Infinitives Unsplit

Looking for webhosting

2011-08-25T14:41:00.002+01:00

I think we're all up to speed now on the way in which to run a business these days we've got to have a presence on the web? Yes?

We don't have to be running a business entirely on the web, don't have to be selling something digital in a digital or online manner. But we do at the very least need to have a presence, something telling people that we're here and what we do.

And the first stage of getting that presence is to look into webhosting. The various different places you can put that presence offer diferent bundles of the things you might want.Different levels of reliability, of uptime, different bundles of memory, of bandwidth. Which is why you might want to check out the linked site.

They've a section of hosting reviews for example, another on hosting news. If you're thinking about what your web presence should be and where you should put it, worth having a rootle around that site to see what's on offer.

Amy Winehouse and the 27 Club

2011-07-24T13:35:00.002+01:00

I doubt there's all that much surprise, shock yes, regret yes, but surprise perhaps not, about the death of Amy Winehouse. The thing is though, given the age of her death, Amy Winehouse is in the 27 Club.

That's the club you really don't want to belong to, of musicians who have died at that young age.

Now it all might just be coincidence but perhaps it isn't:

Almost all of us go through a wild stage at some point but almost all of us are financially constrained when we do. Not so for those who earn millions in their teens or soon after. That spike in the death rate at age 27 can thus be seen as a marker of how long unconstrained excess takes to kill.

That's one theory anyway.

The other question that arises is that she left a large fortune behind her. So who gets Amy Winehouse's money?

Even in the presence of a will written pre-marriage which states otherwise the surviving spouse, or ex-spouse, will again be the natural inheritor. Only if, and I repeat only if, there was a new will written post-divorce which specifically left the estate elsewhere would Blake Fielder-Civil not be the natural inheritor of Winehouse’s estate.

While a marriage is a contrat that over rides all previous wills, divorce isn't a contract which over rides the marriage contract assumptions about inheritance.

So, unless she wrote a new will after the divorce then it looks like it could be her ex, Bruce Fielder-Civil, who gets all the money.

Weaponry sales

2011-07-15T14:43:00.002+01:00

One of the weirder episodes of my life was when I went into weapons sales.

No, not quite like that, I wasn't shipping tanks off to Ethiopia and places like that. Rather, it was at the end of communism and I was working in Russia. The military factories there, given the end of the Soviet military altogether, were simply lost. Didn't have any orders, weren't getting any money: but given the way the old system rumbled on for a few years, they were still getting raw materials.

This led to some pretty strange decisions by certain factories: there was one that used their plastic injection moulding machines to make sex toys. Didn't work very well as they didn't really know all that well what sex toys were. I didn't get involved with them but I did with the guys making night sights. It was extremely frustrating actually: there was more money to be made (by everyone) by simply taking the germanium metal they were using and selling that. They got it at such a subsidised price that the profit was larger doing that than actually making a night sight.

We got that fixed though and ended up shipping quite a few off to various places. Then, of course, everyone started tightening up on the rules and we ended up in a morass of paperwork so bad that the entire business just wasn't worth the while.

The whole experience made me rather jealous of people doing the same sort of work in the US. Those Second Amendment protections mean that they simply don't face the same sort of problems. They can ship ar 15 accessories, m4 accessories, these sorts of things, as they please and to whom they wish.

All just so much easier, you know?

Understanding the American medical system

2011-07-13T15:13:00.002+01:00

It can be confusing when you first try to understand the American medical system: it's so different from what happens across the rest of the world. The important point to remember is that it is, despite the government actually paying for a good chunk of it and the insurance companies most of the rest, a free market medical system. This means that the various providers are all in competition with each other to try and get the business of tending to your medical needs.

So, unlike the UK for example, where if you need travel vaccinations you just go to the local general practitioner who deals with almost all of your other first line medical care, if you were in say San Francisco, you'd need to do a search for a travel clinic sf. This would give you those groups and physicians in San Francisco who specialise in travel vaccinations.

This is pretty much true of all of the US medical system. That specific tasks are handled by experts and specific clinics much more than is common in the health care system of other countries.

Yes, of course, they do have general physicians, you don't need to try and work out what problem you've got on your own before you can find the correct specialist. For example, a search for doctors manhattan would give you a listing of such general purpose physicians in that part of New York.

But as I say, the general way to look at the US medical system is that there's a huge network of different specialists, each chasing your custom. Which is one of the reasons why, as long as you can afford it or have the right insurance, the system is so good of course.

Stick gold in your IRA

2011-07-08T10:33:00.002+01:00

One of the things that few people seem to realise is that it's possible to have a gold IRA. There are some limitations and specific rules that have to be followed but is possible to have part of your savings as IRA gold.

It's also possible to have a gold 401k, this meaning that you can have as part of your 401k gold.

The real question of course is whether something like this, or a gold IRA transfer, is a good idea or not?

Leave aside the vagaries of the gold market, that we're at an all time nominal high (although not yet in real terms) and think about the basis of any decent savings plan: diversification.

There is no such thing as an absolutely secure investment: there is also no such thing as an absolutely, no doubt about it, profitable one nor is there one that is entirely inflation proof. All investments are a mixture of the three.

And the point of diversification is to make sure that we have a series of different investments, each of which has a different mixture of the three characteristics. We do want to have some "high growth" stocks despite the risks attatched to them. We do want to have some Treasury bonds, despite the low returns, for they are also low risk. But the risk to bonds is inflation: so we also want to have some gold, for while gold might not earn us investment income it has historically been a very good hedge against inflation.

Having all your retirement funds in gold probably isn't a good idea, just like having all your savings in the latest internet darling that's going to replace Google real soon now isn't a good idea.

But a judicious mix of different investments, diversification, is a good idea.

Buying blinds on the net

2011-06-16T11:29:00.002+01:00

As regular readers will know we've been restoring and sorting out a couple of houses here in sunny climes for some time now. Fortunately we've got past the building stage and are now just doing the last bit of fitting out.

Which, as every male knows and dreads, means traipsing around the shops looking at home furnishings. Absolutely not my favourite activity, even if the wife seems to enjoy it all (fortunately, not too much otherwise I'd nver get her out of such stores).

As a way of reducing the pain on me we've been looking at blinds on the internet. Where we are they're a necessity. In the summer, it being sunny climes, we need them to keep the place cool and also to stop the light itself from fading all of the furniture.

In the winter, given the way in which houses here are built for the warm, not the cold, we need them to keep the heat in. So we must have them yet those out of town stores just don't do it for me.

Fortunately, as you can see at that link. I've been able to find a way to get them from my desk. Hurrah! we get to finish the house and I don't have to leave it.

Algarve Golf Association

2011-03-19T15:14:00.002Z

We've just startde a new little adventure called Algarve Golf. It's actually two things working together. The Southern Golf Association, which is a not for profit members club and Algarve Golf LLP, which is a reseller of golf and other sporting tickets.

The aim is that between the two we can bundle together the economic weight of our members and thus negotiate discounts on the green fees at various golf courses around the Algarve.

And it's working too. We don't even launch until tomorrow but if you become a member of Algarve Golf then we can provide you with discounted green fees on about half of the golf courses in the Algarve.

Plus money off scuba diving, parachuting, Zoomarine, Splash and Slide and a variety of bars and restaurants along the coast.

There are of course other golf associations in the area: but we're the only one with a club house and the only one that provides money off things other than golf.

So, if you're coming down here, you might want to think about signing up for Algarve Golf. You'll save much more than it will cost you...

Where to get your ceiling fans

2011-02-04T11:22:00.002Z

As regular readers will know we've been working on sorting out these two houses down here for some time. And living, as we do, in a warm climate we've needed to work on how to keep things cool more than we have on how to keep them warm. Log fires do fine for the latter but ceiling fans are definitely necessary for the heat.

So of course I've been roaming around online looking for the best place to get such a ceiling fan. And fortunately I've been able to find a great resource. In fact, you can find out who makes the best ceiling fans here. It's a really good guide, taking you through het various technologies, styles and prices. How big do you want it to be, how fast do you need it to turn. what would you like it to be made of? And perhaps most importantly, what would you like it to look like?

Of course, the site is run by Hansen Wholesale Ceiling Fans, but that's fine. Sure they'd like you to buy from them but they are providing a great set of information about the whole field, which is great. The educated consumer is the better customer after all.

So just what is the price of gold?

2011-01-28T21:38:00.002Z

I think we're all aware that gold has been a great investment for those who got into it a year or two back. Yes?

The thing is, when riding an investment wave like this, it's necessary to keep an eye on what the prices, the gold prices that is, actually are. For while prices might be rising at present, the one thing we do know about rising prices is that eventually they will fall.

No, this doesn't mean that the gold price is going to fall below its current level. It could go much higher than it is now and then fall without coming back to current levels.

All I'm trying to point out is that if you're going to play in this market you need to keep a close eye on the price of gold.

Something which, fortunately, you can indeed do simply by clicking through one of those links.

And finally, yes, I know, what you want to know is whether I am a buyer of seller of gold?

Well, actually, neither, as my day job is in the metals trade. So when I diversify my investment portfolio, I go away from metals, not towards them.

Where should I get my hosting?

2011-01-08T15:21:00.002Z

I think we all know by now that we really do need to have an outlet on hte web if we're going to have a business these days? Yes? Even if we're not going to be a "web business", we need to have a website, just as no one would these days dream of having a business without a phone line?

Well, quite, but having understood that we do rather need to go through the various alternatives about how we could do this: are we going to try selling from the site? Is it for infomation only? Just so that people know we exist? Perhaps it might not be a selling interface, but something people can refer to for post sales technical information?

The reason we need to work these things out is because upon those decisions will rest the decision of who to use for what type of web hosting. We might just need the plain vanilla availability of such hosting. Or we might with higher volumes be much more interested in managed hosting. Or if we're going to be going further than that, then perhaps colocation would be the right answer.

This is the thing: while we might know that we need a web presence, until we've worked out what that presence is going to be ew can't decide upon the most basic technical decision, what sort of hosting we should have.

The coming changes in education

2010-10-19T18:35:00.002+01:00

It's just one of those things about new inventions that we don't really know what they're going to be used for, how they'll change the world, until they've been out there for a bit and we can observe what people are actually using them for. for example, this internet thing we're on right now. Most seem to think that it's for porn and stealing MP3 files.

