BlackLOG - An adventure in 7 parts

Bit of an experiment this week. As I have such a disparate content, I thought I would try a slow release program, building this week’s Blog up on a day by day basis until it reached a crescendo. This gives much shorter chunks for you to get your teeth into. Rest assured I will try to keep the quality as low as ever.

(7 of 7) One for “Strictly” devotees & bluffers guide for “Strictly” widowers
Mrs B is well into her stride with the new series and has not missed a second of the broadcasts so far. There was a bit of a panic the other night when the series link recording failed to function, for one of the midweek shows. Fortunately, BBCi Player came to the rescue and I managed to stop Mrs B’s withdrawal symptoms from working up beyond a quivering bottom lip with a well-timed download.

My now proven inability as a dancer allows me the freedom to criticise each dancer with the freedom of the truly incapable. So without further ado my strictly thoughts so far:-

John Sergeant is a dead ringer for Joe Brand (I can’t believe it, just as I was typing this very line, Brucie cracked a joke about it. How spooky is that?). If you doubt me then you can contact Anna from my work who I was discussing it with during the week. Oh the shame, I’m already sliding into the whole depraved world, how low can I go….?


I can't say that I have ever seen
John Sargeant & Jo Brand in
the same room together

Karen Hardy looks like she is simply desperate to be voted off, with or without her dance partner Gary Rhodes. Just as long as she never has to dance with him again. While discussing “Strictly” with Anna the thorny subject of Gary’s wife cropped up. She was on the Midweek show. Anna described her as “definitely an imbroglio!!” A little harsh, perhaps, I just thought that she had the look of Gary’s overworked chief food taster.

Jodie Kidd – tall and looks like a great laugh but I get a bit confused when I see her cheeks. I can’t decide if she is related to either a chipmunk or hamster or possibly both. (Love to see Brucie try to steal that line…)
Jodie and those cute little cheeks,
looks like she could do with a
shave though!!
I had some nice comments but felt they would get in the way of my new “Strictly Bitchy Persona” so I have suppressed them. What can I say? Mrs B has unleashed a monster. So don’t mess with me the BlackLOG has been busy sharpening its claws….Meow…. and is ready to scratch your eyes out.


(6 of 7) The wonderful world of British TV
I watched a bit of "The Family" Documentary/soap this week. The kids have to be one of the best adverts for contraception I have ever seen, while the parents are a shining example of why euthanasia should not be dismissed out of hand. They actually manage to make the "Simpsons" look like a well-adjusted family.

"Tiger – Spy in the jungle" - you can’t argue with up-close and personal film of tigers in their own environment but sadly the editing spoilt it for me. Why the constant need to try and make the programme more exciting*? Well known voice-over, a slightly husky yet strangely trustworthy voice :-

“The tiger cubs have now been left on their own for 2 days. If their mother does not show up soon they are in real danger of being attacked and overcome by that vicious looking baby Sloth…”**

“A new tiger has been seen in the area and we have real fears he might be a recruiter for the infamous tiger sex slave trade…..”

Oh David, David what has become of your integrity? I’m not sure what the “talk over” equivalent is but Mr Attenborough’s is in danger of becoming like a once great actor sliding into decline from Blockbuster movies and Hollywood “A” list parties, bypassing the walk on parts in soaps and moving directly into the sad and seamy world of “Help I was once a celebrity please put me out of my misery”.

* I will not have comparisons with the BlackLOG, where editing is used for purely artistic purposes and besides, with the failure of the hidden house cams, I don’t have enough footage of Mrs B, McG and Mischief to carry it off on its own merit….

** Footage of a particularly wild and vicious Sloth – if you have a sensitive nature please proceed with caution.Sloth film Large cushions or possibly sofa maybe required to hide behind....

(5 of 7) ElleGee in the wars
Poor ElleGee, less than a month old and she* has already been in the wars. It is entirely Mrs B’s fault for not breaking the speed limit. If she had, then ElleGee would not have been in that exact place when a stone reared up and took a huge chip out of the windscreen. The poor thing looks like someone who is about to go out on a hot date and has just discovered the “Mother of all Zits” emerging on their previously flawless face and worse - it’s at the stage where it is starting to shine like a Belitia beacon….
Has anyone got any Clearasil?

