Not much time to blog today so this will be shorter than usual.
The overiding thing today is that I feel a little sick. I've been put on some new medication. It's the lowest dose possible, but it still has side effects. I suppose the advantage is that I won't have to worry about putting on weight because I don't want to eat anything, Ha Ha. I wonder if there is a drug out there that doesn't have side effects. If there is then it's probably not on the NHS because it costs too much.

There is much talk about a beleagured NHS. In my opinion the NHS is fantastic if you have a traumatic accident and they have to scrape you off the floor. All the best staff, equipment, surgeons and after care are at your instant disposal. However, if your illness means that you are not definitely going to pop your clogs within the next few minutes; that's when the fun starts. The long waiting lists, the cancellations, the half baked advice etc. It then becomes a matter of luck if you eventually get a solution to your problems.

One of the causes of all this is that the system is overloaded. There's too many people around these days. There was an interesting film made a few years ago called 'logans Run'. It was set in a society in the future where everyone is euthenised at the age of 30. I bet they had a good NHS system there!

Astronut.

Personal opinion of Judge John Juggernaut in the legal column of 'Astronut times':

The smoking ban in enclosed public places has come into force in Scotland today. I can't wait till it comes into force in this country. The pro smoking lobby group FOREST has always moaned about the personal liberties of smokers being infringed, and say that smokers get marginalised. Well if they haven't noticed, smokers are marginalised by default anyway, simply by the fact they are in the minority. And what about the liberties of every other sensible person who has the right to breath clean air; after all, air is not something we can do without for very long unless you've got a space suit. A few years ago I once saw one of those funny office notices which was brutal but to the point. It said 'If you don't smoke in my office, I won't fart in your face'.
Of course people have civil rights to do what they want if it doesn't harm others, so let the smokers slowly kill themselves but only in their own homes (with thir pets and kids safely fitted with respirators), or outdoors several miles away from civilisation. This is fully in accordance with the Human Rights Act.

It is said that past smokers who have given up have the strongest opinions about smoking, and you may have guessed, yes, I used to smoke a bit for a couple of years as a youngster doing my bar exams, before I became an all wise upstanding member of society. Although it was a silly thing to do, I was very careful not to inconvenience other people. I usually only had a smoke in the privacy of my own room, and failing that, if I smoked outside, I made sure I stubbed it and binned it. All the smokers I have seen, see it fit to just flick their tab ends at random, or even worse, don't see any problem in emptying their car ash tray wherever they are parked, leaving a big ugly don't go near me' pile of ash and fag ends. In fact in one of the cases that came before me, a despicable member of the public had done just that; he was firmly pilloried by the jury, and in my sentencing, I made him eat the offending pile in a sandwich, and gave him an ASBO preventing him from smoking ever again.
So to conclude my opinion, when the smoking ban eventually comes into force in England, and more people give up smoking, I will unfortunately have somewhat less opportunity to mete out such deserving penalties, but I'll have more time to play golf.

JJJ.

I think I am my own worst enemy when it comes to buying consumer goods. I have been looking at televisions (again) today, because I want to replace the 15" portable television which has been gracing my living room for nearly all of the ten years I have been living here. My problem is not that I don't know enough about televisions now, but that after reading endless reviews and looking at TVS ad nauseum, I know jolly well too much and just end up going round in circles, never coming to any sort of firm decision. One of the problems is that picture quality is one of my priorities, and I find it hard to compare between two sets that are in different shops. By the time I get to the next shop, I have forgotton what the picture looked like on the telly in the first shop. I might save time and effort just by putting on a blind fold, opening an Argos catalogue and sticking a pin in it.
I said that my beloved portable has been with me for most of the time. Well in fact it went on holiday for nearly two years when I decided not to renew my TV licence. This was not for political purposes, but simply because I was watching it very little, and decided that the licence fee was too much for what I used it for. So off the telly went to someone else's house for safe keeping, so that the BBC would not accuse me of sneaking it downstairs now and then and watching illicitly. I had done some research on the internet about the tricks that licence inspectors use and I was fully prepared for the onslaught. The BBC posters with big aggressive messages such as 'Find us on your computer before we find you with ours' had got me annoyed with their bullying tone, and I was ready for a fight.

