The Moonface

McHonda - the new name for the Mclaren-Honda partnership

2015-06-17T11:23:00.001-07:00

McHonda (proper noun): The pet name of the Mclaren Formula One team and Honda engine partnership

Ever since the Mclaren Formula One team starting using Honda engines again in 2015, a new term - 'McHonda' has been coined by me. I'm claiming it right now!

The opening season for McHonda has been lacklustre with both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso clearly frustrated with the complete lack of competitive power being produced by the Honda combustion engine and additional energy recover systems.

And fans have also been left frustrated and annoyed. Me included.

Get £25 off your first order at Gousto

2015-01-19T10:35:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have never heard of Gousto will wonder what all the fuss is about, but Dragon's Den featured entrepreneurs Timo and James have begun to take the organic prepared fresh food market by storm. Launched in 2011 and original starting bysiness in market stalls, the men have gradually built up a business which has impressed some of the top chefs and business people in the UK. Even the grumpy Scott Duncan Bannatyne said "I absolutely love this".

That's quite an accolade coming from someone who hates parting with his cash!

To get £25 off your first order, simply enter the voucher code TERES35677 on the Gousto website.

You can then chose from a number of meals and have them delivered fresh to your door. Enjoy!

Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren 'probably' died from Asbestos Exposure at fashion boutique 'SEX'

2015-01-12T03:11:00.001-08:00

About Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren was the infamous manager for the punk band 'The Sex Pistols' during their rise to fame in the 1970's but is often forgotten as a fashion designer - a career which he conducted alongside his girlfriend at the time, Vivienne Westwood.

McLaren died in 2010 at the age of 64 from a long battle with mesothelioma - a type of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibres. His family now believe that McLaren was exposed to asbestos when he demolished the ceiling in his fashion boutique 'SEX' which was based at 430 King's Road, London between 1974 and 1976.

Vivienne Westwood and SEX

In 1976 McLaren opened a fashion boutique 'SEX' alongside he girlfriend at the time, Vivienne Westwood. It was during the decoration of the shop that McLaren's family now believe he was exposed to asbestos which would ultimately be the cause of his demise.

During decoration of the shop, McLaren had decided that he wanted the interior to appear as if a bomb had exploded inside. To achieve the desire look, Malcolm McLaren took to demolishing the ceilings of the shop. Unbeknown to McLaren, the ceiling was very likely to have been constructed by a mix of asbestos insulating board, asbestos concrete or Artex. It is also possible that the ceiling contained asbestos flock. All of these materials contain friable asbestos which is extremely hazardous to health.

It was, of course, impossible for McLaren to have known at the time that he was exposing himself to the deadly material. No one new in the 70's just how dangerous the material is it was still considered at that time to be a cheap and effective product for building. We now know that asbestos is extremely hazardous and, as such, removal of these asbestos products would now be carried out by a licensed Asbestos Removal Company under controlled conditions.

Diagnosis of mesothelioma

In 2008 whilst undergoing a routine chest scan doctors noticed small dots on x-rays which were believed to have been benign initially. However, after more tests it was soon discovered that the dots were in fact pleural plaques (areas of fibrous thickening on the lining of the lungs or diaphragm) caused by asbestos fibres trapped in the lungs. In 2009, McLaren was eventually diagnosed as suffering from mesothelioma and he died in April 2010 from the disease.

But as we'll discover, his family were anything but satisfied with his diagnosis and consequent treatment and feel that doctors could have done more to help him.

Family upset over UK doctor's diagnosis

According to journalist Emily Dugan who interviewed McLaren's partner Young Kim shortly after his death, the family were less than satisfied with the way that doctors in the UK deal with the diagnoses.

"Malcolm was freaked out." she said. "He called me up from the doctor's office and said, 'Young, I have lung cancer, I have lung cancer', but the doctor said, 'Oh no, he's perfectly fine, he just has these spots, they're completely benign, you don't have to worry about it'."

