rARsh!

I have a card

Not a festive card (although a selection of those have arrived – many thanks if one was from you) but, rather, a card for the secret Car Park club.

Having spent a year on the waiting list, Colleague S is about to disappear from work for nine months just as she reached the top and was offered a car park pass. The pass almost halves the fee for parking in Ganglion Square NCP and, given the waiting list, she wasn’t too keen to decline the offer and the start waiting again when she returns to work in September. A solution was needed and I was happy to step in. I’ll be pretending to be her for nine months and will, therefore, have cheap parking available. Woo hoo.

It’s our departmental festive meal tomorrow afternoon – and my oh my, how I’m looking forwards to it – and then I return to Torchwood Town after work on Friday. I’d originally planned to take the WTB down this weekend (as Wuglums will be there too in a vehicle suitable for transporting Dad) and then returning after the Christmas Day meal but a thought has just struck me. The fuel tank in the Copen is not large enough to carry enough fuel for the whole 251 mile trip (well, not unless I drive economically and where’s the fun in that?) so unless service stations are going to be open on Christmas Day.

Must investigate and/or revise my plans. The web’s not too clear. Does anyone know?

On adaptations

I thoroughly enjoyed Sky’s adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather” last weekend – it’s surprisingly true to the book, in fact. Ok, so the adverts were a bit annoying yesterday as I watched the second half “live” (I’d recorded the first part so I’d been able to fast forward through them when I watched it). If you’re a fan of Pratchett and have access to Sky One, I’d recommend watching (or recording) it when it’s repeated next week (part one’s at 1pm Christmas Day with the second half at the same time on Boxing Day.

Another adaptation I’m looking forward two has been brought to my attention by But She’s A Girl, namely the National Theatre of Brent’s “The Messiah” on Radio 4 on Friday evening (9pm). If I time things right, this will fit perfectly into my return to Torchwood Town. Don’t bother looking for details on the NTOB website, though. It’s not been updated for at almost three years – makes some of my sites look current!

All patriotic, like

Sometimes I feel proud to be British.

Not that often, of course, and today’s not one of those days.

There’s something deeply disturbing about news media announcing the name of the man arrested by police in connection with the five murders in Ipswich, especially where the police themselves have yet to announce the arrested man’s name. In fact, the whole British practice of publishing the names of the accused rather than the guilty has always felt just plain wrong to me.

Don’t get me wrong. If he’s the culprit then I’m delighted that he’s been arrested, but I don’t see why I need to know who he is (let alone his name, age, address and – possibly former – employment details) until he’s been found guilty of the crime following his trial.

Am I alone in this?

---

Later: I posted a similar comment (ok, a bit stronger*, but perfectly polite, I assure you) on the BBC Editors’ blog but they’ve clearly decided not to publish it. Maybe I should have requested anonymity.

* I may have suggested that those who decided the BBC’s actions were appropriate should consider whether their future lies with a supposedly reputable broadcaster, but nothing worse than that.

My best punchline ever

Ok, so it’s really weak but I was rather pleased with it so I thought I’d put a link to it here because otherwise nobody would ever see it and I’d never win the Wurlitzer Prize for Topical Punchlines.

Bob is quite frankly flabbergasted.

Humour me.

Photos from yesterday afternoon

As the thumbs plugin’s not co-operating again, here are some boring links to photographs from yesterday.

Pic 1 Welsh Cottage and Magpie Field (before the magpies flocked there)
Pic 2 Tall trees
Pic 3 Nice hat!
Pic 4 Right angles
Pic 5 Another cottage with looming sky
Pic 6 Traditional materials

If, however, I’ve finally got the darned thing working again, there’ll be more traditional thumbnails below:

Not particularly helpful

“Look, there’s a card here from Lionel and Audrey. And that’s not me.”

“Lionel and Audrey? Well, well, well. Lionel and Audrey. Wonderful.”

“Who are they then?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

…

“There’s one here from Hamish and Morag.”

“Oh yes.”

“We drove past their house a couple of weeks ago and you said you didn’t know whether either was still alive. Well, now we know they are.”

“Well, maybe.”

“Maybe? Look at the card.”

“Yes, but that didn’t come today.”

“! Ok, if you really want to be pedantic, they were both alive one day last week when they posted the card. Better?”

“Yes.”

…

“Who are the people in this photo?”

“Well, that’s you, me, Wuglums, LSLP, Diana and mum.”

“Oh yes. Where was that?”

“That was in Perth for my wedding.”

“Wedding?”

“Yes, that’s why Diana’s in white.”

“Oh. I haven’t been in Perth for years.”

“Two and a half years.”

“Two and a half years?”

“Yes. You were there for Diana’s funeral.”

“Diana who?”

…

We’d been to St Fagans (again). I’d chosen the destination because it’s so photogenic, Dad because of the possibility for coffee and cake. As soon as we arrived he was asking when and where we could stop for something to eat.

Fortunately for Dad, although St Fagans was far more sheltered than, say, a clifftop walk in Penarth, the temperature was definitely on the cool side and when the clouds loomed (chasing what daylight there was away) I admitted defeat and we turned back towards the café. I was glancing at the fields to either side.

“Look – five magpies. No, wait. Six. Seven. … What does the rhyme say about seeing ten magpies at once, all in the same field?”

“I have no idea.”

Flitted

The code and tables have moved. I’m just uploading all those photos (which is taking a while).

Let’s all hope the days of “CGI limit exceeded” are gone.

Now all I have to do is move the other 63 URLs … and work out why my images plugin no longer works.

Flitting shortly

Thanks to Daisy I’ve arrange a new host for my various and nefarious websites.

It’s going to take a while to move everything over once the account is properly set up but, having spoken to the very friendly and helpful people at Vidahost [reviews] they’ve reassured me that their setup is going to be a lot better for me than 1&1′s – at least with them, if there’s an issue with a script on one website it’s not going to bring all my websites to a halt!