Shameless, RyanScare and Let's Eat!

Two blog entries in as many days - aren't you lucky!

Today me and the beast visited Milton Keynes. At this point, some people might go - "eugh, what the hell did you want to go there for?" - if you're one of those people, you can piss off now!

You see, MK (as I'm going to affectionately abbreviate it to) is a new town. Just like Telford, Crawley and Stevenage amongst others. I've had the unfortunate experiences of visiting the aforementioned three - I even live about 15 miles from Telford unfortunately.

Whilst I don't want to disrespect anyone who lives in those places, they are shit holes. Concrete jungles that were created simply to meet a nationwide housing shortage. I lived in Crawley for a year and I never will again.

Milton Keynes on the other hand really isn't that bad. Rather than write paragraphs about this, I'm going to list a couple of simple reasons:
1) It has the MK Bowl - 65,000 seat venue for some cool gigs and events
2) MK consists of a grid system - based on Los Angeles. Roundabouts connect each grid and between each roundabout, rather than having to drive at 30mph (like you would in all other towns), you get to drive at 60mph - which is great fun.
3) The Centre - a huge shopping centre with a massive selection of shops.
4) It's an economic centre - there's lots of big companies, technical design centres and commerce taking place there.
5) Trees and Parks. Unlike some other towns, these aren't full of graffiti and actually blend into the urban environment.

There we go. In short - go visit the place - you might be surprised.

This also bring me onto Let's Eat. Which I think may possibly become my all time favourite shop. Located in MK's The Centre, it's a sort of combination between a shop and a cafe. The shops sells cool food important from America - stuff like Bettie Crocker cake mixes, all sorts of sauces, candy bars - you name it, it's here.

The cafe serves up ciabattas, baguettes and a massive selection of muffins, cup cakes and brownies. Lush. Well worth a visit, or you can check them out here.

To get to Milton Keynes, I have to go through Luton. And this means I was able to call into the Shell garage with my old receipts, get some fuel and collect the cars the bastards owe me! I got a few dodgy looks carrying three little Ferrari's back to my car!

Going out for a run this evening, I bumped into one half of the new neighbours. He looks like one of the Gallaghers on Shameless. Gave me a well dodgy look. They are the most bizzare people - I hear them shouting at each other from opposite ends of their flat some times.

Finally, check out RyanScare - they have a sale on at the moment - you can get to Sweden for example for £40 return. Bargain.

Lahmacun (Not Loreal's latest age revitalising cream..!)

Lahmacun - "IPA: [lahmaˈdʒun]) or lahm bi-`ajĩn (From Arabic لحم بعجين lahm bi-`ajĩn, "meat with dough")" according to Wikipedia is essentially a Turkish version of Pizza:



How did I find out about it? Well, I blame my good friend Elliot, who set his myface status to "is making 2kg of Lahmacun". Not having a fucking clue what Lahmacun is, I thought I would google it and found out that it sounds rather nice.

With one of my old colleagues (*sniff*) leaving for Turkey on Monday, I thought I'd give it a go (in her honour - even if she is a vegetarian!).

So, here's a recipe.

What you need:

For the actual bread:
175g of good quality plain flour
1/2 a little sachet of the easy blend yeast (available in all supermarkets near the flour)
1/2 tsp salt
125ml of warm water
1tbsp of good quality extra virgin olive oil

For the topping:
250g lamb mince
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1/2 an onion
1 large pepper - green, yellow or red - depending on what you favourite colour is.
1 garlic clove, finely chopped.
A couple of sprigs of fresh, flat-leaf parsley.
1tsp of hot paprika (Hungary's answer to life)
1tsp salt

What you need to do:
1) Sieve the flour into a bowl.
2) Add the yeast and the 1/2 tsp of salt.
3) Make a well in the centre and pour in the warm (not hot!) water.
4) Mix to form a sticky dough.
5) Flour a clean work surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes or so until smooth.
6) Pour a splash of olive oil into a bowl and roll the dough in it and around the sides of the bowl. Lob the bowl in a warm place (I put mine on top of my TV!) for an hour or so.

