How I use the Internet

Visiting google news links, I click the interesting news on well known media like telegraph, daily mails and independent. I don't go if it is not familiar, those known to be slow (I normally close the window in its half way of great effort to open its rubbish content) , those mcafee site advisor showing not green and those with pop up windows.

BBC is the one I visit at least once a month while I check things on Amazon every week. I don't use ebay anymore although it was essential around 2005. Now gumtree has replaced eBay in most community. I go to Facebook about average fortnightly. Firefox has got Twitter extension. It is pretty useful as a twitter user.

I have been with Firefox for such a long time after experiencing IE stopped working on its mother microsoft operation system, Window XP and Vista. Sometime I suspect that what kind of thugs have been wrongly employed in Microsoft, resulting in this IE not going OK in some occasions on its own operation system, Windows. According to old Japanese tradition, responsible person normally go suicide. But weak people may quickly resign and go holiday instead :)

This is the example of my Browser.

Time line after application for naturalisation

This is just a quick post, sharing time line for British citizenship application. If you are interested in UK permanent residency (Indefinite Leave to remain in the UK) and other immigration matters, you may ask in this forum.

Here are some examples of time line.

NCS or Postal : NCS Sandwell, West Midlands
Date of submission or posting : 9th October 2008
CRITERIA : 5 yr stay (4 + 1 yr ILR)
Date of receipt of acknowledgment :
Date of Debit (via credit card ) : 20th October 2008
Date of receipt of approval : Arrived 15/01/2009 (Dated : 08/01/2009)
Date of Ceremony : Booked for 18/02/2009
Date of appln. for passport :
Method used :
Date of Interview :
Date of Receipt :

NCS or Postal: NCS Bracknell
Date of submission or posting: 31 Dec 2008
CRITERIA: 3 years (British Citizen's Spouse)
Date of receipt of App @ HO: 3 Jan 2009
Date of debit of debit/credit card: 31 Dec 2008 (paid by credit card at NCS office)
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 9 Jan 2009
Date of receipt of approval: 10 Feb 2009 (letter dated 4 Feb 2009
Invitation Letter: Called Council for Private Ceremony w/c 16 Feb 2009
Date of Ceremony: w/c 16 Feb 2009
Date of appln. for passport: N/A
Method used: N/A

NCS or Postal : NCS @ Lanark, Scotland
Date of submission or posting : 2nd October 2008
CRITERIA : 5 yr stay (with 1 yr ILR)
Date of receipt of acknowledgment : Dated 16th October 2008
Date of Debit (via credit card ): Around 15th October 2008
Date of receipt of approval : 10th January 2009 (dated 29th December 2008)
Date of Ceremony : 28 January 2009
Date of appln. for passport : 28 January 2009
Method used: Check and Send (Post Office)
Documents returned: 5 February 2009
Interview request letter: 5 February 2009
Interview date: 6 February 2009
Date of Receipt of passport: 13 February 2009

Source:

If you don't understand above, you may drop a message. I will be happy to explain.

Came back from Rome

Lately, I went holiday in Rome. It was just over 2 hours flight from London Stansted to Rome's small airport, Ciampino. (Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport is the largest one). And then, I took the shuttle bus from airport to Termini station, which is situated at the centre of Rome. I booked hotel near it.


Roma Termini, main rail station in Rome


Fiume Tevere (River Tiber)


Colosseo


Vatican square, next to Vatacan city


Pizza € 11, Red wine € 18 : Tourist area price

During my stay, I did site-seeing, shopping and enjoyed Italian foods. People are friendly. Not like in Paris, they answered in English, which is nice for me.But I think they smoke too much. Everywhere outside the buildings, they were smoking. Some people smoked inside public places like Termini station and at airport toilet. I know Londoners also smoke, but too much in Rome.


My new cap bought from Ferrari shop in Rome (€ 30)



A view from a famous church

One strange thing is graffiti works are everywhere across the city, which is tasteless to me. In London, we may see it along the suburb rail line. I suspect they officially allow to do so, but not sure.


Lovely flowering plants and ugly graffiti, which are normal for buildings in Rome


Graffiti place in Main rail station for public


A municipal police (For different types of police, see here)


A tram

I noticed that many orientals are running fashion and jewellery shops in Rome while they are mainly doing Chinese take-away shops in London. I saw a small number of Indians and Afro-Caribbean origin people.

Basically Rome is much less crowded and much less traffic congestion than London. Many people are using scooters like Honda Supercub popular in Burma. But here much bigger and more powerful, I think.

I can say the overall trip was nice and smooth except in last hours. The flight time was 22:30. So we tried to leave Termini station at 19:00 for airport, giving an extra one hour for shuttle bus which run a direct route between Termini staion and airport. But it did not appear until 25 minute past time-table time. So I had to run and get the rail ticket for the Ciampino airport's nearest rail station, from which a bus took me 20 minutes to get to airport. I was pleased as time was quite young.

But I leant that there would be 1 hour delayed flight. I did not care. Fine for me. Just need to sleep when I arrived in London.