However, I think there's a very good argument that what it's really going to change is education. For at the moment we gather everyone together in one room and someone talks at them. This is the essential education model and it's been the same for the past few centuries. What the internet allows is that people don't all have to be gathered together in order to be talked at.

Have a look at this site for example. Free math help is their opening offer. But that's really the some on. What they're really offering is one to one tutoring over the 'net. Maths (and they work on other subjects too) is no longer something you learn in groups of 20 or more. You can work at your own pace, with guidance.

They go as far as college algebra and factoring polynomials as well. I really do think that this sort of use of the internet is the wave of the future: so much so that I think the industry that will be changed most over the long term will be education.

Where to find your webhosting

2010-10-19T18:27:00.002+01:00

As we've pointed out several times around here there's no way a business is going to survive without having a web presence these days. No, you don't have to go the whole hog and only sell over the web, like, say, Amazon does. But you do need at least something to tell potential customers that you're there. If you're not in the search engines, you're just not going to be getting the business, your competitors will be.

The first stage of getting onto the web of course is to work out who your webhosting is going to be with. Are you really going to go and try and sell everything on the web? Market, sell, upgrade, interact with your customers purel;y online? In which case you're almost certainly going to want to look at dedicated server hosting. That's what's going to give you the control over the platform that you need.

Or perhaps you just want a small site to make sure that potential customers can find you? In which case you might want to look at something much simpler (and cheaper) like Wordpress hosting.

But whichever end of the market you're aiming for, or even whatever point in the middle, click through those links to see a useful site which can give you the details on who and where you can get those services.

Understanding spread betting

2010-09-29T18:28:00.002+01:00

Understanding spread betting can be a little tricky at first. The basic point is that one isn't betting upon so much the outcome of an event but upon the precision of your forecast of an event. To think in horse racing terms, we're not trying to bet on which horse wins the race: but by how many lengths the horse wins the race.

Now it's true we tend not to do spread betting on horses in that manner: but there's an entire world out there of events upon which we can. Sports events, where we've got points being socred, are an obvious place for us to be doing that. If a soccer match could be won 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 and so on, there are a number of possibilities to be more accurate than simply Team X to win. Given that there are more possible outcomes of course odds tend to be larger. Thus the excitement is greater. As are all the variations in what can be done.

But as with anything else new it's necessary to understand the basics and spread betting is no different. Fortunately there's anice site, which you can get to simply by clicking through any of the links, that can guide you through this process. Perhaps most importantly, guide you as to which companies are offering inducements to you to try out their systems and platforms on which to do such betting. Especially the free bets they offer.

Good luck and have fun!

The story of Melissa Petro

2010-09-29T18:13:00.003+01:00

I have to admit that I find all of this absolutely fascinating, the story of Melissa Petro. To give you a flavour.

Hooker-turned-teacher Melissa Petro yesterday admitted she knew her sex-for-hire past would land her in detention.

"Didn't you see this coming?" fellow Bronx teacher Ruben Brosbe asked Petro via Facebook after her sordid former sideline was revealed in The Post.

"We talked about it on the first day of training," Brosbe reminded his pal.

"Of course I saw it coming," the feisty Petro, a third-year art teacher at PS 70, wrote back.

Brosbe and Petro declined comment yesterday.

But Petro -- who has been reassigned amid an Education Department probe of her blogging about her exploits as a "former sex worker" -- joked on Facebook about how she hoped a car outside was a teachers-union escort and not "one of the 200 creepy dudes now trying to 'friend' me."

Now the thing is you see, what's supposed to happen in Nwe York once youn qualify as a teacher is that you spend three yeasr on a sort of probation. Only after you've passed that probation do you get tenure: effectively, it''s near impossible for you to get fired at that point.

The claimed aim of this three year period is to make sure that you are of sound character, of the sort of moral type, that peeps would like to have teaching their children. And there are supposed to be background checks and so on to make sure this is true.

While in this three year period Ms. Petro was not exactly quiet about her former trade as a hooker. She was in fact blogging about it under her own name. And yet those checks didn't manage to pick up on it.

Something of an embarrassment for those running the checks, don't you think?

On the subject of mens' clothes

2010-09-29T17:54:00.002+01:00

Hmm, actually, should that be men's clothes or mens' clothes? Our approximation at solving the riddle of the Greengrocer's Apostrophe of the day perhaps (or is that Greengrocers'?). The clue to where the placement of that little piece of punctuation is is whether we are talking of clothes for a man or clothes for many men. And it could indeed still be both for while they might be clothes that would appeal to many men we usually expect that they'll be worn by just the one man. At any particular time at least.

Hmm, anyway, to get away from the pedantry, this is of course the time of year when wardrobes get cleared out, last year's warm winter woollies checked for signs of moth damage and then the necessary replacements found. Of course, the necessity of topping up the men's clothes selection foudn in said wardrobes does mean that one is also able to advance one's look to this season's fashions rather than being, like so many of our fellow Brits, stuck somewhere around 2002. Or, in particulalry sad cases, whatever year one's mother is stuck in when she buys your clothes for you.

Which leads us to a little recommendation if you are indeed on the hunt for expansions in the selection of men's clothes available to you. Just click through any of the links and you'll be taken to a site carrying the best of the best, up to date fashion for men. There's free delivery (if you're qquick) on orders over £50 and there's even a student discount. And if you don't like online shopping then there's a store locator so you can find out where to find the clothes in meatspace. What more could you possibly want?

How could Jessica Alba appear naked?

2010-09-28T18:57:00.002+01:00

Quite, how could Jessica Alba appear naked in a movie when she'd told us all that she wasn't going to do something like that. She is an actress by gum and nudity to turn on the audience is something done purely by starlets, the young wannabees, not something done by those who can actually act.

And yet there she is, Jessica Alba in all her naked, nude, glory in her new movie Machete. So how can this come about? Actually, this Jessica Alba naked thing is quite simple. Here's how you do it:

Jessica Alba looks like she has broken her promise never to strip off for a movie role.

But her white undies in the shot were actually digitally removed in Machete.

Yes, that's right kiddies. You only think that you're seeing Jessica Alba nude. Jessica Alba knows that she filmed the scene in a bikini. What you're seeing is just the digital pixels that someone has painted for you.

So that's how you can have an actress both naked on film and not naked on film and thus is artistic integrity preserved.

Cool jeans online

2010-09-28T18:46:00.003+01:00

Yes, it's time to stock up that winter wardrobe and get ready for the joys of the British winter. By now, the end of September, we've already had the traditional seasonal turning points of successive Daily Mail headlines telling us that we're in for a frozen winter, Indian summer is here and on the third day, why the Met Office is always wrong. Even though said Met is more consistent than Daily Mail headlines. And this season's essential wardrobe component is, as it has been for the past 30 years or so, a few pairs of cool jeans.

No, this isn't, of course, referring to jeans which will fail to do their job of keeping out that British winter. Far from it, we are not using the word cool in that sense. Cool jeans refers rather to fashion, to what is hip n' happenin', what is, with a bit of good luck and a following wind, going to raise the temperature not lower it as your display of current fashionability increases the number of people who want to get close to you. Hopefully, if all goes well, very close, inside your jeans type close.

And where better to get your cool jeans than online? As we all know the greatest concern facing us all at present is the climate (no, this is very different from the weather complained of above) and we'd all like to do our bit to make sure that that climate doesn't get any worse. And as that report in the papers yesterday said, as long as the delivery truck is delivering more than 25 items (and they all do, they all do) then there are fewer carbon emissions than if we went down to the shops ourselves individually. Save the planet and look good at the same time?

Bit of a bargain, surely?

Is Blanket Jackson really British?

2010-09-26T19:51:00.002+01:00

Could it be true that Blanket Jackson, Michael Jackson's son, is really British? Or at least part British?

That's the claim being made by a former bodyguard to Michael Jackson at least. He says that he was offered $500,000 to make a donation, a fee which he turned down, but he did make the donation. And at about the right time for the conception to have been possible.

MICHAEL Jackson's former British bodyguard Matt Fiddes will this week claim he is the biological father of the dead star's youngest son Blanket.

Fiddes, of Barnstaple, Devon, will tell Australian TV he fathered the eight-year-old by sperm donation for nothing - turning down a £500,000 offer from the superstar. He has told pals he will fight for custody if anything happens to Jacko's mum Katherine.

He's obviously going to have a fight on his hands over that claiming custody though. For a start, Diana Ross is named in Jackson's will as being the next in line to take custody. But more than that, assuming that they completed the paperwork for a standard donation, he will have given up all his parental rights anyway.

Hey, the story might even be true as well but I doubt very much that anyone's going to let such a rich child potter off with a claimed but unproven sperm donor.

Where to play bingo: online of course!

2010-09-26T19:41:00.002+01:00

The world of bingo has been rather turned on its head of late: the last decade has seen what will probably be the death knell of the industry, one that only really grew after WWII. Well, the death of the bingo industry in bingo halls that is, not the death of bingo games themselves: those atre just migrating online. There's a number of different things that have caused thisw death and it's worth running through them for some seem almost deliberate and others, well, that's just the way it is.

The most obvious problem that the bingo halls have had is the smoking ban. The people who were running them all make exactly the same point. Attendance dropped off right at the time of the ban and it simply hasn't risen again since. And this in itself causes further losses in attendance: bingo games, while being just as popular as ever, don't work all that well in large but empty halls. Something of a coordination problem there.

But the other major one, the one that's just happenstance, is the rise of the online bingo games. This is partly the availability of the technology, it simply wasn't possible to do this on any large scale only a decade ago. That the availability of this technology coincided with the smoking ban is just that: happenstance. But it does mean that those who like their game can do so from the comfort of their front rooms now, and simply don't need to brave the weather nor stop smoking while they play.

Bingo just isn't going to go back to the halls, whatever people try to do about it and with that ends one of the great post war leisure activities: beaten by a combination of technological revolution and government stupidity.

Is Lindsay Lohan on heroin?

2010-09-26T19:01:00.002+01:00

Pictures of Lindsay Lohan posing with a syringe and torniquet have surfaced leading some to think that she was taking heroin.

