All My Friends

So another year at Center Parcs.
Somehow, I think that it might be our last, for a while at least.

It seems that the policy of the place seems to have shifted. When I first started going, it was a place that gave good quality service, a high standard of food and had a sporty feel to it.
Unfortunately, I now feel that economics is becoming too much of a driver. That's not such a bad thing if it's sustainable and has long term benefits. Now, it seems that they are milking every single last drop of cash out of you that they possibly can.
It's understaffed, over-priced and the quality is poor.

Let me give you an example or two. The first main activity that H & Bobs did was on Tuesday morning. It's called an Arial Adventure. It consists of steadily making your way up tree mounted obstacles e.g. swinging platforms, until you reach quite a high platform where you then take to a zip-wire and slide all the way down. For those familiar, it's quite a lot like Go Ape, only a lot, lot smaller. The session took less than 30 minutes.
It's generally carried out in groups of 6-8. Their group was only the two of them, but that's because this was a very quiet week.
So what's the cost? £21........ each! Eight people at £21 = £168, potentially every half hour! Go Ape is at least £5 less than that and it lasts 2.5-3.5 hours.
The service in the restaurants can be used as another example. You arrive and it would be nice to be served straight away. I would say that it took on average 15 minutes before anyone came and saw us. The usual practice in restaurants is to get your drinks, then get your food order taken, right? Not here, you get the lot arriving at once after a major delay! We made the mistake in one place of asking for a pudding and a glass of water. The pudding took over 20 minutes, the glass of water required prompting. It was pretty damn abysmal.
Drinks prices? Well, bottled cider if fairly popular at the moment, isn't it? A bottle of Magners in the Livvy is £2.95. There, it was £3.95. A pint of Kronenburg and a G&T cost me £7.10!

Anyway, enough moaning. Like I said, we wont be going there next year for sure.
All that said, we still had quite a good time.
Here's a few pics as tasters. The rest can be seen HERE

Kandi Disco

Good morning!

Right, a quick ant update. As mentioned previously, we are once more "with ants". This lot are far more organised. I think the last lot must have been lazy, fat American ants or something. My new, all-improved ones are much more active. AND......... they've been burrowing! This is what we want.

Behold......



The big bit is one that I partially created for the original ones, but you can see the new bit that they've dug themselves. Good work my little beauties!

At the minute, they're still a little camera shy. This is the best that I could do with them so far. Needles to say, as soon as I put the camera away, they all come scurrying out.

A Samba In The Snowy Rain

I have proof! Yes indeed. Proof that there are people out there who read this. Either that or they're just looking for reasons to find embarassing photos of me!

Still, that inspires me somewhat to update this a little more frequently.

Coming in this issue - Titles, Myspace, Ants, Content, Music. Best get started then!

1. Titles
I thought I had responded to this somewhere in the past, but maybe not so here we go. If there's one thing that pains me, it's trying to think of titles for here and subjects in PMs etc.
Easy solution to this one. I'm nearly always listening to something when I type this up, so the title will simply become the title of the track that I'm listening to at the time. In the case it's by The Guillemots. More of them in the music section a bit later.

2. Myspace
Well this is still going strong. If you haven't had a look already, feel free to do so, the link is on the left hand side of this blog. If you're signed up too, feel free to add me.
I'm reasonably happy with it still and seem to be avoiding the chavspeak crap that first put me off it. Well, that is until I pay a visit to B2's site and see some of the comments on there ;o)
There is one thing that winds me up very slightly. That is the bloody stupid "about me" questionairre things that people seem intent on distributing. The occasional one is fine (so long as it's not too long), but some folk (looking at you, Chubbs! ;o)) send them out way too much. Normally they end with some bollocks about if you don't send it on, you will have seven years of bad luck or some such.
There is also a blog facility on there, but I think I'll stick with this format for now. Maybe add a link on there to here for now.

3. Ants
Well, summer is on it's way. I noticed some ants on the patio at the weekend, so I grabbed the antfarm and scooped them into it. I wasn't able to get that many, only about 6-7. I may try and get some more from the same place. Unfortunately, if they're not from the same next, they will kill each other though.
They are quite a bit smaller than the last lot, so I've had to seal the two air holes. Don't worry though, ants don't really need that much air, and I take the lid off daily. These seem very active too. They're running all over the place. They do keep stopping an having meetings. I'm not sure what about, but I'm preparing for an attack!

