spoonofmilk

Hateful things #1

2008-12-12T09:29:00.001Z

First in a new series of posts for this blog... Hateful Things will be a way of me continuing to post general disgruntlements without having to spend ages thinking about a massive post. So... without further ado...

Hateful Thing #1 - Coffee granules in the sugar

Teabag - check, sugar - check.... hang on a minute, what are these flecks of what look like dried faeces in my sugar?! ARGH!!!

You know the feeling... you go to spoon up a nice dollop of sugar for your morning cup of tea and find SOMEONE has gone and put a coffee-ingrained spoon into your sugar, leaving granules of the pollution all over the place. HATEFUL.

Caravans... why?!

2008-08-27T15:21:00.003+01:00

Caravans have always bemused me. I have never been able to fathom why somebody would want to spend a relatively considerable amount of money on a tiny, cramped, smelly house they can tow around behind them.

Campervans are not much better, though slightly more understandable, depending on the context of their use. I know a few surfers who use them... but that is purely so they can spend more time surfing. Theirs is a surfing lifestyle, not a caravaners lifestyle.

Most people would think I am a typical driver who hates following the meandering lines of caravans through Devon's roads... and I am, but I am not really complaining about the never-ending procession of sluggish neo-troglodytes wending their way through the beautiful countryside... or at least it was beautiful, until some smoking monstrosity towing a white lump of garbage turns up to smog up the place. What I am complaining about is the lifestyle caravaners have chosen fro themselves.

See, what they will do is drive across the country to a field that is filled with more smelly white boxes and park up. Then they will proceed to set up, hooking up their water, if there is such a thing where they have chosen, putting out an awning perhaps, some uncomfortable folding chairs and then cook themselves a lukewarm meal of food poisoning on their ineffectual gas burners. This they will then do for x number of days, until it is time to pack it all away and go home again.

The drawbacks with this kind of holiday are many and we all know what they are, I am sure. But the main puzzle for me is why you would spend anything from £4000 to £20,000 on a caravan in the first place? If you go for the luxury model, you are spending enough money that, if you chose to put that money in a bank account in the first place you would have enough money (and the interest too) to get yourself at the very least nice bed and breakfast joints for the next ten years worth of holidays... and for the top whack you'd probably have enough to pay for some very nice foreign holidays in very nice hotels where they will do all the cooking for you and you don't have to empty your own bog.

I do feel it is about time caravaners explained themselves...

"The web equivalent of a dung salesman"

2008-08-22T10:20:00.005+01:00

That is my description for these self-taught cowboys who roam around generating business for themselves and charging not inconsiderable amounts of money for what can only be described as a steaming pile of web excrement.

I shan't name people... but you can find examples for yourselves if you simply look for small business websites. As these companies are small, they often don't have a web presence and make themselves easy prey to these gobshites who manage to swindle some cash out of them for next to nothing.

Common indicators of this phenomenon are:

splash pages - in some cases, it is fine... one of my own uses a splash page, but it has a purpose. www.mangetout.co.uk has two shops in close proximity and you'll want the right one. Whereas, the webshites will often learn a new trick and use it every time they create a site. One I am aware of does this for every site he has built. And... worse than using a splash page unnecessarily is the fact they look crap. If you're gonna make a splash page, at least make sure it serves its purpose - in this case, aesthetics.
visit counter - why?! WHY!?! Who gives a toss if they are the 5000th visitor or the 5th? WHO CARES?! It's one of the easiest and quickest ways of making your site look completely amateur - which is why it is a prime indicator of shitness.
today's date - cos we don't have enough things around us telling us the date. Desktop calendar - check. Wall calendar (dogs) - check. Computer desktop - check. Watch - check. Phone - check. Diary - check. Who honestly needs today's date on a webpage? Admittedly, a lot of bigger sites do this too. Commonly, news sites... but that has a purpose too. Not so for a simple presence website. Idiots.
"This page was last updated on..." - the quickest way of making your site look dated. Okay, if you have a page that it is important to keep up to date or for people to tell if it was updated since their last visit, fine. But that's not particularly necessary on small business/organisation websites with lots of static content. All it does is make your site look feeble and unwanted by the lack of attention lavished upon it by its author. There is nothing worse than going on a site and seeing that a page was last updated five years ago. Worse, I suppose, is going to see a page that looks like it was designed five years ago and was only updated yestesrday... that's common on these scheister sites too.
Badly cut/rendered graphics - one example of a site that was ironically pinched from us shows this perfectly - we had made a Flash intro for this unnamed site... it shows a few silhouettes of children doing various activities in an animated way... the new 'designer' chose to badly cut out the children individually and staple them back together into the header of each page on the site - not only that, but he didn't bother to recreate the header text at all and simply cut that out of the previous header too, so a mishmash of the worst of everything right there.

There are many, many more I could list - but these are the most obvious and the ones I pick up on most often. I could go into much more detail on every small crime these bedroom designers commit - but then, I commit enough of my own sometimes. I have a decent excuse though. I'm often in a rush or I am too lazy. They have none. They think what they do is cutting edge and awesome. But perhaps that's the problem. So do the muppets that they con out of their cash... I honestly wonder whether some people actually have full use of either their eyes or brain when they see examples of these people's work. They can't honestly think they're getting value for money.

The temptation to simply build up a list of all the businesses with crap websites and mail them a proposal for redesign is FAR too tempting. It's a pity that I am far too busy/lazy to do it. I'm sure that I'd nail one out of every five for a job... making it a pretty penny to earn. I do have the banker that I have a few jobs lined up for myself, which is nice... but if things get tight, I'll be knocking on some virtual doors and informing these businesses that they've been conned right and proper.

www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

New Camera

2008-03-30T23:48:00.004+01:00

At long last I have been able to get the camera of my dreams... well, pretty much. Not top of the range, which I would inevitably buy if I were to win the lottery, but as good as I can afford! The Canon 400D has been the object of my desires since it first launched over a year ago and now I have one!

