Litterally inexcusable

My parents did a pretty good job of raising me and my brothers and sister I think. We were taught right from wrong, admonished (occasionally very severely when it warranted - and sometimes it was). One of the things ingrained to us from a very early age was not to drop or leave litter anywhere at any time.  It was ok for example to throw an apple core away as that was biodegradable, but anything not likely to break down quickly was safely stowed and brought back home with us.

When we were on holiday at the beach, the last thing we always did before leaving was have a look around to make sure that we left nothing but our footprints as the old saying goes. And that's stuck with me for life, and I hope is a behaviour passed on to my now grown up children. I can't abide people who disregard this and think it's ok to chuck or leave their litter or just chuck it out of their car window. It's a deliberate, lazy thing to do with no regard or respect for others and the environment. Just last week I was on a walk down a country lane near our house - at least a mile from the nearest shop/takeaway and miles from the nearest Starbucks and Costa, but within a hundred yards I saw a discarded Starbucks and Costa cup, a McDonald's food container and cup, and several beer and other cans on the side of the road. They don't get there by accident. Someone's taken a deliberate decision to throw those out of a car or van window.

So it's been with increasing but somewhat inevitable incredulity that we've witnessed scenes over the last week as people have left literally tonnes of litter on beaches around the country, in Cardiff Bay, at the Pierhead in Liverpool after "celebrations" for Liverpool winning the Premier League, and other places. 

Bournemouth Beach (Getty)

Cardiff Bay (Matthew Horwood)

Liverpool (PA)

 

Perhaps even more unbelievable are the "excuses" touted for this. That there aren't enough litter bins, that it's the local council's fault for not policing, or allowing too many people to congregate in one place. Those responsible are routinely described in the media as "revellers" or "beachgoers", when in reality many of them are ignorant individuals with no respect for regard for anything. They wouldn't (I'm assuming) leave their house in this state, but clearly think it's ok to leave this mess for others, often volunteers, to clear up, and they'd be the first to complain if they arrived somewhere looking like the images above. They're probably the same people that pick up their dog's poo in a bag and then hurl it into the bushes

All it takes it for one of their party to pack a bin bag in amongst their cases of beer, fast food, picnic bags etc, and put their rubbish in and take it home. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, but is clearly beyond the comprehension of these ignoramuses. 

Sadly, it's becoming more prevalent, and the en-mass exodus to beaches and other places we're seeing as a result of the easing of lockdown is undoubtedly contributing to this herd behaviour. "Someone else has done it so it's ok for me to do it".

It's difficult to know what the answer is. Littering is an offence, but the likelihood of anyone being prosecuted or even identified over this is so remote its inconceivable that it could happen. And if they were caught, a minor fine is probably the worst that would happen. It's been frequently suggested that fast food containers should have car registrations printed on them to discourage littering from drive through fast food places. It's only a small step but it would be a start, and whilst there are undoubtedly some logistics required, it's surely do-able.

For those that are caught, I did see a suggestions somewhere that we should bring back public stocks to shame them. But even if that's a good idea, and I'd vote for it, we'd need an awful lot of stocks. 

We need to change people's behaviour, but in today's "now" and "me" and "sod the rest of you" society, I can't see that happening any time soon, and that's really sad.

Until next time.... 

The power of Twitter

A bit late today. Got caught up in other stuff and then have just been out to clap for the NHS!

The social media channel Twitter, can be a bit of a nightmare. People can post anything they like (pretty much), which is both good - because there's pretty much nothing off limits and you see some great stuff on there, and bad, because people often use it as a vent for their frustrations, anger, strong views, or fake news. It's often used as a ranting platform (or as much as you can rant in the 280 character limit), and there are some truly despicable people out there.

However, as always there are two sides to the coin. I've been a user for over 12 years, from when it was still in its infancy. Over that time I've posted almost 30,000 times and have massed a meagre 400 followers, although I do count a couple of well know celebrities amongst that number (God knows why). I've tweeted (and had a response from) an astronaut on the International Space Station, and follow most of the US, Canadian and European astronauts that have been up there for the last 8 years or so. As a breaking news platform it just about beats everything - you often read about stuff on Twitter before it hits any of the major news outlets, although as with everything else you need to be cautious), it's as subject to hoaxes as any platform.

