This sign now sits where I used to park my bike at work.

Canary Wharf have removed virtually all of the free motorcycle parking areas around the Wharf due to their desire to build on every available inch of land.

First of all the areas at each end of Ontario Way went so the power station there could be enlarged. They set up a temporary bike parking area under Westferry Circus.

This was the temporary bike parking area. It was very temporary it lasted three weeks.

After they put up the signs I parked here for a couple of days. Until I found a "parking enforcement warning notice" stuck on my bike.

This is the one remaining free bike parking area. It is now rammed with bikes and scooters.I thinks it's days are numbered aswell.

My Sv650s, looking a bit sorry for itself lately.

It is highly likely that having to pay for parking will mean getting rid of the bike :-(

The Riverside developement that caused all this.

I took this picture because they dug a big hole and appear to have uncovered a wall!

This is where I park now. Well technically in the carpark underneath.

WTF?

I have been paying to park for a few weeks now and unfortunately the bike will have to go. This may seem a bit harsh and I'm quite sad about it but it was inevitable as we are in need of a second car and the fact that there is a possibility of a job role change for me later in the year which would mean not being able to use the bike for work.

I have been commuting by bike for 20 years and what has upset me the most is that I'm being forced into giving it up by a money hungry corporate real estate company.

Long time no see.

Back in October I wrote about an old friend finding this blog and contacting me, well Mark is in the UK for a couple of weeks and we met up for the first time in 10 years last week for a beer or three.
Recalling the stories and our lives from the past was great, we chatted about our sadly departed friend Bryon. On Monday we visited our old Kung Fu club. I actually trained for the first time in years and it didn't kill me, a fact I was surprised at.
It was a bit of an old boys club reunion as a few other faces from the past turned up aswell and Mark and I accompanied by another face from the past, Richard (who has got his whole family interested in martial arts now and they've travelled the world for their son to compete), went to a pub in Romford market place where we met up with Bryons daughter and her friend.
I'm hoping to go to another training session on sunday with Mark before he returns to singapore on tuesday. If I can go I'll try to get some photos.

Shit happens

Car issues 1: knocking
we have had a bit of a knocking noise from the steering in our Ford Galaxy when turning the wheel hard. Bazza (who used to be an AA and RAC patrolman before he joined the glamorous world of photocopier repair) told me its the CV joints that need replacing. I got the following quotes
Ford main dealer £ 726 for both sides, couldn't do it until around the end of this week.

Delacourts garage, Blackheath (no where near me but highly recommended family business) £331 for both sides, couldn't do it until 18th april.

Nationwide Autocentre (recommended by the AA) £200 all in for both sides and they could do the job on good friday.

£200? seemed a bit cheap to me but they could do the job before the week end and the car was now undriveable so in it went.
Then the problems started,
"we can't get the old joint off"
"we got the wrong part, but there's another on the way"
"the other part is wrong aswell and all the suppliers are closed now for Easter"
We were meant to get the car back on friday and as off saturday it still wasn't done and wouldn't be untill tuesday. Knowing that the cost will have gone up now owing to all the hardship they have had I asked what the cost would be now?
"currently £454" and they hadn't started the second side yet.
"£454 FUCKING HELL! that's a bit different from the £200 I was quoted"
"oh yeah well, Fords you know, expensive etc etc blah blah"
Tuesday morning. " the (3rd lot of) parts I got from Fords were wrong aswell but I've got the right ones on their way"
"I'm a bit concerned about the cost (understatement of the week)" I asked.
"when I get the parts and I know the price I'll break it all down and do the best I can for you"
Tuesday afternoon. "I've got the parts and we are fitting them this afternoon"
"so it won't be ready today then?"
"er, no. but as a good will gesture because we have had the car for so long I'll knock off an hours labour and charge the parts at cost so that'll be a total of £354"
Well, given that I knew £200 had to be wrong, £354 is not bad (half the price of the Ford dealer) and all the hassle with parts wasn't their fault, shit happens so I'm happy with that. The fact that the garage made a concession and knocked money off without me neeeding to complain is a sign of good service. Well done Nationwide Autocentre, Romford.
As I type this I still haven't got the car back though, but I'm assured it will be ready for me to collect when I finish work today.