One hour later, it was announced that flight "cancelled". All passengers ran to rebook ticket again. The next available flight was 10:30AM next morning.Time had been early hours of morning. So I decided to stay at airport. I slept on the floor like other passengers.

The plane landed East Midland airport at mid day. I had to go to Derby by bus, from where I took train to London Stansted airport. It took 3 and half hours, costing me £42 (my budget flight return ticket to Rome was only £40) . Finally I arrived in London Stansted at 6PM , where I left my car at long stay parking.

Added 18/2/09: Travel insurance would be a partial remedy. Better to buy one when we go holiday.


Here is the full set of photos:

• in thumbnails
• in slide show

........

European clouds

A few weeks ago, Ma KOM published some cloud photos. So I just try to follow her way. Well, today I came back from Roma which is a fantastic place. The following photos are what I took during my Rome holiday. Later I will share more photos.

Until end of November 2008, my plan for this holiday was to go to east. But I had to change for some reason. Anyway I had a good time in Italy.


Cloud over Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II


Cloud over Fiume Tevere (River Tiber) in Roma


I was just over the cloud in Italy


Mediterranean cloud


France cloud (above Paris)


British cloud (above London)


Icy Alps mountains


Part of Alps and Mediterranean

A friendship for life long or not?

When I was young, I was a Harold Robbins's fan. I keep some of his books, such as, The Carpetbaggers, The Stallion, Stiletto, Never love a stranger, Tycoon and so on. I must admit his characters influenced my teenage life to some extent, in terms of way of thought and dealing with friends. In the one book, it was stated that "how much can you trust on childhood friend?". As far as I remember, the character was a young tycoon. His childhood friend was a union leader trying to squeeze money from him while carrying a gun during the family dinner. Similar thing happened in my life. But I had well prepared for some reason. It may be because of the knowledge I gained from the fiction.

People say it is no doubt that making friend is a good thing to do in the life time. I agree that. At the same time, I have a small negative impression. Should we need to make friends all the time? Is it worth doing so? A few years ago, I managed my friend to come to the UK. She is such an extreme social being. She was able to make a big Burmese net work with over 100 friends in first 2 months after arrival. She had been on the phones morning, afternoon, evening and night and busy with occasions, gathering and monasteries. As a consequence, she was still jobless after 6 months in the UK with over £100 a month phone bills. (as I subscribed pay-monthly mobile phone for her, that made me a great burden) Later, she tried to take my money in improper way which is absolutely unacceptable. With a great disappointment, I had to stay away from her. Later I learned that she desperately married with one of her so-called friends, who had got a long term relation with someone else. Sometime I am still thinking if she is alright although circumstances have changed and we can not establish our previous friendship any more.

In fact, I have many friends in my life. But whenever I moved to a new place, and whenever I got to a next step of my career, I lost contact with them. Some of them left behind . Some are going parallel, finding it difficult to carry on our friendship. Living in different life styles means less opportunity to make friends to each other. For example, I am not a church goer or monastery goer. Not fancy Burmese gathering either. But I don't miss Christmas party. I join tennis club and enjoy cycling. I go to Europe twice a year. I am interested in sociology and financial matters, but not politics. I love animals and elderly people. I did not come to the UK to help Burmese fellows, but sick patients. I am not normally sorry to hear that someone has to go back to Burma or move to Australia because of whatever reason. Basically, if I can cope with life in the UK, I will live and enjoy. Otherwise, I would start my plan B or C.

By the way, I will be in Rome tomorrow.

Eating out and credit crunch

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has had to shut four restaurants, leaving 60 of his staff redundant.

He visited the businesses on Friday to tell employees their jobs no longer existed due to falling sales and problems in securing bank loans.

The TV chef, 57, turned to personal savings to help keep control of two other restaurants and a delicatessen.

He said he "experienced an unexpected but decisive fall in revenue across the businesses from September 2008".(BBC)

Nowadays, this kind of news is not uncommon. People's spending power has been falling down. This morning, I heard on BBC news that a multimillionaire couple spent only £27 meal at an ordinary restaurant. People appreciated. Basically a home made sandwich could save lots of money in a long run. Moreover, we can put stuffs what we prefer into bread. At work, I noticed that £100K Annam earners bring their own lunch. I also bring my food whenever I have a chance. That means I don't need to queue at restaurant. I can eat my own fresh food what I am sure it is healthy and clean.

When I arrived in the UK for the first time, my uncle who is a consultant physician in northern England, managed me to stay in London while taking exams and learning new things. I saw a couple of good friends who taught me how to stay in Britain and how to communicate with people. ( Making a friendship with one efficient person is more meaningful than than communicating with 100 of nuts, what I believe).

One of them who is a high earner general practitioner talked to me one time what I still remember is that I must not waste even a pound coin which has its own value. Believe it or not. My total expense on food, travel and mobile phone bill (while rent was free as I was staying in my aunt's spare house) in first 8 months was only £500, which is less than my 2 day business these days if I work weekend extra time. My first time in Mac Donald for a chicken burger meal was at about 1 year after I had worked. It is interesting that many Burmese these days can afford to eat out frequently, especially in Singapore, according to their blogs. Maybe it's cheap in Singapore. For me, £5 is nothing, but I am still thinking twice whenever I spend it for something although I donate to a variety of charities on a regular basis.

