If Life Was Maths

 

I’m drinking some 100% at this moment.

Holiday

On Sunday, I and my family, plus Brother in law and family, are off to sunny Portugal for two weeks. Blogging will most probably be light to non-existant whilst I'm there. So I just thought I'd share a couple of pics of where we're going to be staying. Here's the blurb firstly.

Nestling between Lagos & Bensafrim, is one of the most beautiful villas in the Algarve. Close to Lagos, Luz & many beaches, this villa ticks all the boxes. Large or small groups, this villa can cater for any size. 5 double bedrooms in the main villa, with a sofa bed & fold up bed, connected by the BBQ area, & seating for 16, there is a modern 3 bedroom wing with kitchen & bathroom, that can sleep 6. The villa comprises of a large hall, with flat screen, Wii Game, Playstation2, opening into the main living area, a large converted barn, flat screen, SKY TV, & books. This leads to the large high ceiling kitchen & Dinning area, through the patio doors, leads to the BBQ enclosed courtyard, ideally set, for the kitchen and pool area. Adjacent to this, is the spa, a must for those lazy evenings watching the sunset. This opens to the pool and bar area, with large pool, undercover bar, with fridge, sink and large dining table, stereo & lighting. The pool is safely enclosed with gates.

Image 2 of 20 from an advertisement for Villa Charlotte on Holiday Lettings.
Find more Holiday homes in Lagos.

Image 3 of 20 from an advertisement for Villa Charlotte on Holiday Lettings.
Find more Holiday homes in Lagos.

The villa is located in the western Algarve region of Portugal.  The weather is predicted to to be in the mid to late twenties, Warm but comfortable. The villa might look over the top for a holiday for many, but in fact the economies of scale do make it very reasonable compared with many package holidays. More to the point is that you can do what you want, when you want. To me that is the point of a holiday.

On a final note. I sincerely wish that you're all jealous.

Veet

I suspect you’ve seen this before. Still. Here it is again

THIS IS AN ACTUAL CUSTOMER REVIEW FROM A MAN ON AMAZON.CO.UK AFTER USING VEET HAIR REMOVAL CREAM FOR MEN.

“After having been told my danglies looked like an elderly Rastafarian I decided to take the plunge and buy some of this as previous shaving attempts had only been mildly successful and I nearly put my back out trying to reach the more difficult bits.

Being a bit of a romantic I thought I would do the deed on the missus's birthday as a bit if a treat.

I ordered it well in advance and working in the North Sea I considered myself a bit above some of the characters writing the previous reviews and wrote them off as soft office types...

Oh my fellow sufferers how wrong I was. I waited until the other half was tucked up in bed and after giving some vague hints about a special surprise I went down to the bathroom. Initially all went well and I applied the gel and stood waiting for something to happen. I didn’t have long to wait.

At first there was a gentle warmth which in a matter of seconds was replaced by an intense burning and a feeling I can only describe as like being given a barbed wire wedgie by two people intent on hitting the ceiling with my head.

Religion hadn't featured much in my life until that night but I suddenly became willing to convert to any religion to stop the violent burning around the turd tunnel and what seemed like the the destruction of the meat and two veg.

Struggling not to bite through my bottom lip I tried to wash the gel off in the sink and only succeeded in blocking the plughole with a mat of hair. Through the haze of tears I struggled out of the bathroom across the hall into the kitchen, by this time walking was not really possible and I crawled the final yard to the fridge in the hope of some form of cold relief.

I yanked the freezer drawer out and found a tub of ice cream, toe the lid off and positioned it under me. The relief was fantastic but only temporary as it melted fairly quickly and the fiery stabbing returned.

Due to the shape of the ice cream tub I hadn’t managed to give the starfish any treatment and I groped around in the drawer for something else as I was sure my vision was going to fail fairly soon. I grabbed a bag of what I later found out was frozen sprouts and tore it open trying to be quiet as I did so. I took a handful of them and an tried in vain to clench some between the cheeks of my arse. This was not doing the trick as some of the gel had found its way up the chutney channel and it felt like the space shuttle was running its engines behind me.

This was probably and hopefully the only time in my life I was going to wish there was a gay snowman in the kitchen which should give you some idea of the depths I was willing to sink to in order to ease the pain. The only solution my pain crazed mind could come up with was to gently ease one of the sprouts where no veg had gone before.

Unfortunately, alerted by the strange grunts coming from the kitchen the other half chose that moment to come and investigate and was greeted by the sight of me, arse in the air, strawberry ice cream dripping from my bell end pushing a sprout up my arse while muttering “ooooohhh that feels good”

Understandably this was a shock to her and she let out a scream and as I hadn’t heard her come in it caused an involuntary spasm of shock in myself which resulted in the sprout being ejected at quite some speed in her direction. I can understand that having a sprout fired against your leg at 11 at night in the kitchen probably wasn’t the special surprise she was expecting and having to explain to the kids the next day what the strange hollow in the ice cream was didn’t improve my status…so to sum it up, VEET removes hair, dignity and self-respect.”

Did it bring a smile to your face?

A reply at last.

Just under a month ago I read a letter in the comments to an article in the financial times. The letter was addressed to our prime minister.

It’s produced  on my site HERE. It's about climate change and energy supplies.

Anyway I thought the author wouldn’t mind if I used it. After a bit of adjustment I sent it to my MP. The reply received today is reproduced (Badly) below. My apologies for the poor quality, but I had to scan it and then snip the content.

 

It seems he is somewhere on the same planet as me.

I hate going on holiday.

I like the “being on holiday” part but loathe the “going bit”.

