The US elections

So, Dubya's reign is almost over, its time for someone else to clear up the mess.

The two hopefuls are John McCain, a 72 year old senator who's attempts to run 8 years ago were hampered by Bush's men (I wonder what 8 years under McCain would have brought, rather than 8 years of Bush?) If McCain wins, he would be the oldest man ever to become president.

The other hopeful is Barak Obama, a 47 year old African American senator from Illinois. His experience is in stark contrast to McCains. He only entered the Senate in 2004!

It would be wrong for an Englishman to comment on an American presidential election, but for me, this is a one horse race. And he happens to be a dark horse...

Devils Coach Horse

Thanks to Barry Taylor (no relation) I have an answer to the little 'darth vader' thing we saw when walking on the Malverns.

Apparently, it is a Devils Coach Horse. You can read about it here...

According to the write up, it can squirt stinky brown liquid out of its asshole. Funny that, so can I :-D

Anyway, thanks Barry...

Goga's 30th

We went to a friends 30th birthday party last week. We stayed at the mount pleasant hotel in Malvern

We had a meal at the Abbey Hotel, but it was rubbish! Don't eat there! We had a hair in the mayo dip, and when we complained no one did anything about it.

Anyway, on the Friday we went to see 'An Ideal Husband' at Mavern theatres. Carol had never been to the theatre before, so I was hoping she would enjoy it. It was ok, but a bit slow in parts

Gog'a party was great and it was good to catch up with everyone. Mikes girlfriend, Debbie is a little bit nervous that I am Mikes best man - when I say nervous, I actually mean, shitting her self!

Ooooh the power!

Apparently after getting totally wrecked at the party, she ralphed in Mikes Mx-5! I don't think Mike was impressed! There's one for the best mans speech!

Here are some pictures....

The abbey hotel from our hotel room window. It might look nice, but don't eat their over priced, hairy food. In this picture, you can see a van delivering several sack loads of pubes to put in their mayo sauce.









We went for a walk up the Malverns. It was a bit windy! I quite like the picture though, for the dramatic skyline










During our walk on the hills, we happened across this little fella. The picture doesnt really show things up too good, but it looked like a small scorpion...although this picture makes it look like a miniature Darth Vader!

Anyone got any idea's what it might be?






The wheel bearings on my Jag decided to fail, so Barry offered to give us a lift to Hanley Swan to wait for tow truck. What a great bloke - over and above the call of duty - thanks Bazz

By the way, can you guess which country Barry is from?

Phew!

Im glad I didn't win the lottery last night - I wouldn't want to have to put my millions in any bank at the moment!

The credit crunch also raises another question. I think its pretty much inevitable that we are now in a recession, but a few media pundits have been talking about a depression.

So, my question is...when does a recession become a depression?

Drinking

There has been a lot in the news recently about irresponsible drinking. I have to agree its getting bad - I saw somebody in a restaurant the other day, and they had ordered red wine with a chicken dish

Thats just damn right irresponsible, I say.

Tsch, the youth of today.

The Funeral

Well, the funeral went really well. We had a photo of Grandad on the bar, which was nice - kindof made you feel he was there

It was really good to catch up with my cousins and aunts and uncles whom I hadn't seen in such a long time

On another note...who's idea was it to put me and Evo in the same car, with our legendary directional skills? After getting lost on the 2 minute journey from the crematorium to the club, Mr's Evo pointed out that the fuel gauge was on fumes

Me and Evo are scarily alike...

William Henry Taylor 31/12/1921 to 07/09/2008

Well, my granddad finally passed away on Sunday. For the last 3 years he had been living in a home, and had slowly been deteriorating.

I am glad he is now at rest, and I am looking forward to the funeral tomorrow so we can celebrate his life.

He was a trawler man for the best part of his working life (the Cod wars put an end to that). He was always a gentleman, and that is how I will always remember him.

I imagine he is sharing a cuppa with Grandma right now, and looking forward to being with us tomorrow.

R.I.P Grandad

Worcester Beer Festival

This weekend I was at the 9 and three quarters worcester beer festival. It would have been the tenth but due to global warming (my arse) last year flooded and so was postponed (do you get the clue there? Global WARMING, not global FLOODING!).

