Assortedpixels's Weblog

I’ve been intrigued by a show on BBC2, Million Dollar Traders, where eight people are given a million dollar hedge fund to play with, a couple of weeks training and then let loose on the ‘market’ to do their best.

A couple of the expected high-flyers, on paper at least, have shown to be truly awful. The pensioner who dabbled with shares and fancied a new life as a trader has an uncanny knack of being able to back certain loosers with amazing accuracy and is loosing money hand over fist.  The super graduate who had a great analytical grasp of the market lost her bottle when her first trade nose-dived and has since not traded anything being too nervous of loosing her money.

Last night’s second show raised the interesting topic of ethics. One guy is trying to trade 100% ethically, another is seeing that dealing in arms and military companies is proving very profitable. The question raised by the ethical guy was is just because a trade is ‘legal’ and government approved does it mean it’s ethical? Is everything fair game in the sole pursuit of profit? Interesting stuff.

One guy hoped that by getting an ‘insiders’ view of being a trader, he’d change his mind about them, but he’s found that it’s only hardened his views still further about his distaste of people making money on the back of other peoples suffering purely in the search for profit.

Great program.

Have a great day guys.

BP.

Of course, one of the downsides to being in hospital over Christmas is the fact that you actually miss Christmas which is really tough.

I thought I’d be OK with it as my family would be in to visit me early evening with a promise of a cracker and a portion of ‘real’ Christmas pudding and Brandy Sauce. But…. it was way tougher than I ever expected it to be. Of course, the ward was devoid of decorations and waking at 6:00 a.m. to a bright sunny morning was not a good start. Despite wishing my fellow ward dwellers a happy Christmas with lots of hugs and hand shaking, there was just no sign of that elusive festive spirit.

There was a glimpse of it with my ‘elevenses’ as they gave us a slice of Christmas cake with our coffee, sadly it was stodgy and tasteless which sort of killed off that tiny glimmer of festive spirit.

Dinner was a truly dire attempt at a Christmas dinner and despite the pulling of crackers and wearing a party hat and sharing our motto’s I felt hollow, empty and very sad inside. After dinner I retired to my bed with a grump as visitors arrived feeling very sorry for myself. Totally selfish? Hmmm, yeah, maybe a little. But suddenly, Rob, the guy in the bed on my left had a posse of visitors arrive and his daughter Emma was standing by my bed with a present. She said it wasn’t much, but wanted me to have something on the day, something to unwrap. I was gob-smacked. I thanked her with a kiss and a tear in my eye as I unwrapped a box of Cadbury’s Roses. I was truly choked. Choked with Christmas spirit I think. Thanks Emma for filling me with Christmas spirit. I’ll never forget it.

I opened my box of Rose’s today and felt a rush of happiness welling up inside, feeling very emotional as I remembered the day I was given them. And I didn’t even mind when the first one I pulled out was an Orange Cream =:oP which is my least favourite of all, but despite that it tasted good.

A belated Happy Christmas guys.

A quiet weekend marked out by only one momentous event….. my first trip out !!! Charlotte my daughter is teaching one of our friends daughters the saxophone so I decided to join her and my wife for the visit. Our friend Alison was delighted to see me and had actually baked a cake !!! This is a great honour indeed as Alison NEVER bakes anything, preferring to select he cakes from the shelves of M&S instead. So I showed my appreciation and enjoyed TWO slices of her triple layered Victoria sponge.

It felt odd being out of doors. I think spending weeks confined to indoors has somehow limited my visual horizons to just the four walls, be it the hospital of my house. But once out doors there’s no limit to the horizon… so it felt kind of strange to have so  much space around me. Nice, but odd.

Oh, my check-up went well on Thursday eevning. Dr Neville was very pleased with my progress. I have to keep taking the penicillin, and slowly increase doing more stuff, hence the trip out on Saturday. All in all it’s still moving in the right direction =:0)

Another quiet day here at Pixel Towers. I checked my email over a large coffee and “This Morning”, nothing much in my in-box today and no funnies either which was dissapointing. I’m not becoming a fan of day time TV at all… it’s all rubbish. One thing I’ve found is that when you could really do with a good afternoon movie being on, there’s never anything to watch !!! Even with Virgin cable and my finger tips there’s a gazillion channels of rubbish on. At least it gives me a chance to re-watch some of my  favourite DVD’s I guess… now where’s that copy of “Field Of Dreams” ????

I’m going to be ‘naughty’ this afternoon and change a headlight bulb in my car that has been one-eyed all during my hospitalization, causing my wife, Karen, to be flashed at constantly by concerned drivers coming the other way !!! I know she’ll tell me off for doing it, but it’s not too physical or too taxing so I don’t think it’ll wear me out.

