House Update

So it occurs to me that I have been a little tawdy in keeping people up to date with what is happening with Newhouse at the mo'.

Not sure hat you might know so I'll just go ahead and give a quick run down.

Well, firstly the architect, Britt, has finished her initial survey - that basically amounts to going 'yep that's what we got at the mo'. The next stage(s) that she is doing is drawing up a plan and schedule for the work and doing a sort of recording report of what is there as far as the historic features and history of the property and the like.

We had the builder, Wayne, do a bunch of stuff. He's taken out the fireplace in the kitchen in prep for the stove, taken down a couple of breeze block walls so know you can go from the toilet to the front bedroom, and taken away the panel that was between the toilet and the bathroom to be repaired so that we can close the bathroom of and make it a bedroom. He also took the false ceiling down in the porch and the porch looks sooo much nicer without it. The thing with the kitchen fireplace is a bit of stress at the mo' though as when they filled it in they seemed to brick it up entirely, leaving no space behind. This is not normal. All the books say you knock down a little brick wall and there is a cavity that forms the fireplace behind. So it means there is now a big messy hole with no clear idea as to what was put in when and how much of it is supporting the chimney/wall. Not an ideal situation.

We have also had the whole house rewired. And the cabling is laid for new wiring whenever we get permission to put in the new sockets and what have you. They have done a cracking job - and the new conduit (we was made tailor made for this build) looks real nice and discreet.

Err, and we've taken out the bath from the bathroom, and mostly sorted out the plumbing there. In so much as we've resected and capped the cold supply and tested it and now it works. And Fixed the cistern so we have a flushing toilet. Yet to test the hot water system though, and def' not sure what we are doing about hot water in the interim as I'm not sure what state the immersion coil will be in.

Anyway, that's mostly it I think - ohh and the ceilings have been relathed and are waiting for plastering - so if anyone can recommend a good lime plasterer then please do!

YourNotMe

In fact nobody is (apart from me obviously; that'd be freeky).

What an excellent site. No idea how they know if your on holidayin spain or not - prehaps it's the RFID chips the goverments been implanting in everybody?

BTW - there are only 80 peeps who are called Diccon in the UK. Hmmm feel a Dave Gorman moment coming on (no resist, resist).

Oh, and as far as my mothers ongoing whinge that her name is made up - well there is only one darrolyn; but there is 6 darolyns. Now given that I have no idea how to spell my mums name (other than D-A-Z) I'd say that that really shows there are 7 people with her name, possible (but incredibly unlikely) that they all heard daz's name and thought 'ohh, that's lovely, must call the baby/change my name by deedpoll'. Or that seven other crazy parents made it up. More likley that it is a bonafide name but most people reconised it as being as lovely as it is and body swerved before it stuck.

However, I am quite pissed that she has a more unusual name than me, but it does explain a lot when it comes to her choice for me and Taru.

Hmmm, talking of Taru I always thought there was something a bit odd about her;

Taru Sinclair
Taru Lowe

That explains an awful lot.

Why is yawning contagious?

"New research suggests rather than being a precursor to sleep, the purpose of yawning is to cool the brain so it operates more efficiently and keeps you awake."

Not unlike a troll helmet then.

And does this mean (not having actually read the article yet) Alaskans (say) don't yawn, but Texan yawn all the time. And for that matter, if you put an Alaskan in Texas would he yawn all the time and think slow, and a Texan in Alaska would the reverse?

Should I buy a walk in freezer for my brother to do his homework in so he has some hope of passing anything ever?

Daily Mail Readers = Prince Fans?

So I caught this article basically saying that Prince's new album is going to be given away free with the Mail (I think 'on Sunday') . Which leads me to think two things.

1. Do the kinda people who listen to Prince read the Mail? Do the kind of people who read the Mail listen to Prince? Is the combo likely to convert one to the other? I think the answer to the above is prob' no. I suspect it is going to result in a lot of copies of the Mail in the nearest recycling bin to the newsagents, and lot of Prince albums on freecycle (though I'm not 100% that Mail readers are overly likely to freecycle either), charity shops, landfill.
   

1. Was this really a sensible thing to do? Okay it's made for great launch publicity for the album and impending tour dates. But, for a start I think it devalues Prince's 'brand' (not that he has much of presence at the mo' admittedly)- partly by being associated with the Mail (but that is in part my own personal bias) partly by being associated with a cover give-away (usually the domain of the long released album or cobbled together best of) but mostly because now his UK distributor has backed out of the deal meaning they ain't gonna sell many in the mainstream over here.

