Lance Armstrong

This vid just about sums up the whole sorry situation.

A £4 toothbrush - Really ?

Times are tough, so it was interesting to see at the local supermarket that Colgate are actually trying to sell a £4 toothbrush. That's $6.5 in USA money an outrageously unnecessarily high price for a piece of plastic with some bristles. For goodness sake the Nasa astronauts only spend $3 on tooth brushes to repair and save the international space station.

There it is on the top right row of this photo, a "Colgate 360 Surround toothbrush", single brush for £4 next to the similar one for £3.98.  Looking at the other tooth brushes on sale we can see a range from the basics range 18p (twin pack) through the 67p four pack and the starting to get a bit spendy Aquafresh twin pack for £1.25.  Seriously is any  toothbrush worth 44 times more than the cheapest alternative ?

Teeth are important and dentistry has made big strides in keeping our knashers in good order but expecting that price for a toothbrush, that is not going to last more than a couple of weeks, is taking the michel.  Keep those chompers in good shape with this advice.

In typical supermarket psycho sellmore style, the most expensive brushes are on the shelves easy to reach at just lower than eye level. The cheaper generic and other reasonable brand alternatives are found on the lower shelves slightly to the left right near by.

For some products paying 44 times the lowest price really gets something special.  The Dacia Sander costs about £ 6000. You can pay 44 times that price ( £250,000) and get a Ferrari 458 ( second hand on Autotrader.co.uk ). But really, can you afford to be buying a Ferrari just for your teeth ?

Dacia Sander £6000 aprox

Ferrari 458 £250,000

Update your locks

Here is a good idea for the new year, update the locks for your doors. It's not that hard and not too expensive either.

Many modern door locks use a standardised lock barrel called a "Euro lock". These parts can exchanged quite simply. The lock unit is held in from the side edge of the door by a single screw. Some lock barrels require the door handles are removed ( from the inside ) to facilitate sliding the new lock into place.  The euro lock units come in a selection of sizes determined by the measurements in mm to the middle rotating section ( in black below) from the outside and inside faces.

An example for sale  Yale Anti Snap 90mm Long Euro Cylinder Lock 50 x 40mm Bright Nickel

Look for features such as anti-snap, Anti-Bump and British Standard BS EN1303:2005 and Sold Secure Diamond Standard SS312 markings. One alternatives its the Avocet ABS Anti Snap Anti bump door lock security snap secure euro lock cylinder chrome or gold.

Expect to play about GBP 30 or GBP 200 if fitted by your 24H call out locksmith.  

Uprated Yale Euro lock uint.

Next up are the electronic locks to your doors; update your passwords.  This is also easy, for a quick measure just add at least 4 more character to your existing 6 letter password, include a number or special char from !@£$%^&*()_{}:"|?>< .  Be sure not to use the same password for your social and money sites. Avoid names and works, using the first letters from a phrase is a good way. The first letters from "remember my passwords so I can get in" = rmpsIcgi is just so much better than using Password.

For full advice and guidance on choosing a good password set check out this article.

Be safe out there ...

Gannett

Partridge in the past tree

In the news this week was the possible demise, due to bad wether this year of Grey Partridges and Turtle doves. The Daily Telegraph contribution to this sad conservation story was an article and then in the Sunday Telegraph Stella colour supplement a recipe for "Roast partridge with red wine and juniper berries".

The recipe starts with Ingredients list "8 Grey or red legged partridges"  ...   Conservation fail.

Do not eat this bird !!!!

Photo from W. Braun

Skyfail - Lost in the move 1 phone number with no explanation

Moving house is a good time to have a life laundry, dump some of the junk, refresh the wall pictures and generally move on in life. When moving locally (less than a mile) one thing you don't expect to loose is the phone number you've had for 12 years.

Kevin and his house moving crew packed up our world into boxes, into his van and down the road. We had triaged the clutter into move, charity shop and dump boxes to get started on the stuff reduction but there was still a big pile of things to move. Remember when reducing clutter with a partner that "My Junk is Stuff but your Stuff is Junk."

