Pyjama-Wearing Crackdown in the UK

I thought only the Shanghainese wear Pyjamas in public. But that's not the case, it's apparently quite a universal scene!

A welsh woman was kicked out Tesco supermarket because she was wearing her PJs. Here is what she has to say: "“I’ve got lovely pairs of pyjamas, with bears and penguins on them. I’ve worn my best ones today, just so I look tidy,”

Tesco should give her credit for wearing her very best PJs shopping in their supermarket :)

With the upcoming 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, PJs are also being one of the crackdown targets by the government. Just like crackdown on spitting in Beijing before the Olympics, I"m sure PJs will come back sooner than their disappearance.

Here is the link to the article on TimesOnLine about the PJs crackdown: the article

Best Political Cartoon Ever

He speaks the truth.......

iPlayer - Free TV Viewing in UK

As previously mentioned, the UK still clings to the wastefully outdated TV License regime. So what is a law abiding citizen to do when they want to watch something on telly - like Doctor Who - but they don't have a license (or a telly for that matter)?

Simple - head on over to the BBC iPlayer. This has a majority of the TV shows and movies available to watch after the live broadcast that you can watch on demand for up to 7 days after the original broadcast.

So why can you watch that without a license? well, in the TV Licensing law it says that you must have a license to watch TV programmes `as they are being shown' - in other words - Live to air.

To get around the licensing rules, you just watch it a bit later on iPlayer, which is more convenient anyway because you watch it when you want to - and you don't need a TV License - the BBC say so on their iPlayer site.

Channel 4 (not BBC 4) even have a version as well called 4oD (4 on Demand).

The picture quality is really good as is the sound when streaming - if you have a slow or patchy internet connection, you can even download the TV shows and watch them later in the new iPlayer Desktop whether you are connected to the net or not.

So bugger the telly and the license - watch iPlayer for free!

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

The Great UK Freeze Begins to Thaw

I woke up this morning about 6am to the sound of some rain on the windows, "that", I thought to myself "is the end of the snow".

Sure enough once the sun was up enough to shed some light, you could clearly see that the tyre grooves in the compacted snow & ice were showing the road surface.

At lunch time Ying & I had a walk up the street and stepping on what had been deep, firm, dry snow was now soft and very wet slush. Everywhere you walk your feet slip as chunks of semi solid ice give way under foot. Ying saw a young lad of about 6 go for a tumble.

Without gum boots (wellies as they are known here) your feet are wet very soon.

With the temperatures expected to get as high as 6 degrees tomorrow and the following 2 days, we shall soon have no snow left, but plenty of water flowing into the Thames water system.

At least life will get back to normal and the fair weather flyers from Gatwick can get back to normal.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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We Got Stood Up

At 5am this morning we woke up to some 3cm fresh snow - bad sign! Having fully booked and packed, we left for the airport regardless.

We managed to arrive at the Gatwick south terminal at 7:15am. The security check was the smoothest journey ever as there was surprisingly no queue! Our flight was due 9am to Athens, so all was good at that point.

As soon as arriving on the other side of custom, we found ourselves join the other thousands of passengers whose flights have been delayed due to the "disruption" of the weather condition. We sat down and soon heard some flights already got cancelled. But ours was still delayed according to the big board. We were happy to wait for a while as long as we could still go.

We turned on the laptop to do some work whilst waiting for updates. 3 hours later, the news arrived - all the Easyjet flights scheduled before 11:30am were cancelled! So that was it, no holiday for us after all.

We heard Gatwick airport was to remain close until 4pm. Thousands of passengers travel plan was ruined, we were not alone. Easyjet offered its passengers either transfer to another available flight free of charge or a full refund. We took the latter choice, but it took us a while to confirm that our return leg will also be subject to refund. Hurray! Though we have no idea when the refund will reach us.

