What more proof do I need that their visit and marketing regarding ‘Operation Confidence’ is just PR (hot air). I have no confidence in them…

Hello,

Last night I was visited by someone (I think she was a Community Safety Warden) who asked me a few questions and gave me a leaflet which led me to your website http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/yournh-tvp-pol-area-N338. From that site I have seen http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/yournh-tvp-pol-area-nh-newsitem?id=116225&nh=New%20Bradwell%20/%20Stantonbury which I assume is why I got the visit.

I would just like to give you some brief feedback on this:

• This is the first time in 7 years of living at my address (Bancroft Park) than I have been visited by someone from the police force. I think that it is a really good idea and would like everyone to be visited at least once a year
• It would have been far better if her visit was announced (by e-mail or post). That way I could have thought about her questions in advance and given better answers, ensured I was in, not having dinner at the time, etc.
• I would suggest that questionnaire itself was far too basic and therefore of no practical use, so I believe it to be just a PR exercise (or at the very least poorly thought out). It would have been far better to post the questionnaire to residents in advance, or have it on a website and completed in advance. The officer could then have collated the results in advance spoken to residents about the top issues. Plus if the officer must ask the residents questions, it should preferably be entered directly onto a PDA and not onto paper (faster and more efficient)
• I think most people when handed a leaflet will not look at the website, especially as the leaflet did not have a direct link to the URL http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/yournh-tvp-pol-area-N338 – it took some navigation to actually find that URL. Plus the site/scheme is misleading because it mentions the New Bradwell and Stantonbury neighbourhoods and I live in Bancroft Park, so at a first glance it would appear to not apply to me
• The website does not state if it is possible to report non-urgent crimes (such as people without car insurance, drug usage, noisy neighbours, etc.) via e-mail. I would rather send a quick e-mail or complete a form than spend time on the phone. For example 2 issues that I would like to report are:

<I have removed this from my blog post – I don’t want the offending neighbours to read it>

• The leaflet said that victims of crime will be informed of the results of when a criminal is punished. 2-3 years ago a wheel was stolen from my car (Alfa Romeo, registration: <hidden from blog post>) from a public car park, near the MK police station. I reported the crime, then later found the 2 people who stole the wheel (who were in a stolen car). So I called 999 and the police came and retrieved the car, stolen vehicle and later my wheel. I was informed that one of the people was let off, but one was prosecuted. I was not told of the final outcome – i.e. was the person who was prosecuted, punished (prison, fine, etc.)? It would be nice to know because I have been a victim of several crimes and have not had a good result on any of them, which means that I am less inclined to report them because it has been is a waste of time
• The A4 document that I was given last night contained a number of typographical errors

The leaflet also asked for feedback from residents on how offenders should be penalised in terms of community service. I don’t think that is a deterrent. So as well as the standard community service I would like offenders who commit crimes such as theft, drugs, etc. plus more serious crimes:

• Made to have a tour of MK prison and to meet some prisoners
• Shamed by being made to stand in the MK shopping centre, dressed in orange shirts and trousers (I doubt the council would approve this but I would like to see it!)

Please feel free to reply with any comments, etc.

Regards.

Paul Richardson

We pre-booked a table and arrived on time. At the entrance were 3 25+ stone bouncers – which was a bit odd and not very welcoming. We were immediately greeted by a waitress who took us upstairs to our table.

The restaurant itself looks okay – nothing ’special’, but nice.

Once we were seated, we were given menus. After a few minutes, a waiter took our drinks order and shortly returned with our drinks (he had forgotten who ordered which drink, so we had to remind him).

Then we ordered the food. I ordered French Onion soup as a starter, a venison pie (a ‘chef’s plate’ speciality dish – made with local ingredients) as a main meal and mashed potato as a side dish.

