My Top 10 Albums of all time!

1. Roger Waters - Amused to Death
2. Pink Floyd - The Wall
3. Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
4. Supertramp - Crime of the Century
5. Supertramp - Crisis, What Crisis?
6. Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading
7. Genesis - The Lamb lies Down on Broadway
8. Genesis - Trick of the Tail
9. Sarah McLaughlan - Surfacing
10. The Who - Who's Next? 

My first photographic exhibition at last!

Well at last I have plucked up the courage to hold an exhibition of my work! I've been lucky too in convincing Bodenham Arboretum to allow me to use their lovely Lakeside Terrace! I just hope that people find my pictures interesting enough to come and look at them? Oh well better get selecting the images I'm going to display - not easy!

Margaret Thatcher sadly passes away at the age of 88!

One of our greatest leaders of all time has died this morning! It is believed that she suffered a stroke. At 88 I guess it wasn't too bad an age but even so I am sure her children will still be mortified. For me she was a strong leader who stood up to the unions which someone had to do. She was also very strong when dealing with Russia and the EU which was to her credit. I remember her iron resolve during the Falklands conflict and when the hotel she and her colleagues were staying in was bombed by the IRA! An amazing women - she was truly the 'iron lady' of our time!

Margaret Thatcher   13/10/1925 - 8/04/2013

Caravan club car insurance - not quite what it promises?

As a Caravan Club member and having recently received my latest magazine I was tempted to get a quote from them for my car insurance, as it is due very soon and the advert said that they would 'guarantee to undercut my current quote by £25! Sounds as though I couldn't lose didn't it? Not true I'm afraid!

What they don't say on the literature is that the offer may only applies if you pay in full upfront because in my case, and is probably true in many cases, their quote was nowhere near my current insurer which then lead me to reveal my current insurers renewal quote so that they could undercut it by the promised £25. The process on the telephone takes ages but rather annoyingly in my case of course ended with the young lady informing me that their offer would still be more expensive because I prefer to pay by direct debit and their finance charges are much more than my current insurer! Yes, they would undercut by £25 but I would need to pay the fee upfront in full. What a pity they don't state that on the literature in the first place as it would have saved me 1/2 hour of my valuable time and that of their representative too! Maybe I've incurred a telephone charge to? I am surprised that the  insurance company operating on behalf of the Caravan Club was not made to be more open and honest with its advertising by stating clearly that the offer may not apply to those who pay by direct debit! Disappointing Mr Caravan Club!

Do you insure your caravan with the Caravan Club?

In case any caravan enthusiasts happen to read this blog then here is a tip for you!

When we first bought our caravan we thought it best to insure it with The Caravan Club - safe and sound we thought. I fixed up the insurance on the telephone. When the documents eventually came through I happened to notice that the insurance was dependent on us storing the caravan at a Gold Award Storage site. This was not mentioned during my discussions with the caravan Club representative on the phone. There happened to be one within 5 miles of where we live so I enquired about vacancies. The cost seemed expensive to me - £520 per year compared to probably half that at other smaller storage sites with supposedly less security! It seemed that we had to comply with the conditions of the insurance so I reluctantly went along with it. We had to enter into a contract with the storage firm for a minimum of 12 months.

During our stay I noticed one or two dents appearing in our caravan which I was sure were not due to us and also I became infuriated with all the lorries that kept appearing in the gaps between caravans! It seemed that the proprietor was making much more money from buying and selling Tesco refrigerated lorries than he was from storing caravans. I got fed up with the place and decided to look elsewhere.

This week I have located another storage facility on a farm just down the road from the one I refer to. Its £282 per year! Quite a saving and seems fairly secure and was recommended to us by some friends. I was worried though that we might save on the storage fees but then find ourselves paying much more in insurance? On calling the Caravan Club and informing them of my decision to move storage facilities I was shocked to discover how much the insurance would go up! The increase is £9.99! Not £9.99 per month but £9.99 per year! I couldn't believe it. Even more amazing was they didn't even want to know where I was storing the caravan! One minute I seemed to be being forced to use a Gold Award storage site and the next minute it seemed I could park my caravan absolutely anywhere in the UK for an extra £9.99 a year! It doesn't seem to make sense to me!

Naked Wines? Look out for these con merchants!

Just to warn you about this outfit!

I purchased some concert tickets recently and when the tickets arrived I found a voucher for Naked Wines enclosed. It looked brilliant - £60 worth of wine absolutely free with free delivery on orders of over £80! Obviously I wasn't going to pass off the opportunity of some free plonk so I went on their website with a view of ordering some. I soon noticed that whilst most of the wines I was choosing were discounted by £3 to £5, when I checked my basket periodically mine weren't - in fact I was being charged full price for all of them - and believe me they aren't cheap at £10 - £15 per bottle and more! Then I also realised that actually to get free delivery you had to buy £140 worth of wine to get free delivery (ie 12 bottles). It goes without saying that I cancelled my order just in time!

The moral of this story is Naked Wines try to trick you into spending much more than you think you will have to. They are fiddling bast...s in my view! If you like your wine as I do then take a tip from me, buy it from Majestic Wines - they provide good quality wine at fair prices and from my experience appear to be honest and straightforward in the way they do business!

Hospital hygiene?

In the past few days I had the unfortunate need to attend Telford's Princess Royal Hospital. My sister had been rushed there in an emergency and was in the Intensive Care Unit. Sadly she didn't make it.

I was told that the nurse had invited myself and other family members to go in and see her as she was fighting for her life and the prognosis wasn't good. I don't remember seeing a single nurse during the 2 hours I was there. My sister was on a life support machine and had been put into an induced coma. At no time did I see any signs instructing me to wash my hands or apply any bacterial hand cream and at no time was I asked if I had done so! I held my sisters hand as any brother wood do. When I raised my concerns in conversation with my family some of them said that there were signs there but I must admit that I didn't see any! Maybe I was in shock? Would I be looking for them under the circumstances? Why wasn't there a nurse there to ensure that hygiene standards were upheld? Its supposed to be important isn't it? We don't yet know why my sister died but in view of the fact that, on reading her notes, I noticed that a blood sample had been taken from her to check for Swine Flu which surprised me somewhat! The implications are horrendous!

It seems to me that this hospital will never learn the lessons that I thought had been pretty much fully addressed in the NHS? Clearly not!