Not my finest hour!

It is a year exactly since Tilly departed for her new home and the last time I saw her....


...and if that wasn't enough for a Monday, I have managed to spend this morning humiliating myself to a degree which I don't ever want to repeat! No details, trust me on this one!

Is it Tuesday yet? It can only be an improvement....can't it?

Harp seal cull: retribution?

I make no apology for feeling that the incident in Canada yesterday, in which a capsized fishing vessel resulted in the death of three seal hunters, is somehow a rather well deserved kind of retribution, karma, justice, call it what you will.


I don't profess to be qualified to know if the cull of Harp seals is necessary from a survival point of view for the indigenous population who undertake the massacre but I doubt it. It may well be part of the culture but I suspect that the motivation has much more to do with greed than necessity but the true motivation aside I find it impossible to believe that if it has to be done at all, it has to be done in such a brutal manner (video link).


This is not an issue for me of 'cute cuddle baby seals' I would feel the same if it were something very much less attractive, say crocodiles, that were being treated in this manner, it is utterly needless to cause such suffering to anything. I know for sure that given the choice I would far rather be on the receiving end of bullet in the head than have someone repeatedly club me to within an inch of my life and then leave me to die slowly. Those involved in this practice maintain that death is quick, the evidence is sadly very different in many, many cases.


I'm sure there are those that will feel that the loss of three human lives is somehow more important than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of seals every year but again I make no apology, I don't, I feel that somehow just for once the tables were turned and maybe justice was done.

Do those that believe we as humans are somehow of a higher status in the natural world than animals not do so because our minds have the ability to rationalise, to consider and make decisions based on that and to behave therefor, in an appropriate manner? Where then is the rational in causing such horrendous, unnecessary pain and suffering? How does that make us superior to animals in any way? Does it not make us worse, in that we flout the very abilities we consider make us superior and utilise them in a manner that no other creature in the natural world would?


I don't usually support the eye for an eye principle but I can't help but feel in this instance that just a tiny bit of retribution was bought to bear.

Perhaps there are valid reasons this massacre continues in the way it does but I have yet to hear them!

'Corpsing' at it's very best

Yesterday, during a news bulletin on Radio 4, the usually very stern and proper presentation that is the norm for this most revered bastion of British seriousness was utterly lost, when Charlotte Green got a fit of the giggles on air, unfortuantley whilst reporting the death of Abby Mann!

Maybe it's just me but every time I listen I too can't help but dissolve into stupidity...it's hilarious, Ms Green 'lost it' completely and help from a colleague only served to worsen the situation.

To hear it click this link and then the 'listen' link on the page. This is corpsing at it's very, very best!

I defy you to not be highly amused! :o)

T5 traumas

Sorry, I don't mean to snigger but really, day one of Heathrows T5 could barely have turned into more of a debacle could it?!

I know I have absolutely no knowledge of how one runs such an operation but I am assuming that BA's Director of Operations Gareth Kirkwood has at least some inkling given his vast salary!


It was hard to tell watching at the footage of the pigs ear that unfolded as the place fell apart yesterday and rarely have I seen anyone look quite so uncomfortable and unconvincing while desperately trying to explain it away to the media.

Over thirty flights cancelled, baggage arriving hours late, or not at all, baggage handling systems that failed almost completely, poorly trained (by their own admission) staff who hadn't seemingly got a clue, poor information, closed check-ins and queues that made the first day of Harrods sale look like utter calm....the list just went on and on!

"We always knew the first day would present a unique challenge", were some of Mr Kirkwood's own words when interviewed by the press...... a challenge apparently that he didn't rise to with much in the way of spectacular success!

....and thus far today at LHR seems to be getting off to an even more abonimable start!

This is becoming....

.....particularly un-funny, yet another sleepless night meandering aimlessly around cyberspace instead of 'dreamspace' where I ought to, and would far rather, be!