Anyway - what do I know about marketing. It still dumbfounds me that if, in the world of the ad, the only thing that matters is the amount of market presence a product has as many people would have me believe, companies still pay millions for celebrity endorsements and clever ads etc.

Anyway, that's just a bit of news that caught my attention. BTW speaking of such things I've got a nifty little gadget that shows my GoogleReader items what I have shared. I find something worth reading most days, but as I'm still trying to hone what subs I want to sign up for bear with me will ya'. Any suggestion gratefully recieved. You can also catch my public feed here and it has a little RSS dealie too, so you can subscribe to my shared items in your GoogleReader and then add them to your Shared items, so then I can subscribe and then add them to my shared items and - well you get the picture.

Germany Bans Small People

Well Person anyway.

I don't get it

I've joined FaceBook and, well, I don't get it.

I think I've set everything up alright; but I really don't understand why you'd bother. Anyway, I'm gonna give it a go. I might find it a really usefull tool, or I might not - or someone might tell me why.

I'm also annoyed 'cause I don't appear to be able to import this blog into it. No understanding as to why. If someone (Allie) could assit me with that it'd be great.

Arggh That Hurts _ !Really!

So I was at a weekend away for the GB medical team.

It was good; met up with some people I hadn't seen for a while, drank played games, chatted etc.

Part of this event was to make up mock caz scenarios; I was pretending to have a broken leg/entrapment type thing going on.

Anyway that isn't important. What is important is that while I was lying under the table pretending to have a broken leg a little bit of grit fell in my eye. So I ended up actually having a scratched eyeball!

So I provided a bit of training for my colleagues, which is nice.

Fine now. BTW.

Don't do disks!

Don't do disks!
Originally uploaded by stewils.

New Bike Stuff

As pointed out by everyone on the Easter holiday I had worn down my brake pads so far you couldn't see that there had ever been grooves or even pads nearly. Which isn't considered to be a good thing.

This meant the installation of new pads (after I got back from hols and had risked life and limb whilst there), which was carried out by Mr Smith, who rightly commented on how shit and hard to set up my brakes were. And that my levers didn't seem to work too good. This is all very true - the lever bit being at least in part from when I rode straight into the the corner of my garden wall having forgotten to do up the brakes one day. The brunt of the impact was taken by the lever body deforming it not a little and preventing the lever clicking back far enough and the brake disengaging properly.

Anyway, it was decided (and vetted by the boss) that I must have new brakes, levers etc. etc. I now have these. And they are lovely. They are a pair of Avid Arch Rivals with SD7 levers, and they stop you very quickly, if that's what you want. They also stop you very slowly if need be - you just have to remember that you don't need to squeeze the bejesus out of the levers anymore.

I'm telling you 1. cause I can't think of anything better to tell you at the mo' and 2. because when Mr Smith renewed the brakes on his bike (and generally tweaked them) and Ste subsequently borrowed the bike Ste managed to do a kinda evil Knievel somersault over the handlebars, whilst moving at slow speed on a clear piece of freshly tarmaced road. Apparently he gently squeezed the brakes and the front wheel locked up. Muppit.

So Ste, consider yourself warned.

Still Poorly

So, as previously mentioned I have a cold, and still I have a cold. Which I think it is unfair as I first started with the thing on Monday last. Admittedly, I can now just about function like a human being, but a coughing spluttering one.

Whining aside, Did speak to the chimney engineer dude. Very helpful, but still no closer to having a chimney that works really. We need someone to nod their head and say "yes, do it" officially, as it were. Takes a long time to get a nod on occasion. In other house related news; well there isn't any really. Architect got back in touch just as I was about to phone her and say 'erm, hows things going you haven't emigrated or died of the plague or anything have you' (this is no comment on the current architect, or her level of communication; merely a general distrust profession). And the wiring continues to grow down the walls of my house like some kinda grey trailing ivy whose roots appear and curl up into little loops every now and then.

And my nephew (edit for getting the relationship right) has chicken pox - which means my sons will no doubt have the pox in a couple of weeks also. So that's something to look forward to ain't it.

Speaking of the smallest; went to visit my dad at the weekend on his boat. Didn't go anywhere stayed moored. But my tiny son still managed to fall backwards head first into the canal between the boat and the pontoon. Given that he is only 2 it was more than a little scary. Luckily my dad managed to grab his ankle and haul him out of the canal before there were any great ill effects. But it made the rest of the visit more than a little stressful for everyone as they kept a constant watch on him; he not being one to learn form his mistakes.

