Disparate Ramblings & Observations

I know this entry is slightly late; I’ve been writing it for over an hour and have yet to get past the first section which is currently 940 words long, so I’ve decided to cover everything else here and will make a separate entry to cover my escapades on Thursday, which will include a picture or three.

So, what else has made its way into my hula-hoop* this week?

Sadly, we lost Eric Sykes on Wednesday. His career spanned six decades and he was part of my childhood, seemingly always on TV somewhere and always funny. His prowess as a straight actor should not be overlooked either; having had guest slots in various prime time dramas such as Holby City and The Bill, appearing in a Harry Potter movie and voicing The Tellytubbies. It is fair to say that he was the kind of entertainer one would have to search far and wide to find in the modern era. …

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Like I’ve said before, I just can’t get into international football. I have seen some highlights on the web and note that those idiots with the drums and trumpets are still being let into games – isn’t it about time someone took their toys away and sent them for recycling? …

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Has anyone been watching the Euro 2012 competition? Nope, me neither. Yes, I am a football fan, but somehow the national side has never really “done it” for me. I espied an interesting spectacle earlier on when I was starting to put this entry together – namely a group of people in a neighbouring block had decided to watch the England game outside. TV bench, TV, chairs, nibbles and what seemed like enough beer to drown a battle cruiser were assembled. …

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I had a message via MSN this evening as I was starting to try and put this entry together, basically giving me a bollocking (that is a stern ticking off, for anyone not from these shores) centering around the lack of recent entries. This was further reinforced in a phone call shortly afterwards where I was at pains to point out that there is a great difficulty in publishing something that has not yet been written.

While my ear was being well and truly bent, I had an e-mail with an MP3 file attached. Nothing new there, but this had two words in the file-name that made me sit up: “Ray Moore”.

Anyone under 30 will be asking themselves “who the fu…?” Well, let me tell you… …

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One event has hogged the headlines for the past week and a bit – HMQ’s Diamond Jubilee, which has culminated in a 4-day weekend of celebration both here in the UK and throughout the Commonwealth.

Much has been made of the Royalist v. Republican debate – the former arguing for the status quo and the latter for the abolition of the Monarchy. As far as I’m concerned – I’m sort of stuck in the middle. The Queen and the royal family are great for tourism, as ambassadors for the UK abroad and can, on the evidence of this weekend, seemingly unite the UK in a way that other institutions can’t – not the church, the government or any “celebrity”. …

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As I was writing the entry for last week, the death of Robin Gibb was announced. The first I knew of it was via Twitter, but a quick check with the BBC News site was all the confirmation necessary. It had looked like he might be getting better, but sadly it was not to be. …

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To catch up on a couple of items from last weekend – Mr. QPR phoned me on Monday and had no recollection of our conversation on the Sunday – just as I suspected he wouldn’t. Everything on the football front is done now; West Ham got the other promotion spot by beating Blackpool on Saturday, so we’ll be playing them in the Premier League next season.

It is also good to note that all of the Williams’ mechanics are back home now after that garage fire on Sunday which apparently started when a KERS unit gave off a spark and ignited some fuel.

I’ve already documented my experiences when trying to buy something as simple as a blue-tooth earpiece and as I write I am still without. I will get one in the coming days, but to be honest I’m still seething about the abysmal customer “service” I was on the end of. …

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Thwarted at every turn. Or: Why is it so hard to spend money?

I happened to be in town and remembered that I wanted to buy a bluetooth ear-piece. My previous one died a death last year and I’ve not got around to replacing it yet. I’ve been using a wired set of earphone things with an in-line mic which came with the phone, but I keep getting tangled up when the camera is round my neck and once or twice I’ve nearly had my ears ripped – and that bloody hurts!

I went firstly to the Carphone Warehouse. Now, you’d think with the word “Warehouse” in the title there would be a fair old choice, right? Wrong. They had two different models. The bit that goes into your ear on the first one was like a football – I’ve got relatively small lugholes and matching canal, there is no way that would have fitted. The other model looked and felt very cheaply manufactured, so that got eliminated and I decided to try elsewhere. …

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It’s been an odd week.

I was reminded on Friday that we’d had a bank-holiday at the beginning of it, but in the 4 days between, I’d managed to forget all about it. Moreover, I’ve had to look back through my notes to see exactly what I have been doing this week, because the mind seems to have gone on holiday and forgotten to take me with it.

I went up to the Honorary Artillery Company’s open evening at their base in the City of London on Tuesday. I knew where it was as I’d managed a site not far from there for a few years, but, being a working military base, it is not generally open to the public so the nearest I’d managed to get was sticking my nose through the gate on my way past. …

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What a week!

The newly constructed PC and I are getting along reasonably well, I’ve had to question it’s parentage on a few occasions and at one stage it must have thought it’s name began with “C”, four letters and sounds like “punt”. To be fair, I should say that the invective was aimed solely at the OS, not the machine itself. So far, crashes = 0, swear words = ran out of paper….. and swear words…

Well, we’ve had the election for Mayor and Bungle got in again. I don’t think he did a particularly bad job last time around, but I also don’t think he is as “in-touch” with London as Ken is. I watched Ken’s speech back on Saturday morning and have to say I felt a bit sorry for him.  …

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