A few weeks of quiet bliss ensued as I got used to life without a TV and the BBC appeared not to have noticed yet that I hadn't renewed my licence. And then the inevetible letter arrived, saying that I hadn't paid and that I risk prosecution if I didn't renew and I still had time to redeem myself by coughing up, and please let them know if there was a reason why I shouldn't pay. I chose not to reply to them. I was rather put out by their attitude that I had to justify why I was not getting a licence; after all I don't have to write to British Gas to justify why I haven't renewed the 3 star contract for my central heating. And then the next letter arrived which was in red, like the reminders for gas bills, except that with gas bill reminders you get the reminder on the inside of the envelope; this reminder was clearly visible through the purpose built window in the envelope, clearly visible to the post man and anyone else who might pick it up. It said that my house was now unlicenced, and I now risk committing an offence. So this was a taste of the embarrassing inducing technique. At least they didn't put up a poster on a bus stating that 'one house on Acacia Avenue hasn't got a television licence'

I then got another equally aggressive letter saying that my details had been passed to the enforcement section who would be paying a call to me in the near future.
Eventually a few weeks later there was a knock at the door exactly at six oclock in the evening. The man at the door said he was from licencing. He said have I got a licence and i said no. Have you got a TV he asked and I said no. Can I have a look, he said. I let him into the house. He went into the living room and saw the blank space where the television used to be, and said 'you haven't got a television', and walked back out again. I must have had a trustworthy face on me because he didn't ask to see upstairs. I could have had a stack of tellies up there. I haven't had much communication since then, so I think I got off lightly.
But as you will have gathered, I have returned to tellydom, legally of course, because I got a bit fed up of not having anything to watch at christmas. No doubt the novelty will wear off and I will start the battle all over again.

Astronut.

Article appearing in 'Astronut Times' today:

Are you addicted to blogging? Web logging is the growing craze among people through out the whole world. All you need is access to the internet and you are only limited by your imagination. Motivations for blogging can be very varied, from talking about your life your pets and children, to making a political statement, or just ranting on about nothing, which I suspect I do but it seems important to me anyway. But just how safe is blogging. When does blogging turn from a harmless outlet for your passions, into an out of control monster which takes over your life. To find out where you stand with blogging, simply take this short and easy quiz, add up the scores at the end and read the verdict. And don't forget, no cheating by looking at the score system first!

1) How many hours a day do you spend blogging or looking at other peoples blogs?

a: 2 hours; b: 5 hours; or c: 24 hours, plus weekends.

2) You have just posted a blog and notice that after an hour, nobody has yet commented on it. Do you:

a: Check again later in the day; b: Write another blog which you think may be a bit more interesting; or
c: Go ballistic, shout at the computer, invite 50 more friends into your blogging circle, and write a few comments to your own blog.

3) You are just about to go to work when you realise that you haven't written a blog that day yet. Do you:

a: Be philosophical and think, it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things, I'll just write one this evening if the kids don't want me to play football that is;
b: Write the blog, end up being late for work and get another written warning; or
c: phone your boss, tell him that you have just been involved in a multiple car crash and you will need the next six weeks off. Then you can really get stuck into the blogs.

4) Your partner has just invited you upstairs for a bit of fun. Do you:
a: Go straight away; b: Finish off your current blog; or
c: Take your lap top with you.

5) Your boss has just asked you to write an urgent report on the latest sales figures. Do you:
a: Make it a priority; b; Put it off and do some secret blogging on your works computer in works time; or
c: Tell your boss that you are going to blog the report and he'll have to look it up on the internet when you have finished, sometime next quarter when you have finished your other blogs.

