Scargill

Whilst it is fair to say that WARK is not the best indication of the weather potential of the UK, being part of the Northeast and hence raining most of the time, there’s no getting away from it – once again it’s been a MISERABLE summer in downtown Northumberland. what on EARTH place does 10 degrees C have in AUGUST??

Incidentally, that sign of rain on Tuesday in Galera on the right.. I’ll bet by the weekend that changes to an Orange sun.

Weather in Andalucía has been wonderful since the end of July (head on over to the Bedrock site and take a look) and looks set to remain so. A little hot at lunchtimes but then that’s what swimming pools and naps are for. I’m getting my work done in the early hours as it’s comfortable t-shirt weather overnight outside, meanwhile our house in the UK is being looked after which is a comfort.

After a tea-totalling night last night in which we worked on the hot tub and I got annoyed with tech support at work, I got up WAY too early this morning to do a spot of coding on a website and to update my blog. It’s pitch black here at 6.30am but still cool enough to walk around in shorts, which is nice. Got my new dictionary on the iPhone… marvellous – £17 and I get both the iPhone and iPad versions thrown in. Third of a million words complete with audio recordings in both languages and the ability to completely cross-reference – and all offline. Beats the pants off the paper versions. I’m not convinced that “he’s got cheesy feet” is the best definition of cheese but there you are…

I’m going to stop watching TV – try as I might I just can’t escape the adverts… normally we record everything specifically to watch at a convenient time and so we can skip over the increasingly childish ads on British TV.  Ok, there is some merit in the “compare the Meercat” ads – but as for the tenor on “Go Compare” – I’d like to shoot him where he stands.  Talking of shooting, is it just me or do others find the increasing number of accident lawyer ads INCREDIBLY annoying?

“Had an accident recently? Made a complete ass of yourself and feel the need to SUE someone and ruin their life? Come to Urchins-r-us and we’ll take them to court for free”.  I just find the whole thing so annoying as they’re pitting man against man, woman against woman. Ok so insurance companies have to shell out, not people, right? Wrong – all that happens is everyone’s premiums go up – and so prices go up. People don’t NEED an excuse to be nasty to each other and yet these leeches are out there advertising during the day when kids are watching. So we’ve a generation growing up thinking there’s no such thing as an accident as WELL as thinking the state owes them a favour! A typical example is ad with the moron who’s gotten up the wrong ladder at work.  Ask yourself… this is what he does for a job and he doesn’t have the brain power to know when someone has given him the wrong ladder? How about personal responsibility? You can be damn sure if I used a dangerous tool at work I’d make it my business to know if it was the right tool for the job.

Don’t even START me on “we sell any car….dot com”….

I’ve always been a great believer in freedom of the individual – however that freedom stops when it adversely affects another – and in this case when it leads to brainwashing of our children.

For reasons far beyond the ken of any rational person, the government have awarded a “kitemark” to “Noahs Ark Zoo Farm” in Wraxall, near Bristol.

School-children who have been conditioned already to accept the word of adults as gospel (and who are predisposed to do that anyway) are “free to go to an area where posters and charts advance it’s religious beliefs”… all of which would be fine but we’re talking school outings here with susceptible children!

Can you imagine British children in the 21st century being exposed to crap like this….

• “The story of Noah’s Ark is supported by science”
• “Humans are not descended from apes – there are too many differences”
• “Consciousness is not a property of matter”

If consciousness is not a property of matter, then the scans that clearly show physical brain activity when thinking and the vast amounts of research that’s beginning to explain how this all works is all just a pipedream, then? Any sane adult would take this rubbish on the chin as they would TV sex and violence – but school-trips of children!!

While companies are free to peddle whatever they like as long as it is not illegal, we need a specific memo from the government, banning school outings and preventing children from being exposed to this rubbish until they are old enough and wise enough to put this nonsense into perspective – i.e. the blind ignorance of the uneducated.

America despite it’s supposed separation of church and state is in terrible difficulty thanks to the indoctrination of it’s children, with 50% believing in imaginary friends – as for the middle east – well, they’re simply totally lost in their own blind ignorance… we must NOT allow the great strides we’ve made in Britain in educating children to think for themselves to fall prey to this and similar nonsense.

That kitemark has to GO.

Many years ago one of the first of the modern “photo printers” I bought was the Canon S600. This was before they starting putting daft things like chips in the cartridges and so despite Canon’s high cartridge pricing, in practice you could get cartridges as cheap as a couple of quid… and I did.  This printer did some heavy duty printing but was eventually replaced by one of the IP series – and then onto HP etc etc… but the S600 still sat there in a corner until one day my wife needed a printer and so she had the thing for maybe a year or so – again putting the cheapest ink we could get into it.

After it had laid around for several more months gathering dust, when we first decided to buy a place in Spain I decided to give it a go – heads looked shot but a quick deep clean and it was back on it’s feet.

The printer has now been in Spain for 2 years more or less… and suffered last winter with incredible damp. Well, we’re now on top of that having cleaned up furniture that was affected – all’s well.

