Mike's Random Muses

British intelligence agents spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the runup to the Iraq war, a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet said yesterday. Blair refused to say whether the allegation was true. But he said Clair Short, formerly his international development secretary, had been "deeply irresponsible." Source London Free Press

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know by now that I have a deep contempt for all politicians, especially Tony Blair and his crawly bum licking cronies. Even with this in mind, I find the latest revelations made by Clair Short totally intolerable.

What world does this woman live in? It certainly isn't the real world. There are some things that are best kept quiet, and spying on international friends and enemies of the state is one of those things. Everyone knows it goes on, only a fool would admit to it. Clair Short is that fool.

If she thinks that we are the only nation that have got up to such tricks then she is a fool. I'll bet it odds-on that every nation with any interest of what is going on in the UN is playing the same game, the difference is they keep their mouths shut. There are a few good tenets that are a requirement of national as well as personal security:

1. Know your enemy.

2. Know who your friends are.

3. Above all know what they are up to.

If you don't know the above three things, then your are in deep trouble, nationally.

Clair Short in my opinion is unfit to hold office of any sort. Her performance as a geography teacher, in a TV programme earlier this week, showed that up quite clearly, where it was seen that she was incapable of listening to advice, from experts in the field, designed to help her in the task. The Government may have been wrong in their spying activities but, I for one would rather know what is going on behind closed doors, than going into something blind.

It really is time for her to go! The woman is a liability.

Take the BBC Quiz: Are you a cynic and find out. Oh and my results are:

You're a top grade cynic - in fact you've turned cynicism into an art form. You greet almost every piece of news with sneering contempt. Loosen up a bit.

And there's me worrying I might be going soft in my old age. Thanks to The J-Walk Blog for the link.

The European Parliament is poised to adopt a controversial directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement that would give rights-holders incredibly powerful tools in their fight against intellectual property infringers. While this might sound like a good idea at first, a closer look reveals that the directive doesn't distinguish between unintentional, non-commercial infringers and for-profit, criminal counterfeiting organizations. If this directive is adopted, a person who unwittingly infringes copyright – even if it has no effect on the market – could potentially have her assets seized, bank accounts frozen and home invaded. Don’t let these tactics become the latest weapons in intellectual property rights-holders' destructive war on “piracy.”

You can help to stop this diabolical attack on individuals rights and freedoms, just click here to register your protest and stop this, insideous breach of human rights, from becoming part of EU legistaltion. Thanks to Pogo for finding the link.

Sign up for the fight. This is important.

BBC NEWS: "Sylvia Hardy, 71, is a retired social worker, who used to work for Devon County Council and lives in Exeter.
But she is now involved in a campaign against the council's 18% increase in council tax...... Her council tax bill is now £644 a year - up from £544 in 2002....... She says she will pay only 1.7% of this year's increase - the equivalent to this year's rise in the basic state pension - and is willing to risk going to jail over the issue...... 'I am prepared to go the whole way....I am prepared to go to prison if that's what it takes,' she says. "

As more and more pensioners feel the pinch of imminent Council Tax rises, I reckon the Government is going to feel the pinch at the ballot boxes come the next elections.

The Daily Telegraph: "Les Gray, the lead singer of Seventies band Mud, has died a week before he was due to make his career comeback. He was 57.

Gray, who had suffered from throat cancer for some time, died of a heart attack while in hospital near his home in the Algarve in Portugal."

Mud were a group that always reminded me of my college years, as their songs were always played at the students union discos. They were a group that always seemed to be having a laugh when they played, which to me is what music should be about.

When things like this happen I start to feel old. I guess this is one cat that won't creep back in despite Easyjet's assertions that he may not be dead.

Rest-In-Peace Les. More tributes can be found here and here.

Addendum: If you want more information about Mud, then this Mud website might be a good place to start.

As the momentum builds, in the run up to the Carling Cup Final on Sunday, you may be a Boro fan looking for a venue to watch your team with like minded ex. pat's. If so then this item on the Middlesbrough FC website might help direct you to a suitable party: Where The Best Boro Parties Are. You may need to register as a member (it's free) to get access to the page.

