July 3, 2015 by Michael Madden

Watching The Money Rolling In

Isn’t technology wonderful. My Sky Broadband speed dipped to < 3 frequently, even after the upgrade, so I followed the steps on their website. This included bringing up a DOS command prompt, entering a ridiculously complex command, and then interpreting the result. Now, I’m IT literate but the majority of people would not have a clue what was going on. Really Sky? Can you not build an app that would do all of this? This is to determine which channel you should use, and one of the settings, in fact the default, is Auto, which is meant to pick the optimum channel every time. Anyway, that didn’t work so I gave them a call. A very nice chap advised changing the channel to 6, which seemed to work fine. Auto? No, don’t use that. It often picks the wrong channel. FFS!

Thursday was an interesting day. I picked up the remainder of the T20 kit from Bouncer Sports, and they included free WBCC Caps. Nice gesture, and maybe we will give them some more business. Prior to that I met Gabi for lunch. She is already trying to plan Christmas! There’s still a very long time until P… Ooops – that’s a surprise, is born, and she is already having problems getting behind a steering wheel. She is also a bit concerned that Zac will be the most important person at the birth.

A lot of people have asked this, and No I have not had an apology from the idiot who decided to gatecrash the after prom party. Not really expecting one either.

Concerned about the Greek economy? Me neither – though I do worry about what it will do for the price of olives and Greek yoghurt, Not too bothered about vine leaves. Never did like them.

Props got delivered this week thanks to Andrew Crankshaw and Rainford Models. These included a lectern and a coffin. Very realistic, and I think I will leave it on display for a few days to scare the postman, couriers, meter readers and anyone else who calls round.

Discovered that the pub near Gabi’s, the Roaches Lock at Greenfield, can be reached via canal from Whaley Bridge. Its about 8 and a half miles to Marple on the Upper Peak Forest Canal, another 8 to Ashton junction on the Lower Peak Forest Canal, and then just over 7 up to Greenfield on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Should take around 110 minutes each way! Might just try to get to Ashton first. Today I headed for High Lane again, and reached the Bull’s Head which was, this time, open. It seems they only do food Wednesday through Sunday, so Monday and Tuesday they are probably closed at lunchtime. Anyway, I asked for an Americano and got a Latte, asked for a pint of blackcurrant and soda and got a half, but it was a very pleasant environment sat in the beer garden, genuinely overlooking the Macclesfield Canal. The route between Marple and High Lane is very bumpy, and not for the faint hearted. Plenty of opportunity to lose balance and fall in!

Sally and Helen are off on a vintage train journey from Derby to York tomorrow. It is the northern equivalent of the Orient Express and promises to be an entertaining day out. The company sells this journey as York At Leisure, but they also sell a similar trip called National Rail Museum York. This is the same train – its just that some travellers will be going shopping, drinking cocktails and getting merrily pissed, whilst the other half are trainspotters. There is bound to be an incident – I will keep you posted.

Zac should probably have his own blog – and here’s another of his gems. Not many people get one over on the Magpie, but Zac can certainly claim to have done so. Last weekend was carnival weekend, and for once it was a scorcher. I gave him £5 so he could get a laser kit that he seems to buy every carnival, and then I went off to play cricket, Sally took him down to the stalls at the club, gave him £10 and left him to it. Ever resourceful, Zac came across Uncle Simon and saw him as an easy target. Putting on his cutest urchin look, he brought out a sob story. “Can’t believe my mum has left me here with no money to get a drink in this heat,” he moaned. “£3 should cover it,” and he quickly pocketed Simon’s donation. Was he trying to buy a pint of Carling? No. £3 just happened to be the cost for one of the games in the fairground, and he didn’t really need a drink as he still had £15 in his pocket!