Ups, downs, lefts, rights and straight-aheads

Edited: Saturday times in

This Saturday Tom and I are competing again. If you’re in the Ascott-under-Wychwood/Burford/Charlbury area, the British Eventing One-Day-Event is free to spectators. There’ll be the usual on-site catering and the organisers are putting on a range of activities/things to see for children.

But the best things to watch will be the action in the show-jumping arena and out on the cross-country course.

Our times are:

We jumped brilliantly today; if we can keep everything as smooth in the show-jumping arena on Saturday as it was today, we’ll jump a careful but perfect double-clear. Here’s hoping!

Of course, it will be a different kettle of fish on the cross-country, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In other news…

I have been impressed beyond belief with the way my Googlephone (Nexus One if you prefer) seamlessly plugs in to the full range of Google’s services. But yesterday, on my way to Cambridge, I accidentally discovered that it has SatNav built in to it.

I was in a motorway services, having a coffee and using Google Maps on the phone to double-check the location I was aiming for. And then I noticed a ‘Navigate’ button. I pressed it. After 2-3 seconds of looking at a ‘Fetching directions’ message, a disembodied female voice said ‘Turn left, then travel forward for half a mile then turn left and join the motorway’. And the screen displayed the typical GPS ‘directional’ display that has become so familiar to us all.

So I put the phone on the passenger seat and followed the instructions. And arrived, not too much later, at the front-door of my destination.

I’ve been playing with the SatNav feature in Google Maps today too. It really is simple to use.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking that this Old Welsh Fart(tm) has changed his mind and is going to get all hypocritical and be in favour of SatNav – a product he has raved and ranted against on more than one occasion.

You’re be wrong.

Using SatNav has made me realise just how dangerous it is.

1. SatNav has a screen with a moving display and it is a design intention that the vehicle driver looks at the screen. This means the driver taking his/her eyes off the road.
2. SatNav has a commentary, but when the commentary dries up – even if it is only because the commentary has nothing to tell you at the moment – the driver inevitably takes his/her eyes off the road to make sure the device is still working.
3. SatNav has the ability, I can clearly see, to stop the driver for thinking for him/herself. I am now completely unsurprised that so many ‘middle lane hoggers’ are SatNav users. They can only be sitting in the middle lane of the motorway because the SatNav has not told them to pull in to lane 1.
4. SatNav creates a dangerous situation whereby the driver stops giving 100% concentration to his/her driving, and instead, transfers a significant proportion of his/her concentration to SatNav, and that leads to situations like this.

There is a more trivial point for not liking SatNav: it doesn’t like my short-cuts through farmyards.

But it’s a thumbs-down for SatNav as we know it.

And the world gets more screwed up…

According to this headline in The Daily Mail, a senior circuit judge has been ‘forced to resign after a passionate affair with a male prostitute’.

I find myself asking if the judge’s error was in having ‘a passionate affair’. If, for example, he’d done things ‘the British way’, and had a ‘mildly diverting’ relationship, would the judge’s career be safe?

What if, I muse silently, he’d had a ‘couldn’t really be arsed bothered’ relationship, would the judge be upheld for his emotional independence – and therefore be promoted?

Anyway, in other news…

I’ve noticed that the British Public Broadcaster – that’s the BBC to you and me – has made a recent addition to the page on the BBC News website where they carry links to the British national press.

Here’s what I mean (click on the image for the big picture):

BBC news webpage

Yep, along with national newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times and all of the usual (former) ‘Fleet Street’ titles, the BBC is now linking to…

The Jewish Chronicle.

Not The Church Times.

Not The Muslim Times.

Not the newspapers of any other faith-based sector.

The reason I’m bringing this up is not because I feel that all religious newspapers should be represented.

As a card-carrying atheist and a believer in a secular society, I feel none of them should be – not on the website of the British National Broadcaster.

And it offends me that the BBC have done this.

I feel a letter of complaint coming on, it shall be addressed to Mark Byford, who holds the post of Head of BBC Journalism and is also the Deputy Director General.

Feel free to join me.

p.s. Has anyone else noticed that within hours of it being announced that Roman Polanski is *not* going to be extradited to the US from Switzerland, Facebook announced that they will, after all, install a panic button for children?

And the world gets more screwed up…

According to this headline at The Daily Mail, a senior circuit judge has been ‘forced to resign after a passionate affair with a male prostitute’.

I find myself asking if the judge’s error was in having ‘a passionate affair’. If, for example, he’d done things ‘the British way’, and had a ‘mildly diverting’ relationship, would the judge’s career be safe?

What if, I muse silently, he’d had a ‘couldn’t really be arsed bothered’ relationship, would the judge be upheld for his emotional independence – and therefore be promoted?

Anyway, in other news…

I’ve noticed that the British Public Broadcaster – that’s the BBC to you and me – has made a recent addition to the page on the BBC News website where they carry links to the British national press.

Here’s what I mean:

BBC news webpage

Yep, along with national newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times and all of the usual (former) ‘Fleet Street’ titles, the BBC is now linking to…

The Jewish Chronicle.

Not The Church Times.

Not The Muslim Times.

Not the newspapers of any other faith-based sector.

The reason I’m bringing this up is not because I feel that all religious newspapers should be represented.

As a card-carrying atheist and a believer in a secular society, I feel none of them should be – not on the website of the British National Broadcaster.

And it offends me that the BBC have done this.

I feel a letter of complaint to Mark Byford, who holds the post of Head of BBC Journalism and is also the Deputy Director General.

Feel free to join me.

p.s. Has anyone else noticed that within hours of it being announced that Roman Polanski is *not* going to be extradited to the US from Switzerland, Facebook announced that they will, after all, install a panic button for children?

