Woodstock Road is a road in Oxford which I travel along almost every day on my commute to work. Recently, the Tories have placed two billboard advertisements in a prominent position on this road, entreating you to vote for them (although one of them is really just saying you shouldn't vote for Labour). Here's a picture of them in situ:


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So, just trying to arrange a date for my grandfather's funeral is involving lawyers, social services and (most recently) my uncle shouting abuse at me down the phone. It's like we're going for some kind of scary new definition of "dysfunctional ( Read more... )

Miriam, our aged and rather crappy car, is very very poorly. £600 worth of poorly, to be exact. She decided to get ill as the I was driving home a few weeks ago, leaving me stranded in a layby in Worcestershire pretty much exactly half way between Oxford and Aberystwyth. Hooray for breakdown cover ( Read more... )

My grandfather died last Wednesday ( Read more... )

I just called my father to wish him a happy birthday. Then we talked about how he's doing. His father is dying in hospital, and after having caught the staff at the care home lying to his mother about it* (probably only the latest in a string of habitual lies to avoid lengthy explanations) he's now certain that being there is making her dementia ( Read more... )

I have a colleague at work who is currently working on the second ever implementation of version 9 of our C numerical library. Because I did the first one, and wrote the build system he's using, when he gets stuck he naturally comes to me. Today I finally realised what it is about him that gets up my nose - I've always found him hard to work with ( Read more... )

The national bullying helpline woman screwed up big time. I am, of course, hugely biased, but there's no point trying to offer people a service such as that if you aren't prepared to offer people confidentiality and then keep to it. It may be that she thought Brown shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, or something, but you can't make these ( Read more... )

So I have a stinking cold at the moment (apologies to anyone who was at Liz's funky party at the weekend who may've picked up my germs). I've been soldiering on through determinedly, since I have a lot on at work this week, but I'm starting to wonder whether I should maybe be at home ( Read more... )

We'll be doing an Easter Thing again this year. Format much the same as last year - large dinner (like all my parties, really) followed by scrabbling round a hillside in search of chocolate. I'm giving you plenty of notice so any out-of-towners who might be interested can make plans to visit ( Read more... )

Can anyone recommend a good webmail provider which doesn't include any *#!@ social networking crap ( Read more... )