Car issues 2: The MOT is due in a month. It definitely needs 2 front tyres (around £150 from Costco) I really hope it doesn't need anything else as all this car expense is seriously eating into my new bathroom fund.

Car issues 3: This is the real pisser. Last week when Wifey was at work some dirty little-hoody wearing-low life-chav-scumbag keyed the car. Yes the little toerag ran a key the whole way around it. Every panel except the drivers door is scratched. A moments boredom for a chav has caused thousands of pounds of damage to my car.
If I had a fancy Porsche or something you could say it's jealousy but a people carrier with child seats in it? The unpleasantness I wish to visit upon the perpetrator is immense.

Space Rhinos on the moon

Oh yes! Doctor Who is back.
Great opening episode and the new assistant is smart, sassy and very hot!. Don't get me wrong Billie Piper is a babe but I struggle with the blond hair and brown bushy eyebrows look.
Also I finally managed to watch the final episode of Primeval, the time travelling dinosaur show that featured Hannah Spearit (from Sclub 7) in her pants nearly every week. A very good ending, with neat twist, this series got better every week.

2007 Budget summary.

you are worse off.

No comment!

seeing as some people, including are me, are having trouble leaving comments I have turned on the Blogger comments. We'll see how it goes.

"HELLO, I'M IN THE CAR DOING 120 ON THE M4"

Last week the fine for being caught using a handheld mobile phone whilst driving you would be doubled to £60 and you would get three points on your licence. If you get 12 points you are automatically disqualified from driving. Using a mobile when driving has been illegal since 2003 but has stopped just about no one.

This is one of those laws that should never exist, it should not be necessary to make a law to stop something that no one with half a brain would do. It is also one those laws that is very hard to enforce due to the lack of police on the roads and the reliance on cameras to do the police's work. Fortunately the papers have been publishing pictures of drivers flouting the law on the first day. This is good, naming and shaming will do more to stop it than just increasing the fine.

Using a hand held mobile phone when driving is stupid and dangerous, I know because everyday I have to dodge idiots on the phone who change lanes without looking or who just drift about instead of going in a straight line. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of people who drive dangerously without the help of a mobile.

Ask yourself, is that call worth dying for? is that call worth killing for?, people who do this are putting themselves and others at great risk for no good reason.

Anyone who uses a handheld mobile while driving is stupid, if you do this then you are stupid. End of.

Pearls of wisdom from my Dads desktop calendar #2

Preschool children asked about the difference between mums and dads;

"mums work at work and at home, dads just work at work"

"mums know how to talk to teachers and dads don't"

and my personal favourite which is certainly true in my house,

"dads are taller but mums have more power"

Lots going on at the moment, Big'un will make his first communion this year which will involve having a small party at Chez Mick so there is loads of work to done (and finished ) on the house.
Not being Catholic myself I don't really understand what this communion business is about, but fortunately the school is providing parents meetings to help me. Thanks.

Big'un and Little'un both had Kung Fu gradings on saturday. It was Little'uns first one and Wifey took him but forgot the camera (which normally my job, forgetting it that is, aswell as not making sure the battery is charged or that there is any room on the card) He did ok and has settled down a bit now during the classes as he was a bit disruptive at first but he is only 4 and 3/4. I took big'un to his grading which was much later and he did better than last time and I think he will pass with no problems. They both get the results in a week or so.

I stared at him in disbelief, with a disgusted look on my face...


...as the dirty, inconsiderate fecker leaned with one hand on the coffee machine and looked at his reflection in the front of it, whilst in his other hand he held his battery powered shaver. He was having a shave, in the coffee point, leaning against the machine that was in the process of making me a well deserved cup of hot chocolate. I cannot rightly comprehend why someone would shave in an area used for food and drink preparation when there is a toilet about 10 seconds walk away. He had to move so I could retrieve my now probably whiskery drink, I put a lid on it, walked back into the printroom and binned it.