I took the Jag out for a spin down to Worcester too, and it was lovely :-)

The weather was actually quite nice, and the rain held off for most of the day. It was nice to catch up with everyone too.

A number of people I haven't seen for quite some time, and a couple of people were quite surprised to hear I had left 3 years ago :-) Three people litterally grabbed me and asked 'Where do I know you from?!'

One even asked if he had seen me fronting some band from Manchester!

Anyway, it was good to bump into Mr Ross (Hello!) and he told me he had stumbled over this blog when he did a search on Beer Festival and mine came up second in the listings!

I think I managed to sample around five or six of the hundred or so beers there (I lost count after about 3!)

Anyway...looking forward to next year already :-)

More Surfing Pics

Hopefully blogger will play ball now...more pictures...














This is the 'pool' table...you can see the rain falling hard in the back ground













Look at the way the rain dances in the sun beams. :-(













An action shot of the rain hitting the decking













It didn't stop us getting aled up though!

R.I.P Chef

So, Issac Hayes has died. That is sad news. Reports say that the cause of death is, as yet, unknown. However his wife found him next to a treadmill. Now Im not a betting man, but I reckon its pretty obvious what killed him :-D

This Weekends Surfing Washout!

Well it wasn't quite a washout - Friday was good day, I even managed to get sun burnt. Saturday sucked. Horizontal rain and very strong winds.

Anyway, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

This is me. I was bored on the drive down. Funny hat, funny grin + camera = great picture

Arriving in Woolacombe on Thursday night. Yes I was bored.

Breakfast on Friday morning. The stove is courtesy of Phillip...apparently it used to be Evo's. All I know, is that it cooks a mean sausage.

Here's Tony auditioning for 'Master Chef'. However, I think his breakfast was more 'Come Dine With Me'!

Remember a few months ago, I left my jumper at Tony's, so he decided to auction it off on eBay? Well here is proof I have paid him the penny he was owed after my winning bid :-)

Leah turned up...gurning. An attractive look, Im sure you'll agree!

My uncle has recently got a caravan, so he has 'given' me his 'old' 9 man tent. It is great! Its huge. It certainly passed the hurricane test. Im just looking forward to when he gets fed up with his caravan - i'll certainly give him 40 quid for it!

Well I was trying to upload more photo's, but blogger seems to be shit. I'll add more when the internal server error sorts itself out.

Some Pics from Northern Ireland

Last weekend I was in Northern Ireland. Here are some of the pics I took. We were at the Ulster Folk museum, and it was very interesting. Then we headed to the transport museum, which was good too...Enjoy!

Here's Carol in one of the period houses. The whole place is setup like a little village, and goes some way to show what life was life in 'olden days'


This picture here shows the coal merchant, a Mr John Kelly :-) And here is Mr Kelly's premises

This is the inside of one of the posher places. It was all very well presented, and gave a really good feel of what it must have been like. Also, in the coal fires, they were burning peat(he was a bit pissed off I think!) and it smelled really nice. There was also guides dressed in period costume too


Here's a picture of me and one of the statues :-)

Advertsing on the BBC

This is clever. The BBC pride themselves on being a non-commercial organisation. On a basic level, this means that there are no adverts on the BBC. Which I love. You can devote your entire attention span to a show without being interupped by some twat saying

'my bank has just tried to sell me car insurance, Im confused.com'

No wonder you're confused mate, you're not that bright are you?. Anyway, I would just like to say, I am not being paid by aforementioned insurance search engine.

However, I have just started listening to Chris Moyles on Radio 1 in the morning. My only other choices are Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2 (she is always making the most appalling gaffes and often forgets how to speak - Im sure she is ill), and Radio 4 (which i flip back and forth from)

Anyway...I have recently bought myself a pair of Nike+ Running trainers where you plug your ipod Nano in and it monitors how fit you are getting.

The reason I bought these was because Chris Moyles was going on about them all the time, and I didn't relaise it at the time, but I imagine he is getting quite a lot of cash to plug this on the show. I have since noted that he mentions so many different brand names on the show.

He gets around 8 million viewers, so for advertisers, this is a rich seam of product placement.

