Any ideas?

On my right hand side side bar there is a link to fellow blogger and local councillor Bob Piper. I am having problems logging on to his blog. The outline appears but no postings appear. This has happened in the last few days. I thought it was Bob’s site that was down but I saw him last night and he produced the blog fully on his Blackberry which suggests it might be me. None of the other links are affected and I have no problems with other web sites although at times they can be a little slow. Any ideas anyone? I haven’t knowingly changed any settings and if I had surely other sites would be affected.

Review of the week

I haven’t been blogging much lately not because I’ve nothing to say but somehow time constraints seem to get in the way. Last week was test and treat week for me. My blood numbers went the wrong way and it took awhile for the implications of this to sink in. Treatment day is always a stressful time and this week was no exception. By lunch time on Wednesday I was glad to be out of the place. There was a good news story though in that our clinic down at Tanhouse seems to have missed the PCT cut backs and is due for completion November 2010. The council also seems committed to the project and the vibes I’m getting are it’s a goer. Final meeting on this is 25th March but I’m being told a project team is being formed to get it done. More on this later I’m sure. The super duper clinic though in Great Barr is deferred. I blame their and Charlemont Cllrs for this. Again more on this later. Once the Hamstead site is at a stage where we can see the end in site then they will need help in fighting for theirs. In my view a lead on this will not come from their Cllrs.
I was a little upset when the Lib Dems delivered their latest leaflet this week. Upset because in my view they copied the layout I did for Labour and quite frankly cheapened it. I wrote a long piece refuting what had been said. I thought better of it. This leaflet must be the worst ever produced its anaemic and bland and the late Martyn Smith would have been ashamed of it. The one thing though that does require praise was its honesty. He never claimed to have done much and he never promised too do anything much if he is elected. The sad thing is that he will probably get elected again on his wife’s name. Newton Ward needs another dynamic Cllr that will get things done. This bloke certainly isn’t it.
I took fellow blogger Bob Pipers advice and referred the increases in hospital car parking charges to the scrutiny committee so let’s see if they can justify the increases.
Watching bruiser Brown on the politics show yesterday I was surprised that no one asked questions on the price of petrol. Fuel prices are increasing almost daily yet no fuss from haulage companies. Perhaps they can pass on the increases or is there another reason? Because we drive economical cars and do low mileages the cost of fuel is not a huge issue for us but I know it is hurting by daughter and her family. I seem to remember when VAT was reduced a special regulator was introduced to fuel to help the exchequer has the regulator now been removed? Of course it hasn’t which is helping to drive up the price. We are being ripped off

Bad show Moto

I’ve been neglecting the blog lately so apologies to regular readers.
Today I had to go up to Stoke on Trent for a fun day at a potters wheel. Excellent day. On the way back the misses and I stopped south bound at Moto services just north of Walsall. I of course need to pee. Anyone who knows these services will recognise that the toilets are on the north bound side of motorway. There is a disabled toilet south bound which for expediency I chose to use. The loo uses Radar keys which can be obtained from “Retail or catering” Non of the retail outlets near the loo seemed to understand what a Radar key was let alone have one. Fortunately I have a key but because it is so rare to need one I had left it in the car. The wife volunteered to go and fetch it but by the time she got back I was in some distress. The loo was an absolute disgrace, filthy and unfit for use. On the way out the misses sent for the duty manager to complain and low and behold the first person we asked for the key appeared. Apparently the key had been stolen and the powers that be above her would not replace it. When I reminded her that they were required by law to provide facilities for disabled people her eyes glazed over in that vacant way that says I’m listening but there’s no one home. So come on Moto powers that be let’s get this sorted before someone sues you. Disabled people deserve better than that.