4. Content
I guess that this blog started off as the house project. It's progressed into general ramblings, but these are pretty much based around stuff that is actually going on. I was thinking about maybe moving into the genre of observation! What do you think?

5. Music
Ah yes, a subject very near to my heart.
I'm very pleased to say that over the past few months my music tastes have been broadened by chatting to people who have slightly different tastes to me (specifically Mazz & Razz). Some of you will know who I'm talking about.
I've still retained my previous taste, it's just expanded somewhat. So of late I have been listening to...
The Rakes
The Killers
The Kaiser Chiefs
Maximo Park
The Guillemots
Bright Eyes
And a very special mention goes to Kings Of Leon. This is a band who I never thought I would like. But they are now nudging at the best albums that I own!
Currently listening to The Holloways, who I saw as a support to The Rakes. They're very good too. They remind me lots of The Fratellis.

Right, that's your lot for now. Maybe more later!

Flathead

This morning saw us head across beyond Swaffham for a gentle stroll.

This was the route...


Really great weather for walking. Blue skies, bright sunshine and about 15ºC.
Anyway, here's a few that I took on the way round...







It was about 6 miles with a guide time of 2.5 hours. We did it without rushing too much in exactly 1hr 45mins.

This Is Not America

Good morning.

So the explanation for the previous pics was that the olds came over from France and were at ours for the weekend. Introduced the old man to the delights of Wii. B2 gave him a bit of a thrashing at most things, but he showed his skillz at 10 pin bowling.

Now for the beauty that is Wii boxing though.
The seriousness and concentration on his face is a sight to behold!



This is the same man who came from a caring profession! Scarey!

Onto yesterday...

We decided to have a day in the smoke visiting a few museums.
There was a Kylie exhibition on at the V&A, so I booked us some tickets for that. Unfortunately we missed the earlier train and didn't get there in time for our slot. We spent about 10 minutes in the V&A before heading for the Science Museum.
That's a very good fun place to visit. The most annoying thing is all the bloody little kids running around pressing buttons on things without even bothering to read what it was about. I did take some satisfaction in one particular area though. There was a big steel pole with signs saying "don't touch". Of course this was a pure invite for the little darling to do just that, after which they received a mild electric shock. Unfortunately, it wasn't powerful enough to make any of them cry, but it pleased me all the same!
We popped into one of those motion simulator things where it's a fully enclosed capsule that projects an image onto a screen up front whilst the whole thing moves about on hydraulic cylinders. This was one time when I was quite pleased to have some kids in there rather then adults trying to to pretend they weren't scared. H spent most of her time trying to stay on her seat. I think she fell of about four times in total.
Later on in the day we booked in to see a shark film at the iMax cinema. This is a huge screen, certainly the largest that I've been to. It's also 3D. When we entered, we were given special 3D glasses. We then proceeded to take the piss out of everyone else trying them on. In particular, there was one old chap, of a certain age, who donned his as soon as they were given to him. The comedy value of him stumbling about trying to find a seat with these stupid things on his head was a sight to behold.
So, just how ridiculous does one look in them?



Indeed!

After the Science, it was still early enough to quickly dive into the Natural History museum, but we immediately regretted it. Absolutely rammed does not do it justice. After 15 minutes we made our escape.
Still being a lovely day, we decided to walk quite a bit of the way - from South Kensington, to Knightsbridge, up The Mall and then cutting through to Picadilly Circus. Fantastic people watching to be done.

We Might As Well Be Strangers

Gonna post some quick photos because someone else wants access to them...

Wii antics with a couple of generations





This one, though, is one that I took a few days ago early in the morning. I like it and haven't posted it anywhere before...

Pump It Up

Yesterday, I spent a few hours at Heathrow airport. I was taking a very special friend there to catch a flight (really? fancy that).

The journey down was so typical. The first bit travelling a few back roads of Norfolk/Camb was easy and pleasant. The second sector was okay, drop onto the A14, then A11, then M11. All dualled and flowing freely. Hit the cruise button and chill.
Then comes the M25. The first couple of miles were fine. We hit traffic at one of those "2 miles to roadworks" signs. We then crawled for 90 minutes. I say crawled, but it wasn't even like that. It would be preferable to travel at a constant 10 mph, but no. That would be way to easy. We have to sit for 2 mins, then engage 1st and travel for 10 yards before doign the same again, over and over and over and over. So depressing. I am so glad I don't do a job where I have to do that every day.

