small talk for a small world
Just Talking
A good cause…
Apr 20th
I would not normally do this, but a chap I work with is going to be cycling from London to Paris for a good cause, so I wanted to share that with you all in the hope that you could all spare a few quid.
Steve and his fellow team mates are to ride 350 miles from London to Paris starting at Hampton Court on Thursday 24th June finishing at the Eiffel Tower on Saturday June 26th.
The event which has been running since 2004 is highly popular and was sold out within hours of this years entries going live. London-Paris has been ranked as one of the world’s top participation events, alongside the London and New York marathons. Many illustrious sportsmen and celebrities have undertaken the challenging event in the past including: Stephen Roche (1987 Tour de France winner), James Cracknell, Sean Kelly, Brian Smith, Geoff Thomas and John Salako. This year Geoff Thomas and John Salako will be competing again along with Rebecca Romero (Olympic gold medallist) and Magnus Backstedt (ex pro cyclist and previous winner of the Paris Roubaix), Nigel Mansell and Will Carling.
Thanks for your support.
Disney DVD, Blu-rays buy 1 get 1 free at Amazon
Mar 22nd
Just quickie really, you can currently get Disney DVD’s and Blu-rays for Buy one get one free at Amazon.co.uk.
Follow this link to the page: http://bit.ly/bAVo9c
Must add I don’t normally post stuff like this, but seeing as my Son and Daughter have just benefited greatly from this offer, I was thinking other parents may want to know.
Friday Funnies…
Feb 12th
I thought it would be good to post some fun on a Friday, so here is a video on YouTube with some painful funnies.. oh and a load of animals humping things.
Enjoy.
MP’s Expenses…
Feb 5th
Well once again the news is filled with the 2009 MP’s expenses scandal. I for one am waiting to see some real punishments put into effect for these obvious crimes that a lot of our trusted MP’s have committed.
I have no sympathy for them, they seem to all live a life that many of us can only dream of. I know a lot of people who have to commute distances to get to their place of work, I know that none of these people get a second house to do this, or have their first house paid for either. I know that when they go to lunch they have to pay for it themselves.
We pay our taxes to see this country thrive, and yet we are the last major economy to come out of this depression, we are borrowing money like it was going out of fashion, yet these people who run the country are living for free on us. Sick!
It would seem to me that to be an MP is like being part of a club, that has real benefits. Not only do they get paid a pretty good salary but essentially their cost of living is also given to them in expenses. Pretty disgusting really if you ask me.
Will the 4 who have now had criminal proceedings bought against them actually be punished. Probably, Maybe I assume these 4 are going to the Scapegoats to focus of everyone else and also try to appease the British public. I don’t see this as being anything more than simply a publicity stunt to try take some of the heat away.
I think the fact that 1.1 Million has been asked to be repaid shows that the fraud (which is essentially what it is) was done on a massive scale by many a MP. If they have been asked to pay 1.1 Million back then surely those who have been asked to repay something have all abused the system and therefore all guilty of the same offenses the chosen Scapegoat 4 have been pulled up on.
We have a choice soon when we vote, I am two schools of thought here. Firstly any MP that has fiddled his or her expenses should not receive any votes from anyone. Second I was wondering what would happen if in the general election, no one and I mean NO ONE voted at all. We just all stayed at home.
All those who have taken from our tax should be sacked from their posts, and also bought before the public in a court on charges of theft and fraud and I really do mean all of them.
Google Sync on iPhone, Dropbox
Jan 15th
I have been scratching around for some time looking for a good place to store my contacts and calendar events in one central place but of course on a personal budget of nothing, nadda and zero.
I have an iPhone and I hate the fact you need to Sync it with iTunes which for a PC user is a painful process. Not sure if I am the only person on the planet to feel this but iTunes in Windows is just the most sluggish application I think I have ever used.
My first port of call was to use MobileMe which in the words from the Apple website:
MobileMe is a service that pushes new email, contacts, and calendar events over the air to all your devices. So your iPhone, Mac, and PC stay in perfect sync. No docking required. And that’s just one of many ways MobileMe simplifies your life.
Well I am not sure if it was just the way I had configured this admittedly I was using the 60 day free trial which you get from here if you wish to try it, but the syncing was slow to a point of non existence, I ended up with several versions of the same calendar none of which had updated properly with the events I had entered in. Phone contacts also did not update properly which was very annoying, people I had changed or edited simply reverted back to before I had changed them. So my first experience was not really that great and knowing that I would have to pay £59 a year for this service I started to ask around if people knew of a good alternative.
A friend of mine suggested I got a gMail account which I had already got to be honest, but he then pointed out that I should perhaps try Google Sync. So I followed the instructions on the Google Sync site, downloaded the Google Outlook 2007 plugin and off I went. Well firstly the iPhone setup works amazingly however I did have to go through a couple of teething issues. Firstly when you setup the Google Exchange account to sync your mail, calendar and contacts you have to firstly make sure that your Google Account online has all the contacts and events you need already in place. The reason being is you have to be brave and when prompted to remove Contacts and Calendar from your iPhone when you switch the Google Sync on you should do so. This allows the iPhone to then get its contacts and calendar directly from Google over a 3G or wireless network, once they have been downloaded then of course they will be stored on your phone however it is clever enough to keep checking when a network is available for any changes.
As for the file storage option you get with MobileMe, again I have a solution for that and that would be to use Dropbox. Dropbox gives you a nice 2gb of space to start with and again this is a free service, Dropbox also have an application for the iPhone which I have to say works a little more slicker than Apples own iDisk application. You can also earn more space for free by referring people to Dropbox and also if needed you can pay about $9 a month of you need 50gb of space.
If you need any help in getting this up and running feel free to shout on here. So far I am impressed with it, it works and it works well.
