Mark (not George)

Steps forward and back

2012-01-14T13:41:00.003Z

I've been working away on the car and QMLIrc. In both cases, I've made a little progress but some setbacks.

The car. I'm currently working on the LH rear sill - the bit between the rear wheelarch and the bumper, where the boot floor drops down to meet the rear wing. I've successfully patched the outer panel and I'm now working on the inner panel, which is a slightly complicated shape. See below...

Here, I'm trying to make a patch from sheet steel. The trouble I'm having is that the metal is a bit thin in places, so I'm blowing holes. I keep having to cut back. At the moment, I've cut right back, which will allow me to get inside the panel and clean up the metal a bit better.

On to QMLIrc. I have made some progress. I've created a IRC channel selection dialog, which shows channels and topics. This uses the QML ListModel system, and it worked surprisingly well. The QML UI code sends a signal to the C++ IRC code, which requests a list of channels from the IRC server. As channel list messages are received from the server, the C++ code creates a list of channels and their topics in a custom C++ class. When the list is complete, the C++ code registers it with the QML code and emits a signal. The QML code then responds to the signal by creating a SelectionDialog from the list.

The trouble I'm having with QMLIrc is that there's a bug which crashes on exit when there's been more than one channel tab open. It's annoying.

Introducing QMLIrc (yeah, it's a rubbish name...)

2011-12-29T19:18:00.001Z

Behold. The first screenshot of QMLIrc, my IRC client for Symbian Anna and Belle smartphones. You'll see elements of Windows 7 in the background. This is because it's a screen capture of the program running un the Qt Simulator, as I haven't yet downloaded a screen capture program for my N8.

You'll notice the Belle-based user interface, mostly built on QT Quick Components. So what can it do right now? Well, it can connect to an IRC server, and join one or more channels. It can send output to the server, and receive input, which it can direct to the proper tab. And, thanks to the Communi library, it has pretty colours, too! If fact as it stands it's a usable, if extremely basic IRC client.

Here's the GitHub repository if you want to play...

Belle will go to the IRC ball!

2011-12-04T23:06:00.001Z

My previous post requires some explanation

I've been hanging around in the chatrooms on UKChatterbox a lot recently. Mainly using the Java IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client on the website, but occasionally on my Nokia N8. There are a few IRC clients out there for Symbian phones, but all of them so far have one major failing: they can't use the split screen keyboard introduced in Symbian Anna. So you miss what people are saying as you're typing your reply. Therefore I'm writing my own.

I'm using QT Quick, which makes it easy to write code which conforms to the Symbian Belle look and feel. Belle isn't out yet on my N8, but the component set will run in Anna, and by the time it's ready, I may well be running Belle. Much of the heavy lifting - the posting and translation of IRC messages to the server - is being done by the excellent Communi library, written by JP Nurmi et al.

My plan, such as it is (I've never bothered with any Detailed Design Documents or any of the other overheads of software engineering as I work on my own: it's all in my head), is in three stages:

IRCBoilerplate. This is a simple Windows IRC client whose function is to allow me to get to grips with using the Communi library in a relatively comfortable environment. At the time of writing, it is perfectly usable as an IRC, client, if a little rough and ready. But then, it is boilerplate code. The GitHub repo for IRCBoilerplate is here. ~~It's not the latest version, though.~~ It is. Why? See below...
SessionWrapper. This is two of the classes from IRCBoilerplate placed in a separate QT Library project, so that they can be shared between IRCBoilerplate and QMLIrc (the working name for the Symbian IRC client. Horrible, isn't it?). Their function is to further decouple the UI (written in QTQuick QML) from the Communi-based backend code. I'm planning to limit the interaction between the two to using Qt signals and slots. ~~I haven't set up a repo for this yet.~~ I have, but SessionWrapper as a separate library is defunct. The reason is that it's too difficult to set up multiple static libraries in Qt. As SessionWrapper is two files, it's easier just to put it in the main project. I've had to adapt it for QMLIrc anyway.
QMLIrc. This is the Qt Quick based IRC client for phones running Symbian Anna and later. ~~All I've done so far is prototyped the UI~~. See above...

So there you have it. When it's finished, I'll probably end up putting it in the Nokia Store. It'll be free, though. I'm doing it for fun, not profit.

Version numbering in Qt isn't such a git.

2011-11-19T08:23:00.001Z

Warning: This is techy stuff. Those of a delicate persuasion (or those who have a life) should look away now...

Still there? No? I'll carry on anyway. In Qt, there's no out-of-the-box way of automatically identifying the version of a project. This could be useful for debugging purposes, for example. However, if you use source code control, you can achieve it easily.

I use Git as my SCCS, and I have adapted the solution I found on Qt Centre, which uses SVN. My version uses git describe, which outputs a string in the following format:

latest tag-number of commits since tagging-unique identifier of latest commit

The code goes in the .pro file of your Qt project, and is as follows:

# Create a macro from the Git describe command, to use in about boxes.BUILDSTR = '\\"$$system(git describe)\\"'
DEFINES += BUILD=\"$${BUILDSTR}\"

This code inserts the git describe string in a #DEFINE macro called build. Here I've used it in a function to display an about box:

void MainWindow::on_aboutButton_clicked()
{
// Display an About box. This uses the BUILD macro created from the // Git describe string in IRCBoilerplate.pro QString versionString = BUILD;
QString aboutString = "IRC BoilerPlate " + versionString + "\n ©2011 Mark Johnson.\nUses the Communi IRC library by J-P Nurmi et al.";
QMessageBox::about(this, tr("About IRCBoilerplate"), aboutString);
}

What's IRCBoilerplate? I'm writing an IRC client for my phone. IRCBoilerplate is a simple Windows IRC client I'm using to learn the nuances of the IRC protocol.

I'm not married anymore!

2011-11-17T19:15:00.001Z

I kinda lost interest in this here blog. I mean, no one was reading it. And I'm lazy.

Anyhow, in the two years since I last posted, I've:

Got a job as a Trainee Accountant at a small local firm. I like the work, they like me, and as soon as they're sure I'm free of the wobblies they'll pay to further my training. Wobblies? read on...
Passed my AAT.
Got separated, and moved back in with Mum and Dad. Hence the wobblies. I'm not talking about it - it's water under the bridge, and this blog's about me now. Besides, I have a lovely girlfriend now, who inspires me. I still see the girls regularly.
Not done all that much to the TR7, but I've recently restarted, now that my ex has cleared the garage in her new home where she's kindly allowing me to keep it.

So I'll try again to keep this blog up to date. I'll use it to document the TR7 work as normal, and also my attempts at writing apps for my Nokia smartphone using Qt.

Black Goo

2009-06-27T22:30:00.005+01:00

I've not been looking after this here blog, and so I've decided that I'll make more of an effort to document my TR7 rebuild. The story so far...

(cue Wayne's World-style wibble effect)

I've been repairing the left hand side of the floorpan, where there was some corrosion at both the front and rear edges. This is not good, as the TR7 is a monocoque, so the floor forms part of the structure, as does most of the metalwork, to be truthful. The rear floor area is especially important, as this is close to the area where the trailing arms that hold the rear axle to the chassis bolt in.

So I've been busy - cutting out rusty metal with tinsnips and angle grinder cutting disks, and welding in new metal. I've been using both sheet steel and commercially available repair pieces as appropriate. Once the new steel was welded in, I cleaned up the remaining areas of original metal with a twisted wire cup in my trusty angle grinder, before treating any remaining surface rust with Kurust, which chemically neutralises the rust. The surface rust formed in part because the bituminous sound-deadening panels fitted at the factory were fixed to the floorpan underneath the paint, so I am hoping to prevent this by putting the replacement sound-deadening panels on top of the paint.

