Press "Enter" to skip to content

Author: Richy B.

Follow me on Mastodon at @rbairwell@mastodon.org.uk or just the posts on this blog by following @richyb@blog.rac.me.uk .

Personal: Amazon.co.uk

December 4, 2003
1 Comment

Well, it’s time to place a nice big order from Amazon.co.uk again – this time:

  • 2x Yamada DVD 5520 Multi-region DVD Player at £39.99 each [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (one for me, one for my sister which my Dad is buying off me)
  • Al Murray – The Pub Landlord – Live – My Gaff My Rules. DVD £14.98 (for my sister). [Order from Amazon.co.uk]
  • Open All Hours. Series 1 [Order from Amazon.co.uk] and Season 2 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]. DVDs £25.98. (for my Dad)
  • Tenko – Series 2 Complete. DVD £43.99 (for my Mother). [Order from Amazon.co.uk]
  • Gerry Anderson’s Terrahawks – Vol. 1. Video £9.89. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for GESF’s birthday)
  • Lynne Truss: Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Book £6.99. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for GESF’s flatmate)
  • Helen Fielding: Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination. Book £6.49. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for GESF)
  • Philips HR2303 Comfort Ice Cream Maker. £28. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for GESF + flatmate to share)
  • Robert X. Cringely: Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date
    . Book £6.29. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for my OU course)
  • Philip Evans, Thomas Wurster : Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy. Book £11.34 [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (for my OU course)
  • John Naughton: A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet . Book £6.39. [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (again for my OU course)

So that just leaves my other sister and my grandparents to shop for…

News Commentary: Mobile Phones and Driving

November 28, 2003
Leave a Comment

Shortly in the UK (1st December), it’s going to be illegal to drive your car whilst using a hand-held mobile phone (aka a “cell phone”).

Whilst I’m all in agreement with making our roads safer, I’ve got to take issue with a report on my “East Midlands Today” News (my local BBC news service broadcast in the BBC 10 O’Clock news on TV). In it, either a reporter or interviewer said that drivers can be fined if the mobile phone is not in a fixed cradle (showing someone install the mobile phone cradle at that point) and then they said that having the cell phone on your lap with a cheap (in my phone’s case, free) earphone and microphone would result in a fine. However, I’ve got to question that – what’s the difference between the phone being in a cradle (ie not hand-held), being in your lap (ie not hand held) and my “personal preference idea”: being in a shirt pocket with the ear-piece? According to the DFT’s Mobile Phones and Driving: Frequently Asked Questions document, there doesn’t seem to be much difference…

Spam: Customer Data, Let’s Sell It!

November 24, 2003
1 Comment

My system has just tagged that Driveway.com (aka IBackup.com) and Sandbox.com have sold on their mailing lists with one of my email addresses to a spammer. I receive almost identical emails to two tagged addresses: one I used on driveway.com, the other sandbox.com: contents follow….

Both were sent from were “injected” directly into my incoming SMTP server (instead of being sent via their ISP), both claimed to have been sent via Eudora, and both had incorrect/faked Message-Ids (that message ID’s were actually created by my mail server). Oh – and they were both in HTML format and had “web bugs” in them (images loaded from a remote server which would enable the spammer to see who opened the email and therefore whose email address was valid).

Needless to say, both spams got reported via Spamcop.net to their upstream providers.

Continue ReadingSpam: Customer Data, Let’s Sell It!

Personal: How the h-ll did that happen?

November 24, 2003
Leave a Comment

I had today off work as a kinda holiday (due to the server migrations we’ve been doing, I’ve been putting in some serious overtime the last fortnight: around 3 hours every night) and managed to make an appointment next Wednesday (the 3rd of December) to see my Doctor concerning a few health issues I’ve been slightly worried about. I hope it’s just a case of Psychosomatic Hypochondria which can be treated with a cause of Placebos ( 😉 ), but you never know. I suspect I’ve got high blood pressure as every weekend that I’m at my parents (which is every fortnight), I’ve been taking my BP and it’s been extremely high… Plus I’ve been having pains in my chest quite a bit recently and (especially for the last 2.5hours today), been feeling really “light headed” and like I’m about to faint (I haven’t yet though…).

Anyway, I was just downstairs reading a magazine whilst Zaphod (my “spare” computer) installs Linux and I thought I’d weigh myself (the “really interesting” article about “Posh Spice” – Victoria Beckham made me think of weight) so I got on my digital scales. 14stones. Aaargh – must be a mis-reading. Got off, got back on 11stone 2lbs. Ahh – that’s better, but that could be a mis-reading as well (as digital scales can be “funky” sometimes). Next three weighings all give 14stones exactly.

How the h-ll did that happen though? Last time I weight myself, I was 13stone 10lbs and loosing weight (around 2 months ago) so how on earth have I practically gained a stone in weight recently? That weight gain, combined with my height of 6ft 2in (yeah, I’m British but I still use good old Imperial measurements) puts me officially in the “Overweight” category (my Body Mass Index is 22.5). This is shocking! Especially for me as most of my life I’ve been in the “underweight” category…

*gulp*. I know I’ve been drinking a lot of Cola recently, eating sweets and having sugary foods such as pancakes, but still… And I’ve only been eating/drinking those cause I’ve felt thirsty and just really really felt like eating something like that (it makes me feel better – see previous entry).

I just hope the Doc’s got some good news, but the way things are looking I’ve probably got the onset of diabetes or something similar. Gak.

Personal: Pancake Recipe

November 19, 2003
Leave a Comment

Whilst I’m logged into Richy’s Random Ramblings content management side 😉 and in the “Aid to Memory” train of thought – I thought I’d just note down this Pancake recipe. Ok, it’s months away to Shrove Tuesday (the traditional time for Pancakes), but I really like Pancakes but can never seem to have a recipe to hand – but no more… 😉

Anyway – the recipe should make 12 pancakes, but I managed to squeeze just 3 out of the ingredients (saying that, packets of “batter mix” which say 8 pancakes gives me 3 pancakes as well so…)

This is a “quick and simple” recipe so don’t expect “perfect pancakes” from it(!)

You will need: Around 100g of plain flour (3.5oz), 1 egg, half a pint of milk (300ml), a little bit of salt and some butter or frying oil.

  1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the egg
  2. Mix and add the milk until the batter is smooth
  3. Warm up frying pan and coat the base lightly with oil/grease/butter. Add batter to cover base of frying pan. Cook until the pancake moves freely (around a minute). Flip pancake over (or toss it if you are feeling daring). Cook again until golden (around 30/45 seconds).
  4. Serve with sugar (yum) and lemon juice
  5. Eat pancake whilst cooking the next one: repeat until batter runs out then make some more 😉