Eventually we clear the jam. Whay it is that you all of a sudden start moving again without anythign to indicate actually why there was the holdup???
20 miles or so and we got to Heathrow. Very busy. Fortunately it's all well signed and clear, so we were in the car park pretty smartish.
I like airports, but I've been spoilt somewhat by travelling from Stansted quite a bit. Heathrow is like Stansted except it's all squashed up with lower ceilings and less to do. Rubbish!

After an hour or so we had to say goodbye and it's homeward bound again. I know I haven't mentioned who I was dropping off, but I will at some point, and it's linked in with the August holiday, so keep guessing for now.

I get back on the M4 and look out for services signs. On the way in, my tank had got fairly low and it was telling me I had about 29 miles to go until I needed to fill up.. I saw a sign. 25 miles to the services. So this was going to be close. I know that manufacturers play it safe, and I probably had 40 miles or so in the tank. However, I did not relish the idea of running out and being stuck on the hard shoulder. So I bottled it.
Yet again, I'm going to sing the praises of Satnav once again. As far as I was aware, the nearest services were 25 miles away, right? Well, I hit the "Points Of Interest" button on the Tom Tom and pressed "Petrol Stations". It instantly showed up one about 3 miles away. Selecting it, I came off the motorway and after going off down some strange backroads, I was there within 5 minutes. How great is that? A road atlas can't do that for you!
Dialling in home again, it took me straight back to the M25 and onwards. Interestingly though, it came off before the M11 and went up the A1. I didn't mind this as I didn't really want to be stuck in traffic again (although it would have been considerably lighter at 21:00)
Flying along nicely, I was back in Camb with half an hour to go and then I noticed cars turning round in front of me. Bloody road closed due to an accident. This is the only route home I know! It's dark and I'm tired. Satnav to the rescue again! I hit "Find Alternative" and it takes me round the accident. Brilliant!

Get One!!!!

Dark & Long (Dark Train)

I'm going to talk holidays to you now.
This year is the year of holidays for me, for sure.

First up we have a week in Center Parcs. This is becoming pretty much an annual event. This will be the third year in a row that we've gone with the wonderful Tim & Bobs. Another recruit will be with us this year in the shape of Zak. By rights he was with us last year too, but being encased by Bobs, if you'll excuse the expression.
This time we're going for a mid-week break which gives us an extra day there. We're also upgrading to one of the luxury cabins. With a bit of luck this will result in an outdoor jacuzzi!
A special note for Tim should he choose to read this... Pool Competition - NO!

Next we're heading up North to Edinburgh. I've never been, but is somewhere that I've always fancied going. A lovely couple (Di & Gordon) live there and so we will be making use of the their hospitality for a lot of it. Poshing it up a bit in the Hilton (Tesco vouchers come in handy!)

On to July next with the usual trip to France with the Olds. We're thinking that driving may be the answer this year though. Also we shall be taking Nat and her mate Fox (that might have an extra 'x')

I do have another trip planned in August, but maybe more of that another time - I like to keep you guessing.

What else?

Oh Myspace. This "concept" is one that I've steered clear of for a while. The first time I sort of had a look at it, it seemed to be full of txt-spk kids, garish colour and shite music. In fact, I was one of it's biggest critics.
However, times move on and I believe that Myspace has matured somewhat. My own place on there has been further developed. I have a growing number of "friends". So far only had to turn down two friend requests. My standard on this is that only people that I actually know (plus bands) will have the great fortune to be considered a friend of mine. Oh yes!

Tomorrow sees a venture to Norwich with the amazing persona know as the razz. We're gonna see The Rakes at the UEA. Should be most entertaining and tiring!

Umm. That's do for now.

Chasing Cars

I thought I'd share with you an attempt of mine at stop motion filming.
The subject is to do with the OOS forum and a celebration of 12,000 posts. Yes, I know the film only has 11,000! Don't ask!

Anyway, have a gander at 30-odd jelly beans and 2 hours of patience...

Ain't Nobody....... Loves Me Better

The ants are no more.
They have shifted off this mortal coil.
They are gone.
Every each last one of them perished.
Dead.
Goners.
Deceased.
Belly up.
Past away.
No longer of this Earth.

That is all.

A sad day.

Homage To Patagonia

We're gonna party like it's her birthday.

Yup, it's H's birthday today. She's hitting the late thirties now that she's 32. I will also get a kick for that one, I'm sure.
Are we gonna party though? No. I very much doubt it. As she's getting a 6am train for London tomorrow, I would think it will be an early night, not a party.

What's been going on?