The 4 starters we ordered were brought by 4 waiters, which was unusual, but kind of good I guess. They had to ask who had ordered which starter…

The French Onion Soup I had was basically:

• A bowl full of cut up onion (by the even cuttings it was obvious that the onions were cut by a machine and not by hand). There was a lot of onion in there – excessive if anything
• A liquid substance that was supposed to be soup but had virtually no flavour
• 4 squares of bread (larger than croutons) with melted cheese on top

Once we had finished, our plates were cleared and the main meal was delivered in a good time-frame. The main meal was brought by just 2 waiters this time instead of 4 (and they managed okay). Again we were asked who had ordered what (and a waiter gave my dish to my mother before I corrected him).

The Venison Pie:

• The pastry was very thin, plain, looked ready-made and just not great
• The pie filling was pretty flavourless and the consistency was too runny
• It only came with runner beans – and nothing else

I’m not a trained chef and I’ve only ever made 1 pie before, but my chicken and mushroom pie was a hundred times better than theirs.

The Mashed Potato:

• Was very small for the price
• It was smooth (which is a good thing)
• I could taste that it was buttery, but it was plain and boring. How about adding some herbs to make I a bit more interesting? Plus it needed some seasoning (I doubt it had any salt in it, let alone pepper)

The food that my parents and my brother had were all just as disappointing, with the possible exception of my brothers cheeseburger which was apparently quite nice.

Once they took away the main courses, they simply handed us the dessert menu’s. We had a quick look but we didn’t want to experience any more food there, so we decided to pop over to Sainsbury’s on the way home and get something from there instead.

Other things to note are:

Some of the meals were very over-priced. For example, my brother had the Teriyaki chicken Skewers with a Satay sauce for a starter. This was £5.95 and comprised of just 3 thin strips of chicken, a small pot of satay sauce and a small portion of greens. This was a rip off!

The music throughout the night was loud, making it difficult to talk to the person opposite. At around 8.30pm/9pm they had a pianist play the piano and sing. This was even louder than the recorded music, the audio equipment used was of poor quality so the sound was slightly distorted and sounded bad and he was downstairs (so people eating couldn’t see him) and in the corner (so most people in the bar downstairs couldn’t see him either!).

On the way out we again had to squeeze part the three 25+ stone bouncers – which made it feel like a nightclub, not an up-market bar/restaurant.

Summary:

• Poor service (in terms of they had to ask which of us had ordered which dish at every course)
• Very poor quality food
• Overpriced food
• Noisy atmosphere (and poor quality audio equipment for the pianist)
• Intimidating bouncers

I will not be going back.

My 2 favourite restaurants in the Hub, Milton Keynes remain as:

• Ha Ha Bar and Grill
• Las Iguanas

I have worked in Milton Keynes for 4 years now and have paid (I think) £235 per year to park my car in a public car park outside of my office. This year it has gone up to £270 (more if you live outside of Milton Keynes). For that I am not guaranteed a parking place and there have been times where I have not been able to get one within a 5 minute walk of my office.

I have been fined £30 on each of these occasions:

• They wrote my car registration wrong on my ticket (got 2 letters the wrong way around). This was not noticed for 6 months, then one day I got fined
  • I wrote 2 letters of complaint but did not hear anything back by post/e-mail/telephone (is it illegal to ignore challenges to appeals?)
• I took my car in to get serviced and had a hire car. Out of habit I walked from my hire car to the office without paying for a parking ticket
  • I wrote them a letter and they replied to say ‘tough’
• I have twice forgotten to renew (they don’t send reminders). My fault I know, but I think they should give a reminder or warning first (with 5 days to pay)
  • I appealed once but they said ‘tough’

The really bad things are:

• The parking ticket does not say that you can pay on-line, but you can
• They do not always reply to letters or e-mails
• You can’t order a new parking permit on-line
• You can order a parking permit via the post, but it takes up to 10 days – and they still have to phone you for the credit card payment
• To get a parking permit quickly, you have to visit their office in Central Milton Keynes (which is only open from 0900 – 1700) and in the past it has generally taken 1 hour (queueing)

So tomorrow I will have to:

• Pay for a parking ticket so that I can park outside my office. I will have to do this by mobile phone as I haven’t got change available
• Walk to the council office and buy a 1 year parking permit at £270…

Next time you see a car parking attendant, ask them: What are you? Some bottom-feeding, scum sucking algae eater?

