Living in Hampshire, the closest indoor track to me is in Camberley and is run by Team Sport, who own and run several venues, mainly across the south of England. The venue at Camberley is excellent as far as Karting venues go; it is clean, well lit, spacious and run by a very friendly and professional team. A big plus for Camberley is the café they have, it’s away from the track so you can shut yourself away from the noise and sit with a drink or something to eat. Great if you’re with a group and not actually Karting.

A few weeks back a large group of us decided to try out an ‘Unlimited’ night at Team Sports Southampton track. An unlimited night involves a 5pm arrival at the venue. You are then placed into groups of 10, with a maximum of 5 groups or 50 people. You then take turns at having 10 minute slots of track time. Group 1 and then group 2 etc. Once all groups have had their slot it starts again and keeps rotating until 10:30pm. You normally end up with 60 minutes plus Karting. Most of us have attended these events at Camberley so know what to expect. Unfortunately due to a variety of reasons, the evening didn’t go as we had hoped and we left at the end of the night feeling very disappointed, me more so as I had arranged it and we had a few first time Karters with us.

Although I am not normally one to complain, I did contact Team Sport and credit where credit is due, they were extremely quick to act and offered to rectify the issue. They arranged for us to visit the Camberley venue (more local too us) for an evening of Karting that would give us exclusive use of the track – the novice Karters were still feeling a bit intimidated by the whole experience, so by only having people they know around them, it should make it a bit more enjoyable.

On our arrival at the venue, we quickly realised that the event type that been had arranged for us wouldn’t be suitable as some people had not been able to make it, so there were less of us than planned. Darren, the manager running the track that night was quick to suggest an alternative event type that would give us more track time and be just as much fun. He also allowed for breaks and extra track slots to allow the less confident members of our group to kart without the pressure of us faster drivers around them.

Eventually we agreed on 10 minute practice, 10 minute qualifying followed by a 45 minute race. It was an excellent evening and thoroughly enjoyed by EVERYONE, even the less competitive were scrutinising each other’s lap times after each session. The race itself was action packed, fast and a lot of fun. Topping the evening off was a trophy presentation to the winning three drivers. Note worthy was a certain Matt Hamilton setting a new fastest customer lap time of 24.99 seconds only .200 of the lap record. Not bad for his first visit!

We all had a fantastic evening and I am sure there are some very sore aching arms today. Massive thank you to Team Sport, for organising this event and too Darren and the team at Team Sport Camberley for looking after us so well.

Everything went smoothly as usual, check in, security (quiet due to it being early – 5am) and boarding. I manage to bag myself an exit seat to I had 5 feet of leg room to stretch out in, which was great being a lanky git. I took a picture on my phone before we departed so I could boast on twitter how much legroom I had, it actually shows you what a grubby state the carpet was in. The crew carried out the usual safety demo and started ‘securing’ the cabin for takeoff. Seat belts on, seat backs up and phones off etc. The two teenage lads next to me obviously had hearing issue and actually continued to text until we left UK airspace! I did tell them they had to stop, however all I received was blank stares. The female flight attendant seated in the jump seat 3 feet from them also failed to notice what they were up to. Not wanting to cause a scene I promptly fell asleep.

I awoke from my much needed slumber about 1 hour from the end of the flight, as I had missed breakfast one of the crew kindly offered me a hot drink, which was appreciated. As there wasn’t long to go till we arrived I decided start watching a movie on my iPad.

Eventually the captain turned on the seat belt sign and was time to turn off and pack the iPad away. I removed my head phones and as I went to press the power button on the iPad one of the two male crew members, stood over me waving his finger ‘demanding’ I turn my iPad off straight away, to which I responded “I am just turning it off, it takes a minute or so to power down, sorry”. For reasons unknown, the aforementioned male crew member launched into a verbal assault aka a bollocking, telling me to do what he has said immediately. It wasn’t the fact that he was rude and confrontational without reason that upset me, it was that he did it in front of a packed aircraft, humiliating me, which I assume was his aim.

