I’m moving…

My blog can now be found at http://blog.robertatkin.net/. I hope you join me there.

The Economy

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Cicero, 55 B.C.

There be Pirates, aarghhh…

I’d like to use some of the applications in the Adobe Creative Suite 4 for my website and other projects.  The web premium package is £1,374.25. The master collection is £2,264.35.  Who can afford these prices? Granted that Adobe do heavily discount for students (£228.25 and £454.25 respectively), but my student days are long gone.

The really annoying thing about it though, is that I could download the master collection for free from one of the various pirate sites that are out there. But I don’t want to. I want a legal copy.

I bought a new PC recently as my old one gave up after 9 years. It cost a very reasonable £500. Why, when PCs are so much cheaper, is software so expensive? I think if software houses charged a more realistic tariff, they would send the pirates to Davy Jones’ Locker.

Lee Abbey

We’ve just come back from a fab weekend at Lee Abbey in Devon.  We were in the self-catering chalet on the edge of a private beach. It was great to be able to look out at the sea. It was crashing over the rocks this afternoon. Wonderful. There were eight of us in the accommodation, and it was really very inexpensive. Also very warm given the outside temperature.

Yesterday we got to Lynmouth just up the coast.  The Valley of the rocks in between Lynmouth and Lee Abbey is quite spectacular.  I’ll try to get some photos on here.

John Kettley is a Weatherman

-11°C last night.  Has anyone seen the film The Day After Tomorrow?

The big freeze

-10.3°C last night and it didn’t get above -4°C during the day.  I’m glad we had the cavity walls filled.

Snow

We’ve had snow! It’s an urban myth that it’s too cold to snow. The Antarctic is the coldest place on the planet. Not as cold as that in Cheltenham, but nice to see snow had fallen when we came out of church tonight. I hope it stays for a few days.

Brrrr

It was -9.3°C last night in our garden, the coldest night of this Winter so far.  No snow yet though.

How Much?

I’ve not spent much time blogging recently as my efforts have been going into my new price comparison site How Much? www.how-much.co.uk.  I’ll keep a note of progress here.

How Much? www.how-much.co.uk

Announcing an all new Online Price Comparison website – How Much? www.how-much.co.uk

Hello

I’m writing to let you know about a new website I have recently launched.  It’s called How Much? www.how-much.co.uk.

How Much? is an online price comparison site with a live feed shopping engine that enables you to search a database of over 4 million products from over 700 retailers on a sale popularity basis. There are many well known high street names in the database, such as Boots, Currys, PC World, Halfords, Hamleys, Maplin, BHS, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Next, ToysRUs, with more being added all the time.

Product categories include: Clothing & Accessories, Health & Beauty, Telephones & Faxes, Computers & Software, Home & Garden, Tickets, Electronics, Home Appliances, Travel, Entertainment, Jewellery, Vehicles Parts & Accessories, Gifts, Gadgets & Toys and Sports.

Every sale our affiliate partners generate over a period of time is analysed and together with sales trends in the market this data is used to order the product search results.  This means that the results displayed from a How Much? search have taken into account the cost of the product, the merchants’ reputation and the confidence of the buying public.

How Much? therefore uses the first product comparison engine that truly sorts data in the interests of consumers.

If you like the site, then please tell your friends, and feel free to forward this message.

If you don’t, then please tell me, and I will do my best to put it right.

Happy shopping!

Things I’d forgotten existed #2: Angel Chimes

Angel Chimes

A Christmas edition of this feature that I was reminded of when Mrs A and I visited the Christmas Shop in Lechlade this weekend.  They were selling them as the original Swedish Angel Chimes. I didn’t realise they were Swedish in origin, but they must have been the feature of many households in the 1970s.  We had one, my friend who lived across the road had one at his house and Mrs A had one too!

I found a You Tube clip, but it didn’t have very good sound, so I’ve put in this photo.  When the candles are lit, the heat drives the top round and round causing the bars hanging under the angels to strike the bells.

Lovely!

Did anyone else have one of these?