Mon 16 Feb 2004. While I was chatting to ukGinger on mIRC I discovered that my shares in United Utilities had reached my limit price and consequently had been sold by idealing. Another small profit of £53.75 in four weeks, for little effort, to add to the list!

Sun 15 Feb 2004. Since I worked out for myself how to use the proxies on mIRC, I took the opportunity to pay a quick visit to another channel, just to point out a couple of matters best said there than anywhere else. Trying later, it looks as if that log in has been disabled, but there are thousands of proxies out there, enough for many more years!
I like the attitude that row takes with regard to the private nature of PMs posted in his forum. Thank you row for that reassurance!
The marking of the GCSE Maths papers for the January exam is drawing to its end. It's always a pleasure to complete that task, intense as it is over the three weeks allowed. So all that remains now is to await the payment reaching the bank!

Thur 12 Feb 2004. I have been accused of trying to stir up trouble. On the contrary, any comments have been written with the intention of preventing trouble in the future.
On Dec 9 I bought shares in Marchpole Holdings. After initially losing £200 I sold at 9.30 am today, making a useful profit of £297.

Sun 15 Feb 2004. Since I worked out for myself how to use the proxies on mIRC, I took the opportunity to pay a quick visit to another channel, just to point out a couple of matters best said there than anywhere else. Trying later, it looks as if that log in has been disabled, but there are thousands of proxies out there, enough for many more years!
I like the attitude that row takes with regard to the private nature of PMs posted in his forum. Thank you row for that reassurance!
The marking of the GCSE Maths papers for the January exam is drawing to its end. It's always a pleasure to complete that task, intense as it is over the three weeks allowed. So all that remains now is to await the payment reaching the bank!

Thur 12 Feb 2004. I have been accused of trying to stir up trouble. On the contrary, any comments have been written with the intention of preventing trouble in the future.
On Dec 9 I bought shares in Marchpole Holdings. After initially losing £200 I sold at 9.30 am today, making a useful profit of £297.

Tues 10 Feb 2004. Interesting news last evening that caused me to think it might be prudent to remove the extract I had posted a few days ago. It has been suggested that it contravened the data protection act. As the comment was about myself, did not quote the writer, since I did not know who that was, and did not refer to who provided it directly, then I cannot see what the problem was. It appears also that there was the possibility that the comment could have coused distress. Again I cannot believe anyone is so thin skinned to react in that way, but if that is the case then I whole heartedly appologise. My intention was simply to note that my spoof page, and my non-updating of the linked blog, had worked. I updated on another page, and brought the complete blog up to date by linking a couple of weeks later. That is why it was thought that I was away!
And while I am updating today, the comments about hacking SF did not appear to be said in a joking manner at the time. It certainly looked to me as if certain people were egging others on to get them into further trouble.

Sun 8 Feb 2004. I have for some time been using pgp, a security encryption method for emails and other sensitive material. Only if you have my public key will you be able to decrypt it! But that is available by clicking the link on the entry page to this blog. You will also need the pgp software. PGP

Sat 7 Feb 2004. Dangerous talk yesterday in freenode #incantus. Not only were personal confidences revealed it also turned out that records of chats in the channel are being copied into another channel. That really annoyed one of the operators of #incantus. Also it turns out that, not content with the hacking of the PCA forum database, resulting in the police record, there are also hopes that the same thing can be attempted at the forum known as Security-Forums to read the administrators logs. Really..some people are never satisfied... they always want to go one step further. No matter how much I try and help some people, they refuse to help themselves and in this case are failing to consider the consequences of their actions on themselves, on their family and on myself, if this succeeds. I urge that everyone concerned forgets this stupid idea immediately.

Fri 6 Feb 2004. An interesting comment last night: I don't like being banned. Somewhat hypocritical since the speaker bans others from channels they control. Also, we all know that freenode k.lines proxies, having myself been affected six months ago by that. I also understand that it was hoped a shell account on nodalpoint would be provided. Now why would that be wanted? Surely not to get round a channel ban on freenode?
Terrible news this morning from Morecambe Bay. Immigrants were not aware of the dangerous tides. It has fair put me off my ambition of joining one of those guided walks that take place across the bay.