Product recall

The late news last nigh covered the inquires in USA re Toyota motor vehicle recalls that are going on. I was following a Toyota the other day and remembered the old advertising feature they used to use “The car in front is a Toyota” Nowadays it might read the car in front is a Toyota with dodgy brakes, iffy steering and a sticky accelerator pedal. I worked for a company who supplied Toyota for a couple of years and at that time their quality systems were the best in the business with the emphasis for quality placed firmly with the supplier. What is currently happening is a surprise to me as it must have been to Toyota senior management.
My wife owns a small Peugeot which was made at the same factory as the Ago and surprise surprise she had a product recall this morning for the same accelerator problems Toyota have been having. The difference is that the recall of Peugeot and it will apply to Citron too have not had any bad publicity. I was not surprised to get this recall knowing as I do how common components are used across the industry. I don’t think I would want to be in the shoes of the product supplier though. Having been involved with a potential product recall across USA about twenty years ago it is a scary experience. Fortunately for us our product was over engineered by us and no failures occurred. The manufacturing fault was corrected and although we had to meet the cost of a complete inspection of all products in the supply chain it never bankrupted us. My trips to the states during the crisis though were not pleasant.

Star ship Enterprise

A bit of an exaggeration perhaps well a lot of an exaggeration but let me explain.
We lost an old friend last Sunday. Our phone rang late in the evening and then went dead. Nothing, no line or out. I blamed the phone company and reported it. On Monday I came to start to think about it and realised it was our phone system that had finally given up on us. It was very old ad hock system which we had added to over the years.
The search was on for a new system to meet our needs. We eventually settled on a Panasonic with three extra handsets. When the large screen lights up it’s a bit like the flight deck from Enterprise. It had some ideal functions like large screen, very big letters and easy to use touch pad. Able to make the rings louder and increase sound during calls. What it did not say on the box you need a degree in computer science to program the thing. Always looking to save a few bob I said to the misses when she had decided on this system why do we need a phone in every room? She replied in her usual frank and pragmatic way, because we can’t hear it ring and when we do we aren’t quick enough to get into another room before the answer machine clicks in. I couldn’t argue with that. Delighted to be able to report the new system is up and running. Easiest feature was copying across the address book to all the handsets. Biggest pain was manually inputting the address book and getting the answer facility right. The wife recorded the message in her posh voice. So far I’m very pleased with our new phones.

Is this the first snow drop?

The misses and I were pottering in the garden yesterday when I inadvertently came upon this little beauty. Spring is just around the corner. I’m wondering is this the first snow drop in Great Barr? The crocus fairy rings seem to be growing well although the wife came within inches of treading all over them.

Norton virus

This week end I had to renew the virus protection on the lap top my wife uses. The cost was 65 quid. My desk top which I have had for eight years costs £30. Well I’m a bit peeved about this but OK it does have features mine doesn’t. This is OK until I get the email confirming the order and they advise me I have signed up to have automatic renewal. This means they can tap into my bank account every year and pretty much take what they want. I’m not having this so I revoke the clause expecting them to continue warning me when renewal is due. This snotty email followed:-
“This notice is to confirm that you have elected to opt out of the automatic renewal feature for your Norton 360 subscription. As such, Symantec will not automatically renew your Norton 360 product subscription.
Your current security protection will expire in 369 days placing you at significant risk of losing the critical Internet threat protection counted on by millions of users daily.
Customers with up-to-date subscriptions automatically receive protection at no additional charge as they become available.
If you think you have received this notification in error or incorrectly cancelled the automatic renewal feature, please contact Customer Support”.

Basically I think they are saying tough luck next year mate we aint going to remind you. I think it might be time to look at the alternatives. This is not the way to treat long term loyal customers.

Where have all the birds gone?

Over the last few days our garden has become almost bereft of birds. There is plenty of clean water and the feeders are full with fresh food. During the snow my wife kept steady supply of water and food and we saw birds’ not perhaps as many but usual suspects. Except yesterday one pigeon appeared strutted about for a few minutes and then left. Since then nothing. The garden usually goes quiet when a sparrow hawk has been around but never as quiet as this.

Copenhagen two too

Since having the electricity monitor fitted some interesting facts have been revealed to us. Firstly how expensive it is to use an electric kettle. New policy in BBCB household is now to only fill the kettle for what we need and switch it off when it boils. Don’t wait for it to switch off automatically. Secondly the dishwasher although ours is an A rated machine it’s still greedy. We now only use it every other day, washing up by hand the odd few items that the new policy does not cover.
Best idea I’ve heard though is youngest daughter who has introduced a ban on using her dishwasher if the grandchildren leave unnecessary lights on around the house. They are instead made to wash up by hand. Strangely enough I have not heard any complaints about this policy. Perhaps they are at last turning off unnecessary light. More likely they’re blaming Dad.
Any other ideas? I like the idea of saving money whilst saving the planet.

