I saw a comment in a newspaper the other day that suggested that far from Apple being now being the supplier of "good times" gadgets to people who want to shun the shirt and tie image of all things Microsoft related, they are now in fact beginning to acquire something of a "snotty nose" brigade image themselves!. Why? Well after several years being being touted as the supplier of ipods and iphones to a (perceived) younger,more street wise clientèle, they have now released the ipad, a device which, from what i have seen of it so far, seems to have taken several steps backwards as regards being a portable, unobtrusive personal device!.

Apparently the ipad has NO disk drive(DVD/CD) and NO USB ports, combine this with NO Web-cam and NO support for Flash Player and you start to realise that far from being the jack of all trades, it appears to be more of a master of none!

I have now come to the conclusion that when people buy something such as the ipad just to be able to say "I have one", they have crossed the line and have then become something of a "techno lemming", who's main concern is to own the latest gadget simply because they want to show off to their friends!......more money than sense as some would say!.

P.S the picture at the top of this post is REAL!...people really do want to integrate their ipad with their clothing...just hope that they remember to take it out before they stick their clothes in the wash...then again it is not exactly small in size is it ?

This morning I received the first 20 signed and numbered prints from Mike Jones. The prints are limited to a run of 250, and the money (after costs) from each sale will go to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Charity.

The cost of each print is £9.99 and this includes Postage and Packing, so if you fancy a very limited edition print and the chance to help fight Leukaemia please contact me to reserve yours now!.

At some point in the month we also hope to be able to offer a few of these prints, signed by Sir Ian "Beefy"Botham (The president of the LLR Charity).These will also be numbered from the run of 250, and will be framed. The price of these prints will be £25.

Volkswagen Driver Magazine are going to be running a story in the July Edition of the publication, and will be mentioning the sale of the prints in the article, so if you want to ensure that you get one please let me know asap.

please email me for your questions/orders: andywardsmail@tiscali.co.uk(remove this text)

Cheers.Andy
.

I saw an article a few weeks ago telling how Russell Crowe had been receiving elocution lessons to enable him to speak with a regional drawl in his new Robin Hood film. As I was born and bred in the area around Sherwood Forest I thought that it would only be fair that I share with you,dear readers, an insight into what Mr Crowe may have been being taught.....Ahh hm (clears throat!).

Phrase: ...............................Translation:

"Gerroff ya daft apeth"...............Leave me alone please

"Eyup me duck"...........................Hello, how are you?

"Mams gon daan rowd fo sum ale".......Mother has gone to the public house for a drink.

"Am fed up wi alt moanin"...................Please stop complaining

"Pop daan tut shop and gerrus a packer fags"......Fetch me some cigarettes please.

"Say owt and yer gunna gerra clout".........Please don't tell anyone or I will have to strike you.

"Av yer gorenee tuffies?"....do you have any sweets?

"Eyup ear cumms plodds"....The police have arrived

So there you go...just a small selection of Nottinghamshire drawl as is now spoken by Mr Crowe!.

.
If you get one of these emails sent to you telling you that you have won $50 of itunes credit DO NOT OPEN THE ATTATCHMENT!. It is a Trojan Virus and (if you do not have protection!) will corrupt your computer.You have been warned :-)

Remember, you don't often get OWT for NOWT (anything for nothing in Robin Hood Slang!)

Have a nice day :-)
.

Just found this great song whilst doing my weekly news round on the Internet. Have a listen, then follow the link to read the details of the song and who was involved in it's production.

To visit the Leukaemia Society website click HERE:

His friend Bill Ralston made the announcement thus on Facebook:

"In the spirit with which he lived and pioneered I have to announce this to all his friends online. Dear Paul Reynolds - the magnificent man who told us so much about the whole cosmos of computers and the wonders of the digital world - died this morning of a leukaemia he (and we) never knew he had. Our thoughts are with Helen and his much loved daughter Melanie"

This sad story shows all to clearly how this disease can devestate families.Apparently paul was not aware, and had not been formaly diagnosed with Leukaemia.

To read the full report about Pauls untimely and sudden death click HERE

Condolencies to his family at this difficult time.

.

Fancy a walk from the West coast to the East Coast of England to raise money for Research into Leukaemia? If so, why not join Susan Skillington and friends as they make their way from St Bees to Robin Hood Bay between the 1st and the 16th September this year?.

All proceeds of this event will go to the James Skillington Challenge for Leukaemia Trust.