As in most societies, there are nice trolls and naughty trolls. Plus there is a hierarchy of trolls – and trolls have jobs.

The nice trolls like: Flowers, cleanliness, toys and ice-cream.

The naughty trolls like: To misbehave, create disorder, chaos and are messy. The really naughty ones have to be locked up.

I flew from England to Pennadomo, Italy in the hope that I could catch sight of a troll in its natural habitat. I was hoping to meet a nice troll (although they are very shy) and to avoid an encounter with a nasty troll. Even the local Italian villagers rarely see them, although they sometimes hear them scuttle around at night.

Pennadomo  is in the foothills of a mountainous region of Abruzzio, Italy and is a long way from any large town.

The Pennadomo mountainous trolls are not large like most trolls, in fact they are only around 4-5 feet tall and mostly come out in the evenings and early mornings – not in the middle of the night (unless there is a lot of ambient light, e.g. moonlight) and not in the day. It is believed that this is because they are shy and do not like contact with humans.

Also unlike most trolls, they have developed a taste for cats – which is why you do not see many around the area.

Upon first entering the village of Pennadomo, everything seemed normal. The people looked friendly:

People walking in the village of Pennadomo, Italy

Work was being done:

Construction in Pennadomo, Italy

The area was clean and tidy. The residents were obviously religious:

Religious statue in Pennadomo, Italy

However I quickly came across a troll signalling device – their version of a French Horn. So I blew into it with as much air as my lungs could give. This was necessary in order to make them aware that I would be looking for them. You don’t want to surprise a troll – Trolls don’t like surprises (this is partly why they eat cats):

Blowing a troll horn in Pennadomo, Italy

Blowing a troll horn in Pennadomo, Italy

Trolls don’t eat chickens, although in July-August they do like to collect their eggs to make blueberry pancakes:

A chicken - trolls don't eat them

As I walked further up the mountain, into the village; more ‘troll signs’ appeared, such as umbrellas, well-kept plants:

Troll signs - umbrellas and well-kept plants

Troll signs - well-kept plants

Troll signs - umbrellas and well-kept plants

Troll signs - well-kept plants

Troll signs - well-kept plants

Also water bottles and water sources:

Troll signs - water bottles

Troll signs - water sources

Troll signs - water sources

Then I found a troll house:

Troll house

As it was day-time, the door was locked. I noticed the lollypop stick (top left of the door) that had been left there before the troll went inside to sleep.

Troll house

There was a faint zzZZZZzzz noise coming from inside. I didn’t attempt to open the door because:

a) There was a big lock on it

b) It isn’t a good idea to disturb a sleeping troll. Even the nice ones can be aggressive if you interrupt them while sleeping (or eating)

So I kept walking until I came upon another entrance to a troll residence. Note the hole at the bottom of the door:

Troll house

I had a close look and behind the hole was a large piece of cheese. The cheese was resting on top of a large mouse-trap with a rusty spring. As the trolls eat the cats, there are a lot of mice around. Trolls like to skewer mice and roast them in front of an open fire.

Further on (and higher up the mountain) I found the doorway to the house of a naughty troll:

House of a naughty troll

You can see that a naughty troll lives here by the cigarette ends in the doorway.

Half-way up the mountain, near the top of the village I could see the trolls handy-work. Lots of well-kept plants, often in make-up pots, such as paint-pots:

Pot-plants maintained by trolls

Then as I walked I found something a little odd – an entrance to a troll-house with a metal door:

Troll house

Within it I could see a troll’s scooter. They use scooters to get around the twisty streets of villages such as Pennadomo, Italy because they don’t have an engine so are silent.

Troll house and scooter

I opened the door a little and had a quick look in there. I couldn’t see or hear a troll, but I didn’t want to risk disturbing one, so I left.

