22 Jan 2007

Another Crazy week ahead


Well readers have just read melanies blog and was very impressed, when I remember how will add her blog to my links


Today saw Gp who tells me I have to go on a bland diet until I solve certain problems out, also I have bruised my bottom so need to be careful how long I sit & what type of seat I use, what is going to go wrong next.


Had an assessment because of the problems I have typing on my computer, the result is I now need a new computer at work plus extra software & training, if it works should make life easier if not, it could create problems, maybe restrict my blogging, ( who said thank you)


I have now informed most people of my change to my party sadly some do not want to dress up, so I am hoping others will try even harder.


It is the fundraising concert this week, I hope we get a good turnout but I feel it will be a good show. I f any of you readers are willing to buy a ticket, it really would be appreciated although I do accept that Zorro Hamster & my readers in New Zealand will have a long way to come for an afternoons entertainment.


You mat remember that Scarlett Angel posted a comment last year, well i went to see if she had put anything else on but she has disappearred sadly, it seems a shame hers was a good read, maybe I will have to put something else on to do with Ken Dodd.


Well I am getting tired now in particular after reading about Melanies adventures so will go and relax and watch Celebrity Big Brother for an hour or so to wound down before going to bed

15 Jan 2007

The Tospsy Turvy Path of the Plans for My 60th

Well everthing was going so well then my son rang to say problem because grand daughter has exams on day of party she is sitting exams until 4.30 that day.

Rang venue, sighs of relief they can change the date, now only have to contact everyone to inform them of date, by e mail phone & letter. In case any of you are reading this the new date is 22 January at the same time and venue.

One or two people are now saying that they are bit uncomfortable about fancy dress, so I do not want them unhappy, so I am trying to think of fancy dress that is modern that they will not seem out of place with, if any of my readers have ideas please let me know.

Someone has already pinched my idea for my costume, so will have to have another think, plus 2 sets of people have now asked about where they can change, why did I not think about that, further work to solve that one.

Sadly 3 sets of people have said they cannot come which will be a shame, so will now have to decide who else to invite or drop the numbers

An Update from Zorro

N is , I suppose , from what we would call a middle class family. She's the 15 yr old daughter of my friends R y A. Girls that age go out chaparoned and are never left alone , even in the house, with a male , except members of the family. I am slightly different in that I am foreign and the mother always tells her friends " Señor Zorro es un verdad Caballero Ingles" - A true english gentleman!!!! I wish!15yrs is the most important day for a girl here ¨¨18yrs for the boys. So Big party and the girl has a expensive made to measure white gown. It´s a contradiction here that young girls are so well protected or restricted if you like, yet women of all ages wear very revealing, plunging necklines and although some do wear quite short skirts the fashion is for very tight jeans or trousers.

From last year I have called N my sobrina and she calls me Tio alan. She is my niece and I am her uncle. So N & I CAN go off to the shopping mall for a dress, as a present from me, alone .....as long as I report to mama any male her daughter speaks to even to ask the time.. Not for the birthday party this is just a pressie. I am writing this just to describe the reaction of different people to us being out together.

The odd male American tourist looks at me with part envy and part God! He must be rich!
The young American women here working with the peace corp look at me with loathing .Despoiling a young girl. Taking advantage of poverty.

The Paraguayans on the other hand will say something along the lines of ...... your buying a present for your daughter.
No it is my niece.
Ah,you are a favourite uncle.You are very lucky.My daughters are 13 &11 years.
You then have to sympathise on how expensive it will be.

Goes without saying the dress is a strapless, ankle length that hugs the figure and all the shop assistants ask ME if I like it.

4 Jan 2007

Happy New year to All My Readers

4 January 2006

Well a happy new year to all our readers, at long last I am back in England after my trip to Ireland with my family after the Christmas period.

It was interesting and a quite different Christmas but I must say I was made very welcome.

When we went to the shops it was almost the same as being back home apart from the fact everything was priced in euros and was more expensive than back home.

The other interesting thing was that there were many East European accents in shopping centres which shows how the culture of southern Ireland is changing.

The highlight of my trip was on New Year's Eve when the family welcomed the new year in, in their own personal style and I think I will remember for the rest my life.

I was quite surprised being a Tog that when I was discussing my favourite subject of the moment namely Bloggs that none of the family really knew much about them including the young teenagers.

