That's a negative ghostrider, the pattern is full

Last weekend I had a rather interesting 3 days considering that I was at work rather than having fun like everybody else on a bank holiday weekend.

I was working on site having been sub contracted out by my company to help one of our rivals with a major re-signalling commissioning. This is a nice situation to be in, because you know that if the job overruns and the railway is not given back to the operator on time for the morning rush hour on the Tuesday then its not a big deal because it's not your company who will have to foot the bill!* I can't say I worked any less hard than normal, just that there was no stress when one sensed that things were going a little tits up!

We were put up for the weekend in a hotel in Gatwick's North terminal. Unfortunately as it wasn't exactly the most expensive hotel in the world, there was no AC. This meant that I had to leave my window open over night so that I didn't cook in my own juices.** The up side to having my window open was that I was woken up by the sounds of jets taxiing past my window, spooling up there massive engines and accelerating down the runway. The first morning in a slumber confused state I momentarily thought I was on the set of the introduction scenes from the film Top Gun. By the 4th night I had an overwhelming urge to go and purchase myself a Harold Faltermeyer CD so that I could play it in the background to complete the experience.

Saturday was spent mainly waiting around for the civil engineers to construct and erect the equipment that I was supposed to be testing. I feel I may have abused my responsibilities of being a team leader when I sent one of the guys working for me to the local newsagents to get me a copy of The Times so I could do the Su Doku.

Samurai SuDoku in 29 minutes flat, fastest yet!

The other guys on my team called me a “posh nerd” for reading The Times so we agreed to swap and I read the Sun and the Daily Fascist while they were pleasantly surprised at the readability of a "heavy" newspaper. I meanwhile secretly enjoyed certain aspects of The Sun that are not featured in such publications as The Times.

On Sunday the weather was unusually hot for this time of year but I spent most of the day in an Air Conditioned equipment room wishing I was out trackside frolicking in the sun. On Monday my wish was granted as I was given a work pack that would entail my walking from Horsham to Billingshurst, a distance of about 10 miles. The weather was even hotter and the sky was even bluer. Within a mile I realise that this might not be such a perfect day as I had no access to any sun cream or any protection for my head or back of my neck, that were consequently getting a complete roasting from the sun. I spent the whole day literally feeling the skin on my neck getting burnt, but being able to do nothing about it. Needless to say Tuesday was a day where I would have quite happily traded my agonising pain for the relative comfort of child birth at the first opportunity. It's OK'ish now but I still can't do my collar up.

*As seen on News24 yesterday morning, Horsham station was not open until 8.30am, 4.5 hours late, causing major disruption.
** I've just read that sentence back to myself and think in retrospect I shouldn't have worded "getting hot" in such a way, but what can you do!?!

I want to blog honest

Today I have been off work ill as it feels like there are a thousand little ninjas with a thousand little (but very sharp) swords having a little altercation with my inside lining of my throat. In a word, it's "painful", in two/three words it's "very f*cking painful".

I have consumed my body weight in Strepsils Extras (Blackcurrant Lozenges), which has helped a lot. In fact I think I might have slightly overdosed as I am feeling almost euphoric this evening despite being stuck in my flat all day watching the monsoon from my window.

Unfortunately I have been a bit (well very) rubbish at writing on my blog lately and for that I apologise. There is no excuse.

I find with working full time, which is 100% more "time" than I was at university, means that I am just too tired or lazy to blog in the evening. As soon as my weekends become a little more boring I'm sure that I'll be able to catch up on some of the things that have happened to me lately. Maybe you can vote (by leaving comments) as to which story you want to hear first:

- Kat's birthday in London (posh bars, youth hostels, running, dumpsters, drinking, irresponsibility, Darth, clubs, my friend Richard and The Royal Opera house)
- My new flat (Bath, yuppies, kiwis, rugby, bridges with shops on, double beds, Ikea, Bristol, bargains)
- Darthy visits Bath (drinking, maps, misdirection, Wells cathedral, Glastonbury, drinking, complex sofabeds, degrees)
- My new job (pay wonderful pay, site working, dressing smart, the washable suit, exams, the return of stress, bicycles, commuting, ironing, WWII French army trucks, respect, pissing off your boss)
- Katrina visits Bath (drinking, eating, horses, getting lost, late trains, perfect pubs, suicidal dogs, a place called Bradford-on-Avon, my cooking, idyllic Cotswold's villages, drinking, posh city parks)
- Bob visits Bath/ Bob visits the United Kingdom (Nepalese food, drinking, Triumph Heralds, bikes, lonely planet guide books, Iran, Sydney, and 13th century manor houses with a moat!)

