Create A Radio Station Of Music YOU Like.

A friend sent me details of this great site.

www.pandora.com

Basically it's an online radio station tailored to suit you're musical taste. You enter the name of a song or artist that you like. It can't play that particular one straight away (licensing rules) but what it does is find something it knows you will like based on your selection. It will continue to select tracks you'll like, and you can rate each track with a thumbs up or down, enabling it to fine tune your "likes" even more, creating a radio station just for you.

With all the thousands of songs out there it's amazing how it picks the right ones - I find I give the thumbs up to about 9 out of 10. And you can have as many "stations" as you like, reflecting your musical mood of the day.

Give it a try - it's free. You need to register, minimal details required which includes a USA zip-code. I used 300097.

Netley Sports Cricket Club

Netley Sports Cricket Club, originally uploaded by Wurzel.

My Dad brought in this old press cutting the other day. It was from, (we think) 1970 when Netley Sports CC had just won the Southampton Parks Cricket League for the 4th consecutive time. I remember all the faces in the photo although sadly three, to my knowledge, have since passed on.

It was around that time that I was allowed to start making up the numbers when they were short, even though was only 8. When I say making up the numbers, I was allowed to field at third man every over - anyone au fait with fielding positions will know what a pain that must have been.

It was only a few years later that I was allowed to bowl the odd over, and one game took 5 for 5 !!! (figures I've never bettered since). As we came off the umpire told me that I could have got a couple of l.b.w. decisions as well - I didn't tell him I had been too shy to appeal.

I enjoyed some great times playing in that league, the best, for those that know Southampton, were played in Hoglands Park where there was never any shortage of spectators.

The Southampton Evening Cricket League is one of the oldest cricket leagues in the country. In it's heyday it had over 70 teams playing every week. Sadly now the numbers are reduced to just 26, a reflection on a combination of lack of youngsters coming through schools cricket and the state of local pitches due to lack of council funding to maintain them.

Nothing Is Impossible

Yesterday we took the kids back to Chessington World of Adventure. Amongst the attractions was one of those typical "rip off" stalls that you see at fairs and fetes. A rope ladder, at an angle of approximately 30 degrees, secured at the bottom and top by single central attachments. If you managed to get to the top (hands and feet only, no lying down, no knees, no hanging below etc etc) and ring the bell you win a cuddly dragon. Of course nobody ever wins, the ladder always pivots at some point, you end up dangling below it, and off you fall.

L'il Wurzel wanted a go.

"No" I told her, "it's impossible, no-one ever wins these things"

"I can do it" she insisted. In fact she was so insistent I thought it would be worth the £1 just to shut her up.

So off she went, onto the ladder and slowly and very carefully edged her way up rung by rung. There was hardly a wobble as she got higher and higher with a look of grim determination on her face. Before we knew it, and to the visible disappointment of the operator, she reached out and with a huge smile rang the bell.

I have never seen such a look of satisfaction and " told you so" on a child's face. And there must have been a look of pride on mine.

Sometimes it's great to be proved wrong.

Chester the Dragon - the big prize.

Crime & Punishment.

I've been driving now for over 27 years and up till now had a clean licence. But a couple of weeks ago I failed to spot on of these sneaky buggers (pictured left) in time. My own fault, it's a route I do every week, I knew it's a speed trap zone, I obviously wasn't concentrating .

Today I've had the letter through, offering a Fixed Penalty of £60 plus 3 points .

Fair enough I guess, I'll take it. I've got the option of going to court but at the end of the day I was speeding (50pmh in a 40 zone) so I have no defence (for once my usually fertile imagination has let me down) and no doubt I'll only end up with the same (or more) plus costs.

I've done some quick mental calculations, I reckon I've probably driven around 400,000 miles in my lifetime so far. At a guess I would say about 250,000 of those at least have been in excess of the speed limit. I like to consider myself a safe driver with only 2 minor knocks in that time. I'm certainly no boy racer ,but sticking to the limits just seems to damn slow.

Unlike many I'm not complaining about being caught. Of course it's frustrating. But the way I look at it, life's a game, you know the rules and you know the consequences if you get caught breaking them. Looking on the bright side I've got away with it for about a quarter of a million miles (sounds even more like that) so I haven't done too badly.

