Generate Your Own Electricity

Now this is a very interesting article and it would be nice to know how the Irish government plan to operate their scheme announced this week. Whatever they do, if successful, this will also help the economy as fuel cost is one of the major contributions to inflation.

From the Guardian:

It was with some trepidation that I went into the cellar this week to take some meter readings in order to find out how the solar panels we had fitted on our house exactly a year ago have been performing. Was the hefty sum of £8,500 we forked out last year a good investment or a waste of money?

Well, the news is better than I had expected. We, a family of four, have produced 92% of our electricity usage from the roof of a century-old terraced house in south-east London - laying to rest the idea that Britain is not sunny enough for solar power. It also disproves any suggestion this sort of technology only works in state-of-the-art, modern detached houses.

Not only will we not pay for any electricity, we should get a rebate of about £50 once a payment from the so-called renewables obligation (RO) scheme, which rewards microgeneration schemes with cash, is included.

In all, the saving for the past year will be around £500, giving a return on our investment of 6%, which is not subject to tax. Next year, when the payments from the RO scheme will double for photovoltaic (PV) solar installations, we will get about £150 back, giving a total return of 7%. That will rise further if energy prices continue to climb - which is likely after oil prices hit yet another high this week.

There is an important caveat here. I received a 50% grant for the system from the government's low-carbon buildings programme - the total cost of buying and installing the panels was £17,000. Unfortunately, the government is so pathetic at supporting low-carbon technologies that it last year cut the maximum grant to £2,500 because the scheme was so popular. As a result, demand has collapsed to the extent that the small company that fitted my system has gone out of business.

That means your return on a system purchased now will be lower - little more than 3% for one like mine this year, rising to close on 4% when the RO payments increase next year. Still, 4% that is not taxable is comparable to a building society account that you do pay tax on.

What is particularly annoying about all this is that in Germany, where a proper system of support has boosted volumes - the Germans kitted out 130,000 houses with solar PV last year, while the UK managed less than 300 - costs have fallen dramatically and a system like mine would only cost about £9,000 without a grant.

Our system works by producing power - up to 3 kilowatts - during the day and exporting much of it to the grid because we are out at work and school most days. It's fun to watch our old-fashioned meter spinning backwards when the sun is shining. We get 12p per kilowatt hour (kwh) for what we export, though we pay more for what we import in the evenings. But the RO payment of £105 makes up the difference. Mind you, in Germany, we would get about 35p/kwh. No wonder the Germans have gone mad for PV.

We are now with npower, although Scottish and Southern Energy offers a flat 18p/kwh including the RO payment which, in terms of sheer simplicity, has to be a winner, although my 12p plus RO is equivalent to around 18p. They also fit an export meter for free whereas npower estimates our exports at 50% of what we produce. I will soon have a new meter fitted because none of the power companies likes the idea of them turning backwards.

I left Powergen last year because the npower deal was the best on the market. Powergen, you may not be surprised to hear, was really difficult about my going. It couldn't grasp that my meter had gone backwards and unilaterally added 4,000 kwh (a year's consumption) to our final bill - daylight robbery, if you will pardon the pun. I had to really battle with them to get a final refund. This whole thing can be a hassle so make sure you choose the right supplier at the outset to avoid having to change.

Just as exciting as our solar output was the fact that, at the same time as fitting the panels, we took a bunch of measures in the house to cut our electricity consumption. We changed every bulb in the house (except the fridge and microwave) to low-energy ones, and replaced our ageing fridge and freezer. Meanwhile, our electric oven packed up last summer, so we replaced it with a gas one, figuring that generating heat with gas was probably a lower-carbon solution than doing it with electricity.

The upshot is that we cut our electricity use from 4,000 kilowatt hours a year over the previous five years to a tad under 3,000 kwh, a reduction of 25%. As our 3kw peak solar panels produced 2,730 kwh over the year, we only used about 250 kwh of electricity from the grid.

The PV system is not even on a south-facing roof - it faces south-east - and is at a shallower angle than would be ideal. But still it performed well, and will go on doing so for decades. The estimate of panel "degradation", or loss of performance, is said to be 0.5% a year, so negligible.

People seem fixated with asking how many years the system will take to pay back. I could answer the question at the current yield of 6%, but that is up to 7% next year, so the payback time will shorten. And if oil prices continue to rise, pushing up electricity prices, my yield will rise and the payback will shorten. So it is impossible to predict.

