Sometime in the past 24 hours, Sky updated its Sky-Box software so that their catchup service, now has ALL the main terrestrial channels represented (‘4OD’ was the final service to be added). For a TV addict like me, this is great news! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first …
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Category:Milestone
Roger’s 50th – Tosca
Just occasionally we do ‘posh’ – and tonight was one of those occasions. With DJs and posh frocks on the outside and Sudafed and Strepsils (for Ann and me ) on the inside, we set off for the Royal Opera House to celebrate Roger’s 50th. After our quick change of clothes, we headed for Stevenage …
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Mother’s Day comes Early!
With Mum’s health on a slow decline and with us not being able to see her on the official Mother’s Day, we visited her today. On the way there, we dropped in to Neil and Debbie, caught up with all their news, saw the boys and left Neil with couple of knackered PCs. Then it …
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4 Ate, Bar 4 – The Vines
We joined Janet and Jo and took a walk (yes, I walked!) to the recently opened Vines Restaurant and Bar, down the hill at the Grade II listed Barton Hall. The building itself had been unloved for many years but we’d heard that it had now been converted into a classy Restaurant and Bar with …
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Aspirin vs Android – The Best Tablet?
OK, for headaches, I’d definitely recommend Aspirin, but for a truly mouth-watering techy-tablet experience, I’d choose the snappily titled: Asus Transformer Infinity. It’s my latest toy, manufactured by Asus – and even a nerdy person like me, has been blown away by its performance and capability. It looks like a laptop, but a quick button-click …
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Handbags at Noon!
Well, not quite as is was just ONE handbag and only 11.45! Carluccio’s, St Pancras I set off for London to meet up with my old friend, Peter J at our regular haunt – Carluccio’s at St Pancras. As I was waiting outside for Peter’s arrival, I noticed something a little odd about The Lovers …
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Radio 3
The rather clever Logitech Squeezebox Radio This has to be one of the most useful gadgets around. Imagine a radio that does everything an ‘ordinary’ radio does, but adds the ability to: play all the music you have stored on your computer give access to the past 7 days of BBC Radio (iPlayer Radio) tune …
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Lent Boy 2013
OK, here we are again, another year where I try and discipline myself to avoid certain foodstuffs during the period of Lent (starts tomorrow and finishes on the 30th March). Not sure how I’ll do this year, as last year was a real challenge (even with a slightly shorter list). So, please don’t feed …
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Tech Alert (Part 1873)
Those who are ever-so-slightly ‘tech-phobic’ look away now, or click HERE for something prettier. This is my latest ‘toy’ – say hello to the Devolo dLAN 500 Wireless+. It looks ever-so-similar to the gizmo I fitted last year when we had satellite broadband installed, but there IS a difference. Those who don’t need SpecSavers will …
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Broadband Satellite Comes of Age
In these parts, we need all the help we can get with our broadband connection. The pitiful speeds offered via the big players may be OK for the occasional download and checking of emails, but if you want to do big-boy stuff like watch iPlayer, download movies and maybe even upload data to websites, you’ll …
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The Need for Speed
Those that know (and/or live in) the immediate area will already be aware of the crappy internet speed we get locally. For houses that are less than 20 years old, the connection opportunities are very limited. The bad news, looking forward, is there’s no opportunity to have a fibre optic connection installed here either… ever!, …
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Ann’s New Car
After almost three years to the day of faithful service, it was time to retire Ann’s ‘Fiesta – ‘Maj’. Now we’re down to one car and with Ann’s new job and position, we really needed something a little bigger and a better for long drives up-and-down motorways. Ann’s car on 24 January 2010 And so, …
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Snow!
First snow of 2013! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of writing seemed to be the perfect combination to contribute a few …
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Life of the DoDO – Iron Man
It’s been my first full week as the DoDO (Director of Domestic Operations) here – having retired on 31st December. A year ago I’d be ironing out performance problems – now It’s just the performance of the iron that gets my attention! Well, what’s it been like. Early days yet, but no signs of ‘cabin …
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Farewell Insignia
Those that know me well, know that I always have a emotional association with my cars – not sure whether it’s a ‘bloke-thing’, or just a ‘me-thing’, but today is a sad day. Now that I’ve retired, I’m saying good-bye to my Vauxhall Insignia (19100 miles!) as it’s returned to the Leasing Company – it’s …
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PCs are Go!