Wed 4 Feb 2004. The MyDoom virus has been well documented in its actions: how it gets into the address book and sends out an email to one address, at the same time making it look as if the email has been sent from one of the other email addresses. Occasionally I get a reply telling me that as the originator of that email I have the virus myself! However, it has another effect to those such as myself that have their own domains. It invents email addresses based on that domain name. For one of my domains, which points to my website hub, the virus invents the part of the address prior to the @, so for example it will send an email to fred@jg4fun.co.uk which does not of course exist. So the virus is doing more than picking up addresses from the address book, it is in fact inventing them, something which I have not seen mentioned anywhere else. Luckily these many emails go by default from my 123-reg.co.uk host to my yahoo account where they will be safely deleted. I estimate that about 99% of emails to jg4fun.co.uk have had spoofed addresses!

How pleasant to be in a channel with the enlightened attitude to ops status. Gubbs, the owner of channel #incantus on freenode even removes the op status from himself, saying that ops is for ego maniacs. My own comment : if we all act in a mature way, are helpful to each other, and have respect for all, then ops are not needed. One visitor commented that it was unusual for people to deop themselves :). I remember their attitude on #quantum, and just look at the ban list on #security-forums.
I would have been banned in different circumstances after the discussion tonight on #incantus! It is easier to explain things when I ask, I think. And you should have heard the comments later!
Have you seen British Energy shares today? They reached 13p at one time, but closed around the 9p mark, that is a rise yesterday of 40% and today 25%. And the company says it knows of no reason for this! However, there are reports of a stakebuilder. To put this in perspective though, for me to move into profit on my shares in this company, bought in three tranches, they have to reach 29P, so there is still a long way to go

Wed 28 Jan 2004.I pity the students of today, completing their courses and finding they have £10,000 to £20,000 of debt, a situation which can only get worse with the new legislation passed last night. What a hypocritical attitude is shown here: We support student loan debt but we must reign in the huge amount of credit card debt. I feel that the student loan fiasco puts across the wrong message on borrowing. I know personally friends who have varying debts of between £5000 and £20000, quite apart from their mortgages, and I am pleased to have been able to help them out! After all, interest rates of up to 18% are frightening, usually meaning that most of the monthly payment goes in interest, with a minimal amount only going to pay off the debt. The best answer is to increase the mortgage, providing a negative equity situation does not develop.
Received an interesting phone call last night from Reg Chapman, the webmaster of the LDWA national website. He has recently been checking on the local area websites linked from the main site, and found that the site I set up about a couple of years ago for the Lincolnshire area now linked to many pop-ups of a disturbing nature. So many, in fact, that they locked his browser, which had to be restarted. Checking myself I found that was the case, so after copying the files I deleted the site from www.megspace.com. However, as I have had no communication concerning that site for most of the two years I had no interest in continuing with its maintenance. Two more sites were mentioned and links removed: Sherwood and Irregulars, both hosted by Geocities, which Reg reported had too many ads popping up I think. The former group has never had any interest in the website, even though it is my local area, and the only way I have been able to get information has been from Strider. So again I am pleased to let that lapse, preferring to give my attention to those that pay me to do their sites. However, the Irregulars need a website since there is so many walks that Strider is often produced too late to list all the details. So I may consider moving that elsewhere. I have said previously in this blog that things are only valued if they are paid for, and that has proved to be the case with these three sites. I receive advice and information concerning the sites that pay me for the service, but nothing from these LDWA groups.

