I think I'll just give up and go home.

Wait a minute, I'm already at home.

Hello folks,

I've noticed with this blog site, that if I do a fairly 'long ' post, especially on a more serious subject, It hardly gets any comments. If I do a short post, especially on a trivial subject, such as what toothpaste I bought this morning, I get loads of comments.
What's your comment on this then?

I haven't yet bought or read the latest Highway Code, but I wondered if the priority rules on our roads had been changed recently? It has always been the rule that people coming from side roads give priority to those on the main road, and quite sensibly too. Those on the main road would not be able to make decent progress otherwise. However I've experienced a spate of selfish drivers pulling out in front of me, without regard for how fast I'm going. For example, I'm driving (legally) at 50mph and I'm the only one on the road for about half a mile. Driver in old white van trundles out in front of me, forcing me to slow down to about 20mph as she leisurely accelerates. If she had waited a few seconds till I passed, she could have had the whole road to herself.

I am now keeping an even closer eye out for drivers approaching junctions from side roads. I can almost see the look on their faces that says 'I'm in such a rush now, and I'm going to pull out right now, because although I don't really want to crash into you, it's ok if I slow you down while I get to my urgent appointment'.

The worst case was the other night driving along with no one else on the road. Large 4 by 4 came steaming down a side road, I knew he was going to just pull out before it happened. Came straight out onto the main road in front of me, out of control, almost veering onto the wrong side of the road and sped off, leaving me almost stopped in a cloud of black smoke which he had caused by putting his boot down. I caught up with him at some traffic lights, and I could have pulled up alongside him/her and given them some talking to, but I managed to resist the temptation and held back. You just don't know what's going to happen these days, if it escalates.

I saw an absolutely brilliant 'fly on the wall' documentary about a police investigation of an 'honour' killing. It was on BBC3 last night, and there is another one tonight (Wednesday) on a fresh case; I would highly recommended it if you like detective style documentaries. Over the past few years I have tended to steer away from 'fly on the wall' documentaries because I think alot of them are a load of junk and I suspect alot of people act up to the cameras to make it look better; I also bet there are alot of double takes if the first time round did not look good enough for the camera.

The reason why I watched this one was that I initially thought it would give an in depth analysis as to why 'honour' killings are carried out in those familys where it happens. What drives a father or brother to kill their own flesh and blood? The programme actually concentrated solely on this particular case rather than general issues, going into the history of the family, and forensic evidence. It was a muslim family, husband & wife and 3 young children, and she went off to have an affair with someone, and was quite brazen about it. The husband felt that he had lost all his honour in the community, and felt driven to murder all four of them. He planned the whole thing weeks in advance. He waited until it was the school summer holidays, and told all the neighbours that him and his family were all going away on holiday. He had also pre booked a flight for himself to escape from the country. He then waited until his wife and kids were asleep in bed, and then battered his wife to death with a rounders bat. He then took his children downstairs one by one and battered them to death in the same way. What drove him to also kill his children no one knows. He fled to another country but got stopped by custom officials for a routine search. The official put his name into Google and discovered the man was wanted for suspicion of murder. The British police failed to come up with enough evidence linking him to the crime, to enable him to be extradited; but thankfully he decided to voluntarily fly back to England where he was arrested.

He made a confession straight away, but during official interview questioning, he gave 'no comment' answers to everything. During the court hearing he tried to make out that she had killed the children and he killed her in a fit of rage (diminished responsibility). However it was obvious that the whole thing had been planned by him, and the jury took 2 hours to find him guilty of all 4 murders. The judge recommended that because of the sheer calculating and cold blooded nature of the crimes, he should never get out of jail for the rest of his life.

Hi folks,

I have gone onto paperless billing for alot of my utilities: Gas, Electric, telephone (3 separate bills for telephone) ; but my water company do not offer paperless billing. I think this is the way to go for people who don't mind using their computers for such things. I usually only look at my bills once and then put them away, to be shredded and discarded a few years later. If I can put them all onto CD that will be great for saving trees. However, I definitely will not be banking on line - ever. I don't want to increase the risk of some low life cyber criminal hacking into my account and getting all my money.

David

I saw an item on the BBC news site, saying that J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books has 'revealed' that the Hogwarts School headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is gay. She made this statement during her book tour, and the audience 'gasped'. A gay rights campaigner has welcomed the 'news' although he wished that she had made it explicit in her books.

This item caught my eye, not because I am a Harry Potter fan, or have any interest in anything gay, but because it is just an absolute nonsense. Mr 'Dumbledore' cannot possibly be gay, because he doesn't exist; he's just a character in J K Rowling's head!

Hasn't anyone noticed? I think some fans of Harry Potter may be losing the distinction between real life and fantasy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7053982.stm

I had a bit of a shock a few days ago. The main road near where I live, the road I have been driving up and down for the past 20 years, has been 40mph, and a few years ago, speed cameras have been put up all along it. I am a careful but 'progressive' driver, being careful not to go even slightly above 40mph, but not dilly dallying around at 20mph either, like some other motorists do around speed cameras, which annoys the hell out of me; in fact I overtake them when it is safe, even when approaching a camera, when I know I won't go above 40mph in the overtake, and I won't risk cutting them up. On the odd occassion this has provoked a hostile reaction from drivers, who I assume just don't like being overtaken. Anyway, getting to the point, a few days ago I was driving towards one such camera when I noticed a new speed camera sign with '30' written on it. 'Oh goodness me' [censored version] I thought. When did they change the limit?
Further up the road, I noticed larger '30' signs at the entrance to the road, which look like they have been put up fairly recently. Now I just wonder how long I have been driving past these cameras at 40mph, when the limit is now 30??! I'm hoping that they have not yet got round to setting the cameras to the lower limit.

I think the reason they have dropped the limit is because the road goes past a school. However, it is a big wide road, and apart from school times, it is quite safe to go at 40.

I think I have almost lost the will to live, driving along at night time, no one else around, at 30 damn mph.

I have noticed that alot of limits have been dropped over the years. I see a time in the not too distant future, when motorways will be permanently 60mph max, and there will be no other road in existence with a limit above 50 mph. I'm pretty sure about that. It's the great road dumb down scheme.

I've had the very good fortune to aquire a Skoda Fabia Estate as a company car, in the past two weeks. Although it is slightly smaller than the last car I had - a Volkswagen Bora (Jetta) both in length and width (ooo eerrrr), it has a huge boot, due to the fact it is an estate. It corners better, and has a better ride than the Bora, and it has the same good build quality; it is essentially a Czech made Volkswagen, based on the Polo chassis. The the only drawback I can see is that the gear box and transmission sounds a bit more noisy so is not quite as refined as the Bora was; however the Fabia is after all a super mini rather than a full blown family car, so I think I should cut it some slack. I'm really pleased with it. And the best thing is, if I was a private owner, the car would have cost about £12000 on the road new, so I'm paying less tax. NB It's a diesel, so has good performance, but at the same time good economy and quite low C02 emissions (that's salved my conscience a bit).

Are there any other Skoda lovers out there?