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Good to know

Now to pimp some Harry Clarke original artwork or something, get my commission up. What do you recommend, what is hot at ABE Books these days?

Thanks for keep coming back here btw, I've not had this level of service from an affilliate manager before, at least not since that time I sold �15,000 worth of Robbie Williams tickets in one month.

seetickets.com DOWN!

That'll be everyone after Portishead tickets then...

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If you're still having no luck, here's one genuine Portishead ticket for less than four pounds. No, don't thank me.
Rated 3.07/10 on Folkestone Gerald

My flat is well high

The street is about 20 metres above sea level anyway and I'm on the second floor... Sounds like the flood risk has passed for everyone now anyway.

Have a good weekend!

Bless The Boot

Bless the boot, come on England. Really looking forward to this tomorrow, like every other part time England fan. I would not say we have a chance really, but you never know. Personally I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a food poisoning outbreak at the South African hotel.

One of the things I like most about the big sporting events are the fancy dressers in the crowd, though this from BBC's final countdown smacks a bit of racism:

It's official, final weekend has gone mental. I've just seen four Zulu-era Redcoats walk off a Eurostar at Gare Du Nord accompanied by a Zulu with a bone through his hair and wearing what appear to be Speedos.

Or am I being oversensitive?

You may recall my previous attempts to give blood and how each time I tried to give blood the goalposts (well the date and or venue) had been moved. Today I got there, the blood bus visited work, and I finally got to do my bit. My iron levels were high, and the pint I gave did not have a foaming head atop it, and I didn't faint or feel wibbly afterwards, so all is good so far. Will find out by post if my blood is rejected for some reason, otherwise I'll be back again in four months to offer another pint.

Speaking of pints, most likely off to Chambers tonight, but back home again in time to see QI, hopefully it'll be the one we went to see at last.

Ouch!

Bit my lip this morning eating my breakfast in a hurry, drew blood and everything, and also the work I did at the weekend fixing my xml namespaces in jquery doesn't work now I've transferred it to work...

Great weekend though, did our usual lunch at Wagamama and afternoon drinks in The Dolphin, then had a reasonably quiet night in watching Children of Men and Hot Fuzz and drinking our new favouite tipple Prosecco and eating goodies we'd bought in town.

Saw two weddings in Canterbury, one was having their reception in The Goods Shed, so while we were doing our shopping on the ground floor there were speeches and things going on on the mezzanine level just above us, all very public. Then there was another reception at The Dolpin, which the bride was delivered to by VW split-screen van, very nice.

Spent most of sunday clearing Clare's stuff out of the inlaws loft, as they're moving soon. Threw out a whole of crap but couldn't resist bringing some of the books and keepsakes home, more than we'd intended.

Enjoying what I'm doing at work right now but this week feels like it's going to be a long one, looking forward to Dean's birthday celebrations at the weekend.

I wouldn't take it personally...

...I just thought you had a huge range of styles and I didn't *personally* like the one of Bruce Willis (it doesn't look finished either?). I'm allowed an opinion right? I can't play football at the level required for my country but I'm still allowed to have an opinion on last night's not so great game against Germany. If you put something in the public domain then people will comment on it.

Edinburgh (being the second part of our holiday)

Edinburgh is nice. "Our kind of city" the wife wrote on her postcards, and I agree. We got a speedy train there from Carlisle into Edinburgh Haymarket, this was the side of the city we were staying on. We could have been a bit closer to the action but HEY, this was a walking holiday, and we had a serviced apartment instead of a hotel, so we had a lounge and kitchen and all sorts of extra features.

The weather was pretty monstrous to start with. I think we got to our apartment without getting wet, but the rain really started just as we were about to head out again. One of my almost-highlights of the trip was seing a drain burst open in front of me just outside the apartment. I have a fascination with sewers, it was quite cool to see the sudden downpour prove to much for the Edinburgh underpipes and cause a drain lid to shoot up in the air and a fountain of liquid spray out in the road. This was cool for only as long as it took the smell to hit me, this was a waste spurting out at my feet, an actual fountain of human shit. It was grim, but luckily all the extra rain washed this filth away in the end. Man I wish I'd had my video camera handy at this point. You'll just have to imagine it.

