I’ve been slightly addicted to American Idol this year.

Normally I watch record it and watch it back at high speed, cutting out the judges mindless garbage (do they really think anyone cares what they think?) and usually scuttling though half the contestants whining too. All in all the show, plus results can normally be watched in this manor in about 15-30 minutes (depending on the theme that week).

This year it’s been taking me a lot longer. Finally they seem to have some lively contestants, just about all of them can sing pretty well, most of them seem to have some great personalities…

All in all, the show is finally worth watching… It sometimes even takes me a whole hour to watch the entire thing

It’s still a shame some of the good singers went out in earlier rounds, leaving some of the weaker singers to get into the final stage. Had some of the earlier evictee’s still been around it could have been a whole different top 16.

Since I was watching it last night (yes I know we’re a bit slow to get it over here in England) I thought I’d do a little fraggle review of the whole thing.
(more…)

Well it looks like the weather they were telling us to expect at the end of last week finally arrived.

Yesterday it was hail stones the size of small marbles, today it’s like looking out at a wall of snow… Or at least it was a couple of minutes ago. Now there’s a half centimetre layer over everything it’s stopped and the sun is blazing.

The weather in this country is really confusing!
(more…)

Quick fraud update.

Still no fraud statement in the mail, so no chance of getting the new credit cards any time soon.

I’m getting even more paranoid about internet shopping, which is a little frightening given ho much of it I do, and how paranoid I was about it in the first place. (Must remember to breathe…)

Still, it seems that whoever has been using our details may not have ever seen the card in the first place.

The bank thinks it may have been done by number crunching.
(more…)

Apparently somebody else wanted to be us too, so much so they cloned our credit card.

Well my parent’s card anyway!

We got a call from the credit card company for a security check, as there had been some unusual activity on the card, specifically plane tickets.

Which was pretty much a dead giveaway, since the last time we went on a plane was back in 1978.
(more…)

This ought to be interesting. The British Government is trying to pass a Bill to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by (I think) 2015.

The reason this should be interesting, is that with current technology the only way for a household to reduce carbon emissions by that much is to go back to the dark ages.

Well pretty much anyway.
(more…)

Ahh well, looks like I was right in the last entry, it was too early to say I was feeling a bit better… given the past couple of weeks at least…

Last week was a tribunal appeal for the benefits, which naturally came to the usual “I’m not entitled” and this week has been spent in a small whimpering heap trying to recover.

Still, at least this time I didn’t qualify because CFS doesn’t fit the set criteria for the benefit. Every other time it’s been because they haven’t believed a thing I’ve said and had made their minds up before I even got there.

It comes to something when you end up not actually caring if you win or lose the tribunal, you’re just so grateful you’ve actually been believed for a change.