Smoking rules

The new highway code has been released. Now the police can apparantly decide that if you are smoking whilst driving, you could be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention.

What the flip?

Does this mean I could be prosecuted for, say, turning up the heater or changing the radio station? Or even for changing gears? All of those require one hand to leave the wheel and a momentary distraction from watching for speed cameras. Hell, sneezing should be outlawed too.

The Road Safety Minister, a Mr Jim Fitzpatrick said "If you're lighting up with one hand and have a fag in the other hand then obviously you've not got any hands on the wheel."

Has this man ever seen a cigarette being lit? You don't hold it in one hand and hold the lighter in the other. You stick the thing in your mouth and light it using one hand. The other hand would remain on the wheel. In any case, people generally do it whilst stopped at traffic lights or something anyway. People aren't usually stupid.

To make it worse, I now pass various signs by the roadside (written too small so I'm distracted trying to read them) telling passing motorists that roads are not ashtrays and you can be fined £80 for dropping a cigarette end out of the car window. How stupid is that? For a start, people don't walk on roads so, really, who cares about a few butts? Nobody sees them. Secondly, you would then be forced to attempt to extinguish it in the ashtray, meaning you'd have to take your eyes of the road for a while. Then it might not go out properly, causing a nice fire in the car. Try not being distracted then. Far far safer to just chuck it out the window onto the road.

Also, you are not allowed to be distracted by other people in the car. This seems to be completely at loggerheads with these new high-occupancy lanes that you can only drive in if there are multiple people in the car. And has he ever driven in a car with kids? How can you not be distracted?

But anyway, as you aren't allowed to exceed the limit by the slightest amount these days, you have to spend your whole time watching your speedometer rather than the road in any case.

Glad to see the lunacy is continuing.

Planes, trains and higher tax gains

On the way to work this morning I heard an interesting plan on the radio: Because too many people are flying on short, in-country flights such as London to Manchester, they want to up the tax on these flights by some excessive amount so that people will take the train instead.

I've got a better idea - one that doesn't tax us even more - how about reducing the price of the train fare instead?

Is that so difficult? The fares are stupidly expensive anyway, and the service is rubbish. This is why people fly instead. It takes the same amount of time, is cheaper and more reliable. How about addressing the root cause of the problem instead of just increasing taxes yet again?

But decreasing fares or improving reliability wouldn't increase revenues, would it?

If only petrol was edible

A record was achieved last night. But first, some background.

When I go food shopping by myself, I follow this pattern:

1 - Make a list of what we need to buy.
2 - Goto Tesco and buy it, plus anything else needed that I've forgotten to put on the list.

When Ele comes with me, the pattern is similar, but subtely different:

1 - Make a list of what we need to buy.
2 - Goto Tesco and buy it, plus anything else needed that I've forgotten to put on the list, plus anything else that looks nice.

This small addition to the end of Step 2 means that shopping is always more expensive when she comes along too.

Now, due to the hangover after the aforementioned Reunion, we didn't all go to Tesco on Sunday, as would be the norm. Instead, I went myself last night which, if you are familiar with the days of the week, you would know was Monday.

I managed to buy the weekly shopping for just under £50. Not quite the lowest it's ever been, but quite a good trip. I then went to fill the car up with petrol, because it was completely - and I mean completely - empty.

So, can you see what the record was? Do you care? No? Well, never mind I'll tell you anyway. It was that the cost of filling the car up with petrol was - for the first time ever - more expensive than the week's shopping.


Wow, I managed to make a whole blog out of that!

Facebook is not stupid

For years I avoided these social-networking sites. I've never caught onto the whole MySpace thing, for instance.

But for some reason I joined Facebook. Actually, I know exactly what the reason was - Ele spent all her time on it and it was just about the only way to communicate with her. Still, I thought it was a bit stupid.

But, this thing has power. With essentially no effort, I found myself talking to people I hadn't seen in years. Friends from high-school, old co-workers and so on. Then I discovered a group setup for those of us (boys from my school, the girls from another local grammar school) who used to go to the pub together every Friday and Saturday night. More old friends were discovered, and a reunion had already been arranged.

