Welcome to a sunny Friday afternoon in South Manchester where we are in a bit of a dry spell, after a wonderful April and May with little rain and wall to wall sunshine (with one or two exceptions where it was cloudy).
I’ve been away for a while to Malta, with Mrs PM and her mum, as it is her 80th birthday in a week or so. We stayed in Valletta, which is the capital, and did a lot of sight-seeing and exploration. It was my second trip the Malta, the first being a few years ago where we stayed in the north of the island in the town of Mellieħa.
It’s a lovely place with a rich and varied history and well worth a visit.
Let’s dive into some silly questions from Sunday Stealing which this week tries to expose a few things about me.
1. What habit do you wish you could break?
There are several that I would like to break, chief amongst them being procrastination, which I am slowly managing to do, now that I have more time on my hands. There are still moments during this war that I choose to give in but I am getting there – slowly.
My other major habit that I want to rid myself of is caring to much about the news. I used to rant mercilessly and now I try not to do it. But whenever I see the news I find that I am starting to fume about it. All I want to know is what is going on in the world but almost every day there is something going on that is either related to the Israel war, or the Ukraine war or a consequence of the malignant narcissism of the Orange Goblin that is currently running amok in the United States.
I won’t bore you with my views on that (I think you can guess), which is a step in the right direction I suppose.
2. Where is your favourite vacation spot?
I have a couple of places.
In Asia, it is Hong Kong and we are planning to go there again next year on the way back from Malaysia.
In Europe, I love the coast of Andalusia, especially Marbella. We haven’t visited that lovely coastal town for a while so hopefully we will try next year. Also, I love the city of Nice in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. It is a great city in its won right but it is also a centre for exploring other wonderful places like Cannes, Antibes and Monaco. In fact we are going there again next month for a week.
In other places, I love New York, Toronto and San Francisco and, of course, Japan which is the weirdest yet most exciting place I have been to.
3. How many years of formal education have you completed?
I started school aged 5 back in 1967 at a Catholic infants school and then progressed to the junior school until 1974, when I enrolled at a grammar school in Walsall, where I remained until I was 18 years old. After I left, I went to Liverpool University for three years, leaving in 1984. I guess that means that I had 17 years of formal education.
4. Have you ever had a job that required you be certified or licensed?
No, but my job did require a degree in IT. Of course as part of my job it was possible to become certified in various products in order to advance your career.
5. Do you enjoy camping?
I’ve only ever camped in the back garden once as a child and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I have never been since, nor am I tempted to.
6. Tell us about a time you got away with something.
I once accidentally sent an internal email describing a problem on a customer’s system to the customer himself with the final line “Under no circumstances should we tell the customer about this until we have figured out a way to fix the problem.”
When I realised what I had done, I quickly reworded that final line to be “We should tell the customer about this problem as soon as possible and inform them about the work around to avoid the issue.”
The customer read just the second email (which had the same title as the first one) and then replied to me saying “Thanks for being so honest with us.”
That was a really near miss.
7. Where have you lived the longest, and what do/did you like best about it?
My current house in South Manchester is the pace where I have lived the longest. This month marks the 23rd anniversary of moving in. The location is ideally placed with a fast route into the centre of the city and it is also close enough to the Cheshire countryside, which begins about 20 minutes away in a car. I am also about five miles from Manchester Airport, which is very convenient for travel.
8. When you were a kid, were more of your playmates boys or girls?
I had friends from both sexes but they were mostly boys I think, as I liked to play football and other sports. Over my years in Walsall, like most kids there, we tended to flit between groups of mates, both male and female.