But all that misses the point. The system represents an improvement to the house that saves money. So it should generate a higher sale value if I move. People don't ask what the payback time is of a new kitchen or bathroom - also home improvements - so why do they ask about a carbon-saving technology?

What has been interesting is the effect it has had on us as a family. You might think generating your own power would make you relaxed about leaving lights on or the TV on standby. But the contrary is true. It has woken us all up to the realities of energy use. The computer, TV, lights, everything, we now turn off at the wall when they are not in use. We have some of those remote control switches to turn off wall sockets that are hard to get to. In future when we go on holiday, we will empty the fridge and freezer and switch them off. The challenge now is to raise that 92% figure to 100%.

The tumble dryer has long gone, and I feel that hair-dryer use may be excessive. But in a family with two girls, that may prove a struggle. However, I have my eye on the electric toothbrushes next! We are also turning our attention to our use of gas. Last year, our boiler packed up (it was an expensive year!) so we fitted a new, condensing one which will use less gas. And I am going to double the thickness of the loft insulation.

Longer term, I plan to fit a solar thermal system which should provide between 50% and 70% of our hot water. Then it would probably be worth plumbing a hot-water feed into the dishwasher and washing machine rather than using cold water heated by electricity.

If any readers have views on this, please let me know. The aim is to see how little energy a fairly average Victorian terraced house can use and what the costs involved are. So far, it has been about £10,000 to achieve the electricity savings mentioned above.

The additional loft insulation will be a few hundred pounds. A solar thermal system will be about £3,500.

A Mystery in the Middle East

A really interesting article I came across about the Middle East. Underneath it all what is the motive? Is Goerge Bush about to cement his legacy of war mongering? Are Iran, Syria and Israel about to get into a big skirmish and send oil prices even higher than the levels we are seeing at the moment? Who knows? We will soon find out.

A Mystery in the Middle East
By George Friedman

The Arab-Israeli region of the Middle East is filled with rumors of war. That is about as unusual as the rising of the sun, so normally it would not be worth mentioning. But like the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day, such rumors occasionally will be true. In this case, we don't know that they are true, and certainly it's not the rumors that are driving us. But other things ? minor and readily explicable individually ? have drawn our attention to the possibility that something is happening.

The first thing that drew our attention was a minor, routine matter. Back in February, the United States started purchasing oil for its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR is a reserve of crude oil stored in underground salt domes. Back in February, it stood at 96.2 percent of capacity, which is pretty full as far as we are concerned. But the U.S. Department of Energy decided to increase its capacity. This move came in spite of record-high oil prices and the fact that the purchase would not help matters. It also came despite potential political fallout, since during times like these there is generally pressure to release reserves. Part of the step could have been the bureaucracy cranking away, and part of it could have been the feeling that the step didn't make much difference. But part of it could have been based on real fears of a disruption in oil supplies. By itself, the move meant nothing. But it did cause us to become thoughtful.

Also in February, someone assassinated Imad Mughniyah, a leader of Hezbollah, in a car bomb explosion in Syria. It was assumed the Israelis had killed him, although there were some suspicions the Syrians might have had him killed for their own arcane reasons. In any case, Hezbollah publicly claimed the Israelis killed Mughniyah, and therefore it was expected the militant Shiite group would take revenge. In the past, Hezbollah responded not by attacking Israel but by attacking Jewish targets elsewhere, as in the Buenos Aires attacks of 1992 and 1994.

In March, the United States decided to dispatch the USS Cole, then under Sixth Fleet command, to Lebanese coastal waters. Washington later replaced it with two escorts from the Nassau (LHA-4) Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG), reportedly maintaining a minor naval presence in the area. (Most of the ESG, on a regularly
scheduled deployment, is no more than a few days sail from the coast, as it remains in the Mediterranean Sea.) The reason given for the American naval presence was to serve as a warning to the Syrians not to involve themselves in Lebanese affairs. The exact mission of the naval presence off the Levantine coast ? and the exact deterrent function it served ? was not clear, but there they were. The Sixth Fleet has gone out of its way to park and maintain U.S. warships off the Lebanese coast.

