Saturday 21 July 2007

Personal Information



Always worth remembering.
The World wide web is available..... worldwide.
Accesible to friends, relatives, future employers, identity fraudsters etc.
Obviously the safest option is never to have a blog, myspace, Facebook etc
or anywhere where personal details can be acquired.

My own method is to change enough relevant facts to make it useless to anyone
attempting identity theft, there is a real me and an online me.

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Food Recycling

As mentioned previously the local council have given us bins to put waste food in, to keep it separate from the normal household waste.
Monday was the first pick up day and all the good people down my street had left their little bins out for collection (I had specially been through the cupboards and found some out of date grub to help fill it up).

But nobody turned up to collect it?
So we've now got a street full of bins full of rotting food.
I'm sure the foxes will be happy, but probably only a matter of time till some little chav toerag thinks it'll be funny to empty them all out.
I am suprised the bins are still there, I have seen a couple of hanging baskets in our street which have only survived due to being padlocked to the wall.

That subject again ...


You are still allowed to smoke in your own home,
unless you have workmen in who don't want you to!!
They can refuse to work if you refuse to stop.

Tuesday 17 July 2007

Simpsons Mania


Don't know if this was an advertising stunt for the new Simpsons movie,
but I love this one I found earlier on the net.



Even the Pagan's might be amused?

Mayor Boris



Mayor? you've got to be joking.

Nice tackle though :)

Saturday 14 July 2007

You don't see that everyday


So I walk out of Tesco's today, not far behind
a little grey haired old lady struggling to push
her shopping trolley.
Nothing odd about that as Tesco's has a high
percentage of pensioners shopping there.
But then she stopped near to where I had parked,
and I wondered if she had driven to the supermarket, as due to an
additional limp in her shuffling walk she looked more suitable to one of
those "shopmobility" style scooters than a car.
Imagine my surprise when she starts to load the shopping into the back of
a Silver Chevrolet Camaro!! even then I'm thinking her son or grandson
must be coming soon to drive her home.
But after putting the groceries in the back, she toddles off to leave the trolley
in the trolley park and gets into the car.
This is when I notice it's a left hand drive as I'd assumed she was sitting in
the passenger seat.
The car starts up and roars off with her barely able to see over the steering wheel.
I suppose I shouldn't be "ageist" and she might have worked hard all of her life
to own such a lovely car so I shouldn't be shocked.
But I kept thinking about one of my son's who is being crippled financially by the
2 grand he's had to shell out every year to insure a 1.1 litre 10 year old Peugeot
for driving legally on the roads, I'd imagine a Left hand drive American car would
be un-insureable for him or at least 5-10 grand a year?
I'm guessing she doesn't have to pay quite as much, or maybe pensioners are
better off than we're led to believe?
I know who's reactions I'd trust if I'd stepped into the road in front of this car,
and I'm guessing it's not the one who pays least insurance?

Thursday 12 July 2007

Football Hooligans

Following on from the "Danny Dyer" and "You Tube" posts,
I thought I'd put the links up for a series of films taken
from the documentary "Hooligan" based mainly around the ICF
"the Inter City Firm" as West Ham's hooligan element were known.
(Thanks to Simon7s the uploader).
This TV documentary was made in 1985 so you'll have to forgive
the dodgy haircuts, but it's well made and Mr Dyer could learn from it.

1 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=E4cKSR0sL3o
2 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=akF5iAM0T4Q
3 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=YHSo_xTvPEQ
4 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=4x1eezCQwVY
5 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=qywrsvX4KfE
6 - http://youtube.com/watch?v=fWFMF1ChXDA

I have to admit I was at most of these games and don't remember
seeing most of this trouble, although I was told at the time it did happen.
Just goes to prove you can always find trouble if you want to, and in 95%
of cases you can avoid trouble if you don't look for it.

You Tube

Brilliant invention.
Just like to say thank you to everybody who has uploaded
videos that I've used on this blog.

Danny Dyer

Danny Dyer, he might be from Canning town, he might be a West Ham fan, he might be a proper "cockney geezer"?
Dunno why but I just find him fake, it all seems like a very bad impersonation.
Seen a few of his films and he plays the same character in every one, seems to
base himself on Paul Whitehouse's character "Chris the Crafty Cockney" in the fast show "I'm a little bit waayy, a little bit wooah", or maybe Whitehouse based it on Danny Dyer? who knows.

Anyway I'll give him another chance after seeing this out-takes video from
his real football factories show, for anyone that's never seen them he goes
around Britain and the world talking to ageing hooligans about the "good old
days" of football hooligans, and talking to their "firms".
Could be an interesting documentary if you didn't have to hear Dyer keep bringing up "when I was in the football factory" all the time.

Here's the vid, as I said I'll give him another chance, as after cocking up various
scenes he doesn't drop his accent and slip into "public schoolboy" like I expected.

Sunday 8 July 2007

Some Funnies




Watch those reflections








To the point










Wonder what that Irish
family ever did to him?

Gotta love Americans

Fonejacker

Maybe my warped sense of humour, but this series has made
me laugh more than anything else around at the moment.



