Paul Nicholls

So when my car last broke (ok, crashed..) I had a tricky call to make. Spend £200 fixing it, hope its fixed enough to pass its next MOT and hope it stays fixed. Alternatively, I could get shot of it whilst it still had some value and take advantage of a momentary high point in my finances and buy a new car.

I made the wrong decision.

Today, at approximately 7:50 and whilst driving through the Medway Tunnel, the head gasket went. Now we can attempt to fix it ourselves, probably costing in the region of £100, or send it to a garage and get it fixed for around £1000… The car’s current value? About £50 for scrap.

I guess its time to learn how an engine works then.

Rob says I won’t remember this or blog it, so I will

Its day, errmmm, three - no four - of roadtrip and I’m in Manchester visiting Rob. He’s at a Bible College (!!!) studing theology and there are lots of scary (American) Christians around.

This evening we went to Wetherspoons, got a bit lost in Manchester (both on foot and in car), and are now back in his common room sharing music (slowly, grrr to battery power) whilst I check up on emails, forums, stats and the suchlike.

None of this is very exciting, but I’m proving a point.

My run in with a complete nutter….

It’s around 9:00, I’m in the car having just driven past the Beechings Way McDonalds heading towards Rainham when a car appears behind me and starts tailgating.

Now, I particularly dislike tailgating because to me its simply an attempt to bully and intimidate other road users. My policy is always the same - maintain (or lower speed to) the speed limit and stick to it. Then, if they want to go faster they can overtake, or they can lump driving at the legal limit. For me, the fact that Beechings Way is where I had my accident was all the more justification for driving at the limit.

Despite my sensible driving and there being ample opportunity to overtake the car behind me insists on remaining right behind me (I’m not exaggerating if I say I doubt there was more than a foot between us). The car swerves from side to side, flashes its lights, revs its engine, but still remains behind me.

That is, until about half way along the road. At this point the car decides to over take. Huzzah! Only, rather than then speeding off into the sunset, he decides to slam on his brakes (an all-too familiar experience on that road) and stop. What is going on? A rather large angry looking person emerges from the car and starts coming towards my car. Uh Oh. I reverse about 50m back up the street, but I’m painfully aware that a) my car doesn’t reverse all that fast and b) having broken into a jog, this bloke doesn’t look like he’s going to give up all that easily.

I spot a turning on the right another 20m or so behind me, and decide to back up and take it. Phew! I think great, I’ll just find another route through Tywdall and let this looney be on his merry way. No such luck, the road turns out to be a dead end. Not to worry, I’ll just park up for five minutes, collect my thoughts and move on. No such luck. A car appears at the entrance to the little close that I turned into. It drives a little way up then stops in the middle of the road (blocking it).

The same angry, burly bloke gets out of the car and marches over to me. Oh Shite. I keep my cool, he bangs on my window f’ing and cursing. “You got an ‘effin problem with me you ‘effin take it out here”…etc. I’ve already typed “999″ into my phone and had my finger on the dial button.

After a few minutes of ranting away the bloke realises I’m not going to rise to it, after some menacing expression and a failed attempt to break my window he returns to his car and disappears - leaving me somewhat shaken! I sit there for about ten minutes (in case he was laying in wait out on Beechings Way) then continue my journey…

Let’s set the scene; I’m sitting on a coach parked outside school at 8:00. I’m not just tired, I’m completely exhausted. After just two hours of sleep, and perhaps one too many drinks the night before, I’m drained both physically and mentally. I’m on this coach with all of the support staff from school (which, to generalise, consists of 25 middle aged/older ladies, two middle aged men, myself and Sam). Outside the weather is foreboding, it’s not raining yet but it looks like it won’t be long.

We set off without our team leader - he can’t make it for personal reasons - and are promptly informed that therefore the “teambuilding” aspect of the day is therefore cancelled. When asked whether anyone has any objections on returning later than originally planned, one voice pipes up “Actually yes, some of us have. This isn’t a booze cruise you know!” All eyes turn to the back. People start to mutter “well what are you here for then?”

At Dover we find our ferry has been delayed due to an emergency in Calais. It’s now throwing it down with rain and warning signs flash “Moderate to strong winds in the channel.” I’d anticipated last night that a lack of sleep combined with alcohol and a ferry ride might not have been the best thing, but sensibilities were swiftly forgotten as we moved from pub to pub.

We were now at sea; the Captain described the crossing conditions as “moderate to rough”. Four of us bee-lined for breakfast. Grease would settle my stomach and revive my body surely? Revive yes. Settle no. It was too much for Sam, who disappeared to the toilets after one mouthful. The rest of us ate it all, but even cast-iron-stomached Terry seemed to regret it later.

The rest of the day in Boulogne passed fairly eventlessly. We visited Nausicaa, the French National Sea Experience Centre but our scheduled “free-time” in the town was cut short due to the delayed ferry crossing. The rain didn’t let off all day, and we weren’t exactly “looking forward” to the ferry crossing home.

Despite the Captain forecasting the return ride as “Rather Rough” it did seem to pass better than the trip over. That might have been because no-one dared eat, and most of us kept to soft drinks. (Although it was noticeable which members of staff, or indeed groups of members of staff had spent their free time in bars, and which had not…)

So overall a pretty good day. I’m not sure the “teambuilding” was fully successful, but that was for a variety of reasons I won’t go into here. It did however bring a few of us closer together, and for me helped me to see a different side to a few people.

I got this today…

Hi, my name is …. and I’m PC Today’s collaborator.

PC Today is one of the best selling computer magazine in Spain and is published every two weeks. We have planned some special contents for our readers, and we’re planning to include a special CD with the best freeware and shareware programs available. This is a very special occasion for us, as we do not use to include software with our magazine. We rely solely on our editorial contents to sell the magazine and that makes this CD and its contents a unique giveaway.

We plan to include this CD in PC Today’s N.157, which will be on sale on the end of October. This CD will be enclosed with every PC Today’s N. 157 issue at no additional cost and the planned circulation is 65.000 issues. In that number we’ll also include some editorial pages explaining how to use some of the selected programs.

Since yours is one of the chosen applications, we’d like to get your permission so we can include iTunes2MSN in this CD.

I really really need to start making my software multilingual!
64,000 CDs with my software on? Wow, Really!? Wow!