To find out more about this interting (and good for your health!) event, call Susan on Mansfield 01623 466815 and ask for your info pack which includes details of the route,places to stay and a sponsorship form.

Come on!.Join the JSC team and raise money for research into a cure for Leukaemia...you know it makes sense :-)

.

Had a trip over to City Hospital in Nottingham today to attend the regional meeting of LLR. Geoff and his wife Trish came along for a ride in the Scirocco and soon got acquainted with the joys of travelling in a car that does not have any air conditioning (temperature was 27 degree's).

After arriving back I had a nice Chinese meal with my family accompanied by several glasses of Magners cider...smashing!

This week saw my mum admitted to hospital and, on Wednesday night my son "mini me" was taken by ambulance to Boston Pilgrim Hospital with suspected Appendicitis (luckily it turned out to be a less serious illness!).

I have decided that, due to my boy still being a little frail, I won't be able to make the Newark Van Jamboree on Friday now, so sadly I will have to pass on this event for this year.

Note for Benn.

Sorry that yet again you won't be able to see the car in the flesh this time, but the Photo shoot for Monday Afternoon is still on so far......see you there mate :-)

This would be the headline that would be printed on the front of many newspapers if yours truly was the winner of last weeks Euro Millions. Sadly though it wasn't me, so this headline will have to wait a bit longer to be published :-)

saying that, I have a rather cunning plan to put in place if I should ever be lucky enough to win such an awesome amount of cash...it goes like this....

Step 1.Win £84 Million quid

Keep £14 Million to go a bit mad, help family,set up trust funds including a £5 million slush fund to assist people who spend their time doing good deeds!.

Step 2.Contact all the national newspapers and tell them that I intend to donate £70 Million to charity.

Step 3.Ensure that I then ask all the other 760+ people in this country (according to the rich list!) who have more than £84 Million in their bank accounts to dig in and donate at least £10 Million each.

Result?

760 x £10 Million = £760,000,000 + my £70'000'000 = £830'000'000 donation to various charities......how much good work could that do ?

Of course anyone of the 760+ who was too stingy to donate would be put on the "tight as a gnat's arse" list so that people could see who the really selfish gits where :-)

Wonder if I could claim gift aid on £70 million ? :-)

I got an email from Mike Jones today to tell me that he has finished the commissioned picture of Scarlett in her Scirocco 50 LLR "war paint", and my goodness it is indeed an excellent rendition of the car that I have grown so fond of over the last (almost!) 3 years.

As I mentioned before, Mike has had numerous pictures published in both VW and Audi Driver magazines over the years, and this one is apparently the first one he has done in almost 4 years!.

All that now remains to be done is for the picture to be reproduced as a print and then for Mike to Sign them and get them to me.We are planning to limit the run to a maximum of 250 (numbered) prints, and they will be sold for £5.00 each, £4.00 of which from each print will be donated to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Charity (£1.00 per copy to cover costs).

The story of how the Scirocco 50 LLR project came to be will hopefully be being featured in a soon to be published issue of VW Driver magazine, and this will be scheduled to be on sale a few weeks before the GTI International show at Bruntingthorpe in June this year.

Keep watching for details of how to get your own signed print of this car soon. Andy

This weekend I am off to a local event at the Newark and Notts Showground (nice to not have to travel 100's of miles for a change!).

The event is taking place over 3 days, the 21st,22nd and 23rd May and promises to offer something for the whole family to enjoy. I will be attending on Friday with my Scirocco a la trailer raising money and awareness for the LLR Charity, and my father in law is going to be taking along his 1972 "Yellow Peril" Beetle for the day to give it a run.

If you have a Camper van,are thinking of buying one (there is a car for sale area!), or you just fancy a day out,pop across to Newark and give it a go.

Here is the link to the VJ website. Van Jamboree 2010

See you there perhaps?

The mother of a six-year-old boy who died from leukaemia is appealing for more people in Nottinghamshire to join the bone marrow register.

Ann Marie Spence is organising a bone marrow testing session at Nottingham's Council House in memory of her son Joel.The event, which she has organised with the help of the Anthony Nolan Trust, is to take place on Wednesday, 2 June 2010, between 2.00pm and 7.00pm.

Joel Picker Spence died of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2008 having first being diagnosed with the disease in January 2005.

Although a donor match was eventually found, it was too late for Joel and he died before he reached his seventh birthday.

BBC Radio Nottingham is supporting the event which hopes to raise awareness of bone marrow donation and encourage more people to join the bone marrow donor register.