Copenhagen

56 different countries have visited this blog since end of May 2009 when I introduced flag counter. That is roughly a quarter of the nations attending the climate change conference. If all of us make a small contribution to this then we will have done our bit. I am firmly of the belief that it is man who is causing the changes on the scale we see today. One of the biggest affronts to our climate was when George Bush refused to sign up to Kyoto and his expansion of dirty fuels during his early years of office. We all now have a chance to put things right including the Americans. About ten years ago I got teased by my American family for trying to get them to use energy saving light bulbs. It’s still a bit of a problem but they have moved in the right direction.
Just to make sure we were doing our bit we invited the local Warmfront charity to come around and check us out. We are apparently doing it more or less right. Any new savings would have to come from some big investment in new kit such as new double glazing with wider gap or a solar panel on the roof. As there is no grants for any of this it is not likely to get done. They fitted us with an electricity monitoring devise and I have ordered a smart meter from British Gas. The monitoring tool is making us more aware of when our usage is high and how much devises are costing in units of electricity terms.
Eldest granddaughter was doing a project at my house the other night on saving the planet. She knew exactly what was required and very happy with her project until I pointed out she had every light on upstairs in my house when she only needed one. Use the finger I indicated but I had to go around switching off the lights.
What I’m trying to say but not very well is that we all have to do our bit if we are to save the planet for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
I wish them well with their deliberations in Copenhagen and “switch it off” Freddie.

Animal behaviour

No I’m not talking about our local drivers although I could talk for hours on their behaviour this week. I mean the local bird (feathered variety)life and squirrels.
My second picture shows one of only two remaining pigeons visiting our garden. One you will remember was eaten by a sparrow hawk and two have since committed hari kari on my patio windows. This one which I’ve called “I’m the king of the castle” is looking for his now deceased mates.
Picture one shows a squirrel trying to get into our new small bird feeder. He and his mates have been crawling all over it but so far without success. The picture I have entitled “I know there’s food in there somewhere” The lid is designed to tilt to allow easy access to refill the table. I fully expect to see the lid on the lawn one of these mornings.

A Sparrow Hawk ate my pigeon

My wife has always fed the birds in our garden and as such we have a lot of feathered visitors. Some years there is a preponderance of one species and later years others are predominant. A year or two ago Magpies were by far the largest number and what a nuisance they were. They are perhaps one of the noisiest birds with that warning rattle they have. We rarely see a Magpie these days but Wood Pigeons have taken their place. These birds are an absolute nuisance. This year they bred extremely well. We have designed and built a small bird feeder from an old hamster cage fitted to the top of an old bird table. Small birds can get in, Pigeons can’t. These however are smart birds and they are persistent until some of the seed is worked outwards.
One afternoon last week I came home to see a Sparrow Hawk eating his lunch of Pigeon on our back lawn. He saw me but ignored me. I stood still watching him strip the flesh off the bird. I called the misses who arrived a little too enthusiastically and the Hawk took off leaving very little of the Pigeon. No tears shed for helping to redress the bird balance in our garden. Birds have no gratitude for the food left; they nosh away and poop wherever it takes them. I forever have to clean the patio table and chairs.
This week end we got a new bird table and modified it for small birds only. See picture.

I hope it works. Wada ya think?

Royal mail

I went along to our local mail collection site to collect a long overdue parcel which was a guaranteed next day delivery. I noticed some of the posters displayed in the window of the collections area. “Trying to build up a business?” this poster was suggesting the royal mail could help. Their current behaviour and recent history (industrial disputes, loosing money etc) would not give me any confidence in using them to help me build my business. A couple of real classics though. “DISABLED BELL: - please ring”. And No Smoking: - “from 1st July is it a no smoking area in this building”.
We had an email from an art company who supply the wife with a lot of her art materials which said basically they were suspending their contract with Post Office until both sides started to act like adults again. I’m tempted to write a lot more on this later because of my past experience I can see this dispute from both sides. At the present time though a strike like this is just about the daftest thing any company should be involved with. I urge them both to get back and talk whilst they still have a business to talk about.
Adam Crosier interview on the Politics Show did nothing to help the situation telling your customers and others (in the nicest possible way) to shut up is a bad idea. I think he is the real problem here.