6) Your really important and funny blogs have not make it into the top blogs yet. Do you:
a: Think philosophically about and think it doesn't really matter, it's the taking part that counts;
b: Spend the next few hours adding a hundred comments to your own blog; or c: Fly into a rage, kick the computer, hit the monitor with a hammer and fall into a deep depression.

7) What demeanour do you have when you are sat at your computer blogging?
a: You type calmly and deliberately; b: You type in fits and starts, speeding up, slowing down and you sweat profusely; or c: You type at full speed without a break, alternately crying, laughing and cackling insanely.

8) You are blogging when you suddenly realise you need to pass a motion. Do you:
a) Go straight away, you needed to take a break and stretch your legs anyway; b: Keep blogging and hold on till it hurts; or c: Go in a bucket which you put next to the computer for that purpose.

9) How many friends in the real world have you got since you started blogging? a: 20; b: 3; c: Just the cat.

10) Have you ever blogged a silly questionnaire like this one to try and make people laugh?
a: No; b: No; c; yes.

And now for the scores. For every 'a' give yourself one point; for every 'b' give yourself two points; and for every 'c' give yourself 3 points. And now for the verdict:

10 - 15 points: You use blogging as a healthy outlet, and it is merely part of a balanced life including family, friends, work etc.

15 - 24 points: Be careful now, perhaps you are getting a bit too keen. Take a holiday, not near a cyber cafe.

25 - 30 points: Turn off your computer now. Go and see your doctor.

Astronut.

It's getting past my bedtime and I haven't had chance to blog today yet, so this is a quick one. This is more of a request rather than anything else:

When travelling at night time, would the drivers who are stopped in front of me, who dazzle me blind with their extremely bright brake lights, please stop holding their cars on the footbrake and use their handbrakes for a change?? (the handbrake is that stick in between the seats that you pull up). The driving manuals say you shouldn't hold the car on the footbrake if stopped for more than a few seconds, at any time of the day. So now you've got a good reason to take note. So there.

Your's gripingly,

Astronut.

This morning's blog is about hypochondriacs who surf the net looking for any information they can about their illnesses. I thought a good word to encapsulate this is 'Cyberchondria'. There is no shortage of web sites on medical diagnosis for those who are interested. No matter how obscure your condition is, I'm sure there will be a site for it. I think in general terms, doing research on your ailments can be good in small doses, it makes you more informed and you have more info to take to your doctor. On the other hand I can see Doctors getting really pissed off if the patient becomes the doctor, self diagnosing, and even self prescribing drugs. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. My advice is that if you worry too much about your health, or your friends think you do, then don't look at medical websites or read medical books, because it might make things worse. Don't become a cyberchondriac! If you must research on the web, be careful of which sites you use. you don't know who has made the site, and it may contain wrong information. The author may have a vested interest in selling his drugs, and underplay the possibility of a complete cure; he wants you to buy his drugs for the rest of your life if possible!
In my experience It's a good idea to start off by doing a search on the BBC search engine; it often brings up sites that are recommended by the BBC and I think I can trust their judgement.

