We were just reminiscing about children’s TV on our way back down the motorway today. We started with Blue Peter. Is it still on? I remember when I was a nipper that they always seemed to be setting fire to scouts or burying themselves in elephant crap. But then the real classics came to mind. The Gerry and Sylvia Anderson stuff. Top o...

Well, i’ve been excited for this day. Sunderland, after 8 years out of the Premier League, returned with a home bash at the SOL against West Ham. All the pundits and bookies had us firm favourites to return to the Championship, but after signing a whole new team in the summer, Sunderland whopped The Hammers 3-0 to leave an unlikely tab...

(Click the picture to see the video) We moved on last weekend to a new place a bit further north of Ripon. We've sat for this little scamp before over the last couple of years, and this is the first time we've had decent weather. His name is Max and he really is the friendliest bundle of fun. We love him. He goes to the pub with us too...

Took a scary (and probably stupid) decision to enrol on the Apple Beta program and upgraded my phone to the latest OS. It looks good, and have had quite a time just sleuthing about looking for changes. Half the 'fun' is looking for bugs, and i've found two already. I can't install any new apps from the apps store, and I can't add any w...

Just discovered LinkTree the other day. It's a little configurable digital business link thingy that makes maintaining your links easy. I've got Facebook, BlueSky, YouTube, Email and WhatsApp, along with my websites and this newsletter defined. Now all I have to do is give people my LinkTree link and all my contact and social info is t...

Checked into Design and Build Business this morning and found i'd got $76.50 in affiliate commissions! It's the first time i've cashed out this year. That's worth about £55 in english money, so not too shabby considering i'd basically done NO promotion at all of the platform recently. That's the great thing about this business, we can ...

Hi pop pickers. As you'll probably know, i've been creating websites for quite some years now (the links below show some of them). I wanted a plugin that would display any notable things happening 'On this Day' on my website home page. Kind of a Historical diary. I put my thinking cap on, composed a prompt and asked ChatGPT to create i...

These two live near Ripon in North Yorkshire. The character on the left is shaped rather like a barrel. He's a lazy Pug. On the right, we have a Pug/Schitzu cross (I think) who is totally dismissive of personal space, with a pathological hatred of passing cars. Together they are Ted and Bertie. They are available for birthdays, wedding...

On 9th July I popped my old passport into a jiffy bag and sent it back to HMPO. My hideous but acceptable photo I told you about here on 9th July was attached to my online request, and in about a fortnight the Royal Mail delivered my new one. They of course delivered it to Durham, so we had to hot-shoe it up from Ripon to pick it up. 😏...

I ordered one of these beasts the other week. I was finding my battery was running out of juice before the end of a day of normal use, so needed something sorting. It cost me about 30 quid from a Facebook ad, and took about a fortnight to arrive (from China). Charged it up last night and today, after 8 hours of use, my phone battery is...

Wow, i'm blessed. BlueSky were the first people to use age verification to prove I wasn't suitable for Trump. It's the first time i've been asked since Tampa airport in 2011. Presumably this is related to the online protection for kids in the UK. I'm not too sure how secure this will be though, as filth hounds will just access Pornhub ...

I was gutted yesterday when I found out about Ozzy. I've been a huge fan ever since Sabbath hit us with Metal in the 70's. Ozzy was larger than life and to quote David Lee Roth, he didn't just burn the candle at both ends, he took a flamethrower to it. In the 80s, after Ozzy went solo, we went to a few of his gigs, sharing in his exces...

Dear all, After what seems like months of baking hot sweaty temperatures, Summer 2025 seems to have reverted back to 'normal'. I don't know about you, but it was a bloody relief to me, although now i'm changing my mind a bit. After sweating my nuts of from May 6th in Spain, I thought "Haha we'll get back to normal back in Blighty", but...

This is the little girl we're looking after this week. She's a Golden Doodle. She is the coolest dog ever! She sleeps on the rocking chair at the top of the stairs, and in the morning she'll come see you and lick the back of your hand to say 'morning'. ❤ This is why we do this, to get vibes from pets who just want to be loved. We alway...

Today we got the bus into Knaresborough to meet up with a couple of ladies from Castlemaine, Australia. They spend 6 months of every year pet sitting in England. We met up with them last year nr. Middleham in North Yorkshire. This time Knaresborough was the victim. Drinks and food were taken and a walk along the river trying to photo b...

