Harmless fun or a an ongoing hate crime?

6 November

Both Jan and I seem to be getting a lot of porn posted to our Facebook timeline. I had a sneaky feeling that a lot of it was coming in off the back of one of friends so I ‘Unfollowed’ him and at I’m not getting more signs of it. Jan however is still getting it. Seeing as Kile is sitting next to her normally it’s a bit of a pain trying to get rid of it while he’s looking away. So far she has reported quite a few users who are posting it, and yet it still keeps on coming through. It looks to me as if she has a friend or two who been hacked cos they are not so clued up when it comes to on-line security.

They are both playing on the Wii right now and the chatter/falling out has started off already, and they’ve only been at it for ten minutes. I would normally put a CD on playing through my headphones to cut it down, but for some reason the player isn’t working. Opps, yes it is, I’ve just tried it again and it’s working fine. But will I be able to write while it’s on? I shall find out soon enough.

We had very few fireworks going off around here last night, tonight and tomorrow may well be different though. Perhaps the weather played a big part last night. Not that I’m complaining though, I hate the damned the things and the sooner they are banned the better for me! Some folks might say it’s a tradition that must continue, but do anything the same way twice and you set a tradition. But in reality I have two major objections against fireworks.  

The first is, believe it or not, a hate crime issue. Oh yes it is … Think of how the Guy Fawkes Night began … remember the story? Guy Fawkes and some friends were plotting to blow-up the king and Parliament because they were Catholics and the Powers That Be were Protestants. That act of treason on their part lead on to hundreds of years of persecution of Catholics throughout the UK. Every year we see the marching season in Ulster and we all tut tut over it; and yet we do pretty much the same every November 5 we do exactly the same.

The second reason then is the one about safety I mentioned earlier this week. The biggest example I can think of is that of smoking. Would smoking have really have taken off the way it did if we had known about the health issues? I doubt it. More recently is the thalidomide pill case. Again, I really don’t think it would have been prescribed so freely if the effects on pregnancy had been known. Now look to the idea of everyone being allowed to have a fire in their back garden and let off explosives at the same time. When the sale of the fireworks was first allowed I very much doubt that the number of burn and maiming injuries were expected.

Have you noticed how anti-tory feeling about in the country just lately, while the pro tory-lobby seems rather quiet. I’ve been wondering why; perhaps it might be that far too many vulnerable people are now being targeted for cuts. Even with all the promises of not touching tax credits, they are the main benefit being faced with cuts. Perhaps now a lot of folk here in the UK have realised that majority tory government is not the best thing for the UK. I suppose at the last general election there was little choice really. My one Big Hope has always been that the tories would become and lost cause, perhaps that time has now come.

Today’s photo … 

Lovely car, but really a disabled driver/passenger?

Today’s funny …

A teacher is teaching a class and she sees that Johnny isn't paying attention, so she asks him, "If there are three ducks sitting on a fence, and you shoot one, how many are left?" Johnny says, "None." The teacher asks, "Why?" Johnny says, "Because the shot scared them all off." The teacher says, "No, two, but I like how you're thinking." Johnny asks the teacher, "If you see three women walking out of an ice cream parlour, one is licking her ice cream, one is sucking her ice cream, and one is biting her ice cream, which one is married?" The teacher says, "The one sucking her ice cream." Johnny says, "No, the one with the wedding ring, but I like how you're thinking!"

Hodge-podge

5 November

I can’t count the number of times that we writers are told that we really do need to use an editor. No matter how good or professional a writer is, the odd slip or typo will still get through. Even the OU don’t get it right all the time. One of the illustrations in a course work book I once had, show a painting printed inverted. But surely an editor should have seen the major error I found in novel I was reading last night. I won’t say which novel and writer until I’ve been in touch and asked them to comment about it.

But basically, the story is about a DI taking a murderer off somewhere to be shown the spot where he buried one of his victims. As the murderer claims to be afraid of the cops and demands that another crim goes with them, they use two cars and six officers plus two prison staff, with one crim with four officers in each car. Get to chapter 10 however, and you find that both crims are in car and talking to each other. Surely that one should have been picked up and sorted before it was finally released.

Jan spent a long time looking at the bank accounts and trying to find all those fraudulent transactions. She then compared them with the e-books she has been buying, and guess what? After the fuss n bovver, there was no fraud, they were all down to Jan, and she is really upset at having spent so much money without realising it. It’s not good getting upset and angry with her over, it’s done now and she has enough books on her Kindle that she will never have to buy another book, ever. OK, we had a scare but it has taught us lessons. So there was no frauds.