I have tried everything I can think of, save for drugs and I'm not going there, but to no avail, still my knowledge of the bedroom ceiling (no smutty comments from the back please) is far greater than I would like! I have even succumbed, horror of horrors, to purchasing a box of those very odd herbal tea bag things,


specifically the ones that promise blatantly lie they are 'calming' and 'aid restful sleep'!

Claptrap!......they are about as much use in the aid promoting slumber as a nice hot cup of freshly brewed, caffeine laden Ristretto, with one significant difference, the Ristretto is at least enjoyable as opposed to the bag thingys which are particularly insipid, uninteresting and very un-enjoyable!

Hey ho, I'm off to make that cup of strong coffee and find myself some chocolate as it seems I am destined to spend another night in the virtual world....at least tonight my connection is playing the game!

One of those nights!

Here I am again, the dead of night when all normal people are fast asleep and cosy and I'm not, instead I am here, this is becoming way too much of a habit!

What's that all about then, for the last three weeks, off I go to bed, bleary eyed and feeling nicely tired but to no appropriate avail....the moment my head hits the pillow my eyes spring open and my mind turns back onto wide awake mode. No amount of lying there counting sheep or whatever makes even the slightest difference, the eyes stay firmly in the open position! Gah!

Add to that I seem to be having a 'spell' of that damnable fiddly legs malarkey, ok,so that's not a technical term, it's called Restless legs syndrome, but that barely sounds any more technical does it?, which in turn doesn't help any attempts at restful sleep, to put it mildly.

I know, I'm not exactly overworked right now, I'm probably not really very tired in comparison to usual but please, if I'm not to be allowed to sleep the least the technical gods could do at this late hour is allow me a wireless connection without an hours lost fight, resulting in the bloody wire having to be heaved from it's hiding place and poked into the back of the machine!

This all of course has to be undertaken in super quiet style so as not to wake himself who, just to rub salt in the wound, is happily sleeping like a baby!

Grumpy? Who me? Did I mention the PMT already?

*N.B.

My last post seemed to have caused a little confusion in various quarters, a few emails later it seems I gave the impression I am leaving here.....well I'm not, sorry but you don't get shot of me that easy! ;o)

I am only getting rid of my domain and web space, none of which will directly affect this little patch.

'gemmak' the blog, lives to harass you for a sometime to come...... :o)

The death of a domain

'gemmak.co.uk' is about to bite the dust.

Still un-gainfully employed and trying to save money I made the decision to no longer maintain my domain and the webspace I have enjoyed at a cost, for years, reasoning that I don't make enormous use of it and the money could be better spent right now.

In the way that things seem to transpire, it wasn't quite as straightforward as it should have been. My initial, um.... 'bright idea' that involved the simple principle of 'well just don't pay the host and the registration guys and they will kill it all off' was fine until I realised just how much I have used it, just how much how much of my blog was hosted there and how many bits and pieces of other peoples blogs were loitering there from the days when it was just easier to host the stuff myself rather than keep opening accounts for others.

Arghhhh.

So yesterday, the whole of yesterday, I spent trying to find where all the odd bits from years of blogging belonged, moving them, putting them back in, making sure no links were broken and mailing those whose sites were about to collapse unexpectedly along with the demise of the domain. Thus far only one has got back to me, I did a redesign on that to make up for her aggravation and finally I think I have my own stuff all safely relocated....save for the few bits of course that are file types no-one seems to want to host for free. What's the issue I wonder with 'ICO.' files? There just doesn't seem to be anywhere that will have 'em!

I'm kinda sad to lose the domain, it's been mine for years and years but common sense must prevail. Doubtless I have also missed something along the way in yesterday's fiddlings and there will be a glaring 'red cross' somewhere in my blog (if you see one let me know!) but on the up-side I have saved myself over £50 and let's face it, I can hardly say my time is worth more right now!

Still remembering....

....Karine of Graybar, the third anniversary of who's very sad loss is remembered today.