So let me know which you want to hear about in detail and I'll do my best to satisfy your desires dear readers.

Correction

I was reading this article on the BBC news website which is apparently written by a professor.

Here is the single most important fact about MEDIA STUDIES.....

THE STUPID* PEOPLE AT SCHOOL DO MEDIA STUDIES.

Now you can argue that it is not easy and that it is just as difficult as other A-levels but anybody who has been through the education system in this country at circa the same time as me will know that the only kids that took Media Studies where the ones who either couldn't spell their own surname or who had a record of "thumping" teachers, or both!**

Please Mr Blair, when will there be a national announcement detailing "Proper A-Levels" and "Crap A-levels".***


* Please replace the word "Stupid" with whatever your country's politically correct word/phrase with the same meaning is.
** Or who wrote sentences that were too long with bad grammar!
*** If there was such as list for degrees, computer science would certainly be in the later category I am afraid to admit.

These lonesom' blues

A rare lunch hour post from me. I write having tried for 2 days to come up with a pilot episode for the sitcom provisionally titled "We were students." Everything I can think off leads me to the filth that is "Two pints of larger and a packet of crisps."

The problem is the angst I have about being a student. I feel flattered overly by my grades and from the sounds of it I am not the only one who should be feeling this. Everyone I know has achieved beyond their expectations. Do I know some really clever people? Am I really clever...? No! We are all being lied to by the system in which it is hard to fail. I don't think a first class degree has ever meant less and it is time to address this.

Firstly by changing the title of the sitcom from "we are students" to "we are stupid"

stop feeling smug everone we have wasted our youth.

Questionable cult status?

Many people including myself consider this website to have a cult following among the mid-aged populations of many countries across the world.

Now, anybody who reads this blog regularly will know that I trust The Times newspaper as a wholly accurate source of information (and judge of Su Doku ability for that matter). Therefore I'm sure you can understand my shock while reading an article about the unbelievably rubbish sitcom, 'The Last of the Summers Wine' today, which stated that apparently it has "Cult Status" in the USA.

Can this possibly be true? Surely it can't, after all my parents like TLOTSM!!!!

A blog post for blokes to read

On my way home from work today I was sitting opposite a women. Nothing very exciting or out of the ordinary there, but when I noticed what she was reading my brain switched on for the first time that day! She was reading a publication called 'Lingerie Buyer' for which the front cover assured me that it was; 'The Industries Essential Business Title'.

Think about this boys, imagine having a job where you get paid to read a publication like that!

This month’s edition contained informative articles on such subjects as:

- Why seamless products could take the UK by storm
- Harrogate Lingerie & Swimwear Exhibition

so it's not just all nice pictures. It's educational!

I wanted to break the "commuter law" (which states “No rush hour rail traveler may communicate with any other traveler unless he/she has seen the person in question everyday for 2 years and there is something very important to talk about such as the train being late again”) and ask her some questions about how to get into the industry. I wasn't thinking straight though and could only think of questions like:

"Do you ever tire of looking at picture of sexy women?"
"Are there any opportunities in your HR department?"
"Did you know that engineering and bra design have a lot more in common than most people would suspect."
"Can I read that"

In the end though I didn't say anything and just got off the train safe in the knowledge that should I ever get bored with my job that there was something else out there for me. I can dream!

Some very exciting news

Dear Readers,

Please brace yourself for some of the most important and exciting news to grace this webpage since its conception.....

I HAVE QUALIFIED for the FINALS of the TIMES NATION SU DOKU COMPETITION to be held at the Cheltenham Literature Festival as presided over by Carol Vorderman!!!

Only 200ish people from the entire country are invited.

So this means, I could become the;

TIMES NATIONAL SU DOKU CHAMPION

How exciting is that?!?

Lunchtime quiz

As I have now been adopted as a "proper" employee in my office, I now am invited to partake in the lunchtime quiz that a few of the guys do everyday in the canteen after lunch. One of the answers (given tongue in cheek) to the question:

Which period came after the Triassic Period?

was:

The Quadratic Period.

Made me laugh.

BAWIRA Update

Somebody asked me lately how the book group was going. Well all the members have finished reading the first book and are currently posting their comments. Darth as the second member to join will choose the next book to be read. I can't wait.

