Welcome to Blogging With Dr P... blogging when I can - honest
Your Blogging With Dr P... search result is below this annoucement. In April 2008 Blogging With Dr P... moved to Blog Bypass.
If you're using the Blog Studio Search Facility to find a link to a previous blog, then I've been very generous, and NOT included an automatic re-direct which would take you there.
Thank you to Blog Studio for all the help over years! :)
(Feb 2010 Update): Haloscan is no more. Therefore the comments on this blog are no more. Sad, but true. I'm not paying $12 a year for the occasional comment with Echo. Apologies to all those who have commented. I have saved them and may well stick them somewhere else at some point. Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Evening Population
Apart from being a great name for a band (!), it occured to me last night whilst walking to the pub, how much The Evening Population of Grays, Essex, had changed over the years.
With the influx of immigrants from all around the world, Grays' demographics have changed enormously. Last night was a striking example of that change.....
On a street corner, (previously occupied by local youths in the past), were a couple of Russian teenagers, both Bigged Up, as it were, in the newest Western street "hoody" fashions. They were doing what the local kids would have done - talking loud, looking menacingly, and acting like a couple of knobs.
To reinforce my concept of "The Evening Population" was the difference in the drinkers in the pub. Even though the No Smoking Ban has dramatically changed the drinking habits in some pubs, the customers in the local pubs in Grays have changed due to the influx of "new money".
In the corner of the pub was a group of young guys. I couldn't hear them at first as we were sitting around the corner from them. They looked slightly nervous at first as they approached the bar - I actually thought some of them were underage. But, as it turned out, they were Lithuanian - spending their hard earned cash from buying out UK Premier League football clubs, or whatever ;O)
It's a changing world we live in. I expect they'll be a Russian mayor of Grays soon...
For those of you who haven't the faintest idea of what I'm talking about, you need to join Facebook and go to this application: Flog Blog.
What does Flog Blog do? It enables you to publish your blog posts onto your Facebook profile, and to link back to your blog, (if you wish). Alternatively, you can just create a Flog Blog and use that as your blogging area to publish regular "blogs" into your Facebook profile. It's great!
So, this means - dear reader - that you may have read this on my Facebook profile, but it is, in fact, a blog from good old Blogging With Dr P... - technology, don't ya just love it!? :O)
It never actually occured to me how the production line of a "toilet roll making factory" counts how many they've made. Well, it wouldn't it, would it?
I know there have been many odd things in the past which I've thought about, and noticed. But there I was.... in the loo.... (I'll stop there with the rest of the details!), - but I noticed stamped on the inside of the toilet roll the following number: 231519771551...
So, was this the 1551st toilet roll made in 1997 at 15 mins past eleven? Well.... no. The empty roll that had been thrown in the bin had the serial number: 231519771557 - so that blew that theory out of the pan, as it were :)
But could I have been using the one of the 231st billion, (is that correct?) range of toilet rolls produced by that factory????
That must mean that..... urgh..... demand is ... er .... high?
Okay - it's just something to think about whilst you're having your dinner this evening.
Yes indeedy, I surely did. You see, my eldest brother's birthday falls on the 21st October, and over the years, when the clocks go back on the last weekend of October, I've always associated his birthday with the clocks going back, although in reality it was always the following weekend.
Anyway, this year, I forget to post his birthday card. So, I sent him and electronic one and phoned up to wish him "Happy Birthday". There. Job done - right? Yes - job done, exactly.
Okay, so this week we are on vacation. We're not going anywhere, just "pottering the place" etc etc. And the thought of the clocks going back hadn't even entered my mind, and I'd not read or heard anything about it. But.......
But, last night/this morning - not more than half an hour ago - I was fast asleep in the Land of Nod, (which, if you check your Old Testament references, was a place that existed. It was 'East of Eden' if you want to set it in your Tom Tom Navigators ;o) ). Anyway, so there I was - dreaming away.... and in part of the dream a conversation occured about checking the time, as the clocks go back this weekend.