And I have to admit, since getting caught I have been driving more slowly ........ although I'm sure it'll wear off soon.

All clear

After another hospital appointment the specialist has decided that the original TIA (mini-stroke) diagnosis was incorrect. Having now had the chance to study all of the tests they show no lasting damage.
The tests have thrown up the severely under active thyroid and this is now considered to be the reason for my "attack" (for want of a better word), even though she can find no real link between thyroid and my symptoms that day. So I'm still a bit confused as to exactly what happened. But if it hadn't happened I would probably never discovered the thyroid problem, which, now I know about it and it's symptoms, explains a lot of minor seemingly unrelated things, and is easily treatable. Definitely the lesser of two evils.
At the end of the day, whatever happened that day, it's caused no damage, that's good enough news for me.

Cornwall

Just returned from another "get away from it all" weekend. (Details here).

There's something about the place I just love. It's worth every minute of the 9 hours in the driving seat there and back.

Next planned visit is end of July this time a whole week with the kids. Can't wait. :-)

Kids - who'd have 'em?

Last night - in an effort to regain some enthusiasm to start playing again after my shoulder injury - we went down the park to watch some cricket.
Whilst we were there the two (not so little any more) kids started messing around resulting in the Junior Wurzel (14) getting hit right in the eye with a fir cone thrown by her sister Li'l Wurzel(12)
Seeing she was in some pain, and not taking any chances with eyes, I took her off to the walk in clinic.
They were short staffed and couldn't check eyes so sent us on to A & E.
Whilst driving to the hospital she texts Mrs W (who couldn't come with us as she had to pick up Jamie her son (10) from a party) saying "Walk in say we have to go to casualty".
2 minutes later her phone rings. It's Li'l Wurzel.
LW " We are on our way to the walk in centre"
JW "Didn't Deb see my text?, we have got to go to casualty"
LW " We're not coming to see you, Jamie has trod on a rusty nail and it's gone right through his foot!"

Thankfully both are ok - but Kids eh? - who'd have em ?

What on earth .....

....... is that ?

Apparently that's the new logo fro the 2012 London Olympics.

Designed at a cost of £400,000.

For once words fail me, clearly I am in the wrong job.

I've signed the online petition to have it replaced. I was the 17492nd person to sign it in less than 24 hours, in the time it took me to type this another 341 have done likewise .

If you want to add your name to the protest you can do so by visiting Online petition - Change The London 2012 Logo

Confirmed

Further to my post of 2 days ago Salem went off to the vets last night.

Yes, the same vet who has already confirmed twice he's a boy now tells us "What a lovely young lady you have there "

Oh and just to rub it in there's a strong possibility that he .... old habits die hard, I mean she ... could be pregnant, we need to wait 3 weeks to know. :-(

Paris off to prison

After shamelessly ensuring that her incarceration was timed for maximum exposure in the weekly celebrity magazines, Paris Hilton is finally behind bars.

Hopefully the L.A. County Sheriff has made sure the bars in the cell windows are extra close together otherwise the skinny "famous for being famous" bimbo will be slipping through them in no time.

He's a She ?!?!

Regular readers of my blog will both remember that back last November we bought a kitten. A little boy kitten called Salem.

I never wanted a cat, but soon had to admit he was really cute and in no time at all grew to accept him as part of the family. Much as I would have preferred to have a dog (which I wouldn't whilst we both work) , watching my little boy cat grow up was almost as much fun

Well 6 months on it would appear that Salem is a girl !

When we bought him we were told he was a boy. Twice the vet has confirmed he is a boy. Our own visual checks, (see diagram left) whilst not the easiest thing to carry out on a cat who doesn't want his "private bits" inspected by all and sundry, gave us no reason to doubt his gender. We have been getting a little concerned at the lack of balls dropping now he has reached 8 months old but assumed it would be happening any time soon.

But this week Salem has been showing a few new "trends". He/she/it has started calling, raising it's bum off the ground and sticking it in the air (lordosis) and showing all the signs of estrus . All these are new terms to me but basically it means our little boy is a female and in heat ! We'll take her to the vet tomorrow for confirmation, but everyone we know who has any knowledge of cats is in no real doubt .

Fingers crossed there's no kittens on the way.