That reunion happened over the weekend, at a nice pub called The Greyhound. We used to go in there when we were seventeen or so, until they got a bit fussy with the whole legal drinking age thing, so we started going to one over the road instead - a pub called The Sun that could charitably be referred to as "a dive". Still, they served us back then and that was all that mattered. Some were, quite rightly, of the opinion that a proper reunion could only occur if we at had at least one drink in The Sun. Others, including me, were of the opinion that we only went there as a last resort then, it was still a dive now, and that as we are now respectable adults well over the legal drinking age, we should stay at the nice place.

In the event, it was a wonderful evening. Within moments it was as if the last 11 or so years simply hadn't happened. Everyone was still exactly the same. Ok, they might be in IT or lawyers or managers or builders or paramedics now, perhaps married or with kids, but deep down we were all the same as we were at 18. There was much catching up, much reminiscing and much drinking. Especially much drinking. The following morning was rather unpleasant, not helped by Joe waking up at 06:30, and having to attend a kids' birthday party and a funfair...

Hopefully another shall be arranged, and in less than eleven years' time. Although next time I shall have to time my offering of buying a round of drinks better. I managed to talk myself into buying 9 drinks in one go, at a cost of £30. Still, it was worth every penny.

This whole thing wouldn't have happened without Facebook. So I can no longer call it stupid.

The green vote

Seriously, are the Conservatives trying to not get elected?

Cos there's no way it'll happen now. Have you seen the whole green tax stuff they're talking about now? Huge levies on "gas-guzzling" cars, huge increases on plane taxes, bans on electronic equipment (like Plasma TVs) that use too much power. No new runways at any airports, an even higher rate of road tax (only for 4x4s apparantly despite the fact, as I've mentioned before, if you look at the current Band G of the top polluting cars, out of nearly 500 vehicles, only about 100 are 4x4s).

And some further daftness like ensuring walking, cycling and public transport are the priorities for for any planning process for new neighbourhoods. Have they not learnt? This will increase pollution, as the car is then stuck in traffic jams. Remove all the bloody bus lanes instead, and then marvel at how the traffic is moving freely and not spitting out tons of CO2 stuck in jams, whilst there is an empty lane beside them.

Now these aren't policy yet - merely recommendations from a report. But does that actually matter? People won't remember what is policy and what is under consideration, they'll just remember that it was talked about so they'd better steer clear.

So, in summary, the policy they are considering is: Tax loads more, make our journeys more miserable, remove all our nice things, and stop us from going on holiday.

Hmmm, that'll work.

Still, tucked away at the bottom of the report was that they would abolish the pointless, expensive Home Information Packs. That alone might make it worth voting for them.

And in an interesting statement, the Department of Taxing Cars said that they had saved enough CO2 to fill about 80,000 double-decker buses by people doing their car-tax online and not driving to the post office. Something I'm sure I learned in school though, is that gas expands to fill any available space. So I can also claim that by walking to the shops one day rather than driving, I saved enough CO2 to fill the new Wembley Stadium a million times over. They should give me a medal or something.

You may as well face it, you're addicted to mints

My name's Neil, and I'm a mint-aholic.

Seriously. I'm totally addicted to Wrigley's Extra Mints. This, in itself, is not a problem. They are neither going to bankrupt me nor kill me.

But, I am facing a huge problem. There are none left. Anywhere. Nobody seems to sell them any more. Tesco, the newsagents, petrol stations... all seem to have none. This has been going on for a while - I used to buy multi-packs from Tesco every weekend, but then they stopped, so I just picked up a couple of packets whenever I found any. But now, nowhere has any. This morning the petrol station had the 7 packets left in the country (from what I can tell), so I bought them all. I've now got a sufficient supply to last a couple of weeks, but what then?

WHAT WILL I DO?

I can't give up cigarettes and mints in the same fortnight! Oh, by the way, I haven't had a cigarette for a few days. It's been very easy because I've been promising myself that I'll have another one soon - perhaps on Saturday at the High School Drinking Club reunion. Except, of course, that if you smoke in a pub these days a civil servant will force you at gunpoint to the nearest cash machine and take all of your money. I fully intend on having cigs on the occasional occasion, just not day-to-day. We'll see how long that lasts...

