Musings of a Muppet

Last Easter, travellers armed with hardcore setup camp in Blackmore on greenbelt land, and subsequent attempts to remove them have failed, including an appeal to the High Court.

There has been a recent hearing at local level where information has emerged that one of the travellers owns a property in Melton Mowbray, and the other traveller claiming he has nowhere else to go actually rents a property in another part of the country.

http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/news/BLACKMORE-163-110k-home-owned-illegal-traveller/article-1762673-detail/article.html

It’s about time the powers that be did the right thing for the local taxpayers and these ‘travellers’ should be forcibly evicted.
Our greenbelt land is under enough of a threat through housing pressure as it is, and small villages that no-one seems to care about deserve protection against illegal developments.

The area of Brentwood is already having to find 14 sites for travellers and I trust these will be brownfield sites and will be monitored and enforced to stop another Crays Hill travesty from happening.
I am sure that if the current illegal site was in the backyard of the High Court Judge that said they could stay, his verdict would have been different.

True travellers should be given help to change their lifestyle, but these parasites in Blackmore are trying to use the guise of a traveller to bypass planning laws and destroy yet more of our precious greenbelt land.

When will our laws protect those that pay the taxes?

Panarama is on and talking about something like 1 in 4 of toddlers are obese by the time they start nursery.

Few people can say that I am obese now or was in primary school. However when I started school, I was a complete chunkster. I ate the food my mum cooked for me, and had a balanced diet, I played outside and loved sport, yet I was chunky. Even my husband has trouble believing the photos of me are in fact me at the age of around 4/5 years of age.

The point is that at that age kids are still developing and their body shape can completely change – I am proof of that. It worries me a little in case our kids take after me and start out life being a bit chunky – will they be classified as obese and make me feel like a bad mother? Will anyone listen to what happened to me as a kid, or will James and I be force fed the fad of the day to keep our kids weight down? We don’t seem to accept that some things just occur and they will rectify themselves.

I had homemade food and always ate my vegetables and was still chunky, ran around (a lot). So what would the child dieticians say my mum did wrong? In this day and age it would have been questioned why I was so chunky but they couldn’t blame it on processed foods because we didn’t have any.
Answers on a postcard please…

With our first performance of Blackmore’s Got Panto due to be staged tonight, we were greeted with the news this morning that there would be no heating in the village hall due to some scum stealing the outside copper piping. As tonight is our invited audience of OAP’s this is a very serious matter.

To my knowledge, Blackmore Village Hall is a privately run venture without any involvement from the Parish Council. The groups that use the village hall complex pay rent to help keep everything going, so these scum are literally stealing from the Blackmore Residents.

The village hall was built by the residents of the village back in the 60s. And I mean they literally built it with their own hands. The fact that very little vandalism has occurred at the village hall in the last 40 years is testament to how respected the facility is by the majority of the villagers.

I wonder if the sudden increase in petty theft in the area has anything to do with the residents that suddenly arrived at Easter last year and started to develop the greenbelt land they had bought. And then some wanker of a judge at the High Court decided to let them continue despite greenbelt land being destroyed. I may be jumping to conclusions, but it is my blog and I shall jump to whatever conclusions I like.

I wonder how long it will be after the pipes are replaced that they will disappear again. SCUM.

Now I am home in the comfort of my sofa with a steaming cuppa by my side and dinner in the oven, I think it’s time to reflect on today’s dress rehearsal!

I started the day getting the final bits of costume, namely tights and hair grips, and by midday the dress rehearsal nerves kicked in. I’ve been doing shows at Blackmore for the last 11 years so it is beyond me why nerves still exist. So I left my husband and drove to Blackmore stopping at the flat in Boreham en route to find a few last minute things. Once in the car and out on the open road the nerves left me. Maybe the nerves exist because I’m worried some idiot will have an accident and close the A12 – then I’d be in trouble!

I got to the hall without incident for about 2pm and started getting ready – laid out my costumes to make sure I had everything I needed, and got my makeup done.
After a wander round and chatting to a few people, I sat down to go through my lives. Remarkably, we started on time at 3pm, and I had no nerves at all!

