20 March 2011 (Sunday) - Not Much, Really...

With the pond clearing (albeit very slowly) and spring coming (albeit very slowly), it won’t be long before the Koi are hungry. So I set off to get some food for them. In the past I’ve always gone to Swallow Aquatics in Tenterden for fish, and to World of Water in Rolvenden for everything else. I’ve now added a third Koi shop to my list. I get Koi food from Green World Garden Centre. It’s a little further (twice the distance) than World of Water, but I can get 10kg of Koi food from Green World for fourteen quid. A comparable amount of fish food from the other two shops is over eighty quid. And that is allowing for the store’s already having knocked thirty quid off the original price of the expensive stuff.

I found the place easily enough and had a minor episode when attempting to pay for the fish food. But once the nice lady put my credit card into the machine the right way up, all was well. I got chatting with the nice man about replacing my pond filter box: he advised I got a pressure filter which is effectively self cleaning. I would bury it by the pond and wouldn’t have to lug the thing up the garden any more when I needed to clean it. The trouble is that he wanted over four hundred quid for one. I told him I’d think about it.

I started to make my way home the scenic route cross-country via the country lanes with the vague plan to call in at Grafty Green garden centre, and I amazed myself by actually finding the place. They were selling a macaw at less than half the price that Bybrook Barn were selling one at. On the other hand their garden statuary was triple the price of Whelan’s. It pays to shop around.

They also had some reptiles – a few weeks ago me and “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” did a grand tour of Kent looking at reptile shops. I never thought to have a look in Grafty for them. But they didn’t have much.

Whilst in the area I popped up to Lenham Court – the arky-ologee club were excavating the garden and I thought I’d show my face since I was passing. I was offered the opportunity to dig, but (quite frankly) doing “digging arky-ologee” has no interest for me at all. It gives me backache, and I honestly can’t tell the difference between valuable artefact and broken bits of manky boulders. I’d far rather sit back and let someone who knows what they are talking about tell me what they found on their digs.

I had a look in their holes, feigned suitable interest and left them to it.  With ‘er indoors ^TM constructively employed scrubbling about in the dirt for the afternoon, I came home and dozed in front of DVDs for the afternoon. A tough life, but someone’s got to do it…

19 March 2011 (Saturday) - Parents and Tree-Huggers

Finding myself absolutely stumped for what to get my dad for his birthday (last January), I suggested that when the weather improved I took him and mum out for a pub lunch somewhere. I’d arranged to do that meal today, and as luck would have it, the weather was perfect. I had several pubs in mind in the Hastings area, but then on reflection all of the pubs I know in that part of the world are in the town, none are readily accessible by car, and I don’t really know what the food is like in any of them. So I took a chance and booked a table at the closest country pub to my mum’s house.

We picked up mum and dad as planned, and soon we were at the Three Oaks Hotel. We’d arranged for the fruits of my loin to be waiting for us there (with their chauffer) since that would make a nice surprise for dad. And it did.

I can remember the last time I went to the Three Oaks Hotel: it was before “My Boy ^TM ” was born. The place has changed somewhat over the years: changed for the better. There was an excellent ale selection, the food was wonderful (very good, loads of it and reasonably priced!) and the landlord was really friendly and attentive. I was rather greedy and had three courses: the tomato soup was tasty, the Cajun chicken was probably the best I’ve ever had, and despite feeling oh-so-full, I forced down the banoffee roulade. It was too good not to!

We got chatting with the landlord – the train service to Three Oaks is now much better than what it once was, so a walk around this part of the world featuring a return to this pub is definitely going to be planned over the summer.

We said our goodbyes to mum & dad, and then drove home, breaking our journey in Icklesham to have a look-see in the Queen’s Head. Seeing how the train service along the Brede Valley is now improved, this is another pub that may well be on a forthcoming walk.

And so home, and with an hour or so to spare I co-opted the Rear Admiral’s assistance to help me muck out the fish pond filter. In previous muck-outs I’ve actually cleaned all the innards of the filter. Today I merely upended the filter’s contents into a dustbin and replaced them with all new gubbins. I’d planned to go shopping for all new filter gubbins tomorrow, but having found all that I needed was already in the shed, I made the most of the good weather this afternoon. I’m hoping that this new gubbins will make a noticeable difference to the clarity of the pond within a few days. If there’s no change by mid-week, I’ll again clean out the filter and then consider flocculation (!)