A friend of mine argued against me that what would be the point of people saving money and managing future as those efforts would be futile once they died. Death is what I am not scared of, but poverty is.

Weymouth and Portland

Sharing some photos as I got to Weymouth and Portland today. I was chasing a bargain boat for this summer, thinking about sailing.

Weymouth is situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey on the south coast of England. Isle of Portland is 5 miles south of Weymouth. Really lovely place.























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The funniest or the most nauseous ???

I received this forwarded email.I think this is the most hilarious wedding invitation I have ever seen. At the same time some questions came to my mind.

<1>Is it modernisation or exaggeration?

<2>Is it immatureness of such people?

<3>Do those people need to realise that we all are now living in 21st century of extremely globalisation era and it doesn't need to be proud of marrying?

<4>Do parents need to pay a respect to their children during a wedding occasion in Burmese culture although respecting to each other regardless of age is a sort of civilized manner?

<5>Do we normally write this sort of invitation in modern Burma?

<6>Should we say people achieved BE, MBBS, BA(economics) and so on from Burma, working in Singapore,UK and across the world in their professional fields doesn't meet world standard education?

Updated on 19/02/2009
Surfing across the world wide web, I just learnt that above wedding letter has been pretty popular. I must admit I felt nauseated. But now I think it is a bit funny. At the same time, I am thinking there must be a reason/ reasons behind it what I don't know. Some people criticised about marrying other people. For me, not. No point to do so. OK, I will update later again.

Sky sports said Nadal clebrates 'special' win

"clebrtes"

I spotted that word on google news page, wondering if it is a new vocabulary. So I clicked the link, showing me that Nadal won in the Australian Open after beating Roger Ferder.

It is obvious that people have been 100% relying on auto spelling checkers which is not normally work in the title box. In fact, it is the rare incident for a commerial medium like Sky.com. So I just recorded on my blog.

Heavy snow

According to the news, Britain has been braced for most wide spread snow storm in 18 years. Wind from Russia heading to British isle means destruction of the majority of travels across the country today.

Update 12:11 PM
More snow falling now. I can't use my car so far. Too mush slipery road surface.

Today East London


Nearyby park



Christmas trees?





No bus service today. Many tube services delayed. London city airport shut. South east train disrupted.

Revolutionary Road

Today, I am free before doing 4 night on-call which is a hell to me. I went to nearby Vue to watch a film. Basically I am not a movie fan. But I enjoy quality films. I prefer to watch at home where I set up 37 LCD with a surround system. I don't support poor quality download movie or pirated DVDs that Chinese-look people normally sell on the street in East London town centres. What happened last time was I had a chance to watch Mama Mia together with my friend in his place. I don't know from where he got that DVD. But it was very poor resolution and terrible sound quality. As a result, I felt tasteless on such a fantastic movie and went back in half show. Since then, I never try DVD if I don't buy properly from the shop.

At O2 Vue, I chose Revolutionary Road starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo as I heard on TV that she won Golden Globe award recently for her role in it.

Here is the breif story available on Wiki

Set in 1955, Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) move to Revolutionary Road in a Connecticut suburb, and have a daughter and a son.

April is an aspiring but unsuccessful actress who is dissatisfied with her life as a suburban housewife. Frank despises his dull job at Knox Business Machines. From time to time they have bitter arguments. Frank has sex with a young secretary from the office in celebration of his 30th birthday.

April proposes a move to Paris to make their lives more exciting; she will have a job (she heard that secretaries of government agencies are paid well), while Frank can figure out what he really wants in life and start doing that. Frank agrees, and they tell colleagues and friends, who react politely, but find the idea rather immature.

In the meantime, Frank is offered a promotion, and April gets pregnant. April wants to have an abortion and has bought a device to do that herself; it is safe up to pregnancies of 12 weeks. Franks is against that, and emphasizes that there are still two weeks time to think about it.

They are friends with local realtor Helen and her husband Howard. They visit them sometimes with their son John Givings, who stays in a mental institution; he was a mathematician, but as a side effect of 37 electroshocks he forgot everything of it. He has no inhibitions to ask Frank and April direct questions and tell them his explicit opinions about the dull life in this town and about their marriage, to Helen's embarrassment. First Frank and April agree with John, but later Frank gets angry, after which John says that he feels sorry for them and their unborn baby. During an argument Frank tells April he wished she had had the abortion.

The emigration is cancelled. Later April has sex with neighbor and Frank's friend Shep Campbell. While Frank thinks the abortion is cancelled too, April carries it out in too late a stage of the pregnancy, and she dies. Frank moves away with the children. Helen talks negatively about the couple to Howard, but he turns his hearing aid off.

If you watch the movie, you will discover it is much more than that. There is a something nasty going on at the background.