We did some proper touristy things, including Mary King's Close, a shut off street under the Royal Mile:

Hidden beneath the Royal Mile lies Edinburgh's deepest secret: a warren of hidden 'closes' where real people lived, worked and died. For centuries they have lain forgotten and abandoned...

I would suggest not bothering, it's not as interesting as it sounds. The streets are still technically there, but it's very hard to get an impression of most of them as living spaces as the floors and ceilings are at different levels, and there's practically no surviving decoration or artifacts, and the recreations and projections are bad and the ghost story they told was particularly lame. Lame ghost stories was a bit of a theme of the holiday, everywhere in the UK is using this kind of thing to lure tourists in and are even saying things like "as featured on TV's Most Haunted" and so on. Are we a nation of gullible muppets? Needless to say, we did not feel any ghostliness or cold patches or any kind of bump-in-the-night-ingness. Ah while I'm being negative I recall one more thing about Mark King's Close, the crassest most opportunistic part of this trap. In the last room of the tour we were told a Japanese TV psychic had felt a presence, and it was a little girl ghost, and she'd been left behind by her parents and she wanted her dolly. A runner was sent out to buy a doll and this pleased the "ghost". Now there's a big pile of toys and dolls left as offerings to this ghost. We were told that other tourists started leaving toys after hearing this story, and if we'd like to leave something "or some money" that would be nice. I'm glad no-one in our tour party of twenty fell for this, but would suggest to the tour organisers that they hire a stooge to join each party and get them to start the money giving, I'm sure they'd pay for themselves. That's what I'd do if I was cynical and grasping enough.
Eating was good in Edinburgh, we went in two dedicated vegetarian restaurants, David Bann's, and Black Bo's. Bann's was quite fancy really, and the food was great. I can't remember what I had for my main, but that's down to quite a lot of booze too. I had some kind of fake fish cakes for my starter. The only complaint was a big table of students next to us, being all studenty, the bastards.

UPDATE: On checking the menu, I think I went for

Thai fritters
Aromatic, spicy fritters of smoked tofu, peas, ginger, green chilli, lime, sesame and potato. Served with fresh mango chutney and a roast garlic tomato sauce. V
Galette of aduki and aubergine
Organic beer crepe layered with spiced aduki bean and aubergine, topped with juniper pickled cucumber . Served with chunky chips, homemade apple & tomato ketchup and cr�me fraiche and chives. [V]

Black Bo's was more relaxed, still very nice, though I chose the wrong main. Perhaps unsurprisingly my aubergine and melon soaked in midori was too sweet and melony for me. Other meals in non vege restaurants were also great, there was lots of choice for me, I even had a baked potato with haggis topping. Hots mon, och aye and pass me the deep fried heroin, could I be more Scottish?
It was my call to give up on our plan to drink a different short in every pub, we had too many whiskeys and things that I just wasn't enjoying, and getting extra hammered just for the sake of showing off. Scottish beer is not the best in the world, all served a bit too cold, but I did have a very nice pint in The Half Way House on Fleshmarket Close. Very small, but ace, deservedly a CAMRA pub of the year.

Ian Rankin has a book called Fleshmarket Close, which we bought while we were there, along with lots of others of his books, I'm sure all tourists do. We bought quite a few books while we were away, including one by another Scottish crime writer who we met there, called Quintin Jardine. We didn't see Ian Rankin around the town, but we did see The Duke of Edinburgh, us in Edinburgh and all, what are the chances? He was in jewelry shop that had closed just for him, does he think he's Michael Jackson or something? I shouted "YOU MURDERED PRINCESS DIANA" at him. Well, I thought about it. After he'd gone.

I do have more things to add about Edinburgh but thought I should post something while it's still fairly fresh. We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 while we were there. It's rubbish, don't bother.

Stay tuned for some pictures to illustrate this post, and some links, and tales of Blackpool, Keswick, and York.