Thanks to an eagle-eyed consumer who posted a detailed entry to one of my favourite websites, www.hotukdeals.com, I was able to get one for £302... which is a bargain!

So far I have only been able to use it sparingly. The weather has been poor and opportunities few and far between. Today we were able to go to the farm and take a few photos along the river, which was great. Next weekend we aim to head off along the south coast of Devon. Perhaps Dartmouth, Salcombe, Kingsbridge and Bigbury... weather permitting.

Upping Sticks

2008-03-04T15:52:00.002Z

So we are moving home... after living with Megan (in her flat) for the past 18 months we have made the decision to sell up and move into a bigger place... a house.

Now... that's great news, obviously. However, as anyone who has ever been through the process will surely know, buying/selling houses is a minefield of pitfalls, heartbreaks and anger management sessions.

The first problem is marketing the property you are selling. Which agent do you use? Well, you have to consider the market you are selling to, the price range and the relative costs involved with different agents. We opted for Red Homes, who are an internet and paper advert only agent. They have no office, therefore overheads are low and they can offer a rate of 0.75%, which is great! Considering the flat is a first time buyer type property and a value of £127,500 is low, we thought internet (rightmove.co.uk) and the local paper would be enough.

That hasn't quite proven to be the case. We marketed the flat half way through January. Between then and now, two other flats in the same block have been on with two other agents (Underhill and Haart) and both sold... one of them sold the day it went on the market. Now, that seems to suggest we are in a popular location. Also, knowing that one of the flats that sold was in a right state and needed massive modernisation AND was £7000 more expensive... we rightly feel that we should have sold by now. So we are in the process of switching agents.

Second is finding the place you want. This has two main areas of contention. One is what both Megan and I want and how those two ideals don't marry up into a nice compromise most of the time. Megan wants a big garden (or decent garden) which must be south-facing to get the best of the sun. I want a nice kitchen and big lounge. So far we have found a handful of properties that fit both bills, but they've been snaffled up in the meantime cos we've not been able to make an offer. Or we have found properties that one or other of us are keen on, but can't make compromises on.

We are also seriously interested in a new build property in Crediton, which looks great. It is all fitted in a lovely contemporary style, great kitchen, big lounge, nice garden, garage, off road parking and up to 4 bedrooms (one of which would be my boys room of course). This would be target #1, except we really need an offer on the flat before we can make an offer on the new build.

So... it's now a two week countdown until we can switch agents and hope for a swift sale. Fingers and toes are firmly crossed.

I'm a very bad man

2007-07-06T12:47:00.000+01:00

I've only been to the gym once this week so far, thanks to that DVD nonsense carrying over into this week... I should be picking it up from the video geezer later today... along with the Xbox 360 I have just committed to buy. Someone on the staff noticeboard at work posted one for sale... £250 for Xbox Premium Edition with the hard drive, headsets (2 of), wireless controller (2 of), battery charger and four games (Pro Evo 6, Call of Duty 2, Ridge Racer 6 and Tiger Woods) - I'll be trading in a couple of them to get me something like Gears of War and Forza Motorsport 2 or something though.

I'm a bad man

2007-07-02T22:03:00.000+01:00

My fitness regime came crashing to the ground after just two weeks of gym use. Tomorrow the work begins once more after a week in Tunisia followed by a week of slovenly behaviour.

This weekend has been frustrating, boring, relaxing and entertaining.

Frustrating: I was asked last week to find a way of creating a DVD that would be a compilation of video clips from a set of DVDs of Exeter City football matches. I admitted at the beginning that I had never done this before, but that it should be possible. Over the course of the next few days and several software downloads later it quickly became apparent that if the DVD was to be made, it would not be me making it. Therefore, the excellent Rebecca Ramsden helped me out by giving me the number of a mate of hers who was able to help me out. Hopefully we shall be in business by the end of the week.

Boring: Due to having been away on holiday for ages, it was decided (mostly by me, I admit) that we would have an idle weekend of simply relaxing... this was achieved for the most part, but relaxing isn't half boring... normally I'd hope to play golf, but the weather was so appalling that even that wasn't really possible.

Relaxing: As stated before, it was a relaxing weekend. Due to the weather being so bad, I lounged sloth-like on the sofa, watching various sports on the miniscule TV that we are lumbered with whilst my huge one is in the shop getting fixed. This weekend's sporting highlights included the French Grand Prix, The French Open (golf) and the first One Day International between England and the West Indies. All very good and ideal fodder for the lounging sports fan.

Entertaining: Due to the sheer level of idleness, we were able to watch a couple of films that have been sitting in the pile for an age. Saturday night we were able to watch Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby starring Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen. I'd been leaving off watching it as I was going to copy it and wing it back to Amazon. However, it was encrypted beyond DVD Shrink's ability to back-up and so we watched it.. and I'm glad we did, cos it was hilarious. After it had finished I was on the computer and ordering a copy from play.com (who currently have a huge sale on, by the way). On Sunday it was the turn of Lucky Number Slevin. Another film I had modest hopes for, but was also a pleasant surprise. Quite a stylish film with a good twist that helps tie all the loose and confusing ends together. A bit like a Guy Ritchie wannabe movie with an American flavour, but was actually a rather fun film and well worth a good 3 to 4 stars out of 5.

So... that's the tale of the weekend. For this week I am hoping to get my car's huge dent repaired, for the DVD project to go off without a hitch and for my lovely big television to come back from the fixer uppers.

Euthalius, my Daemon

2007-05-04T10:39:00.000+01:00

I am shocked and disgusted that the Golden Compass (that's wrong to start with) website has seen fit to present me with a bloody spider for a daemon. Take the test above to help me change it to something more... me.

Race For Life

2007-05-04T08:59:00.000+01:00

I feel very guilty, having only sponsored my friend Becky a fiver for her Race For Life on 29th July 2007. So... as means of absolving some of that guilt, I am posting a blog entry especially for her... so if you're feeling particularly generous today and have a couple spare e-quid (or have a penchant for giving money to attractive, young women) I, and I am sure the delectable Becky, would very much appreciate it!

www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/BeckyRamsden

Dark & Long

2007-05-03T11:35:00.000+01:00

The track of the day so far is Dark & Long by Underworld.