Then I made my way up a steep part of the mountain, towards the very top of the village where I looked up and saw a troll’s house up high, with a balcony which surrounded with metal bars. This was obviously the home of a level 2 troll:

A level 2 troll's house

A level 2 troll is a senior troll who commands and organises worker trolls. The metal bars of this and the previous houses I had seen gave me the impression that I was in the part of the village where the naughty trolls lived. Lucky for me, it was still day time so I was (relatively) safe – as long as I snuck by quietly without disturbing any trolls.

Onwards and upwards I went – my legs were getting quite tired from all the walking, but I didn’t want to stop (not in naughty troll territory).

Village of Pennadomo, Italy

Then I found something quite disturbing – a troll entrance that had been boarded up and large stones placed against it. This was obviously the dwellings of a very nasty troll who had to be kept under lock and key:

Naughty troll's boarded up house

This was the troll’s rear door:

Naughty troll's boarded up rear door

Then I went just around the corner and stumbled upon something interesting – a troll shrine. Notice all the well-kept plants that the trolls have been looking after:

Troll shrine

Religious troll candles

This is a troll prayer:

A troll prayer

And this was clearly a troll sign:

A troll sign - directing to something

I wasn’t sure what it was leading me to, but I had come all this way so was urged to investigate! So on I went…

Cautiously through the tunnel (trolls often jump out at you and demand payment of a toll if you try to walk through them):

A tunnel

Luckily though there were no trolls to be seen.

As you can see, I was now high above the village of Pennadomo:

Village of Pennadomo, Italy from above

Far in the distance was lake Lago di Bomba which is where trolls like to go at weekends to play and take a relaxing swim (trolls are deceptively good swimmers, learning to swim 25 metres at the age of 4):

Lake Lago di Bomba, near Pennadomo, Italy

Lake Lago di Bomba, near Pennadomo, Italy

Then, after following the troll signs for a while, I discovered a rare sight – and not one I was expecting to see. I actually saw a real-life Italian troll! It looked friendly enough, but was placed behind a series of rusty bars.

An Italian troll

I didn’t know if the bars were to protect me from it, or it from me, so I decided to keep my distance, politely wave back and then make my way all the way back down to the car. That was enough excitement for one day!

Hi,

I started trading in shares late 2007. Last year I cashed in about £5.5k (I gained about 7k and lost about £1.5k). I am currently about £1,800 up with the shares I have and I have around £15,000 invested (including the £1,800). Plus that’s all tax free. There is a limit above which you have to pay tax – I don’t know what it is or how much tax, but I know I’m no-where near it yet.

So for me it has worked out really well so far. Certainly much better than just leaving the money in the bank! However last year was a very up and down year so I think I was quite lucky.

Trading shares is actually very easy on a basic level. You just choose how many shares you want to buy (or how much you want to spend and the website will tell you how many shares that will buy you), plus you pay a commission each time you buy and each time you sell shares.

I use https://www.foolsharedealing.co.uk/_mem_bin/formslogin.asp simply because when I looked they were the cheapest. Their online applications aren’t fantastic, but they are okay. I have tried a few companies and haven’t found a nicer site yet.

They offer 3 types of service. I use:

The Motley Fool Share Dealing Account: an execution only account that allows you to trade for a flat rate. £10 per trade for UK stocks and £17.50 per trade for International stocks.

Most of last year I traded in UK stocks. Mainly Barclays PLC, Heritage Oil Limited, Interserve plc and also a few others (Glaxo Smith Klyne, Renold). There were times when I was up 2k and times when I was down £2k. I made about 4k during the year. In October I had to sell and made a £700 loss on some shares. I had to sell in order to pay off a credit card (the 0% interest on purchases offer was expiring) – if I had sold a few weeks before I would have made £1k.

Right now I am investing in what I know – technology and I’m up £1.8k. I have shares in Apple, Google and Microsoft. I just sold some shares in Yahoo (made £200) to invest in Apple.

Basically, buying and selling shares is easy. I can’t remember how long it takes to open an account – might be a week. I think you start the application online and usually they send you something to sign and return by post, but I can’t remember if fool did that so it might only take a few days with them.

