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Thanks DemocRATS .......from Rico
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Wednesday 15 December 2010
Willliams Family Newsletter
Spring time in Dublin and Paris
I sit before you following a trip on the Thames Ditton model railway to Santa’s Grotto, Owain’s first visit to the Grotto, and Santa wassurprisingly reluctant to deliver Owain more snow for Christmas. His elves had been very busy clearing the track and Owain would have to do it himself next time if he wanted more snow. Apologies for no newsletter last year, that would have involved writing about Morag’s 40th birthday and she didn’t want me to mention that.We look back on a busy year, a year of two halves; that before and after David’s redundancy from Royal Bank of Canada. Our first major event of the year was trip to Dublin for the Wales v Ireland match, with Nain installed as baby sitter for the weekend, and David being on a corporate jolly, a wild weekend of Guinness and craic kicked off with David spending 5 hrs in ophthalmic A&E with an eye problem. Nothing too serious and a free bar the following day meant the rugby was largely forgotten, (and Morag managed to fit in a manicure and some shopping!). We did manage to catch up with Lisa & Phil from Wales in the evening and many other friends in the bars of Dublin. David was too fragile to visit the Guinness brewery the next day.
As Easter approached, we planned a trip to Paris to visit the Thakur family for Vijay’s belated birthday celebrations. Once again we managed to find a great restaurant on the way down and will be sure to stay in their tree-house room next time we visit. Vijay had arranged a wonderful dinner cruise down the Seine and Owain seemed to behave himself for the French baby-sitter. The following day, over Sunday lunch, Owain successfully tried snails and came back for more. The Gallic influence has subsequently seen him become stroppy and prone to tantrums but speaking in a German accent does get him to do as he is told (but only occasionally).
Running and decorating
May Bank holiday saw both David and Morag take part in the Bupa 10k race through London, rising over £300 for CLIC Sargent. David’s time was slightly slower than last year and Morag achieved a respectable time for a first attempt (which means I beat him! M).
The early summer saw the next phase of the house redecoration, tackling the hall-way. A slap of paint turned into a re-wiring, re-plastering and wood-worm treatment money-pit epic, with us spending a month sitting on deck chairs. The final result is truly lovely now the new floor is installed. We hope to welcome you sometime to see the results (please leave your shoes at the front door)..
Summer surf in West Wales
The hot and balmy weather of June made us look forward to our summer hols in West Wales, staying in the holiday barn of our friends Huw and Kate. It was lovely as parents and friends shared the experience. Needless to say the weather broke not long after we arrived but it was still good for Wales. Owain really enjoyed running around on the fantastic beaches, though the waves and social life were both a little quiet for Bethan; thank goodness there was a mobile signal. Dai, Gail and Geraint joined us for part of the stay and the kids enjoyed running around the old farm yard and the dads enjoyed playing air-guitar at 1am (until the teenager complained about the noise and sent them to bed).
We returned home to fine weather and David starting his gardening leave from RBC. David has used the summer to get out on his bike in a literal, if not Norman Tebbit sense, clocking up a great number of miles. Indeed, before the job ended, he had started commuting the 16 miles to work a couple of days a week. There is a lot more lycra in the Williams’ household than Morag is strictly comfortable with. (Dave is now a fully paid up member of the Mamil club (middle aged man in lycra), M).
The summer remained busy as we managed to join Bill & Alison camping in Berkshire. Owain thoroughly enjoyed the nights under canvas; luckily some novelty glow sticks enabled us to track his night time movements away from the campfire. Another weekend saw us visit Dunsford Air Show; it’s unclear whether David or Owain enjoyed the aeroplanes and cars more.
The break allowed David the opportunity to attend a couple of days of the Women’s Rugby World Cup where he was pleased to catch up with Diane and Mette. With the new rugby season starting, David has been using his extra spare time to referee additional games midweek and has seen his referee performance improve accordingly.
Cycling, rock climbing and exams to come
After 10 yrs together, Morag finally relented and bought her own bicycle and might actually consent that she enjoys it (in small doses, on the flat, with a pub at the end, M). In September we both took part in the Prostate Cancer Tour of Britain stage in London. 20k around docklands was an enjoyable jaunt, even though Morag missed the turn off and had to do two laps which weren’t as bad as she thought. The strain was to prove too much for Dave’s bike which died a few weeks later.