Now, Im not saying he is getting paid (legal disclaimer there!) but I think it would be incredibly niave of advertisers not to have approached him.

Also, it is so unbelievably subtle, you dont even notice he's advertising. I have lost count the number of times Chris has gone on about the XboX, Call of Duty 4, iPods, running shoes, Mcdonalds

And yes, i am aware I have just mentioned all these products too (and probably loads more in the blog), so now Im just awaiting a call from the product makers to offer me loads of cash!

So in summary...today I am dressing in my Nike t shirt and running shoes. Im going to listen to my new iPod nano - I have downloaded the latest Coldplay album - those guys are really great. Then I'll be getting into my Jaguar XJS and driving to McDonalds to get me one of those new 'Lard Ass burgers' mmmm, that is a tasty burger!

Don't forget to visit my sponsors :-)

Petrol Prices, or How Gordon Brown Can Win the Next Election

This post is based on a conversation I had with my uncle a few weeks ago.

Remember, how only a few months ago, petrol was 1 gbp (im using an American keyboard, so no pound sign) a litre?

Remember how we all huffed and puffed, and protested about how outrageous it was that the government was taking lions share in tax.

Now we're paying around 1.20 gbp a litre, and its getting stupid. Alistar Darling has frozen the 2p duty that was due to be slapped on in September, but by the time September comes around I expect we will be paying around 1.35ish a litre.

I heard yesterday that with all these price increases on fuel, the government can expect a 5bn gbp windfall in tax. This is 5bn that they hadn't expected.

How great would it be if Gordon (is a moron) Brown, said:

"Hey I know things are hard at the moment for the man on the street, and haulage businesses, and transport etc, so how about this...When fuel was 1gbp a litre, we were quite happy with the revenue we received, and as it was only a few months ago, the government have decided to cap fuel tax at those levels. We will revisit this policy on a daily basis"

I guarantee he would get my vote. And the votes of millions of others. In fact, I would go as far as saying he would win the snap election he would call a few months later.

I imagine, he is pretty much out of idea's at the moment, so we just have to wait a couple more years before we get to vote him out.

Footnote for Americans: Lets do the maths....

1 Gallon is equal to 3.78 litres, therefore at 120p a litre we are paying around about 4.50 gbp a gallon

So at current exchange rates, that means we are paying $9 a gallon for our fuel. So next time you moan about having to pay about 1.50gbp ($3) a gallon, just think about that! (even if you are paying $4, that still a bit better than 9$!)

My New Toy

A few months ago, my brother announced that he had bought himself a Jaguar XJS. I knew he was after one as a weekend car, but never-the-less, my immediate thoughts were

"What a Dumb-ass, what does he want one of those for..rah, rah, rah....cost of petrol, he claims to be bothered about global warming (where Im not!)...rah,rah,rah,etc,etc,etc"

Well, anyway, he came over one evening to show it off, and as soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it! I immediately saw what he saw in it, and for the price I was amazed. From that moment on I knew I wanted one too!

I thought it would be a bit of a stupid expense, just for a weekend car, and I agonised about whether I should get one.

I trawled e bay, on the look out, just as a casual observer really. And then I saw it. My Jag...Im not saying how much I got it for, but it was a *very* good price. Here are some pictures

Look at the long snout on this cat :-)

The tyres are P600's and are huge! The car holds the road like its on rails

The interior is grey leather and is in good condition. There is lots of walnut. At some point I would like to get all new carpets, but there isn't a lot wrong with the ones in already.

At the moment, I am having the headlining re-done, and the air con needs servicing (its the old R-12 connectors I have and I need to get them changed to the new R-134a. Apart from that, the car is in great condition, and the 4 litre engine just loves to purr along.

The car its self, is low, wide and very very long. The cockpit is very comfortable - electric leather seats. However, even though there is a rear seat, you would have to be a midget or a contortionist to enjoy a comfortable ride there. Anyway, as the driver, I don't care, because I get to drive the beast!

The six cylinder motor is as smooth as you would expect, and once you nail the throttle on the motor way, you are lulled into thinking you are going slower than you actually are.

As my weekend toy, it is brilliant. I wouldn't like to commute in it everyday though - especially with petrol prices as high as they are!