Wednesday 28 July 2010

Glookup Function - Combining Vlookup and Hlookup

I have been working on a new Excel function of late as I have always liked Vlookup and Hlookup but as discussed in an earlier post the more you try and do excel the less use they become, the issues I was finding more and more is that I used Match and Offset far more often. The main problem I had is that Vlookup will find a value in the left hand column and return a value, and Hlookup finds a value at the top but what if you have a grid and need to select a value based on a V and an H lookup?

In this case you use Match to find the first value and then use Count and Offset to create the dynamic range for the second, this was fine for one calculation but after writing 100 formulas on each sheet it becomes a pain. Therefore I worked on my new function.

Glookup (Grid Lookup) it works on the same lines as V and H lookup only the two lookup values are also the column return counts.

Here is the Formula broken down =Glookup([Vlookup],[Hlookup],[GArray])

Where Vlookup is the value in the Left Hand Column

Hlookup is Value in Top Row

GArray is the Grid Array (Where your data is – Must include your two header rows)

In the above example therefore =glookup("Feb",2007,A2:K14) would have the result of 23

So how does it work? Firstly I have to say in the interest of fairness and because it would simply be wrong not to, I have to say a big vote of thanks to RomperStomper over at Excelhelp.net who helped me with tidying up the code into a very nice succinct module.

Anyway to use Glookup simply paste the following code into the VBA window of your spreadsheet (Pressing Alt + F11 or going to Tools-Macro-Visual Basic Editor)

Function GLookup(VLookup, HLookup, GArray As Range)

Dim VRef

Dim HRef

VRef = WorksheetFunction.Match(VLookup, GArray.Columns(1), 0)

If IsError(VRef) Then

GLookup = CVErr(xlErrValue)

Else

HRef = WorksheetFunction.Match(HLookup, GArray.Rows(1), 0)

If IsError(HRef) Then

GLookup = CVErr(xlErrValue)

Else

GLookup = WorksheetFunction.Index(GArray, VRef, HRef)

End If

End If

End Function

It should now look like this

Now you can call the function from any worksheet in this book, don’t forget though you will unfortunately have to copy the function into each sheet you want to use it on.

New Premier League Rules

With the new season just a few weeks away the talk is all about transfers and The new Premier League squad rules, basically each team has a squad of 25 players with at least 8 being home grown (this means a player must be at a club registered with the English or Welsh FA by their 18th birthday) on top of these 25 the clubs can have an unlimited amount of under 21's,

I am not sure what kind of effect this will have, Spurs should be ok though as we have Huddlestone, King, Dawson, Bale, Lennon, Defoe, Crouch, Bentley, Jenas and O'Hara who are all home grown, and that is just off the top of my head, but Arsenal may need to dip into the market over the next month.

Strange Names

One story that crops up time and again is about the strange names that children are receiving from their parents, this weeks list from parenting club Bounty includes:

Shy
Bowie
Cobain
Rooney
D'Andre
And Unity

Perhaps the most unfortunate however maybe Armani.

Now the reason most commonly given for these names is that the parent didn't want anyone else to have the name. Personally last year when my wife and I came up with our daughter's name it took a lot of thought and was not something we entered into lightly, it is just a shame it was not as much of a concern to poor Denim's parents.

BP - Beyond Protests


The Trouble with BP is continuing as on the day that they announce that CEO Tony Haywood is standing down to be replaced by a more "US Acceptable" boss. Along with £11bn pounds loss for the second quarter, it is lucky for BP that RBS had such an atrocious year back in 2007 otherwise it will be the worst quarter by any UK PLC, (RBS lost £20Bn)

But on top of these there was a protest by Green Peace targeting BP filling stations inside London, BP claimed that they shut down 50 of the stations but BP claim there were only 16 effected, The protesters it seemed entered the filling stations and removed the safety switches therefore preventing the stations from opening - because nothing bad ever happened from messing about with the safety at a petrol station! - anyway it appears that all the garages are reopened now so now lasting damage has been done, although as the London Ambulance service have a contract with BP it could all have been a lot worse. The protesters message was that BP should not be spending as much money on trying to get new sources of Oil, a message that I personally think is a joke, whilst I would love to see a new power source (I am backing Hydrogen Power) the way to achieve the goal is not to attack an Oil company for selling Oil but rather to try and change the way consumers think, it is after all a case of supply and demand, as long as we are all consuming oil they will keep digging for it, and in harder and harder places meaning that a repeat of this years disaster is inevitable. Change needs to come but it needs to come from the car manufacturers and purchasers

Toy Story 3


Went to see Toy Story 3 last night, we decided to watch it in 2D as I really can't get on board with the whole 3D/Real D revolution. Basically I can't see what it adds to a story other than a slight headache. I understand that the point of the Real D system is for added reality, although personally this seems a mute point when you are watching a film about the continuing adventures of a group of plastic toys.


