message query for money

Wedding video and new jeans

Had a slightly rum Saturday night out but then a lovely Sunday afternoon to follow. Felt a bit queasy on Saturday so although we went out to Folkestone in the day, and had lunch at The Whole World Cafe (felty queasy before we went there, certainly not their fault), and then out again in the evening to Hythe, I came home early and left Clare out with friends. Picked up a bit when I got home, and finally got all my wedding video DVD plans in place, foudn some software that will burn to DVD for free, without putting a cheeky watermark encouraging me to pay money. Just could not get DVDStyler working this time, so no menus or anything, but I think I know what I'm doing now.

Here's some video, a short snippet of wedding footage, that I was using to test the DVDness. Not sure it really gives much idea of how lovely everything was, but have a look anyway:

Sunday I was feeling much better again, we went out for the afternoon in Hythe. First the all new Red Lion - it really is nice now, but they were CLOSED on a hot Sunday afternoon. And they have a huge garden, madness. Next The Three Mariners, lovely again, bit quiet / local though maybe. Final stop The White Hart on the high street, sat in their courtyard garden, smashing, two thumbs up for them. Home in time to watch this week's Lost, seems to me to be all change again in their back story, hmm.

DB2 training for me yesterday and today, first bit of training I've done for years!

Oh, the new jeans; Clare was after some For All Mankind jeans in the americas; they're hundreds of pounds here and should be half price there. Key West is expensive, which mostly negated any savings. If she will take a chance on a pair of ebay, they're WELL CHEAP. Possibly a gamble, might end up with a fake pair, but we'll see. I've put the jeans over there in the side bar, check them out -->

No it's not trampy and dirty buying things like this second hand. We might even wash them before wearing them. Next stop some new(ish) underwear for me...

The three rules of vegetarian food

From Neil, I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing this here, it's spot on. We were discussing pies:

A veggie one would be possible, were it not for the first of the "food
industry 3 laws of vegetarian food", i.e. "don't make it any fun", so unfortunately veggie pies have to be in a kind of tough brown pastry which is actually made from the bark of a particular species of pine.

The second law is of course "make it a bit more expensive than meaty food, even though there is less in it", and the third law is "even though the choice is limited, as soon as something good emerges and people like it, try to stop making it"

Whatever did happen to Linda McCartney Southern Fried Grills? Perhaps these were the elusive foodstuffs that were supposedly vegetarian but were really made out of meat?

Speaking of crazy urban whatnames, there's a rumour sweeping our office that a local business has been cloning people's bank cards, supposedly two people at work had this happen to them, and now everyone else who's visited the same business (which I won't name here) is panicking, waiting for the fake payments on their statements.

Our actual first day in Key West

I realise that my previous post about our first day in Key West a) didn't contain any info, b) had things from our second day on the map, and c) has slipped down the page and no-one will read it. So here at last is the first part of our journey. Clare did I miss anything?

So, back from Key West then and trying to write up all my thoughts from the position of a desk, an office, England, very far in space and mind from where we were. We travelled to Key West (Florida, USA) for Clare's bro Kevin's wedding to Guiselle, the wedding was on a Sunday, and we had a few days either side for a holiday. We settled on six nights instead of seven or more to save money, as we couldn't find a package (where two weeks can be the same sort of price as one), you never can find a bargain when you want one can you? I'm not much of a traveller these days, and generally like to come home after a week anyway, but we had a really great trip and I could have done with it lasting a bit longer.

The holiday started extra early for me, while Clare was off on the Wednesday, I had to be all packed Tuesday night, to take my bags into work, and head to Gatwick right after. A busy day at work and a hastily called 4pm meeting meant I just scraped out at half past, meeting Clare at Westenhanger where she even had a beer waiting for me, lovely! We were staying overnight at the Moat House, Gatwick, booked through work, and of course I HEARTILY RECOMMEND IT! We were intending to go for the on-airport Hilton but the savings were enormous on the one we picked, so that's that. Tea and a few pints of real ale in the nearby Ye Olde Six Bells were great, that's something we could not have walked to if we'd stayed on airport. I don't think I ever go near an airport unless I'm actually at an airport, so it's good to find there are real villages and things nearby, it's not just acres of car parks. Nice hotel, nice room, the bar was open, what else do you want from an airport stop? Our transfer the next morning was free, and while it could have been quicker (by not going via other hotels in the area) nothing to complain about at all there. We got to the airport, checked in, and went for a civilsed cooked breakfast, with no booze, lordy!

