Earthling

I often wonder how things would have turned out if the government of the day had let Northern Rock go bust instead of bailing them out WITH OUR MONEY. Would the rest of them have cleaned up their act a little? Would the UK have disappeared off the face of the Earth in a puff of fiscal smoke? Would the sky have fallen in, aliens landed, poles reversed and all the other Extinction Level Events that we were threatened with if we didn't bail out the banks with TAXPAYERS MONEY. All I remember was being told that we must give ALL OUR MONEY to the banks to preserve our Cabinet Ministers' chances of that good old non-executive directorship on the board of . Or something like that.

I really ought to start watching the news more. All this time, I've been thinking it was bailing out the banks to the tune of several tens of billions (whatever) that had got us into this mess. A true moment.

I'm STILL undecided about driving or publically transporting myself. Anyone know the deal with parking? Is it mostly taken up by exhibitors or do they have their own separate parking lot?

The Unexpected, of course.

Have a Good One. Working on your Birthday. Bummer.

When I first logged-on this morning, I thought something had gone wrong. Somewhere. Somehow. Don't we have a nice green?

Innit, just. We had a slight fall on Monday and that was my first experience of a beamer in the snow. ABS lights on and off like disco-dancing. Oh well, it won't always be winter.

We, too, have had The Good Word, and the Word is 12.15, but would all local staff (moi) remain until all the darlings have left site. Picture attached taken two minutes ago. When I came in this morning at 8.00, there was nothing, no snow at all. it's still coming down, by the way, and looks set for the next foreseeable. Someone remind me why I bought a soft-top roadster.

No, but if you hum a few bars, I'll soon pick it up.

HMV thought it wouldn't matter because they'd already taken the money for the vouchers. Like I said, Sharp Practice at best, stealing at worst, and no amount of law-quoting is going to make it right. Lawful? Yes. Right? No.

I've finally had enough of waiting for the Senior Tech to give the Windows 7 'Go', so I'm rolling it out myself at half-term. Replacing the machines in one of our main IT rooms at half-term and at the same time, I'll re-image the other IT room with 7. It just seems stupid to keep on buying new pc's with 4+Gig ram and then install 32-bit XP on them and I can't do it anymore. All the new staff laptops have 7 on them and a couple of admin pc's. I plan on 'doing' the rest of them after half term but before July. I've had policies and images ready for 7 for about two years now. But you can shove Windows 8 right back where you got it from, pointless on a pc. Still running a 2003 domain, though

Nothing's wrong with good old cash.........HMV accepted it for one of their Vouchers, so what's wrong with honouring the Voucher? Why should voucher holders/puchasers be last in the queue when it comes to reimbursement? Like X-13, I don't give a toss about the 'Unsecured Creditors' crap, HMV took money for vouchers, when they knew full well they were going into receivership, they should honour the vouchers, full stop. Anything else is just corporate sharp practice at best, and stealing at worst. But, oh gosh, these people are Company Directors and they live in big houses and drive big cars, surely they're too respectable to be guilty of sharp practice or stealing, aren't they? If you're trying to say, 'Why didn't that old man give his grandson cash?', then you'd have to ask him, not me or us.

Where is the greater theft? The board and probably all the major shareholders knew they were going into administration, but they still sold the Vouchers. Isn't that a form of stealing? It is, in my world. I applaud that old man, and I'd do the same if, in good faith, I'd bought my grandson a voucher which HMV/the vendor knew was going to be worthless. Companies and corporations get away with too much of this kind of thing, and it's always the paying customers and shop-floor staff who end up footing the bill.

Had it in a restaurant in France one time. It was ok, but I got saddled with the bill.

So embarrassing, I can't remember most of my teachers' names only their nicknames. Graeme(?) Wiliams, for helping me realise I really didn't want to learn Latin. John Young for making me anally retentive over spelling and punctuation. But most of all, and most important of all, Miss Trueman, for teaching me to read and write.

Hey, that'd be good............maybe they can be converted into apartment buildings instead so people can have somewhere to live and the ridiculous price of housing can come down. Same goes for all the dying High Streets. Just my two penn'orth.

I'm beginning to think that the Weathermen have been told to 'sex up' their act, go a little bit sensationalist, like the rest of the news media. Back before Xmas, we had dire warnings of 'The Beast from The East' which was going to put us all in a near Ice Age for the rest of the winter. What happened? Here, we had a couple of really very cold (not freezing, though) days, with crystal clear sunshine. So much for The Beast from The East. Yesterday, we were all sent home at 3.00 pm and at that time the snow was coming down really heavily. Ten minutes later, by the time I'd got home and indoors, it had stopped and was beginning to clear from the roads. So disappointing.

Head's just sanctioned a 3.00pm departure for all staff here, too, with a decision on late start, open or closed by 6.30 am tomorrow. Snow Days..............the ONLY thing snow is good for, in my opinion.

Halfway through January and our first 'light dusting' of snow here. Not enough to stop anyone getting in or to close the school, but the Head announced this morning in briefing that if it snows again, '.......feel free to leave at 3 o'clock if you think you might have problems getting home'. I can see the future, I see huge traffic-jams as 70-odd teachers head for the main-gate all at the same time......'just in case'.

Out of the Congestion Zone. My colleague suggested the M25/A12, but that's a quarter way round the whole M25, which seems a bit like going round the sun to meet the moon, as my Nan used to say. 2000+ parking spaces at the Excel itself. I was thinking, get there early enough, park up, then find somewhere for breakfast. I guess a phone call to ask if the exhibitors have taken all the parking spaces will probably decide it.

I rarely had any trouble with the M25 on a Friday, used to join it at the Dartford Tunnel (south to north) and seemed to miss all of the really bad jams. From the north side of the crossing, the only problem would be if if I got stuck behind an accident. Yeah, the M1 can be pretty bad round Jcn 8, but I won't use it to get home. See how I feel on the day, I suppose. I hate public transport, which all stems from the days when I was catching the train from Harpenden to Sidcup/Foot's Cray every day, which I gave up in order to drive there and back every day.

Coming from Herts, so it'll either be M1 then all (most of) the way round the North Circular, or M25, M11 and then down the North Circular. I was primarily wondering about parking, which looks pretty good and, of course, getting back up respective m'ways in the afternoon. It can't be as bad (famous last words) as when I was driving from Harpenden to Sidcup/Foot's Cray every day. Can it?

Been looking at the 'How to get there?' stuff and I'm seriously thinking about driving. That'll be on the Friday. Any one got any caveats or recommendations? Vroom.

Just watched the cookshop video and realised it's way too big for my postage stamp sized kitchen. So I thought about it all some more and now I've realised that it's not a cooker I need...............it's a Cook.

Looks suspiciously like this one to me JML Halogen Oven Review | Halogen Oven Reviews Interesting idea, though, I'm so fed-up of cooking lately, the amount of preparation and stuff just for myself.