Obligatory holiday blog

Well, it's time for the obligatory holiday blog and then to fill in about Joe (he's not been a well boy).

The first week off work was our holiday. Me, Ele, Jess & Joe were accompanied by Saffron (Ele's sister) and Anise, Saffron's (2.5yr old) daughter.

Saturday we loaded up the car and hit the open road. We made amazing progress round the M25 and M40, reaching the M6 in just under 2 hours, even with a quick toilet-stop for Anise. After that, though, we hit a major queue coming off the M54 to the A5, which was just the queue for the roundabout, and then several more also caused by roundabouts, and then one that was caused by cars wanting to turn right into a Costcutter shop, but being unable to because the carpark was full! We eventually got past all these and headed to Bala Lake to meet Jess, who had been staying with her actual dad for the past week. As he lives in Liverpool, it made sense to meet somewhere in North Wales rather than for him to bring her all the way back to London. We collected Jess and headed off to our cottage, which was fairly remote - about 8 miles from Caernarfon. We let ourselves in, unloaded the car and headed out to Caernarfon to goto the Tesco that I remembered there. We ran around buying food as it was about to shut, then decided that it was too late for cooking and headed to a McDonalds over the road before heading back to the cottage.

Sunday we spent in Caernarfon. We had a look around the castle, and did some crab-fishing, with absolutely no success at all. A nice, relaxing day.

Monday Jess & I climbed Snowdon. Ele dropped us off in Llanberis and we followed the Llanberis path up, on the basis that it's the easiest (wouldn't want Jess to struggle, ahem). We made it up in 3 hours, 15 minutes and even though it was a cloudy day, when we got to the top it cleared briefly so we had some great views. What was most bizarre was finding a building site at the top. They are rebuilding the train station at the top, so there were diggers and all sorts up there. Actually what was even more bizarre was the guy on the unicycle, hopping up the cairn that marks the summit. He then proceeded to ride off back down the mountain. No word of a lie. We wandered down again and stopped at the Halfway House cafe for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. The cafe wasn't there the last time we did it, and it's a very welcome addition. Ele & Saff took Joe & Anise to some farm-place whilst we were doing this, but I don't know much about that.

Tuesday we went to Llandudno, partly just to goto a cafe/restaurant place called Tiffany's that Ele and I fondly remembered from our honeymoon. It was still there and still served very nice food. We then caught the cable car up the Great Orme (Joe loved this bit), had a rubbish cup of tea in a rubbish cafe and came down again, again on the cable car. We decided to buy the kids some dinner in a restaurant as it was quite late and ended up eating there ourselves as well. It was Ok. I went out to buy a packed of cigarettes and walked for about 2 miles before I found a place that was a) open, and b) sold them. On the way back to car, turning right out of the restaurant instead of left, I passed 3 shops selling them in the space of 100 yards.

Wednesday was Jess's 11th birthday. Her actual dad wanted to take her out for the day, so we dropped her off to meet him at Penrhyn Castle, and then we went on to Greenwood Country Park, which was actually quite good. Plenty for the kids to do. Her dad then came to meet us there, and we all went to a nice-looking Chinese place we had driven past a couple of times near Bangor. It turned out to be very nice (and even had a nice Engrish-esque "Sliced Beef in O.K sauce" on the menu). Joe made a complete mess, but if the waitress will put rice on a plate in front of him, she should expect it to be redistributed around. There were ten of us - me, Ele, Jess, Joe, Saff, Anise, Steve (Jess's dad), Tessa (his wife), Amy and Neve (their kids/Jess's half-sisters) altogether. After dinner the kids had a run-around the nice big garden they had there, and then we went home.