All Sky UK TV had to do was move a landline phone number from one external line to another within the same exchange code. To be fair Sky made the moving process easy, click on a few buttons and fill a few forms, wait a few days, then the broadband, phone, satellite services were moved. They even had a land line and dish install guy come round to check the service. Unfortunately the phone service was assigned with a new number.

The other half is way more organised than I am and had sticky labels and stationary prepared and was already half way down the long list of organisations to contact with the new address. I did not help by saying I liked the new number that does have a glow to it being a bracketed palindrome.

A call to Sky customer service provided no explanation other than "The customer service rep should have told you when you placed the order." I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a business process failure somewhere between Sky and BT Openreach who control the exchange lines.

Anyway that really does not cut it, no technical or service explanation for what will be a lot of unnecessary hassle and inconvenience. The impact of this on Sky ? Everyone of our 250 closest friends and family gets to hear the story.

 Lets put this down to a Skyfail.  Cue the music Adel .... the thin lady sings.

Cheers Gannett

Modern art - Mark Rothko - taking the Mikey

Of all the modern artists Mark Rothko surely was just taking the piss. I had a modern art screen saver that did a really good rendition of a Rothko at a fraction of the cost.

WTF 3 blocks of colours on a 5 ft canvas, that's not even creative.

At least Pollock added some element of randomness in his rather childish paint pourings.










Mad cow Tracy Emin has the nuts to at least do different things.












Psycho Damien Hirst has the honesty to enjoy the use of chain saws in his works.

But  Mark Rothko ......  a three year old could do better.....

Cheers

Gannett

Tour of Britain - Bideford fly by

The Tour of Britain flew through Bideford in Devon this Saturday. On the way from Barnstaple to Dartmouth. Managed to grab a couple of photos as they flew by on the way to the first sprint at Torrington. The weather was great, sunny and clear with just the hint of autumnal morning chill.

Enjoy.

France August 2012

On holiday in mid France down near Cognac for a couple of weeks, escaping the big Olympics show going on in London.  Having a good time with the family staying in a villa found on Owners Direct in mid France down near Cognac.  The weather has been a bit mixed but always better than UK.  Have got out into the countryside on trusty bike mapped of course by Runtastic. Have been doing about 15 to 20 miles a day in the later afternoon. As with most exercise the more you do, the easier it gets.

  

  

I have to say that I am not worried about the state of French agriculture as it's a hive of activity round here just now. There are miles and miles of sunflowers, wheat, sweetcorn and vines tended by the usual collection of tractors combines and surly looking farm hands.

As expected the cheese, fresh crusty bread and wine are as tasty as ever. The bread has the shelf life of less than a day so regular trips to the local Boulangerie are in order. For the wine, as someone who tries to find the twin attributes of cheep and good but likes a selection of different reds to try, the sweet spot is the "Expert Club" selections available at 

The bottle branding is consistent with the Expert club logo at the top of the label and on cork/bung. The range covers loads of interesting wine regions, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Bergerac, Medoc, Cotes du Rhone, Beaujolais-Villages, Saumur and many others.  A personal favourite is The Lussac Saint-Emilion at about 6 Euros a real bargain for a quality wine.

We had special dinner at a local country house that offered Chamber d' hotes and the "Come dine with us" style Table d' hotes.  The menu was unknown but turned out to be bacon wrapped fig and apricot as a starter followed by roast duck with wine and Balsamic reduction. A cheese round followed and then to wrap choc cake with Strawberry and vanilla glop with Coffee or Tea. All for a very reasonable 30 Euros in a classic French 1880 country house setting.   If your over this way check in overnight with Will and Liz at the Manoir Souhait in Gourvillette.

And finally, got to love it when a country lives up to it's own stereotypes.  In this wrestling poster the usual display of fighting characters are shown including "Surly Pierre" the Maitre d' of your worst nightmares :-)

Cheers

Gannett