But we do have a problem. Our membership is currently only 2, which when you ignore the 'President' and 'Director Of Group Mathematical Activity (DOGMA)' is reduced to a rather feeble ZERO.

So we need YOU!!!! Please join. The more members there are the more fun the group will become. Remember, you don't have to live in Bath or Woodham to join, you don’t have to read or comment on every book and you don’t have to know what you are talking about (I don’t!). All you need is a passing interest in reading and an opinion. So please JOIN US, it is very lonely at the moment!

Click here to visit the site and join up!

Nurton's Estate Agent Resource (NEAR)

My little brother is selling his house in Bracknell. I was horrified when he told me how much they were thinking of spending on there next property. It was a sum of money nearly in the same order of magnitude as the average American graduate’s student debt and that's a LOT of money!!!

Anyway being the total techno-nerd that he is, he is advertising on the internet rather than the more traditional shop window. Here is his webvert. I particularly liked the virtual tour feature which is rather neat. So if you have a burning desire to buy a house in Bracknell (coincidently, very near to where my friend Leon from university lives!) then you know where to go. I must say that they have done a lovely job of the garden and kitchen since I last visited. Very dapper!

www.iamafriad.com

Well, I am just about to go to bed but I have to just note what happened to me today after work on my way to the gym.

I now live in central Bath which is full of many different ethic groups of which all who are not British Caucasian are tourists without hardly any exceptions. This is a little sad as I thought only Exeter was the only place in the UK to be so culturally dull as to have a coloured population you could count using the fingers on one hand.

Anyway, I hope this explains why I was a little taken aback by what I saw on my way to the gym. My route takes me along the tow path of the river Avon and I cut over one of the flood control banks to cut off a corner. As I walk up the bank I was confronted on the grass in front of me by 3 large very full rucksacks laying on the ground. Behind each on is a mid twenties aged male on his knees facing east praying in the style I have seen Muslims pray in mosques on the TV. One of them was of North African origin while another was clearly Middle Eastern and I didn't get a good look at the final one. It was a completely out of place thing to be doing in the middle of a dirt track in the woods behind a sports centre. Now I am sure that these men just fancied some fresh air pray (to which they are certainly entitled) but you couldn't have chosen 3 men who looked more like the 21/7 bombers and they seemed rather obsessed with their rucksacks (they kept moving them between prayers). I walked on by but stopped, thought for a while and decided that it was my public duty to phone the police. Which I did, they were very nice and seemed very interested and said they would send somebody down. I felt like I was targeting the men just because of their religion and looks, but to be honest the more I think about it the more I have come to the conclusion that if they were (by a very small chance) suicide bombers with rucksacks full of explosives and I had done nothing then I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

So this one is over to you guys: I would really appreciate your comments. What would you have done in the situation? Was I wrong? Am I becoming terrified by terrorists? Please comment....

3 most scary cars on the roads of Britain.....

3 Very Scary Things



- The sight of one of these in your mirror at coincidently the same time you were trying to discover the top speed of your car on the motorway for "research" purposes. That was a little scary.

- Then Lotus made this



The craziest car in British car history. Even now despite being based on a GM car they still change hands for 20-30 grand each, despite the fact they are 15 years old. You could buy a Ferrari Testarossa on Ebay for that money!

- But now there is a new king of the roads. A car so scary that it makes the Child Catcher from ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ look like Marry Poppins. This is Darth's new battle cruiser:



Be afraid, be very afraid. Forget the death star this is the ‘death car’. He has never driven an automatic before and says that the transition from Ford Fiesta 4 speed manual to Vauxhall Carlton has been "interesting" for him and plain horrific for other road users in Surrey.

So all this talk of new cars makes me think that maybe I need a new car. After all I have had the V6 for nearly half a year now and I fancy a change. I like the look of a BMW 735i V8 1998/9 ~100000 miles satnav, leather, TV, phone, all the toys etc ~£4000 on ebay. I'll look like a drug dealer, which can only help me in my quest to look "dangerous". If I can deal with the 23mpg fuel economy it could be a good car to run until I leave for Oz. Watch this space!

I'm back (once again)

BT has finally enabled my ADSL connection so now I am back online. Add to that, that I have another set of exams coming up in October (professional this time) which as anybody who reads this blog will know means that I will be blogging lots, as blogging is my distraction activity (and it worked well for my degree!)

Bit busy tonight, but trust me, soon I will be back in the flow.

Nurton.