Truth or Fiction – a game for Bloggers

I picked up the idea for this from my blogging friend Kelly on her post Truth or Fiction?.

Good, clean fun for those who have a few spare minutes, but no prizes offered… definitely no prizes offered !

Here is a list of ten statements about me.  Nine are true and one is false.  See if you can spot the “odd one out”.

I will try to remember to post the answer before I head off to China on 16th December, but if I forget you will have to wait until January as WordPress is barred in China.

1. Amanda is my third wife.
2. I was once about 3 metres from Elton John as he was being rushed out of Gatwick airport by his entourage.
3. I used to show Dobermann’s at dog shows.
4. Tinnitus is a curse, and I should know !
5. The toe next to the big toe on my right foot points downwards.
6. Playing darts, I have hit “180″ on three different boards in three different pubs in the same evening.
7. My Dad and I both owned Volkwagen Beetles at the same time.
8. I have five grandchildren.
9. I once wrote a piece of software to update an IBM package because IBM didn’t know how to fix the problem.
10. I flew to Copenhagen, Denmark on Concorde the first time Concorde ever went there, and had won the ticket in a raffle.

If you “know” the answer, please don’t say “I know”… just phrase it as a guess so as not to ruin the game for others.

Have fun !

But define what you mean by “Security”…

I have many sisters (long story), but haven’t had any contact with the one who lives nearest to me for almost three years now.  Not a problem.

You, dear reader, need no more information than that to understand that I was somewhat surprised to receive an email from her a couple of weeks ago !

However, on closer inspection it became obvious that this email was, in fact, spam. I duly clicked on the appropriate button to inform my email host of the fact and thought no more of it.

Last week I received another, even more obvious, spam-mail which was using her email address and it received the same treatment.

But today I received a different email, again from her address, in what I consider to be a very business-like font, and I present the text below verbatim (with the exception of her email address) for you to read.

Subject: email account hijack

This email account has been subject to hijack, generating spam advertisement emails for iphones and electronic equipment.

To protect your email address from further abuse, the personal contacts list will be deleted shortly.

Personal email account holders: DO NOT OPEN ANY FURTHER EMAILS RECEIVED FROM THIS ACCOUNT. The account ‘xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com’ will no longer be used for personal communications to individuals. It will remain open for non-personal business communications only.

Please contact the user by telephone to obtain new email account details.

Sincere apologies for any breach of security which this unfortunate incident may have caused.

The first thing to note about this email is that (where I have put xxxxxxxxxx) her email address was actually mis-spelled by the omission of one letter.

The second thing to note is this…. the remainder of the header to the email…

From: My Sister (xxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com)

To: ………

… at which point, all NINETY email addresses from her contacts list were there for everyone to see and share !

Quote… “Sincere apologies for any breach of security which this unfortunate incident may have caused.“… Unquote !

DEFINE WHAT YOU MEAN BY “SECURITY” !

I assume that this problem is being sorted out by someone at Hotmail…. someone who has never heard of BCC … BLIND COPY !

What hope in hell does anyone have of beating spam when even Hotmail are plastering people’s email addresses around for all to see ?

Tip: For all of you who like to forward all those “funny” emails you get to lots of your friends, do what I do.

1. Set up a new contact in your contacts list (address book, or whatever it is called on your system), name it something like “Me Here” (literally !), and put your own email address in it.
2. When you want to forward something on to more than one person, send it To “Me Here” and BLIND COPY (not just COPY) it to everyone you actually want to send it to. (On some systems, such as Yahoo, you may have to click somewhere hear the header to open up the Blind Copy [BCC] option).

You will get an extra copy of the email yourself, but that is easily deleted and you are doing your bit to cut down on the number of email addresses contained in the email.

If you’re a real trooper and spam-hater you could also do what I do and, rather than just forward the email willly-nilly you could Copy the actual relevant part of it, without everybody’s email addresses and all the footers which are already in it, paste that into a “New” email, and then do what I explained earlier.

It only takes a moment or two.

Or is that asking too much ?

So much to learn…

Last night was “Queen Night” on the “X” Factor and it got me thinking again about how much in life that seems just perfectly natural to me means absolutely nothing to Amanda because she “wasn’t there”.

So here is a list of some things, people, events etc that are just a normal part of life to me but will need explaining to Amanda…..