Then..

1) Roughly chop your onion and pepper. Chuck this in a food processor and whizz it until you get a sort of paste. (Don't worry if you don't have a food processor - I use a £5 hand blender thingy I got from Te$co).
2) Put the paste in a sieve over a bowl to get rid of the excess water / juices. You can throw the water away.
3) Put your mince into a bowl, then add chop your parsley and chuck that in too. Add your tsp of salt, the chopped garlic, paprika and finally the mushy onion and pepper mixture.
4) Get your hands dirty by mixing it all together.
5) Retrieve your dough and divide it into either 2 large balls (for pizza sized Lahmacun) or 6 balls for little ones. Knead the portions for a minute or two to squeeze out the air. Grab a rolling pin (hint: You can use a roll of cling film if you don't have a rolling pin) and roll the balls into circle shapes, with a thickness of about 3 - 5 mm. You want them real thin.
6) Chuck the bases onto a baking tray and then smear portions of the mince mixture on top - making sure you go right to the edges and again, keeping it thin.
7) Bake in a preheated oven (230 degrees, gas mark 8) for 10 minutes or so.
8) Enjoy!

I would suggest accompanying this with the wine I mentioned in the previous post. It's called Terres De Galets - a Cote Du Rhone that I picked up from Sainsbury's (25% off this week). Medium bodied and with lush fruit notes it goes great with red meats.

Cheers to Dr M for recommending the new Moby album - well worth a listen. It's far more diverse than his past album.

Hotels, The M25 and Sun-dried Tomatoes!

It's been a long week this week, but a good one I think :-s

I'm making good (but still not fast enough!) progress on a major project at work, however this is resulting in me working long days and having to put pretty much everything on hold - including more important things such as keeping in touch with friends. Work to live, not live to work as they say.

On the other hand, some of the things I do at work are enabling me to meet more new people which is great - if only they were all in their early twenties and hot girls. One of the thing's I've always struggled with is business meetings with people I don't know. I don't know why - maybe it's human nature to know what you are up against or to know your opponent.

Anyway, since starting my job I am glad to say that this appears to improve every week at the moment. Now, if I am asked to present or participate on a tc (telephone-conference) I refrain from researching the call participants (which I used to do before). I've found out that if I know where the other call or team members are in the pecking order, that only makes me nervous.

Today for example, I rocked up to a call - did my thing and then found out later that one of the managers on the call rang one of his staff members and told him that he'd do well to have the confidence I have. Which is always nice to know I guess, even if I don't think I have that confidence!

The biggest achievement of the week is that I think we have managed to find a hotel for our visit to the Oktoberfest in September. The owner sounds like that guy off' Little Britain - the one who says "yeesssss" all the time, but you can't have everything I guess!

2 and 1/2 hours today were spent on the M25, which is not bad going considering I've been sat on it for 3 going just one way before. I still hate the road though - the only motorway that is a constant car park. NCP would have a field day with it.

My latest food / recipe is actually just an assembly job, but it's a great light bite - or you could cut it into chunks and serves as nibbles (with a decent bottle of Champers of course).

Smoked Salmon and Sun-dried Tomato Bagels

What you need:
Pack of smoked salmon (Circa £3 from Morrisons this one was!)
Decent, fresh bagels
Philadelphia cream cheese
Sun-Dried tomatoes (I picked these up from Sainsbury's - they are in a sort of yogurt tub with garlic and olive oil.

What you need to do:
1) Cut the bagels in half and pop them under the grill - with the insides facing up.
2) Whilst they are toasting, chop the tomatoes slices into 1/3's.
3) Spread the bagels with the cream cheese.
4) Sprinkle over the tomatoes
5) Cut the salmon into strips and pop over the tomatoes.
6) Serve

Just in case you don't know what a sundried tomato looks like, here is a picture:


These make great light snacks - for example Thursday night is swim night, so I don't want to eat anything too heavy, these make a nice supper.