At the moment, I have primed the floor, using U-Pol Acid #8 etch primer aerosol and normal grey primer. The next step, which I did this evening, is to seal the seams and welds using U-Pol Tigerseal, which is a polyurethane adhesive sealant which comes in a tube.
Here's the primed front floorpan before Tigersealing:

And here it is afterwards:

Tigerseal is very gloopy, and it's hard to get it looking neat. But it's sealed the edges well, and once it's dry will be ready for paint. Hopefully, I'll get the paint done (as it's completely hidden by carpet and the like, I'm going to use a few coats of satin black) before the TR Drivers weekend at Billing Aquadrome, Northampton next weekend. Like last year, we're dragging out the tent and will be camping all weekend. The car will be there next year, honest...

This is good

2009-06-08T09:53:00.003+01:00

Tom Reynolds has written another book. Which is good, because the last one was superb.

What is even better is that because it's published under a Creative Commons licence, it can be downloaded and linked and embedded almost everywhere. So here's my attempt to increase Tom's readership by almost none:

Open publication - Free publishing - More tea

Remember kids - it's available in all good bookshops, several evil supermarkets and a few dodgy websites.

Tum te tum...

2009-06-07T15:58:00.004+01:00

Many sunrises have passed since I last blogged. Not much has happened to tell the truth. I'm a week or so away from my AAT and payroll exams. I think I'm pretty ready.

The jobhunting has stalled, pretty much. I did have a second interview, with a major construction company looking for accounts assistants for a major road project. Needless to say, I didn't get the job. The three people they took on had specific construction industry experience. Fair enough, but it doesn't help me. I do believe that I have made a big mistake looking for a job a year earlier than I had planned. It's coloured my view of my course, and it's made it harder to get motivated to revise. It's strange, because I can do it. There are people out there doing the same course who are in work, and seem to be struggling, or who don't seem to have got it as quickly as I have. It's frustrating.

I'm nowhere to be seen...

2009-03-05T00:53:00.002Z

I've just found out that one of my co-students has been writing a blog. I don't see her and her cohorts so much these days - although we're still doing the same course with the same lecturers, I'm doing the other class most of the time (we do two three hour classes a week, each of which is held twice, once during the day and once in the evening. I usually do Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, and Student Granny does Wednesday afternoon and evening). SG can be quite scathing on her blog, which I read from end to beginning once I discovered it.

Alright. I admit it. I read it to see if she'd said anything about me. So shoot me. But there's zip. I'm not the subject of her wrath, or anything else.

Wahey!

2009-02-27T01:28:00.002Z

Saw this on FailBlog:

see more pwn and owned pictures

Reminds me of a toy we did at McDonald's once. A range of dragons that balanced on a rocky outcrop, except that one of the outcrops looked strangely familiar. It was swiftly withdrawn, but I'm sure Jo Coton took one home...

Lies, damned lies and no statistics at all.

2009-02-25T21:54:00.003Z

Stepdaughter #1 and I were photographed for the AAT Magazine article today. Which was a slightly bizarre experience. How so?

Well, for a start the dress code was 'smart casual'. Now I'm a jeans and t-shirt or work clothes (which with my work history, tend to be some sort of uniform) kinda guy, and so I'm not entirely sure what smart casual is. I therefore took myself to that high class gentlemen's clothing emporium that is Asda, and bought a couple of polo shirts and a pair of chinos. But Mrs MnG told me that I should never wear shirts with horizontal stripes, as they'll make me look fat. So I put on a grey short-sleeved shirt I already had, and took the polo shirts as spares.

We did three sets of photos. The first set took place in one of the computer suites at college. If you've already done AAT Foundation, you'll know that there's no computer element to Intermediate, so SD #1 doesn't even have a Burton College login. No matter, as Johnny the photographer had carefully arranged the computers to show the bright blue Windows XP login screen, with us sat on chairs in the middle. The next few minutes were a montage of Johnny photographing us, getting SD #1 to smile, and running round wiggling mice.

Next up was in the library, where we were photographed in one aisle, whilst Johnny was in the next aisle, poking his well-endowed Nikon through the books. For composition, don't you know...

Finally, we were shot actually studying, or at least pretending to. I was doodling, then pretending to read a text book, when the fire alarm went off. "Just a couple more shots..."

It was fun, and Johnny told us that he'd got some good shots. And hopefully, some accountant somewhere will see my gurning mug, and think "I'll give that man a job." Possibly. Maybe.

I'm a media star!

2009-02-17T22:26:00.006Z

Sort of. Kind of. Darling Stepdaughter #1 and I are to be featured in a forthcoming issue of AAT Magazine, as part of a feature about families studying the AAT. Watch this space...

New life goal

2009-02-17T21:58:00.003Z

I have a new life goal. I want to find a job which will enable me to get Nokia's iPhone-killing N97. 32GB memory, touch-screen and slide-out keyboard, 5 megapixel camera, GPS, etcetera etcetera...

In other mobile-related news, I have downloaded Shozu, which will enable me to upload photos straight to Facebook. It'll also make it easy to upload pics to Blogger, when I get that bit to work.

A bit of work.

2009-02-17T08:46:00.001Z

This last week, I've been temping for a building facilities management company. It's not accounts - the closest I come to invoicing is filing them - but the girls in the office are lovely and it's experience of a sort.
Yesterday, I was sorting out the event files for one of the larger clients. What happens is the client emails up with a job - an event - and we assign an engineer, usually one of the resident engineers. The jobs vary, but are usually small - from unblocking toilets to adjusting the aircon. They come in cycles: in summer people are too hot, and in winter too cold. Christmas brings requests for PAT (Portable Appliance Test - an annual electrical test on everything that plugs into the wall) tests on christmas lights and radios.
Some things I've noticed: every job has a priority, and some people's idea of priority is skewed - adjusting the aircon tends to get top (1-2 hours) priority, whereas fixing a flickering light above an epileptic can wait a day or two. The person typing the emails is in love with the word 'within' - a typical job description is 'Within prepayments it is too cold - please check' instead of 'Please check prepayments as it's too cold'.
And spare a thought for poor Amrit. One day he rang in because of a draught above his desk. A couple of days later, he complained of being too hot.

It's a crying shame.

2009-02-10T19:51:00.002Z

Jim Jump can't get into Wetherspoon's with this...

According to the Portsmouth News (and several of the national newspapers), two Royal Marines were turned away from a Wetherspoons pub for not having the right ID. Apparently, military ID isn't valid ID for proving you're over 18, as jobsworth bouncers can only accept driving licences, passports and those PASS card thingumys.

Now, I can see this in landlocked Barnsley, say, but this is Portsmouth, where there have been naval dockyards (and hence sailors - military personnel) for centuries. They all have IDs - although not quite like the one above with names, dates of birth and photos clearly displayed.

So it's with regret (because Wetherspoons do serve decent beer) that I've joined the boycott. Until Wetherspoons apologise publically to squaddies everywhere, then I ain't going in.

Bus Slogan Generator

2009-02-07T19:02:00.004Z

I saw this on the Sabre forums.

Here's a couple of my efforts:

TR7 Progress

2009-01-30T11:51:00.004Z

A wee note about progress on the TR7.

LH Door is reskinned, awaiting fitting and tweaking (which I will do once the floor on the LH side is completed). It also needs seam sealing inside.
The LH front floor is practically complete. All I need to do is dress the plug welds, and get rid of the remaining surface rust on the interior before giving the bare metal a temporary coat of primer.
The quarterlight frame for the LH door needs starting again, as there's some surace rust reappearing. It needs stripping, derusting and repainting.
I have enough parts to repair the LH rear floor.
I have rebuilt the LH rear drum brake, and have some parts to re-build the RH rear drum brake. I only need to rebuild the brakes enough now to ensure the handbrake works, as I plan to pull the rear axle out. This is so I can turn the car round on my slopy drive so I can fix the floor on the RH side.
The bumpers are in the process of being refurbed - they need stripping down, derusting and the plastic parts repainting. I need two new sidelight assemblies - the fixing bolts were seized and broke on both of them, as well as a replacement front centre bumper cover.

That'll do for now...

Warning: venting in progress.

2009-01-29T10:23:00.003Z

I'm seriously getting fed up with looking for a job. I know there's a recession going on, but still. It's just that I've had a couple of knockbacks recently, and it's affecting my confidence.

