Tuesday 30 November 2010

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Nothing happened at all day except it snowed and I went out in to the playground at lunch and through snow balls at people and they where lobed back at me. After school I took the bus home and when I got home nothing happened at all except nothing so nothing happened.        

Monday 29 November 2010

Sunday 28 November 2010

Today I did nothing because Rugby was called of because of the cold and snow I stayed in my PJ's all day how lazy well what else was I going to do there was no Rugby and as a result I was bored senseless all I did was Xbox and watch TV yawn I also wrote my army list for Warhammer and that was all I did.  

Sunday 28 November 2010

Overtime 2

Another long night where we didn’t stop. 8:00PM to 6:00AM double time but Oh God was it busy. The UK is getting hit by early November snows and everything is grinding to a halt…again. People are so different from hardy pensioners who’ll wait until morning through to pampered thirtysomethings who get into a total tizzy if face with the prospect of being a little cold for a few hours. Don’t these people own a F**king coat! Eventually the night ended and I cycled home in the snow. My stomach acre was no better in fact it had gotten worse and I wasn’t looking forward to the start of our four day stint that evening. Thank God I’d booked off Tuesday night as holiday in order to attend the Governors Xmas meal.

Saturday 27 November 2010

Today I went to Robot building and built Robots to complete a series of challenges involving Lego and medicine. After lunch I went into town with Jacob and Zak we went to several stores like forbidden planet and we got Halo figures as well as this we went to Maryland Chicken YUM YUM.       

Saturday 27 November 2010

Overtime, Work, Ancient Civilisation, Nat and the Horse Stealing Gypies, Poor N8, Frantic Night, Snow,

Well what happened on Saturday? To be honest I have no idea and that’s because it is currently 04:33 on Sunday morning and I’ve been working non-stop since 8pm last night. I’m absolutely knackered, so much so that I just spelt absolutely wrongly three times. Jesus H Christ on a crutch, a bit of snow in the UK and you’d think it was “the day after tomorrow”; people are so lacking in perspective! So I can’t remember what happened yesterday. Fell asleep downstairs…again, Nat went to school to keep building his robot…again Twittered for a while …again (280 followers but quite a number are spam followers) Deb and Hannah went shopping…again and Nat went into town this afternoon with his mates…again.

Hasmuhk called and asked me if I could come in to work this evening because the other team was very short handed because of sickness and that it was very busy because of the snow. I agreed that I’d work through the night and that the rate was double bubble. Before I went to bed and Nat went into town we all watched the first episode of the new BBC series Ancient Civilisations which was superb. Even Hannah seemed to watch most of it…Yes Hannah!

Grabbed a few hours shut eye, had a number of weird dreams including Nat conspiring with Gipsy relatives we didn’t know we had to steal the horses we also didn’t know we had. That one worked out well in the end…I think. I can’t remember anything about the others; other than the fact that they were equally as odd.

Managed to snatch a few hours sleep before I was up and getting ready for work. Deb drove me in, to icy to cycle, and will pick me up in the morning. When I saw the number of calls in queue I nearly turned round and left but by then Deb had gone and the chance was lost. After this things got worse as the numbers climbed to three figures. I’ll draw a veil over the remainder of the night suffice to say I’m totally bollixed and want to go home…Now!

In fact I’ve just realised that I’m so zoned out that I hadn’t noticed that I should have taken my lunch break half an hour ago. So I’ll now see if I can tough it out until *I’ve only 45 minutes to go and then take it and my 15 minute break together and finish for the morning. The last part of this entry should have been in the Sunday blog but that shows you just how tired I am! I’ve just informed the over night manager, Bali, of my intentions and that I’m finishing at 06:00 instead of 07:00 so I’ve got eight minutes left before signing off and enjoying the next 105 minutes before I go home. That’s now dropped to six minutes but no doubt I’ll catch another before this has elapsed! Well I was right, I did catch another and a funny little one it was. Confidentiality precludes me giving any details.

Oh yes, there was one other small matter; just before I left for work I thought I'd check on the Carphone Warehouse site to see how the repair of my N* was progressing. Hooray, looked along the progress bar and it appeared that it had been repaired and was about to be returned to the shop for me to pick up. Oh Shit, I carried on reading only to discover the accompanying notes which were to advise me that their engineer had been unable to affect a repair and yes my phone could still do everything except make phone calls. So Deb's got herself a flash expensive Sat-Nav and high end camera and I need to do more overtime! Chalk it up to experience boy and forget those suicidal thoughts!

Overtime 1 and Poopoo Bottom

Tonight I agreed to go into work and do an extra shift because the other team were so short handed because of winter sickness. Most of my team were also in but only stayed until 2:00 AM whereas i stayed until 6:00 after which I’d had enough and got on bike and headed home. We were frantically busy and didn’t stop all night. I already regretted that I’d agreed to do Sunday also. It was a sign of things to come, although I didn't know it at the time, that I kept having to go to the toilet and my tummy was really painful. In addition I couldn't stop farting stinky ones which is why i sat bye myself rather that with the others. I’ll draw a veil there, suffice to say…What a Stink!!!

