Family history.......

After a recent visit from the Swiss side of the family, I have had my interest in the family history re-ignited.

I tried about 20 years ago with no knowledge of how to go about tracking down family records, but I did at least have one surviving Grandparent that could help with information from his generation & beyond. At the time, the few sources of information such as public records office with Parish records were costly & slow.

Now, with the advent of the 1851-1901 Census' being available online & other resources it is much easier to find out recent family history from the comfort of your armchair at home. You can also order copy certificates from the General Records Office that fill in gaps like parents names, address at time of birth & Mothers maiden name.

So, I am now researching my maternal Great Great Great Grandfather, John Page born circa 1810 in St. Mary Bourne, Hampshire & my paternal Great Grandfather, William Rice born c1885 in West Ham, London.

I now use the force.....

no, not physical violence (but am very tempted at times with certain individuals).

My green Luke Skywalker Lightsaber has arrived! I'm sure all the difficulty in sourcing one of these is easily overcome in the New Year sales, but I wanted one NOW!

It seems a bit weird (or maybe it's just me?), of the people that have seen these, some say "Wow, fantastic, isn't it great!" and others just look at me as if to say what the fuck are you spending your cash on that shite for?

You can also practice your Jedi Lightsaber skills at eBaum's World.

Mein Auto ist defekt....

or as they say in English, my Audi (hence the German) is broken.

Over the past few weeks my car has been playing up in the gearbox department, it has been sticking in 4th, 5th or 6th, the dash lights up with all gear selections looking like a flashing christmas tree.

Called the Audi A8 dedicated technician at my dealer (Martins of Basingstoke), he suggested what I had already been doing. Stop, turn the car off & restart, that should reset the engine management system (really handy on a Motorway!). Book it in as soon as you can....

Duly booked in the car for service and a quick look at the problem, didn't hear anything all day, so I called them at 5:30. No-one wanted to talk to me, they just said that "the Service Manager needs a word with you Mr Rice....." oh dear, I've got a bad feeling about this......

After 18,000 miles on the clock, and a short conversation with Roy the Service Manager, it transpires that my car needs an entirely new gearbox!!!!! Luckily it's all covered under warranty, and I have to say the dealer has been bending over backwards to reassure me that they will be doing everything possible to minimise the impact on me, from supplying me with another A8 in the interim if the fault gets any worse (it doesn't happen when in Tiptronic mode) & over the 2 days it will take to fit.

Let's hope that zee Germans get the new one delivered to Basingstoke sooner rather than later.

Airbus A380 makes first long haul flight....

Airbus sent their new "Super Airliner" the A380 on its first long distance flight yesterday, after 12 hours in the air it landed at Changi Airport in Singapore.

The plane, capable of carrying 555 passengers has been ordered by Singapore Airlines, Quantas, Emirates, Qatar Airways, China Southern Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and Thai Airways.

Initially Singapore Airlines will operate the A380 on the London-Singapore-Sydney route which is considered a cash cow for most airlines.

Although any runway that is capable of taking a Boeing 747 can accommodate the A380, as it's take off & landing is actually shorter than the 747, the terminal & infrastructure do require some updating - at nearly 80 metres the wingspan is 15 metres bigger than the 747-400.

Singapore Airlines will take its first delivery in November 2006, nearly a year late after some production problems.

After undertaking quite a few long haul flights I think the 747 is the best, most comfortable & probably one of the safest things to defy gravity in, let's hope the A380 follows suit.

I think Woolworths might have the measure of me....

... or they could just be shite at mail order!

Last week I ordered a Force FX Luke Skywalker Lightsaber (the green one that no-one else has stock of) from Woolworths.co.uk, I thought it might have been too good to be true that they had stock, but I checked & checked again, they claimed to have hundreds of the little green blighters.

So, I merrily squandered £80 of my hard earned cash & ordered one, only to find this morning that a package measuring 24 inches long at its widest arrived..... alarm bell started to ring. A 48 inch lightsaber really ain't gonna fit in there unless they have cut the flippin' thing in half.

I very carefully opened the packaging to find a Postman Pat Vehicle Playset! Very nice it is, all the characters are there, Postman Pat, Jess, Ajay, Mrs Goggins, Ted , Glen, The Greendale Rocket, Ted's Truck, Pat's Van et al - but no fucking Jedi lightsaber!!!!!