But just months later McLaren's lung's began to fill with liquid and the severity of his illness soon became apparent and he was consequently diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer of the lungs.

"Malcolm was very angry about it. He was angry at me for having not pushed the doctor further. He really blamed me for not believing him" said Kim.

Malcolm McLaren trivia

In May 1977, McLaren deliberately had himself arrested to increase his notoriety by joining the Sex Pistols on a boat on the Thames as they played 'God Save the Queen' outside the Houses of Parliament
During his time as manager of the Sex Pistols, McLaren was often accused of refusing to pay the band when they asked him for money
Joe Corre – the multi-millionaire founder of popular lingerie chain Agent Provocateur - is McLaren's son who he fathered with the famous fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood

Malcolm McLaren lived out his final says in a hospital in Switzerland. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Do you name your turkey at Christmas and if so, what?

2014-12-27T04:21:00.000-08:00

Until I was invited to spend Christmas with my wife and her family in 2004 I have never experienced the tradition of naming the turkey. My family had never done this so it was a bit peculiar to me.

For those of you with no experience of this, it's basically a case of naming the turkey after someone who has behaved like a turkey during that year. The person chosen could be anyone such as a sports-person, a celebrity or a politician. The choice is yours but you must all agree and agree before the turkey goes in the oven.

This year (2014) we eventually decided on Andrew (or Pleb) after Andrew Mitchell and 'Plebgate' went terribly wrong for him during the legal trial.

There were some other options on the table, including:

Oscar, after Oscar Pistorius, who infamously shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in Febriary 2013 and was convicted of culpable homicide in 2014. We couldn't do this in the end as we decided no one would be able to find a leg (!)
Rolf, after Rolf Harris, who was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault on 4th July 2014 for historical sex abuses. However, we decided that it was impossible to have such a sicko at the Christmas table

Did you name your turkey this year? If so, who did you name it after. Let me have your comments below or Tweet me @BluesF1Brother

How to make Nortel VPN faster use the local network connection and not the secure tunnel

2012-10-20T08:46:00.002-07:00

A few years ago, I posted a question for some advice on how to make the Nortel VPN client allow the user to use their local internet connection, and not the (very slow) remote secure tunnel. The reason for this was because I have a 100mb connection at home and because my office only uses 4mb I was restricted to that speed. It made my entire remote user experience very slow and very frustrating.

Unfortunately, in the UK, BT don't give very good support on the IP Softphone and Remote Worker software and neither do Nortel. So I was left to my own devices to find a solution.

I have searched high and low and couldn't find any help so decided to play around with the settings on the Business Secure Router (BSR) which is the "gateway" from my home network to the office. Once connected to my office, the IP address for this was 192.168.0.91 (you might find yours elsewhere). The default username was nnadmin and the password was PlsChgMe! - including the ! mark.

Once inside, I changed one setting at a time, disconnecting after each, to try and discovered the correct place. Eventually (after a lot of trial and error) I discovered the place where the network traffic was channelled. It's under 'AUTH SERVER'. I selected my username (the one that Nortel Contivity VPN connects to) and the changed Enabled Split Tunnelling and selected the BCM50 as the first option (see below).

It worked. I can now connect to my office and use my Softphone, whilst still benefitting from 80mb+ speeds!

Does data come out of my monthly allowance when using Vodaphone Suresignal

2012-08-03T05:12:00.001-07:00

Yes, it does.

I made the mistake of using my 3G connection for downloading a number of apps on the Suresignal service thinking "hey it's my broadband connection beeing used for the Suresignal so it's my data allowance". I was wrong.

I found out £75 later in excess data charges!

Tory Will Quince calls for action over Colchester dog foul

2012-02-22T05:36:00.003-08:00

Following on from my last complaint about the issue of dog foul in Colchester, the local newspaper have reported that Conservative representative Will Quince has called for action about the issue of dog fouling in Colchester.