The flight there was uneventful. It wasn't comfortable or fun, I would not fly Delta again if there was another choice at about the same price, but we went for the cheapest deal we could find this time so we paid our money and we I took our choice. The plane didn't have seatback TV's, just little screens suspended every so often from the ceiling. We were too far away from these, and Clare could not hear anything through the supplied headphones, man was she furious! She didn't miss much though, daytime flight, shared TV, of course they're going to show only childrens films, pretty poor. I didn't bother with The Water Horse or some half cartoon fairy princess movie, but I did quite enjoy National Treasure: Book Of Secrets. I'd not seen the first one, but will now, it's The Goonies meets The Davinci Code, and I quite liked both of them. I don't think I slept on the flight over, I read a Lovejoy Paid and Loving Eyes (nice and light for packing purposes, and I've got two copies of it for some reason, so intended to leave it there) and ate my airline snacks; they remembered my vegan-ness. Almost no free booze though. Free soft drinks, with $5 upgrade to a cocktail if you wanted. A free glass of wine with our meal, and because I probably looked like a desperate wino, the stewardess gave me two, lovely. I prefer free drinks all the way though!

To increase the cheapness, we had to change planes in Atlanta, though you have to change somewhere to get to Key West. The rest of the family were flying to Miami and driving down from there, but we opted for the more awkward flight but more time in Key West. We had to reclaim our bags here, basically just moving them from one conveyor belt to another though, no security or anything. Then came the security... we shuffled round queues for a couple of hours I'm sure, this was the big immigration moment that you get every time you go to the US though. Atlanta airport is huge, we had a bit of a sprint round looking for food and beer, I heard there was a brew pub on site, but it was just a Sam Adams bar, not much cop. We settled on Sweet Georgia Brown instead, also not any good but we only had about an hour to kill, then on to our tiny little plane to take us the last eighty minutes or so to Key West. This plane was small, and a bit bumpy, but I think I'm getting better at flying, I hardly cried at all. There was a hen party in front of us, and some chap being mysterious about his bar, I think it was this one, trying to get the hen party along. No food on this flight, nor TV, nor any free booze, but before you know it we've landed in Key West.

Clare had joked that Key West airport would be one small shack with a man who'd have to stop selling his mangoes outside to come and do immigration and passports and things; not far off at all. As there are no external flights from Key West there's none of the delay and paperwork, the plane parks up next to the terminal building, you step inside, your bags come in, and you step out the other door to a waiting taxi. I didn't even have time to check out the mango stall. There's a special rate for taxis from the airport, and as we were heading from one end of the island to the other that's the maximum fare of $7.50 each. We ended up sharing a cab with two other people and dropping them off on the way, I think this fixed fare is quite common in the USA from airports. A quick peek at the hotel, drop the bags off, and out on the razzle dazzle!

First impressions of (my second visit to) Key West - it's pretty hot, and it's night time (about 9pm local time when we got there I think). It was the week of the Conch Republic independence celebrations when we arrived, so perhaps there were more people out and about, but to be honest there's always something going on. This was the 26th anniversary of Key West seceding from the rest of the union (for about one minute, after which they surrendered to the navy and then demanded one billion in aid). There were events planned for all over the weekend, starting with a big parade this day that we'd just missed, doh. The streets were still full of people though, which was to remain the case all week. We had a bit of a scoot around town, getting our bearings again, and went in Captain Tony's for a drink. Sloppy Joes' is probably the most famous bar in Key West, it was one of Hemingway's favourite hangouts; the name moved to a bigger premises on Duval Street at some point but Captain Tony's is the original spot. There was live music (there was live music in every bar now, not sure this was the case on our last visit, good place to go live if you play guitar I think), a big old tree in the middle of the bar, and hundreds of bras hanging from the ceiling. It's not that this was too much to take in, just that we'd been travelling a long time, were tired, and headed back to the hotel after this.

Map loading here, where I went with my GPS on 25/04/2008, the last 1000 locations anyway...

Hmm, no map action for the 24th actually. Onward and upward, more to write, coming soon!

Richy is doing the London to Brighton

Sponsor him!

Hello,

I'm taking part in the London to Brighton Bike Ride 2008 on 15/06/2008 to raise money for British Heart Foundation and would really welcome your support.

Please take a moment to sponsor me. It's really easy - you can donate online by credit or debit card at the following address:

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Here is Richy, how could you not sponsor this face?