I don't know if anyone has actually tried my concoctions, if you have, let me know if you like them!

Today I called into the supermarket on my way home and bought a bottle of wine. So expect a review at some point - I think it's unfair to review gadgets, but not alcohol.

Bye Bye Michelle, Tony, Maxxie, Sid, Cassie, Jal, Anwar and Chris

As you can see from my previous post, I got as far as Monday then thought "I can't be arsed with this" so gave in. The rest of last week is therefore left up to your imagination!

The weekend however was a good un'. One of my colleagues from a large electronics company I spent my industrial placement with, is moving to Turkey. Saturday night was therefore spent in the Punch and Judy and Porterhouse in Covent Garden.

I don't remember the train ride home, but I do know I had a great night! Then again, I don't think I've ever had a bad night out in Landon - so I can't complain too much :-)

Sunday was spent recovering and generally not doing a great deal!

Today - hardly anyone was in my office and none of my team were in. I called into Luton after work (which I'm sorry, but is worse than Chavanage), to pick up some dry cleaning and fill up the beast with V-Power, only to find out friggin Shell have ran out of the free Ferrari cars.

That's twice now the stupid garage hasn't had any - I now have two receipts to take in. So far I have the F430 and Enzo. This constitutes Moan of the Week. What is the point in selling amazing fuel and tempting idiots like me in with a free car, only not to have any to give away?

A random Shell garage near Perry Barr in Birmingham also owes me a bloody Ferrari. At this rate they'll owe me the equivalent of an actual Ferrari.

Tonight I went for a run, then settled down to watch the season Finale of Skins. Which it has to be said, was amazing. I'll post a clip on here once the Youtube geeks put one up. Best episode of the series, but it'll be interesting to see what they come up with next. Rumors are that the entire cast are being replaced.

Right, that's your lot for today. Bye.

"You've been hit by... a smooth Barry!"

Hey Hey.

Once again I've been a bit slack on the updating front, so rather than just ignore the past week, I'm gonna quickly run through where I have been, who I've seen and what I've been doing - catchy that isn't it!

Friday
Don't think I did much last Friday (hell, it's been nearly a week - I can't remember!). Afternoon of conference calls at work, but we did manage to get our Canadian team all they way through the test script we've been working on with them - so that was a success.

Evening was spent at home, chilling out in front of the TV after a long week.

Saturday and Sunday
Saturday and Sunday were spent in Kingston, chilling out with the Kingston Duo and drinking far too much absolut Citron - which is lush with Lemonade. I reckon it would be nice with some raspberry too. Apparently you can make a good Mojito with it too :-)

Part one of the Kingston Duo - Elliot, is a mean cook (as in bloody good!) and made a really nice dessert that we had with dinner on Saturday night. I'll try and rob the recipe and stick it on here sometime ;-)

The night ended with Wii sports, including the first "Wii-related incident" I have seen - a glass being smashed to smithereens by the Wii-mote.

Kingston has some really nice bars and clubs (it's also home to what is arguably the best Oceana in the UK).

Monday
I spent most of Monday revising for an exam I had at work on Tuesday. Dorothy (see past blogs regarding work) was in a right mood - I felt like saying to her "I can see that you are not 100% today, can I suggest we reschedule our chat for another time". I couldn't get a word in edge ways though.

Tuesday

Recipe 2 - White Chocolate Cheesecake

What you need: 2 ordinary tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese, 4 medium eggs, 2 bars of milky bar white chocolate, 1 vanilla pod, a 200g tub of creme fraiche, a tablespoon of butter (+ some for greasing) and some ginger biscuits.