I also have my first check-up this evening over at the private hospital, Spire in Havant, with my Respiratory Consultant Dr Neville. He’s a really, really nice guy. He talks facts, which being an engineer I like and can digest. Karen isn’t that taken with him, she says he’s nice, but says so long as he’s patching me up good and quick he’s OK. So it’ll be an x-ray followed by lots of  ‘breath in’ ‘breath out’. Fingers crossed it’ll be another step in the right direction. I popped in to my GP on Tuesday to get another sick-note and a repeat prescription for another mountain of Amoxicillin, we chatted about how poorly I’d been and passed pleasantries, but she didn’t listen to my chest or even take my blood pressure of temperature !!! I thought it odd, but maybe she was leaving all the ‘treatment’ to my consultant? It just seemed odd.

TTFN

BP

To paraphrase Blur’s Parklife… “I get up when I want, except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awoken by the dustmen…”

And so it is down my neck of the woods. What a racket ??? All that noise just to empty your bin, blimey.

“You can here them a long way off, all their banging and clattering and making a din.

Then they’re outside all that shouting and revving and just to empty my bin.“

Have a good day bloggers !!

Today is to be my first trip ‘outside’ to visit the Doctors to get a repeat prescription for my antibiotics. One of the perks of my job is private health insurance so I was lucky enough to be able to spend the final seven days of my hospital stay in a private hospital near where I live. When I transferred on Boxing Day there was only two of us in the WHOLE hospital. Now THAT’s what I call private treatment.

I was releived to move on one hand as the food was truly dire in the NHS hospital and I was getting no sleep at night and was beginning to get really, really low because of it, but on the other hand I was sad to leave behind my new chums :o( But I needed to look after myself as best I could to get better. One of the downsides to my private health care though is that I have to pay for my prescriptions !!! As yet I’ve not had the bill for them :o(

So today, I’ve been advised to visit my GP to get my repeat prescription on the NHS !!! Cheating maybe ?? It sure feels like it. It feels a little like having my cake and eating it too. But I suppose that as I’ve worked for 32 years maybe I’ve earned my free medication?

Have a grand day fellow bloggers !!!

Well, it’s a new year and I feel like I’m turning over a new leaf, kind of starting afresh I guess, albeit somewhat out of my control. I’ve been laid low with double pneumonia, being admitted to hospital on the 12th of December. I must admit I had no idea where I was initially as I felt so rough, but after finally being diagnosed and eventually dosed with monstrous doses of antibiotics, I hit the ward after three days feeling a lot more human.  I met some great guys on my ward of six, sometimes seven people. To my left was Ken, a diabetic with terrible water retention problems swelling him up to 17 and 18 stone and beyond, but despite his problems he regaled us with some incredible stories of when he was a lad and his time in the army. Thanks Ken. I hope you get well soon. To my left was Rob, an MS sufferer who was admitted with near kidney failure due to being misdiagnosed as having blood pressure problems by his GP. Again, some great evenings spent talking about his problems, loosing his wife to MS earlier in the year and his daughter being diagnosed with a brain tumor, luckily not malignant, and reminiscing about the good ol’ days and the decent music we used to listen to as young ‘lads’. I hope you’ve got back t0 normal soon Rob. Across the aisle to Rob was Bryan, involved in a hit and run accident, initial diagnosed as having nothing wrong with him and being sent home, but later re-admitted with severe internal problems, bleeding, swelling etc. He’d recently got married to his long term partner in a civil ceremony and they’ve had to cancel their honey-moon due to the accident. Bryan was delirious a lot of the time, falling out of bed, pulling out his drips and his bags trying to get home to his husband. Very sad. But again, once he started to recover the four of us often got told off for chatting too much by the nurses. The other beds rotated too often to get familiar with anyone else, suffice to say the last guy opposite me was a pot smoking recovering heroin addict on methadone that was doing nothing to help his condition and was irritating beyond belief. As Ken told him to his face, if you don’t buck your ideas up, you’ll be in here again when they cut your legs off !!! He was less than impressed by that but later admitted it was probably true.

So, I’m now back home again, being let out on New Years Eve and I’m slowly getting back to normal. Everything wears me out, but climbing the stairs is getting to be OK now. I’ve got my first consultants appointments on Thursday where I should find out if my lungs are still clearing up nicely. Fingers crossed.

Well, it’s a belated happy new year from me. Hopefully you’ll keep yourselves health and have a great 2009.

Best wishes.

Steve.

(aka BluePixel)

I had a really pleasant trip on Friday afternoon when I went to have my new suit trousers taken up. The legs were in that unfinished state about 10 inches too long.
I’d found a tailors in Portsmouth via the internet and the Yellow Pages that I sort of remembered from my dim and distant apprentice days in the Dockyard, Tailor Lee.
The shop was mostly empty apart from a glass topped counter containing a lot of Naval badges and scrambled egg, a curtained changing area and a rail of items awaiting collection.
Tailor Lee appeared from the back of the shop like Mr Benn, a slight chinese guy that used to work on the ships when the Navy had onboard laundries and their own tailors. He was such a sweet guy.
I tried my trousers on so that Mr Lee could pin them up and when he said when do you want them, I asked how long they would take.
“Ten minutes, twenty, thirty maybe… you come back in thirty. Over road is nice coffee shop. Have coffee. Come back in thirty.”
We duly obliged.
On our return he chatted for ages about his life at sea and how much he now enjoys cruising.
“You try cruise? You try cruise? Very good. Lots of food. Food all day. You eat all day. 24 hours. You eat all day.”