House hunt

Two houses today in Canterbury, different parts of town, but with things in common. For starters, both too expensive really at 250k each. If the market really is tumbling we might be able to make a cheeky offer on just about anything we see now though I suppose. Also, they were both currently let, and we'd be seeing them with the tenants in situ. Also, both sets of tenants were entirely unprepared for our visits; the first were hastily tidying up, the place was a proper studenty sprawl with bottles and things scattered everywhere, and also what appeared to be a rolled up ten dollar bill left on a mirror, probably some sort of crazy art installation. It was a nice interesting characterful house in a nice old part of town, three big bedrooms, two cellar rooms and two knocked through reception rooms with just the raw brickwork of the chimney left standing in the middle of the property. It needed decorating, but the thing that makes it no good for us is the kitchen, which was too small. If it wasn't at the top of our budget we could have thought about rearranging things, maybe moving the kitchen or extending a bit, but we'd have no money left over for that.

Property two within the city walls is in the ideal location for us, right by The Dolphin. The tenants this time were even less prepared for our visit, they didn't want to let the agent in, they heard nothing from their landlord. We offered to come back next week but in the end they were unhappy but convinced, and the viewing continued. Surprisingly large three bedroom property, all of the downstairs was one big open plan space including the kitchen. I liked this, but it might need some thought. What would it be like living in a house where you can't close the kitchen off from the living room? At a squeeze we might even fit the pool table in this one, if we lived all around it. No garden, and being where it is no parking, but it's on a quiet street so stopping outside for deliveries and removals wouldn't be a problem. There are residents parking spaces right next door, but we know from previous enquiries that there's a waiting list for a permit. There is a small patio out the back, with the river adjacent. It's very shallow at this point, not even really deep enough for the ducks and moorhens to swim in, and is not quite as lovely as it sounds, but I liked it. Clare is less convinced, and at this credit crunching stage in the national economy I don't think we're going to be taking any risks on a place we don't absolutely love. I wouldn't mind seeing this one again though.

Some quick stats, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of todays properties were being offloaded by professional landlords. Possibly in a hurry. If that doesn't tell you the property market is plummetting I don't know what will.

Lunch was at Boho, my first time of eating there and it was lovely, I recommend it. Tea was at Escondido for the first time in ages. Nice, but as with the last several visits they got my order wrong. They recovered quickly, so unfortunately we had no reason to demand a discount. I think that place is a bit expensive now really, but it was full again, I guess there is very little competition in the area. As it was Jen's birthday, we went on for drinks in The Sandgate Hotel for a change, nice but didn't feel all that welcoming. We made our excuses and left before closing time, but the party continued back at Dean's house until 4am apparently.

Nice day today, got our shopping out of the way early so are having a lazy afternoon. Midsomer Murders and chilli later, GREAT!

RE: Poor Jimmy Godden

I am so pleased that someone is concerned about Mr Godden's spate of bad luck, I am sure that Jimmy will appreciate this community spirit - after all Mr Godden has always had the towns' best interests at heart. It is good to know that there is one developer who does not behave in a shabhy, corrupting, self-interested manner. There has been so much of that in the past, especially in Folkestone, where corrupt local politicians and greedy developers have scarred our landscape with money-making monstosities ie., Queens house replaced the Beautiful Queen's Hotel, The lovely Royal Pavillion Hotel, knocked down to erect The ugly Burstin. These beautiful Victorian buildings were a heritage of the town - our heritage! - now they have been wiped off the landscape forever.
Our latest 'White elephant' - The Bouverie Road Shopping centre, will, in time, become another eyesore, as it fails, to make the profit envisaged by its schemers.

Two things we must concern ourselves with in the future - stop all demolition of lovely buildings in the town - and make sure that Richard de Haan comliments the town with his seafront scheme - what is built now, will be the attractions of the future, or, another nail in the coffin of the prosperity of Folkestone.

Google / Yahoo MERGER!

Well, no actually, not at all but Google are serving ads on some of Yahoo's pages. What about Yahoo serving ads in Google's "slots" (like the ones on this page)? I want more different ads served up here, so more people are likely to click on them and then I'll make some money!

While I'm doing news, I'm loving all the Olympic disruption, not quite sure why. Not a great fan of the Olympics like the wife is, it does seem a lot of money's being spent there that could be used more usefully elsewhere. It's great that massive corporate effort being put into promoting China is backfiring, it feels like the little guy is benefiting from all the publicity.

Also this new episode of Shameless is not as funny as I'd been led to believe. Can't find much on TV right now that I like, we're still going on with Boston Legal and edumacating ourselves with The World At War.

It's a special day today at work, not one of our "fun days", but we have a load of corporate guests in so we've all been asked to put a clean shirt on and tidy our desks and stuff. There's a huge old marquee in the carpark for a lunch for the guests, so there's no parking, so we have busses running staff to and from the motorway services. Also Kriss Akabusi is in to do an after dinner speech. No, not "awooga", that was John Fashanu on Gladiators you massive racist.

