Nanny's getting ready...

You remember when the smoking ban came in, after a generation's worth of preparatory work by Nanny and the Do-gooders in society?

I said at the time that the next target would be alcohol and that idea was poo-pooed. Some of you didn't believe me; it was a step too far and so on and so forth. Well, here's the latest attack.

It seems that alcohol is worse than tobacco. Tobacco is only as bad as cocaine, but alcohol is worse than both of them. It's also worse than heroin or crack.

Nanny's getting ready...

You remember when the smoking ban came in, after a generation's worth of preparatory work by Nanny and the Do-gooders in society?

I said at the time that the next target would be alcohol and that idea was poo-pooed. Some of you didn't believe me; it was a step too far and so on and so forth. Well, here's the latest attack.

It seems that alcohol is worse than tobacco. Tobacco is only as bad as cocaine, but alcohol is worse than both of them. It's also worse than heroin or crack.

Monday

Here we are again, only now it’s November. How did that happen? I’m still getting used to 2009 and here we are starting the penultimate month of 2010!

I had a very good weekend, thanks for asking. I assume you did, too? Excellent.

I decided not to pop along to the Coal Hole on the Strand on Friday evening. I don’t know the guys there all that well and the one I do, was off ill. There’s only so much geekiness I can take without injections of normality at regular points through a session. So I stayed away, though I did solo-geek my way around Forbidden Planet as planned.

Saturday, fencingsculptor travelled over and he and I went to Rainham Marshes to visit the RSPB Sanctuary to mooch around in the fresh air and spy on our little feathered friends. I think we may have to do that again in a few weeks, but earlier in the day, perhaps. In a month or so the bird population should be higher; we are in that gap where a lot of UK summer birds have flown south, but the winter shift hasn’t quite started, with the Scandinavian birds still picking up their duty-free.

Furtle stayed behind since rinkyandmerlin paid her a visit , so they disappeared to the pub for lunch, booze and chats.

Yesterday, it was off to Wembley with wallabok for the NFL “International Series” game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos. After three generally uninspiring quarters the game came to life in the fourth and for a moment or two it looked as though the Broncos fans who left early might have missed a treat.

Of course, every and any trip to Wembley dissolves into farce on account of the appalling travel conditions in North West London. Only England would put its National Stadium in the middle of an industrial park with poor access roads. We decided to drive this year, previous years having forced us to wait after the game for overcrowded tube trains, in a pretty grotty local pub with over priced beer and worse food. Well, we showed them. Instead we sat in an immobile car in a packed car park for over an hour. Excluding the walk from the stadium to the car park, it took about two hours to cover the nine or ten miles back to Ilford. And of course, Wembley park area has only Stone Age mobile intarwebs. I could text, and on occasion make phone calls, but access to anything useful or indeed interesting was right out. The stadium itself has ‘free public wifi’ which is another way of saying it is strong enough to strangle 3G reception, but completely unable to cope with 85,000 people with smartphones…

Maybe it will work during Olympic Fortnight in 18 months’ time. I doubt it.

Monday

Here we are again, only now it’s November. How did that happen? I’m still getting used to 2009 and here we are starting the penultimate month of 2010!

I had a very good weekend, thanks for asking. I assume you did, too? Excellent.

I decided not to pop along to the Coal Hole on the Strand on Friday evening. I don’t know the guys there all that well and the one I do, was off ill. There’s only so much geekiness I can take without injections of normality at regular points through a session. So I stayed away, though I did solo-geek my way around Forbidden Planet as planned.

Saturday, fencingsculptor travelled over and he and I went to Rainham Marshes to visit the RSPB Sanctuary to mooch around in the fresh air and spy on our little feathered friends. I think we may have to do that again in a few weeks, but earlier in the day, perhaps. In a month or so the bird population should be higher; we are in that gap where a lot of UK summer birds have flown south, but the winter shift hasn’t quite started, with the Scandinavian birds still picking up their duty-free.

Furtle stayed behind since rinkyandmerlin paid her a visit , so they disappeared to the pub for lunch, booze and chats.

Yesterday, it was off to Wembley with wallabok for the NFL “International Series” game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos. After three generally uninspiring quarters the game came to life in the fourth and for a moment or two it looked as though the Broncos fans who left early might have missed a treat.

Of course, every and any trip to Wembley dissolves into farce on account of the appalling travel conditions in North West London. Only England would put its National Stadium in the middle of an industrial park with poor access roads. We decided to drive this year, previous years having forced us to wait after the game for overcrowded tube trains, in a pretty grotty local pub with over priced beer and worse food. Well, we showed them. Instead we sat in an immobile car in a packed car park for over an hour. Excluding the walk from the stadium to the car park, it took about two hours to cover the nine or ten miles back to Ilford. And of course, Wembley park area has only Stone Age mobile intarwebs. I could text, and on occasion make phone calls, but access to anything useful or indeed interesting was right out. The stadium itself has ‘free public wifi’ which is another way of saying it is strong enough to strangle 3G reception, but completely unable to cope with 85,000 people with smartphones…

Maybe it will work during Olympic Fortnight in 18 months’ time. I doubt it.