Anyway we chose the 2D version, The film was reasonably good but the warning that you needed to bring lots of tissues was a little premature, The film follows the basic premise of all Toy Story films - Toys are accidentally separated from Andy and then battle to get back to him - There wasn't anything particularly original or ground braking in this film although the overly Camp Ken Doll plays for a few laughs and the Spanish Mode on Buzz Lightyear was almost worth the price of admission alone.

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Returning Quaterly Values In Excel

I was speaking to a friend earlier who showed me a new way to automatically display quarterly totals using Sum Product.

This Table is set up in A2:D14
In the Quarters Summery sheet enter this formula

=SUMPRODUCT((ROUNDUP(MONTH(A3:A14)/3,0)=2)*(C3:C14))


Now this function has the same effect as simply inputting =SUM(C3:C5) but has the advantage that you can have the same formula in each cell, you select which Quarter you want to return by adjusting the =2 to show which quarter you require (i.e Jan - March is 1, Apr - Jun is 2 etc...)

I think perhaps that the best use for this however is to discourage the occasional excel user from trying to "Improve" your worksheets.

Monday 26 July 2010

BA Vs. Unite - The Stupidity Continues

News is just starting to come through that Union Unite are to take British Airways to court over the ongoing dispute, particularly the withdrawing of travel privileges of strikers last year. Now I am not against Unite trying to get back the privileges to their members, this is after all what Unions are for. What made me shake my head in disbelief on this one was that they are taking them to court on grounds of Human Rights - I am guessing the Right to subsidised travel was somewhere hidden into the declaration of Human Rights where I wasn't reading.

Freedom from Persecution, Torture, Detention Without Trial and Free Flights to Spain!!

It seems to me that if the Staff of BA go into work and actually complete the work they are paid for, whilst they thank their lucky stars that even after the cost saving measures were implemented they will still have better than industry standard conditions, Then the management are bound to give it back. But first you have to let go of the righteous indignation that characterises the Unite members.
I was slightly disappointed to discover that Spurs drew 2-2 with Sporting Lisbon in the New York Challenge, this is after we went behind midweek against Tierry Henry and his New York Red Bulls, (Finally Winning 2-1) Luckily however my spirits were lifted when I saw that our Closest Rival last season and Worlds Richest Club Manchester City lost both games. Although as City lost to Sporting 2-0 it is Sporting Lisbon who win the title beating us by 1 goal on Goal Difference. Still they do have Pedro Mendes who I will always be a fan off, especially after his disallowed Half Way line Goal for Spurs vs Man U 3 Years ago.

So now the boys are coming home and we will see how we do in our last three friendlies Villarreal, Benfica and Fiorentina – These three will give us a real test of where we are ahead of our Champions League Campaign.

Rory Stewart Says Sorry after Mirror Fabrication

A Tory MP has apologised after saying that some of his constituents held their trousers up with a piece of string, Rory Stewart MP for Penrith and the Border was quoted as saying “Some Areas around here are pretty primitive, people holding up their trousers with bits of twine.” Rory Stewart who has only been an MP since May apologised for any offence whilst not denying what he had said. Mr. Stewart, who I believe was previously a provincial governor in Iraq, was actually trying to highlight rural poverty. However the Sunday Mirror ran the story claiming that he called his constituents “Primitives” which is a clear stretching of the facts – in as much as talking one word from a statement and running with it as if it is fact – Maybe they have invited Piers “Fake Photograph” Morgan back for a guest Edit.

I guess sometimes (And it appears particularly to the Mirror) the facts, or at best a lack of evidence, simply get in the way of a good story. Anyway, Mr. Stewart is considering taking the Mirror to the Press Complaints Commission; I really hope he does as newspapers need to start reporting the news and stop making it up. Or perhaps the Mirror simply needs to hire some journalists who can read a full paragraph not just pick out random words

Friday 23 July 2010

Inception


Latest Movie visit was to see Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, in times where I am feeling generous I would say that this is a really good concept, however when I am feeling less charitable I would say it is very long.

Now I am going to complete a review for this movie but due to it's very nature I can not do so with out giving spoilers, therefore please do not read on if you are worried about it being ruined, I will try not give too much away but that is all I can say.


Spoilers Below

Spoilers Below

Right, I would say that I have given fair warning so here goes, The film is all about people who enter the dreams of others and use it to probe the sub-conscious, there were lots of interesting concepts which include that when setting up a dream inside a dream time travels at a much quicker rate so a minute in the real world is actually 12 minutes in the dream state, when there is a dream within a dream it is the same again so a real minute feels like over 2 hours. needless to say when they are playing the story over four levels of dreams it is very difficult to balance the plots correctly, as a result unfortunately there were so many inconsistencies that you can leave feeling rather annoyed. The final set up which is played out by many of the main cast over several different dreams makes you feel like you are in the third level of dreams yourself as the scene takes several days to slowly unravel.