We all sat down and watched a bit of telly, and then we had what promised to be one of life’s tedious ordeals. With a really clear sky and a very bright moon I had planned to go telescoping. But I’d forgotten I’d promised to go to the Friends of Kings Wood’s quiz. I suppose that as a paid-up Friend of King’s Wood myself I really should support these events. But I think I summed up the mood of the majority of our team when I suggested our team be named “Not Tree Huggers”. I was frowned at, and so the team name was dutifully changed to more accurately reflect the team: “Not Tree Huggers featuring Tina”.

But I was wrong - the quiz turned out to be quite fun, at one point we were running in a respectable third place. It was a shame that the final round (leaf recognition) played to the strengths of the tree-hugging fraternity and comprehensively put us in last place. But we did get a decent haul from the raffle.

The Friends of King’s Wood aren’t a bad bunch really: we’ve been asked to sit on their committee as they are short of members. It’s probably a tad early for us to get quite that involved with them just yet. At the moment I like just being a rank-and-file member. I tend to get too involved with committees and the organisation of clubs. But then, that’s the kind of guy I am…

18 March 2011 (Friday) - A Bit Dull...

Insomnia is something I’ve whinged about from time to time. Because I get it from time to time. Take today for example. I was wide awake at 2.30am, and lay awake until finally getting up at 6am. At 7am I was fast asleep in front of the telly and was woken to go to work, where I fell asleep in the rest room.

Work was dull. I skived out of a meeting, and read an email from my professional body. It too was rather dull, but it mentioned The Hidden Science Map: a map to tempt all scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians out of hiding to reveal how much science is out there in the UK.

I’ve signed up to the thing, but I don’t really know why, other than I do that sort of thing.

Talking of signing up for things, I’ve also signed up to Valued Opinions. A colleague recommended it, saying that he lies in the surveys he does for them and he gets free Amazon vouchers. I’ve asked for Tesco vouchers, and I’ll see what they ask before I decide to blatantly blag it. After all, if they are going to pay me, I’ll at least give them my honest opinion: it’s never been something I’ve tried to hide…

The original plan for the day had me chauffeuring girls here, there and thither, but such plans rarely reach fruition. I came home to find girls being coloured in, so I fell asleep again for an hour or so before delivering tattooed girl to Folkestone. A quick cuppa, home again and it was 9pm. Where had the day gone? A quick bit of tea, and then I sorted out the anti-virus on my new laptop. The thing came with one month’s free anti-virus, then it wanted me to pay for it. Stuff that. I uninstalled and replaced it with a free anti-virus.

All things considered, today was a tad dull…

17 March 2011 (Thursday) - St Patrick's Day

Today is St Patrick’s day. As the sales of Guinness soar, spare a thought for the triumph of successful marketing. Have you ever actually tried Guinness? It’s not bad. However it’s not that good either when compared to similar beers that are available.

Readily available in most supermarkets are stout and porter from the Mean Time brewery: if you’ve never tried them, give them a go. Sainsbury’s also sell Marston’s Oyster Stout and London Porter. And everywhere sells Hobgoblin these days. All of which are far superior to Guinness.

Getting a tad more specialised, most off licences and the shops of local vineyards will have a good selection of dark ales.  Gadds brewery make “Dogbolter” – black and as thick as treacle. The Whitstable brewery make a very good stout. For my loyal readers in Sussex the Dark Star brewery make an excellent Imperial Stout, Harvey’s Old Ale is a storming drop, and if you are ever in Hastings Old Town, find a pub called the FILO and have a pint of “Cardinal” – traditional Sussex porter.

Good dark beers aren’t restricted to Kent and Sussex – more and more pubs these days have Ansell’s Mild at the bar. If you see it – give it a go. Or any other mild or brown ale. Or even (to keep my father-in-law sweet) a tin of Mackeson is better than a pint of Guinness.

So many beers readily available, but the one which in my honest opinion (and so many other people’s opinions too) is at the bottom of the list actually outsells all the rest.

Successful marketing, or apathetic purchasing? When you’re buying a round at the bar, what do your mates ask for? How many (like me) actually take the trouble to see what the beer selection is? So many just ask for “a pint”, don’t care what they are given in the first instance, and then stick to lager for the rest of their lives because they’ve once had a pint they didn’t like. It’s akin to never eating crisps again because you don’t like salt and vinegar flavour.

Perhaps I’d better re-join the Campaign for Real Ale….

Meanwhile, here’s a sobering thought. Just imagine that the ongoing problems with the Fukushima nuclear power stations to be happening at the nearest nuclear power station to me (at Dungeness). Should that ever happen, then on the Japanese government’s advice I would not be setting foot outside my house. For safety reasons I would have to stay indoors.