Traffic chaos.

I’ve mentioned before on this blog traffic conditions at our busiest road junction the Scot Arms. I don’t often go there but on occasion it is unavoidable. It doesn’t seem to matter at what time of day parking is impossible and our Liberal Councillors for Great Barr with Yew tree want to add to this chaos by having a clinic built near this junction. Totally bonkers in my view. Today the misses and I had to go to the bank. Usually the folks are very polite and although crossovers are sometimes blocked and double parking is very common motorists accommodate each other. Today there was horn tooting angry encounters and poor behaviour and that was just me. No; I jest, I’m talking generally here I was my usual self effacing self. The best bit of bad behaviour though was the lady (this is not knocking lady drivers, honest) parked in front of me on the duel carriage way she moved off did a U turn and drove about fifty yards the wrong way along the duel carriageway until she came to a cross over place that enabled her to move to the correct carriageway. My open mouth must have been big enough to park a bus. I just couldn’t believe my eyes or that she was lucky enough to get away with it.

Apologies

I have always believed that if you are found to be in the wrong you should put your hand up admit your mistake and apologise. I have of course had to do this on numerous occasions during my career. Not everyone shares this view and many people will never apologise even when they are shown to be clearly in the wrong. It is simply below them to stoop to apologise. I won’t mention of course politicians who have been forced to after a mountain of evidence was piled up against them.
Recently I felt it necessary to apologise to Sandwell’s democratic services chief for comments I made on my blog. Following this I got to thinking about how I might apologise in a more elegant way in future. The following poem expresses my initial thoughts on this. My editor in chief (the misses) chose the title. I hope you like it.

To whom it may concern

I’m sorry for the things I said,
unkind thoughts came into my head.
I’m sorry if my words brought you a tear,
my apology is most sincere.
I’m sorry if I hurt you so,
please forgive me and let it go.
I’m sorry if my actions were sharp and terse,
I make my apology with this little verse.

Sick bags available on request!

Spam bot

I had one of these the other day. A company in China offered me big discounts on electronic and fancy goods designed especially to celebrate older people’s day. Apparently they celebrate this in China and they had made this special range of goods to help us celebrate it. I wish I had kept the email now because the only way they could have got my address would be via this site but no Chinese hit was measured by flag counter. The language was poor English but cleverly designed around my post on the full of life festival. Perhaps it was their English agent? If Mr. Chinese person you read this please contact me again. I would like to know how you did it.

Compo and some

A couple of my posts recently have raised some discussion from fellow bloggers in the form of comments and from my friends and family who although read the blog don’t often comment. The three items that created the most interest were Aunty Wainwright, Road Hogs and Mouth Wash.
One blogger commented that if tried to be more like Compo I wouldn’t have the problem with Aunty Wainwright. When the wife read this she insisted I did not need to try to look like Compo I was him on most days and then insisted I needed more new cloths. This as meant three shopping trips in one week. Anyone who knows me will realise that I must at least be running a temperature or I’m in a serious state and need to rest.
The Mouth Wash post received one of the funniest comments I’ve ever received when a mate of my wife’s said “she should have gone to Specsavers”. The other side to that story is that the misses left the offending bottle of mouth wash vertical on the built in seat in our corner bath/shower. Now I’m not going to explain my surprise when I came to sit to wash my feet but a few four letter expletives were uttered. I wonder just who had the last laugh.
The road rage post though tops them all and shows what a serious problem there is out there with these drivers. I loved the comment about the bloke who bought an old taxi “so that he could drive like Pratt and get away with it”. My car is silver (which is the preferred colour for Sandwell mini cabs) so I wonder if I stick a yellow badge on the back I can drive like a Pratt and get away with it. Umm now that’s asking for trouble I suspect. It isn’t just immigrant taxi drivers though that are a problem. There is nothing racial about what I’m going to say but I suspect that a lot of immigrant drivers do not speak good English and if they have drivers licences can’t read road signs. I experienced a couple of example of this this week with Asian drivers which made me wonder about their suitability to drive. With frightening figures out this week of the numbers of cars being driven without insurance and drivers who can’t speak English we have a potential major problem.
A fellow blogger who is also a Sandwell Cllr. claimed that a Cllr. who is definitely not on my Christmas card list wanted to introduce a dress code but my blogger friend suggested a f***ing Highway Code would be more appropriate. I definitely agree with the Highway Code bit although the ones I’ve used are generally a scruffy bunch so coming from Compo incarnate perhaps something should be done on that front.
A tightening up of driving skills and more frequent tests seems to me to be appropriate here.
Keep the comments coming folks on the blog on the blower or in person they keep me going especially on those days I’m not feeling 100%.