A group of at least 14 are getting together in Singapore to watch the game on a 20 foot screen in a courtyard with 14 bars, this might be of interest to Brean who once confessed to being a semi Boro supporter.

My mad fool of a brother in Australia, would no doubt organise a do in Brisbane if he hadn't decided to come back home for the weekend, just to watch the game live in Cardiff. He said he couldn't live with himself if they actually won and he wasn't there to see it, especially as one of his friends in Boro managed to get a ticket for him.

Me? I'll watch it live on TV and just pray that we win, it will be a long journey home for 'Our kid' if we lose. Whatever happens I'll be meeting up with him on Monday afternoon in Manchester just before he flies back to Brisbane.

A guide to unintentional animals hidden in the constellations of the London Underground: Animals on the Underground. Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

The Independent: "He weighs about 15 stone, has a lightening left jab and is the Deputy Prime Minister. She is 83 years old, wears glasses and is 4ft 10ins tall..... But Elizabeth Winkfield, a pensioner from Devon, was told by John Prescott yesterday to 'face up to your responsibilities' and pay the council tax."...... Mrs Winkfield has pledged to go to jail rather than pay the "unfair" level of tax.Butthe pensioner has found herself on the receiving end of two stern warnings from ministers about breaking the law.

How quickly political lessons are forgotten. It seems Two jags Prescott has forgotten that the Poll Tax revolt was the beginning of the end for the last Tory government. History could very well be repeating itself here.

Mrs Winkfield is a typical pensioner who got a 2% rise in her pension in the last year, that is around £104 per year. Her council tax bill for this year has risen by £144 (20%). She has actually agreed to pay an increase of Council tax of 2.5%, which is actually the equivalent of the rate of inflation. But the council have taken her to court to try recoup what is owing. Mrs Winkfield has been told the bailiffs will soon be calling if she does not pay the back tax.

Enough is Enough! Over the last few years councils have been increasing taxes by between 10 and 20% per year, more in some cases. These taxes are no doubt wasted by complete and utter political twunts, who haven't got a clue how to run a budget effectively. It's time that they were brought to book for their mismanagement, hopefully the current bunch of cretins in national government will soon be following suit.

Good on you Mrs Winkfield! I hope the rest of the country is behind you. I also hope that any hits you take, from money grabbing bailiffs, will be covered by supporters of your cause.

As for Prescott, "You are nothing but a jumped up tart full of his own self importance. You are supposed to be part of a party that cares for the people, but you are shafting us left right and centre. Only wastrels, malingerers and criminals are benefiting under your government. Those that work for a living and try to save for the future or have worked all their lives, are going backwards. Mark my words Prescott: "You Have Been Found Wanting along with your so called mate Tony, in your political duties. Jail Mrs Winkfield if you dare, I can't wait for the backlash!".

This mini rant was brought to you by someone pissed off with the ever increasing tax burden, honest workers have to put up with.

The angelfish laid more eggs yesterday, I did actually see the angelfish chomping one or two of the eggs as well. All the eggs had disappeared again by this morning.

One of the earliest pieces of advice I can remember about driving was given to me, not by my dad, but by a friend back in my college days. He was on my course but was a few years older than me and most of the others on my course, he was therefore regarded generally as more worldly and knowledgeable than us mere freshers straight out of school. The person concerned, who I will refer to as Rasputin on account of him been sometimes referred to as the Mad Monk figured in many of the funnier episodes in my college life as well as the odd scary moments too. The tale of how the advice came about will be recounted here, though it has nothing to do with the tale I originally planned to tell, that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Rasputin was a bike nut, when we first started college he had a Honda 200 run-around, which he used for traveling between Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, on his daily commute. This was an amazing bike, bits were always falling off it and Rasputin would always fix it himself, using rather unusual methods, including a fix to a petrol tank that involved tying it back onto the bike frame with a piece of string. This, ingenious piece of bodgery, actually saved his bike from destruction on one occasion: when the tank caught fire due to a leaky outlet pipe, he was able to wrench it off with his bare hands and hurl it into some poor farmers field where it exploded with no loss of life and minor consequences for his beloved bike.

