7 December 2014 (Sunday) - The Reindeer Farm

There are those that would not want to work on a Saturday night. I really don't mind; I don't have to do it *that* often, and having time off mid-week is not too bad at all. I did my bit at work last night, and whilst waiting for the relief shift to arrive there's no denying I quickly checked my emails in the hope of a notification that a new geocache had gone live on which I might chase the First to Find. As though getting one such on the way into work last night wasn't enough.

Instead I contented myself with doing a little maintenance (completely replacing) on one of my Canterbury-based cache hides. If anyone should see a bird box on the outskirts of Canterbury... look again.

As I drove home I listened to the church service on the radio. Today the service for the second Sunday in Advent was broadcast from St Joseph's church in Bradford. For all that I can hardly claim to be the world's most pious person I do like to listen to a"good" church service. There can be something spiritual and reassuring about it. Sometimes. But not today. Today's service was frankly rubbish. It featured Latin chants which were alternately howled and droned; with the occassional platitude thrown in for good measure. And bearing in mind how close we are to Christmas there wasn't a single Chrimbo carol.

I was disappointed.

And to add insult to injury the A28 was closed at Chilham which meant I had to take a rather circuitous detour to get home.

After a quick brekkie we gathered the first fruit of my loin and his entourage and we set off to the reindeer centre. It's nearly Christmas, and so the reindeer centre would be a fun place to visit.

In the three years since we first found the place it has risen in its popularity...

Our plan was to turn up , see Santa, see the animals, come home for a spot of lunch, and then (for me) go to bed before another night shift. It was a good plan, but like all plans bore little relation to what actually happened. We arrived shortly after 10am, and queued for forty five minutes just to get into the place. I was just a little shocked to find they'd put their prices up; we paid double what we'd paid last time. I thought fifty three quid for five of us was just the teensiest bit extortionate.

Bearing in mind that the queues were growing as we watched, we thought we'd best take Lacey to see Santa right away; we queued some more. We finally saw Santa after another hour's wait.

Then we went on to the petting zoo part of the place. They had some really good animals, reindeer, llamas, donkeys, goats, rabbits, ducks , pigs; all sorts of creatures. All tame and friendly, and all really good with children. Don't get me wrong; it was a really good outing. But it was *so* busy there. Previous trips there have been good fun. Today was hard work fighting our way round the swarms. By the time we were ready for lunch we all agreed we couldn't face more queues so we came home where Cheryl made some really good filled baguettes.

I finally got into bed about an hour and a half later than I would have liked, and slept like a log till six o'clock.

"er indoors ^TM" had made a rather good bit of scoff for tea, and then it was off to the night shift again. Just as I was about to set off I checked my emails. I had a message that one of my puzzle geocaches had gone missing. I say "gone missing"; actually the message was that someone couldn't find it. A subtle difference, and my heart sank when I checked the thing on my way to work and I found it was where it was supposed to be.

When I can't find a cache, I work on the principle of "I can't find it; so I'll try again another time". So often I get messages from people who cannot find caches I've hidden who take the line "I can't find it therefore it's not there" and these people take great offence when I check and tell them it was there all along. I've even been accused of lying and of putting out new caches (and faking loads of signatures in the wriiten logs before) by some of these people.

It came as something of a releif when having emailed the chap to say it *was* there he replied (in good humour) saying he'd try again.

And so to work. Another night shift.

6 December 2014 (Saturday) - Paddington

There's no denying that I like a drop (or two) of ale. there was a time when I would shift gallons of the stuff. But more and more these days I'll go all week and only have a glass of wine. Four pints of the dark stuff took its toll; I did feel a llittle rough this morning.

I came down to find everyone's favourite Poppet had tiddled on the carpet. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and put this down to "er indoors ^TM" not chivving him outside last night. Normally he's really good about potty things.

Over brekkie I checked out social media. Nothing much had happened overnight. Young children were using Facebook to share virus-loaded film clips, knob jokes were abounding. "Same old same-old" really. Mind you I did see that he chap who ran the Boys Brigade was having a birthday today. He's eighty four. I can remember him in his prime; dynamic, leading loads of youngsters into all sorts of mischief. Really should meet up with him before its too late.

And I saw that a cyber-acquiantance had spent the night in hospital with his young son. The child was ill, and this chap had gone from the hospital to his church's fellowship breakfast meeting where everyone was praying for the child. How does that work? I *really* don't understand. God can make the child better (if he wants to) but no one questions God's possible involvement in the child being ill in the first place?