My thoughts are with those she loved and who loved her.

This is it....

.....the snowstorms and blizzards that were forecast came to only this pathetic offering where I was:



It lasted about long enough for me to turn my camera on and then stopped again within seconds! Perhaps it was more impressive elsewhere but I think for this winter I should be giving up on my hope to see any real snow, it ain't gonna happen!

The snow aside Easter was good, relaxing and fun and full of chocolate....there is little more blissful in life than Montezuma's excellent, 72%, organic fare.

If you have a passion for the strong stuff I promise you it's well worth the cost, this is chocolate how chocolate should always be! ;o)

Happy Easter!

Ahhhh...Easter....chocolate! Ok, I'm a heathen I know.

We are off for a day or two by the sea visiting relatives for Easter, there is even a little snow forecast for the south coast and chocolate by the bucket load is permitted, things are looking good! :o)

Have a good one guys!

Snow and sods law

Sunday we are forecast for heavy snow, the first of the winter, long awaited in gemmaks-ville and unusually agreed by more than one source, it's looking very hopeful....but we won't be here! We are going away! That is a good thing, the weekend away, but still, it's sods law!

Still mad!

That's a reference to Tilly before the wisecracks start!

I got an email from Tilly's new mum yesterday, news has been long awaited for various unavoidable reasons but yesterday I finally got news and new photos....my week was made :o))

I still miss her badly, I still feel guilty that I let her down and I still wish massively that it could have been different, but it wasn't and so now, though it is always with mixed emotions, getting any news of her and hearing about her carrying-on's is always a highlight and makes me smile.

One day I will feel able to visit her, I'm getting there but that day is not yet.

She hasn't changed, she's still a mad little thing, ok ,not so little anymore, she still has a passion for worms and caterpillars, she still has to sleep in bed with her human, she still steals bath sponges and carts them around with her......and she still hasn't grown into her ears!

She's as happy as a little pig cat in muck and that's what matters most.

(Click image to enlarge)

A glutton for punishment

That's me, a glutton for punishment, I was not going to let the service pack issue beat me and so last night I tried again, all seemed well and I went to bed thinking I had cracked it on the 5th try....but no!

This morning Microsoft popped me up an oh so lovely little message informing me it hadn't actually been installed! That will be why the machine was still working then?!

So, back to it, I won't bore you with the number of 'windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown/serious error/memory problem yada, yada, yada' messages I have been through, or how many blue screens I have been witness too (I thought we had seen the back of those with the demise of M.E!) or how many times I have had to fight tooth and nail to get a connection along the way but finally it is installed!

It's been something akin to getting blood from a stone, but it's in and the machine is still alive this time, my AV is even working (for those that don't know M/S have released this service pack knowing it has compatibility issues with various AV software packages! Hmmmm, impressive).....how long I wonder until the first evidence of Vista's usually flakiness rears it's ugly head again?

Me? Skeptical? nah! ;o)

Oh...but I did find a MOV. file converter that works....well it did previously, it remains to be seen if it still does! ;o)

Vista SP1....take a deep breath!

Microsoft have finally released the service pack for Vista, this from past experience is not necessarily going to be a simple thing nor a successful one, of the updates that have been issued thus far a scary number have messed with something they shouldn't have and two crippled my machine almost completely!

Am I missing something glaringly obvious here or do Microsoft have an odd take on 'improvement'?? Yes, ok, I know, it's Microsoft....enough said?

So, I'm gonna back up everything on this machine, download the service pack, take a deep calming breath before installation.....and if I disappear for a day or two you will understand why!

*UPDATE: 10.52hrs: This is proving to be somewhat less straight forward than it ought to be!........

*UPDATE 2: 13.05 hrs. Does the fact that I am posting this time from my phone give you an inkling as to how this service pack is behaving?? This is not going well to put it politely! FFS!!