And were it the American government giving the orders and applying their regulations in such a hypothetical catastrophe at Dungeness, then I would have already been forcibly evacuated from my house. This has got me thinking.

My first idea was that should this ever happen, then I’d just go and doss down on my mother’s sofa, but on reflection that idea would be a non-starter – my mother would also have been evacuated. And so would everyone within fifty miles of Dungeness, which is pretty much the entire counties of Kent and East Sussex. So much for my plans to turn up (with a hopeful expression on my face) in Peacehaven or Brighton. Should Dungeness power station have gone west, then my friends in Peacehaven and Brighton would also be looking for lodgings. Along with (just over) two and a quarter million other people.

However I have a fall back position. Beckenham would seem to be about twelve kilometres outside the exclusion zone. So I should like to take this opportunity to be the first to claim dibs on Terry & Irene’s garage should the worst happen.

I’m not being (excessively) flippant or facetious here. As a teenager the world was a scary place. The threat of nuclear war was ever present, and I was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I spent hours folding up leaflets to post through letterboxes to warm the public about the threat of radioactive attack.

And having done these calculations has brought back the memories of exactly how dangerous this uranium stuff is. If only there was a better way to generate the amount of power that we as a civilisation are using….

16 March 2011 (Wednesday) - Stuff

To Asda, for my salad for lunch. Somehow or other the self-service till only charged me half the price I should have paid for the salad. I wasn’t complaining.

I’m not sure that having a salad for lunch is actually helping in making me a healthier person or not. I’ve been having weekly weigh-ins since Xmas, and my weight has been all over the place, with no regard for what I’ve actually eaten. In this last week, with no pub trips or fry-ups, I’ve put on two pounds. What’s that all about?

Whilst on the way to work I got some petrol. I have noticed that I seem to be getting through the stuff at quite a rate these last few months. My car is due for a service soon. That might help fuel economy. Something else which might also help is tyre pressure. The Internet says the tyre pressures on my car should be thirty-two. (Thirty-two somethings, I’m not quite sure what). So whilst I was at the petrol station I thought I’d use the free air. Free air is now twenty pence a squirt (!), and I found that three of the tyres on my car were in the range of twenty-eight to thirty, so I gave them some air. However one of them was only at twelve wotsits. I’m sure that’s not good, so I’ve pumped it up, and shall see how it holds up.

Work was exciting for once – we had a “brown alert”: somewhat akin to “red alerts” (made famous by Captain Kirk), but with more of a need for replacement underwear. But such is life in a busy hospital. Hours of tedious boredom interspersed by moments of sheer panic.

And then I came home to check the pond. I’d turned on the pond filter at the weekend, and whilst the pond is clearing, it’s got a long way to go. So far it has only reached “murky”. I need to clean out the filter in the next day or so. Perhaps not so much clean out as throw out the filter mediums and replace them with the new ones I’ve got ready in the shed.

I then fiddled about on-line. It’s two days since our phone line switched from BT to Orange, and the promised increased speed hasn’t materialised. Despite the line’s being rated at up to a squillion quadrillobytes, under the old BT regime, it never seemed to get much above a speed of about 2.3 Mb. And now under the new lot it seems to be much the same. Oh well, at least it’s not worse. I just hope that their promises of it being cheaper turn out to be more reliable…

15 March 2011 (Tuesday) - A Rant. (Sorry!)

Whilst my heart goes out to the thousands of people whose lives have been devastated in Japan, I shall vent my spleen at their nuclear power industry. The Japanese nuclear power stations were built on the understanding that they would be working for many years in a part of the world which is no stranger to earthquakes. Now it would seem that they weren’t up to the job. And not only have these broken power stations sprayed radioactive contamination everywhere, they have given ammunition to the loony-lefty-ban-the-bomb-let’s-all-go-hug-a-tree brigade.

After all, as the entire world clamours for more and more electricity (whilst desperately attempting to reduce the environmental damage wreaked by centuries of reckless burning of fossil fuels) is there any practical alternative to nuclear power?  Clearly there is not. Therefore nuclear power needs to be made safe, which demonstrably it is not.

Somewhat closer to home are the “reforms” planned for the NHS. Having worked for the NHS since 1981 I’ve seen reforms come, and I’ve seen reforms go. And on serious reflection I don’t think any of them have actually enabled me to provide a better service to those who use my skills (either directly or indirectly). I’m quite sure that all the “reforms” I’ve seen are merely cost-cutting exercises which (when successful) have worked because they coincided with the changes in the technology which was available to me.

