Argh!

Usually, each summer, there's a horse fly around the pool. It tries to eat bits of us, we try to swat it. It usually manages to get in a nip or two, then we swat it and taht's it. Couple of weeks later, another ones comes along...

Today I declared war. I spent an hour in the pool doing nothing but swat horse flies.

I got TWELVE of the buggers.

On the upside, I had to stop, there were no more players. Maybe that'll be it for a day or two...

Sunady evening saw off a very nice pizza at Pizza Express in amersham followed by an evening with Show of Hands at the Elgiva.

Top notch.

(SoH forthcomign album should be well up to standard, BTW< if the new stuff they mostly sung to us is to judge by.)

You're a Large Company. You want to keep selling Stuff despite the fact that the Credit Crunch (TM) is supposed to mean no-one wants to buy anything.

So you check down the back of the sofa, smash a piggy bank, and tap your granny for a few quid, and scrape together a few million quid, and have a Big Telly Advert. You spend many squid on the filming of the ad then many more on the peak time ad spots.

Then what?

Well, if you're Land Rover, you've invested in the call centre and response people to handle calls, emails, texts, and people pressing the red button on their Sky box, you send them out an info pack, you tell them your local dealer will be in touch. And then you do something to piss off your local daeler (perhaps - just guessing - you advertise a HUGE discount on new cars, then expect the dealers to put up that discount from their cut, so that they would rather concentrate on their stock of used cars than sell a new one) and they never call your new potential customers back.

And if you're Unilever you spend millions advertising a nwe edition of your popular Magnum ice-cream range, you get customers REALLY eager to try a Magnum with bts of chocolate browne embeded in it... and you don't bother to send any to the shops. OK - granted this may have been that the shiops didn't *order* any, but if I was spending that much on a product launch, I'd damn well put some of the cash towards making SURE the retailers stock the product, be it a price incentive, a retailer ad-campaign, or just sending the boys around to install the stock in the fridges...

IF you really had bad puns, then I have to warn you, if you find you're watching a telly advert where a "rodeo" cowboy is riding a giant grouse, under NO circumstances should you wait for the punchline...

Have a shelf or two of books here in France left for visitors. Seeded the shelf with dupes and smiilar, nothing we'd miss, so we don't mind if someone gets half way through a book and takes it with them - but we like folk to leave another one in its place. And sometimes folk just leave books.

But I draw the line at being used as a method of disposing of a copy of "My Booky Wook"... whoever you are, *you* bought it, *YOU* take it to the tip!!!

Interesting trip - missed the 1830 ferry coz Liz got stuck on a work related thing. So caught the 1820, which put us on the ground at 2145 Local. Decided we were making such good progress, hardly having to sahre the mway at all, that we'd press on to at least Rouen. Rouen at midnight... all the edge of town hotels full. Lots of beligan coaches in evidence. Can only assume some sort of festival. Pressed on down the A13.. more of the same, now lots of white vans. Finally found room at the inn in Evereux. 0120 by now. Still, a bed's a bed.

Thursday brought a pretty event free trip except when we reached Clermont Ferrand... where the motorway tag decided not to work. Again. This one is nwe, we spent the whole of our LAST trip in Octber handing it to the nice lady to barcode read it, finally got it replaced on our way home (the offices of the motorway companies are just *inside* the toll areas, you can only visit them once you start a toll-based journey leg) so this tag has been read once at Janville, once at Evereux, once at Abbeville, once at Bolougne, then on the way back once at Bolougne, Abbeville and Evereux again and... failed when it got back to Clermont. I'm not impressed. Then we buzzed the intercom to explain why we weren't goign anywhere and they eventually raised the barrier... and dropped it again too soon - by the time Liz had got back in, we were half way through. Bonk - on the roof rail fortunatly, and the barrier appears well padded. But the *sirens* - they clearly don't like toll evaders! :-)

Spent yesterday afternoon fishnig daed frogs and live newts out of the pool. Anyone want some spawn?

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?

WITNESS: I forget.

ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?

WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?

WITNESS: Are you shitting me?

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was Au gust 8th?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?

WITNESS: getting laid

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: How many were boys?

WITNESS: None.

ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?

W ITNESS : Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

___________________________________________



ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?

WITNESS: By death.

ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?

WITNESS: Take a guess.

____________________________________________



ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?

WITNES S: He was about medium height and had a beard.

ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?

WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.

_____________________________________



ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?

WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

______________________________________



ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?

WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

_________________________________________



ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?

WITNESS: Oral.

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.

ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?

WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.

____________________________________________



ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?

WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

______________________________________



And the best for last:



ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: So, then it is possi ble that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?

WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Lies, damn lies, and... any statistics?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/10/dirty_data/

Well the plan was to load the cameras in the car, head for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Arundel, meet some friends, and go shoot ducks for a couple of hours.

So we met - and spent four hours exploring the castle, then two hours in the Black Rabbit - which used up the available hours.

Still - fun times, worse days can be had on sunny springy bank holidays.

One word of warning - Arundel Castle is *not* for the shallow of pocket castle enthusiast, about £15 each to get in (all areas). And I've had whole meals for what tghe brownie and cup of tea cost in the caff.

A quick and simple test.

Nice lateral thinking. instead of looking for the virus itself, which means all sorts of clever programming, just look for the *effects*...


http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html