Mon 26 Jan 2004. Had a delightful walk up Cross Fell, the highest hill in England outside the Lakes, at just below 3000', in the North Pennines yesterday, guided by Moira. For the pictures CLICK HERE. At the summit the temperature was -3 C, and it was busy. On the ascent we had seen motor bikes, and at the summit a group of four was resting, and others came and went, as well as more bikers. The descent, always more tricky, went well, and on the way there was time to enjoy the unseasonably warm January sunshine, the peace being disturbed only by a low flying helicoptor! Petrol and food followed at Scotch corner on the return journey. Altogether a most satisfying day out: the simplest pleasures are always the best. Why not get out into the country and visit these remote areas of the UK. So far I have ascended 43 Munros, the 3000' + mountians of Scotland. I hope I can increase that total later in the year.

Fri 23 Jan 2004. Been on a 'Walk for your Heart' Training day for walk leaders today, at Blidworth Community Centre. I don't think I want to lead a walk, but just help as and when I can. Interestingly I was the only person who had walked to the meeting! Well, it was less than three miles.
I was glad I got my php page set up first. I have not spent any length of time on this page, simply inserting the IPs of those that have created problems for me in the past into the php code. I cannot see why anyone should access this site more than once a day when I don't update it more than about 2 or 3 times a week. If you feel you have been prevented from seeing my comments, then please read the message and email me to explain your excess interest in the site.
A busy couple of days coming up. Chesterfield tomorrow for the exam meeting for GCSE Mathematics, and then Sunday, hopefully, for the North Pennine walk up Cross Fell.

Tue 20 Jan 2004. In October I mentioned that I held shares in Hosteurope, the parent company of 123-reg.co.uk, which is the company that I use to purchase domain names. I recommended this as an excellent company to use for this purpose on a thread in the Security Forums website, in answer to a question that had been posed., but I had to point out that I was a shareholder. I note today that the company has produced a very positive trading atatement, which has had the effect of pushing up its shares by 4%. Altogether they are up by over 40% in four months. I wonder if those who read that forum entry took the opportunity to buy shares in Hosteurope.
A neat bit of html code there tolien. Well done. I've now got domain name <a href="www.tolien.co.uk">www.tolien.co.uk</a>. The Dummies Guide to HTML would seem an appropriate text to use. And the domain name does NOT include the www. prefix! Hence a couple of domain names at random are moiraatkinson.co.uk and jg4fun.co.uk. Who bought those originally? Why not do a whois? And, by the way, you STILL only know half the story!
And, surprise surprise, an hour or so later the code is corrected to : <a href="http://www.tolien.co.uk">http://www.tolien.co.uk</a>. Glad to have been of help. I did not expect any credit of course, and was not disappointed! However, there is still blocked access from a couple of my IPs to your statistics. It seems you have got into this very bad habit of lying. Maybe you intend to go into politics at a later stage!

Sat 17 Jan 2004. I did the home-Major Oak and return walk again yesterday, taking 7 hr 15 for the 26 miles, 45 minutes quicker than last week. And there are only seven days left to my North Pennines walk. I hope we are going up Cross Fell, as I have not done that one before. The area is so lonely as well, it is worth making the effort to go with someone who knows the area well.
My Jerry Lee Lewis ticket for Newcastle City Hall arrived today. Seat K 16, start 8 pm, cost £26.50, support: Blondell...erm...who?

Wed 14 Jan 2004. Good news on the Nottingham trams today. They are now due to start sometime during the first half of April. TV and radio are busy choosing names for them. Bet they don't name one after me!
I sold the BAA shares that I have held for four months this morning...talk about so called 'day trading'! They have eventually given me a profit of £49, making the total since March £1475.
However, Barclays Stockbrokers have been a complete disaster with the Liberty conversion of bonds to shares. Initially they did not send me the letter announcing the decision to convert, but gave me the opportunity, at their expense, to do so on 19th Dec. I promptly phoned them, but that message got lost somehow, so that the bonds, after conversion, were sold. After a long investigation by Barclays, aided by myself informing them of the time of the call, I will be getting the 55 shares after all. The proceeds of the sale will be credited to my account, and once that has happened the 55 shares will be bought, and the same amount of cash removed. What a mess!

Tues 13 Jan 2004. My letter has been published! Yipeee! I wonder if there will be any response to it?