I often use the platform as my first port of call on customer service queries. Most companies have a Twitter presence, and the public nature of the platform means every who follows me can see if I complain about company X, so businesses tend to be inclined to deal with problems perhaps a little quicker than if you revert to email for instance. It doesn't always work though, and some companies are either frustratingly silent or tend to post bland, unhelpful responses - Train companies are particularly good at this - complain that your journey is going badly and the train is crowded  and they'll come out with a "We're really sorry about that".

During the current pandemic it's been a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand you've got the pro-Government tweeters, vs everyone who thinks they've done a terrible job, vs the news channels who is seems are biased both towards and against the Government (you can't win in politics). And the there are ordinary, sensible people asking good questions, giving sound advice - one voice of reason I've started following during this time is oncologist Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora) who has remained calm and objective whilst those elsewhere seem to be either spouting rubbish or defending poor decision making.

Anyway, today I used the platform to answer a question. A friend had asked me about a photo of a crayfish I took some while back, asking if it was a native or one of the introduced, invasive and destructive (to native species) Signal crayfish. I didn't have a clue and the two species look virtually identical, so it's hard even with a photo, but I knew Twitter would come up trumps.

I posted the photo (attached here), and asked Twitter to do it's work.

Probably a Signal crayfish

I cheated a bit by tagging Will Millard, (@MillardWill) someone I've shared a couple of tweets with in the past who's an angler and BBC presenter (and who incidentally lives in Cardiff). He told me what he thought, tagged someone else and within 5 minutes I had my answer. It's a Signal.

Since then a few more Twitterati have responded to my tweet confirming the initial suspicions.

Used this way, it's a great tool. I love it (as you've probably guessed), and probably spend far too much time flicking through my timeline.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

Juggling tomatoes

Today a rather random collection of news and updates.

I hope you enjoyed my yesterday's post about post lockdown resumption of cricket. Having had some further thoughts on this, I did a little pictorial thread on Twitter earlier in the same vein.

As regular followers will know I try and grow a few things in my small garden, and lockdown has given me added incentive and time to do so. As a result I ended up with about 30-40 established tomato plants in pots (I normally grow two or three), so you can see I somewhat over-planned. Along with this I also overdid the courgettes and cucumbers....

Anyway, I've given some to our neighbours and my wife took some and left them at her mum's so when her brother calls on his "carer days" he can pick them up. That still left a load. So today I put a load out at the front of the drive with a note saying "help yourself". They're all gone now, so I'm happy, and hopefully a few other people will be. Good deed for the day.

My son leant how to juggle this week. He got some proper juggling balls and within 24 hours has gone from not knowing how to juggle to being able to juggle standing on one leg. Impressive stuff. I suggested he needs to try axes or burning torches now.

For those asking, there's little cat news to report. Sleep, eat, hunt repeat.......We did unfortunately add a robin to the list of kills earlier this week #murderer

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

Stuff. Just stuff, everywhere

A period of enforced isolation at home due to coronavirus should provide the perfect opportunity to tidy up around the place and de-clutter. However, the initial premise is based on everyone who resides in the same household having broadly the same understanding of what "tidy" actually means. This is not the case in our house. With two adult children still living at home, and all their detritus from 25 and 23 years on this planet respectively, let alone stuff that my wife and I have accumulated over 27 years of marriage and our own historical baggage, it's somewhat frightening when you stop and realise just how much "stuff" we have in the house.

I don't necessarily want to chuck everything away. But nor do I want to just move it to "sight unseen"  which is my son's preferred mode of operation. He recently tidied up his bedroom (mostly anyway), a long overdue operation that took him most of a weekend. But what he's sneakily done, is move all the stuff he didn't want in his bedroom into the spare room.

Neither is it the case that our house is particularly untidy. I think the phrase is "lived in", which with four adults occupying the place is understandable. The loft (and we have a large one) is always a good bet for stowing stuff, but again, all that's doing is moving the problem. I've frequently threatened to just chuck stuff away and see who'll miss it, and how long it takes for them to do so, but I've never quite had the nerve.