If you are aged between 18 and 40 and you are in good health, then you are invited to attend "Join for Joel". All you'll need to do is fill in a form and spit in a tube.

For more information visit the Join For Joel website.

In a recent study carried out by Fuelstat (UK) in which they observed and recorded the fuel filling habits of the British motorist,it was found that on average over half of those questioned did not bother to "shake" the pump filler head after use, and by not doing so unwittingly replaced it back into it's holder with fuel still inside.

This may not sound to be much of a issue, but when you consider that (on average) the remaining fuel in the head can be as much as 2ml it means that for every 500 fill ups when the driver does not bother to "shake" one litre of fuel is either left in the pump heads or spilt on the forecourt. If you extend this figure to include all petrol used in the country at all 9500 petrol stations in the UK the figure is then increases to a "loss" of between 9500 and 10000 litres of fuel...per day!, convert this into a monetary figure and you are looking at approx £12'000 per day or......wait for it.........£4,265025 per year.

So, remember to shake after you have pumped and make sure that you get all the fuel that you have paid for!.

.
Scientists have developed a new type of drug designed to kill non-Hodgkin lymphoma tumour cells.

The breakthrough could lead to potential non-toxic therapies for cancer patients. The researchers, including Dr. Ari Melnick, of Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Alexander MacKerell, of the University of Maryland and Dr. Gilbert Prive, of the University of Toronto, have identified a drug that targets an oncogene known as BCL6. BCL6 functions as a master regulatory protein. “It’s a protein that controls the production of thousands of other genes. Because of that, it has a very profound impact on cells and is required for lymphoma cells to survive and multiply,” said Melnick. BCL6 causes the majority of diffuse large B cell lymphomas, the most common form of non—Hodgkin lymphoma. Currently, about 60 percent of diffuse large B cell lymphomas can be cured with chemo—immunotherapy, said Melnick. “The hope is that we can improve that to a higher percent, and in the long term reduce the need for chemotherapy,” he added.

Traditional cancer drugs target enzymes, which have small pockets on their surfaces that can be blocked with molecules. Until now, pharmaceutical companies have been reluctant to create drugs that target a protein like BCL6 because they function through a different mechanism involving interactions with cofactor proteins involving extensive protein surfaces. “And because the real estate covered by these interactions is so large, the drug companies have viewed these as being not druggable targets,” said Melnick.

The researchers could identify a “hot spot” on BLC6 that they predicted would play a critical role in protein interactions. They showed that their BCL6 inhibitor drug was specific to BCL6, and did not block other master regulatory proteins. The drug had powerful lymphoma killing activity and yet was non-toxic to normal tissues. “This is the first time a drug of this nature has been designed and it shows that it’s not actually impossible to target factors like BCL6,” he said.
Emerging data from other investigators suggests that BCL6 is important in many other tumor types, including forms of leukemia. The study has been published in a recent issue of Cancer Cell.

.

.
.

A FORMER pub worker has been given a community sentence after conning people with a story about her fictitious daughter dying from leukaemia.

Katie Wolff, aged 20, of Claremont Close, Orpington, must do 180 hours of unpaid work within the next 12 months. Wolff was also told to pay £558 in compensation when she was sentenced on Friday (May 7).
Bromley Magistrates’ Court previously heard how Wolff initially told her employers at the George and Dragon in Downe High Street she was unable to come to work as her daughter had broken her leg. She later returned to work and said her daughter had been diagnosed with leukaemia, before subsequently breaking the news that her little girl had died.
Magistrates were told the pub then organised a charity event to pay for the funeral and two customers even shaved their beards off to help raise cash. However, the court heard Wolff aroused suspicion when she said her dead daughter’s headstone had been vandalised.

The pub landlord realised a headstone would not be put up so soon after a funeral. It was then discovered Wolff never had a child in the first place. Wolff pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud by false representation to the value of £558.

S2M says......

What can you say about people like this, except that they are an insult to the hundreds and thousands of parents who's REAL children are fighting a REAL Disease.Shame on this lowlife for such a terrible twisted con!.

.

Henna tattoos, which have become popular with holiday-makers as they travel through Asia and the Middle East, have been linked to higher rates of leukaemia.

Researchers in the Gulf found a much higher than usual incidence of types of leukaemia in local women – elsewhere, most sufferers are men. They suggest that one possible reason could be the popular local custom of using henna to create elaborate skin decorations.

