BBC Fined

Yes the BBC has been fined over cheating in phone-in shows. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7497168.stm). It amounts to £400,000 - aFining lot of money - but what is the point.

Fining commercial broacasters is OK - the money comes from their profit but the BBC isn't supposed to make profits as its money comes from the Licence Payers. Now although I am not a licence payer, and I don't watch TV and nor do my family, I do think this action is basically unfair. What has happened is because of errors of people employed by the BBC yet they pay nothing and the penalty falls on the Licence payer who is no involved and did nothing wrong. How can that be fair?

It seems to me the companies creating the programmes ought to be fined if they have cheated and leave the BBC to pick up on the programmes if messed up, yet even that means something is paid by the innocence. So how about this as am idea.

Bonuses are paid to senior execs every year and come to rather more than the total fine so how about taking the money for the fine from the execs bonuses and relieve the pooor innocent licence payer? After all, the execs are paid quite high salaries anyway to run the BBC so if they mess up why shouldn't they carry the cost too - it is only like profits in other companies?

I bet they don't though and I bet they get bigger bonuses too. Watch out when thye are annouced.

Bread and Broken Resolutions

Well it has taken some time to come back and get postiung again. I really meant to get going but somehow.. Anyway...

A recent discovery that I need to lose a little weight has led me back to making bread. I always make soup for lunch with my wife - wholesome and low calorie but add a sandwich and the calories come along. Well I noticed Spelt Flour in my local Tesco which claimed it was the grain the Roman's used to make bread and gave a recipe for Roman Bread. Intrigued, I bought some to try.

Well Roman Bread Making is not quite like we do now in that the Spelt rises rather better so the job of making the dough is quite short. I popped two round sheets of the dough on a backing sheet, left them to rise and baked them. The result stuck a bit to the sheet but the stone ground wholemeal bread produced had wonderful flavour, not least as the sugar in repaced by honey in this bread. (They hadn't invented sugar in those days!). I found this bread, with a bowl of soup, made a great lunch and cut the calories too, A second attempt used round cake tins and greaseproof paper on the bottom and the bread came out fine.

Well after that, the bread maked from the garage got ressurected and I bought normal stone ground flour. A loaf takes nearly 3 hours to cook but only a few minutes to pop the ingredients in the machine and the smell as the loaf cooks is amazing. I am now converted to making bread which lasts us a couple of days. It is really worth having a go.

New Year Resolutions?

Right, it is now well after New Year and this is my first post. I did sort of promise myself to keep this up to date but over Christmas and New Year I seem to have forgotten. Anyway,  would not be bothering with the Resolutions as I never keep them and don't know if anyone manages past January anyway.

Well the most exciting thing that has happened in recent times was last week. I had a tiny bit of a pain in the throat on the Monday and by Tuesday I was not at all well. I staying in bed all week but by Saturday I was nearly OK and went out. Rather nasty though so I hope that doesn't happen again for a while.

We had two cats who were about 14 years old but the smaller one, Mika, was found to have  a large growth in his abdomen and he had to be 'put down' on Christmas Eve. We were all quite sad as you would expect but it set me and my wife wondering. If it had been one of us, there Health Service would have gone all out to fix it. There would have been tests, operation, drugs, you name it. In fact everything to keep the person alive. Yet if a person has very little time to live and medicine can't help, ought not we have the choice to be treated like our cat and helped out of this world?  We really do treat animals much better than ourselves  feel.

Well, Pickle, pictured above, is now having the time of his life as he gets more human company, the nice warm spots to sleep. I do wonder if life as a cat in a good home would be a better choice that being human - no work, no housework, lots of sleep and meals provided. What else could anyone want?

Oh Christmas tree Oh Christmas Tree

Yes, it that time of year again. normally we have saved a tree setting up session until near Xmas eve but we decided to go for yesterday. We duly got our artificial tree down (with central heating, real ones don't last) only to find the connector between two parts was missing. So, nothing for it, I went to the nearest town 10 miles away this morning and got another one. It should make us a bit more Christmassy

Have you noticed how little religion there seems to be in the  the season these days? Despite singing and playing of carols it doesn't seem to mean there is much belief there. I suppose the churches will be quite full for the Nativity Plays and the Midnight Xmas Eve services but I bet most there won't be along till next Xmas. Mind, there is other religion going on under our noses. The Holly keeps the evil spirits away as does the green tree. Mistletoe is associated with courting and spouse finding though it seems quite innocuous now.