Having an iPod on random is a double-edged sword. Most of the time you end up skipping tracks, cos you've got at whole album of fillers with only one or two stand out tracks. Now and again though, a real winner crops up when you don't expect it. Dark & Long is remarkable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, cos it's the return of Underworld after their strange electro-pop of the mid 80s. Although I kind of like Underneath The Radar, it's a world away from what they are known for. Dark & Long brought them to the dance audience in a big way as the opening track of arguably their best album, dubnobasswithmyheadman. It is also the best track on that album and never fails to get me working like a demon or walking/running in time with the insanely addictive beat.

Life in spoonofmilksville is much the same as always... last night I had a strange dream of walking through a field of sheep, taking photos. Except the sheep weren't sheep... they were Weimaraners. Not many of you will know it, but I love Weimaraner dogs and so I take this as meaning I must have one... and soon. In particular, I want my friend Sarah's dog Toby.

This week marks the last two working days for over a week as Megan and I have a week off to do many things... we are going to London to miss the Chelsea vs Man United match (bugger), visiting her friends in Portsmouth and going for meals at various times, bought by respective parents, to celebrate our birthdays. So all in all, it should be a good week. Check back next week for photographic evidence of our trip to the Big Smoke.

Ge'orf my laaand

2007-04-19T10:31:00.000+01:00

Someone at work is attempting to copy the success of the "no more road tax" e-petition that went round last year by doing the same thing, but calling for a tax on second homes. This is spurred on by the growing problem of affordable housing, particularly in the South West and specifically in North Devon. Here's the e-petition text:

"Where a second home is purchased, that 1% of the purchase price of the property is paid as a tax to the local authority, for the purpose of building affordable homes for families with a local connection to that area

In North Devon we have a huge problem with young people being prced out of the housing market because of low wages and high housing costs. Further, as an attractive area to live, many people choose to buy a second home. This reduces rented stock and forces house prices up. As a consequence many houses are empty for many months of the year whilst local people struggle to pay high rents because they cannot afford to buy. There is insufficient social housing and so this is not an option either. North Devon has 4000 people on the housing waiting list and only 200 properties became available last year. A small tax might make a huge difference . North Devon is not unique and a national policy would perhaps alleviate the problem in many other areas also."

This petition is making the most of the North Devon angle, but I would urge anybody who feels that something needs to be done to protect housing in their area to sign this petition, or even those who can recognise the problem and wish to do something about it, or even those who just like to sign petitions for the sake of it. Either way, go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/2ndhometax/ and sign up.

European Vacation

2007-02-23T11:12:00.000Z

So here I am in sunny Vienna having returned from a 24 hour trip to Prague. The above photo is of the Volta winding through the city and the numerous bridges that span it. I have to say it is a nice looking city, but I found the Czechs a dour and miserable people. They are also con artists. We were done out of several Euros along the way.

Anyway, we are back in Vienna now and about to head out to the Museums Quartier. Laters.

Demobbed

2007-02-16T17:32:00.000Z

That's all my work done for ten days. I now head off to Vienna with Megan to check out all Vienna and Prague have to offer under then pretense of visiting Megan's sister.

In other news I have heard precisely nothing from iflorist.co.uk on the story of the missing roses and the hefty wodge of dosh it cost for them to fuck up Valentine's Day with their litany of falsehoods and broken dreams. Perhaps that is excessive, but it amazes me that they take an order clearly addressed for delivery to a hospital ward and then claim they don't deliver to hospitals. Surely hospital deliveries make up a good percentage of their business! Lies. Compacted by the fact that they have failed to even contact us about it or even make arrangements to be delivered elsewhere. As it is, nothing less than a complete refund is acceptable and bollocks to the flowers. Folks, the moral of the story is that it is worth the extra cash for a local and personal service. Never ever use iflorist.co.uk.

Enough of that, tonight I have tickets to see Hot Fuzz at Exeter's new Vue cinema. I have been reliably informed that it is a terrific movie. As if anything by the Spaced boys could be anything else.

I also discovered a gem of a music downlnad site. Emusic.com is a legit DRM free download site that deals solely with good indie music. You will not even find mention of the multitude of Pete Waterman and Simon mateyboy's manufactured groups and tarts amongst the emusic catalogue and for £8.99 for 40 tracks is also somewhat of a bargain! At the mo they have a free trial for 35 downloads and I urge you to try it.

Work In Progress #1

2007-02-13T15:23:00.000Z

A false dawn perhaps, but I am beginning to catch up on some of the design work that has been sitting on my desk for the past couple of months. Jamblo has started pushing out some designs for us as well, so hopefully it won't be long before we are caught up again.

Today, I got an email from a governor of Caen Community Primary about their website and thought it must be high time that I got to it. The chap had sent us a CD containing all the photographs we were to use and some rough Photoshop layouts. It was just a case of tarting up the layouts he'd sent and setting up the Dreamweaver templates and CSS and away we go. It has a couple of issues I'm not keen on. The Flash image on the front is annoying, the font is Times New Roman and some of the banner photos they wanted to use are resized... the wrong way. Overall though, it's not too bad.

The site hasn't had final approval yet, but hopefully that won't be long in coming. For now the site is viewable at www4.devon.gov.uk/eal/schools/caen/

Tomorrow will see me ploughing through the endless mire of updates that we get, but hopefully I'll be able to complete another design to show off.

In the meantime it is nearly hometime. Or it should be. Instead, I am off to my girlfriend's mum's place for Megan's grandad's birthday tea. No doubt I shall be moaning about my expanding waistline again later before heading off to the skittles match.

Neverending Story

2007-02-02T16:02:00.000Z

Another working week draws to a close and this week I have dealt with around 200 email updates for our schools and services, visited Meavy Primary and made two websites live (www.dunstone.plymouth.sch.uk and www.combe-martin-primary.devon.sch.uk). Trouble is, there's another six sites to be added to the board on top of the eight others already on there!

