Thought provoking video created for the AARP U@50 video contest and placed second. Required viewing for anyone who ever started a sentence with “Kids today…”

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Sometimes the inane news items are the best: “Do you agree with me that the British people have a right to know if we have been visited, and if so, when you become prime minister will you seek to lift the veil of secrecy and give the public the truth that they deserve and that [...]

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In an addendum to my previous post on researching your family tree, I just thought I’d issue a quick warning so you don’t get ripped off. If you’re looking to purchase birth, marriage or death certificates via ancestry.co.uk (i.e. them acting as intermediary), they charge £19.99. Don’t do that. Go direct to the General Records [...]

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I’ve recently been getting back into researching my Family Tree … well, more my kids’ family tree as I’m using them as the focal point and going back into both Akra’s and my family history. It’s a project that works well for my temperament – something that’s easy to pick up, get totally absorbed in, [...]

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RIP Tony Hart. You were a big part of my and many others’ childhoods. I found this lovely tribute on YouTube which is a lovely collection of clips from his shows: YouTube won’t let me embed any of the morph clips such as Morph and the Toll Bridge, but you should go and see it [...]

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It was very foggy and icy this morning. Lethally so… we virtually ice-skated to school rather than walked. I’m sure there were lots of accidents out there today and I warned the kids to take it easy and not mess around to avoid slipping over. Did one of them slip on the ice anyway? Oh [...]

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Have I mentioned recently that Akra is a star? I’ve been thinking about getting Fallout 3 for a while – it’s a Bethesda game, and I adored the Elder Scrolls series (Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion). In fact, Daggerfall was what got me into RPGs (and later MMORPGs) in the first place. The problem is, it’s not [...]

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’m suffering for the lack of geeky friends nearby: people who “get” what you mean when you slip Twitter, blogging, Jonathan Coulton or Mumsnet into the conversation; people who I have more in common with than just happen to have children of around the same age. Don’t get me [...]

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Can you hear it? You’re not listening hard enough. Now can you hear it? That’s silence that is. No arguing, no bleeping sounds from the kids’ new DSes, no “MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMY”ing, or “I’m bored”s. The kids are back at school, and while I have really enjoyed this holiday (once the manicness of pre-Christmas was past) it’s [...]

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The thing that struck me most about the story of the woman who died when her car became stuck between the barriers on a level crossing is that she would have only had 30-40 seconds from the time the barriers came down to when the train smashed into her. Whatever the rights and wrongs of [...]

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