The Long Kill - with pictures

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One of the things that you get to do on holiday is read. But only if you've taken some books with you on holiday. Fortunately our cottage, as well as being wonderfully positioned and sparkly clean throughout, came with a few that had been left there over the years. One of them was a Readers Digest collection of condensed stories. This is where they take a six hundred page volume and boil it down to a couple of hundred pages. Oh, and they add pictures too...

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A tale of daring do, and centre partings

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"..and  if I were you young man, I'd clean the other nostril too..."

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He watched them together, all the time waiting for the trick chair to fold itself up again....

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"I wonder if this rock will leave a mark on my trousers"  he thought to himself while his girlfriend wondered why she seemed to have somebody else's legs.

Satellite Navigation for Higher Blood Pressure

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If they ever need a way to boost my blood pressure all they have to do is give me some software to play with. We've been using the Navicore sat-nav in the Nokia 770 quite successfully for the last week. I like it because it is mostly correct, only crashes every now and then, can find most places and the lady's voice is wonderful. She just sounds so perky all the time, even when asking you to turn right across three lanes of busy traffic. And sometimes she says "Tada!" when you arrive at the destination. Anyhoo, I thought I'd install the upgrades, because there are supposed to be some even better voices there. And the new version might be able to locate Hereford.

The Navicore upgrade experience is kind of strange. You run a program which opens a browser window which does things up until the point where IE crashes and you lose the lot. Then you find the program doesn't work any more. So you do it all again and it tells you that the software is upgraded and ready to go.  Which of course it isn't. Then you re-install from the DVD and try again. Third time you notice the message about re-installing the upgrade on the device  once you've installed it (if you see what I mean). So you do the upgrade again, re-install it, and then find it still doesn't work. So you email customer support and put the original back on from the DVD. By now you are viewing everything through a red mist and figure that it is probably time to go off and do something else.....

Back in Hull

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And so I am back home. I love the way that as you get closer to Hull the roads get that bit quieter, and the traffic reports of jams around the rest of the country have less and less meaning. And now I have my nice fast broadband connection (rather than climbing a hill, holding the phone above my head and waiting for a single bar of signal to appear).

But the holiday was fun though. I bought a Ferrari for five pounds. It turned out to only have three wheels, but I have plans to stick the missing one back on. I saw some stunning art, had a conversation with a horse (although it was a bit one-sided) and met up with the oracle pig again. Who turns out to be called Esmerelda. I also read some exciting books, one even had pictures in. Of which more later.

Oh, and I took the camera.

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What a pity that mobile tower isn't my carrier.....

Normal Service

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You may have noticed a slight dip in the quality of my blog this week while I have been away on my so called holidays. The posting have in fact been made by the 'QuipMaster 3000', a program that uses advanced artificial intelligence and third generation humour algorthms to produce output almost indistinguishable from a 1970s episode of the Ken Dodd show. All this will change tomorrow, when I return and fire up the 'Blogmaster 6000' again....

Reverse Burglary in London Town

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Took number one daughter to London today, where she is going to continue her studies. We had a car which was pretty much full of stuff. Parking was a bit restricted, so I stopped the car on someone's garden path and we executed what can only be described as a "reverse burglary", where the contents of the car were transferred into the flat at record speed.

Then, after a trip to Tesco and an impromptu TV purchase it was back to Hull.

Wild Hogs - A Warning

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It has come to my attention that some shops are stocking DVDs of the "film" Wild Hogs. It might be that people are mistakenly buying them for entertainment purposes, bearing in mind that they are being placed in the entertainment sections of some stores.

Do not buy this film. It is not nice. It manages to be offensive, unoriginal and unfunny in equal measure. I made the mistake of watching it on a 12 hour flight. You might think that in such a situation pretty much anything is preferable to sitting staring at the hands on your watch as they go round much too slowly. This is not true. I would much rather stare at my SPOT watch than this film. In fact I would rather stare at my spots than this film. I only watched it to the end as some kind of bet with myself. Which I lost.

Sewerby Park Bank Holiday

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We are becoming creatures of habit. Perhaps it's our age. Anyhoo, just like last year we went off to a place near Bridlington, Sewerby Park. It is a big country house, with lovely grounds, just by the side of the sea. There is a tiny zoo, pitch and putt golf and some wonderful walled gardens.If you live in the area you should/must go there. Just like last time they were doing Roman re-enactments. Just like last time I took my camera.

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Any parent will be familiar with this domestic scene.

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Add your own caption here

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My money is on the blokes on the horses

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They can do gardening here. Oh yes.

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Butterfly

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Boat

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Bridlington bay

Stranger than Fiction

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If you want to see a quirky, life affirming film that features one of the coolest watches that I've ever seen (but which you probably can't buy) then get hold of a copy of "Stranger than Fiction".  I picked it up on a "semi-whim" when we were out shopping today and we watched it tonight. It is a super little movie. I'd heard good things about it but not got around to seeing it, so when our local supermarket had a copy cheap I was happy to pick one up.

It is a neat romantic comedy/drama thing built around a very clever premise. If you've ever thought your life belonged in a book, then this film is for you.

Dirty Fun

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I've only just got around to playing Colin Mcrae, "Dirt" on my Xbox 360. I got it for my birthday ages ago (at least it seems ages ago) and I've been too busy with other things to have a go. But tonight I put aside a couple of hours for fun (it is Saturday after all) and fired it up.

I love it.

I've not been that keen on Colin Mcrae games in the past because they seemed too focused on technical accuracy and genuine handling for me. (translation: I crashed all the time). But the new one seems to have toned down real life to a level I can cope with, albeit at rookie level, and I think it is great.

I had a go at the truck racing stuff, which seems to have taken several leafs, nay perhaps a whole bunch of chapters, from the PS3 Motorstorm game. It has the same bouncy handling, insane opponents and funky vehicles, but without the charm or sheer improbability of the tracks, which all look a bit dull to me.

But the proper rally championship is another matter. Me and my little Clio have been tearing up a storm, hurtling through very impressive looking locations in the UK, Italy and Germany. The handling is just right, very believable but sensibly forgiving. And the bonnet cam view is wonderful, until you go off the road onto the verge, where I found myself flinching as foot high plants smashed towards my face.  One of the best features is the co-driver who calls out instructions as you hurtle towards the next blind jump. Once I'd learnt the grading scheme (the smaller the number the nastier the curve - get that the wrong way round like I did at first and things can get very frightening) he really helped me get the car into position for the next part of the course.

And it was nice to have a rumbly gamepad for a change. For a variety of technical and legal reasons Sony left this out of the PS3 and I see it as a huge omission. Nothing brings home just how hard you've just hit that tree like a controller that suddenly tries to leap out of your hands. I notice from the instructions that Dirt also supports the Xbox force feedback steering wheel, which is looking very tempting.....

Until now I'd regarded the rally mode of Gran Turismo as the ultimate in off road driving fun, but Dirt, with its superior graphics and greater variety, is the new rally king.