chrisp65

Particularly annoying when coupled with the hand gestures up and down to emphasise how hard they are working.

1 minute 20 seconds in, I'm not sure they're actually singing the right words, I'm no lip reader but it looks a bit rude.

punky noodlings, very confusing

Self assessment is a wonderful thing, but some of the best pitches and presentations I've given have been where I was a last minute stand in for my boss who'd thrown a wobbler and couldn't do it. No time to fret and none of the real pressure that you'd get from 2 weeks of prep time.

Oh well done that chap, that's it.

yep, Forever Autumn. I'll have a look for the animated piece that went with the other one, it was sort of space men / aliens playing violins. I'll do it later, I have to demolish a large plate of roast gammon and fried eggs now.

Did that used to be one of those BBC fillers? They had a sort of light classical thing and a Justin Heyward track about autumn that they used to put on to fill the five minute gaps that somehow appeared in the schedule. Anyone remember those days? Bin bags on the streets, pinching coal from down the docks, jumpers for goal posts, candles for power cuts...

Too many genres and sub genres, people crave labels and the next new thing. When only 25 people like 'urban psychobilly' and then the band splits in two and one of the new bands is described as 'post urban hard psychobilly' it's probably time to just label it all as music. Hair metal, death thrash sex metal, urban dubstep grime trance, nu trip hop lite. Music is music.

They actually missed a decent bike and took two duffers. They obviously thought the hammerite on the handle bars was some sort of secret olympic quality kevlar material. Annoying thing for me was it happened 10:00pm in the evening and the police were called by someone that disturbed them. Police or passer by didn't bother telling me about it though. I found out the next day, phoned the police and they already knew. They said they'd sent a car around but didn't see anything. Which couldn't have been the most observant police drive by ever, they didn't spot power tools lined up on the roof ready to go or the grass strimmer and roof bars leaning against the wall ready to go. I'm just amazed that in 12 hours, the burglars didn't return or some other scrote help themselves to the impromptu yard sale. So, burglary was Wednesday, I found out on Thursday. Friday, first policeman turns up and asks me why I didn't report it Wednesday. I explain the story to date. He queries why I'm now saying it happened at exactly 10:00pm when in my original phone statement I said between 5:00pm and 10:00pm. I explain it was always exactly 10:00pm, or at least that's when the police told me it happened. Then, in taking my statement over the phone when I repeated 10 back to them, I was told I couldn't give an exact time, I had to give a 'slot', so I chose the 'between 5 and 10' slot. The next day, Saturday, he came back, this time he had his sergeant with him. The sergeant asked me to go over the whole timeline with him one more time. Which I did. They got it, the facts were locked down! I offered them a look at the garage and we all trooped off up the garden, teas in hand. I showed them the smudged remnants of the boot print on the door and the sergeant asked if forensics got a decent photo of it. I explained he was the first policeman to actually stand in the garden and look at the door. He did a sort of swivel on his heels, but even facing away from me he quite clear said 'oh for **** sake!'. So, it's Saturday, burglary was Wednesday and the Sergeant tells me there's been a bit of a cock up but f I can just bear with them, forensics will be around. Monday: I get a phone call 'Hello, it's Mike. I'm not coming out for this.' I ask Mike who he is. 'Oh yeah, I'm Mike from forensics, you had a burglary last week, there won't be anything left for me to see so I'm not coming, best thing you can do is go down Cash Converters once a week and see if you spot your bike'. End of that week, Thursday or Friday, I get a follow up call from my local community police officer to tell me that the forensics report is back from the lab and they didn't find anything. I tell him that's quite interesting as forensics never came. Later that evening his sergeant phones to check if forensics ever visited. Sergeant assures me this is simply somebody not doing their job and nothing to do with budget cuts or a lack of resource. I did wonder why he thought cock up was better than budget constraints, but I let that one slide. They were all really nice people trying to help. I was embarrassed in the end how much time it was taking up. This week I've had a letter offering me counselling.

I had two bikes stolen from the garage two weeks before Christmas. Some people are just defective. On the up side, witnessing first hand two weeks of the comedy incompetence of the police was almost worth it. Almost.

I think I'm fully up to speed.

don't bash the bishops

How do you keep a scientist with facts quiet? Surely if we know they have facts, then they haven't been kept quiet?

Agreed, you've only got to look at the pedigree, Yes, Genesis, Rush, Eagles, Zeppelin, Wings, Love to see an awful lot of mid atlantic white middle aged mullet wearing shite going on. But let's not be too judgemental, let's see what Rob actually posts up later. (no way is this posting for effect, uh uh, no way)

Don't knock it! Actually, these guys are Thai (video and CD are different bands) and yes, Xann did tip me off about the album.

I would guess from the rest of the things he's enjoying it was his meatball sub.

Decent modern photo voltaics require daylight, not direct sunlight. That 'solar' companies in this country still need to know what direction your house points is symptomatic of what is still a very amateur industry. You can strike lucky and get a decent firm install decent panels and have a positive outcome, but unfortunately it's a bit of a lottery. Perhaps we could also ask why we are digging up the ground to build houses, but not installing ground source heat pumps at the same time whilst the diggers are in. Expensive to retro fit, but perfectly feasible to install as part of a new build. Unless of course the house builder simply needs to maximise profit on a unit they build and sell and move on rather than a more holistic approach.

a bit of festive Goat

There was much more of a crowd than I'd been expecting and it became very obvious very quickly that the choice was twix, normal kitkat or something that looked like bags of m&m's or skittles. Well I panicked and just went standard kitkat. In hindsight, they didn't have what I wanted and it was an opportunity to go for the full traditional welsh snack, a can of strongbow and some chips. I rushed it and I goofed it. Festive reggae album picture coming along soon.....

I just leave it outside, wrapped in cellophane, with a note saying 'we called but you were out'.

Turns out that Old Etonian and current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Letwin had some interesting racist views whilst in Thatcher's government in the 1980's. Who'd have thought it! However, I'm sure that since the 80's and since having claimed over £2,000 on parliamentary expenses to repair his private tennis court and since saying that public sector workers needed more 'fear' he's probably moved on and matured. Can't have too much of a go at people for things they thought 30 or so years ago. My guess is he would not say anything or write anything down these days that could be seen as patently racist.

Sheila behind the bar could only offer the traditional four fingers so I went with that.

dang right and thanks for the assist