Today I fired up the printer to find it was out of ink – I replaced the ink with a couple of cartridges that have been here since we got the place… the yellow remains low… these were cheap imitation ink cartridges as usual.  I’ve just run the deep clean and the magenta as a couple of missing lines.. I need to get some yellow before giving it another clean – but other than that, the good old S600 is BACK IN ACTION – would you believe it….  I wonder how more modern printers would fare…. I’ve some research on bar codes to do while I’m here so the printer is essential….  talk about good value for money!

And yes, Windows 7 64-bit loads the drivers automatically, no need to go searching!

And a very nice time was had by all. My first trip to the House of Commons Terrace since we kicked out the disastrous left.

Sadly cameras are not really on though I did manage a picture of the EYE… a really super night last week, weather was HOT in London, the FSB had it’s Summer Reception on the Terrace after first having the house speaker John Bercow open our new office in Catherine Place, we then went off to to our summer reception which was opened by Mark Prisk. There are some photos in the FSB’s press gallery of the event…

The speech was relatively short but interesting after which John Walker did his bit and then we got on with the business of meeting up with old acquaintances and some new. Shame however we didn’t have our two new leaders in – I’ve never met Nick Clegg face to face and that would be nice. The evening ended with a small number of us heading off to the nearest Indian. Lovely.

According to Northeast railways or whatever they’re called now, the railway formerly known as GNER, they’re installing video cameras to keep an eye out FOR you – as against ON you. 

They’ve not gotten their WIFI working properly yet, keep forgetting the newspapers in first class, keep running out of sandwiches, have bust air-conditioning…..  and here they are spending money to spy on us! Next time you pick your nose on the train – note that it’s recording!

Just thought you might like to see this …  or not.. yes, that’s ZERO chance of rain in sunny Galera, Andalucia for the coming week, meanwhile it’s STILL raining in the Northeast of England! Head on over to www.bedrock.es for more….

When I got up this morning to read the papers, I could not believe my eyes. Cameras on every street corner watching our every move is one thing.. but Town Halls checking our waste to see what colour we are is another thing ENTIRELY.

In the DAILY TELEGRAPH today (Thursday July 22, 2010 page 8 (26 years after 1984)) we read that NINETY councils have been secretly searching through household rubbish for “clues to families’ race, social class and wealth”. Can you believe this!!!

Just WHAT give these taxpayer-funded morons the right to spend their working hours doing this, I ask? This is nothing less than I’d expect from the RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE and it’s happening right here in BRITAIN!

Apparently, more than 10,000 families were targeted last year. NO this isn’t some unofficial socialist time wasting – this was OFFICIAL POLICY – GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE would you believe!!!

Government guidelines said “Ideally you do not want to inform the public of an audit taking place, as this could alter their disposal behaviour”.  Or, to put it another way, just FEEL FREE to go and do a bit of SUBVERSIVE SPYING on the taxpayers.

When I finish this, I’ll be writing directly to my local council to ask them what their policy WAS and what it is NOW. I suggest you do the same!

Today I  embarked on the 11.30am from Newcastle to London Kings Cross, having purchased a first class ticket, expecting a comfortable ride to London during which I could get a bite to eat and some work done. Given the cost of first class tickets I don’t think that’s an excessive requirement.

Sitting in the central station in Newcastle in coach M, I noted that the coach was rather warm. I passed comment to the guard who pointed out that trains often get warmer in stations.

At Durham I pointed out that the coach was still too warm and the guard said they’d reset the heating a couple of times. At this time the WIFI went dead… and so I took the opportunity to take a break and order a sandwich – egg and cress – the ONLY sandwich which could be classed as "rabbit-food-free" though only just. By the time we got to Darlington it became apparent that if I was going to make use of this shirt into the evening, I’d have to move. Still no sign of my sandwich.

Approaching York, I rang up the WIFI people who said the WIFI was off and they were waiting for the guard to turn it back on! Meanwhile I tackled the guard who said I should considering moving to coach K – which I did. As I got up, I caught the eye of the lady serving sandwiches, who came offering 3 lettuce-enhanced alternatives to egg and cress as they didn’t have any left (none of which had stopped her accomplice from originally taking my money off me. She said they may be able to pick an egg and cress up at the next stop.

We’re now well on our way past YORK and still no sandwich. The WIFI in coach K appears to be working and it’s marginally cooler in here. My shirt may just last the day.

For First class travel this is all PATHETIC. What is East Coast Railways going to do to compensate me for an utterly ruined journey I wonder? Don’t hold your breath

Another screw-up for Orange – the broadband we were supposed to have in Bellingham is still not running. I rang them up yesterday merely to ask when it would be connected.. can’t talk to me – data protection…  I pointed out that if I get Maureen to ring – to confirm, then I ring back, I’ll get through to another part of India who won’t know anything about the first call…  no difference, data protection.

If anyone from Orange is looking in – your people are an UTTER WASTE OF SPACE!