Month: January 2006

Now that was quick – frighteningly so. It seems like only last week I was nursing my poor alcohol-bruised head on New Year’s Day, and now it’s careening into February! As life goes on, it all goes quicker – and I just wanted a bit of slow time to recover. So unfair…

Well, happenins recovered from the attack of the low-lifes (**), although I was finding corrupt files in little dark secret corners of the website for days afterwards. It never ceases to amaze me what people will get up to on what is, frankly, a tuppenny-ha’penny website that not a whole lot of people visit! How is it any addition to them to hack my website to get traffic directed to them? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, enough harrumphing about script kiddies, hackers, spam and p0rn merchants, and their empty lives – there are so many better, more fulfilling and worthwhile things to talk about!

Although, to be honest, most of my life is work at the moment. A good complaint, as I say ad nauseam, but a bit of play wouldn’t hurt. Which is why I’m off to France this weekend with Fiona, to stay with some pals of hers near Bergerac, in the Dordogne – for the uninitiated, that’s the heart of wine country. You can see the attraction straight away, can’t you?! He he…

And Fiona’s friend is married to a guy who is a gadget freak, loves his wine, is into computers, rides a motorbike and plays bass guitar – nothing at all in common there! And just for a giggle, I asked what rental prices are like there – try €400 for a two-bedroom furnished apartment in the middle of town. You’d have to wonder what keeps people in this country! Phew…

Speaking of the two-wheeled love of my life, the RF is back in fighting shape, with a mere intermittent carburation glitch to blot the otherwise perfectly-disappearing landscape in my wing mirrors. Added to which a thorough jet-wash has made her truly beautiful once more – apart from the scrapes where I’ve dropped it in my lardy clumsiness, but let’s not speak of that…

Not a whole lot else to report, really – I’m trying to build some semblance of a social life, and I think there will be much more loony hiking courtesy of my hiking pal Pete. As it is, a few weeks ago we took a stroll around the Cotswolds by Avebury, admiring some truly ancient architecture and knackering ourselves in the process. And it was so much fun we’ll be doing it again!

Hikes up Ben Nevis and a trundle around the Mercantour region in South-Eastern France are on the cards, and Pete’s talking about parachute jumps too – a fun year is set to be had. And of course, I’ll be taking you all with me (in a virtual, geeky computer nerd sense, you understand!) – stay with me!

(** How wrong can you be???!! I’ve just been around the site and found the guestbook had been hacked too – filled with silly little Flash pictures and quasi-political messages so weak as to make my ten year-old nephew’s lip curl in disdain. Not only that, but they managed to delete half the entries and screw up the formatting of the rest of it – thanks, tossers! So the guestbook is going to be pulled, and the website is slated for the inevitable overhaul. I dunno, some people have little to be doing…)

After the developments of the past couple of days, I’m somewhat nonplussed. I have only one thing to say, and that’s

I’m feeling tainted, violated and just a little bit scruffy and out of sorts, after the hallowed pages of happenins were hijacked and corrupted by small-minded, mean little fsckers with nothing better to do. Not cool.

The problem was brought to my attention on Friday night, when my mate Matt decided to go check the site out and see if there was anything new and different with me (dream on!), only to find some random code appearing on the page. After investigation, I discovered the problem and put it right – or so I thought. On further investigation, I discovered that the whole site had been mucked about with in one form or another, redirecting visitors to another website whenever an error of any description occurred.

So I’ve spent a productive evening and morning after, going through and replacing the lowlifes’ code with the original, changing passwords, generally making the site more secure. I hope. And so it continues: first the message board had to go, then the guestbook had to be disabled, and now this. On Friday night I was tempted to take the whole damn thing offline and be done with it. But no, dear reader(s?), I’m still here!

Normal business will be resumed as soon as I’ve had a hot shower and a stiff brandy…

What a Christmas! And what a New Year!! In fact, what a week in between!!! There weren’t too many sober moments in there, apart from the bits when I woke up in the mornings. I’m seriously detoxifying now, and no mistake. No more drink for this man – at least until the weekend, please…

Christmas was the usual splendiferous feast courtesty of Dew & Kerrie, who cooked up a storm and presented us with a multi-layered banquet beginning with Kerrie’s excellent goose, ham and all trimmings, and ending with Dew’s signature Tiramisu. Small wonder that we were all rendered immobile by mid-evening, and reduced to watching Xmas TV!

But that wasn’t the end of it – no! On Boxing Day, I got up and high-tailed it to Beckenham, where I managed to get myself entangled in a support call from Turkey (!!!), then on to Gatwick to pick up my dear bro who was coming to visit for a few days. Yes, on the bike – why does everyone have a problem believing that?!! 🙂

And of course I knew that any hope of detox between Christmas and New Year would be lost with Paul’s visit – and I was right. Quaffing fine Italian vintages, washed down with large quantities of Baileys and whatever else we could find with a kick, ensured that sober moments were limited to a few hours in the mornings…

Fun was had, though, and it was great to catch up with him. Even more fun driving him back to the airport on Friday, when the heavens opened and we got thoroughly drenched amid heavy traffic on the M25/M23. And to cap it all, the bike started misbehaving by the time we got to Gatwick; I suspected a water leak, but it got me home. And in the garage it stayed for the rest of the festive season. I really need to spend a bit of money on that bike…

Anyway, off up to Stuart’s for NYE, along with current belle Fiona and pals John & Gwyn (complete with rugrat Jake!), where much wine was quaffed among other things, and the New Year was celebrated in the usual state of complete and utter inebriation. Which was paid for with the usual symptoms on New Year’s Day, but you saw that coming, didn’t you?!

Drying out was the order of the day, and it actually felt a tad peculiar to wake up the following day without the after-effects of a night on the sauce. Withdrawal? What are you trying to say?! 😉

So now it’s back to work, head down, bum up, nose to the grindstone and waiting for payday to come around again. Like everyone, I overspent, but I’m sure it was worth it. The bits I remember, anyway…….

Much work to do, much success to achieve in the coming 12 months, and much fun to be had. And hopefully you’ll all be involved in that last pursuit – cheers!