Ghost?
Two women have photographed what they claim to be a ghostly horseman at the site of the Battle of Nasby, which took place in 1645 as part of the English Civil War. Take a look at this video to see the image for yourself. What do you think?

F22 Raptor
Take a look at this video of the F22 Raptor earlier this month at the Farnborough airshow here in England.

The US Air Force stealth aircraft is made by Lockheed Martin, and is arguably the world's most sophisticated fighter jet.

The fifth-generation fighter twists, turns and rips through the sky, at points seemingly floating through the air like a snowflake, thanks to turbofans that include thrust vectoring.

It can evade and battle ground defence systems, is kitted out for surveillance and intelligence work, and has hidden weapons bays.

Awesome

sionna.ch
Well it's not really, I've just registered a new domain called sionna.ch. When gaming online I use the name Sionnach so it seemed apt. I may only use it as a storage area or may eventually add some content to it. I haven't decided yet. Although if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

There may be more news on a web nature to put up here in the near future, I'll let you know.

Oh and I know I've been rubbish in not updating this much lately. Apologies.

Berlin
I went on a visit to Berlin over the weekend and it was fantastic. There's so much to see and do in that city that 3 days just weren't enough! Definitely need to go back. If you ever go, I strongly recommend the DDR Museum. Very original and just fun and educational. I also visited Berlin Zoo, Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate and the Berliner Dom. I saw the Reichstag from the outside, the queues into the place were far too long for me to be bothered with. I also saw the Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten. I have some pics and will post them up in the gallery once I have managed to get them off my phone (currently having issues with that).

Of course the German food and beer was fantastic so no need to go on about that. I do love German food though, lots of sausages! And the different types of beer and a schnapps after a hearty meal is a must!

Computer Upgrade
I've now upgraded my PC with 2.5 Gb RAM (up from 1Gb) and a Sapphire ATi 3850 512Mb graphics card. I've needed the extra memory for a while and decided to get the best AGP card I could find in order to be able to play Forgotten Hope 2

Ryanair make me furious!
I have a rant to get off my chest today, and it's to do with Ryanair. Normally when I book a flight via their website, there's no problem. You search for what you want, if it's there you choose it, view, pay, get your email, all is well. Ok, sometimes as you are in the process of booking if you dawdle for to long you may lose the cheap seat you had grabbed, but that's not so bad. But today I had a truly awful experience with them.

I performed the above, and got as far as paying for the flights. Entered my credit card details, as you do, and then clicked book. Off it went, and came back with an error, and suggested I try again. Odd I thought, this has never happened me before, but I did as was suggested. This time it all seemed to be working, although it took longer than normal. The confirmation screen appeared and informed me that my payment hadn't been confirmed yet and therefore the booking was pending, and to wait for the itinerary email for confirmation. Once again I thought that this was odd as it has never happened me before.

So I waited, and waited, and waited. Getting a bit impatient now (I can get like that), I tried to view my booking online. so I brought up the page and entered my booking confirmation number and then my email and from and to fields. An error: the details didn't match. How odd again I thought, so I tried it again just in case I had entered something incorrectly. I hadn't. Same result. So I tried the other option combination, booking reference number and credit card number. This time I just received an error. So I'm a bit stuck now, I have to actually phone them. This proved to be anything but easy.

There are two different types of phone number on their website, one for booking enquiries, at £0.10GBP a minute, and one for internet help, at £1GBP a minute. So I tried to call the booking enquiries one. It hung up on me. I tried again, same result. So I tried again, and got some woman's voice telling me that the lines were busy and then started eating minutes telling me to go to the website and check my booking (which of course I can't do as it's not working!). So I hang up and try again. It hangs up on me, and again and again, and this happens about 10 times. Eventually I get through to a man's voice telling me the menu options. There are about 7 of them, each with a long winded explanation of what they do. None of them accurately fit what I want to do, so I wait until the end for it to repeat them. It doesn't, it hangs up on you. Now I have worked on many IVR applications, and you NEVER play out the menu options once and then hang up. Especially if there are a large number of options (which you shouldn't do anyway), as the caller will only get enfuriated, as I was quickly becoming.

So I tried to call again. Again it took about 7 attempts at not getting hung up on or that pointless message telling me to use their website, to get through to the menu options. I try the most likely option, and all it tells me to do is to redial the premium rate internet helpline and then hangs up! So I try again, and eventually, 7 or 8 attempts later, get through to the menu options where I choose a different option, only once again to get told to call the premium internet help line! So by this time I was livid. I had spent nearly 45 minutes now trying to get through to a human. So I decide to bite the bullet and call the internet helpline. This bloody thing hung up on me again and again, it took me 15 attempts at calling this number to get through. So I eventually get through to a human, an American female, and fun starts here too...