That's amore

So it's Valentines day, the in-laws are having all three boys for the night and me and Wifey will be on our own. What have we got planned? well first of all Wifey wants to go and see some awful Chick Flick starring Huge Grunt, surely there must be some violent zombie/vampire/martial arts film on that she'd rather see? Oh well then we might get in a bit of food or a swift pint then back to Chez Mick where, although the will be no kids to interupt the flow of love, there will be the bloody cat! That pesky pussy spent the whole of last night sleeping on my bloody legs. Seeing as he's built like Garfield it wasn't very comfortable. And there will be no kids to come into the room during the night and no kids to wake me up early but there will be the bloody cat scratching at the side of the bed at 05:30 meowing pathetically as if to say "feed me, I'm starving, I haven't eaten for hours, look at me I'm wasting away, get up and give me food you lazy good for nothing adoptive owner"

This is my back garden at 06:00 this morning.

I think I'll go by train today, it looks a bit cold for the bike.

Let's celebrate !
Because according to my "Dads Desktop Calendar" that I got for Christmas, today is Waitangi Day.
If you live outside of New Zealand or are not a Kiwi, or are not familiar with New Zealand history then this fact will probably have escaped you (as it did me until I tore off yesterday's page from the calendar).

Anyway a quick browse to Wikipedia turned up this;

Waitangi Day is the national day of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on February 6 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, on that date in 1840.

There is a vague possiblity of more informative nuggets of information forthcoming from my "Dads Desktop Calendar". So beware.

Oh YES!

Santa is running a bit late but he should be delivering this beauty to chez Mick on monday.

Big Brother and Media Control

Earlier this week on "celebrity" big brother, Jack something or other (he is "famous" for being Jade Goody's boyfriend, Jade is "famous" for being on big Brother) was thought to have called Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty "a fucking P@ki" in a whispered conversation to Jade. 200 people phoned channel 4 and complained after the show was broadcast. The next day it was reported in the media, the following day 10,000 people complained. Now either these extra 9,800 people were so shocked that they couldn't pick up the phone or they were jumping on the bandwagon of what they correctly sensed would turn into a major issue that has been blown out of all proportion by the media's constant reporting of it.
Channel 4 stated that they have carefully listened to the tapes and what he actually called her was "fucking c*nt". Phew! that's all right then.
The arguments and tension in the Big Brother house have increased and Jade and her gang have been bullying Shilpa relentlessly. The media has been highlighting the racist elements of the bullying, labelling all involved as out and out racists. Now I have watched most of BB (sad, I know) but, excuse the pun, racism is not a black and white issue it comes in many forms and can blatant or very subtle and frequently innocous comments are falsely labelled as racist.
What is going on in BB is out and out bullying carried out by one person and supported by two others who have latched on to Jade Goody. Undeniably there have racial elements to some of their comments but they have not been bullying Shilpa because she is Indian, they have been doing it because she is classier, prettier, more successful, and all round better than they are and pure and simply they feel threatened and are jealous.
After an outbust by Jade directed at Shilpa in which she called Shilpa " a fucking loser" Shilpa said to the other housemates "I'm representing my country here, is that what the UK is like now?" Yes Shilpa, sadly it is.

In the meantime here is a picture of Jade, enjoy

What's new pussycat?

Things (as always) have been pretty hectic at Chez Mick lately.
Big'un is very busy with activities, he has french on Mondays, Kung Fu (sometimes) on Tuesdays, cubs on Thursdays, football on Fridays and swimming and Kung Fu on Saturday morning and he is now in year three at school and will make his first communion so he has "communion classes" every few Sundays. Phew!. Little'un has started Kung fu now at age 4 and 3/4 and he is very enthusiastic at classes but not always about doing Kung Fu. He likes to punctuate his vigorous training with bouts of just spinning around, sitting down or running up to Sifu (the instructor) and punching him on the bum! The baby just rounds around laughing when you tell him off and saying "whatever" all the time.
Puss Puss the cat has made himself well and truly at home and now wakes us up by scratching at the bed when he want his breakfast. He spends most of the time sleeping and has a few "mad half hours" where he charges about like a little furry ginger missile. He has taken to sleeping in Big'uns room, either on the floor, under the bed or on the bed. Big'un hates this and gets a bit scared when he hears the cat making noises during the night and calls me to "make Puss Puss go away"
Any way, work to do so, in a blatant attempt to increase readership here are a couple of cat pictures.

