Been a while...

...since I updated my blog. Been a bit busy over the last couple of months which isn't a bad thing as have got quite a lot done. I'm still running which is a good thing as it's getting closer to the Norwich Half Marathon, and even though it's still 3 or so months away I'm beginning to realise a lot more training is required.

August has been full of activity so far. We went down to Eve's naming day ceremony at Chris and Jen's in Hastings, which despite the 6.5 hour journey (it should take 3 hours) was a very good day. Picture below of Even getting into the proceedings.



She went straight for the beer bottle, no stopping her, and was quite perplexed or even vexed, when enforced separation occurred prior to imbibing. Despite this she seemed to enjoy the occassion, even the snail racing...or was that us, I can't remember.

Got a big project launched at work successfully which is great, a new Travel Insurance product just in time for the summer hols. It seems to be selling okay so looking good so far. And the project came in slightly under budget and ahead of timescales so a winner for me.

Just got back from Scotland after spending a few days with my parents in Loch Melfort, near Oban. Also managed to visit my Auntie Jen and Uncle John on the way which was great as it's been a while.

Despite a few rainy days it was a great mini hols, even though Lucy couldn't come due to being out of holiday. Managed to get out and do a bit of sailing on the Loch, as well as walking and fishing. With regards to the latter we caught quite a few Mackerel and smoked them in Tom's smoker; we met up with friends of the family - Tom, Julie, and Ant and Lyn. The mackerel was excellent and now have some pate made from it. Couple of pics from the holiday below.

Moored up on submarine island:


Biggles the dog having fun whilst out walking:


Dad at the helm:


The Bridge over the Atlantic:

The running man...

Well not quite, but I did start running again this evening. Got to start training for the Norwich half Marathon about now; it's in November. Ran for about 30 minutes over a course which should only take me about 24 minutes, but hey, it's a start.

Training programme indicates I should run about 4 times a week, however I reckon that will be 3 times max a week with Kendo as well, and maybe some cycling to work if the weather isn't adverse to such activities; I'm definitely a fair weather cyclist.

Mike started this whole crazy idea of doing the Norwich half Marathon, which is just outside Norwich really. We're going to try and raise about a grand to support a Cystic Fibrosis charity after Steph passed away from a it a few years ago. Seems like a good thing to do. Somehow we've also roped in Chris P and Nigel C...if anyone else is interested give me a shout...it'll be...fun...yeah that's the word.

Where did the week go?

This week seems to have gone by very rapidly, which I suppose isn't a bad thing given that it's now the weekend, and I have Monday off too. It's mostly consisted of being fairly busy at work, and reading a new book on how to make money on the Stock Market.

The book is by Robbie Burns, not the famous Scottish bard but him also known as the Naked Trader. Seems to be full of common sense methods and tips so looking forward to putting some of it into action. Just opened a self select share trading ISA so when I make my millions they'll be tax free, now I just need my shares to go up, which hasn't particularly happened this week - mostly they've gone up, then down, then done nothing, then up, then down - no consistency but then again I think it's been a funny week on the markets. Just have to have some patience whilst also remembering not to hold on to something to the bitter end in the hope it'll go up; there is a time to cut your losses and try something else. A portfolio of say a dozen different shares seems like the best bet, a few will go down, but hopefully with the right research this will be counteracted by others going up. If I can just have the self discipline to stick to some basic rules and not buy and sell too often, then should be able to make some cash. Can't quite give up the day job yet though.

Also this week, our new lawn seems to be settling in well...it hasn't died yet anyway, probably a good thing we've had lots of rain recently; I might even mow it this weekend. All the vegetables are going well too - our first tomato has appeared which means we'll be inundated in a couple of weeks with those and courgettes.

Good to see the expenses debacle is still rambling along. Isn't everyone bored of this yet and can't we just get some new politicians? I see the police might launch some criminal investigations now - probably about time some of them were held accountable by law.