Looks like Leeds might be safe for a while

Leeds after global warming sea levels...

Lots is new since I last saw you, mostly including getting married, moving to Folkestone, and surviving an earthquake. I too am mortgaged up, should have done it a long time ago instead of all that gadding about in London, I'm going to be about a thousand before it's all paid off... Thinking of getting a second one now, it's probably a really bad time to do that though.

Sorry I ran off yesterday, TV to watch and that.

Crash? What crash?

I hung on for years and years wary of buying convinced there would be a crash. If I'd bought when I first could, even if there had been a crash I'd be better off than I am now. If I'd bought at the very top of the market just before the last crash, I'd still be better off than I am now. I think I bought at the very top of the market for Folkestone this time round, and I'm not sure our flat has gone up in value much in the three years since we bought it (though my bro-in-law's bungalow has been valued at 25% higher than they paid for it). I can see there being a serious levelling out in some areas, but not everywhere. I probably wouldn't buy a flat as an investment round here right now, as I know there are going to be lots more built, which ought to keep the price down, but buying a property that you will actually want to live in is less risky. There were a couple of "blocks" of very nice looking new flats in the centre of town that were just being finished when we moved in, more expensive than ours, and a bit smaller I think, and one or more of them is always listed in the local paper as being up for sale or rent. Things like that being available stop the value of comparable flats rising, but if we can get the sort of rental value they do we'll be fine.

We could sell this flat and use the equity in it towards the next place, but part of that would get swallowed up by fees and things anyway, and I do love this flat and want to keep living in it for now anyway, and basically we need to either stay here or rent it out with the pool table in situ, as we're unlikely to move to another place with rooms big enough...

Sales pitch, in case someone comes across this in a couple of years time looking for a two bedroom flat to rent in the West End of Folkestone, near the station, near the town, glimpse of the sea, 17' x 15' lounge, 17' x 16' bedroom, 11'6'' square kitchen / breakfast, with a nearly 11' high celing, big bathroom, double glazed, central heating, a very cool remote controlled fireplace that I don't think I can take with me, a couple of humungous walk in storage cupboards that are crying out to be turned into en-suites, I mean I could go on... It's not available yet though. One day.

Car, yes, I want to get a van, but the wife is not keen. The new job is right by Folkestone races / Westenhanger station (three stops away) and we're right by the station, so I have no excuse for adding to the air pollution just yet.

Fareham: NOT the worst place in the country to live

From Portsmouth today, in reopnse to a recent survey...

Leader forces climbdown by newspapers
TWO national newspapers have been forced into a climbdown by a council over stories about a survey that claimed it was the worst place in the country to buy a home.
Backed by media watchdog the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), Fareham Borough Council has won a battle with the Independent on Sunday and the Daily Mail over the slight, which they both published early last month.
Perplexed civic chiefs and residents alike were up in arms over the articles which referred to a survey by a property website. Surprisingly, it placed Fareham last, saying the area was plagued by high crime and unemployment levels.
But both papers have published letters by Fareham council leader Sean Woodward discrediting the claims as a form of correction. They did so in agreement with the PCC after the authority complained.
Fareham council leader Sean Woodward said: "I am very relieved to see these letters printed. We saw something in both newspapers that set the record straight."

Lovely weekend, all gone to quickly, will report back when less busy. The office moved over the weekend, I'm now one floor further up, big white open space with lots of windows, very light and bright, but FREEZING!

There's a nice run of pubs right by Whitehall

I'll look up the names of them, there's four in a row that we went in one day, when we were staying in London because of Clare's work, they're on the road running straight down from Trafalgar Square I think... I'll have to look them up.

Last cool place I went in London was Gordon's Wine Bar, a cellar type place at the bottom of Villiers Street, which is right by [plave]Charing Cross[/place] and Embankment stations, that's worth a look. I still like The Coal Hole too, on Strand, just about level with Covent Garden.
Rated 4.07/10 on Folkestone Gerald

Damp and other delights

This spell of cold weather has made the whole house SWEAT! I've hd to put our central heating on at last, yay it still works, but uh-oh, this has led to condensation everywhere. Hopefully this will sort itself out when the temperature levels off a bit, will see. I'm a bit worried that condensation is an early sympton of potential damp...

