andy s

This is a test from my PDA.

“Claustrophobic pirates vs. hypercondriac ninjas. Who would win?”


(via)

I’ve been having a play with the Jamcams that the BBC now have on their site for some of the areas in the UK, such as mine. I’ve also discovered that the Highways Agency (who maintain the national Motorway network in the UK have RSS feeds of their traffic information.

I noticed that the XML the Jamcams site uses and the RSS feeds from the Highways Agency have location information in them. Coupled with Google Maps… and you get this.

It only covers South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester properly at the moment, but keep an eye out if you’re interested in seeing more.

The latest in the let’s-label-everything-because-people-are-dumb craze is alcohol, because apparently people in Scotland are drinking too much. Stereotypes aside, it’s not only Scotland that this happens in, but the whole country.

For my sins, I both smoke and drink. I’m reminded every time I buy a pack of fags that I’m probably going to die younger because of it, a fact I’m not disputing for a second. However, I know this already, not because of a ridiculously out-of-place warning on the side of the packet - I know this because I’m not an idiot.

The unfortunate trend in this country is to label just about everything that may be remotely dangerous as being so. Expect cigarette packet-style warnings not only on your favourite brand of lager (”Warning: May cause domestic violence”), bitter (”Bitter makes you grow a beard and wear sandals”), vodka (”Warning: Vodka tastes like shit”) or alcopop (”Warning: Choose a proper drink. You’re not 13 any more”), but also on cars (”Beware: Cars move forward when accelerator is pressed”) and cutlery (”Warning: Do not stab self in eye with fork”).

You have been warned.

2.99 - 29 = 2.79?

…and at Sundown Adventure Land, just in case kids feel like lighting up:-

Courtesy of marcinEc on the b3ta board

…I think I’m going to wet myself with excitement:-

I’ve probably just jinxed it now.

Well, it’s pretty much been a shit two months. I think I’ve found the real way to summon the rain, and that’s by washing the car.

At the end of June, I had to dash home to prevent my house from disappearing under Lake Stainforth. Writing this now after the floods in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire (and even on my doorstep in Toll Bar) it’s fair to say that we probably got off lightly, but even so the insurance claim just for the contents runs to over a grand.

A month later and the garden’s mostly back to how it was, but the conservatory has no floor, no skirting boards, needs replastering and redecorating, and the furniture is in our living room, which in itself needs the floor replacing. With the waiting list for builders somewhere around 6 months, nothing’s going to get sorted any time soon.

We’ve taken a bit of a pasting with the weather, as the pictures (and video) below show. These are from the bridge over the River Don in Fishlake.

There’s a few more pictures in this forum thread, and some on flickr here.

A furthe headache emerged this week for Doncaster Council when it emerged that the district auditor is probing further into the doomed Education City project. The Free Press has learnt that £1.5m was poured into the project by the council, Doncaster College and the Learning and Skills Council, of which a staggering £1m was spent on consultants, £7,000 on a fact finding trip to Australia and £1,500 for a private plane for the Mayor to get back from the Labour conference to Doncaster at short notice. £22,000 was also spent on ‘entertainment’ - the people of Doncaster are used to the comedy that is the Council, but this takes the biscuit.

For the full article you’ll need to buy this week’s Free Press, but also paid out for was a brand new BMW X5, and a personalised plate.

Also being slammed this week are the council’s recycling facilities. Apparently, only two facilities exist in the area (at Armthorpe and Carcroft) for recycling plastic bottles - which are now full - and the recycling centres’ staff’s advice has been to chuck them in the bin.

When will they ever learn?