I went to the Beer Festival which is held at the Freight House with Ian and had the following:

• Famous Bladder Stout - Cottage 4.2%
• Norman Conquest 7.0%
• Triple fff - Pressed Rat & Wharthog 3.8%
• Herefordshire Dry Perry - Boome Farm 6.5%
• Badgers Botton - Gloucestershire 6.5%
• Somerset Broadoak 8.4%

All in all a very good evening was had...hic!

Here is a copy of an article in the Southend Echo. This is of interest to those of you who have stayed at the Roslin which is on the sea front at the bottom of our road. I am not sure of the long term prospects for the hotel. Regis don't have a very good reputation, see here.

One of Southend's premier hotels has been sold for a figure believed to be in excess of £2million.

Keith Oliver and his family, who owned the Roslin, on Thorpe Esplanade, Thorpe Bay, sold the three-star hotel after running it for more than 30 years.

The 49-bedroom hotel features the 65-seat Mulberry Restaurant.

The buyer is one of Southend's largest property owning companies, Regis Lodgings, which is part of the Regis Group, based in Warrior Square.

Paul Seager, a spokesman for Regis Group, said: "We are pleased to be committing a management team to immediately take over and continue running the Roslin as a hotel and we are currently putting together a substantial refurbishment plan."

Mike Gray, managing director of Dedman Property Services, which handled the sale, said: "I am delighted the hotel has been sold to a company which will continue to run it as it has been run and is aiming to make improvements to the existing facilities.

"The new owners have already put in place a new management team who will continue to run the hotel and continue to honour all existing bookings."

Mr Gray said the Roslin would continue to cater for both holiday-makers and business customers and expansion in the future was a possibility.

My Mother bought a new laptop, so she gave me back the Dell Inspiron 3800. I downloaded Slackware 11.0 and put it on it and even got my wifi (Netgear WAG511) working with the madwifi drivers. I have WPA on it to boot! It's tons better than Windoze.

To stop junk mail you go to the Mail Preference Service, this will stop all direct mail that is addressed to you. From this link you will also find the telephone preference service. However this won't stop all those unaddressed mail items...

To stop about 25% of unaddressed mail which is delivered to you by the Royal Mail write to:

Door-to-Door Opt Out
Royal Mail
Kingmead House
Oxpens Road
Oxford
OX1 1RX

optout@royalmail.co.uk
Tel.: 08457 740 740

If you do this they will merely send you the email below, so do yourself a favour and print it out, fill it in and send it off. I think it's a bit much that it isn't freepost!

Dear Customer
Thank you for your recent correspondence. I understand from your
letter/telephone call that you are considering “Opting Out” of receiving
Door to Door items. As a company we are quite happy to put the wheels in
motion to arrange the cessation of these deliveries to your premises but
before doing so, I need to make you fully aware of the implications of
“Opting Out” and once you have considered these, get your final written
authorisation to cease deliveries of this nature.
The main areas to be considered are:
· This service only relates to unaddressed mail. Mail bearing your
address and “To the Occupier” or any other generic recipient information,
Royal Mail is still legally obliged to deliver.
· It is not possible for us to separate advertising material and
information that you may want, such as leaflets from Central and Local
Government and other public bodies. Opting out from Royal Mail Door to Door
stops all unaddressed items.
· Opting out means no one at the Delivery point will receive mail of this
nature, is this acceptable to everyone inhabiting the property?
· If you simply want to reduce the amount of direct mail addressed in full
to yourself you can do so by registering with The Mailing Preference
Service. They can limit or reduce targeted direct mail by up to 90%. To
obtain an information pack please contact them at:
MPS, DMA House, 70 Margaret St., LONDON, W1W 8SS
www.mpsonline.org.uk
If you still wish to Opt Out of receiving Door to Door, please complete the
form enclosed and return it to the above address and we will process your
request. Every effort will be made to prevent the delivery of Door-to-Door
items by Royal Mail. Exceptionally, if relief staff are used, an
occasional delivery may occur.
Please be advised that it may take up to 6 weeks or more for the
implementation of unaddressed mail to not be delivered by Royal Mail.
Finally, there are, a number of other companies that deliver material
through your letterbox. We have no control over their actions. Again, the
Mailing Preference Service, can offer advice on firms operating in your
area:
Yours sincerely
Barbara Miller
Barbara Miller
Opt Out Co-ordinator
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ‘Stop Door to Door’ Confirmation Form |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| To:| Door to Door Opt Outs |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | Royal Mail Door to Door |
| | Kingsmead House |
| | Oxpens Road |
| | OXFORD |
| | OX1 1RX |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| From:| |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Address:| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Postcode:| |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Reference:| Request to stop Door to Door mail being delivered to my address |
|--------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------|
I confirm that I have read and fully understood your letter advising me of
the implications of “Opting-Out” of receiving deliveries of Royal Mail
unaddressed ‘Door to Door’ items to my address.
I understand that I may miss important information from local, national or
government publications that are sent using this service.
From time to time, Royal Mail would like to contact you with information
about our products and services that may be of interest to you. If you do
not want to be contacted, please tick here.
Name:
Signature: Date: /
/20
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confidential and intended for the addressee
only. If you are not the named recipient,
you must not use, disclose, reproduce, copy
or distribute the contents of this
communication. If you have received this in
error, please contact the sender and then
delete this email from your system.
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Here is an Evening Standard article about the recent assault. I don't know why they didn't publish the photo with the employee of C2C with his hands around the neck of the man who evaded his fare.