Traditional turkey this Xmas? Not really only about 100 years I think. It was goose before that, just read Charles Dickens 'Christmas Carol' to see that. Mind, we will be even more traditional I think with good old roast beef. Now that is tradition.

Tap Dancing!

Well, no, not actually, but we have been waiting ages to get our kitchen finished off - fitting started on 3rd October 2007. Good news today, though, the plumber cam and fitted a new tap that works properly. Apparently everyone has combi boilers these days so they never think to check. Oh well.

It never ceases to amuse me how people are taken aback at the sight of a wheelchair. Now, please try to ignore the idea of an old granny, blanketed across the legs, being push around and left outside shops in the cold. No, I'm talking fast light chair propelled by me and neat parking and manoeuvring. Anyway, we went off to my wife's Xmas meal from he office. They hadn't mentioned a wheelchair as, well, the whole building is only 5 years old, fully kitted out for wheels, so we just arrived. I felt the staff, whilst very polite were wondering what had arrived. Of course everything was fine though I thought I was being watched by another party of people I didn't know as I neatly slipped in and out of chair to the loo!

I do wonder why I am doing this writing thing. I mean, I was always given a diary or two at Xmas as a child and started on 1st Jan with a few entries. By 7th Jan it was fading and that was about it. I don't even know if I am writing this just for me or for other people who might read it. Who knows. Anyway if you do happen on the pages a little comment would be nice just to see you were here! Thank in advance!

I'm starting to hate Christmas...

Yes, it is true! About this time of year I start to hate Christmas but not for the reasons you may think. Yes, I am and atheist so the religion is of no interest but it is a grand family occasion and I love that. No my problem is with the shops.

For reasons I have no knowledge of, supermarkets that have no background music during the year, start to play Christmassy music, usually not carols but songs like 'White Christmas' and, of course the 'Don't they know it's Christmas' . In my local supermarket they started before the beginning of December as the Xmas (easier typing) lights were turned on and so on. The thing is, it is not background music it is pretty much 'in your face'. Now for one who shops before 9am and mostly before waking, this is a bit too much.

Well, sorry to sound like a Scroooge but I'm not really. It is just I want to be able to greet people in the shop and hear what they say. It's not long to go now, though and straight after Xmas we will be back to normal if not a bit heavier from eating too much turkey!

New Chairs for Old

I don't know. I forgot about this place for a long time and have not posted. Oh, well, maybe I can think of more to say.

The first think is that bought a new chair in August, smart titanium and very light. It was been a revelation to use as it is a tiny bit smaller than my GPV and a much better seating position so I have been keeping up exercise, mostly dodging rain drops!

The we have fun with a new kitchen. We decided, wrongly, that we would have B and Q fit the kitchen. Really, really, don't do this. They started on 3th October have said 3 to 4 days and finished in 2 days. Great, you may say but you would be wrong. I mean they just didn't bother to vent the cooker hood to the outside and since that was on top of high cupboards I suppose they thought we wouldn't see. Bit of a failure there! They had a great was a venting a tumble drier too. Squeeze the hose a bit and slip into an air brick hole and and pop the machine in to hide it. Bad move, the heat and damp got back into the kitchen and they came back only last week to fix it - that's 2 months after the start. Oh, the floorer was good too - he put a floor down without checking to see if the doors would open or close. Wonderful job, but neither door would!

Now the last job to do is deal with the tap. Now some taps are only suitable for high pressure hot water and we have low pressure granvity fed and got trickles of water from the hot side. It took nearly 2 months to get them to admit it and sort it out by fitting a tap that works!

Well, that's the woes here's the best bit. With an ordinary cooker I canb't lift heavy things in and out and have to get the rest of the family to do it. Not now - the eye level over is just great so it will be me lifting out the turkey on Xmas day!!!!

Well, more next time I think and it will be sooner than 4 months!