Also in the news today interesting that the supreme leader in Iran called Britain the source of all evil or somesuch thing. I expect everyone will be very upset about this, however maybe it's a taste of our own medicine after the whole Axis of Evil thing, which really was an outrageous way to label countries whilst your trying to bring them round to your way of thinking. It's not very nice being called evil and you can see why normal people like you or I living in other countries such as Iran might resent that slightly, and even get driven further down the path to extremism. What with North Korea still looking explosive and Iran getting feisty it all looks a bit dangerous. It's hard to tell what's really going on in Iran and who really won. The opposition are mounting big protests however we're not hearing much from people that supported Almandinajad. I worry that our media isn't giving a balanced picture sometimes. It would be a pretty big feat for an election to be rigged to give such a decisive victory.

Anyway, roll on the weekend.

European Election aftermath

I'd like to draw a parallel between some members of the Labour Party saying they still have a chance and Gordon Brown is okay, and the Iraqui information minister when Baghdad was being invaded by the allies, who was saying everything was under control and the allies were being repulsed with American tanks rolling up their main street almost behind him.

Glad the BNP didn't seem to particularly win any more votes that they did last time, however they have unfortunately benefited from the Labour collapse and won two seats in the European Parliament. And what's the story with UKIP, can't believe they've done so well - I can understand why people might vote for them but why have so many? Anyone else reminded of 1920's and 30's when certain extremist parties started to gain influence and momentum in the wake of a major recession and public discontentment?

UKIP want us to not be part of Europe, and to withdraw from the European Parliament, however isolationism isn't the way forward. It can be frustrating that the European Parliament now determines so many of our laws, however can the Labour Party or any of our own political parties really be trusted to do any better? If we divide ourselves from Europe we'll only end up being sidelined and sinking in the long term. Maybe Europe just needs a bit of a rethink as a whole as to how the EU works, to ensure things are a bit better balanced.

Political implosions

It's been a pretty extraordinary week on the political front. I don't know if there have ever been so many cabinet resignations in such as short period of time, followed by pretty distrastrous local elections for the ruling party, I almost feel sorry for Gordon Brown...almost.

I do feel sorry for Ian Gibson who I and many people regard as a very good politician who puts the interests of his constituents first, and has a very common sense and intelligent approach to matters. He appears to have had pretty harsh treatment compared to some other politicians who have got away with worse, but there again he was a bit of a labour rebel so maybe this was just the excuse they needed to make him step down as MP for Norwich North. Hopefully he might come back as an independent, at which point he'd have a very good chance of winning, however maybe he'll just call it a day now. I can't see why anyone would particularly want to be an MP at present.

Over the past 3 weeks I think we've really seen how the media control this country. I agree that the issue of MP's abusing their expenses had to come out and be dealt with; some of them are just blatantly crooks, but I don't agree with the fashion in which it's been done, which seems to have caused more harm than good and left our political system reeling. I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to carry on with the serious job of governing the country and dealing with the economic crisis when they're constantly being hounded by the media, who's main interest (and I'm primarily referring to the Telegraph here) seems to be to draw this out for as long as possible to sell more papers. They'd argue it takes a long time to do the research so they can't release everything at once, however they could have just waited until they'd finished delving through all the receipts etc.

It's symptom of modern society, 24 hours news channels, and the Internet that everything has to be rushed out in a pretty chaotic and damaging fashion, and stories that perhaps shouldn't have as much gravitas as they do come to the forefront.

So it looks like he Labour party is going to implode on itself, in much the same way as John Major's conservative party did at the end of the last Conservative reign. It is definitely time for a change, and if Gordon Brown goes which I would have said was unlikely a week ago but now am not so sure, the only sensible course of action would seem to be to call a general election, as the current ruling party seem to be proving themselves completely incompetent at present. Although it is interesting that many other countries seem to admire what Gordon Brown is doing to rescue the British economy so again maybe our judgement is being clouded by the current media hype.