I have to say it’s great to finally hear someone addressing this issue. It’s an issue my wife and I once raised with local MP Sir Bob Russell but which seemed to fall on deaf ears. No surprise there really, Bob’s busy entertaining Her Majesty of late.

Part of Mr Quinces’ suggestion in the newspaper article is to tackle this problem is to allow local residents to be trained as enforcers. It’s a nice idea, but one I fear would fail in practice. Imagine the scenario – you’re walking down the street dressed as one of these wardens and you see a local scumbag with his ‘status dog’ as it takes a massive crap on the footpath. In typical fashion, the owner just walks away from the pile so you approach him and try to issue a fine. The likelihood is that one of two things could happen – he’ll either throw a load of verbal abuse at you, or, (if you’re really unlucky) mug you and run off. OK, so I’m probably going a bit over the top but you get the point.

Don’t get me wrong – I see why Mr Q is suggesting it (not enough Council staff, costs, blaa blaa) but I just think it could end up with someone getting assaulted. What is good is that he has taken a serious issue and raised the profile of the problem. Nice one Will.

One idea could be to make it an offence to fail to carry a means of cleaning up after your dog. Again, difficult to enforce but it might at least encourage more dog owners to clean up after their dogs. The number of people that we see walking dogs in the local woods without so much of a plastic bag is staggering. I’m sure that many of these people are hard working and friendly people who would never throw litter but for some reason they feel that it’s acceptable to leave a brown germ-fest in the local park.

Another answer could be that the council actually get the current dog warden out and about in these areas that are frequented by dog walkers (radical idea, I know). Something needs to be done though as this problem is gradually turning in to a public health issue.

Keep getting nuiscence phonecalls from 01132043110? Then you need to read this.

2011-10-18T08:43:00.001-07:00

About a month ago I was looking through some price comparision websites and one of them (a company called Switch Electric & Gas) asked me for a phone number. I'm not stupid and know how some of these companies work so put my Skype number in instead.

Since then, I've been bombarded with missed calls from them. Thankfully I only use thie Skype number or rare occasions so it doesn't really bother me, but I did search the number and found a lot of website with people complaining about be pestered by the company. It seems they use extremely agressive tactics to get you to change suppliers. It was never made clear to me that they were going to add my number to a database and keep calling me. Naughty.

I tried to email them but surprise surprise, the email was rejected. I've called them today and asked them to remove my number from their database. The rude cretin I spoke to assures me that the number as been removed.

How to change the number of rings before your phone goes to voicemail

2010-07-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

First, you need to know what your voice mail number is. Go to Message > Menu Button > Voicemail Setup and you'll see your voicemail number.

An alternative way to find your voicemail number is to go to Settings > Call Forward > Forward Status > Voice Calls, the "Forward if Unavailable" number is your voice mail number.

Once you know your voicemail number, here's what you do: Go back to the home screen.

Type *61*voicemailnumber**NUM# and hit send.

(Replace "voicemailnumber" with your voicemail number and replace NUM with the number of seconds you wish to wait until forwarding to voicemail. NUM must be 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30.)

So, if my voicemail number is 14045551234 and I want a 20 second delay, I'd do this: *61*14045551234**20# and press SEND.

Synchronising information back from O2 Bluebook to your mobile phone. It can't always be done - or can it?

2010-07-07T06:39:00.001-07:00

So here's the problem. You synchronised your O2 mobile phone to Bluebook and all your contacts, message and images are on the website. For whatever reason (e.g. you have been sent a new phone as your old one imploded) you now need to synchronise your contacts and other information BACK to your new phone.

If you have experienced the same is me, you'll know it doesn't work - O2 Bluebook just doesn't work as it should. Yet.

Well do not fear! Here are some instructions on how to set this up so that it works and synchronises for you, manually.

1. Make sure your new phone is WAP enabled. To do this, text "Active" (without the quotation marks) to 2020 on log on to O2's website.

