Daddy Cool

There are lots of Daddy Longlegs about. Thankfully, my house and garden also seem to host the largest spider population per square meter in the UK, so most of them are finding their way into the bottom of the food chain.

My Mum was telling me that she had a wok full of hot oil, she was just about to start cooking, when in flew a Daddy Longlegs, it bumbled about a bit, then landed straight in the wok where it deep-fried itself. Apparently it became very crispy. I asked Mum what it tasted like but apparently she threw the insect and the oil away before starting again.

While I am here, another question: what is a female Daddy Longlegs called?

And on a similar note, I once asked what a male ladybird should be called, and the answer given to me by a friend was a "ladyboy" (thanks Chris!).

The Queen

Went to watch "The Queen" last night. I was surprised at the level of humour in the film, and pleased by the excellent performances, including Helen Mirren as Her Maj. The storyline is a little preposterous, but then I suppose you have to have a little bit of artistic licence.

For me, the show is completely stolen by Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. It is absolutely unbelievable how well he apes our venerable leader(narf)'s mannerisms, and he sounds exactly like him.

Overall, I would recommend it.

Notes and queries

Number 1 in a possible series.

Why do multivitamins smell of dog food?

Why are catsuits so called? When did you ever see Tiddles wandering around in a one-piece, figure-hugging, lycra outfit?

Why do British trains never arrive on time?

Why did Inspector Clouseau's accent get thicker with every film?

Come to think of it, how could anybody justify the awful Pink Panther remake starring Steve Martin and the lovely Bouncy Knowles?

Why can't you fast forward through the video piracy warning at the beginning of DVDs?

Why can't Jools Holland enunciate band names properly ("Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome ... Radio-HEAD"; "The Go! TEAM"; "The Kaiser CHIEFS" etc)

I am sure there will be more questions as I think of them - in the meantime, if you have any, feel free to add them to the list using the "comments" link.

Busy days

For those of you who wonder how I make the time to write on here, well it is usually during my lunch/tea breaks etc. As a guide, if I have not written much, it is often a sign that I have not brought any lunch with me, as this means that I have to go over the road to buy something, rather than sitting here writing.

And sometimes, if I have had a particularly busy time, then I will try and make the time to write - the number of posts I have written today are simply a reflection of the number of issues bursting out of my tiny little mind.

Anyway, it is coming to 6pm, I will be shutting down and locking up soon enough - and will have this to look forward to...

Applying for a job

From the Times Higher Education Supplement, 11th August 2006:

An offer they can't refuse

Readers are recommended to follow the example of Dr Smith (not his real name) who had one too many rejection letters. In a letter to a university head of department, he writes: "Thank you for your letter of July 6. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

"This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

"Despite the university's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time.

"Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this May. I look forward to seeing you then.

"Best of luck in rejecting future applicants."

Worried about paying main dealer prices?

My car went for servicing the other day. As much as I appreciate the sterling service offered over the years by my local Nissan garage, I do not appreciate the labour charge. By taking the car to a different garage, I was not only able to support a local business, but I also saved myself about £30-40 into the bargain.

However, after the service had been completed, I found that the service reminder on my dashboard computer was still showing that the car was due a service. I looked in the owner's manual, which said something to the effect of "the service reminder can only be set by your Nissan dealer".

Well, I wasn't going to go to the dealer and say "I have just had my car serviced elsewhere, will you reset the reminder for me?". If nothing else, they might charge me £30 labour for a two-minute job (so to speak).

As it happens, I got on the Internet. I Wikipedia-d "Nissan Micra service reminders", which didn't give me the answer, but did tell me that my car is the "K12" series. A Google search later, and I found a Nissan Micra owner's forum, which held the answer to resetting the service reminder on a K12 Nissan Micra. All you have to do is access the service reminder on the menu, then hold down the OK button for up to twenty seconds, after which the menu will come up giving you the option to reset.

Of course, you are not supposed to do this, as it is a job that is supposed to be carried out by your Nissan dealer!

Incidentally, I complained to Nissan customer services about 3 weeks ago about the fact that part of my steering wheel has melted in the sun - they still haven't got back to me! Watch this space...

Trouble in Assam

This is a very serious post. The murder of a tea garden manager in Assam happened on my Aunt and Uncle's tea estate. He was one of their employees.

The militants apparently were trying to extort money, when they didn't get what they wanted they pulled out a gun and shot him five times.

My Aunt and Uncle are understandably shocked and upset, and feel responsible. We were obviously concerned for their safety, but they have got some family and friends around, and they now have armed protection courtesy of the police and military.