Queen Freddy Mercury (God rest you Freddie) ABBA The Beatles the lunar landings Falklands War World War II (the European part) the Normandy beaches The Battle of Britain Remembrance Sunday New Year (Western as opposed to Chinese) Top Gear Top Gun Top of the Pops “Ghost” (I’m looking forward to explaining some of that…) Heaven Can Wait (…. have I got a morbid streak ?) Blondie J J Cale Love Actually Last of the Summer Wine Porridge The Two Ronnies Monty Python (God help me !……) the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (… and again !) Slartibartfast (well, one has to start somewhere ) wedding receptions summer holidays I’m ****ing Matt Damon Trevor Senior, Jimmy Quinn, Martin Hicks, et al… Elm Park Reading 2 – Brighton 0 Ally McBeal (spot the link between the last two ! ) Maggie Thatcher (where am I going with this ? …..) Radio Luxembourg The Ashes the Barmy Army Lord’s (Mecca) bunking off work to go to Chesterfield to see Middlesex play, only to find you get caught in a close-up on tv with a tinny in your hand ….. ! I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue Humph Samantha Mornington Crescent (there’s an easy one, won’t take long…) The Commonwealth “Dr. Livingstone, I presume ?” India The whole of the Roman Empire, and everything it has meant to everyone in the Western world ever since……. Henry VIII Blackadder Manuel from Fawlty Towers the Eurovision Song Contest (I don’t even understand that myself !) Wogan Galway Bay the old Wembley Stadium American Football Snow (although actually, Amanda spent 8 months studying in Minnesota, so she already knows what snow is !) French Knickers Amaretto Elvis Morecambe & Wise Benny Hill Croatia Florida The summer of Love If you’re Going To San Francisco 99 Red Balloons Richard Branson VW Beetle (my Dad and I both had one at the same time) The Masters the 7th at Pebble Beach Minestrone Soup Double Cream Wizzard Rag, Tag and Bobtail (I used to get so scared that one of them would get lost :-S) Postman Pat the Old Man of Hoy the National Trust Badminton Horse Trials Hickstead Billy Connolly Parkinson James Bond Sean Connery the Isle of Skye Norse Mythology The Blue Danube snooker Torville & Dean Bolero package holidays Woolworth’s Motown IBM AS/400

 

How many is that ?

I hope she’s a good listener…. this may take some time…

Does anybody have any more suggestions ?

It’s not every day you have a Guillemot in your bath

Yesterday afternoon we went for a stroll along the beach (Dysart to West Wemyss).

As per usual we picked up lots of pieces of glass (I’m collecting them in the hope that one day I might start making pictures out of them) and we also got a few stones for Amanda’s Dad (he likes to be able to “feel” Scotland, even though he’s never been here).

The tide was starting to come in by the time we got to the outcrop near West Wemyss so we had to clamber over some of the rocks to get to the beach by West Wemyss, but we thought it would be worth it because the beach was clear and open, and there would be lots of pieces of glass there.

Amanda headed off up the beach while I edged along the top of the waterline, dodging the incoming water, when I suddenly realised that there was a bird flapping away in the surf.

I called Amanda over and managed to pick it up from the water.

It couldn’t stand up properly, and its neck was twisted so its head was on the ground all the time.

Neither of us had our phone with us so we couldn’t call anybody for assistance.  The only thing we could do was to rearrange everything we had collected and put it in one of the carrier bags we had with us and take it home.  This meant a really difficult rush up over the hill along the coastal path, and my back was giving me hell climbing the steep steps, but “Sammy the Seabird” was more important than worrying about that.

When we finally got home Sammy was put in the bath with a little water while I found the number for the Scottish SPCA and called them to send somebody out.

In the time it took them to arrive poor little Sammy seemed to get a little bit stronger, occasionally trying to stand up.  At one point, after he had done a nice squirty poo, he even managed to stand up almost properly, although lifting his head was still difficult.

When the guy from the SSPCA arrived he told us that Sammy was a Guillemot, but also gave us the bad news that his neck was broken because he had flown into something (apparently they do it a lot) so there was no hope for him.

Sammy was put into one of their brown carrying boxes and taken away by the nice SSPCA man who would put Sammy out of his misery.

Sleep tight Sammy.

SocialVibe: Is it any good ?

Well the simple answer is “I don’t know… yet”.

The principle seems like a good idea, raising money for charitable causes just by adding a widget badge to the right sidebar of my blog, but at the moment I’m not even sure I have the thing set up properly !

I would have liked to be able to support Headway through this, but they aren’t yet on the list of organisations that are supported in this way, so I’ve selected the World Wildlife Fund because the animals “out there” can’t help themselves against the damage that we humans are doing to the planet.  The WWF is raising funds through this to raise awareness that we need to reduce our carbon emissions to help protect the animals.

