To the person from the Bournemouth area

Hello!

The power of website tracking software is frightening, and very useful.

I suspect, from location and the search term that you used to get here, that you are someone I know from when I lived in that area. Hello!

Of course you may be someone completely random that I have never met coincidently searching for those things. Or you could be My Loving Uncle, but I doubt it because he should have the smarts to use a bookmark and to search for the more up to date and relevant version of the term used.

In related news, I still have numerous hits from people looking for information about the Newcastle University organic food study in 2007. Maybe I should write some more about it.

I also had a hit in the last month about gorgeous Greg Lake. Mmm, Greg Lake's voice.

I know things have been a bit quiet here the last few weeks; expect that to change in a new and exciting way in the next few days. Aren't you so excited?

A letter to the National Trust, bless their cotton socks:

***

Over the past year I have sent to you a number of letters requesting that you update my address. As of December 2007 I moved from A House, Somewhere to A Different House, Somewhere. Despite my letters, and despite having received a letter from yourselves stating that you had updated my details, I did not receive any correspondence from you at my Different House address. I only received my 2008/9 membership card and details thanks to the kindness of people at my previous address. The new membership was issued at the end of October 2008, you had written to me in July stating that my records had been updated.

As you will note from the letterhead, I have not only moved again, but also, following my marriage, changed my surname from Smith to Jones.

Given that in fifteen months and with multiple letters of reminder you have failed to update the address details from my previous move, I am torn between again asking you to update my details to make them current and simply cancelling my membership. I have never dealt with such inept administration from a major organisation. However, as I do support the work that you carry out, I would like to continue to be a member.

Please update my records to indicate my new address as shown above, and to change my surname as indicated. I have included a photocopy of my wedding certificate as evidence of this latter change. Given the previous issues, I expect to receive a letter to my current address confirming that these changes have been made. I appreciate that your mass mailings are pre-printed so I do not expect to receive anything else for a month or so after the change.

Yours sincerely,

Eyebrows

In each eyebrow I have a single hair that grows very long, and at a greater rate than normal eyebrow hair. Both are normal eyebrow brown at the ends, but silver in toward the roots.

I have spent the last minute or so of exceedingly fun time at my desk plucking them out with my fingers. For I am man, me fear no eyebrow plucking pain.

First steps

Almost precisely ten years after I became legally allowed to do so, I have made my first enquiries about learning to drive.

Ugh.

Royal Mail

I have recently discovered that the Royal Mail offer an on-line postage printing service. You can buy postage for the basic services, print off an address slip or label on your printer and stick it on your post.

It seems to work well and is genuinely useful. It certainly saves having to walk to the Post Office as much.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who! or Doctor who?

For me, a definite !. It was brilliant; cheesy, horribly unfunny jokes, dodgy special effects, appaling acting, dreadful shooting, everything you could want from Doctor Who except K-9.

Christopher Ecclestone was great and and manages to be the first fit Doctor. Billie Piper was the latest in the long line of sidekicks, i.e. blonde and stupid.

Favourite lines included 'lots of planets have a north' and 'the breast implants'. The latter one could do with some context really.

Now I just need to arrange some people to video next week's for me as I shall be in Dublin.

The Duck Is Back

I have returned with an all new website and another attempt at The Duck Quacks!

Why the change in website?

There are all sorts of reasons for this.

I think Big Mad Drongo is slowly drifting away from me and being replaced in more and more places by the Duck. It is sad, bmd has been a faithful friend and face but life moves on.

During my recent work on the website for the *removed*, I learnt many new tricks that help good design and accessibility and decided that it was time to implement some of them on my own site.

Sailing Ship To Nowhere (bmd's old site) was full of empty pages and ideas as well as out of date and boring information. So, a new site means new things and a more trimmed approach, hopefully remaining interesting.

Of course this is a work in progress as everything seems to be, but we shall see how it goes.

Quack!

Holiday

The duck is going on holiday for a while. If anyone actually cares about the blog stopping for six weeks or so, let me know by e-mail or on the LSN Forums and I may keep going. I don't really have the time at the moment and especially won't in November, and it isn't as if anyone reads or even knows about the blog. I will be back though.

Quack!

The First Quack

Introduction

Quack! Welcome to the first post of the Duck Quacks, possibly the first DuckBlog. I shall be writing initiall on three main subjects.

Music

Music is one of the great passions of my life. I shall comment primarily on individual albums, but may stray into other areas as well.

Laser Squad Nemesis

LSN is a computer game designed and written by the Gollop Brothers, the creator of many classic games including the X-COM and Rebelstar series. I have spent more time with this game than any other, barring possibly the Civilisation and X-COM games. My first series of posts will concern LSNAlliance, one of the premier player run competitions. I shall have a look at the clans and make some predictions on this season's ultimate result.

Other Peoples Mistakes

Following a conversation with a good friend, I shall be expounding a few mistakes that you really shouldn't make. Some may be slightly strange.
To quote myself:
"The only thing better than learning from your own mistakes is learning from other people's ;) I'd be more than happy to share mine to save you some effort, but you's probably get bored after a couple of days."
That isn't a strict quote, as I corrected some spelling mistakes, but never mind.