Home sweet home

I’ve just spent the week up at my son’s house. The reason being was that he was due for another three day course of radiotherapy. The radiotherapy is the easiest part of the affair, except for the three days of boredom he suffers from being in isolation during it. The biggest problem is that he has to go off his Thyroid medication which leaves him exhausted and somewhat confused at times. Quite rightly he takes the sensible decision that driving would be stupid, and therefore I disappear up there to do the driving for him.

However I digress from the point I was going to make. My son brought up the fact that what most cheered him up after leaving hospital for his home, was the freedom  living in your own home gives you. You make the rules. (Except in my case, Mrs FE. Or so she thinks. Why else do I send her out to work in the week?).

Your home at present is pretty free from government control at the moment (Although the Tobacco control industry have ideas on that one), and so it should remain. In my home I can get up when I want, wear what I want, eat what I want, drink what I want, set the thermostat at what temperature I want, decorate it how I want, Beat the wife when I want etc, etc,etc.

It’s the last bastion of freedom in this benighted country of ours. Consider if you will, how the rules change once you set foot of your own property.

Surveillance, petty officialdom, no smoking in public places, harassed for taking pictures in a public space, etc. You know the score. In fact add your pet favourite in the comments and I’ll write a post about some of them.

Home sweet Home

.

Bloody computers

A while ago I decided to drag out my reserve computer. The laptop.

I noticed that there was 84 security updated from Microsoft pending, and being a gullible, but trusting fool, decided to download them. Now that was a mistake too far. As any of you who have windows know, once they’re downloaded you are asked to shut down the computer in order for them to take effect.
So I did and the machine shut down and then restarted. Followed shortly with the message “Windows is installing new updates” Great.

Well, not really. That same message was still being displayed after 42 hours. Didn’t matter how I rebooted the laptop the same still happened. Nothing I tried would persuade this piece of devil’s spawn from doing anything else.

Solution. Reload the operating system, in this case Windows 7.

Now you have two options when installing windows 7. Clean install, or Upgrade. Clean install is more efficient but you lose all your data. Upgrade will keep your data but not as efficient at operating.
Upgrade was the chosen option in this case and after several hours of hard drive working, the classical message of “Installation complete, windows needs to shut down and restart for completion”. (Or some such).
So be it. That’s how you carry out an upgrade install.

Wrong.

What did I see on my desktop? Nothing but a recycle bin!
Everything gone.

Now I do have a back up of important documents, so that wasn’t a problem, but the lack of word processor and other useful programmes is a bit of a handicap.

So I thought I would just download Open Office, Anti Virus software, and anything else I would need.

Wrong again.

No WiFi.

Bastards.

After a lot of asking around I managed to download by using the desktop computer, a programme that might, or might not, be able to get the wiFi operating on the laptop.

Now of course you’re expecting a tale of woe in that it didn’t work. Much to my amazement it did work.

However I have another dilemma. At the moment I’m at my son’s place having just helped him break out of his prison cell Isolation ward. I installed Ubuntu as a second operating system some while ago and want to get rid of it as this laptop is running out of available space. Having looked at all the online articles about ,removing said programme I think I’ll play safe and wait till I’m within striking distance of my Windows seven disk. As they say. Once bitten twice shy.

Tomorrow I go home.

Last will and testament

 

 

That’s them disinherited then.

The Myth of Second Hand Smoke

narrative from a surgeon.

http://yourdoctorsorders.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-second-hand-smoke/

The Surgeon General also stated that 49,000 deaths per year were caused by second hand smoke. As a surgeon, I was stunned, because I had never seen an autopsy report listing second hand smoke as the cause of death. Nor had I seen this as a secondary cause of death. So I asked six pathologists if they had ever listed second hand smoke as a cause of death – not one had. In my years of clinical practice, I have seen patients die from many devastating diseases, and yet I have never seen anyone who has been disabled by, or has died as a result of, second hand smoke. This was my first clue that perhaps there was more hyperbole than science involved in the reports issuing from the Surgeon General’s Office. To give a contrast: 33,000 people die per year of pancreatic cancer – all of the pathologists have listed pancreatic cancer as a cause of death.

And he continues.

If second hand smoke exposure is a significant risk factor for developing lung cancer, then we should expect to see increased numbers of cancer cases in non-smokers who are exposed to regular doses of second hand smoke. Has there been an increase in the incidence of lung cancer among non-smokers over the last 40 years? The answer is quite simply… No. 

Why is it that our health minister never gets to see articles like this? Instead they get fed a diet of obfuscation from the tobacco control industry, with words like maybe, could, it is thought, etc.

Personally, I think that the average minister in Government and their sycophantic senior civil servants are as thick as pig shit. No wonder no-one votes anymore. how many  MPs have held down a real job before

Would it not be more fitting if a government minister had some relevant experience to his job. Take our so called health minister.