Owain remains in nursery school where he really enjoys his swimming lessons, he was very disappointed to see his best friend, Thomas, leave to start school; especially as the school is next door and he sometimes sees him through the fence (he is desperate to go there!). Whilst he is off work, David has been having Owain at home 2 days a week which is providing added incentive to get a new job.
Bethan turned sweet 16 this year and is now working hard towards her GCSEs in the summer, despite the academic schedule she still manages to push the limits of the fair usage policy on her unlimited phone text package. Despite being very busy at school she has developed a new hobby this year, rock climbing and is still a keen beekeeper; we are expecting some exciting mountain honey at some point in the future (if not as a Christmas present). She also has a keen interest in drama and was the stage manager for Oakham School’s main production this autumn.
It would be easy to dwell on the immediate misfortune of unemployment but looking back it’s been a fun year and there is plenty to look forward to next year, including become an Aunt and Uncle again as Lynn and Tom are expecting a baby in February. Hopefully we will be able to catch up with more of you in person in 2011
David & Morag
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Thursday 7 October 2010
Monday 6 September 2010
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Monday 12 July 2010
Tuesday 8 June 2010
Sunday 6 June 2010
Tuesday 1 June 2010
Monday 24 May 2010
Sunday 23 May 2010
Friday 21 May 2010
London Ale Taster
I loved the idea of this this job , naturally I had to apply!
I would like to apply for the position of Ale Taster; I think it is a role for which I am amply qualified. Firstly, I would stress my strong local links to the area; I have spent the majority of my working life within walking distance of Spitalfields, where I have enjoyed an undistinguished career in the City. Many will attest to my unflinching commitment to the grand old traditions of the City, especially lunch. Since our American cousins have reshaped the working landscape, lunch may be considered for wimps, but these people have never attempted Steak and Kidney Pud, followed by Jam Rolly Polly at the George and Vulture! Washed down with 2 quarts of Yorkshire best bitter it is certain to bring tears of pain to the Gucci-loafered, Wall Street banker and strain the waist band of all but the best British wooster-wool suit.
A nation’s character is defined by its national drink; in Britain we are unique in having such a broad range of beverages that we call our own. It is fair to say it truly reflects the complex nature of our national spirit and our willingness to adapt to new flavours and new ideas. These have come to us as hand-me-downs from history and are a great reflection on our spirit of adventure and exploration. Our love of claret, from the Plantagenet kings, Port from our oldest political ally, Gin came to us with the Glorious Revolution, our Caribbean adventures gave these islands wealth and rum and finally a German immigrant in North Wales gave us lager.
However, the staple of our Britishness is Ale, a drink that links us to the earth and our heritage like nothing else. Throughout our history, we have gone from mother’s milk to water and to ale. It is a drink that defines us as a nation but is uniquely local; it is embedded in our society and transcends social divides. Ale is so deeply rooted that it has sprung forth and thrives once again as the Corporatism of the 60’s and 70’s threatened its very existence. It is a drink that lives and breaths in casks and needs the tender care of a skilled artisan to give it life and keep it alive and maturing until it meets the drinker’s lips. Ale shares our triumphs and consoles us in troubled times, it brings friends together and defines communities.
To quote its most popular hero, “All hail the Ale!”
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Wednesday 19 May 2010
Update from SW Trains « Cycle Parking at Surbiton Station
I have, today exchanged the following correspondence with SWT
Ms Bradley
Am I right to infer from your reply that places in the front cycle park were firstly assigned to people on the waiting list for the secure compound at the back of the station? Users of the front cycle park were not aware that the rear cycle compound was being built last year, the vast majority of commuters are front or back door people.
If this is not the case then why was the front application process not advertised for a month?
Under either scenario the front entrance cyclists have not had a FAIR opportunity to apply for access to the secure compound.
I draw your attention to the following website.http://cyclesurbiton.wordpress.com/
Regards
David Williams
Our ref:1552249
19 May 2010
Dear Mr Williams
Thank you for your further email.
With regards to the cycle storage at Surbiton.
The first secure cycle compound opened late last year on the downside, was advertised for a month prior and fully subscribed very quickly. Unsuccessful applicants were put on a waiting list.
The latest compound on the upside has 60 spaces and the waiting list is considerably longer. We are currently contacting these applicants.
