Monday, July 31, 2006

A grand weekend out.....

.... at the CLA Game Fair at Broadlands, near Romsey.

The CLA is the Country Land & Business Association - an influential body whose primary objective is to "help to protect our members’ interests" Originally founded in 1907 as the Country Landowners Association, today their membership encompasses landowners, businesses and a diversity of professions. Of note is the fact that the CLA members own and manage more than half the rural land in England and Wales. This annual event is held at various stately homes such as Broadlands (Hampshire), Blenheim (Oxfordshire), Harewood (Yorkshire) & Belvoir Castle (Lincolnshire)

Sadly, they couldn't organise traffic management on Friday morning any better than a 4 year old playing with a Lego set! For an 18 mile journey to take nearly 1 hour 50 minutes was incredible, luckily I cut across country, otherwise it would have been a whole lot worse. Feeling relieved to have got there I parked up, only to be faced by a 20 minute walk to the entrance gate! I heard of someone travelling from Oxford to the event who blindly followed the signs that took 5 1/2 hours to get there!!!

The event itself was vast with over 140,000 visitors, hundreds of stalls, loads of exhibits & interesting things to do & see. Friday was particularly hot with masses of people & temperatures into the 90's. I watched the John Bidwell exhibition for 20 minutes or so, he is clearly a very gifted shot, but it got a bit boring after he showed us his trick shots shooting from the hip.

With my interest in Shooting & Fishing [and food!] there was a lot to look at & talk about. I got a new pair of ear plugs custom made by Green Leopard, something I've been planning to do for a while now.

I gave the show a miss on Saturday, but managed to do the same journey Sunday morning in 29 minutes - much better. Once through the gates, I had the best bacon sandwich ever (honest!) from the Northfield Farm stand, I will be ordering some more from their mail order service soon! A good look around Gunmakers Row followed, but didn't provide anything interesting in the Gun Dept. other than looking at an amazing side-by-side 4 bore gun! In the afternoon I had a chat to the Greenfields of Salisbury staff who were looking a bit weary by this stage, but they had a good show from the sound of it.

I then went to the clothing aisle! Hackett, Charles Tyrwhitt, T.M. Lewin, Dubarry, Orvis et al were all more than capable [and willing!] of taking my credit cards & swiping them through their little machines. Dubarry won hands down in the assistant stakes - very pretty [mostly blond] young women in knee length leather boots with very nice short tweed skirts with flesh between, very nice, if a little public school for my liking.

Overall a very interesting event that had loads of interesting things for me to see, but if you are not into shooting, fishing, falconary, stalking or food don't bother.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Are IT peripherals time lifed......



.... because BOTH of my printer\scanner\copier\fax packed up this week - 2 days apart from each other!!!

So I have been out & bought a new one, this time HP have made their Photosmart Multi-function products Network ready with a built in Ethernet port.

Very clever - just plugs into the Router & the software enables it to be shared on your network by all attached PC's & Mac's. So I can now throw away the Print Server - thats one less item sucking power from the National Grid!

Monday, July 17, 2006

Bird of prey in next door garden....


... spotted this morning was this bird of prey, not sure what it is yet, but looking to identify.

Taken with a new gizmo hence the blur! A 30-60x spotting scope with an attachment that allows you to line up a digital camera to the viewfinder - it's like having a compact camera with a 4000mm lens!!!

This was taken from approx 200 metres away with a Canon Ixus!

It's called Digiscoping apparently & is big in the bird spotting world. I just like the idea of getting long range images from my spotting scope.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Skype SMS, it's great.....


....what a discovery (better late than never I hear you groan!). Skype SMS let's you text for €0.08 from your PC. None of that Arthritis in your thumb joint inducing texting from your phone, just use the keyboard (and get RSI!? Don't worry, I have a safe workplace so it isn't a problem).

You can even drop in your own mobile number so that it appears to the sender that you have sent the text from your mobile phone & they then can reply to it.

Clever stuff, and cheaper than standard UK text costs (unless you get free texts with your contract).

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Mr Ports, I've blagged something from your Blog....



.... I paid a visit to Mr Ports [fixed link!] Blog today & liked a couple of things, ClustrMaps was one. A very neat little thumbnail that identifies where your website gets its hits from.

Reminds me a little bit of a tool that was once provided by Symantec to allow you to trace IP addresses in Norton AntiVirus (maybe it's still in there?)

Also, the Reoffenders sound great, I might even get down to my friends in Taunton & pay a visit to a gig. I have put a few suggestions on their website about possible songs to learn - "Moped Lads" & "Run Like Hell" by Peter & The Test Tube Babies then "Woman" & "I Hate People (They Hate Me)" by the Anti Nowhere League are just a few classics that springs to mind!

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Vote now for Cock of the year!

It has to be the aggressive, stupid, arrogant, tempestuous, rude little shit - Wayne Rooney.

What a complete twat he is, having been seen as a target by many players in opposing Premiership sides, he has been targeted and wound up in order to get him booked or sent off. The interview with him prior to the game, he said it would be game for a "cool head" - he wouldn't know what a cool head was if it was written in 20ft letters in front of him, I doubt if he can "erm" read anyway.

Sadly today, his push of the Portugese player right in front of the referee was the nail in his coffin, without that it would have been a yellow & on your way.

And where was he after full time & during the penalties, supporting the team he left high & dry? Was he motivating them like Beckham, no, he was nowhere to be seen - he was probably off sulking somewhere like the schoolboy he is.

I hope McLaren see's the error of Sven & never plays the boy again in the national squad - he is a disgrace & a liability to any team.