Norm is 50

Yesterday my good friend Adrian (aka Norm) reached the milestone of 50 so last night he, his family and a gang of us went to Pezzo's in Romsey to celebrate.

Adrian is part of my "Jersey" friends from the five years I spent there in the early 80's. They are a great group and although we should be better at getting together than we are, whenever we do get together I always have a great time.

Last night was no different. I liken this group of friends to those kind of friendships made at university. We may not see each other for weeks/months/years (Smutley!) but when we do meet up we just drop back into our friendships as if we had seen each other a couple of days ago. We all have them.

Adrian lives in Ruislip, but it was only natural that he should come down to Hampshire where he grew up , to be with us all on his big night. His Mum was there, she had written a great poem about him, his sister and her husband, one of his nephew's together with Adrian's wife, Dawn and his daughter Kelly and his son Sam. One of the gang couldn't be there as he lives across the pond just outside Cincinnati, so he rang up half way through the meal, what a great touch!

The restaurant was good overall, hot food promptly served. The only small complaint was the lighting which was dim! In fact mobile phones were being used so that the menu could be read by the light from the screens!

Large amounts of wine were consumed and one or two may have woken this morning with thumping heads.

The photo shows his birthday cake, like me Adrian is a Saints fan so the cake is in the clubs colours with his name on the back and his age.

A great night...next it's "the great DA's" 50th at the end of February. That will be a curry..probably!

Late Night Gold

I've always enjoyed a "Tom Hanks" film, even Turner & Hooch! So last night I stayed up and watched him on Jonathan Ross on BBC1. He was tremendous and gave Ross more than he bargained for. He was far funnier than I expected and his attempts at English accents, while ridiculed by the host, were comedy gold, including doing Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

For once Ross had a real star on the show. You can see a small clip here.

My new toy

Last week I bought one of these, a DVD recorder with a 160GB hard drive. This means that I can now record TV off of SKY on to the hard drive and burn it on to DVD if I want to keep it. It's not new technology and it's probably not as good as SKY+ but it means that I can switch to Virgin media if I want to (which I am considering).
It's marvellous and I love it! It's easy to use and it will even record while I watch a DVD. It also has the pause Live TV thingy.

Christmas musings

Well it's all over for another year!

Here are some of my highlights of Christmas 2007.

Going to Somerset (where we stayed at my Sisters) took ages although traffic was good..why?

Planned to stop at services on A36 and have Burger King, but when we arrived it's now a travel chef...plan B Subway in Wells (where there is no Burger King or McDonalds parents please note)

Went to candlelight Carol service at Rowberrow parish church Christmas Eve. Small church, lots of people, standing room only. Very Vicar of Dibley. Question...why when church attendances are falling does a church allow it's "welcoming" door steward to behave like an East German border guard circa 1958. She was unbelievable! Good service though.

Children don't understand that food doesn't cook itself. Presents however change everybodies mood.

As we started Christmas dinner, my sisters new stereo (purchased by her kind brother, she only has the one!) played Olivers Army by Elvis Costello, not very seasonal, but kicked in with Fairytale of New York for Christmas Pud.

Alexander Armstrong seems to have taken over the BBC, he was even in "To the manor Born".

Doctor Who was great and not just 'cos of Kylie.

Finally...Happy New Year.

Border song

For those of you who may be interested, Borders are sending me a £10 gift voucher as a "gesture of goodwill" after the £10 note incident. I believe it's called "CR-ing it"!!!

The ritual of the rhythm of the heat

While the boys and I were Christmas shopping in Southampton earlier today we came upon this drum group.

Actually "came upon" was more "deafened by". As we alighted from the bus (from the station having journeyed in by train) I thought that a jet was taking off from Eastleigh airport. It was only as we rounded the corner that it became clear that a group of drummers besides the Bargate (the ancient entrance to the walled city of Southampton) were "doing their thing" very loudly.

They were excellent and certainly made our shopping trip far more entertaining that we had expected. If you want to sample their sounds (or visuals) then click here.

Bordering on the ridiculous

Last Thursday at lunch time, I visited Borders store in Bournemouth. Now I love Borders, I could spend hours in there but Thursday may just have changed my mind

Having made my choices, The Times, Word Magazine and a small Christmas present, I went to the counter to pay. My bill came to £10.19 and I only had a £20 note. So I gave the girl at the till a £20 note and a 20p piece so that she could give me a £10 note and a penny.

She had another plan and gave me a penny! So I said "Sorry but I gave you a £20 note". "Did you?" she replied, "I don't remember". Now this is a transaction that happened only 20 seconds earlier and her job is to take the correct money in exchange for goods! So not very good at her job and no memory!

She went to her senior colleague and explained my request. He came over and said "Sorry about this but I'll just need to check the till, I won't be long" where upon he printed a journal roll and then in front of the queue, lifted the whole cash tray out and disappeared, into the back of the store, leaving me standing at the counter, in my lunch hour for 10 minutes.

When he reappeared, he placed the till back on the counter and with a face looking like a cat handling it's owner a dead mouse, said "there you go sir" as he handed me the £10 note I should have had 10 minutes earlier.

Now here's the real clincher...he them returned to his till without any further comment. No "I'm really sorry sir, but we do have to check the till and I'm really sorry for my colleagues mistake here's your £10 and have this discount voucher for the inconvenience", no just walked off!

Now firstly, what ever happened to trust or the customer is always right? But far more importantly, why no apology??? It draws the conclusion that no customer is important, just the money in the till.

Unbelievable!!!!!