As the first winter at college started to hit home Rasputin put the bike into storage and brought out his aging Austin A35, another of his modes of transport held together by glue and string. It was an amazing (again) car, how he kept it running I'll never know, especially with 7 students crammed into it on weekend jaunts. He fitted us all in by removing the passenger seats and making us all sit on the floor. Don't try it at home kids, it's damned uncomfortable and bloody dangerous to boot.

There were times when I doubted Rasputin's sanity especially when he tried to get me to buy his two beloved vehicles from him. That he managed to sell both vehicles, is a testament to his powers of persuasion. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if he was a used car salesman now.

Anyway, as the academic year wore on, he also moved on and purchased a Triumph Bonneville for his college commuting, believe it or not it was just as ropey as his Honda 200, but a lot faster. Not only that but he bought a 'new' car: a Fiat 124 Special. Of course the word new in this case is entirely relative. The Fiat had a 1500cc Twin Cam engine and was capable of 100mph, which was bloody fast back then in 1974. It was in this car that the driving advice would be given and received with eventual reverence.

Summer 1974 was rapidly approaching and with exams finishing, during an after exam celebratory drink it was mooted that a summer trip to Barrow-in-Furness would be a good idea, Loz another of the 'mature' students on the course hailed from Barrow and the weekend would be spent exploring the ale houses and maybe fleshpots of said shipbuilding town, using Loz's fathers house as a base of operations. Rasputin of course kindly volunteered to be my chauffeur for the journey across the Pennines, a journey that was to turn out a lot shorter than I expected.

Previous journeys to the lake district had often took 3 hours or more in my dad's old Standard 10, a car which rarely got over 60 miles per hour and needed a bloody long run up for any hill that looked vaguely steep. Rasputin's Fiat on the other hand was like a rocket compared to my dad's car. Hurtling across the A66 at over 70mph was a bit of a revelation, Scotch Corner, Bowes and Brough were almost a blur, turning off we headed down through Kirby Stephen, a quiet market town at which we stopped briefly to fill up with fish and chips.

Then it was onwards again, we eventually found ourselves bombing down the A590 at the south end of the Lake district. Don't ask me how but Rasputin managed to get the speed up to 100mph on some parts of this road, then as we neared Ulverston disaster almost struck, a Citroen 2CV pulled out in front of us from a side road.

We were fast appraoching a bend, so as Rasputin could not overtake, he slammed on the brakes. The car slithered and slewed from side to side, somehow not spinning entirely through 360º's, thankfully nothing was coming from the other direction, as the momentum slowed Rasputin was able to gain more control of the car and, we somehow managed to slow enough to avoid turning the Citroen into a skip.

As I prised my fingures from out the dashboard, and completed the mental imagery of my life story, Rasputin spouted up: "Would you just look at that".....

"What?" I stammered.

"Him, there in that heap of junk, the twunts wearing a Trilby!" Rasputin replied.

Somewhat dazed I asked "What's that got to do with the price of chips?".

Rasputin sniffed haughtily and delivered his reply with disgust "It's a well known fact that you should never trust any driver wearing a trilby hat, they're all idiots". He then went on to add "drivers with a bald head and wingnut ears are just as bad. They're just trilby wearers who have lost their hat"

I muttered an unconvincing "Oh, that." but Rasputin let it pass and we continued on the rest of our journey to Barrow. The journey took us less than 2 hours in all. The weekend was a reasonable success in terms of attempts to drink any pub dry that we happened to walk into. My non-Barrow accent seemed to impress some of the young ladies of the town, though to be honest I can't remember an awful lot about what really went on during the stay. It's all shrouded in the vague mists of time and alcohol fumes.

The one thing, from that weekend, that did stay with me all these years, was the advice about avoiding any drivers wearing a trilby. The more I've come across, the more they have proved that Rasputin was correct. The same goes for bald drivers with wingnut ears.

Nowadays, the same can be said of drivers wearing baseball caps, driving what can only be described as stain chariots, otherwise known as Vauxhall Novas, one of whom I had a run in with this morning.

Unfortunately I believe I was bottle fed. The image and many more fun ones can be found on this index of amusing pictures.

