sjdean on the blog

It is fundamentally disgraceful to sell off the Royal Mail. The government says it is a way to bring in fresh revenue. If someone really does have £3bn to purchase the Royal Mail, how on earth are they going to be able to afford to pump more money into it to upgrade facilities? Either prices go up, or costs go down. But hey, we can't afford everything, people want their benefits and taxes to go down - but we don't want to pay for it. It is a mistake to sell off the Royal Mail, but it's a mistake for us as the electorate to expect something for nothing.

I recently went to see Kick Ass 2 at the Odeon Broadway Plaza cinema. I usually use CineWorld at Broad Street as that is a wonderful cinema. Odeon however had the film I wanted to see. There was no obvious notice from outside that the cinema was actually open. I had to tentatively scout for an open door. Very uninviting. I collected my tickets from the machine and was seen by an "usher" or ticket inspector who validated my ticket and asked me to fill out a survey. My sensors were up. The male toilets downstairs were filthy. Missing soap dispensers of which only two were available, and only one had soap. Even that fell off the wall while using it. A cubicle had grafiti and the ceiling was filthy. I purchased a drink, popcorn and hotdog. I was not told about a lift which would have helped. It's difficult enough to get that up the stairs without assistance and it was worse for me with my vertigo. I managed one flight of stairs to the landing and saw the next flight of...

When I heard that BT was going to roll out Fibre to my local telephone exchange the CMSPR "Springfield" exchange, I was absolutely delighted. I don't like Virgin cable, and quite frankly being the second city, the fibre rollout by BT has been appalling. Other more rural locations were getting it before us.  But first the Exchange became marked as a Future Exchange and I remained patient. It then rolled over to a "Coming Soon" exchange and would be enabled by the end of September 2013. Brilliant News. I can finally move away from ADSL2+ and with BeThere being sold off to Sky, it's a good change to migrate to a new service. Far be it from me to be ignorant of how they install fibre, I've read up on how other people get their cabinets installed. Sometimes a contractor plonks a cabinet on the ground then come back weeks later to dig up and install power, trunking to BT man holes for routing cable then weeks and months later, possibly fibre. ...

Here's a picture of the house from the Central Television Production of the Upper Hand. The house is already on the internet in several forms in video, so I have no issue with posting this as proof I found it. But I will respect privacy and not publish the location for now.

Im a great fan of The Upper Hand TV show. It was filmed by Central Independent Television in Nottingham using the scripts of the American sitcom, Who's the Boss as a basis. Im a fan of regional television, Central in particular being my local region and wish it would return. But I've always been curious to find the Upper Hand House. I have now found the house. I found it on Google Maps and Street View and visited the area on Sunday and took my own photographs. For security and privacy reasons, I cannot divulge the location, but once I've suitably blurred out any identifying details, I may post a picture of the house - the decision will be based on the fact that pictures of the house are available on a DVD. I would love to share with you the area, as we could have fan days and visit the local pub, but I have been advised there is a restriction on posting pictures of the house for security purposes. I don't think this is true, and nothing in UK Law stops me from d...

I've been a little dismayed to see that Kick Ass 2 hasn't been quite as successful at the box office as it's predecessor. It is true that nothing can hold a candle to Kick Ass, but Kick Ass 2 is still a great movie in its own right. If the UK is anything to go by, I think the problem has been a complete lack of advertising. Nobody I know actually knew the thing had been released. I wasn't even aware of the first Kick Ass until my brother showed it to me to be frank. When I talked about Kick Ass 2, the reaction has been "when's that out?". I've had to say it's been out three weeks! As far as I can see, apart from Jim Carrey and a huge poster on a relatively quiet road, there's been virtually no advertising. No wonder it's performing poorly. Looks like it's near the end of it's run, so go see it people. Simon