Well considering the shambles of a rehearsal that we had on Friday evening, I think the dress rehearsal went very well, despite a few dodgy bits. In the past we have done a dress rehearsal followed by a full run through minus costume which can be quite exhausting, but I fully expected to have to do some of the bits that were quite frankly dire. But we didn’t. Instead we have a script only rehearsal tomorrow night and no other rehearsal!
Yes that’s right we go straight into the show for the OAPs on Wednesday without no further stage rehearsal! That’s a first!

Well, I’m glad we have a rehearsal tomorrow night as I think it would feel odd having 2 nights off then straight into a show.

I will keep my fingers crossed and hope my nerves stay away so I can enjoy my last panto for a while.

Well guys and gals, it’s finally happened! A government has come out and said people should use a different web browser for the sake of security.
I am waiting for the waste of space Prime Minister to issue a similar warning, but seeing as I would imagine that all government systems are based around Microsoft products, I very much doubt it will materialise.

In the wake of the most recent security flaw found in Internet Explorer, the German government has recommended that web users find an alternative browser. The latest flaw affects versions 6, 7 and the recently released 8 and is widely believed to be the reason that Google has been the target of recent cyber attacks.

If you are looking for an alternative, try Firefox or Google Chrome.

At present, Microsoft have not issued a patch for this update and they are citing that it’s a problem because it covers three browser versions.
Well Microsoft, version 6 is years out of date and riddled with problems so why don’t you just force people to upgrade to version 7, then you are just down to 2 versions. You wouldn’t be supporting a commercial product that flawed and old so put your users first for once.
Microsoft, I would also suggest that you improve your beta testing and pay some of these hackers to find the flaws that are exposed on a monthly basis.

The Haiti earthquake has got me thinking how easy it can be to exploit people’s good nature.

With the collective conscience of so many people being pricked, especially on social networking sites such as Twitter, it would be easy to set up a website claiming to be collecting for the Haiti earthquake victims. For career criminals creating a website that looks like a real bona-fide charity website is a piece of cake and it happens all the time.

With people re-tweeting website URLs at the drop of a hat, usually using a URL shortening service, how many people actually check the website URL they are going to?
Use the whois service to check the owner of the website and make sure you are giving your money to a respected organisation, and not a criminal.
Ask yourself if the URL looks genuine, and if you are unsure, then ask someone who might know.

Before handing over your hard earned cash to any charity appeal, make sure the website you are on is not a scam.

Now the big thaw has started (perhaps), I wonder how many businesses are now considering the importance of using local workers?

With so many people seeming to have taken “snow days” over the last week or so, because they couldn’t get to work, businesses are now going to have to battle with people who insist they shouldn’t have to take a days holiday and should still be paid. I have to say that if a company allows you to take holiday they are still being generous. Businesses need their employees in order to function so if without warning half of them don’t turn up, it puts the company in a difficult position, and puts a lot of pressure on those who have turned up.
However, in this day and age, we should be able to arrange for employees to work from home. It’s difficult for call centre staff, but what about making sure everyone has access to their emails, and/or an emergency work mobile and people can work from home in special circumstances.

During the last week I have heard stories about one person getting to work, while someone else on the same road phoned in and said they couldn’t get in.
I think there have been far too many people who have used the snow as an excuse to not turn up for work, and if they really tried, they could have.

Therefore, if we continue to see extreme weather conditions, will businesses start to favour workers who live locally, and will we start seeing conditions added to contracts to state that not turning up to work in extreme weather will result in not being paid? We can but wait and see…

One of the main problems I have with websites that use locations, is that there is no definitive county list.
It drives me bonkers because so many people have so many ideas about things now.

I only care about geographic counties when I code for a website as that is the easiest way for people to recognise their own area. For example, although Middlesex was absorbed into the surrounding counties back in 1965, it is still recognised by the majority of us. In fact, until earlier this year when I was researching English counties, I thought it was still an official county.