About the only thing we can actually be certain of is that she's not been taking heroin recently: it would have shown up on the drug test which found the cocaine which sent her back to jail over the weekend.
However, the pictures are more than suggestive:

CROUCHING in a dark corner, Lindsay Lohan is poised to inject herself with what appears to be a syringe of heroin.

Our shocking picture shows the troubled Mean Girls star wrapping a tourniquet around her lower arm - the method addicts use to raise a vein.

Her right hand hovers the needle over the skin of her left arm.

Perhaps she was taking heroin: she wouldn't be the first and won't be the last person whio has tried it and doesn't carry on taking it.

Maybe it was just a pose for the cameras, a laugh with the girls?

Finding the right web host

2010-08-24T14:15:00.002+01:00

We all know that...well, all of us still in business know that anyway......in order to keep a business going these days you've got to have a presence on the web.

You don't have to be running your whole business on the web, this is true. You don't have to be selling over the web, or to be servicing your customers that way, but you do at least need to have a presence, a reference site.

And of course you can actually service your customers, sell to them, over the web as well. What you want to do is really up to you: and is of course contrained by the real world. A business which sold bridges over the web wouldn't be all that successful while one that sold MP3 files certainly could be. But even so, a bridge building company will need a web presence just to let people know where they can go to get bridges.

Once we've decided what we're going to do online then we need to decide who is going to host it. If all you need is a static site with a bit of email for your bridge building company then one host or type of host may be all you need. If you're going to be selling MP3s then a whole host of different matters come into play. Bandwidth, reliability, how quickly can you expand servers and memory, all these sorts of things. Which is where vps hosting might be worth looking at.

It's a sorta half way stage between a shared server and a dedicated one. You get the interface, the access to the nuts and bolts of the machine, of a dedicated server but still running on a shared server. the detail of one system and the cheapness and flexibility of the other.

Worth checking out.

The Danielle Staub sextape

2010-08-24T14:07:00.002+01:00

So, things aren't working out all that well for Danielle Staub at present.

She's been booted off the reality show, Real Housewives of New Jersey....partly because it's now surfaced that there's a Danielle Straub sextape out there.

And this sextape comes only a couple of days after the revelation of a drug and prostitution soaked past.

All of which is really rather sad I think. for if we're going to have a reality TV show then we probably should have one that includes, you know, reality. And yes, there really are a number of women of a certain age who in their youth did other things. So why should this reality not be shown on a reality TV show?

I guess there's always the possibility that this is too much reality....

Private tutoring has never been so cheap

2010-08-11T17:25:00.002+01:00

One of the things that economist are puzzled about is that no one is really quite sure what people are going to use the internet for. Sure, we know it's a great big new technology, just like electricity, mass production or the train was. But just as when those were first invented, what people actually use it for is unknown.

Why this matters is because we're not really sure which industries are going to be over turned by it. One bet, one that really hasn't quite been grasped as yet, is that it will be education that is transformed. If you can learn everything you need to over the net, with one to one instruction when needed, videos of lectures at other times, or with online textbooks, what's the point of having to go to a school each day?

And there are services springing up which show how this can be done. For example, need tutoring on Algebra 2? Can't quite grasp 5th grade math? Need some help in adding fractions? Maybe it's the formula for volume which is your problem?

Now, OK, that's just maths....but this one company will give you all the tutoring any one child or pupil desires, 24/7, in any and every subject they cover, for just $99 a month. Add that sort of tutoring to a decent set of textbooks and why would anyone be spending $12,000 a year per child on the public schools? You can get a better education for one tenth of the cost!

It really is possible that the major industry that will be overturned by the internet isn't newspapers, or movies, but education.

Fascinating stuff about the gold price

2010-07-26T18:07:00.002+01:00

This is a fun little article talking about how the price of gold is set. It's really rather archaic and dates all the way back to 1919. OK, they've moved a little bit with the times now and they use a telephone rather than actually all meeting in the same room but the old ways still do seem to persist.

Perhaps we shouldn't say gold price, but one of the gold prices is fixed in this funny old manner. The five main dealer banks all meet up (telephonically now of course) and essentially barter about the price at which they're willing to buy or sell gold. Under the old system if they wanted to take a little break in the bartering (to talk to someone else, just to think for a moment) they would raise a little union jack flag they had on their desk.

When they lower it then it all starts again. When the bartering was finished then all the flags would stay down. Now, of course, over the phone, no one can see the flags: so, instead, they say "flag" when they want that break. Funny how these things go really, old traditions hanging on.

But do understand, this is how the gold spot price is fixed: futures and options prices change all the time. And it's only the London spot gold price that is fixed this way: everyone else just does it on the internet.

Finding those women's t-shirts

2010-07-22T16:55:00.002+01:00

Yes, yes, we've all heard what globalisation has done for the costs of clothing. You can nip down to the shopping centre and get a t-shirt for less than the cost of a beer and wear it straight home. However, the problem is with the quality: the t-shirt is unlikely to last as long as an open beer at a student party. And that's not the only problem. Given that everyone will have seen the same t-shirts for sale everyone will equally know that you're wearing some really very cheap and tatty t-shirt. Not really what you want to be flaunting.

On the other hand we all also know that really good quality designer clothes cost a fortune. What we'd really like, if only we could find it, is some way of getting the good quality gear for a more reasonable price. Not the easiest of things to do that. But it would be good if we could, yes? For then we'd be able to show that we've the good sense and good taste to buy and wear that good quality designer gear without having had to pay the full price for it. We're smart and well clothed and yet even smarter than those who simply buy it from the stores, right?

Which is why you might want to look at this site and their women's t-shirts. They've got the brands you want, French Connection, Henley's, Goi Goi, but at prices which could save you as much as 50% of the recommended retail. Look good, look smart and save money: what could possibly go wrong?

Leaving, of course, more money for those other necessities of a life well lived: no, it doesn't have to be beer, there are plenty of other things which can add to such. For example, the savings on a Goi Goi t-shirt can be enough to purchase a Motel one: designer clothes at two for one prices!

Where can I find a job in the Middle East?

2010-07-22T16:42:00.002+01:00

In these hard times for all of us, it's worth thinking outside the box if you're looking for a job. We all know that it's not all that easy (and in some parts of the country, darn near impossible) to find any job at all let alone a good one.

So, rather than shlepping from one classified ad to yet another interview for a call sales centre, why not seriously think about how you're going to get your career back on track, about how to break out of the sterile confines of simply UK based jobs?

For the recession, the slump in good jobs, isn't true all around the world. There are economies out there which are still booming, indeed some which are growing faster than before. And they're, many of them, just a short hop away on a plane. You should, or at least could, be thinking of jobs in the UAE for example.

Any why not? The United Arab Emirates are booming, there's construction and new business all over the place: driven by the still insatiable hunger for the oil and gas of the region. And the authorities are actively looking for foreigners, expats, to come in and do the jobs that the locals aren't trained to do as yet. These jobs aren't just in the oil and gas sectors either.

They're actively looking for people to work in the financial industry (they've identified finance as one of those sectors which they want and need to grow), banking....and of course the inevitable IT and telecoms as they build the foundations and structures of a modern economy.

Why not check it out by clicking through the link?

Finding the right place for your website

2010-07-20T09:22:00.002+01:00

We're all aware by now, at least I hope we're all aware by now, that in order for a business to be successful these days it's absolutely necessary for it to have some form of web presence. It doesn't have to be a full on copy of Amazon of course: but people do at least need to know that you're there, meaning that there has to be a site of some kind.

However, before you charge off and sign up for webhosting, you need to think a little more about what sort of site you're going to have. For different hosts will have very different offerings and which one you choose will depend upon what it is that you want to do with the site.

For example, you might think that all you want to do is keep in touch with customers. To run a blog, just to have some sort of online presence and to show the human face behing the company: in which case you're going to want to find blog hosting.

Or maybe you want to run a full blown online company? In which case you'd be looking for ecommerce hosting.

In short, you've got to work out what you want to do with the site before you can work out who is going to be the best person to host the site for you.

Passing on my experience

2010-07-01T17:24:00.002+01:00

As someone who has actually been running a business that operates internationally for many years now allow me to pass on one of the most vital points to you.

You really do need to use professional tranlsation services. No, you cannot get by just hiring a combination girlfriend/bilingual secretary. It really is important that you get major and important documents properly checked over, have a proper professional translation done.

This is obviously important for contracts: if you're not absolutely certain of what is in a contract then you shouldn't be signing it. And if the translation isn't perfect then you won't be catching the nuance of what is in the contract.

You also need a translation service when you're looking at offers: so much of the problem that we all have with other languages is over tenses. It makes really a rather large difference if you've got to pay people before they do anything or whether you have to pay them after they've done something.

So, if you're going to be doing business internationally then really, take my word for it, a lesson that I've learned very expensively. You really do want to use language translation services. Yes, you really do want to pay for them.

Yes, I've a new car!

2010-04-22T11:01:00.002+01:00

It's taken me long enough I have to admit. We've of course long had a car, even two at times, but they've always been practical and reliable ones. You know, the sort that just work when you want them to but don't have any pizzazz or interest to them. I've finally been able to change this as a result of my having been working an extra job or two over recent years. Finally been able to buy something I'd like to drive just for the joy of driving it, not for the reason of wanting to actually get somewhere.

The thing is though, I'm of that age where buying a two seater sports car is simply viewed as my mid life crisis. And while this may be true I have a feeling that more than one diagnosis of said min-lifer is in fact simply a diagnosis of finally, someone's actually been able to save enough money to get what they have wanted for years. Which is, I insist, what is true in my case.

Still, having saved and scrimped to get the car I've still got to be able to run it. Which is why I'm off to search for cheap auto insurance. Just because I've finally been able to afford the car doesn't mean that I can stop being careful about the costs of having it.

The trials of adolesence

2010-03-29T18:21:00.002+01:00

A disturbing thing happened to me in my adolescence....no, not the spots or the strange night time urges. Rather, I couldn't understand what everyone else was going on about.

There I would be in class, listening along, checking the textbook and the teacher would wave at the blackboard and ask a question. I would have no idea what he was talking about and there would be this shout of, "But it's obvious!, See, it's written there!".

Eh? You mean people can actually read what it is that you're writing up there? I thought that was just notes for you!

