Failure is the Key to Success

Today the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were visiting Milton Keynes.
During her visit she offically opened thehub:mk and stadiummk before opening the new St John Ambulance Centre in Greenleys.
The new St John Ambulance Centre is only about 200 yards from where I work and she was due there at 12:30 when I have lunch. So, myself and several others walked down the road to join the crowd waiting to see her.
She was running a bit late, but I did briefly get to see her before having to go back to work. Including seeing her in the car go past and walking into the building, I must have seen her for about a minute. Still, that’s a minute longer than I had before.

Link to local story:
http://www.mk-news.co.uk/mknews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=238262

Tags:milton keynes,queen

I’ve been given the Be The Blog award by Ev Nucci at My life is murphy’s law. This is an award that was created by Mark at Me and My Drum for bloggers who make their blog their own, stay with it, are interactive with their readers, and just plain have fun.

Thanks Ev, I think this is the first award I’ve been given. It is available in 4 colours on Mark’s blog: Creamy Cabernet, Midnight Oil, Pink Smoothie and Purple Passion, so pick the colour that suits best.

I’m going to pass this on to:

• jmb at Nobody Important who writes engaging posts and always comments and replies to comments.
• David Airey at David Airey who has a very professional graphic design blog. I don’t think that awards will fit well with David’s uncluttered blog design, so I won’t take offense if David doesn’t add it.
• Vijay at scan man’s notes, though I don’t know if he’ll find the time (it’s not a meme Vijay) or the space on his sidebar.
• Antman at Cre8Buzz. If creating the Cre8Buzz site for readers to showcase their work and content and interact with each other isn’t being interactive with your readers, I don’t know what is. I know Cre8Buzz isn’t just Antman’s work, so credit to the rest of the team as well.

Tags:be the blog,be the blog award,cre8buzz

?The news today about the loss of Child Benefit data is astounding. The entire database of all families with children under 16 has been lost. The data at HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs) was saved to 2 discs and sent unrecorded through the internal post to the National Audit Office to be audited. The discs never arrived.

The data on the discs includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people; 15 million children and 10 million adults.

We are now being advised to carefully check all transactions on bank statements. It’s madness that the entire database should be copied to disc and posted. Surely in this age of technology, a secure datalink could have been established between the two locations, after all they aren’t small companies.

Tags:audit office,child benefit,hmrc

The school is holding its second International Education Week this week. Countrywide it is International Education Month in November.

The idea is to teach the children more about other countries in terms of their location, culture, language, food and lifestyle. Each day is assigned a different continent and the children are asked to dress in either colours of any country’s flag from the continent or traditional dress / sportsware from a country.

Continue reading » International Education Week

Tags:international education week

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

Tags:remembrance

My brother and his wife had their second son late yesterday, so now I have two nephews. Timing being everything, it was a different birthday present for her.