You need to:
1) Whack your oven on at 150 Celsius, 300 Fahrenheit, gas mark 2.
2) Grease a decent sized spring-form baking tin (I think I used 28cm wide or so)
3) Chuck 2/3 of the packet of ginger biscuits in a food bag, then whack that bag inside another food bag. Grab a rolling pin and proceed to beat the sh1t out of the biscuits until you are left with the crumbs. Melt the butter in a saucepan on a gentle heat and then stir in the biscuits.
4) Grease and line the bottom of the tin. Spoon in the biscuit mixture and press down hard with the back of a spoon all the way round.
5) Beat the cream cheese in a bowl with a whisk until soft and creamy, add the vanilla seeds from the vanilla pod and the eggs - one by one, beating in between.
6) Melt the chocolate either over a pan of simmering water, or in the micro. Fold in the creme fraiche till smooth.
7) Fold the chocolate mixture into the cream cheese mixture gently.
8) Pour into the tin over the biscuit mixture and bang the tin on a solid surface a few times to remove any air bubbles.
9) Whack in the oven for 45 mins - 1hr till the centre is firm or until turning a very very light brown.
10) Important: Leave to cool for a couple of hours and then put it in the fridge. Cheesecake often tastes better if left over night and then cut and eaten the next day.

Serve with some Raspberry Jus or even better - Haagen Dazs Bailey's Ice Cream.

No, we will definitely not do that

Grr - what a week! Yet again I am being a bit slack on updating this - now I know I can just send an email update, I might start doing more.

The "Kingston Duo" came over for dinner on Tuesday night which was cool - it's been ages since we all caught up and it's good to get reacquainted over a bite to eat. The recipe which I mentioned in my previous post was White Chocolate Cheesecake - which I have the pleasure of being able to share with you in the post after this one.

Main course were Lamb Shanks, which just about had enough time to cook. Reason being I got held up at work after being asked at the last minute to run a conference call.

I don't mind doing that - providing:
a) I have an idea as to what the meeting is about and
b) I'm given the flexibility to run the meeting how I want

Now when Dorothy (yes, another alias!) who asks me to run her meeting, then joins the call and proceeds to stamp her authority all over it - I wasn't too happy. I replied to her "no, we will definitely not do that" with "I think we need to take this offline" and that appeared to help the discussion move forward more productively. More frustrating than anything else - you either want me to run your call or you don't..

In other news, my new headphones for podders2 - or shuffle podders finally arrived today. They are a pair of Sennheiser PMX70's. I bought them so that I can go "yogging" as Ron Burgundy would put it, without having to constantly hold onto the apple one's. (They just fall out whenever you move your head). Expect a full review at the weekend when I will give them a proper road test.

Not Nineteen Forever

Bon Soir as the French would say!

What a day - work was so unbelievably quiet before Christmas that I used to moan everyday that I was bored. This is definitely no longer the case! I was expecting the first day in since the Easter break to be busy, but today was just manic.

A day of conference calls and unexpected facilitation. I don't mind being asked to run meetings, but preferably not the kick off meeting for a team and not 5 minutes after it was supposed to start! Still, everyone seemed happy which is a good thing. It's an important team and one that I am looking forward to working with - it should provide some good visibility, which as shallow as it sounds, on a graduate scheme is a good thing.

What was also amusing was that on Maundy Thursday, the whole office stopped for an Easter Egg hunt (childish I know, but good fun). Anyways, large eggs were hidden in various locations around the office. I came in this morning and found that I am allocated a cupboard as well as my desk drawers. So proceeding to move all my training manuals into said cupboard, what should I come across - but a nice Mars Easter egg - result!

The title of this post should give a clue as to my current most played song on Podders. It's by a band called the Courteeners - who incidentally, are on Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show later this week in the live lounge. In the meantime, you can check them out here.

I have a new recipe for people I think - you'll have to wait till tomorrow though, as I'm not sure how good it will taste and the dinner I'm cooking for a couple of mates will be the official tasting.

Only a short post today - I have to get to bed now - I want a decent nights sleep. The boss is taking us all out for lunch tomorrow - what a result :-)

Oh - and check out the funky looking BBC News Website.

Just calm down, just calm down!

Those were the infamous words being shouted by the new neighbours at 1am this morning.
A couple of massive bangs and crashes, then a slanging match. I think it's safe to say they are now feeling at home!