There is a big part of me that feels uneasy about writing this. I am often mindful of "giving too much away" on what is essentially a public forum - notwithstanding the fact that very few people read it, it is still accessible to anybody. But this was an act of terrorism, in the real sense (as opposed to the Bush & Blair sense), and it makes me feel upset and angry, but most of all very very sad.

Commuting times - ouch!

Reading an information digest at work, and had to take a few minutes out to tell you about it. The source is Changing Times News, issue 76 (23rd August), as quoted in Member's Update, August 2006.

The average commuter is spending about four working weeks each year trekking between work and home. Researchers from the University of the West of England this month reported that the average commuter spends 139 hours a year travelling to and from work

Assuming that there are 222 days in a working year (accounting for weekends, 8 bank holidays and 30 days' leave), I reckon that I spend at least 500 hours per year commuting, allowing for two hours most days, with a few extra hours for traffic etc.

That means that, allowing for a 37 hour working week, I spend 13 and a half working weeks just getting to and from work!

I need to move house...

Don't you hate it when?

Men have different toilet rules to women - most obviously, we don't go together. However, there are other rules which many women seem unaware of. The one that comes to mind is that, if there are three urinals in a row, never use the middle one unless the other two are in use and you are desperate. To do otherwise would suggest that you are quite happy for someone to sidle in close to you, in an obviously vulnerable position. The same goes for toilet cubicles (although, if it was a matter of choice, one would only deal with such issues in the comfort of one's own home).

Anyway, the point of this post is to raise an issue that women do not have to face. A blocked urinal can be lethal - you are standing there, minding your own business, when you suddenly notice the "water" level rising. It is out of your control as to whether you will finish before you end up splashing on your shoes. And there is often little or no way to predict beforehand whether the urinal is going to put you in such a perilous position...

Muse v The Killers

For those of you who read my earlier post about the "which gig do I go to?" dilemma, this was resolved on Friday.

Thursday saw me make up my mind. I would go to see Muse. I clicked on the website, it said that seating tickets were available, I looked for seats, a screen came up saying no tickets available. Bummer. I rang up the Nottingham Arena Box Office. The guy said that there were seats available, clicked through, and then said that there were no seats available. Double bummer.

Still, all is not lost, I rang up Mohan and told him we would go to see The Killers instead. In total, he would be buying five tickets. A few minutes later, he rang me to say that there was a limit of two tickets per caller. Two tickets!! Apparently even Robbie Williams and Take That allowed four tickets per caller. So I left my credit card at home for Nicola to ring through for our tickets, Mohan rang on behalf of himself and his wife, and Sandeep rang for his ticket. The phonelines opened at nine, at half-past Nicola told me that she couldn't get through and Mohan texted to say "The phonelines are harder to access than a nun's drawers"! At 9.45-ish, my colleague told me that her son had seen tickets on eBay for £200. Shortly afterwards, the gig was officially sold out.

So now I wasn't going to any gig. Triple bummer. But hang on - upon further inspection, Muse had added another date at the NEC. Not my first choice date or venue, but at least I would get to see them. A few clicks later, and the tickets were mine. Not sure who is going with me yet, Nicola (obviously) has first refusal, but another one of my friends has said that she is a big Muse fan (something Nicola would not claim to be), so if Nicola says no, then all is not lost.

All bummers rescinded.

Stereotype? Moi?

Had a lovely Saturday. Friends came around, we went out to the pub for dinner. Won £3 on the "Bullseye" arcade game at the second attempt (the first time, I was disappointed it didn't show a picture of a caravan/speedboat/Breville sandwich toaster, with the caption "Let's see what you could have won").

Continuing on my theme of "Aren't other drivers crap?", there was an almost-incident on the way there. There is an almost-blind T-junction in Wollaton. It's one of those where you have to edge out to see if there are any oncoming cars. A black BMW came into view, I put my foot back on the brake. It turned left without signalling, at which point I (and I know this is probably silly in this day and age) muttered "Thanks" while giving him an ironic thumbs-up for his (non) use of the indicator.

The BMW driver stopped and stared at me. As one of my companions later commented, "I thought he was going to get out and hit you". He didn't, and even if he had done, I would have driven off and he would have been the one looking stupid.

It cannot be true that everyone who drives a BMW is a selfish, arrogant roadhog. But a lot of BMW drivers do very little to dispel the myth.

Driving home

Nicola persuaded me to go with her to an event at Wembley Arena. She was originally going to go by coach, but there were certain ... problems (of which I may write more another time). So, being the big softie I am, I said to her that, if she gave me £20 for fuel, and bought me a KFC, I would drive her down and go with her to the event (tickets were free, so that wasn't a concern).