Road hogs

I wonder what the female version of one of these is called a road sow? Recently I seemed to have been accosted by a series of road traffic offences. My regular readers will know my feelings on using a hand held mobile phone. I find this offence very irritating because hands free devises are so cheap and easy to fit. This offence seems to be growing over here in Newton I noticed a big increase recently. I wonder if the public could have a telephone number to call so that reg number and time of offence could be recorded.
In Sandwell we have a lot of mini cabs that are licensed by the local authority. Many of these are silver coloured of one shade or another. I think at one time the Council wanted them all silver. These vehicles seem to have a set of rules all of their own. They are not fitted with signal mechanisms or if they are they never use them and they seem to ignore all other road users. I notice a lot of them seem to be immigrant drivers but surely they should and must follow the same road rules as the rest of us. A couple of days ago I was about to overtake one of these mini cabs who was looking at his satnav when suddenly he turned right with no signals. You all know I’m a quiet modest man not known for outbursts of rage but after a long blast on the horn this nutter still did not recognise that he had almost caused a serious accident. Throwing out of fag ends is another activity that annoys me along with folks who empty their ash trays in the road.
The worst offender this week though has to be the young lady who was combing her hair with one hand looking in her driving mirror which was moved so that she could see what she looked like and puffing up her hair with the other hand whilst driving on a duel carriage way at 50mph.
To me there seems to be a campaign to get older drivers off the roads but I’d settle for the lot I described being banned forever.

Bring back the ball.

First I have to explain that in our house I am not qualified to load the dish washer or press the buttons on the washing machine. These tasks according to my wife are her territory. One of the biggest complaints I have been getting from the misses these days is over the new design of washing liquid container. Apparently they are to fat in holding position and there are no indents to assist with handling. The sealing panel breaks easily and therefore the container cannot be stored as it was designed. The cap which is placed in the machine is difficult to handle and spillages are frequent. The old design was easier but the previous design of a ball beats both these. I wonder why Proctor and Gamble changed things and what sort of a reference group did they have to check it out before release on the market. Please restore tranquillity in BBCB household and bring back the ball.

Little green lights

Orange ones, red ones and assorted other colours. No I’ve not been drinking it’s not drugs prescribed or otherwise and it’s not an alien space ship. Men from other universes don’t make it as far as Great Barr. It’s the way my house is lit up at night. The phenomenon is more evident down stairs but the bedrooms and my office are also guilty. The only two rooms in the house not affected are the upstairs bathroom and loo. Every appliance however sophisticated seems to need a warning light to tell you “I’m here, don’t forget me”. When I wonder around my home in the wee hours of the morning I contemplate how much these mille amps of electricity consumed by my electrical equipment is actually costing me and how much could I save if I switched a few off. Extension leads for example; why do they need a warning light? Our new boiler has a warning light on the front, the old one didn’t. The big items like the tele are switched off but most of the others are to damned inconvenient to switch off because of the positions of plugs. We have two digital clocks in the kitchen one on the cooker and one on a microwave. Turning these devises off is practical but would you want to have to re-set the clocks every time you wanted to cook. Can’t see the wife warming (pardon the pun) to that. You can purchase an energy monitoring devise these days so perhaps it’s time we invested in one.
I had a little browse this morning but never came up with one any ideas on what they are called?