As Yoda would say - Woolworths, tossers they are!

UPDATE : After returning Postman Pat, I spoke to Woolworths Customer Services, I got through eventually only to find that they no longer have stock of the Luke Skywalker Green Lightsaber. They cannot say when they might get some as "they are becoming difficult to source" - No shit Sherlock!! Refund offered & accepted, ordered elsewhere - fingers crossed!

Those Russians are crazy.....

No, not the fact that Vladimir Romanov who is Chairman, majority shareholder & acting Chief Executive of Scottish Football Club Hearts' has managed to oust most of the directorate & management of the club & then install Graham Rix as new manager, worse......

Yahoo! News reports from Russia about the possible censorship of violent & agressive television shows.....

'Violent' Homer upsets Russians
Wednesday November 9, 07:37 AM

Russian politicians are warning TV stations to cut back on violent shows if they want to avoid censorship.

And the number one show they have mentioned is The Simpsons.

Minister Yelena Afanasyeva said: "The Simpsons is crammed with violent and aggressive episodes. These cartoons also introduce antagonism between children and parents."

I say they're mad, Homer would probably say Dohski!

Mission statement's r Us

Following on from previous post, I had to share some of these with you........

"Our mission is to continue to completely network innovative opportunities while continuing to proactively customize value-added technology within our customer expectations"

"The customer can count on us to dramatically utilize principle-centered products while continuing to seamlessly pursue performance based deliverables to set us apart from the competition"

"Our mission is to assertively engineer emerging data while continuing to authoritatively enhance effective intellectual capital to set us apart from the competition"

"We strive to synergistically administrate prospective infrastructures as well as to continually maintain business products"

"We collaboratively initiate high-quality infrastructures and efficiently fashion mission-critical leadership skills"

"It's our responsibility to quickly engineer scalable paradigms and collaboratively revolutionize high-quality catalysts for change"

.... and they just keep coming, they are fantastic. It's just so representative of the complete shite that IT Managers & Marketeers spew out at the cost of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Dilbert has a blog!

I read on a another blog from Ben Rose that the brilliant & satirical cartoonist Scott Adams has a blog entitled "The Dilbert.Blog", well worth a look. Very funny & typically irreverent about most things.

I can always see co-workers past & present in the cartoon, it's just the same as the TV series "The Office" in that respect, so cringe makingingly tangible to life in the workplace that you just have to watch or read it.

I have an idea that would probably be prohibitively expensive.... Personalised Dilberts, ask Scott Adams to pen a cartoon with the names of people in your office, or better still a website where you pick the Dilbert cartoon that you want & you can put the names of the co-workers of your choice, frame it & ship it out for Christmas.

Scott if you read this, (never gonna happen, but I have posted comments on his website) I'm very sorry for posting a picture of Dilbert, but I have at least given you an idea for the next money making spin off of Dilbert.

UPDATE : Dilbert.com also has the most fantastic Mission Statement Generator . I now understand where senior managers & marketing luvvies get most of their ideas!!! I am going to try & use some of them in meetings & see if anyone notices.

Bye Bye Blunkett, you're an embarrassment...

It was with great delight that I heard the breaking news earlier that Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, David Blunkett has resigned (again).

The man is a liability to any Government, even a Blair one! Apart from his connections with Government & Cabinet I really cannot comprehend any business wanting to be associated with him, let alone pay him for his services.

Politicians in my mind are in Public Service & should not be allowed to have paid work or consultancy whilst being an MP, they get paid enough of our money to represent their constituency.

Hopefully this is the last time we will see this man of many mistakes given any responsibility or authority by anyone, but particularly in public office.

I knew things were getting smaller but.....

....this is ridiculous!

I've used IBM Microdrive technology in my Canon EOS Digital SLR for a couple of years now, but how fecking small is this new HDD from Toshiba?

They are looking for ideas of what it could be used for in the next generation of gizmo or gadget & have a website to take suggestions.

Click here to make a suggestion.

The DJ's have gone digital....

Get rid of those Technics SL1200 turntables, even get rid of those CD turntables - look at this a mixing desk for dual iPod's.