Much the same happened at movies. I could't really work out why people liked them so much. OK, there was the fun soundtrack and dialogue but really, there wasn't much to see, was there, just some blurry impressionistic stuff.

Well, OK, you've guessed it already, yes, I went along to have my eyes tested and found that I needed eye glasses. Not quite what I really wanted when out to impress the ladies (another thing that happens to most of us in adolescence) but at least I could now see whether they were ladies or not.

Ho hum....still, that's my lesson for you youngsters out there. Yes, you are supposed to be able to see the world, yes, movies really do have actors not just colours in them and yes, you really should be able to read what the teacher is putting on the blackboard. Get your eyes tested: it's worth it, believe me.

Santonio Holmes

2010-03-29T18:16:00.002+01:00

This is fun: Santonio Holmes has got himself into trouble with hte law. Or at least, with a woman who is using the law against him.

Also on Monday, it became public that receiver Santonio Holmes, who was the Super Bowl most valuable player last year, is facing a civil lawsuit alleging that he threw a drink in a woman’s face at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

Now think about this just for a little moment. If someone threw a rink in your face in a nightclub would your first reaction be to sue them? Punch them in the face perhaps. Maybe even call over the bouncers to get them thrwon out of the night club maybe?

But reach for a lawyer?

OK, when faced with an NFL player perhaps punching them isn't going to work. But I'll bet that the decision to reach for a lawyer was highly influenced by the thought that he was an NFL player....and thus rich enough to be worth suing.

Different health and dental plans

2010-02-15T17:27:00.002Z

With all the fuss going on about how to reform health care insurance, perhaps it's time to look at different ways in which the market already caters for different methods. For example, there's no need to get a traditional medical plan: there's also no need to have a traditional dental plan.

We tend to think that there's only three ways of dealing with the need for some sort of health insurance: either the government does it all for us, we get full insurance coverage through our work or we just have to pay for each and every treatment as we get it. But this really isn't true.

There's a very different way of having a health plan. A discount plan.
Here's how it works. If you click through the links there you'll see the details but simply: they've got hundreds of thousands of customers. This gives them buying power. So providers of medical and dental services want the business of those hundreds of thousands and are willing to offer special prices. This isn't insurance: this is access to discount price medical care.

For routine work, this is probably even better than insurance: you might end up paying less than the traditional copay for example. If you add on to this a catastrophic health care insurance plan (say, an annual deductible of $10,000, just as an example) this might well give you better health insurance than either the government or a job could give you.

Well worth checking out, at least.

Anne Scripps Douglas

2009-11-22T18:59:00.002Z

Anne Scripps Douglas: proof perfect that money doesn't buy you everything.

In fact, Anne Scripps Douglas is proof perfect that money might not even buy you life, let alone a happy one. As the name might alert you (Scripps was Anne's maiden name, the Douglas came from her second husband) she was one of the heiresses to the Scripps newspaper fortune: a fortune well up there with the Hearst's and so on.

But being born into money didn't lead to that long and happy life we might think:

New York state police believe the daughter of slain newspaper heiress Anne Scripps Douglas jumped to her death from the same bridge her stepfather did after he killed her mother.
Police on Friday were searching the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge, around 25 miles north of Manhattan, for the body of Anne Morell Petrillo. Authorities say they found a note and believe she got out of her car on and jumped off the bridge Thursday evening.

Petrillo's mother, the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps, was beaten to death with a hammer in Anne's bedroom by her stepfather, Scott Douglas, on New Year's Eve in 1993.

Douglas fled and jumped to his death from the same bridge. His body was found three months after the slaying.

Somehow people who make their money seem to do better with it than those who inherit it.

Yes, I want one of these monsters

2009-11-22T17:44:00.003Z

That baby there to he left is one of the top of the line models, one of the Viking Grills that I have my eye set on. The grill on the top contains 29,000 BTU burners (can you not already simply smell the dead animals crisping up nicely?) and then there's the two side burners for making sure the beans and the barbecue sauce are hot, the oven underneath to cook off what you want to roast instead of grill and of course all those warm drawers for everything else the outside chef needs.

The point about a Viking Grill though isn't to outequip your neighbour: or at least not the only point about them. If you're going to be cooking outside you want to make sure that your equipment is built for the task: which is why they're all made of stainless steel, they're built to the usual full commercial standards. This just isn't equipment that is going to fall apart at the end of the season: or, Lord forbid, in the middle of it. It's solidly made and will withstand not only whatever it is that you might cook on it, it'll also deal with being shut away for the winter and being hosed down for the fresh season.

But yes, there's more to these Viking gas grill, much more. That picture is of their top of the range effort but there's everything the heart could desire and the wallet afford available. All built to the same uncompromising standards of course, all containing those high energy grills, but offering you more or less of the surround dependent upon what it is that you want. Everything in fact from just the simple grill as it is, on its own, all the way up to that baby and passing through different combinations of sideburners, grills, storage, freestanding models and so on.

If you're looking to re-equip the garden for next year's outside cooking season well worth going and taking a look at what's on offer.

New Moon breaks records before release

2009-11-19T11:25:00.002Z

Looks like we're in for at least a decade of Twilight movies then for the second Twilight movie, New Moon, is breaking records for advanced ticket sales.

TWILIGHT sequel New Moon has taken £�1million before even being released - as the fastest advance-selling film of the year.

Odeon and UCI cinemas reported that it had already sold 143,000 tickets.

The movie, starring ROBERT PATTINSON as vampire Edward Cullen and KRISTEN STEWART as lovelorn student Bella Swan, goes on national release on Friday.

Gosh, aren't we lucky people to be offered years and years worth of a vegetarian vampire who twinkles.

But then no one has ever accused Hollywood of not going for the easy money. If the Twilight books are selling (and if the author is holed up somewhere churning out more) then as long as people keep buying tickets for things like New Moon then the studio will keep pumping out the product.

As with Rocky and Harry Potter, (and in earlier times, the "Road to" movies) that's just the way that the place works.

Finding drug treatment

2009-11-18T17:12:00.002Z

OK, so we know that addictions of all sorts are rampaging through our society. It's not just crystal meth, heroin, prescription drugs and alcohol, we're now seeing addictive behavior in all sorts of things, from eating to such formerly thought harmless things like exercise. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, we're so much richer as a society, meaning that people can actually become addicted: secondly, as part of that new richness we've increased our knowledge and now know much more about what addiction is. And part of that new knowledge is that we now know a great deal more about what works in drug treatment.

In times past really all we could do ws to try and keep the addict away from the addiction and hope for the best. Now, with the introduction of things like dual diagnosis we know that there are often underlying problems that must be treated as well as the addiction itself. Further, we know more about how specific addictions can be treated: the drug treatment of choice for those coming off heroin is now methadone, something which reduces the cravings while those underlying issues are addressed.

What has emerged from out new knowledge of drug treatment and addiction is that integrated onsite treatment programs work best. We need to take the addict not just away from the addiction itself but also from its milieu, so that there is no immediate backsliding. And we need to try different methods: for different people react better or worse to different methods of treatment.

Click through any of the links to find out more about this subject.

Nephelococcygia

2009-11-18T17:06:00.002Z

Nephelococcygia is one of these constructed words: it originally had a very specific meaning and is now put to another but connected use.

Nephelococcygia has it's origins in Aristophanese, the Greek playright. It means "Could Cuckoo Land", his utopian city in the clouds in one of his plays. As such it has always had a secondary meaning of being a dreamer, of not paying attention to reality. For the point of the play was that such utopias do not work nor do they exist.

Nephelococcygia also has a more modern meaning: the study of clouds. Or rather, cloud watching. While this is fun and all, it's slightly unfortunate that it has been described with this word with its connotations of being an otherworldly dreamer.

Getting the truth about nursing

2009-11-17T12:12:00.002Z

We all seem to get a lot of our information about jobs and professions from TV shows: which is slightly sad really for of course most jobs aren't anything like they are portrayed on TV. A lot of them are much more interesting: a very few are more boring (spies, for example, do not do anything like what Jack Bauer does at all).

The best place to actually find out what a job or career is really like is through the trade magazines. No, really, these magazines are written for the people actually already working in them: so they have to be true to life or no one will ever read them, knowing them to be false. So, for example, we could turn to one of the nursing magazines to find out what it's really like to be a nurse, rather than relying on a TV depiction like Mercy NBC.

In fact we can go a great deal further and find out about nurse salaries but looking at the top ten paid nursing specialties. Or if you're already there and trained and working, what about an investigation into the best scrubs: what are the best scrubs for your body?

It is true though, the best places to get the real inside information on jobs and careers are the trade magazines, those written for those already doing the job.

Meteor shower november 2009

2009-11-17T11:53:00.002Z

Yes, it's that time of year again and we've the Leonid meteor shower making it's approach to earth. There are a number of different meteor showers that can be seen at different times of the year (and they may move around the year a bit as well) and the meteor shower for november 2009 is this Leonid one.

If you're over on hte West Coast the best time tio see the Leonids is, umm, right about now actually. If you're on hte East Coast or further east in Europe then, umm, sorry, but you've missed it.

There, isn't that timely and useful information for you? All hail blogging etc etc etc.

For the Holiday Season

2009-11-17T11:41:00.003Z

Yes, it's that time of year again and the Holiday Season is looming. So the big question is what on earth do we buy all that army of people that we've got to buy presents for? Is there actually enough time between now and the end of the universe to select the perfect present? No, and that's why gift cards from Shop.com are such a good idea.

Instead of having to decide exactly what it is that we'd like to get someone all we have to do is think about which store they'd like to go shopping in and how much we want to give them to do so. Then we simply purchase a gift card for that store for that amount and we're done.

And no, we don't have to run around all of the different stores. Shop.com has gift cards from just about every retailer you can think of. So there's a huge selection, all in one place, and the holiday shopping can be done in just an afternoon.

Whew!

Who is Lorenzo von Matterhorn?

2009-11-17T07:46:00.002Z

Lorenzo von Matterhorn is a fictional character within a fiction. In the TV show "Hor I Met Your Mother" one of the characters is back on the dating scene. And to succeed in this endeavour he creates a character, Lorenzo von Matterhorn.