Britain By Cub

Charity appeal from someone at work:

I was just briefly hoping to make you aware of a fund raising event two of my friends are taking part in on behalf of Demelza House who as you may know do fantastic work caring for terminally ill children. The event is called "Britain by Cub" and will involve my friends, Aaron and George, driving 85cc Honda Cub motorcycles (Honda c90's - the classic pizza boy motorcycle!) around the coast of mainland Britain (unaided), staying as close to the sea as possible! This trip is to take place on June 2nd 2008 and will take 28 days to complete, being that they will have to travel over 4000 miles, loaded up with camping equipment, at a top speed of approximately 45mph!

They're hoping to raise as much money as possible as the childrens hospice relies on voluntary contributions to do their work, providing respite, symptom control, end-of-life care and bereavement support for children and their families. So please if you wish to donate either visit their website at www.britainbycub.co.uk where u can make a donation...

ABE Books also leaving Commission Junction

Hmm, ebay recently quit Commission Junction (an affiliate company, who make it easy for small fry like me to refer you to a company who pay a commission), and now ABE Books are off too, I wonder what's going on? There are millions of companies out there that pay commissions but mostly they're loan sharks and so on, Ebay and ABE are the only two I've found that are relevant to the kind of things I like to write about. Amazon always seemed like a good idea, but everyone knows how and where to buy books and cd's, so it never actually made any money at all.

I can follow Ebay and ABE to their new homes, but blee, CHANGE is BAD, it never works out for the best for the little guy! Whenever I've moved affiliate companies in the past I've ended up missing out on some money...

Just remembered some ALL of my links (for example, to this non rustic table and chairs) are out of date, I'm losing my 6p commission already!

Happy April Fool's

Just seen a brilliant feature on BBC Breakfast on a newly discovered type of penguin, that can fly. Can't find it on their website, but they had video on the TV and they've apparenly roped in David Attenborough, I hope they put the footage online later.

I hope that was this year's best april fool, and not yesterday's pay rise.

I've still not written up the weekend have I? The usual round of pubs and restaurants really, I might break it up into bits and scatter it about. Going out this week too, on a school night, this never happens. Got a "work outing" to Kalala on Thursday.

UPDATE: It's on youtube, but fronted by my friend Terry Jones.

According to the popbitch board someone at the beeb emailed this to everyone at the beeb:

This email is going to everyone
Dear All,
Thought you might be interested in this. Do forward to your friends.
All the best,
Txx Dxxxx & Axxxxx Hxxxxxxxx"

Kind of un-virals what I think was originally a good video. I guess someone in charge of it was worried about the amount of money spent on it per eyeball it actually got on the morning or april fools day or something.

The Luggage, but for real

The Luggage, from Terry Pratchett's Colour of Magic and other Discworld Novels, and it can be yours, all the money goes to charity.

A unique opportunity to own a one-off replica of the luggage as featured in Sky One's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic. This quirky 'suitcase' is filled with the full library of Discworld novels, plus the production designs used to build the luggage as seen in the film. Both the books and the designs have been signed by Terry Pratchett.
Also included in this money can�t buy piece of memorabilia is a copy of the Discworld 25th anniversary edition of The Colour of Magic which hits book store shelves on the 10th March. This brand spanking new reissue not only features the stars of Sky One�s magical adaptation, Sir David Jason and Sean Astin, on the front cover, but the two actors have also signed the novel.

Could be dreadful

A review of the US remake of Spaced. Well, a review of the script. It's being remade without the cooperation of the original creative team of Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright, seemingly it went ahead without their knowledge. Simon Pegg said:

My main problem with the notion of a Spaced remake is the sheer lack of respect that Granada / Wonderland / Warner Bros have displayed in respectively selling out and appropriating our ideas without even letting us know. A decision I can only presume was made as a way of avoiding having to give us any money, whilst at the same time using mine and Edgar�s name in their press release, in order to trade on the success of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, even professing, as Peter Johnson did, to being a big fan of the show and it�s creators.

(Is that a grocer's apostrophe at the end there? SIC)

It could be so, so bad, but we'll wait and see. Let's remember how it used to be:

Via www.popbitch.com, though I don't think this news is very new.

The Long Blondes at the Amersham Arms

Just reading this post about a gig in New Cross (from one of my regular reads) makes me think I should go back and visit one day. I wish I'd bought a flat there when I was renting - I had more money those days, and I ended up paying more for this flat in Folkestone, my flat there was only sixty grand but I thought that was too much at the time.

