Hanging Out

Track of the day - I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts - Billy Cotton.



The local naturist club has very strict rules about boots and clothing. Luckily I wasn't wearing muddy boots so they let me hang out with them for a while.
They all seemed to be experts in DIY so I fitted in very well. When I got home I looked up a recipe for hot cross buns.
Can't imagine why.

Black Bird

Track of the day - Bye Bye Blackbird - Pete Fountain.

I stood there staring at a big black bird. I was in the West Indies and the birds were different from the usual Bogsville varieties. Come to that - everything was different.

After a while I turned to an old local guy.
"Excuse me but what sort of bird is that?"
"Which bird you asking me about?"
"That black one there," I said.
He looked at me sadly and smiled.
"Man, we just call them birds blackbirds."
Then he walked off.
I should have known.

Are You In The A A Sir?

Track of the day - Midnight Special - Little Richard.

The engine didn't start when I turned the ignition key. No throaty roar, just a series of loud ticks. I tried again and this time the engine started so I decided to drive around for a while to recharge the battery.
By the time I'd got to the end of the road where I make a left turn I was aware that the engine was revving more than it usually does but I drove on anyway. It was probably just cold and would settle down after a while. It didn't.
There was a car ahead of me brake lights blinking, sitting well out from the kerb, looking like it was going to turn left - or right. It was hard to tell exactly what the driver was going to do so I braked gently and changed down. Volvo's rev counter needle continued to rise, the engine roared even more wildly and the car continued to accelerate. I braked harder and the noise increased.
The driver of the car in front suddenly woke up and decided to get out of the way. Volvo roared off in hot pursuit. I kept my foot on the brake.
"Throttle body butterfly," I shouted to myself over the deafening roars coming from the engine compartment.
I knew what the problem was, not because I'm a technical wizard, but because it has happened before - twice.
Somehow I got the car back home without hitting or killing anyone and immediately set about stripping and lubricating the throttle body. By the time I'd finished, Mrs B. was parked behind me so I decided to leave the test drive until the next day. Big mistake.

Yesterday I was back in the car, my camera on the passenger seat. Might as well make a day of it I decided.
How wrong I was. I turned the ignition key and again was greeted by ominous clicks. Nothing for it but to recharge the battery.
I pulled the release lever for the bonnet (hood). The lever came up towards me but nothing else happened. I was left sitting there with a flat battery and no means of getting to it in the engine compartment.

I phoned the experts.
"Hello - Volvo here. How can we help you?""
And that is where the help started and finished.
"You'll have to drop the car into us. No, there's no way to get into the engine compartment from the outside. We usually have to break the grill to get in. Are you in the A.A. or the R.A.C?"
I gave up. I'd heard it all before from these Volvo guys.
I phoned the A.A.
Within half an hour there was a guy lying on his back under the front of the car, removing three bolts and lifting the bonnet aka hood. The grill was still intact. The release cable had snapped so he made up and fitted a new one, charged the battery and drove off.
He also gave me the name of a local guy who specialises in Volvo repairs so I won't need to phone the experts again.

Who Let The Dugs Out?

Track of the day - Who Let The Dogs Out? - Anselm Douglas.

Every time the ball crossed the boundary or a wicket fell, the d.j. cranked up the volume, the fans leaped to their feet and joined in the chorus.

Who let the dogs out? I'm sorry it's no good asking me.
As soon as I noticed that this energetic young lady was having problems controlling her dugs I forgot all about dogs.

Peter Parker's Hat

Track of the day - A Little Bit Of Cucumber - Harry Champion.

The Cricket World Cup game between England and Canada was notable only because Canada finished on 228 for seven, their highest ever World Cup total and because umpire Peter Parker's hat blew off just as Dhaniram was about to bowl to Collingwood in the 38th over.
Collingwood had scored 7 runs at the time and didn't seem to be distracted but it makes you wonder what Parker would have done if Collingwood had been dismissed by the delivery.
I suggest umpire Parker uses a spot of contact adhesive during future games.

Weather

I made the mistake of sauntering along to our local store this morning.
The sun was shining and the sky was blue.
What a mistake!
It might be sunny but the wind is coming straight off someone's polar icecap.
I'm expecting to see penguins in the pond.