Knockback one was a phone I had on Monday, the day before I had an interview with a local council. Interview cancelled, due to a recruitment freeze. But it was knockback two that had me in tears of frustration. I saw a job on a well-known recruitment agency's email for an AAT Semi Senior in Leicester. Unusually, this job seemed not to require even the six months experience that trainee accounts positions seem to require. (Why is that? Surely someone looking for a new job with only six months experience is showing a lack of commitment?) So I applied, and unusually for me as I'm not a fan of phones, I phoned the agency to show keenness.

The lady on the other end told me that the client had specific requirements, and that even someone commuting from Loughborough (a town halfway between leicester and Derby, where I live) would not be considered, and so he would not even look at my CV. Apparently he's been burned before by people who commute on the sort of salary a junior accounts trainee would earn.

Well, excuse me, but give me some flaming credit. I know that entry-level accounts positions pay jack all, but we're managing on the mix of NHS student nurse bursary and tax credits we get at the moment, so I'm prepared for the low wages for the right job. I can read, and I do know the relative distances between Derby and Leicester, and I'm prepared for that. Here's the thing. If I wasn't prepared for the commute, I wouldn't have applied!

It's the classic lack-of-experience vicious circle. It has been suggested to me that I write to accountants and offer to do some work experience, or volunteer for charity work. I'm a bit leery of the charity work, as I'm half expecting that once I've done some volunteering that the recruitment agencies will turn round and tell me that the experience is 'the wrong sort of experience'. In addition, there's the question of childcare. If I was being paid child care wouldn't be so much of a problem, as we have got an arrangement kind of set up for if and when I do get a job. But I'm not sure I can get childcare for swanning about like a schoolboy doing work experience with no guarantees at the end of it.

By the way, the study is going fine. In Unit 5, we started overhead absorption. To be honest, I've been told that Intermediate is much harder than Foundation, but that's not my experience. I'm finding it all straightforward and logical. And the same goes for Level 3 payroll. There's another rub. I'm understanding this, and able to do the work. Elsewhere in the class, there's students who are working, and they're struggling. I can do this! Give me a job!

And breathe...

Shock horror!

2008-12-16T15:26:00.000Z

I've just seen my daughter in a nativity play at her school! And I was allowed to video it (I wasn't the only one neither).

Gavin & The Pumpkin

2008-12-04T11:24:00.003Z

This year was the last ever Calke Abbey Bonfire. My mate Mark James's father was, until he retired this year, the Gatekeeper at Calke Abbey in Ticknall, Derbyshire. For quite a few years now, Mark, another mate Paul, and in later years Paul's dad and brother have been having quite spectacular bonfire parties, with food, and a Hallowe'en themed 'scary walk'.
As it was the last year, I decided to video it this time, pulling out all the stops. Or, at least, as many as I can with my two old Sony Digital8 camcorders. I also have Adobe Premiere Elements, which I will use to edit the stuff when I get a big enough hard drive for my laptop.
But I've been playing with PE, and used it to edit some footage I took on my N73 last year, involving my mate Gavin and his adventures with a pumpkin. Enjoy...

I've got a new Phone!

2008-12-04T00:52:00.003Z

The contract on my N73 came up for renewal, and as the phone was beginning to get a bit tired - there were a few scratches, the lens cover was getting loose and causing the camera to switch off randomly and the volume down key was broken - I decided on an upgrade.
The main feature for an upgrade for me was built-in GPS. I've been using TomTom 6 on the N73 quite successfully, but the bluetooth GPS receiver with its separate charging lead and the cigarette lighter doubler required meant there was a fair bit of spaghetti round the dash - not good. I did look at the HTC Touch Diamond, but this would have cost me £60 to upgrade to. So I stuck with Nokia, and got myself a 6220 Classic in Plum (they had no black in stock). I also negotiated a drop in tarriff (from Dolphin 35 to Dolphin 25 - fewer minutes but still unlimited texts) and increased my data from evenings and weekends to all day. Bundle in the £7 a month buyback on my old phone (actually my stepson's old phone - he grabbed the N73), and I'm paying less than before. Bargain.
First impressions are extremely positive. The 6220 is slimmer and appreciably lighter than the N73. The screen seems brighter, if slightly smaller, and the keypad seems slightly larger. I've noticed the keys can move a bit if pushed in the wrong direction, so I'll have to watch that. A good thing for me is the deletion of the extra side key to top left instead of near the camera shutter key. This stops it being pressed when putting the phone in the car mount.
The phone seems much slicker in use too. The camera lens cover slide is much, much smaller, and looks more robust. The S60 operating system finally gets a built-in keylock, and the menu transitions look cool. Also cool is the ability to set the standby wallpaper to a slide show. Coolest of all is the message reader, which will read incoming text messages. The built-in Maps application works well, although the UK maps weren't already on the memory card as I expected them to be. Speaking of memory cards, it won't take the same size as the N73, but it comes with a 1GB card, which will do until I can afford an 8 or even 16GB one.
The 6220 also won't take the same hands-free lead as the N73, which means that until I can get a proper Bluetooth car kit in the Astra, I've had to buy wired lead. The 6220 comes with a stereo headset, which is no good in the car. But I have found a clever feature. The 6220 has a 2.5mm jack socket for the headset and TV-out lead, which will also take headphones, using the phone's built-in mic. So I've bought a 2.5-3.5mm jack plug adapter, which means I can use the tape adapter to route the phone's audio through the car stereo. Seems to work fine for Maps and mp3s, and for the odd phone call I take in the car. The camera seems fine, too.

Ein ganzes Jahr

2008-12-02T11:35:00.004Z

So it's been a whole year since I posted. Sorry, just haven't been arsed. A quick recap:

Passed AAT Foundation and Payroll (with an A!). Now on AAT Intermediate and Level 3 Payroll, which takes some juggling as two of the classes clash.
I've been looking for a job since the summer, but with not much success. I have had a few interviews (where they said I interviewed well, but the job still went to someone with more experience), and I have had a four-week stint temping in an office, which was really good. I'm stuck in the no experience vicious cycle, which will take time and persistence to cure.
Mrs MnG has started on her student nursing.
The TR7 is moving s-l-o-w-l-y. I've mostly got the LH front floor in, and I have all the parts to do the LH rear floor. Trouble is, I've not much time to work in. I have got hold of a big gas cylinder, though.
We bought a big family tent, a Vango Colorado 800DLX, and we used it at the TR Drivers Club national weekend in July, and the Suzuki Owners Club AGM in Ashbourne in August. We're not in the SOC, but my in-laws are, so they let us camp, and we took the little ones to a nearby agricultural show.

I've found out how I can send pics and posts to this blog from my phone (both by email and by MMS) so you might see more on here. I've also linked Facebook to the blog, so new postings go on as Facebook notes.

Skillz and stuff

2007-12-03T19:42:00.000Z

I've been busy practising for my first AAT skills test, and it's going pretty well. The only thing that's really giving me trouble is are the 'pay up or else' letters.

I've also signed up for Facebook, as my Auntie Kirsty (she hates that), post pics of her family in New Zealand on there. I've put a Facebook badge on the right. I've managed to get back in touch with many of the people I used to ~~shout at~~ work with at McDonald's. One of them even asked me to be their friend. Cool.

Skint

2007-11-21T13:16:00.000Z

I'm short of cash. Not a good situation to be in, I'm sure you'll agree. eBay have suspended Mrs MnG's account for no good reason. She has an arrangement with a caricaturist to put his pictures on items, so she bunged a load on eBay, as her website hasn't got much exposure, as yet. Some of these caricatures are of footballers. Umbro, in their ultimate wisdom, have decided that a T-shirt with a caricature of a footballer on infringes their copyright in some way. So they moaned to eBay, and eBay removed the items.

This was a pain, but there's thousands of images (I've got the job of putting them on the website. Oh joy.). Then eBay removed items for infringing trademark, and suspended her for relisting removed items, or something. But the items in contention were put on at the same time as the Umbro ones, and aren't even Umbro!

