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Well I finally did it; I managed to sort out my broadband Internet connection and start my download of the entire Internet. I am not sure if I will run out of disc space, I will have to wait and see

Check out my progress…

The controller of BBC Radio 4 has decided that a piece of music played for some 30 years as the introductory theme music for Radio 4 should be thrown away and replaced by… Yes, yet another news bulletin!! All this at 05:20hrs in the dark corners of the morning.

As is the case in this ever fast moving world we now live in, there is already a website up and running to try and save the ‘tune’, you can visit it and sign a petition to voice your displeasure, or approval!!!

From the organisation that gives us such value for money as ‘The Virgin Queen’ for such as small license fee, it seems a petty decision for the sake of just ‘five’ more minutes of news.

Sign the petition, save the Radio 4 theme.

I had the opportunity to be involved in a project at the Oxford University Press – OED division in 2004/5. They are currently offering free access to the online version of the OED as part of the BBC’s Balderdash and Piffle programme.

Access is limited to the letters that are featured in the programme it self, but at certain hours surrounding the broadcast of the programme you can actually search the whole of the Online OED.

This is a rare opportunity to explore a truly fascinating book for free, as this service is normally only available under subscription. Take the opportunity and log on now and find out what Flird, Scalprum and Yisel mean.

We had dinner last Friday night with friends and we got round to talking about Alan Bennett who had been on the South Bank show the previous week.

That led onto a discussion about comedy shows that Alan Bennett had been in before. One item that I remembered was a ‘mock sermon’ that Alan Bennett had delivered during a sketch in one of the great ‘Beyond the Fringe’ (BTF) reviews of the early 60’s – yes that long ago!

Needless to say I’d lost track on when and what the ‘mock sermon’ was about. I did once have a BBC LP of one of the shows when I was in the Royal Navy, (I used to present some programs for the on board radio stations), but somewhere along the way, it got misplaced. Shame, as I see that the original LPs are selling for around US$50.00!!

However, over to another Google session and yes, within 30 seconds, not only have I found the text of the sketch. But I also stumbled across a Podcast made last year at Podcast.net of the review that the whole BTF team (Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore & Peter Cook) made in New York in 1964, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to find the show, which also includes many more BTF items such as ‘The Few’ and ‘One Leg Too Few’ as well as the ‘mock sermon’. Still very funny today and when you look at the timing, quite a few year before Monty Python and I would say, BTF set down quite a few of the ground rules for all comedy that was to come.

My searching also found that you can purchase a CD box set of 3 CDs at either Amazon.co.uk or the Guardian which includes all of the most popular recordings, that’s one for me!

X-Files, Friends, Frasier, Ally McBeal! All gone and all we’re left with is repeats. Now shock of shocks, in one news item, two more will disappear, West Wing and Will & Grace (what will Jack do now?).

Should I watch the latest “Mystical Shipwrecked & Lost Big Brother” episode? I think NOT!

But there is always Dr. Who! Well okay, what about Life on Mars – a bit like ‘Back to the Future’ meets ‘The Professionals’! Makes you think how you ever worked without PCs, mobiles etc. I think it will turn out to be a hit. At least it does make you think unlike a lot of so called TV programmes.

I was having a conversation with one of my long time friends Jerrie, the other week and remembered a funny discussion we had while we were both a trade show in the UK some 15 years ago!!. She was learning to ‘sign’ and I (and others) were feeding Jerrie phrases to ‘test’ her ‘signing’ ability.

For some reason this phrase came up (I suppose we had been talking about Monty Python etc. which is where it comes from) and apparently (there were other ‘signers’ present) her ‘translation’ turned out to be correct. We all had a laugh and moved onto other subjects.

What’s the point of this? I had really not thought about the phrase for a long time (it’s not one that you see in any of the Monty Python re-runs – too much of those Lumberjacks’ & the Norwegian Blue!!) until it came up in last weeks conversation and as I could not remember what Monty Python sketch it was in. So, as one does these days, I turned to Internet and to my amazement there it was as the fifth hit on page one of the Google results; “The Hungarian Phrase Book”.

What I also find amazing is that there are another 40,400 results for that phrase! I’m not going to look through all of those, but one I found very ‘interesting’ was a translation of the phrase into a number of different languages, very handy if you need to communicate this to non-English speaking people as I am sure Monty Python has been seen by a huge amount of the world population over the years. The site also has a number of other translations for other handy phrases (Happy New Year/Xmas etc., worth a look and worth making a bookmark.

Seems that a few days have gone by since my last post, time marches on!!!

The Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! has improved, but not enough to let me sleep laying flat on my back! So since the ‘great fall’ have spent the nights trying to sleep sitting upright (well sort of) on one of our lounge chairs! Even then only managed to get a few hours sleep, so have been catching up on reading and some DVD’s in between dozing and watching some night time TV! Even with a the Digibox extra channels, there’s still a lot of cr*p being broadcast.

Oh, I just remembered! My Hovercraft is full of eels! More on that later.

Should have played golf today, but cancelled it due to my ‘step-ladder’ incident, it does not hurt as much today – must make sure I don’t do that again! So have been sorting out my digital pictures and came across these from the 05 Xmas/New Year break, we did have some snow, not much, but it brought a nice feel to the weekend. Also visited the harbour at Anstruther, little bit rough for sailing today!

Also been updating a some websites that I have, one is for a place that I was posted to when I was in the Royal Navy, I’ll post the URL for that when I have finished the update. Also updated a few pages on my IT Consulting website.

What is it about computers? My Real Player which I use to listen to re-runs of BBC radio programs on my Laptop stopped working at noon, no reason, just stopped working!!! In the end, re-installed the software, reset all the preferences etc. Now back working… What about Symantec and the root kit story!!

That’s it, must practice on my Yamaha Keyboard later, I have my second lesson, part of a Xmas Christmas present.

We all went away at Christmas and New Year, only the second time since we were married – we’ve always had parents/in-laws with us before, but sadly this year was different.

Spent XMAS at my sisters near Montgomery in Mid-Wales, she has just moved there from Shrewsbury. What a small, but fascinating place Montgomery is. We then went with friends from Cheadle to a small village, Kilconquhar in Fife for the New Year and stayed at a Castle Estate & Country Club just outside of the village. Excellent Hogmanay and there was even had some snow!!! A few walks were taken with one on New Years Day to witness a beautiful sunset over the Forth of Firth.

Very good trip back home, just over 7.5 Hrs with no traffic to speak of and a very quite M6(Toll) to help us on our way.

Well here it is, my first Blog post, not had one before and thought that I should start one for 2006.

What should I write about?

Well I start the New Year off with an injury! Last Tuesday, I was removing some brackets from a window blind half way up our stairs when my two-step step-ladder moved as I pulled out one of the screws and yes, down I went!! Luckily it was a slip more than a fall, but the handle of the ladder then decided to whack me right under the ribs! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! or perhaps some stronger words could be heard.

But luckily nothing is broken, so apart a number of emerging bruises and the hurt pride at now becoming a member the DIY accident statistics, I should just grin and bear it, Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!