diary of an irascible malaysian living in sunny bristol
Still no news on the down select decision on the bid I’ve been working on …
In the meantime, I’ve splashed out on a new toy – a Creative Zen Xtra that will hold 40Gb of music. I mean, who in the world has a CD collection that large … and can claim to be totally legit about converting his/her entire music collection into MP3s. Why, me of course 😉 And it’s not even 1/2 full!
There were a few p***ed off Brits at Dover this half-term break – following the breakdown of one of the berths at Calais port, the indirect consequence is that the M20 has been turned into a car park for freight traffic. We managed to avoid this by going on the A2/M2 to Canterbury, then cutting down into Dover but even so, we didn’t leave the port until 0500 … which meant we were later getting to Venosc, in the Oisans range which includes ski stations of Alpe d’Huez and les Deux Alpes. And that meant Sunday morning was a bit of stressful affair of getting everyone sorted out with registration, photos and lift passes for lessons at 0930.
Still a good day was had by all, some even braving the blizzard conditions after lunch to work on turns etc. Me, I did absolutely sweet FA. When you have views like these (see Flickr), I’m not sure you need to strap anything on your feet to appreciate them any more ;o)
It would be remiss of me to not post on this most auspicious day of the Chinese lunar calendar – welcome all to the Year of the Rooster! Check out your fortunes for the coming year here. But to the killjoy who posted his xenophobic but clearly ignorant views on the Beeb’s website – lighten up, you bigoted tw*t! Your understanding (or lack of it) of a tradition that has lasted almost 5000 years, is not an excuse or reason to take pot shots at the Chinese or our culture. No, we do not in fact bark at the moon these days … then again, neither do we dress up as bunnies in the spring and hide hand-painted eggs in the back garden 😉 The 21st century is full of anachronisms like these and you should allow folks the courtesy of shaping their destiny in which ever way they choose …
Ok, I’ve moved the front end of my website to blogger.com – not without the appropriate amount of heartache and angst that these things usually provoke, but it is done now. One of the benefits (as if any justification is required to take me back to my first love – that of programming code) is that the new interface should allow me to post more efficiently [read: more frequently], but only time will tell 😉
At work, we are approaching the down select decision on the bid I’ve been working on for the past year and a bit – nail biting stuff, but I guess the decision has already been made in the corridors of power and well … que sera sera.
Is it me or did January fly by ever so quickly?! Today, Kilroy-Silk of ‘all Arabs are suicide bombers’ fame launched a new political party, curiously named Veritas. His agenda … well, he thinks the UK is being stolen from its people by mass immigration. That’s pretty rich coming from someone who referred to his UKIP colleagues as “b***** right-wing fascist nutters”. As Condeleeza Rice prepares for talks in the Middle East later this week on the aspirations of a Palestinian state, we are reminded by the erudite Prince Hassan of Jordan that “a future Palestinian state would not be viable if so much of its water remained in Israeli control.” 50% of Israeli water gets diverted to support a national agricultural policy that accounts for less than 5% of GDP – meanwhile in neighbouring states, water shortages (as little as 1 hour a day, in the middle of the night) are making people ill. Come on you guys … live and let live!
Sadly, Ivan Noble said goodbye to the world on Monday, but the legacy of his courageous fight against cancer will stay with us in his blogs.