Kile’s nan called this morning to say we can have him today if we won’t him. He has been a bit unwell so they have kept him off school. I’m not sure about that though; if he not well enough for school, how can he be well enough to come to us. I’m wondering if there is anything going on we don’t know about. We shall soon see I suppose. Keeping him occupied will be fun though seeing as the weather isn’t looking so good this weekend. We have loads of DVDs of course so it should be fine.

I’m sat here waiting for our foot butcher to arrive, for the last time too I should also say. Jenny is very good and is nice girl to talk to, but she is a tad too pricey. One of Jan’s church friends has offered to do both of us for £20 less than Jenny. That’s £20 more that can be spent elsewhere. Jenny has been calling on us for around six years now and we have been happy with it all, it’s just the cost.

It doesn’t look like I shall be able to have a swim in the Red Sea anytime soon does it? Pity really; I’ve swam in the North, Irish and Med seas as well the Indian and the Atlantic oceans. By swim I mean splush about cos I’m not a good swimmer anyway. The way things are going there won’t be any really worthwhile places abroad to visit where there is plenty of history and culture to keep us interested. And it’s all in the name of religion too.

But let’s face it, who would really want to go to Lesbos right now with so many illegals arriving there? I wouldn’t. Nor do I fancy going anywhere where the airplane I’m in might be blown from the sky! And yes, I know it’s giving to the nutters but right now I don’t think anyone can take the risk.  

And so to today’s photo … 

Mum n brats … … …

Today’s funny …

A husband and wife are trying to set up a new password for their computer. The husband puts, "Mypenis," and the wife falls on the ground laughing because on the screen it says, "Error. Not long enough."       

Is Amazon worth the hassle?

4 November

On-line scams really are a pain in the backside for anyone who gets stung. We have always thought that we would get stung by it, ha ha ha! Jan is on the phone now to our bank about one that has been on-going since at least January this year. The obvious first question that we be asked is, ‘Didn’t you notice it?’ Well, no, we didn’t. The amounts involved are so small, from 99p up to £14.99 that we just thought it was one of us. These are all Visa payments to Amazon Digital download. This year alone we have lost just shy of £700. Jan has looked at last the account for last years as well and it was happening then too. She also looked at her Amazon account too, but none of these transactions have shown on that account.

Now it gets complicated. We do have two accounts, one for monthly payments in that cover our direct debits, the other is our weekly account into which our pension gets paid, that is the one that we use for our day to day spending and so on. It’s the monthly account that is being raided. We both have access to the weekly account but only Jan only has access to the monthly account, that’s how we keep tabs on them. Jan reported this last week and then closed her Amazon account, only to find that another payment came out on Monday for £3.99. When I buy off Amazon I use the weekly card.

Jan now has to sit and make a list of all these transactions and send them to the bank so they can look into them and find out what is going on. So we are not losing thousands of £s, but it is still high enough that it was beginning to make us aware that something was going, confirmed by the debit of £3.99 on Monday. We hear of the big scams when thousands of quid are taken and bank accounts are emptied. But think about it a wee bit, and perhaps think of the money that could be made by someone who scams a number of accounts in a similar way. That would make a tidy living for some folks. Keeping to Amazon for now …  

Jan has come across a site where she gets free items as long as she tests and reviews them. So far we’ve had around 15 items with that one. Some are good, some are crap, as you would expect I suppose. Well, yesterday afternoon there’s a knock on the door and go and answer it, and it is yet one more box from Amazon. It wasn’t a large box as such, maybe 6x4x4 inches. Inside it was a load of brown wrapping paper used as packing and a tiny little box about the size of a credit card and around 1” deep, and it had an MP3 she is due to review. So it seems that Amazon are not into saving resources then. And still with Amazon …

My books were available on Amazon in kindle or print format. They haven’t been available for some time now because I won’t, have actually be advised not to register for tax in the USA. Not only that, it seems that if a print copy is wanted then it can only be printed in the States and shipped over here. That increases the cost a goodly amount and requires up to a month’s delay, not so good for a self-publisher. If I want UK printing then Lulu is one to use and once I’ve tried them, I shall close my Amazon CreateSpace account altogether.

And while I’m talking books here – last time I was in Waterstones I bought Peter James latest ghost novel, The House on Cold Hill. At the same time I also bought another one they had on offer, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and is part of Penguin’s Modern Classics series. The copy write for this one was in 1962; perhaps it should have left there, it really is crap. I gave up on it after just five pages!

So now I go look for a photo … 

I love this one. I got in November 2008 when we lived in Atherton. It’s also on the cover of my novel Web of Hate.

Today’s funny …

   

Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Officer asks a young engineer fresh out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "And what starting salary are you looking for?" The engineer replies, "In the region of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package." The interviewer inquires, "Well, what would you say to a package of five weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every two years, say, a red Corvette?" The engineer sits up straight and says, "Wow! Are you kidding?" The interviewer replies, "Yeah, but you started it."