Next we went on to cancel car park booking and Athens hotel booking. We didn't expect to get any refund from either of them according to their terms and conditions. But good luck must be with us, after we explaining what happened, the hotel decided to charge us nothing (Hotel Cecil - will certainly stay with them next time) and the car park only charged us one day rate! God bless them for being nice and understanding!

I celebrated this "failed" holiday by clearing the snow in the front of the house with a heavy shovel!

Book a Seat for Your Wedding Cake

Looking to see if our flight to Athens was going to be cancelled due to the snow or not, we looked up the Easyjet Flight Check Status and very surprised to see that people who were looking to see if their flight was cancelled were also searching for seats for their wedding cakes!?

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Will England's Inability to Deal With Snow Damage Tourism?

The impact of the snow & ice in the UK over the past will have a pretty big cost in terms of lost productivity, but judging from some websites and stories I've seen recently, the impact will also be on tourism as the world looks at the incompetence of authorities here in dealing with a week of ice & snow.

We are pretty much as far north as any other country (except Iceland & Greenland), so you would pretty much expect that snow happens. The government, local government and the private sector have all shown themselves ill-prepared and complacent. It seems odd to be so unprepared as it was this time last year that the same thing happened.  

Winter happens every year - maybe the government should plan for it before there are too many more people with stories like this one.

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Guildford to Godalming Walk Along River Wey

Late September last year we did a walk from Guildford to Godalming along the towpath of the river Wey. It's a very popular walk, which goes on for 5 miles one way.

The river Wey goes through the town centre of Guildford. This is the starting point of the walk.

Some open space is just 5 meters down the river where we used to work in summer when we first arrived as there was very good mobile phone signal. We thought that was the best office we've ever had.

Quite often the river is busy with activities.

This is one of those signs along the towpath in case you get lost.

We went through a few locks, watching how people open and close locks to let water in and out so that the boats can go past.

Lunch break:

The river keeps meandering quietly, a railway bridge ahead near the town Shalford.

Narrow canal boats parking on the river.

Near Godalming, we deserve a break:

After 3 hours walk, we arrived at Godalming. We were planning to catch the train back to Guildford, but train service was cancelled that day, we caught a bus instead.

Cool Igloo and Snow Man

Why You Don't Drive on Icy Roads

With the theme of the big winter freeze and icy roads everywhere, here is a lesson on why not to drive in extreme icy conditions - and also why bailing out of a moving car is not such a good idea!

The video was sent through by my serial comedy supplier - Uncle Robin - who is a conduit for all the comedy on the internet.

Quaint Old English Traditions - Poms Still Living in 1752

The English - steeped in ancient tradition so that even in 2010 it can feel like you are living in 1752!

One thing that I found annoying when we first started out here in Britain was pulling in to a giant Tesco or Sainsbury with a big Open 24 Hours sign out the front on a Sunday afternoon to do some shopping. We would walk up to the doors at say 4.15pm only to see a sign hanging - "Closed due to Sunday trading restrictions".

By law shops may only trade for 6 hours between the times of 10am & 6pm - most choose to trade between 10am & 4pm, as such a defacto time has been set for 10 - 4 to be the Sunday trading hours.

Like most Western countries, this was born from the old Christian "thou shalt not work on a Sunday because you must go to church" rules. But in a modern, multicultural society like the UK isn't that a bit old and out of touch?

Reading this article on Wikipedia it states that Sunday shopping wasn't even permissible at all until 1994! So much for a modern, market driven economy.

I don't go to church and I feel that if I want to do my grocery shopping at 5pm on a Sunday and that the grocery store wants to be open at 5pm on a Sunday then we should have the right to do so.

At least in Australia when Woolies or Coles have a sign that says `Open until 10pm everyday' it is actually open until 10pm - yes people, even on a  Sunday!

The other one I find particularly odd is the fact that the tax year begins on the 6th April and ends on the 5th April !? What is that about.

Not in tune with a calendar year - hey why even bother and make it tune with a calendar month?

Imagine doing your tax returns and needing to calculate interest paid, monthly statements won't help - you need a daily breakdown for the month of April.