I speak from experience as someone who has a little hypochondria. believe it or not, I managed to get constipation once just by thinking about it!
The word hypochondriasis slipped out of my doctors mouth during a consultation about one particular ailment I had, and I was getting really stressed out about it. I must admit that when something does go wrong with my body I occasionally worry about it too much, I suppose that comes with the territory of living on my own and having too much time to think about it. I think if I had to see to the needs of a wife plus 3 kids, a dog and a cat, I would have little time to think about such trivialities such as that hissing in my ears, the fact that my hearing seems to be impaired when I'm only 40 and some other things that are too complicated or downright embarrassing to go into right now. Such as there is rarely any black and white in this world, hypochondriacs fall on a scale of one to ten. In fact I think a better way to describe it is as a scale of 'medical concern', because most people will be concerned when something goes wrong and if they aren't then they should be, but this does not necessarily mean we are all hyperchondriacs. On my scale of 'medical concern' 1 point would mean someone who say gets a lump somewhere and thinks, oh, it'll be right, and ignores it. This is perhaps going to the extreme of denial. Going up to 5 points would be the most healthy spectrum, those people who have the common sense to know when something can be self treated, or when it can be ignored, or when a Doctor's appointment is needed. Going up to 7 points are people who worry too much and go to the Doctor's for something which turns out to be no problem. Going up to 9 and ten points and you are thinking and worrying about health matters so much that your body actually manifests illness, and thus an upward spiral may occur.
Strangely enough, I seem to hover most of the time around the 3, 4, or five mark, which is a reasonably healthy attitude, and make occasional visits to the unpleasant region of 7, 8 or 9.

Astronut

This blog is my opinion about what i don't like about speed cameras and what we can do about them,and I'll also tell you about a brown trousers incident involving me and another motorist plus a speed camera, but i would like to assure readers that the camera remained unscathed.
You may be suprised when I say that I like the cameras themselves. As someone who is interested in road safety, I feel strongly when I see people mindlessly speeding. A camera was put up at the end of my street a few months ago. It's now so much easier to pull out onto the main road now that drivers are going more sedately.
What i don't like are the drivers who don't know what the speed limit is and insist on slowing down to 25mph wherever they see a camera, wether it's actually in a 30 or 40 limit or what ever. That dreaded yellow box instills fear and trepidation into people, they think that if that speedo needle even so much thinks of going a hairs breadth near 30mph (on the bottom side of 30 that is), it will be snap snap with the camera, and say hello to 3 points on their licence. When i was taught to drive it was instilled in me to drive up to the limit as long as it is safe to do so. So when i end up behind someone with camera phobia I feel frustrated. The reality is that the cameras cannot be set exactly at 30 because they have got to allow for errors in the speedo on cars.

Unfortunately, speed cameras are not improving drivers awareness of speed. The drivers who are already speed aware already drive within the limit and are safe. Those who are not will continue to drive at any old speed they want until they see the yellow box and slam the brakes on, causing frustration behind.
The solution is, to all you drivers out there... become aware of the speed limit of the roads you are driving on. When going past a camera, as long as your speedo reads at the limit of that road no more, no less, you have got nothing to fear (unless it is a dodgy camera, but they are far and few between, and anyway, even if it was dodgy, it's just as likely to snap you doing 18mph as it is 50mph). The authorites could help too by posting the limit on the camera itself, so that it is clearly visible to approaching drivers.
And now for that road rage incident. I was driving home from work down a hill with a 40 limit when I came up to a driver doing 35, which was not too bad and I patiently followed him. its difficult to overtake in that situation without going way over the limit yourself. When we got to the camera, he slowed down to 30. i wanted to go at 40 because it was safe and the road was clear, so I safely overtook him fairly and squarely, making sure I didn't go above 40 of course, and i carefully checked my mirror to make sure I wasn't cutting him up when I pulled back to my side of the road. When I next checked my mirror a few seconds later he was driving what seemed like 6 inches behind me, swearing obscenities at me, I could lip read him through the mirror, And I got quite worried. I thought the best thing to do would be to carry on and hold tight and hope the situation blows over. I stopped at a mini roundabout to turn right and I heard a huge screech of tyres behind me. I thought 'Oh my god, what's he going to do to me?' he overtook me, went round the wrong side of the roundabout to cut me up, and then sped off into the distance. It was almost brown trousers time I'll tell you.
My theory is that he was one of those type who don't like to be overtaken, who 'accidentally on purpose' accelerate as you are trying to overtake when there is a double decker bus looming in the opposite direction, thus causing more brown trouser times. But in this instance, he felt that he couldn't speed up because of the camera, and unleashed his pent up aggression on me. So really, despite advances in car and road technology, it's still the law of the jungle out there. So watch out!