*UPDATE 3: 16.06 hrs. I'm back, at last but only by means of uninstalling the whole bloody thing after hours trying to get it to work. What problems did it have? What problems did it not have would be easier to list! Conflicts with my AV (despite mine not being on the list M/S produced), connection problems, memory problems, start up problems, shutdown problems....need I go on! And to think...I thought it was flaky before I started! My advice....don't touch it with a barge pole!

I should have known better.

Convert MOV. to AVI.....fat chance!

Please, someone, somewhere must know of software that will convert a MOV. file to an AVI. or an mpeg with this damnable Vista operating system!

I have lost count of how many bits of software I have installed, tried, found seriously wanting and then had to uninstall, not so much as one so far has managed the job in hand, I've given up even trying for quality or options....anything will do!...though preferably freeware, I'm poor right now!

Help!

The Mills & McCartney effect

Today is the day that Mr McCartney will discover just exactly how much lighter his bank balance is as the result of his recent foray into marriage and Ms Mills will learn just how much one can earn for spending four years living the high life with one of the world's modern icons.

I'm not particularly fond of either one of them I have to say, though McCartney's impact on the music industry would be hard to refute and Mills ability to turn a personal tragedy into something apparently positive is quite impressive. A personal liking for the individuals concerned is not what worries me about all this though, rather the fact that here we have to grown people, who are big enough and ugly enough to know better, wasting every one's time and our money fighting over something that should have been resolved with much more ease. Let's face it, within reason whatever sum Sir Paul has to part with isn't going to leave him living under and arch in an inner city and by the same token it is going to provide Ms Mills and the child of the union with a pretty attractive standard of living, even by her recently acquired standards!

It was suggested to me recently that the biggest error in all this was McCartney's stupidity in not having a pre-nup drawn up before said union took place....but therein lies the only aspect of the whole debacle that I have respect for. Perhaps it was purely stupidity that caused him overlook any future 'what if it all goes pear shaped' scenario though I doubt McCartney's legal minions would have allowed him to simply 'overlook' such a thing given his financial standing.

Perhaps he just had faith and trust, however misguided it might appear now, in the woman he loved! Call me naive if you will but that's not a bad thing in my book and I prefer what might be perceived as my state of naivety to the alternative option of cynicism, despite the fact that it has cost me dearly over the years.

Pre-nups have always been an odd conflict to me for whilst I can understand the modern cynics point of view that it is merely a realistic approach, believe me, as twice divorced I know realistic, it has along confused me how a couple can stand in front of an official of a denomination (or not) of their choosing and pledge their intended lifelong love and commitment.... whilst at the same time having so little faith in one another that they feel it appropriate to protect their assets from the destruction of divorce, before the words that should bind them happily of are even out of their mouths!!!

Is there not some inherently very worrying and very sad conflict going on there and does it not say a great deal that is not good about what we have become?

So, whilst I may not be McCartney's greatest fan I do however have massive respect for the man's apparent decision not to allow himself to fall victim to the cynical ways of today's rich and famous and instead take the route that he did. In the event it backfired on him quite spectacularly but his actions say much that is good about the man he is.

Lazy Sunday......

......late night, long drive, too much food, too much fun, yada, yada, yada. Back compis mentis after I sleep some more! ;o)

Never judge a man

"Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."
....................
One of the things that annoys me most is the apparent superiority some people possess, that enables them to believe they have the right to judge the actions and lives of others!

Those that choose to live this way and make their judgements are, at the very least, not usually in possession of all the facts concerning a given situation, but never let it be said that this might prevent them for one moment, from casting their eye over others they have little or no true knowledge of, and swiftly pronouncing ill informed 'sentence'.

The specifics of a scenario don't concern me, that is not the point, the point is that there is usually much more to be known in any given scenario, than the information an outsider is privy too and few situations occur without there being complicated and protracted reasons behind them, be they political, personal or other.

