Wednesday 24 November 2004. Click Here for the PM on Abbie.

Tuesday 23 November 2004. Radio presenters have been trying for some time to change the way we say dates in this new millenium. For nearly 1000 years we have said ten-sixtysix for 1066, and yet we now hear things like two thosand and twelve for 2012, when it should be pronounced as twenty-twelve. I have commented on this to the presenters locally on several occasions, but the best reply has come this afternoon, from Jeff Owen, Radio Nottingham presenter: "Don't be silly.. it means the same. Cheers". How to lose listeners and influence people! I replied to that and had this: "Ok John. Only joking. Cheers". So that's alright then.
I got back last evening from a few days in London. Took in the show mentioned below, a walk on the North Downs on Saturday, followed by two days work for UCLES concerning maths examining for overseas candidates.
Do you want to save money on your phone bills? Fed up with paying national rates to companies using 0870 and 0845 numbers. Of course you are! Then Click Here to find out if you can save the next time you have to contact anyone with such a number.

Friday 19 November 2004. Just returned from seeing 'Old Masters', a play at the Comedy Theatre, London, starring Peter Bowles and Edward Fox.
To read comments about abbie, please click here and look at the entry for Wed 17 Nov 04.

Tuesday 16 November 2004. Overheard two passers by this morning as I sat in the car commenting on the FUN part of my plate. This never happened with TNN!
Gedling B.C., in its magazine Contacts, is asking residents to complete a survey concerning the collection of recyclable garden waste. It suggests that because there are people in the borough who do not have gardens, it would be unfair to ask them to pay a charge for this collection. But that is not how taxes work. I don't make use of schools, for example, yet I have to pay Notts C.C. for the provision of schools and teachers. The local council got away with charging for the collection of bulky items, clearly something that other people do not like either, from the amount of such items littered around the county. Since I pay quite enough in council tax, over £1700 I shall not be paying for this service if a charge is introduced. My garden waste will simply be placed in the non-recyclable materials bin which is collected each fortnight!

Monday 8 November 2004. So Paula Radcliffe won the New York Marathon, according to news reports. When I first heard that, my reaction was to express surpise that she was faster than the men. It turned out that she had won the Women's event. A somewhat misleading news report I think. By the way, it was a very small entry in that event, from the pictures I saw of the start. There were only about 20 women runners! Where were the other 11,980? Yes, I realise the 'elite' runners start separately.

Sunday 7 November 2004. I completed the 4th Steppingly Step 26.7 mile walk today, in a time of 6 hr 32 mins, my best yet. However, on the three previous occasions I had already done the Six Dales Circuit 25 mile event the day before. This event has now been scheduled for next weekend, so I was not achy from that today.

Saturday 6 November 2004. To me operas and musicals are the same thing: songs and talk. Gilbert & Sullivan 'Operas' are clearly musicals. Mozart wrote musicals. Weber writes operas. But call his shows operas and they would have less general appeal, since operas mainly appeal to the 'chattering classes'. I am wondering what they think of my tastes in music: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and rock & roll...or how about www.kdav.com compared to Classic FM
Spent a large amount of yesterday getting pictures to download from my new mobile phone. Click Here

Thursday 4 November 2004. Drove to Grimsby last evening for the concert featuring Craig Douglas and Freddy Cannon. No pix during the performances, but for four taken during the interval, CLICK HERE

Wednesday 3 Novemeber 2004. Some excellent news from NTL. For the same price of £24.99/month for 750kb I can move to a new 2Mb service. There is a £25 one off fee for the change though. Read all the details HERE

Tuesday 2 November 2004. Interesting calculator at this page: CLICK HERE It calculates the Body Mass Index (BMI) when you enter your height and weight. Mine is 22.1, well within the healthy weight range.

Sunday 31 October 2004. I joined Chris Thompson on his Robin Hood Way walk today. About 12 miles in 5 hours! For todays pictures, Click Here

Wednesday 20 October 2004. Radio Nottingham now has streaming radio over the internet. If you would like to hear the main news of the day in the Sherwood Forest area, tune in 6 am to 9 am, and from 5 pm. Click here
For some months I have been chatting to Gubbs, on freenode, #incantus. Today we met for the first time, walking together for about six miles around the Watnall area. Despite the generation gap we seemed to be able to communicate, and we have arranged a longer walk for next Wednesday, about twelve miles, as Gubbs feels it did him good today, and he is able to do more. but we must go more quickly next week: make it more of a workout than a ramble!