They believe that it is not the henna itself that is the problem, but the compounds used as a solvent for the henna powder. Benzene, which is known to cause cancer, is banned for this purpose in many countries, but is still widely employed. "The majority of the females in UAE routinely use henna to stain their nail, hands, feet and to decorate a large area of the skin of their arms and legs for cosmetic reasons," said the study, by a team from hospitals in the United Arab Emirates, published in the Leukaemia and Lymphoma journal.

To read more about these findings click HERE to view the Telegraph.co.uk Website.

UPDATE:

Having now received many replies and comments about this post, it appears that many of my readers are angry that I have not researched my story in more depth before I decided to publish.As I have already mentioned in my reply I did not write this article,only posted it on this blog as it makes a very definite reference to a Leukaemia issue.

I have been informed (in no uncertain way!) that "proper" henna is an entirely natural product, and in this form would pose no threat to an individuals health.The type of henna in the report is not a fully natural product, and has been found to contain Benzene which has been linked to both AML and ALL form of Leukaemia.I think that the point to consider is that the report is from a research centre based in the Middle East, and concentrates for the most part on the use of henna in large quantities by ladies in that area,.The point therefore being made is that this "artificial" henna is the type that MAY pose a risk.

I think that it is only fair then that I post this video in response to my critics, in an effort to "balance the books" as it where!.

Watch and learn folks :-)

Hope that this explains the way that REAL henna is produced :-)

Andy

Part 2 will follow soon.....watch this space.........get it? lol :-)

.
A song adapted from a poem written by Brian Hatherley for his son James as he fought cancer. A wonderful song performed by Daniel De Bourg.

After a chat with a very nice fella named Mike Jones recently I am happy to announce that he has agreed to do a commissioned drawing of Scarlett, the Scirocco 50 LLR car and her trailer.

Mike has great experience in this area, having been a technical illustrator for Volkswagen Driver and Audi Driver magazines.He is currently completing the commission and once done we will be producing a limited edition of prints which will be sold to raise money for the LLR charity.

It is hoped that some of these prints may also be signed by Sir Ian Botham...if we can catch up with him!

Mike has agreed to do help out in this way as he lost a very good friend to Leukaemia a few years ago.

The picture above is an example of Mike's work and gives you an idea of what an amazing artist this chap is.

Prints,when available in the next few weeks, will be priced at approx £5.00 Each + P&P. Numbers will be limited to between 100-200 and with the publication of the story of the Scirocco 50 LLR project in the Volkswagen Driver magazine,along with the offer of the print to it's readers, demand is expected to be high, so don't leave it too late to place an order! :-).

I will post more details on this blog when I have a copy of the drawing to show you.

AS MOST children groan at the thought of school, one Holmbridge youngster cannot wait to get back to the classroom.

For returning to lessons at Hinchliffe Mill Junior and Infant School marks the end to a year-long leukaemia battle for 11-year-old George Jackson.

The sporty student was diagnosed with the devastating illness last June after he developed a rash and unexplained bruising on his body.

To read the full story,click HERE to visit the Huddersfield Examiner Website.

14 year old Alice desperately needs to find a bone marrow donor to help her win her fight with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Could you be that special person who holds the key to making Alice better? Why don't you find out by joining the Bone Marrow Donor Register run by the Anthony Nolan Trust? If you are aged between 18 and 40 and in good health then you may be eligible to join the thousands of others who have already made the stand and pledged to help those in need.

The test itself to check tissue type is now a simple "spit" test.All you need to do is spit in a small tube and the rest is done for you.You no longer have to have a blood sample taken, it really is that simple!.

Please, for the sake of Alice and thousands like her, take the time, make the pledge and perhaps save a life.

For more info about Alice's appeal here are a few links:

Devon bone marrow search to save Cumbrian tourist

Facebook Group

Best wishes Alice :-)

Oh alright then...just a few of them, due to the fiasco about expenses and the downright idiotic things that some of these pillocks were claiming (Cleaning garden moats, buying porn DVD's for their spouses etc).

As per usual in Sleaford we have (not me!) elected a Conservative MP, the one that has been brought in to replace Mr Douglas "Dirty Moat" Hogg recently.

Still waiting for the final result later today, but lets just hope that whatever the outcome, we end up with a few descent people in our "new" parliament who don't use the job to simply line their own pockets whilst their constituents are finding it hard to make ends meet !

As Sir Winston Churchill so aptly put it in 1902 "politicians are asked to stand, want to sit and are expected to lie.". Little has changed in 108 years!

Watch this space! :-)

UPDATE:

Britain has a hung Parliament after an inconclusive result to the most tightly fought General Election in a generation.