Friday 26 November 2010

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday....Boring

Work incredibly busy so little else than it and sleep. Finally succumed to tummy bug and took an hours holiday to leave early on Thursday morning. Done little since apart from tweeting. I can't even be arsed to make up nonsense.

Thursday 25 November 2010

Thursday 25 November 2010

Today I had a Rugby tournament from period 3 to 1 hour after school I played as a hooker for the school team not surprising relay seen as I am always the Hooker. We only lost one game and that was not the final which we won so we won the tournament and I was Captain and we all got free pens for playing!!!

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Today I went to Scouts after school and we played games and did some map work I also talked to Jacob about wino's school rugby team and apparently they are terrible and are mixed year 7 8 which is good news if we play them.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Poorly Hannah, Nat back To School, Tummy Ache Continues,

Hannah was still unwell this morning and will stay home off school for another day. Nat seemed to have recovered and went to school although not on his bike Deb drove him there. How he fared I don’t know as when I got up this PM he was at his friend Brandon’s house. He wasn’t back when I left but I assume he must be better or he wouldn’t have gone out.


Deb took another “sick child” day and stayed home with Hannah; that meant that I was able to go to bed and not stay up with her. She still looked pretty rough when I woke and it looks as though it’ll be another no school day tomorrow..

I again stole Nat’s N95 and tried to listen to The Phones Show Chat Podcast but kept falling asleep. After a number of restarts I eventually heard it all the way through although not all at one time. It’s a little worrying to hear Steve Litchfield announce that he’s abandoned the N8 in favour of his old N86 as that’s the phone I nearly bought. He has a point about touch screens however and it’s easy to see the allure of an old fashioned real keyboard. The bottom line is, I suppose, that there’s no such thing as “the perfect phone” it’s more a case of horses for courses. Anyway, it’s all academic at the present time for all I know I’m now the proud possessor of a Nokia Personal Media Player if Carphone Warehouse doesn’t come through with the repair!

Before I retired for the day, I’m a vampire I is, I finished updating the blog which now only requires the inclusion of a few more photos and videos to bring it bang up to date.

Work was hectic tonight and I helped out issuing the emergency calls. I, it appears, drew the short straw and ended up with the busiest area. I didn’t stop for breath from 20:30 until just after 00:30; on the upside the time just flew by. Eventually things quietened down and I was able to go back to my normal duties.

It’s a slow night punctuated only by my frequent trips to the little boys room; I suspect that I’m suffering, mildly, from the same malady as the kids…shit to coin a phrase, well a word actually you can’t really refer to a single word as a phrase, can you? Is it possible to claim "Squatters Rights" over someone elses toilet?

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Teacher comments in red.


 Today I went round Brandon's and we played some Warhammer What is Warhammer? I had my Space Wolves Space Wolves what are they? and which hunters Who? he had Tau What are Tau? and I won because I am the greatest Very full of your self Nathaniel so Yay me!!Yay is not a word As well as this I did not have mushy peas to eat but Pizza very nice Pizza Don't use the word nice Nathaniel is a boring word it was outstanding Pizza. very good Nathaniel.



Monday 22 November 2010

Sick Kids, Advent Calendar, Ploughman

As I mentioned in the previous post, both of the kids were off sick today with the tummy bug that’s doing the rounds. When we phoned their schools to advise them of the situation we were informed that there were scores of pupils off with the same thing. After I’d updated the photo and videos previously mentioned I photographed and uploaded a few photos of the Advent Calendar that Deb had made for Hannah (see below).


( )

Deb had decided to stay at home to look after the kids and so took the opportunity to telephone John Adams (01162365375) re ploughing allotment.

If explained that if he ploughed it now and we left it exposed so that the frost could break up the ground it probably wouldn’t also need rotavating later. So that’s the plan, then after the frost we’ll cover over the parts we don’t intend to immediately cultivate so that the plot doesn’t get over grown again. It’ll cost £20 for him to plough the plot and that’s not a bad price at all. If we don’t hear back from him soon we’ll chase him up to make sure it gets done before Xmas.

It was frantic at work again tonight and things didn’t quieten down until about 01:00 in the morning which is when I started bring these last few entries up to date. All that’s left to do now is embed the relevant photos and videos and it’s done. I’ll do those on my off days this week

Sunday 21 November 2010

Monday 21 November 2010

Today I did not go to school partly because I was ill and partly because I was exhausted from camp. So instead of going to school I watched TV and went on the pc what a nice day to recover from the camp to have a bit of R and R :)

Chief Scout gold award camp

I got to camp on Saturday morning at 8 and when everyone had got up 2 people cooked breakfast on an open fire while the rest of us made are bibvowacks after an hour in which I had to open my survival tin to get the knife out we had breakfast a full English YUM YUM after this we continued to build are bibvowacks and ours was really good. After lunch which we cooked on an open fire same as with breakfast we built camp gadget's or more specificity washing up stands again our group's was da best. We then did some more work on are bibvowacks and had a session on knives, axes and saws after this we had dinner and went to bed in our bibvowacks. After getting up on Sunday we took our bibvowacks down cooked breakfast and did a season on first aid we learnt how to treat Frost bite, Heat exhaustion, Heat stroke and how to give CPR after this we made ballisters and fired them it was fun we then had dinner packed up camp got our badges and went home. 