The basement flat has apparently had some sort of damp issue, which has now crept into the flat on the ground floor, and we're on the second floor, for how much longer are we safe..? The full story is that the basement flat on this side of the building (rewind a bit, this is a big old building, split into two, then each again split into five, so ten flats in all, and two front doors, now carry on) negotiated himself the exclusive use of some storage rooms down in the basement, which in the neighbouring identical mirrored building are share between all the flats. now it seems this private storage room had a damp problem a few years ago, but basement flat owner didn't have the money to fix it, so left it. Now it's got out of hand and is going to cost thousands to put right. So there was a tenants meeting (we all own part of the freehold), which we didn't go to, but we did get a note asking what we thought about this, who should fix it, who should pay for it, maybe we the freehold company could lend the money to the flat owner, maybe we could take control of this basement room again. I wouldn't mind some extra external storage if it was right by the flat, but it being all the way down there, and also stinking with damp, it doesn't sound like such a good option to me. My suggestion was for the people involved to sort it out with their insuranace... Does that make me a bad neighbour? Ah well, it's at least one step up the niceness ladder from calling the council to complain about the damp health hazard.

UPDATE from neighbour we do actually speak to:

[basement flat owner] has managed to come up with some money to eradicate damp and he is dealing direct with contractor. He wishes to hang on to storerooms.

So that's that sorted then. Thanks for listening to all that, here are some illustrative pictures as a reward. First, a look at the back of our building, see the five flats. Well, the top four and about half of the basement flat. That basement flat doesn't have any front aspect at all, I wonder what it's worth? I did hear the guy only paid 15k for it at the time...

Next, while looking for a picture of the flat I found this one of a patch of damp in our flat in Stokey. I don't remember it being that unpleasant, did we just have a wildly different standard of living then or what?

I picked up a new experience today, my very first visit to a launderette, at the age of thirty-four. Wasn't too bad, I just needed a bigger machine to be able to fit our winter bedspread in. There seems to be only one laundrette in town, and it's pretty run down, but it wasn't that bad. Maybe we could do with one of those cool laundromat-cum-nightclub type setups, with DJ's and a bar and dancing on top of the machines in the evening. I raised this with Clare, but she won't let me cash in all the savings to invest in such a scheme.
Started my new book while waiting for the wash and dry, it's a Davinci Code style novel that is not released yet, not sure how much I can say about it, it's related to this new job that starts on Monday.

Lawks, that's the end of my spell of leisure then. Where did it go? I've wasted the last of my daytime TV opportunity by watching the latest episode of Dexter, and just about managed to hold off from the new Lost, better save that for when Clare gets in. Or rather, when we both get in, from our semi-regular night out at Keppel's bar tonight.

HUCKLE

Re: HUCKLE
Anton Adam(s) Huckle and Anna Marie Binkert(d)
came to U.S. port of N.Y. circa 1870's?
children George, William, Berthold, Fritz, Emil,
Annie, Emma or Emily (died young)
any info would be good they finally ended up in
Texas. Thanks!

RE: The Sandgate Hotel,

Hi there

Well as you probably know the Sandgate Hotel closed down for a refit (coincidentally not long after the Ramsay Kitchen Nightmare programme). So was interested to go there when it reopened. It now looks much better inside - they've knocked through from bar to dining room and it feels more spacey. Downside in my view the food. When we went all the meal options were very dry and tasteless (very few options with sauces) and there was a bizarre pricing policy - a few dishes were at the �6-7 level and the others were �10-12. I was really hoping it would be a viable alternative to Bar Vasa (which yes we all love but it would be nice if there was at least one other place we could go on the seafront that is good value and has a view!). Oh they also didnt cook my friends meatballs properly - some of them were raw on the inside.

Still its a nice option in the summer if you can get to sit on the terrace .....

Baby baby, where did our weekend go?