This week hasn't been all work and no play though. On Wednesday I entered the multi-table poker game at Rileys in Exeter. Twas a most excellent night and I done well enough to get to the final table, coming in a commendable 3rd, picking up £230 for my efforts.

The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

2007-01-31T15:20:00.000Z

The Arcade Fire's second full album has, today, fallen into my lap and for the past hour I've been listening to it... and I have to say it's a worthy follow-up to Funeral.

It is much the same as Funeral with downbeat, orchestral melodies and the melancholic lyrics. It doesn't have the same unity in the songs, instead a fine collection of different sounds.

It isn't meant to be out til March, but there's nothing like getting your hands on stuff like this early. I will recommend this, in the usual method, by awarding it four mayhems out of five.

Futility

2007-01-29T16:30:00.000Z

I have truly learnt the meaning of this word today. We lost our other designer at work and Tim's been on leave for a couple days. I got in today to 100 unread emails in the work inbox. 7 hours later and it is down to 65. By tomorrow I fully expect that to be back towards three figures.

I am also tasked with maintaining a key partnership website, but the set of morons who kept it ticking over before managed to make a right pigs ear of it, leaving recurring problems and today a tidal wave of inefficiency and procedural neglect dropped on my desk like a sack of steaming shit. I managed to sort that out eventually, but not before another many headed monster jumped out of the cupboard.

This new beast was in the shape of our external web hosts. pickaweb. Generally, we have very few problems with them and that is to their credit. However, when you need help you are better off killing yourself. At some point they subscribed to some Indian call centre for their tech support and it really is the most miserable excuse for help. Today it was a cgi script that inexplicably deleted itself from the server. You and I both know the solution, reinstate the script. Two hours and several angry emails later and they manage to inform me what the problem is and how I can fix it (ie, what I already know). Except they are under the daft impression that I can access their hosting service plans and make sweeping changes to the server. I lost patience and am now almost home. Tomorrow I get to find out whether my final outraged email has yielded some results. If not, a search for a decent web host shall begin.

Twelve Monkeys

2007-01-25T16:13:00.000Z

Brass ones. A tenuous movie title entry, but it is bloody chilly right now. However, I do have the extra incentive of my Wii waiting for me at home. A couple chores to get out of the way and then I am gaming it up for the night!

Wii have lift-off

2007-01-25T12:54:00.000Z

After receiving the exciting email from PC World yesterday, confirming despatch of the Nintendo Wii I have had on pre-order since November '06 I checked the DHL tracker website this morning to find that the package was out for delivery... within another hour it had been delivered. Very exciting!

Along with it, the postie delivered a wireless router from my good friend, Jon, so I can hook up the Wii direct to the web for updates and virtual console goodness. Tonight I was meant to be reconstructing my Ikea wardrobe in the spare room... that will now be done with the utmost of haste and then the gaming shall begin! Shame Megan isn't working tonight as well, I'll have to share the thing now...

The Sting

2007-01-23T16:29:00.000Z

Well, it's all chaos at work now that Jamblo's replacement resigned on Friday, lasting all of four months. Even better is the fact that 8 of the designs he created need to be started again from scratch. This is on top of the 8 other designs on my own schedule. I am hoping we can farm out some of these to Jamblo to help us cope til we can appoint another designer.

In the meantime I am headed home to play some internet poker and watch Season 7 of ER. That and await delivery of my Wii, which PC World have notified me is in the process of being arranged. They must have run down to Branscombe Beach, wading through the legions of gypos, to grab the shipment of Wiis that washed up and subsequently got looted.

Will it work this time?

2007-01-18T16:45:00.000Z

Well, let's hope so. I have made a couple of blogposts in the past couple of days that have failed to appear. This is annoying, as it takes an age to form a coherant post on a mobile phone.

Anyway, yesterday I attempted to post the above photo of the Manchester Metro. Really for no reason other than to post the photo, although I did extend my post with some rather well thought out comments on the Metro itself and the tracksuit wearing, warm stella swigging scallies who populate it. I cannot recall what I said now, but rest assured it was something rather witty and clever.

There was one particular scally I remember though. We were on our way back from the Trafford Centre and this atypical Manc (flat face, bobblour nose, dour expression) boarded the Metro at the same station. I think he must be a Tourette's fella, cos he sat adjacent to us mumbling what I believe were various cuss words. Ordinarily I would assume this to be regular Manc Metro native behaviour, but it amused me that this odd and aggresive creature was swigging a pint of milk wand devouring a packet of Iced Gems.

Back To Normality

2007-01-16T07:37:00.000Z

It's surprisingly hard to get back into the daily routine after this weekend. For those who didn't know, we were in Manchester for a mini break. Megan had bought a hospitality package for us and that was terrific. On top oe that she had also arranged for three nights in the Deansgate Hilton. Better than that, however, was the fact that Megan's best mate's girlfriend who is the reservations manager had upgraded us to the Executive room and the perks that come with it.

One of those perks was the option to have breakfast in the Executive Lounge on the 23rd floor. That is the bit I will miss most. The other treat was the Exec Lounge being open til 8pm and unlimited drink. It is quite impressive how one gets used to such things.

Now it is back to normal though and I am just walking into County Hall to see what mayhem awaits me.

Blade

2007-01-09T21:44:00.000Z

We got a note at work today of a chap selling sets of knives. He had 200 sets to get rid of due to the company sinking and needing to clear stock. RRP of £149 and selling them for £20. Their normal customers are restaurants and commercial kitchens and are made of good solid steel.

Right now I am sat in Crediton AFC playing skittles with the boys, first match since the christmas break. Not going that great at the mo, but we should win. I should hope so as well, we currently sit top of the league. Same for the pool league. I won both my frames and the team won 7-4 in total, keeping us at the top. Fingers crossed we can close out both.

Flatliners

2007-01-08T16:30:00.000Z

I am now the moderately proud owner of a bargain Acer 17 inch monitor which cost me £99 from Staples. The only thing missing is the DVI port. Otherwise the specs are sound. 500:1 contrast ratio, 8ns response time and 270 candlelight. Good for the money I reckon.

