Wednesday, January 27, 2010

BlogExplosion update

For those not involved with BlogExplosion sorry but this isn’t an interesting post.

A lot of us have been trying to get in touch with Live Universe who are the owners of blogexplosion. We’ve tried telephoning (not ringing), contact forms (no replies so far) and emails (no replies so far). We know from different sources that Live Universe haven’t been paying their employees either. If anyone still has the list of contacts we used last year to pester them please could you post them on the forums.

There is no one in charge of administration at the moment. The last administrator disappeared, possibly because he couldn’t get back into the system. There are still a few of us approving blogs. Unfortunately as I write we’re back to 6 weeks wait. 90% of the blogs in the queue shouldn’t be there anyway.

On behalf of those of us left approving please could anyone else who has access find a few minutes to approve 10 or so blogs from time to time. The more of us there are the easier it is all around. I know that a lot of you would like to help too, but we don't have a way to let you in to the system.

If you have time a word of support on the forums would be lovely. If anyone can think of how we can contact Live Universe we’d be grateful

To finish on a positive note, there are several members who have made it known that they’d like to buy BlogExplosion. Hopefully soon something will start to move again and the mess can be sorted out.

Monday, January 25, 2010

The nastiest kind of spam

This afternoon I received an email from a blogging friend that I’ve known for a long time. He often replies to my comments using his iPhone (to show off) so I’m used to hearing from his email address.

He said that he was in London, he’d been mugged and that the police and American embassy weren’t being very helpful. He was being kept at his hotel because of a very big bill so please would I send the money and he’d pay me back when he got home. Can you imagine how worried I was?

In this day and age money can be transferred from any where in the world almost instantly, so it seemed strange that he should ask me for a loan. He doesn’t sign his emails with his full name either. So I emailed his wife just to check and she confirmed that they’d been hacked.

Well Mr Hacker you just hacked a very good lawyer with three savage dogs. His wife is pretty handy with her cane when she gets cross, so watch out.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Good Morning England The Boat That Rocked

I haven’t seen it yet. Dom gave me the DVD for Christmas telling Rob that he wouldn’t like the film (he was only 7 at the time). I’ve got to save it for when he’s not around one evening.

Olivier came home yesterday and spotted that I’d got the DVD and was telling me what a great film it was and did I listen to Radio Caroline and all that….

I use to listen to Radio Luxemburg most evenings between fade outs. Do you remember Tony Prince and Kid Jensen? When I discovered that there was a regular magazine FAB 208 I quickly became a regular reader. I remember it changed quite a bit during the period I read it. Does anyone remember Mandy’s Diaries? Then there was a short story in every issue. They included some flower girl pictures (just for our bedroom walls), over a month I think it was, one for every season. I kept one of them (the one with the blue flower girl) for years. I divided it into squares so that I could copy it – I never did. Not forgetting pics of our favourite stars (I had a lot of pinholes in my bedroom wall), especially The Monkees.

Did I listen to Radio Caroline and all that? Yes I did.

I just found this complete with jingles and lots of info on Radio Luxemburg 208

Friday, January 15, 2010

Where was I?

As in “What was I talking about?”

Not a lot. Family routine continues and I’m adjusting very well to not having anyone around, except for Rob, of course. Most of the day I’m working and into the evenings sometimes as well. I supervised one continuous assessment exam last week which is not the same as a real exam. I didn’t even have to sort the papers into alphabetical order! See how exciting life is at the moment.

My problem is I need a touch of spring, something nice to happen... In the meantime something that did lift my spirits this morning were the photographs of an eagle on Kimberley’s photatas, well worth a look.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Cold and...

It’s still very cold today but not as cold as some places. Rob went off to work on his bike this morning. I’m having the car so that I can take Olivier to his lift back to Poitiers. I’ll be on well used main roads, most roads are dry now with a bit of ice in quiet places where the sun doesn’t warm. Rob left this morning asking me to keep him informed setting off, arriving home etc…

When he set off he had on his shiny top, flashing red light and flashing front light, he was going to stay on the main roads as they are clear in that direction. The other day a car pulled up by him at the lights and the driver congratulated him on being so visible. Around nine thirty I sent him a message asking if he’d arrived safely (just so that he knows how annoying it is). Apparently, this morning a band of youngsters in a white car hit him on the head as they drove past. This was quite close to the 24/24 MacDonald’s so we must assume that they were still drunk from last night. Rob was a little shaken, but unharmed. He told me that one of his colleagues has broken some fingers. He went to help some people in a car that had skidded into some water and got his hand stuck. Nice start to the day… not.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Another one blogging about snow

Exceptionally, I’ve got two mornings of exam supervision this week. I can’t get there this morning because of the snow. Snow is forecast for tomorrow morning too. Looking out of the window I see the tracks of one car on the road. Everyone is taking the advice to stay indoors it seems.

Officially it never snows in La Rochelle. When we built the house the roof was left unlined - because it never snows. The first winter we had a lot of snow which collected inside the roof space. We couldn’t remove it because it was lying on top of the insulation. We just waited for it to melt. We have snow every four years. In the late 80s new houses had lining inside the roof to keep out the snow.

We had a lovely Christmas and a very quiet New Year. We watched DVD’s of ‘Yes Minister’ and remembered to save a glass of fizzy wine to toast the new year in and then straight to bed. Olivier disappeared for 2 days. They had a party up the road at his friend’s house. At least I didn’t have to worry about him getting from A to B. He had splashes of red wine on his white sweater, apparently someone threw a glass of wine at him. Fortunately they were too drunk to do too much damage. I got the stains out with my beloved washing up liquid.

Happy New Year to everyone. I like the shape of 2010 written down. A good omen.