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Home news time again, this time a Christmas edition.

Well, as you will have gathered from my last home news, I have no work news to relay, but that just makes more room for far more interesting home news and I might be able to squeeze in an extra elephant or two.

I guess these last few days have been the same for most people, dominated by the Christmas scrum and the swishing sound not of sleighs but of of credit cards. It seems that the peace and goodwill message went through the window when the Buz Lightyear toys started reaching a critical shortage and shop keepers in Britain realised that they could pull a fast one over Turkey shoppers by defrosting last years unsold birds and selling them as “fresh”. It seems that the BSE “scare” has simply taught British shop keepers that there are even more devious ways of ripping off the public and making a quick buck. Thank goodness our food shopping is limited to fruit and vegetables although with genetically engineered Corn and Soya one wonders if we are not soon to have a Mad Mielie (corn for Non-South Africans) scare.

Yesterday’s birthday was mostly spent in bed, sadly not because Maggie wrapped herself in Christmas Paper and gave me a titillating birthday present, but rather because I am suffering from a rather mean and nasty flu virus. So much sneezing and cleaning of 17 inch monitors at the moment. With wind chill adjusted temperatures currently sitting at minus 8 degrees centigrade, the central heating is doing overtime and being assisted by other fan heaters. So to all those sending emails bragging of 35 degree sunshine and talk of scuba diving - I hope you get sunburnt. The next door neighbour tried to wash his car (fool) and it ended in a puddle of ice. The ex-fish (they died some time ago) pond is now covered in a thick layer of ice.

We had a bit of fun and excitement on Saturday. It started with birthday shopping for me, so I mainly acted as taxi driver and acted out roles from some 1970’s spy movie - “meet me in WH Smiths in 30 minutes” - Da Boris - “and don’t look in the packets”. After three hours of subterfuge and realising that the intrepid birthday shoppers were still packetless, I dropped some last minute hints - and we were out of there at last. On a whim we then went down to Ocean Village in Southampton and watched “Matilda”, a new Dany DeVito film of the Raul Dhaal (?sp) book. The film was excellent family fun and highly recommended. A much better bet than the last kids film we saw - “James and the Giant Peach”.

Right now the next bit is the fun and excitement bit, the lead up was just general home news. We were driving back home along with a couple of thousand other ex-shoppers on the M3 when we came across a VW Beetle burning merrily on the hard shoulder. I guess the next bit will read a bit better if you go and pop on a suitable CD/Vinyl/Tape. If you have the soundtrack from “Dam Busters” it will do. Some moving Wagner such as “The ride of the Valkeries” will also surfice. “Postman Pat” is wholly inappropriate.

Now I have had a fairly hefty and bulky fire extinguisher in the car for the last six years, just waiting for such an occasion. If you wish to start reading in slow motion at this point and turn up the volume, now would be a good time to do so. So the BMW rips across from the fast lane. Ricky bounds out, opens the boot, scrambles under the shopping and attacks the velcro bindings securing the fire extinguisher and starts running towards the burning Beetle. The two lads watch expectantly at all of this, ever hopeful that their car will be rescued by the hero in the “Purple BMW”. At this point, slow motion reading and turning up the volume to a Dolby Stereo ear deafening crescendo is obligatory.

Off comes the safety clip on the extinguisher. Click. The hero turns in slow motion to the burning car, feeling the heat from the blaze, aims the fire extinguisher and ---- Pssshhhttt. Game over. Insert another R75.00 in Dions bank account for another pointless, useless extinguisher.

Ok, you can go and turn the CD/Vinyl/Tape down now. I SAID YOU CAN TURN THE MUSIC DOWN NOW.

It really was infuriating realising that the thing in the boot which had got in the way so often, but with which I had persisted in the hope that it would one day find a use, could be so useless. So apart from a 999 call on the mobile there was not much more that I could do and the Beetle continued to burn merrily apart from a small patch on the left of the engine which was covered in powder. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the extinguisher, just that it only provided about two seconds of action. Now with a boot full of them I could have been of some use.

I don’t think I will make it onto the “Rescue 999” show. But might just make it onto the “You’ve been Framed” show - a “Candid Camera” show they have here if I was unlucky enough to be taped by the motorway surveillance cameras.

The kids are all pretty excited about Christmas tomorrow, me included. The problem with the snooker table still persists, and although I now have a garage full of loft flooring boards and a loft ladder, I have not yet started the grand loft conversion project. I think we will have to move the lounge furniture out so that we can get the Christmas Snooker Table into the house. At the moment it is in a large cardboard box in the garage together with the loft flooring boards and the loft ladder.

Billy and Ted were in the UK (Staying in Peterborough ?? - pretty much like staying in Beauford West while you are in South Africa. Still, we got to see Billy last Saturday and on Tuesday I went through to London and had supper with Billy, Patrick and Karen in Leicester Square (Deep Pan, what else), after drinks at a pub near London Bridge (near Lloyds where Patrick is working at the moment). Much gossiping enjoyed by all.

The next door neighbours (actually number 1 but anyway) bought a PC from PC World - a 133MHz Packard Bell. So naturally I was called in to set it up, plug it together (they were struggling with simple stuff like the electricity plug) and then install some games that they had bought. Doubtless I will be called upon again after Christmas, but at least their youngest daughter, Lucy (7 I think) has a reasonable idea, and has spent enough time playing on our PC’s and learnt enough from Nicky and Tarryn to be able to get around Win95. Yet another Win95 installation was performed, although in this case it was more a case of minor tweaking , on Matthew’s (Scott) PC (not actually his but anyway), a 486-75MHz from Packard Bell. I now have a healthy dislike for Packard Bells which have a lousy motherboard layout which makes upgrading impossible (no spare 5 ½ drive bay, only two memory SIMM slots and a terrible ISA riser expansion slot with only three ISA slots.

On Sunday we went walking along Lepe Beach (might have been where I caught the cold, but Matthew Scott is also a prime suspect) with Pete & Rowena and her Aunt, and then had cream teas at Beulieau in the New Forest after paying 15 pounds for a parking fine at Lepe Beach (we didn’t spot the Pay and Display, and so neither paid nor displayed).

The kids and I are working on an HTML adventure game which we are hoping to publish on the WWW soon. Essentially it is just a set of web pages linked together in a Dungeon & Dragon style adventure, but I am hoping to experiment with some ActiveX stuff to make it really quite good.

The PC’s have been pretty stable and unmolested over the last week. The external modem is still not working (Com port problem) and I have not got my NT Server/SQL Server box yet - it has been postponed to be a New Year acquisition.

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