Bees are Buzzing

Well done The Bees

It's a Miracle.

There will be more news shortly but someone I know has opened a can of prunes and has found a "siamese prune". Is this the first case of conjoined prunes known to man? Tomorrow I shall take pictures and we may attempt to seperate them. Will there be a conjoined stone? Will both halves survive?

Try not to get over excited with the anticipation!

Back of Beyond

Just to let you know I'm in Wales. North Wales. Bloody big hill behind the house North Wales. Bloody big hill behind the house that stops any mobile signal for calls or internet access North Wales.

Back to civilisation at the weekend.

Gone but not forgotten.

I managed to resist the urge to comment about Jade Goody's death until today. I ignored the hourly bulletins on the stste of her health. I've managed to avoid the posts on even the Screwfix forums, though why big butch builders are so distressed lord knows. But the new edition of OK is the straw that breaks the Kennamatics back.

Apart from fronting it in black as a sign of mourning, the head caption is " a nation mourns for it's brightest star".

Good grief. (Or bad grief depending on your outlook).

If all the people who are sending letters of condolence, wringing their hands in despair at the loss of someone they didn't know and planning to attend the "private funeral" for which the location has been leaked well in advance so crowds of mourners turn up, I have an idea.

Instead of spending your life worrying about someone who is famous for being famous not being famous any more, why not offer your services to a hospice or hospital to visit patients who are dying of cancer and help actual real people you can make a difference to. Or work for a cancer charity to raise money to help future generations. But then, that's really not what your grieving is about, it's being part of something you see as exciting. Then again, when was reality tv ever meant to put you in touch with reality?

A view with a room.

Have had a quick look at Googles new Street Level facility, (if that's what it's called).

It would just be of passing interest to me except for one thing. If I am going out to see someone's house for shutters, or windows or other stuff for that matter, I can see the house in advance. This gives me the chance to think about it before turning up which in turn means I will be able to give the potential client a better service as I've already "seen" the house.

I shall also check what some of my installations look like where I don't have photos.

Then I can also check roads to decide whether to put leaflets there rather than driving round an area.

Let's hope not too many people delete their properties from view.

Laurel & Hardy!

Spent the last three weeks installing shutters at a house in Wimbledon, which is why I've been so quiet. I don't think I'm cut out for real work!

It all went well except for when my colleague was at the top of the tower scaffold about to hang a shutter. He tipped the shutter the wrong way and the hinge, which at that point is just pushed into it's holder, traced a graceful arc as it descended from top floor height to the top of my head. Ouch! Still, no damage done, the hinge was perfectly fine and usable.

Vocation Vocation Vocation

So the government have decided to fast track teacher training. Many of the present crop of NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers) that turn up at M's school aren't much good in practical terms. They've been trained in theory but in practice they flounder. Now, the new course is meant to be for high flyers, although it's pretty obvious from part of the announcement that it's seen as a way of getting those made redundant back in to work quickly.

Maybe people don't mind if teachers are underprepared to teach. It's a lot harder than it looks though. But think if the government wanted to fast track doctors? Would you want to go to a doctor who 6 months earlier had been a city trader and had been fast-tracked or someone who had spent the full term training?

The Good Life

I gret you from a pub somewhere near Yeovil where I'm sipping a pint of cider and reading blogs. A reward for driving 250 mile round trip for 20 minutes work.

Banking on disaster

So LloydsTSB have announced the expected losses at HBOS and also mentioned their own profits dropped.

Last week I received a letter from by "Relationship Manager", whatever that is meant to make me feel, saying the bank is concerned to see my turnover has dropped. They also wanted to know if they could do anything to help.

So I ring the woman I am having this relationship with and mentioned that external shutter sales tend to be a bit seasonal. Why does no-one buy there beloved a set of shutters for Christmas? They'd thank you for it, or if not, I would. I also told her the good news that I'd won the big contract down in Yeovil and what potential that gives the company. I also mentioned that it would be a help for the company in these present economic times if we could have an overdraft for the next 8 weeks of £5000.

She immediately decided the maximum should be £3600. So off she runs to do credit checks etc.

I heard on Friday, dspite the fact that there is a confirmed order from a major Plc which they have seen, an agreement to personal guarantees form me and the other director, who only has a 15% mortgage on a £250k property, and with good credit references coming back, they have decided not to give us the overdraft at this time.

They are willing to consider it again in a few weeks time when the cashflow has picked up, i.e. when we have plenty of money.

Well I'm glad to hear that I am such a bad risk that a bank who bought a £10bn loss, lost 80% of it's profits and 40% of it's share price in one day, is being proppped up by the tax payer and will have to use the governments debt guaratnee scheme, feel I'm the one not to be trusted.

Up On The Roof

Well, not quite, but I've spent most of this week just below the eaves fitting window shutters in Wimbledon.

And now I've just Twittered in a fit of new technologicality or something similar.

When Jargon Goes Wrong

I've just won a contract with a housing association. I was looking at their website and in the last year they have built 800 affordable houses and 100 non-affordable houses!

Non-affordable? They must be £45million per sq inch or something otherwise The Sultan of Brunei could technically afford it.

I know what they mean but to anyone who doesn't understand government speak they must wonder why any builder builds houses no-one can afford to buy.