Astronut.

In todays Blog I want to talk about an insidious practice which is creeping up on us, which is making us pay through the nose when telephoning companies. Its called 0870. I'll also tell you what you can do about it, and urge everyone to vote with their feet and refuse to use these numbers. There is a brilliant website which enables you to do this and you must visit it. It's called www.saynoto0870.com
you might not realise it, but more and more companies seem to be using this prefix in their call centre numbers. The truth is that when you dial a number prefixed 0870 you get charged typically 8p per minute, and you are not warned about it! At first glance, 8p doesn't seem like a huge amount of money, but consider this: a typical call to one of these numbers might go something like this: listening to and endless menu of selections, press 1 for sales, press 2 for enquires, press 3 for complaints etc, and by the time you get to 5 you have forgotton what the first one was, and when you eventually press a number you get to the next level of numbers to dwell on and press. Eventually you may get to speak to a real person and get put on hold for a few minutes listening to cheesy distorted music, get passed round all the departments, and before you know it, 20 minutes has passed, and with 0870 that means £1.60 out of your pocket. And the thing is, you might have phoned them to complain about something they should be putting right!; 'yes, thanks for charging me £1.60 for telling you that you overcharged me on my account'.
And the worst is yet to come. These companies may be taking a cut of the money that you have paid to make the call. That's why these numbers are getting more popular with companies of course. This practice has been investigated by the telecoms Watch dog OFCOM and moves are afoot to do something about it. In the meantime, you can take it in your own hands to boycott these numbers.
You see, there is very often an alternative normal geographic number that you can dial to reach the company and the same department. Such a number consists of the normal geographic area code, for eg. 01924, followed by the actual number (an 0870 number is non-geographic and you get charged the same no matter where you are ringing from, even if the company is next door to you). By phoning a geographic number you get charged on whatever tariff you have chosen with your telecoms provider, which will be much less than 8p per minute. There are several ways to find the geographic number for the company you want to dial. 1) first use the website above, because it has extensive lists for allsorts of companies (sent in by members of the financially wise like you and me).
2) See if they quote an overseas number which starts 44.
Take the two fours away, add a zero in front, and hey presto you have got the geographic number to ring from this country.
3) Ring them up and ask for the number. If they refuse to give it, ask to speak to a supervisor, explain why you object to using the 0870 number (trouble is, this may cost you £1.60!)

Now, companies also extensively use 0845 numbers. These are called 'local rate' numbers and you get charged typically 4p per minute, wherever you dial from. They were first launched many years ago to make calls cheaper for people phoning companies based in a different city.
However, in these days of intensive competition between telecom providers, when you can make calls for say 1p per minute, these 0845 numbers have sadly seen their day, but the crazy thing is that companies still insist on using them! My response to this is the same as above, to refuse to ring 0845 numbers too and find out the geographic alternative. For example I recently needed to ring Direct Line insurance to get a quote. All the numbers in the glossy brochure were 0845 numbers. So I looked up the geographic number on www.saynoto0870.com When I rang the number I wasn't in the right department, but got put through to the right department without any trouble. The outcome was that I paid just 3 p for the whole call, because with my provider they charge zero pence per minute plus a 3p connection charge. Therefore i could have listened to the cheesy distorted music all day and still got charged 3p. Better than 0845 or 0870 !!!!