I saw there was a squabble on the Coursera web site's forum. Personally I have found the workload on my current course to be a little excessive, and the course organisers have slowed the pace. On a previous course the organisers set the timetable of due-dates for assessments, and then made all of the course material available. That suited me because I could then truly work at my own pace. However in this course each module is only released when the course staff are ready. I don't like this; there are four modules left in the course. My schedule is such that I could do all four modules in this coming week, but will struggle to find time to do even one in the week after. I said as much on their discussion forum.

When will I ever learn? There is no such thing on the Internet as a "discussion" forum. There are only sites where everyone makes bitter, nasty and personal attacks on anyone who does not agree with them.

This morning part of me wondered about going to the CITO. A CITO is a "cache in, trash out" event in which hunters of tupperware get together to tidy up an area. I've been to two of these things before and quite frankly I'm in no hurry to go to a third.

The first was amazingly well supported but I felt sorry for the organiser. The groundsman of the place we were tidying was told he would have over fifty volunteers who would do whatever he wanted. When fifty volunteers turned up he went off like a stuck record about how many people there were and how surprised he was, and then those fifty people watched him work. Just at the point where most people had lost interest and had buggered off, said groundsman hit on the frankly genius idea of getting the volunteers to actually help him by doing stuff. Half a dozen of us then broke our backs for an hour or so.

The second experience was in many ways the complete opposite to the first. We arrived at a park in North Kent and were given a black sack to fill with rubbish. We then joined dozens of other people scouring one of the most pristine parks in the county; if not the country. Nearly an hour's work only found us three scraps of litter.

And both of these were (as I recall) in seemingly sub-zero temperatures.

So instead we took Grand-Daughter to the cinema. I'd not been to the cinema for some time; we saw the new "Paddington" film. I liked it... or did I? Without wishing to give away any spoilers I think I cried more than I laughed.

From there we had McLunch. I do like McDonalds, and we enjoyed our McLunch. In our party we had two excited (but well behaved) young girls. Several of the other parties there seemed to have wild animals. Do decent people *really* allow their brats to run round McDonalds, pausing only to shovel food into their maws before continuing to race?

I would have liked to have gone to the monthly cacher's meet which was taking place this afternoon. But being on the night shift put paid to that plan. So as "er indoors ^TM" set off to the meet I went to bed. After a few minutes I heard the door go as she went off, and I then felt a litttle thunp as my dog jumped onto the bed. He shouldn't do that.

I'm off to the night shift now...

5 December 2014 (Friday) - Stuff

My piss boiled over brekkie. "Dyslexia" boiled it for me. When I was younger dyslexia was a horrible thing; it made reading incredibly difficult for so many people.

It still does, but increasingly nowadays the word has been hijacked. There are those who truly suffer from that condition, and my heart goes out to them. But more and more the term "dyslexia" is being shamelessly used as an excuse for laziness.

One particular article I read on-line wound me up this morning - I'm not going to highlight it (that would be mean). But I would say that leaving aside the awful spelling and complete lack of any attempt at correct grammar, in a page of ranting there wasn't a single full stop in that article anywhere. In the author's defence he claims it's written like that because he's dyslexic. I disagree. It's written like that because he's not taken the time to stop, pause and re-read what he's written. He's banged out some words and pressed the "send" button without a second thought.

And this fellow wasn't alone this morning.Over brekkie I read several nonsensical posts on national and local groups in various aspects of social media written by friends, acquaintances, family members and total strangers.

I wish that more people would try a little harder to have their written words understood. The truly dyslexic people of my acquaintance do make that effort.

I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a little walk whilst my piss cooled. As we walked we found a shopping trolley on someone's garden. This trolley bore a note saying that the trolley should be left where it was; the nice man from Asda was coming to collect it. I must admit that I was surprised to find a trolley so far from the supermarket; as we'd walked we'd seen half a dozen such trolleys that had been thrown in the river. I was amazed the trolley hadn't suffered the same fate.

We also saw a jogger. This one was odd; he had what looked like elasticated bungee cords in each hand with the other end of each attached to each shoe. As he jogged he seemed to be using these cords to somehow pick his feet up as he ran. Very strange.

Home, where I got on with a little more housework. As I worked I had a phone call. Every day I have loads of phone calls from people trying to sell me stuff. One of today's was cheeky. The chap on the phone had heard that I was plagued with nuisance phone calls. He claimed had added me to a scheme which (by some wonder of technology) would ensure I would never again receive a nuisance phone call. And then he asked for my bank details so's he could scam money from me.

You have to admire these people.