It takes A LOT to really rattle me but this really got me riled, I was so embarrassed. I decided that I would not be leaving the aircraft until I gotten an apology from the male crew member in question. As the aircraft emptied, I waited for Mr Bad Attitude to be free of other passengers, as unlike him I did not want to cause a scene…

When the last passenger had gone I approached the crew member – it was my turn to stand over him (mainly as he was short and I am not). He did not seem surprised to see me if I am honest, perhaps he has had this happen before. I told him that I felt his actions were uncalled for and he had been unprofessional in his manner when speaking to me. As I have worked in a customer service orientated role all my life, I know what you do and don’t say to a customer when in his position, regardless of if they are right or wrong. As I suspected he went into phase two. Told ME I was rude to him and he was doing his job. He refused to apologise, implying I deserved what I got for questioning him, when he told me to do something. Being a gentleman, I did offer my own apology if he thought that I had been ‘short’ with him and that had not been my intention. With this, he placed a hand on my shoulder ushered me towards the exit of the aircraft and said to me “Thank you for coming back and explaining yourself to me”. The condescending bastard! I was about to tell him that he still owed me an apology, however decided there was no point talking to the bloke as he is the type of person that is never wrong.

I manage to take the flight managers name though and I will be taking it up with BA, this is not the first time I have encountered these bad manners and shocking unprofessionalism on a British Airways flight. Using the “I am just doing my job” line is not an acceptable excuse.

All I want is an apology.

In 1999 I was fortunate enough to spend 3 months in Australia. I visited a good friend for a few weeks before, heading off to backpack up the East coast and to visit the Northern Territory.

Whilst on my travels I met up with a pair of young ladies from Holland and a guy from Switzerland called Thomas. We travelled together for a while before Thomas headed off in a different direction, leaving me with the two girls from Holland. Sadly I cannot remember their names, which is shocking as I ‘backpacked’ with them for about 3-4 weeks.

On our way back down the east coast we stopped in Airlie Beach, Queensland, as the girls wanted to see the Whitsunday Islands. As luck would have it, some friends of mine from Newquay, England were also in town that night and I headed out for a few beers with them that evening.

Now, anyone who has been to Oz will know the beer is a little weaker than it is here in the UK and you can actually drink quite a lot of it. In fact that night I managed 12 pints… in 3 hours. At the end of the evening I headed back to our dorm at the hostel, the girls were still out with their friends, so feeling slightly inebriated I hit the sack. That’s where it all went wrong…

I don’t know when I woke up, but it was dark and the beer I had drunk before I went to bed was still having an effect on my legs – I was quite drunk and BUSTING for a pee. I clambered out of bed, walked into the bathroom, I didn’t bother to turn the lights on as I didn’t want to wake the girls. So in a way only a man can do, I put one hand on the wall to steady myself and opened the flood gates.

Before you read on, please don’t judge me, this is and was a one off event that I still cringe at… Suddenly, mid flow, the toilet screams! I mean it actually let out a yelp and shoved me backwards – still peeing. Then the light went on. Despite my drunken state even I knew what I had done… The toilet I thought was there was actually 10 feet to my left and I was using one of the poor girls from Holland as a substitute. The rest is a bit of a blur, I was ejected from the room onto the balcony and the door locked behind me. Still busting I found a nearby bush, then returned to the balcony and passed out on the sun lounger.

When I woke up, the sun was up and the door was unlocked. The poor girl was asleep, I think in my sleeping bag – mind its sketchy due to hangover at the time. Her things in a pile on the floor – wet. I quickly dressed and took all the items to be cleaned and pressed.

I was mortified with what I had done and 2 hours later I walked back to the hostel, head down, tail between legs with a bagged of dry cleaned clothes and a sleeping bag. Coming the other way were the two Dutch girls. As I approached them, the handed me some money I had lent them – without saying a word, took the bag from me and walk the way I had just come. Hmmm

When I got to the room, my bag had been packed and was waiting for me outside the room. So I guess we were done travelling! That was the last time I saw them.

I have set up a facebook group, which I need people to join and share for me. Why set up this group 12 years later? I never got to apologise to the girl from Holland, I would like to be able to do that now and maybe she’ll be able have a laugh without actually wanting to harm me!

PLEASE could you share the group with your friends, even if they don’t know anyone from Holland they may have a friend who does. I will try and find more photos to aid the search.

THANKS!

With nearly a decade in the mobile industry, helping people to find their dream handset my brother decided to create a website that brings all the mobile phone reviews and information you need into one place without the confusing jargon that often surrounds the subject.