Better still, let's get rid of the DJ completely. Just program in a set (I believe thats what they call it) & plug in the iPod leaving the clubbers to dance the night away - not that Bryan Ferry gets played much nowadays!?

Never been into DJing myself, but thought this looked pretty clever kit.

Sold out... Again!

A few years ago, my ability to predict Stock Market risers was pretty good, with a bit of research, a few punts worked out pretty well. Of late, my talent has deserted me, I backed Railtrack, Friends Provident & Marconi.

Friend Provident haven't been swallowed up by a larger insurer as I predicted, and are still way below the £2.10+ price I got when floated.

Railtrack have in my humble opinion been "fucked up the arse" so to speak by Trade & Industry Secretary Stephen Byers. Leaving shareholders with the sum total of 18% of their original investment!

And today we hear that Marconi are selling off their prized asset - their telco business - to Ericsson! A couple of years ago Marconi had £3bn of assets, after a corporate shopping spree, the banks forced them to restructure their now debts of £5bn(!) in a share swap where the banks held all of the asset stock, the general shareholders being left with minority shares worth less than the paper they were printed on.

Let's hope the remaining interests I have in the likes of Vodafone don't go the same way.

My role model makes it as man of the decade....

Yahoo! News reports that a panel of experts from Mens Health Magazine for the 10th Anniversary issue has come up with a Top 10 list of famous men of the decade.

Homer has been nominated as Greatest Philosopher!

Other minors in the list include Sportsman: Lance Armstrong (Tour de France God), Visionary: Jonathan Ive (creator of the iPod), Designer: Sir Paul Smith, Manager: Sven Goran Eriksson (Famous Swedish shag monster), Activist: Bob Geldof (Irish Soap Dodger - allegedly), Writer: Ian McEwan, Musician: Damon Albarn, Chef: Jamie Oliver & Scientist: Craig Venter (Geneticist).

Morgan Rees, Editor of Men's Health said, "These are people of real substance and solid achievement rather than temporary fame"

"We were particularly pleased to see Homer Simpson on the list. He has taught a whole generation how to take on the challenge of modern fatherhood and win - although not always with honour."

I say, they all pale into insignificance in comparison to Homer Simpson.

Two of my favourite films, combined into one....

Whilst surfing around trying to find an unusual Christmas present for my Brother, I found this at Firebox.com. It combines characters from two of my favourite films into one - Darth Vader from Stars Wars & Mr Potato Head from Toy Story.

Named Darth Tater & Spud Trooper, at £9.95 each I think they are great fun.

I'm pretty sure my brother doesn't read this blog, so here is what he has for his combined Birthday (Dec 22nd)\Christmas present - a Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber complete with glowing blade & with sound effects, such as power up, swing, idle hum & power down. It looks so good, I bought one for myself as well!


It's well worth scrolling to the bottom of the page, then clicking the links & watching the video clips people have taken of themselves re-enacting the Stars Wars battles (mostly in their bedrooms!?) I will of course not be using the Light Saber for such daft, pointless & childish re-enactments, well not on video anyway.

UPDATE : Woolworths are selling the Force FX Lightsabers with 10% off this weekend (Friday 4th & Saturday 5th November), although they only appear to have the Luke Skywalker green in stock on the website at the moment, which is odd as every other stockist have everything EXCEPT the green?

From Royal Crown Derby to..... The Prodigy...

In this diverse world, let me take you from comments on my Royal Crown Derby collection to a band called The Prodigy.....

Buy it, download it from iTunes, borrow it (don't steal it), play it very loud through your speakers, piss your neighbours off (turn up the bass!).

Maybe play it on iTunes with the Visualizer turned on to full screen & projecting onto the trees in your garden? I did, the neighbours loved it!!

If you have a Prodigy album already, you will think (like I do) that this is a brilliant album. If you don't have a Prodigy album but have liked some of the singles before, then go & buy this & make it your first Prodigy album.

RCD will have to explain to my Bank Manager....

I collect some Royal Crown Derby porcelain, paperweights only, in the following forms - birds, elephants, fish & bulls. (Don't ask why, I don't even know myself!)

Every year I look at the latest additions & see whether they have added any to the range that fit my habit of collecting, some years they add a quite a few maybe 5 or so, others they add just one or two. I'm caught between the general hope that they won't include too many in one go as it tends to get a bit pricey & the desire to see more in my collection.