CPS

Yesterday, we had one of the many legal cases that are surrounding us, and to which I keep alluding. This one was specifically about a threatening message one of Marjs daughters received as part of this series of events. It had been sent through Facebook so the charge was one of "Sending A Message by Electronic Means in Order to Cause Distress or Anxiety".

Firstly, we did win, but considering the CPS had taken on the case and were prosecuting the perputrator, they actually came to court without a hardcopy of the message or the actul correct wording. Luckily, or actually by good planning, we had all our paperwork with us and were therefore able, to the Distric Judges relief, able to supply the neccessary evidence.

How do the CPS get themselves in a situation where they go into court without the evidence? If I was "The Crown", I should want to know!

January Jaunt

Tomorrow morning, whilst it's still dark, I'm heading for St Pancras and the Eurostar to Brussels, then onwards to Bruges for three days of revelry.

Chocolate and Stella Artois will probably high on the list of purchases!

Enjoy whatever you do to herald in 2009.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

but really, you should be doing more exciting things than visiting here.

Marketing - Men & Women

At present, Marj has a new morning routine.

Get up - brush hair - put "hair putty"? into hair to give it that "just got up" look.

Mine.

Get up - Don't brush hair.

We both achieve the same result but I don't spend copious amounts of money on product.

Of course, if it came with buttons to press and flashing lights I probably would.

Open All Hours

Saw a great leaflet for a Take-away food place today.

Open 8pm till 4am, 24/7!

Nope, that would be 8/7 but top marks for trying.

Watching the Detectives.

I may have mantioned before that I'm somewhat in agreement with Jeremy Clarkson that if you have been burgled, the police can't get you for any motoring offences until they've solved your crime first. If only!

Certainly in London, and I suspect most other places in the UK, if you get burgled you can forget any idea of the perputrators being caught. Last time we were burgled they took Marjs' car. After 6 months the police had failed to find it, despite the fact it was sat on a public road unmoving since the day it was taken. It was eventually discovered by The DVLA 48 hours after the tax ran out which explains a great deal about the art of "detection" around here these days.

Once upon a time the glamorous "copper" was The Detective. He would be faced with a crime and would gnaw away at the details until, using little more that his "Coppers Nose" and the odd hunch, he would track down and arrest the guilty party. Now, I suspect, little real Detection goes on. I still can't go into details about a case we're involved with as it is still sub-judice, but I can tell you that at the original incident, Police failed to find any witnesses whereas we were able to give them 6 seperate names and adresses within 48 hours by going out and asking a few questions. I wonder how Sherlock Holmes would have operated these days......

WATSON: So Holmes, what crime did you solve today.

HOLMES: Ah, My dear Watson, I like to think of it as The Sound of The Baskervilles.

WATSON: Why, what do you mean?

HOLMES: I was walking along to my local opium den when I spotted a road with, and be prepared for a terrible shock Watson, no speed camera for almost 400 yeards!

(Watson screams, and lies down upon the chaise longue with an attack of the vapours.)

HOLMES: Almost immediately I recognised the engine sound of a 1996 Ford Orion with the note pitched perfectly on D#. As you may well know, at 30 mph the engine should have been no higher than C#! I immediately threw myself in front of the car which, upon it's finally stopping some 15 feet after it had run me over, I bound to the drivers door and arrested it's owner, a Mr J Baskerville, for driving at 34mph in a 30 mph zone. I hied both myself and the miscreant straight to Scotland Yard and thus another dangerous criminal has been dealt the severe punishment of 3 points on his licence and a £50 fine. Indeed Watson, fetch me my Stradivarius violin and I shall re-enact the very notation that caused me to apprehend the aformentioned felon.

WATSON: I'm sorry Holmes, during your abscence you were burgled.

HOLMES: Oh, Bugger!

Flu-ness

I have been laid up with flu. Quite useful though as I've discovered that flu stops you worrying about other stuff as your body puts all it's energy into coughing and sweating.

Not sure how I got it though. I know of nobody else who has it or shown symptoms. In fact, the only contact with flu I have had is by listening to The Archers every day. I think I've caught flu via the airwaves.

Ivor the Engine runs out of steam.

Sad news. The death of Oliver Postgate

As a child, Ivor the Engine was a favourite programme, along with Gerry Andersons Supercar. As an adult I finally got into The Clangers. I found the spoken bit at the beginning of ech episode, musing on life on other planets rather moving.

Nocturnal Greetings

I greet you, dear reader, at ten to one in the morning.

It's not that I can't sleep, I wish I was in bed this very minute, but I'm about to take a trip. To Heathrow.

Now, if this was half as good a blog as I wish it was, I would then be boarding a plane to climb to the top of Machu Pichu or whatever it's called. Instead I am going to Heathrow to pick up my dad and step-mum as they return from Cyprus where they have been enjoying temperatures between 22 and 32 degrees over the last three weeks. I think they may find the UK a little chilly at the moment!

Their plane was due 8:45 this last evening but has been getting steadily later until it's ETA is now 01:36. By the time they've trundled through customs/passport control/sheep dip, then dropped me back home, I'll not see my bed much before 3am. Better than them though as they are driving straight from here to Norfolk, so it'll be breakfast time when they reach home.

I always start my day with a reading of those blogs I cannot live without, but there'll be no need for you to rush to post tomorrow, I don't suppose I'll be reading much before mid-day.