You are currently browsing the The English Guy's Personal Blog weblog archives for January, 2010.

 

Posted by richard

I called the HMRC today. I thought it would be one of those kinds of phone calls where they give you the run-around, you know the kind I mean, the sketch-type phone call that comedians get a great laugh from.

Quite the opposite.

The lady I talked to was helpful, told me what had gone wrong, and gave me two options on how to fix it. Not bad for a government agency! Although, in retrospect, they do want my (our) money so it’s probably best for them to be efficient!

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Posted by richard

I, like many developers and designers out there, am so damned tired of IE6.

Can’t people move on and get themselves a decent modern browser? It is literally a click away. Opera and FireFox are so easy to install and get running, I installed Opera on a machine the other day and it was as simple as one click to download and one or two to install.

IE6’s problems with css cause so many headaches, it’s a real ball ache.

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Posted by richard

My modem is dying, I need to give it a decent burial and move on.

I got home tonight, and in fact for the past few days too, it wasn’t connected. There I am feverishly hitting the ‘connect’ button on the admin backend and it won’t connect. Finally, after nearly two hours, it connects and I’m away. Nevertheless I sense the end is near.

So I’ve bought a new one, should be here in a day or two, it’s a LinkSys ADSL2+ Modem Router – always had good luck with them in the past. Once it’s here, the Belkin is consigned to the flames, I’ve had enough of it’s temperamentality.

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Posted by richard

Had some more snow last night, another inch or so, and this morning as well with the blizzard-like wind conditions. We’re forecast for some more today and tomorrow, with rather a heavy amount, so they say.

This morning I had issues with my internet connection too, TalkTalk are reporting problems with a broken cable in the area and BT are on it. That’ll be the day… It’s odd though that it took me 15 minutes this morning to get connected, but since then I’ve been fine. Seems more of a ‘net problem than a landline issue.

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Posted by richard

After having endured two years of his “rule”, Labour insiders are finally starting to gather to bury Mr. Brown. He is an unelected leader, a tyrant in sheep’s clothing, it’s about time someone stood up to this woeful primacy.

To those that may not know us Brits, we apparently have an enlightened system where we vote a party into office, not a person. So collectively, the politically correct idiots of Labour have had nearly thirteen years of rule. It has not been pretty.

It seems un-British to have a system where we can’t vote for our leader. Moreover, when Blair was forced out, only Labour MPs got to vote on his replacement. Frankly, I think we should vote for a leader and a deputy. If the first goes, the second takes over and if the second goes, we have a general election, that seems fair.

Mr. Brown is not elected, except as an MP. This needs to stop now, even this close to an election (one has to be called before June). As the NY Times writes so succinctly:

In a radio interview, Ms. Hewitt, a former health secretary, declared: “This is not an attempted coup. It’s exactly what we say in the letter — it’s an attempt to get this matter sorted out once and for all.”

Precisely, it needs sorting out, as do our election and leadership laws.

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Posted by richard

Humans think they’re the most intelligent species on the face of the planet because they can wipe out any other species.

Dolphins think they’re the most intelligent species on the face of the planet for exactly the same reason…

The reason I posted this is because of this article I read on the Times Online site:

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

It’s about time, I mean they’ve saved countless humans, we know they talk to each other, they can solve complex problems, they feel pain, what more proof do we need?

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Posted by richard

We’re not used to this kind of cold!

After our nearly-white Christmas, we are now promised more snow. Although I love snow (it’s one of my first memories as a kid coming back from Kuwait), I have to say I don’t love the cold that comes with it. Unfortunately the weather here seems to favour ice and freezing temperatures rather than masses of snow.

Nevertheless, as you can see from the picture taken from then, we do get snow. I’ll upload some more tonight to my Flickr account. And that was thick for us, a couple of inches, so of course being Britons, it caused mayhem and brought the country to a standstill…

My feet are really beginning to feel a bit chilly right now!

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