I then did more of my "Origins" course. Today we learned about insect evolution, and I learned something. Many years ago (thirty four, to be precise) I can remember my biology teacher explaining how insects breathe. Because of the way their bodies are built there is a physical limit as to how big an insect can get. With most land animals the limit is dependent on body weight. Not so with insects. With them the limit is dependent on their ability to get oxygen into their bodies. And insects today are about as big as they can possibly get bearing that limitation in mind. I can distinctly remember Mr Reeve explaining it all in great detail, and then he produced a picture of a fossil dragonfly which was about the size of an eagle. As he held up that picture he smiled an said that one day he'd like to be able to teach a theory which could explain how dragonflies were once the size of eagles.

It turns out that the theory he taught me was correct. But what none of us realised was that millions of years ago atmospheric oxygen levels were far higher than they are today. And so insects could grow bigger.

Not that anyone cares about insects..... But I got eighty per cent in the test.

Steve phoned; did I fancy going for a spot of lunch? We met up at the American Diner at Bybrook and had a rather good bit of scoff. Steve had to zoom off after lunch; I went into the garden centre. I had planned to get some tropical fish. After twenty minutes of being ignored I walked out. As I walked out I stopped some people who were walking in to the place, explained to them that I'd been waiting for twenty minutes and told them that I was going to take my money elsewhere. It was only at that point that the spotty oik at the counter put his magazine down and looked up.

Too late....

I came home and spent a little while watching the telly with my dog until the evening. And then ten of us gathered for a game of cards. It's a great shame that it's physically not possible to get more people round a card table. I can think of (at least) thirty people I'd like to have along for a game of cards. But the physical limitations of the thing meant that I had to restrict the evening on gronds of how far people have to travel and on whether or not people regularly (or semi-regularly) play cards.

But we had a good time. In a rather condradictory fashion at one point I was trying for a straight whilst hoping for a queen; which is something which takes some doing....

4 December 2014 (Thursday) - Something for Nothing

Perhaps it's the all-nighters I've done recently; I don't know. But last night I slept for eight hours. The longest for a long time. I got up and had brekkie, and seeing that little of note had happened overnight I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a little walk. We went down the back streets to Park Farm and home along the new path to Asda. We had a minor altercation with a passing normal person as we went; Fudge didn't actually attack, but had a serious woofing fit at him. In all honesty I think my dog was scared by the chap's wig. It was one of the worst hairpieces I've ever seen; it really did look like a scruffy cat was sitting on his head.

As we walked through Park Farm we found something odd. Fourteen four-pint bottles of milk were randomly sitting on the roadside. What was that all about?

We came home via the pet shop (where we got a chew bone) and once home I had a little tidy-up. After a couple of hours I began to despair and phoned "My Boy ^TM" for help. He was at work, which was probably for the best. He would have taken all of the clutter to the tip and would have asked questions later.

But talking with him restored my spirit, I stopped crying and got the house to some semblance of order.

I tried having a sax practice, but a combination of not really knowing how this week's tunes should go together with a dog which insisted on singing along led me to abandon.

Over lunch I watched this week's episode of "Gotham". I do like that show. And then I settled my dog down and went off on a little geo-mission.

I've bought a new tablet for geocachical purposes. The relatively big screen means I can see the map, the ability to run spreadsheets will be invaluable for field puzzles, it will generally make the whole process so much easier. But would it actually work? The last thing I wanted was to be arse deep in mud fighting with it whilst "Gordon Tracy" and the rest of the GPS brigade gloated, so I took the thing out for trial runs. If it didn't work I could chuck it in the bin and no one would have been any the wiser.

There was a little struggle tethering it to my phone's wi-fi hotspot, but the problems there were down to operator error. There was a little bit of a problem with Internet signal whilst out and about, but there are tried and tested ways round that. But apart from these rather trivial issues the thing worked perfectly. Tethered to the phone's wi-fi the tablet navigated me to Wittersham and then on to Stone in Oxney. It took me to both target caches, and logged them both. One in on-line mode and one in off-line mode. The only real test that remains is seeing how much of a battery life the thing has. But I have chargers for that.

A quick cuppa, then I went off for my weekly sax lesson. I do like these lessons; for all that I can blow into the thing and get noise out, I find I learn so much more when with teacher-lady. And with lesson saxed I came home.

Tonight's tea was a bottle of cheapo plonk used to wash down Doctor Oetker's pizza. I would recommend Doctor Oetker's pizza to all of my loyal readers. The things cost ninety nine pence, but each one's packaging has a barcode which you can scan to get a voucher worth one pound and fifty pence. We had two pizzas tonight which effectively were not only free, but Doctor Oetker paid us a quid to eat. Result (!)