Sun 11 Jan 2004. A very special welcome to my blog to Tolien, the forum owner who lies about my being banned from it. He has even tried to prevent me from looking at his site statistics. Seems to be a bit paranoic about something...he obviously believes all the lies he has been fed over the past couple of months.! Don't visit too often or I will have to ban 81.174.153. from viewing this page...but then I am not as awkward as you appear to enjoy being.Only two of us know the full story..and we are not telling!

Thur 8 Jan 2004. Booking for a Royal Centre 60s concert last night I was surprised that tickets offered by the internet were inferior to those available by tele-sales. Apparently the two methods have their own allocations. I was so intrigued by this that I have written to the Nottingham Evening Post to alert the public. For a copy of my letter, please click HERE.
A few minutes ago I received an interesting call from Money AM, the providers of the great service detailing real time share prices. Apparently my bandwidth usage has been seven times more than the average. One possibility is to subsribe to the basic service at £10/month, which I am seriously considering, as it does give continuous updates and other services as well, but not level two unfortunately. If you have not come acrosee the moneyam service, do give it a try.

Wed 7 Jan 2004Since I am doing fewer challenge walks at the moment, I have to keep training for the 100 mile Long Distance Walk in May. So yesterday I went on the walk to The Major Oak, a distance of about 13 miles. With three short breaks I took over 8 hours for the 26 miles return journey, although I do not think I took the best route through the vast Clipstone Forest. (or, if you are upmarket, Sherwood Pines). I also have sore feet and aching legs, since this is the first long walk for over four weeks.
When I apologized it was rejected, with the comment that it was too late. I have not apologized to the woman since, but she still makes her apologies to others. Let's treat others as we like to be treated ourselves, and make the world a friendlier place.
400 more HBOS were sold yesterday, so the total profit on the 600 came to £128. This morning there was a drop of about 14p in the price of Pennon Group, so I picked up 200 at 659.25 The total profit on the 600 HBOS shares came to £128. Today I thought that Pennon had overdone its fall, so I have made a small purchase of their shares.
I am particularly interested in the visitors to my site of course, especially those that come daily or even more frequently, so I have popped a bit of code in this page which they may find useful. If it works though they will not be able to read this!

Mon 5 Jan 2004 A special welcome to a new regular visitor: from net.ro with IP Address 66.98.130.* . I hope you are interested in walking and the UK stock market, which are what I write about. Interestingly I notice that you also visit the website of my walking partner from the north, usually a minute or two before you call on me. Maybe you know us personally! And now a third visit in one day. How frequent;ly do you think I update this site. But at least this time the counter records show that you visited me before the other site this time....if only by one second!
I am unable to access my on-line bank account so far today. Not a very good start to the new year! Maybe it has got the Millenium bug 4 years late.

Sat 3 Jan 2004 Great to be back after five days of enforced absence. I don't know if that is what a DoS attack is like, but I certainly could not get internet access for all that time. There are some strange things happening on the internet at the moment, so I hope that my service is maintained.

Tue 30 Dec 2003It is snowing: not a lot, but definately snowing It won't settle, luckily!
A couple of financial items today. Firstly, a money trancsfer that was due to leave an account on 20 Dec took nine (yes, nine) days to reach my account. Even if it did not leave until the Monday, the 20th being a Saturday, it still took seven days. Still, the good news for me is that this is all a stealth method of increasing bank profits, and since I have a considerable number of shares in the two companies involved, A & L and HBOS, I should see the benefit in profit increases and hence share prices!
And talking of share prices leads me on to the second item. After the very large increase in the US market last night, I expected ours to follow suit. Accordingly I removed the sell price on HBOS of 729p in the hope that it would go higher. I could have got 729p as it reached that level for a few seconds, but as I write it has fallen back. Why the UK market is not following US as it used to do remains a mystery to me. The US index is not far off its all time peak now, yet the UK has a long way to go to reach its all time high. And I bet if the US falls back, we will follow suit then! But for the moment the sell opportunity has passed for HBOS.

