FOSTON.net

Perhaps its just me, but recently I have noticed how rude we are (or appear to be) as a society. It would be easy to say this was simply the youth of today, or to put it down to the general lack of respect one person seems to have for another. But I’ve wondered about it a little and wanted to air my views here, perhaps just to clear my own head but maybe also to get the views of any of you that happen upon this post.

Just during my short trip to work this week I’ve encountered

• Young girls who ran for a bus, which waited for them but declined to say thank you, despite being able to shout “WAIT” at the top of their lungs
• Old people who when someone younger offers them their seat, they walk straight past saying nothing
• People who push past you to get off the bus without asking, or even hinting that they might want to get past, instead leaping from their seat like leaving is a matter of live and death
• People who sit blocking seats whilst others stand around them rather than moving their bags or themselves to make the seats available

But these are just a few examples, and some of them got me thinking. As someone who is quite comfy, and somewhat adept, at talking to relative strangers on the train or perhaps the bus to discuss an event that just happened or to lighten a journey, that after you have done this a number of times and the person you have spoken to clearly doesn’t understand even basic English that the next time you hesitate to do so.

If someone treats you rudely, and you comment on it and they don’t understand you, perhaps next time you don’t bother to comment but instead you act rudely yourself and so it slowly escalates. Perhaps next time you do this, the person you treated rudely was expecting an apology and they too act rudely the next time.

Am I blaming lack of language skills for all society’s rudeness, no, however I do wonder how much it is to blame. If young children take their examples from the people they see not talking to each other, or respecting each other either due to lack of skills or effort, they how can we expect them to act any differently. How can we correct them, if we do not correct each other?

I’d love to have a solution. I’d love to think that everyone has a basic understanding of English (as that is the UK language) so that they can say “Please”, “Thank you” and “Sorry” and I believe most people do, but they let themselves down by not using those skills. I hate some of the rudeness I see, and won’t allow my son to grow up acting that way, but if the adults around him do not act correctly its so much harder to teach him by example. Unless as a group we pay attention and give respect to the people around us that deserve our respect then we will all grow up into a country where no one has manners, no one cares about anyone else, and everyone ends up focussed on themselves and their needs and that won’t be a nice world to live in.

Here ends my thoughts, but I’d welcome some comments, maybe my little world here in Feltham isn’t like that which you live in…..

I think more people should visit this site www.middlelanemorons.com

Maybe if more of us had the window sticker supporting keeping left, more people would pull over when blocking lanes on the motorway!

Well online reporting doesn’t work either! The Police called me last week, to tell me that the damage wasn’t criminal damage, and was just a road accident.

This means I can’t report it online. When I explained the problems around reporting it I was helpfully told that if I wanted to I could

• go to Hounslow Police Station (Not easy to get to without a car)
• Collect the paper work required
• Spend at least an hour filling it out
• Go back to Hounslow and wait to see someone
• Go through it with them to ensure its done right
• Wait whilst they look to see if someone came in and admitted hitting my car

If no one had admitted anything then that would be the end of it. I decided it was pointless continuing.

That morning I heard a News Report that “Reported Crime” had gone down by record levels, now I see how that happens. I presume that even if the person who hit my car had had a pang of guilt, that the police station would have been equally closed when he/she went!

When I first moved to Feltham I visited most of the pubs close to home but did not find one I liked enough to go back to regularly. However I am writing this from the newly (re-opened today) refurbished Three Horseshoes in Feltham.

Its ideal for me because its next to the bus stop on my journey home. The last time I came in it was quite dark in the main bar and felt very cluttered. The main bar now feels much brighter and welcoming with plenty of seating with tables.

The smaller bar has a dart board and a pool table. Its been years since I have played darts but I might just think about playing now. I had the impression that it was a young persons pub, god that makes me feel old, but the mix tonight was much more around my own age group.

They also have a large beer garden and hopefully that will be nice in the summer. I wonder how often I will end up in here after work?

Note to Self: Need a photo!

Update: The pub has two dart boards and is keen to establish a reputation as a good family pub. They are hoping to have a bouncy castle in the beer garden for the Bank Holiday weekend.

They also have food menus on the walls but I have not eaten there yet!