* I see Mrs B managed to sneak in an extra S just before I published. You may have gathered that there is a bit of a disagreement in the household over the sex of ElleGee. If you are going to judge it on the spelling of the name then I will point out that being someone who has spent a lot of their life correcting the spelling of my own name "Niel" I don't hold with that argument. As it is we are now left with a very gender confused car.

(4 of 7) Salt & Vinegar peanuts
I put out some peanuts the other night but didn’t tell Mrs B that they were the salt & vinegar variety. Her face was a picture as the unexpected flavour hit her full on. She was rather like a cat chewing a wasp. Despite Mrs B’s protests that you should not mess with a good thing, I note that when I went back to the treats cupboard a couple of days later the packet was gone.

(3 of 7) A Balanced life
In an attempt to keep some balance to my life, not only am I carrying on the Yoga, (surprisingly, no gold stars yet - I’m still the kid at the back of the class who is constantly picked on to demonstrate how not to do it.*) but I have also taken up the water challenge, drinking at least 2 litres of water a day. This leaves me spending 50% of the time going to the toilet and the other 50% of the time wanting to go to the toilet. While I can’t deny there is undeniably a balance to this, I’m not convinced that it is the balance that I am really after…..

* I suspect this will always be the case, however long I continue my yoga career.

(2 of 7) Genius
I recently tried out the new ITunes- Genius option. You select a song and "Genius" then creates a complementary list of other songs from your own collection. (Natural born salesmen that Itunes are they also provide a list of essential tracks that appear to be missing from your collection.) Sounds great but it does take out all the fun of compiling the list yourself (which I guess is no bad thing since I am out of the habit of creating lists through a lethal combination of lack of time and inclination). There are two flaws with “Genius”. First it appears to have an unhealthy ABBA fixation. I have around 30 ABBA songs in a collection of over 60,000, yet no matter what song I choose – it could be "The Jam – Going Underground", "Oasis – Wonderwall" or "Panic at the Disco - Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" - at least 5 ABBA songs appear on the list. (Whilst listening to one ABBA song is fun, two is pushing it, once you get to three and beyond you might as well start dressing like the Village People and listening to Kylie and Judy Garland records). The second and infinitely more serious drawback is that because of Apple wars (I thought they had signed a peace treaty) “Genius” does not recognise any Beatles songs. To me that's a bit like going out for an Indian meal and finding there is no curry on the menu.....


(1 of 7) So that is F1 dead to me
Oh no, it’s Mr B on his Soap box. Run away and hide or skip to the next section that, if you are reading this live, will be tomorrow…

As promised a couple of weeks ago, when the ludicrous penalty was imposed on Hamilton at the Belgium Grand Prix, I vowed to wash my hands of the sport unless the FIA over-ruled the embarrassing decision by the Belgium race stewards. Sadly, the FIA have proved once again to be so Ferrari-biased that they would rather see the red cars triumph than allow for proper racing.

I do realise that F1 will not even notice my departure, let alone care but it now has become an issue of principal. I suspect I will be one of the few who are true to their word and the enraged fans from a few weeks back will let the FIA get away with it once again as they are mesmerised by a shiny new circuit and, gosh, night driving. Do they not realise that it is just the The Emperor's New Clothes and they are being suckered into continuing to support the same old corrupt empire? It makes me sad that I will no longer get to watch this once great sport but life is too short and watching F1 has become more and more like playing a game against someone who constantly changes the rules of a game in order to win.

Bluetooth wars

We are currently caught smack in the middle of a battle between BMW and Nokia over Bluetooth compatibility. Now I don’t know what your understanding of Bluetooth is but mine was that it was to be the messiah of all connectivity. Unfortunately, big business got hold of it and managed to crucify it, before it became actually useful. As revealed a couple of weeks ago, BMW made a good case for their defence, when I happened to mention to them that I was thinking of taking on Nokia, I got some excellent words of encouragement from them:-

“I think this suggestion is wonderful. Do you have some powerful medicine to apply to Nokia? We have tried doing war dances round the car park, to little avail. Also, we can say that the Nokia N series is absolutely fine, as long as you do not wish to make outgoing calls!”