On Sunday Rich and I went to play golf for his second handicap card. The weather was pants, but Rich shot a 22 over par 92, which was great. I shot my third 78 in 5 rounds though, which I am dead chuffed with! 8 over par, even on temporary greens, is great for me and with my beloved Nike Sasquatch driver I am finally finding the consistency to push for the lower handicap I am after.

Another Day

2007-01-05T16:43:00.000Z

So the first week bck at work has drawn to a close. I have managed to complete three designs so far and the inbox is virtually empty. Next week the schools start back in earnest and their return heralds the start of another busx spell for us.

Anyway, time to relax for a couple of days. On Wednesday I signed up for the 14 day trial of EVEonline. I may give that a crack tonight. And if Megan has forgotten to take the kievs out of the freezer I will use that as an excuse to get a chinese or pizza for tea.

Hope you all have the most splendid weekends.

Shopping

2007-01-03T16:30:00.000Z

As if I didn't spend enough money over Christmas I had to drive Megan and her friend to Clerk's Village on Saturday. Just to cap it off we had to leave at 8am to be there for opening time. And then Megan made me cough up £4 for a six hour ticket when I reckoned we would only need a four hour ticket, costing £1.50. For those of you not mathematically inclined, that means 8 hours is cheaper than 6.

Anyway, a-shopping we did go. There were just four shops I was inclined to go in and in all four I made purchases. Marks & Spencer had cheap chino trousers and I bought two pairs. Then off to Clerks (with side trips to a dozen other stores, being dragged around by Megan) where I bought three great pairs of shoes for £75. I also bought a pair of weather-proof trousers for golf and a shrt for my Dad. The next stop was a minor stop in Wittards for two pasta bowls, but before that I had to endure the Next sale. Pasta bowls secured, the girls mooched off to various lingerie shops ro I went to my last stop, Van Heusen, where I picked up three half price shirts. That was my shopping completed. By the time we got back to the car, after paying homage to the Burger King, we had been precisely four hours.

The rest of the weekend passed eventfully. Saturday night we went to the best curry house in Exeter, Tandoori Nights, before heading to Exeter's new Vue cinema to see Night At The Museum.

Sunday we went to my mates for their son's first birthday and then Jimson and me welcomed in the new year with a couple bottles of wine and the TV.

New Years day saw Megan working wh ile i played golf. Twas a lovely day when we started but within no time we got drenched. So i went home and did the ironing instead.

Tis the season to be frosty

2006-12-21T16:27:00.000Z

At last, it feels like Christmas. It has been so mild lately I couldn't bring myself to feel the remotest bit festive. Even looking at the receipts of horrendous expense failed to convince me it was Christmas. Until, that is, the heavy frost descended and the walk to work became more of a challenge.

I am now walking home after an excessive lunch, three pints of Fosters and an afternoon of dwindling productivity. I did, however, manage to obtain a game from my childhood. Frustration by MB Games was for sale by a colleague at County Hall for a fiver and I couldn't help myself.

That takes my new game tally to three in two weeks after PC World's inability to deliver to me a Nintendo Wii before Christmas. Two weeks ago I bought Pirates Of The Caribbean and a great game that is. Similar to my favourite of all time, Lost Valley Of The Dinosaurs, you take command of a ship, port and crew setting sail for Isla de Muerta in search of treasure.

On Tuesday I went into town to do a bit of shopping and picked up Uno Extreme. I am yet to play it, but I have fancied it for a while. Uno has long been a favourite anyway and a version that has a machine that spits out indisciminate numbers of cards at the touch of a button has to be a winner!

A Strange Weekend

2006-12-18T08:51:00.000Z

I spent most of last week at home with a cold that the boss didn't want to catch. I did work from home on Friday, however, making a draft design and a few select updates that the office sent me.

On Saturday it was a lovely sunny day and as fate had it, it was a golf competition. We were on the first hole when the air ambulance started circling the course. It flew over the trees of the back nine and we thought no more of it until it landed on the 11th fairway. We made it to the 3rd hole when the claxon sounded, signifying that the course was closed and all players should return to the clubhouse. It turned out that the chap the copter came for had dropped dead during a heated argument with his playing partners.

So we missed out on a quality day of golf and to cap it all off Chelsea dodged an Evertonian bullet before Curbishley and West Ham came together in their respectively bad records against Man Utd to claim their first victories in the Premiership. Buggery.

Desperate for a Wii

2006-12-13T11:18:00.000Z

I have just been sent home from work for being ill. Everyone is scared of catching a cold close to Christmas. Suits me fine. I can go sit in comfort, supping tea and watch some movies.

What I really want though is my Nintendo Wii. I have one on pre-order with PC World but missed out on the launch day allocation. So now, like thousands of others, I am left wondering if I will get mine before Christmas. I have to be honest and say I think it highly unlikely. It is truly frustrating that console manufacturers don't produce enough gear to satisfy demand.

As it happens, this weekend Jon managed to blag someone's unclaimed pre-order from Game in Wellingborough on Sunday. We played all the Wii Sports and I can tell you now that the Nintendo Wii is the best console ever. It may not have the HD graphics of the Xbox and PS3, but it makes up for it in sheer fun and enjoyability. It's the end of chubby arse, lazy gaming. We are in the Wii-zone now.

A Fish Called Wanda

2006-12-13T08:51:00.000Z

Megan and I spent the weekend in Northampton with two of my very best friends. Before heading up on the M5 we stopped at Darts Farm Shop for some xmas shopping. I managed to finish all but two presents and discovered a new line of wines from my favourite vineyard, Down St Mary. All in all a good decision to stop.

On the way out, however, we were overwhelmed by the smell of freshly cooked fish. On site is a fish and chip shack. That was it, thought we, we shall stop here for lunch. I had plaice and Megan had cod. Also on the menu were fresh sea bass and skate. Anyway, to cut this long story short it is easily the best fish and chips I Have eaten. Fresh, crispy beer batter around succulent, tasty fish. I shall definitely be going back.

