Journal Entries
For those of you who like their cricket...
Posted Jun 25, 2009
...it's just been confirmed that the BBC are OK to stream Test Match Special audio of the Ashes outside the UK.
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Jun 25, 2009
Sticking my head round the door to say 'Happy Birthday h2g2'
Posted May 17, 2009
Hello everyone - that is, I say 'everyone' but as I haven't been around for ages I'm not sure if anyone's actually going to read this.
Anyway, I clicked through from the link on the BBC front page about it being h2g2's 10th birthday, which brought back a lot of good memories of when I was a much more regular contributor and all the great people I used to know.
So if you are still there, apologies for vanishing, and I hope you're all well.
I've moved back to London with my girlfriend, and these days I work for the Audio/Visual bit of the BBC Sport website. I still do some radio reporting on the side. Mainly bits for BBC London and Radio Manchester, and every now and then I get to commentate at Plymouth Argyle games for Radio Devon. Which is nice, except when we're rubbish, which is often.
Discuss this Journal entry [26]
Latest reply: May 17, 2009
What price a new boiler???
Posted Feb 17, 2008
Dammit! Just when things seem to be going OK for once (I've got myself a three-month attachment to be the Broadcast Journalist for Sport Interactive to cover the West cluster (Somerset, Bristol, Gloucs and Wilts which means finally, after seven years, being paid at the level of work I've often done and always been capable of doing) we get a bloke in to quote for fittinga new suite to the bathroom and have a look at the boiler...
...and he takes one look at the thing, notices the discolouration of the paint above the vents and says 'that's producing carbon monoxide' and condemns it.
It makes sense. My girlfriend has bad asthma (which in the past, before I met her, has been Very Bad Asthma to the extent of nearly dying and spending several years in and out of hospital) and she's been off work for three weeks with a chest infection which hasn't been showing any signs of getting better. I suspect she might have been quite close to being my equivalent of a miner's canary in a cage, which really doesn't bear thinking about.
There's one snag. Quite a big one. It was an old school (very old school, a 'Myson Apollo' if you're curious) boiler fitted on an internal wall in the kitchen. Seemingly, these days you have no choice but to fit a condensing combi boiler.
And they need to be fitted - or at least vented - on an external wall. That's a problem. I've only got a one-bedroom flat. Bedroom at the front, lounge at the back, and the kitchen and bathroom are in the middle - miles away from any external walls.
At the moment the plan is to fit the replacement boiler where the old one is, and pipe the exhaust out at ceiling level via the back wall and box it off as it goes through the lounge.
The quote was in the region of £2400 for the boiler and then probably extra for the venting. So there goes my pay rise. 
Discuss this Journal entry [15]
Latest reply: Feb 17, 2008
Getting rich very very slowly
Posted Jan 16, 2008
But still, four numbers up on the national lottery equal sixty two pounds...
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Jan 16, 2008
Do you feel lucky, punk?
Posted Jun 19, 2007
For the first time in ages, I do. Last year I invested in some Premium Bonds. And came home tonight to find a cheque for £50 had come through my door 'cos one of them had come up.
It's not a huge amount, but being as I took out a six-month interest free credit card balance transfer to avoid cashing in my ERNIE bonds when I put all my savings into buying my flat, I feel kind of justified. Taking into the 'transfer fee' on the credit card, I've even come out £10 ahead...
Having succeeded at one kind of retro-get-rich-slowly scheme, should I start doing the Pools now?
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Jun 19, 2007
Number Six
Researcher U115522
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."