If you would like to help WWF just by following a link and viewing a trailer for “Three Rivers” on CBS, then please do “click away”.  I don’t think you have to part with any cash yourself along the way, at least I hope you don’t, (confirmed) although I’m sure they will be very grateful for any donation you may be inspired to make !

Will maybe add my own follow-up comments on this as I find out more.

(Edited 09.09.20)

Dad would have been 100 today

Friday 21st August 2009 would have been Pop’s 100th birthday.

I don’t know what he would have done by way of celebration.  No doubt it would have been something that no centenarian should have been doing.

For his 89th birthday my then partner and I gave him a flying lesson (the first time he had ever been off the ground).  He was trying to decide whether to go again for his 90th, or maybe try wing-walking instead !  Unfortunately he never got the opportunity.

So who was he ?…

I must get my hearing tested

Ok, so I wasn’t really concentrating just now having put the Open Golf on the TV, but while referring to Paul Broadhurst I’m sure the commentator said, …

“That’s a very heavy, worring moustache.”

Paul Broadhurst doesn’t appear to have a moustache !

Hmmmm….

“Auld Lang Syne” is not Chinese !

Nor, for that matter, is “Herge’s Adventures of Tin-Tin”.

These little nuggets of information may not appear earth-shattering to you, but they did come as quite a surprise to Amanda.

“How ?”, you might ask…

So, as expected, Steve Coppell has parted company with Reading F.C.

Today is a sad day.

After my beloved “Royals” (Reading Football Club) last chance of promotion finally disappeared in the play-offs last night, Steve Coppell announced that he would be leaving the club.

I would venture to suggest that this comes as no surprise to anyone.

Reading F.C. owe Steve a tremendous debt of gratitude for everything he achieved with the club during the five and a half years of his managership. He is a gentleman in the true sense of the word, a man of tremendous integrity and someone who is almost universally respected throughout English football.

Thank you Steve for taking us to heights which many of us thought would never be achieved. May you be happy and contented in whatever you decide to do in the future.

Right, now the niceties are done with it’s time to get down to some serious talking…

Google Chrome: Some likes, some dislikes, and an oddity

Firstly I must say that I am only making comparisons between Chrome and Internet Explorer. This is because I have never used any other browser (other than Firefox for about a week, some six years ago… so that doesn’t count).

It is quite possible that the things I like about Chrome are available elsewhere. I would bow to the readers’ greater knowledge.

Likes:

• Compared to IE, goes like poo off a gardening implement (not a difficult achievement, but this is impressive)
• The Most Visited option when opening a new tab is a neat idea
• The fact that what’s going on, rather than just ticking over somewhere nondescript at the bottom left, appears in a “foggy” box down there which catches the eye, so you are likely to notice that something is going on, especially if you weren’t expecting it.
• Much cleaner and less cluttered screen
• The Incognito window is useful, especially when you don’t want to “pollute” your history.
• Show all Downloads is particularly useful for somebody like me. Having downloaded something I will invariably forget where I saved it to. Show all Downloads brings up a list of everything you have downloaded and then lets you look at it in the folder you saved it to. Neat.

Dislikes:

• The most obvious thing is that Chrome doesn’t (at least yet) allow one to automatically transfer to a new tab which is being opened.
• Some of the obviously preferable options are not set as the default so one has to change them. Can’t remember which at the moment, and it was only slightly annoying. Actually having to “go find them” was a useful tutorial exercise anyway.
• I know I shouldn’t really complain, but Chrome is less tolerant of outdated (deprecated) HTML. This is a little annoying for me as, (due to my short-term memory problems) I am struggling to keep up with the latest incarnations. Some of my favourite sites are apparently not fully up to speed either, so they could look a little better. But, hey, I’m all in favour of progress when it’s warranted.
• The extended History takes a while to get used to (for me, for some reason), but has an annoying quirk. The visits for today run backwards in chronological order, but once one reaches the turn of the day everything is ordered by time of day, not date ! This means that a site you visited months ago at 23:59:59 comes before the last site you visited last night. Arrgghh !

Oddity:

• (and this is wierd !) The display quality of some fonts is a little “fuzzier” than when using IE….. but some graphics are clearer ! That one I really don’t understand….

So there we are, after a few days of normal (not geeky) usage all in all I’m pretty pleased. I still haven’t decided whether there are any security issues involved. Reading up on it before I took the plunge there seemed to be some concerns among the more technical boffins, but I took the plunge and I’m glad I did.

There will probably be follow-up reports from time to time.

Thanks for listening, and it would be good to hear what others think.