So now Mrs MnG can't list the normal items (like T-shirts, bug and stuff that people send their own images to be put on), despite waiting the 7 days eBay insist on, and faxing identification through. So our income is seriously compromised. Earlier in the week I had to pass on some TR7 parts that I need on eBay, that were going for a good price.

And I can't weld, because a connector on my gas regulator is broke, and the company I ordered the replacement from sent the wrong one! Bah!

Some good news

2007-11-13T17:21:00.000Z

Remember my post about fellow TR7 nut Ally's death? Well, her boyfriend Simon's taken over her Triton Green DHC KBA. As we speak it's in to have it's fuel tank replaced. Read his blog here.

In other news, I've been discharged from the shrink. My college course is going so well, that I've gone full time. At the moment I've more money than time, so for 7 hours extra a week, I get my AAT registration and my textbooks paid for. To make up my hours, I'm working my way through CLAiT certification, and doing payroll.

Some guy I know.

2007-10-27T18:34:00.001+01:00

Some guy I know.
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

This is the guy we made for the bonfire at Calke Abbey. Reminds me of someone.

Here be dragons

2007-10-14T09:20:00.000+01:00

I survived, although things weren't as raucous as I imagined. We are all that bit older, you see. The plan was to go into Nottingham, but the pub by the station had a load of pool tables, so we got stuck. Jason, who works in the City and is a gadget junkie, showed us his new toy - an iPod Touch. I wanted to dislike it for being too clever, but it really is quite swish. It's something I have no use for, though.
Then we saw the dragons that were parading down St Peters St in Derby as part of the celebrations for the new Westfield Centre. They were impressive. Here's a video:

The chaps and chapesses pedalling them did quite well pedalling down a narrow, pedestrianised, crowded street.

I'm getting old.

2007-10-13T12:08:00.000+01:00

The bus driver's younger than me. I'm off out drinking for my mate Paul's birthday. It's just about midday. I wonder how long I'll last.

Another one bites the dust

2007-10-02T12:19:00.000+01:00

What is it with my course? I went to college yesterday, to find another guy had died. Very sad. On a brighter note, I learned about trade discounts, cash discounts and VAT. Apparently, if a cash discount (for prompt payment) is offered, it reduces the VAT payable. I always thought a cash discount was there to avoid all that VAT nonsense, ifyouknowwhatimean.

Today, I've been fiddling with the website for my wife's business. I've found out that the 'house font' (Tempus Sans ITC) is available on just under 60% of systems, so a quick tweak of the CSS file, means it's used all round the site. I've also installed a CSS buttons add-in, so no more fiddling with Photoshop. If you haven't got Tempus Sans, then the site will try Verdana, so it will look like it did before.

On the TR7 front, I've managed to secure a deal offered to members of the MIG welding forum for a big bottle of Coogar welding gas. At 1.5m tall and weighing 80kg, it should last a fair while. I just have to buy a new regulator and take my paperwork to my local Air Products distributor. I hope it will fit in the car...

Bad things come in twos

2007-09-26T22:57:00.001+01:00

It was a shock to hear when I went to college on Monday that one of my fellow students had died over the weekend. Coupled with Ally's death, it's a bit disquieting. People younger than me aren't meant to die.

Other than that, I'm enjoying my course. I'm getting the hang of double entry, and the health & safety stuff I'm learning is a piece of cake after running the H&S circle at MaccyD's all those years ago. And with accounting, not only do I get the good job with the £££s at the end, but I see the £££s all the way through!

Something I really, really didn't want to know.

2007-09-22T00:35:00.000+01:00

I watched the first part of Commando: on the Front Line yesterday (it may be 00:39 on Saturday according to the clock on my laptop, but as I've not gone to bed and got up again yet, it's still Friday night to me. So there). My brother-in-law's a Royal Marine (not to be confused with the United States ~~Flower Arranging~~ Marine Corps), and at the time he was an instructor, albeit recovering from a broken leg he got while on one of those 400-mile-yomps-whilst-carrying-a-rucksack-containing-a-Volkswagen-Beetle things that they do.

Here's a transcript of the textual conversation I had with my sister, shortly after the scene in which one of the instructors was seen giving a demonstration of how to shower.

Me: I'm glad that wasn't [brother-in-law] on the telly just now.

Sis: Why?

Me: I don't think I could cope with my brother in law giving how to shower lessons on national telly.

Sis: You'd b quite impressed his hung alot bigger that that!

Me: [After several minutes just staring at a black N73] That's nice dear.

Death of a friend.

2007-09-22T00:30:00.000+01:00

I never got the chance to meet Ally, but I read her posts on the TR7 forum and her TR7 blog. She was only my kid sister's age, and will be sorely missed.

Bargain!

2007-09-05T13:59:00.000+01:00

The one problem I've found with my Astra is nowhere to put my mobile. There's nowhere to put a stick on holder within reach of the driver, and the ones that clip on the vent rattle too much. That's why I was pleased to find a Brodit Proclip for 99p + postage on Fleabay (They're normally £20!). These are vehicle specific brackets that fix solidly to the dashboard with no screws, using sticky pads and/or jamming into the gaps between dash panels. Brodit also sell phone specific holders that fit to the proclip, but as Mrs MnG has a different phone to me, I'll fix a universal holder to it. It's in exactly the right position for the satnav on my n73. Lovely.

Oh, and I've also enrolled on my AAT Accounting course at Burton College. I start Monday. I'm a student again!

42 days

2007-08-31T10:17:00.000+01:00

So, I've been busy and lazy in updating this blog, so here's a brief rundown:

SSAFA won, and the planning permission for Headley Court went through, thanks to a concerted effort by ex-servicemen and others. Well done to all involved.
I went on holiday to Ingoldmells for 2 weeks. The weather was crap, but we managed to find plenty of stuff to do.
Whilst on holiday, I saw The Bourne Ultimatum. Awesome. Totally rocks.
We also went to see the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby. That was cool, seeing Spitfires, Hurricanes and the Lancaster alongside the Tornados and Typhoons. We also saw some classic cars in the car park for some reason, and there were quite a few Typhoons in the sky.
We went to the Nottinghamshire Classic Car show at Thoresby Park. Lovely weather, and some very nice cars. Bought some wire wheels for the TR7 restoration in the autojumble.

That's all, folks.

NIMBY scum

2007-07-24T22:35:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Dr Crippen for pointing this out. Apparently, the SSAFA want to modify a six-bedroom house near Headley Court, the world class rehabilitation centre in Surrey for injured service personnel, to allow families to stay near loved ones who have been injured serving their country. All they need to do is add a disabled ramp, but this requires planning permission due to the change of use of the house to a hostel.

Trouble is, ~~NIMBY scum~~ concerned local residents have objected, citing traffic, noise and (here's the real reason) property values. You can read the letters of representation on the Mole Valley District Council website, which you can get to via Dr Crippen's blog. I'd read them myself, but Tesco's had a half price offer on Ben & Jerry's, and I'm not tossing Cookie Dough ice cream on this lot.

In case you didn't know, my brother is in the Royal Navy who served off the coast of Kosovo, and my brother-in-law is a Royal Marine Sergeant who also served in Kosovo, as well as in Iraq. I may not support the war (I note the WMDs still haven't been found) but I support our boys (and girls) who are over there.

Oh, the 10 Downing St petition is here.

New car

2007-07-19T10:27:00.000+01:00

well, I say new - it's 12 years old. A 1.6 Vauxhall Astra LS in grey. A cheap runabout in surprisingly good nick, which will do for our holidays and for daughter #1 to drive once she's passed her test.

Interestingly, a 56 plate Corsa pulled up behind me when I was taking daughter #4 to school, and it was the same size as my Astra. New cars are bloating.

Oh, by the way...

2007-07-12T12:03:00.000+01:00

... my appointment with the shrink last Friday was one of those 'So you haven't killed yourself, then? See me in November.' ones. I took my letter from the consultant I saw privately (and can't afford to now), but he didn't want to know, and apparently Cognitive Behavioural Tereapy is not for me. I'm not going to get discharged - it took me long enough to get referred, and I'm not going to go through that again.