This was the perfect opportunity to tell them all about my Blog and the world of Blogging. My granddaughter told me that she has a web site for young people and has friends who she communicates with, in particular at 15 -year-old young man.

Sadly I had to explain to her and her sister that she needs to be very aware not to disclose too much information about herself or family because there is no guarantee that people are who they profess to be.

A good example of this in case you had not realised is that I am not realy called Francis The Fearless neither does my personality reflect my name

They were quite surprised at this and could not believe that people told lies on the Internet, in one respect we could say this is a good thing in that there are still children who are innocent and naive, but at the same time it makes us more aware of the fact that children are vulnerable to predatory people on the Internet because they are still to trusting.

Well finally on a lighter note Zorro suggested once again that I start a new Blog around adventures that we have had in the past for the benefit of you readers out there so wait for the next exciting announcement.

21 Dec 2006

Happy Christmas to all my Readers

21 December 2006

Well hello all you kind people who have been following my blog over the last couple of months

Happy for me I am off to see my family in Ireland tomorrow, so will then spend the christmas period with my son and his family, as well as new years eve, then return home the following day.

This is of course subject to the fog at Manchester airport lifting before then, although I was suddenly reminded earlier today that this year when the security alert started on that fateful day I travelled to Ireland with only my papers wallet & the clothes I was dressed in. Lets hope that I am lucky again and manage to get there.

16 Dec 2006

How to Use the Bus by Zorro

Well Zorro has struck again

He has sent from half way round the world this latest missive to help you travellers understand some of the pleasurers of being out there, when all we have to worry about is will it snow for christmas


There being no bus stops all you need to do is look for shade. Normally that is where you & any others will wait for the bus.
Now the hard part.When the bus stops( I use the term "stop" loosely) try to be the first on. It´s real bad luck if you are the only one waiting.The bus has three steep steps. The third step there is a turnstile!!! I am not making this up - this is what the driver does.Assuming you are the only one boarding he will only slow down. You have to grab the handles at the side of the first step and climb into the bus. There is much jolting and lurching that throws you off balance. This is because , apart form the bad roads, the driver is driving and trying to change gear, giving you your ticket and change, and has his cup of terére in another hand.Having got ticket you can negotiate the turnstile.Not good for me as I always have a day pack with me. Any poor soul ( normally me!!) is hanging on the second or first step.All buses get vendors selling Coca Cola, hair clips, batteries, sweets, bread, bananas, oranges, pineapples, etc this is not an exhaustive list . Those with nothing to sell sing or more entertaining tell you about finding god. These vendors do NOT pay bus fare. they climb over the turnstile complete with a dozen bottles of Coca cola etc. As they don´t pay a fare they wait till all the farepaying passengers are on board. This means very often they are running alside the bus while there are two or three on the steps waiting to pay and get through the stile!!! Incidentally young children up about 10 yrs old don´t not pay as long as they climb over or throught the stile.This applies to babes in arms!!

You are now through the stile and trying to keep your balance.You look carefully at the passengers. Where are most sat? Where most are will be the shady and coolest part of the bus. All these seats are taken before those on the sunny side.If there are any spare seats do NOT make a beeline for them. Are the seats over the wheel arches? If so there is no room for your feet. Very uncomfortable on long journey. If there are not near wheel arches examine very carefully. Usually it means the seat in broken and will collapse under your weight. On a journey of half hour or more you will move from a seat in the sun to one in the shade to one near the exit if you are lucky.

Once sat down you can enjoy listening to the venders spiel, feeling the cooling breeze from the open windows. There is always a breeze as the drivers make schumaker look pedestrian.Apart from the violent lurching life is great.

The moment you have dreaded. Time to get off. The bus will stop where ever you want. At traffic lights, in the middle of the road, anywhere. But how do you tell the driver? For you must exit at the rear of the bus. If you are very lucky it will be a bus that only has a turnstile at the front end. That bit of string ( really!!) that is on the roof, always on the right hand side is what you pull. If no string or string is broken there is usually a small button hidden near the rear door.If there are none of these then stand near the door. And wait!

Unfortunately, if you are the only one getting off then you have to get off while the bus is still moving. The kind driver has slowed down to walking pace.Buses are incredibly cheap but are not for the faint hearted!!