To summarize..... the association of the clocks going back and my brother's birthday, was being played out in a dream - to remind me to set the clocks back! Now, that's what I call an effiicient mind, I just got the weekends wrong.
There's a certain amount of blog paranoia on the internet. And it's not a new thing, either. It stems back from the first time that folks started to blog, and really use their freedom of speech.
So, what is there to be so paranoid about? I think in general, that ordinary folks have got some kind of crazy mixed up ideas in their heads that if their mere name is mentioned on the internet by someone else, (on a blog, for example), that the whole world will come tumbling around their heads. Cloned credit cards, stolen identities, passwords etc - it's as if some folks are really terrified of having their names seen in print on the www somewhere.
It's true. There maybe good reason why former partners, employers, lovers, etc want to spend time scouring blogs belonging to former partners, employees, lovers, etc in case they are going to reveal some home truths, scandalous gossip, or potential statements that could result in libel actions being taken. Equally, former partners, employees, lovers etc may well want to use their blogs just to hurl some abuse at their former partners, employers, or lover. Fair enough I say.
But didn't all this happen anyway long before blogs, or the internet, was invented? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way!) Has the rise of the internet and blogging just enabled people's paranoia to crank itself up a notch with the ability to potentially "spy" on other people by reading their blogs? AH HA! But the tables can be turned on the Paranoid Blog Spys, because any blogger/webmaster with any sense would be checking their webstats to see where visitors have been coming from.
And would bloggers delibrately write articles with titles like Is He Talking About Me? knowing that he's aiming the subject of blog paranoia at a particular set of people who may be checking his blog in case he writes anything about them - and thus fuelling their paranoia to have to keep coming back to his blog just in case he does write anything about them? It's a possibility I suppose. It certainly would fit into the whole blog paranoia world that some folks live in.
In closing, I would find it amusing if folks were checking my blog to see if I've written anything about them. Naturally everything is wittten in the best possible taste!
I've been working in London this week - crossing backwards and forwards across the Millenium Bridge. Here's one view from the Millenium Bridge when the tide is out....
And here's what it looks like when the tide is in.... more water!:
Ultimately, the only true way to get the best feeling for the bridge is to stand on it in the pouring rain on an October morning.... exactly like this:
I have to say I really do like the Millenium Bridge, but it isn't half bloody wet and windy sometimes! :O)
Yes - I just saw a video news item on Sky, of Kenny Rogers wearing an England rugby shirt saying how great it was that we beat the Aussies and now we have to go on to beat the French.
He said he'd never talk to us again if England don't beat the French at rugby today. There - if that's not an incentive - what is??? :O)
On Friday morning I had the pleasure of having one of my rear tyres blow out on the M25 motoroway. This is what it was like there shortly afterwards:
It wasn't such a major issue actually. The tyre didn't actually "blow".... it sort of - "ripped" and continued to make a God awful noise until I thought - "Y'know - that doesn't sound quite right", and I moved over from the third lane over to the hard shoulder to discover the tyre nicely holed and flat. The AA were very quick - about 15mins, and the guy had it changed in no time at all.
All in a day's work, eh? But, as you saw in the video - it was bloody cold out there! ;O)
My new friends have given me a PDA. I have never used a PDA before. The first three days I spent trying to figure out how to use it as a phone. People kept calling me - and whoever set the phone up, set it up to vibrate only without a ring-tone. Now, I've managed to set a ring-tone, but I keep forgeting what it is - because nobody phones me!
Anyway, today was the peak of my PDA experience so far....... I was waiting in the reception area of a large organisation, where my collegues had just been escorted into the building. I hadn't set up any phone numbers yet - so I couldn't phone anyone to let them know I was there. So, I connected up to the webmail thingy on my PDA - and I emailed someone inside the building to let them know I was there! ;O)