We do of course have laws (though some of those are questionable) and commonly accepted levels of ethical and moral function, which in the main the majority adhere too but why do some feel that there is no way of living different to their own that is acceptable? Why is it that an individual or group who choose to live a different way of life are deemed by those in their self imposed position of judgement, by default, to be wrong? Why if a chosen path is harming no one else, or if it is chosen out of necessity, or if it is forced by circumstance, that some see it as a lesser way to live and something to be derided, punished or worse?

Is it because the very same people who make these judgements are those individuals who are in a position from which they perhaps would be better scrutinising their own behaviour instead of that of others, is it because in their own lives they feel something is perhaps lacking somewhere, is it envy at something they would feel unable to do for themselves in reality or is it simply their fear of something they don't understand and aren't prepared to attempt to see deeper into to, for concern that what they might find outside of their box might upset the apple cart?

I have no idea really why one should feel it appropriate to judge another, even in very dire circumstances, but I do think that no one of us has the right to make a judgement on another without being in possession of the full facts....and even then I doubt we have that right. Should we not instead be using our energies to try and see deeper into things that are outside of our own life experience and gain a little more understanding and compassion for things we don't yet truly understand?

Professional non achievement!

Day two in the solicitors office is over and if I'm honest it wasn't half so bad as the first day. It was less manic, one or two people actually spoke to me like a human being and I found the coffee and made good use of it!

In fact more than tolerable it made me think how in many ways I have wasted my professional life albeit not out of choice. Some of these people have such interesting jobs. Their environment and protocols might piss me off but the jobs they do are just so interesting and consuming, neither of which qualities have ever figured much in my work life. I only ever had one really good career job and that fell apart for reasons I won't expand on here. Now, even if I had the funds to train in something new and interesting, by the time I got though college I would be about ready to retire!

Hey ho, I'm destined to be broke and bored at work I suspect.... but I have discovered the perfect employer.......however, the commute may be a somewhat restricting! ;o)

Another dead parrot!

Go on, admit it....you laughed! ;o)

Tugging my forelock!

Yesterday was my first day at the temping malarkey and I learned one thing if nothing else....that a solicitors office is definitely not my 'thing'! What a carry on! All those protocols, the self imposed faux hierarchical structure and those that must be treated as demi-gods at all times, the solicitors themselves.


Don't get me wrong, I admire their intellect, respect their knowledge and very specialised area of expertise and I'm sure that most of them are very nice people.... but purlease, spare me the demi-god status!

I think it would be safe to say that being a solicitors receptionist is not going to be my niche in life, more plainly it was pretty horrible.

Immediately I walked through the door I was ordered about by some officious secretary (they are second only to the demi-gods in the hierarchy) who overturned just about everything I had been shown in my hours 'lesson' on Friday, I was suddenly responsible for a myriad of tasks no one had thought to mention previously and spent the next eight hours juggling a string of personal callers (most of whom spoke no English or assumed I knew every detail of criminal and matrimonial law myself), a switchboard that never rested from it's habit of 'all lines incoming' for one moment and various grade of demi-god and secretarial staff refusing to take calls! Oh...and not one single cup of coffee was offered.

It seems it wasn't deemed appropriate to warn me that half the staff were on holiday or sick leave and that the remaining individuals wern't in a hurry to cover for them.

Yes, I was stressed, by lunchtime I had a banging headache,(I don't usually 'do' headaches) and by the time I escaped at five all I wanted to do was hide in a corner and cry, or scream....or both.

Yup, eight hours tugging my forelock under heavy pressure is certainly not my bag and being parked at a desk in the cold suited and booted didn't seem like too much fun either.

On the upside, I only have to do two days so by tomorrow evening it will be over and it's money, not much I'll grant you but not much is more than nothing!.

Next please.....

Vive la resistance!

I seem to have ruffled a feather or two with my 'Quote of the day' post over the weekend!

It's been a long time since I was subjected to comment insults and on the few occasions I have been previously it was concerning serious subjects that others were likely to have strongly held opinions on.