Mother's Day

Track of the day - Whirly-Bird - Count Basie.

It's Mother's Day in the UK so there's a gale blowing outside, it's just started raining and there's snow on the way.
What more could all you mothers desire?

If at first you don't...

Nature didn't design this little bird to feed from a block of fat but who said everything in life has to be easy?
Dedication and determination are worth more than sleek design in Bogsville.

Life must be pretty difficult right now for the Pakistan one day international cricket team, dumped out of the World Cup on St. Patrick's Day by dedicated and determined part-timers from Ireland.
A team of undoubted superstars, Pakistan failed to adapt to the playing conditions in the West Indies.
On a normal test wicket Pakistan should have totally humiliated Ireland but the wicket wasn't a normal test wicket and the extra grass on the playing surface proved to be too great a leveler.

Today England take on Canada.
After yesterday's result anything could happen.

Blissfully unaware of his design faults, the robin continues to feed from the fat block.

I Believe

Track of the day - I Believe - Frankie Laine.



"I Believe", was the title of a song made popular by Frankie Laine in the 1950's.
It was so popular in the UK that the record was in the charts for 18 weeks.
I remember because I used to wander around, trying to sing it.
I only had to hear the words "I believe" and I'd burst into song -

"I believe for every drop of rain that falls,
A flower grows,
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night,
A candle glows.
I believe for everyone who goes astray,
Someone will come to show the way.
I believe,
I believe."

Nowadays when I hear that phrase on the radio or television,it's usually part of a Blair speech and my first reaction is not to burst into song but to switch off or retune to another station.
Why?
Because Blair uses the words 'ad nauseam'.
Google 'Tony Blair "I believe" Iraq' and call up the google cached pages.
The phrase comes up in green so it's easy to spot.

Yes I still naïvely believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows and that for everyone who goes astray, someone will come to show the way.
But that someone certainly isn't Tony Blair.

Toad Gold

Track of the day - The Train and the River - Jimmy Giuffre.

I received an email yesterday suggesting that there might be gold in them thar Bogsville toads and frogs.

According to my source,
"The ever-resourceful Aussies have found uses for their toad haul. The carcasses are brewed with liquid molasses and fish emulsifier to form a foul-smelling brown 'toad juice', which has proved to be a highly effective fertiliser.
The first batch will go on sale this week in Darwin for about £5 a bottle. Preliminary results have shown it is especially good for growing bananas and papayas.
And Paul Cowdy, from the conservation group Frogwatch, reckons he has found another profitable use for the toads.
'I've started skinning them for their leather,' says Mr Cowdy, originally from Salisbury, Wilts. 'It's hard-wearing and attractive - you can make purses, wallets, mobile phone covers.'"

This is a definite improvement on the toad control advice from Australia that I reported on way back in April 2005,
when the preferred control method was to "hit them with cricket bats and golf clubs and the like."

If the Bogsville pond ever gets invaded by Cane Toads that allegedly eat everything from dog food to mice and keep growing until they reach 25cm in length and weigh over 4 kilos each, I might well be in a frame of mind to make my fortune from them.
Until then, my little buddies in the pond are quite safe and I'll remain a pauper.

Goldmourn's Second Video

Track of the day - Whoooeee! - Zoot Sims and Bob Brookmeyer.



I really don't think anyone in the Hole in the Ground bar would notice if the regular females turned up shirtless to claim their free drinks.

Today I have been mostly climbing on the roof, trying to work out where the rain is getting in. Fed up with that I began hacking branches off a pear tree, edged the lawns and celebrated my rediscovered freedom to surf the web by watching Goldmourn's second video offering.
Ok so I couldn't resist the title but the lady has the ability to make very little seem very interesting.
I especially liked the pregnant pause when she wondered whether she should have planned it all out before she started. The lady's a star.
Unfortunately it's a long way from Canada to the Hole in the Ground bar.

The Gnome Of Zurich

Track of the day - Nice Work If You Can Get It - Bud Powell Trio.