2. Now as all phones are different, find the synchronise option within your phone. You'll probably have to set up a new service - call it "Bluebook".

3. You need to use http://o2contacts.o2.co.uk/syncml for the server address

4. You need to use ./pab for the database address

5. Use GPRS or GSM for the O2 connection

6. Use your username and password which you use to log into the O2 website in the necessary fields

7. Chose what you want to synchronise.

8. Now synchronise. You should find it works a treat.

Google upsets customers with background images - a Bing rip-off

2010-06-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I switched on my PC only to be met by a Google search window covered in pictures. This wasn't the result of iGoogle (Googles personalised area) but infact due to Google decision apparently force users to have images on it's search engine.

Some users might like this "pretty" idea, but not me. As a colour-blind person I find this not only destracting, but down right annoying. In addition, it also slows down the load-time of the webpage and for someone like me who searches a lot, that's a big annoyance.
It also seems like they annoyed a few thousand people according to their support forum and this article.

Apparently, tomorrow, Google will give us an option to stop this bahavior. I'm not sure what made them do it in the first place - if I wanted tacky searches I'd use Bing!

If you want to see some of the many thousands of complaints from people about this, take a look here, here and here.

New Microsoft phone - rubbish!

2010-06-10T06:50:00.000-07:00

Microsoft have revealed plans for their "phone of the future". Details are here.

I just wonder where they're going to store the battery, circuits and antenna? Microsoft say that this is a "Windows Phone that will change the entire ecosystem". Mmm...

Something tells me they haven't thought this through very well...no surprise there.

Google Andriod for PC - could this be the beginning of the end of the road for Microsoft?

2010-06-07T04:44:00.001-07:00

With Google's ever increasing market share of the moble phone market with it's seemingly reliable operating system Andriod (not forgetting Google's constant push of their Mozilla based internet Browser Chrome), there's increasing talk of Google eventually producing a full operating system for Intel based PC's. It would appear that Intel already recognise Google are striving to push their technology in to as much of the market as they can and Microsoft are beginning to worry...and so they should.

For years it was almost joked about that Bill Gates 'stole' DOS from IBM; yet the second coming of Apple has forced Microsoft to lose an enormous cut of the market share they once held. Microsoft have, for many years, wasted resources on a part of the market that I think they never really understood (or didn't care to). That mixed with the release of really slow and unreliable operating systems such as as Windows Vista (added to the worlds increasing dislike of multi-billion corporations), means that more people are turning away from Microsoft than ever before for operating systems like Snowleopard and Linux Ubuntu.

I've used Ubuntu for some time now and whilst not perfect, it's a bloody good free alternative to the (still very expensive) Windows 7. I also owned a Windows Mobile phone up until a few months ago but it's constant unreliability forced me back to Symbian - basic, but it works, and that's what I need. That's what most people need which is why they're increasingly telling Microsoft that they're not prepared to put up with being charged for something that simply doesn't cut it.

Of course, it's easy to single out Microsoft; they are still the market leaders and there are still far more Windows-based machines in the world that Apple, but Microsofts share is getting less and less and will continue to do so until Microsoft sit up and listen that people are no longer prepared to pay over-the-odds for technology which could be funded by alternative means such as pay-per-click. Apple are gaining all the time and Google want a slice of them too. If I was a Microsoft shareholder I would be seriously considering moving my money...perhaps it's just too late for Microsoft to recover?

VW and Audi Specialist in Essex

2009-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

I recently took my VW Golf GT TDi 130 to a local independant called Coggeshall Auto Repairs & Servicing in Coggeshall (nr Colchester), in Essex. CARS (as they call themselves) are a VW and Audi Specialist.

The technician (and owner) is a guy called Ian Manister. I was really impressed with the service I received - the guy was friendly and the service was completed without extra cost.

I would highly recommend them and if you're looking for a quality, low cost independant VW and Audi specialist, pop on over to http://www.coggeshallauto.co.uk/ and take a look.