I wanted to share my knowledge to create a site that helped those that didn’t fully understand mobile phones but also that allowed those that were savvy with mobile phones to find the best possible deal.”

YourPhoneReviews.com not only allows you to get advice on your next mobile purchase but also lets you search nearly a million contract and pay as you go tariffs, ensuring you get the best deal. Now working outside of the major mobile phone chains he wanted to focus on giving honest, impartial opinions of handsets as well as allowing others to pass on their experiences.

“I knew from the start that I wanted to have a site that was easy to navigate and allowed the users to view reviews written by other users simply be selecting the phone they wanted.”

YourPhoneReviews.com are running a competiton to win a £50 iTunes voucher! All you need to do is share your opinion of a phone you have owned or used to own in the past. As nearly everyone has a mobile phone it is a competition that all can take part in!

It’s easy to add your review simply follow this link and follow the instructions for your chance to win a £50 iTunes voucher!

Did I volunteer or was I approached, if the latter how did they find me?

I was approached twice to take part in Secret Millionaire. The first time I refused as I don’t really consider myself to be the ‘M’ word. I was called again about 6 months later after an article appeared about my business partner and I in Director Magazine.

Why did I take part in the program?

When I was initially approached to take part in the program I was looking forward to helping those less fortunate than myself. I come from a relatively poor background and I now enjoy many of the things that come from being a successful businessman. I have always been bought up to share with others and help others wherever possible. Little did I know that the Secret Millionaire would take me on a journey that would see me take as much out of the experience as the people I met.

Where you worried about it being too personal?

When I agreed to do the program I was very worried about how personal it would be. I knew that my past and more importantly my father would ‘come out in the wash’. My main concern right from the start was that program remained respectful to his memory. Despite the things that he did, he is still a father, son, brother & uncle to many of my family.

The program makers assured me that they wouldn’t do anything that could be misunderstood by the viewer. I think you’ll agree that they dealt with it beautifully.

Did you ever stop and wonder how other people might think of you watching this?

When we had finished filming back in March 2010 I hadn’t really given any thought to how I would be perceived by others when the program actually went out. As the summer came and went I almost forgot I had done it, if it were not for the constant contact I had had with the people I had met, I am sure it would have started to feel like a distance memory.

When I received the transmission date and the PR machine of Channel 4 started to move, I really did start to worry and as a result my anxiety started to kick back in. The week before the program went out was probably the worst and required a visit to my hypnotherapist to help ‘get my mind straight again’.

As the day approached I came to the conclusion that there was no point worrying about it, as what’s done is done and short of taking down Channel 4 there was nothing I could do about it.

How much could you decide who to meet and what to investigate?

Without realising, I indirectly selected the charities I supported before even filming began. I think it’s excellent how we (Secret Millionaires) are hooked up with causes that our close to our hearts, we just get pointed in the right general direction.

We have a bunch of projects chosen for us that relate to or are somehow connected to our lives. We are not obliged to give gifts to all those we meet. The amounts and who we give too are entirely our own choices.

What effect has the whole experience had on you?

For many years I have suffered from acute anxiety, which I managed to hide very well and if it wasn’t for the weight loss it causes, people would be none the wiser. Since the program has been shown I have had hundreds of people contact me suffering with the very same condition. Like me, most of these people had thought that they were alone and that no-one understood how they felt and what they have to go through as anxiety sufferers.

In my experience talking through things generally helps ease the anxiety attacks. Often the cause is a memory so deeply set in your own sub-conscious mind, you don’t even know what sets the anxiety off. It can be very debilitating if left untreated. Once I discovered I was physically not sick and that the anxiety attacks were ‘in my head’. I tried many forms of counselling and therapy to try and ‘feel normal’ again. After nearly 9 years of not knowing what was wrong with me I was able to finally beat the anxiety back enough to ‘live’ more normally.

The whole experience has probably helped others as much as me to realise there is help and support out there, you just have to ask your GP for it.

During filming did you want to admit at any point who you really were?

Honestly yes. I had such a strong cover story – it was very believable, that I was constantly ‘acting’. Even when the cameras aren’t rolling you need to keep that persona up and so I was forever snapping pictures, talking photography and telling people what a crappy job I had.