Sun 28 Dec 2003 Did I say the IRC proxies were doing well? I spoke too soon. They give their problems in that they suddenly cease to work, and there are some servers that just refuse to log on using them.
My 'diet' continues. I do not like to weigh over 11 st, even though the BMI is still very good. How can so many residents of the UK have a BMI of 30+, as noted in the Sunday Times today? Mine is around 22, but should be slightly lower. Even the addition of a few pounds is felt from the point of view of needing extra energy to walk fast. The main item of food that I have cut out is the daily Chunky Kit-Kat. But don't worry. I shall still be bringing them along on walks, and sharing them as well!

Sat 27 Dec 2003 With the season almost over, the good news is that I am coming to the end of the marking for this year. It has been very slow going, but the payoff will be in the bank soon! The bad news is that I am nearly a stone over my lifetime weight. Less food, especially for supper, and more exercise will be my aim for 2004. The IRC proxies are doing well..I have found a site that gives new working ones every day! A special welcome back to level3 at 63.208.219.39. Hope you enjoyed the new pix!

Wed 24 Dec 2003 Woken at 6.30 am today. Fire engines outside, visiting a neighbour. At first I thought it was Santa, arriving early with a new means of transport! Click HERE
Surprisingly, today, Christmas Eve, is usually an important day on the stock market. It has been known to reach new highs on this day, when very few are watching. I have set my limits, which may or may not be reached, both to buy and to sell. This is becoming my new full time occupation, and, with a gross profit of about £1300 since March seems a very sensible and useful way of using the computer. The result is that there is less time available for more frivolous uses of the computer. However, I do like my new chatroom, where the chat gets VERY interesting indeed!

Fri 19 Dec 2003 A busy week marking exam papers; this seems to be going particularly slowly this year, with completion due on 30 Dec. Also, the stock market has provided my third lot of profits on BT today, earning another £40 to add to my previous gains on them. Liberty is converting its 6.25% bonds into shares on 31 Dec, providing the nomination is made before 17 Dec. As I had not received this information from Barclays until today, they will have to stand the extra costs of purchasing the shares in the market, which I estimate at over £140, since the shares have risen by over 50% since the bonds were issued. The shares in Liberty have been one of my more successful investments, starting out as Cap Shop when that had its IPO. As everyone knows, property has always been a good investment, and this is a straight investment in shopping centres.
Because of certain recent events I have saved on Christmas presents this year. My share dealing is putting this computer to a very profitable use. Although other aspects of the internet have their fascinations, there is nothing like making money from its use! Visit HERE to be convinced of the logic of that statement.

Sun 14 Dec 2003 With the news today of the arrest in Iraq, there will be no other news reported. Accordingly the Labour Government in the UK will take advantage of this fact and announce further tax increases and other matters that will be unpopular with our people. And if you think that is a joke, they have done this before.
An interesting LDWA walk led by Bobbie from the Northumberland group. It meant I had to get up at 3.30 am, departing at 4.08 am, and travelling the 203 miles to the start point in the Cheviots arriving at 7.15 am, still in darkness. The walk started at about 8.15 am, but Moira arriving a few minutes after that. The leader and walkers waited for us to catch up. Also on the walk was Stephen, who I had first met on the 4 peaks trip in 2000. Yesterdays walk involved the steep ascent of Hedgehope, Moira being first up, and me being second last, about 15 minutes later. The wind was so strong it was extremely difficult to make progress. The leader decided to cut out the next section along the ridge, and descended via the reverse Chevy Chase route to the burn, where lunch was taken. After lunch we followed the burn downstream, ( I learned about the 2006 100, to take place in this area....starting at Wooler School..the breakfast stop at Rothbury is at 61 miles, so only 39 miles to go after that!) but then we took a left turn and climbed up to another trig point, much less windy, before returning to our cars after walking about 18 miles in the 7 hours. Another successful trip to the Cheviots.

