Steve from England

What happened? When we first moved here in 1995 we loved the place, were proud to have friends and family visit but not any more.  Contributing to the demise is the continued under-investment from Legal & General in the Grosvenor Centre and ridiculous demands on tenants meaning we have lost some really good quality retailers from there. What kind of centre management loses House of Fraser? The Disney Store ... cannot do a deal so that Ed's Diner moves in? BHS went months ago, the building sits empty still a demonstration of what is typical for our town. House of Fraser was replaced by Primark, we gained an upgrade on the store but we already had one in town. Ed's Diner would have taken over from the Disney Store but Vision Express just moved along to do that. Two Seasons has moved to Rushden Lakes and who can blame them? The council decided to open up Abington Street to traffic again, all it did was to totally kill off that end of town ... unless someone is desperate for Sp...

  I guess what I am meaning with this quote is that my brain tends to need to be exhausted before I sleep. Often times I go to bed at around 02:30 and fall straight to sleep, no thought process at all, just gone. My mind rarely settles until it stops functioning [caption id="attachment_2239" align="alignright" width="1004"] This, to me, applies to friends. I have found that a strong friendship can build and then, in a flash there is zero interest in me. I never know if it was me or if it was them but, I invested my valuable time with people and it wasn't worth my investment.[/caption] This is one of the truest quotes I found today Sadly I do feel this is very true. I acknowledge that I might just not have enough memory of the man but the memory I have is of someone who couldn't take the time, was only interested in sporting success and anything less wasn't acceptable and, I am and always was, so much less than acceptable to him.     This is so...

Perhaps it's a survival of the fitness throw back not to seem 'weak' that so many people are averse to saying 'sorry'. It is one of the most powerful words however it is translated. It isn't an admission of a failure, it's an acknowledgement that things are not going the way they should. Those who have tried to use the word more have discovered the huge effects it has on their communication with others. If you have a disagreement with someone and you've reached a point scoring stalemate, just say 'sorry' and see what happens. "I'm sorry, this is not the way I wanted to this conversation to go, can we start again?" That's not the same as saying that you are wrong and they are right, it's an acknowledgement of your regret that this just isn't satisfying anyone. You could go on all evening one point scoring reply after another, he said this, she said that and where does it get anyone? Look at these two examples of a couple ...

Why do coincidences happen more frequently after I pray for them? Why is there a pattern to my life which, taken as a whole makes sense? Now, my faith doesn’t, any more than the entirety of my life, follow the flow or ‘normality’. I don’t go out of my way to be different more, I feel I would have to go out of my way to conform and find it so much easier to be honest with myself, be myself. I don’t know about you, I feel sometimes I have been afraid of trusting my own judgements in case I are wrong and only have myself to blame. But then I remind myself, everything in life needs some form of manure to grow. Some things can grow OK in unfertilised pastures but, honestly, adding in some manure really moves things along. This is the very best of lives. I am convinced that if I were never ill, if nothing went wrong, if I were never broke, I couldn’t fully appreciate the incredible nature of my life. Does a rich person appreciate a lottery win the same way or as intensely as a poor person? ...

It's great to have Zoey back home. Now the issues with social services escalate as they fight to save money and we fight to make sure she gets what she needs. I heavily photoshopped this picture and it's easy to think we were actually together in the same place. Obviously that can't be possible because I am sitting here and my PC says it's 2:11 in the morning. Isn't it a nice thought though that we could actually be together. The flight would be horrible though, cheapest I've seen is via China and who the hell wants to go to China? Even then it is a 10 hour first flight which I will no doubt not sleep on and then a 5 hour wait for another 5 hours on a plane where I might actually sleep for a couple of hours ... if I were to do that sort of thing. I've even heard that China are obsessed with batteries, even if you follow all the instructions if they deem they are not for everyday use, such as in a camcorder, they will remove them and dump them, how terrible i...

Jeremy Clarkson 'punch': Top Gear episodes to be dropped - BBC News . Why can they not just sack this horrible man? Why is one man more important than a show which existed prior to his joining it? Top Gear cancelled for the rest of the series because of this one man so, no doubt, they can sneak him in again next series as though nothing ever happened! I can't help thinking that the BBC still courts celebrity too much and, whist he's not a child molester, isn't it time the BBC put standards before popularity?

There is a lot to be said for “The way things used to be” Of course, I was a kid back when, back in the days when kids respected elders and, that was kids of all ages including adults. Elder people were afforded respect unless they proved they didn’t deserve it. These days, it seems no one is respected unless there is some sort of reward for doing so. Back in 1977 I remember a nation proud to be British, I cannot even write that without someone thinking it is somehow a racist comment! Television was a social activity shared by family of appropriate age, it wasn’t a babysitter. I remember, back in the early 1980’s, I called my mum on the phone and, I can’t remember what I said but it was disrespectful and she hung up on me, she had never done that before. You know what I did? I was in London at the time 30 miles from her. I left work, I got on a train, I got to my home town, bought her some flowers, gave her a huge cuddle, said how much I loved her (and meant it) and, from that ...

There is a lot to be said for “The way things used to be” Of course, I was a kid back when, back in the days when kids respected elders and, that was kids of all ages including adults. Elder people were afforded respect unless they proved they didn’t deserve it. These days, it seems no one is respected unless there is some sort of reward for doing so. Back in 1977 I remember a nation proud to be British, I cannot even write that without someone thinking it is somehow a racist comment! Television was a social activity shared by family of appropriate age, it wasn’t a babysitter. I remember, back in the early 1980’s, I called my mum on the phone and, I can’t remember what I said but it was disrespectful and she hung up on me, she had never done that before. You know what I did? I was in London at the time 30 miles from her. I left work, I got on a train, I got to my home town, bought her some flowers, gave her a huge cuddle, said how much I loved her (and meant it) and, from that ...