Hezbollah leaders being killed by the Israelis and the presence of American ships off the shores of Mediterranean countries are not news in and of themselves. These things happen. The killing of Mughniyah is notable only to point out that as much as Israel might have wanted him dead, the Israelis knew this fight would escalate. But anyone would have known this. So all we know is that whoever killed Mughniyah wanted to trigger a conflict. The U.S. naval presence off the Levantine coast is notable in that Washington, rather busy with matters elsewhere, found the bandwidth to get involved here as well.

With the situation becoming tense, the Israelis announced in March that they would carry out an exercise in April called Turning Point 2. Once again, an Israeli military exercise is hardly interesting news. But the Syrians apparently got quite interested. After the announcement, the Syrians deployed three divisions ? two armored, one mechanized ? to the Lebanese-Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley, the western part of which is Hezbollah's stronghold. The Syrians didn't appear to be aggressive. Rather, they deployed these forces in a defensive posture, in a way walling off their part of the valley.

The Syrians are well aware that in the event of a conventional war with Israel, they would experience a short but exciting life, as they say. They thus are hardly going to attack Israel. The deployment therefore seemed intended to keep the Israelis on the Lebanese side of the border ? on the apparent assumption the
Israelis were going into the Bekaa Valley. Despite Israeli and Syrian denials of the Syrian troop buildup along the border, Stratfor sources maintain that the buildup in fact happened. Normally, Israel would be jumping at the chance to trumpet Syrian aggression in response to these troop movements, but, instead, the Israelis downplayed the buildup.

When the Israelis kicked off Turning Point 2, which we regard as a pretty interesting name, it turned out to be the largest exercise in Israeli history. It involved the entire country, and was designed to test civil defenses and the ability of the national command authority to continue to function in the event of an attack with unconventional weapons ? chemical and nuclear, we would assume. This was a costly exercise. It also involved calling up reserves, some of them for the exercise, and, by some reports, others for deployment to the north against Syria. Israel does not call up reserves casually. Reserve call-ups are expensive and disrupt the civilian economy. These appear small, but in the environment of Turning Point 2, it would not be difficult to mobilize larger forces without being noticed.

The Syrians already were deeply concerned by the Israeli exercise. Eventually, the Lebanese government got worried, too, and started to evacuate some civilians from the South. Hezbollah, which still hadn't retaliated for the Mughniyah assassination, also claimed the Israelis were about to attack it, and reportedly went on alert and mobilized its forces. The Americans, who normally issue warnings and cautions to everyone, said nothing to try to calm the situation. They just sat offshore on their ships.

It is noteworthy that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak canceled a scheduled visit to Germany this week. The cancellation came immediately after the reports of the Syrian military redeployment were released. Obviously, Barak needed to be in Israel for Turning Point 2, but then he had known about the exercise for at
least a month. Why cancel at the last minute? While we are discussing diplomacy, we note that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Oman ? a country with close relations with Iran ? and then was followed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. By itself not interesting, but why the high-level interest in Oman
at this point?

Now let's swing back to September 2007, when the Israelis bombed something in Syria near the Turkish border. As we discussed at the time, for some reason the Israelis refused to say what they had attacked. It made no sense for them not to trumpet what they carefully leaked ? namely, that they had attacked a nuclear
facility. Proving that Syria had a secret nuclear program would have been a public relations coup for Israel. Nevertheless, no public charges were leveled. And the Syrians remained awfully calm about the bombing.

Rumors now are swirling that the Israelis are about to reveal publicly that they in fact bombed a nuclear reactor provided to Syria by North Korea. But this news isn't all that big. Also rumored is that the Israelis will claim Iranian complicity in building the reactor. And one Israeli TV station reported April 8 that Israel really had discovered Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which it said had been smuggled to Syria.

Now why the Bush administration wouldn't have trumpeted news of the Syrian reactor worldwide in September 2007 is beyond us, but there obviously were some reasons ? assuming the TV report is true, which we have no way of establishing. In fact, we have no idea why the Israelis are choosing this moment to rehash the bombing of this site. But whatever their reason, it certainly raises a critical question. If the Syrians are developing a nuclear capability, what are the Israelis planning to do about it?

No one of these things, by itself, is of very great interest. And taken together they do not provide the means for a clear forecast. Nevertheless, a series of rather ordinary events, taken together, can constitute something significant. Tensions in the Middle East are moving well beyond the normal point, and given everything that is happening, events are moving to a point where someone is likely to take military action. Whether Hezbollah will carry out a retaliatory strike or Israel a pre-emptive strike in Lebanon, or whether the Israelis' real target is Iran, tensions systematically have been ratcheted up to the point where we, in our simple way, are beginning to wonder whether something has to give.