Imagine my horror when I found out that they have just added lots more, in the last month alone they have added the following birds - a Derby Peacock, Bunting, Lorikeet and a Mountain Bluebird. Add to that a new Guppy in the fishy section and three new elephants (see picture) - that makes 8, yes EIGHT! Earlier in the year they added a Citron Cockatoo, an Amazon Green Parrot, Great Tit, Kedlestone Kingfisher, Emperor Penguin, Snowy Owl & White Pelican, plus a Scottish leaping Salmon. So in total Royal Crown Derby have added 16 new paperweights to my collection this year, well actually I have, they merely made temptation too great to resist.

Sorry Mr Bank Manager, the minus number in the account is all the fault of those people in Derby!!

For the girl that has everything.....

With Christmas coming soon, I have been searching for gifts. Gifts that will impress. Well if this doesn't do it, I don't know what will. A diamond ring that measures 10.5cm x 7.5cm x 6cm - it's HUGE!!!

Yes, you guessed - it's not real (no shit Sherlock). At £12.50 + P&P it was never going to be. It's a glass & metal paperweight, I took delivery today & it does look very good.

As a stocking filler it tickled my sense of humour, let's just hope someone else sees the funny side!

You can buy it here

Christmas is coming.....

I fear to mention Christmas so early, I apologise now.

I have seen what I want...............

a new Aston Martin V8 Vantage as previewed at the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show last month. Now in production & first deliveries are iminent. With a 4.3 litre V8, 380bhp, 0-60 in 4.9 seconds and a top end of 175mph. I'll have mine in either Mendip Blue with parchment hide or Silver metallic with red hide please.

.....now I just have to figure a way of getting one.

It's happened again..... musical deja vous

Whilst doing various chores earlier this evening in my garage I listened to the top 40 chart for the first time in quite a while. 25 years ago, I was glued to the radio on a Sunday evening, listening out for the latest news of what was Number 1 - 25 years ago it was "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police.

Tonight, I heard Rachel Stevens latest effort "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)" (which is actually acceptable to the ear of this 38 year old & she looks OK to me as well) & thought - I've hear that riff before somewhere......

It's only a couple of bars (as is usual with Status Quo at least), but it is the same, 25 years apart! Take the old Quo riff from "What You're Proposing" & put it through a modern day sampler with the "Adam & The Ants" button turned up 100% & here you go.....

Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)

Status Quo - What You're Proposing

No pictures, as I'm sure that some management company would complain.

Apple suckered me again....

I'm a gadget freak, you know that from this Blog, I know it & so do many vendors it appears - including Apple.

Recently Apple have released the iPod Nano, the latest & smallest incarnation of their MP3 player. Size wise its tiny, very light, and has the functionality of its bigger relatives, including a colour screen (unlike the iPod Mini which is LCD & the iPod Shuffle which is devoid of any screen!)

John Lewis in West Quay, Southampton this morning had them in stock, lots of them, delivered overnight to satisfy the retail junkies that frequent there on a Saturday (which includes me occasionally). 2Gb, 4Gb and black or white, the choice was yours. Impulse got the better of me & I had to have one whilst stocks lasted!

I have to say, its is by far the best iPod yet (I have 2 already so should know by now!), it makes the iPod Mini look about 10 years old & the standard size iPod looks large & clumsy next to it.

So the iPod Mini may be cast as a backup device for me now - I can't really sell it as I had the free laser engraving on it - Doh! The iPod standard will be used with the Bose Sounddock in the house with the entire music library on it.

I have asked Apple not to release any more nice gadgets for a while, sadly Sony declined & have released this......

The Sony NAS-CZ1 Audio Network System does what the D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player claims to do & what others do for more money (the Elgato EyeHome Wireless Edition, the Roku Soundbridge M2000 Network Music Player & the Sonos as well) - wireless access to your iTunes music. See earlier posts for information on the D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player it is sooo bad, I didn't even bother to review 100% as promised - it's crap). The Sony is much better looking & has built in speakers. It's also from a mainstream vendor so should be bullet proof. All for £199, it's probably next on my list of gadget shopping. Anyone wanna buy a D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player?