But then again we have the problem of who to vote for. In Norwich apparently Labour went from having 22 seats to having 3 yesterday, so they'll definitely go. The Lib Dem policies seem pretty good but they just don't have the support, and I'm not sure their leadership is strong enough, which leaves the Conservatives who I'd probably be better off under but I can't help feeling it might be at the expense of other people. The Green Party have a lot of sway in Norwich but I don't think they're a serious contender for leading the country - would they really know what to do if they came to power?

Unfortunately alot of the minor parties such as the BNP and UKIP seem to be gaining influence, which is a symptom of how angry people are at the moment - again the media sometimes don't help here. 'Extremist' parties always benefit from instability in a country, along with bad economic and social climates. Things could get quite scary if they start to gain more power (look to history for warnings). Hopefully people are clever and wise enough to see how dangerous they could be in causing suspicion, division, violence etc.

So in short it could be a very interesting week next week, god knows what this will do to the value of my shares however so far the stock market seems to be ignoring the political mess.

And finally on a more serious note how on earth did we lose the 20-20 cricket to the Netherlands?

Half Marathon ahoy

Just got back from my first jog in a couple of months, 3.2 miles in about 28 minutes, so not a bad time for me. I am endeavouring to get fit in an effort to take part in the Norwich half Marathon which I think is in November - best check that as quite important as far as training schedules go.

I think 13 miles should be feasible by the time we get to November; however it depends whether or not I can keep up the training. I tend to do more cycling than jogging at the moment, but 'they' say that cross training is a good thing so that's probably okay.

I reckon if I can jog 3 times a week, stepping it up slightly as we get closer to the date, that should do it. We'll see how much pain my legs are in tomorrow morning though. Not thinking about going for the London Marathon as yet even though work are sponsoring it so I could probably get a place. 26 miles just seems far to far to run without severe motivation taking place. I believe the Marathon originated from the Persian invasion of Greece, and an Athenium runner making it all the way back to Athens, only to die of heat stroke when he got back. I'm hoping not to follow in his footsteps exactly, and don't require any invasion based motivation as yet.

Speaking of expenses

Whilst I'm still not convinced the expenses debacle is the most important thing that should be being addressed in the media and debated by parliament at the moment, it is pretty incredible, and leaves me vaguely gob-smacked.

You have to admire MP's for trying to distract the public by putting all the blame on the Speaker who's been forced to resign; the first time this has happened in about 300 years. Think the last time was in the late 1600's when the Speaker of that time had to resign over a bribery claim.

There seem to be very few MPs that didn't jump on the expenses band wagon and claim for all sorts of things they probably shouldn't have. Are we allowed to get rid of the whole lot and start again? As someone mentioned this week I don't know if the Queen still has the power to disolve parliament and call for a general election. I think the public would defintely pass a vote of no confidence in the majority of MPs at the moment.

A senior Catholic Archbishop did come out in support of the Speaker and had a rant versus MPs today, accusing them of trying to deflect attention. The Archbishop in question better take care given the recent report out in Ireland concerning the Catholic Church and child abuse, who knows where the media spotlight will turn next!

If we did have an election now I'm not sure who I'd vote for. I couldn't vote for Labour at the moment, they've just made too many mistakes and need to have that period out of power to sort themselves out, same as happened to the Conservatives. Not sure I could vote Conservative as Cameron is a bit too smarmy and I don't trust him. I quite like the Lib Dems however preferred Charles Kennedy to Nick Clegg. And the Greens aren't really worth it at the moment as most politcal parties have the right green intentions at the moment. Don't think there are any other viable contenders; the BNP should just be dissolved.

I wonder if we just paid politicians a bit more if we'd get better quality people - the sort of private sector business men and women who otherwise wouldn't be attracted to politics, but would probably be quite good at it.

Anyway enough of politics, which really can be quite aggravating. Time to get gardening this evening as probably away in Derbyshire this weekend and tomatoes need a planting.