Closer

2006-12-06T08:50:00.000Z

Since I last posted about crappy Christmas lights they have spread like wildfire on the former council estate. Within days there were countless numbers of houses with coatings of gaudy, expensive tat. If Gordon Brown is looking for more targets for taxation can I suggest starting with these. Obviously they can afford the gear and the not inconsiderable running costs.

In other news my credit card took another hit last night. At the weekend the hoover broke. We were intending on waiting til the new year to buy a new Dyson, but the one we were looking at on Amazon went up £70 this week. The exact same one we same in Sainsburys for the original Amazon price and so we made the decision to get it while we could. A detailed opinion will be formed in the coming days to decide which sucks more, the cleaner or the price.

Flashdance

2006-12-02T22:36:00.000Z

It's my mate Emma's birthday tonight and we are out in town.

I am in the infamous t-qualiser and as ever its a raring success... with all the blokes!

Wall Street

2006-11-30T08:22:00.000Z

Well, it's taken them three years to finalise, but the council finally announced how everyone is affected.

In those 3 years I have gone from being optimistic that I would see a rise in salary to being hopeful of a favourable result and finally apprehensive that I may be amongst the 16% who faced a cut. As it transpired my worries were born out and in three years I face being £100 worse off per month.

There are two reasons I find this frustrating:

One - the work I do for the council brings in around £60,000 a year in profit.
Two - a guy in social services who hasn't been with the council for 7 years and only handles internal stuff is around £6k a year better off than me.

I am not feeling bitter that my colleague is on a handsome salary and one that I feel I deserve the equal to, but I am bitter that the whole Job Evaluation scheme is meant to be about 'valuing staff' and 'equality'. Basically its all a bunch of bollocks.

As it is I shall be appealing in any case. There is also the chance I will have a new job description soon as well, forcing them to re-evaluate. And seeing as the new job has more of a junior management slant I should be okay. In the meantime I shall seeth away to my heart's discontent.

Rush Hour

2006-11-28T16:28:00.000Z

Two blog entries in one day. I should be careful not to burn myself out.
Anyway, here is an illustration of why I now enjoy walking to work. Nothing is worse than sitting in endless lines of cars and taking ten times as long to get home than you know is possible without it being rush hour. Instead I walk briskly home listening to my IPod unfettered by the agitation and resulting ire that driving brings.
The only annoyances now are having to follow Marlboro smokers down the path, taking in lungfuls of acrid smoke and my crap Philips headphones falling out of my left ear.

The Beach

2006-11-28T07:37:00.000Z

Monday was the day for Sky being installed in the flat at last. We were told the engineer would call round between one and four in the afternoon and so we decided to go for a walk along Exmouth seafront
When we arrived it was decent weather and we walked the length of the beach. Along the way we noticed the roads and paths were covered in sand. By the time we decided to head back it had become apparent how this occured. The wind had picked up and the sand was stinging our faces as we wandered back to the car. Halfway back it started raining as well and so we got soaking wet and covered in sand. Then we found the Sky bloke had turned up an hour and a half early, just to cap it all. An infuriated call to Sky soon sorted that out and the chavvish engineer was back and finished within the hour.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

The Moneypit

2006-11-20T14:16:00.000Z

Why do people make such an effort to make their homes look like poorly thought out B&Q displays at Christmas? The only thing that makes it worse is the 'we have to be first' syndrome causing the biggest offenders to erect their gaudy crap in November.
This delightful display was found on Rifford Road last night. I shall keep a sharp eye open for the next idiot to try and compete on that road. In the meantime I shall investigate Exwick, the usual location of bad taste seasonal decorations.

The 39 Steps

2006-11-17T15:54:00.000Z

Broadband has now been installed in the flat and I am able to resume being a sad bastard by sitting at my computer at every spare moment. Perhaps I shall finally get around to finishing a new design for my website...

Walk The Line

2006-11-16T17:17:00.000Z

Now that I live in town I can no longer justify tailgating my way through the barriers at County Hall. And seeing as I live a virtual stones throw from work I chose to walk today. I was actually rather surprised by how much I enjoyed the pre-walk jaunt.
It's a lot colder now it is hometime. I have just made it to the hospital, so a ways to go yet. Expect further observations in the coming months.

For A Few Dollars More

2006-11-08T20:51:00.000Z

I was given the address of a great website that prints custom mini business cards using your own photos from your flickr.com account. I convinced myself it was a cheap way of putting my freelance details around.
So I signed up, selected the photos I wanted to use (50 different colour photos) and decided on my web address, name, number and email address and my flickr.com avatar. They look great, are a nice size and distinctive. And best of all 100 cards cost less than £14.
So I did a selection of black and white photos as well and the company sent me two boxes by mistake! Bonus!
To take advantage of this great site visit www.moo.com/flickr

Autumn at County Hall

2006-10-24T16:24:00.000+01:00

This tree lives in an enclosed quadrant at County Hall and every autumn it looks stunning in the late afternoon sunshine.

Umbrella Drama

2006-10-23T10:45:00.000+01:00

My first time playing Libbaton Golf Course and on the third we had monsoon-like rain. And then my umbrella blew into the pond as I took my putt. We gave up after nine holes and a liberal soaking.

Dartmoor

2006-10-16T12:00:00.000+01:00

Meg and I had nothing to do on Sunday so we went onto Dartmoor for a walk.
After seeing how much it was to get in to Becky Falls we went on to Hound Tor instead.
It was overcast, misty and windy. Typical Dartmoor weather. We walked around the Tor, down to Hundatora and to Greator Rocks. I had also managed to borrow my dad's new digital SLR for the day. Go to www.flickr.com/photos/spoonofmilk to see the photos.