I don't want to be too hard on this movie, as it is a good movie and I would recommend watching it (Although I would suggest waiting for it on Sky as you will need to sit in a seat more comfortable than normally around in the cinema.) but when the highlight of the movie is waiting to see if a spinning top falls over it tells you something (Although despite myself I did find this very exciting - You'll understand if you see it.)

Thursday 22 July 2010

Why Far Right is more Left than Right

I have been feeling a little bit annoyed recently with descriptions of conservative politics as Right Wing, in fact that is not strictly true what annoys me is when parties such as the BNP and Nazi Parties are called Far Right (I accept that this simply stems for the contempt I feel for racists, and how I hate to have them linked to me in any way.) it is often described as a scale going from Communism in the extreme left through Socialism and conservatism in the centre and out to fascism in the extreme Right, the problem is of cause that this, like most attempts to model a complex system is incorrect, this implies that Communism and Socialism are as far from fascism as you can get where as in fact they are the closest to each other, I would suggest that in fact the system is much more of a circle than a line with Communism and Fascism pulling support from roughly the same areas.

For example, Racism which is obviously a key tenant of fascism is all about pluralism, the dividing of people into constituent parts (Them and Us.) this shares the most parallels with Socialist ideals of a class war, Both of these ideologies share a common factor which can be dumbed down to “My life isn’t good, and it is their fault.” Like fascism, socialism looks not at what someone can do to improve their life rather who can be blamed. This is a theme that similarly binds fascism to communism, whilst on the surface they appear to be polar opposites they are both essentially about the redistribution of resources, in fascism from foreign born to domestic citizens and in Communism from the “Haves" to the “Have Nots" (although I personally think it is more frequently the “Earned” to the “Earned Not”) only capitalism and free market economics stand apart from this trend being purposely devoid of any state intervention of wealth redistribution. In a fully capitalist system there is total equality, no one is persecuted due to race, gender, religion or as in socialism success.

Another similarity of Socialism and Fascism is that they tend to broadly pull support from the same demographic, The BNP for example do not tend to take support from the Conservatives in elections rather they take their support from Labour, this is because they offer mostly an identical message, a message that “if you are unhappy with your life it is someone else’s fault” ties both parties to people who are not as concerned with what they have as ensuring that no one else has more then them. On the other hand the Conservatives promise that they will ensure that all people have equal chances (as opposed to equal output) pulls it support from inwards facing people who ask “How can I make my life better?” therefore it is much more likely that a Labour voter would vote BNP than a Conservative voter (Who is more likely to switch to UKIP) There is a clear link from the globalization of capitalism and the globalization of Human Rights, Capitalism works when everybody is working to better themselves and therefore a successful capitalist country is one with an extensive Middle Class and it is the creation of a Middle Class that drives the majority of democratisation as they ask for more say in their own country. Socialism, Fascism and to the greatest extent Communism look to prevent people from pushing for freedoms by replacing capitalist tendencies towards equality with “Big Government” control.

So next time you hear the phrase Far Right remember that the political landscape is less a line and more a circle.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

One More Post - Quote of the Day

I had not intended to make yet another post today but saw what has to be the quote of the day in this article over on the BBC.

The story is of a man (assumed) that has placed large posters (A4 and A3) of his Penis around Lewes, the quote comes from a PCSO in the area.


"However, from what we've seen, if this is a self-portrait, the artist won't be in a hurry to be identified."

Presentation to Former Members


I had intended to mention the gift I received as a former member, it is a rather large, and as I am typing this whilst walking home, heavy glass bowl - at least I would call it a bowl, it probably has a more correct name that my wife would know, but I am going for bowl.


Anyway, it is very nice and I am sure that before long it will be filled with dead twigs or glass beads depending on what takes my wife's fancy, but for now (halfway home) I can only really tell it is heavy.

Full Council Tonight

I have again come to full Council, this time it was for the presentation to former members which obviously includes me.

The meeting was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits after my election defeat, I am fairly sure that the debates lasted for several hours, although in truth it was under two hours. The debate was at one point described as simply a power struggle, a charge that Cllr Lamb (Northgate) stated he found that offensive, I am afraid to say however that from where I sat at the back this is exactly how it seemed. The same points were raised again and again obstinately regardless of the replies that were given.

Highlight of the meeting for me however, and accept this is politically biased, the Labour group asked, through Cllr Jones (Bewbush) why there was no Labour representation on the Joint Scrutiny steering group, it was pointed out that in fact this was because they were only 5% of councillors in West Sussex. A cheap shot but in a very drawn out meeting you need all the entertainment you can get.