A few days ago, we got this review on Booking.com for our rental cottage. WTF? ONE POINT ZERO? The rating is out of TEN !!!! As you can guess, I wasn't impressed. The review seems to say that Elaine had a nice time, but because she had a payment problem, she took it out on us. The unfortunate thing for Elaine is, she left her Netflix a...

I know it only happens every 10 years, but one of the things I really hate is having my passport photo taken. Every time, getting it done is different. In the 'old days' you had to get 4 photos taken by the photo booth and cut them up and send them off with your passport application. Two weeks later you'd get a letter back saying your ...

It's changeover day tomorrow. That's when the pet parents come back and we try to make the house look as though we haven't lived here for a fortnight. 😂 It's hard when you are living in someone else's place because you have to think twice about everything you do. And sometimes things still surprise you, like the bedroom roof leaking in...

Hi my friends. Just need to share something. I Unashamedly pinched from the Pearls of Rumi page on Facebook. I had to share this with you lot, in case you didn't see it. If anyone turns you down, or tells you you aren't good enough. 𝙁𝙖𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙨 "𝙁𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨" 𝙒𝙝𝙤 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙! ♦ 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 was expelled from school after only four months...

Got up this morning and ran a bath for the Mrs. She of course waited for the water to cool down too much. Next, she couldn't get the water to drain. Well, i'm not an engineer! Such are the trials of Sundays. I used to really hate them, but now they're the most relaxing day of the week. This afternoon we got a 1* review on our cottage, ...

To keep us off the streets while we've been cavorting around The World, we decided to put together a little website where people can get an idea of what we do. Debs is the main driving force here and I remain in my cage every morning until i've completed my list of updates and magic tricks. Only then am I allowed food and water. You ca...

My mam keeps reminding me that it's about time I got some new glasses. She's right of course as the last pair I had was just before the unfortunate parrot incident in 2022. I've been toying with the idea of going totally Joe 90 and getting a pair of these Rayban Wayfairer AI specs. They translate foreign languages, take movies of whate...

Hey, long time no hear. We've been over to the oven known as Spain for 7 weeks. The place is mad. The San Juan Festival was on in Alicante and basically the whole town parties for 7 days, then sets fire to everything. 🔥 The previous 6 weeks were in a more inland village, but it was hotter still. The hot weather was hotter than even Spa...

My partner Debs promised me we could have an Indian meal for lunch if I got my hair cut. I reckon it happens about every 2 months, so i've had 390 hair cuts in my entire life. This is the latest. The Indian meal was maybe a bad idea, as it was 31 in the shade and there was no shade on the walk home. 🥵 Anyhow, we got back sweaty and rep...

Hey, I accidentally deleted a link from this newsletter a little while ago for a Marketing Course I received from my good friend Matt Richards. He used to sell this course (along with support) for £2,000 a pop, but he moved out of the industry to start a new venture with his wife. I transferred it all to YouTube and here it is for free...

Yes, these are 3 cute little things we are sitting for at the moment (in Spain). The two at the back are actually wild cats that have been unofficially adopted. Loki at the front is a house cat, known as 'The Reverend', as he has a little white dog collar stripe under his chin that makes him look like a vicar. Obviously, being a cat is...

Hi everybody. As if you haven't noticed, the World is having a bit of a hiatus at the moment, primarily caused by two of the largest bell-ends being in charge. The rest of us are meant to suffer whilst they prosper. What it brings home is, no matter how comfortable you think your life is, with a good job and future, things can change i...

Hi everybody! Just a quick update. We've been quite busy over the winter with the travel/pet sitting. We didn't really anticipate how well this would go, but we've been pretty non-stop. Pet sitting has taken us to North Yorkshire, The Lake District, Northumberland and Spain. We work through a proper website (Trusted House Sitters) whic...

Hi everybody. Yesterday I received an email from Kyle at Wealthy Affiliate, congratulating me on becoming an Ambassador. Effectively that means i've reached the top 25 affiliates in the World. It's not a monetary rank, but rather a measure of how I engage and help on the platform. I encourage my own introductions as well as helping oth...

My mentor Kyle has just published this post on Facebook:- "AI, the new world sink hole for old school jobs. Within 5 years, there isn't going to be a need for 90% of the existing "informational" jobs that currently exist. And that is most jobs. If you are working on a computer at any point in the day, I am speaking directly to you. The...