Great album!

A flurry of new albums have just been launched - oasis, seasick steve, keane, snow patrol......

But my favorite out of all of them has to be Snow Patrol's latest album "A hundred million suns"

Excellent - just go out and buy it!

BMW service - it depends on who you talk too...

Been a frustrating day today. Decided to replace the tyres on the wife's beemer as we have a free day at the end of the holiday. BMW tried to get us to replace tyres with them for £800...i called my usual guy over at Micheldever tyres (i do the landie, beemer and the 2 bikes there)...and was quoted £350 all in (including the tracking). Same tyres! Booked appointment with tyre fitters to avoid queues go out to car and discover there is no adaptor to take off the anti-theft bolts on the rims! Dash over to bmw dealer - sorry we don't stock these - tuesday we can get it in. Bugger i am back to work then. Leave dealership. Call tyre to figure out if they have adaptors - "sorry there are about 20 per bmw model so we would drill then out and replace with non-anti theft device".....err, lets cancel the appointment. I rang same BMW dealer to order the part. Talked to a different guy and after a number of questions he says "why don't you come in, we can use our master set to check which one you need, i can sell you that one, then we can backorder for ourselves"...oh ok! The adaptor was only £4 - but the upshot was i visited the bmw dealer twice in one day, ended up at the tyre shop, missed my appointment and had to wait 30 mins (as they are popular).... all-in-all i wasted 2.5hrs i didn't need to.

Don't get me wrong, the 2nd guy at bmw was helpfull and thought out of the box - but when you buy a premium car you expect a bit of help.

Especially as the recent service was £392 and quite frankly everyone in the service dept was plainly awfull - but thats a story for another day.

If your thinking of buying a BMW in the UK.....try and figure out what the aftersales is like. We have a BMW dealer in hampshire which is part of a big group and they stink whilst on the other hand there is a dealer that own's just 3 dealerships and they act like a family business - keen to help, trustworthy, etc. I just wish i lived nearer to them

Hanged!

By a bit of luck and help from a friend I have had a couple of pictures selected in a photo competition!

Turns out on of our office's was looking for some photo's to brighten up the office. Folks from that office were asked to submit. I think they had about 100 photos submitted. My friend pinged me and asked if i had any to submit. Luckily i had a few on my work laptop under Google screen saver. I sent 5 images up and two were selected. At least one has been printed at A0 size. (the image to the left of this text!)

Absolutely chuffed to bits. Hope it's not hanging in the loo! Just got to find an excuse to visit the office near Manchester. Probably have to wait to November. Can't wait.

Stourhead - Part II

Lovely gardens - laid out in the 18th century. Well worth a visit if you near warminster, wiltshire.

Stourhead - Part 1

Always good to look up when your taking pictures. Spied this opening in a cave whilst in the stourhead gardens.

National Trust volunteers

We visited stourhead estate last weekend. It's as National Trust trust property and is fantastic for a number of reasons. The trust took it over from the Hoare family (yep those private banker folks).

Any how. Picture the scene. We are inside the main house having a look at the grand public rooms. In each room there are fact sheets and national trust volunteers to guide and keep an eye on the light fingered! Most volunteers are retired folks.

We enter one room, i head for the fact sheet whilst J likes to talk with the volunteer (in her late 80's - prim and proper) . J notices in this room there is as small TV, copy of the radio times and a small tray with bottles of booze on it. Mmmhh not very 18th-century. What's up here ? J starts the following conversation:

J: "So does someone live in these rooms today?"
Vol: "Yes outside of visiting hours"
J: "are they descendants of the original owners?"
Vol: " Yes they are Hoares (pronounced "whores")"

(at this point i have to leave the room through bouts of school boy sniggering)

Volunteer realises what she said and adds after a short pause in a dry and serious voice "in name only".

All you can hear at this point is one seriously creased up 40yr old laughing his head off somewhere at the far end of a long corridor.

Perfect script + comedy timing made it even funnier

£2000 in old money

Having got back from holiday i've downloaded over 1000 photo's taken over the two weeks.

If i had used 35mm that would have cost me £2000 in film + D&P.

Amazing to think how technology lowers the cost in some areas.

Now i just have to sort through them (which is a time cost) and then print some out (some cost in ink and paper). Though i think i win out here as i have 1,000+ memories of our holidays.

and you think your commute's bad!

We just got back from 2 weeks in North Devon. We stayed on a farm, 1 mile down a country lane from the nearest "main road".

On the way home we found a £250,000 combine trying to get down the lane. Funniest bit of driving i have seen for a long time. Brings a new perspective on the commute to work.

No way to spend 2hrs

Thursday evening i just got home after a 11hr day at workand i hear "oh, i don't think i should have opened that!"

Yup - Virus uploaded on our XP machine at home. It downloaded what looked like its own Virus checker to the machine by backdoor as well. Managed to shutdown malicious processes fairly quickly.

I spent 2hrs with regedit, deleted programes and DLL's and generally being grumpy! I think i might look at a Mac for home!

Final 40th celebration!

The 40th birthday celebrations have been a long road (pun intended). From shooting in Gleneagles, shoot/support with Alan, , family weekend at centreparcs, the BMW offroad skills course and now last weekend I got to spend the 40th birthday vouchers from my mates - a morning at castle combe racing school! After some instruction in a ford focus we got let loose in a single seater formula ford. Castle combe is 1.85 miles long and bumpy. Overall a good circuit. Comments from the instructor assessment were - "a great drive, very good lines. remember - slow in and fast out. brake early @ quarry. Very good in all other braking zones". Seems being a biker helps hook up turn-in, apex and exit of corners. Obviously has never seen me on public roads! Seems i was trying to be fast in and fast out! Might try this single seater lark again. Top day out.