Well I guess that'll do for now. I've gotta get dressed and go and see Horrible Histories at the theatre. More later.

It's over a month..

..Since I last posted - as pointed out by Ste. Sorry I have been more than a little tardy in my updating but this has been confounded by two factors

1. Been doing lots of sorting stuff out with Newhouse. And as a portion of this seems to involve me 'researching' stuff on the web I have ample distraction when I could be blogging.

2. They've got better at filling my time when I'm at work/I haven't done any nights in ages. So no stretches of time in which I keep all you lovely people up to date with what is happening in my life.

So the house - Well, we've had the roof done (quite some time ago, may have made reference to that already) It is now sporting some very large pieces of wood, which'll help stop it all falling in on its self (hopefully). We've removed the bath from the bathroom so it can be better utilised as a bedroom. Cleared out most of the furniture that was hanging around in the Kitchen. It's now hanging around in the kitchen of S&G's new house along with all their stuff. A very expensive furniture store it is indeed.

Hmmm, what else. Well the sparkies are in - they are re-wiring the house. Replacing all the cables that have been crushed and what have you. So that's cool.

And we have yet another architect on the job. But she seems pretty good, coming form a conservation point of view that is pretty much with us.

The other main thing I've been doing is, as Mr Smith has most dutifully pointed out, indulging in a bit of porn'. Don't get too excited, this is stove porn' (still not as interesting as your fetid little mind thinks Ste). Yep, been doing some heavy research into pellet stoves. They are cool.

Have look here if you really want to and here - it's a google map I made. I'm relatively proud of it. The kaboodle site doesn't have all the places/models we are looking at on it - but I think the map does. If anyone ahs any other suggestions that's be great.

Actually if I haven't blogged for a while then kaboodle is always a good place to see what I'm up to - I'm increasingly using snip stuff out the inter-tangle.

Anyway, I need to sign of as we are due to meet a chimney engineer - more on that later, at Newhouse. What a surprise.

TTFN

Red Dwarf Strikes Again

I would appear that Holly from Red Dwarf has been moonlighting doing spoken word instructions for a chimney lining company!

Click on the link and then press the play button and you'll see what I mean.

Just like him init? Same really-very-interested tone of voice and everything.

Back again

(forgot to post this when I shoudl have sorry).

Okay, I have indeed been tardy in my upkeep of the blog of late. But I wish to make up. Since easter (as per piccy) I have mainly been on holiday in Devon. Which is nice. We were their for a week in a lovely, lovely house. Did a few things like..

went to Castle Drogo which is the last castle to have been built in Britian and was built in the early C20th by some geezer who was cheesed his family didn't have an ancestral pile for him to inherit.

Went to a miniture pony centre where they had what seemed to me to be the worlds smallest, roundest horses (and some other things)

Went to Cockington which is a little presereved in time type village just outside of Torquay (for the sole purpose of having cream teas, yeah).

And did various other things that I can't really recall now, as I apparantly didn't psot this post at the time. So here you go. Oh, went to a widllife park near some burnt lettuce.

Easte Egg Hunt

Yeah For the Easter bunny

Wrong, wrong, wrong

So they Gang up On me HUH!

Well theya re wrong, so so wrong. And millions(ish) of photobloggers agree with me - Here's a couple picked at random by way of evidence (something I notice they are a little scant on, nah :})

http://www.knootchyblog.com/
http://www.manyhighways.com/photoblog/

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Sandwitch

Sandwitch
Originally uploaded by tatespa.

Another "guess what I shot". The gauntlet has been laid down on this one thuogh. The guy who posts it reckons it's hust tooo tough. We don't think so. Give and good guess!

Newhouse

As regards work on Newhouse - bought a stove today - yippee.

Admitedly it will be some time before we are in a position to fit it. But it's what we need and it was cheap.

It's one of these - Wamsler 148 CL

Eclipse

Moon Phases
Originally uploaded by seanhepburn2006.

Managed to see the lunar eclipse on Last Night - but only just.
We caught the end of it - when it was just very red. Look impressive none the less. I didn't manage to get any pictures of it at all though!

However, Sean did much better.

Hmmmm

Wonder if you can fore-date post's and as such keep them semi-peminantly at the top of the blog?

Let's see shall we?