Redditch, Andrew Marr Show, Young Earth Creationist, N95, Podcast, Dan Carlin, Rang George, Allotment Plough Man, Back From Camp, New Shife, Lurggy,

It was my first night back at work tonight so I needed to catch up on some sleep during the afternoon. Nat would be away until early evening and Deb and Hannah were planning to visit Deb’s parents in Redditch and collect him on their way home

I watched the Andrew Marr show and had a good laugh at the Young Earth Creationist who appeared on the following programme explaining why, he believed, Darwin was wrong and why the earth was less than Ten Thousand Years Old. What a complete arsehole of the first order. These people are so needy that’ll they’ll swallow any old bollocks and repeat the same old lies to convince themselves of the existence of their God. It’s interesting how they’re so quick to dismiss the equally irrational beliefs of other religious folk…Total F**king F**kwits! Equally amused and depressed that people can honestly believe such tosh I made my way to bed via Nat’s room where I temporarily stole back my old N95 so that I could listen to a few podcasts while getting off to sleep. Dan Carlin’s most recent Common Sense program if I recall correctly. I received an automated call from the Carphone Warehouse telling me that my phone had been dispatched and that they’d let me know when it came back which was nice if somewhat unexpected.

Before I’d gone to bed I’d rung George, who was the previous allotment site manager, to ask him to ask his successor if she could ring us today, she’d forgotten last week, with the number of the gentleman who would plough our allotment for us. As luck would have it George had his number and was able to give it to me over the phone. We planned to call him later in the week to arrange to get our plot ploughed.

I eventually got up at about half four after Deb had called me to make sure I didn’t forget that I had to get up earlier now we were starting work at 20:00 instead of 21:00. She called again at 17:00 to say that she and Han were at the camp and waiting to pick up Nat. When they hadn’t arrived home 45 minutes later I called her back only to find that they were still waiting for the scouts to finish clearing their camp site. Eventually they got home and Nat stank. They had slept in their bivouacs and he was rank but grateful for his new sleeping bag that is suitable for temperatures as low as minus 18C! He’d finally opened the survival tin that his granddad had bought him about five years ago and proceeded to display the contents. It seems that he had a great time at camp but then he always does.

I left for work at around 19:00 and arrived with plenty of time to spare. So far I like this new shift the time passed quickly and I was able when it was finally quite to catch up on these blog posts. Cycled home in the morning, back by 7:30, to find both kids were struck down with the “Lurggy”. Deb stayed home to look after them because Hannah was very poorly and she didn’t want to leave her being sick and with me asleep in bed. I posted some photos and videos onto a couple of the blogs I’d written that night then went to bed at about 11:00.

Saturday 20 November 2010

Queens Scouts Camp 2, Carphone Warehouse, £80!, Steak, Magners Pear Cider, Harry Potter, Stomach Pains, Things To Come,

We were up early because we’d agreed the night before to try and get Nat to camp by 08:00; it was still foggy but nothing like as bad as the previous evening and eventual just before 08:00 we found the entrance, it wasn’t easy thank you Hannah, and left Nat with one of the troop leaders. They would be building bivouacs in which they would sleep that night. Nat had demolished a huge bowl of cereal before we left home and subsequently, we later discovered, sat down to eat a full English breakfast with the rest of the troop…greedy little sod!


The previous evening Deb had gone on line to discover the nearest approved Nokia repair outlet. I filmed the journey and the video quality was outstanding as were traveling at around 50mph. Unfortunately this will probably be wiped while they're trying to fix the phone! This turned out to be the Carphone Warehouse shop on Welford Road so, after dropping Nat off, we headed there to see if they could repair the phone. They weren’t open until 09:00 and as we arrived early I decided to see if the FM transmitter would allow me to play one of the podcasts I’d put on the phone via the car radio. This it did indeed do, perfectly. Eventually the shop opened and I explained what had happened. The guy there wasn’t sure they could repair it, hopefully they say this to everyone, but agreed to send it off to their engineers to see what they could do. If they can repair it, fingers crossed, it’ll cost me £80 so everything I saved by buying on eBay has been lost. In addition they’ll have to destroy the memory card in order to remove it so that’s another £20 down the drain. It’s now just a question of waiting to hear back from them.

Afterwards we did the weekly shop at Sainsbury’s’ where Deb picked up a couple of small, but succulent steaks for she and I for dinner, Hannah doesn’t like beef so she would be having macaroni cheese…one of her favourites. While we were there we also picked up some beers including three bottles of Magners’ pear cider which was on special offer. This was very nice but nothing like as nice as the St Austell’s pear cider she’s bought the previous week. When you open that it smells like pear drops and is gorgeous.