This fake character is backed up by a series of fake web pages, describing Lorenzo von Matterhorn as Swiss, a billionaire, an animal lover and someone advised not to have penis reduction therapy.

When he casually drops this name to a girl she is intrigued enough to Google him, sees all of this and then when asked for a date obviously says yes.

Victory!

Get the best: you deserve it

2009-11-16T19:06:00.003Z

Get the best: your deserve it....that's not a bad motto to live one's life by. For indeed of course there is only one attempt at all of this, this is not a dress rehearsal.

So if you're going to be buying, say, clothes, it makes sense to be buying the best like Patagonia.

The brand Patagonia started out with climbers and surfers who were aware that the market wasn't really supplying what they needed: the very finest outdoor clothes, made with the best quality materials and incorporating the very latest technology. Without those latter two of course the first is impossible. So they set about making what they needed. The same attention to only the best is what makes them the best clothes today.

You might think that you don't need Patagonia boots: after all, you're not about to go climbing in the Andes. But that is something of a mistake: none of us are really rich enough to buy cheaply. It's far better to have a few relaible and sturdy items which will last for years than the latest tchotchke from China that will fall apart ofter three weeks.

I've had one of the Patagonia backpacks and yes, they really are as good as advertised. Sturdily made, a great weioght to strength ratio and they last a long time. Well worth the money.

What is a TWILF?

2009-11-16T17:59:00.002Z

If you're confused by all this modern terminology and technology thaen you'll get mystified by this new phrase, TWILF.

It's an adaptation of MILF which in itself is an ancronym for "Mother I'd Like to Fuck". No, not my own mother and not necessarily yours. Rather, a mature woman, radiant in hte prime of her liffe, that you have sexual fantasies about.

The TW comes from Twitter. So it means Twitterer I'd like to fuck.

All of which is most amusing and could be applied to anyone from Demi Moore to Stephen Fry.

The current furore is that a cartoon show on Al Gore's TV channel Current referred to Sarah aplin as a TWILF. Which is probably rather more insult than the lady deserves.

Cameron Diaz in The Box

2009-11-16T17:28:00.002Z

The word on hte street is that Cameron Diaz's new film, The Box, is a right stinker. When people were asked to score it on a scale which normally goes from A to C they gave it an F.

There have only been two other movies in this decade which have received such an appalling score.

It doesn't look as if all that much was spent on the plotline either.

Cameron Diaz plays a cash poor mother who is offered a million dollars by a stranger if she will press the button on the box (see how they got the movie name? The Box, the box, geddit?). Then bad things start to happen around her like her son going deaf and blind.

Ho hum, this sotry has been around formillenia: it's Pandora's Box all over again. Back then the last thing out of the boxd was hope: which might not be what is in store for Cameron Diaz's film career if she keeps making stinkers like this one.

Carrie Prejean: eight sex tapes now

2009-11-16T17:04:00.002Z

My, this story just keeps getting better. Apparently we're up to eight Carrie Prejean sex tapes now. Plus around 30 nude photos floating around.

Carrie Prejean, you will remember, is the Miss California who just failed to become Miss America. And then got herself involved in a legal fight with the pageant organisers: a fight which she folded in when the existence of a solo sex tape was revealed.

She also rather holds herself up as being a representative of the true conservative and Christian values of america: something which is really rather difficult when there are supposed to be eight sex tapes floating around out there of you.

It'll be interesting to see whether the tapes do get released or not....

Belle de Jour uncovered

2009-11-16T16:37:00.002Z

The real name behind Belle de Jour has been uncovered. It's Dr. Elizabeth Magnanti.

There has for years been speculation about who it might have been: all sorts of unlikely people were suggested as possibly being the blogger turned author who wrote about her adventures in prostitution.

But now the secret is out: she's a research scientist who went on the game simply to pay the bills.

The other part of the secret, that she's a darn good writer, we've known for ages.

Yes, I do want one

2009-11-15T17:04:00.002Z

Pictured to the left there is something which I'm really rather keen on getting hold of. It's a fire pit table. It's a clever little design that gets around the problem we've got with the traditionally designed fire or fireplace. That problem being of course that as soon as you put something in front of you to place things on then you've just put something between you and the source of the heat: which really isn't the point at all. You want the heat to be flooding all over you rather than being reflected away from you and/or simply heating up the table.

So the point about fire pit tables is that you've got the fire and the table combined. As you can see there you can each sit at the table, with a book, glass of wine, cup of coffee, and yet you're still facing the fire and getting the benefit of the heat. Which is, as above, what we're really trying to achieve here, staying warm and also being able to have somewhere to put things. The perceptive might also note that this is a boon for slow eaters: it'll help keep your food warm!

Now the reason I want one of these is because while we do indeed live in sunny climes we also live near an ocean. And some will know what that entails. While it's warm in the day and of course much of social life is conducted outside in gardens, come the fall of night it becomes quite chilly rather quickly. So something like a fire pit table is an excellent addition to the set of garden furniture: it extends by several hours the period of the day when one can entertain without finding ones teeth chattering and knees knocking. So another one for the purchase list.

Alizee Paradis: hot athlete

2009-11-14T18:43:00.002Z

OK, so there are awards and there are awards: being the hottest female NCAA athlete of the decade may or may not be one of those awards that ranks highly in your estimation.

But it does seem to be one that Alizee Paradis has just been nominated for.

The reasoning seems to be that she is French Canadian (the exoitc and different is always hot) and has a taste for being photographed insmall bikinis: smaller than might be justified by her body weight. We of course approve of this latter habit in attractive young women but we're not sure if it's a skill in particularly short supply.

Oh, should we have mentioned that the competition and the award are being run by "Busted"? Yes, that does help to explain the above doesn't it?

The Heene's plead guilty in balloon boy case

2009-11-14T17:44:00.002Z

OK, so it has to be said that this balloon boy case added to the gaiety and joy of the nation but it now seems to have come to an end.

The parents seem to have admitted that the whole thing was indeed a hoax and that they knew all along that the boy wasnt' in the balloon:

Richard Heene, the father accused of pulling a spectacular hoax by reporting his son, Falcon, was aboard a runaway balloon has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant.

Richard and Mayumi Heene appeared in a Colorado court on Friday. Mr Heene, 48, entered a guilty plea and his wife, Mayumi -a 45-year-old Japanese national who could have been deported if convicted of more serious charges - admitted a misdemeanor offense of false reporting to authorities.

Purely as a personal thing I hate it when pressure like that over immigration status is put on people in order to get them to plead: but there is a reason for the system.

Larry King baffles Carrie Prejean

2009-11-14T16:59:00.002Z

This really is the story that keeps on giving, isn't it? Carrie Prejean and her efforts to, umm, well, be more than simply a Valley airhead?

OK, so there was the breat augmentation which she didn't pay for, then the Perez Hilton thing about gay marriage, then the entirely hilarious attempt to portray herself as a good little Christian conservative which fell over after the sex tape was released. And now this:

In the end both sides backed down and settled. But it was the detail of this agreement that prompted Ms Prejean’s latest implosion, this time on Larry King’s show. Asked to explain why she dropped her claim she repeatedly insisted that the question was “inappropriate”. When King pushed harder Ms Prejean attempted to storm out — but couldn’t work out how to disconnect her microphone. Instead, she sat at the interview desk without her earpiece, mouthing questions to an off-set handler as a baffled King tried to continue the interview.

I guess all she needs now is either to shoot a Moose or get a UI and she'd be about ready for prime time politics, don't you think?

There's water on the Moon!

2009-11-14T13:55:00.003Z

One of the questions we've long wanted an answer to is the one: is there water on the Moon?

Of course, no one thinks that there's going to be running water on the surface: there's not enough atmosphere for that. But is there ice where the sun don't shine? Or perhaps water further underground?

Amazingly, we now know that there is indeed water on the Moon.

Nasa has found 'a significant amount' of water inside a crater on the Moon in a discovery that could pave the way for the first manned lunar base.

The agency announced that last month's audacious attempt to smash two spacecraft into the Moon's rocky surface to find ice was a major success.

Excellent news at it makes that idea of having a permanent Moon base that much easier. Roll on that, he exploration of the asteroids and by the way, where is my flying car?

Jayce Lee Dugard's rapist: cured by Jesus!

2009-11-14T13:42:00.002Z

Hallelulah Brother! What joy there will be in heaven as one sinner repenteth.

Phil Garrido, the man who is alleged to have kidnapped and then raped Jaycee Lee dugard over a period of 18 years now claims that he has in fact been cured of his sexual deviancy by Jesus.

The story is here.

There is of course a slight problem with this very story: which is that he's claimed to have been cured only after he's been caught, arrested and charged. It would of course be extremely cynical to try and insist that if the Grace of Jesus had descended at some earlier date he should have let Jaycee go, wouldn't it?

Costumes aren't just for Halloween

2009-11-07T13:10:00.002Z

Perhaps it's because I'm not originally an American that I think that costumes and dressing up are not just for Halloween. Where I come from we don't place that emphasis on that party day: so getting all dressed up isn't something we associate solely with that day.

And of course this is the correct way to look at things: getting dressed up is fun, putting on a role is fun and, if you're going to the right sort of parties at least, going to parties is fun. Anytime, any excuse is a reason for a costume party. For, of course, one of the things that happens is that female inhibitions slightly go to the winds: if one is playing a role, why not? So there are always those in girls sexy costumes which adds interest and spice to any evening.

Again because of my national background, there's something always rather interesting about those wearing things like the Lock-Lace Bodice costumes you can see if you click through: it's very similar to the sort of thing usually worn by the "principal boy" (who is of course the leading lady) in Pantomime.

Oh, and if you're going to have more than just that one costume party a year, do read through the blog for other tips: the one about making sure the make up matches the costume is only one of the good ones they've got there.

Why would anyone say Allahu Akbar

2009-11-06T17:05:00.002Z

This is an interesting little post about the phrase Allahu Akbar. OK, so it's often used simply as an everday expression of joy, it's an integral part of prayers in Islamic countries.