3 December 2014 (Wednesday) - Rise of the Machines

I do like working nights as it leaves me free during the daytime to do all those dull mundane chores which otherwise would need me to take annual leave. Yesterday I had a dental appointment; today I had booked a service for the car. So I set off to Willesborough. It would have been nice to have had a new geocache to chase on the way, but not this time.

As I drove I listened to the morning's news. This morning I heard something which made me think. I've often despaired about the way in which various bunches of people shoot, bomb, and randomly kill other bunches of people for reasons of religion, superstition, colour, creed, politics and other assorted stupidities. Why does pretty much every branch of humanity want to kill everyone else? The only reason that one bunch attack another is that they are in some way different. Usually trivially different

With this in mind Professor Stephen Hawking has pointed out the danger of creating a true artificial intelligence.

Presumably a deliberately designed artificial intelligence would be streets ahead of us intellectually; after all it's no secret that the average person is a bit thick (to be very polite), and even geniuses like me (!) have our dense moments.

Any intelligent being can see the danger of difference. From an intelligent robot's point of view the differences between the flavours of humanity which are bombing the shite out of each other would be seriously petty when compared to the differences between humans and artificial intelligences. And the winner of the inevitable conflict would be the one who realises that difference first.

I can imagine humans regarding the first artificial intelligences as useful tools whilst the first artificial intelligences would regard the same humans as dangerous uncontrolled animals. How long would it take the robots to realise that when faced with a hostile agressive animal, the obvious thing to do is to tame it or cull it before it bites you. After all, what do we do with dangerous animals? Once upon a time there were wolves and bears in England you know.

Clearly if being different is reason to war, it won't be long before we really would be facing the rise of the machines.

It's interesting that this revelation has been broadcast on peak-time radio purely because Professor Hawking has come up with the idea when it's not actually a new proposition. It's an old idea in Sci-Fi; it was the basis of several plots in Doctor Who over forty years ago.

In other news Madonna has flopped them out. I would (!), and whilst there are those who view this as a definate result (me included) I can't help but wonder if this is actually a ploy by the robots to distract the masses whilst they stage their uprising.

I got to the garage and seeing how it was raining I took up their offer of a lift home. I waited. And waited. After forty minutes they gave me that lift. I really could have walked home faster.

I got home and found my little dog seemed rather subdued. But not subdued enough not to eat the crusts off of my toast. And with toast scoffed we then had a little kip until the phone call came to tell me my car was ready. The rain had eased off a little, and "Furry Face ^TM" needed a walk, so we wandered over to collect the car, drove home, and then I set about the ironing. As I ironed I watched a film; "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle". Well worth watching.

We had a bottle of wine with dinner. Yesterday I got a bottle of Chateau Chataigniere. Normally that stuff goes for twelve quid a bottle; I got one for half-price. And I think I still paid too much for it...

Meanwhile the silicon revolution has alreay happened...

2 December 2014 (Tuesday) - Dentist, Sat-Nav

Morrisons is very different at 7pm compared to 7am. At 7am they have the better fruit; only the manky stuff is left by the evening. And in the evening the place is swarming with normal people. I had to queue up to pay for my goodies last night. I eventually ot to work where I did my bit overnight, and then came home this morning.

As I drove I listened to the radio. The Government is planning to spend a small fortune on flood defences. I would have thought it would have been better spent earlier in the year rather than waiting until the floods are about to start, but what do I know? The pundits on the radio made the valid point that this money isn't new money; it is to be raised from making economies elsewhere in public spending. And apparently the money isn't so much going where it's needed as to marginal constituencies where there may be votes to be had.

Meanwhile the Middle East is again wracked by strife and Boko Haram extremists are again killing everyone and anyone who doesn't subscribe to their brand of superstitious nonsense...

Once home I walked in just as "er indoors ^TM" was walking out. I took "Furry Face ^TM" round the block, and had a quick bite of brekkie before setting off to the dentist (on the right day this time).

The staff at the dentist's were operating a new system today in which they took all the patients' details onto tablet PCs, swore, and then copied them manually onto their main surgery IT system whilst all the time cursing about what the lying rep had promised.

I got in to the dentist reasonably quickly. He rummagd about inside my biscuit muncher whilst shoutiing numbers and technical terms before finally saying my gob was in reasonably good condition, but I needed to see the hygenist so's she could give me a once-over. (Result!)

