Joke

A man and his girlfriend are walking down the street and pass a jewellers. She sees a ring in the window and says "I'd love to have that".

"Ok" he says, takes a brick out of his pocket, throws it through the window, gets the ring and gives it to her.

A bit further down they pass a shoeshop and she seems some shjoes "I'd love them" she says.

"Ok" he says, takes a brick out of his pocket, throws it through the window, gets the shoes and gives them to her.

A bit further she sees a handbag. "I'd love that" she says.

"Hang on," he says, "do you think I am made of bricks?"

Welcome to the Isle of Man - the road racing capital of the world!

So runs the slogan, and people think of the TT when they think of motorsport on the Isle of Man. However, as well as the 2 wheel variety (TT, Manx Grand Prix, Southern 100 and so on), the island also hosts rounds of the British rally championships, as the laws here allow roads to be closed which is not so easy in the UK.

And this is my interest. I have never been that entranced with the bikes, for a couple of reasons I think. I think part of it is the commitment to five up 2 weeks to marshall the main events, and also when a bike accident happens, it gets very messy. At least rally competitors have some protection.

It was a good day for incidents. The stage I was on was stopped a couple of times, and by the end of the day the field was so split up that almost noone knew where the next car would be (or when for that matter!) On the stage that i was on, a car went backwards off the road, leaving the driver with a broken shoulder and a broken hand. The stage after mine included a sharp right then a left hand hairpin, to get round a deep valley. The road went round it but one car didn't. This led to the cancelling of the stage. By the end of the day I don't think anyone really knew who was where.

The main thing is that everyone had a fun day and noone was badly hurt.

Work work work

Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel black hole that knows how to read (Terry Pratchett)

So I started my new job on Monday. I am working with some nice people, though they are used to not having any men in there (there are only 2 of us!) I was told that I would be listening to calls on the first few days, and then starting to pick them up. The aim was for me to be confident with calls and pagers withing 3 months, whioch seemed a reasonable timescale.

I started on calls on Tuesday, and yesterday was introduced to pagers. With a bit of practice I should have basic bleeps (pagers) mastered by the end of the week. Now is that good or bad? Will I get bored when there is no more to learn? I hope not, as there is the variety of the calls that we get, as well as learning where to find things. I was told there will be some reception duties as well so we shall see how that goes.

The main thing is that I am enjoying it!