Tag Archives: Virgin

Just an observation!

The other day I was doing what ex-pats do and reading the UK press or that bit of it that escapes online, and I have to admit I was doing it using superfast (and cheap I might add) broadband, but then I live in a very modern dynamic country unlike the country I was reading about I am afraid.

Two articles caught my eye; one about the speed of broadband in the UK or the bit I am interested in – England – and the other was a piece about the ‘happiest’ place to live in the UK.

Imagine my surprise when one of the ‘happiest’ places in England turned out to be one of the very same places with very poor broadband speeds!

I started to wonder if the two were related in anyway and here is what crossed my little furry mind. First surely none of the inhabitants of this happy place are able to experience Sky or Virgin and their internet services which would not only keep their household costs down to a minimum but also mean that they are happy not to be lining the pockets of those two smiling oily oligarchs Branson and Murdoch or indeed be subjected to their respective company’s ‘service,’ a word I use comedically here!

The second reason is a little more obvious and that’s that if you don’t have a very fast internet connection you don’t spend much time online and that must be nice, having just enough speed to look at my www.wickedlywonderfulwebsite, www.thecatsdiary.com or to buy my wonderful book online at Amazon.co.uk, you can even use this link Getting Out Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary and don’t forget if you don’t want the paperback you can get an ebook (almost in your case) immediately, the same applies to my other masterpiece of feline literature The Cat’s Travelogue or even an ebook that is almost a popular as mine; my translator’s pretty Tram book Tram No 6 is The Naughtiest of Trams (The Trams of Prague) aren’t you lucky?

So I hear you ask what poor city is blessed with being the happiest city in the UK and unfortunate enough to have really dreadful broadband speeds – well that would be Carlisle!

There may be one very important reason why Carlisle is so happy it’s just on the right side of the border with Scotland tee hee!

I was going to add an aerial view of Carlisle to brighten up my blog a bit, but unfortunately Carlisle from the air looks really awful and so I had to be content with a snap of Carlisle Cathedral, but even that looks as though it has taken affront at something doesn’t it.
Carlisle Cathedral in snow

To my way of looking at the world Carlisle Cathedral looks as though it’s not the most friendly or indeed happy place on the planet but I have to stress looks can be deceiving, on the other paw there is Lincoln where the Cathedral does reflect the unfriendly character of some of the people I encountered there 12 or so years ago and yes you know who you are so I won’t mention your names.

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Important – Updated Launch Dates – For NASA’s Face In Space

My loyal fans might remember that back in July I mentioned on my wonderful blog here https://blog.thecatsdiary.com the NASA Face In Space Program which those amazing people at NASA and this peerless genius of a Cat had created so that you can send a picture of your extremely good self (and or a friend) into Earth orbit on board that wonderful thing called the Space Shuttle.

Well just to give you an up date the https://faceinspace.nasa.gov/index.aspx launch dates have been updated and can be viewed either below or by clicking this pretty blue link which will whisk you at the speed of either sound or light (depending upon your internet connection) or looking at the copy of the page that you will be whisked to below.

Of course this means that you still have time to join in and get your https://faceinspace.nasa.gov/index.aspx place if you see what I mean!

NASA.jpg

I really do recommend that you join in because this is probably the last opportunity to get into space safely for us ordinary folk, you could always take a chance on the Virgin Space Plane if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars spare and any faith what so ever in the blond Richard Branson’s efforts. But frankly you only have to look at his F1 Team Virgin Racing to see just how well Virgin build anything that is supposed to be beautifully designed sleek and fast.

Mind you the poor 3-legged Virgin Racing team came into the F1 Racing series like a lion, with press releases, TV appearances, trumpets, fireworks, dozens of partly clad young ladies (who may or may not have lived up to the brand name) and so much more, with the blond beardy fella shouting his mouth off on radio and TV about how he was going take the established teams on and beat them at their own game but at the same time spend less money (billionaires don’t tend to like dipping into their pockets of course).

If finishing last or nearly last if they finish at all in F1 races is what the ‘established’ teams have been doing all these years the blond beardy one has succeeded and must be congratulated but this Cat is not a moron and tends to think that Virgin and Hi Tech don’t go together, maybe Virgin should stick to Spas and phones – oh sorry I forgot those endeavours have been sold off.

All of which suggests to this wary Cat that the best place for the $50-100 grand needed for a few minutes in space is better kept in your bank, surely it is safer to read all about the possible failure of the Virgin Space Plane than to be part of it!

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