I was a little dismayed to receive this email from the Henley Standard – together with this accompanying Solicitor’s letter – regarding their award-winning website. Seems as though their “webmaster” has been a little lax. Strangely enough though, this hasn’t made it into the newspaper itself.
Naturally, I’ve asked them ;
How the data was obtained.
Where in the wild the data has been spotted.
Why it has taken nearly a month to report the breach – bearing in mind that, in this period of time, any security measures from us punters would be stable-doors and horses.
It rained last night. Yes, rained. There wasn’t a hurricane, monsoon, tempest or tornado – but rain, and a little drizzle this morning.
And because it rained, only one thing can happen in Henley, and I’ll give you a clue as to hat that one thing is …… my normal journey to work to three times as long and I ended up having to drive twice the distance.
“Why so RagingAardvark?” You ask.
“Simple.” I reply ………..
“That’s a bit rich.” You might comment.
“Rich, my arse.” I’ll reply again.
I watched some dappy bint load her kid into the back of a Touareg or similar seven-seater at the top of Greys Hill, drive him to school, block the entire road for ten minutes whilst she faffed around, then round the block back to home – where she spent another ten minutes trying to parallel park the said tractor. She finally gave up and left it blocking the road.
“So?” You say. “She wanted to make sure her snowflake got to school in one piece.”
That may be so. However, the distance from her house to the school is exactly fifty-two paces – I know, I measured it myself.
Wow, the Bluebells are good this year; For reasons known only to themselves, they’re thick and heady with a beautiful perfume. Walking Shelby in the woods each morning, I can smell the flowers from a hundred yards away.
Perhaps it’s something to do with the cold nights and hot, sunny days that we’re having at the moment – the dew starts to rise just before six in the morning, the sky is clear and the fragrance fills the air.
This time of the year, the Chilterns are a magical place. Despite the fact that it’s forecast to hiss down this weekend, I’m going to take Shelby on a mission on Saturday – whilst Jules battles the plebs in Tesco and Jenny goes to a birthday party. I’ll take the camera with me (if it’s not too tropical)
I looked out of the window at six this morning and -- WOW! -- had it snowed. Grabbed the Shelbster and off we went to blaze a trail. Up on the golf-course, the snow was a good six inches (that’s a foot in my books) deep. So deep in fact, that Shelby was wading with her nose in the air. As we came round the loop and back up Luker Avenue, Mr Claim had been at it again ;
Mr Claim is the bloke who, when it snows or is icy, moves his car and parks it -- side on -- at the bottom of Clements Road, hoping that someone is going to come slithering down, miss the corner and T-bone him.
Schools are closed, so I went out early for a tear-up in the Chilterns -- out over Fawley, Turville and Ibstone. Absolutely fantastic! Deep, deep untouched snow and not another car in sight ……. until I got back down to the Marlow Road and headed into work.
So, picture the scene …… snow on the road ….. snow falling ….. everything slushy and slippy. How would you drive? Well, I guess it depends whether you’re driving a BMW or not ;
Then we got to the notorious Danesfield Hill ;
No problem, of course. Diff-lock on and away we go ;
If you’re reading this from anywhere in the UK, then you’ll have experienced the little winter wonder that we had this week. It’s been great – a lovely dump of snow at the beginning of the week, loads of trudling around in Atomic having fun then, yesterday, the usual UK thing happens;
The snow starts to melt, we get a sleet blizzard and the temperature plumments below zero faster than a cryogenic suspension chamber. The upshot of all this? Ice.
Not just a bit of ice, but a solid (ish – actually it was a little bumpy in places) sheet of ice over pavements and roads – a good half an inch thick. In fact, it was so slippery that – when I took the Shelbster for her walk last night – I stepped out of the front gate and started sliding down the hill on the pavement. I didn’t stop until I’d reached the middle of the road fifty feet away. Then, as I tottered and minced my way down the road with said hound, I realised that it might be a bit of fun in the morning.
Poor old Shelbs. The ice, if anything, had become thicker so we just had a plod down the Fairmile and back (Yes, that’d the Fairmile that Tanya wanted to know the length of).
So, why are 110′s great? Simple. Diff-lock and low-box. Whilst all around were wailing and cursing trying to get their Chelsea Tractors and Euro-boxes anywhere (even on the flat of Luker), Atomic and I first trundled Jules up to her school and then the Jenster to hers.
By the way. Eighteen years old this year and she sailed through her MOT first time. Atomic, that is – not Jenster.