This latest batch of “reforms” is so obviously a silly political stunt. *If* the Con-servatives agree to electoral reform, then the dribbling democraps will agree to health care reform. Silly political posturing, whilst people lay in A&E departments with broken bones. The nation’s health care is too important to be entrusted to politicians.

And so to work, where today I did my mandatory e-learning on "Diversity in the Workplace".

Apparently it's illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of their race, gender, what they want to have sex with, or whether they want to dress up as a woman (especially if they are not one).

 Or is it.....? Apparently (under the same anti-discriminatory legislation) there are ways around this.

If you believe in magical pixies and invisible friends, then if the voices in your head tell you to treat women as scum, and to beat and imprison homosexuals, then it's fine to do so.

I would say that I find it odd that anti-discrimination legislation on the grounds of crackpot religions trumps sensible and reasonable anti-discrimination legislation. But doing so is discriminatory…

14 March 2011 (Monday) - Letters and Emails

I seem to have formed a habit of leaving my letters and emails and general household admin chores to pile up until I am on a late shift, and then dealing with all of it at once. Not having done a late shift for a week or so meant I had quite a stack of letters to go through this morning.

Brighton Kite Fliers had written to me to say that their AGM is coming up in a couple of week’s time. I won’t be going – the meeting is on Mother’s Day, and I would probably be dead as ice cubes were I to go off to a kiting meeting on that date.

Whilst I’m on the subject of kites, I’ve had a message from the Kent Kite Fliers about this year’s kite festivals at Teston. They say both are still going ahead, but “there is some pressure on the Country Parks to make a profit or at the very least break even in regard to any costs for any event held. ….KCC have told the rangers at Teston they must seek a charge from the campers at Teston kite events of at least £10 per pitch for the week-end….”. Personally I think that’s quite reasonable. (Provided other campers don’t go and hide in their tents when the rent man comes calling and expect me to stump up… again…)

The water bill for the next year has arrived. Or that is half the water bill has arrived. South East Water have told me how much they will take from me for the delivery of water. Someone else will be in touch about taking it away once I’m done with it.

The leccie people have changed the date on which they plan to take the direct debit each month. It’s interesting how they will charge me if I want to change the date I pay them, but they don’t offer me anything at all when they want to change that date. In a separate letter they apologised that they will be increasing their prices once the current price freeze ends. Dur!!! Isn’t that what happens at the end of a price freeze?

Mind you, my council tax bill would seem to be exactly the same for the coming year as it was for the previous one. Thank the lord for small mercies.

I received my petrol money from the laboratory inspection I did a couple of weeks ago. I must admit that having been doing these inspections for several years, they’ve certainly got more efficient with refunding my expenses.

There was some post for the scout group and for the astro club. I must take those letters to where they belong.

I saved the largest letter until last – our census return. To save farting about, I chose to fill the thing in on-line. Perhaps I’m just getting old and racist, but my piss boiled when I saw that it’s possible to complete the census in any one of fifty six languages, including twelve languages of which I had never heard. Who actually does speak Yoruba or Igbo? I honestly think that anyone who can’t complete the UK census in the language of the UK (English, just to be clear!) is a prime candidate for deportation. (Sorry!)

Anyway…. bearing in mind that it’s the government who is asking for the census data, they have asked some rather stupid questions. Obviously they know where we live –they’d sent the letter to that address. Obviously they know where we all work – they get our income tax from our employers. Obviously they know our marital states, our nationalities and what passports we hold from various government records. I concede that they wouldn’t know about any house guests I may have on a given date, but surely that is a rather trivial bit of information? Who on Earth cares about that?

And as for religious convictions; that question is optional and is a joke. The vast majority of people will claim to be “Christian” without actually understanding what it means to be a Christian. One or two say they are “Jedi” thinking they are being either clever or nonconformist. And now I hear that there is a move afoot to use this question to protest to the Government about fuel prices.

 In short the census was a waste of my time. I have heard on the radio that the whole concept of a national census has already been abandoned as the information is already available. Let’s hope this is true: the Government has wasted half an hour of my time on this one.

And then I had another waste of my time. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, one of the endowment policies to pay off my mortgage has matured. The company with whom I have that policy will not speak to me about that policy because the mortgage company has declared an interest in it. They will only deal with the mortgage company and suggested I got on to them. So I *again* phoned the mortgage company and spoke to Isobel. She was very helpful, but now claimed that the mortgage company have absolutely no record of the endowment policy. As I started crying she said she’d get on to their admin department and phone me back later. An hour later the admin department phoned me back, and on hearing that the mortgage dated back some twenty-plus years they announced they’d have to have a look in their store room, and would write to me within ten working days….