A brief announcement: Yes this blog is one year old today, I'll blog something more later in the day, probably lunchtime.

In the early days, using MS Windows was was a real pain in the arse.

Battleground God is a good quiz found by Richard at Background Noise. You have to answer 17 questions about your beliefs about religion in a consistant manner to achieve the highest award. I manged to take zero "Direct Hits" and "Bit 1 Bullet". For this I was awarded a TPM medal of distinction, ie. the second highest award possible. The analysis of my performance appears below.

Battleground Analysis:

Congratulations! You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only one bullet and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

How did you do compared to other people?

186899 people have completed this activity to date.
You suffered zero direct hits and bit 1 bullet.
This compares with the average player of this activity to date who takes 1.39 hits and bites 1.12 bullets.
46.01% of the people who have completed this activity, like you, took very little damage and were awarded the TPM Medal of Distinction.
7.26% of the people who have completed this activity emerged unscathed with the TPM Medal of Honour.

An excellent book and apparently I'm it:

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!

by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you, but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Thanks to A Touch Of Schizophrenia for the link.

It's been a mad busy week so far at work and today was no exception, with Business Requirements Documents needing to be finished of in advance of the forthcoming customer signoff. Still we must be doing something right, the boss took us all out to Pizza Hut for lunch on the company.

I've not blogged anything of substance for a while but with this blogs 1st anniversary coming up on Friday, I've been trying desperately to think of something interesting or even substantial to write about. So far I've failed but maybe I'll have something by then.

Have you ever wondered just how wide the World Wide Web really is?

If you fancy a drink and are always stuck for a partner to share in the telling of life's triumphs and woes, then maybe Drinking Buddies will find a solution to your problem.

Ananova says: The drinkingbuddys website was the brainchild of Mark Payne, who runs a fast food restaurant in Newbury, Berkshire......... The 32-year-old came up with the idea after moving to a new area where he had nobody to go for a drink with........ "All my friends were 50 miles away and it's difficult to go into a pub and start talking to people. I went out to rent a video - and as I was browsing saw other sad gits like myself who were obviously single.".......... "I've met a dozen people already, including a lady," he added.

The upgraded service costs subscribers £5 a month, so Mark may be onto a nice little earner. What's more the lonely drinkers might actually meet a lady into the bargain. Whatever next? Online dating services? :Humb:

Can't anyone do anything for themselves these days, without paying for an online computer service?

To anyone passing through the Ormskirk area, I can thoroughly recommend the food at The Halton Castle Inn, in Westhead. Contact details are: Tel: 01695 573596, Address: Crosshall Brow, Westhead, Ormskirk, Lancashire L40 6JF.

On our first visit last night we both had the 'Lamb Henry' (Roast shoulder of lamb in mint sauce) with boiled new potatoes, carrots and peas. The lamb was so tender it all but fell apart. All washed down with a nice Californian Colombard Chardonnay. Excellent. We'll be paying another visit soon.

Ale fan's post today about his visits from a US military site reminded me of the story about the Scottish whisky distillery that came under surveillance from the US 'Defense Threat Reduction Agency' last October.

A nice little steal from Christine at Supermum: Saga Lout is Retribution, by the people who gave us the Blunkett policy maker, and the Daily Mail headline maker. Enjoy.

I'm surely not the only person to think that the voice of Kerry McFadden has a striking resemblance to Orville the duck?

I wish I could fly, right up to the sky but I can't...... Go on, you can do it.... I'can't.... Yes you can... I really can't....

So I got home from work last night and Mrs C directed me into the study saying: "those angelfish have laid some eggs, but they're eating them". Sure enough on inspecting the aquarium there were around 100 little round white eggs attached to a leaf on an Amazon sword plant. But the fish weren't eating the eggs they were fanning them. This ensures that the eggs have a clean and oxygenated supply of water and both parents will take it in turns to look after the eggs until they hatch. They were also diligently guarding the eggs like others of the Chiclid species. The photograph below clearly shows the eggs on the plant leaf with one of the parents in the process of fanning them, it's the best one I could get, unfortunately I had a lot of trouble with the flash reflecting back.