Gate 28

yer, the nice owners decided to tell us we no longer had a job at 11am on new years day! nice of them isnt it, they still owe me money!!!!!!!!

RE: Do you really think DeHaan has made any money on this yet?

They've reduced the price now to �47k.Must be desperate.

www.porterssurveyors.co.uk/property_details.php?ID=PA392

KISS meet and greet

Tour Dates Announced February 12, 2008

May
11 Munich Olympiahalle GERMANY
13 Verona Arena ITALY
15 Belgrade USCE Stadium SERBIA
24 Moscow Olympissky RUSSIA
26 St Petersburg Newarena RUSSIA

June
4 Hamburg Color Line Arena GERMANY
6 Prague Saska Arena CZECH REPUBLIC
9 Berlin Velodrom GERMANY
10 Mannheim SAP Arena GERMANY
11 Oberhausen Arena GERMANY
Download Festival UK
15 Arrow Festival HOLLAND
17 Paris Bercy FRANCE
18 Stuttgart Schleyerhalle GERMANY
21 Bilbao Kobetamendi SPAIN

KISS Meet & Greet and KISS Pre-Show Soundcheck Packages

In addition to KISS Army member only presales, www.KISSontour.com will be exclusively offering KISS Meet & Greet and KISS Pre-Show Soundcheck packages. Below are package details.

KISS Meet and Greet and Pre-show Soundcheck Package *
- Exclusive Meet and Greet with KISS
- Exclusive Pre-show Soundcheck
- Personal photograph with the band
- 8X10 photo
- KISS Tour Program
- KISS Europe '08 Shirt
- Official KISS VIP Laminate
- $50 coupon good for the official KISS on-line store

No prices yet, I think these were ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS when they last did it in the US, that was possibly including concert ticket itself though, these European packages do not. If we weren't going to Kev's wedding, we could spend the money on this!

(PS, joking. Paying to meet a band you like, what's that all about?)

Gah

Just investigating my amazon referral fees, seeing why I've not earned anything in about a year... this month my referral earnings are MINUS four pounds twenty-seven. Seems someone bought this camera last month, KERCHING, that's about a tenner commission for me! But then they returned it, so the money comes back out again :-( How strange that that's the only transaction for ages, possibly my links were broken for a while.

Aha, figured it, I am still getting email reports about popex earnings (which are zero), but my real email reports are going down a black hole.

After the camera, looks like my next best seller was this Victorian toilet roll holder, what does that say about the site?

50% off at Zizzi's

Worth a thought, we're off to Canterbury this weekend, though BAH not valid on Saturdays. From money saving expert:

What�s the deal?

The Telegraph is offering readers 50% off main courses at Zizzi Italian restaurants, when you buy a copy of the paper from this Sunday till next Friday.

How to grab the offer

Vouchers will be printed in the Telegraph everyday from Sat 26 January until Fri 1 February. (The press office has confirmed that these are the correct dates, but the wording on its T&Cs is a bit confusing). Simply grab one and take it along to your nearest Zizzi for 50% off main courses.

There must be at least two people dining (maximum is six). The offer is valid Sundays to Thursdays, excluding Valentines Day, and closes 24 February. Read the full T&Cs.

Thanks to mcallister1 in the daily newspaper thread who originally spotted the deal.

I typed "monkey saving expert" at first, maybe that is a website... I should check out www.moneysavingexpert.com more often, though the guy who runs it really annoyed me when he was on the TV all the time having invented a new way for 90% of people to pay [em]more[/em] council tax.

Black Monday

Stop selling everyone, and you the news, stop telling people how bad it is, it's just making the ill informed small investors like me worry more, and sell, and exacerbate the problem. The market is only about as low as it was in mid August right now, but I expect* it's going to drop again when it opens.

My shares in Channelfly, all I ended up with in exchange for popex are worth just about nothing now, but they weren't worth very much anyway.

Ooh, on the plus side, maybe the people who made an offer on that house we like lost their deposit / confidence in yesterday's share slump?

*based entirely on Sod's Law, popex is the extent of my financial experience, don't follow me, the value of your portfolio may fall as well as rise.

Second house-hunting trip around Canterbury

Saw five houses today in Canterbury, have a map with details of the things we saw. Clare's out tonight with Jenny, so it's a prime opportunity for me to do some fiddling about with maps and things, so sorry if it breaks. Not that you'll be on the computer on a Saturday night.

Map loading here, where I went with my GPS on 19/01/2008, the last 1000 locations anyway...

Some new icons on the maps now that I quite like... The monkey is Clare, the house is a house, the pint is a pub, and so on... Well, I saw "and so on" but that's the only three I've put in so far, any suggestions?