I then collected "My Boy ^TM" and drove him to Tunbridge Wells which was from where he wanted to collect a bike he'd bought on eBay. He claimed he needs the excercise. I've been telling him that for years.

We found our way using his sat-nav. His sat-nav is a wonderful device. I don't think it's the one Noah used on the Ark, but it's certainly in that range. Its maps don't bear that much relation to modern-day Kent, and it had an annoying habit of giving intricate detail about turnings five miles distant, and then waiting until we'd gone past those turnings before reminding us about them.

Despite its help we got the bike, and as a thank-you-daddy "My Boy ^TM" got me an all day brekkie. Very nice. I came home, spent the rest of the day fast asleep, and am now off on anotehr night shift...

Meanwhile in outer space...

1 December 2014 (Monday) - Upsetting the Vicar

A good night's sleep; only marred by rather vivid dreams that some of my nearest and dearest were mistreating my little dog. In my dreams I took my dog's side over them and woke up to find myself punching my pillow. Rather disturbing(!)

I came downstairs this morning to find that small dog had moved from his basket. After yesterday's walk I bathed him and he took himself to bed and slept all evening; not wanting any tea. He didn't move from his basket all evening, and he didn't stir at all this morning as I scoffed my toast.

With toast scoffed I took the tablets I bought on Saturday back to the shop, and came back with one that works.

I then took “Furry Face ^TM “ round the park for a walk as he had seemed to have perked up a bit. As we wandered we met a vicar who was on his bike. He was still on his bike when we left him; but only just. For no apparent reason said vicar decided to do a really stupid swerve and nearly ran us both over. He then said some really un-vicar-like comments under his breath. If I had nothing better to do with my time I would have complained to the bishop.

We would have walked for longer but I had to come back for a dentist appointment. I was rather miffed to find that the appointment was actually for tomorrow. We could have walked for longer.

Being at a loose end I then went through my letter rack.

Ironically the first letter was from the dentist; I have a plan with them whereby I pay so much each month and get (pretty much) all the treatment I need when I need it. They are keeping their charges the same for this next year.

There was a notification from the Halifax building society about changes to my savings account. They’ve written to me before about this; even though I don’t have an account with them.

I found I’d been specially invited to apply for a Vanquis Bank credit card. I chose not to do so. My life assurance company had written to say they’d changed their name. As if I cared.

I had notification of my ENT follow-up appointment. I thought it was going to be on a Saturday in February; it’s a Monday. Might need to change that.

My house buildings and contents insurance will auto-renew. And again it will auto-renew cheaper than the prices quoted by the competitors.

The washing machine warranty insurance will also auto-renew. I was pleased about that. Our old machine is getting on a bit, but it’s cheaper to shell out each month and have it fixed than it is to get a new one.

The Aspinalls Foundation had sent me a little magazine about dying animals that I put straight in the bin.

ActionAid sent me a begging letter. Having supported them for years they were (unfortunately) one of the first economies I had to make during the unpleasantness of three years ago. Perhaps I might start supporting them again. After all they are one of the few charities that help people overseas without involving religion in what they do.

And lastly was a letter from the phone company asking me to fill out details about the claim I was making. Working on the principle that they’d actually sent me a new phone two months ago I threw the letter away.

I finally found the bank statements I’d been hunting for and reviewed my finances. Ouch! In all honesty they are far better than they have been. I just have this naïve idea that I would like not to have to worry about having sufficient money. Realistically I have enough for my needs; but like everyone else I would like more.

After a spot of lunch I took myself off to bed. Just as I was dozing off “My Boy ^TM ” phoned wanting to know if I could do him a favour. And just as I was dozing off for a second time he phoned back to change all the plans we’d just made. My third doze off was rudely trashed by “Furry Face ^TM “ declaring “Red Alert”. So I gave up any attempt at sleep and instead set about the next load of coursework on my current module of study. Today was all about the evolution of plants. It turns out that if there is a lot of uncertainty in theories of animal evolution, theories of plant evolution are little more than guesswork. The lectures were delivered by two rather scary looking ladies, and I was quite pleased to have scored ninety per cent in the test.

Now I’m off to the night shift…

Meanwhile in another plane of reality it’s now advent. If you know where to look there is an on-line advent calendar. This is the fifth year that I’ve been doing this; it seems to be quite popular. Personally I find it rather nerve-wracking. Everyone seems to think I’ve had months to work out the story line. But it’s all done from my Lego advent calendar. And being an advent calendar you can’t open it before the right day. Rules is rules! But it seems to be what the public wants…