Where In Sussex

Everytime I turn my TV on, this “Gok Wan” guy seems to be on it, telling mingers to take their clothes off!  No, please don’t!

So I asked a few women “Who is this Gok guy?” and they all scoffed back at me (like I was stupid) “he used to be 21 stone”…..

Now, that isn’t “who” he is, but apparenty he’s some sort of hero cos now he is slimmer!  So effing what?  I used to effectively weigh more than him (for my height) and I haven’t felt the need to make mingers take their clothes off and polute TV……

Clearly I’m doing something wrong, but having lost six and a half stone in a year, I don’t give a hoot how much “that guy on the TV used to weigh” I just want to know why he is on my telly making mingers take their clothes off!!!!

And another thing, why does he keep saying “Girlfriend”??!!!

I’ve spent the last few days helping a friend of mine install Ground Source Heating.

To cut a long story short, below the frost line (1m/3.5ft deep around here) the ground temperature is almost constant.  By using this fact, you can send water in a pipe around your garden, on a 500m trip and then use the energy it’s picked up along the way to make magic heat in your house via a special heat exchanger called a Heat Pump.  The heat pump solution is a lot cheaper than oil heating, which most country folk use, the price of RBO has increased by about 75-90% in the last year alone!  Ouch!

So I have been helping install the 500m of pipe in his field…. the 1m deep trench needs 10cm of sand, the pipe, another 10cm of sand and then the project is topped off with the soil putting back.  Easier said than done.  About 40,000kg of sand were required (that’s about 100,000lbs!) and the soil, although dug mechanically, is a thick, sticky clay, which was in huge football sized clods, which baked in the sun into pottery!  Putting that back in the ground, even with a digger was hard work.

Hopefully the system will be complete by August.  Here are some pictures from the weekend:

It’s the summer solstice today, the “longest” day of the year.  The actual solstice happened at 2359UTC on 20th but as we are in BST at the moment, it did just manage to fall inside 21st June at 0059!

The solstice is when the earth is at it’s maximum “tilt” one way or the other, so you get a very long day and very short night or short day and long night (depending on if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere and if it’s summer or winter!).  I believ

e the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn mark the points either side of the Equator where the sun is directly overhead at these dates.

One advantage of being reasonably north is that, although

the weather is always bloody cold (never above 37°C) you get long evenings in the summer.  In the Northern Isles of Scotchland, it is light for 24 hours a day at this time of year.

I took these pictures at 2130 – not that late, but it shows how light it does stay.  This is the first year I have really appreciated this for a long time, as I was working until 2300 most nights for about eight years, so I didn’t really get to spend time outside in the evening.  This year I’m loving it!

It’s just ten days to go until I take part in the London to Brighton Bike Ride for the British Heart Foundation.

Don’t forget you can sponsor me at Justgiving.com via their secure server.  Don’t forget to “Gift Aid” it if you are British Tax Payer!

Must dash…. training to do!

Well, it’s been sunshine all the way in Sussex this week.  With temperatures around 24c for most of the week and 26-27c this weekend, it’s been nice to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

Last night though, my bike got two punctures while I was out, which was a pain.  I have got “special” inner-tubes which are (supposedly) “self-healing”, however; this is not strictly true!  They heal fine sometimes, and not at all at others, meaning you need a patch.  But the “Slime” inside oozes out the hole, and the patch comes off. Very annoying.

I’ve upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress, and my Flickr gallery tool stopped working.  This, it turned out, was co-incidence, as other people have been having the same problem with the Flickr API.  The problem turned out to be my hosting provider, and hopefully everything is sorted now.  Thanks to everyone who helped with this problem!

More sun on the way this week, and as I’m in training for the London-Brighton Bike Ride, I need all the pratice I can get!

I’ve set this tool up to give you an indicator of your net speed, and also so I can compared my ISP and Hosting service.  I use other services and compare notes to check that everything is fine and dandy!

Click here to run the speedtest!

…… Foreign People Who Have Learnt English As A Second Language

I speak to people online quite regularly and it’s pleasing to hear how keen many of them are to be able to speak English properly, but there are some things which really do get my goat.  Now, I can’t speak any other languages, so far be it from be to put these people down…. but they really can drive you up the wall!

1. English people don’t have “Afternoon Tea”, “High Tea”, “Supper” or have a butler.
2. We don’t give two hoots about what some member of the Royal Family has done, we don’t give a stuff who William or Harry are dating or shooting and we couldn’t give a stuff about Diana any more – yeah, it was sad, but ten years ago, most people can’t even remember her!
3. We never say “Fish ‘n’ Chips” or x ‘n’ y for anything.  The word is “AND” ‘n’ that is the bloody word we use.  The only exception to this is Rock ‘n’ Roll
4. NOBODY says “TFI Friday” – you’ve picked this up from somewhere and think it’s a phrase.  You all do it.  Stop.
5. “Quite much” isn’t a phrase we use.  It’s “pretty much” or “a lot”.  That’s it.  End of discussion.
6. Just because it says it in the dictionary doesn’t mean we use it all the time, if ever.  Try listening to real people talking; if someone who speaks English all day every day tells you something you’ve said is “not the way we say it” don’t try and prove them wrong!  We speak the language and have done, in most cases, for longer than you have been alive!  Stop trying to make things fit rules – the real English doesn’t stick to rules, it’s not Physics, it’s an Art!
7. Get your prepositions sorted out and use common sense!  You don’t read things IN a page of a book, so why would you read something IN a webpage.  You follow a course to it’s conclusion by walking or driving ON it, so when you are following a course in education, bloody be “on” that too.  I guess that’s the Americans sodding it up.
8. I probably hate the “English” shows you like to watch on TV.  That’s because most of our TV is far evolved from the crap most European TV stations churn out.  That’s why you buy our old shows and we don’t buy any of yours.  We are sophisticated in our viewing
9. A multicoloured scarf here will make everyone think you are gay.  Don’t bring it.
10. If we want to “hate” the French and Germans, let us!  Your country probably hates another country too, in a humorous manner. deal with it!

On Tuesday we took the ferry to Franceland and then drove to Belgianland to the Flemish city of Bruges (Brugge).  Nobody in the world is quite sure what language they speak there, so we used the old English trick of just shouting English words slowly, until they got the idea.

The tall building with the clock is The Belfry, a medieval tower.  It contains 47 bells and is pissed to about 1 metre east at the top, which is visible in the pictures.  The fountain is in t’zand, on the top of the underground car park.  Some pics are from the top of the local arts building, which has a viewing platform.  The skating rink in the market square is there for christmas, with a special “German style” market around the outside.

PS Eugene and Jessica were very cross with me for mocking the French waiter over the beer