With the votes in 36 constituencies still to be counted, David Cameron's Conservatives had secured 289 seats - making it impossible for them to reach the 326 threshold for an overall majority - setting the scene for behind-the-scenes horse-trading possibly stretching into the weekend and beyond, as the parties struggle to form a viable administration.

Told ya so! :-).....now this is where the fun starts!

Fancy a Caravan to match your Camper?

On Duty!

Stanford Hall with sprinkling of Campers!

OK, so I don't have a "bug", but I was so cold that the freeze part was absolutely true!. In traditional English Bank holiday style the proceeding 48 hours had been "not bad", but come Sunday the rain clouds had gathered and the temperature had dropped to between 4-7 degrees...not ideal conditions for a day sitting out in a field in Worcestershire!. Anyway, as you probably guessed we made it across (down?) to Stanford Park at 08:35. having left Sleaford at approx 07:00 am that morning.The drive down was pretty uneventful, although I was a little concerned about the rate the car was consuming fuel!. I had put £15 of standard unleaded in the previous evening and by the time we got to the venue I was down to a needle width of a fuel guage of being empty!.Of course towing the rear section of a Scirocco loaded with all manner of "spares" (2 alloys,spring sets,dampers,tool box, tents etc) I guess that the economy was probably around the 34-35 Mpg mark during a lot of the trip.

After arriving at the gate (which we missed on the first attempt!) we were ushered over to pitch 178 (and 179 as no one turned up to take it!) and after a quick coffee and a cold bacon sandwich, we set up shop.This comprised of 2 collection jars,2 tubs of "gizzits" (key rings,trolley coins etc) a couple of LLR brochures and a large LLR tablecloth type thing which we spread on the floor just in front of the car.

After a while myself and mini me headed off to find the loo's as both of us need to go quite urgently.We located the bogs without much fuss only to be confronted by a locked door....oh bliss!. After a delay of perhaps 10 Min's someone came to unlock the doors and we managed not to wet ourselves!.

This is the first time that I have attended Stanford as a participant, and indeed it is the first time I have attended the show since 1990. The location is a very English Manor house set in beautiful parkland, and has a couple of lakes on the site which looked very nice, but made me very vigilant every time Andy jr got near them as they are not fenced off at all.

The size of this show was quite amazing, and the range of VW vehicles on display was fantastic. If you needed spares there were literally dozens of vendors selling anything from a replacement bulb through to complete camper van chassis!. I particularly liked the stall which was selling camper van "caravans".The basic concept was that Matt (the owner of the company) had taken 2 written off camper rear ends, turned then in on each other to form a double rear ended body, then made a glass fibre moulding of the resulting frame and fixed it to an "A" frame.It looked terrific as a finished article, and I was told that prices started from as little as £5500....if you have a spare £5500...I don't sadly! :-(.

We saw rows upon rows of pristine vehicles lined up in the concourse area, these ranged from split screen beetles and campers through to much more up to date water cooled Volkswagen types, all seemed to be getting a lot of TLC from their proud owners as they prepared for the judging of their pride and joys some time later in the day.

Food was passable but not entirely satisfying, the hot dog that I bought for mini me bore no resemblance at all to the glossy picture on the side of the food vendors van...in fact the sausage that was supposed to nestle within the finger roll appeared to have shrunk at some point and was now almost lost within its bread cocoon...Andy asked me to "eat the boring bits" so he could get at the sausage inside!. We did not have another one of those!.

As is usual at these sort of events we met up with several chaps (not chavs!) from the Scirocco Register who had pitched up on the club stands area, and a couple more were parked in the concours area busily polishing their cars in preparation for the judges arrival.We met up with the people whoi are organising an event named Van Jamboree at Newark showground on the 21-23 May, and they gave us a few flyers to put up around the hospital .

The day went quite well, we managed to collect a few quid for LLR, had a good look around the show, and set off to head home at around 3:30 PM.

A great day out only slightly dulled by the rather cool weather, but hey, this is the UK and what else would we expect on a abank holiday ?

Cheers.Andy

Saturday, 29 May 2010

Friday, 28 May 2010

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

Monday, 24 May 2010

Saturday, 22 May 2010

Thursday, 20 May 2010

Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

Monday, 17 May 2010

Saturday, 15 May 2010

Friday, 14 May 2010

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Monday, 10 May 2010

Saturday, 8 May 2010

Friday, 7 May 2010

Tuesday, 4 May 2010