One down, one to go...

2007-07-12T11:46:00.000+01:00

I've finally finished replacing the left door skin on my TR7! Last step was welding the top edges, adding a little sliver of metal where I accidentally cut the frame too much when removing the old skin. Next time, cut through the frame, not the skin...

I had a few problems with my welder spluttering and popping. I thought it might be due to my clumsiness or the 28 year old steel on the door frame. After I finished the door, I went back to practising on some sheet steel to get the right settings. Experimenting with the wire speed resulted in a couple of pretty perfect welds, with a nice buzzing sound and good penetration. I've got a picture on my phone, which I'll upload later (if I remember).

Trouble is, I think my cheapo auto-darkening helmet is taking too long to react. My eyes are sensitive at the best of times (I can get arc eye - or what feels like it - on a bright sunny day), so I think I'll look into getting a new helmet.

The Autism-MMR gravy train

2007-07-08T11:38:00.000+01:00

There's an interesting link on NHS Blog Doctor's weekly BritMeds medical links post. An article by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, explaining how measles RNA was apparently found in the guts of autistic children who, it is claimed, had contracted autism through the MMR vaccine. An investigation on the lab found that the tests were suspect due to DNA contamination. This investigation was withheld from the public for three years due to litigation in the UK. Lawyers acting on behalf of the children and their parents allowed the case to drag on, even when the scientific case against the autism-MMR link was overwhelming, prolonging the agony of the families and costing the taxpayer £15m in legal aid. Of this £15m, £8m went to solicitors, £1.7million to barristers and £4.3million was shared among expert witnesses. £800,000 went to Unigenetics, a company set up by Professor O'Leary who ran the lab referred to in the report. The families got nothing.

It seems to me that there is no good scientific link between MMR and autism. Those who say there is are preying on parents' need to find answers, and are only in it to make money. For what it's worth, both my little ones have had the MMR, and neither of them have autism.

NHS Blog Doctor: Shocking Psychiatry

2007-07-05T13:30:00.000+01:00

I remember now. It was the Community Mental Health Team who kept blocking my GPs' (plural: I tried my GP when I lived with my parents, and few times when I moved in with my wife) referrals. Something about 'no change in presentation'.

Elderly care

2007-07-05T10:21:00.000+01:00

In one of my earlier posts, I bemoaned the fact that my parents are having to sell my grandmother's home to pay for her nursing care. Today I read Dr Crippen's article about Liz Penny and her experiences looking after her demented mother. I'm feeling guilty now. Thinking about it, it's a bit greedy of me to expect the taxpayer to fund my grandmother's care when she's got all that money tied up in a house she's not living in. Or is it? Why shouldn't our welfare system provide decent care for our elderly, if that is what we so wish? The problem, of course, is funding. So many things to fund out the public purse, and we have to draw the line somewhere.

Dr Crippen points out that Pakistani families look after their elderly, why shouldn't we? Well, Pakistani families tend to be closer and larger, so there's more people to share the load, so to speak. Another thing is that the generation gap in the last couple of generations has increased, such that people are increasingly finding that their parents need help when they themselves are still looking after children. Ok, a lot of these things are to an extent self-inflicted. But calling people scroungers isn't helping. There may be lots of reasons why people can't look after elderly relatives themselves. Some of these reasons may be selfish, but there's no reason why we as a society can't build a framework for decent care for our elderly citizens. One that doesn't involve guilt-tripping, but also doesn't involve dumping the old dears in a home and forgetting about them.

And me? I think I've got to make an effort to see Grandma more often. It may be an excuse, but she's not the intelligent, witty, wise woman she was only a few years ago, which makes it harder.

It's time to meet the muppets

2007-07-02T16:57:00.000+01:00

Some terrorists, yesterday.

Tom Reynolds says this:

I'm not scared of terrorism, no-one I work with is scared of terrorism. We
recognise that the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is much, much smaller
than the numerous other causes of death and injury that we face everyday. What
makes us more nervous is considering what the British government might do in
response to these pitiful attacks.

Too bloody right. I firmly believe that as long as there's a Briton with two fingers to wave at these losers, Britain as a whole has nothing to fear.

Now these are good...

2007-07-02T13:08:00.000+01:00

Here's some amazing pictures of the London Underground, taken by Robert Stainforth.

Link

Better than nothing. Only just, though.

2007-07-01T17:56:00.000+01:00

Next Friday, I have my once in a blue moon appointment with the Mental Health locum at my local Royal Infirmary. I've been going to this ever since I got stressed out with work and the fact that I couldn't get an expert opinion on whether or not I had Asperger's Syndrome about 18 months ago, and drove my car through my father-in-law's garage door.

This convinced my GP to try again, and she suggested I went on citalopram to help force a decision. Parallel to this, I went through my workplace's occupational health section (as I was having trouble with work), and got an appointment to see a psychiatrist.

Funnily enough, my private psychiatrist was the former consultant at the NHS. He agreed that my worries about AS were valid, and agreed to refer me to a colleague who was a specialist in these matters. She saw me twice, the second time for a formal diagnosis. The third time she saw me, she told me I didn't have AS, but that I had got some social issues. This was just what I needed, someone who knows about these things. Fairly soon after that, I came off the citalopram.

Unfortunately, because I've now left work and lost my private healthcare, I can't see my private consultant. All I can do is take his details to the NHS and hope that I can get the help I need though them. Chances are, though, that I'll get a 'Keep taking the pills, and we'll see you in a few months.'

Now this isn't a diatribe against the NHS, just a realisation that it's not perfect. Mental health issues aren't as glamourous or newsworthy as, say, breast cancer or infertility, except when 'some nutter' goes on the rampage. So it doesn't get the funding it needs, sometimes.

Dr Rant: Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!

2007-07-01T17:54:00.000+01:00

Dr Rant: Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!

Somehow, I don't think Dr Rant is too upset about former Health Minister Patricia Hewitt's leaving.

Is that Mr MnG?

2007-06-22T13:11:00.001+01:00

I don't seem to have a very telephone friendly voice. People assume I'm the wife. As you can imagine, this causes problems, from the guy at Domino's calling me madam, to people at call centres hanging up because they don't think I'm me (and not the Indian ones, either). I think I need a voice changer.

TR7 Progress

2007-06-17T22:08:00.001+01:00

TR7 Progress
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

Here's the LH door having the edges of the frame primed with zinc rich primer, in preparation for fitting a replacement door skin. This should, with sealant, stop the edges rusting again.

Shopping Rage

2007-06-16T14:41:00.000+01:00

With thanks to Bill Sticker:

Bring the noise.

2007-06-11T16:42:00.000+01:00

Top film. Top DVD. A tenner from Tesco - I think I was the first to buy it, seeing as it was still in the new titles drawer, and not on the shelves. But why the utterly pointless cardboard sleeve, which conveyed absolutely no new information than the plastic case? A complete waste.

Parts

2007-06-09T09:37:00.001+01:00

I've just ordered some parts for my TR7 from Robsport. Apparently they're almost preternaturally fast, so we'll see...

EDIT: They can't take my Electron card, so I've had to wait until today (Monday) to use #1 stepdaughter's Solo card. Bummer

EDIT AGAIN (Tuesday 12th) : The bits (two handbrake dustcovers for the rear brakes) got here today.

Has it been that long?

2007-06-06T13:53:00.000+01:00

I suppose so. A quick catch-up:

I turned 35. Wahey. At least I managed to go out, get pissed and still catch my bus home. Which is more than my mate Paul did.
Started dismantling the brakes on my TR7, so that I can fix the handbrake and take it outside to jetwash the underneath. Photos in my gallery.
Karen's business has seemed to explode in the last week or so. I've been helping her by putting new products on the website.

Reading lots of blogs. It seems that the NHS ran at a surplus. Why? Surely the NHS should only just break even. From where I'm standing, I see £510m that's not treating patients. It'd be interesting to see what NHS Blog Doctor has to say.