There is also the problem that people insist that cities aren’t in a county as they are their own metropolitan boroughs, but again, I don’t care about the politics, it’s the geography that I care about. Some people just won’t have it though.

So why am I so concerned with using geographic (or cerimonial) counties rather than the up to date counties and metropolitan areas? It is to make websites easier for you my dear readers. If I were to list all the counties and metropolitan boroughs that now exist, you would have to wade through a massive list of names to find your county.

And if it’s hard to get a list of English counties, it is even harder to find a comprehensive list of Scottish and Welsh geographic counties. It’s harder for me to make decisions about Scottish and Welsh counties, as not only do they also contain metropolitan that are not considered part of a county, but they have had namechanges – and I don’t know which ones should be used. Northern Ireland and Eire in contrast, are easy to list!
Surely this shouldn’t be so difficult to find out, yet it is.
If you can help me out with geographic Scottish or Welsh county listings, then please leave a comment below!

If I ever get a comprehensive list, I may just dedicate a whole webpage to sharing that information?

To all those people backing Gordon Brown for PM…why?
He screwed up the UK’s finances as Chancellor, and he lacks the perceived charisma of Tony Blair as PM. Other EU leaders don’t seem to have much respect for him, and he seems to scared to make any policy changes that will make any difference to the UK.

Now, before we go on, I am stuck on who to vote for when the general election arrives as I consider all parties to have weak leaders, but I think it is better we find one that is going to be able to be a force within Europe, and not capitulate to everyone.

I am torn, because as a Tory at heart, I consider they will be our best chance for a quicker economic recovery and the party most likely to look long term, but as whoever gets in will have to raise taxes and cut public services, I don’t want it to be the Tories that get the blame for high taxes and no services. Any party that gets in will have to find money from somewhere to bridge the loans we now have.

Politics is now a media game and that is extremely frightning. I want the days of Thatcher and Kinnock back – people who didn’t give a tiny rats arse what the media said about them, because they believed in the policies they were advocating. And there was a clear line between the Conservatives and Labour.
I have no idea about any of the policies of any of the 3 main parties anymore because Labour swung over to the right which has confused everyone.

Personally, I don’t think we have a PM amongst our current crop of politicians. I want to see someone in power who believes in their policies, and has a long term plan for the country instead of firefighting issues as they come up. Someone who has the best interests of Britain at heart instead of their own personal gain.

We are still in the midst of our unprecedented cold snap, and people all over the country are taking ’snow days’ off from work and we are being told by the motoring organisations, the police and politicians, not to make a journey unless it is essential.

Well that’s all fine and dandy, but we all have different ideas of what is essential, don’t we.
I for one have always worked from home where possible, or taken the day as holiday when I don’t want to drive in snowy/icy conditions because I am lucky enough to have a job that I can do from home. I have however struggled to London on the trains in snow back when I was 18 and in my first job. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that it might even be a possibility that I could take the day off.
Consider a call centre for a breakdown company. In this weather they are already working over capacity, but with half their call centre workers not in, you will have to wait twice as long to get through to an already overworked and underappreciated worker who will then have to deal with you moaning because you have had to wait so long for your call to be answered. And you should be at work anyway!
If shops can’t open because there are no staff members to run the shop, we will soon have trouble with food shortages and the like.

Of course, a lot of people can’t get into work because public transport shuts down. I can’t count the amount of people I’ve heard who have been delayed by broken down trains during this cold snap. If trains are delayed and buses don’t run, it makes people less inclined to go to work. If you can’t rely on your transport home, why risk going in?

And what about other things? A trip to panto rehearsal probably wouldn’t be classified as urgent, yet with curtain up in less than 2 weeks, I would disagree!

Now I am no lover of driving in snow, slush and ice, but too often we are told to only go out if it is essential. We cannot and should not put our lives on hold everytime we get extreme weather. If this weather can be attributed to global warming then it is only going to get worse for us. We will get more and more extreme weather events and it is up to our councils to start thinking of alternative ways of dealing with things like this without spending money on snow ploughs and the like which will essentially be overkill.