Hannah had a ballet lesion that afternoon and had to stay for an additional hour to make up for the lesion she’s missed on Wednesday so she was exhausted when she eventually got back home.

We had our dinner; the steaks were delicious, while watching the end of the first Harry Potter film on ITV and decided, once it had finished, that we’d then watch number four, Goblet of Fire. I fell asleep and missed the end; Hannah and Deb watched the next one as I slept on. When I woke up they’d gone to bed so I made up a bed on the sofa and went back to sleep. I woke again around 04:00 with a searing stomach ache which I’m still experiencing as I write this. It seems Deb had been suffering from this too and on Monday both of the kids also came down with it, Hannah was particularly severely affected and spent the day in bed when she wasn’t in the loo throwing up!

Saturday 20 November 2010

When I got to camp in the morning.........................................WELL NAT WHAT?????

Friday 19 November 2010

Cancelled Hospital, N8 Arrives, N8 Broken, Depression, Suicidal, Great Video, Camp, Sat Nav, Fog, Defeated, Homeward Bound, TWAT.

Phoned the Hospital and rearranged my appointment for the 17th of February next year. At 8:40, shortly after Deb had left to drop Hannah at school and go to work, there was a knock at the door and my new phone was delivered. Let joy be unconfined I’ve finally got a Nokia N8! I spent the first hour checking it out and playing with it before I decided I was ready to insert the sim card. I removed this from my N82 along with the removable memory card. I didn’t need to put a card in the new phone as it has 16 Gigs of internal storage but I wanted to transfer the contents of the card into its onboard memory. This would alleviate the necessity of re-downloading the podcasts and videos I had stored on it. THIS WAS WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG!!! You know when crashes are blamed on human error, because the pilot is so familiar with what he does that he thinks he’s done something but he hasn’t, well I experienced something similar. I picked up the memory card and inserted it into the SIM slot pushing it home to ensure it fit. One Hundredths of a second later I realised what I’d done, but even now I don’t know why I did such a stupid thing, but it was too late. The card was in the slot and there was absolutely nothing I could do that would remove it. I tried easing it out with a pin but only succeeded in damaging the SIM slot. My beautiful new phone had now effectively been turned into a Nokia iPod, f**k f**k F**K! I have never felt so stupid in my entire life and the adrenaline was pumping through my system as the repercussions of what I’d done came home to me! When Deb called to ask if the phone had arrived and I had to explain what I’d gone and done I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me especially as she couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Whether or not it can be repaired; forever after she and the kids will now refer to the N8 as the “brick” that Daddy made. What made things even worse was that everything that still worked, of course, worked perfectly. The camera and video were super as you'll see from this First Film -



The phone acquired a GPS lock in seconds and, after I’d remembered the password to allow it access, so did the Wi-Fi. It worked just fine allowing me access to the internet.

Eventually Deb and the Kids came home and discovered, in detail, exactly what as massive screw up I’d made. Despite this, the Kids were completely captivated by what the N8 could still do and were fighting with each other to get their hands on it.

Nat had to leave for camp so I put the approximate location into the phone which would allow me to test out the free Nokia Maps software. Again this worked superbly and we obtained full off line voice guided navigation. Unfortunately it was very foggy when we left home and as we travelled toward Kirby Mallory this got worse and worse. We easily found the general location, after a hic-cup when I entered the road name and we discovered that the software had plotted our route to a street within Leicester with the same name. We eventually got to the right road but by this time visibility was appalling so despite repeatedly driving up and down the road and stopping to ask directions a number of times we were unable to locate the entrance to the camp site. Eventually we decided it was no longer safe to keep looking and returned home. When we got back I phoned one of the scout leaders and explained what had happened and agreed we’d drop Nat off there in the morning. Even in the daytime the entrance proved difficult to find and it was pure luck that Hannah spotted it as we, once more, drove passed it.

I can’t say I slept well that night; I tossed and turned dreaming of the complete disaster I’d created because of a moment’s inattention! I sincerely hope it’s a long time before I experience another day like this one…Twat!

Friday 19 November 2010

Today my Dad was a total idiot and put the memory card in the sim card slot on his new N8 what a FOOL! we also could not drop me off at the scout camp because we could not find the entrance in the fog so we came home.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Bought an N8 on eBay, Hospital Tomorrow

Finally bid on and bought an N8, £295 plus £7 postage. Sellers a female, on Three who received it as an unwanted upgrade, with 100% feedback so it looks like I’ve bagged me a bargain (if only I knew what the future held in store for me!). Paid the money and later received an email to say that the phone had been dispatched and was scheduled to arrive before 1pm tomorrow. At last, I’m going to own the best camera phone that’s ever been made…to date. There was only one problem; I was due to attend the hospital in the morning to see my consultant surgeon. This was to be the final check that everything was OK with my new hip. I would need to rearrange this because as sure as eggs the phone would be delivered whilst I was out if I didn’t. I wish now that I kept this appointment!