Two days in 50 minutes

I’m watching ‘My Super Sweet 16UK’ on Viva. I am gobsmacked. Spoilt little bitches like this actually exist in this country? They should be held down and shat on. Anyway…

This week’s show is out and you can listen to it on iTunes or at the website. It’s a full-on review of last week’s Cornbury Music Festival.

Soph talks about how pretty Joshua Radin is. And how pretty Sean of Contraband is.

Bren talks about interviewing Sean and him being told there’s a bunch of girls outside who want him to sign their breasts.

If you’re interested in little anecdotes like these and four really TOP TRACKS, your listening options are simple:

1. You can listen by streaming the show straight from our website: just click here!
2. Or you can download the show to your computer – or your mobile phone – so you can listen whenever you want, and in the privacy of your own home: just right click here and use the ‘save’ or ‘save as’ option in your browser
3. Or, if you have iTunes, you can get the show from the iTunes store (free of charge!): just click here and listen to it on your iPod, iPhone, iPad, your computer or other iTunes-compatible music player. Better than radio!

Thanks for the feedback!

I’d like to thank my mother for not practising birth control, and my agent, and my publicist…

Thank you for the comments on the vids, folks.  I’ve repositioned the camera (elevated the tripod neck and inclined the lens slightly, to compensate) which should improve things.

And I’ve cleaned the windscreen.

Well, I had the car washed.

I’m going to keep the setup just for motorway and ‘A’ roads, because today, on the way back from Northampton, I killed a bunch of really awful drivers.

Well no, I didn’t really kill them.

But I cocked my imaginary Browning Hi-Power 9mm (I love that pistol) and blew their heads off with my clinical marksmanship as I overtook their cars to get away from their rubbish, dangerous and highly illegal driving.

So bad drivers beware.

I am on your case.

I’m toying with registering a domain for this little idea.

Driven to distraction 3

The journey concludes with part 3 of 3. Obviously…

Part three of my drive from home to the stables, accompanied – on this leg – by one of the finest classical guitarists I’ve ever heard, Al Marconi.

And added birds.

I am going to reposition the camera – raise it higher but angle the lens downwards very slightly to compensate. And I will clean the windscreen before I try this technique again.

But all in all, I’d say the experiment was a success. How about you?

Driven to distraction 2

The journey continues with part 2 of 3…

Music by Norwegian Recycling, possibly the greatest mashup artist in the world.

Driven to distraction

Ages – months – ago, I said that if I could find a way to *safely* mount my video camera in the car, I’d give it a shot and film some motorway driving.

Just to give you all the same amount of sleepless nights that I get.

You might have thought I’d forgotten, but oh no, I’ve been thinking about it.

So here is my first experiment. I’ve split the journey up in to 3 parts, to break things up a little. And this is the first part.

I’ve underlaid the video with an audio bed because the audio pickup in the camera is getting some kind of squeaking noise – no, really, my car does not sound like that – which I think might be the auto focus in a state of continual adjustment.

And I need to make sure the windscreen is ultra clean in the future.

But here it is! (or part one, anyway):

People should not be allowed to drive!

We were in Witney’s Tesco Express, just a few moments ago, buying chocolate and other *cough* essential provisions.

The woman in front of us was called to be served, she gave the pump number that she’d filled her car up from.

And then she said, conversationally, ‘I had to go back out to look at the pump number because I didn’t have my glasses on’.

Let me tell you, my friend, the numbers on the pillars by the pumps, are REALLY FUCKING BIG!

I mean, if you stand at the till but you’re unable to read the number on the pillars, you are officially blind.

So this glasses-less lady paid for her petrol, walked back to her car, got in, started up and drove off…

WITHOUT PUTTING ANY GLASSES ON!

So, people of Witney, if you see a red Mini, registration number DE52 LTA, you should run for your lives because the woman driving it is probably AS BLIND AS A FUCKING BAT!

And here is the news…

(from the ‘Oh My God’ department of common sense)

Professor Allyson Pollock, director of Edinburgh University’s Centre for International Public Health Policy has produced a paper that has put forward the argument that scrums, in games of school rugby, should be banned.

Can I just point out that if you take the scrum out of the game of rugby, what you have left is no longer a game of rugby?

Can I also point out that the England Under 21 Rugby Team are going to get their collective arses wiped by even the Italians, if Professor Pillock Pollock gets her way?

Is this Health and Safety gone completely bonkers? Can our American cousins imagine a game of gridiron where the offence is not allowed to actually sack the quarterback?

Meanwhile, in other news, the serial media-botherers, Kate and Gerry McCann are going to meet the Home Secretary in a bid to get a new investigation in to the disappearance of their daughter.

On one hand I would object to any more British public money being spent on this case – simply because the disappearance occurred in a foreign country; Portugal.

However, on the other hand, I would like to see the McCanns get a new (British) investigation in to their daughter’s disappearance – but only if the investigation takes a long hard look at the abandonment of the McCann children by Kate and Gerry in the first place.

Abandonment of any child is a criminal offence and these people have not yet been charged with the crime.

So yes, let’s reopen the British investigation but let’s have the correct charges levied too – and the correct punishments because, by their own evidence, the McCanns abandoned all three of their children.

Lee Siegel, an American literary critic, has declared the age of American fiction to be dead. Has he not read the CIA’s report to GW Bush on ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ in Iraq?

Could anything underline the continued well-being of American fiction more than this pile of steaming horseshit work of fictional art?

Prime Minster Cameron has instructed Central Government departments to prepare for budget cuts of up to 40%. Yet strangely, we’re not hearing that the MP Expense Budget is to be cut by 40%.

We’re also not hearing that the number of MPs will be cut by 40%.

Hmmm…