Bernie asked me one day where I was staying during my stay in Manchester. I nearly said “Some shit hole in…” I told her that was bedding down in a posh 5* in Manchester City centre, that even had Egyptian cotton bed sheets. Every time I saw her she asked how nice the hotel was. I did enjoy playing along with that little story.

As the days went by and I became more and more tired, emotionally, mentally and physically I just wanted to say, you know what I am off, I have had enough. The only thing that stopped me was that I realised I wouldn’t only be letting myself down, I would be letting down the people I had come to help.

What was the most rewarding experience of them all?

I don’t like to choose a favourite moment or experience, but I was very touched by the generosity of Oscar, the love of Bernie for her son & Talbot House and the Mustard Tree for all the effort they put in to helping so many people in so many different ways – myself being one of those people.

Spending the afternoon with Geoff, Bernie’s son was one of the funniest afternoons of the whole 9 days. I was feeling quite down by this point and he made me laugh – a lot.

Would you do it again?

If I thought I could get away with it I would. Might have to negotiate better digs though.  For anyone out there who is thinking of applying to take part in the Secret Millionaire, it is THE hardest thing I have ever done and also one of the most rewarding for me personally. I know us Secret Millionaires get a bit of bad press, as some only take part for the PR they can get out of it. However, think about doing it for you as well as the people you are going to meet. You will find it so much more rewarding.

So having had the gauntlet thrown down, I had a duck and dive around t’internet to see what the competition looked like. What I found out is that despite being there being lots of retail websites in the model railways arena, none of them do it really well. So having learnt a long time ago, that nothings ever been ‘done’ on the web, I started writing a design brief for Michelle at Caboodle Design to get stuck into. One year almost to the day of starting out I am pleased to say that modelrailways.co.uk is now live. Ok, I have low stock levels at the moment, but that’s being worked on by my intelligent and underpaid university student brother

Part of my own brief was to try and offer something no other retailer in the industry is doing. A few other websites have model railway blogs’ but use them for product information and such like. I want to offer something a bit more interesting that will keep people coming back and interacting with the bloggers. I have managed to convince a couple of ‘experts’ to write for me for free. Bill is an ex railwayman and driver and Brian is also an ex railwayman who looked after the signals and telecom network used by the railway. I have had some nifty caricatures drawn of them both – the likeness is quite remarkable.

Bill Moore, will be writing about his experiences of working on British Railways from the end of the steam era up until recently when he retired as a Driver Standards Manager. Brian Lambert, who is also an author of some excellent books relating to the hobby, will be taking questions and writing about the more confusing side of model railway electronics.

Last thing on my list of website USP’s was a model railways forum. I was actually in two minds whether to bother with this as a user forum on a retail site might not gain the trust of its users. With this in mind I have added a tiny sub-forum that deals with shops issues. I do not intend to ‘sell’ to these users. Hopefully the community I can grow here will help to indirectly drive sales in the future. As I was running the domain with a forum on previously, I have copied over the existing community and its content to the new website.

Being the first retail website I have ever been involved with that actually sells ‘stuff’, I have had the joy of stock to deal with, however I am actually really looking forward to it – I have a bit of an OCD for organising and sorting things, this will allow me to keep a nice, tidy inventory in a nice neat stock cupboard – sigh Another hurdle of ‘being new’ is trying to get the banks to give you a secure payment gateway. I tried for 6 months but gave up in favour of using PayPal until I have some trading history I can go and wave under a banks nose – gits.

The long term plan is drive the business online using SEO and of course affiliate marketing, unfortunately though the model industry has adopted a policy of only working with ‘model shops’ that have retail premises, thus making most of the main manufacturers unobtainable. If this does not change, a small retail premises maybe on the cards to unable me to gain access to those other accounts.

I’ll report back after christmas and report on my progress to model retailer mogul Right, back to loading products on!

Belfield, North Dakota

Finally a good night’s sleep, helped by an adrenaline charged day yesterday and a late night. We did arrive at our motel until about 10pm, tired and hungry a healthy tip to the lady in the kitchen of the bar secured us Pizza and fries, which went down nicely with a couple of beers.