Thursday we went to Rhyl to goto the Sun Center. This is a water-park with slides and things, and it was absolutely packed (and quite expensive). I didn't think much of it, even though it'd been my idea, but the kids had fun. Joe was so tired he fell asleep in Ele's arms as we walked back to the car. We then went off into the town to find some lunch. We found one place advertising itself as a restaurant, but in my opinion restaurants should not have red plastic chairs bolted to nasty white plastic tables as their main form of seating. We did find a nice place though and had a very nice lunch. We walked further down and came across a fun-fair. It looked like it was built in the thirties and not repainted since. I got pursuaded to go on a rollercoaster with a loop-the-loop in it and Jess went on another couple of things, but it was £2 each for a ride so a bit expensive really. Saffron amused herself by taking pictures of the dilapidated rides, finishing off with a picture of a woman in a neck-brace. Rhyl is generally not very nice - lots of boarded up buildings and so on. Avoid. Thursday was also supposed to be the day that Ele & Saff climbed Snowdon, but the weather forecast was not good - predicting rain - so they decided to postpone it and might come back in the spring for a long weekend to do it.

Friday we went to to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Ok, I Googled the spelling) for lack of anything else to do that was cheap, fairly close, and easy to do. We shopped in the big shop there, ate lunch and came home to start packing.

Saturday we loaded the car and came home. Overall it was a good holiday. Relaxing and fun in equal measure. The kids behaved themselves and the cottage was very nice.


The next week, though, was The Week When Joe Was Ill. He'd picked up a bit of a cold that we put down to the swimming in Rhyl, and having nothing to dry his hair with properly. Nothing bad, just a bit of a runny nose. On Sunday, Ele went into London with her cousin, and Jess & Saff. I took Joe to my parents' house for lunch. He was very tired when we got there, which I put down to the fact that he'd only slept an hour earlier, when 2 hours is normal. He was so tired that I put him on the sofa for a nap. He woke up an hour or so later and had a biscuit and seemed Ok. Then I sat him on a chair in the dining room and gave him a bit of hot cross bun to eat. A minute later he dropped it, and then looked like he was going to fall off the chair. My dad and I both grabbed him, and could instantly see he wasn't right. He then started shaking and having convulsions. We thought he was choking so I passed him to my mum (who teaches First Aid) and she tried to get it up, but quickly realised he wasn't choking. He then collapsed onto the floor breathing funny and unable to focus on anything, his eyes rolling back. We rang 999 and the paramedics arrived very quickly, the 999 operator staying on the line with my dad, informing him of the location of the ambulance as it was on its way. They realised his temperature was high (40C) and gave him Calpol and oxygen and then we took him to hospital. My parents drove my car back to my house then came to the hospital as well (the hopsital is 5 minutes walk from my house). Joe had fallen asleep but woke up shortly after. They examined him, and said it was a Febrile Convulsion brought on by his high temperature. We took him home and twenty minutes or so later, Ele arrived, having been called by my mum whilst she was still in London.

The next day, his temperature was still up so we gave him Calpol all day. He wasn't eating or drinking either - a small amount of breakfast and nothing at all to drink. On Tuesday when he woke up he was screaming and nothing we could do would calm him down. He eventually fell asleep again, so we made a doctors appointment for 9:30. We had to take Jess off to her first day at high school so Chris popped over to watch Joe whilst we went. He woke up and screamed again for a while and then fell asleep again, then woke up and screamed again so we decided to take him straight to A&E. This pattern of waking up screaming (really flinging himself all over the place) until he fell asleep again continued all day. They diagnosed a viral infection in the throat and ears and sent him home with some throat spray and the advice to keep giving Calpol and to also give Nurofen. By the evening, he finally woke up and didn't immediately start screaming. He even had a little bit to eat and drink. For the next few days he still wasn't right - sleeping twice per day instead of once, not eating as much as usual, and just not being his usual happy self. Finally yesterday he seemed to be more back to normal. He ate his lunch, only had one nap and was smiling and playing a lot more. Hopefully he's almost back to normal now. To make it worse, Ele was also sick (possibly the same thing, we're not sure).

So our second week off was rubbish. As I mentioned, Jess started High School and is enjoying it. She walks with a friend to school every day, and comes home either by herself or with a friend. No more school run! At least, until Joe starts...