Aciton packed weekend, yet again quite literally TWO daytime trips out of the house that were not just to the shop or the pub, what is going on? We had such a full weekend that I had just about no time for larking about on the computer or even sitting watching TV, so I'm a little behind on my ripping / burning / watching plans. The computer is mostly working well though right now, I have burned data disks and even a real style DVD (with footage I shot myself, so I know it all works. Soon I will be editing myself a masterpiece I'm sure. The Oscar to go with my BAFTA can surely only be a matter of time...

Went for a picnic on Saturday, a stroll through town to the East side of Folkestone as it was such a nice day, I think Folkestone looks GREAT in those pictures. OK, so the pictures are mostly taken away from the town, but still, it's nice that this is walking distance from our flat. Saturday night we headed into Hythe, a few drinks in The Butt of Sherry for the first time, which was great. It could easily become my favourite pub, except for one thing - they have a picture of Jimmy Saville up behind the bar, what's that all about? Anyway, nice cosy characterful pub, the food looked good too. We opted for a curry though, on to Everest also for the first time, and that was a lovely Nepalese meal. Only upset of the day was the three quarters of an hour wait for a taxi home, bah.

Sunday we headed to Ashdown Park with Mum and Dad and the inlaws and everyone, quite a possee. Ashdown Park is a is a hotel now, that was a convent, and the chapel of the convent had some spectacular Harry Clarke windows - Harry was Clare's great-grand-uncle. I've seen a few before in Ireland and in Miami, but these were the most impressive so far. It's great the way the chapel's been converted, a mezzanine floor cuts right through the building, so windows that would have been forty feet up in the air are now at eye level. It's great to get right up close to this, and FRIGHTENING to think what they're worth. And that they're not owned by anyone in the family now, bah. We had a great meal in a pub called The Black Peter too. All round, a very nice day and weekend.

AAARGH frightening USB bear, thanks for that Ro.

Just remembered, I did find some computer time, I've had a play with Picasa, and it's fabulous, hoping that if I tag pictures there before uploading them to Flickr it'll recognise all the geotagging and things too. Wonder if there's info on this in the flickr geotagging group.

Busy today I'm sure, IT manager is away so any IT related queries will fall to me...

Spoiler alert!

Got something I want to say about Lost, so trying out a new "spoiler" bbcode type tag, so I can post things and you only read them if you really really want to:

this same theory about Lost at work, my colleague googled for the book title and we found that site... I think they're all mental, most of them are being torn apart by guilt because they've killed someone. The idea of it all going on in one person's head a la "I Am The Cheese" seems to have been denied by the creators though." class="spoiler" class="spoiler Haha was just expounding this same theory about Lost at work, my colleague googled for the book title and we found that site... I think they're all mental, most of them are being torn apart by guilt because they've killed someone. The idea of it all going on in one person's head a la "I Am The Cheese" seems to have been denied by the creators though.">Haha was just expounding this same theory about Lost at work, my colleague googled for the book title and we found that site... I think they're all mental, most of them are being torn apart by guilt because they've killed someone. The idea of it all going on in one person's head a la "I Am The Cheese" seems to have been denied by the creators though.

Hmm, might not display anything at all, more work to be done on this... and now it's done, and it's not really much of a spoiler at all. You want to read it don't you? If you have a spoiler for a TV show to post here wrap it in [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] and use the "preview" button to make sure it doesn't show...

To avoid more spoilers (and misleading distractions - some are official Lost sites, some are fan sites), don't click these links either:

lost.cubit.net
lost4815162342.com
www.thetailsection.com
lostpedia.com
www.minnesotametallurgy.com
www.thewidmoregroup.com
www.garytroup.net
www.hansogroup.com
gallery.thewidmoregroup.com
www.mrclucks.com

All just fan sites. I think. Maybe wikipedia is the place to go, though I don't know... What's this one then? Is it real? Is it a film within Lost? Have the makers of lost snuck that into IMDB?" class="spoiler" class="spoiler What's this one then? Is it real? Is it a film within Lost? Have the makers of lost snuck that into IMDB?">What's this one then? Is it real? Is it a film within Lost? Have the makers of lost snuck that into IMDB? There are so many levels to this I'm starting to believe that the majority of the internet is only there to mislead Lost viewers...