So by now I am furious, absolutely furious. I'll admit I ranted a bit and wasn't very nice. I didn't say anything nasty, nothing like that, I just said that I was very angry as I'd already spent an hour trying to get through to this system. The agent's reply? She pretty much told me to drop the attitude or she'll end the call. I was shocked. I know that I was being unfair, I have no problem admitting that, but since when do these people threaten to drop the call on you? Is this company policy or was she just being a cow? It's beginning to show just how arrogant Ryanair are becoming if they are telling their agents to say such things to their customers. So I explained to her what had happened, and gave her the booking reference number. She then tells me that the payment had been declined (why is a different matter that I need to take up with my credit card company, as there's nothing at all wrong with that card, I've barely anything on it and used it only last week). But there was absolutely no feedback to me INFORMING ME OF THIS! If there had of been, I would have just tried again, or tried a different card! The agent's response? "Oh there must be something wrong with the website then". "YES", I cried, "can you report that there does seem to be a problem with the website, and why should I have to pay good money (a £1 a minute remember) to tell you of this?".

So I went back to the website, tried to pay with the same credit card, this time received a message telling me that it was declined (God knows why), so I retried and paid with another card, which worked.

I simply despise Ryanair after this, and will make every effort to fly on alternative airlines from now on, which is unfortunately quite difficult, as they know only too well which is why they treat their customers like something foul they've trodden in.

Suleman Mirza & Madhu Singh
On a more happy note, this is another link to an absolutely AWESOME act from ITV's Britains Got Talent. Watch this awesome routine. For a fuller clip of it from the show, follow this link.

Andrew Johnston
Oh My God! Last year we had the fantastic Paul Potts and wonderful Connie on ITV's Britain's Got Talent, but listen to this 13 year old schoolboy, Andrew Johnston from Carlisle! What an amazing voice! Truly fantastic.

Windows Update
So my version of Windows XP updated itself last week. Or rather it downloaded everything it needed to update, and then when I went to shut it down on Friday evening, it told me to wait as it was installined 1 update of 1. Fair enough I thought, this won't take long. And I waited, and waited, and then left it on as I went to the pub for a drink with Joe who got married on Saturday (see below). When I returned, the computer was still "installing 1 update of 1". So I just turned the thing off and went to bed.

On Saturday morning, when I eventually woke up (I slept until 11.30! Completely unlike me, but I clearly needed it) when I used the computer and shut it down again later on, it once again attempted to install 1 update of 1. Again it was taking too long and I had to go out to the evening wedding receptiom, so I turned it off again.

Sunday - used the computer again, iTunes and Quicktime updated itself as well, and told me that there was another update pending that had been suspended and should it go ahead anyway, and I clicked yes. Restarted the computer, and it installed everything and shutdown correctly, taking it's usual time. Why? What happened? What was going on before? I wasn't being impatient, I left it for a good 3+ hours on the Friday evening. This update has also seen the return of the "MSN Messenger and Media Player randomly not working" bug which a previous Windows update and introduced and was then fixed by a subsequent one. A restart ususally fixes it, but it's quite annoying. Perhaps my computer is just buggered - it is a bit old.

Wedding
Congratulations to Joe and Katharine to got married on Saturday, 12th April at the Felix Hotel in Cambridge. I went along to the evening reception and had a great time. Decided to walk home with Ben afterwards (around 3am...), not sure why, as it was a walk of 3+ miles, but hey, it seemed to help sober me up and make Sunday not a total write-off! They've now headed off to Egypt for a 3 week honeymoon, good luck to them!

Giraffe
There's a new restaurant in Cambridge called Giraffe, at the new Bradwells Court area. Went there last night with Sabine, and it was very nice indeed. The serving staff were really nice and friendly with plenty of well placed humour thrown in. The food was also very good, and we were also given a 2 for 1 meal voucher for the next time we come back, which we will.

Off to Amsterdam
Early tomorrow morning, myself and my friend Tamara are heading off to Amsterdam for a long weekend to visit our friends Diane and Gordon who live in Amsterdam centre. I've been there a fair few times now, and it's a lovely city. Tamara has not been before so it's a bit of an adventure for her, and of course it will be great to see our friends again, whom I've not seen since I last visited the city, which I think was over 2 years ago! Still have to get up at silly o'clock in the morning though. Bleurgh....

New British Coins
The Royal Mint here in the UK has announced that they're going to release a new set of British coins in the Summer. I must admit that I like the look of the new set, the way that they all include a different part of the Royal Crest is quite a nice idea. Not too sure why they're changing all of them except for the two pound coin though, seems a bit odd, might as well change all of them as now it won't fit it!