15 Dec 2006

Zorros Adventures in Bogata

¡Hola !
You ask what is it like? Awful & dangerous!!!!!! Obviously when travelling independently I have to choose my own hotels.The internet sites They are like house adverts - they never show they are near the steel works or sewerage farm. my hotel was in a very safe neigbourhood, the people there were nice ( on the whole) but nothing worked.

Turning on some of the lights seemed very dangerous!!! The doors on the rooms made me feel that I couldn´t unpack my case and kept it locked at all times. My safe neighbourhood was not near any tourist haunts.

My hotel had lots of colombian tourists , so you can tell it was cheap. 99 pounds for a weeks bed/b.fast, beer, laundry, internet. Taxis I have never found so cheap or as honest as here. But there is a problema. My hotel phones for a safe cab but how do you get back? Everyone drills it into you don´t take a cab on the streets. Using taxis all the time ( buses here are brand new, the roads are great but they are dangerous for robbery Some have been held up!) I got to know the direction of my hotel.

One day I was going to their famous gold museum and I noticed the cab was going towards the mountains - not the city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very calmly ( well alright, controlled hysteria ) , I said "This isnt the normal way is it?" The driver , who looked like an film extra who ALWAYS played the cruel Mexican bandit, gave me this smile and said" I am turning left now, señor", which I knew was the right way. You have to be so careful here.

Now I know you will read this the wrong way but nonetheless is true. Within three hours of arrival at my hotel I had a 23year old girlfriend. She was really helpful & taught me a lot (NO! not that!). The woman was a recepcionista at the hotel and spoke no english. SHE paid for the taxis when we went out sightseeing, paid for coffee or a coke ( the drink not the white stuff), always warning me not to get money from my pocket. " You are always showing too much money" she would tell me. She never accepted a share of the fare/bill. Wages are not high here so if there was a scam it didnt cost me anything!!!!!

It is only 2 years since the army was fighting guerillas here in the capital so security is tight. Your bag is X rayed and you have a body search at any shopping mall. At the aeroport on arrival you are body searched by the customs then further along by the police and lastly before exit by the army.There are sniffer dogs all over the aeroport!!! I suspect this is to stop private enterprise rather than to stop smuggling as there were kilos of the white stuff discovered on the national airline, Avianca, when it landed in Madrid some months ago. Found, of course, in the diplomatic pouch no less.

The altitude makes me feel tired by 3 in the afternoon and I can´t wait to get away from here. I been to Avianca´s office this morning to change my ticket to the first available flight.
The weather is T shirt warm during the day but cold at night.On my second day I was caught in a deluge. Stepping off the pavement to cross the road I fell into a foot deep hole and got very wet. Still it wouldn´t be a South American holiday for me if I didn´t do that and twist an ankle. I´ve added that to my bout of sciatica with is probably from my heavy suitcases.

The above is a true account of Zorros adventure since he left the UK, with his permission, I will keep you up to date with any further adventures that he informs me of

10 Dec 2006

How do people get a blog viewed by others

After my previous discussion on blogs & how & why we view them it has been suggested that putting in words that may draw peoples attention, when they search for a chosen subject, may actually work better than the actual content, so i am going to try this with this latest posting for a week, please feel free to leave suitable comments on the idea

I have decided to put in words that friends have suggested such as Ken Dodd which worked last time, Cyclops for those interested in greek mythology, terry wogan & Mr Blobby my heros & my favourite singers at present Nat King Cole Katie Melua Neil Diamond

Because I am interested in photography in particular sunrises & sunsets, which my readers seem to like are included.

My interest in disability issues may also be something which people may be interested in, in particular issues relating to problems of carers of people

Well this will do for a start I will see how I go on in the course of the week and report back adding other words as the week goes on

156 December 2006

This week I have been full of a virus, and am just starting to come round again, so I am a little disapointed that so far the post has not attracted any more viewers.
Possibly another range of interests may draw some more readers, such as the fact I am going to try to read Eric Sykes autobiography over the xmas holidays between all the festivities.

When I visit my family in County Meath, they will hopefully of bought the new version of Buzz, which is an interactive game, on pop music which sadly I never seemed to win last year, apart from when grand daughters & friends who are teenagers helped by pressing my remote because their reactions are quicker than mine.