It seems that I have had the good fortune to unknowingly buy a breeding pair. Unfortunately this little story has a sad ending, I checked the state of play this morning before I went to work and all the eggs had disappeared. This will be down to the plecostomus catfish taking advantage of darkness to grab what to it is probably a tasty tidbit. Unfortunately I don't have a spare tank or the space to breed the fish properly so for the moment nature will have to run it's course. Oh and I think I now know that the culprits for the uprooting, of the more fragile plants, are the angelfish. They were clearing away places that other fish could hide in and ambush the eggs.

Excuse me, but I'm still in a state of shock after Middlesbrough beat Manchester United (better known to me and my friends as Manure) 3-2 at Old Trafford last night. What a pity we can't produce the same sort of form on our home ground. Next up an away game against the skunks.

You are 21% geek

OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

I thought I'd done this one earlier but can't find it nor be bothered to look further into the archives. Anyway thanks to Audrey at A Touch of Schizophrenia for the link.

It's been a while since I did anything with my tropical aquarium and for a number of years I have kept a species tank comprising of mainly: Rummy Nose Tetras, Neon Tetras, Cardinal Tetras, Lemon Tetras and X-Ray Tetras. Prior to that I kept Central American Chiclids, but now I have decided that it was time for another change.

The stocks were run down naturally over the last year, until all I had left were two Clown Loach, two Candy Striped Botia, a couple of Flying Foxes and a Plecostomus. Whilst the study was being decorated I gave the aquarium a good clean out, and then started on the restocking programme at the weekend.

The first purchases were 2 Orange and Silver Angel Fish plus ten new plants. The fish seemed to have settled in now and are feeding regularly, but the a couple of the plants have been uprooted or nibbled at the edges. I think the Plec' may be responsible for the nibbling, I'm nor sure which fish are reponsible for the uprooting though. It could be the plec' but it's more likely to be the Flying Foxes which continually chase each other about the tank.



A couple of thumbnail images of the 2 new additions, to my tropical aquarium, appear above. To view larger versions and a couple more pictures click here. If I manage to keep the angel fish in healthy state, I've not done so well in the past, but that may have been down to the mix of fish, then I intend to buy more and develop a species aquarium, concentrating on various sub species of angel fish.

Counties of Great Britain: "

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

"

Somehow Rutland is the only county that seems to have escaped my attention in England, whereas there are a few places in Scotland and Wales that I have yet to visit. Thanks to Diamond Geezer for the link.

Passport Information: "Under the recent NATO Passport Act (NATOPA - enacted on Nov 2, 2001), every country in the world is required to make available to the public a digitized copy of each and every valid passport issued, in their respective country.

We managed to sign a mutual agreement with HumNRI.com, to create the world's only centralized database of Passports, on the more than 6 Billion Passports, in the World. We are still updating our database, and if you do not find your passport information here, comeback after a couple of days."

Thanks to Richard at Background Noise for finding the above shocking link. Give it a try, I think you'll be surprised by the result.

One of my favourite ranters has made a comeback: Blueman Sings The Whites has reopened his blog on a new improved site, with commenting facilities too. Hopefully we'll see a few more posts from him now that he has ditched Yahoo has his blog home.

Create your own Daily Mail headline on the push of a button: The Daily Mail-o-matic

Why not try out, a disant cousin of the Daily Mail-o-matic, the David Blunkett policy maker

Or then again have a go at Michael Howard sings The Smiths

I've just had a little tidy up and have deleted some of my links on the right. One or two of the links don't blog anymore and the rest I don't have much time to read anymore, no offence is meant to anyone by doing this, as I still have the links bookmarked in my favourites list, so I can pop in from time to time just to see how things are going.

Take Pingu clubbing, penguin style. If clicking the link takes a long time to load or doesn't load at all, then open a new browser window and copy and paste the following URL into the browser Address field: http://62.116.30.115/yetineu/ then hit return.

My personal best so far is: 322.8 single hit and 1386.4 for five attempts.

You can find out what Pingu has to say about this over on Zoe's blog.