Saturday 16 October 2004. An intersting discussion in the #adslguide chatroom this afternoon concerning the supposed download limits on ntlworld. There is no mention, to the best of my knowledge, of any limits in anything I have received from ntl, or read on their website. On contacting them on 0800 052 2000 ext 5, I was first told that no limit exists. But the experts still disagreed, so I went back to ntl a second time! This time the adviser decided to contact someone else, who confirmed that there is a limit of 1 Gb per day. As I have exceeded that by about 40 % over the last three weeks, and as I wish to see what ntl do, I am continuing d/l for the foreseeable future. The area in which I live now has adsl, which it did not four years ago, so it is now possible to change to a provider that has no limits if necessary. But why does ntl not make this clear, and ensure that their advisers know as well! After a very careful study of ntlworld's site, I have come up with this: Nobody may use the Services, either directly or indirectly, in excess of "normal use" bandwidth limits set out in this section. "Normal use" of the service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily (which equates to approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes downloaded per day). For full details click here
I see that Abbey is competing against the Halifax in offering the same high rates of interest on its regular savings account, now up to 7 %. Their advert also points out that it has even increased the rate to those that were on a fixed rate! So I checked to see whether the Halifax had increased my rate. Unfortunately that is not the case. I could close the account down and start again at 7 %, but then the £2000 already invested would not get the previous higher rate. As it only has four months to run before the one year term of this investment is complete, it is best to stick with it. But the Abbey wins over Halifax on this!

Thursday 14 October 2004. Particular thanks today to Priory Honda, Mansfield, for their prompt efforts!

Monday 11 October 2004. Collected the car today. Initially my bank was not working on-line, telling me to try again later. However, the retry worked immediately so I was able to transfer sufficient funds into the current account. The supplier accepted payment by switch, a particularly painless way to pay a large amount! For the latest pix, Click Here

Sunday 10 October 2004. Yesterday was spent travelling on a special charter train from Chesterfield to the Watercress Line, in Hampshire. One hour late throughout the day, I di get a round trip on their BR steam engine, 92212. Pix Here
Today I took time out to see my new car. Pix Here

Friday 8 October 2004. Following the lack of sale of BSkyB shares yesterday, I still had faith in them. They seemed to be holding up well, so I reset the selling price to 511.5p, that is 1.5p above the earlier limit. That price was reached this morning, so I made £18 more than I might have done yesterday, for a total profit after all costs of £209 in about two weeks. Click here

Thursday 7 October 2004. I have very recently bought two holdings of shares in BSkyB, and as they began to move up this morning, I set a sell price of 510p. A few minutes before 4pm today it reached 509.75p, so I watched the live deals on moneyam. It then moved to 510p, and two sell orders were made at that price, at 3.55 and 3.57pm. However, my sell order did not appear, so I contacted my broker. Their reply is interesting, and I quote it in full here. We've had a check on the LSE's published prices for BSY for today, which the limit order system takes it's price feed from. 510p was reached on the bid, but only for 4 seconds. This was not long enough for us to receive a reply from the market makers to the systems request to trade at that price. By the time the maket makers online system came back to us they were quoting a lower price, so the order was not able to settle at that time.

Wednesday 29 Sep 2004. 16 days to go to Honda Day!
Living in Sherwood Forest myself, I am particularly interested in this item being sold on ebay. See here

Monday 27 Sep 2004. Read more about voip and skype: Click here

Sunday 26 Sep 2004. Pictures from todays LDWA walk from the Robin Hood are Here

Saturday 25 Sep 2004. The detailed results for the Bullock Smithy event have now arrived. Click here for a summary.
My new domain name www.hondas4fun.co.uk now points to my new Honda website. More pix to be posted, including those to be taken on collection day, 15 October!
To put the record straight as to why I wanted to be back in holics, it's quite simple. I have friends in there, I like it, and its fun. Now how about a new domain name holics4fun.com ! And click herefor the holics network. The fun channel is #holics. Click the link and use the java pop up!

Tuesday 21 Sep 2004. At last...bought the Honda Civic R to go with my personal plate JG04FUN. Collect 1 Oct 2004 Priory Honda Mansfiled. Read the details here: Details

Sunday 19 Sep 2004. I always make typos with my typing, since I use two fingers, but I am pleased to say it does not matter. Read this!...the quicker you read, the easier it is. Click here
Yesterday I took part in the High Peak 40, a 40 mile run/walk from Buxton. My time of 11 hrs 20 mins was the slowest of my nine events so far. Here are the pictures, Click Here

Friday 17 Sep 2004. Sold BSkyB shares today for a profit of about £127.
I came across this news item on the record for visiting all the London tube stations. Click Here

Tuesday 14 Sep 2004. Four months after the Exmoor 100 mile walk, I have come across this map prepared by Raynet. Map
That's my cable router set up. I can now have my main computer and my lappy on line at the same time.
Why not install this for automatically getting a reply when an email message you have sent has been opened? MSGTAG

Monday 13 Sep 2004. Please take a moment to sign the petition against open source software and copyrights.
Have just sold hbos shares. Profit: £163. My thoughts are that if hbos bids for Abbey, then the price will fall. On the other hand, though, if they decide not to bid, then hbos shares could rise again! Like all share dealing, it is a simple gamble.