“Have you made Nokia aware of your stance? After all, look at the lengths Lloyds TSB went to in order to stop those dreadful Halifax advertisements!”

Unfortunately, I don’t currently have the funds to buy Nokia out and teach them a proper lesson but I did indeed make them aware and received the following reply :-

“I regret to hear about the issue which you are currently experiencing between your Nokia N95 and BMW Bluetooth. I understand your frustration due to this matter; nevertheless, I appreciate your understanding that I would only be able to ensure the functionality of our Nokia phones and car kit if the car kit is a product of Nokia. However, I would not be able to confirm compatibility with third party hardware. As the BMW car kit is not manufactured by Nokia, I suggest that you speak to your BMW dealership to find out if Nokia phones are fully compatible with your car kit.”

They made the mistake of sending me a follow-up customer satisfaction survey, so at least I got to underline my frustration. I suspect I won't be on their Christmas card list this year: Oh, well, back to square one. I decided to explore a different route and checked the BMW position on the upgraded Iphone 3G, the original version is of course fully supported :-

“Your observation regarding the lack of display of the Apple 3G on our matrix is correct. We are still eagerly awaiting the (hopefully) unanimous decision by our colleagues in Munich that the Apple iPhone 3G will offer good compatibility. A further factor of relevance is that the Apple is the only handset producer to work together with BMW so this is a positive in a world full of Bluetooth negatives”.

So it looks like I shall be hanging on to my old N95,for a while yet. This is a bit of a pain as it has lost the ability to charge its own battery. This is not good news for Mrs B as I keep having to "pimp" her phone. It’s very strange - although the battery is a completely different size and won’t actually run Mrs B’s phone, it quite happily charges when placed in her handset?

Breaking news
Please note the car naming lines have now closed, the votes have been cast and the results verified. Any entries made from now on will not count but you may be charged. (Oh god, I’m sorry, Strictly,is back and as Mrs B is going to be glued to the goggle box for the next few months I have to start getting into character, in order to survive the onslaught). The new car name is………..

Big drum roll….
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Dancing girls…..
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Big trumpet Fanfare….
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Zzzzzzzzzz, Oh sorry I must have drifted off in all the excitement....
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Dancing bears ……
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Hang on in there it is coming, even if I am over-egging it a bit…..
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The name is.......“ElleGee”

(“Woo hoo……” said Mrs B, clearly with little real enthusiasm)

The name is taken from LG, the first two letters of the number plate which has been taken to one side, mugged and given a good working over with a special BlackLOG style spelling. It also stands for “Lazy Git”. Since ElleGee is only a 1.8L (look, I was really pushing the upper reaches of my Company Car Scheme for my grade, the air was getting pretty thin up there I can tell you. There was certainly no room for more power, which is probably just as well for my driving licence’s sake), you really need to push ElleGee to get performance - whip and spurs optional - but when you do it is rewarding. Probably more importantly than the former part of this paragraph, using the first two letters of the number plate makes it hard even for me to forget the name. Now all I have to do is try and make it stick, despite Mrs Bs evident "enthusiasm"……

BlackLOG - The naming of cars

A new car brings with it many decisions, not least of which is do you give it a name? Our recent record in this field has not been great. Our red Mini was almost called Little Red Rooster, after the Rolling Stones song, which morphed into Rooster Booster, after the racehorse. Sadly, shortly after selecting the name, the racehorse dropped dead, the name rather died with it and the Mini went back to being known as just the Mini. (If I thought this would work again I would call the car 'FIA Committee').