As I said, we saw five places yesterday in Canterbury, the first was only a two bedder, but on a good street within the city walls, it was nice but far too small for us. Odd layout too, the entrance hallway was bigger than all the other rooms, so it gave the impression of going into a much bigger place than you were. The second had potential, claims to be a three bedroom but the third bedroom was off the second, so more a study type area. Very small kitchen and bathroom, a potential though I thought. The third was student let, just around the corner from the Whitstable Road place we saw last week. Very cluttered (had three students in situ) but had some good space that we could make use of with some rearranging. So getting better as we went on! Then, number four, we went to a four bedroom terrace on Black Griffin Lane, really a good location for us within the city walls again, the street leads to the side of The Hobgoblin pub (though we are not basing our move entirely on pubs). From the outside it doesn't look much, but inside the current owners have done a fantastic job. It's not quite four bedrooms, one is more like an upstairs lounge, but the decor was quite fab, lots of exposed brickwork next to very modern features. It's hard not to be wooed by the decor, but I am trying to see past these things. It is at the top end of our budget at �225,000, and I found out when I got home that it was only just sold in August for �189,000. We did see the vendor though and she told us she'd only just bought the place and done it up, so best of luck to her. It's less of a percentage increase than the person who sold us this flat made, even if it does sell for that amount. No garage and parking is tricky within the city walls, but we don't have a car so not actually a deal breaker. Had a garden and shed and nice features like that, and a view of the cathedral which is apparently a plus. Definitely a contender, but I don't like the idea that someone's made all the profit out of it already and that it looks like the highest price house on the street. Would be nice to look at an unmodernised house on the same street and see if we could do the same "property ladder" on it.

The Mystery of the Secret Room

The last house was in Wincheap, out the other side of Canterbury past Canterbury East station, so not such a prime location, but you do get more for your money out there. It was an unassuming terrace from the front, but there was LOADS of space inside. Separate lounge and dining room, huge kitchen, and three big bedrooms upstairs. The dining room would just about have room to play the pool table in, but we're not basing this move on that either... I had a look outside to see if any of the neighbours had extended either out the back or into the loft, and saw some of them had, but then noticed a dormer window in the roof of this house. Confusing, as I know we didn't go up another flight of stairs in this house. The agent knew nothing about this, it wasn't in the particulars or anything, but we found a ladder and went up for a look. I was half expecting to find a radio transmitter or something up in this secret room, it was empty, but decorated, with lights, power points, radiators and everything you'd expect in a real room. All it needs is stairs, and there's room for that too.

So, if we go out to Wincheap, we get a lot more room for our money. Going to look at more in the area we really want next week.

Buy it now, �175?

We got our one of these for about �110 in the end... I guess that one will go to offers, not bought anything like that before.

Is the time right to sell my pushbike? I want rid of it, I've never used it, do you want an as new Raleigh Chopper and can you collect it from Folkestone?

�175 is the price someone's asking for these, not the money I want for the bike!

Oh yes, I have just the money to buy a fancy hotel on the riviera!

It changed hands not long after his last TV show, rumours were then that he'd bought it. It was not me that bought it that time either.

Do you really think DeHaan has made any money on this yet?

He's spent money but is unlikely to have anything other than humungous losses so far I'd have thought.

Are you a homeowner in the area? I am, I'm hoping to make some money, damn this property slump, roll on the high speed rail link and the hordes of loaded evacuees!

RE: Whole lot of interesting detail there, though you do sound a bit bitter

The "Euphoria" just sounded like a gay bar, when in fact it was just another rough Folkestone dive.

I'm not bitter about anything, just don't want people wasting their hopes and cash on this money pit.

Five changes of name in six years is never good. Perhaps Mr Ramsay can sort it out. Although I think even he would wash his hands of it.

Everything has been tried to make this place a success, but nothing has worked.

It attracts people who think the so-called rejuvenation of the town will help make there fortunes. But they're sadly deluded. Godden and de Haan are the only ones making any money here.

Some might say "bleeding the town dry" as was done to Margate.

A festive update from Hibbett

Hmm, this newsletter is called "The Last Working Day Of The Month" (from one of his songs), but he's practically a civil servant and finished work for the year a week ago at least, I'm still working...

welcome to this SUPER CHRISTMASSY edition of our monthly newsletter, let's do it quick and GET TO THE PUB!

GIGS TO COME

This month I shall be bringing festive cheer to the following places:

Saturday December 22 - Fox & Firkin, London (GIG 60! On first supporting JD & The Longfellows) you've missed this one

Tuesday January 22 - The Lamb, London (First Totally Acoustic night of 2008!)

