Skillz and stuff

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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...

... 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...

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

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

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

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

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.