Born in Hornchurch, Essex, Lansley was educated at Brentwood School and the University of Exeter, gaining a BA in politics. During his time at Exeter University, Lansley was elected as President of the Guild of Students (Student Union), as a Broad Left candidate.

It’s interesting in the above paragraph that he was a “Broad Left” candidate. we all know how the left love control.

In short, would it not be a prerequisite that ministers have to be qualified in a discipline to match their brief?

the Prime Minister must have run a multi million company.

The chancellor of the exchequer must have operated in the financial markets.

The Minister of defence must have actually served in the armed forces

The Minister for overseas aid should have been an ambassador to some shithole of a country.

Bye now I hope you’ve got the gist of my argument.

It all boils down to the fact the country is being run by people that are completely out of their depth. And it’s not going to get better in the short, medium, or long term.

You and me are screwed.

Day two of his incarceration.

The young man enters the room followed by the grizzled old man and Miss P, and looks at where he will be confined.

The austere, cream covered walls are lined, high up at one end’ with a plethora of electrical sockets and various unknown equipment. Taking up most of the room is an iron bedstead made up with well used linen. Bearing in mind the reason for his incarceration there is an on suite bathroom suitable for disabled access, although the young man is not disabled, just weak from what he has had to deprive himself of in the last few weeks.

within minutes a middle aged woman enters the room and sets out various terms and conditions for the young man and his two companions. The young man is warned that he will be incarcerated for an indeterminate period and will only be allowed out of the facility when he is no longer a danger to the general public. His two companions are informed that during visiting hours they will be limited to 30 minutes only, and no longer. Thus ends day two.

Question time for my regular readers;

Q1: who is the young man?

Q2: Who is the grizzled old man/

Q3: Who is the mysterious miss P?

Q4: Why the reason for the incarceration?

to be continued……………

One man knows, and his name is Dave Wheeler.

*That will really confuse you*

Good parking

just an interim post. Don’t laugh at the poetic justice.

As the coffin was being lowered into the ground at a Traffic Wardens funeral, a voice from inside screams "I'm not dead, I'm not dead. Let me out!"

The Vicar smiles, leans forward  sucking air through his teeth and mutters.....

"Too fucking late pal, the paperwork's already done"

Day one of his incarceration. the sequel.

It all started on an overcast and drizzly evening. The old grizzled man and Miss P were escorting the tall young man along a poorly lit corridor where the occasional flickering fluorescent light cast strangely disturbing shadows. Was it their imagination, or was that a fleeting glimpse of a shadowy figure that they never actually saw directly?

Progress was slow as the young man had had his medication withdrawn, some weeks before, and a weariness had set in. However a wan smile was often noticed by,his two guardians on several occasions on that walk. Could that be, they surmised, that he was savouring his recently last substantial, and nourishing meal, before the uncertainty of the of the quality and quantity food he would have to attempt to pretend he enjoyed, during this incarceration?

Eventually they arrived at the door of his place of incarceration, and after looking apprehensibly at each other opened the door……….

Cranmer v ASA.

I posted just the other day about Cranmer, a religious blogger with a sense of humour who is being “investigated” by the Advertising Standards Authority about an advert on his blog.

Here his reply to them.

ASA – His Grace responds

i wonder what they’ll make of it. Po faced twats

be careful lobbing at the green

Guess what happens?

Bet you didn’t guess correctly. Me neither.

Book Report - Priceless

Students  at a local school were assigned to read two books,  'Titanic' & 'My Life' by Bill  Clinton.

One  student turned in the following book report, with the  proposition that they were nearly identical stories!

His cool professor gave him an A+ for this  report

Titanic:        cost -  $29.99
Clinton:       cost -  $29.99

Titanic:        Over 3  hours to  read
Clinton:       Over 3  hours to read

Titanic:        The story of  Jack and Rose, their forbidden love, and subsequent  catastrophe.
Clinton:       The  story of Bill and Monica, their forbidden  love,  and subsequent catastrophe.

Titanic:        Jack is a starving artist.
Clinton:       Bill is a bullshit artist.

Titanic:        In one scene,  Jack enjoys a good cigar.
Clinton:       Ditto  for Bill.

Titanic:        During the ordeal, Rose's dress gets ruined.
Clinton:       Ditto for  Monica.

Titanic:        Jack teaches Rose to spit.
Clinton:       Let's not go there.

Titanic:        Rose gets to keep her jewellery
Clinton:       Monica is  forced to return her gifts.

Titanic:        Rose  remembers Jack for the rest of her life.
Clinton:       Clinton remembers  Monica for the rest of his life.

Titanic:        Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.
Clinton:       Monica...ooh, let's not go there,  either.

Titanic:        Jack surrenders to an icy death.
Clinton:       Bill goes  home to Hilary - basically the same thing.