Saturday January 26 - The Fishtank, Durham (With Pete Green and Man Is Slapped.)

Check www.mjhibbett.net/gigs/gigs.htm for further details.

GIGS WE'VE DONE

It's been a month of GRATE gigs, all with The Validators, all with GRATE bands to play with. We kicked off in Birmingham with The Icicles
and Winston Echo - Frankie had train doom, Ray The Promoter got hassled by The Man, but the rest of us had a LOVELY time. Next the Cleator Moor Validators had one of the best gigs of the year, with the 10p Mixes and The Deirdres in Sheffield, and we finished off with Horowitz, The Deirdres again, and some MINCE PIES in Stoke on another
SMASHING night, helped along its festive way by the semi-annual VALIDATORS' CURRY.

Fifty nine down, one to go!

RECORDS

Two Christmas Albums for you this month - first up, our song "The Advent Calendar Of FACT" appears on Cherryade's "A Very Cherry Christmas (volume 3)" along with The Bobby McGees, The Gresham Flyers, The Deirdres and many other TOP COMBOS. It's available from www.cherryademusic.co.uk. Meanwhile our cover of "Songs About You" by The Language Of Flowers has just come out on the PopArt "Covered At Christmas" compilation. It's a download album available from www.popartlondon.co.uk/pal002.htm, and it's all in aid of St Mungo's. There's also my JAZZ version of "Little Donkey" available
TONIGHT ONLY to the first 50 people who turn up to Don't Start Feeling All Romantic in Nottingham - RARITIES AHOY!

OTHER THINGS

Carrying on from last month, we're still SLASHING (slashing!) prices over in the online shop, and I'm keeping on keeping on with "My Exciting Life In ROCK" articles for the
PopArt Digest. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to re-start sessions for the NEXT album, and there's even a couple of new songs emerging to slip onto it.

And that's the lot - all that's left is to say thanks very much to everyone who's put us on this year, or been to a gig, or bought a record, or been to look at the blog, or sat and read through any of these messages. As I always say, we're not in this for the money (luckily), we're here for the fun and - HEY! - the love of it, so thanks VERY much for supplying us with so much of BOTH. Have a fantastic Christmas and see you in the New Year for a freshly baked slice of ROCK!

Cheers,

Mark

If a picture paints a thousand words...

Does this video clip of us in Belgium this weekend make anything I have to say on the subject completely redundant?

See, Mum, Dad, Clare and me on a humungous big wheel, part of the Plaisers d'Hiver festival type affair that was going in Brussels this weekend. I hastily agreed to go on this thing to get out of going ice skating (there were also rinks set up, along with millions of stalls and other entertainments) and then remembered how much I don't like such rides. Man alive it was high. Not as high as the London Eye, which I don't mind at all, but smaller and more travelling-fairground, hmm.

Brussels was great. Mum and Dad came over on Friday night, I cooked them chilli and we had a quiet night in ready for an early start Saturday morning. We were meant to be on the Eurotunnel about 9am, but there were earlier cancellations so we had a bit of an annoying delay, just like the last time we tried to take the tunnel actually. The drive the other side went quite smoothly, until we hit Brussels itself, I don't recommend trying to drive around there. The sat-nav mostly kept up, except when we went under the big old tunnels that cut through the cities. It's mostly true what they say, everyone drives like a mental out there and they don't make any allowances for tourists, but no-one rammed us or anything, we didn't see any road rage at all.

The one thing I was a bit concerned about was parking at our hotel, there was none, the websites suggests using "public parking". Thought this might be expensive, but we dumped the car in a nearby underground multi storey and it only came to about a tenner for the whole weekend. The hotel was great, great location (I think this map is centred on the hotel, it's not exactly where the red pin is) just off "Grand Place", which is like Leicester Square there.

The beer was good, found a particularly great pub called Delerium Cafe / Bar with 2000 beers on in the huge Jalehouse / Frog and Frigate style mass of bodies downstairs, and probably about twenty on draught upstairs. I liked it there.

Food was quite good too, would probably be fantastic if you ate more than I did, there are huge displays of seafood and the like everywhere, though we stuck to Italian. (If you're reading this and you don't know me, I'm a vegan, it's no slur on the menus of Brussels).

Shopping also great, there are lots of great looking places in Brussels, saw quite a few things I'd like but didn't want to be too laden down with stuff. Stopped off at Cit� Europe on the way back and stocked up on mustard and wine and a few spirits for Christmas. Home in time for a Chinese takeaway and bed, and back to work again yesterday morning. Still, very very nice weekend while it lasted, nice to spend some time with my folks where we're all mostly just relaxing.