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Shopping For Camp, Queen's Award, No Ballet, Sleepyhead,

Finished work at 08:00 for the last time, its 07:00 from now on. Cycled home and spent the day on the PC doing little or nothing. Nat went shopping this evening, with the Queens Award group (he attends a special scouts group, separate from his normal pack, once a month in order to do this) for provisions for camp this coming week end. This meant that he missed the normal meeting. Hannah was supposed to go to ballet but for some reason I don’t think she went. Certainly on the coming Saturday she had to stay an extra hour to make up for the missed session. The reason I’m unclear over the details is that by this time I was sat on the sofa drifting in and out of sleep and my comprehension of my surroundings was nil.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Nothing To Report

Sleep, Deb still marking N8’s, work nothing of significance other than tonight’s our last night. Off until Sunday…Hurray!

Monday 15 November 2010

Payday, I Have a Dream, eBay, N8, New Team Members, D's a Daddy, Silly Season,

At last, Some Money, yes its payday, there’s actually going to be something positive in our bank account for at least the next three days! Wow, after that it’ll be back to a eking out the overdraft for another 28 days. Is it any wonder that, despite knowing the odds, I still buy the occasional lottery ticket? Just like Doctor King “I have a Dream” its just that mine entails oodles of money, foreign travel and hot and cold running whores, surely that’s not too much to ask for, is it?


I spent most of the day in bed dreaming; of oodles of money, foreign travel and the aforementioned ladies of easy virtue. All too soon it was time to awaken and face the dreary reality that currently passes for my life. In an attempt, doomed to backfire (see coming Saturday blog) to hold onto as much of my overtime as she can Deb’s perusing eBay for bargain deals on a Nokia N8. There are loads up for offer as many people have received them as contract upgrades and are attempting to generate a little spending money by flogging them off.

Work’s getting really busy as we enter the cold season and tonight I discovered that one of our two new team members has just become a Daddy and will therefore be off, on paternity leave, for an indefinite period. Now he seems to be a nice, if somewhat credulous, guy but one has to question the decision, given his circumstances, to employ him on our team after all this is our busiest time of year. Additionally, someone else who supposedly transferring to our team, who has been on sick leave ever since the transfer was supposed to take effect, is now coming back to work but not as part of our team…weird. To cap it all, the last person I spoke to this morning wanted to complain that we hadn’t resolved his problem despite the fact that he had cancelled the appointment made for the previous day to do this. Once again, dearest reader, we’re in the silly season!

Sunday 14 November 2010

Loughborough Fair Photos and Videos, Allotment, Rent, Ploughman, New Site Manager, Broken Monitor, EA Overtime,

Today I uploaded the Loughborough Fair photographs and Videos with a few to including them in this blog. As you’ll see they are now linked into the previous post. Deb picked up Nat from Jacobs and as mentioned stayed to speak to Chris who burst into tears.
We also popped up to the allotment to let them know we were still alive, still interested, pay our annual rent and see about buying enough covering material to cover our plot. We were advised that there was a gentleman who would, for a few quid, plough our plot and subsequently rotavate it. The lady who’s taken over from George as site manager was going to telephone us later with his number but must have forgotten to.
When I got to work I discovered that the monitor at the new desk I’d moved to was broken so, instead of going back to my old work station I moved further away even though that entailed having to use a CRT old style monitor. I considered this but a small price to pay. Interesting to note, three of our team were already there doing o/t on EA...how did that happen back to the good old days of the four guys monopoly perhaps, I don’t think so!
We had a team meeting and it was decided that in order to provide the necessary early evening staff for EA, it’s that or leave it to Geoff (!) from now on we’d change our hours to 8pm - 7am...to start next Sunday 21/11.

Consider Humanism


Consider Humanism - Robert Ingersoll from American Humanist Association on Vimeo.

Saturday 13 November 2010

Bruce Redundant, Jacob's Sleep-Over, Nat Away, Payslip, Over-Time Wrong, Supreme Twattery, N8, Chick-Flick,

Terrible news today; the company that Bruce, Jacob and Josh’s Dad, works for has gone bust and he’s been made redundant. This is devastating news for them. Bruce earned 40K per annum while Chris, his wife, earns only £10K part time. They are facing an 80% drop in income and when Deb picked up Nat from there the following morning and spoke to Chris she just burst into tears and said they had no idea what they were going to do. It’s all right to talk about necessary cuts and spending restraint but its different when it hurts someone you know and like.
To make matters worse Jacob was due to have a load of kids over to stay the night today to celebrate his 13th birthday. This still went ahead and Nat stayed the night there. I’ve told Nat that if Jacob’s parents have to start selling things, like his and Josh’s games consoles and such, he is to make sure that they know they are welcome at our house at anytime play on his with him. They’ve shared more than enough of their stuff with him quid pro quo. Despite the news the sleep over was a great success and we didn’t see Nat again after he went to their house at 2pm. Deb, as I mentioned, picked him up the next morning.
I received my payslip in the post this morning and imagine my surprise when I discovered I hadn’t been paid for all of my overtime. Later, at work, I discovered this was because the third time sheet that I thought I’d handed in before we went on holiday hadn’t been given in, I must have just picked up the two and not the third, so I gave it to John to process for December. This example of Supreme Twattery, far above and beyond the call of duty as it was, should have provided me with a warning to be more careful and if it had then my N8 would now be in my pocket not off in the hospital for poorly mobiles but more of this later. Anyway, Nat was away and as I left for work Han and Deb settled down to watch a chick flick…yuck! I was going to try and get this blog up to date but got side tracked by other things which is why I’m doing it now instead.