It can also be a war cry: for Allahu Akbar (or Allahu Akhbar sometimes) literally means "God is Great". But it's aslo much more than that, for Allahu Akbar can mean:

Allahu Akbar can also be used as a fast and colloquial manner of converting to Islam. The simple repetition of the phrase three times, "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar" is taken by most Islamic jurists as being sufficient expression of the core Islamic beliefs that those who say it are now Muslim. Traditionally (and perhaps anecdotally) those who say this either in battle or afterwards when captured will be deemed to have converted, become part of the Ummah (the Islamic community) and thus no longer be considered as enemies.

Teanne Harris

2009-11-04T15:30:00.002Z

Yes, I agree, we should be praising Teanne Harris. The jilted bride with the heart of gold.

You can get more details at that link but the basics are simple enough. Teanne Harris was told by her fiance 6 days before the wedding that it was off. So she tried to get the deposit back on her Halloween themed wedding party: no go.

So, Teanne invited all the residents of the old folks home across the street to a Halloween party. On her wedding day that wasn't.

Bravo, Hurrah and a chorus of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" and so say all of us.

Damn right too, this blog's heroine of the day, Teanne Harris.

Absolutely nothing at all to do with this bloggers prediliction for redheads who enjoy their food, nothing at all.

Finishing off the house

2009-11-04T15:16:00.003Z

As regular readers will know we're in the process of finishing off this new (to us) house down here and are now engaged in the final process of finishing off. You know the sort of thing, making sure the gates are properly painted, has the plumber left his number in case there's something wrong, getting the mailbox put up. Once we've finished all of that we can put it back on the market, sell and then start all over again!

But of course that process, especially where we are, takes months to actually manage. So there's still some debate between my wife and I as to whether we should have something like that farm bell, or dinner bell, above or not.

Sadly for both our states of mind we're both in two minds about it: both on both sides of the question according to what we've thought of last. Think of it this way as the background.

On the plus side, we're in a rural area, so it isn't like we're going to be waking up the neighbourhood when we use it. We've a load of dogs and cats that would learn that the clanging meant dinner time so they would come in from the fields. Heck, my office is some way from the house and I could be trained to do the same. That's the positive side of having a farm bell.

On the negative side, well, the animals all come in for meal times anyway: often before them and remind us in fact. My office isn't that far away: I can usually tell not just when dinner is cooking but what is cooking for dinner just by smell. So do we actually need a dinner bell?

Hmm, put that way the choice is really pretty simple, isn't it? There's no really good positive reason to have one other than it would be nice and there's no negative reason not to have one other than, well, we don't really need it but it still would be nice.

So that'll be we get one then, yes?

There is still crucifixion you know

2009-11-04T15:11:00.003Z

You and I might have thought that it was all terribly out of date, consigned to the history books. But no, there is still modern day crucifixion. It is a little different, to be sure, but probably not something that we wish to bring back.

A man in Saudi Arabia was actually crucified today. At noon their time. His crime was to have raped a series of young boys and then leaving the youngest of them, aged only 3, to die in the desert.

For this his sentence was to be beheaded, his body then put up on a cross as a warning to other potential sexual criminals.

Yes, crucifixion still exists.

How to return a costume

2009-11-04T14:02:00.002Z

Given the date how to return a costume sounds like a useful piece of advice. Or perhaps more importantly, whether you can return a costume. For it's not always true that we'll only get the one costume for Halloween, so what do we, should we, can we, do with any excess ones that we've got?

Well, perhaps the first and most important thing about holiday costume returns (and this applies year round of course, not just this week) is that yes, it is possible to return some costumes. However, it isn't possible to return all so the full details on what you can and cannot do are there at that link.

Probably the most important and obvious point to be made is that you cannot return things that you've worn and thus mussde up. Definitely no returns of underpants that have been worn for example (yes, even if it was the Superman costume and they were outside your tights).

Actually, a good rule of thumb (although do check, as I say, at the link for the full details) is that you can return really, properly, unused costumes: things that are still in the original packaging. Everything else, well, it depends.

The GDP report

2009-10-29T14:24:00.002Z

OK, well, it's certain now that the US is coming strongly out of recession. Third quarter GDP rose over 3% on an annualised basis, meaning that the recession is obviously over.....for that is the technical definition of when it's over, that GDP is rising again.

There might still be concern about a W shaped recession, it might be that growth won't continue: and that's goiing to be the argument of those who want another stimulus. But for most economists this will be the sign that it's all over. Or rather, that it's not going to get any worse at least.

Getting your car parts

2009-10-29T14:21:00.003Z

OK, so we all know that when we go to the garage we're going to get ripped off. So many of us try to do at least the simple repairs at home. And of course there are those who actually know what they're doing and do all of their repairs and modifications at home.

But that means that we need somewhere to get our auto parts. And just like everything else these days getting them online makes sense. A much, much larger stock than any one store could possibly have plus the best prices around. Oh, and shipping is free on orders over $50.

Yes, you really should check out the Car Parts Warehouse, just clik through the link above.

That Michael Jackson autopsy photo

2009-10-29T14:17:00.002Z

There's a bit of confusion going on about whether there really is a Michael Jackson autopsy photo out there. The "out there" is the important part of that sentence.

For of course there are Michael Jackson autopsy photos: they're a standard part of any autopsy.

The question is whether someone has leaked one of them or not: and at least one reporter has said that someone has tried to interest him in it.

But then we also get to a confusion of the Michael Jackson autopsy photo: is it actually one of the official ones? Oe is it something that someone took with a cell phone when they shouldn't have?

At the moment we'll just have to wait and see.

Getting a loan

2009-10-28T14:04:00.002Z

OK, so we all know that at times we need to get a loan. And sometimes we really, really, need to get a loan. When what we've got to hand simply won't cover things until the next payday. Which is why we might want to get a payday loan, or another type of very fast extension of credit. So why not check out: Get a Payday Advance - Payday Advances at Money Now! USA ?

The huge advantage of this site is that they're a comparison engine for the various different possible lenders. So instead of having to go around many different sites, or visiting offices or calling around you can simply check out the offers from 122 different lenders all in one place.

Andre Agassi on crystal meth

2009-10-28T13:57:00.002Z

The Andre Agassi crystal meth story has broken. It's supposed to only come out in the US on friday, in People Magazine and Sports Illustrated. But extracts from his new biography ran in the London newspapers today. So of course there's no need to wait.

But the heart of the story is that Andre Agassi took crystal meth. You can read the whole story at that link.

Bay Bridge closure

2009-10-28T07:51:00.002Z

This doesn't look good at all. The Bay Bridge is closed today after a piece fell off it last night.

It's not just that the infrastructure is getting old: this particular fault was seen as routine repairs were being done on Labor Day and the engineers had tried to lash something together. It's this repair that failed and came down onto hte roadway.

There's no news as yet as to when the bridge might reopen: it's possible that it could be a long time as a replacement part is manufactured.

Congratulations!

2009-10-28T07:47:00.002Z

The M&A Advisor awards are nearly upon us: they're in 14th December in NYC.

For those who don't know this is one of those occassions when an industry acknowledges and honors their peers: in this case it's the mergers and acquisitions industry. The value is of course that it's the very people who know all about the sector who make the awards. So congratulations to Generational Equity who have 11 nominations: indeed, congratulations to all who have been nominated.

John Lynch

2009-10-26T11:30:00.002Z

John Lynch has just been acknowledged as the most pierced man in the world. He had an extra 20 or so piercings popped into his arms just to make sure of the title when he went for the count with the Guinness Book of World Records. He says of course that he never really thought about going for the record: but then says that he had the extras to make sure that he got the record.

But then do we really expect consistency from a retired bank manager with over 250 piercings?

Betting on football

2009-10-20T17:23:00.002+01:00

If you're interested in betting on football then there's a great site that you should find really helpful. It isn't just a bookmakers, although it does have links to them and a huge amount of information on who is offering what.

What it does offer is something called Livescore. That's the detailed information you're going to need if you're going to be betting on things like first and last scorer, how many corners in a half and all that sort of thing. Bit like a ticker tape from the stock market.

There's also a full and complete list of football fixtures, meaning that you'll never need to miss another match: nor the opportunity to bet on one. And yes, that list is international.

If football and betting on it are your thing then you really should be looking at this site.

More balloon boy story

2009-10-20T17:18:00.002+01:00

There's more on that balloon boy story.

It appears that there was a media outlet already in on the story. Some TV show, although the investigators aren't telling us which one. Plus, and this is something of a surprise, the parents have both taken lie detector tests. Quite why isn't sure, for they don't actually work.

Finally, an ex-assistant is claiming that the father had told him all about attempting to do a hoax.

Difficult keeping things quiet really, ain't it?

Where to get your hire car

2009-10-17T09:24:00.002+01:00

When off on a jolly, when travelling abroad to sunnier climes, of course we're all interested in getting a car to use while we're there.

However, doing a comparison shop isn't all that easy: you don't know which car hire firms are actually in which location and so you've got to trawl through all of the different sites. Until now that is: now there's a comparison engine which will do all of that for you. Take a look here at a sample location: Car Hire Spain.

They work out who is available at your location, they then interrogate them as to what is the best deal and then present it to you. An excellent idea and extremely easy to use. Well worth checking out.

Food snobbery

2009-10-17T09:21:00.002+01:00

Well, quite, this does indeed rile:

Not for these people the common supermarket aisle; they source their beef from the most romantic Herefordshire hillsides and pick daintily at the most saintly of organic carrots. In some parts of Britain, this cashmere-clad notion of nutrition as a lifestyle choice borders on the obsessive. But fresh food to suit all pockets, as supplied by supermarkets, is one of the triumphs of the modern world. It may not be perfect, it may not be pretty — but it is not evil.

Not only is this not evil it's one of the massive and fabulous achievements of the modern age. The idea that everyone would have access to cheap and nutritious food at any stage of the year or seasons would have astonished our own grandparents, let alone those from eariler times.

What is it about some people that they decry the very things that make our times the best of times?

Getting the house finished and furnished

2009-10-16T19:20:00.002+01:00

As regular readers will know we're in the process of getting this house (actually, it's morphed into two houses now) rebuilt, sorted out and restyled. Fortunately we're near the end of this process: workmen will be out in a week or two and then it's time to start dealing with how we furnish the place.

All of which of course has me looking online to see how we can best do that. For of course, an online store can have a hugely larger stock than chain of stores: rather than having stock that people want to look at, online the stock can be virtual. And of course you don't need to have that stock in every store. This then feeds back into much better prices for furniture bought online.