Astronut

These are the days when we are hopefully becoming more environmentally aware, trying not to generate too much waste. So it really bothers me that junk mail still falls through my letterbox, and I'm never really interested in what is on offer. I wonder how much unread junk mail gets thrown away in the whole country every year, it must be tons. Well I have started to do something about it, and I urge everyone else of a like mind to do the same. I have put my details on the mailing preference service, and I have also started sending their junk back to them. A particular rogue for junk that springs to my mind is that very annoying NTL. Over the past year or so I have been getting letters from them every week, and sometimes twice a week, trying to get me to sign up to their broadband, tv and telephone package. I am not a customer of theirs and have never contacted them in my life, but yet the mail comes and it almost borders on harrassment. And they must be spending disgusting amounts of money on this stuff. Glossy leaflets don't come cheap I can tell you, and if they sent out half the junk, they could afford to sell these packages for £25 a month, not £30 per month.
So in frustration I actually phoned them up, making sure it was a free phone number of coure, to tell them to take me off the list. And for good measure I have signed up on line to the Mailing Preference Service, which only takes about 5 minutes. It means that I should get very much reduced volumes of junk, from NTL or anyone else. I don't object to perhaps getting one letter from one company; but it's annoying when the same company keeps sending the same stuff over and over. They just don't get the message that I'm not interested.

also, I read a website which urges people to get back at junk mail senders by sending their junk back to them if there is a prepaid envelope with it. Or even better, send some elses junk mail back to them, for example, if you get yet another letter from Nat west bank with an offer of life insurance, together with an envelope to send back your application, send back the latest offer of pizzas from pizza hut. you can choose wether or not your name or address is included in what you send back! If everyone started doing this, they might get the message eventually.

Tranquility

I have been semi casually interested in the space program since I was a kid. I vaguely remember when I was 4 years old watching the first moon landing on TV, but to me (and probably alot of other people too) it looked just like a grey blob on the screen with not alot visible going on. I wish I had been older at the time to understand the enormity of what was going on. The Apollo program was the peak of space travel, and in comparison the shuttle program is a bit dull. So why does this sort of thing interest me? Well I am interested in Science, and space exploration is like the biggest adventure, going into uncharted territory. It's like I would want to be there but will not have the opportunity. I know many people will disagree with the huge amounts of money spent on this kind of thing, but that will never change because it is the very nature of humans to explore and find new worlds.

This leads me onto the suject of this blog. There are conspiracy theories about the moon, which say that the moon landings were a hoax perpetrated by Nasa, because an actual moon landing was impossible but the Americans had to show that they had beaten Russia to it. The landings were faked, possibly filmed on a set somewhere in the desert. There is an interesting film on this idea, called Capricorn one, in which a manned flight to Mars is faked.

There are plenty of websites out there talking about the so called hoax, from people who believe the hoax true, and people who don't.
I am firmly in the camp that these conspiracy theories are rubbish and that we did actually land on the moon. The 'evidence' that conspiracists put forward in support of their argument are things like inconsistencies and 'anomalies' in the photographs for example.One of the examples they put forward is saying isn't it strange that in all the photos of astronauts on the moon, you can't see any stars in the background. This is a valid point but can be explained by reference to basic photography, in other words, because the surface of the moon is bright due to the sun shining on , it is impossible for a photographic film to capture the much less bright stars in the same photo. Photographing the stars would be easy but then the exposure would have to be so long that the moons surface would look completely washed out. Alot of the conspiracists have limited or no knowledge of physics, especially astronautics, and find it hard to explain the things they see in photographs. But they have not come up with any independent evidence of faking it. For example, of all the nearly 500 000 people who were involved, not one person has come forward to blow the whistle. It's hard enough for one or two people to keep a secret about something, never mind 500 thousand! And if they did fake the first landing, any sensible organisation would have quit while the going was good, but then they went on to 'fake' the next 5 landings, plus Apollo 13 when the space craft had an explosion on the way to the moon and they barely got back alive? It is incredible that people can believe that all that was faked.

If you are interested in looking into this, there is an excellent site called Clavius moon base. You will have to look in a search engine because I haven't got the actual address to hand, and I don't know if you can put hyperlinks into these blogs.