They went out at 11 looking and sounding absolutely wasted, then were back by 1 having a full on domestic - isn't co-habitual life lovely?

Today is the first day for about 3 weeks where the weather has actually been nice and with the clocks going forward, evenings will start to get even lighter. I took the opportunity to visit St Albans - a historic town about 20 miles down the A1M.

It's essentially home to an abbey and some very old shops. Oh, and a lot of tossers in Porsche's. That said it's a really nice place with some real oldy worldly shops and the accompanying coach loads of old folks on various day trips. Check out my pictures here.

Aside from a little jolly to St Albans, the rest of the day has been spent doing rather mundane tasks such as cleaning and washing. Whilst also watching the fantastic hunt for Red October on Sky One - probably one of my favourite films.

I should also mention that old school friend of mine ran for England at the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh today. Coming in first for England in the senior men's 12k. Fingers crossed he will get to Beijing for the Olympics.

Our family is like the united colours of benetton...

Hello Strangers!

Sorry I haven't been updating this as often as I would like.
After being in Wales for Easter and then being in a 3-day course at head office Weds - Fri, I haven't had much chance to sit down and do anything really.

Wales was good, if a little on the cold side. It was also snowy, windy and rainy if the truth be known. It was great to chill out for a bit and stuff my face with chocolate too! Also cool to catch up with the family and to spend some time with the new puppy we recently got.

I had Tuesday off too, so spent that doing jack shit before heading Southwards again for work.

Wednesday evening was spent watching the footy (what a waste of time that was) and eating what can only be described as the worst pub meal I have ever eaten. This therefore makes "The Kings Arms" the first recipient of the Moan of the Week award. This prestigious title will be awarded to whatever or whoever riles me in a given week.

It should come as no surprise to learn that this particular pub is rated as 1.8 out of 10 on one of my favourite websites, Beer in the Evening. Which I should hasten to add is great for planning a pub crawl, which is exactly what myself and Homie did on Thursday evening. ( I should point out here that Homie is a good friend who bears a striking resemblence to Homer Simpson, hence the nickname).

And thus, Thursday night was spent in the Provence of Richmond, London - the only place so far where I have seen an Aston, Bentley and a new Jaguar, all within 500M of each other. Had a cracking bite to eat at a pub near the station, then we worked our way towards the river stopping at 4 or 5 pubs in total.

After being rather disappointed by the front lounge that was supposed to be the celebrity spotting pub of Richmond, I headed for the bus as according to Homie, that would have been quicker than getting the train back to my hotel.

Only it wasn't. Not only did the bus not actually pass through the suburb I needed, it dropped me off at the M4. Which meant a good 45 minute walk or so to get back to my hotel. On the plus side, it did mean that I worked off the calories in the beer I guess :-)

Last night was spent chilling after a hard couple of days - it's amazing how much courses take out of you. I had to laugh at the very funny Friday Night Project, this time hosted by Dr Who - David Tennant and if someone could explain why they would name a child Bertie Gilbert, I would very much appreciate it.

And finally, after another good friend - Princess Janey emailed me to tell me it was on, I Sky+'d the new series of Peter and Jordan, for sheer entertainment value. Which is where the quote "Our family is like the united colours of benetton... comes from!

Yes, I am a lazy get!

I've been a bit lazy this past couple of days in keeping this up to date, but I do have a number of excuses:

Manners was in London training on Wednesday, so we went for a beer in the evening near Waterloo and the London Eye. For the best part of two years we had been meaning to go to the All Bar One which serves one of my all time favourite beers - the Munchen brewed Paulaner on draft. We discovered the slug and lettuce next door lacks a decent menu, but the food in the All Bar One was pretty reasonable.

The journey home was marred slightly by witnessing someone get their lights punched out in what the BBC News would describe (in a very politically correct way of course) as a racially motivated attack.

It amazed me that no one on the tube stopped to break it up - but then again, I guess you never know what anyone is hiding in their coat anymore.