Speaking of GPs, I agree that to see a doctor out of hours should incur a nominal charge, if only to stop the ingrown toenail brigade. Plumbers charge extra.

Sometimes, partying's too hard.

2007-05-19T00:20:00.001+01:00

Sometimes, partying's too hard.
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

Fri 18/05/2007 22:31 18052007015 My aunt, uncle and their 2 boys are emigrating to New Zealand soon. Last night was their leaving do. Emily's sleeping through the band.

New phone

2007-05-19T00:05:00.000+01:00

I've got a new phone. A Nokia N73 on Orange. For £30 a month, I get unlimited texts and 100 mins of calls. Doesn't sound like much, but because I got it on my Dad's account, I'm in his Your Group, meaning I get free calls to Mum & Dad's mobiles. And with Magic Number, I can call Karen for free too!

Now to get Lifeblog working through Flickr...

Flickr

2007-05-19T00:00:00.001+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

For the sheer hell of it.

2007-05-15T18:12:00.000+01:00

I've not posted for nearly a month, sorry. I quit work last Friday, and I must admit a few tears as I walked to the car. Tears of uncertainty, but they soon passed. Karen's business seems to be going well, and there are a couple of new ideas to try.

I've added to my website, too. Back in 2002 or thereabouts, me and Karen, and some friends, were involved in prosthetic makeup effects. We briefly formed a group called the MonsterMen, and attended the Carnival of Souls a few times. We had a website which I thought was long gone, until I found it on my hard drive while spring cleaning. It's a snapshot of how the website was in December 2002, and I simply uploaded it in its entirety. Some of the links may or may not work, but it's there if you're interested.

Here's the link.

Feeds

2007-04-23T06:36:00.000+01:00

I read a number of blogs, which I acess via IE7's handy feeds list in the FavoUrites sidebar thingy. One of which is Random Acts of Reality. This morning, I was a bit confused. Tom seemed to be talking about timing and rotor arms. Until I realised that I had gone onto Martin Randle's TR7 16V rally car blog. I'm off to work in a few minutes to build 300 cars. I suppose I'd better wake up.

Another National Treasure

2007-04-15T22:44:00.000+01:00

I don't want to Murray the kid, but I think he's going to be better than Schumacher. You just watch.

Sod the housing market.

2007-04-15T22:17:00.000+01:00

According to this post on A World To Win, which I found on NHS Blog Doctor, public sector workers such as nurses, teachers and firefighters cannot afford to buy homes in seven out of ten towns in the UK. This comes as no surprise to me. Chez MnG would cost about 10-12 times my salary, such are the house prices in this part of Derby. A deposit on this place would cost more than the 1983 purchase price of my parents' house. Not being one for saving, I'm renting this place, which in itself takes most of my salary. Thank heavens for Tax Credit, but then I suspect that if housing costs hadn't been allowed to run away, there'd be no need for it.

To be honest, owning a house is not something I want to do. My grandmother, a Wren who worked on secret stuff, former history and French teacher, wife of a Marine, had to go into a home last year because, basically, to paraphrase You, Me and Dupree, the Grandma-ness has gone. The home's not a problem. It's owned by friends of the family, and Grandma's best friend, the mother of the owner's wife, is also a resident. The problem is the money grabbing authorities. Because Grandma owned her own home, bought and paid for, my mother is having to sell it to pay for her care. At full market value, mind. She can't rent it out, or sell it to my sister cheaply. Bah.

So bollocks to it. I'm not joining the home-owning bandwagon. I'm going to carry on renting, and play the system for all it's worth, by claiming all that I'm legally entitled to. It's how I can afford to go to college.

Bleurgh

2007-04-15T22:07:00.000+01:00

I've had some sort of dreadful lurgy this weekend. Fever, aches, lethargy, stiff neck and a delicate stomach. I feel like shit.

I did it!

2007-04-11T15:32:00.000+01:00

So, I've handed my notice in at work, even though I haven't sorted an AAT course out yet. I had planned to stay until summer shutdown in August, but I got to the point where I didn't want to go to work, which is different to the normal 'can't be arsed' feeling everyone gets. Everyone I've spoken to is supportive, so that's ok.

The cars (both ours and the car I got for my brother, which he pays me back for) will of course go back. Hopefully we'll get some money back by reclaiming our bank charges, so we can use that to buy a second car. Something that will be able to tow the TR7. With housing benefit and extra tax credit, we should be able to offset the loss of my salary. And I'll have no more crap hours, and more time with the family.
I suppose I'll have to start exercising more, or I'll turn in to the Goodyear blimp.

A National Treasure!

2007-04-09T12:06:00.000+01:00

RF Potts have had their shop in Babington Lane, Derby, for as long as I can remember. If you want to connect a widget to a doobrey, chances are they'll have the lead to do it, or the connectors t omake the lead yourself. Prices are good, too. The only negative is that if they don't have something, it tends not to exist (even if you know it does).
They're open on Easter Monday (today) too! So after spending £1.95 on an F-connector-to-F-connector lead, my cable and my broadband are now working. Cool.

Some work on my TR7, and bodging the cable.

2007-04-09T00:05:00.000+01:00

I've done some work on the left door of my TR7. Here's a pic, and there are a few more pics and more details on my TR7 blog.

I nearly didn't post this entry. My broadband's been playing up this weekend. I phoned Virgin Media, and after being told to unplug this and plug that back in, et cetera, that they'd book an engineer for Thursday morning. (My wife, who phoned up, was told at one point we'd never had broadband. Seeing as we were one of the broadband triallists for Derby, that's virgin on the ridiculous. Sorry.)

Anyway, once I'd got off the phone from VM, I tried unplugging the cable modem that was fitted when we upgraded to V+. This worked for a bit. Now, when they installed the V+ box, they split the cable using a quite large metal splitter, with the piece going to the cable modem (a small box with connections, blinkenlightzen and yet another power adapter to find a socket for) being only about 15cm long. This is what's failed, I think, as I've plugged the main cable from the wall into the modem. So we've got broadband, just no cable TV, at least until I can get to the shops later.

Test

2007-04-04T00:40:00.001+01:00

This seems to work.
--
Posted via my mobile.

This is good.

2007-04-03T23:14:00.000+01:00

I bought this the other day. It's funny as f*ck.

It's fun to charter an accountant.

2007-04-03T22:52:00.000+01:00

I've has an epiphany. The other day I found out that I wouldn't get a payrise this year, as basically, I'm not too good at my job. I made too many little, but important mistakes.

Also, #1 stepdaughter has decided to quit studying sciences at sixth form, and get an accounting apprenticeship. She'll go to business college one day a week to study for her AAT qualifications , and work four days, and for this she'll get £100 a week (after a 3 month probation). After 3 years, and gaining AAT membership, she'll earn a cool £300+ a week. Not bad for a 20-year old. And she can then fast-track to full chartered status.

Now I can't get an apprenticeship, being too old, but I can go to college part time for my AAT qualifications. And darling wife's vinyl graphics business is doing very well indeed. So well, in fact that all being well, I could become a house husband, letting her devote more time to the business. I could study part time, and within 5 years have a job that suits me.

And be earning a packet.

I hate short changeovers

2007-03-24T03:51:00.000Z

I've just finished nights, and next week I'm on days. I do two weeks of days where I get up at sixish and get home anywhere between 4pm & 6pm; followed by two weeks of nights, starting at 8:30pm and getting home around 5am. Except Friday nights, where I start and finish 2 hours earlier.
This means I have four different kinds of weekends:

days-days, which is a normal weekend
days-nights, which is almost an extra day (I try to get a bit of kip in on the Monday, but not always)
nights-nights, where being a family man, I have to turn my body clock around for a couple of days
nights-days, which is like losing half your weekend (especially this week, when the clocks go forward).