The weather warmed up and the gnats, midges or bugs or whatever, came up out of the grass in search of bare skin.
It wasn't bare skin warm so the little boggers went hungry.

This afternoon I got a text message all the way from Zurich.
Graham Elderson is off on the slopes trying to ski and the message said that he'd sent me a photograph.
I like photographs of mountains and snow and blue sky so off I rushed to download it to see whether the Swiss Alps are suffering from global warming.
He goes all the way to Zurich and the bogger sends me this!

Don't photograph the bloody things you gnome - buy them for me.

Blogspot Security Filter

Seems that the UK blogspot connect problem was caused by a google security filter.
Two weeks ago I made the mistake of switching my modem off and when I switched it back on my IP address had changed from 82.something to 77.something.
77.something was unacceptable to the blogspot filter. If I connected via a proxy all was well.
Naturally, being an old bogger, I didn't realise this until last night, just before I went off to bed.
This morning I discover that I can read my own page again with or without the help of a proxy server. At least I know what to do next time that I can't get blogspot pages to load - and there's bound to be a next time.

Venus

Mrs B took me off to the movie theatre.
I didn't really want to leave the safety of the house but she somehow prised me out of my chair.
The film was Venus starring Peter O'Toole, Leslie Phillips and Jodie Whittaker.
I suspect that Mrs B was trying to tell me something when she took me to see that film but I'm not quite sure what that something was because I already knew that young women are unbelievably attractive.
I really wanted to see Volver with Penelope Cruz but unfortunately she was doing something else.

Posting Blind Again

I'm posting blind and am again unable to view blogspot*com pages.
Yesterday's fix was only temporary.
Amerloc was right to be sceptical.

And I thought I had problems!

I was trawling through the Virgin Media service status page for March when I spotted this -

"Customers nationally may currently be unable to view some Adult Pay Per Night programmes once purchased. These will include 100% Babes and the Adult Channel. Our engineers and support groups are currently investigating this issue.
Virgin Media would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused."

If you were a Virgin engineer or support group fixer, which would you investigate first - the Adult Channel, 100% Babes or the Milt Bogs blogspot problem?
I may be invisible for a very long time.

Paying for a service and then not being able to connect sounded familiar to me so I googled over to The Adult Channel to see what the poor unfortunates were missing.
Guess what came up on the screen?
This did.

If the Almighty sees fit to answer my request for a concubine, I hope I'm not sent a Virgin. I would want to be able to connect.

Typical

Typical isn't it?

I'd just written my latest whingeing email to google and anywhere else I could think of about my blank screen problem, when lo and behold the damn page popped up in the browser.

It seems I'm no longer the invisible Milt Bogs.

The last time Milt became visible, the cure lasted for about half an hour.
At the moment all is well and I would readily buss on both cheeks whoever fixed it, with the possibility of a deeper relationship if the techie is a girl.
Grils need not claim any resposibility for the fix. The offer is not open to them.
I am so deliriously happy that I've had second thoughts and grils are included too.

I was so overjoyed that I rushed out and mowed the lawns.
Please God send me a concubine.

I Give Up

Milt's Latest Firefox Error Console Message is viewable here.

This whole blogging thing is rapidly becoming pointless.
I'm spending hours every day trying to discover why I can't see this page or any other page with a blogspot*com extension when other people all over the place can.

Yes I can see it through a proxy server but that isn't the point.
I've tried without the wireless router. I've tried with the firewall switched off. I've tried with AVG disabled all with the same blank page or server reset message result.

I might as well be the bloody Invisible Man.

Virgin Media say they've raised a ticket though I can't find it and blogspot know about it but no one seems able to rectify the problem

Yesterday I tried to open a new blog to see if that would show on my screen but Blogger rejected my title and told me to use Mitbogs B or some such name.
The whole point of trying to open a new blog was to escape from whatever is boggering up Milt's Page.
I've had enough.

Bogon Milt Bogs

Track of the day - Save the Last Dance for Me - Sam Cooke.



The frogs and toads are very busy at the moment.
Unfortunately there's a trail of dead bodies leading away from the pond. I don't know whether the carnage is down to a fox, a crow or a cat but I suspect a cat. Whatever is killing the little boggers isn't after food, it's playing with them which is why I suspect a cat.
The corpses don't stay in situ long. The crows come and take them away.

