06 Jan 11 Raining In London
No surprise there you may say. London, and the UK has a reputation as a ‘rainy place’.
When I was in Charleston in South Carolina, on the east coast of the United States, I would often have people say to me that England is where it rains all the time.
Well, I used to put Charlestonians right and point out that the annual rainfall in Charleston is, at around 52 inches a year, a little over double that of London at about 25 inches.
The good people of Charleston were often surprised to hear about hose pipe and car washing bans in the south-east of England too.
Well, today in this part of London at least, it’s raining. Even so, it’s not raining heavily. No Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s not Charleston rain, when you get soaked through to your underwear dashing across the parking lot from store to car. No, it’s London rain, which is often not more than heavy drizzle.
It’s milder today anyway, so that was a bonus. Anyway, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning, so out in it I had to go.
I donned coat and cap, and set out. The surgery is only about 5 minutes walk from here in any case, and I am enjoying being able to walk to most of the local amenities once again. It’s not a mile and a half to the nearest 7-11 anymore!
Anyway, I’ve been in London now for six weeks, and in that time, it’s snowed twice for about four hours each, and there’s been just two rainy days. So much for it raining all the time!
Tags: amenities, annual rainfall, appointment, bonus, drizzle, east coast, England, hosepipe, ladies and gentlemen, london rain, parking lot, raining all the time, rainy days, reputation, six weeks, South Carolina, surprise, underwear, united states
22 Feb 10 Gossip
My Name is Gossip — Kara Williams
My name is Gossip.
I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing.
I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning and malicious,
and gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.
I flourish at every level of society, young or old.
My victims are helpless against me,
for I have no face or real name.
To track me down is impossible,
and the harder you try, the more elusive i become.
I am nobody’s friend.
Like me or not,
you know me better than you know them.
I tarnish reputations with ease,
and a life is never quite the same once I’m through.
I topple governments,
wreck marriages, and ruin careers.
I cause sleepless nights, heartache,
and even indigestion.
I spawn suspicion, and generate grief.
I make innocent people cry in their pillows.
My very name hisses.
I am called Gossip.
Office Gossip, Studio Secrecy,
Hallway Rumors, and the “news” of a party.
I make your headlines..and headaches!
so…
Before you repeat a story, ask yourself:
Is it TRUE?
Is it FAIR?
Is it NECESSARY?
If not, SHUT UP!!
Tags: governments, grief, headaches, headlines, heartaches, hearts, indigestion, innocent people cry, pillows, reputation, ruin careers, ruin lives, sleepless nights, suspicion, wreck marriages
05 Feb 08 What Is All The Yahoo About?
Why does Microsoft want to buy a failing company like Yahoo for? Like it or not, Google is the main search engine of choice for the overwhelming majority of the online population.
Remember the likes of Excite and Lycos? They seem to have vanished. AltaVista and inktomi got swallowed up by Yahoo themselves.
What Yahoo CAN offer Microsoft are the deals they have with Verizon, and the inroads they have made into the mobile market.
Windows Mobile 6 might not have the best reputation for stability (what Windows OS does), but WM7 is on the way, and more and more people are using mobile phones for everything but making phone calls.
What about the iPhone? Well, the iPhone is rather a cool niche product, but it does really offer mobile computing in the same way that Windows Mobile can and does, and as most of my readers will know, I am no fan of the Redmond giant.
Also many people that hacked their iPhone’s to work on other networks besides AT&T are now finding they no longer work after the latest iPhone updates. Also the iPhone is, officially, tied to AT&T, which is an expensive, slow, network.
Now, Google are looking to get into this area too. It’s well known that Google are bidding to obtain wireless spectrum, and are touting the idea of an open source phone with free (but advertisement-funded) software.
Google’s fear (besides being concerned that a Microsoft/Yahoo enterprise will eat into their market share) is that Microsoft will use their monopolistic powers to subvert the net; to change it slowly but surely, into MS-Net, much as they’ve done already, in the way they’ve stamped their feet at OpenOffice getting ISO 9002 certification for the .odt format, and they way they’ve only adopted the bits they decide they want in the Internet Explorer rendering engine.
Some say that Google is becoming too powerful, and heading towards a monopoly like Microsoft largely is. My own take on that statement is that whilst Google are enveloping the online world, by and large, unlike Microsoft, they are using standards that are already in place, and not trying to bend and change them to suit their own business practices.
Tags: inroads, iphone, market windows, microsoft, mobile computing, mobile market, mobile phones, niche product, overwhelming majority, phone calls, population, redmond giant, reputation, search engine, verizon, windows os, yahoo