A good weekend for starters. As part of H's present, we went to see Phantom Of The Opera. As previously mentioned, we're both fans of shows and really wish we could see more of them. We have decided to make the effort to do so in future.
Very easy to get there. Train from Downham and within 90 minutes we're walking the City. It's never going to be the cheapest way of doing things, but it's not a great deal more expensive than driving once you take everything into consideration.
So. What of the show? Very, very good. It's amazing to think that these guys are doing that twice a day, every day. They do make it seem as though it's a one-off special performance. An interesting fact for you. The show has been running in London for over twenty years. In that time, the show has never failed to sell a seat for every single performance. That's pretty impressive.
After the show we met up with some of the great guys on OOS. Good to see them, expecially Sandra & Adam, Chris and Ginger-Tom, who we've never met before.

Ants? Pah! Don't talk to me about ants. I'm left without about three now. They still don't really understand the concept of tunneling. I tried to help them out a bit, but the hollow that I've created, they seem to treat as a liitle next.
Roll on summer when I can get some new ones!

Was that winter?

The whole country got a little excited on Wednesday. Yes indeed, tonight we're going to have more snow than ever before! Talk about over-selling and under-delivering. It arrived in East Anglia at about 7am. It then continued snowing through until midday. Not bad, I hear you say. But no, it was fine powdery snow (the sort that soaks you through?!?). It did settle, but never really got beyond an inch or two. After it stopped snowing, it got mild rather quickly. Subsequently, it had pretty much gone by late afternoon.
I really hope that's not it for this winter. I really like extremes of weather and if that is all the snow that we are going to get, I want my money back please.

Ants are a big dissappointment. At last count, there were twelve. Talk about lethargic! I thought I had a breakthrough on Monday. Before I left for work, I dipped a cocktail stick in sugar and dropped it in for them. When I got home, they seemed all active - although still not discovered the art of tunneling.
It didn't take them long to revert back to their lazy ways though.
I guess I'm resigned to leaving them to it. Either they get off their fat arses and do something or come the warm weather, they'll be evicted in favour of better miners. It's harsh, but fair.

A decent title coming here soon!

Lovely weekend, wasn't it?

Saturday started with me and Jack going out for a good run. A bit of Wii playing followed. B2 was with us, so she was determined to beat up a few folk in the boxing ring.

In the afternoon, we chose to head out on the bikes. Nice and crisp, very little wind and bright sunshine. Ideal, and the first one of the year. a very leisurely 7 miles which was really pleasant indeed.

The evening had us a nice chinese at the restaurant down the road, commonly known as the "Sexual Inn" (I've known better nicknames!)

Yesterday I was involved in a selection day with Sams. Up again at 7am. That's really not so good for a weekend. A succesful day though with four prospective volunteers going forward for training.

When I got home, H had taken B2 back home, so I decided to catch the second half of the United game at the pub. Four pints later I headed home. I was looking forward to watching Top Gear, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up to see the programme that came on at 9pm! That's the price I pay for getting up early. Gonna have to watch the repeat now. Bugger.

Ants - still no tunneling.

Men!

I remembered, so here it is...



Quite amusing, and I'm sure most of you can relate.

As regards the ants, two words - Lazy Buggers.
No tunneling, so pointless posting any pics up. Two more have died, so that leaves me 13 left. They tend to stand around a bit, not doing an awful lot. I've tried to help them by enlarging one of the holes, but so far not so good.
Patience is a virtue.

Quick Pic

Just a swift posting to share a photo with you.

I discovered this a while ago, but only thought to post it on here a minute or two ago.
Some of you will have seen it, but I'm sure others wont and will appreciate it.



If I remember, later I will also post H's favourite Youtube clip!

Operation "Remove Grit"

Well, as you saw on the previous pics, there is still the packaging grit in with the ants. I needed to remove this as it looked unsightly. One problem - the second that they sense the lid is being removed, they all rush to the lid and try to get out. Call me a wuss, but a few of these are soldiers and would give a nasty bite. I just wouldn't be able to contain them.
So a plan was hatched.
I quickly tipped the whole lot into a glass container and lidded it with clingfilm. This gave me the chance to clean up the tank.
Now, how to get them back in. By this time, a lot of them were up on the clingfilm trying to get out (and who can blame them). Well, I made a little hole in the clingfilm and got a small wooden skewer. Great, I could get one at a time and drop them into the tank. Ahhh, easy with the first, but then I would have to remove the tank lid to get the second one in and the first would make a bid for freedom. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
Right, get the test tube thing they came in. They can't climb up that. I would deposit them one at a time into that and then tip the whole lot into the tank. Sorted.
So, I got it all ready and got the first one out and into the tube. Then it happened.......... click........... powercut!
AAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh
I had 20 ants in a container all heading for the hole in the clingfilm. I had one ant in a tube in my hand. Pitch dark.
I used a bit of spare film and managed to seal the hole. Fortunately the lights came back on after a few minutes.
This plan worked well and I succeeded in getting all the live ants back into the clean tank.
So we have 15 in total. Just need to get them burrowing now.

