I’d love to hear if anybody else suffers from this.

I’d also love to know how you report bugs to Microsoft about IE8. ….

Every year I create  route guide – one because I enjoy doing it and two because it limits the number of phone calls I have to field after 8 pints of ale trying to explain where the bloody Fletcher Moss is.

Our route is by no means an authentic route – over the past nine years we’ve adapted it to account for bouncers, trainers (remember when you had to wear shoes to go to a bar!) and pub closures (West Didsbury pubs are not on the original dozen).  We’ve tried to keep it to traditional pubs, only going to the one chain pub – I’m quite proud of the route.

The elders will meet and decide when the next one is but for now you can download the Didsbury_Dozen_Feb_2010 route guide here.

Thanks to Scouse Phil for help with the text and the other elders for the route.

* It’s felt that to properly do the dozen you have to drink pints – not many people do that either!

Two little things that I prefer to get back the screen real estate.

1)       Small icons on the desktop

-Right click on an empty part of your desktop and go to View | Small Icons

2)      Small icons on the task bar – this frees loads of space up on your screen

- Right click on the Task Bar, Properties | check the Use Small Icons

I moved to Worcester in August 2006. I loved the history and small feel of this lovely city in the West Midlands… but something was missing. Yup – A twelve pub, pub crawl. Luckily my new work colleagues shared this view and Joe come up with the name Worcester Wassail – after quietly looking up what a Wassail was I agreed. So here it is my first, original pub crawl.

You can download it in glorious full colour – Worcester Wassail 2009

The Cap ‘n’ Gown  – 45 Upper Tything

Established in 1849 and, up until a few years ago, little had changed (except hopefully the odd barrel) now it’s full of smutty seaside postcards (perhaps from Worcester’s Blackpole?) and faux wood panelling.  Turn right out of Foregate Street train station and walk under the railway bridge.  The pub is ten minutes up just past the school on the right.

Toast – I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered! – George Best

The Lamb and Flag                                                  30 The Tything

Continue back in the direction of the train station on the same side of the road (opposite St. Oswald’s Road).  A proper old man’s pub – the locals like a good stare.  So old fashioned the place still exercises lunch and evening openings so watch out if you’re running late you’ll miss out on this gem.   Never mind 24 hour drinking this place refuses 12 hours!

Toast – May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future. – Irish Proverb

The Dragon Inn   51 The Tything

Five minutes further up the Tything and you’ll find a 1750s, Grade II listed, CAMRA pub.  See the blackboard for today’s specials – these are not your usual specials but rather a list of banned topics of conversation.  This, it seems, has proved a novel way of stopping the locals from wanting to kill each other as they have pickled their livers over the years. Watch the percentages on some of ales or you might not make the fourth pub. We should warn you the website says there is no parking at the pub, but if you’ve bought your car you deserve everything you get… See www.thedragoninn.com

Toast – Be polite to all, but intimate with few! – Thomas Jefferson

The Saracens Head   4 Tything

Our final pub on the Tything before the wassail takes us into town and to some of the more famous Worcester spots.  An old coaching house, now run by a friendly South African landlord – friendly but doesn’t like the fucking rude language – so mind your cunting mouth!  So there we have it, we HAVE met a nice South African.

Toast – I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve! – Bilbo Baggins

The Pig & Drum  53 Lowesmoor Place

Now cometh your longest walk – but not long enough to sober you up…  The Tything turns into Foregate Street, take a left at the A-Plan insurance building on Sansome Street (if you get to the Subway then you’re either hungry or lost), take a wide berth around the Toby’s Tavern, follow the curve of the road and take the second left onto Lowesmoor.  This is supposedly the ‘dodgy’ end of Worcester (apparently someone dropped some litter once, or maybe someone raised their voice; I forget now) and in the correct proportion there is only 400ft of it…  Here is the chip shop (wise heads order the ‘special’ from here; double the food – half the price), past the “Private Shop” – which I’ll admit I’d never realised was just a nice front for a shop selling arse plugs, rubber cocks and lube.  The Pig & Drum is on the left.

Toast  – Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.  That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. – Ernest Hemingway

The Fire Fly     54 Lowesmoor

Just over the road from the Pig is the Fire Fly – bit of a contrast and the disabled access is somewhat lacking… however this doesn’t stop us. Olives for the poncey amongst us, cocaine for the rest.

Toast – Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen! – Mark Twain

The Swan With Two Nicks  28 New Street

Head back up Lowesmoor, past the Brewer’s Tap and the Private Shop…. mmmm latex.  Over the lights and turn left onto Queen Street.  At the bottom of the street head onto New Street, The Swan is on the left.  A nice looking pub but they do insist on blaring music through a shitty PA.  Upstairs is the Lunar bar where the décor is somewhere between a second rate knocking shop and a scene from Austin Powers!