Apparently it all has to do with the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. It all boils down to the fact that the rest of Europe changed to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582 and England not until 1752. This brought all the dates out of alignment. When the treasury wanted to change the dates to bring everything into alignment the landlords who thought they would miss out on 11 days worth income and banks who thought they would miss out on interest payments rebelled against it and stuck to their own time frames and bugger the rest of the population.

So 250 years later we still abide by the same rules applied by a small section section of society who rebelled against the rules.

Quaint - yes, but effective - I think not. Time to get with the 21st century HMRC.

You can read more about it on these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year#United_Kingdom

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/faqs/general.htm#7

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/item/136288

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Ying's First Snow Angel

Ying made her first snow angel in the snow the other day just in the park near our place.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Guildford High Street in the News

Ying & I went for a walk in the snow to high street yesterday and saw a film crew parked at the top of the hill, we assumed they were doing a story on the snow, and we were right.

The video in this story has the opening shot and the closing few seconds showing Guildford High Street in the the snow (you can't miss the lovely old clock hanging out over the street).

There wasn't much snow built up in the high street due to the warmth of the shops, people, cars & buildings - but getting to High Street was a challenge.

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Snowed Again - 15cm So Far - Still Coming

Ever since last night thick snow flakes have been falling.  It's said UK hasn't seen so much snow in 30 years. Today most schools are shut and up to 40% people are off work. We saw cars keep slipping on the snowy road, looking dangerous. It's better staying at home in this kind of days... unless you are a doctor - we saw one trying to get to work on her skis on TV.

Guildford Castle ground is locked, but we managed to take some photos from outside of the gates.

Inspired by the children in their laundry basket skiing down the hill, Brad was trying skiing with his sneakers.

My mini snow man:

Zoe & Us

How cosy do we look with baby Zoe?

 

A New Pair of Merell - Sign of Luck?

I have been looking for a new pair of bush walking shoes for a while and couldn't find any until today. The pair of Merell in the photo is £39.99 - discounted from its original £64.99. I saved £25!

This is not the end of the story. On boxing day we went to the same shop and saw this same design Merell, but they only had size 4, which was one size smaller for me.

Today, on the 2nd day of New Year, we went to the same shop again and there they were, size 5, just waiting for me! These same shoes are £64.99 in another 2 shoe shops 50 meters down the road.

Is it a sign of luck for the New Year? Very much I believe. The right size shoes and £25 discount! I love 2010!

Where to Send Our Kids to School

"...the students learn at their own pace in a supportive environment. The school is run democratically, with the students having as much say in how the school is run as the staff. Decisions are made by voting in a weekly school meeting, where matters ranging from what colour the new carpets should be, to the employment of new staff. The school offers a full range of subjects, and attendance to lessons is negotiated, not compulsory. The school also educates students on a larger range than most schools, and gives students choice in what they can learn. Their interests form a large part of what is offered in the curriculum..."

That is a description to Sands School, an independent school which provides alternative education to kids aging 11-18. It sounds ideal to me and I would very much like my future children to go to that kind of school.

Pity there is only one in the UK at the moment. Not sure if there is any similar ones in other countries.

It's time to have a revolution for traditional education for kids, I reckon.

The Nanny State

Both in Australia & here in the UK people talk about living in a nanny state where rules and laws are brought in for the `protection' of the public.

I can't see yet which country is more of a nanny state as they both seem pretty bad, but have different standards.

The most odd thing in the UK though is that you cannot have a power point or a switch in a bathroom so that you don't electrocute yourself! So you either have a pull cord to turn the light on and where the switch is recessed in the ceiling, or you have the switch outside the bathroom. If you want to blow dry your hair in front of the bathroom mirror - then get a long extension cord!

On the flip side, In the UK I see lots of playgrounds with jungle gyms and even long flying foxes - these were banned years ago and would never be allowed in Australia for the safety of the kiddies.

Looks like both sides of the ocean have their own nanny rules.

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying