So, I decided not to take the 6 am flight out of Dresden this morning, thinking that the 9 am would be much better. You know, not necessary to get up at the crack of sparrow fart in order to get to the airport? And I failed to check the train times: on Saturdays there [...]
Entries Tagged as 'The Blogger Himself'
Grumble, moan, whine
February 11th, 2012 · No Comments
Tags: The Blogger Himself
The Czechs are fun people, aren’t they!
February 9th, 2012 · 22 Comments
So, back from a day trip to Usti nad Labem to look at a factory (“Yes, that’s a factory OK, I’ve seen one before you know!”) and I’m at the train station waiting for the Hamburg Express. Which is going to arrive/leave from platorm 3. So I am on platform 3. The station has 6 [...]
Tags: Johnny Foreigner · The Blogger Himself
I thought it was cold out there
February 6th, 2012 · 8 Comments
Weather for Freiberg, Germany -11°C | °F Mon Tue Wed Thu Clear Wind: E at 11 km/h Humidity: 38% -11° -20° -11° -15° -7° -20° -2° -17° Amazingly, I’ve decided not to walk 5 km along the road to go and look a second hand cars today.
Tags: The Blogger Himself
I think we’ll call this the Worstall Defence
February 6th, 2012 · 2 Comments
It is entirely possible to be “an arrogant jerk with an ego complex the size of Texas” and still know what you are talking about.
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Why, yes, why else would I read The Guardian?
February 1st, 2012 · 13 Comments
Are you a ‘hate reader’? Tell us if you deliberately read articles you know you’ll dislike, just so you can take issue with them
Tags: The Blogger Himself
In which we see the power of Stephen Fry’s Twitter following
February 1st, 2012 · 10 Comments
Or not, as the case may be. One of my posts at Forbes has been tweeted by that nice Mr. Fry to his 3. something million followers. This one. It’ll be interesting to see the end result….especially given that I’m paid on traffic over there.
Tags: The Blogger Himself
In which we get fan mail from a Michael Barbazette
January 31st, 2012 · 12 Comments
Which reads, in full: dear tim, your writing is terrible. please stop writing. do not reply. best wishes, M I rather hope that it’s not this Michael Barbazette: Michael Barbazette Primary/Secondary Education Professional Greater Chicago Area Primary/Secondary Education Past SES Tutor at The Princeton Review Tutor at UNO Charter School Network Education DePaul University For [...]
Tags: The Blogger Himself
This new little Samsung is being a right pain, anyone help?
January 27th, 2012 · 46 Comments
OK, this is now solved, thanks to everyone who gave advice. I know have a useless 1 GB memory card and a 2GB in the machine, courtesy of the little shop around the corner. Fortunately, as is true all over the world, computer nerds speak English. So I’ve now 1 GB of free RAM with [...]
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Travelling Timmy
January 24th, 2012 · 10 Comments
Back in the ‘Ore Mountains, lookin’ fer slags. Today is the day to buy a desk and a chair! Woo Hoo! More typing when I don’t have to sit on the floor to do it.
Tags: The Blogger Himself
Calling Mr. Luke, Calling Mr. Luke
January 21st, 2012 · 15 Comments
I know this street very well. Used to work in one of the restaurants you can see up on the high pavement, at another just up the little alleyway there. Bought my flat from the estate agents you can see (upside down, when the altercation is going on) at the other end of the street. [...]
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Eastern Germany doesn’t have laundrettes
January 16th, 2012 · 18 Comments
This was something I found really rather odd in my recent trip to the ‘Ore Mountains. I did everything right of course, I’ve done this turn up in a new country and get organised thing before. You’ve no references, no contacts, no credit record, but you’ve got to find a flat, rent it, get the [...]
Tags: The Blogger Himself
Erm, technical help?
December 27th, 2011 · 9 Comments
What I want is to get the table on page 51 of this .pdf into a form that I can stick it in a blog post. Cut and paste doesn’t work, the formatting gets lost. Printing to a .prn file does something I know not what. So, err, how do I get Table 2 into [...]
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Merry Crimble and Bah Humbug to all!
December 25th, 2011 · 3 Comments
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Signs of technological advance
December 23rd, 2011 · 17 Comments
If you’ve got an old desktop computer with as little as 348MB of RAM, it could be fun and useful again with the help of Jolicloud. As little as 384 MB of RAM? Dang, I still recall the day my XT was upgraded to 640 kb.
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There’s an explanation for this
December 22nd, 2011 · 10 Comments
Let’s imagine that Etxebarria is, indeed, going to teach creative writing. What she’ll discover on her first day is that the students in her seminar room have very little interest in how much money they are likely to make from their published work. I teach on just such a course at UEA, and I can [...]
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Dear Lord George, Dear Lord
December 20th, 2011 · 10 Comments
Rightwing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but [...]
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So, do any UK retail chains do layaways?
December 17th, 2011 · 16 Comments
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Portuguese plumbing
December 16th, 2011 · 15 Comments
So, the wifie didn’t sleep well. Feeling a bit Meh. “I’m off for a deep hot bath. Maybe then I’ll feel like doing the housework”. “OK, although having the bath before the work is interesting….” An hour later. Wifie on sofa. “Didn’t the bath make you feel better?” “Yes, but how can I clean the [...]
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Would someone please hack my phone?
December 13th, 2011 · 2 Comments
Given that I’ve lost it somewhere, very rarely use it when I haven’t lost it and certainly don’t understand how to retrieve voicemails given that it’s all in Portuguese, it would actually be useful if someone would. Plus I cuold do with a couple of hundred grand. Promise not to leave my family for the [...]
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Oh my word, was Timmy right?
December 12th, 2011 · 3 Comments
The evidence coming from Mr. Mba on the Goldman Sachs, Harnett “deal“. Mr Hartnett is Britain’s leading taxman but faced a political storm in October when HMRC confirmed it struck a deal with Goldman on waiving interest of “smaller than £10m” on a £30m tax bill. The tax was on bankers’ bonuses paid through an [...]
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