Toast – First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you!  F. Scott Fitzgerald

Eagle Vaults  2 Friar Street

Continue up New Street and you’ll find Eagle Vaults on the corner of Pump Street and New Street (which further on becomes Friar Street).  Back to the old man style pub of yesteryear that sometimes has ace rockabilly bands on. It was in this pub that Tim showed his arse, or saw it. Eight pints sometimes (fortunately) clouds the memory.

Toast – Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt!  Abraham Lincoln

Farriers Arms  9 Fish Street

Now comes an opportunity to show off your nine pint pool skills.  Take a left turn out of the pub and head up Pump Street onto High Street.  Take a left on High Street and Fish Street is the next right (opposite JJB Sports).  The pub is 100 yards from the High Street. Resist the temptation to double up here on pints…people are now beginning to struggle.

Toast – Sex if you want it badly, that’s how you’re going to get it! – Simon Munnery

Ye Olde Talbot  Friar Street / Sidbury

Head back onto High Street and turn right.  Follow the path on the left hand side when you get to old Teddy Elgar’s statue and you’ll find this boozer on the corner of Sidbury and Friar Street.  It’s a bit of a carvery style place and you’ll need to carve through the crowds to get a pint as it’s always rammed. Try not to knock over a table of drinks like Bob did one year. It took a lot of explaining from a lot of people.

Toast – We’ve all had enough to drink, now let’s have too much! – Unknown

Cardinal’s Hat   31 Friar Street

Nearly there!! Now the purists have reason to scoff as this Austrian themed bar serves half litres – yes, this is a twelve pint pub crawl – improvise!  As we’ve recently given up on democracy and just submitted to our European overlords perhaps we better get used to it… Those (still) with a death wish may wish to consider the five-litre stein. Great heated outdoor area for chatting up the laydeez.

Toast – Here’s to the nights we can’t remember, with the friends we’ll never forget. – Unknown

Heroes Friar Street

Continue up Friar Street and on the left, keep your blurry eyes peeled for a free-standing sign for Heroes. Watch your head and projectile vomit from Joe Maggs as you enter.  This place has its fair share of nooks and grannies and seems popular with the Worcestershire yoof…and then it’s on to a club.

Toast – Bugger Bognor – King George V (last words)

They are the ‘proper’ 175 gram Discraft Ultrastars! And just £7 – get yours here!

Metallic Red DUFFA Disc!

I currently sat on the train coming back from London.  Last night, horror of horrors – there are screaming brats on the train and I realise that I’ve become so reliant on Spotify and the BBC iPlayer that I’ve no music in MP3 on my laptop (that and I had to move a load of stuff off for a forthcoming Windows 7 upgrade on my work laptop) and, though capable of acting as an MP3 player, I’ve still not got around to loading any music on my new phone.

So this morning – though there are no children I’m attempting to download a podcast to help me through the journey.  I didn’t think to start this off whilst stationary at Euston – so I’m doing it on the move…

Is it just me or is mobile internet still not ‘quite there’ – just like wireless internet it seems flaky and unable to deal with the reality of a typical user’s requirements – to pick itself back up when the train I’m on enters a tunnel and resume a download.

Still – it is about the only time I’ll forgive Vista for it’s file download estimates…

The prerequisite reading is a supposed 15-20 hours of the book “Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2”.  So dry is the reading I was having real problems concentrating.  Talking about this in the office I came up with the idea that to focus my attention and keep interested I’d mentally swap the word ‘project’ with ‘orgy’ to see if that made it more interesting.  For a start the title becomes “Managing Successful Orgies with PRINCE2”

A rather dry section, Chapter 10, pg 153:

One of the defining features of a project is that it is finite – it has a start and an end.  If the project loses this distinctiveness, it loses some of its advantages over purely operational management approaches. 

A clear end to the project:

·         It is always more successful than the natural tendency to drift into use and subsequent modification of the product.  It is a recognition by all concerned that: 

o   The original objectives have been met

o   the current project has run its course

o   either the operational regime must now take over or the products from this project become inputs into some subsequent project or into some larger programme

Becomes:

One of the defining features of a[n] orgy is that it is finite – it has a start and an end.  If the orgy loses this distinctiveness, it loses some of its advantages over purely operational management approaches. 

A clear end to the orgy:

·         It is always more successful than the natural tendency to drift into use and subsequent modification of the product.  It is a recognition by all concerned that: 

o   The original objectives have been met

o   the current orgy has run its course

o   either the operational regime must now take over or the products from this orgy become inputs into some subsequent orgy or into some larger programme

Childish – yes but I just hope it helps me stay awake reading the thing.  

I use this (quite hacky) VBA macro.  Be warned it can take a while to run on older systems – SAVE YOUR OPEN WORD DOCS FIRST!