http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog . Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:53:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ah, Le Francais.  Language of love, Eurovision and also French people.  And Canadians, in an odd hanging-on-to-our-colonial-past-because-it-makes-us-more-interesting kind of way.  I got an A in GCSE French, which clearly qualifies me to obtain directions to various high street establishments, purchase a kilo of peaches and a baguette filled with ham, ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=236 I am skiing again.  After 2008’s `hurrah my bonus has come in’ Christmas family trip to Austria, followed up by the 2009 `free work incentive, why the fuck not’ trip to France, I am once again back in France, this time on a `I don’t have a proper job’ budget ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=235 There are things that you assume, in these days of high speed on demand technology shiny whizziness, will happen quickly.  In fact, so efficient is the worldwide superhighway of speed, you kind of expect stuff to happen pretty much immediately, if not before you even asked, or even thought of ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=234 In 1983, my father purchased our first VHS video recorder.  Actually, that’s a lie.  He got it on HP from Radio Rentals, which is how one obtained appliances in those days because they were too expensive to buy outright.  It was the size of a small suitcase, with enormous buttons ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=233 I think it is only fitting that the winter I decide to live on a boat should be the coldest winter since woolly mammoths roamed the earth.  It was inevitable when you think about it, which I do a great deal, mainly while I am chipping the ice off the ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=232 So the Teenage Son and I recently went to see posh comedy chubbster Michael McIntyre in Cardiff.  I bought him two tickets for his 17th birthday, assuming he would take a friend or potentially a girl (an idea which was met with a snort of disdain, this being apparently laughable), ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=231 I was round my mum’s the other day, and she gave me this year’s sheaf of 2009 newsletters for my reading pleasure.  For those of you who are blessed enough not to receive these, they are hugely self-indulgent pages of personal news, typed up in the form of a letter ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=230 The philosopher Nietzche once said, “Without music, life would be a mistake”.  Hmm.  Clearly our existentialist friend never had to sit through a school concert. The obsession of British schools for music lessons has always baffled me – I’m sure there is some deeply fascinating study somewhere that demonstrates how squeaking ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=229 One of my favourite things about spending time in a strange city is wandering off and getting a bit lost, in the hope of adventure or magical discoveries.  In my case, these excursions often end in crack dens and ghettos, but you have to persevere in the hope that one ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=228 I am in America!  And having a lovely time, since you ask.  San Francisco is splendidly sunny and architecturally fabulous and quirky and full of some serious weirdos.  I feel right at home. This is only the second time I have been to the US on holiday – the first was ... http://www.hfactor.co.uk/blog/?p=227