See also

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aUuvzgRBELM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uFJbf7D4ck8

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lnwGWshOD3I

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EjH9cEoEup8

I'm sure they rung me up the other day offering financial services,
the guy got quite upset when I wouldn't tell him who I had my mortgage with.

Live Earth

Yes all very worthy and in a good cause.
Is it gonna change anything? probably not.

Pop stars jetting in to play, huge stadiums lit up like Christmas
trees, hundreds of thousands of people who I'm guessing haven't
walked to the concerts. Millions of TV viewers all staying up
with TV and lights on watching it.

Hasn't helped much so far has it.

Surely if these overpaid stars and their mega rich record companies
cared they should give all the profits of their next years worth of
releases and tours to the campaign.
Bob Geldof's original idea of Band Aid was worthy, but a lot of the bands
and singers on view just see it as another publicity opportunity.

Give your money to Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, The Amazon
conservation team, Oxfam etc instead, refuse to buy products from
countries that profit from deforestation.
Hit the polluters where it hurts .. in the pocket.

Saturday 7 July 2007

Harry Potter

The seventh and final book hits the shops in two weeks,
"Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows" and I suppose I'll have to go and get a copy.
I've haven't read any of them, but my missus loves them.
We bought the first two for my youngest son years back but he wasn't interested, so the wife read them anyway and has become hooked?
I downloaded what I thought was a leaked copy a couple of months ago, but it appears this is a work of fan fiction.
An impressive 659 pages worth!, not being a fan I read one page and got bored, so I offered to print it for the wife but she wants to wait for the official release.
Had my suspicions that it wasn't real, only because of the Americanised spelling (as I thought a leaked copy would still be in Rowling's UK English).

Random Facts

As we all know, you can find facts to prove any argument.
I could probably find an official fact somewhere on
the internet to disprove or prove any statement.

Here's a few that concern me -
(I've no doubt I could find alternatives to disprove
all of them, but I choose to believe these) .

Poverty / War
1) 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and
malnutrition, and hunger-related diseases.
2) 30,000 people die every day from poverty.
3) Some 1000 people still die every day as a result of the
conflict in the Congo.

Work
1) One worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide,
6,000 workers die every day.
2) Work kills more people than wars
3) Each year, more than two million women and men die as a
result of work-related accidents and diseases.

Roads / Cars
1) Road crashes are now the leading cause of death
worldwide for 10-25 year olds. 1000 young people
aged under 25 die on the world's roads every day.
2) Each year road traffic crashes kill 1.2 million people
3) Road crashes are the second leading cause of death
for young men after HIV/AIDS.

Smoking
1) 617 deaths a year are related to exposure to workplace smoke.
2) Smoking kills around 114,000 people in the UK each year.
Of these deaths, about 42,800 are from smoking-related cancers,
30,600 from cardiovascular disease and 29,100 die from
emphysema and other chronic lung diseases.

Anti Smoking Nazis

I made an "off the cuff" comment about Anti Smoking Nazis a while back,
but it appears there is a little truth in that statement,
(See the later part of this video).



Although this video is filled with all the usual excuses "we smokers"
use to justify our habit :) it doesn't really tell any lies.
We are just using half truths and random facts to support our argument
in exactly the same way that the ASN use half truths and random facts
in advertising to criminalise us.
I'm suprised no one seems to use the one overriding fact that seems to have
been proven with all studies on smoking - where you live will decide when
you die, far more than your lifestyle choices.
Smokers (and non smokers) are far more likely to die early if they live
in built up areas, than those who live in the country.
People who live near motorways have a far higher chance of lung disease
weather they smoke or not.
Even during my lifetime I can remember "experts" telling me a product
was perfectly safe, only to later find it had harmful side effects or
caused cancer.
All fuels and products we use in modern life are dangerous, but while
companies are making huge profits there will always be a collection of
health officials telling us everything is safe, because they are paid to
say that.

I know I devalue my argument by sticking up for smokers, I know it's
dangerous and certain people will be effected by "passive smoking"
usually those who chose to work in the pub/club trade or anyone that
works long hours in an enclosed area full of smokers.
I remember getting a job years back in a company that produced soap
powder amongst other things, I had the medical tests and found out I
was mildly allergic to the product they produced.
Although the wages were twice what I was on at the time, I turned the
job down for health reasons, so maybe non-smokers should consider the
same options when applying for jobs in smoky environments?
Always reminds me of those people who complain about the noise at
Heathrow airport after moving to a house on the flight path.
It's an acceptable argument if you lived there before the airport was
built, but the majority of homes in that area were built after the
airport so they chose to live there, so should accept what goes with it.

Rants on and on ............

Monday 2 July 2007

Bullitt


Watched this classic again last night,
good film, set apart by this classic car chase.
McQueen's Mustang is what does it for me, just love the sound.

Watched a bit closer to count the continuity errors,
as I always thought the black Dodge lost more than
4 hub caps, but it is only 4.
Not forgetting the 4 green VW beetles,
they should have picked a less conspicuous car :)

Sunday 1 July 2007