Once you have an account, you basically choose a company and you can do one of the following:

• Buy stock straight away in real time
• Set an order e.g. buy AAPL when it reaches 211.52
• Set an order to sell e.g. buy AAPL when it reaches 216.12
• Set an order to repeatedly buy and sell (e.g. keep buying at 211.52 and selling at 216.12) – Barclays shares go up and down a lot, but I haven’t done this type of trade yet
• Set a stop loss (sell if the price goes below a set amount)
• Set a tracked stop loss (sell if the price goes down by current price – 2.00). This might be good if you know stock will go up a lot then you want to sell if it goes down by 2p at any time

But beware of automated selling – it has caught me out. The markets often close high and then open the next day at a very low value (then rise quickly to the previous days value). I believe this is often intentional to catch people out. Because of this people warn against using automated selling.

That is the basics of standard share dealing. Obviously buying when low and selling when high is the tricky part!

Some things on my mind right now:

• Apple announcement on the 26th Jan. I think it is more likely to be an eBook reader, not a tablet. Amazon have the eBook market right now with the Kindle reader. On xmas day Amazon sold more eBooks than paper books. I do think that electronic media is going to be huge (I purchased ‘Crush It’ from http://www.vook.com recently – not an ebook but similar. Plus I have seen some really interesting eBook reader design concepts. Also the magazine and newspaper industries are continuing to be hit hard, especially with more companies moving to electronic media for advertising (better ROI). Whatever Apple bring out on the 26th, it’s not an update to an existing product line, it is going to be something new – and lots of iFan boys will be out there to buy it, so stock prices should go up (even if the device is a lemon). If it is an eBook Reader, I’m sure they will sell a lot via the iTunes store – and draw people away from Amazon at the same time. I would expect this device to come out in June/July, along with a new iPhone (with 5MP camera)
• 3D TV, films and gaming is going to be huge in 2010 and the next few years. So good investments might be in the manufacturers (Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, LG, etc.) but a better investment might be in the providers such as bSkyb who have been pioneering the technology – recording live football games in 3D for the past couple of years. Or as you know, many TV manufacturers all share the same components so it might be worth finding out which components they share and get shares in that company?
• OLED is getting a lot cheaper to manufacturer and will become even cheaper once more people start buying TV’s and portable devices with it. So investment in that area would be good
• Yahoo is very cheap right now. They are basically out of the search engine business, but very much into online marketing and other things. A few months ago they made a deal with Microsoft, which will benefit Yahoo 80/20, probably starting late next year
• Microsoft have lots of cool tech coming out, plus Windows 7 is selling very well. Project Netal is going to be huge (Xbox and PC), Azure (cloud based computing) is going to be mega
• Google now have their own mobile phone and the Android OS is taking off. Plus they have lots of other things too. They already have Augmented Reality and free Sat Nav with voice activation out on their Android OS for mobile phones

You can also make money when shares go down – it’s called Spreadbetting. I’ve dabbled in this but not seriously. I’d advise that you stick with standard share dealing at first.

Also, if you buy shares in USA companies, you also have to consider fluctuations in the the exchange rate. the $ has been getting stronger against the £.

I don’t usually invest less than £3k at a time because a UK buy+sell = £20, USA buy+sell = £34 so you need to make enough to cover that before you make any profit. I usually trade over short time periods – a few weeks to 6 months. However if you can invest over a long period of time, investing a lesser amount can be ok. Also, if you want to regularly invest in stock each month, you can do that for £1.50 per trade instead of £10. So £50-100 per month would be fine.

I use Google Finance (http://www.google.com/finance) for keeping track of my stocks. It’s not great but is ok.

Another thing I do is I keep taking out credit cards with long periods (9-12 months) of 0% interest on purchases. Then I use that card for everything and instead of paying it off, I put the money into shares. I have been doing that for about 9 years now and have around 18 credit cards from various banks. I’ve check my credit rating every so often and it’s very good, so having a large amount of bank accounts and cards doesn’t harm it at all – even if sometimes I forget to make payments.

Sorry for the long e-mail, I get carried away when talking about investments

I really would recommend it. There is a lot that I haven’t discussed here, so let me know if you have any questions

Regards.

