Happy New Year

It's nearly 7.30 on NYE 2011 and I'm typing in the study instead of getting ready to party.

Not going to make it out tonight as I have been given some sort of cold/flu bug by someone over the Xmas holidays. If I find out who it was I shall thank them by shaking them gently by the throat until theirs is as sore as mine!


So, apologies to Martin & Nic who are hosting the party we are supposed to be at, and apologies to Sonia who is staying in to look after me.

I'm off to have a quiet coughing fit and to empty industrial quantities of mucus out of my sinuses.

Happy New Year!

Updated map of countries I have visited

I have been going through some of my old blog posts and spotted the map that showed how many countries I had visited, so I thought I would bring it up to date...
visited 11 states (4.88%)
Create your own visited map of The World or website vertaling duits?

50 questions

As I am going to be 50 years old on 5th May 2012, I've been asking myself a few questions...

Assuming I want to celebrate it, and I think I do, the conventional approach is to have some sort of social event. Will this be a party? If so, what sort? If not, what instead? Who would turn up? Where would it be held?

My initial thoughts are that, as my birthday will be on the Saturday of May Day weekend, any event can take place on the day itself and it will allow recovery time before anyone has to get back to work on the Tuesday.

Anyone who knows me would not be surprised to hear that any event will need to include "proper" beer..

But do I hold an event in a pub, a club, or at home?

My preference is for a pub or club rather than at home to avoid the clearing up afterwards. But would I want music or just beer, food and conversation?

If I didn't go for the pub/club route, what other options would be acceptable?

Perhaps a personal movie show at The Broadway with use of the mezzanine bar for a buffet?

But what film to choose?

Almost definitely The Blues Brothers for comedy and music.

Any event would be with family and friends so I will need to make some decisions in the near future to make sure people have got the date in their diaries (assuming they want to come along).


And there are other questions to be answered...Do I want any presents? Would it be better to hold a collection at the social event for a good cause? And what about our summer holiday? What do I want from my holiday at 50? Where can we go? When do we go?

I have also been thinking about setting up a blog for the year and trying to do a post a day (or at least on a more regular basis than I do with this blog).

Better make a few decisions, so I'm setting up "Operation Half Ton"...

First go at loading old vinyl tracks

Well, here goes... Click on this link and turn on your speakers...

Ah, that didn't work as I expected, it just sends you to the page so you can download the song yourself...not what I wanted to do at all! So i've removed the link and will start again later.

Not a virus after all

Turns out that the hard drive waited for 1 year and 3 weeks after purchase to fail. So had to buy a new hard drive to go in the PC and reload all the software. Luckily had made a back up on the 1TB storage drive but it was still damned inconvenient!

Seems to be just about back to normal now but still some wrinkles to iron out.

Damned virus makers

Having to type this on the mobile phone as the PC was infected with a virus that crashes the PC and then, once you reboot from your start up disc, it tells you the hard drive is going to crash and you must click on a pop up box to make a back up. I decided to make a back up myself via the Control Panel, yet the pop up box kept reappearing! Took the PC to the shop who took one look and said it wad a virus, leave the box with them, pay £40, and they'll ring once it has been removed...
That was Saturday lunchtime and I'm waiting for the call...

First post from the "smart" phone

The other recent change is the purchase of a San Francisco Orange Android phone. It lets me post things like this via an app.

Long time without posting

It's been some time since I've posted on here. I've been busy with Flickr and Facebook, Sonia got me a turntable at Xmas so I can convert my vinyl collection to digital, and it's been a bit hectic at work what with the team I manage being cut from 10 to 5.

Hopefully I'll keep this a bit more up to date.

And there should be a new holiday blog for our forthcoming trip to Sardinia...we'll be staying in an interesting hotel in the old town area of Alghero.