Expatriate Property Investments

It's Friday, and every Friday I advertise a local business that I use, know, support or like, or all four.

Today it's Expatriate Property Investments.

Concentrating on the expatriate market these guys find residential property across the UK and in parts of Europe.

Expatriate Property Investments offer a service to UK expatriates and UK residents to invest in property for both capital growth and rental yield. Having gained experience in the north-east and north-west of England in Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull and Manchester finding mortgages for high-yielding and growth properties, they broadened their outlook to eastern Europe, and specifically, currently, Prague. They are in the process of exploring opportunties in Budapest, Bratislava & Warsaw. You get guidance through every step of the way with experts with local knowledge.

So, if you're interested in property investment, and you're an expat, give EPI a try.

Snow! We love it and hate it!

Snow is promised for the UK at the end of November. I live in the south east of England, so our chnaces of getting snow are, mercifully, only small.

However, everyone is noticeably twitchy as we get nightly warnings of snow, and memories of the disruption caused by the white stuff earlier this year come flooding back.

And yet, we have a fascination for the stuff. It's magical as it falls, exciting as it settles, thrilling as it gets deeper - and then disruptive when we have to go out in it!
We love it. We hate it. We're definitely affected by it!

This was our back garden in January with almost six inches of freshly fallen snow whiting everything out.
This is a prettier image of trees in the same month, but on a sunnier day.

Get Gillian Out Of There

'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' is a guilty secret of mine. I spurn nearly all the other reality shows, from the horrendous 'Big Brother' to the now self-parodying 'X-Factor'. But IACGMOOH has always been fairly amusing - in no small part, of course, due to the presenters Ant & Dec who do an excellent job fronting the show.

It is obvious that one of this year's participants - TV food nutritionist Gillian McKeith - has never watched a minute of the programme before. She seems totally unprepared for everything the show throws at her. And in being such a dismal competitor - unable to face anything from eating bugs, to being showered with them (and struggling most days even to cross the wooden 'rope' bridge) - she, of course, is voted by the cynical British viewing public to do the trials every day! She was only replaced as triallist in last night's show by Linford Christie because she apparently fainted at the very thought of being at the mercy of flies, mealworm, spiders and cockroaches once again!

What was her agent thinking of? Did (s)he tell Gillian what the show was all about? Did (s)he ask Gillian if she was afraid of anything (perhaps (s)he got the apparently humorous response, "everything", which turns out to be true).

Why the public keep voting for her is a bit of a mystery. After a while, it's just boring, watching such dismal failure.

But surely the agent should have done more research and enlightened poor Ms McKeith as to what she might be letting herself in for. For goodness sake, Get Her Out Of There!

The Christmas festival is about to begin in earnest

It's the Christmas lights switch-on in my local town, Woking, this evening. This will be performed by the leading players in this year's pantomime; they are Gareth Gates, Claire Sweeney and Cliff Parisi, starring in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Christmas items have been creeping into the shops and garden centres for weeks, but the switch-on of lights in a town really signals the start of the 'festival', for such it has become, running for over five weeks to Christmas Day - and indeed, well beyond if you take into account the fact that the panto runs until 16 January (I've never quite understood why pantos run so far into the New Year - can anyone help me?).

But let's join in the spirit! Happiness is in short supply these days, so don't spurn Christmas and its excesses - embrace them (well, not too many of the excesses)!

So, I will be going to watch the lights being switched on (it's indoors so no fear for weather's intrusion) with my wife. The shops will be dressed, the short-term Christmas shops will have appeared, and we'll hear the first airings of all those old Christmas hits.

It's a bit of fun. May I be the first to wish you ...

Let's leave the engaged couple alone

So Prince William is to marry long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton in summer 2011.

The pair of 28-year-olds became engaged in October while on holiday in Kenya. They have been dating since meeting in 2002 at St Andrews University in Scotland.

The TV media have already set up camp in north Wales, where William is serving with the RAF, and at Miss Middleton's tiny home village of Bucklebury in Berkshire. One hopes, however, that they won't remain there until the wedding day!

I'm not sure what the public reaction will be, but I can't see it being as intense as it was for William's mother, Princess Diana, when she first started seeing Prince Charles back in 1981. Nevertheless, whether the public shrugs a shoulder at the news, the media - TV, radio, newspapers, glossy magazines - will try to convince us that we should be following the pair's every move for the next seven or eight months (no wedding date as yet).

I wish them well - but leave them alone, eh?

It's so simple to get yourself an ebook

It's Friday, and every Friday I advertise a local business that I use, know, support or like, or all four.

Today it's ebook-library.net.

