No sé nada

Long,long ago (well, July) I vowed never again to be embarrassed about my almost complete lack of language skills. I went through a process of elimination to decide which language I should learn. I studied Latin briefly at school but as Centurions never quite made it to these parts and I didn't want to be a flower arranger or human butcher there was never really a need. I then migrated to French which annoyingly I can read pretty well though have no desire to know perhaps partly from the knowledge that in the last 200 or so years the only words the French themselves needed to know were Non! and Je me rends. So Spanish was chosen for my adult re-education. I dug out the cloth eared Collins Gem Spanish phrasebook I bought a couple of years before and started to read up on it, check pronunciation, download the few available podcasts etc.. One of them mentioned a speed learning technique that tapped into the sub-conscious (which suits me as I usually am) and just seemed to make sense. As you learn buy a novel in Spanish that is also available in English, and just read. Vocabulary, grammar, speech patterns etc. are, according to the theory, just absorbed and constructed jigsaw-like by the grey, walnut sized organ that sits between the ears. My walnut read lazy learning. So, before boarding my holiday jet home I procured my first pair of Spanglish novels. At this point I should, therefore, be able to regale you with word of what progress I've made and share whether I can converse in a way that would have you think I'm Enrique rather than a dubbed bandito in a Fistfull of Dollars. Needless to say I lost the bloody book. Well, you weren't expecting a happy ending, were you? ¡Bastardos groseros!

Boo!

Hallow'e'en. Pre-daddy days it meant getting tidied up and going to do some serious damage at a flange infested embibing emporium. How times have changed. Now, father to the funniest (and smartest, eerily knowledgeable in a way that would make you believe in re-incarnation) toddler around you'd think I'd have happily swapped my days of debauchery for an evening full of tot sized games and amusements. No. My (smartest, funniest, Elmer Fudd-on-helium speaking) toddler is afraid of Hallow'e'en masks and even painted faces. As fireworks are officially banned now, thanks to the wee spides who fire them at pets and ambulances, that makes for an interesting Hallow'e'en.


I can't be done for child abuse just for taking her into a bar can I?

confused.com

My new job means I have to provide my own car which in turn means I have to insure it. I started to get prices last week and the thought of repeating answers ad nauseam to several insurance companies' call centre staff didn't exactly tickle me so I took confused.com at it's word and typed in my details on-line. Theory goes that they feed the data to 18 insurers and come back with all the prices and main variations in cover. Having driven a company car for a while I knew I'd have lost some of my no claims bonus so wasn't expecting a low price. The cheapest came back as £900 with most others somewhere between £1200 and £1300. My flabber was well and truely gasted but as I could see all 18 on a web page I thought I'd have no alternative but to plump for the £900 and swallow it. As a just-in-case, I thought I'd go the old fashioned way and ring a broker. £600. Quicker than I could fill in a web form. Piece of piss. There's a moral here isn't there. I was well aware internet retailers weren't necessarily cheaper, and if you're buying something tangible that customer service is invariably slow and shite (3 months to get a refund on a defective MP3 player from Pixmania, French cunts) but on something like insurance you really do expect the web to come up trumps. After all, it's you who's doing all the work. But 1/3 cheaper, or 50% more expensive depending on which way you want to look at it? So forget confused.com. They're stacked full of insurers who operate under multiple brands for different distribution channels. They rely on us either

1. believing that the web is usually significantly cheaper or
2. being too busy/lazy to ring a phone number during normal business hours and talk to a real person

On the plus side however, technically I've saved £300. So how should I treat myself?

Lowest common denominator

I've been tardy again, haven't I? New job you see. I've been trying to get my new technology delivered and working. The first part's hard and the second makes the first look easy, if that makes sense. Complete pain in the arse.

It's with great delight, therefore, that I give you Percy.

adopt your own virtual pet!

Things

It's funny how "things" create or stir emotions in us. Inanimate objects. When we're babies it'll be a blanket or a dummy or a wee cuddly toy. Life goes on, the years pass but there'll always be "things" that we hold dear completely unrelated to their material worth. A photo, a letter, a watch, jewellery, a ticket. All for different reasons but with the common theme running through that they make us feel comfortable, comforted. Happy memories. Now, as a grown up (more usually groan up) I always feel that way about cars. Doesn't matter if it's been an old banger, a heap of scrap or a an expensive lump of German metal, the feeling's the same. This morning my car's being taken back by my old employer. I need a new blanket.

Seventies smells

Boarded the plane on Wednesday to find my luggage sitting behind my seat. Seat number 8. Seat number 8 of an eight seater plane that looked, smelt and felt like a 70s car inside. For the first time I saw every single passenger pay attention to the safety briefing on what had turned into a blustery day. Every single mile of the flight would take place over water. Cold water. Five minutes and you're dead water. I line up The Smiths on my MP3 player.