I remember that during my childhood we had some cracking names for cars. The first car that I really remember was a wonderful black VW Beetle, called Bessie. Bessie Beetle, as a name it worked and really suited the car. Sadly, for some unexplained reason my father had Bessie sprayed bright orange. Bessie became a shadow of her former self, never really recovered from the appalling paint job and had to go.
Poor Bessie never got over her orange paint job and went into a sad decline

The replacement was a beautiful bronze coloured Cortina Mk III, which we named Boadicea, after the Iceni warrior queen and pronounced, properly in my opinion as:

Bow – der – see – er

Not this new fangled abomination of spelling and pronunciation, Boudica

Boo – Dic – car

The next car was a white Austin Maxi. Again my father made a mystifying choice here which probably eclipses even the choice of the orange paint job. (aside 1) Right up until the last minute we were getting an Audi. Even as a young boy I realised just how bad a choice my Dad had made. My Dad was a devout West Ham fan and the monstrosity of a motor was named Bubbles after the Hammers’ theme tune. It turned out to be more like Bubbles from Ab Fab. We lost the appetite for car-naming after this.

My sister took up the naming mantel and had a couple of successful car names. The first being a beautiful dark blue BMW 3 series convertible called Ralph. Not sure why but it just suited the car down the ground. Then came “Sooty” a little (i.e original style) black Mini. Sooty was a real character and managed to get my sister into a number of scrapes. Like the time Sooty was rear-ended by a car driven by a gentleman of, let’s say “foreign” persuasion. As the police arrived my sister exclaimed “Look what they’ve done to Sooty” it took her a while to talk herself out of that statement I can tell you….. The next run in with the police, fortunately a different officer, was for speeding. As the policeman took down my sister’s details he made the mistake of asking “Is this a company car madam?” “I don’t bl**dy think so” shot back my incensed sister “I’d be doing pretty badly if it was.” If memory serves me, the policeman let my sister and Sooty off with a warning, while my sister let him off with his life….

The only successful naming of a car that I have managed belonged to Mrs B’s Mum. It was a bright green Austin Allegro,which Mrs B had the dubious “privilege” of driving. As soon as I saw it, I christened it “The lime green, snot machine”. The name instantly became the best thing about the car. While I was given a lot of grief at the time, the name has stuck and the car is fondly remembered as such (not something, which would have ever happened without the name). I fear that is the high point of my car-naming career and I suspect I will never match it.

In summary, car naming should be a natural process. If a name arrives out of the stratosphere and fits, so be it, but there is no point in trying to force it. A forced name for a car just won’t stick and it should be remembered that many cars go through their entire lives without a name and seem to survive the experience. With this last bit of worldly wisdom still ringing around in my ears, I have narrowed the choices for our BMW’s name down to either:

BM - which can stand for either the Black mobile or Bat mobile (aside 2) or;

DK – in keeping with the Batman theme standing for Dark Knight. I suspect DK sounds better without its Batman association.

Don’t worry, I have ruled out “Sexy Black Beast” as a name. For one, most people already have a bad enough opinion of BMW drivers (I have experienced this first hand and can tell you it is a lot harder to get a full blown BMW into traffic than a Mini). The main reason is that I just could not face the police if I was involved in a similar accident as my sister and Sooty. Trying to explain the statement “Look they’ve rear ended the Sexy Black Beast” to the nice police officer might prove a bit of a challenge, even for me ….

I’d love to know what car names some of you have had over the years, so go on let those dark secrets out, you know you want to. Besides it can prove very therapeutic and might save some of you an expensive trip to a shrink in later life…….

"DK", "The Black Mobile" or any none rude alternative that one of you comes up with. Your votes could decide the destiny of the cars name. Please be rest assured any emails you send will raise absolutely nothing for any money grabbing charities, especially and I want to make this very clear, any worthwhile ones like the make Mr and Mrs B richer or the Mr & Mrs B deserve an expensive holiday fund



----Dr BlackLOG and Nurse B have left the building. Feel free to vote for our new car name or send us your own car names for diagnostics and possible ridicule, if they prove to be particularly “interesting” by emailing me at Niel.Black@ntlworld.com or using the comment button at the bottom of the page.----------


Breaking news
Please note the car naming lines have now closed, the votes have been cast and the results verified. Any entries made from now on will not count but you may be charged. (Oh god, I’m sorry, Strictly,is back and as Mrs B is going to be glued to the goggle box for the next few months I have to start getting into character, in order to survive the onslaught). The new car name is………..