Possibly the best thing in the meeting is that as I am no longer a councillor I could go home, so I have to admit, I didn't make the end of the meeting.

Second Life for Council

Just saw the story on the Daily Mail which reports that Tameside Council have spent £36,000 building a virtual town hall, they built this town hall inside the online game, Second Life, they claimed it was to reach hard to reach young people.
There were two problems with this, one is that the reason a lot of young people do not engage with the council is as they don't want to, and two, if a cyber literate resident wants to engage with the council I am sure they can type a URL into their browser.
Seems like a classic example of a council trying to pretend it understands a fad, which it clearly doesn't.
Well I assume you will be as shocked as me to discover that it has now closed due to lack of use.

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Early morning lecture; Economic lntegration, Wages and Equality.

I decided to dig out some of my old university lectures on CD this morning to listen to on the way to work. It was an interesting lecture looking at the effects of trade liberalisation on the equality of outcome in developing countries.

The main thrust of the debate was around standard integration theory and it's application to debates of opening up trade into Latin America, this is a very interesting idea as it would appear that when trade in Mexico was liberalised it was assumed that the effect would be the same as other developing countries, however unlike East Asia Latin America does not have an excess of unskilled labour, instead it is a semi-skilled area.

In integration theory it is a widely accepted fact that the abundant resource benefits and the scarce resource losses out, in developed countries that means that the unskilled workers lose out and the skilled workers gain, and vice versa in East Asia, this is where, in developed states, taxation comes in to redistribute resources to the most vulnerable. In the developing country the burden falls on the better off who are much better able to diversify and adapt.

The problem with Mexico however is that they do not have an abundance of unskilled workers and as a result the unskilled workers lose out, and in a middle income country the taxation and administration system is not developed enough to cope.

Of cause as a strong believer in capitalism and its key role in removing inequality in the global market place I was delighted to discover that despite these miss calculations the percentage of people living in poverty still fell, just not by as much as expected.

What I Did on My Holiday - Part 7 - Monet's Garden

On our final day we visited Monet’s Garden or Le Jardin de Monet (See I learnt something) this is in the small town of Giverny and only about 15 miles from our Hotel so made a good morning stop, on arrival we joined a reasonable sized queue that although not very long took about 45 minutes to go through as it was simply not moving, some friends of my Parents had tried to go on three previous occasions and found a similar lack of queue entry and so abandoned entrance, on the way out however at just before 12 (11:55 to be exact) there was no queue whatsoever so I would suggest that this is the best time to go. Anyway after navigating the highly inefficient entrance and paying the 6€ fee (12€ to combine the ticket with the nearby Museum of the Impressionists – unfortunately we didn’t have the time) we fought our way through the gift shop and people looking to leave to get out into Monet’s Garden, if you are familiar with his work then you know the garden as the artist painted it extensively, it is actually two gardens, the first is the main garden and sits adjacent to his house, it is very colourful and relaxing with paths (only some are open to the public) through the lines of flowers. The Second garden is a Japanese water garden that is across the Railway line and Road from the main house, thankfully unlike Monet we could take a tunnel rather than running the risk of being run down. The Japanese Garden was by far my highlight of the visit especially seeing the Water Lilies which would be like stepping into a painting, if you had a bit to drink anyway, it was a very tranquil setting and if you could find a patch tourist free for long enough you got a real feel for what it must have been like to sit and paint. Back in the Main Garden we visited the house which was very interesting, it was a quite traditional farm house being very rectangular with each room following on from the last rather than our squarer housing design so the rooms felt like they went on forever, Like most things worth visiting the house was not designed with tourists in mind so it was quite cramp and hectic in there but was still a quite remarkable house, although the copies of His famous works were set out a bit like a gift shop. Talking of the gift shop, this was like a celebration of merchandising, as Monet’s greatest works were available on anything Prints, Canvasses, Key rings, Coasters, Mugs etc... even having frames where the pictures continued over the edges of the frames.
We were on a bit of a time budget so we could not really spend as long there as I would have liked but we still had 130 miles to Calais so had to get on.

What I did on my Holiday - Part 6 - Chambord

We left the Farm House early on Friday hoping to break up the journey home a little with a stop at the Royal Palace in Chambord, Near to Blois on the way back, It is 2 hours from Châtellerault to Chambord and we booked a hotel at Evreux which was a further 2 hours north so we could break up the drive into more manageable chunks. The Palace itself is set in a vast parklands where if you are a fan of Walking or Cycling I imagine you could spend weeks and not find the need to traverse the same paths more than once. However we didn’t have weeks so headed straight for the castle, Tickets were 9€ 50 for an Adult and we joined the large queue to buy the ticket from the little kiosk that is at the main entrance to the castle grounds. We then walked around the outside of the building to find the main entrance (Where we discovered two cash desks with no waiting at all selling tickets.) The Palace itself is designed around the same scheme as a traditional castle although as with most of the Château in the Loire valley more attention was given to decoration than to defence however the Palace does have a main keep surrounded by turreted walls. In the Keep there is the Château’s most famous feature a double Helix staircase, this consists of two spiral staircases that were intertwined so that as you walked down through the staircase you can see people on the other staircase and yet you never meet them.


