What’s gone on?

  • Local food

    Local food

    The following post appeared hidden on LJ in 2009 as it was part of my journalism degree portfolio. This weekend I undertook my second visit to Belper’s farmers market. It has been nearly a year since my last visit and it was good to see some familiar faces. Surprisingly the market has grown a little…

    Read more

  • How to be a good customer

    Introduction People often moan about customer service. “It’s shite” they say. “I’ve been waiting on this phone for 3 hours” say others. “They were a right miserable sod” say more still. The world we live in today is bulging with customer care helplines, complaints offices and faceless customer-vendor relationships, which, psychologists might say, is a…

    Read more

  • Haunted Inns

    Haunted Inns

    Many years back I created a website on the now defunct Geocities service. The site was intended to be a gazetteer of inns, pubs and hotels that were reputed to be haunted and used pre-researched information from a book called Haunted Inns by Marc Alexander.  This was during the early years of the internet and…

    Read more

  • Sundae Sunday

    Sundae Sunday

    On Sunday I was overcome with the burning desire for an ice cream sundae. The urge took me much in the same way as I imagine a smack head might desire heroin. So, jumping into the car, I made headway to Sainsbury’s wherein I purchased the necessary ingredients to make a delicious raspberry ice cream…

    Read more

  • Horse

    Horse

    You probably won’t remember, in fact I probably didn’t relate to you, that the smelly old man downstairs was carted off to the knackers yard last year because he got stuck in the bath. Briefly, for those who don’t remember, I was “home alone” and heard some banging that I initially thought was someone doing…

    Read more

  • Birthday Post

    Birthday Post

    It’s bad enough, when born this time of year, to be told “Oh I’d have got you a birthday present but I’ve got you a bigger Christmas present” by cheap skates hoping to pull the wool over already tried before eyes. But what’s worse, especially recently in the UK, is the chuffing post. While all…

    Read more

  • Spare not the children, lest the evil persist

      The other week zoefruitcake and I visited our local Frankie and Benny’s for a bit of a post payday treat. It was busy; mostly because it was Halloween but also because it was the day after pay day and the world, his wife, their neighbours and their best friend’s uncle’s favourite mechanic’s son also…

    Read more

  • Censor this

    It started about the 17th September. Groups of people from all walks of life gathered in Wall Street in America in protest of the growing corporate culture. The movement is called Occupy.   There has been frighteningly little news about this in the British media. I’m not saying it has not been reported; it has.…

    Read more

  • Flat cap hour

    Recently I reconnected with an old school friend. In honour of this reconnection I give you a post from my LJ from back in 2006. —- Eeeeh I remember when…. When I was wee we had a telly, an evening newspaper, a collection of reference books and plenty of old people. If I had a…

    Read more

  • There and back again and There and back again–Pt 3

    The first day of walking was most enjoyable. Tired by evening we dined on barbequed steak and salad. Not as straight forward as it should be. Partly because the crappy Tesco Instant Barbeque was impossible to light in the light breeze that had picked up during the day but after an hour of cooking later…

    Read more