How to get an extra craft knife ...

Wandering around the local market (see blog below), I found a way of getting a craft knife free! The packet (pictured) says there are three, but look, a fourth has crept in unseen by the chinese manufacturer!

What a bargain!

It was, actually, a bargain, as it was in the "everything costs 1€" box. We also bought a jumbo thermometer, for our garden back home. It is currently registering 36 degrees here. Just thought you'd like to know!

Here we are in the South of France! We have snatched a week's holiday with one of my wife's cousins who lives over here.

Just to make you envious, the picture is taken from the kitchen window.

As soon as I'd taken the picture I scuttled out of the kitchen - well, I am on holiday!

Well packaged

I received a small parcel recently. I ripped off the cellophane to reveal a cardboard box. In it was a plastic tray, which had another cardboard box in it. So I removed the box from the tray and opened it, to reveal some bubble wrap. After I got rid of that, there was more cellophane wrap, and inside that - my card reader for my new Tesco savings account!

In order to log on, I have to type in my customer number, then digits of my PIN, then characters from my password. For certain transactions I have to put my recently received card into my recently unwrapped card reader and type in yet another PIN!

They say all this security is for my benefit. What they mean is that managing an account online is a highly hazardous thing to do and they are making it as difficult as possible for fraudsters to gain access to my money - and by so doing, it's pretty hard for ME to access my money.

I'm not sure which took longer - accessing my account through all the layers of security, or accessing my card reader through all the layers of packaging.

The letter that accompanied one PIN told me to memorise it immediately and destroy the letter. Like I'm supposed to do with all the other PINs and passwords I have - from other savings, credit card, debit card, even my library card!

And of course, if someone DID manage to hack in to my account, it must be my fault for not keeping my PIN secure!

I have to admit that I almost cancelled the account because of all the security. But then I remembered the interest rate! But I also must remember that, in a year's time I'll have to go through it all again, when the bonus interest rate ends.

Oh dear!

Out for the night?

A few days ago I asked my wife if she wanted to do anything that evening. She asked, "Like what?" So I said, "Well, we could go out and paint the town red!"

But we agreed we were too old for that, so I suggested we might go out and paint the town beige.

Actually, we stayed in and watched tele ...

The joke I didn't tell.

Yesterday I went on a one day course organised by the Eastern Baptist Association for ministers. It was called "Peer Supervision." I'd said to the family that if they asked all the attendees at the beginning of the course, "Why have you come on this peer supervision course?" I would say, "Because I hope to get a job with Southend Corporation."

Well, the course leader asked that very question, almost word-for-word. But I bottled out!

Perhaps I don't want to always be the "class clown".

This really is the end.

When a Southend bound train comes into Laindon station, even if it's only four carriages long, it goes right up to the end of the platform. This is rather annoying, as the exit is at the beginning of the platform.

I asked a friend of mine who knows about these things (as he works for a major train company) and he told me why. In order for the driver to ensure all passengers are safely aboard, he looks through a large mirror situated on the station, just by where he stops. At the four carriage stop, the mirror had been smashed by vandals shooting at it from the road bridge.

The railway replaced it (and they are not cheap, I'm assured), only for the same thing to happen again. At which point they gave up, and now the trains run to the end of the station, where the mirror is out of range of the bridge.

I did have a rather radical suggestion, "Why doesn't the driver lean out of his window and look back down the train?" But that was greeted with a sharp intake of breath! To me, sometimes the obvious solutions are not only the cheapest, but also the best!

But, hey, who am I? I'm not a railway manager!

Actually this whole thing reminds me of something I read some time ago. In the days of the USA versus Russia space race, both nations had a problem. A ball point pen would not write properly in zero gravity (try writing with the pen going upwards and you can see the problem).

The Americans put in thousands of dollars of research in order to create a pen that would write in space. The Russians had another idea - they sent their astronauts up with a pencil.

Simple, but effective.

Taking leave of our Census

(Sorry about the pun in the title!) The government announced yesterday that next year's census would be the last of its kind. They say there are more efficient ways of picking up information, from the Post Office, local government and credit checking agencies.

But they've forgotten another source of information. With our Club Card, Tesco knows more about us than anyone else!

Fakes and mistakes ...

Last Monday we went to the National Gallery to see their new exhibition, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes & Discoveries. It tells the stories behind various paintings, whether they are genuine and changes that have been made to them.

As various scientific methods have been employed on the pictures, it's a kind of art meets science. Like when Doctor Who visited Van Gogh (OK, that's science fiction meets art!). Being more on the science side than the arts side, but knowing I ought to appreciate art, I thought I'd enjoy this exhibition and I did.

There was, for instance, the painting "Woman at a window", a picture of a demure Victorian lady. But when they got to work on it, they found she had been "touched up" and she was originally much more provocative and probably no lady! See for more information:

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/woman-at-a-window

Then there was the portrait that had been altered, so that the man now had a cleaver in his head and a dagger in his chest! But his vague smile was unaltered.

But perhaps my favourite was the restorer in the 1930's who was working on Il Tramonto (The Sunset) by Giorgione. At one point the canvas was so damaged, it had to be replaced, and to disguise this, he painted on it a mounted St George slaying the dragon. Maybe he wanted to put an English 'stamp' on the painting!

As I said, a very enjoyable afternoon, well worth the visit, including the 15 minute film giving more detail.