I embark on a week of nights by having a lateish night Sunday, getting up at about 8am-ish (when the kids go to school), hopefully getting a couple of hours kip in the afternoon, and then hammering my body clock into submission by working all night. It takes me a couple of days to get the swing of things, which means that by the end of Friday night (about 3-4am), I'm still wide awake. I can't sleep straight after work at the best of times. I can't usually get to sleep before 5ish, so I don't wake up again till half of Saturday's gone. Bah.
Then again, Easter weekend is a type 2 weekend, so I've almost got a 5 day weekend. Bargain.

SitePoint Blogs » Adobe CS2 and the Case of the Disappearing Thumbnails!

2007-03-19T13:47:00.000Z

SitePoint Blogs » Adobe CS2 and the Case of the Disappearing Thumbnails!

This page tells you how to get Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS2 to display thumbnail icons in Windows Explorer. Useful stuff.

What is a classic car?

2007-03-04T15:48:00.000Z

With cars from the early 80's coming up for 25 years old now, this is a question that keeps coming up. Cars from this era are the early consumer cars, with ECUs and ABS, comfortable, reliable, economical and kind of soulless, really. My daily driver, a 55 plate Toyota Corolla, ticks all of these boxes. It's a nice car to drive, but only inasmuch as it's effortless and doesn't detract from the purpose of the journey. The enjoyment comes when you get to B, not necessarily in the drive from A to B. Although a good song on the stereo helps.

Because of this, there is an arguement that early 80's cars aren't 'classic' cars. Here in the UK in the mid 90's, cars 25 years or older became exempt from road tax. This was frozen in 1997, when the current Labour government came to power, and now only cars built before 1973 (I think) are exempt. There is a call to restore this 25 year exemption, and herein lies the rub. In 2007, 25 year old cars tend to be in better condition than in years gone by. So there are more 25 year old common or garden consumer cars around, which many people would not consider classics. Having said that, the throwaway consumer society means that older consumer cars are being scrapped before they're truly worn out, as the cost of replacing expensive components is more than the value of the car.

There is an element of agism, in that an Austin 1100 is more likely to be considered a classic than a Metro, but both are small family cars. My TR7 wouldn't be considered a classic by some owners of earlier TRs. On this page of his 1941 Buick restoration, Matt laments the scarcity of '40s cars at American classics shows, being underwhelmed by 'ordinary' cars from the '50, '60s and '70s. But then his Buick wouldn't have been considered a classic in the '40s.

To me, 'classic' is a bit of a cliche. A better word would be 'cherished', in that a cherished car is a car used and maintained for the love of the car itself. Of course this definition includes chavved-up Corsas, so for older cars (say 25-30 years old) I'd favour the term 'historic'.

And tax exemption? For purely selfish reasons (my TR7 is 26 years old), I support the 25 year cutoff being restored, but maybe the cutoff date only changing every 5 years or so.

New boxes

2007-03-03T20:04:00.000Z

We got a V+ box installed today. That went well, but the separate cable modem (needed because unlike the Samsung cable box, a V+ box has no modem built in) took me all morning to set up after being passed around ~~ntl's~~ Virgin Media's phone system, including an internal tech support section. Eventually I got through to a helpful chap who said "I see the problem. There you go, it should work now." And it did. The old Samsung box, which they moved upstairs because crazily enough it's cheaper to have a V+ box installed and the old box moved (£5 a month x 12 = £60) than to pay to have the old box taken away (£75), still doesn't work. Must ring Virgin tomorrow.

Stoneleigh

2007-02-19T00:30:00.000Z

I went to the Triumph spares day at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire last Sunday. And I enjoyed the day immensely, despite being on my own (my mate Paul couldn't come on pain of pain, as it was his other half's parents' wedding anniversary. Wuss.). So apart not talking to anyone who wasn't taking money off me, I amused myself by looking at some fine cars (including a blue Dolomite that would be perfect for #1 daughter's first car if she didn't want something ~~boring~~ 2modern, safe and reliable") and buying a few bits for GOVerness's restoration (viz, a satin black aerosol for the quarterlight glass frames, some bits to hold welds together, a twisted wire cup thing to get rid of rust and paint and a set of nut splitters for the bolts on the bumper. Hehe.)

Oops

2007-02-19T00:20:00.000Z

Seems I made a mistake. I tried to be flash and use Blogger's custom domain feature to set my blog as a subdomain on my website (http://www.marknotgeorge.co.uk if you're interested). But it didn't work and so my blog's been invisible till just a few minutes ago. And my "L" key seems to have a crumb or something stuck under it. So apoogies for any misspeings.

Bugger bugger bum

2007-01-22T00:48:00.000Z

Been working on the TR7. I managed to get the left hand door off ok, after trying and failing to get the seat belt reel bolts out a few days ago. Then I started to investigate the rusty bits again. Poking my trusty screwdriver in the bottom of the rear wing, I caught my finger on a jagged edge.

Ouch. I'll have to have a tetanus jab now.

Ha Ha Ha Ha

2007-01-18T18:18:00.000Z

Here's something funny:

Thanks to Tom Reynolds and Peter David for sharing this.

Bah!

2007-01-14T16:28:00.000Z

After downloading various applets for my Nokia 3230, and wasting a couple of quid of phone credit, I've drawn a blank on finding a one-shot photo blogging solution for my phone. Ideally I want something I can email or preferably MMS to my Blogger account. But nothing as yet works with the new Blogger Beta API. Bah!

testing

2007-01-14T15:28:00.000Z

This seems to work.

EDIT: No it doesn't. There should be a picture of #5 being a monster. Oh well.

Back to work...

2007-01-08T20:31:00.000Z

After many months of procrastination, and after clearing the garage so I can get to the damn thing :oops:, work on the GOVerness has recommenced. I say work, but much of it was poking holes in either rust or filler :roll:. I did manage to get the LH rear foglight off, though. The rear bumper bolts are proving more stubborn, though, despite copious coatings of Ambersil Rust Flash:

Techno Techno

2007-01-01T14:59:00.000Z

I've signed up to Technorati. Hopefully I'll find some readers, and some more interesting and relevant blogs to read.

Happy New Year.

2007-01-01T00:21:00.001Z

Happy new year, all.

So Christmas has come and gone...

2006-12-29T15:09:00.000Z

... only five months or so till my next week off.
Anyway, for Christmas I got:

A 235-piece tool set, to ~~gather dust in the garage~~ use in the restoration of my TR7.
Two books : Blood, Sweat and Tea by Tom Reynolds, and Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?.
Various choccys.
Three jumpers, which to be honest I could do with.
A cordless doorbell-cum-alarm-clock (wtf?)
A £20 WHSmith giftcard, which I spent on The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor and the V for Vendetta DVD. I went in there hoping they'd have an MP3 player. Heigh ho.

The time off so far has been good, except that a couple of nights I've not been able to sleep. In fact, I read The Berlin Wall one night. Not a book for getting you to sleep.

I've not worked on the TR7, but should tomorrow, once we've cleared out the garage.

By the way...

2006-12-11T17:59:00.000Z

The PS2 finally arrived. Two months after it was ordered. At least I got some decent free games with it: Splinter Cell Double Agent, Tomb Raider Legends and GTA Liberty City Stories. The kids want a new one for Chrimbo, but I'll (or Mrs MnG'll) be getting that from a shop.

Tom's Angry

2006-12-08T20:26:00.000Z

Me? I'm just stunned. Stunned and awed by this man's compassion and skill with the English language. Stunned that 786,432 dots of light can cause me to feel, well, kind of scared. I salute you, Tom. You and all the boys and girls in green uniforms.

I know it's not in the same league, but I had a friend (to be honest, a fellow cadet in the Air Training Corps squadron I was in when I was a teenager) die from inhaling butane. Even though I hardly knew her and hardly spoke to her, it's left a lasting impression. A stupid, stupid waste.

It appears they've worked out deaf people buy stuff too...

2006-12-07T06:35:00.001Z

Mrs MnG was using her noisy Craft Robo cutter while Love, Actually was on. So I put the subtitles up and was intrigued to learn that adverts have subtitles these days too. Except CD adverts. Funny, that.

I saw this and thought of you.