Last Friday, I took the Shelbinator out for a walk when I got in – as Jenny has gym club. We plodded along Crisp Road and were approaching Hop Gardens when, bowling towards us, came a bloody great stray Bull Terrier. Well, Shelby being fearless launched into her usual attack routine and began to bite the dog- despite it being five times her size. Problem was, though, that Bull Terriers have the hide of a Rhino and the brains of an amoeba, so he just thought Shelby was having a game.
Down Crisp road it followed us – bouncing into me, hassling Shelbs and generally being a nightmare. Back along Luker Avenue and, for half an hour, I tried in vain to shake it off – even aiming the odd shoe in it’s direction. No use – everything and anything just bounced off his thick skull.
We finally got home and, with one hand holding the now ludicrously enraged Shelby and the other trying to hold back the stray, managed to bundle Shelby indoors. I put Shelby’s lead on the stray and dragged him up the road to let him go. Lovely. Back home, indoors and CRASH! Dork dog is now trying to break-in.
Back out, lead back on and tie him up to the Landrover.
I called the non-emergency police line and explained that I had a stray Bull Terrier that was trying to do an SPG job on the back-door. The nice copper gave me three numbers for South Oxforshire District Council (SODC) dog catcher and away he went.
First number – sorry we’re not in now.
Second number – “Tinkerbell” the speaking clock.
Third number – some poor soul who hadn’t got a clue what was going on.
Eventually said poor soul got me the number for SODC and I gave them a ring. Much pressing of buttons later, I’m through to their emergency number. When the dappy mare on the other end had finished laughing at a colleagues joke, she deigned to speak to me and I explained my predicament.
“Where do you live?”
“Henley-on-Thames.”
“Ah! Oh! Ah – that’s SOUTH Oxfordshire”
“I know, that’s why I’ve called SODC”
Well, get this. In SODC, you have to take the stray to the dog catcher – in Abingdon. Bloody easy dog catching job that must be then. I explained that we were dealing with half a ton of barking mad Bull Terrier and got the “It’s company policy” line. So I asked what I should do if it started attacking people.
“Well, then it’s a dangerous dog and you can call the police.”
“So I just have to sit here waiting for it to attack someone then do I?”
Companypolicycompanypolicycompanypolicy ……………..
“Do you want to come over and help me try and get this thing into a car and then drive it to the other side of Oxford?”
“If you want to complain, I suggest you call your district councillor on Monday.”
“And in the meantime, watch the dog demolish my house?”
Sunday night and time for Shelby’s last stroll – and a chance to have my weekly chat with Mum. We wandered along Crisp Road, down Hop Gardens, along West Street and through the grounds of the hospital. No cats to chase and no dogs to attack – lovley.
Then down York Road and along Kings Road. As we crossed over Clarence Road there was an almighty explosion from behind us. I spun round expecting to see the remains of a house following a gas explosion in time to see a cloud of bricks and a solid iron inspection cover sailing into the night sky. Smoke billowed from a hole in the ground and subsequent explosions carried on. The road was also rather dark. I shone my torch at the crater and edged a bit closer (I never listened to the “ensure the area is safe” bit in the Emergency Responder course) to have a look in. Well blow me down if it isn’t the main electricity junction for the road – looking much worse for wear – and making noises as though it’s building up for an encore.
When the fire brigade arrived, the first word the chap uttered was “Fark!”
Ten seconds sooner and Shelby and I would have been stood on that and – at best – missing our limbs. Funny old thing life isn’t it.
Here’e the deal – seventeen miles and nearly seven hundred metres of climb. Not only, but also, an average speed of nearly six mph. Click on the “View Larger Map” link to see the whole route. (I’ve just sussed that you can page through the steps of the route using the usual Google navigation.
…. and it was time to break out the Swanni this morning. Minus three degrees and a beautiful clear (night) sky – in fact we saw a shooting star yesterday morning. Three days until I can order my Fenix, which will be a welcome relief from the somewhat feeble (although usable) Everready torch that I’m using at the moment.
I eBay’d the E2D – for a lot less that it was worth but, to be honest, does it make any sense getting through twenty quid’s worth of batteries a week!?
The Shelberator and I had a couple of monster plods over the weekend – eleven miles (avec Jenster) on Saturday morning, and then fifteen miles on Sunday. I’ll post a review of the GPS software that came in handy a little bit later.
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It rained last night. Yes, rained. There wasn’t a hurricane, monsoon, tempest or tornado – but rain, and a little drizzle this morning.
“That’s a bit rich.” You might comment.
Sunday night and time for Shelby’s last stroll – and a chance to have my weekly chat with Mum. We wandered along Crisp Road, down Hop Gardens, along West Street and through the grounds of the hospital. No cats to chase and no dogs to attack – lovley.