All together, these events are fairly extraordinary. Ignoring all rhetoric ? and the Israelis have gone out of their way to say that they are not looking for a fight ? it would seem that each side, but particularly the Americans and Israelis, have gone out of their way to signal that they are expecting conflict. The Syrians have also signaled that they expect conflict, and Hezbollah always claims there is about to be conflict.

What is missing is this: who will fight whom, and why, and why now. The simple explanation is that Israel wants a second round with Hezbollah. But while that might be true, it doesn't explain everything else that has happened. Most important, it doesn't explain the simultaneous revelations about the bombing of Syria. It also doesn't explain the U.S. naval deployment. Is the United States about to get involved in a war with Hezbollah, a war that the Israelis should handle themselves? Are the Israelis going to topple Syrian President Bashar al
Assad ? and then wind up with a Sunni government, or worse, an Israeli occupation of Syria? None of that makes a lot of sense.

In truth, all of this may dissolve into nothing much. In intelligence analysis, however, sometimes a set of not-fully-coherent facts must be reported, and that is what we are doing now. There is no clear pattern; there is no obvious direction this is taking. Nevertheless, when we string together events from February until now, we see a persistently escalating pattern of behavior. In fact, what we can say most clearly is that there is escalation, without being able to say what is the clear direction of the escalation or the purpose.

We would like to wrap this up with a crystal clear explanation and forecast. But we can't. The motives of the various actors are opaque; and taken separately, the individual events all have quite innocent explanations. We are not prepared to say war is imminent, nor even what sort of war there would be. We are simply prepared to say that the course of events since February ? and really since the September 2007 attack on Syria ? have been startling, and they appear to be reaching some sort of hard-to-understand crescendo.

The bombing of Syria symbolizes our confusion. Why would Syria want a nuclear reactor and why put it on the border of Turkey, a country the Syrians aren't particularly friendly with? If the Syrians had a nuclear reactor, why would the Israelis be coy about it? Why would the Americans? Having said nothing for months apart from careful leaks, why are the Israelis going to speak publicly now? And if what they are going to say is simply that the North Koreans provided the equipment, what's the big deal? That was leaked months ago.

The events of September 2007 make no sense and have never made any sense. The events we have seen since February make no sense either. That is noteworthy, and we bring it to your attention. We are not saying that the events are meaningless. We are saying that we do not know their meaning. But we can't help
but regard them as ominous.

The Global Warming Myth?

An interesting excerpt from the Phil Flynn Energy Blast (Alaron Energies www.alaron.com) which looks at how the evidence for global warming has dissipated over the last decade and looks set to continue this way. For some global warming is unproven but the results of the hype which have caused people to be more earth conscious are of great benefit to the planet as a whole. The debate is set to continue and we may only understand the effects in hindsight.

[[[ Are you still worried about global warming? You need not worry, at least not this year. The BBC reported that global temperatures will drop "slightly" this year as a result of the cooling effect of La Nina current in the Pacific, quoting UN meteorologists. The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarrud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into summer. So according to the BBC that this would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998. Of course global warming experts say, "we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend" and they forecast a new record high within the next five years. Yet excuse me if I am wrong. I do not remember even one global warming expert predicting that global temperatures would not rise over the last decade. Could this be the lost decade when it comes to global warming?

And what about those fears that the global warming experts raised about natural disasters? Didn't some say that the active hurricane season we had in the Gulf of Mexico and the strange weather that was happening all over the country and the globe was due to unmistakable global warming? Yet how is this possible if global temperatures have not risen in the past ten years? Why were we not having these events 10 years ago?

This is also having and impact on business in a strange way. The Guardian Press reported that Lloyd's of London warned that an absence of natural disasters man-made and otherwise was putting pressure on firms to reduce premiums in 2008. The world's oldest and largest insurers of natural disasters were being squeezed. The company said at least half of their business was conducted in the US last year. It was a major insurer of the Florida seaboard and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The Guardian says yet after two years of relatively few claims for environmental damage, it has increased competition in the sector. That means for futures this hurricane season the "hurricane premium" will be lower as well. That also means if we do have an active hurricane season the move will be much stronger to the upside! I am not panicked about global warming but just to be safe you might want to by some cheap natural gas calls. ]]]

Get Ready for an Energy Burst

Stay tuned to this blog for the latest Energy Burst - an indepth guide to what's hot and what's not in the world of energy futures.

