Gimme a gold star

Not only have I created a DUN connection so that I can still get online if/when this Carphone Warehouse server migration malarkey buggers up my aol connection, but I've actually braved up enough to try it and wooweeee, I can be online and using aol software without loading it up on my pc.  I could even uninstall aol from my hard drive completely and still get online and still do everything on aol that I want to do.  Brilliant.

If you fancy doing the same then do exactly what this link tells and shows you to do, then just use IE and go to aol.co.uk, log in and voila.  Go on, it's easy peasy.

DUN

Tags: DUN

Weekending

I've just returned from a long weekend away - can you guess where?

Here's another clue

Yes, sunny Devon.  We drove for 5½ hours to get there through Shropshire snow and sleet and found a blue-skyed Shangri La smothered in primroses and bluebells and clotted cream teas.  My sister in law has cannas in her garden 12" high already.  Mine are blighted soggy stumps that I doubt will ever rise again. 

 

Tags: Devon

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_2

And to clay you will return.......

News today in economics circles about food prices in the poorest neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which is perhaps the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The price of rice, the people's staple food, has doubled in the last year. This increase naturally has forced poverty-stricken residents to look for substitutes for rice.

Apparently in the past they have baked “dirt biscuits” using salt and vegetable shortening along with clay from a nearby area.  The clay has some nutrients in it, so it is not entirely filler. The problem tho is that the supply curve of clay is not horizontal; so with this increased demand for the clay, its price has risen too — by 40% during the same period. 

The dirt is no longer dirt-cheap - and the poor are just too poor to eat dirt. 

Tags: Port Au Prince, rice prices.

Feeling a lot better now :O))

I just saved myself £470 - by using the tips and links on MoneySavingExpert.com I saved £350 on buildings and content insurance and a further £123 on train tickets to and from Chingford.  Tomorrow I'm going to save another £200pa on my hub's mobile phone by switching his sim from O2 annual contract to Orange PAYG and have a look at changing our electricity provider.  Then once I'm feeling a bit less peaky I'm off to Chester for some Retail Therapy as recommended by good doctors everywhere. 

It's amazing how saving some dosh can perk one up, innit?

Tags: MoneySavingExpert.com, Buildings/Contents insurance

Rantin and Ravin

 

Well I think I must be picking up a bit because today I've had enough energy not just for a rant, but also a rave.  I'm living proof that my mother was right when she used to tell me that washing my hair and cutting my fringe out of my eyes would make me feel a lot better.

 

In my hamlet there's a garden which was adorned by a small collection of the most wonderful mature Poplar trees.  Throughout the year the sound of the breeze rustling through the leaves was as if we all lived on the edge of a shingle beach where wavelets constantly fell with a sigh or a roar.  I could open my windows at night and hear their gentle susurrations lulling me to sleep.  In Spring the opening of the big fat pink bud cases was a joy and later the fluffy seedheads lined the lanes for a week or so like duckdown trimmings.  In Summer the Poplars were like green sentinels overlooking the crossroad at the bottom of my paddock but in Autumn, well, in Autumn they were a honey coloured glory visible for miles around like golden obelisks pointing to heaven.

Yesterday the Philistine wanker who lives there had them cut down to stumps.  So go on, guess what this house is called. 

Yup - The Fuck Ugly Stump House Owned by a First Class Fuckwit formerly known as The Poplars.

 

My rave is for a cd which I ordered from the USA after reading a review by a blogger whose good taste I admire.   Have a look at  http://singlemanwriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/two-things-to-like-about-texas.html

I was inclined to think that any son of the great modern American writer Larry McMurtry would know how to write lyrics and Paul Mcs recommendation was good enough to spend a few quid on.  Today I listened to James McMurtry's award winning CD 'Childish Things' and after one hearing I'm an absolute fan.  It's rare in these times to find songwriters who can really make you feel something with their words but James McMurtry can.  Great lyrics, fantastic driving rhythms and what a voice.  Honest, I'd give him one right this minute and as you know, I'm still a bit poorly.  :O))

 

Tags: Waterboy, James McMurtry, Childish Things, Poplar trees

Off colour

I've been feeling a bit poorly lately, the sort of poorliness that can only be described as 'a bit poorly'.  I've nothing to show for it, no headache, no womit, no squits, just a bit of shakiness and a generalised feeling that I'm a bit poorly.  I'm all 'Pathos-R-I'.

The trouble with being a bit poorly is that it resembles nothing so much as an excuse for doing sfa but sit on the sofa palely shaking while someone else does the graft.  So I feel an idle sham, but an idle sham who feels a bit poorly, so now I'm a bit poorly and slightly resentful.  It's not a good look, but it does go with the lank hair and unmadeup fizzog. 

 

I know it sounds masochistic but just once I'd quite like a broken limb.  Something I could thrust into people's faces and elicit instant sympathy 'Look John Look.  Look at Jane.  Jane really is a bit poorly'. 

I'd like the sort of poorliness that makes people in the street ask if I'm feeling okay, would I like a chair, shall they call me a taxi (or tacsi for Welsh speakers).  Mind, given my age that's bound to happen within the next fortnight.  Osteoporosis isn't warded off by Clairol.