Month: March 2002

Beer tonight in the Nags with Paul F and the band (good session), Greg, Bren, Hugh, Arron, Helen N, blonde Sally, Malcolm, Vince, Dave, Gary, Laura, Phil, Sasha and countless others. Where were the usual crowd? Only Arron and Matt in evidence.
Anyway, very tired now, and long day tomorrow.

Talking of the importance of the web to our business, this is one of our most important audience groups – we know more of them are going online, just from the feedback we get.

This fairly much mirrors my own experience of trying to get ADSL for work. I can get it here at home in Chichester city centre, but the nursery is in Barnham, and the local exchange (in Yapton) has not been upgraded for ADSL. BT now says that it is not going to upgrade any more exchanges except on a business case (fair enough – you don’t do something unless it pays) which means that around 200 customers have to sign up. I can’t imagine that there are that many people who will pay for it in the Yapton exchange area (which covers Yapton, Barnham and Walberton villages).
BT has recently offered us ADSL via satellite, but the installation costs are nearly £1000 and the rental is much higher than for a terrestial ADSL connection – we simply can not justify the expense. And yet the Internet is important for our business – more and more of our mail order transactions are now conducted over the net, and it is also a valuable promotion tool.
So what help is the Government giving to rural businesses to help us be part of “broadband Britain”. There was supposed to be lots of money being made available to help us get connected, but where has it been spent? The Scottish Assembly has given considerable backing and funds to getting remote parts of Scotland hooked up. Barnham is miles from being remote – and yet we can’t get a service that is available to a small crofter living in Skye.

In other news, some bastard smashed the mirror off the car this morning. I’d left it parked near my flat alongside the kerb in a quiet residential street. I would guess that somebody walking home after too many beers down the pub decided to smash it off (it was the one nearest the kerb, so I know it wasn’t hit by another car). It’s annoying and probably expensive (it’s one of those electrically adjusted, heated mirrors, coloured to match the car bodywork). Looks like they smashed one off a Vauxhall parked a bit further up the street too.
Top marks to Sussex Police though. I’ve logged the crime with them, and they’ve been most efficient and helpful.

Barry Took, RIP.

Further to my previous post – the Straits Times captures the real news.

I’m sorry, but it is very sad that the Queen Mum has died – but for goodness sake, media people, the big stories are elsewhere, surely? War in the Middle East? Thousands homeless in Afghanistan? Children dying needlessly from preventable causes every day? Reality? Grip? Hello?

Beer tonight with Malcolm, Dave, Gary, Arron, Paul F, Paul C, Matt, Stein, Dom, James, DA, Tony (celebrating his stag night, but in a very low key way, so low key that it verged on boring), Jo, Julie, Andrew and Bonny, with sightings of Leah, Kristian, Helen N, Teresa, Alison and a few others. Time to sleep.

Queen Mum dies – look forward to hours of TV and radio specials, pages of newspaper supplements and lots more.

Beer tonight with Clive and Matt, with sightings of Steve C, Sal, Declan, Vince, Phil, Malcolm, Gary, Dave, Clare, Kristian and a few others, with the added bonus of chat and flirting with Ruth, who merits the term “lovely”. Ego boosted. Don’t think anything will come of it, but good to have a chat and flirt.
And another late night. Gah. Off to bed now.