kestrel

swoon …

just had a phone call from John the Garage re The Ape*, who has been making a small but worrying rubbing noise recently. Ape needs new discs and pads all round, and his (platinum tipped) spark plugs almost certainly need replacing, as they should have been done at 60k, and weren’t. And he needs a (synthetic) oil change, and a new alternator belt to stop the screeching when I drive away.

the bill is going to be in the order of £750 [scream].

on the other hand, apart from having a new alarm fitted last month, a new battery, and some tyres, we don’t think he’s cost us a penny over the five years we’ve had him apart from sporadic services when we remembered, which was not often. And has always sailed through his MOT with no problem, so he’s not exactly been an expensive car to run, and we don’t grudge him this.

*my elderly but much loved grey** import twin turbo MR2

** well, he’s black, obviously***, but YKWIM

*** as ghod intended cars to be

wet pussy

I can’t tell you how enormously pleased I am to read this article on the Indy’s site.

can’t *wait* …

oh – what is it? It’s confirmation of High, the Blue Nile’s new album, coming out this summer. They’re just my absolutely utterly totally favourite band *ever*.

let us hope there is a tour – I’d travel a long way to see them play live again. Well, I have done so many times in the past :)

yesterday we went for another walk; we left it a bit late, not leaving the house till about 3.30, so I was quite adamant I didn’t want to go too far.

we decided to go to the Blaise Castle Estate, which is about five miles from where we live. It’s lovely, although a little steep in places. And, with hindsight, going down a bridleway after all the rain we had was perhaps unwise – wading through three inches of mud, even in proper walking boots, is hard work.

the rain came down, but we didn’t care – we had proper waterproofs. And then the sun came out again, so we packed them away and tramped onwards. And onwards and onwards and onwards. I’m really not quite sure how we got so badly off the track we were meant to be following, but we were just on the last quarter mile to the car at about 8 p.m., when the heavens opened again. The rain came down so strong and so hard that we were wet through before we had a chance to get the waterproofs out of the pack.

we arrived back at the Moose in an extremely soggen condition (i.e. soaked, literally, to the skin, and frozen), and squelched our way home to hot showers and baths, and huge slabs of Dexter steak with chips.

while out today, popped into Marcruss* to see if they had any nice fleeces. They didn’t, but I bought a HAD multifunctional lifestyle headwear Miracle Scarf, which is absolutely perfect for keeping my hair out of my eyes in the wind (it’s at that horrible length where there’s not quite enough to tie back).

this is such a great thing – it’s sort of like a bandana with attitude, and mine is black with white skulls and crossbones on it (how very me). I’m well chuffed with it, and I look like something out of Easy Rider when I have my shades on too :)

*Marcruss is a wonderful store, selling outdoor clothes, camping gear and army surplus stuff. Apparently old man Marcruss didn’t trust any of his three sons, so gave them a floor of the building each to run as individual businesses. There’s usually a dummy outside (a real one, I mean), wearing camouflage gear and a rubber gas mask; I expect they get quite a lot of trade from fetisists too …

what looks like a *fine* product for women, badly let down by an appalling Flash site.

The Whiz – a little device to aid women to pee standing up.

dearie me – Stephen Pollard of the Times seems a little bitter on the subject of the Glastonbury festival.

“There are few more pathetic sights than the annual paeans of anticipatory pleasure in the run up to the Glastonbury Festival. To hear the drivel that pours forth from its habitués, one would imagine that Glastonbury is some sort of mystical experience” and

“The illegality of the drugs that fuel the Glastonbury experience is the least of it. Far worse is its sheer immorality and hypocrisy, based on the idea that law-breaking is fine so long as it is confined to “our sort of people” and takes place in a field of teepees. It’s only wrong when it’s committed by oiks.”

I can only assume that his wife didn’t let him go … more here

now, I never thought of that –

“Think looking at spam is offensive? Try listening to it.

For the millions of blind and visually impaired Internet users around the world, using text-to-speech software is often the only way to check e-mail.”

more from the wired.com link here

at last – n a move welcomed by IT support staff nationwide, the government has pledged to introduce a minimum competence level for computer owners. Under the new scheme, prospective PC owners will have to demonstrate their ability to perform a number of simple tasks. The scheme is said to have the personal backing of Tony Blair who is apparently “well pissed off with John Prescott knackering the cabinet PC”. More here.