Get­ting settled into Wordcamp UK. Listen­ing to the first ses­sion “Build­ing Com­munity” by Chi Chi . Inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion, though not too WordPress related, but then WordPress is only a tool for doing other things.

Yes, inter­est­ing in an unex­pec­ted way.

I felt this one just as I was try­ing to get to sleep this morn­ing. It shook the bed and rattled the ward­robe. Asso­ci­ated Press repor­ted it as the Second largest UK quake since 1984. The BBC repor­ted it as the biggest earth­quake in the UK for nearly 25 years.

The rest of the house slept through it, includ­ing the dog!

Of course, for old timers on this blog, this isn’t the first time I’ve men­tioned earth­quakes

I would like to wish you all a “Merry Christ­mas”, “Happy Kwan­zaa”, “Happy Hanukkah”, “Yule Bless­ings”, or just plain old “Sea­sons Greet­ings” whatever you may cel­eb­rate at this time of year.

All the best.

Wow! Someone dumped a car at the back of my house tonight and torched it.

I was work­ing on the laptop when I heard a loud noise out­side, clearly close to the house. I work in the cel­lar and only have a nar­row glass brick view to out­side. I looked up and saw an orange glow through the glass. I rushed up stairs to see a large fire at the back of the house.

At first glance I thought it was my car! I second later I real­ised it wasn’t, but that the car that was burn­ing was only feet away from mine.

I grabbed the car keys and dashed out of the house. I man­aged to dial 999 on my mobile phone whilst open­ing and get­ting in to the car. As the emer­gency ser­vice answered the call, I got the car star­ted. At that point two police cars arrived. I tried to explain to the oper­ator, what had happened, that the police were on the scene, at the same time as I tried to move the car away to safety without first revers­ing into the burn­ing car!

I man­aged to get the car moved, hav­ing put my phone down. I didn’t get to move it far as the fire ser­vice had arrived and parked across the road. I got back on the phone and explained to the oper­ator (now inex­plic­ably from the ambu­lance ser­vice) that the police were on the scene and I didn’t need an ambulance.

The fire­men were very effi­cient and had the fire out in less than 5 minutes. I had noticed that all this time there was a cam­era­man on the scene. At first I assumed he was from the police (he arrived with them), but he explained that he was from the BBC. He was film­ing for a pro­gram that soun­ded like “Car wars” about car crime in Bri­tain. I gave him a very short inter­view. I have no idea if or when it will appear on TV.

Hav­ing got the OK from one of the fire­men to put my car back, he spot­ted that my num­ber plate on the back of the car had star­ted to melt. We examined the back of the car and apart from a little bub­bling on a piece of trim above the num­ber plate, there was no other dam­age. It looks like I just moved the car in time.

I didn’t have the where­withal to grab my cam­era when it all star­ted hap­pen­ing, but I took a couple of pic­ture afterwards.

This is all that’s left of the car. It looks like it was an old Rover mini metro.

The bon­net blew open at one point.

You can see how close it was to the wall at the back of the house. The bush over the wall used to have leaves. They are now all shriv­elled and burnt.

Within an hour, a guy came to tow the burnt shell away.

More expense on the car! The white on the num­ber plate is not over expos­ure from the flash, the plastic has turned white and star­ted to bubble!

Update: I should point out that through­out all this Jan, Jamie, and all the neigh­bours but one slept on peacefully!

Happy Valentines Day Jan

Mike

xoxox

I would like to wish you all a “merry Christ­mas”, “happy Hanukkah”, “happy Kwan­zaa”, or just plain old “sea­sons greet­ings” whatever you may cel­eb­rate at this time of year.

I wish you all the best.

Today is Left-Handers Day! Read all about it on the offi­cial site, there’s lots of inform­a­tion and activ­it­ies. There is even an offi­cial song, the Left-Handers Lament by Ian Radburn.

We’re the Cack-Handed Kings, we’re the LEFTIES
You right-handers just haven’t got a clue
’Cos if you’d been through what we’ve been through
Then maybe you would feel super­ior too!