And then of course there's the emotional attachment of things. We've got more soft toys lying around than you can shake a stick at, despite the fact the youngest occupant of the house is almost 23. Children's book's that evoke memories of bedtime stories and might one day be suitable for grandchildren. Old school and university workbooks, that will never ever get looked at again are in boxes in the loft. Personally, as a gadget/tech "enthusiast" I have to own up to being reluctant to discard anything that has a plug of some description on it, or an old phone/camera/laptop as they all might be useful one day *cough*.  I did the other day chuck our all our old VHS-C tapes of various holidays, children's Christmas nativity shows etc, but only once I'd made sure I'd backed everything up to DVD and had a backup of that. Chucking those tapes out is something I've been meaning to do for about five years!

There's also other bits and pieces that we've just accumulated and duplicated over the years. We have at least four thermos flasks for example. As someone who always likes a backup, two would be ok, but four? Let's also not get started on clothes. I'm fairly smug in this area. I believe I probably have the fewest clothes of anyone in the house. Certainly since I've retired I tend to live in jeans, a t shirt and a fleece. I haven't looked at a suit or proper collared shirt for over six months and my footwear tends to consist of walking shoes if I'm out and about, slippers in the house and a pair of old tatty trainers in the garden. Even so, I hang on to shirts that I probably might wear once or twice a year, perhaps on holiday but wouldn't be seen dead in on a day to day basis.

And one further point on decluttering - whilst there's lots I'd like to chuck away, I also don't like the idea of just putting stuff into landfill. Yes there are charity shops, bag collections and e-Bay, but half the time charity shops don't want the stuff you have, and the e-Bay route can be a lot of effort for little reward. Freecycle or Gumtree are viable options though, but not always successful. I've put two or three pairs of decent walking shoes/boots on Gumtree with no response at all.

But sometimes you just have to bit the bullet. I'm not going to get all Marie Kondo about this, I'm not quite that OCD (I think) but that time is now. Right, where's the bin bags.....

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

On the diet trail

I've been meaning to lose weight for a while. By a while, I mean maybe several years. But there's always a reason why it's never been easy, and it's not that I'm really overweight (cough).

Anyway, the time has come. I decided before Christmas that this time it was for real. And then to top it off I decided to do "Dryanuary" - not alcohol during January. Well actually from 4th January on as we had friends over for a meal on 3rd, and it would have been rude not to assist in the indulgence.

So, it's been almost 2 weeks grog free. Whilst it would be incorrect to say I haven't missed alcohol (it was tricky on an overnight trip to London this week with colleagues in a pub downing Doombar and me on the diet coke), it hasn't been too hard. I'm not a heavy drinker. One bottle a night maybe two at weekends is my norm, or sometimes a glass or two of wine instead. Even when I have a night out I rarely get past 4 pints.

And as for the food. Well I like my food. I like any food, but I do have a penchant for the stuff that isn't good for you. Bread, chips, chocolate. I'm not averse to healthy food, and we absolutely don't eat unhealthily - lots of veg and fruit, but I'm a sucker for seconds, or sometimes even thirds.

So it was decided I'd try the 5:2 diet. East what you like (within reason) 5 days a week, and limit to 600 calories on the other two "fasting" days.

I'm a week in to this, and I have to say it's been ok. And between the diet and lack of alcohol I believe I have lost a bit already. Stupidly, I didn't weight myself at the start, and our old tatty scales were almost unreadable on it's analogue scale. On Thursday I bought a set of cheap(ish) but recommended digital scales so my benchmark is from here rather than the start of it all.

I'm pretty proud that I've resisted all forms of chocolate and bread  even on my non fasting days this week. I drink black coffee normally, so I haven't missed milk in coffee or tea, and otherwise it's been water or occasionally diet coke.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Pssst! Where does your food come from?

As I was helping my good lady put away today's Tesco shopping, I happened to notice that the apples were sourced from France. Interest piqued, I started to look at some other items. This is what I found.

Apples - France
Bananas - Colombia
Pears - Netherlands
Satsumas - South Korea
Grapes - South Africa
Wild rocket - Italy

And that's just the fresh stuff. Add into that some wine from New Zealand, and I'm sure if I started rooting through the cupboards, fridge and freezer, I'd find a lot more stuff that had its origins far from these shores. I didn't though. More because her indoors would wonder what the hell I was doing rather than any lack of interest on my part!

Does this matter at all though? Well, I'm sure there are varying views with the inevitable polar extremes.