Yesterday was spent at work which included spending an hour in a Hi-Def video conference which was pretty cool. Incredible when you think that 10 years ago everything would have either been done over the phone or in person and that now we can all sit in rooms anywhere in the world and see and speak to people face to face.

After work I drove back to Birmingham where I'm spending the majority of my Easter break, although I'm in North Wales for some of it too. Whether that's a good or a bad thing I'm not sure yet!

Called into central brum for a pint with my uncle on my home, only to discover the local social club serves only Carling (which, together with Carlsberg, will herein be known as "Cooking Lager" to blog readers) and Grolsch - which was off. So a bottle of bud it was - but it's the company not the drinking that matters as they say.

Today (Good Friday) has been spent chilling out. I promised myself no work laptop or BlackBerry over the weekend, however I broke that rule first thing this morning when I discovered I'd forgotten to put my out of office on.

Other than that, I took the beast into the local town earlier to get some hot cross buns and dropped Mommy Bedders off at the gym. The afternoon has been spent messing around with the new dog and catching up with relatives - all pretty tame by any standards!

That's a rather boring entry completed, but at least things are kinda up to date!


Bedders.

A long day...

Been a long hard day today - an unexpected task to do for the boss when I got into work this morning, a presentation via conference call to 60 people this afternoon and then day to day work in between.

Oh and to top it all off, I drove 5 miles into Chavenage (local big town full of Chavs) to do some food shopping tonight, only to realise I'd left my wallet at home! As my idol Homer Simpson would say - "Doh!" Still I did get to check my tyres at the garage, so I guess the entire journey wasn't all in vain.

I also had to put up with a colleague trying his best to show off today. It transpires that has recently upgraded his car from the MX5 that he had previously. Rather than casually bring this up in conversation, Dominic decides to use our instant messaging app to send me a message at my desk.

He was sat in a meeting with our boss and had "accidentally" left his car keys on his desk and was wondering if I could put them in his drawer. So I wonder over and sitting on the desk are some keys with a Porsche key ring on them.

Niice was what I was thinking. I shoved the keys in the drawer and deliberately didn't say anything to Dominic when he returned to his desk - I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

5.30 appears on the clock so I head for the door expecting to see a 911 GT3 sat outside in Dominic's space, but oh no - sitting outside is a 2000 / 2001 dirty blue Boxter. If you can't afford a decent Porsche, then don't buy a shit one is the moral of this particular story I think... Or trade in what is arguably the most fun to drive little cabriolet on the market either!


Besides being an outlet for me to tell the world about my day, I also want this blog to have some actual use, so I'm going to pledge to try and put some useful things on here over the coming weeks too. Keep your eyes peeled.

My Current Favourite Advert

Two posts in one day - check my bad self!

This is my favourite advert at the moment - thought I would share it:



Which is almost as good as this one:

The M25 is shit!

Didn't exactly do much yesterday, the weather was truly shocking - rain and wind all day.

I did sit down with a Disaronno to watch Lost though, which once again managed not only to be a pretty dull episode (any episode without Kate getting her kit off is boring if you ask me..!) but also left me with more questions. "Questions will be answered" - my ar$e!

Today I was up at 5 to commute to one of our West London offices. You would think that the M25 would be quiet at 6am wouldn't you.. Not a chance! Still took me just under two hours to do a 50 mile journey that is mostly motorway :-(

It did mean I could get breakfast at the office which was cool - Porridge with golden syrup, raisins, cream and jam - hardly healthy but lush none the less!

After a day of meetings, lunch and then a trip to another site I finally got back home at 7.

Nowt too exciting then really!

Because this blog is designed for anything and everything, today I have decided to include a recipe of all things. For toad in the hole or sausages in Yorkshire pudding - whatever you prefer! This is a generous portion for 1, for two double up on the sausages, for 3 or more - double up on the mixture too.