And that of course is what we find: great stocks and very good prices when we go looking for the necessary young adult furniture. And, yes, we find the same thing with the needed kids furniture and as they want bunk beds we can even find those too.

This is so much better than tramping through bricks and mortar stores. We have a better selection and better prices and I can have a beer while I'm looking (but shhhh! don't tell the wife that).

Matthias Schlitte

2009-10-16T11:29:00.002+01:00

Wow, this is pretty weird. There's a professional arm wrestler out there called Matthias Schlitte. OK, I didn't even know there was such a thing as professional arm wrestling. But what's really weird is that he's got a huge right arm and and entirely normal left one. It's almost the opposite of say, Ian Dury, who of course had a withered left arm as a result of polio.

You can see links to photos and a video of a professional fight here.

But it's just weird, weird man.

Arachnophobia

2009-10-15T07:57:00.002+01:00

Now this is getting it bad. One man is such an arachnophobe, so scared by spiders, that Halloween could actually kill him.

John Stafford is so scared of spiders that even seeing a shop display of fake ones can cause him to pass out. Doctors have said that his heart is so bruised from this over the years that something as simple as Halloween could kill him.

Jon Stafford is the arachnophobe's arachnophobe: simple seeing some spiders in a window display once made him pass out. He's tried various pills and hypnotherapy but nothing seems to help. In fact, he's been shocked and passed out so often over the years that his heart is now bruised. His doctor tells him that being shocked agin, such as by fake spiders put up for Halloween, could kill him.

Help with weight loss

2009-10-12T18:11:00.002+01:00

OK, we all know how to diet: simply eat less. Yes, and if it was that easy we'd all be thin, wouldn't we? And as we all also know it isn't that easy which is why we're not all thin. What we all need while we're dieting is some help. You know, something that was tasty and nutritious, something we'd actually like to eat and which will do us good: without being high in calories.

Fortunately there is such a thing: diet bars. Have a click through that link to see how many of them there are too. And how many flavors.

That's actually a great site to get them from too: great prices, a full range stocked (far more than in any supermarket) and of course, being on the web, so convenient. Go have a look: dieting was never as easy as this.

Jackson's"This is it"

2009-10-12T18:07:00.002+01:00

Michael Jackson's "This is it" can now be heard as a free stream if you want to hear what his first (and most certainly, not the last) posthumous single sounds like.

All the reviews are indicating that it's much better than his more recent stuff: partly because it's an old song but also it seems because Jackson himself didn't produce it. As can happen, he wasn't perhaps the best judge of his own work and it would appear that having other people produce and arrange it has made it better than those albums he did mostly on his own.

Fleshed out this way "This Is It" has the spring and warmth of classic Jackson ballads like 1979’s "She’s Out Of My Life," or "Human Nature" from "Thriller." The melody has a sweet fluidity and Jackson’s vocal ripples with far more feeling than heard on his last few overwrought, and overthought, albums.

While Jackson’s last disc of new material, 2001’s "Invincible," suffered from both mechanical sounding vocals and cold production, "This Is It" leaves more rawness around the voice, to moving effect, and uses its strings as purposeful enhancements, rather than as drenching sweeteners.

Paying for telecoms

2009-10-09T19:50:00.002+01:00

One of the things this brand new world of digital information has brought us is this idea that we don't in fact have to buy our long distance phone calls from the guys who provide the copper wire to our house. But there's more to it than that: we don't have to buy our long distance phone calls from the guys who provide anyone else's phone either. Nowadays we can buy one of the Calling Cards and they change everything.

For, just like a long distance provider can buy, if we sign up to their plan, long distance minutes in bulk, then so can a provider of Prepaid Phone Cards . Once they've started to sell Phone Cards then they know that there will be a certain number of minutes that will be used. So, they can get a bulk discount. That bulk discount then gets passed on to us in lower per minute fees.

This might all sound a little complicated but it's really quite simple. Instead of us all having to pay the old, hugely high, per minute charges to talk to our families, say, in India, or China, or in my case, Europe, we're able to take advantage of these new services and keep in touch for much lower prices.

Hey, ain't capitalism great? More of what we want for a lower price?

About that Demi Moore bush pic

2009-10-06T08:09:00.003+01:00

I've never really been able to understand the interest that keeps being shown in that Demi Moore bush pic.

OK, yes, she's a beautiful young woman, in hte prime of life, not wearing many clothes, this is very often of interest. But that's not what gets people searching for it again and again. (You can see the pic here.)

It's that she hasn't shaved her crotch: but why is that of such excessive interest? The picture was taken back in the 1980s, a time when women, by and large, simply didn't shave or wax there.

What is interesting is how the social standard has changed since then:

That's the change in the social mores: but that interesting question is why? What on earth has happened to make adult women decide that they should look like pre-pubescents? Hair there is, like hair on the chest of a man, a secondary sexual characteristic indicating sexual maturity. Why or how could there have become a social standard that one should not show that one is indeed mature?

Michael David Barrett

2009-10-03T14:39:00.002+01:00

Michael David Barrett has been arrested by the FBI on charges arising from the Erin Andrews peephole video of a few months back.

According to them he did not simply film her once on a lucky chance, he was stalking her across the country and filmed her 8 times, in a number of different hotel trooms and at least two different cities.

Barrett was caught because he tried to sell the tapes to TMZ, the gossip site, and they informed the FBI. How about that eh, a gossip site with a conscience?

There's more on Michael Barrett:

Michael David Barrett was arrested Friday night as he arrived on a flight from Buffalo, N.Y., the FBI said. He faces federal charges of interstate stalking for taking the videos, trying to sell them to celebrity Web site TMZ and posting the videos online, the FBI said in a statement.

Erin Andrews peephole video

2009-10-03T14:14:00.002+01:00

You remember all that about the Erin Andrews peephole video? Yes, that's the one, where the ESPN lovely, Erin Andrews, was secretly videod in her hotel room?

Yes, videoed through the peephole while she was naked in her hotel room? It appears that the case might have been solved.

The FBI have arrested a man and will be charging him later today with having made that tape.

Here's more on the Erin Andrews peephole video: case closed.

A Chicago-area man arrested at O'Hare airport who is accused of taping surreptitious nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was due to appear in federal court late Saturday morning, authorities said. Michael David Barrett was arrested Friday night as he arrived on a flight from Buffalo, N.Y., the FBI said. He faces federal charges of interstate stalking for taking the videos, trying to sell them to celebrity Web site TMZ and posting the videos online, the FBI said in a statement.

Let's hope it's actually the right guy, eh?

Robert Halderman

2009-10-02T13:01:00.003+01:00

Uh Oh, looks like Robert Halderman has got himself into a whole heap of trouble over here.

It's in relation to that David Letterman extortion case: he's been fingered and lifted for attempting to blackmail $2 million out of Letterman.

Doesn't matter that his allegations were actually true: he's still under arrest for demanding money not to repeat them.

Robert Halderman has been taken into custody over the David Letterman extortion case.

Robert J Halderman, commonly known as Joe Halderman, has been taken into custody over the extraordinary scenes that attended the attempt to blackmail David Letterman.

Looking your best

2009-10-02T12:56:00.002+01:00

There are various ideas about how you should or could look your best. Diet and exercise of course, grooming probably, dressing well and so on. But technology has moved on from all of those simple things: there's so much more that medicine can do for us now.

For example, it's entirely possible to get fat in places where alomst no amount of exercise will get it off: and we'd have to be on a starvation diet to get rid of it that way.

That's why things like Liposuction are becoming so much more popular. Of course, it's not just to look good either: losing that weight can make you healthier as well.

Hey, technology marches on so why limit it just to the gadgets we buy? Why not use the advances in plastic and medical technology to better ourselves?

That David Letterman blackmail attempt

2009-10-02T11:50:00.002+01:00

Quite the most bizarre story of the day: someone tried to blackmail David Letterman out of $2 million over allegations that he had been bonking female staffers on the show. Really? Rich, famous man in showbiz bonks women? Wow! Alert the media!

That the story wasn't in fact worth two million bucks is shown by the fact that Letterman didn't in fact pay it, he went to the authorities, set up a sting and then announced the whole thing on his show.

You can see a full report on the David Letterman extortion at the link.

An amazing scene played out on the Late Show last night as David Letterman revealed that he had been the subject of a $2 million extortion attempt. The blackmail was over the possible revelation of his having had affairs with staffers on the show. As a result Robert J Halderman, a producer on the "48 hours" show has been taken into custody reports say, although police have not yet released his name officially.

Accessing speedy cash

2009-10-01T12:05:00.002+01:00

There are times when all of us feel the financial strain and that's what borrowing is all about. Being able to bring income forward from the future to now, so that we can keep going in order to make that income in the future. Such borrowing comes in many possible forms: from a loan from the bank, through a credit card balance to perhaps a payday loan.

The value of that last, a payday loan, is that it provides speedy cash, and there are times when we really do need cash in a hurry.

For example, I've had the need to pay a utility bill I wasn't expecting and I've needed to pay it fast. The mail wasn't being delivered right and so the one bill I did get was the final disconnection notice. Yes, they wanted cash and they wanted it by tomorrow: the bank account was empty (I wasn't budgeting for it) so what could I do? That's right, a payday loan was the solution: whatever I was paying to the loan company was going to be less than the reconnection fee (and damage to my credit report) and the electricity would stay on.

Payday loans aren't for everyone all of the time: but they're a very useful addition to the arsenal of options at our disposal.

That James Bond Test

2009-10-01T12:02:00.002+01:00

This is really rather amusing. Would you like to be a spy? Especially, would you like to be a spy for MI6? James Bond's fictional outfit (or rather, the real world version of James Bond's fictional outfit?)

If you would, try going over here to find out about the James Bond application test.

No, passing it won't get you in but failing it will probably mean that you shouldn't try to get it. What they're asking you to do is to read your fictional cover and then answer questions on it. Not too hard, but if you cannot do it then you ain't got what it takes to be a spy.

Finding auto insurance

2009-10-01T11:49:00.002+01:00

It's not just that there are laws in most places requiring us to have it: auto insurance is in fact more important than that. Even if we're driving some old clunker and we don't care what happens to our car there's still a need to get insured.