This time it seems to be a lighthearted joke that has hit a sore point with someone, who from a 'one liner' has subsequently deduced that I "probably love fox hunting" and wishes for my life to be "derailed".

Oh how little some people know before they wade in with all guns blazing.

Hey ho....we are all entitled to our point of view, however ill informed, so on the principle of upholding the tenets of free speech and all that I will ride with it on the basis that, what is particularly amusing is not the quote in itself but that my commenter completely misunderstood my amusement in it, despite explanation.

Hell, here's always one isn't there!

The big storm?

So, are we going to find ourselves lashed by the howling winds and torrential rains, are we going to have to drive with great care to work in the morning (well those of you that work) avoiding felled trees and

the structural damage forecast by our meteorological wizards, or is this storm going to be another in the now long line of overly cautious warning forecasts since Michael Fish made his now infamously understated broadcast back in October 1987?

Weather fascinates me and whilst most I suppose are hoping for this to be another damp squib I am hoping for the reverse, though of course I would never wish for anyone to get hurt. I have been watching now for days this storm tracking toward us, watching the barometric pressure drop like a stone and wishing that right now I was in Cornwall not Cambridge. Who knows, I am far from qualified to hazard a reasonable guess but it's looking like it might happen,if I'm lucky I might see some significant gusts even here and if I'm luckier still a tree might just fall on my car and write the damn thing off.......It is 'strategically' parked under a number of very large specimens as I speak! ;o)

'Let me in' - Simon's cat....again

This is fab, I love this guys cartoons, the last one, 'Wake Up', like this one, are so true!

Sound on.

Quote of the day

"This silly woman makes even Jade Goody look like someone with an Oxford first"

Ann Widdecombe on Marion Cotillard

Excellent! :o)

Back to reality.....

......in a small way.

So, it's been two weeks since the white van became history and there have been a few vaguely possible new jobs crop up but nothing really suitable, so as of next week I begin the new (to me) business of temping. The days of being a lady (??) of leisure and playing housewife are beginning to be a thing of the past.

Thus far I have only two days work next week covering for a receptionist in a solicitors office but hey, anything is better than the dole and even two days work pays me more than the government would! I promise you, after the last and only time I went the government handout route, I'm in absolutely no hurry to go through that humiliation again!

Hmmmm...receptionist, that means of course I have to get suited and booted, I don't 'do' that, or at least I haven't had to for years, heels, girly clothes, make-up and all that palaver aren't things I relish, it just doesn't feel like 'me' but needs must and by definition it is only 'temporary'!

Now...where's the job that allows me to wear jeans and boots? ;o)

100,000!

Yes, I'm a hit whore, I won't deny it, hits, stats, referrers etc. etc. etc, I love em...and one inparticular.

Look over there ------------>

When I started this blog, way back when and all that, in the days when even fewer people read it than do now, I came by chance, across a blog that was celebrating it's 100,000th hit. At the time I couldn't believe any blog could ever get to six figures, let alone mine and from that day to this it became kind of a small goal for me, one that I didn't think I would likely ever see here.

But, sometime today I should make it, kicking and screaming, to my very own 100,000th hit count....unless you all bugger off! ;o)

And I might add, I haven't 'cheated' and inflated the count with my own hits, I have obsessively kept myself excluded from the count. Ok, so it's taken better part of four years but I have hobbled there at last!

Yayyyyyyyy.

I'll try and work who makes the actual hit is but in the meantime I think I shall partake of a bar of chocolate by way of a small celebration! ;o)

Blown away!

Remember this post a few days back....the howling gales overnight and all that? Well what we didn't realise until the following day was that both bikes, that's Eloisa and the VFR, had been blown right over and were lying forlorn and broken on their sides.

The parking spaces here can't be seen from the flat and so it wasn't until we returned from a shopping expedition that we noticed something amiss....handlebars looking skyward, handlebars aren't supposed to do that!

