just click on the image above
to see some really good photographs

All went well until I left the house. I decided to take the first bus which went to Kingston. In theory I would then take the train to Wimbledon. and then take the tube, District Line to South Kensington. At Teddington station they hinted, the previous day, that there were problems between Wimbledon and Clapham. They lied as there is no train service between between Kingston and Wimbledon.

On the platform there was a CSI style, crime scene, plastic tape warning that there were no trains. On a board was a very subtle hints, (ie very obscure), about where to get the bus to Wimbledon. At the bus station there was no bus or anyone trying to be helpful. So in the end I jumped on a bus going to Tooting via Wimbledon – so far so good.

So I end up in Wimbledon to find another deserted station. I Went to the other part of the station to find around a dozen helpful people pointing at buses, shepherding people to buses, shouting in megaphones about buses that were all going to Kingston. Finally managed to find a nice Polish railway person to stop running around amid the mayhem, which she did and she told me where to get the bus to Southfields tube.

So after nearly getting knocked down I crossed the road and got on the bus going to Southfields. Of course the mad person with the the staring eyes started asking repeatedly where the bus is going, will it get him to the station he wanted to go? What’s the time (every two minutes). Fortunately someone sits between him and me.

Arirve at Southfields. Get a train to High Street Ken – I figure it is quicker to come around on the Circle Line than wait for the appropriate District Line train from Earls Court.

At High Street Ken there’s a message saying all Circle Line trains are cancelled. So I have to go back to Earls Court.

At Earls Court I find the platforms are blocked by two trains going, ie waiting to go, to High Street Ken. I talked to railway person. There is a train going to the Embankment, but it is stuck behind a train waiting to go to Edgeware Road, via High Street Ken. So there are three trains blocking my train.

So I wait and end up as counsellor to one million and one distressed tourists wanting to go to places beyond South Ken.

Slowly the trains move and eventually a train, my train, goes the right way.

I get on it and arrive at South Ken a mere half an hour after the film has started. I meet my daughter Lydia.

She would treat me, in fact planned to treat me, but -erm, she had left her cash card in her other jacket.

We wonder around South Ken, which is in reality an affluent district of Paris. Great food shops, great cafes and great bars. We find a nice place and sit outside and have a nice lunch of a platter of assorted meats and a couple of bottles of wine. We have a pleasant time.

Hundreds of strange people on roller skates take over the road and nosily pass us.

Eventually I head back home.

District Line to Richmond is just fine.

However all the bus stops outside the station have been terminated.

After tramping around I find the replacement bus stop and eventually find my way home.

Hilda, my mother in law, has casserole ready.

So now I feel completely stuffed

All in all not a bad birthday.

What's my name going to be?

If you want to play around with ideas then site, Seventh Sanctum is for you.  All this site does is generate names, good and evil, locations, technologies, dieties, types of government, magic spells and much, much more.  

On the site there are fifteen different generator categories, with well over fifty different generators. These range from obvious, such as name generators, to the unusual, such as the Science Fiction Government Generator or the Wacky Gadget Generator.

The site has been developed by the very admirable Steven Savage. He is clearly a serious gamer as many of the generators are clearly fantasy orientated. So in his section Darkness and Evil we have a Dark Elf Namer, the Evil Animal Minion Generator, an Evil Deity Generator and a Dark Ritual Generator.

The majority of generators give the option of one answer, five answers, ten answers and more.

All the generators are easy to use. As the Quick Name Generator demonstrates.

Results from the Science Fiction Government Generator

Confederacy of Constellations
Economic Brotherhood of Worlds
Government of Territories
Royal Monarchy of Stars
State of Planets

Results from Wacky Gadget Generator
Electromagnetic Joker-o-meter
Gyroscopic Knitting Electrochip
Iso 900-compliant Bullet Expresso
Irritant Internet-enabled Rhymer
Modified Computop-hat

Word of Warning

This site is highly addictive. Only use  it as a reward.

Develop your own generator

In the library Steven has very generously left the framework for writing your own generator. His most recent work is in php and someone with a little programming skill should be able to develop their own generating engine.

As an ex-lecturer, used to teaching robust 16-19 year olds, I was keen to see the French film ‘The Class’, (Entre les murs – between the walls). The film is set in a secondary school in a poor district of Paris with a high immigrant population. The pupils are aged around fourteen. I was fooled by the documentary style and it was only about half way through the film before I realised it was not.