...and so this is christmas....
Merry Christmas and a Happy new year, I might try and post a bit more frequently after the break. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Woggles away!

Big'un has been a Cub scout for a couple of months, he goes with the beast next door and this weekend they have gone to cup camp for two nights. My Big boy is staying away from home for the first time at somewhere other than his nana's.
He has been alright about it, Wifey has been alright about it, I have been shitting myself. He'll be well looked after and I'm sure it will be a fantastic adventure but I'm still worried for him.

Stay on course

I'm off on a course next week for three days at our very nice training place near Reading for possibly the last time as it appears "the company" is pulling out of there and relocating the training dept to somewhere else (ie less expensive) in the middle of next year. Which is right shame.

Pussy Galore

The cat has now not only got his paws under the table, he has been and got his pipe and slippers.

Tech-Fu.

After reading a post on Alan's blog about Technorati rankings I discovered a blog called Shaolin Tiger which has Kung Fu and geekery so it's right up my street and therefore has been added to the list.

Mrs Slocombe.

Wifey is not known for her love of animals, in fact she is pretty much terrified of anything with fur. Lately she has become a tad braver, so much so in fact that we have almost kind of unofficially adopted a stray cat.
Over the summer there has been a ginger moggy hanging about our garden. Cats normally prompt a loud "gertcha" from me as I don't like the little parcels they leave behind and I'm not really a cat person. This cat however has been pretty persistent and whenever Wifey went to hang out the washing she would have to make sure the coast was clear as the cat would come and try to befriend her and she was having none of it.
Wifey started to feel a bit sorry for it and, convinced that it was a starving stray, she started to leave tinned tuna and a bowl of milk out for it.
We eventually discovered that the beast next doors mum had been feeding it and taking it in and so had the woman next to her, Rosie Raspberry. This cat is going to end up looking like Garfield.
Rosie Raspberry thinks that the cat belonged to a house nearer the end of the street where the owner died leaving the cat homeless.
The cat, known as Puss Puss by us and as Tilly by the beast next door (I don't believe he reads gemmaks blog so it must just be a coincidence) has melted Wifey's stoney heart.
She now buys cat food regularly, strokes it, opens the back door and invites it in the house although she is still scared of the thought that it might jump on her lap.
Whenever I see Wifey stroking the cat I do the born free music and makes comments about her constantly touching her ginger pussy. This is probably wearing a bit thin now in Wifey's eyes.

On Sunday Wifey had taken little'un to a party and I was out the back scraping a "present" off the sole of my boots, Puss Puss was lounging in the hallway by the front room. Big'un calls out for me to remove the cat as he doesn't want it near the room in which he is playing (presumbly he didn't want the cat to mess up his toys, he gets very uptight when his little brothers do this)
"I'm busy scraping sh-, er, cleaning my boots" I replied
A few minutes later Big'un comes and shuts the back door and when I went back in, noticing Puss Puss was no where in sight, I concluded that he had gone out and Big'un shut the door to stop him coming back.
Later that night Wifey says "is the cat out?" " yes, I'm pretty sure he is" says I. Before we went to bed I toured the house clicking my fingers, calling out "puss puss" and making kissy noises to attract the cat just to make sure he wasn't hiding. You can see where this is going can't you.
At around 02:30 I am awoken by Wifey leaping out of her skin "the friggin cat's in our bedroom!". I let the cat out for a comfort break and he didn't return.
Not only is Wifey regularly buying cat food she has also now bought a litter tray in case he has anymore sleepovers!

Let the train be a pain

well it's MOT time again for the bike and after the debacle last year I decided to let my man service it and pre-mot it rather than trying to save money and do it all myself which last year resulted in the bike being off the road for nearly two months and cost far more in train fares than I ever would have saved by not paying someone else to do the work.
Because I am terminally disorganised I didn't arrange for the man to do my bike until after the MOT expired so I have been on the train for a week which hasn't been that bad. There have been no confirmed sightings of the hairy busker from last year, in fact I haven't seen any buskers which has been a pleasant relief for my ears.
The bike has now been done and hopefully will be MOT'd on friday morning just in time for the mild weather to be replaced by sleet and ice!