Saturday 13 November 2010 Building lego Robots at School

Today I went to robot building and built robots and stuff. Later, I went to Jacobs for a sleep over which was to celebrate his 13th birthday last Monday. First of we went on black ops and stayed on it for the rest of the night we videoed  several of the games and added   commentary

I stayed up till 06:30 the following day.

Friday 12 November 2010

I Am Spartacus, @christt, Paul Chambers, @CrispySea, Loughborough Fair, Call of Duty, @Fab44Me, @Burlivesleftnut, Jack Kirby, The New Gods,

Today saw the #Iamspartacus campaign get launched on Twitter. After the judgement was made public there was an outcry. Many people, myself included, advocated resending the tweet but it took this tweet to get it going  - The online campaign was started by @christt, who tweeted yesterday evening: "I think we should all tweet Paul Chambers' original joke, Spartacus style. Thousands of us. Would that work? #twitterjoketrial". Before you knew it not only was this the top tending hashtag tweet in the UK it was the top trending hashtag in the World. Now whether or not this will have any effect on the intended appeal against the appeal is moot but it did demonstrate the outrage of those people who were aware of the trial at its outcome.
On another Twitter related note a comment I made about @CrispySeas tweet resulted in him sending me the following message @mysickbones It's a solid extra point to add to the post, you wanna stick it on the comments or want me to include it in the post somewhere? I suggested it would make more sense as an amendment and he’ll let me know when he’s done so {find out tweet subject}
I never have been involved in the use of chat rooms but since using Twitter I’ve come to understand why they are so popular. After all what is Twitter other than a glorified chat room?
When Deb got home that afternoon she suggested that we visit the fair in Loughborough that evening. Nat had some friends round playing Call of Duty so decided to stay home. This meant it was just the three of us and in a way that was good because it allowed Hannah to be the focus all our attention;. I don’t think we give her enough and this might explain her attitude because even if Daddy is shouting at you at least he’s interacting with you.
The fair was great, expensive but great. I went on two rides with Han and she went on a few by herself. We stayed for a couple of hours then made our way home, we couldn’t afford to remain any longer. I filmed the rides while Han and I were on them and they appear below along with the photographs we took.



When we returned and told Nat about it he regretted not coming and has vowed to go next year. However, he did manage to play Call of Duty with Nick the Son of the lady (@Fab44Me) in Las Vegas.
Later on I uploaded Jack Kirby’s original New Gods series of comics for @Burlivesleftnut  to download. Quite an interesting day all told and my Twitter followers are now 230.

Retro Psychic - Love It

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Thursday 11 November 2010

Armistic Day, Twitter Joke Trial, N8 Video, The Commuter, Rugby Neil and Judo John,

It was Armistice Day and 90 years since the entombment of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey today. It may be because of all the wars in which we’ve recently been involved and all the WWII anniversaries this decade but Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday seem to becoming more and more ingrained in the public consciousness. There was the possibility that it would fade away as the survivors of the two world wars passed on but there seems little likelihood of this. Perhaps this will be Tony Blair’s legacy?


I observed the Two Minute Silence but spent the rest of the day on twitter. I’ve now got over two hundred (222 at that point) followers, admittedly a number of these are commercial spam followers but the majority are not and I’m now getting quite a few #FF (Follow Friday) recommendations.

Speaking of Twitter today was the day of the appeal against the judgement in the Twitter Joke Trial  (Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old accountant had sent the following tweet to a girlfriend after their planned meeting in Ireland was threatened by the bad weather “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!”). Hopes were running high that this nonsensical conviction, for making what was obviously a joke, would be overturned. The judge had not reached a decision the previous day so everyone was waiting with baited breath for her ruling that morning expecting that common sense would prevail and a man would get his life back..

Instead Judge Jacqueline Davies handed down a devastating finding at Doncaster which dismissed Chambers's appeal on every count. After reading out his comment from the site she found that it contained menace and Chambers must have known that it might be taken seriously.

This absurdity led directly to the I am Spartacus campaign launched on Titter the following day; thousands of people, including me, retweeting his original tweet or humorous variations thereof.

On the upside, I watched an amazing video made entirely on the Nokia N8 and when I say amazing I mean amazing. Check out The Commuter.

I also sent a text to Neil at Rugby and John at Judo advising them about Nat’s bruised kneecap and to expect him to be absent for the next couple of weeks.