I can still only see this page through the link set up by the kind people at Pageworks. Apart from brief period just after midnight on Sunday I've been unable to load any blogspot pages. It's been over a week now and I'm beginning to think the problem will never get fixed.

The most frustrating thing is that if I was able to move the house 800 yards down the road, I'd be able to download my own page.

This morning I found an email re. my problem. It ended with someone suggesting it was 'probably a bogon issue' whatever that is. But then someone from my ISP added
"Actually we're thinking potentially not - one of the senior networks guys is looking into this further.
It looks like a generic issue affecting Blogger users:"

I was quite taken by the thought that Milt Bogs might be affected by 'bogon' problems. It somehow seemed appropriate.

Spring & A Wee Jobbie

Track of the day - Cherry Pink Mambo - Eddie Calvert.

As you can see, Spring is springing here in Bogsville.
I'd like to thank the kind people at Pageworks for enabling me to see what I post here. It's much appreciated.

One way or another I have decided I'm in need of a change.
No more whingeing about error messages, blank pages and spam for me.
What I really really need is a job to take my mind orf such trivia.
Imagine then my excitement when I stumbled upon this:

Hospital Bug Sniffer Required
Must have an educated nose.

This, as they say, was 'right up my street'.
I have an olfactory organ to rival Cyrano de Bergerac's prodigious appendage and I'm reasonably well educated.
I read on:

"Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and the West of England have discovered that healthy stools smell different from those produced by people suffering from infectious diarrhoea..."

At that point the penny dropped. I stopped reading and decided that retirement suits me just fine.
It's a pity because I'd have done the job well. Unlike the researchers, I could spot the difference between a healthy stool and diarrhoea with a bulldog clip on my nose and probably without wearing my contact lenses.
Oh well, back to the real world -

Blog*Spot

"We're investigating network issues between BlogSpot and a handful of British and Irish ISPs.
Apologies to those who are affected and are unable to read blogs hosted at blogspot.com.
There is no known workaround at this time.

Update, 4:25PM: We've instituted our own network workaround for this issue, which should resolve the problem for affected users. We're following up with the ISPs to diagnose the root problem.

Update, Monday, 9:30AM: We're hearing further reports that this problem is not solved, and there are indications that there is a misconfiguration in the affected ISPs routes. We appreciate your patience as we work with them to get this fixed for good."

Well it's Tuesday now and there's still no fix. In fact I had real problems logging in.
Perhaps I should go back and sniff out that wee jobbie after all.

Disconnected From Blogspot Addresses Again

At midnight I was able to access this page for the first time for days. I was reconnected with the blogspot.com world for about an hour and went off to bed feeling relatively happy.

This morning I'm back behind a locked door, in the dark and working blind, my plug has been pulled. I've been disconnected again.
I don't know whether it's intentional or just down to incompetence but one way or another I'm hacked off about it.

Status Page

Well at last some indication that the problem just might exist and that it isn't just my inability to operate a computer. A link to Blogger's Status Page

Blogspot Connection Back UP

Just noticed that I can access this page again.
No word from anyone of why I haven't been able to access it for the best part of a week.
I guess I'll never know whether it was a G**gle Company server problem or A Richard Branson Virgin Media problem. I was beginning to think my service was coming from China, India, Pakistan or any of the other countries where Bl*gspot.com pages were banned.
At least I now know it wasn't a catastrophic Bogs error.

If I were an obscenely rich soccer player, I'd be able to buy my own server.
But I'm not.

Lunar Eclipse

Track of the day - Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield.

We stood outside last night and watched the lunar eclipse.
Next time there's a lunar eclipse we'll go out into the countryside where the lights from the city and the main roads don't mess everything up.
You'll have noticed that we have four moons here in Bogsville. I'm not sure why that is but it helps to fill space on the page.

A page that I, for some inexplicable reason, still can't see here in Bogsville Heights.
I contacted Virgin Media and they indignantly denied that they are blocking blogspot.com pages.
The fact remains that I can't access them, not even the Blogger Known Issues page.
I know that there are other people having the same problem so it isn't just me and some people have been kind enough to leave comments so I know that the page is working.