Thur 11 Dec 2003 After it was announced that United Utilities was being allowed to increase its charges to customers during the next couple of years, I expected its share price to rise today. Read the story of the sale HERE
I am going on the LDWA 20 mile walk on Saturday being put on by the Northumberland group in the Cheviots, starting at 8am. I understand that Moira, another LDWA member, will be joining this walk as well. Should be an interesting day!

Mon 8 Dec 2003 If you are interested in Long Distance Walking, please visit this FORUM. You will need to register to view, since this is a requirement of the forum providers!

Tue 2 Dec 2003 After a short while away it is time to get up to date with LDWA events. The latest edition of Strider has arrived, so a close perusal of that has been made. It looks as if I will be doing the Belvoir Challenge on my own, for only the second time. I have also downloaded the entry form for the Exmoor 100, and have sent it off with the £32 cheque. The 2004 event starts at Minehead next May. I also made contact with Derek, who wants to do some walking with others in Wales next July. He could also be interested in Munros!
I have also stayed for a couple of nights with Maureen, my walking partner now living in Crystal Palace. We looked at the video made by the BBC of the 2002 Bullock Smithy, complete with my interview. Also, after two failed DVDs of the White Rose 100, we were looking forward to seeing the VHS version of this event. However, about half way through the sound began to break down, and had gone completely by the time of my interview. So I have still not seen that!

Thur 20 Nov 2003 At last we get to the solution of a 'mystery' concerning a forum. Now I know the administrators have been lying about the situation all the time, even when we met personnally last week. What a surprise! Something sinister and underhand is going on that has to be kept secret. Reading the logs of chat when I am not around shows the fantasy world I have spoken about is continuing. Still, it is the real world and the walks that matter to me.

And there are some interesting statistics : HERE

Mon 17 Nov 2003 Radio Nottingham held its annual Pantomime recording at the Palace Theatre, Mansfield last night. An excellent evening. And Karl Cooper, the Breakfast show presenter, can sing. But why did he go on the Atkins diet some weeks ago?

Sun 9 Nov 2003 My busy walking weekend. Yesterday was the 6 Dales challenge walk, 25 miles from Biggin. I completed this in 6:52, 20 minutes quicker than last year. Then today was the Steppingley Step, 26 miles in 7:05. Most satisfactory. although there seem to be more faster walkers appearing. 6:18 for the StepStep after doing the 6 Dales the day before is quite amazing.

3 Nov 2003 Close watchers of my blog will have seen the countdown to today, the first day that 04 car registration plates go on sale from the DVLA in the UK. It is not possible to purchase through the internet, so I spent the morning ringing 0870-6000-142. Eventually, around 12.45pm, I connected. So I bought JG04FUN for £499.00, and was told I have entered into a contract with the Secretary of State. I hope he makes good use of my money. I will receive the certificate showing me as the owner of that number in the next few days, and I then have until 28 Feb 05 to put it on on a new vehicle. It is not possible to make a vehicle appear newer than it really is, so a new one must be acquired. If not, the retention certificate can be renewed at a cost of £25 for another 12 months. Well, it all helps to keep the other taxes down, or maybe it enables the Government to provide more services, or even pay me a higher pension!

Sun 2 Nov 2003 Went to the 26th AGM of 61264, the Thompson B1 engine at the moment based at Ruddington. The directors are very happy with the website I have done for them.

Sun 26 Oct 2003 Yesterday I went on a steam engine trip around some of the less well known lines in the Lincolnshire area. For the pix Click Here