Winning Ways

2006-10-07T17:11:00.000+01:00

I had the day off on Friday to play in the Devon County Golf Society at Lanhydrock. The weather was... inclement, to say the least.
In the morning I played 18 holes and in the afternoon a further 18 for the Kelly Cup, a matchplay tournament played over the year.
I had the pleasure of playing a very nice guy called Steve Spicer who plays off a handicap of 7 to my 20. This meant I had ten shots (three quarters of the difference).
To cut a long story short it was a close faught match which went all the way to the last hole. Which I won, getting this monster trophy in the process.
Further benefits of the day included £20 to spend in WH Smith and a raging temperature. I am now lying on the sofa dosed up and awaiting dinner at my grandparents!

Happy Birthday Dazman

2006-10-03T07:44:00.000+01:00

Saturday night was me mate Daz's birthday celebration. After a massive meal at the Jack Russell in Swimbridge we ended up in Babylon, a club that still plays Chesney Hawkes and Tiffany.

Sunday drivers are so slow...

2006-09-26T16:21:00.000+01:00

That this one is two days late. And why do old bastards insist on buying sportie versions of powerful cars and drive them like Morris Minors?

Weekend of Sport #3

2006-09-18T12:02:00.000+01:00

This weekend was one of mixed fortunes as far as my interests go.

Football

Manchester United 0 - 1 Arsenal

A lacklustre performance from Man Utd against the team I hate underperforming against. If I had to nominate one match in the year that I would pick as the one definite victory, it would be this one. It was especially bad as they were missing Henry and playing one man up front, and that one being the clumsy looking Adebayor. More and more it looks like we don't have a midfield to compete against a well drilled and talented opposition midfield. Fabregas and Gilberto were far above O'Shea and Fletcher yesterday. I just hope Hargreaves gets better soon and we pick him up in the January transfer window.

Golf

Wrangaton GC vs Downes Crediton GC

B-team match against Wrangaton in South Devon on Saturday and I played my best game of golf in ages. I probably played to a handicap of around 14, I think. Hitting long drives (nearly drove the 330yd par 4 13th) and parred many holes, birdied one. We lost the match and the team lost the rubber overall, but I was pleased with how I played at least. Next on the calendar is a visit to East Devon, which is probably the best course we play each year. Looking forward to that a lot!

World Matchplay Championship, Wentworth

As I had predicted after the second round, Paul Casey romped to victory over Shaun Micheel with a winning score of 10 & 8 to clinch the trophy and a cheque for £1 million. Not bad for four days work and it promises for a competitive and exciting Ryder Cup from Friday. Casey, Donald, Monty and Karlsson were all playing and all played well. A good warm-up for the weekend.

Madrid Open, European Tour

A bit late for him, but Ian Poulter won his first tournament in over 2 years this weekend with a 5 shot margin separating him from the next best placed in the field. Also on show were two more of our Ryder Cup boys, Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke (in his first tournament since the sad death of his wife). Both acquitted themselves very well and their form is promising going into the big one at the end of the week. However, Poults did excellently with a cracking round of 63 on Saturday to put himself in the lead with one round to go and a nice tidy 69 yesterday to finish it off. Shame you didn't make the cup team, Ian, but you've proven again you're a winner and I personally love watching you play!

Jamblo has left the building

2006-09-18T08:32:00.000+01:00

Friday was my very good friend and colleague's last day before leaving for Bournemouth University and three years of graphic design. Today it has hit home for the first time that for the first time in over four years I won't be working opposite one of my very best mates. In the time I have worked with Jamblo I have enjoyed going to work. I have actually looked forward to it. James has been a breath of fresh air for my working life and I shall miss him more than I care to admit. If you should read this message, Jamblo, thankyou for the best four years of my working life. Take it easy buddy and I will see you soon.

Weekend of Sport #2

2006-08-29T09:32:00.000+01:00

I missed last weekend's weekend of sport round-up and for that I am forever apologetic.

This weekend was Bank Holiday weekend and so there was an extra day to take into account!

Saturday 26th August 2006

I didn't see a great deal of sport on Saturday, mainly due to me being somewhere that sport failed to reach. However, I did manage to keep up to date with the latest happenings in the Premiership thanks to modern technology and was able to catch the highlights later in the day. I shall take two of the day's games that I was most interested in.

Watford 1 - 2 Manchester United

Despite the close looking scoreline, Manchester United were quite laid back in their victory. Watford arguably had the best chances in the game, but United were slack in the creation of their chances. That said, they took the ones that came their way. A neat bit of play from Saha to put the ball in the path of Silvestre led to the first goal. Before the half was up, Watford had equalised through Francis. Shortly after the resumption of play, however, United were back in front after a bit of shoddy defending and the forever quick-footed Ryan Giggs slotting home the winner to keep United's 100% record for the season.

Manchester City 1 - 0 Arsenal

Naturally I was most interested in this result after hearing of United's win. Arsenal are currently languishing (love that word) in 17th in the table thanks to Joey Barton's penalty at the City of Manchester Stadium. The highlights were brief and so must my comments be... Arsenal look bereft of ideas at the moment and really need something to spark off their season. Perhaps the overlong saga of Henry's "will he sign, won't he sign" contract negotiations have taken their toll on the Frenchman's will to play for the club and for all the talk of United's failure to replace Roy Keane, it seems that Wenger's failure to replace Viera is of more notice these days.

Sunday 27th August 2006

Sunday was a nice lazy day for Sambo... I got home early and watched some more highlights of the previous day's matches before the Turkish Grand Prix started. It was a pretty good race, a bit of overtaking and some neat prangs. Most notably Kimi Raikkonen's tyre exploding after running over some debris in the first corner and the resulting slide off into the barriers ending his race early. Felipe Massa scored his maiden GP victory three weeks after Jenson Button managed the same feat and a deserved win it was. Schumacher failed to capitalise on the Ferrari's dominant pace and showed the many cracks in his armour that have been appearing of late by not getting past Alonso's Renault when it looked impossible not to. Of the rest, Jenson Button was best of the also-rans in a solid and comfortable fourth ahead of De La Rosa and the rest.

After the race was another footie match, the 4pm kick-off.