On the one hand it does matter - but for different reasons. For the producing countries it's welcome business. For the consumers it's the opportunity to have to hand produce and victuals that would otherwise be at best only seasonal in the UK, and even then some would be impossible on an economic scale - have you ever tried growing bananas in the UK?

The downside of course is the massive, massive logistical and ecological cost of shifting this stuff around the planet. Think how many container ships, planes and trucks there must be moving this around our seas, airspace and roads. I can't even begin to contemplate it. Then there are the arguments about the human costs of producing the stuff. Low wages, poor conditions etc, but I'm sure that's not universal.

But just think about it next time you eat a banana or satsuma. I eat a banana from half way across the world. A country I've never been to, and am unlikely ever to visit. Oh, that satsuma - it's from half way across the world but in the opposite direction. Somewhere else that to me its just more known for its export of footballers.

I'm not trying to state a particular argument for or against produce from other countries (and I like bananas and grapes anyway). But I think that we just take for granted sometimes that food comes from Tesco's or Asda's or Morrisons (or indeed Lidl, Aldi or the local corner shop), rather than realistically from another continent.

Just think about that for a moment.

Website update

I look after a couple of websites for some friends. I've used various systems in the past, but have recently converted one of them using the free Weebly system. It's dead simple, requires no (or virtually no) technical knowledge and "just works".

I've been very impressed with it. You can see the results here Hendre Eynon

I can see my others sites moving this way too.

Hurrah for the weekend.

Lawks, how I love weekends!

Who invented them? The bloke (for it surely was a bloke) should be given a medal. However, why he had to stop at two days is a mystery. Three would have been nice. Four greedy, but hey why not? Whatever, they're great, and there should be more of them.

Just started off with a Chinese takeaway. Should be off the the Glamorgan/Hampshire Twenty20 now with @ministats, but the weather is horrible, and I don't fancy sitting in the rain for a few hours with the hope of a 10/10 or worse 5/5 bash. Sooner watch it on the telly in Welsh (S4C) with a beer in the dry and warm of my own home.

Tomorrow a few chores (the one downside of any weekend), and because the forecast is so atrocious, unlikely that I'll get out into my garden which is one of the way I like to chill a bit. Still, tomorrow evening we're over to see some good friends for tea, and no doubt make final arrangements for a holiday we're going on together to Turkey in the not too distant future.

Then on Sunday it's Father's Day. We've got my Dad and my Out-Laws over for Sunday dinner, so that'll be nice. A lazy afternoon, and then before you can blink that'll be it. Weekend over and back to the grindstone.

But it's only early Friday yet!!.......

We Will Rock You

All the Stattos went to see We Will Rock You at the Millennium Centre last night. As a Queen fan, I was looking forward to it, and I have to say I wasn't disappointed.

Though the story is a bit of a stretch, it's the music that counts and it was brilliant.

The lead role of Galileo was performed by Noel Sullivan ex of Hear'say, a completely rubbish "band", and one that would have ironically typified the story's "Ga Ga" bands (no instruments, dancing and no talent). But to be fair to the lad, he was excellent - a superb voice and a very good actor to boot and really stole the show.

The other well known "star" was Rhydian - he of the odd hair, eyes too close together and booming voice from the X-Factor a couple of years ago. He too was good, though I felt that Queen's songs weren't really his forte. He really on sung on a bout two or three though.

The other main leads weren't household names (at least not in this household) although "Pop" was apparently played by the bloke who was "Tricky Dicky" the market inspector in East Enders years ago when even I used to watch it. He too was good.

It was a real blast as all the biggest and best Queen tracks were bashed out, woven into the story with artistic licence used in some lyrics on occasions. And it wasn't just a soundtrack - the music was being played by a real band - hidden for the most part until the end of the show, they were truly awesome.

It was a great show - if you haven't seen it, it's highly recommended.

1,000 posts

Blimey - realised tonight that I've posted over 1,000 times on this blog. Mostly mundane rantings of a deluded Cardiff City fan or inconsequential ramblings about shiny gadgets granted, but who'd have thought?

When I started this blog way back when, I posted a few times and virtually forgot about it. I've had another "break" along the way.

I'm not sure too many people apart from my mate Mike "Stabber" Baker (don't ask) read this drivel, but who cares?

Spring

Don't generally post much about gardening on here, even though it's one of my "interests".

