Arty to I.T. (Paul Gill a.k.a. Ginger)

This is the second weekend in a row that I've come back to Southend to see the wife and kids. Last weekend wasn't particularly eventful - just a nice quiet weekend with a 2 1/2 hour drive there and back to Southampton.

But this weekend has been quite interesting. Firstly, I didn't realise until Friday that it was Southend Airshow. So I expected to be able to get some good photos or video of the various planes flying over the seafront. It's generally quite good because the view from our balcony allows us to see most of the action without having to struggle through the massive crowds. Needn't have worried too much this year though, Sunday ended after about 5 displays due to low cloud. Though we did get to see the Red Arrows first. Worse still, today being bank holiday Monday, we had typical bank holiday weather which left the skies empty of everything but rain.

Nevermind', I said to the wife, 'Peppa Pig is at the Victoria shopping centre and the kids will love that!'. So off we went, did a bit of shopping then decided to hang about and see if we could see Peppa Pig. Sure enough, after about fifteen minutes of waiting, I spotted Peppa Pig and George upstairs, or at least, 2 people wearing Peppa and George suits!
Both myself and another dad, watching these people wearing great big pig outfits and heading towards the escalators, were hoping that they would end up tumbling down the escalators, nut the spoilsports decided to use the lift instead.

Anyhow, it wasn't long before these big pigs were surrounded by a hoard of young excited kids, ours included. I took some photos and the wife, armed with her new mobile phone, took photos and video clips. Our kids excitedly wandered back and forth between Peppa and George. When the wife started videoing it on her phone, I didn't realise she was doing it and better still, we didn't realise what she would capture. My son certainly didn't realise what was going to be caught on video and neither did Peppa Pig.

As the above headline suggests, yes... Peppa Pig HIT my son! He grabbed hold of this giant Peppa Pigs nose and pulled it downward and received a smack around the head! I was gob-smacked. I saw it but the wife, still videoing on her phone didn't notice. When I told her she burst out laughing in disbelief! So here it is, the moment my son was assaulted by a childrens TV character....

(watch carefully, Peppa is behind George and he is the boy in the red and blue t-shirt)

Well, hopefully this is my last post as a resident of Southend-on-Sea. I'm moving down to Totton, Southampton, tomorrow. I didn't expect to be doing a post here as my computer has been playing up... freezing for no apparent reason, but it's been fine all day today. The wife is now moaning that I'm spending time posting this instead of spending time with her LOL!

It is gonna be weird being away from the wife and kids for a few months, but hopefully it will all be worthwhile in the end. Just got to find somewhere to live now.

So, farewell and good riddance Southend... I won't miss it one little bit!

The end is nigh... one of those sayings that people have ridiculed for years. I don't even think there are any people walking around with signs saying that anymore. It's just too ridiculous to be true... isn't it?

Maybe? Or maybe not?
But I think I might be the first of a new breed of doom mongers. An internet doom monger. I'm starting to believe the end IS nigh!

I'm not talking about a massive meteorite hitting the earth and causing a global catastrophe or anything like that.
No, I'm talking about something a lot more realistic. Something a lot more disturbing in many ways.

I'm talking about the end of Civilisation as we know it!

The way things are going at the moment with global warming (whether it's a man made problem OR a natural occurrence), which is affecting food supplies and causing shortages in basic staple products, which in turn leads to an increase in food prices, which in turn leads to higher wage demands, which in turn leads to price increases for other products. And they are just small parts of the chain reaction.

Then there is the situation with oil.  The worlds oil supplies are running low and it's only a matter of time before we run out completely. But regardless of that, the price of oil keeps rising and rising and that also affects the prices of transport, heating, food and virtually every other consumer product. Again, this also leads to a demand for higher wages. And with banks refusing to lend money because of the global economy situation being so bad, it's only a matter of time before things start to turn very ugly.

When I say 'ugly' I mean:
War - countries may go to war to attempt to secure valuable resources (water, oil, wheat, rice etc.).
Civil War - one part of a country might start fighting another for resources.
Rebellion - the man in the street is getting more annoyed. Put enough of them together, make them angry enough by not giving them enough cheap food, housing, clothing, security etc., and that's where we're headed. Those who remember the riots in the 70's & 80's will know how quickly these things can spread.

It may sound like madness. But in psychology there is a well known theory called 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' (click the red writing for more details). It explains the  basic needs that every human requires for a happy, fulfilled life. You start taking away the basic needs like food, water, shelter, heating, clothing etc., and the human race as a whole will turn against those it sees as being responsible.

Unless something is done, and soon, to turn the tide of unhappiness that is spreading through our country and other countries worldwide, then the human race has a very bleak future. It may not be 'just around the corner' yet, but it's something we are well on the road to.

Can you imagine life without cars, computers, the internet, TV, electricity, heating, lighting and many of the other luxuries we have now. Think about it... and think about what life was like in the dark ages.

That's where we're headed!

The bank charges test case has been heard... and the banks are not too happy about the result. Many people (including myself) have already claimed back 'unfair' bank charges, and now the Office of Fair Trading has won the first court test case against the extortionate fees levied by the banks. It's not the end of the matter, as the banks are likely to appeal again and again to try and stall having to pay out massive sums of money to all the people waiting for claims to go through or those that haven't yet claimed.