Here they are in their cleaner home...

Names

Forgot to mention that I've named some of them already...

Anty Val
Anty Gill
Anty Julia

One of the ones that I unfortunately squished was...

Anty Disestablishmentarianism

I'll miss that one.

More names to follow.

Antworks

So begins a new era in this blog, ANTS!

Don't know if I mentioned this previously, but H got me an Antworks for Christmas. A what? Well, it's a little container filled with blue gel. It was developed by NASA to take ants into space, in an environment that they could survive in. Basically, it's a gel that thy tunnel into. It feeds them and allows them to live freely.
You have the option of collecting your own ants, but with it being winter, there aren't that many about so I sent off for some. They arrived yesterday and were duly installed into their new home.
Unfortunately a few died in the post, but I had to chuck the whole lot in as they're pretty active buggers and were escaping all over the place. Last night I went to take out their test tube (that they were delivered in) and they all made a run for it. Despite me being careful, I still managed to squish two when putting the lid back on. This does not make me very happy.

Anyway, I will chart their progress on here from now on.
Here are the first shots...

Klink

Sunday was an odd day. I spent four hours of it inside a high security prison.
Let me explain.
I was going to have a look round as part of another thing that I'm involved in. There were five of us in total. The prison was Whitemoor. It's one of eight high security prisons in the UK and is situated about half an hour away.
So I'll give you a brief run down on the visit.

Getting in was the first thing. We had to provide quite a few details a while ago for checking. On the day two forms of ID, one of which had to be photo ID. We were then signed in and had to go through security i.e. metal detectors, X-ray machines for jackets, full frisk. Then get photo badges made.
The duty Governor then came down to meet us and take us up to a meeting room. At this point the hairs start to stand up on the back of your neck. The first few doors were electric, sliding ones. As you get further in, starts the constant locking and unlocking of gates. We must have gone through a dozen just to get to this meeting room, and that was still in the office block.
After a chat about the whole place, he then took us on a tour. We didn't have the full clearance for meeting prisoners, so were took on a tour at lunchtime when they are all locked up for about 80 minutes.
It was a very strange feeling and there's no way that I can describe it in words. On the way into the wings, we passed a big notice board with lots of photos of the prisoners on it. One particular section was labelled "Known Hostage Takers" i.e. very dangerous.
We first went to the segregation block and it was really quite bizarre. I could see maybe 20 cell doors, all locked. Knowing that behind each one was someone who had done something to warrant a sentence of possibly in excess of 30 years (the minimum sentence at Whitemoor is 4 years). We looked at various areas throughout the tour including a visit to C-Wing where they are mostly Cat A prisoners and are typically sex offenders, informers and other sorts of prisoners who other prisoners hate. Again, they were all locked away. The security was very, very tight. CCTV cameras everywhere and many of the doors not only had to be unlocked by the Governor, but also were linked back to the Control Room and so required an electronic unlocking with mini cameras to see who was there.
I could go into much more detail, but I guess you've got the idea now.
All in all a very, very interesting visit. It may be something that I get more involved in.

Soon be Christmas

Two things to talk about.
Firstly 12" mixes. The reason being that I got my hands on nine discs worth and am currently wading through them. They're from the 80s, which is of course the best decade that there has been for music ever. I guess that is when 12" mixes were at their peak too, come the 90s and CDs were taking over.
I used to have quite a few 12" records. If I like a particular track, I'd buy it on 12". Some used to be very good, but some were not even remixes at all which is a bit of a con really. Not like the music business to cheat the public out of money is it?

Also, we are now the proud parents of a Wii! Having had it on pre-order since 16th September, it arrived on Friday. It was supposed to be an early birthday present arriving on 8th December. Unfortunately I was not one of the lucky ones to get one on time. Worth the wait? You bet.
Set it up on Friday after work and had quite a play that evening. As a result I now have somewhat sore biceps from boxing way too hard.