Paul

It will work great with my Canon 40D which is a digital SLR. I have always had an interest in photography and did a photography course in Italy last October. Plus I would like to get more into food photography, so I can make better photographs for my cooking site GetMeCooking.

The flash can be used on the body of the camera and can also be used as a remote flash, so I can use it as a slave flash, to get rid of harsh shadows when shooting food. I am thinking of getting some light diffusers to go over the flash and also maybe turn my dining area into a mini food studio. I plan to photograph the recipes I make ‘on the go’ with my camera, only making a really good photograph for the end result. Taking really good photographs while cooking is too time consuming so isn’t really practical.

Speedlite 580EX II Specifications

Canon ‘Flash Work’ document – as you can see from this document, there is a lot to learn!

Canon Speedlite 580EX II

Plus I got a Feedback Sports, Pro-Elite Bicycle Repair Stand, which will make it so much easier to work on both my road bike and my mountain bike! Just as well as I have already entered the 2010 Questars series of 4 races with Dave and I will also enter some Triathlons this year. Plus lots of training!

Feedback Sports Pro-Elite Bicycle Repair Stand

Plus I got a few other things such as mountain bike specific socks, CO2 based type pump and some travel books on Nice.

I wish I hadn’t been given so much chocolate and biscuits. After losing a few Kg’s recently, I think I’ve put it back on again – I’m afraid to jump onto the scales! Time to crash diet again…

I have recently created Stack Exchange sites for London and SAP BASIS. Neither of these have taken off though.

Maybe the London one has too small an audience – as there are only 7.421 million people  (2004 estimate) living there and only a very small percentage of them would want to use a Q&A site about London. Of course a large number of people visit London, but I don’t know if they would spend time asking and waiting for answers.

The SAP BASIS site is ideal for SAP BASIS questions, but it has actually been hard to advertise as SAP BASIS is a niche market and the SAP sites that I have visited don’t allow promotion of external SAP websites. I tried to post about it on the SAP IT Toolbox website, but it was blocked by a moderator. I have posted on a few sites, but it hasn’t brought in much traffic.

http://epicadvice.com/ is a World of Warcraft game based site, based on Stack Exchange framework. It is doing quite well, so that gave me the idea to create a similar site for Star Trek Online. So today I created the site LCARS – Star Trek Online, created 25 questions and publicised it on some Star Trek Online related websites and Stumbleupon. So far it has had 197 visits, 307 page views but 0 new users, questions or answers…

Maybe I should create some dummy users and answer some of the questions, to give the impression that the site is active? I might do that tomorrow.

I do feel that once I have 1 really active site (i.e. thousands of visitors per day), it then makes it easier to publicise other websites from that main website. This seems to be the formula used by other companies.

If I was homeless I wouldn’t sell the Big Issue because I don’t think it’s worth it:

From http://www.bigissue.co.uk/How_We_Work_14.php

In order to become a Big Issue vendor an individual must prove that they are homeless or vulnerably housed, undergo an induction process and sign up to the code of conduct. Once they have done so they are allocated a fixed pitch and issued with 5 free copies of the magazine (or 10 in London). Once they have sold these magazines they can purchase further copies, which they buy for 75p and sell for £1.50, thereby making 75p per copy.

I see people in Milton Keynes selling the Big Issue and I rarely see them make a sale.

According to the Westminister council (2007), beggars in London can make up to £300 per day and there is competition as not all beggars are homeless, many have office jobs and just beg in their spare time.

