Yak & Natter

So, it’s Christmas Eve and all is well. All our food has arrived from the various internet-order places (organic vegetables from Riverford, meats from Welsh Farm Organics and a turkey breast joint from Kelly Turkeys). All that remains is for me to get cooking.

Pete H, ever vigulent, sent round this seasonal reminder to watch out for card theft:

The BBC described some cash point (ATM) trickery back in 2003, and although Barclays have made some machine modifications to reduce the risks, new cons are always in beta.

We went ice skating at Kew Gardens on Sunday with Jeremy and Kirsty. Good fun, great hot chocolate.

The Times Phonetography Challenge started yesterday. Send in your camera phone pictures of “What does Christmas mean to you?” to 07834 446 922 for fame and fortune (well, chance to win stuff). Disclaimer: I had a hand in parts of this.

Luke had a link to Make-a-flake which is really quite cute. Send us a link to your favourite creation… my best effort to date is this one.

Fair enough for the
Police get tougher over graffiti – but only when it’s rubbish. There’s some great stuff about, and the skill involved is impressive (look out for the Channel 4 “Faking it” on Graffiti next time it airs). Hmmm.. when does graffiti become a mural?

I had my first experience of opera on Sunday evening. Richard took me to see Aida at the Brighton Centre performed by the Chisinau National Opera. I enjoyed it, although I hadn’t prepared myself for it being quite so long… I’m not sure if opera is really my thing, but the sound of an orchestra takes some beating and so I suspect we’ll head off to a classical concert at some point.

This card was dropped through our letterbox a few months ago and I’ve been meaning to scan it ever since… a lovely take off of the Preparing for Emergencies booklet.

More positive consumer news… a while ago we switched from our Audi A3 petrol automatic to a manual Honda Civic diesel. (Why? 33mpg to 55mpg, amongst other reason). The Yeomans Honda in Bognor Regis were great, did us a fine deal. Recommended.

At the time we were told the servicing was every 12,000 miles. Turns out from the log book, it’s every 9,000 miles. Ouch. Called Yeomans, even though it was a word of mouth difference, the sales guy, Drew, said yes he remembers saying that, and appologized: it’s 12,000 on petrol, which is where the confusion came it. We figure over the life time of the car we’d end up doing one extra service, so Yeomans put everything right by giving us a free service to make up the difference. So… Yeomans are recommended further for fixing the problem, and they’re top of our list next time we go looking to change vehicle.

Just been out to do a bit more Christmas shopping and stumbled into SheActive, a women only sports shop that recently opened in Brighton. This strikes me as a great idea as normally when looking for cycling gear I struggle to find many women’s options in local stores, and end up ordering from Ground Effect in New Zealand (great kit, just a long way away). I managed to come away only having bought a bag this time, but I’ll be back next time I need some new kit.