Democracy and getting away from it all.

Today in Leeds (so I am assured anyway) the ballot papers will be delivered by special post to thousands of voters across the city. Just how many get returned unspoiled remains to be seen, the government hopes more than would get returned through the old fashioned ballot box. Even so looking at the parties entered, people have more choice than ever. In Leeds there are 9 parties standing plus independents, though apart from the main two and the Conservatives not all parties are contesting every ward.

I hope that not too many are taken in by the dribbling paranoid loonies or the racist party, even as a protest. It disturbs me that anyone sees either of their two parties as talking any sort of sense, especially seeing the sort of psychotic ranting the candidates of the former get up to on election nights.

Apologies to anyone who has been briefly tempted by the rhetoric of the paranoid party, but having met some of their candidates in Leeds and knowledge of the conduct of their candidates in North Birmingham seeing people doing other than dismiss them for the nutcases they are is a little disquieting. But then Robert Kilroy Silk being both attracted to them and seen by them as an acceptable candidate should ring warning bells in anyone's brain. With the other lot, no explanation for my disdain should be at all necessary.

Nicola as a council worker is making some money out of the postal ballot, having three days of work opening and sorting envelopes. Which is her only day of work next week as the rest of the time will be spent on Scout Camp with St Chad's and Headingley Explorers.

I'll be going too, to Scout camp but just for the two weekends.

New Car

After much trepidation I have got rid of my old scrap-heap and replaced it with a Mazda Premacy with most of the trimmings. It even gets on the drive without getting damaged.

I'm both pleased and underwhelmed by my new purchase; the best way of telling the difference between my old and new car is by the absence of problems, so I'm essentially trying to notice things that aren't there. Which given none of the problems with my old vehicle happened constantly is difficult.

I'll get used to it.

Otley Show

Today was the Otley Show and as last year Nicola had entered all the classes she could. Of course given that the entry was in weeks before the show this meant that some of her entries (particularly her embroidery and pin cushion) were little more than token efforts.

Nic's parents came to join us as mine were away at the caravan, they arrived about lunch time and left from our house about 7pm.

Competition was greater than normal in all but a few categories. I entered cross-stitch, tapestry, soft craft(a soft toy bunny rabbit), men's only victoria sponge, men's only bran loaf, and marmalade. My Bran loaf came second out of about six. Nicola got first for her paté and lots of seconds and thirds including a second for her main floral arrangement, and a third for her gent's buttonhole.

After we got home and unloaded the car, we had the misfortune to be shot at by an air rifle. The pelet damaged one of the guides' pans which was sat in the dining/shed area of the kitchen just feet from where Tony and Pam were standing. A second shot hit the outside wall, and others were heard. The police were called but could do nothing except log a crime report for criminal damage (to the wall and bucket).

Then with everyone gone we settled down to test the nation. We did well, getting within 1 point of each other, but didn't reach the high scores we can usually do in exam conditions (i.e. without Anne Robinson rabiting on during the test).

Dilemmas

Hello readers.

Tonight at Explorers we're doing values. I'm going to do a round of dilemmas, ie where you ask a question like

A parent asks you if her child, a Scout, has been smoking. You saw them smoking at a party and tried to discourage them because you disapprove. Do you

• (a) Tell the truth


• (b) Lie - parental pressure doesn't achieve anything


• (c) Feign amnesia "I don't remember


• (d) ....
  

Anyone got any more dilemmas that might not be in the book?

Training.

This weekend has been taken up with me doing my first real Scout Training in over 5 years as a leader. I’m slightly disappointed. Of course Module 16 (Nights away) was fairly extensive, as well as being an intensive weekend.

The course, being the first of its kind, was not well attended, and at some points there were more trainers than attendees meaning the course was not as sociable for those attending than it could have been.

I attended expecting to be given confidence and reassurance, but left feeling disappointed and depressed. I now know that I know what to do in order to organise a “Nights Away” event, however I don’t feel I have any more courage to tackle one than before. Perhaps I was expecting too much, when I expressed my disappointment to the course leaders, they asked what they could have covered that I was expecting, and I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t looking for content, I was looking to be empowered and encouraged, which I’m not sure was a realistic attitude. Perhaps I was expecting sort of magic teaching technique to banish all my worries through the use of magic.

Apart from not being emboldened to the required degree, what annoys me is that even after spending a weekend of my time revising stuff I already know I have not yet passed the module. To explain there are two parts to each Scout Training module: the course itself and the validation, and it is only compulsory to validate not Maybe there should be a lower burden of validation on those that attend courses than those that seek to validate.

I have three years to validate 17 modules of training, lets hope I can do it.