The journey down was predictably dull, especially when the traffic stopped in the big roadworks on the M1 near Luton. Just as predictably, the traffic to get to Wembley was awful; why on earth they have decided to rebuild the national football stadium in somewhere as dingy and inaccessible as there is beyond me (for the record, I thought it should have been built on a brownfield site between Coventry and Leicester i.e. the middle of the country!).

The event was also dull, but don't tell Nicola I said that. I was tired (not slept well the night before) and hungry (due to aforementioned traffic, had only had a bit of fruit for my lunch en route). So when it finished at 5.30, we went back to the car and in search of my promised KFC - incidentally, I luckily knew a street where I managed to park for free, rather than paying Wembley Arena's £8 for three hours' worth of parking. There was nowhere to park outside KFC in Hendon, so I backtracked onto the A5 and went to the one in Edgware. After taking a short stop to munch on some tasty chicken, we hit the road.

This is the point of this post - successive local and national administrations have scratched their heads and gnashed their teeth about the problem of congestion on the motorways. The major roadworks on the M1 near Luton (scheduled to be three years from start to finish) are to add extra lanes, and there is talk of a similar plan in the East Midlands; the M42 near Solihull is opening up the hard shoulder during rush hour.

For me, the solution is simple. If you want to cut motorway congestion by at least half, make those idiots who stay in the middle lane move over!!! This is a real bugbear of mine, it holds so many people up. I have heard people say that they don't like staying on the inside lane because of the lorries. As far as I am concerned, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen - or in this case, if you are not confident driving on the motorways, don't do it!

This opens up a whole other range of issues, such as whether we need motorway driving lessons etc (yes please). But to illustrate my point, it is rare to see motorway congestion in Germany, even on a two-lane carriageway - this is because everyone has lane discipline, and know to stay on the inside lane unless they are overtaking (and also are less inclined to stamp on their brakes to stare at accidents).

Sources of stress

As I have called this blog "Rish's Diary", I feel that I ought to use it to let off a little bit of steam. Sorry if this is self-indulgent, but what are (most) blogs for? These items are in no particular order:

1. Commuting to work

When I started commuting, my Dad warned me I would be fed up after a year. Not strictly true, it has taken me nearly two. But I am fed up now. In the last two weeks, it has taken me over two hours to get to work (49.7 miles, according to my car's trip computer) on no less than four occasions. That is an average of about 20-30 mph. Boring, waste of time, sore left knee from clutch control. I suppose I have no-one to blame but myself (well, I could blame my girlfriend for being so lovely that I chose to live with her in Nottingham rather than move to Birmingham in the first place), but that doesn't mean that I cannot have a good old moan about it...

2. Muse or The Killers?

This one is a little more trivial, but Muse are playing Nottingham Arena on the 17th November, and The Killers are playing Wolverhampton on the 18th. I can only afford to go to one or the other. My friends are going to The Killers (assuming they get tickets), and it is also going to be Sandeep's birthday treat. No-one I know likes Muse that much, except for Clare who is not going to be around on that day - Nicola has said she will go with me to Muse if no-one else will, but although she likes some of their songs, I think she might get a bit bored and her ears might bleed. Pros for Muse - they are a great live band, I really want to see them, but it is more expensive and no-one else really wants to go. Pros for The Killers - they have done some great songs, Brandon Flowers is a great personality, they have lots of swirly keyboard sounds, and many of my friends are going, but Brandon cannot sing live. I have to make a decision by tonight...

3. Selling my house

Having admitted defeat with the commuting thing, we have decided that the time is right to sell our house and move closer to where I work. I think I have put in almost as much effort to make the house look pretty for potential buyers as I did to get the place shipshape to live in when we first moved in! This brings us onto:

4. Toilet roll

We want to make the house look as good as possible. Colour co-ordination is a key part of that. Our bathroom is blue and white. Having blue toilet roll works nicely to complement the feel of the room. Except it is nigh-on impossible to get it in Nottingham, and when you can, it is in uneconomical four-packs. I had to go to York the other day for a course, and briefly stopped in a big Tesco, where I found a twelve-pack of blue toilet roll. Can I take it from this that no-one in Nottingham has a blue bathroom anymore, or maybe that people in Nottingham aren't concerned about colour co-ordination?

5. Playing music

I whetted my own appetite by playing a couple of acoustic songs at Assam Day (see previous post), and now I really want to play again, except that I don't have the time, I need to concentrate upon selling the house, and to make the place look more tidy, I am probably going to take a couple of my guitars and amps to store at my parent's house, which will obviously make it harder to play them!