I suppose I could mention a range of musicals but having done that in a previous post, I suppose it is not worth the time spent typing at present. I could mention some of the artists I worked with in nightclubs when I was young such as Gene Pitney, who had a truelly original voice not changed by amplification & sound effects, another who I am facinated by is Tony Christie who was at his peak, when I had a week listening to him doing sound & lighting back in the 70s. Now thanks to Peter Kay he is back again with the same songs hitting the top spot again.

Other acts that I did the the sound & lighting for back at that time included, The Three Degrees, The Barron Knights,The Grumbleweeds, Matt Monro, & Vince Hill. It was at the time of the Comedians so I had the pleasure of watching Charlie Williams the interesting act of Bernard Manning as well as the rest of their circuit (sadly some names are stuck in my head)

Since my last entry, one of my faithful readers has given me permission to reproduce his e mail showing that even when people such as me are thinking its all right for those who can go abroad for months at a time when the rest of us are shivering in the cold, all is not sweetness & light for them over there, I am so impressed that I have decided to provide a new post just for the tale

So please go to Zorros adventures in Bogata for a fun read

Plans for my 60th birthday at last


I have decided that now is a good time to start telling you about how the plans are going for my 60th birthday in 2007.

For those of you who have been eagerly awaiting this latest episode in my life, here we go.

Well I have sorted out the type of event which is to be fancy dress and the theme is to be musicals.

The next task was to decide a suitable costume, which those of you who have read my blog in detail will remember that I finally decided on a couple of ideas which I hope will work out but so as not to spoil the surprise I will keep secret until the day.

Some of you readers will already have been invited to the event, although I have not yet confirmed the date or venue, which I am hoping to do provisionally with your Christmas cards so you will have no excuse for saying I did not give enough notice.

The venue has been the main dilemma because some of my guests have mobility difficulties, one cannot cope with lifts and everybody has been giving me lots of places that may be suitable.

Well I decided on Radcliffe Civic suite, which was close to most of my guests, decided the price was okay and the facilities fitted my needs, so last week went to book, but was told one room was too big, and guess what the other was to small.

I then tried a range of other venues with little success but now feel at long last I have found the right venue, on a date close enough to my birthday. The only problems now are paying, and sorting out equipment that has to be passed as electrically safe for the disc jockey to use.

I will now have to start sorting out my costume, first to see if I can hire it, have it made, or find something not quite so different or original.

15 December 2006

Great news I have sorted out the venue and date, the provisional invitations have gone out and the deposit is paid at long last.

1 Dec 2006

Another exciting week in the life of a tog


1 December 2006


Good morning all you readers, after that last serious blog I will now return to my usual but unpredictable life adventures, hope you like the photo of sunrise from my bedroom.

According to research it appears that many people give up on their blog quite quickly, one of the reasons being lack of interest by others in the blog, because people are not aware of what a brilliant blog it is. (sorry felt had to say that)

Therefore please readers carry on reading, pass my details on to friends, continue complimenting me on my photos, so long as its true, and a special thankyou to friends in New Zealand Mike Jan Rachel & Abigail (thanks for the card) , Hamster, Amo, Brian, Alan (wherever you are) & Andy

If you have been following my journey you will remember that I have been struggling to resolve issues regarding my insurance claim as well as my neighbours claim.

Well good news for my neighbour finally her TV arrived and even I was impressed with the quality of the set as well as how easy it is to operate. She wanted to tell everybody about it until I reminded her that others may try to steal it because of the world we live in.

For me finally my replacement sound system arrived on Tuesday and I spent 2 hours setting it up, after removing the other system and its 5 speakers, by the way I now have in my home 11 speakers, plus the 5 that came with this system ( if anyone has ideas of what to do with them let me know).

Sadly the system would not work so contacted the supplier, they now want to replace the whole system including the speakers, so guess what I then had to put it all back in the boxes, so today another replacement arrives. So that’s another 2 hours spent, but finally maybe I can listen to a tape or CD , in splendid surround sound .

My car went for its MOT on Tuesday as well, again bad news it failed so I had to pay for a rusty brake pipe to be replaced, total cost £100, which will make a hole in xmas plans.

On a more interesting note at our team meeting 3 of the staff did a talk on Islam, which as well as being very interesting, answered some of the questions we are usually to embarrassed to ask and was a reminder that if we can be more tolerant as well as starting to understand other cultures and religions we can live and work together peacefully.