I don't have a big garden. Certainly not as big as I'd like, although it is south-west facing, so gets plenty of sun. It's on a bit of a slope, and has really heavy clay, so at the moment it's just like a bog. As it dries out it in the summer heat it opens into huge cracks.

I love this time of year. Been out in the garden a fair bit today "pottering" as I call it. The weather has been great, with the sun on my back it's been very warm. I haven't been at it hammer and tongs - mostly tidying up here and there and so on. It's amazing how much you can see when you get out there. The garden still looks bar, cold and wet from a distance, but get up close and there's all sorts poking through the wet soil. Spring is truly on the way.

My delphiniums (which I don't have much success with usually) are about 2cm high, and lupins are also on the way. Both usually succumb to a massive slug attack - the penalty from having heavy wet clay soil, so fingers crossed. I've got crocuses growing through the lawn, though the recent heavy rain has done for quite a few of them. And the buds on the roses and clematis suggest things are in full swing.

I've also been sowing a whole load of seeds - flowers and veg, using the conservatory in lieu of a greenhouse. Already stuff I sowed last week is beginning to show. Have to be careful though - a couple of sharp frosts and it could all go pear shaped, so have to be careful about what I do sow at this early stage.

What I enjoy most about gardening is it pretty much allows me to shut off from everything else, and just wander about at my own pace. I like that.

Panto! Oh yes it is....

For years, since our kids were small, we've had an annual outing in January to the pantomime at the New Theatre in Cardiff with our friends.

The kids are bigger now - 13 and 16, but we still go. It's a great afternoon out.

This year it was "Cinderella" and the "star" was Brian Conley as "Buttons". It was really funny - I was in tears at several points, but then I'm easily entertained by sometimes pretty basic humour. If you've got kids you should really make an effort to get to a panto. If you haven't, well go anyway.

All done for another year

That's it. Christmas all done and dusted for us for another year. We have one more day off tomorrow before kids are back in school and Mrs Stats and I are back in work (though to be fair Mrs S has had to work 4 days between Christmas & New Year, including New Year's Day, whilst I slobbed about - who'd be a nurse manager?).

Anyway, as usual, and despite best intentions, I've eaten (far) too much, drunk (a little) too much and am developing indigestion. Resolutions for the New Year therefore include easting less, exercising more and maybe drinking a tad less. Yeah. No seriously. Well maybe drinking a tad less.

It's a funny old thing Christmas. It creeps up on you out of nowhere, and is gone before you can blink an eye. It's certainly a commercial free for all these days which rather grates with me despite all the above. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go into a silent retreat or anything, but when did you last see a holy Christmas card, or go to church for the right reasons, rather than falling out of the pub for midnight mass? And try as we might we always spend more on presents that we intend to.

So, the last of the family gathering has gone - we had 15 including us four for dinner today, we've seen nearly everyone we wanted to, the tree is holding up (but will be down tomorrow), and then it's the packing away of decorations, lights etc.

We've managed to accumulate 5 black bags of rubbish (that's discounting the 2 crates of empty bottles, 4 large bags of plastic and three large bags of cardboard and two large bags of paper that will be going to recycling. As an aside why is everything packaged in plastic these days? Does my head in.

So, back to (relative) normality on Tuesday. Frankly I prefer being on holiday!

And no, we won't be chucking our tree on the side of the road like in the picture - well, only for the local council to pick it up for yet more recycling....

West Wales Weekend Break

We've just spent the weekend away with family in Park Hall, Cymtydu (pronounced coome tiddy for you non Welshies).

There were 20 of us (I think, it was difficult to keep count) in this huge house just a few hundred yards from the secluded cove at Cywmtydu. The house is deep in a wooded valley in the Ceredigion countryside about 5 miles south of Newquay.

It's a wonderful, if somewhat remote place - no shops, or pubs within walking distance, so you need to take everything you need. But what a superb place.

We heard tawny owls at night, watched red kites and merlins by day, and saw wondrous views of the stunning coastal scenery from along the coast path that we walked on Saturday.

The only downside (for me) was absolutely zilch connectivity. Not even a GPRS signal on the phone (or anyone else's phone for that matter, let alone 3G or wifi), so no real chance of blogging, twittering or even just making a phone call from the house. Still it got you at one with nature, and signals were available if you climbed high enough on the coast path!

You can see all the photos I took here, so hopefully you can see what a great time we had.