This small library concentrates on books written by private individuals or new talent. Most of the books are every reasonably priced.

Buying from the site is easy, with just one click taking you to your PayPal payment page. No registration or logging in - it couldn't be easier. The email enabling you to download the book to your computer arrives within seconds, and the book's all yours. Simple!

Here are five of the best books on offer:

• Memories of Pauline Percina - Pauline Baldock - £5.99 - Memories of posr-war childhood in North London.
• In Ribbons - Duncan Brown - £5.99 - Modern poetry.
• The Guide to Superfoods in Your Kitchen - Silvertown - £9.97 - A guide to healthy eating with what's at hand,
• One Dog and His Man - Mike Henley - £7.50 - Humorous fiction about a dog and its owner.
• The Truth About Sales - John Hulme - £1.99 - The drudgery of being a salesman.

Check out the site and see what you can find.

Traffic hold-up misery

I travelled from Woking in Surrey to Leeds in Yorkshire to see Leeds United v Hull City in a Championship match. As a Leeds fan the trek to Leeds is about once a season, and a night match seemed an interesting variation.

It's a journey of 212 miles.

We left at 2pm and took our seats at 7.50pm - five minutes AFTER kick-off. That's five hours fifty minutes or 350 minutes. We had a couple of stops, but the journey was slowed down by:

• several miles of roadworks, first on the M25, then on the M1.
• accident south of Sheffield
• queue to get into the car park at Leeds United, mainly caused by more roadworks.

The journey was pretty soul-destroying. 350 minutes looks a fair amount of time for a 212 mile journey, but not so.

Is there anyway you can travel without such hold-ups in Britain these days?

Cleaning services in Surrey and Hampshire

It's Friday, and every Friday I advertise a local business that I use, know, support or like, or all four.

DLT Cleaning Services of Surrey and Hampshire provide commercial cleaning services.

Friendly and efficient, they are licensed, insured and ready to handle all your cleaning and janitorial needs.

Founded in 1999, DLT has grown into an established service throughout Surrey and Hampshire, offering a comprehensive range of professional cleaning services to both the public and private sectors.

If you have commercial cleaning needs, try DLT now.

Swimmers take the Channel risk

The French coastguard is trying to ban swimmers from trying to swim the English Channel (he probably said "La Manche").

Deputy director of the French Coastguard Jean-Christophe Burvingt told the BBC that he feared there could be an accident.

Mike Oram, of the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation, claimed that the swim crossings were safe and well organised, despite the fact that as many as 500 vessels pass through the shipping lane each day.

It's the "nanny-state" again.

If Mr Oram and his organisation take as many precautions as they can (and, by all accounts, they do), then let us leave the swimmers alone. There is, after all, a risk in undertaking the challenge with or without ships passing by.

The trouble is, these days, there's too much mollycoddling to safety concerns where there is adventure and some risk. The swimmers know the risks.

Having said that, I wouldn't be too happy if a bunch of people decided that running across the M25 was a fair adventure.

TV trailers - a very bad idea

There is an article in next week's Radio Times by Alison Graham bemoaning the now ubiquitous trailer that is the blight of current TV dramas.

As she quite rightly says: "... telly goes out of its way to spoil our pleasures with some astonishingly revealing trailers." Spot on. Recent examples of this terrible scourge have been Thorne (Sky1), The Little House (ITV1), Spooks (BBC1), Single Father (BBC1).

What I can't understand is why someone in TV-land thinks this is a good idea. Why do they think we want the next episode of what (hopefully) is a compelling drama ruined by them giving almost so much away that we needn't bother to tune in next week at all?

IT IS A BAD IDEA. Get rid of it. Perhaps Ms Graham's article will be noted by progamme makers. I expect a glut of "letters to the editor" in next week's RT agreeing with Ms Graham.

Whenever the words "...next time" appear on the screen, there is a scramble for the remote control in our house to change the channel to avoid the next episode being spoiled.

Hmmm, the TV companies might want to think about that. I'm going to tune in next week to see what happens in the next episode, but I change channel when their precious trailers hit the screen!

No booking, no business for restaurant

I had recently had the need to book a restaurant for a Saturday evening for a birthday meal for 22 people.

The person for whom I wanted to book the meal wanted to go to Nando's. Checking on their website I saw that they do not take bookings, but would consider doing so for a large party (22?) and/or a birthday party (yes). I rang, but the answer was no. I went into the restaurant, but the answer was no. No - to 22 people for a birthday party. Why the hell not?

I went down the road and booked a table for 22 at Frankie & Benny's - no problem, no hassle, no "no".

Nando's - I don't get it. And neither did you get our business.

Get smart, eh?