Big drum roll….
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Dancing girls…..
.
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Big trumpet Fanfare….
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Zzzzzzzzzz, Oh sorry I must have drifted off in all the excitement....
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Dancing bears ……
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Hang on in there it is coming, even if I am over-egging it a bit…..
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The name is.......“ElleGee”

(“Woo hoo……” said Mrs B, clearly with little real enthusiasm)

The name is taken from LG, the first two letters of the number plate which has been taken to one side, mugged and given a good working over with a special BlackLOG style spelling. It also stands for “Lazy Git”. Since ElleGee is only a 1.8L (look, I was really pushing the upper reaches of my Company Car Scheme for my grade, the air was getting pretty thin up there I can tell you. There was certainly no room for more power, which is probably just as well for my driving licence’s sake), you really need to push ElleGee to get performance - whip and spurs optional - but when you do it is rewarding. Probably more importantly than the former part of this paragraph, using the first two letters of the number plate makes it hard even for me to forget the name. Now all I have to do is try and make it stick, despite Mrs Bs evident "enthusiasm"……






























(1) OK, my Dad was one of the few people in the country to go for a Betamax video recorder. It may have been technically better then VHS but since you could only hire about 5 movies that would play on it, it was a complete waste of time. There was also the incident where he returned home with a doorbell that played 32 of the naffest tunes known to man but that was such an horrific experience that the full story has been sealed behind the provisions of the BlackLOG Family Official Secrets Act for at least the next 150 years.
Like some Russian military equipment left over from the Cold War. The Sony C7 may have been built to with stand a nuclear strike but was certainly no 'From Russia with Love', sadly this is another example of one of the many films not available in the "extensive" 5 film Betamax library.(Return to text)






























(2) Yes, yes, how far behind the times are we, having only just got around to seeing the, not so new, Batman movie. The delay was because it has taken me this long to get reasonable seats at the IMAX theatre. It was worth the wait, however, as this was an incredible, almost mind-blowing experience. A giant bat dressed as a man and the size of a building swooping towards you - you really don’t want to get too close to that screen. I rightly judged that being any closer than the back row would have seen Mrs B hurling like an extra on E.R.
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In which we say goodbye to an old friend

Sad news in the Black household this week as our red convertible Mini is no longer with us……

The end of the Mini, or to be more
precise the rear end of the Mini

Sadly the old girl fell just short
of making the half century

Fortunately the Mini was not stolen or crashed but replaced by a new slinky black number.

After dabbling with partial BMW ownership we have now gone the whole hog and entered the murky world of full-on BMW driving. This brings with it some interesting challenges:-

Use of indicators
This seems to anger other BMW drivers, whilst at the same time confusing most other car drivers on the road. You can almost see the drivers’ little minds ticking over……

“The car in front is indicating. Check.”

“The car in front is a BMW that is indicating..... Does not compute with previous stored knowledge.”

“I didn’t think BMW’s came with indicators.”

“Perhaps I’m on one of those candid-camera style programs?”

“Now, where is the camera?”

“Oh, I wish I had brushed my hair this morning….”

Stalling as a feature
When you stop the car in traffic the engine cuts out. The first few times this happens your mind keeps thinking. “Oh god, I’ve stalled it again”. As soon as you touch the clutch the engine springs back to life. BMW claim it saves petrol. The cynical side of me thinks it might be some cunning BMW plot to make you purchase a new starter motor every few years. I’ll monitor the situation and keep you informed. Perhaps I could get Bill Oddie to present a new annual show “Starter Engine Watch.”

For the benefit of anyone who is around when I next stop the car, "Don't give me that look. remember I have not stalled it, it is a special feature"

Ipod connection
Having already paid extra for the special Ipod connection in the car, I thought that would be it. Apparently not, for my Ipod to actually talk to the BMW special connection I needed to purchase the services of an interpreter. In this case a special BMW Ipod cable (apparently the Ipod’s own lead can only partially speak BMW which allows it through the medium of mime to play random tracks, particularly specialising on selecting the most embarrassing tracks it can find on the old Ipod but little else). I had to make an emergency, life or death, dash to the nearest BMW garage yesterday. You can imagine how cheap that purchase turned out.