Getting bored of the weather
Jan 13th
It has been over a week now since this cold weather hit the UK and the media hyped the “Big Freeze” and is still milking the story for everything it has left to give.
However I need to say that I am now officially getting annoyed with the weather, well not the weather specifically but getting annoyed with the lack of preparation we still have as a nation even though we are now a week or so into this. Especially the shocking service coming from First Capital Connect. Only a week a go I blogged how impressed I was that the train services are still running with some degree of reliability and now it seems that has all gone to southwards.
First Capital Connect have so far this week cancelled nearly every train into London and those that do run stop at every station along the route from Bedford picking up everyone they possibly can until the train is at bursting point and there is no longer room to stand. I have seen people left stranded at the stations looking pissed off and annoyed that they have at least made the effort unlike some to actually get out of bed and make their way to work only to be left stranded on a platform as the one train that is running is full to the brim.
I am one of the lucky ones I guess as the First Cap trains start the journey at Bedford station where I get on and thus I am able to comfortably get on the train and get a seat. However the train is taking too long to get to London and when it finally does hit London it gets cancelled at St Pancras as apparently the trains can’t go any further south. This morning we eventually got into London at 9:30am starting at 7:50am at Bedford then I walked the 2 mile walk to work from Kings Cross to Farringdon, not a bad walk but when it is cold and snowing it is just pretty slow going.
I am looking forward to the weekend when I hope the weather is going to warm up a little and lets pray that the trains start running on time.
Would you if you could?
Jan 8th
Rubbish journey into work today
Jan 7th
Ok after my lovely blog yesterday where I polished the proverbial knob of the train services into London, it would seem someone at First Capital Direct read that post and decided to show me the real pain of the train service into London.
As usual I was up bright and early this morning, chasing the sun and beating it to Bedford as usual. Met my work colleague in the usual place and moved onto Bedford train station. Both trains were leaving on time, we had our eye on the East Midlands Mainline train, however the First Cap train was sitting in the station looking warm and inviting so we decided to take the ride with First Cap knowing it would be a longer journey however it would take us directly to Farringdon giving us an ample 10 minutes to make the 3 minute walk from the station to work.
Well the train seemed a little busy this morning and it seemed to be running smoothly however until it got to Harpenden, where the driver announced he would then be having to stop at every station between Harpenden and London St Pancras.
Oh the joy the journey was looking like a long one, then of course our train ground to halt just after Kentish Town as a train in front of us had broken down. So there we sat for an hour and half only to see our driver walking back to the North end of the train so we could drive back up the line to change tracks.
4 hours later I am at work.
UK Freeze, stupid media
Jan 6th
Ok so we have some snow in the UK, ok there is a little more than we normally get, but hey we have all been so used to mild winters for the last decade. I can remember back to when we had snow on the ground over the winter, that it actually used to drift on the back roads around where I live and form these amazing snow tunnels over the ditches at the sides of the road. I remember less winging about it as well and less press.
The BBC news site as usual as coined a media frenzy name for this current snow “UK FREEZE”, making the whole thing sound as if the Ice Ages have returned to our queens shores. Motorways have been closed, airports are shut, the schools have closed (hey one flake of snow and the schools shut so nothing new there) and trains are delayed or cancelled. I work in London by the way I commute from Bedford to Farringdon every day and I have managed to get into work today, as have thousands of other people. So here is some news for you BBC, trains are running yes a little disrupted but they are running, people who actually make the effort to get to work have got into work.
Sure there are parts of the UK that have had a lot of snow and I pity the old and frail who live in the remote villages at these times as it is hard for them to get mobile, I appreciate some road are dangerous and in some places people should just stay home instead of risking putting their car in a ditch. However there is not need for all the press, there is no need for headlines and “UK FREEZE” quotes. Get over it, deal with it. Moving on….
Trains a commuter tale
Jan 5th
I have to be honest when I say that on taking a job in London I was a little nervous as I have heard many horror stories about trains and the delays and headaches they cause. First things first my commute to and from work is not a pleasure in any way shape or form, I am up out of bed 6am in the morning and I am usually standing on a train platform at Bedford station waiting for the 7:28am train to Farringdon.
This train has been delayed on a number of occasions what with recent strikes and also the cold weather causing some issues on track. The journey home is equally frustrating as it would seem that more than 50% of my journeys home so far have been delayed.
The usual course of events for getting home is to get the 18:11 train from Farringdon, jump off at St Pancras, and jump on the 18:30 train to Lincoln which should arrive in Bedford at 19:08. This train is frequently late for a number of reasons, we have had no drivers, unable to couple cars together and of course the obligatory jumper on the tracks that has delayed my journey home.
It is not all bad though, which is the main reason for writing this. We have had some serious cold weather and snow recently and the trains although late have been running. I find this pretty amazing as this goes against the preconceptions I had about trains and snow. I heard that the wrong type of snow can cause trains to just grind to a halt, however thus far I have been proved wrong.
Tonight it is going to snow and there is already snow falling in Bedford, I have been watching the trains and so far only a few have been delayed and the delay is nothing more than a few minutes. I think trains get hard press and I think most people believe they are a rubbish service and form of transport. I have to disagree, they maybe late sometimes they may get cancelled due to circumstances which to be honest can’t be helped. But in my limited experience so far they have done the job in getting me home, not always when I wanted to get home but they get me home never the less.
The only thing I would like to change is the cost, they are not cheap and to be honest when you add up the cost of driving to the station, parking and the train fare itself it would be cheaper to drive my car to London and back, however not as convenient. As I would be sat in traffic for hours on end, so delayed no matter what I do. If the government can somehow get the cost of a ticket down to those who commute regularly then trains truly are a way forward.
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