As well as the various rooms which have been preserved to give you an idea of the “relative” luxury that the French Kings lived in (And also how short they all were.) there was a very interesting exhibit on the Art in the Second World War, basically when invasion looked imminent the Department of Arts in Paris set up plans to move the most important works of Art into hiding, including the Mona Lisa, Chambord was one of the sites chosen. Personally I would have buried them under a small shack rather than place them into a 90 roomed palace as I would have thought that a giant palace would be the first place you would look for valuable art, but that’s just me.
Anyway it was interesting the role that this French Civil Service took in protecting these works of art, even having double agents working for the Germans keeping track of where they were taken, credit also has to be given to Chambord for not trying to hide the fact that after surrendering to the Germans the French Government handed over the works of arts created or owned by Jewish, or deemed unsuitable, in return for being left with the rest in their control. I have been to several exhibitions in France about the Second World War and think this is the first that in anyway acknowledged that there was a collaboration with Nazi Germany, I should point out that I do not necessarily blame the Vichy Government for collaboration with the Germans as they had very little alternative with France falling and continuing the war from North Africa likely to incur massive retribution on their citizens, however it is important that the decisions made in history are not hidden from scrutiny where they may then be made again. Anyway after looking around we entered the massive gift shop where we bought a sample of the Chambord Liquor before heading off to our Hotel in Normandy.

The Big Society is Coming

Cameron today launched the “Big Society” today. I have been interested in this idea for a while as it is core to my own personal belief structure that the government should play as small a role in people’s lives as possible, and from what I had known about the Big Society Idea it appeared that the Prime Minister Agreed with me.

I believe that the plan suffers slightly from sound-byteism being a phrase that commentators can use and question without trying to understand, Nick Ferrari on LBC who tends to be quite cued up on these topics completely missed the point when he asked how the Big Society would help government force it’s will on a local council over refuse collecting, when it is obviously the exact opposite and will create more localism rather than more central control.

Having seen the PM setting out his “Great Agenda” I have to admit I am slightly disappointed, whilst I appreciate that to suddenly roll back the oppressive Labour regime would run the risk of leaving a power vacuum where people with no experience of fending for themselves are suddenly expected to start looking after themselves, however I did feel that the plan could stretch further than to 5 trial areas (Liverpool, Eden Valley, Cumbria, Windsor & Maidenhead and LB of Sutton.) The initiatives being championed include saving a rural pub, recruiting volunteers for a museum and attempting to increase local broadband schemes; and this is where I have the problem as these ideas are not a redistribution of power from Whitehall to local areas but rather government support for perverting the free market. A rural pub kept open by the state will only ever be a liability, if there is to be a pub that will continue and turn a profit then all it actually needs is customers, without which it will fail.

It is early days and hopefully this will not be the pick of the initiatives, perhaps some of them will actually involve a rolling back of government interference, so I am still optimistic and a supporter of the Big Society, just I will probably have to wait before I get too carried away.

Final words will again have to go to the former government, this time to Ed Balls (Labour Leadership Candidate and former Education Secretary.) who stated that Mr. Cameron should apologise to the people of Liverpool for stopping plans to rebuild 20 schools in the city. Once again this has made me shake my head in disbelief, that members of the last administration are so detached from reality that 1) They do not even know what topic they are being asked about and therefore seem to be bringing up random points that bear no relation to what is being spoken about; 2) They still do not understand that it is their fault, despite the fact that there is no money in the treasury (as admitted by Labour on their way out of power.) they still agreed to rebuild 20 schools and despite all of the extreme hardships THEY have inflicted on this country THEY still think they can sit around and whinge about their frivolous “vote buying” projects being cancelled. It reminds me of watching someone who is having a mental breakdown and is struggling to keep attached to the real world, a real heart break in an individual, but nearly disastrous in a political party.

Saturday 17 July 2010

What I did on my Holiday - Part 5 - Chauvigny


Day 5 and we visited the medieval town of Chauvigny, there is a ruined castle in Chauvigny but we were there to see the display of falconry, Geants Du Ciel. The falconry display is in one corner of the ruined castle and has great views over the modern town, the falconry display was entirely in French which obviously limited my understanding of what was going on, but it was not a real barrier to the event.

The show lasted about 90 minutes and featured many different birds, (Eagles, Owls, Hawks and Vultures.) the vultures were the stars of the show due to their pure size and misbehaving, but the Eagles and Owls also got a lot of attention. The show was very different from the ones we have in this country as the handlers were walking amongst the crowd and on more than one occasion an audience member was hit by a bird (Including me at one point when I was getting a shot of one of the birds and another landed on my head.)