The Steevieg Collection

Here are some random poems by Steevie "Peanuthead" G as sent by text on various occasions of inspiration:

21/04/2006
The symbolic face of the first antelope herd on planet Munchding were shocked by the plethora of carrot flavoured pavement slabs along the road to Ant Bar.

09/10/2006
I once met a chap called Pap.
He did a rap about the map on his lap.
But all of a sudden the gap between the cap and him taking a nap blew up like a burnt crap.
It went zap right up the tap like a retarded Jap in a mouse trap.



16/10/2006
When the train pulled into Pennsylvain,
it was pissing rain,
just like that time in Spain when Bahrain felt the pain
After Saddam Hussein used the pasta strain to inflict hideous shame upon the goats.

26/10/2006
I once met a goat,
no wait was a stoat.
I thought...
Hmm potential coat.
But then it hit my scroat
then jumped on the float
in the middle of the moat,
was hit by a small boat full of retards

29/11/2006
The space between the field and the diversified yield
first became known by a chap who wouldn't wield.
He fell off the goat, nuts bitten off by a stoat
and not a thing left in his world but his boat.
But alas he felt grace as he checked his own face
cos the retard has slowed down the pace of the race
to cut lace from the field of disgrace.

A Poem by Liamo

Jelly fire bricks
Don't start quick
But add some sambuka to the mix
And the bridge magnet cartoons bend brishisly

Japanese TV Show - So Funny!!

Chavez - an interesting article

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela recently subsidised cheaper bus fares for poor people in London. Now the man who was once removed from his post in a coup that lasted hours and was backed by the United States is pushing forward with the battle for the moral ground in the third world. The following article describes this interesting policy:

Natalie Obiko Pearson and Ian James, The Associated Press

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Laid-off Brazilian factory workers have their jobs back, Nicaraguan farmers are getting low-interest loans, and Bolivian mayors can afford new health clinics, all thanks to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Bolstered by windfall oil profits, Chavez's government is now offering more direct state funding to Latin America and the Caribbean than the United States. A tally by The Associated Press shows Venezuela has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding so far this year.

While the most recent figures available from Washington show $3 billion in U.S. grants and loans reached the region in 2005, it isn't known how much of the Venezuelan money has actually been delivered. And Chavez's spending abroad doesn't come close to the overall volume of U.S. private investment and trade in Latin America.

But in terms of direct government funding, the scale of Venezuela's commitments is unprecedented for a Latin American country.

Chavez's largesse tends to benefit left-leaning nations that support his vision of a Latin America with greater independence from the United States. But he denies the two countries are in a competition.

"We don't want to compete with anyone. I wish the United States were 100 times above us," Chavez told the AP in a recent interview. "But no, the U.S. government views the region in a marginal way. What they offer is a pittance sometimes, and with unacceptable pressures that at times countries can't accept."

U.S. aid tends to be low-profile, constrained by strict guidelines and often distributed through other institutions so that recipients may not know it's from the U.S. government. Venezuela offers money with few strings attached and a personal Chavez touch that aid experts say generates more good will dollar for dollar.

Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, argues that the U.S. plays a larger role than reflected in its aid figures.

The United States, for instance, drove Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank debt relief deals totaling $7.5 billion over the past three years in Latin America, he said.

"Who is the biggest financier of the IDB? The United States. Who is the biggest financier of the World Bank? The United States is. We don't count those," Lowery said. "We're basically engaged on a multilevel, multi-prong approach."

Still, as the Chavez effect gains ground, there are signs the U.S. is responding to the challenge.

The U.S. Navy medical ship Comfort is on a four-month, 12-country voyage to Latin American ports and has already treated more than 80,000 patients with free vaccinations, eye care, dental checkups and surgeries aboard the converted oil tanker.

Fone Jacker

There is a new show on E4 called Fone Jacker, its very funny. One of the funniest sketches I have seen is this one:



The best bit is him making the 'boop' sound. Hilarious!

Steevieg finishes Ironman

Well done to Steevieg who finished the Ironman in Frankfurt, Germany 2007 in 14h 18 min.