Visit the new Three Horseshoes website at http://threehorseshoes.net

Mars are giving away 100,000 Footballs. Why not see if you are one of the lucky ones?

Apparently you should now report non-emergency crimes online. I guess this is seen as a better use of resources.

I have now reported the damage that way and we will see what comes of it when an investigator contacts me in “the next 72 hours”.

I know you are on your way to your jobs in Central London, and I know its vital that you get your train despite you being that few seconds later than you intended, however you should please note the following.

• I have no intention of diving out of your way as you run at the train I just got off at full speed.
• I’m quite a big guy, if you run into me, its likely you’ll come off worse.
• I won’t be apologising for you running into me, so don’t be surprised when I don’t.

Have a nice day!

Well apparently, not only is there not much crime to report at the weekends, but also not much in the mornings either. Feltham Police Station is only open for crime reports from 12 noon until 5pm Monday to Friday.

How lovely for them, I’d like to say its because they are all out on the beat, providing highly visible policing but I can’t. Here am I trying to report a crime not in the hope they might investigate, but more that some fluke allows them to connect a random stop with my cars damage, but now I really can’t be bothered they’ve just made it too difficult, maybe deliberately. Maybe if we can’t report crime, it makes the crime figures go down?

Someone hit my car between 6pm last night and 9am this morning. No details left, just plenty of red paint and scratches. All covered by insurance but its not the point.

You see clearly this gap is much too small to get a car through…..

and so they felt the need to try and make the gap bigger by hitting my car and doing this damage…

Phoned the police to report it, and they said he had to go to the station to do that. Went to the police station, its closed on Saturday and Sunday presumably because theres not much crime at the weekend.

I’ll add some photos later when I’ve transferred them. I wish we had CCTV!

I stumbled upon this, its very clever, once it’s loaded just keep clicking on the box to zoom in……

Clever Photo Zoom

This Parrot car radio looks to have an amazing array of features!

The BBC’s iPlayer video service will soon be available via the Nintendo Wii.

The iPlayer on the Wii is currently being tested and the BBC expects to
release more test versions in late 2008. An early version of the
service is available from 9 April. It is only available in the UK to
licence-fee payers.

I’ve decided that there is so much software and specialised things available for the UMPCs (my Samsung specifically too) that I should reuse FOSTON.com for UMPC stuff, and keep TEDDYS WEB for more interesting stuff from around the web.

For the first time in ages some snow….. not masses but enough to build a snowman!

I own a Samsung Q1U

edit: You’ll find more info about my progress with the Q1 on FOSTON.com

After a lot of false starts I’ve started to get Teddys Photos working at last…..

edit: Link fixed, I thought I owned teddysphotos.co.uk but it seems I don’t

edit again: I now do own teddysphotos.co.uk

It seems that the injury I did a couple of weeks ago isn’t getting better all on its own.

It flared up again at work yesterday, although I’m not concious of what I did to cause it, but a days rest today seems to have made a big improvement.

If anyone knows of any magical solutions, please let me know!

We decided to purchase a Memory Foam mattress having debated it for a couple of years. What a brilliant decision it was. Having looked at them for a while, and considered the expensive “Tempur” mattresses, we decided to go with a cheaper alternative.

Purchased from ErgoFlex online we bought their King Size 9inch Memory Foam mattress and from the very first night we slept on it we noticed the difference. Not only did we sleep better, moving around was less disturbing to the other person, and the way the foam moulds to your body makes for a great nights sleep.

I’ve done a review at Review Center (awaiting approval so doesn’t show up yet) where 43 other people have also left a review with the mattresses getting an overall 9.6 rating. They even have a sale on at the moment so you can have your mattress at a bargain price too.

I’ve found a few links to great wallpaper sites…. not for decorating your home, but instead decorating your PC or Laptops Desktop

I have a love/hate relationship with wallpapers, I like the pictures, but they sometimes make my messy desktop and all its icons difficult to see.

Anyway if you are interested in seeing some of the sites, you can try these…

http://www.socwall.com/
http://www.wpdb.de/
http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/wallpaper/
http://www.desktopnexus.com/
http://interfacelift.com/