The Anonymous Widower

A Property Developer With A Good Sense of Humour

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:47:34 +0000

The Times today reports that property developer, Peter Beckwith is going to build a large data centre called MK Data Vault on a site once owned by Robert Maxwell in Milton Keynes. He has invited Mirror Group pensioners, who had their pensions stolen by Maxwell’s greed to attend the demolition.

Newt Gingrich Faces His Biggest Fight

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:28:44 +0000

Newt Gingrich seems to have one of the biggest requirements for a Republican Presidential Candidate; stupidity.

According to this piece in the Guardian , he has now started to use Eye of the Tiger, the theme song from Rocky III as his campaign song. But Newt didn’t ask permission from the copyright holder.

I suppose Newt could fight Sylvester Stallone for the right to use it. Now that would be a fight worth seeing, but it would be rather pointless, as I think Sly doesn’t actually own the rights.

So helpful Guardian readers have provided some suitable alternatives for Newt.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E

Space Oddity

Frontier Psychiatrist

Tragedy

When Two Fools Collide

Stupid White Men

You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly

Etc. Etc.

But the two I like are Born to Lose by Ray Charles and Go Now by The Moody Blues.

What Have Fred Goodwin, Allen Stanford and Robert Mugabe Got In Common?

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:49:36 +0000

They all have lost their knighthoods, although Mugabe’s was honorary. But they would make a wonderfully well-matched set of dinner party companions!

But count your fingers after they’ve left.

One ruined the currency of one of the richer countries in the developing world, another stole virtually all the cash in a series of islands and the third helped to create a banking crisis that affected much of Northern Europe.

The Americans Don’t Have A Sense of Humour

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:59:52 +0000

It’s all here.

I rest my case!

Now we have even more reasons to not visit the Land of the Hi-tech Death Penalty!

The Elsenham Level Crossing

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:49:41 +0000

NetworkRail has pleaded guilty to causing the death of two girls at the Elsenham level crossing in Essex.

There is now an immense footbridge there, so you don’t have to walk over the level crossing. It would be a difficult climb for someone like me at 64 with a dodgy heart valve. So does everybody use it? Sometimes level crossings with proper warning systems are much better for most people, except the stupid and impulsive. At a similar level crossing at Foxton, pedestrian access across the tracks is controlled by locks on the gates controlled by the signalling system. That system has been at Foxton for years, so why wasn’t it installed Elsenham?

Further north, just south of Newmarket there is a level crossing on the Ipswich to Cambridge line at Six Mile Bottom. It is on a long straight road with a thirty miles per hour limit and the crossing has barriers and flashing lights. But it still manages to have had a couple of cars hit trains in the last twenty years.

My view has always been that all level crossings should be eliminated on railways, as they have always been a major place for tragic accidents. And also for suicides, as at Ufton Nervet, where several people died. But to eliminate some level crossings, like say the one at Six Mile Bottom would cost several million pounds.

A Crap Cheap Lock

AnonW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:36:56 +0000

My second bedroom was fitted with a lock by Gerry, but I never received the keys when I bought the house.

So as I might be renting the room out during the Olympics, I felt it might not be a bad idea fit a new lock. I easily removed the faceplace from the lock to get at the screws that held it into the door and managed to price the lock from the door without much effort.

But when I came to fit the new lock, that I’d bought for ten pounds or so, I couldn’t get the faceplate off, as when it had been assembled one of the screwed had been jammed in at an angle. in the end I completely stripped the cross head of the strew, due to the large amount of plastic in whatever metal it was.

A Cheap Crap Lock

So as the picture shows, I will now have to buy a new lock again, just because the one I bought was so crap. The faceplate bent, whilst I was seeing if I could use a bit of brute force and ignorance to free the screw.

Bob Diamond Has Kept Quiet

AnonW — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:42:19 +0000

In all the pontifications about Stephen Hester of RBS, I can’t find anything that Bob Diamond of Barclays has said.

Perhaps he’s just being sensible or he has not responded to any journalist, who’s asked what he thinks!

could it be a pointer to something? Or if he says nothing, then he won’t have to refute what he said or change his mind.

Under The New Roof at Kings Cross

AnonW — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:17:54 +0000

I popped into Kings Cross today and took these pictures of the new roof over the Western Extension to the station.

Note that a poster says it will open in March 2012.

I didn’t show the most disgusting part of the new station; the smokers surrounding the entrance to the area.

Is Bob Crow Going to the Olympics?

AnonW — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:18:07 +0000

I suspect that if he does go, he won’t be too popular after holding the organisers to ransom over extra payments to his members.

Unless of course Ken wins the London Mayor election and he’ll be a guest of honour, along with a lot of other strange people.

London Bus Myths

AnonW — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:04:04 +0000

When we were kids, there was always a story or myth about a particular London bus route, that ever since one got a direct hit from a German bomb has gone in convoy. I know 38s, seem to run in threes, but I don’t think it was that route.

The myth round here is that 4s have a take your own line approach to getting from one end of their route to the other. This was illustrated today as I saw a 4 going towards the Islington Angel on the Essex Road. I did find thought when I got home, that there had been a traffic accident.

There must be many more myths.