managed to come up with a bill of around a grand to fix this. Can you imagine… you could buy a brand new motor scooter in Carrefour for that amount of money.

Fortunately they’ve come up with a loaner – I say fortunate as I have 3 days of meetings ahead of me and I desperately need a car. I’m sitting here late at night writing because I was just enjoying a superb episode of FRINGE on Sky (if you’ve not watched this excellent sci-fi, you are missing out) and I noted some upgrades for the iPad (not, sadly the eagerly awaited 4.2 operating system upgrade which is now looking like Friday depending on who’s rumour-mill you read) but an upgrade for a long-forgotten program called SharePlus.  If you’re familiar with office systems, I’ll just say that this seamlessly handles SharePoint – no matter what kind of authentication you use. I’ll leave it at that as this is not really a technical blog.

So an expensive start but at least an interesting end. And now I think a book. I’m trying to see if the iPad will really work for reading books so I have one of the few Arthur C Clarke books I’ve not yet read ready and waiting. Now here’s the trick… had I bought a Kindle – I’d have been stuffed because Maureen is already asleep and turning the light on is not an option. Stanza on the iPad on the other hand is backlit and a simple slide of the finger turns the brilliance up and down – a soft glow is all I need to read with (practiced as a kid, my mother always wanted my light turned off so I must’ve read thousands of DC comics by streetlight).

I’ve been getting to grips with Apple TV having bought one of their miraculous new black units this week. Essentially you plug the black box into your TV and Bob’s your uncle – streaming videos for rent, streaming video, sound and pictures from any of your PCs which have iTunes on them and from this weekend, fingers crosses, streaming directly from your iPod/iPhone/iPad to the TV… I can’t wait. May as well relax how, I have 3 very busy days ahead – and at the weekend it’s upgrade time for the gadgets. Add the Apps called StreamToMe into the mix which lets me watch my PC-based movies etc. on the iPhone or iPad… and I’m just about all set… been trying to get a setup like this for years with the PC and never quite made it. Marvellous.

(Update – car’s all sorted…. can’t use Apple TV until Apple get their finger out with the iOS 4.2 updates.

Fancy a break in Northumberland – then check out Hollyberry Cottage Holiday rental in Northumberland

Today I received Northumberland County Council’s third attempt to give me a Register of Electors form. Apparently they tried a couple of times when I was on holiday.

Anyway, unable to see where the online version was, I duly filled in the form… only to discover something quite annoying on the back. The form is available in a variety of languages – you would THINK the languages of the European Union that we’ve signed up with – so French, German, Spanish etc.. but no. With one exception.  Languages available are: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Gujarati, Polish, Punjabi and Urdu.

Don’t get me started…

I’ve just realised I’ve not put anything in here since clearing off to Spain. Well, for those of you looking in from the UK I can tell you the weather in Spain’s a lot nicer than it is here. Having said that this morning it is quite cold, but the sun’s starting to appear so I’m sure that’ll not last for long. Head on over to the Spanish website to see what’s happening there. Lots of new stuff – we’ve had a new wall fitted, today we had new post lights… it’s all detailed on the site.

Meanwhile a glimpse of the weekly market in Galera. I just happened to be passing on the way to the post office and noticed how summery everything looked. This morning there’s a thick mist over the valley – but of course that’ll last until the sun gets to it. A good start to the day, found my long lost Spanish mobile frame with the PIN number on it… I had visions of having to change numbers again!

So a good start, now I just need to find somewhere that’s open selling milk – I’m in desperate need of a cup of coffee.. meanwhile we’ve been putting some finishing touches to the Hollyberry Cottage website. Anyone fancying a romantic break in Northumberland might want to head over to the Hollyberry Cottage site.

I’ve just realised I’ve not put anything in here for a while. I’m currently in Spain enjoying a short, email-free break from daily life.  for those of you looking in from the UK I can tell you the weather in Spain’s a lot nicer than it is in the UK right now. Having said that this morning it is quite cold, but the sun’s starting to appear so I’m sure that’ll not last for long. Head on over to the Spanish website to see what’s happening there.

Meanwhile a glimpse of the weekly market in Galera, Andalucía. I just happened to be passing on the way to the post office and noticed how summery everything looked. This morning there’s a thick mist over the valley – but of course that’ll last until the sun gets to it. A good start to the day, found my long lost Spanish mobile SIM frame with the PIN number on it… I had visions of having to change numbers, not for the first time! So a good start, now I just need to find somewhere that’s open selling milk – I’m in desperate need of a cup of coffee..

Meanwhile the Hollyberry Cottage website is all up and running, anyone fancying a romantic break in the Northeast of England might want to take a look at the site…

Around a month ago, I noticed a pamphlet dropped through the door. “Save More Than Money” said the recycled-cardboard ad. “Free electricity from Free Solar Panels” said the tickertape plastered across the front.