Blackburn Rovers 0 - 2 Chelski

Another thing that annoys me intensely is the continued harking on by other clubs' fans about how United always get the luck, always get the ref's decisions, always get the extra time (the last time I heard that one was against Charlton in midweek when a Toon supporter decided to moan about the 4 minutes extra time at the end of the match, failing to realise that United didn't want the extra time as they were 3-0 up) and so on. My main reason for this gripe is that it tends to be Arsenal and Chelski who get the calls and the longest extra-time and so on. This match was little different, with Blackburn players getting booked for innocuous challenges while the likes of Makalele got away with everything. This was exemplified by John Terry's obvious dive and the resulting penalty, which Friedel was unlucky not to save. Drogba's second goal was a decent one, but the fact of the matter is that Blackburn, in the first half, arguably outplayed the defending champions and deserved more from the referee than they got. Chelski can look back at this match with a degree of luck, me thinks.

Monday 28th August 2006

Middlesbrough 0 - 4 Portsmouth

One of my friends is as bookie and was cringing when Portsmouth were 3-0 up... as he had offered his punters 150/1 for a 3-0 win to Pompey with Kanu scoring first.

Portsmouth were one of my picks pre-seaeson for a surprise and they've started great guns so far, played 3 and won 2 and so far haven't conceded a goal. Kanu looks to be an inspirational signing for Redknapp and James is looking like an international keeper again, all of a sudden. Even plogalong Campbell is looking good. As for 'boro, they were never in the game. I can't even remember a solid chance on goal for them. James was hardly tested throughout and they didn't look like the side who have beaten Chelski on their last two attempts. It looks like Southgate's side are going to have another of those seasons. I dread them playing Man United, cos they're bound to beat us now.

Weekend Of Sport #1

2006-08-14T16:14:00.000+01:00

First in a new series of Monday posts on the preceding weekend's sport and in this first post I shall be giving my opinions on the two football matches of the weekend plus the weird celebrations of the British 4x100m Relay Team.

Manchester United 3 - Sevilla 0

In the last of Manchester United's pre-season matches, it was a team devoid of Scholes and Rooney as they are likely to miss the first match(es) due to bans. We were also missing Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic due to injuries, so the team on display was likely to be the same, give or take the odd change, as the one that will face Fulham on Sunday.

The game was fairly boring, truth be told... United showing the more creative edge, but failing to produce solid results until the second half with Saha, Ronaldo and David Jones scoring the three goals.

The highlight for me was seeing David Jones score his first goal for United of pre-season and I am hoping he'll get his fair share of first team opportunities this year.

Liverpool 2 - Chelski 1

Obviously I'm not a fan of either side, but you have to watch the first competitive match of the year really, don't you... I wished I hadn't as it was pretty dull. Riise scoring first was most amusing and also very heartening to see the Chelski defence in the worst state I've seen it for Crouch's winner... hopefully their form will continue into the premiership season as well.

I liked the comments of Mourinho too... "oh it was only a pre-season match, so we'll be happy with that..." get out of it, Jose! Your boys were rubbish!!

European Athletics

This is my main grumble of the weekend... for years I've been griping about the state of the British sprint scene and this weekend highlighted my main grievances with them. Darren Campbell and Mark Lewis Francis are two of the biggest underachievers in athletics... all they do is big up their own abilities and fail to deliver. They demand respect they claim is due to them and yet they fail to show how. This weekend showed a new low for Campbell though... the team win the 4x100 relay and Campbell decides not to do a lap of honour as a protest at Dwain Chambers' inclusion in the squad after his doping ban. Personally, I like Chambers even after that, but I can understand his point. However, to say he's not a hypocrite and wouldn't celebrate with his team-mates, but then to go and collect his medal? To me that makes him the biggest hypocrite of all. If you want to make a point you have to stick to your guns... you can't have your cake and eat it, Darren. You should have boycotted the medal presentation as well. Instead you undermined your own argument and made yourself more of a turkey than you were before.

The morning after...

2006-08-14T09:40:00.000+01:00

Saturday's BBQ at my place was a terrific success. No-one contracted food poisoning, we played frisbee in the dark, turned the BBQ into a makeshift campfire and stayed out til 4am. And no-one had hangovers! Success!

County Hall Picnic

2006-07-21T12:44:00.000+01:00

Some of my fellow county council colleagues are having a picnic outside their office. For the past ten minutes we have been watching them jump out of their window and lay out their lunch.

Coronary Sandwich

2006-07-17T09:03:00.000+01:00

This here is a bacon, sausage and egg roll from the golf club kitchen. It costs £2.55 and uses locally sourced produce. Now, a mate who owns a pub nearby had a hog roast at the weekend and was charging £6.50 for a small pork filled roll. I point him to this picture to show what value for money is and how not to take the piss. He also charges £2.10 for a pint of coke. Another mate owns the company that makes the mixers for pubs and knows that the cost price of a pint of coke is 40p. Disgraceful.

The Big Boys Come To Town

2006-07-14T13:40:00.000+01:00

Two of these big sods came flying over County Hall this morning. C5 Galaxies if I ain't mistaken!

Edit: I was much mistaken... I have been reliably informed that it is in fact a C17 of the RAF out of Brize Norton... so there you go!

This Week's Rant

2006-07-13T10:16:00.000+01:00

Traffic. It's a pain in the arse wherever you are... but what really winds me up is when you're in a slow line of traffic heading through town and you stop to let someone enter the line ahead of you from a side road and the dozy muppets sit there looking the wrong bloody way, making you look a muppet and enraging those behind. I give them about 3 seconds now, before I drive past them muttering and shaking my head so they get the point.

I'm not particularly evil, apparently...

2006-07-10T09:35:00.000+01:00

You Are 56% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side.
Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

The 19th Hole beckons...

2006-07-09T15:31:00.000+01:00

Hi from Downes Crediton Golf Club. I just twisted my ankle and I have half a round to go. Huzzah!

Clay shooting

2006-07-08T19:44:00.000+01:00

Today i have mostly been clay pigeon shooting!

County Hall

2006-07-07T13:01:00.000+01:00

First pic from the K800i

Wild Horses

2006-07-07T12:52:00.000+01:00

My first blog post. Watch this space for more!