Strange side note www.britishcornershop.co.uk is the number one google result for Maille mustard. It's not English, and though I love it I really try not to buy it here as it's about 1/4 of the price in France. I only brought five jars back this time as that's probably as much as I can eat within the best-before date. Maybe there's some money to be made in importing this stuff... Phil Vickery also writes about it, I thinkI've mentioned him before, possibly he's from Folkestone.

Time to go to work, I'll upload the pictures later, but if you've still not had enough, here's a clip of an interesting merry go round I saw:

more details in the pictures, coming later.

Christmas party

we have had are christmas party there this year and it was great value for money.The service and food were good and the staff were outstandind.

Fullsome weekender

Well I say full, full of pubs really. Friday night we stayed in, so as to have more energy for going out on Saturday. We had a trip to Canterbury in the day (and you'll never guess where we had lunch), no actual christmas shopping, but we went in a couple of different pubs for a change, the Cherry Tree and the Buttermarket. Both are nice enough, the Cherry Tree feels a bit dated and rough really for Canterbury, there are plenty of better places to go but it was worth checking out for a change. The Buttermarket is much nicer, no decent beers on unfortunately but we sat and had coffee and read their newspapers until it was time to head off for the bus.

Saturday night we went to Hythe for the first time in a long time, and it turned into a bit of a crawl. We decided to make the most of our Canterbury bus tickets (an "Explorer" ticket is the same price as a return and takes you all over Kent and Sussex, as if you would have time to go very far in one day) and get the bus out to Hythe, the timing of which meant time for one in Folkestone. We tried Keppels, but it was shut for a private do so we tried out The Bay Tree (the bar underThe Burlington) for the first time ever. Deathly quiet, but very nice, and really no quieter than any of the hotel bars nearby (like The Clifton or Keppels in The Grand), I'd go back again.

The bus to Hythe was full of kids, being kids, actually being quite awful kids. They were skaters and of some indeterminate alternative youth cult, and Clare and I would both love to believe that this makes you OK and a better person than if they were more mainstream in appearance, but it's just not true. I suspect that alternative is the new mainstream now, or something. They weren't just annoying and loud and spread over several seats making other people stand (though they were annoying and loud and spread over several seats), I forgave their youthful high spirits until they made racist remarks about another passenger, very poor.

Hythe was quite good, we looked in The Globe which was dated and working-mans-club-like like The Cherry Tree was earlier, but it gave it a feel of traditional pub. Then on to Earl Brownes to meet people, nice to sit around and chat, but that bar closed early, not because of us I'm sure, t seems to have declined in popularity since it first opened. A couple of other pubs along the street also stopped serving when they saw us coming, only The Kings Head was brave enough to stay open, and I think that's where all the pictures are from.

Sunday didn't do much, but did spend a stack of money. Booked a hotel for Brussels where we're off to in December for a christmas market weekender. Thought at first that we could easily get a five star hotel there at a knock down price, but on a second look it seems all these cheap places are in the EU district, half an hour's walk from the town centre, so we've gone for a Novotel right in the centre of town instead. Also booked tickets to see the Magic Numbers at Festival Hall in a couple of weeks. It's a midweeker, but I think I can do it easily leaving right after work, as it's so handy for Waterloo. Will be bleary eyed the next day, but what's new.

Got lots lined up before christmas now, we are busy bees...

Good job too !

Nah, I'm afraid the station took a bit of a battering (DDOS attack) from a bunch of Turkish hackers who for no obvious reason took a dislike to the station website. They went after who they thought was our ISP & ended up taking out internet access for the SE govt for a day or so! Apparently there was traffic from over 90,000 independent IP addresses. Hmm, I think they rented a bot-net. I can only think that our light hearted banter suggesting they were better off getting girlfriends & leaving our website alone must have really pissed them off. I dunno.

After that, we sorta lost a bit of enthusiasm & when my friend running the server returned to the UK that was the final nail in the coffin. Ah well, it was fun for a couple of years. Most people that tuned in, listened for ages (av. listen time was about 3 hrs ;) but in the current climate it's virtually impossible to run an exclusively internet station & not lose money. That's not to mention the bill that's currently before congress that's set to put all current broadcasters that are still in business, out of action. That'll leave TimeWarner etc etc to move in & mop up.

looking forward to seeing what you've been up to !

Lottery winner dumps sinner

A HOODIE dad who won �700,000 on the Lottery has split from his girlfriend � after he caught her in bed with his COUSIN.

It's our Folkestone soap opera. At the time of writing there are no plans to confiscate their money and hand it over to me as far as I'm aware, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.