The film opens with the teachers assembling for another year. There is a funny scene where one of the veterans is reviewing the class list of a new teacher. He summarises the students as ‘Nice … Nice … Not nice … Nice’. There were not many nice ones in the class. The experienced teachers look on the coming year with a mixture of humour, cynicism and resignation. Of interest to me was that there was only one non-white teacher on the staff.

The film revolves around form teacher François Marin and his class. He tries hard to interact with class. Asking them challenging questions and trying to engage them in conversation. Although there were a few good students, such as the Chinese boy, Wu, the majority were already ground down the system. Their aspirations were low and some, though intelligent, could see a dismal future for themselves.

Though François thought he was a good teacher I became increasingly annoyed with him. He allowed the class to manipulate him, which meant that the better children were being held back by the cunning. As a lecturer I occasionally allowed a class to move the lesson off subject, but I was aware what was going on and pull back when I wanted. François was too nice, too concerned and was not as aware as he should have been to be a good teacher.

The last third of the film shows a situation developing from a couple of girls behaving stupidly, François losing his temper, which in turn provoked an awkward student to confront François. This in turn leads to the formal disciplinary process that could lead to the expulsion of the student. I was impressed by the formality of the process, but felt for the student and his mother, who could not speak French.

I ended leaving the film angry and moved – a good result. There were some interesting insights into the French educational system, such as the small class sizes and the smallness of the school itself. The discipline. When a whole class stands up in this country it is not with respect – rather the teacher is checking the distance to the nearest escape routes. There were also quite a few interesting interplays within the class and between the teachers.

All in all a good film to go and see.

AVG, the anti-vius people are stopping supporting their old package version 7.5 and advising all subscribers to download and use AVG version 8.5.

Well I knew I had to update the software on my 85 yerar old mother-in-law’s computer. Well my really old laptop. She’s doing quite well starting to email all her friends and relatives.

So I helped her sort out another problem, which involved two phone calls to support and eight failed login attempts, before she got through to her bank. But I can do it very quickly now.

Then I started updating AVG.

However, I made a mistake and clicked on the below ad.

It linked me to a site and I missed the words alternative on the button.

The page is titled AVG sosftware and even the button’s name is ‘avg-antivirus-security-complete-antivirus-protection-solution.gif’

So I got into a system were I thought I was getting AVG. And I thought I had to buy AVG. In fact AVG still has a free version. I recomend it as a product.

Yourdo get a package 8.5 anti-virus software. But their susposed anti-virus software doesn’t even work. It keeps giving you a message ‘disable all anti-virus software’. Even when I had already done that.

I suspect they hope that most people won’t bother complaining

I’ve now got the hassle of trying to get my credit card reimbursed.

Get AVG by clicking on the picture below and then the download button.

Click to go to the AVG anti-virus software site

I just saw an article on conmen. Which started me thinking but to my carefree hippy days.

He appeared to be caring, intelligent person. He worked as a co-ordinator for a charity I was involved in. So of course I let him share the flat.

His style was clever. He would meet women, charm them and then casually ask to borrow some cash. As he had a lot of women on the go at the same time. He would repay in the classic Ponzi style borrow from one to pay back another.

The cash would be repaid and a lavish, romantic meal given. Then the borrowing was easier.

Then although the women were seperated geographically we all belonged to different branches of the same organisation and people eventually meet. There were rumours and one or two angry lenders. But we’re English we don’t talk about money.

Then he had tradegy. His sister died in a car crash – abroad. Can he borrow some cash. Everybody, including me, chipped in. Then the next chipped in and so on.

I found out when two months money disappeared and I lost my perfect apartment and still had to pay up his amount.

I started talking and realised that he was conning people. Being a northerned I warned people and then I find out six women I know have been lost money.

I warn the charity head office. They would not warn the different groups. So I did. I found out he had effectively taken people for over £6,000, that I knew of, and this was in the early 1970s, so I reckon about £20 to £30 thousand by today’s prices – maybe more.

I made the charity fire him.

Weeks later he was still around.

He regretted what he had done. He was sorry. He realised what he had done. He had ruined his life. He was hoping to rebuild and pay people back. But he had no money so…

Three girls helped him with cash before he disappeared.

I personally blame Mills and Boon – with their romantic flawed heros only need the love of a good woman to change them for the best.

Meanwhile because of Basil I was sleeping on people’s floors saving up to get another deposit for a flat.