Komedie Nacht

Oi va voi!!!! How did it slip my mind that tomorrow night is comedy night at the Plumsteadshire Festspielhaus und bierkeller.

Doors open at 7pm

Pay £7.00 on the door

Have a glass of Quinta do Vesuvio, kick your Testoni's off and let the comedy wave your working week away.

mobile phone directory

You may already have heard about this but early next week all UK mobiles will be on a directory which will mean that anyone will be able to access your numbers. It’s easy to unsubscribe but it must be done before the beginning of next week to make sure that you are ex-directory. You may want to suggest it to all your friends and family who have UK mobiles or they could be swamped by unsolicited messages and calls. Removal is recommended by the dear old Auntie BBC.

To remove your number click on the link below, you need your mobile
phone with you to do this as they text you a code

1, http://www.118800.co.uk/

2, Click on ‘Ex Directory’ at top right hand side of page, from
there it’s straight forward.

The Woodman is our big opportunity

One lovely listener has pointed out that The Woodman pub is up for sale. I can confirm this as I sent my aides, Margaret and Nick to take a look. The pub will be sold at auction very soon (this week I think), and has a guide price of around £175,000. I don't know what the sale includes, but a pub overlooking The Common with lacklustre competition sounds a bit of a snip to me. This could be our best chance of a decent gastro-pub. The local demographic is shifting and the demand is definitely here. If I had the resources, I'd be sitting in an auction room with a very twitchy arm.

Extraordinary tennis

I don't follow sport. I don't have the time for it, nor do I want to go through the angst that work colleagues push themselves through every Saturday afternoon; seeing their minor depressions on a Monday morning as their team obviously lost at the weekend. I just don't have the nerve to say, "it's just a bloomin' game. Get over it" as I know that to them it's not just a game, it's a way of life. In a very tiny way, I envy that they know every single statistic to every game of their football team over the past two decades. I don't envy what they know, but the fact that they remember stuff. I'm sure that since becoming a parent, my memory has stopped working. I tell myself that my brain has decided to readjust and work in a very different way - maybe it's a denial of anything like dementia creeping in really early. Where was I? Oh yes....... I don't follow sport.

I don't follow sport, but I was channel flicking on the TV and came across wheelchair tennis!!!! Back in the day when I had time to watch a whole TV programme, I'd treat myself to 'Transworld Sport' on Channel 4 on Saturday mornings. It was great to learn about the Jamaican bob-sled team (it's true), or utterly queer contests in the Far East, but man alive wheelchair tennis left me gob-smacked. Their serves looked pretty fast, but how can you serve when seated? I can't serve when standing up!!?!* So the ball made it over the net and the opponent knocked it back, but then to get back in position on the court, they'd wheel around in swirls which was completely balletic. Truly amazing. You can keep your Anita Roddicks and your Federererers and your Williamses. Brute force and power serves are SO last year. Wheelchair tennis needs more coverage.

Corpsing on air

Listening to the crystal set yesterday, I was enjoying the weather forecast when the weatherman suffered a slip of he tongue. I had to cover my ears in the hope of not hearing any more colourful language however this left him in fits of laughter on air. Real Denis Norden stuff.

telephone service

I'd just like to ask if anyone knows of an alternative (and reliable), supplier for a telephone/broadband service. I'm with BT at the moment and paying a lot of money just for the standing charge.

Thanks in advance.

Plumstead Radical Club

My partner in crime has pointed me in the direction of the Plumstead Radical Club; the jazz band, rather than the imposing building opposite Plumstead Railway Station.

I've had a listen and instantly addicted. I've listened to the track 'One Way' again and again just like I'd taped it off the Top 40 on the wireless. The Plumstead Radical Club have an album out called The Coast Is Clear and I'm sure it's available in your local record store. Well, they don't really exist anymore so it'll be a trip up to Rays Jazz Store. Ahh. That doesn't really exist anymore either. It's now just tucked away in Foyles Bookshop. In my humble opinion, just not a proper record shop.

Well, I don't know if the jazz band are from this leafy suburb or not, but I'd like to know more about them. I must do the modern thing and buy their album on iTu........ Hmmmmm. Interesting. I typed Plumstead into iTunes, hoping to find jazz, but instead am watching a handful of Open University programmes about our dear Plumstead constabulary.

Well, if the PRC are local musicians then I wonder if they're taking part in the Plumstead Live! event. I do hope so.

Catch That Train

My post bag has been bulging this week with requests for information about a train I recently mentioned. That being the one near Falconwood.

Well, it sounds like a bit of an unknown gem in these here parts o' the shire.

The train is run by the Welling & District M.E.S. (model engineering society to us common folk), and it sounds like they'll be evicted from the Falconwood site next year. Boo. Here are the open days:-

14th & 28th June 2009

12th & 26th July 2009

9th & 23rd August 2009

6th & 20th September 2009

4th October 2009

They aren't open the public apart from these dates, so do go along sooner rather than later as you know you'll just keep saying 'ah, I'll go next fortnight', and so on and so on until it's 5th October and that's it. Gone forever.

On these days, they open between 2pm - 5pm. Last orders at 4.30pm.

Here's a funny new-fangled map to locate the train.

View Welling & District M.E.S. in a larger map

iPhone 3G S

The new generation of the gadget of all gadgets, the one and only iPhone, has been announced. The iPhone 3G S. It pretty much follows the rumours that have been bandied around on the blogosphere and maybe that is why I'm still slightly under-whelmed.

The trouble with technology is that it advances so quickly that it's hard to keep up. In trying to keep up, we expect the next big thing to leapfrog the last big thing, well I do anyway. Given that there are phones out there packing 8 mega pixel cameras and the 3G S offers just 3 is one disappointment; one key reason for me to have held back from spending lots of cash and changing phone provider. Even so, I'll have to remind myself one thing. Rather than judging the iPhone on the amount of features and how it'll fare against the competition, I'll appraise it's usefulness for my needs.

1. A good quality phone. tick
2. Speakerphone. tick. Great for being kept on hold by call centres
3. Camera. Uh er. I'll just have to buy a cheap small digital camera
4. Synchronise with my Mac. tick
5. On the go internet. tick. So I can be more spontaneous with blogging
6. Reliability. tick. If it runs as smoothly as my Mac then all's good

I'm not keen on the polished finish though. I like my current phone because I can throw it in my bag and not worry about it getting scuffed. For me, the thing is to be used, not a fashion statement.