Friday 16 July 2010

The unfortunate face of 21st Century Britain

I mostly missed the whole Raoul Moat story due to being in France, when we got back to the UK I heard that a killer had killed himself and really didn't give it much thought (Perhaps another indictment on the state of our country that murder is not as shocking as it should be.) I couldn't understand why anyone would set up a facebook page in support of him. To try and understand it I looked up the reports on the story and discovered that in fact he was just a killer and had nothing at all to commend him as a human being let alone a legend.

Thankfully everything became clearer after reading the report of the interview between Talksports Ian Collins and the groups founder Siobhan O'Dowd. A woman who is so callous of the wasted lives of innocents as to describe a murder and attempted murder as "A bit Harsh" and who is so immensely thick that she actually believes that the news is like a soap opera completely without consequences and there for her twisted amusement.

I think this person is much more indicative of the state of this country as we have over the years carefully moved responsibility for actions away from the individual and made less and less demands on people and in so doing created a generation of people who hold no personal commitment to our society and worse yet have at best a perverted empathy and belief structure. People such as George Galloway are already bleating about how we need to pay more attention to the downtrodden working class white population, My opinion on this however is that in fact what needs to happen is that the majority of the population need to stop making excuses and start to force people like O'Dowd to understand that the world does not owe them anything, and that simply being born is not an entitlement to meander through life always taking and contributing nothing back.

until we start to do that I am afraid we have not heard the end of cases like Moat's and from feckless individuals like O'Dowd.

Finally some good Gulf News

There is finally some good news from the Gulf of Mexico as BP have announced that they have stopped, at least temporarily, the oil leaking into the Gulf.

Whilst this is very early in the process of stopping this environmental disaster but if BP can keep the oil from pumping into the Gulf then although it is obviously going to cost them a lot in clean up and compensation, but they will be able to more than cover the financial liabilities, and despite what the author of Boycott BP on Facebook seems to think I am sure that unlike Exxon they will carry on living up to their commitments until it is all cleared up. They have no choice, the US market is too important to them even if their sense of right and wrong isn't enough.

What I Did on My Holiday - Part 4 - Saumur

After the Long Drive to see the Monkeys we decided to stay closer to Châtellerault so took a 20 minute drive to the castle town of Saumur,

Saumer castle was very impressive on the approach and we were delighted after the disappointment of Chinon to see people peering over the battlements (Thankfully unarmed) which implied that the castle was open, we stopped in the café in the courtyard for a quick drink and to feed the baby, on leaving the café via the open air seating area we discovered we had accidentally bypassed the entrance and were now inside the castle grounds. Being of good character however we made our way back outside and purchased tickets anyway. Whilst buying our tickets which were very reasonable at 3€ we were unfortunately informed that the castle was undergoing refurbishments and as a result only the grounds and the inner courtyard were open, along with a very interesting museum of the horse, it was a shame but there was still enough to see including magnificent views of the river and obviously the castle itself.


After visiting the castle we made for a Mushroom Museum, I have to admit I was sceptical at the thought of a tour of a mushroom growing cave, after all it is just mould, but when we got there it turned out – I was right!
So 6€ 50 lighter we found ourselves stumbling around in some very dark caves learning all about how they manufacture mushroom manure, this really is as interesting as it sounds, After stumbling from cave to cave we eventually got to some information on how they grow the mushrooms as well as mushroom production through the ages, this was interesting but not enough to justify the entrance fee, the other exhibits which included “A collection of Stones found in the Loire River.” & “An Impression of what a strange looking mushroom might look like.” We got to the last three caves “Random Photographs taken by the Mushroom Society Members” and decided it was time to set a course towards the exit.

Thursday 15 July 2010

Letter in the Times

I saw an interesting letter in the times earlier in the week, it was from Miriam Gonzalez and was in response to an article they had published in which they condemned Spanish football captain Iker Casillas' girlfriend Sara Carbonero. The newspaper claimed that Sports Reporter Miss Carbonero had distracted Iker to cause Spain to lose the opening game against Switzerland.

The entire article was rather frivolous as after all as a sports reporter she was simply doing her job by being at the game, and I am sure that Iker can put up with more distractions than a nearby girlfriend, even one voted the worlds sexiest reporter, what interested me however was that the letter, quite rightly, stated that a woman should be judged by her own merits, not those of her boyfriend. A good point from Mrs Carbonero, who is after all the wife of our deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

What I Did on My Holiday - Part 3 - Le Vallée des Singes


Le Vallée des Singes was our destination for the next days outing, this Valley of the Monkeys was actually a really good Zoo, I have been on a few occasions to Monkey World in Dorset and was expecting roughly the same kind of zoo, however the valley was much more open with monkeys running around very large enclosures you could walkthrough. Luckily there are park guides available in English so we could navigate around the slightly confusing 13 zone map.