SOS Folkestone

On a technical level, I don't like www.sosfolkestone.info but that could be just me being a nerd. They do have a little forum there with a lot more activity than this one, and some more info on Roger Dehaan's masterplan for Folkestone, including some pictures. They include this report on his recent presentation:

Over the last week (20th March onwards) Roger De Haan has been presenting his seafront plans to various groups before it goes public on April 1st (open for public consultation).
On Tuesday 21st March, so many people turned up, that two presentations had to be held!
SOS members, Julie Balliu & Simon Everett were lucky enough to be in one of these presentations and have prepared short notes for you to see/read and make your own judgements.

Brief Review:
As you are aware, Roger De Haan owns the Harbour, and has great plans for this area, but he did mention that without the land owned by Jimmy Godden incorporated into the project, the whole thing would not flow as it should do. The thought is that JG will sell the land; if he doesnt it could be met with a compulsory purchase - but only if the community/people of Folkestone want this to happen.

De Haan's legal advisors have been writing to Shepway District Council for a long period of time regarding this issue, with emphasis on the fact of errors in the process/planning application regarding JG land. The Trent plans have not received planning consent as yet, as they are unable to meet the conditions of the Planning Committee of SDC.
As we speak, Trent are currently submitting new plans to the SDC.

It has been found that, under new House of Lords decisions, SDC can change their mind on the Trent/JG planning issue, and they cannot be sued if they do so.

De Haan clearly stated that the whole seafront project is for the people of Folkestone, for its regeneration and its future. He would not be involved in such a thing, if he didnt think the people wanted it. Therefore, if you do like the proposed plans, you must speak out and let your councillor/SDC know of this. Your thoughts and opinions matter.

Please review De Haans aims and objectives, as well as some rather blurred (!) photographs of his proposed plans, which will probably take up to six years to complete.

Find the photos in www.sosfolkestone.info. But then come back here.

Yes, looks like Dinger

It's not a very large number though, possibly five accounts. There's one other person registered at his address that might be on the level, but then there are another three or four at different addresses that are definitely not - they might have been real people at some point, but the accounts are all being run together now.

AJAX

Got my sidebar ajax working in explorer and everything, seems MSIE doesn't like you using javascript's innerHTML to put a block level element like a UL into a SPAN. Firefox has no problem with this, maybe that's Firefox being slack, but anyway - put it into a DIV and we're laughing.

Hey, amusing anti microsoft thing that will earn money too, clever...

as I understand it...

you have to live in the states and have purchased it before the end of may 2004. which is a PAIN on two levels... one I'm not in the states so therefore completely discounted and ignored and two I got mine in June 2004, although in Seattle.

Bugger!

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Full steam ahead

Investment has been at record levels and high profile projects, such as the new dedicated fast line from Folkestone to London, and the inter-city track upgrade from London to Glasgow, are starting to come to fruition, says the BBC... quick, this success has all followed a little renationalisation. We can't have this! Privatise it again and mess it up!

My Life In The Making � American Tour

MLitM fly out to the states on the 18th September for a week�s tour. They play four shows with American band �Another Tradgedy� playing Lexington, Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit. They have also been invited to play this year�s Mid-point festival in Cincinnati. They were chosen from thousands of applicants for this year�s festival and are proud to be the only UK act chosen. The festival over three days attracted over 40,000 fans last year and the prediction for this year is 50,000. MLitM manager and Zebra 3 records owner �Ben Watson� who has organised the tour has also been asked by the Festival to join the panel as a speaker on Independent Record labels in the U.K at the mid-point music festival seminar. During the days MlitM have a packed itinery with an interview with the Cincinnati post, two tracks being played and an interview on WEBN radio and an appearance on Fox 19 television.