So if I was homeless and unskilled I would:

• Go to the council and get information on what to do, details of shelters, etc.
• Look for jobs (it is easy to get temp work)
• On days where I couldn’t get full-time or temp work I would knock on peoples doors (houses, businesses, farms, etc.) and offer to do handyman stuff (gardening, tidying up, fixing things, cleaning, decorating, etc.) in return for money/food/accommodation
  • Organise work-parties of homeless people to do larger-scale jobs, or to do jobs faster

Some ideas I wouldn’t do (well I might lol):

• Go to affluent areas, look presentable and beg (see this beggars guide)
• I would sit outside churches (especially Sundays) and beg for money/food/accommodation. See how charitable those with Christian values really are
  • Try different places of worship to see which people from which religions were the most generous (or aggressive)
• Sit outside take-aways and restaurants just before closing time and beg for left over food. I would alternate between fish and chips, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, etc. depending on what I felt like
• Sit outside shops such as Oxfam and beg for clothes and items before people walk into the shop to hand them in
• Pick up road-kill, cook it and eat it (or sell to other homeless people for money/goods)
• Pick up a stray dog – people are more likely to give money and remember you if you are begging with a pet
• Pick up an instrument and play it (badly) – people are more likely to give money if they see that you are trying to perform instead of just sit/stand there with your hand out
• Do what Derren Brown did (see Derren Brown: How to Control the Nation from 26:10 – 29:45), he ‘earned’ £350 (and a pair of shoes and socks) in under an hour!
• Find empty accommodation and squat in it. Squatting is regarded in law as a civil, not a criminal matter. In 2003, it was estimated that there were 15,000 squatters in England and Wales

For all of the above reasons and these, I don’t give money to people on the street.

If you want to help the homeless:

One way to do it it to just keep paying your taxes. Money from your taxes will go to your local council and the government, which will then go to the relevant areas.

In addition you can also donate money to registered organisations, although some might say that there are too many organisations, so there is wastage in money (in terms of administration), plus as the organisations are getting funds and resolving the problem, there is little need for councils and government to resolve the problem.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient (in terms of money, resource and effort) if there were no organisations, meaning that a central body (government) were tasked to handle the issue?

Or there is Billy Connoly’s idea – the homeless can eat the most dangerous prisoners, then they could live in the prisons. That would solve 2 issues at once!

For the past 9-12 months I have been using 2 credit cards which both have a 0% interest on purchases deal which ends at the end of this month. My plan was to put all of my spending onto those cards and invest the money that I didn’t have to pay off into shares.

It has worked out well as my gains in shares have far exceeded my losses, but I have made the mistake (it was a gamble) of leaving it to the last minute before selling the shares I needed in order to pay off my cards. If I had sold a few weeks ago I would have made about £700 profit, but instead I lost about £600. I could have left it another few weeks and paid some card charges instead, but I don’t want to do that, or damage my credit ranking.

Overall though, I am happy with the profit I have made (and am continuing to make) with shares. The only risk is that all of the shares that I now have are based in the USA and there is talk that the $ might get stronger against the £, which means the $ shares that I have would lose value when I come to cash them in.

This is all a learning experience and although losing money is never nice, I haven’t actually lost that much – and I have gained a lot more. Am I going to continue with it in 2010? Absolutely!

Getting there:

I shot up the M1, then got stuck behind a police van on the M6, doing just under 80mph for ages. Some people overtook it slowly, but I wasn’t going to as I have been pulled over for speeding a few times and it is annoying – not the getting done for speeding bit, but the stupid talk they give you before they either give you the ticket or let you off. Eventually they slowed to 70mph, so I crawled past them until they were a speck in my rear view mirror, then I hit the accelerator.

Once in Birmingham I was expecting to see signs for the Half Marathon but there weren’t any. The website wasn’t very clear on where the start was and my sat-nav was having an off-day (thought it was in Spain – has never done that before!) so I drove around for 40 minutes before stopping to ask a race marshal I saw. He wasn’t sure where the start was, but said I should park my car where I was and then walk from there as it was just a short walk.

So I parked my car (in a slightly dodgy looking part of Birmingham), wrote down the name of the road, marked the location on my GPS watch and then walked into the centre of the city. On my way there I asked a few marshals I saw if they new exactly where the start was – and they didn’t know! The short walk ended up being a 25 minute walk+jog. I eventually found the start of the race but I was sweating by the time I got there!

Baggage:

I then looked around for the baggage area but couldn’t see any signs for it, so I asked some marshals but they didn’t know <sigh>. So I asked a competitor and she told me where it was – a 5 minute walk away! The was really bad… Once I got there, there was a long queue and I was a little apprehensive because it was due to close in 5 minutes time. Luckily though the queue went down really quickly and there was no queue for the actual baggage drop-off.