Greg LeMond

This is a really interesting story about Greg LeMond the triple winner of the Tour De France in an interview with Paul Kimmage in The Times (London). He talks about drug abuse in the sport and his own abuse as a child and how his demons helped him win the Tour.

Dance with the devil

I foudn this song on youtube, it's a song they used to play in the bar we went to in Kos when we holidayed there back in 2000. Some things have changed now including haircuts but this song is still rubbish!!

New Poem

Shrug a bug dog

Who ate a hog?

An old smelly frog

Jumped on a log

Splinter splinter turd face,

Only three toes,

Eat one,

Chop off his mop,

Dead.

Darfur - The US Agenda

http://www.321energy.com/editorials/engdahl/engdahl052207.html

This is a very interesting article which describes why the US is suddenly so interested in the people of Darfur as opposed to Rwanda or even Zimbabwe.

Spiderman 3

I watched this film last night and it is the gayest film since the gays invaded from the planet gay back in nineteen gayty gay!!!!

 

Whoever wrote the movie is either taking the p1ss or is a pure weirdo because some of it is absolutely ridiculous... "oh you'll always be my friend, my best friend"... I mean who says that, I know it is a film and is supposed to stretch the imagination but nobody is going to believe that, even kids cartoons are not that cheesy.

 

And as for the bit when Peter Parker/Spiderman becomes 'cool' and messes his hair, who is going to believe that either, seriously!!!! If someone was walking down the streets of New York like that they would probably be arrested or beaten up.

 

Even the action was ruined by the silly English reporter who's lines were obviously scraped off the bottom of a barrel from 1923 or the sign that read "Spiderman come and get us"... sorry to ruin this film on anyone but they already wrecked it themselves. I thought Spiderman 2 was bad but this takes the rabbit!

 

How can this be the biggest grossing movie weekend in US history?

The Killers, RDS Dublin 27/02/07

Brandon Flowers is a handsome lad, his dress sense is original and awesome in my opinion. The stage decor was cool, kind of a cross between Moulin Rouge and Las Vegas cabaret. The lighting was awesome, lots of gold, silver, red and green.

The Killers are an awesome band, their music is great but my word are they bad live. They played all their hits and some others, one song that I never heard before that sounded like a mix between a 90's rave and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. So far, so good.

However, not once did they add anything extra to any of their songs, there was nothing special about this as a live performance as opposed to just listening to them on my iPod.

Brandon Flowers has no stage presence at all, no charisma and nothing that makes him, as the lead singer of the band, say to the audience 'I own you'.

Overall it was good to see them but not for €60 and I would give it a 3/5 rating.

Sparkle

The final film screen at the Dublin Film Festival last night was Sparkle, a British movie. It was really good. A nice movie, Amanda Ryan and Shaun Evans play their parts really well and Bob Hoskins is great as the lonely old man.

The storyline is awesome and throws up some surprises along the way. The writers have just the right mix of comedy, emotional catalyst and character empathy to give the movie a lot of credibility as well as enjoyment.

Looking forward to seeing it on general release.

Sorry???

Do you know what I hate? Like I mean really really HATE!!! People who say sorry when they get into a lift that you just got out of, like they whisper it. I think it is only an Irish thing, they do it in doorways too. What are they apologising for? That they were waiting for a lift???? That they are sorry for being outside the lift when you were leaving… what what what???? Don't say sorry.

Another thing... people who answer the phone and say "you have the wrong telephone number", who says 'telephone' anymore? especially in that context?!?!?!?!

David Brent Dance

Tizer did the David Brent, of The Office fame, dance at a wedding in October 2006.

The Matrix

I watched The Matrix last night for the first time. As a scientist and science fiction fan I found the concept to be interesting and a good take on the robots take over the earth in the future or the life we live is all a dream theme that we’ve seen in Terminator and Total Recall before. What I didn’t like about it was the dialogue, a little bit too nerdy for me. Its like the people who wrote it are 100% geekazoid and actually believe in the story that they have written. Apart from that the producers, directors and special effects people have done an awesome job and overall I liked it.

Rating 3.5/5

Matrix Reloaded:
This was pretty rubbish for the first half but I said I would give it a chance. Then the second half, apart from some of the dialogue again, was excellent. The action scenes were pretty damn good and made it worthwhile.

Rating 3/5