Sure enough, closer and rapid inspection revealed both bikes had been blown clean over. The sight of a bike on it's side is always a bad one, somehow it's always a sight that seems very wrong, damage to man or machine is usually the result and this was no different, though thankfully under the circumstances of course, only damage to machine resulted.

That must have been some wind! Eloisa is getting towards a quarter ton in weight. She of course escaped almost unscathed, tough as she is, only a bent pannier, the VFR however was another story presenting badly scraped fairings, a snapped brake lever, bent peg, broken indicator and a distinct lack of petrol left in the tank!

Ugh!

It's amazing how easily and quickly you can pick up something so heavy under the 'Oh shit my bikes down' scenario!

But it could have been worse, both only missed hitting the car parked next to them by inches reducing the repair bills or any insurance claim significantly.

Over a bridge

One of the many things I love about living where we do is something really simple, the fact that I can walk just a few hundred yards over a bridge across the river into town...no car needed! :o)


It may not be the retail hub of the world but it has everything necessary on a day to day basis, it's pretty and it's civilised, the short walk is lovely and the numerous swans and other waterfowl along the way are a bonus, yet so close to town, once inside the flat, with the river running by it's side, you would never know from the peace and quiet that so close by was the hustle and bustle of a small market town.

Bill who?

As is the way when one has very limited funds everything presents itself for renewal, case in point, my anti-virus subscription very inconveniently was due to expire tomorrow. Ugh.

I have always run Nortons, not because I think it's particularly good, in fact it's a pain but over the years it has done what it says on the box and not once have I fallen victim to anything nasty, so I stuck with it. However, the renewal cost, as the annoyingly frequently occurring reminder kept informing me was a little over £50.

Every penny counts to my bank account right now so I decided an alternative had to be found and whilst I was considering if I dare risk AVG I came upon something unexpected as I did the grocery shopping....Tesco AV at a mere £20!!

Now, my computer snobbery common sense screamed at me not to go that route but my financial situation fought it well and won and I went home clutching the disk in my hand.

It transpires that Tesco AV is actually Panda Platinum, which whilst it may not be 'top notch' stuff it has protected my fathers system for years without a hitch and he has never had a complaint. Things were looking up.

Installation was easy, none of the faff that Norton always seems to require, the only hitch was in registration....hey, ain't that supposed to be the easy bit with legit S/W? ;o), but three attempts later it worked and all appeared to be hunky dory.

There is of course always something isn't there and in this case it was the bloody usual problem....VISTA/I.E. Wouldn't you know it. Perhaps it's time to rethink the long resisted change to Firefox!

The problem: On trying to open the Blogger dashboard, it just wouldn't, the whole machine became manic with constant attempts to open the page and then abort the action and just about every change to every setting failed to rectify the situation.

And then a shot in the desperation dark.....

The solution: I had Blogger set as a 'trusted site', I removed that protocol and hey presto, it was happy to open it!!! FFS.

Of course, Firefox had no issue from the word go....I really must reconsider my allegiance to Bill!

Spot the similarity!

Ok...one is Tilly aged five weeks in a state of temporary collapse and the other a somewhat rarer and more famous cat, the new Amur Leopard cub at Marwell zoo but they both seem to have a similar approach to resting!

It's 4am....

....it's howling an absolute gale outside, the windows are rattling, stuff is crashing around outside, the trees are blowing wildly and I can't sleep!

Ok, to be fair my week of unemployment hasn't been particularly tiring and I don't feel I need the sleep in a big way but somehow it just seems 'not right' to be up and about at this hour on a Saturday morning!

More importantly I am creeping about like a fool trying not to wake 'himself' who has worked very hard all week and needs the sleep....why is it that at this hour even the kettle boiling sounds like Mount Vesuvius erupting and placing a cup on the worktop is reminiscent of gunfire?

Looks like there's only one thing for it, the quietest thing available to me is to sit here and surf for the next few hours....

Tough life! ;o)