2006-12-03T15:03:00.000Z

Saw this pic on Suman's Amateur Transplants blog/:

Canley news

2006-11-28T18:55:00.000Z

Development on Canley, my car restoration management program, proceeds in fits and starts, but I managed to get a fair bit done last night.

Here's a screen shot. I've still not done the parts tree, but I've moved the photo area to it's own tab. This gives more space for notes.

The second screenshot shows the restoration tab in more detail. It needs fine tuning but you can see that the top list shows all the tasks that need doing to the selected part, where as the bottom list will show supplies and spare parts needed.

Still to do:

The parts tree.
A wizard for adding parts.
Help system.
Reports.
Other stuff I haven't thought of yet (Suggestions welcome).
A bit on my website about it. Come to think of it, my website does need some work.

It will be ready when it's ready.

15,897,600 seconds older than me.

2006-11-28T18:22:00.000Z

Happy birthday to the esteemed Tom Reynolds, who is 35 today. According to http://www.timeanddate.com, I'll be 35 in 6 months and 3 days. Tom, you'll find your present over there...

Christmas is nearer than my birthday, so if anyone wants to buy me a present, you could do worse than buy me Tom's book...

PS Still no PS2...

Just saved meself £18

2006-11-25T14:15:00.000Z

I've got a Panasonic DVD recorder, which until now has been resolutely Region 2 only. Most of the cheapo players and recorders have a code sequence you can enter using the remote, but not the quality ones. Panasonics also use a sequence of infra-red commands to change the region coding, but one of the commands is not on the standard remote. You had to either buy a multi region player, or pay £18 or so to buy a special remote to send the command sequence. As I only have a few region 1 discs, I never bothered.

Then I found this site. These guys have not only been hacking Panasonic firmwares, but they've discovered the hitherto unknown command sequence to make the majority of Panasonic DVD players and recorders region free! There are methods to suit just about any device with an infra-red port (I used a boot CD for a laptop), and you can make your player any region you wish. Now I can watch The Last Starfighter (unavailable on a region 2 disc!)

Kudos to Tom & Martin!

Yeah, right.

2006-11-22T17:42:00.000Z

Among my RSS feeds (the only way of keeping tabs on the blogs I read), is the most excellent Tom Reynolds. It was his blog (which pointed me to Dr. Crippen's also most excellent blog) where I found out that apparently parts of the NHS spent too much of the money allocated to it on doctors and nurses. So presumably somewhere there are too many doctors and nurses kicking about somewhere. I suspect they're bussed about to wherever there might be politicians and/or TV cameras.

Thinking about it, I guess we should've kept the cushions.

2006-11-22T15:38:00.000Z

Took the 3 piece suite to the tip today. Hope the new one comes tomorrow...

Welding

2006-11-18T12:55:00.000Z

Been doing some welding this week. Mrs MnG had a Forever Living cosmetics party, so I banished myself into the shed to join bits of metal with electricity.

I'm using 0.8mm gasless wire, so my results aren't as neat as I would like. Maybe when I get round to getting some gas and some 0.6mm wire things will be neater. The gasless wire produces a bright light which makes it difficult to see what's going on. But it seems to have good penetration, and it's strong.

I also had a look at a rear panel I bought off eBay for the princely sum of £3 from a nice bloke in Manchester. It's in pretty good condition as you can see. There's some surface rust, but the areas around the light apertures (which is where my car is rusty) are solid. Good news, as these panels are unavailable new.

On another note, me, Mrs MnG, and kids #4 and #5 have all been struck down with the vomity flu bug going about. No pics, you'll be pleased to know...

Still no PS2. My mum's been badgering Kay's for me. I've asked her to try and blag some games as compensation.

Is there a PS2 shortage?

2006-11-11T15:35:00.000Z

Recently my PS2 died. I can't complain. I bought it off eBay as faulty, had a fiddle with the insides with the help of one of those guides I found on that interwebby thing, and it worked fine for a while. Now it's died, I stuck it back on eBay to someone who can be bothered to have a bit more of a fiddle, or strip it for parts.
To replace it, I ordered a silver one out of my mum's Kays catalogue, to match the cable box, video, etc. Later that week, we ordered a 3-piece suite to replace the one my inlaws ~~coerced us into having~~ offered us from a friend.
This was four weeks ago. We've had a call about the suite, which will be delivered next week. Would've been this week, but their lorry broke down, apparently. But no PS2. First they said 14 days, then on or around the 30th October. So where is it? Surely it's too early for the Christmas rush?

Something that makes me look good.

2006-11-11T15:34:00.000Z

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary!You must be quite an erudite person.

How's" Your Vocabulary?

testing 123

2006-11-11T11:44:00.000Z

If this works, I'll have sent a blog entry on my phone. Cool.

Something curious I found.

2006-11-05T23:36:00.000Z

You Are 4: The Individualist

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself.

You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable.

You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt.

Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel.

What Number Are You?

I'm not sure about the last part, I'm so quiet and withdrawn normally, people can't tell...

And the first bit's comlete bollocks. I'm undergoing psychiatric treatment for suspected Asperger's Syndrome, and I'm terribly unintuitive.

Books and Canley

2006-10-31T18:04:00.000Z

I got paid today, so I've bought a couple of books from two of my favourite authors:

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, and

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson.

(How do I add images from Amazon??)

I've also done a bit on Canley, my classic car restoration database. Here's some features:

Multiple cars.
A parts hierarchy. Parts have subassemblies which have sub assemblies, etc etc...
You can add photos to cars and parts.
You can add restoration details to each part, such as tasks to be completed, suppliers, costs, etc.

And they'll be reports, such as parts lists, shopping lists and so on. Here's a screenshot...

The big white space is where the parts tree, showing how all the parts are linked, goes. The big grey space on the parts details tab will look something like the similar area in the Edit Car window. The picture is just a random one for testing purposes ;o)

My Triumph TR7 DHC Sprint

2006-10-29T17:40:00.000Z

Here's a pic of my 1980 Triumph TR7 DHC Sprint, which is in the garage while I find time and money to cut out rusty bits, and replace other worn out bits, ready for cruising in the summer! Which summer, I hear you ask? Stop asking stupid questions...

I plan to paint it Toyota Balearic Blue, (this colour), with MG Montego wheels painted anthracite, and either original beige check trim or grey and blue alcantara.

Die Mühe mit deutschen Filmen ist die Titten.

2006-10-29T17:01:00.000Z

(Apologies for the Google-translated title)

I like German films, which causes problems. Most people associate German cinematography with actresses like the delightful Betty, who seems to enjoy being coated in various bodily fluids.
However, I just happen to like films in German, as it makes a refreshing change from Hollywood blockbusters. Trouble is, because the German film-going public are possibly less prudish than us Brits, and because most German films are made for the domestic market, the actresses seem to be more willing to get 'em out, so to speak. Now a nice pair is all very well, but they tend to undermine my argument rather. Most subtitlephobes (like Mrs MnG) think all I'm after is the tits-out action, which is quite wrong. Honest.

Two Hellos?

2006-10-29T15:03:00.000Z

Sorry about that. I had trouble getting Blogger to work, and so I typed the hello messages twice. I really did go to the bonfire, which was great fun, although it's lost much of the personal feel it had when there was just a dozen or so of us. Now there's up to a hundred people there. But the personal feel returns a bit later on, when people start to go home. I've some pictures, and a video of some of the fireworks, which I'll post when I've uploaded them from my phone.

Hello!

2006-10-28T17:42:00.000+01:00

Well I did it, finally signed up. This blog'll be full of me wittering about things like my Triumph TR7, the car restoration software I'm trying to write, as well as a tiny bit about life. Possibly.

I'm going to a Halloween-cum-Guy-Fawkes-Night party this evening. We go every year. My friend's dad is gatekeeper or something at Calke Abbey in Ticknall, Derbyshire, and him and some other friends blow up half a field.

Hello!

2006-10-28T17:34:00.000+01:00

Well, I did it. Finally got a blog. I've gotta go to a bonfire party tonight, so I'll fiddle with this some more later. Oh, by the way, I'm 34, from Derby, UK.