Fri 24 Oct 2003 A sad day today. The last day for Concorde, the world's greatest aircraft. At least it is British, despite the e. See the last three official landings from 3.30pm today on BBC2.
The replcement gearbox for the Volvo S60R will cost around £1500 with labour. Apparently it is not covered by the warrenty, even though the vehicle is only five months old. Guess who is not having another Volvo. Audi seems to be the next choice, and then there will be the Noble, but a new house will have to come first
My fellow LDWA member Moira has reported an increase in interest in her website, found HERE Unfortunately the counter is not set for the statistics to be visible, but visitors are around 20 a day she says, compared with my maximum of about 10. Not at all bad for a personal website. Wonder what I need to do to increase my visitors? I joined a blog webring, but that has not had much of an effect.
I have received two scams emails concerning paypal, where we are told that all data has been destroyed in some sort of hack attack. Note they still retain the email address! What a coincidence. The click link goes to another site, which would be very convincing to many people, where you are required to give all your private information, including your credit card number. I completed one with silly entries, and sent it; this results in an immediate thank you acknowledgement! Beware of this scamming, a new word I have coined for scam span.
My first payment of $9.95 has gone to kdav radio. With the new strength of the £ against the $ that means the monthly fee is now just £5.87 before any extra charges. Cheap at twice the price to listen to the 50s/60s music wall to wall 24/7 from Lubbock, Texas, the home of Buddy Holly. Further details HERE.

Sat 18 oct 2003 For the pix taken at the Noble track day at Rockingham yesterday, please click HERE

Thur 16 Oct 2003 Asda Arnold continue with their policy of running out of several items that I need. I found Cnunky KitKat, one of which I must have with my lunch every day, at Sainbury's, at £1.14 for a pack of four. But at three packs for the price of two they worked out 19p each, compared to 24½ at Asda.

I hope tomorrow to join in a Noble track day near Uppingham, costing £20, which will include a lunch and a passenger ride in one of their race cars. This is an opportunity for owners to meet together and get their vehicles on the track.

Wed 15 Oct 2003 I am often used as 'official photographer' and so yesterday was spent at Bruntingford, an old US airbase where B52s were based. Today it is a very secure facility (try escaping over the retractable metal points sticking up at the exit!) for storage of new vehicles prior to sale (how old is that new car really?), company lorries when not required, as well as being a race track. So down we went in the Volvo S60R. The day had been set up by Radical, a manufacturer of the two seater racing car that costs around £35,000. It comes either with 1300 or 1500 engines. The model being used yesterday was the 1300, a very mean beast itself. There were four others attending the day as well as Don, costing £150 each, refundable if a vehicle is purchased. They came in a BMW M3, from Preston, and a Ferrari, from Exeter. What a beautiful car the latter is. However, I understood that the it should reach 180 mph, and that the owner was dissatisfied in that it would reach only 170!
The day was split up as follow: In turn, firstly one goes round with the proffesional, then one drives while he is passenger. If he is satisfied with ones abilities, then eventually one gets the chance to go solo for five laps. All succeeded in this, while I was taking many pictures. Finally, the professional goes out with each in turn to demonstrate how it is really done. Phew, what skill. Everyone was impressed. He even showed us a doughnut round a stack of tyres! Amazing skill to see a car spinning virtually just on one wheel. The tyres cost £110, by the way. Afterwards he informed me that he would have taken me! Why did he not mention that earlier?

However, in between don using the Radical, he took the opportunity to try the Volvo again at this circuit. After three straightforward laps he coasted in with steam appearing from under the bonnet and a strange smell. The clutch had gone it was confirmed. RAC called, then the breakdown truck, and we had a lift back to Speeds, Mansfield, not in the way I had expected when I originally set off in the morning! Surely for a car with that weight and performance a very solid and reliable clutch assembly should have been used that would not breakdown when the car is using most of its potential. The pix can be viewed HERE