After picking up the two new PCs from Neil’s last Sunday, I’ve spent the past week on-and-off reinstalling software on both machines. The reinstalling is normally the time-consuming part, but I think I’ve just set a new personal best having got everything that was on the old PCs reinstalled and working on the two new …
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Mains, Greens and Automobiles
Nicki joined us today. We started off by doing nothing much at all, just chilling-out before staying local and looking for a possible replacement car for Ann. Nothing wrong with the Fiesta, but as we’ll be down to just one car from next week – and for the foreseeable future – we wanted to try …
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Family ‘Who’s Who’ and Technology Sunday
We drove down to my brother, Neil’s today. Partly to catch-up, and partly to take delivery of two new additions to the family! – a couple of Windows 7 PCs. With the business coming to an end on the 31st, it was a good opportunity to review the condition of the existing PCs (and peripherals) …
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December Holiday – Wednesday: Ha Long Bay
Having confined the long trousers to the back of the wardrobe and the sun-tan cream to the front, we were surprised to wake up to a wet and grey morning here in Ha Long Bay. However, the day was improved significantly by the news via email that Ann has officially been offered the job she …
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Review: Jeff Wayne’s ‘The War of the Worlds’
We drove over to the NIA tonight to see the new re-scored performance of the War of the Worlds album by Jeff Wayne. Background Since the Album’s launch in 1978, it had become a big hit for fans ‘of a certain age’ who also enjoy concept albums (that’ll be me then!). If you liked Albums …
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Fish and Chips
It was great to have the neighbours round tonight – seems like ages since we all last got together. Not everyone could make it for one reason or another, but Tom & Julie, Trish, David & Val, Rosi & Dave and Lee all helped us polish off the traditional Friday night dinner – Fish and …
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Handel with a Candle
I was stuck for a title for this blog, but Ralph came to the rescue – cheers Dude! If ever they re-invent Cluedo using famous musicians, Colonel Mustard now has a rival! 🙂 Lee, Ann and I drove over to the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton tonight to see the Handel by Candlelight concert. …
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Almost a Year
I can’t believe it’s almost a year since our big day! I thought I’d bored everyone silly with the wedding photos by now, but ironically, the two people who played such a big part in the event – Jill, from Kelmarsh Hall and Emma form Portfolio Catering had somehow escaped! So, it was great to …
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Tech Alert: Google Play adds ‘Music’
I’m not quite sure exactly when this happened, but today I noticed that my Google Play app now lists ‘music’ as one of its many options (in addition to Apps, Books and Movies). A closer inspection reveals that together with the free player app (available as a separate download), I can now search for, play …
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Film: Bond 23: Skyfall
We pre-booked the tickets a few months ago to see “Skyfall”, the 23rd outing for James Bond (released on 23rd October and directed by Sam Mendes). I’m glad we did as the cinema was packed – and they were showing it every 45 minutes across a number of the screens too! It’s the first …
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5ive Go To Stratford
Can it be 10 years since we collaborated in the British Airways training project? Err, no! The anniversary was actually last year, but trying to get all of the core Trainers together in one place, on a specific date, was as challenging as herding cats! So, after a few exchanges of emails, five of us …
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Social Media Timeline
I stumbled across this yesterday – who knew! Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for …
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Sky+ HD Box gets more features
As if my Sky+ HD Box couldn’t acquire any more features – it just has (almost!) Those of us with this newer type of Box, will have woken up this morning to find that the (rather confusingly titled) ‘Anytime’ and ‘Anytime+’ labels in the Planner have been retired – and replaced with ‘On Demand’. This …
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The Last Day of Summer?
Cor, what a(nother) scorcher! Surely today, with temperatures hitting 30 degrees, this must have been the last day of the really good weather. A busy and important day ahead. We set off early – around 8.30 – Lee stayed behind as her back was playing-up, and dropped into Neil and Debbie’s first for a catch-up. …
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Can you see us?
Just before the BBC transmitted the Olympics Closing Ceremony on Sunday at 9pm, there was a short (two minute) ‘countdown’ programme. Ralph just alerted me to the fact that if you look closely, you can see us gearing-up for the celebration. The programme is currently available on iPlayer and our fifteen (milli)seconds of fame is …
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