So, we're all happy but the banks will have the right 'ump! What with the global financial markets in crisis and this happening, you could almost feel sorry for them. But try not to feel sorry for too long, because it's only a matter of time before the banks find other ways to deprive us all of our cash. They might start charging you for having an account... or they will stop paying interest... or they might add a small charge for virtually every transaction... only time will tell.

Brace yourselves... it's going to happen one way or another.

Yes, I know that's a bit of a Sun Newspaper headline. But I couldn't help myself.
And if anyone thinks the headline is about Virgin Media, you have guessed right. Yep, the Richard Bransons' shambles that is probably one his biggest mistakes yet.

I'm sure many of you have had experiences with Virgin Media that have been less than successful. I've rarely read a complimentary comment about their service. Even Telewest Blueyonder wasn't as bad according to most. And the thing is - I'm not even a Virgin Media customer. Although I did try, for about a year, to get Telewest Blueyonder in our flat. But after a year of promises about when they could install their service and excuses about why they couldn't (even though we had the cables already), I gave up and went to BT.

But since Virgin Media took over Telewest, it just seems things have got worse. Most of their customers seem to be promised one broadband speed and are lucky if they get a 1/4 of the speed promised. On top of that, they also cap download speeds at peak time and slow down the service even more (allegedly this is only for high volume users).

Worse still, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law had Telewest for years. Virgin took over and it went downhill rapidly. It recently took them about 6 weeks for Virgin to correct a problem with their service which left them struggling to load even the Google homepage. Since then, unfortunately, they have split up (and no, I'm not blaming Virgin!).

The account they had was in the brother-in-laws name, so as he moved out they had it disconnected. Obviously my sister-in-law wanted to have the service put back on, which you would think is a fairly straightforward procedure. So she phoned Virgin who said ok, but she would have to pay a £25 deposit. She then waited to make sure she had the money in the bank to pay it and phoned them again about a week later. This time she was told 'sorry, but you have bad credit, we want a £100 deposit instead'. So, being very pi**ed off about having the goalposts moved and after debating whether or not to change to BT (who wanted over £100 to reconnect her line), she decided to stick with Virgin and saved some money over the last 4 weeks to pay for it.

So last Thursday or Friday, she phoned them up, paid the deposit and was told that she would receive her modem, TV box and welcome pack on Monday. On Monday she contacted me, all excited, because she'd received her equipment as promised and asked me to set it all up for her. After the kids got home from school, over we all went and I set her gear up - all she had to do was phone Virgin Media and ask them to connect their end. No problem.

NO PROBLEM - HA! She phoned them up, they checked their system and... guess what... her connection had been CANCELLED! 'Why?' she asked.... 'because you owe O2 £135 and we won't connect you until that's paid'.

What have O2 got to do with Virgin Media? Why didn't they tell her this when she paid the £100 deposit? And why the hell did they send her the equipment and then cancel the installation?

Needless to say, she is even more pi**ed off now. And what makes it even worse is that whichever way she goes it will cost over £100 to get connected again. If you don't use a cable service, you have to take a BT line (You don't have to get BT to re-connect it anymore - apparently any provider can organise this through BT Openreach for you) which still costs in excess of £100 (this price is often less if they find the line is intact).

Anyway, BT's legendary lack of service is another matter. For those of you brave enough to try Virgin Media... Good luck!

I, like many of you, have been using the Spaces PHOTO ALBUMS for displaying pictures. Many people also use pictures in backgrounds and various other places on their pages. But I wonder how many of you actually realise that you are possibly breaking the law by doing so.

Just like CD's, DVD's, and many other commercial products, pictures on the internet may also be subject to COPYRIGHT laws. For example, all of my images (that I designed myself) carry a copyright '©' symbol. Personally, I don't mind anyone using my work on their site/page, and I wouldn't follow up on breach of copyright unless someone was gaining financially from my work. I'd also prefer that, if someone wants to use any of my work elsewhere, you ask first (out of politeness) and possibly link back to me or 'credit' me for the work (a note saying that I created the picture). This isn't a demand, just a polite request. A few people have asked permission and I gave it - but most don't.

But please bare in mind that not all artists feel this way. MSN and most other social networking sites will state, in their terms & conditions, that you must not post material on THEIR NETWORK that infringes copyright. Be it music, videos, text OR pictures, YOU should own the copyright for any material that you publish online (unless, of course, it is made available in the PUBLIC DOMAIN). If you fail to abide by their T&C's and an artist sees their work on your page without permission, you may become the subject of a DMCA Notice (Digital Millenium Copyrights Act or, in Europe, EU Copyright Directive) . If you receive such a notice and do not remove the stated material, MSN (or whoever) may well delete your page/site.

Unfortunately, many people think that anything that is on the internet is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. They think they can get anything they want, from wherever they want and from whoever they want. It's understandable that many people think this way, but things are changing. It's only a matter of time before illegal downloading of copyrighted material will get you a ban from your ISP, especially if the government in the UK have their way.

So, before you post anything anywhere, think about it. It may save you a lot of trouble.