Always wear clean underwear in public, especially when working under
your vehicle.

From the Daily News comes this story of a Stockton-on-Tees couple
who drove their car to ASDA, only to have their car break down in the
car park.

The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the
car.

The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On
closer inspection, she saw a pair of hairy legs protruding from under
the chassis. Unfortunately, although the man was in shorts, his lack of
underpants turned his private parts into glaringly public ones…

Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand UP his shorts, and tucked everything back into place. On regaining her feet, she looked across the bonnet and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by watching.

The RAC mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his forehead.

–

Interesting that online, this story has them in Leicester or North Florida. And the mechanic was from the AA?!?

Dear Mr Wilcox

In recent months, there has been a steady worsening of the economic environment making it necessary for us to review our customer’s accounts. As part of this review we’ve taken the difficult decision to increase some of our rates.

Is it just me or is that a bit of a non sequitur?

On the reverse side of the letter, a Questions and Answers section includes: “How do I opt out?”. It’s not completely hidden, but it’s not that obvious either.

I’m sure there will be Ts and Cs to this opt out, but I think this is one “difficult decision” that I will also have to take….

Over the years I have tried various ways to speed it up. For a while I stuck a 2GB SD card in and ran ReadyBoost which helped. Also I tried the advice on the first two items on this list: http://mostlysavingmoney.com/top-10-windows-vista-speed-tweaks/ which seemed to help.

Eventually I upgraded to 2GB of Ram and things have been fairly decent since then. I stopped using the ReadyBoost as it seemed to make things slower on wake-up (probably too much of the session in memory).

But one thing I didn’t revert was the indexing (first point of advice on that URL above). So now I am, and I thought I’d just make a note of this here so that I can come and revert back if the need arises.

playing with homemade play dough

Here’s her recipe:

• 3 cups flour
• 1/3 cup salt
• 2tbsp oil (veg)
• 1 cup water
• 7 drops food colouring.

1. Mix dry ingredients with oil.
2. add food colouring to water and mix together.
3. add water to flour/salt/oil mixture slowly ~ about 1/4 cup at a time and mix together with a spoon.
4. once you’ve added all the water, knead the dough with your hands.

The recipe I should have cooked tonight:

KALE WITH ANCHOVY AND CHILLI DRESSING

This pungent, piquant sauce, somewhere between a dip and a dressing, is quite delicious with earthy kale – or broccoli, or almost any other robust green vegetable. If you like, you can turn it into a more substantial supper dish by cutting the kale into thick ribbons and tossing them, along with the sauce, into hot buttered pasta. The leftover dressing will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Serves four, as a starter.

500g curly kale, or purple sprouting broccoli, washed and trimmed

2 knobs of butter

For the dressing

50g anchovy fillets, drained

150ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled

Leaves from a sprig of thyme

A few basil leaves

½ small red chilli, or a pinch of dried chilli flakes

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp red-wine vinegar

A few twists of black pepper

Blend all the ingredients for the dressing in a liquidiser until completely smooth.

Steam the kale or PSB for just 3-4 minutes, so it still has a bit of crunch. Toss with a knob of butter. Warm the sauce over a low heat, whisking in a knob of soft butter as it heats up. This should help to emulsify it but don’t worry if it separates a bit; it’ll still taste fine. Arrange the kale/PSB on warmed plates and drizzle over a generous amount of the warmed dressing. Serve at once, with soft brown bread to mop up the sauce.

This is of course completely copied from the Hugh and the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/mar/10/foodanddrink.features

Emma cooks this all the time and it’s fab. My feeble attempt tonight was more complex and not as good. (Although I suspect that my olive oil-drizzled baked beadcrumbs as a garnish may well make a repeat appearance!)

from: Screenshots: How a deal is done

Jack, a smart businessman, talks to his son.

Jack: I want you to marry a girl of my choice
Son : “I will choose my own bride!”
Jack: “But the girl is Bill Gates’s daughter.”
Son : “Well, in that case…”

Next Jack approaches Bill Gates.

Jack: “I have a husband for your daughter.”
Bill Gates: “But my daughter is too young to marry!”
Jack: “But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.”
Bill Gates: “Ah, in that case…”

Finally Jack goes to see the president of the World Bank.

Jack: “I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president.”
President: “But I already have more vice-presidents than I need!”
Jack: “But this young man is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”
President: “Ah, in that case…”

This is how business is done!!

Is there a name for a deal structure like this? One which puts three partners together in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Without all three elements there is no deal but put them together and it works. There seems to be a lateral shift of thinking going on here – a sort of eureka moment. But can this type of thinking be encouraged in some way?

Now if only someone would pull their finger out and sort out the wobbly fence eh?

Well, a while ago I heard my son shouting “I want to be King Stupid” and I thought I was hearing things. Imagine an apostrophe in front of the name – ‘King Stupid – and you might begin to get the idea of what I thought I heard.

I couldn’t let the pun go, so the result is now a T-shirt shop: www.kingrude.co.uk. I’d quite like to make a King Stupid T-shirt, but I’m not entirely sure the BBC would approve, so you’ll have to make do with the other designs for now.

If you find it all a bit too rude then all i can say is that I’m ‘king sorry…

Seth’s Blog: Tips that may come in handy one day
The list Seth points to is great advice, but might I suggest that readers start at the end – tip number 100 is horribly true.

That said, I do quite like number 12 – from a management perspective I think this has great potential:

One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

Ahhh! The secret to web2.0 is finally revealed. This’ll be useful when I get around to designing my forthcoming, ultimate, web-based solution to everything.

Or would it be churlish to suggest that these are just bright, optimistic colours that work well on screen? Of course, that comment excludes ‘Google White’…

Hands up if you actually recognise all of the webapps mentioned.