Kind Regards
Customer Relations Officer
Monday 17 May 2010
Lets get Something Done « Cycle Parking at Surbiton Station
Lets get Something Done
May 17, 2010 bigdai100--> Edit
The recent move by South West Trains to extend and improve security for cycle parking at Surbiton Station is to be applauded. I have been parking at the station for 4 years, 12 months a year, and I have seen demand for parking raise enormously and it is great that they have responded to this need.
What is disgraceful is the way access to the secure area has been handled. I have heard two descriptions as to how places were allocated, one from SWT and one from a (successful) applicant; neither inspires confidence as to the process.
I spoke to the SWT police liaison officer on Wednesday 12th May, when I first saw the poster telling us that spaces had all gone. He called me back to say that the station manager had put up a poster and spaces where taken on a first come, first served basis. All places when within the day.
Another cyclist told me that he had asked at the service counter and had his name had been written down and was later told he had been successful.
What is clear from both of these descriptions is that the process was seriously flawed and unfair;
- Inadequate opportunity for cyclist to apply for spaces
- Insufficient publicity as to how to apply for publicity
- Lack of priority for most frequent users of the facility
- Actively, disadvantages against season ticket holders, as they are less likely to queue at the service counter.
I was aware that the secure compound was coming, from discussions with SWT Customer Service Centre, when the construction started, I was actively looking out for a notice telling me how to apply for a place. I did ask at the counter, to be told that customers would find out in due course. If I can miss the publicity then there was something flawed.
A lottery for places would have produced a fairer outcome, at least all of us would have had an equal chance.
I am calling for SWT’s to review the allocation process and put in place something that is transparent and in which all cyclist have a equal opportunity to participate. Furthermore they should review usage of the facility so that the heaviest uses are not kept out of the facility by those that only occationly cycle to the station
Please sign the petition here
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized. .
Sign the petition
Thursday 13 May 2010
Monday 3 May 2010
Tuesday 30 March 2010
UK Al Qaeda On Strike.
Islamic suicide bombers in the UK are set to begin a series of strikes in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife.
Emergency talks with AQ management by UNITE (UNified Islamic Terrorist Experts), have so far failed to produce an agreement.
The rationale for the cut was the increase in suicide bombings worldwide and a subsequent shortage of female virgins in the afterlife. UNITE (UK Al Qaeda branch, A.K.A. British Organization Of Occupational Martyrs - or B.O.O.M.), responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to it's members and balloted for strike action.
A spokesman told the various Islamic websites, 'our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of jihad. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like this is a kick in the teeth'. Speaking from his shed in Tipton, in the West Midlands, where he currently resides, AQ CEO Osama Bin Laden explained, 'we sympathize with our workers concerns, but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern day jihad in a competitive marketplace'. He went on, 'thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell up to 3000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up.'
He went on, 'I have to tell any strikers that they will also lose, for good, their travel allowances. Have you seen the price of train fares recently?' Spokesmen for the management in outstations such as Newcastle Markets, Moss Side Manchester and South East London stated that the strike would not affect their operations, since 'there are no virgins in our areas anyway'. Another major factor in the drop in suicide bombings has been put down to the emergence of Scottish singing star Susan Boyle - now the Jihadists know what a virgin looks like, they are not so keen to go to paradise.
Friday 26 March 2010
Tuesday 9 March 2010
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Friday 5 March 2010
Thursday 25 February 2010
If I am ever going to run a marathon it will be the Marathon du Médoc.
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> Press issues
Have a loook at the Guardian : here
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Have a look : Norvegian TV NRK here
26 Miles and 23 wines, Sausage, ham and oysters to keep your energy up!
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Sunday 14 February 2010
Smelling of Roses
Referee David Rose criticised by the Quims coach as his team gets spanked 46-6
I suspect that there was a lot more going wrong than just the referee's decisions?
Friday 12 February 2010
Thursday 11 February 2010
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Not Wanting to be left out, come and join MY 6N prediction game
Come join my pool in RBS Six Nations, the ultimate RBS Six Nations prediction game! It's easy - just go to the website and enter the pool code tapebody to join my pool, Grand Slam Glory.
Friday 29 January 2010
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Fantasy Six Nations Game
Come join my pool in Six Nations, the ultimate Six Nations prediction game! It's easy - just go to the website and enter the pool code tapebody to join my pool, Grand Slam Glory.