BE the Daddy!

This might not look like much, but BE-lieve me, that little figure of 3.3Mbps brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Basically, that's saying that my broadband speed has about doubled by switching to BE as my internet broadband provider. With my previous provider, Pipex,, I was typically getting around 1.6-1.8.

Ok, it's not superfast, but relatively, it's much better than I was getting, so I'm happy!

UPDATE

I've been having chat with a few people in the excellent thinkbroadband.com BE forum, and they've been really, really helpful. The view is I could squeeze out as much as another 3Mbps - 5Mbps speed if I carry out some tweaks. I'm going to check the key thing tomorrow which is the wiring in the BT master socket coming into the house. Not as drastic as it sounds, but might make a helluva difference. Also might be worth siting the router direct to this socket - currently it sits upstairs, but only because it's got a direct ethernet link to my main dekstop PC and the network hard drive. If I get a wireless card for the PC, no reason why the router & HDD can't sit down in the living room (at least I can't see a reason why not - Mrs Stats may have a different view...).

I'll take it one step at a time. Tomorrow I'll check out the bell wire in the master socket, which apparently, if there can be a cause of noie on the line. It's not needed with modern phone systems, so it can go. We'll see.

It's a mad world

A couple of things have struck me today.

Firstly the story about the who-ha over the idiot that tweeted that he was going to blow up Robin Hood airport after it was closed due to weather conditions.

There's been a big outcry about the time, cost and effort taken to prosecute him for what was in effect a tweet allegedly borne out of frustration. Well, mate - news for you. We live in a society where there's pretty global coverage of just about anything anyone says anywhere, and if some prat tweets he's going to blow up an airport, he shouldn't be surprised if the police and a whole load of other people come down on him like a ton of bricks. If he'd have gone ahead and done it, and the powers that be had know about the tweet and done nothing about it, where would we and they be?

Secondly, and on a similar note, I'm gobsmacked by the reaction to the student "protest" at Millbank yesterday. Here we have the usual bunch of "rent-a-riot" that seem able to turn up ant any protest anywhere at the drop of a hat (haven't they got jobs - oh no, they're professional miscreants), causing havoc at what was supposed to be a peaceful protest, including chucking fire extinguishers off a pretty tall building (hang on, what were they doing inside and on top a private building wrecking it, if it was a peaceful protest?). The fire extinguisher incident could have, and very nearly did kill someone, and it's the police that are getting blamed for not doing enough?

Eh? For God's sake, let's knock the bloody idiots and lunatics that were causing the violence, not the police who are damned if they do (G20 policing) or damned if they don't (yesterday).

Frankly, if I'd have been in charge I'd have water cannoned the lot of them off the roof and locked them in the Tower of London.

Be there.....

My new broadband service with Be goes live on Friday.

Everything's ready. My new Be box (router) arrived today. Nothing flash, a capable Thompson router. I'll see how it goes but have my current Netgear DGN1000 available if it proves not brilliant (not that the Netgear is superb).

Everything about the transfer from my current provider Pipex has gone swimmingly well so far.

Pipex delivered the MAC code to me as promised - though I only got it via the post - not also via email, text and voicemail which they also promised me.

Anyhows, the Be order process was smooth, and the communication I've had from Be has been superb. Automated txts and emails granted, but plenty of them from telling me the order has been processed, to the box being despatched, to expected delivery date of the box plus what to do when it arrives. The comms have all been clear and concise, but in a light hearted and easy to understand manner that suggests that they value you as a customer, and want the process to be as pain free as possible (unlike Pipex/Talk Talk/Carphone Warehouse or who-ever they are these days who are pushy, often rude and frequently incomprehensible.

Apparently, I just plug this box in on Friday when my existing connection goes down, and off I go. Virtually no configuration needed. Certainly no complex usernames and other configuration that I have to do for my Pipex connection.

That bit's yet to come of course, and may not be as simple as it''s made out to be - we'll see.

either way. I'm pretty excited in my own geeky sort of way. I'm not expecting a massive speed boost. Currently I'm lucky to get 1.7MB downstream on a connection that promises "up to 8MB". Be say I might get 2.5MB. The main problem is that I'm a fair way from the exchange, but I'm hoping the key is that BE's service has less contention and no throttling (that's what they say). If I can consistently get 2MB I'll be happy. I'll be happy just not being with Pipex any more!

