Sometimes you work damned hard and have nothing to show for it. This week was the opposite with lots achieved. I'm knackered. But where did the time go. Great, loads done, but it went in a flash. It feels more like hours than days.

Talking of hours, on average, we all have eight hours of sleep and eight of work, but where do the other eight disappear to? I can't remember much of it at all.

Actually, that's a bit of a misnomer, time stands still, or at least it doesn't go anywhere. It's us that travel through it. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. sometimes aware of what we pass by and at others, oblivious to it all.

It's like reading a book on a train. We lose ourselves in the story, transported to another time and place, only to raise our head and find that we are in a different time and place. Not where we started, not where we were in our minds and not where we had consciously transported to.

Going back to my fruitful week; maybe the answer lies in that saying "If you want work well done, select a busy man - the other kind has no time".

There you go, sorted!

Image via Wikipedia

Pathetic!

If Ferrari think that this was a victory, they need to take a look at the footage again. The drivers were ashamed, the engineers were ashamed, the public were ashamed and nobody had anything to celebrate.

If Ferrari want to cheat, they should play somewhere else.

If Alonso thinks he won, think again mate, you were given the win by a teammate who has more honour in his little finger.

If this had been a horse race they would have been in serious shit
In the boxing ring, serious shit.

Ferrari cheated us all out of a clean contest between it’s drivers.
THEY BROKE THE RULES
They need the win taken off them.
They should be excluded for the rest of the season.

END OF!

What a brilliant night the first Open Mic at The Royal Oak, Bishops Cleeve turned out to be.

Things started of quietly with a short set by myself followed by another from Rich Howie, (right). Within 30 minutes the room was beginning to fill and people were congregating outside the door. When Rich started his set, there was quite simply a lot of jaws dropping. It was electrifying.

I was really pleased to welcome Joe Griffiths and Nicole Warfield, both from 'Krush' in the audience.

Then Steve Parkes, (below), turned up, guitar over shoulder having just ridden in on his push-bike from Cheltenham. It wasn't long before he was up doing his first set. Scary following Rich!

Nonetheless he carried it off well and was well received by everybody. Despite being concerned how his voice was coming over, I can assure you Steve, it was bloody good.

While Steve was playing, we were joined by Alan Jones, (right), who had WALKED it from Cheltenham! Thank's Alan, that was really nice of you.

Again a great set which went down well, lots of contemporary stuff and a great, distinctive voice, made Liam Gallagher sound a cheap imitation. No names but one young lady was shouting, "Your my favourite, I'm your biggest fan". I had to smile as her husband was sat besides her. I do like your style Alan, always look forward to you playing.

During a short set by myself I was pleased to be joined by Joe on Sax. What a privilege for me. Certainly improved the numbers having the sax filling it out with a couple of solos from Joe.

Everybody came up and did another set ending with a bit of a jam with myself, Joe and Rich, (right). Boy, did I enjoy that!

A longer set by Rich just had people on the edge of their seats. Rich plays loud at times, but it was nice to see that people were listening and not talking, in fact it was like that for most of the night. One good reason for having it in a separate room.

Getting towards 10:30 and three chaps who had been sat in the top bar earlier came into the room. One asked if they could get up and do a couple of songs. Forgive me lads, but the first thing that went through my mind was that they thought it was Karaoke and I wasn't sure what they were going to do. So I said, "Ok, just the one". It was therefore a pleasant surprise when one asked if they could borrow my acoustic and another my electric. But even then I had no idea what was to come. What I didn't realise was that this was "Salty Dog". Halfway through the first number and I was in the bar negotiating an extension, which fortunately they agreed to. What a great time the lads gave us. Everybody was grinning like Cheshire cats. Wow, what a night this was turning into. 

Salty Dog were the surprise of the night.

Just when we thought it was all over, with Rich doing a couple of closing numbers, we were in for the treat of the night. He started playing "Smokestack Lightning" and was joined after the first minute by the harp player from Salty Dog. Things like this don't happen too often these days.

Rich ended the night with a superb version of Black Sabbath's "Fairies Wear Boots", How the hell do you hit those notes? Awesome.

Yes, it was a great night and one for which I was so proud to have been part of. What astonished me, was at the end, everybody was shaking everybody else's hands. Audience and musicians, musicians and musicians, but amazingly, the audience were congratulating each other! What a success. Thanks to everybody. It really was a dream come true for me.
Let's hope that the landlord lets us do it again.

The Prince of Wales, Cheltenham has just changed hands and scrapped the Open Mic night.

So Rich Howie quickly reorganised an impromptue Open Mic at the St Paul's Tavern.  Now nobody could suggest that there was a big crowd, given the short notice, but that didn't stop eveybody having a good time.

I really enjoyed playing and listening to the rest of the guys. It was good to have an acoustic bass backing me too, considering the odd keys I was playing in, it was an impressive jam.

So well done to, Rich, Alan Jones and Stephen Parkes, (forgive me I can't remember the bass player's name), I hope you can all make it to the Royal Oak on Wednesday.  It would be great to hear you all again. 

That looks like it could be a very busy night if everybody who says they'll come, do so.

I have owned an iPhone for some time now and overall am very happy with it.
However, there have always been some issues with the strength of the signal, especially at home.
I have spoken with Vodafone about this an they told me that it was an issue with many iPhones, but nonetheless replaced the phone, (upgrading it to 32gb at the same time; they really are very nice people at Vodafone).
Meanwhile, I discovered that it had a lot to do with the way that you hold the phone.
Gripping near the top often results in a better signal, or simply putting on the table works.

Apple say that a software fault exaggerated the strength of the signal, indicating calls could be made when they could not. They said the software problem had been present since it released the first iPhone three years ago.
The iPhone illuminates five bars to indicate signal strength, with one being low and five high. Apple said that iPhones over-estimated the strength by up to two bars.
“We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising... Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.”
They also say “Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

That's not true. That is simply managing expectation, NOT fixing the issue. And if you think it's me that's got it wrong; one, I studied management of expectation as my thesis for my MBA so I know it when I see it, two, I've talked enough bullshit in my time and can smell it a mile off, and three, look at this photo I took.

You might have to squint a bit to see it but the HTC on the left is showing 3 bars, the old Motorola in the middle has 4 bars and the iPhone on the right has 'No Service'.

Now by Apple's reckoning, the iPhone should be 'over compensating' and showing 5 bars.

Come on Apple fess up, you've been rumbled.

Today sees the launch of a new website for Everybodies Health & Fitness Club.

Whilst strictly speaking, I no longer design websites, focusing now on internet consultancy, this site was a bit of a labour of love for both Karan and myself.

More than simply a gym, Everybodies offer everyone, regardless of their size, shape, age or ability the opportunity to improve their fitness level and have fun.

The friendly and non-threatening environment combined with effective programmes provided by professional and experienced instructors, help achieve real results and maintain motivation and enthusiasm to reach goals.

Both the website and the Club come with both our endorsements
By the way, there's some fantastic FREE offers on at the moment!