For there's always the (low) possibility that we'll hit someone else and thus be liable for their expenses. And it's not just their car either: what if they are injured and therefore we're responsible for their medical costs for however many years they need to be treated?

So getting the insurance is important: vital even. But there's no reason it should cost a fortune as well. Clearly, we want to get the best deal we can even on something so important. So have a look here for cheap car insurance quotes. Simply put in your zip code and then you'll be able to see what other information you need to provide and what the best deals are.

Yes, the insurance is something you want to have but there's no need to over pay for it, is there?

The Sun gets it very wrong

2009-09-29T15:33:00.002+01:00

The Sun has a piece today about shag bands and rainbow parties.

Umm, no lads, sorry, but you've got taken in here by some urban myths. That little kids might think that shag bands mean what you say they mean is one thing. But no, it isn't true that in playgrounds around the country kiddies are having full on sex as a result.

As for rainbow parties, they don't even pass the laugh test:

But by far the most important problem with this story is that it entirely misses the fact that oral sex is treated differently in the UK from the way it is in the US. This was very well explained by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair. In the US, as we all found out after Monica and Clinton, oral sex is regarded as something less than sex. In hte UK it is rather a very special treat that gets offered a long way into a relationship, not something that omes as a precursor to one.

No, this story is made up of less than whole cloth. It sounds like these stories of shag bands and rainbow parties are urban myths, continuations of that ever popular (it's been around at least since Thucydides was a lad) insistence that society is going to the dogs and that it's the children that are worst.

Customizing your ride

2009-09-29T08:38:00.002+01:00

OK, so you've got your bike, or that hog to cruise the streets. What next? Yes, that's right, you'll want to customize your ride.

However, this can be, as we all know, an expensive proposition. The local stores and bike shops are only going to havew a mere fraction of the possible parts for you and they're going to be expensive: they can't store all 30,000 different variations for Goldwings, Harleys and the rest without it costing them a fortune.

Happily, there is an alternative: Memphis Shades. They do have all 30,000 parts in stock and as they are distributing nationwide they can offer great prices: up to 60% off list price in some cases.

So if you're looking to customize your ride why not do what we're all realizing we should be doing with other shopping? That's right, shop online.

That Derrion Albert video

2009-09-29T08:34:00.002+01:00

A screaming mob beats a boy to death in a Chicago suburb and as a result of the new technologies like camera phones we get to see the video.

It's not pretty and it«'s not fun to watch: however, the real scandal is that this is just one of some 30 such deaths a year that happen in that city. And we never hear about the others simply because no one films them. Out of sight, out of mind as it were.

You can see the Derrion Albert video here.

Derrion Albert was beaten to death with split railroad ties on his way to the bus stop while going home from school in Chicago last week. A tragedy and a crime when such a 16 year old gets caught up in mob violence.

However, what is leading to this story making the front pages is that there is a video of Derrion Albert being beaten to death. Taken with a cell phone camera it is this video that makes Derrionn Albert's death different from the 30 or so that happen in Chicago the same way each year.

Finding the right drivers

2009-09-22T14:37:00.002+01:00

One of the incredibly annoying things about the latest versions of Windows has been that a huge number of devices don't seem to have the right drivers for them.

Or should that be that Windows doesn't have the right drivers for the devices?

Fortunately, there's a way around this problem. There's a great site which has just about every driver you'd ever want or need.

Have a look here: USB drivers, Acer drivers and yes, of course, NVIDIA drivers (for of course we all know that it's the graphics chips that really cause the problems.

There are over 1 million drivers in their database so if you can't find what you need there then possibly you never will.

Well recommended.

Hijacked Amazon threads

2009-09-22T14:23:00.002+01:00

This is really rather funny. We know that one of the great Amazon innovations was to allow customers to review the goods that were on sale. OK, that's great, customer reivews.

However, what's less well known is that some of those review threads take a rather different turn. For example, people rather than reviewing, make fun of, or satirise, the product or even the person doing the selling.

There's a great collection of these Amazon reviews up on the net now. Yes, all the favourites are there, the near insane Christian book, the Peter Andre record with Katie Price and of, course, the ultimate, Tuscan Milk.

Enjoy.

Furnishing the house

2009-09-21T11:26:00.002+01:00

As regular readers will know we're redoing a house down here and we've been looking around, as you do, for the things which go with that. We're now at the point where we're starting to furnish it all and this has led to some discussion.

I'm a huge fan of second hand furniture: specifically antique. Prices have fallen so far in the last couple of years that at auction you can get some amazing bargains. However, I'm with Ian Dury on these things: just as he said he always bought new boots and panties and the rest second hand, I insist that beds and mattresses should be new.

Which has led me to this site selling beds. While I love Victorian Chesterfieleds, my bed and mattress is going to be brand new. There's all the usual advantages to buying on line here, better prices, larger selection and so on. But it's a really huge selection here. It might need some more narrowing down (more specifically, the input of the wife who will share the bed with me) but this French Rattan design looks great to me.

Sturdy, well made, well priced and so on: and it also fits in with much of the decor and patterns that we've already decided upon for the house.

Recommend the site if you're out there looking for beds.

Ernie Anastos and that YouTube moment

2009-09-21T11:23:00.003+01:00

This has to be one of the funnier bloopers of recent times.

Ernie Anastos is the anchor for a New York TV station, part of the Fox Network. He's got something of a reputation as someone who shoots his mouth off inappropriately already. But this one from Ernie Anastos is simply special.

We think he meant to say "keep on plucking that chicken" but it came out as "keep on f***ing that chicken".

Thr problem is though, even in context, the plucking thing doesn't make sense either.

Problems with .pdf files?

2009-09-17T15:58:00.003+01:00

If you're having problems with .pdf files then this looks like a reasonable program that you might want to try. Of course, we all know how to read .pdf files, but manipulating them without paying Adobe lots of money isn't that easy.

What it'll do is allow you to convert pdf to word for example, edit pdf and even work as a pdf creator. It seems to do most of what the hugely more expensive software does.

So, just to reiterate, if you're working with .pdf files and finding that you cannot manipulate them in hte manner you would like to, have a look at that program and see whether it can help. It's a vastly less expensive option than getting the full Adobe kit.

Dan Brown's new book

2009-09-17T15:55:00.002+01:00

Dan Brown's new book, "The Lost Symbol" is now out and in the bookshops and good grief, it's a load of tripe.

It's the ever typical clunky language, monstrous absurdities with plot lines and gross stupitidies with writing style.

But the really sad thing is that it's going to sell millions upon milions of copies and make him even richer.

Can you tell that writers don't like it when another writer does well? You know, the sour grapes thing?

If only the world's most successful novel writer was actually a writer of good novels: or even a good writer.

More on the housing stuff

2009-09-05T18:16:00.002+01:00

As you will all know we're still working on this house down here. Working on the outside of it now in fact. We've been looking around for a place that will give us proper shutters and I've just found one, thought I'd pass it on. If you looking for vinyl shutters then click through that link for a good place to go.

Looking for High School Musical?

2009-09-02T11:57:00.002+01:00

Interested in the Disney TV show High School Musical? Interestd in not so much the TV show itself and the movie, but the songs?

Excellent, I've been able to find a decent little guide to the High School Musical songs.

There's a brief overview of the ploy of all three episodes so far recorded (in so far as there is in fact a plot) plus a listing of all of the songs on the High School Musical Soundtracks.

If that's the sort of thing you're interested in then that's the place to go. Just click through the link to see more.

Weird names for ships

2009-09-01T19:07:00.002+01:00

One of the weird names for a ship has to be the Black Pearl. Think of the history of it for a moment. First it's an East Indiaman converted for the slave trade (eh? There was vastly more profit in the Indies), then it's sunk, after its been burned, then there's a deal with Davy Jones to raise it again.

At which point it goes off apirating in the West Indies. Eh?

The pirates were pretty much cleared out of the West Indies by the 1690s....the East Indiamen didn't get going until the 1730s or so and so, umm, well, anyway, where on earth did the name of the Black Pearl come from?

Someone been having a seance with Old Walt or something?

Getting peace of mind with home security

2009-09-01T18:31:00.002+01:00

In these modern and complex times we all need to make sure that we can feel safe at home. Safe both while we're there and know that the home is safe when we'r7e not there. Thats why so many of us install a home security system.

But having decided to do that, which of the various providers of a security system should we use?
There are, after all, a number of different ones so how can we go about making a choice?

Well, let's think through what you might actually want in a system. Obviously, a good price to start with. How about one that starts at a $ a day, less than the price of a cup of coffee? One that's been named a "best buy" by Consumers Digest, that would be nice. 24/7 customer monitoring and been in business since 1874....well, that leaves us with only one choice, ADT.

Click through any of the links to see what they can do for you: and you can get a free consultation too!

Leah Lust and Tiffany Shepherd

2009-09-01T11:26:00.002+01:00

Leah Lust, the star of one of the movies in the "My First Sex Teacher" series, labours under something of a problem.

For she was indeed a teacher, and would rather be teaching than what she's doing now. Before, she was Tiffany Shepherd, a teacher in Florida. When money got tight she took a part time job as a bikini clad hostess on a fishing charter. Just a hostess, no hanky panky or anything.

But she got fired from that as the school board were horrified that a teacher might be a "bad role model".

Pretty strange, eh? Getting fired for something innocuous and ending up in porn as a result.

Getting online algebra help

2009-08-26T17:58:00.002+01:00

So what do you do if you are looking for Algebra 2 help? No use really running to Mom and Pop for they've changed the whole of math since they were at school (no, really, they have). What would really be useful is if there was some place that offered free online algebra help. And, fortunately, there is.

Algebra help is available simply by clicking through any one of the links in this post. But don't worry, it's not like you're going to have an algebra tutor standing over you, hitting you with a rule every time you forgetwhat x or y are, or how to solve a quadratic equation.

No, the algebra tutoring takes place online, with an online algebra tutor, so that there's no worries about working at your own pace, wanting to go over stuff again or repeat any section. And no, your tutor does not become bored or frustrated with you.

Really, try it out, you can work at your own speed and take your time over it: or you can race through it just as fast as you understand it. Entirely up to you.