ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

This is a short piece of fiction which was originally written to try and fit the rules for Marcel Cairo’s ‘Whatever Happened to David Thompson’ Competition, being titled “Whatever Happened to David Thompson?”, ending with a specific last line and being 500 words or less. The last one being the problem: it’s a smidge under […]

Read: Whatever Happened To David Thompson? »

Just got back from a lovely holiday with no internet access.
Although the fact I’d put together a few posts ‘in hand’ meant that today was the first day we didn’t actually have a post for. Anyway, full details of the holiday to follow over the weekend. Probably..

Read: Did you miss me? »

Three reasons, actually. The first one is basic common or garden paranoia.
I consider it more likely that my computer will become compromised than that my house will be burgled by a burlgar who manages to locate the wall safe behind the Hans Holbein painting in the Billiard Room, somehow get the safe open, get access […]

Read: Why I don’t bank online »

Anyone fancy a pint?

Read: The Bloggers Arms »

I thought it was about time for another meme, and although I wasn’t directly tagged, as the Goldfish did reference me in her meme, I thought it would be churlish not to take part.
I must also add it’s unusual to be taking part in a book-related meme I’ve not picked up from Stephen Lang, as […]

Read: Booky Meme »

But I’m worth about £2000 as a corpse! At least, according to the Cadaver Calculator…
$4025.00
And Marcel’s corpse is worth $90 more than mine. But then, being a medium, I suppose he’ll have better contacts…

Read: Don’t Tell My Wife, Either… »

Now I know I have a mix of readers: some are religious, some are agnostic, and some are no doubt fundamentalist atheists. I’d like to clarify therefore that I am in no way endorsing The Alpha Course, which as I understand it is a kind of a back to basics Christianity thing, which has been […]

Read: Clever Advert »

I was reading an BBC article about Northern Rock the other day, when I noticed there was a problem with some of the links. Basically, someone had put in holding text and the links weren’t actually going anywhere.
So I contacted the BBC News team, using the special form they provided to allow you to raise […]

Read: Tim Weber, The Terribly Nice Man From The Beeb »

I got married 5 years ago today. As did my wife, coincidentally.
We got married at a place called Crathorne Hall which is a beautiful hotel in North Yorkshire. If you’re looking for a venue to get married, I can recommend it.
Particularly if they still do fireworks: we paid for them to put on fireworks as […]

Read: 5th Wedding Anniversary »

No, we don’t know either. But we ended up having a discussion about it at work and came up with the following:

Wor Net
Gannin’ Inter Net
Mint-Ranet
Alr33t Pet Net
Wey Aye Web
Geordipedia
Haway Home Page

With a possible alternate variation of Alreet Pet Net for the non l33t-speakers. There was also a concern that for people not familiar with Wikipedia, […]

Read: I say, I say, I say, what do you call a Geordie Intranet? »