There was also a petting zoo where my daughter had a good time looking at the various goats and chickens that ran around (Although she wanted picking up when a goat took a bit too much of an interest in her.)


Wednesday 14 July 2010

Genghis Khan's BBQ - Brighton

Tonight we went to Genghis Khan's Mongolian barbecue in Brighton. I have been to a Mongolian barbecue once before when we found one in a shopping mall food court whilst travelling across America, that was good and a surprise to find something like that in a mall, between McDonald's and Taco Bell but the one in Brighton is great, it costs a very reasonable £10.95 (14.50 at weekends) and is great fun.
If you have never been to a Mongolian barbecue before it is a good concept, you take your bowl and fill it from the cold buffet, there is a choice of meat (lamb, beef, chicken, pork) or fish (prawns, white fish, mussels, calamari) and mix it with the plethora of sauces (satay, curry, BBQ to name just a few) and vegetables, spices etc...
You take these too a grill area where it is stir fried and returned ready for eating, after which you can start again.
Anyway, the only draw back I found was too much choice which made it hard to stop, the drinks were also good, if not a touch pricey, the rest of my party had a pitcher of cocktails - the Wrath of Khan which was a mind blower, as the designated driver I stuck to the non-alcholic ones, I also heartily recommend the Khan's Platter for the dessert.

The barbecue can be found at 15-17 Middle Street Brighton, 01273 323605 for booking.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Ill Timed Catalan Protest

Keeping with Spain, in what has to be the worst time mass demonstration the people of Catalonia held a protest of over a million people in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, They were protesting against a change to the relationship between Catalan and Spain an issue which has long caused some fractions between Barcelona and Madrid as the Catalans look for independence from Spain.

This would have been a massive event and an example of mass mobilisation of protesters, were it not for the fact that within 24 hours even more people were out on the street celebrating Spain’s World Cup Victory. I guess it is not so bad being a part of the country when you are winning.

World Cup Final - It's All Over

Well the World Cup has finished with Favourites Spain winning a bad tempered final against the Netherlands consigning the Dutch to their third World Cup Second Place, Personally I was supporting the Netherlands in this one as I had remained unconvinced by the Spanish throughout the tournament.

In the end it was again a single goal for Spain, and then only after the Netherlands had been taken down to ten men by Referee Howard Webb, to Give Spain their first world cup victory 1-0, as it had been in each game since the end of the group stage

The Netherlands on the other hand had over come Brazil 2-1 and won an interesting 3-2 encounter with Uruguay having won all of their group games.

This was definitely a world cup of firsts though;

The first time 2 brothers have competed against each other for opposing nations, Kevin Prince-Boating (Ghana) and Jonathon Boating (Germany)
Most Yellow Cards awarded in a final (14)
Fewest Goals Scored by the Winner (8) And fewest Conceded (2)
First Champions to have lost their Opening Game (1-0 to Switzerland)
First Time the Previous two finalists failed to qualify from the group stage (Italy and France)
First Time Host nation has not qualified from group stage

Spain also became just the second champions of Europe to win the World Cup (Germany 1974 were the first – France 1998 – 2000 did it the other way round.)
New Zealand were the only team to remain unbeaten at the tournament (Coming Third in Group Stage with three draws.)
Fewest UEFA and Most South American Teams in Round of 16 (6 and 5 respectively)

What I Did on My Holiday - Pat 2 - Chinon


On our first full day we went to Chinon to view the castle there it is very impressive as you drive into the town as it sits on the top of a large hill and looks very interesting, We parked up and started the long walk up to the Castle, The castle was previously owned by the Kings of England as part of their French holdings but remained loyal to the King of France throughout the 100 years war, it was in fact at one time Chrales VII’s only possession (The Rest of France being divided between the Burgundies and the English. It was at this castle in fact that Joan of Arc correctly picked Charles VII out of a crowd of his courtiers and encouraged him to start the campaign to regain France from the English. It was a slight disappointment however when on taking the quite impressive glass elevator (Which looks a bit like they forgot to attach it to a building.)




We discovered the Castle was closed; we followed instead the signs for the Tourist Office and having walked to the top of the hill we found a sign saying that the castle was going to be closed for at least a year. So instead we walked down to a Wine museum, which was also closed so we took a walk across the river so I could take some shots of the Castle,





It was a real shame we didn’t get in but still impressive building none the less.