New Car Chosen

So it's settled, within the next 10 days I will become the proud owner of a shiny 51 reg Mazda Premacy, with all the features. While a little excited I am a little trepidatious for the following reasons:

* I'm changing car because I have to, not because I really want to.
* It's the most expensive car I've ever bought.
* It's the biggest car I've ever owned.
* I'm spending more than half my life (OK last 5 years) savings rather than take out a loan.

We plumped for the Premacy as we needed a bigger car to contrast with the Fiat (so as we only need one vehicle when we have lots of stuff) and because we want to try to keep this one for five years or more. It rates highly on customer satisfation and reliability so hopefully I should have more luck mechanically with it. Only thing not taken care of is the potential for bumps and scrapes our everyday lives presents which resulted in the low valuation of my old Rover 200.

Comments?

Tried to include blogger comments on my blog

Entropy

Just had one of those coffee break conversations.

We work in an office that is far too hot for much of the year due to the vast amount of electrical equipment hanging around. We have worked out that energy would not be a problem if heat energy could be easily converted into other forms with no concern for entropy.

Thus instead of installing air conditioning we would install devices that suck all the excess heat out of the air and use it to power our equipment, or even push it out on the national grid to heat somewhere which isn't as lucky with the weather.

This is what life is like as an engineer.

I hate buying cars

Car salesmen are not your friend.

I'm not particularly assertive and am at a disadvatage when it comes to
negotiations because of this and because I am ready to change my car.
Therefore any haggling is very difficult. I havn't even mentioned car tax.


I have decided that the car I saw last Tuesday is the car I am going to buy,
but the salesman knows this and has tried to get me to leave a "deposit"
just in case someone else buys it in the meantime.

I don't belive it!!

"Your search - UKIP paranoid twaddle - did not match any documents"

Virus and Spam Hell

I managed to email someone who has a virus. How do I know this. Suddenly my @sagga.org.uk account is getting various "Delivery failed" messages, mostly to virus messages sent from an ntl cable customer in Leeds. The virus is impersonating me. Already this propogation of my only spam-free address (I don't use it for signing in to websites, or in comments boxes etc) has fed it back to to various spammers who are sending me email on it now.

The only person to have been provided with my sagga address in recent days denies having a virus, and is not an ntl customer.

And I keep on receiving evidence that someone has my email and has got a virus.

Grrr.

Weekend

Another weekend spent at home. Saturday we went looking at cars, three
Preamcys, one with high mileage and two with no Mazda service history.
Actually got to drive one and it was OK. Both garages gave the hard sell
and would not let us walk away easily.

Trying to avoid buying one without a large 2 litre engine to avoid extra insurance
costs.

Yesterday was spent scraping bathroom tiles, yet more retiling to be done
and I'm going to be without a bath for several days. This doesn't affect
Nicola so badly as she works in Leisure centres, but I'm in the habit of
bathing daily, and my current place of work does not have a shower room.
Sometimes I'd like to be able to flop down and do nothing without the
nagging feeling that chores and tasks are piling up in the background.

Such is life.

Sleepy Time

Life is so much hassle sometimes isn't it. So I like nothing better than to drink a mug of hot chocolate then before going off to sleep listening to some comedy or book on BBC7.

Last night it was Jeremy Hardy, tonight it's Just a Minute, tomorrow it's Round the Horne. And The Navy Lark certainly seems very soporific at the right time of day.

Trouble is I'm on dial up and have to wake up for five minutes during the night to switch off the computer.

Sunday

Today was SAGGA Registrar handover day between me and Caz. So the morning was spent getting the files and disks in order and the afternoon traveling down to Loughbourgh. After talking through much of the registrar's job at Dr T's it was off to the Pub, with Claire, Phil and Nicola who had been doing some decorating. Unfortunately a family meal put paid to a longer evening, so Nic and I went to a Harvester for the 3rd time in a month, and returned home to fall asleep together in front of the snooker.

The Weekend

Today spent the morning looking at cars with Nicola, eliminating those that did not come up to scratch on the boot space front.

Current favourite make is Mazda with the Premacy and 323 on my list. They're also quite rare difficult to find at the right spec and price compared to Toyotas, Hondas, and Fords. Ford are off the list for being too pricey for what they are, or perhaps it's just Ringway Ford. Toyota Corrola is too small in the boot department, as may be the Honda. The Vauxhall Astra has a decent sized boot, but the seats don't fold down properly

The one small family car that measured up is the Peugeot 307, which has a decent sized boot and properly split rear seats. The Fabia Estate may be there as an alternative, as although it's actually a "supermini" rather than "small family", it has quite a lot of boot space.

Later while Nicola was at work trawling through boxes for SAGGA paperwork and my car's log book. Unfortunately it was not found so I have to pay £19 for a replacement. Which is better than what the garriage tried to convince me, that no replacements were being issued at present in attempt to cut down on thefts.