I do not look at television very much, the main choice being Working Lunch, and Weakest Link on in the background. Maybe the local news as well, and that is it. So it seemed a waste paying £24 a month for ntl digital services. I decided to cancel them, and get the box taken away. As I need 30 days notice, that will happen on the morning of 14 Nov. However, even though the invoices say digital services cost £24 that is not the case. This figure includes the rental of the line at £9.50, the second line at £6 , leaving just £8.50 for the digital TV etc. Still, a yearly saving of £102 will nearly pay for the TV license. That meant I could consider subscribing to KDAV, the world's greatest radio station, which I had to stop listening to when subsriptions were introduced at the beginning of the year. Payments are made by direct credit card deductions via paypal, which I already had set up to recieve the earnings from my email ad clicks, mounting up slowly! Eventually I got the user ID and PW, but as expected nothing is as easy as that with computers. It would not work, bringing up what must have been my default player, Winamp, used for Streamer broadcasts. No way could I get WMP to work with KDAV, so the only way was a complete reinstall, achieved this morning. That is now the default, and, pure magic, after buffering, the magical sound of Bill Haley came floating in. Yes, KDAV is magic. It is much better to pay for that which will be on most of the time, than for ntl digital, which was never used. I am thinking of bying the digibox, now reduced to around £70. I hope it does not need an aerial upgrade to get a stronger signal.

Fri 10 Oct 2003 I was interested in reading how employers are checking up on their workers by using the internet. Apparently members of friends reunited have been bragging about how they had lied about their qualifications, or had been critisizing them. So firms now find it advantageous to use the web to find out more information. For example, if you write a blog, as I do, it will be found very quickly by anyone using google. Be careful what you write is my advice, and if you make enemies then anything written will soon be communicated to the firm, so proving one has broken the contact of confidentiality signed when starting the job. It is a sacking offence with no recourse to any appeal.

Tue 7 Oct 2003 A memorial service is taking place today at Arnold Church, only a few yards from where the murder took place a week ago today. No doubt Ravenshead and Arnold will be at a standstill for some while around lunchtime.

During the electrical storm overnight, the lightening caused temporary short circuits on the national grid. So at around 3.30am there was a brief power cut, not long enough to stop most items, but sufficient to confuse the bedside clock radio, which instantly came on (at 3.30am!!!), and, more importantly, to switch the computer off. Although the latter did switch itself on the programs were no longer running.

A news item this morning is that BSKYB has sold 25m shares in Manchester United. Here is the confirmation of the deal, which seems to have confused the system at moneyam, since the deal is shown as a buy. These huge orders often get special prices, so the buy/sell decision made by moneyam cannot be relied upon in those circumstances. Here is the deal: Manutd

The Security Forum stata are up. HERE. I am in 4th place, most of which were counted at the beginning of the month. If I had been allowed access during the whole month I could have been at number one!

Sat 4 Oct 2003 The repercussions continue nationwide. As well as being mentioned in the national press, the murder has been referred to at the Labour Conference, and local MPs have been visiting the scene, for interviews and to look at the flowers. The shop will eventually be sold. A collection set up by local shops has already raised over £1000. My pictures, HERE show ex-Arnold Hill School teacher Vernon Coaker, now MP for Gedling, being interviewed by the media yesterday afternoon, my first visit to the Arnold shopping centre since Tuesday. I trust that Arnold will be remembered as the pleasant, friendly place it always was, and not for this tragic event. Indeed, for myself, on visitng most shops I find the assistants usually know me, either having been taught Maths by me, or attending the same school, or now have children attending. As an example of this, some months ago I was in the Max Speilmann photoshop. I had taught BOTH assistants, and a third person, in from klickprint a few doors away, has two children who had been taught by me as well. That is what tends to happen if one teaches in an area for so long, in my case 25 years until I retired six years ago now.
On a happier note, a very pleasant evening was spent at Arnold Bonnington Theatre to see the production of 'Elsie and Norm's Macbeth"', presented by Alan and Barbara Tipton. My mum used to work alongside Alan at Padstow School, Bestwood, in the 60s, putting on musical productions, including West Side Story, which I rememeber seeing. He eventually left to work at Ashfield School for twenty years, and now presents and plays in this type of production locally, as well as being a magician and children's entertainer. I note that after he left, Padstow eventually closed ( about 40 years later!) and has now been demolished.

Wed 1 Oct 2003 Words fail me this morning. A near neighbour, living just round the corner on the next avenue in Ravenshead, shot dead in a gun raid on her jewelry shop in Arnold. Report here: CLICK