He then warned us of going to Morocco, which he pronounced as Morro-Co.

“One hour in coach. Awful. Morro Co bad place. Waste my money.”
All the while he was looking at the jacket, turning it over, his expert eye checking over the stitching, the detailing, the lining, everything. He was so complimentary about the work on it too and about what a bargain it was.
“I no make myself for £175.” “Nice pockets.” “Nice detail.” “I go buy.”
For £10 he did such a great job on my trousers too. Perfect, invisible stitching.
I’ll be using Tailor Lee again I feel sure.

I admired the Golden Gate from across the bay,
with the wind blowing in my face,

I crossed the bay to visit Alcatraz prison,
with the wind blowing in my face,

I took in the view from Bakers Beach,
with the wind blowing in my face,

On a cable car’s boards I rode Frisco’s hills,
with the wind blowing in my face,

And I explored the ruins of old Sutro Baths,
with the wind blowing in my face,

I think they should rename San Francisco the Windy City !!!

I can’t believe how fast three weeks holiday can whistle past, it’s amazing isn’t it, you spend 49 weeks of the year looking forward to your holiday, then ZAP, it flies past in the blink of an eye.

Good ol’ BA delivered us into LAX a little ahead of schedule, where we negotiated immigration unusually smoothly with the help of a VERY polite and chatty Immigration Officer who was more than happy to offer us advice on places to see and stay during our trip to California. Very rare and most welcome after 11 hours sat on a plane.

Once again California was a pure delight.

The weather was amazing, clear blue skies and warm comfortable temperatures and again Santa Monica Beach was as white and as perfect as it was last year.

The only fly in the ointment that took just a little of the shine off of our first few days was the hotel. Last year the Ramada Hollywood was so nice that it was almost perfect. The room was great, large and airy with an amazingly comfortable bed, a cracking view and the staff were friendly and helpful, a complete 180° opposite to this years experience where our room was pokey and very grubby and had no view whatsoever and the staff, without exception, were rude and disinterested. Everyday we had to ask for more towels, despite them knowing that there were four of us in our room we somehow only ever got towels, coffee and tea supplies and enough cups for two. And asking if it was possible to extend our stay by one extra night was greeted with a blunt, “NO! Where full.”.

Oh well, it’s a small gripe and it didn’t interfere with our enjoyment of Los Angeles.

So, while in Los Angeles we visited…

The Walt Disney Concert Hall. Frank Gehry’s absolutely awesome concert hall is simply nothing short of stunning. Every angle is a sheer delight and totally breath taking, and the reflections of sunlight from it’s shiny metallic surfaces are truly amazing. Contrasting sharply against the brilliant blue LA sky it was majestically beautiful.

The Bradbury Buildings. Amazing restoration of an simply beautiful building.

We also passed by the location of LA Ink aka High Voltage Tattoo.

We also visited the Hollywood Bowl to see Diana Ross who was wonderful. She sang lots of her old classics which got the audience singing along nicely with her. She also changed into some wonderful frocks about six times in the hours performance. It’s a great venue marred only by the appalling parking and simply mind-blowing grid-locked traffic and two VERY large and very rude people taking up four seats in our row, two of which were ours !!! Sitting watching Diana doing her stuff and gazing up at a starlit summers evening sky was simply wonderful. Truly a night to remember.

And we did Disney Land. Did I mention the queues ?? Despite being almost 23 our eldest Charlotte is obsessed with Finding Nemo, and during last years visit to LA she pestered us relentlessly to take her to Disney Land as Disney had recently opened a new Finding Nemo ride. Seeing as this year might be the last time that she holidays with us we thought we’d stay an extra day in LA and ‘do’ Disney Land. It WAS fun I have to admit and I must say that Disney is still magical, especially when you get to meet Mickey in person, but blimey, it was hard work. Despite not arriving at the ticket booth until about lunch time, about 12:30’ish I think after driving down from Hollywood, we still managed to spend almost 12 hours in the park !!! The Nemo ride was wonderful, but after queuing for 70 minutes to ride it some of the magic had worn off just a little. The park is a lot smaller than it’s Florida counter-part and everything is crammed in very tight, which I guess adds to the busy crowded feel. The parade was wonderful and the fireworks and Mickey’s laser show were simply amazing. It was a wonderful but incredibly tiring day, it was great to meet Mickey & Minnie and the rest of the gang too, but it’s one trip which I have no inclination to repeat anytime soon.

Once I’ve emptied my camera I’ll post up some photo’s. Being a photogenic sort of place I’ve collected quite a few pictures as you can imagine…