All you need is:
3 Sainsbury's TTD Sausages
4oz Flour (Sieved to keep the batter light)
3 Large organic, free range eggs (or battery farmed if you are a tight ba$tard!)
1/2 Pint of Milk
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

1) Whack the sausages on your george foreman or grill until golden brown, set aside.
2) Sieve the flour, add a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
3) Make a well in the centre and add the eggs.
4) Using a balloon whisk, whisk together the eggs and flour until smooth.
5) To keep the batter light, gradually combine the milk as you whisk the mixture. You should see lots of light bubbles appear on the surface.
6) Leave to rest for a while whilst you pop a large oven tray or pyrex dish in a hot oven (200 degrees cent, gas mark 6) with a splash of the olive oil inside.
7) After 5 mins or so, when the tray / dish is nice and hot, add the sausages and pour over the battter.
8) Cook for 25 - 30 minutes until the batter has risen and the crust is golden in colour.
9) Chuck some veg onto boil, serve up together and pour on plenty of gravy.

It All Started With A Chair...

It's funny, I setup a blog and write:

"I have to make up for it at weekends, which are usually rather random"

Yet this weekend I'm actually at home and haven't exactly done a lot today! I have a feeling that the majority of the blame for this can be attributed to the fact that it's the final weekend of the Six Nations. As much as it pains me to say this, the Wales game was cracking this afternoon and they deserved to win. (Note: You probably won't ever hear me say that again).

I can't glance over the fact that the England game was also very good and was probably the most entertaining game we've played. Nevermind eh - there's always next year I suppose!

Last Week I was telling a friend that I haven't sat and watched a film in ages - at least for a couple of months. So tonight I stuck on Juno - the recent film by Michael Cera (who was bloody funny in Superbad) it also stars Ellen Page, who's a little hottie.

I'm not a big film fan and have pretty simple tastes - either comedy or action usually. So I thought Juno might be a good bet. It was ok - one of those films that is neither the best film you'll ever see, or the worst... But I reckon it was designed with an American audience in mind. Funny in places, but not amazingly complex humor - a mediocre watch for the odd evening I reckon.

In other news some new neighbours have appeared to move in, although I have no idea whereabouts - I just keep hearing flatpack being assembled and shouting every now and again. I think that's what is called the "Ikea Effect". Hopefully they will be like my previous neighbours who were a good laugh and sociable.

That's about it for today - I'm off out to do some exploring in the beast (my car) tomorrow, so expect some photos :-)

All That Matters In A Garden Is The Waterfeature...

Hey Everyone.

Not too much to put into today, other than that I spent the day working my ass off for very little return - but hey, what's new?!

I've been away recently on a Six Sigma (6s) course. Today some nice books arrived courtesy of Amazon and my company (who paid for them lol), but at the moment I don't have enough time to read them. I guess they'll sit on my desk for a while, making me look falsely intelligent! For those who don't know what 6s is, hit this link here - it's good shit!

Also arriving today was my Podders Deux - little brother to my big iPod, the iPod Shuffle. Not really seen one properly before, but for £30, engraved and delivered, it's not bad and ideal for when I go jogging.

I ordered the (product)red version which donates some of the cost towards the global fund to fight AIDS in Africa. Not only is it a great cause but it also looks unique - what more could you ask for?

Haven't tested it yet - it's still charging, but I'm sure I'll mention it again and give a full verdict later.

Right - back to Sport Relief and Chris Moyles, Comedy Dave and Chappers all looking pretty damn funny jogging away on treadmills, not to mention Top Gear do Ground Force.

Welcome!

Hey Everyone!

Welcome to my first ever entry in my first ever blog.

I have no pre-conceptions about who is reading this, where they are from, or indeed how many people will actually drop by and have a look.

This will be a place where I'll share my thoughts, events, articles and who knows - maybe I'll surprise you with something really out of the ordinary!

At the moment it's pretty rough and ready. It'll probably take me a while to get the layout looking sweet and for me to post some interesting stuff. But please stick with it - I hope you find something worth reading when you drop by.


Bedders.