On their return to the UK Zebra 3 records are set to release their single �someone else�s conclusion� with the video ear-marked for Scuzz t.v�s �new skids on the block�

�Contemplating Concepts Of Forever� was released on April 4 2005 on Zebra 3 Records

My Life In The Making is :

Ken Graham on Vocals

Ted Clark on Guitar / Vocals

Sam Alflatt on Bass

Tom Alflatt on Drums

My Life In The Making exploded out of Kent this April, armed with their debut full length, �Contemplating Concepts Of Forever�, featuring ten roundhouse blows of passionate melodic metal.

Whilst citing heavyweights such as Glassjaw, Tool, Deftones, Thursday, Machine Head and Faith No More as their main influences, My Life In The Making are intent on creating a name for themselves for what they sound like, not as an identikit of their influences. "Contemplating Concepts Of Forever" is a passionate offering which maintains it�s British accent whilst looking set to charm audiences globally.

The group embarked on a "sold out" UK tour in August and now head stateside for some shows and festival appearance in September. Having already shared stages with Lostprophets, Biffy Clyro, Hundred Reasons and Sparta, there�s no reason why My Life In The Making can�t step it up a notch off the back of this record, and make the leap into the spotlight.

Metal Hammer: "Recommended for fans of F4AF, Glassjaw and Lostprophets"

Big Cheese: "Powerful vocals take the songs to the next level with complicated riffs finishing them off"

Rock Sound: "..Memorably full of intricate melodies and F4AF style tempo shifts�they�ll be huge."

Ben (Zebra 3 Records)
www.myspace.com/zebra3

But I DON'T have satellite TV

These are neighbourhoods of young well-off commuter families, with many pre-school and primary school children.

These families often live in relatively large detached houses and have a long time left on their mortgage. However they have good incomes, and feel able to afford such long term commitments. These individuals are likely to be in their 30s, and tend to be professionals and managers with company pensions and company health care. They drive to work in company cars.

These families are financially aware. Where possible they will have regular savings plans and invest in stocks and shares. A child savings plan may cater for the children�s future. The high level of remortaging may indicate confidence in their ability to repay high levels of borrowing. They have credit cards with high credit limits, but their spending is not high.

The Internet is a popular channel for financial services, with e-banking fairly common with these households. On-line activity is generally high whether shopping, booking leisure activity, playing games or the children�s education.

These are young active people, taking part in aerobics, playing golf, rugby and going skiing. For entertainment they own a DVD player, subscribe to satellite TV and go to the cinema.

The Metronome up for auction

Guide price 200 - 250k with Clive Emson...

The premises comprise a former theatre with office and staff accommodation arranged over four floors and a main auditorium over two storeys. Planning Permission has now been granted for the building to be converted into a three storey indoor market/antiques centre with access from two levels - one at Grace Hill and the second off the car park to the rear via St Eanswythe Way. The internal area has been completely stripped out in readiness for the proposed works.

The Metronome, Folkestone

mushrooms?! TUT

do they take you to a higher level of consciousness?

anyway, how good are the album releases next week? cant stop listening to dont phunk with my heart - that's a bad tune.

my main news is that after 92 hours of viewing i have FINALLY finished watching the West Wing. All 6 seasons and all i can say is i feel pretty empty. I thank the Lord that the cliff hanger for end of season 6 wasnt too bad compared to previous seasons - it was actually quite weird - almost not cliffhanger-esque and more end of chapter. although it cant be the end cos they're doing another season, albeit with a cut down budget so apparently there's going to be large scale culls. will be martin sheen's last season of course - im guessing he costs a lot.

49 - 51 Earls Avenue

The snazzy looking development on our road is finally for sale with Fell Reynolds... they say:

Numbers 49 & 51 Earls Avenue form a pair of elegant Edwardian Mansions, which have undergone complete refurbishment and conversion to offer twelve superior, two bedroomed apartments. Situated in the heart of the West End in a wide tree-lined avenue, these stunning apartments enjoy the rare benefit of allocated off-road parking and are particularly well-placed to take advantage of the proposed high-speed rail-link, being within level walking distance of both mainline railway stations. Converted to an esceptionally hgih standard and offered with an NHBC guarantee, the apartments offer the elegance and grandeur of the original building, whilst offering a cutting edge contemporary design and specification within a safe and secure environment - 10-year NHBC Guarantee - allocated parking spaces - superior quality fitted kitchens with integrated applicances - decorative cornicing - original restored fireplaces with gas points - UPVc double glazing - gas fired central heating - smoke/fire alarms - fitted carpets and vinyl floor coverings.