Unlike the rest of the World I remain permanently in the dark and unable to call in on anyone else's blogspot hosted pages.

Blogspot Addresses Disappear From UK Screens

Track of the day - Catch the Wind - Cat Stevens.

It's been a bad week in Bogsville one way or another.
First I was under attack by thousands of returned, undeliverable spam emails thanks to some prat of a spammer who decided to use my catchall address as a return mail address.
Thousands of bloody spam mails went out to people and companies protected by anti-spam software set up to bounce spam emails.
End result?
They got one email and I was deluged by thousands.
It has taken me six days to deal with it and for most of the week I've been unable to use that email account.
Every time I clicked on 'send and receive' to get one email in came a flood of accompanying excrement.
As far as I'm concerned, bounced emails are as bad as the original spam.
I've had ten thousand (10,000) of them since last Saturday and I'm sick of them.
By all means report spam, track it down if you know how to and by all means, chop the bloody perpetrator's fingers off but don't just blindly bounce the crap back to innocent web users whose email addresses have been cloned. Seems to me there's no difference between them and spam.

My mails are now being filtered at domain level and anything that gets through that is being filtered out by Mailwasher Pro.
Yesterday, only eight out of 1,947 spam messages ended getting through the domain filter and were then promptly filtered out by Mailwasher. I can now use my email again.

Blogspot.com pages UK

While all that was going on Milt's Page along with every other page with a ".blogspot.com" address disappeared off my UK computer screen.
They are still missing this morning.
I assume that the server feeding the pages to the UK has suffered a catastrophic failure. There's no mention of it on the Blogger Status Page but that's nothing new.
I've emailed them and bitched about the problem on this page but to be honest I might as well be piddling into the wind.

I thought that Blueyonder / Virgin Media might be blocking Blogspot addresses but they assure me that they are not.
I know that people using different ISP's in the UK can access the pages and that some Blueyonder users can access them so I am now totally confused.
It isn't a blocking thing, it isn't a template thing because other people can see this page - so what the Hell is it?

Meanwhile outdoors in the pond



the frogs and toads had their minds on other things.

Still Posting Blind

Track of the day - Get Away - Georgie Fame

I caught these two hard at it in public yesterday.
Totally shameless if you ask me.

I'm not sure why I bother posting anything really because I'm still posting blind
For whatever the reason I can't see the end result.
I can access everything in the dashboard except 'View Blog' so I haven't a clue what it looks like or whether other people are having the same problem that I'm having.
I'm unable to access any site published on Blogger so I can't visit or leave any comments anywhere.
I know that Gabbi who is thousands of miles away could read yesterday's post because she left a comment. Hi Gabbi, hope you're well.
I'm assuming therefore that it's a local problem.

If anyone can actually see this page rather than the blank white screen that I'm getting please leave me a comment so that I can work out if the problem is just local to my computer.
I know if someone leaves a comment because I get an email that tells me that a comment has been left.
I can call up the Google cached version of my old pages but if I select Home or any of the links to other people's sites I end up with the same blank white screen. Mind you, sometimes I get this screen.

All I know is that I could call up the page and any other Blogger site until I got the bloody email telling me that they'd tweaked a few things.
I'm a tweaker too so I understand only too well that when you 'tweak' things that are working, they usually end up broken.
The only thing that was broken on this site was Blogger's unencoded ampersand code. I'd settle for that right now.

Right now I'm orf to spy on the oversexed frogs, or toads or whatever they are.

Is Blogger Down?

Is Blogger down or has someone pulled my plug out?
All I'm getting at this end is a blank screen when I try to access my page.
I can only get to Blogger from its main page.
Once I'm there I can login and access my dashboard.
I can 'edit posts', 'create posts' and 'preview' posts but I can't 'View Blog' in Firefox or in IE.

It's all very well writing to me and saying

Thanks for writing in. Due in large part to your input and feedback, we have reviewed and recently fixed several bugs on the new version of Blogger.

At least I could view the pages before you fixed them. Come on Blogger - fix the fixes will you.