What I did on my holiday - Part 1 - Driving

Our first day was spent driving; we left Crawley at 8am and arrived in Châtellerault at 18:30 CET so quite a drive not sure how many miles but we racked up over 2000 in total and the majority of this was on the journey there and back, I hired a car for the journey as it was a 7 seater and I thought with 4 adults and a baby we could do with the space. Also as it was a Manual and I have had an Automatic for three years there were gears to compete with as well as driving on the wrong side of the road, perhaps the most surprising thing is that I actually struggled more with the gears (A couple of times stalling as I simply didn’t push the clutch down.) than with driving on the right, after all if you just point your car behind the car in front you can’t go to far wrong, the only dangers were as you left the farmhouse and no one else was around, or approaching an empty roundabout. But otherwise it was fine. I had purposely not filled up with Fuel before going to France as we are always told that our petrol prices are ridiculously high, I was shocked therefore to be confronted with a cost of £1.40 a litre for unleaded, I was just starting to feel aggrieved at paying this ridiculously high cost for motoring when I reached the first toll booth and was charged 8€ for driving down the road, at the second Toll Booth I got my 10€ not ready to pay only to be asked for 24€ in total we paid around 45€ in Tolls and 65€ in Fuel costs for the journey down, so next time someone tells me that the Councils in this country are useless as they had the same bad weather in France yet do not have the potholes I will be telling them where to go.

We eventually arrived at our destination however it was a very tiring trip and was hard work keeping our daughter occupied the whole time so we pretty much just went straight to bed.

Monday 12 July 2010

Return of an Over Active Blogger

I have returned from my holiday in France, (In case the 1 person who actualy reads my blog was wondering.) I spent a week in a very rural setting near Chatellerault, it was very tiring as I racked up over 2,000 miles of driving (On the wrong side of the road too.) anyway I will post some updates later on from what I got up too, but for now I am simply going to relax until I have to head back to work.

Friday 2 July 2010

Apple Problems Again

Now I am never one to miss the opportunity to attack apple so I was delighted to read that there is a problem with the iPhone 4, apparently if you hold it in the left hand side i.e. if you are left handed, the phone will lose two bars of signal.

Now this alone was enough to get me laughing at the queues of steeple outside the O2 store today (not sure why when the shop seemed to always be empty) but then I heard Steve Jobs solution. "Don't hold it that way." Thanks for that Mr. Jobs

But then the best bit, Apple have a solution to the problem a patch they will be releasing in a couple of months, which will change the way the signal is displayed, they are not going to fix the fault, just show it differently - surely even the sheeple will not accept this.

The ultimate Tweet

Today was my wedding anniversary and my wife bought me a message to space kit.

Basically it allows me to make up a message which will then be coded up in America and beamed into space. This message is apparently going to fly through the cosmos at the speed of light for the next few thousand years, and potentially may be intercepted by I Alien life forms.

So what should I say within my 136 character limit? And to think I thought writing a (Interesting) tweet was hard.

Tom Tom Services

I got stuck in traffic this morning for the first time in months, the difference is that a few months ago I bought a TOMTOM Go which had live traffic updates and sure enough I have managed to avoid the traffic ever since. So it was quite a shock when I pulled up unexpectidly to the back of a traffic jam, I checked if there was a problem with the Tomtom only to find that the traffic services had expired and that I would need to renew.

Thinking that it would have been nice to have let me know I resigned myself to sitting in traffic for the next few hours, however going through the menu screen I selected Renew live services, entered an e-mail address and within 2 minutes it had updated and we were off on a diversion avoiding the traffic once more, and best off all you get 14 days to pay the bill, which can be paid through paypal, so I could pay from my phone.

This is exactly the kind of service I love, Practically instant and not needing to deal with any Human Beings.

Thursday 1 July 2010

Murray into Semi-Finals

Like most of the country I spend two weeks a year as a big fan of Tennis, there is always a chance in a World Cup or European Championship year that football will over power the annual tennis fest that is Wimbledon, however due to England's poor performance I was able to pick up a bit of tennis yesterday.

Andy Murray came through two opening tie break sets on his way to a four set victory over Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, it ended up as a relatively easy victory for Murray but looked to be quite different during the second tie-break when he could have slipped to a 2 set deficit.

This was a good result for Murray, but his reward is to get a Semi-Final against Nadal on Friday which will be a mountain to over come if he is to become the first British Wimbledon finalist since 1938.

Personally I want Murray to make it to the final as it will be good for British Tennis to have a winner, for a change. Personally as a player I prefer Nadal as he is without doubt the best player in the world today, I would have quite liked a Federrer - Nadal final again, but that is not possible now, after Federrer went out.

There are many English people who do not want Murray to win due to his perceived anti-englishness. This all seems to stem from a comment he made in 2006 when he said that he hoped anyone won the world cup except England. However this didn't bother me as Murray is Scottish so I do not expect him to support England.

Well hopefully he can do it, if for no other reason than if we have a champion we will not have to endure all the comments about how long it has been since there has been a British Champion.