Sunday 12 Sep 2004. I did the Durham Dales 50 challenge walk this weekend. In fact it was 53 miles, taking me 20 hrs 54 mins, some 50 mins longer than the 56 miler last week. The first 40 miles were covered at a good pace, in about 11 hrs, but after dark the going was very tough for me, and the remaining 13 miles took about 10 hrs. I doubt if I would have completed the distance without the invaluable assistance of Mike, who had recced parts of the route, and knows the area well. The terrain consisted of heather bashing, hard stony tracks, and grassy areas, which, at night, need good compass skills. We still had to play 'hunt the stiles'! I doubt if I will be doing the long event again, although I do understand that the route is changed each year. Thanks to the organisers, always so helpful and friendly. pix

Friday 10 Sep 2004. So it is confirmed that www.theguestbook.com is now an annual subscription service only, with no other options. The fee is taken each year automatically when due, so I have decided to find a free service. I came across www.guestbookdepot.com, which serves up exactly the same options!

Thursday 9 Sep 2004.
I have added my own photos to the Arnold Hill School fire page. Click Here
Some weeks ago ntl upgraded my download speed to 750k for the same charge of £24.99/month. Here are the results of the adslguide speed test I took today. Why not test your own ISP? Speedtest
I have already mentioned that I have reintroduced a guestbook, removed a year ago. However, I find that the accounts at www.theguestbook.com now costs $9.95 per year. As there are several equivalent free guestbooks available, I am using the one provided by guestbookdepot . Although I accept that $9.95 for a year is very reasonable, when free alternatives are available I will use them! And yes, I realise that my subscrition to www.kdav.com is $9.95 per month, but there really is no alternative to that!

Wednesday 8 Sep 2004. The Samsung TFT monitor 172X arrived this afternoon. See it here, alongside lappy! Click Here
Here is an unusual look at the Bible, from a different perspective! Of particular interest to all H4x0rz amongst you! Click Here
Fire! Arnold Hill Scool, Nottingham. Lower school building half destroyed by fire. Humanities and English sections destroyed. That section has had a recent refurbishment, as well as computer equipment. Click Here
Here are the photographs from yesterday: CLICK HERE

Tuesday 7 Sep 2004. I have reinstated my guestbook facility after a years absence, but this time using the one provided by Bravenet Please feel free to write your entries.
A free train trip to Liverpool beckons today!

Monday 6 Sep 2004. The router arrived today, but the computer needs adapting first before it can be set up.
I have just discovered the mercora network. As well as providing excellent streaming radio in various formats, including 50s/60s, it also provides a P2P system so that it is possible to listen to streaming music from others. The software can be downloaded from HERE

Sunday 5 Sep 2004. I completed the 2004 Bullock Smithy 56 mile Hike in 20 hrs 3 mins. Here are some pictures taken on the event. Click here

Friday 3 Sep 2004. As my credit card has now moved on to a new month, meaning I do not need to pay for new items until 1 Nov 04, I am now ordering a few things. Firstly the lawnmower has finally expired after ten years of hard use, so a new one is needed. Click here
Next I ordered the TFT screen. Click Here
That still leaves the router, but at the moment I am not sure which cables will be needed. It comes supplied with one cable, but I will need two more. Maybe I should give the store a call
9.13am. Called simply, sorted out the cables needed, and placed the order also. Click Here
My bandwidth monitor shows I have downloaded 5.6 Gb already this month. A report on ISPs in The Times yesterday did show that there is no limit on the ntl service, although mention has been made of an unofficial limit of 30G / month is in force. Also yesterday I found that aol provides an internet service to ntl uses, but for my area its speed is 600k, less than the ntl 750k I am receiving now.

Thursday 2 Sep 2004. Here's a bit of fun. Clever too! Click Here

Wednesday 1 Sep 2004. What's this about today being the first day of autumn? Autumn always used to start on 21 Sep! I do know though that todays Notts schools had reopened for staff: a day I now enjoy!
My main computer is now working again. Windows XP Pro would not reinstall on top of the existing version, which had collapsed when I was attempting to move the partition, so the HDD was partitioned at 20Gb and 100Gb, before XP was reinstalled on the larger section. I have spent some of today reinstalling the various programs that I regularly use, such as SpyBot, Irfanview, Web Accelerator, mirc 6.16 and others. Luckily most have been saved on to disc for ease of install. I now wish to replace the CRT with a Samsung 17" TFT, and I will also be needing a broadband router to enable both computers to access the internet and the hardware at the same time.
One of the more interesting programs is the bandwidth monitor. Ntl seems uinable to provide this information, unlike some ISPs. In the twenty three days of August when I was using lappy i downloaded about 34Gb. Today's total is 1.3 G at the time of writing this update: 9.05 pm.