Anyway, I had better stop on this, otherwise I'll end up banging on about it all day!

tranquility

I watched a programme the other day about people who fell from the World Trade Centre when it was on fire; the programme was called 'The Falling Man' It will of course have been more shocking for the people who witnessed it, more shocking than seeing it on television. A few years ago Me and a friend went shopping in Scarborough and at one point in the day she went off to get something on her own while i had a rest. A few minutes later she came back in a somewhat distressed state and explained that she had seen a man perched on a ledge a few stories up a building, threatening to jump. It was a busy area and quite a crowd had gathered to watch. My friend quickly left the scene and did not want to witness him actually jump, because it would have been too distressing for her. I wonder if that crossed the minds of all the other people watching, wether it was a good idea if they should really continue watching this.

I think the program the falling man was done in a tasteful way, it only showed the minimum to get the message across.
Initially there was almost universal revulsion at the photograph of the falling man when it was published in a newspaper the day after; (it shows him plummeting head first down the side of the building). I think part of the reason is it is difficult to comprehend the horror of someone been forced into the desperate position of choosing wether to jump or to burn to death. My opinion is that some of the people who fell will probably have been pushed out by other people behind them who were so desperate to get air that they simply did not take into account that they might push someone out of the window in the process. The people who deliberately jumped had the strength of mind to make this decision. It was clear to them that there would be no surviving a fall from so high up.

So why the revulsion? People thought it was voyeuristic. but let's face it, it is human nature to be attracted but also repulsed by such things, hence the large crowds gathering when someone threatens to jump, watching with horror.
The other aspect is people do not like to try and think about things that are unthinkable. Seeing such photographs challenges people to think about it.

Would I jump? It's easy for me to answer that while I am safe and sound sat in front of my computer. I think I would probably jump but only when the flames were licking at my shoes.

The positive thing to say for the people who jumped is that the fall itself would have been painless and the conclusion will have been extremely swift. I read an account of someone (who I think was climbing) who had fallen and survived, they said that rather than feel terror, they felt serene as they fell. My experience of skydiving is that the act of jumping out the plane is the terrifying bit, but I was not frightened during the fall itself, a sort of calmness seems to take over.

Tranquility.

Just thought I would experiment with uploading photo of a meditation centre I go to sometimes. It's a beautiful place in Todmorden in West Yorkshire, on the border of the pennines. I like to experiment with taking photos, and I took this as a reflection in the nearby pond. Losang Dragpa Centre is a Buddhist college.

I have been meditating for quite a few years now and I find it is a wonderful way to relax, and also a way to get a deeper insight into life the universe and everything. scroll down for photo......

Tranquility.

Hello everyone, this is my first ever blog. I had wondered for a while what on earth blogging is all about. I came across some blogging sites by accident and wondered what on earth was going on.

It is my intention to comment about anything under the sun that crosses my mind. If people want to comment that is great. If not then fair enough.

I wanted to use a catchy title for my blog page. So although it is many years since I went skydiving, I'm not going to talk about it all the time, or not even half the time. But if people want to ask me about it I will be glad to spout on about it, although I don't profess to be an expert.

What you may find is that I am a person of seeming contradiction. I would say I am a quiet person, but was capable in the past of throwing myself out of an aeroplane. I also tried scuba diving. I am just at home listening to Beethoven as I am listening to heavy metal and then Karen Carpenter singing 'Mr Postman'. I am at ease doing a yoga class and meditating, as I am watching an action movie.

I would like to say I am fairly open minded about things. Having said that, people can interpret that in different ways. I once joined a dating agency, and in my profile, I put that I was 'open minded'. I shortly received a letter from a lady who wrote: 'how open minded are you? I am fat, smoke heavily and have 3 kids'. I think she had not got my interpretation of open minded! A friend suggested to me that I put 'easy going' instead.

Any way, my opinion on dating agencies is that they are ok but only just another way of meeting people, nothing magical. I think some of them exploit people's insecurites to get lots of money out of them for doing not alot.

Well that's my first blog for what its worth.
I'll be back.

Tranquility.