Some photos from Thirsk Races yesterday.
Jen and I won seventy quid!
Compare and contrast
Hebden Bridge Times, 22-Jul-2010, p.5:
Metro rated best operator in region
A NEW survey of bus passengers in West Yorkshire has revealed that 91 per cent are satisfied with their journey.
The bus passenger survey, conducted by Passenger Focus, looked at how different operators and passenger transport executives handled key areas such as punctuality, frequency, provision of information and facilities at bus stops.
"I'm pleased that so many West Yorkshire bus passengers are satisfied with their bus journey," said Metro chairman Coun Chris Greaves.
"It's testament to the way Metro, the bus operators and the district councils work together to meet our aim of providing high quality, accessible transport for everyone in West Yorkshire."
Hebden Bridge Times, 22-Jul-2010, p.3:
All change on buses
MINIBUS users in Hebden Bridge will soon have a new operator after First lost the contract from Metro.
Nelson-based company Tyrer Tours will take over the A to E services in Hebden Bridge from October.
A Metro spokesman said: "Tendered services are publicly funded so what we're always looking for is best value for money to the public purse."
Metro and Tyrer are now in discussion over how the service will be run.
A Tyrer spokesman said: "We are over the moon to get this contract."
I receive feedback
I gave my friend Carolyn a call on Tuesday to see how she was doing. It's the sort of thing friends do.
"I was looking at your website the other night," she blurted. "It's not as good as it used to be."
With friends like that, who needs enemas?
I pointed out that, if Carolyn had anything constructive to say about a particular Gruts item, she could always add a comment on the website itself. "How do I do that?" she asked. Good grief! You click the comments link underneath the item in question, I explained. Sorry to make it so complicated.
For the record, Gruts has never been any good. Indeed, that's pretty much the whole point. But I got where Carolyn was coming from: too many YouTube videos and Flickr photos recently, not enough original, insightful, inciteful comment. What can I say? I've been busy.
I've been toying with the idea of making a few tweaks to the design of Gruts. Don't worry: nothing as utterly disastrous as the new-look BBC News website; just a bit of tidying up and stuff. This will no doubt encourage me to get back into the general swing of things. Longer term, I'm considering migrating the site to a proper database-based platform—but that sounds a bit too much like hard work to me (I did it for part of my Darwin site, and swore never again). A project for the long, winter nights, perhaps. Assuming I don't have some drying paint which needs watching.
Needless to say, if you have any comments (constructive or otherwise) to make on this subject, there is a rather prominent link for doing so immediately below.
Psychopaths
I'll tell you what's wrong with this country: I'll tell you one thing that's wrong with this country: people in Britain are allowed to own guns just for fun.
On the whole, I'm all for people being allowed to do whatever the hell they like, provided they don't inconvenience anyone else. But that's the problem with guns you see: being shot by some legal gun owner who's thrown a wobbler is definitely inconvenient. I want to be protected from people like that. And the most practical way to protect me from people like that is not to allow them to own guns in the first place. Guns don't kill people; homicidal nutters with guns kill people.
Which brings me to hydrocortisone cream. Hydrocortisone is a steroid used to treat skin inflammation. I use it occasionally for the mild eczema I get behind my knees and in my elbow joints during hot weather. It works wonders. Along comes the hot weather, along comes the irritating itchiness, on goes the hydrocortisone cream, away goes the ichiness, on goes my life. Fantastic.
Last weekend, I was getting low on hydrocortisone cream, so I went to the chemist to buy some more. No problem: they had plenty. Then, as an afterthought, I made the mistake of asking for a second tube of the stuff to keep at work…
The chemist looked at me as if I'd asked to shag his wife. What sort of psychopath would want to buy two tubes of hydrocortisone cream? He explained that selling me two tubes of hydrocortisone cream was against Sharia law, the Hippocratic Oath, and three of the Ten Commandments. A definite no-no. I told him that I was 45 years old, and asked what on earth he thought I was going to do with the stuff. The chemist wasn't interested in providing an answer; he was too busy trying to repel me from his shop with a homeopathic dilution of wolf's bane. So I said I'd see him next week and left, solitary tube of hydrocortisone cream in hand.
Which brings me back to one of the things that's wrong with this country: I want to be protected from homicidal, gun-wielding nutters; I don't want to be protected from myself.
Target audience
I'm a big fan of Google's webmail system, GMail. Great interface, great reliability, great features. And it's totally free.
