Sept 2009 - Indicating to turn into Middle Lane

Hi Readers,

Yes, I'm still here - and still riding the Fast Lane - well sort of, actually, I think my body has just indicated to turn into the Middle Lane, but my mind is saying NO NO NO.....hard right and stick like glue to the crash barriers !! New school term and little Missa has just gone up to Big School....she seems happy about it. Yesterday was Ailsa's and mine 16th year wedding anniversary......everythingf still luvverly ;)

Those Bomburs are still waddling around Birkenhead sucking their pasties and Sayers sausage rolls.....

We have 3 chickens now.....bloody things, I hate them.

See you soon,

Phil.

Back from Holidays

Monday morning after your Summer holidays have finished - now that's depressing. I can't even go to work this morning to show off my tan, as my eldest - true to form - has come back with an ear infection so I have to be off work this morning to look after her. Buggeration.

This is a picture of yours truely sitting in the inner courtyard of Carcassonne castle. Not bad for a visit, but Warwick Castle is much better.

Next holiday may be October-ish - half term you see.

Anyway - I guess that after two weeks in SW France, I can go in this afternoon - all chilled out.

Glass half full mates.

Beach Bums

You Know, one of the really good things about living in Heswall, is that you can just get on your bike and cycle the 4 miles down an old railway line to West Kirby beach. Nothing nasty about this place - lots of families having the simple fun of going on a beach with an ice cream, making sandcastles, going for a walk around the Marine Lake and watching the windsurfers.

It's also great to people watch - I like looking for the Bomburs..bom-ba-dom, bom-ba-dom... they always have the biggest ice cream....with a flake of course..

Hee hee....all good clean fun.

So today we are talking about Radio 4's Today programme and how they treat Science as a subject....ooh, this will be a good one....


As a BBC license payer I have a complaint: Why do Today's presenters always seem to treat any Science subject with a rather condescending attitude and a snigger. They invite senior Scientists on - to talk about a range of subjects - but whatever the topic, it always seems to end in a silly remark, a laugh and a comment about "Boffins" or "Back Room Boys".

No way would they behave this way to a senior Economist, Artist, Architect, Lawyer or Politician.

What's going on here ?

Summer is here...well sort of.

Hi all,

It's mid July 2008 - and the Great British summer is doing it's best. We're not quite on the Summer 2007 performance yet - but things might change. June was pretty much wet and windy - and July has been "mixed". Yesterday I assembled my little weather station - so I'll be following developments a bit more closely.

The theme of the summer has been the dire warnings from the Government and City with regards to the Credit Crunch, High Petrol and Food prices and scarily increasing energy bills. Our combined gas & electric bill doubled (£100 pcm to £200 pcm) from 1 quarter to the next - and I'm sure it'll go higher still. There are going to be a lot of people that will be clobbered with enormous bills and with no way to pay it. So now I'm paranoid over lights left on and not using energy intensive appliances. I bought a little energy useage meter that tells you how many kW's you are using - it's morbidly fascinating to watch it. The next project may be the purchase and installation of a Solar PV (electricity) panels on the roof. Mind you it'll cost us £5K to generate just enough juice to keep the 2 fridge-freeezers ticking over, i.e. bugger all. Sigh, it's going to get worse I just know it.

Still holidays in 3 weeks - South of France here we come !

Bike Crash: Our Hero is Injured !

My tenth cycle ride to Unilever R&D Port Sunlight (my workplace) ended in disaster on June 5th - I'd almost got to work - travelling about 15mph down a slight incline on a dedicated cycle path. Just in front of me I could see some roofing company using a conveyor belt thing to take tiles up to the roof they were working on. The base motor unit was situated right in the middle of the cycle path - no problem, I could see it and went around the edge of it- but horrors !! I head this almighty BANG !! and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air for a split second then I hit the ground hard with my outstretched hands taking the full force of the impact. Ouch...I knew that it was going to hurt..and it did. My bike had come to rest further down the track - and embedded in the front wheel was a large chunk of roofing timber - which had bent the front forks back at an alarming angle. My hands, knees and chest were bleeding - and my bike was a right-off.

The dozy bastards doing the roofing work has left seven kinds of crap littered all over the cycle track and on its edges: wood, nylon ties, bits of metal, broken tiles etc. The young roofer who got to me first looked worried and got the foreman - who initially said that it wasn't their fault, but soon changed his mind when he saw their bit of wood in the front wheel.

Anyway - my wife Ailsa came to save me - drove me and the wrecked bike home. I went into A&E Arrowe Park and they took x-rays of my right wrist and eventually said that I had a greenstick fracture and I had to wear a wrist splint thing for 3 weeks. It smelt horrible - and I had a huge scab on my left palm (remember the scab-protecting "scab-house" that I made using bent cardboard stuck on with plasters ?....urrgghh horrid. )

It's now 3 weeks later - I got a new bike - and I'm sueing the company for damages. Dunno what'll happen - but I've got plenty of evidence and witnesses. Wish me luck, it's my first ever "legal case".

New ways of talking ?

Here's another thing that really pisses me off....in fact there's two related things.

First up for my ridicule:

High Rising Terminal, or Australian Questioning Intonation. This is a new tendency for young females (mostly) to end every sentence sounding like a question, sometimes this effect occurs multiple times within a sentence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal. I'm not sure why they do it - perhaps they feel a bit insecure - and want to make it sound like they are not giving you a statement of fact - but rather a "perhaps" statement - seeing first if you might agree with them without comitting themselves. Or perhaps, they want to check out if you understand the gist what they are saying. I don't know - but it sounds ridiculous.

Second up:

A peculiar way of speaking that Jeremy Clarkson has made popular - that ends every sentence with a strong downbeat. Almost the opposite of what the AQI does. You hear it all the time on Commercial Radio during the adverts or links or trailers. Movie trailers have it too (you can hear that stereotypical gravelly voice doing it if you imagine hard enough). This way of speaking tries to have the effect of strongly stating a fact - and discouraging any rebuttal -there can be no easy comeback when the sentence ends with such powerful finality. When done well it is the tone of a hectoring bully. This is equally annoying.

Ho hum....I'll stick to my watered down Brummie - which everyone on the Radio 4 says sounds totally thick - but they are completely Home Counties biased anyway. We'll have a go at R4's atttitude to Science soon.

Phil.