I could go on and on, but I am supposed to be at work, and it would only bore you. Thanks for your patience - just be thankful I haven't even started on road rage and other drivers...

The real problem with driving to work

This morning, I had a meeting at 9.30. So I thought I would leave the house at about 7.45, should be there around 9ish, meaning that I would at least have the time to make a refreshing cup of tea and maybe check my emails before the meeting started.

What actually happened was that there was a car on fire on the M42, which meant that the southbound carriageway was closed. No real complaints there, these things do tend to happen at the least convenient times. Unfortunately, by the time I heard of this on the Five Live travel news, I had passed the point of no return - although I wasn't caught in the queue yet, I had passed the previous junction and couldn't turn back.

To cut along story short, while waiting in the traffic, I dug out the satnav and followed a rather circuitous route through the heart of Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield. Between 8 and 9, town centres can tend to be quite busy, particularly when faced with a volume of diverted traffic that they are not used to.

So it was 10am when I pulled into the car park at work. The trouble was that, by now, I was absolutely bursting for the toilet. My bladder had obviously trained itself for a journey of about one to one-and-a-half hours, so the last hour was not fun. To make matters worse, you have to remember that I was constantly in a sitting position, having to move my left leg up and down to use the clutch, and wearing a seltbelt. All of these can combine to add extra pressure onto an already struggling bladder!

As I turned the engine off, I grabbed my phone and satnav (so they wouldn't get nicked) and ran for the loo. After that, I went back to the car to get my bag and change my shoes (I feel uncomfortable driving in shoes, especially in traffic, so I wear trainers when I am driving), before rolling up the stairs to join our meeting. At which point the team applauded me simply for having made it to work. I should be late more often...

Motorway etiquette

Just before I get back to work (I am in the office, but not on the clock at the moment), I thought I would seek your opinions on something that happened this morning.

The exit slip road from M1 J24 becomes the entry slip road for J23A when you are going southbound. I need to leave at J23A to get onto the A42 to get to work. As the road was fairly busy, I had to pull into the middle lane to let traffic out at J24. As J23A became ever closer, I was still stuck in the middle lane, as the traffic was too close for me to pull in and prepare to leave the motorway.

J23A was now only half a mile away, and I was still in the middle lane. But, by now, a lorry on the inside lane had pulled over, a stream of people had pulled into said inside lane, and were proceeding to overtake me on the inside. I had my indicator on, making it fairly clear that I wanted to pull in, but a steady stream of three or four cars steadfastly refused to let me in. In the end I kind of had to push my way in, which I hate doing, partly as it is bad manners, and partly because I don't want to have a crash!

Could I have handled this differently? As far as I can tell, I tried to pull over as soon as it was safe, but by then these cars had filled the gap. But even though they were on the inside lane, they wouldn't let me in. I am sure this is not the way things are supposed to work.

For the record, the cars were two BMWs and a Passat (along with Mondeos and the occasional Mercedes, these are the "usual suspects" when it comes to motorway "issues"). It was another Passat that I had to "push" in front of.

Any views would be appreciated. If you think I was handling it wrong, then do say - I need to know for the future!

Flugtag

Had a weekend away. Nicola came on the train to Birmingham, where we made time for a quick Nando's, before hitting the road to Oxford. We stayed the night at Simon's house in Abingdon, before we all set off on Saturday morning to go to Longleat, for the Red Bull Air Race.

It is 90 miles from Abingdon to Longleat, so we left at about 9.45am, with the hope of getting there for about 12 midday, giving us enough time to park up, have our picnic and enjoy some of the pre-race spectacles, with the race itself due to start at 2pm.

We encountered loads of traffic. As in, with 36 miles to Longleat, the traffic stopped. And yes, it was the end of the queue! At 1.30ish, we gave up and joined the many people turning around - there was no way we would get there in time, even though we had tried many different routes, and got within 9 miles of the venue.

We went for a windswept picnic at Stonehenge, before refusing to pay £6 each to view the stones. Instead, we stood outside the wire fence, where Sarah and Simon2 took their photos. You cannot get near to the stones even if you pay the money, so we were all of about 50 yards further away, having paid nothing!

Eventually, we got home in time for myself, Simon and Simon2 to watch the second half of the England match. Although Simon has a decent sized car, which can actually fit three adults in relative comfort, it is slightly less comfortable after sitting in the same place for three and a half hours!

Click here for a report on the cancellation of the event.

Great news

Rejoice in the return of Danger Mouse!