Comfort stop:

Before a race it is always a good idea to visit a toilet, so on the walk from the baggage area to the start line I looked for one. All of the toilets in the buildings had really long queues so I went outside and found a long row of portaloos with slightly shorter queues. After queuing for 7 minutes I got in and used one; luckily I didn’t need a number 2 as there was no paper!

Racing line:

The start line was really disorganised. As this was my 3rd Half Marathon I knew what to expect, but many people didn’t. The organisers had given every runner a bib with a number and a colour. The colour related to the runners expected race time. On the start area there were coloured balloons which related to runners bib colours and runners were supposed to stand behind the balloons, but many people didn’t know this, which meant that there were a lot of slow people at the front of the race, which slowed everyone else down.

Dame Kelly Holmes was on the starting line giving people high-fives, so I queued up and high-fived her before stepping over the start line

The start:

With a lot of slow runners around in front of me and narrow roads, the first few miles were very slow.

Despite that I was feeling surprisingly good given my lack of training and poor diet recently.

The middle:

Half way in I was still doing okay but my lack of training was starting to show. Plus the course seemed to be mostly flat or uphill with no long downhill sections to rest on. In the 3rd section of the race my pace dropped off quite a bit, I was conscious of jogging up and down but not much forward motion – I was getting tired due to lack of training.

The end:

The last 2-3 miles were all uphill and the last 2 miles especially were quite steep. However I managed to pass a couple of people at the end on a (very slow) ’sprint’ finish.

Here is my GPS output from the race.

After the race:

After crossing the line I found it quite hard to walk (harder than other races), I think it was because the last 2 miles were uphill and hard going. Then there was quite a long walk along a fenced corridor where:

• One person gave me a medal
• Another person gave me a keyring
• Some runners had been given goody bags, but most had not. This was confusion. I actually walked back a bit (against the flow of runners walking towards me) to try to find someone handing out the bags, but I quickly gave up
  
• Then there were people at the side who were giving out various sized t-shirts (only a few of them were shouting out which sizes they were giving out, so that was confusing and caused runners to bunch up on those people)
• Then there was a queue of runners waiting to receive a ‘goody bag’ (I walked past the queue and found helpers giving out the same goody bags – but no queues)

Instead of all that, there should have been a stand of helpers giving out bags whcih contained various sized t-shirts. That would have sped things up, prevented any confusion and would have required fewer helpers

People walking to the baggage area

Once I had all my goodies, I walked (slowly and painfully) to the baggage area where I opted for a free massage. They had around 20 tables set up with 2 people table. The people giving the sports massages were from a local college which was a good idea. After a 10 minute queue I lay head-down on the table and got a leg massage which lasted about 5 minutes. After which my legs actually felt much better – far less stiff and sore.

Then I collected my bag, put on my shirt and trousers and made my way back to the start line to see what was going on.

Castle Fine Art Shop

On my way there I saw a fine art shop so I popped into there for a look around.

Drum Band

Then I looked around the main area where they just had a drum band – I took some videos: Video 1 and video 2.

Water Fountain

After that, I used my GPS watch to find my way back to my car – 30 minute walk As I was counting that all of the wheels and windows were still in place, a young girl cycled up to me and asked if I had won the race. I replied “Not this time…”.

Hometime:

I jumped into my car, turned my sat-nav on (which was now working fine – typical!) and headed home, only to be confronted with traffic.

Stuck in Traffic

I was on the same short stretch of road for half an hour, so I got bored and made this video.

Overall:

Although I was 9 minutes slower than last year, I am quite happy with the time I did (1:48) because most of the course was uphill, I hadn’t had a chance to do any training for it, I had recently been to Italy where I ate far too much and my knees had been hurting (and did hurt during the race).

The only downsides to the day were the very poor organisation – the event wasn’t signposted, poor information on the website, the marshals didn’t know anything and the baggage area was not signposted.