This time there is quite a party of us heading off to southern Portugal, where we’ve rented a villa for a couple of weeks.

Very nice you may say.

However as everyone else works (or say they do), FE was tasked with the organisation of the trip.

Flights:

Luckily I only had to book 6 places, but of course had to make sure everyone else was catching the same flight on the same day. On line booking is simple at first, but the money is up front and means that you have to claw it back from those who you are booking for.

Closer to the departure date it is time to check in on line. Here of course you have to be very careful. One small mistake and it’ll cost you to rectify it when you arrive at the airport. Yesterday I painstakingly filled the passport details of five of the six into the online form when to my dismay I found out that one of the party had failed to supply me with one crucial piece of information. Grrrr. Cancel whole effort.(Bloody kids).

Finally achieved it today

Getting to and from UK airport:

No chance with the cars that my little party possess to use our mode of transport. Five people, five suitcases, one small child , and a push chair needs some thinking about. Plus running up the equivalent to the National debt in airport parking charges is not an option.

I have however found a limousine company that will transport all of us and our luggage at a reasonable rate.

Boarding cards:

These can be printed out from the computer. However why does the airline, space all the boarding passes for the party with a blank page? (And why does the printer ink run out half way through?)

How to get from destination airport to the Villa.

Here is where I am tasked with organising for the whole group. Car hire for the period has always been the preferred option. It gives you the flexibility you need on holiday.

This is another case of balancing the needs of people and luggage. (A mistake a few years ago cost me 140 euros to rectify).

For our party, we require four medium size  cats. Simple you may say. However online you have to order all of them separately. You can’t write “I want four cars, how much?” And of course they want the money up front. And of course they want full driver details up front. We’re now back in airline check in territory. Grrrr (Again)

Anyway that’s enough moaning for tonight. I’m going to have a stiff drink and a lie down .

Don’t lose your passport

A rant. The perils of travelling abroad.

Dear Mrs. Ms. or Sir:

I am in the process of renewing my lost passport and still cannot believe this.

How is it that Argos has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a  TV from them in 1990 (23 years ago), and yet, the  Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. 
For Christ sakes, do you lots do this by hand?  Ever heard of computers?

My birth date is on EVERY income tax form I've filed  for the past 46 years. It's on my NHI card and my driver's license, It's on the last five bloody passports I've had. And it's on all those census forms that you insist I fill in.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Rosemary, my father's name is Anthony and I'm reasonably confident that neither name is likely to change between now and when I die. (Especially pertinent is that they are, in fact, dead.).  
Between you and me, I've had enough of this bureaucratic rubbish!

You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my  #*&#%*&address.

What is going on? You must have a gang of bureaucratic Neanderthal morons working there!

Look at my bloody picture. Do I  look like an arab terrorist?  And "No," I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for fuck sakes.  I just want to go and sit on a sun lounger on a sandy beach.

And would someone please tell me, why would you give a damn whether I plan on visiting a farm in  the next 15 days? 
If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now because I have to go to the other end of the the county and get another #*@&#^@*@&  copy of my birth certificate to the tune of £9.25.

Would it be so difficult to  have all the services in the same area so I could get a new passport the same day? Nooooo, that would require planning and organization.  And it would be too logical for the @&^*^%@%government.

You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off.  Then, we have to find some fuckwit to confirm that it's really me in the bloody picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed  to smile......Hey, you know why we can't smile?

 
We're totally pissed off!

 
Signed

- An Irate FE.

 
P.S.: Remember what I wrote about getting someone to confirm that the picture is me?  Well, my family has been in the UK since time began.  I have served in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary for something over 43 years and have had security clearances up to atomic secret.. However, I have to get someone important to verify who I am - you know, someone  like my doctor........   WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN INDIA !

Rant over. 

In with the new.

Two working men have toiled away fitting new carpets in FE towers. Mind you, I've been nearly exhausted as well. All that tea making for them has nearly worn me out. I ended up like the old carpet. Frayed at the edges.

Technology. Isn’t it great.

I’m now the proud owner of an Android tablet.

Asus TF300T 10.1-inch Multitouch Tablet with Keyboard (Blue) (Nvidia Tegra 3 1.4GHz, 1GB RAM, 32GB HDD, WLAN, BT, 2x Cam, Android 4.0)

The only trouble is that it has an Android operating system, and I’ve been brought up with windows, so I’m having to nearly start all over again in the operating system world.

I’m not too troubled as my phone is an android and I learnt the ins an outs of that eventually, so all is not dire.

The beauty of this tablet is that it has a good battery life of 5  hours. But that’s not all. The detachable keyboard also has a battery. This is claimed to add another 10 hours when attached. (Not like my laptop that barely lasted an hour even when new).

If any one can help me I’d be obliged. I need  blog writing software that is designed for the android system. My phone has Blogaway, but I would like something more sophisticated for the tablet.

Phantom of the Opera

I’ve never heard it played like this. Enjoyable to hear a different version.

Plain packs in the land of the leprechauns.

Live from thejournal.ie comes an article gloating about the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products in Eire.

AHEAD OF WORLD No Tobacco Day on Friday, the Minister for Health James Reilly has announced that Ireland is to become the second country in the world to introduce plain packets of cigarettes, after Australia.

(No Tobacco day. Memo to self: Buy extra on Friday).

Minister Reilly said he was “confident that this legislation will be justified and supported purely by the fact that it will save lives”.

And of course there is a poll. And we all love polls don’t we? The results so far are nicely condemning of the whole hateful idea. Do follow the link and see if you can up the no vote.

Poll: Do you welcome the introduction of plain pack cigarettes?