Pool code: tapebody
Pool name: Grand Slam Glory
David Williams
Monday 25 January 2010
Google founders to sell $5.5bn worth of shares - There is F8uck You rich and then there is F8ck Everyone rich
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are each to sell off 5 million shares in their company over the next five years, earning them both a cool $2.75bn at today's price. The move will also cede majority control of the search giant, with their stake reduced to 48 per cent. CEO Eric Scmidt also has 9.5 per cent of the voting power, however, so the current management will remain in charge. Tom Krazit has the full story at CNET News: Google founders to sell stock, cede majority control by 2014.
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via crave.cnet.co.uk
Monday 18 January 2010
Cruise ship docks at private beach in Haiti for BBQ
The Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' ship Independence of the Seas went ahead with its scheduled stop at a fenced-in private Haitian beach surrounded by armed guards, leaving its passengers to "cut loose" on the beach, just a few kilometers from one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the region's history. The ship's owners justified it as a humanitarian call, because the ship also delivered 40 palettes of relief supplies while its passengers frolicked on zip-lines and ate barbeque within the 12-foot-high fence's perimeter:
The Florida cruise company leases a picturesque wooded peninsula and its five pristine beaches from the government for passengers to "cut loose" with watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market before returning on board before dusk. Safety is guaranteed by armed guards at the gate.The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians. But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was "sickened".
"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now.''
Exceptionally tasteless!
Thursday 14 January 2010
The SCHOOL BUS
| SCHOOL BUS IN JAPAN |
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Two held after frozen canal drive - The Cops really need a better sense of humour
via news.bbc.co.uk
They were a danger to no one but themselves. Send them the bill for the rescue but last time I looked there was no law against stupidity in this country
Thursday 7 January 2010
Southampton chap lodges todger in steel pipe - Obviously, slipped in his tool shed!
A Southampton man who somehow got his todger stuck in a three-inch length of steel pipe had to be cut free by eight firemen bearing an angle grinder, the Southern Daily Echo reports.
The drama began when the unnamed 30-something chap presented himself at Southampton General Hospital's A&E department suffering from "restricted blood flow", which had left him in "a state of arousal, and unable to remove the pipe". Staff were "so concerned" they called in a crew from Redbridge Fire Station.
The Redbridge boys, however, decided they weren't properly equipped to handle the stiff challenge, and "had to bring in backup from St Mary’s station, which has a fire truck equipped with specialist cutting gear".
After the patient was "given an anaesthetic", the experts got stuck in with the angle grinder, fitted with "a four-and-a-half-inch blade", the Echo helpfully notes.
St Mary’s crew manager Adrian Johnson explained: “It was a very delicate operation. We did not want anything heating up. The person who did it deserves a commendation for his nerve and steady hand.”
Watch manager Greg Garrett from Redbridge station admitted: “I’ve only come across this type of thing three or four times* in my 17 years as a firefighter. It’s not a daily occurrence.”
The pipe layer was left with "bruised and swollen" wedding tackle, the Echo concludes. ®
Bootnote
* Garrett was evidently stationed in Wigan in 2007.
Japanese man who survived two atomic bombs dies- The luckiest or most unlucky man, I can't decide
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Published: 7:00AM GMT 06 Jan 2010Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Shocked at the devastation, he decided to return to his home town, Nagasaki, arriving shortly before that city was similarly levelled by the "Fat Man" bomb three days later.
Yamaguchi, who died of stomach cancer in Nagasaki on Monday, only began to speak publicly about his experiences after his second son died of cancer in 2005. He had been an infant when the second bomb was dropped.
In 2006, Yamaguchi was interviewed for a documentary titled "Niju Hibaku," ("Twice Bombed"), telling the stories of the very few people who had survived both attacks.
An outspoken critic of nuclear weapons, he told his interviewers, "The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings.
"I cannot understand why the world cannot understand the agony of the nuclear bombs," he added. "How can they keep developing these weapons?" In the film, which was screened at the United Nations, Yamaguchi recounts how he was stepping down from a tram around two miles from the hypocentre of the bomb that detonated above Hiroshima. He was temporarily blinded, lost the hearing in one ear and was badly burned on much of his upper body.
Upon his return to his engineering company in Nagasaki, Yamaguchi was recounting his experiences to his supervisor when the second bomb was dropped.
He later went completely bald, suffered radiation poisoning and experienced medical complications for much of the rest of his life.
Around 140,000 people died in the bombing of Hiroshima, while the figure for Nagasaki is estimated at around 80,000. Six days after the second attack, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies.
via telegraph.co.uk
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