Having now been with Todd for five days you actually start to remember what he is telling you – he is an excellent teacher. One of the first things you look for in the morning when you wake up is cloud cover. Cloud cover is bad for storms and you have to get out from under it to stand any chance of seeing some action. Based on this we headed south.

After a few hours it was becoming clear that chances of seeing any storms today were low, however we persevered. Our route south had us sat in a side road just outside of Rapid City for just about an hour before it was decided today may just be a wash out. We drove east for another 10 minutes and came across an oasis, which was disguised as a gas station, sold beer as well as fuel and had a few high tables inside with a few bar games and even a crib board. After a beer and few jokes with the local cowboys, Todd informed us that our home for the night would be Wall, just an hour’s drive east.

We arrived in wall drug very early evening, the skies were blue and the air still warm. We all unloaded our bags from the SUV and Todd asked us to be back down in 15 minutes as we were going to head to the Badlands – only 8 miles away – and watch the sunset. The Badlands National park is actually somewhere I never thought I would visit but you really should try and put it on your ‘to-do list’. Sadly the sunset was spoilt by and storm cloud drifting in over the sun – typical. It was then back to Wall Drug for food and a couple of drinks before hitting the hay.

Just a point worthy of note, the motel we stayed in tonight… Sunshine Inn !

Keystone, South Dakota

Today I learnt that waking up at 5,000 feet above sea level with a hangover isn’t the greatest feeling in the world. I headed off to breakfast in the hope that the fried food and coffee would settle my stomach and stop everything from spinning. It didn’t, which was unfortunate, as today was my turn to ride in the back of the SUV. This was a job for my trusty travel sick pills – Kwells.

First stopped of the day was Starbucks! Or as Todd put it, our last chance for a real coffee until we start coming south again. A quick caffeine and cash point/ATM stop and we were back on the road again, heading north towards North Dakota and into west Montana.

During the course of the week Todd had been telling us about a town up in these parts where bikers from all over the USA converged each summer for a weekend of music, beer and apparently, drunken nakedness. So as it was en-route, we made a dive off of the highway into the town of Sturgis, South Dakota. It certainly was a biker town, I have never seen so many Harley Davidson’s in one place at the same time. A quick visit to a ‘real’ bikers bar and we were off again.

The target area for today was just inside Eastern Montana, around the town of Baxter. The forecasts were good for some isolated supercell activity, and with us chasers so far being completely storm deprived we were ready for some action! It was around about 4 in the afternoon when we arrived in Baxter. Another snack/fuel/toilet break and we were heading north towards some very dark looking clouds. Inside the car we had a laptop set up which was always showing live Doppler weather radar and this storm was starting to grow with certain parts being covered by red squares (see image), which indicated thunderstorm warnings. However, what we were looking for was icons indicating cloud rotation and purple areas, which would show a tornado warning.

Without warning Todd pulled into the entrance of a dirt road and said we would be waiting for a bit to see what happens. Being our first proper storm, we all clambered out of the SUV and intently all stood staring at the sky. It was like something from a Sci Fi movie. Todd knowing better stayed in the SUV watching the radar and weather warnings. Ten more minutes and he announced we were going to get closer. Another, roadside stop and we actually saw our first wall cloud. It was about 3 miles away and moving to east. Once again we piled back in the SUV and drove another mile or so north. Now things were getting exciting, the radar was not only show strong rotation – which we could actually see now, it had just pinged up with a tornado warning! The sky was really darkening now and you could clearly see the clouds rotating and sucking in more clouds from around it, the core was also visible no more than a mile away and closing, Todd pointed out that what we could see was the hail falling from the core, which was about 2-3 inches in diameter. After about 30 minutes the wall cloud was no more than ¼ mile away and because the rain was starting to fall a bit heavier, Todd decided to move us back south away from the approaching hail.

The next stop is one of the memorable ones of the trip. We had positioned ourselves about 1-2 miles away and we could now see the storm cell that we had been stood under in its entirety. It was a monster. We spent 20 minutes enjoying the view and still hoping that the Tornado warning would come to fruition, sadly it did not. It was while watching from this vantage point that Todd suddenly ordered us all in the SUV before he took off down the road at break neck speed. He said that the hail – now showing as baseball size = was wrapping around us and if we didn’t get out from under the storm we would be cut off by some rather large chunks of ice falling from the sky.