Bye bye Pipex

I'm on my way to leaving Pipex. I've threatened this for a long time and recently decided I was going to do the deed.

Today I rang them and asked for my MAC code which will allow me to leave and go to another provider. Tales of trouble trying to leave Pipex abound in various Forums, but this first stage seemed to be a pretty painless process. The person I spoke to tried the usual to get me to stay but once I made it clear all I wanted was my MAC code, he got the message. He couldn't give me the code then and there (why not?) but told me I'd get it via email, text, post and via voicemail on my landline with 5 working days. I got a reference number too, so let's see how it goes from here.

As previously mentioned, I think I'm going to BE broadband. Unlimited usage for £13.75 a month. Sadly, whichever provider I go to I think the max download speed I'll get is about 2 meg, but I'm not close to that with Pipex, and the contention issues in the evening make it even worse.

Fingers crossed

Center Parcs - the good and the bad

We're currently on a short midweek break to Center Parcs (Longleat Forest). We've been many times before, so we know what we're doing here. Generally it's a great min-break. Devoid of cars (mostly) the "village" is about bikes, walks, forest, nature and activities - or just relaxing.

With our kids now 16 (almost) and 13, it's great because we can just about leave them to their own things, although generally they've stuck with us. So far we've done a 3 hour spa session (me & Mrs Stats - the kids went off for night time swimming in the sub-tropical swimming paradise), a nature walk around Longleat estate with a conservation ranger, archery (kids), American Pool, crazy golf, lots of swimming/rapids/slides, eaten too much, bike rides around the forest and later we're going for an "Outing with Owls". All brilliant fun.

The downside? It's very expensive. Basically you pay for your accomodation - a "villa" in the forest. Most of them look a bit like posh portacabins, and many of them appear a bit run down from the outside. To be fair Center Parcs appear to be in the process of refurbishing them, but it's a big job on a 400 acre site with over 700 villas.

Inside they're fairly comfortable, with the basic level offering all you need. Pay eve more and the facilities increase. They also come in 2 berth to 8 berth sizes so can suit couples or family groups. As with many holiday companies, the prices are hiked ridiculously in school holidays. The same holiday for us a couple of weeks away from half term would probably be half the price.

You get access to the sub-tropical swimming paradise with all the rapids, flumes etc thrown in for free, but petty much everything else you have to pay for. But you pays your money and takes your choice. You don't have to if you don't want to. But it can get expensive if you want to get involved in lots of activities.

This time round, much as I've enjoyed it, I get a sense that some of the polish of our earlier visits has vanished. When we first came 15 years ago, it felt almost exclusive. Now it feels a bit like a poshed up Butlins. Actually, that's harsh, but but you might get a sense of what I mean. A lot of the utensils/cutlery in our villa was not clean, the customer service is patchy - great most of the time, iffy now and again.
And for a techno like me, being (mostly) away from a 3G/wifi and even GPRS signal for almost a week is hard going. There is free wifi at the main centres, and in the posher villas, but keeping a connection is hit and miss - at least was for me.

But at the end of the day, it's still a great holiday. Feeding squirrels from your hand out of your patio door, seeing hares, deer (we haven't this time but we have before) a multiple birdlife in the midst of a big forest, where it gets so dark you can really see the stars properly, and swimming in the open air on starry nights is fantastic.

Will we come again? Yes.

Cheaper to start again?

I think I've probably ranted on here before about the extortionate price of ink for inkjet printers. I read somewhere once that ink for these, ounce for ounce is probably more expensive than gold. Whether that's true or not I' don't know, but it's an interesting tale.

Anyway, what's clear is that when your shiny new printer runs dry of ink and you come to replace the cartridges, you'd better have your credit card with you, because the cost of doing so can almost be as much as buying a completely new printer!

I've recently experienced the same thing when buying replacement shaver heads for my electric razor. Three new cutting heads for my Phillips razor cost over £30. I can certainly buy a brand new bottom of the range electric razor for that money - quite why anyone would need to pay the £150 plus for a top of the range razor is beyond me (do they make tea as well?). And you'd get a bucket load of plastic Bics for that!

Anyone know of any other commodities where to replace a part to keep the original unit going makes you wonder if it's not worth junking the lot and buying a new unit?