BBC NEWS | Wales | Police chief says legalise heroin: North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom has told the BBC that he is prepared to see drugs such as heroin openly on sale because current drug laws are doing 'more harm than good'.

This man is a menace to law abiding citizens, and should be removed from his post forthwith.

He says: "What would be wrong with making heroin available on the state for people who wanted to abuse their bodies. What is wrong with that?"

I'll tell you what's bloody wrong: I don't want my taxes funding the habits of drug addicts, because that is what will happen.

Anyway if that happens will the state provide us all with our beer and wine needs, will smokers will be provided with cigarettes on the state? I doubt it.

The sooner this man is sacked from his so called position of responsibility, on the grounds of his irresponsible actions, the better.

He's obviously a lazy bastard who cannot be bothered to get his, so called, law enforcers out of their cosy little cars, to do a proper policing job. If he spent as much time looking for ways to improve the sorry crime detection figures in his region, as he does trying to find ways of avoiding doing a policing job properly, then he might be better thought of by the public he serves.

Despite the findings of the Hutton whitewash and the continual attacks, on it, by whatever Government is in power, I still believe in the BBC. What's the alternative? SKY that's what, a broadcasting network operated by Rupert Murdoch, a man whose only interests are money, power and control of the media watching masses.

The only thing I could ever think I would want from SKY is the live sports coverage and I refuse to pay up for that because of the baggage that comes with it. What's more I would rather watch my sport live and when I say live, I mean I'd rather be at the event.

So I say "Clear off Murdoch, you are not getting your grubby paws on my dosh, nor will you brainwash me into believing your sorry excuses for news channels". I may be wrong but I know who I trust more than any politician or money/power grabbing businessman:

I'm hungover today and feeling more than rough, but I don't care. You may ask why and I'll tell you. It's all down to one football result last night: Middlesbrough 2 vs 1 Arsenal which gave us a 3-1 aggregate win over the Gunners in the Semi-Final of the Carling Cup, so we'll now be in a major Cup Final for the fourth time in seven years. Hopefully this time around we'll beat Bolton to record our first ever major trophy in our 130 year history. A full match report can be found here.

I'd just like to add my own words of congratulations:

A brilliant effort against the Gunners. Exactly what I'd hoped from the players, get at them, don't give them time on the ball, niggle them and make them uncomfortable! The fans now have a date with destiny, February 29. It's a leap year so let's leap into the history books! Of course Sam and his Wanderers have to be respected as they are a hard team to beat. But if we give the same effort and take our chances, it must surely be our time to bring the cup home.

I'm not normally superstitious person but in our previous cup finals our opposition played in blue and we lost all three. This time around sees us play Bolton who play in white, so I hope that is an omen for a change of luck. Whatever the outcome, I just hope both sides make it a great game. Oh and Boro win of course.

Come on Boro, Come on Boro, Come on Boro...................

Who's that team they call the Boro,
Who's that team we all adore,
they play in red and white,
and they're f'ing dynamite,
We'll support the Boro evermore...............

What? Oh, yeah alright. I'll calm down now.

It seems that the work schedule is increasing. I now have 5 design documents to complete between now and 20th February. I think the blog is going to be the thing that suffers as a result of this newfound workload.

On top of this I've just had to deal with a room security breach. We've an electronic keypad lock on our door, when we moved into the new office last month, we had the entry code changed and only 7 people plus the cleaner knew the code. Well that was what we thought. That idea soon changed when, an unknown person walked into our office today, saw it was occupied and quickly disappeared.

It turns out that the keypad responded to another code, as well as the one we know and use. Unfortunately some kind sole had scribbled this other code, faintly in biro, above the keypad. You don't notice it unless you specifically look for it.

Huh! Some security. At least it's sorted now and we can busily do what we do, without interruption from the customers staff.

My blogger code is: B4 d- t- k s u- f i- o x- e l c

You can find out what that means (here!)

Thanks to The Daily Linguini for finding the link.

Well it seems I've still got a lot of the world to see and viewing this picture it looks like a lot more than it feels. At least next year I'll be adding one new country to the small number visited do far.



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Thanks to Pogo for the link.

Yay! Pogo is back, with a new site: Pogoetry.