Wednesday 10 November 2010

ICT Meeting at Millfield

Today I had a meeting arranged at Millfield with the Deputy Head to discuss ICT provision and strategy. I’d arrange to meet Steve after School had finished for the day. After a short wait in reception he led me off to speak to Aaron (Mr Jordan Hannah’s current form teacher and previously Nat’s) who was taking on more responsibility for this area. Steve wasn’t able to say with us as he had a meeting clash. Aaron and I spent a bout an hour discussing what resources the school was using and how it was using them. Aaron seems to be very much on top of things and announced that the brand new up to date and much updated school website would be going live on 19th November. I had planned to look at this on the day but as you’ll find out this was to be the day of the N8 disaster and I’ve yet to look at it.


At the end of our meeting Aaron promised to send me a summary report that I’ll use to produce a report for the next Governors meeting.

Not much else to report, Nat went to Scouts and Hannah to ballet in the evening leaving me with a little time to myself.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Finished Work, Frenzied Inactivity, Twitter, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Possible Las Vegas link Up

Finished work for another four days. The day passed in another frenzied round of inactivity, roll on spring I’m going to the allotment EVERYDAY just to have something to do. Anther day passed in a blur of Tweets. I shouldn’t make that sound so pathetic as I do enjoy going on Twitter it’s almost as good as having actual friends…feeling sorry for yourself there boy?


Today was the day Nat had been waiting for; the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops. He’d (Deb had) pre-ordered it and it arrived shortly after he’d left for school. Well, when he got home that was it. He wasn’t seen again for the remainder of the day. I must say that when I popped in to see him I was mightily impressed with the graphics even if I couldn’t keep track of what he was doing. It appears he has a natural aptitude for these games.

One of the people I exchange tweets with, who’s based in Las Vegas, was getting it for her Son and suggested that he (Nick) and Nat might play on line sometime. There’s and eight hour time difference so it might not prove to be too easy to do but worth a try (you’ll see in a later entry that they did get to play).

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Today Black ops came out. and the first thing I did on it was play campaign which was fun I do not want to ruin the plot for you so I will say no more and move on to multiplayer which was brilliant and there where lots of explosions and stuff it is a good game 9/10  

Monday 8 November 2010

Monday 8 November 2010

Today I had to go to the doctors because my knee was giving me problems and as a result of this I now know that I have a bruised knee cap and that I cant do any Rugby, PE or Judo so that is very annoying very annoying in deed.

Sleep, Work and PRP

Slept most of the day didn’t get up until 6:00, ate, washed and cycled to work.


C was still away with a migraine, so we all enjoyed another quite night. I moved again as the monitor at my new work station was faulty and I wasn’t going back to my old one. Swings and Roundabouts, old fashioned CRT monitor but even further away from where C sits so I’ve escaped.

Got told what our performance related payments were going to be; I got nothing for July, that’s when I returned to work, but scored full payments for August and September. That’s about it for another day, another enthralling chapter in the never ending excitement that is the life of Mysickbones. I’ve got to go and do a parachute jump or something

Sunday 7 November 2010

First Try of the Season, Green Documentry, Work,

Nat had a match with the Vipers; I couldn’t go as I had to get some sleep, where he scored their first try of the season. I’m not sure who they played but unfortunately they were, once more, trashed. Hannah stayed home with me and watched videos downstairs while I went to bed. I don’t normally get very angry, tell the kids that they won’t believe you, and last nights confrontation had left me feeling exhausted.


Before I left for work Nat and I started watching the Documentry "Where Did The Greens Go Wrong"; wow, GM crops and Nuclear Power could be "good" things, amazing I've thought that for ages. That's the trouble with doctrine it limits your thinking . I never managed to watch it to the end as I had to leave but nat did. I just wish I could get Hannah to watch these kind of programmes! Had to explain to Deb that there weren't thousands of kids effected by radiation poisioning fron Chenoybol.

Work that night was as busy as buggery but one good thing was that C claimed to have a migraine and left after about an hour. I managed to do some more blog summaries in anticipation of eventually writing them up (that's what I'm doing now 22/11) and spent time on Twitter agian. No wonder most of my follwers are Yanks; when I'm tweeting they're the only country awake.

That’s about it for this entry Oh what an exciting life I lead!

Saturday 6 November 2010

Allotment Not, Ben Elton Not, Nat and Jacob Fosse Park, Work, Newbies, Big Mouth,

Well the best laid plans and all that. The weather was foul, Deb had thing to do and the allotment was postponed, yet again, to another day. Deb had shopping to do so I cleaned up the house while she was out. Nat and Hannah had eventually got up and Hannah had gone out with Deb. Nat and I decided to watch my Ben Rlton Video, the one I’ve had for two years (!) and still not watched. Didn’t get to watch it again as shortly after we started watching Jacob called for Nat and they then headed off to Fosse Park to peruse the shops. Deb and Han were back just after but not for long as they headed off once more to ballet. I went to bed as I had work that evening.


Two new members joined the team the night before Mikila, who I knew, and another lad named Durran who I didn’t.