Cheap & tacky bits
There were a couple of really cheap and tacky red plastic covers on the Seat belts, which clashed awfully with the car seats and quite frankly looked rather nasty. I was so disappointed that I did the typical English thing and tried to pretend that they were not there. It was only when I took a couple of friends from the office out to lunch that the day was saved. They took one look at them and just ripped them off. After I almost had a heart attack at this apparent attack on our new car they explained that they were just transit covers.....
What makes it even more embarrassing for me is that my friends Sophie & Katherine are a couple of leggy blonde's. Doh! But in mitigation they do run the company’s car scheme so should know about these sorts of things, or at least know a man who does.

BMW solve the age old riddle of
how to recycle the red waxy bits that
are wrapped around a Mini-babybel

Bluetooth phone conection
The BMW Bluetooth phone kit, which I purchased as an extra, only works fully with Nokia phones that belong in museums. (The newer Nokia phones won’t synch properly with the BMW Bluetooth). While you can still receive calls you can’t tell who is calling. This means there is a real danger that my mother might get through (aside 1). I wrote a tongue-in-cheek email to BMW who, to give them their due, replied in less than 24 hours with what I feel is a fair enough explanation…..

Dear Mr Black

Thank you for your email regarding Bluetooth compatibility.

To give you some guidance on the background to the various compatibility issues, I would like to offer you the following information - when Bluetooth was first discussed, the plan was that all handset manufacturers would use a universal platform in order that Bluetooth would recognise Bluetooth at all times.

The Government imposed very high 3G licence costs on the mobile phone manufacturers the result of which was that the handset manufacturers abandoned the universal platform and produced their own software versions - from this stem the challenges that the motor manufacturers have.

Additionally, a BMW has a manufacturing lifecycle of seven years while mobile phones are updated every few months which could explain the museum pieces! New handsets also have their software updated with what are called 'bug fixes' which then changes the software to Version .2 or .3 and beyond.

Both the Nokia N and E series of mobiles handsets have been tested but shown no compatibility.

The Bluetooth list is updated regularly as new handsets are tested and shown to be compatible and I would recommend that you check the list regularly.

This guidance should offer you some clarity to your query but if I can help you further at any time, I would welcome your contact.

Yours sincerely

BMW Group UK

While I might have zoned out during the third paragraph the response sounds reasonable enough to me. With my phone due for an upgrade I guess it might be time to harangue Nokia to see what they can do with the software for their N range. The other choices are to upgrade in a backwards-facing direction and go for a Nokia Museum piece or bite the bullet and go for another phone manufacturer’s product. Oh the joys of modern life, with its ever-increasing customer choice and the pressure that puts us under. It almost makes me hanker for the days when Henry Ford offered the customer a choice of any colour for his car, as long as it was black.

Excuse me while I go and slip into
my sexy little black number

Breaking News

F1 scandal
With the result of the Belgium Grand Prix being overturned in favour of Ferrari what little dignity F1 clings to is in real danger of being trampled in the dust. Does the sports governing body not realise that the constant bias towards the Italian team is turning the sport into a complete joke? If the penalty for Hamilton is not overturned then I will have nothing more to do with what used to be my favourite sport.

The Narnia cupboard gets a good seeing to
Mrs B’s “clear it out” mentality ran headlong into my “you never know when it might come in handy” stance. There were few survivors as two car loads of junk/useful knick-knacks (depending on your point of view) were last seen heading towards the local dump. I had to keep the cats constantly on the move, in order to make sure they were not caught up as “Mrs B’s tsunami of removal” swept through the house.

---------So that's the end of another BlackLOG, my advice is skedaddle --------------------before you get caught up in one of Mrs B's tsunami sessions---------------


















(1) My mother has started to screen phone calls, only she has not fully grasped the concept, i.e she doesn’t have an answer phone, so can’t tell who is calling anyway. My sister and I had failed to get through to her for a number of weeks. It had got to the point where I was going to have to drive over and break in (I have not had a key since I left home over 20 years ago) to check that she was still alive. Just before I drove over I tried a final time and she answered. I asked her if she was OK and why she had not been answering her phone.

“I didn’t know who was calling” came her honest, if not entirely sensible, reply.
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