The deal is, Google's computers read your emails to work out what sort of things you might be interested in, then present you with relevant advertisements down the right-hand side of your GMail page. That's the idea, at least. But Google also let people pay to advertise to you based on your presumed interests. Google has, for example, worked out that I have a thing about Charles Darwin, so I tend to see a lot of advertisements from creationist nutjobs hoping to convince me of the error of my ways. This is fine by me: I would rather Google have the creationists' money than the creationists have it.
OK, so I fully accept that Charles-Darwin-related advertisements are probably relevant, as far as I'm concerned. But I must admit that I was a little pissed off, to say the least, when, last week, I was presented with an advertisement for Help the Aged stairlifts.
If I wanted nonsense like that, I'd be using HotMail.
Postscript, 2013: Since I wrote this piece, Google have changed their GMail interface. It's now utterly crap.
The beautiful game
Apparently, I missed the soccer world cup. Apparently, we didn't win. Not quite sure how I managed to miss that, but I'm glad I did. Life's too short to spend it watching crappy sports played by crappy, overpaid, oversexed losers.
Whoever dubbed soccer the beautiful game had clearly never seen women's beach volleyball.
Liverpool!
It's taken me years, but I've finally managed to take a photograph encapsulating in a single frame the greatest city on Earth:
(Pity I only had my iPhone to hand: worst camera ever!)
Meanwhile, in local news…
From this week's Hebden Bridge Times (the only newspaper of record):
Best goat for the 2nd year running
WINNING best in show - and best milker - in Todmorden Agricultural Show's goat section for the second year running, this year's event proved a very successful one for a teenager.
Michsica Capricole, owned and bred by 15 year old Jessica Hagain of Halifax, once again, defeated the competition.
Best Goatling was Philday Darcy owned and bred by Mr R Parkin of Howden, and Best Kid was Maxson Shamuti owned and bred by Mrs M Hagain of Halifax.
GOAT SECTION RESULTS
Saanen milkers: 1, Philday Foxiqwif - Mr R Parkin, Howden, East Yorkshire; 2, Philday Fabergone - Mr R Parkin. British Saanen milkers: 1, Philday Dressage - Mr R Parkin; 2, Wadehouse Jasmine - Mrs C Luty, Shelf, Halifax; 3, Philday Lidierlust - Mr R Parkin; 4, Micean June - M M Boocock. Shelf, Halifax.
Anglo Nubian milkers: 1, Morphie Rigmarole - Mrs L Maughan, Hamsterley, Co. Durham; 2, Kaprikel Kurdus - Mrs L Maughan; 3, Poplartime Fanella - Mrs L Maughan.
Any other variety milkers: 1, Michsica Capricole - Miss J Hagain, Hipperholme, Halifax; 2, Michsica Capriclair - Miss J Hagain.
British Toggenburg goatling: 1, Philday Statusfour - Mr R Parkin; 2, Philday Statusthree - Mr R Parkin.
Saanen goatling: 1, Philday Follyeva - Mr R Parkin. British Saanen goatling: 1, Philday Darcy -Mr R Parkin; 2, Wadehouse Lilly - Mrs C Luty; 3, Micean June - Mr M Boocock. Anglo Nubian goatling: 1, Trago Roona - Mrs L Maughan. British Alpine goatlinng: 1, Hunningley Esme.
Saanen kid: 1, Michsica Talulah - Miss J Hagain. British Saanen kid: 1, Michsica Bethany - Miss J Hagain. Anglo-Nubian kid: 1, Tragomarly Maisie - Miss C Maughan, Hamsterley, Co. Durham; 2, Trago Idhaya - Mrs L Maughan; 3, Tragomarly Mungo - Miss L Maughan. British Alpine kid: 1, Hunningley Fantasia. Any other variety kid: 1, Maxson Shamuti - Mrs M Hagain, Hipperholme, Halifax.
Further reports and pictures from Todmorden Agricultural Show will be published next week.
Baby's first timelapse
I used my sexy new digital SLR camera to make a timelapse film this afternoon. It shows the view from my garden, compressing two hours into one minute (i.e. with one frame shot every 5 seconds).
Nobody was more surprised than me when the damn thing actually worked:
Got rid of vermin like the grey squirrels
The Fall have released a magnificently art-house video to promote their difficult 28th album, Your Future Our Clutter. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bury! PTS 2 + 4:
(No, I don't know what any of it means either. So what else is new? 5 stars, obviously.)