As the storm moved southeast it was weakening on the radar and was become less dangerous, however the Arcus Cloud that had formed in front of the storm was a sight to behold. Todd decided to position us so that the storm could come towards and pass over us, with the aim being that the now weaken core should drop its quarter size (10 pence) size hail on us – we would be in the car of course. When it hails out here the temperature can go from 80f+ to low 50’s very quickly and the landscape is left looking like it has a fresh dusting of snow, which is sometimes inches deep. The core missed us, so we were off to chase it down. Having been pelted by the hail, rain and wind we made a beeline for North Dakota. Our most northerly overnight stop in Belfield, North Dakota was to have us just a couple of hours drive from the borders of Canada.

Today had been long day, that wasn’t helped by the late night before, however we had one last photo stop to make. As we drove north with the sun setting to the west and the storm moving east, we were presented with the most glorious sunset I have ever seen. The pictures really don’t show how orange the sky was – spectacular.

We were all now officially bitten by the storm chasing bug but we only had a few more days left to hunt down the holy grail of storm chasing – the Tornado.

Chadron, South Dakota

I woke up early again… 5:30am today. It’s ok though, I can attribute that to the group of bikers that started up their Harley Davidson’s right outside my motel room window, however the sun was shining and I knew we had a sightseeing day planned, due to the lack of storms that day. First thing to do was to get myself breakfast before meeting with the others at 9:30am.

As mentioned, today was a ‘non-chase day’, so order of the day was sightseeing! Despite having come to chase storms for only six days, I was quite excited about doing some sightseeing. After all it would be a shame to come all this way and at not see anything other than paved roads and fields of grass and cattle. As our target area for the next day (Day 4) was Eastern Montana we were going to be heading north through the Black Hills of South Dakota, which is the home of the Wind Cave National Park and more famously, Mount Rushmore.

The Wind Cave National Park was the first stop of that day and it turned out to be one of the most memorable, non-storm, parts of the trip too. The caves themselves have an interesting history and are well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. Our tour guide – bless his heart – was a nice young lad, who it appeared, was still training to be a ‘Cave Ranger’. The talk he gave during the tour was very informative although his philosophical tone was the cause of a few sniggers during the hour we spent inside the caves. His opening line of “Imagine you are a 16 year old boy…” was one that stuck with us for the rest of the week.

Next stop on our whirl wind tour (yes, that’s a joke) of the Black Mountains was Mount Rushmore. The mount has the faces of four former American presidents carved into it. The faces, which are each over 60 feet in height, represent the first 150 years in the history of the United States. As with every stop we were asked to meet back at the SUV at an allotted time, in this case, 45 minutes later. Whilst waiting for the others to return,  I enjoyed watching a storm pass through the valley below. Watching it shed its load of rain and discharge its lightning was quite surreal as I was stood in the blazing sunshine hoping I wasn’t getting burnt, no more than a couple of miles away from the downpour.

Our home for the night was the town of Keystone, South Dakota, which was only a few miles from Mount Rushmore.  However before checking into our motel for the night Todd had one more stop planned. As we passed through Keystone, the ever knowledgeable Todd pointed out suitable drinking holes that would require a visit that evening. Last stop of the day was the Big Bear Country USA wildlife park. If you had ever been to Windsor Safari Park then you know what to expect here.  It was a drive through Wildlife Park. The main attraction of the park was obviously the Bears, however there was much more to see as you drove though.  Elks, Reindeer, White Wolves, Mountain Goats, Leopards and Bison were all roaming free. At the end of the drive through, there was a kind of mini zoo where the main attraction was the baby bears. The bears are kept here until they are big enough to fend for themselves in the main enclosure.

Back to Keystone and Todd had one more thing planned for us – this guy never stops – right next to our motel, the Super 8 in Keystone was the Presidents Alpine Slide. Another attraction I actually remember being at the Windsor Safari Park before it was turned into Legoland. The Alpine Slide is a toboggan ride where you can control the speed of your sledge as you ride 2km down the side of a mountain, more info on their website. We rode to the top of the hill on a chairlift, and after a beer at the top it was time for speedy ride back to the bottom!

What a day, and there was still one more thing left to do… hit the bar for a well earned beer or five…