The right carriage!

Went for carriage number one today on our little commute from Folkestone to Charing Cross, and it was just great. Seems to be the carriage of choice for the professional commuter, so the tables were already bagsed, but everyone was silent, either sleeping or engrossed in an improving book or quality daily.

Took a stroll down to Folkestone snooker club last night before Property Ladder, to get Jimmy White tickets. He's coming to Folkestone and playing against the Malteser Tony Drago. I will miss it as I'm at the Rugby, but Clare is excited about it.

This week's Property Ladder was good, that house was quite fab for only 40k, being on three levels like that. Think they were quite lucky not to lose a fortune with their wacky ideas. I thought this series might be one like trail of misery, as on previous shows the amateur developers only seem to have been saved by booming property prices, now seemingly over...

Hackney Walks : Stoke Newington

Please drive by carefully in our village

One of the very few things I'll miss about not commuting into work on the 243 bus any more is the graffiti. There are some big works by Banksy and others that you get a fine view of from the Kingsland Road. A reallly simple one just said Please drive by carefully in our village on what I thought was a train bridge, you can check it out here. And that's the only place you can, because this week that bridge has disappeared! It's part of the development of the area behind what was Shoreditch Library into flats. I always thought it was a train bridge, but I'm guessing it's not, as there are big chunks of it missing now. It's sure to be all gone by the time I get back into the area with a camera, and I'm not sure I can be arsed to get off the bus to take a picture anyway. I'm assuming it's Banksy too, because www.artofthestate.co.uk says so.

Here's a cool site covering things of interest you can see walking round the area, it has some good stuff on Stokey too. Mmm, "stroke newington"...

Since you ask, the only other things I think I will miss from that commute are the massive adverts, and some of the buildings. The posters are just where the bus turns from Kingsland Road into Old Street here, near Hoxton Square, and they're HUGE, and I think they'd brighten up any town, I'd love to see some in Folkestone. Maybe it's just because they're for products that I like, like IPODs and booze, but I like the oversizedness of them and the way they dominate that bit of town, like a low rent Picadilly Circus. Maybe I'll list all the buildings I like another time, but the main bad boy is Identity, a hairdressers, it has a crazy 1930s cartoon robot face. More buildings with faces!

Wow getting a bit like real blogging there, though I've long faded from my self imposed remit of posting local stuff for local people. Hopefully leaving work in a bit, heading down to Folkestone for a weekend of mostly decorating, though also fitting in childrens birthdays and maybe watching rugby too.

Apparently someone was killed right outside our office today, on Farringdon Road, hit by a car I think. The road was closed completely for a few hours, all back now, and I can find no news about it. Did find that The Guardian are converting their offices into flats though. Something nice and cheap would make a very nice pied-a-terre!

Vegetarian and vegan cuisine isn't just for protesters anymore

So says sanfrancisco.com... we've picked our honeymoon now, and it will involve a stop in San Fran, so this restaurant sounds good!

San Francisco's Millennium, located in the Savoy Hotel, features a completely animal-free menu and serves artfully presented and deliciously gourmet vegetarian cuisine that spans the culinary gamut from Black Bean Feijoada to Carrot Lasagnette in an classy dining room open to dressing up or down. Wild mushrooms and chickpeas are common, saffrons and chutneys spice up veggie concoctions and the dessert menu includes dairy-free delights such as Vanilla Cinnamon Sorbet and Bananas Flambe. Millennium also takes eco-friendliness to a new level with a selection of organic wines.

Hope nothing goes wrong with trying to book it, though now we've decided to bite the bullet and learn to drive again, we have a lot more options... Full weekend write up on the way, just saving this while I remember it...