The basic idea is you get free installation and supply of a bunch of photoelectric solar panels for your roof – you get the electricity, the company (Norton Energy Solutions) get the kickbacks from the government for electricity returned to the grid – and presumably all sorts of other benefits.

There was a meeting at Wark town hall on Thursday 30th September and apparently this went very well with several people signing up there and then.  I’ve since spoken to the suppliers who say they can also handle flat roofs! Of course, they’ll be generating the most electricity when you are LEAST likely to use it –ie mid-day on  sunny day… and so most of this will presumably end up going back into the grid hence providing the company with subsidised payback – Perhaps I should be less cynical – but I’ve played with lots of different kinds of photovoltaic cells and the difference between direct 90 degree sunlight and anything else… is outstanding..

How well  the PUNTER benefits out of all of this has yet to be seen however they’ve promised to contact me tomorrow with a view to arranging something when I get back from holiday.

For the first time in what I reckon must be 14 years I’ve turned off work email so I can have a proper break! I say 14 years because surely there was no proper Windows email much before Windows 98?

Hard to imagine that the SMTP protocol we use today didn’t appear until around 1982. I recall running a “bulletin board” to send other people’s emails back and forth using something called a “midnight line” which was basically BT ripping everyone off. Only one person at a time could use the BBS as they had to dial into my system using a modem then every night someone would ring into my BBS, collect up and deposit mail for everyone and they would then use this BT concession to send mail down to London and even overseas.

I’m thinking however I probably didn’t start using email seriously for business until the mid-90s.  I do still have somewhere an Outlook file for 1999 on CD. It suddenly occurred to me that I’ve never stopped reading this stuff since then!

It’s going to feel strange! I’m on the plane early this afternoon to Spain to catch the very last of the sun over the there. The weather looks like clear blue skies for at least a week, but temperatures are unlikely to get over 20C, a far cry from the summer when we hit peaks of 40C… but nice painting weather!

I was doing the maths this morning… 56 years old, at least one tin of tuna fish a week… I must’ve started eating Tuna sandwiches around, lets say to make life easy, 6 years old. That’s 50*52 as a minimum – 2,600 tins of tuna… Goodness!

Anyway, that’s the background. I’ve never been one for Sunday lunches and so for as far back as I can remember, I’ve settled for tuna fish sandwiches on a Sunday. Over the last few years Maureen’s been buying “Chicken of the Sea” from Costco – a light coloured and rather pleasant tuna in spring water. They’ve been out of stock for a few weeks and so I’ve been experimenting. Over in Spain I discovered I like the tuna in jars in Sunflower oil and sure enough when we came back to the UK I tried it here – not as nice as the stuff over there but then the weather might be having an impact on that. Somehow sitting eating a sandwich in cold, rainy Britain isn’t the same as sitting up in the mountains with the sun blasting on you.

Anyway we just happened to pop into ASDA looking for a cheap video player and I headed off to the food section in search of Tuna. I’ve NO idea of pricing on this stuff but what caught my eye this weekend were the price DIFFERENCES.  Asda Tuna Chunks in Sunflower oil – 49p  and at the other extreme, John West Tuna Steak in Sunflower oil, a whopping £1.69

I decided to put them to a side-by-side test:

The John West tin was in fact SMALLER by some way than the Asda version – but on opening there was very little spare oil in the former… so I squeezed out what little was there – and put the tuna in a bowl. The Asda tin on the other hand had lots of oil in it and by the time it was squeezed out there was no more tuna in the tin than in the John West variety despite the bigger can size.

With two bowls in front of me the differences were subtle – the two had exactly the same look once bashed slightly with a fork but the John West product was ever so slightly darker.  On tasting I felt the two were similar but the John West product had a SLIGHTLY stronger flavour – I could have been influenced by the colour.

So I passed the two bowls to my only other resident expert…. her response was immediate – she knew which one she preferred… to be honest I thought the difference was so slight as to be irrelevant but then I’ve been eating the stuff for so long now my tuna taste buds are probably shot.

So which one did Maureen pick as the better product? The £1.69 John West product? No – the Asda 49p Tuna!

Smashing new paint job on the car.. it’s almost like getting a brand new car. I’ve been staring at a rather awful scratch on the car for months now having managed to get too near to the stone wall at the cottage earlier this year… well, it’s gone. I’m overjoyed to say, the Merc looks like new! Hexham Motor Company did the job and they even cleaned up the wheels in the process – smashing job.

I’ve seen some strange creatures in my time but nothing like this caterpillar, which I just happened to notice while wandering into the house for a cup of coffee this afternoon.  Around 50mm long, he looks for all the world like a truncated snake – certainly the head and “false” eyes give that impression. 

And that’s in sunny WARK, not some strange country! According to Melanie-Jane at our office – this is an ELEPHANT HAWK MOTH CATERPILLAR – looks about right from the photos on Google!

Deed a holiday in Northumberland – then check out Hollyberry Cottage Holiday rental in Bellingham

If you’ve not seen this it is BRILLIANT – TORN for the DEAF…