C spent the whole night talking, no wonder I bury myself in writing this blog or twittering, and was in a foul mood because she’d had critical feed back about a call she’d taken (totally justified in my opinion). As usual she was more than happy to comment on other peoples work and she pulled this trick on me later when I’d had to cut off an abusive caller. Muttering under her breath she commented about how some people were always cutting people off. Bad timing baby; it was the wrong night to open that fucking big gob of yours. I gave it back big time and I think she was a bit gobsmacked that the worm had finally turned. I decided there and then that I was moving tomorrow night and not sitting near her again.

Friday 5 November 2010

Thursday 4 and Friday 5 November

Thursday
Today I took the bus again as my knee still hurts. After school I did not go to Judo because as I said earlier my knee hurt. Instead I went to to some fire works at Braunston park which was fun and the fire works where explody and bright and loud and I should have used a commer back there between explody and bright so yeah.

Friday
Today after school my friend Rumit came round and we played Halo Reach and a game of Warhammer and even though he had 2 times more troops more me my luck held and I owned him which is to be expected as he is a NOOB at Warhammer and so are you yea you sitting on the chair and the other people in the room.    

My Birthday, No Presents, Holiday, Rumit Nat's Mate, Warhammer, Cake and Cyder

PHOTOGRAPH CARDS

Today was my birthday, I won’t say how old as that’s depressing but not as depressing as being dead I suppose, but I didn’t get anything. Apparently the Nokia N8 I’m going to buy out of the masses of overtime I did before we went on holiday is to be my present from me to me…aren’t I a lucky boy?


I had booked the night off work, I had 48 hours unused holiday, our holiday runs from birthday to birth day, and one can only carry over a week’s worth, so I needed to use up the excess hours. The plan was, because I wouldn’t need to go to bed next morning, that we’d go to the allotment next day to clear it. Things never go to plan!

Nat, having forgotten it was my birthday, had invited friend round after school in order to teach him how to play Warhammer40,000. I wasn’t really upset there was just something in my eye and it wouldn’t stop watering…honest. Anyway home he came with Rumit in tow and they proceeded to cover the dining table in assorted monsters and space wolves (don’t ask). Rumit, who seemed like a good kid, only stayed until about 6:00 when his granddad called to collect him.

We did celebrate my birthday a little with a cake and a bottle of the apple juice (for the kids) and a bottle of the Berry Rattler (for me) we’d bought at the Cyder Farm.

These were yummy in the extreme.

Thursday 4 November 2010

Rugby Merit Wrong Name, Judo, Knee, Braunstone Park Fireworks Thursday 04 November 2010

 Nat came home from school with a merit for his rugby prowess at school. It was only later, when he was at boxing, that i took a closer look and discovered he'd brought home the wrong one. Someone else's parent, no doubt, discovered that their son was now named Nathaniel. Nat's knee was stiil causing him pain, a visit to the doctors diagnosed a bruised kneecap and was was ordered to refrain from rugby and judo for a few weeks to allow it to heal. So instead of judo we went to see the fireworks.

Here's a pictorial and video blog of Hannah, Nat and My trip (Deb was poorly) to see this year's Braunstone Town fireworks display which were held in Braunstone Park. Threre's not much to say as it was too noise to speak and we didn't meet anyone or see anything of note so let the pics and vids speak for themselves. Just one thing, the firework display didn't last very long it was all over in ten minutes!
Whoops!!! I nearly forgot; we did played a game of  
"Spot The Not A Teenage Mum" 
on the way out. Everytime we saw a pram we checked to see if the girl pushing it was old enough to have left school...most weren't it's that sort of area!














Wednesday 3 November 2010

Arranging to See the Deputy Head

Today was yet another day of Twittering, weather awful and no cash to do anything anyway! About the only thing I got done today was contacting and arranging to meet the Deputy Head at Millfield School to discuss the School's ICT policy. I'm meeting with him after school next Wednesday.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Today I got the bus home again. After school I had boxing where we did exercises which are getting easer and easer. I also went to Scouts Where we played Halloween games and lit fireworks and played games which was fun very fun indeed.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Today I was dropped of at school as my knee was giving me pain. after school I got the bus home and went to Brandon's house we played little big planet and I bought a Warhammer army of him for £30 which is great value.
I also had some food there and geese what we had with the food mushy peas this is now 3 out of 4 times where I have had mushy peas at Brandon's house.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Twittering and That's Your Lot

I can't recall anything much happening today; again I spent most of the dat on Twitter (no wonder we've got such a backlog of unwatched TV progammes).

Monday 1 November 2010

Twittering, Stephen Fry Leaves twitter, Twitter Addiction,

Work over for another four days. Got home and stayed up most of the day twittering getting more followers by the day. It appears that Stephen Fry has left Twitter because of the uproar concerning his apparent comments about women not enjoying sex. Missquoted yet again Mr Fry (you can read his response here). He returned later in the week
I've found that Twitter is very addictive once you start interacting with the other people on line. I likee to be serious and humourous in equal measure but how humourous will be for the readers to decide.  So the day passed with little else to report.

Monday 1 November 2010

All that happened to day was that Hannah went to B&Q with cubs and mum went to Joe's (she is a woman just so you don't say my mum is doing stuff she should not) house as a result I did not go to boxing today no I did not not