Air safety

Do you ever have to/choose to fly? How safe is your plane? Pretty safe? Extremely safe? All those airport checks, shoes off, no liquids on board. Must be fine?

But what if some of the cargo is NEVER checked? What would you think if you discovered it was standard procedure and for a parcel to avoid being security screened all it would have to have would be one of 1,500,000 approved security numbers (for U.S. patrons).

A recent trial exposed this accepted loophole in security when a Fed-Ex employee "sold off" these secret numbers to a drug gang looking to ship drugs avoiding security checks from the U.S. to the U.K..

Re-assuring isn't it. Full story here.

Baby Charlotte

It's Monday morning and as sure as the sun rises a story emerges from the news that just makes you despair (well, me anyway).

I'll precis the story but link to an article with more detail.
A couple had a child extremely prematurely. At birth it weighed 1lb and had multiple underdeveloped organs. The medical team, against all probability, kept the child alive through constant resuscitations but in the end asked the parents for permission not to resuscitate if required again as the child had no quality of life, no chance of recovery, had a very short life expectancy and was drawing on hospital resources to the degree that other sick children could not receive treatment that would improve their quality of life. The parents fought, and won, their legal battles at times when their child was gravely ill, the taxpayer bearing the substantial cost of their case.

Fast forward to today.... the parents are to separate and neither is to take care of the child.

Whilst as a parent I understand their natural desire to see their child live one has to wonder what motivated these people to fight so strongly before yet now seem so disinterested in her plight.

Could it be that now the media spotlight is off them and the newspaper and magazine exclusives have dried up they see the world differently?
Could it be that for the first time in 3 years they've actually listened to what the medical staff have been saying all along?
Could it be that they just don't love this little girl after all, at least not in her broken state?

It's a tragic, tragic story where no-one wins. Not the tax-payer, the hard pressed hospital staff, the parents and family and certainly not Charlotte (OK, perhaps a handful of barristers earned a bucket full of shekels and are no doubt donating that all to children's charities as we speak).

It does, however, remind me that perhaps some adults, for the sake of others, just shouldn't have any rights at all.

Personal best

I know it looks like I've temporarily abandoned this wee blog, just been away with work all week, still am now. I've been meeting and getting to know people, some drink has been involved and, unusually, I haven't shamed myself-well, except for falling asleep in 3 separate presentations.

As I'm away next week, however, there's time yet. In fact I don't officially start work for a couple of weeks so I could set a personal best for shaming myself, offending my betters and getting sacked comfortably before I even begin.

Now there's a challenge.

Queen of the ball

If you're petty and small minded like me you'll like this. Somehow I missed the story first time round. You know Richard Branson? OK. Well he was throwing a 21st birthday party for his son, the theme of which was The Madhatter's Ball. Paris Hilton heard about the party and asked if she could come dressed as Alice, therefore guaranteeing her a starring role. Sir Dicky agreed. When she turned up however she found Tricky Dicky had asked all 60 waitresses to dress up as Alice too. To rub salt in to the wounds he deliberately asked Paris for a drink when she approached him. Quality.

p.s. do you think she's lost a contact or just about to be on the receiving end?

Bolloxing about with Blogger Beta

Well, I eventually took the plunge and swithced over to the new Beta. What's the difference? It's easier, for the most part, to customise and for the first time it's possible to position elements of the page rather than have them nailed in a specific location for each template.

I was able to move most of my junk over and paste in in to new html/script elements. In fact I think the only thing I couldn't do was put back my comment hack which showed the names of all commenters below each post. For the time being I've made do with something else for comments though I'm not sure it's working in real time and seems to be a bit behind. Hopefully you should be able to see the most recent comments somewhere in the sidebar though I'd really like to be able to have that functionality again.

On the whole I think the changes are good and allow the majority of non html savvy bloggers to tweak and customise. The downside is that Blogger wrote a new programming language so it's more difficult to mess with the template itself. I imagine the hackers are already on it though and some new bells and whistles will be along soon for the brave and foolhardy.

There still seems to be some glitches. Some elements don't like certain page positions so some of my page elements aren't where I want them. I imagine it'll get sorted out.

It's also now possible to post photos directly to the blog from flickr rather than simply have them hosted. Haven't tried it out yet so don't know if it's for individual pics or slideshows too.

I've spent 2 or 3 hours changing things around. Not happy with eveything yet so I'll probably have a go again tonight to see what else I can come up with.

Microsoft Vista. Quel surprise

I've been aware of this for a while now hence my sudden interest in learning Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux. It gains special significance when you know that Microsoft will withdraw support (security patches etc.) for XP 12 months after Service Pack 3 which is expected in about 6 months. So that means 18 months and then you have to migrate to Vista.

I don't think so!