Most Haunted Live! is back.

After an absence which has been far too long, Most Haunted Live! is back for Halloween 2015.

The crew has changed with many familiar faces missing, but Yvette, Karl, Stuart and Fred Batt will all be there.

Tonight's show is from 30 East Drive, Pontefract, the house which inspired the film 'When the Lights Went Out', this is a location they have investigated before.

The questions we need answering are:

How long will it be before Stuart falls down the stairs?

Who's nostrils will we see up first?

How much will be thrown from off camera?

Now that Cath has left the team, who will get their hair touched?

Who will be wearing the sceptical scarf?

And the big question....

Will there be a horse on the stairs?

So grab a drink, get your Morse code app ready and settle down for two hours of fun.



Sleep tight.

Bohemian Rhapsody is 40 today!

This weekend marks the 40th Anniversary of one of the greatest songs ever - Bohemian Rhapsody.

According to critics, Bo Rhap was too long and too dramatic to ever be a hit, but thanks to Kenny Everett repeatedly playing a reel-to-reel copy on his radio show, 14 times over one weekend, it did become soar to the top of the charts.

The Comic Strip Presents.... used it in The Bad News Tour episode, the subsequent spin off single was produced by none other than Brian May.

In the 90s, the track was used in what was to become an iconic scene in Wayne's World.  This was to become the cause of many a strained neck or two.

When Lee Evans was asked to perform in France he had no idea what to do so created a sketch around, you guessed it, Bo Rhap.

Even The Muppets got in on the act.

With reissues in blue and purple for fan club members, there must be several million copies of the track on vinyl alone.

How many do you have?

Happy Anniversary Bohemian Rhapsody.

Grammar School Expansion - Good or Bad.

In 1998, Labour passed laws banning the creation of new grammars - selective state schools - but allowing existing schools to expand if there is sufficient demand.

In my opinion this heralded the decline in education standards.

No longer were children streamed by ability, the era of the non-competitive-everyone's-a-winner had arrived.

Brighter children were, and likely still are, ignored, the badly behaved were allowed to disrupt classes and the teachers focused on the middle ground.

England is now due to have its first new Grammar for 50 years after an existing school is to be allowed to open an annexe on a new site in Kent

There are some very good Secondary Modern schools out there, but I can only think that allowing the brighter children to attend grammar schools can only benefit the country as a whole.

I know that in previous posts I have bemoaned the fact that I spent 6 years at an Independent Grammar, assuming that I would have turned out differently had I gone to a Comprehensive, but my home life would have been the same so I probably would have still been the miserable so-and-so that I am now.

Let the naturally bright and the children with the desire to do well attend the new Grammars.  Let them excel and stop holding them back!

I have changed the name of my blog.

Formerly The Diary of an ACCA Student, my blog is now called Rants, Raves & Random Musings.

I started my blog to document my studies, but it has become less a diary of exams and more a series of rants so I felt that the name was no longer appropriate.

I still need to do some work on the new header, but welcome all to my new (old) blog!

So I bought The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up book.

I had heard a lot about this book from various social media sites and decided to give it a try.  I hate tidying.  I don't have the attention span to finish a task and generally, although I make a good start, end up just ramming things back into cupboards, so I thought if I can do it all in one go it would be done and out of the way.

The first part of the book is all about how the author came to the method that she currently promotes and teaches, I read through this but was more interested in the method itself.

The author claims it is very difficult to throw things away that you have bought for yourself.  For me the opposite is true, I find it easier to throw something away that I bought for £100 than it is to throw something away that someone bought for me, regardless of its monetary value.

There is a very specific order to tackle the tidying in, clothes being first and more sentimental items last. You are expected to touch every item and ask yourself  'does it spark joy?'.  If the answer is no, then you must discard the item.

But what do you do if very few of your clothes inspire joy, and by very few I mean some fancy dress outfits which make me think of happy times with friends, and my swimsuit.  After all, I can't dress as a Bad Fairy or Adam Ant every day.

To me, clothes are just something that I have to wear.  I feel no joy from touching them.  I have clothes that I wear for work.  I have clothes that I wear at home.  I have interview outfits and holiday clothes.  But they are just clothes.  

So do I get rid of them all?

Am I then expected to replace them with more clothes that will not spark joy, thus requiring me to get rid of them and then replace them, repeating again and again in a vicious cycle?

The author has now moved onto books and I have no answer as to what to do about my joyless clothes.

Have you read this book?

What do you think?

I want to be more....

....outgoing.  My home, and particularly my bed, is my 'safe place'.  When I go to work, or if I have to go out food shopping I cannot wait to get back and will do so as quickly as possible.  Weirdly, when I get the chance to leave the city, or more importantly the county, I don't want to come home.

....popular.  I have some very good friends who I enjoy spending time with.  Unfortunately none of them are local so getting together takes a lot of planning.  And generally a fair bit of money when flights are involved.  i wish I had friends locally that I could just call up and meet with.

....attractive.  Not a lot I can do about this, but I can dream.  If I could solve this issue, the above one might solve itself.

.....mobile.  Yes, I have a car, but do not have the spare cash to make the most out of it. (See 'popular' above).

....creative.  I have so many ideas for projects but know that I do not have the skills to carry them out.

....like I used to be.  Years ago I didn't care what people thought about me.  I was fat and ugly, as I am now, but it really didn't bother me.  I would quite happily go out to a pub by myself, or to the cinema by myself, or to a restaurant by myself.  

I want that confidence back.

Why Right to Buy is so popular.

There has been a report in the BBC that 1 in 3 Councils have not replaced a single council house sold under the Right-to-Buy scheme.

With the amount of student accommodation and other private homes being built in this City and its surroundings, including green belt sites, I would imagine that there is no land for the Council to build on!

But it is no surprise that the existing council houses are being snapped up by their tenants.

According to the Right-to-Buy calculator created by the Government, my house is currently valued at £92k, which seems a little low for a fully maintained and updated house, which a Council property would be, it would probably be nearer £125k but for the sake of this exercise we will let that slide.

If I had lived here as a tenant for the length of time that I have lived here as an owner, I would qualify for a 55% discount on the price of the house, whether I had paid rent or not.

This would leave a balance of £41k to pay, and using the mortgage calculator on the same Right-to-Buy website, at even 5% interest this is only £240 per month, easily affordable to someone on full benefits.  A bit of google research shows that it is your ability to repay the mortgage, whether employed or not, that will get you the money.

The house would then be sold with between £50k and £80k clear profit which could then buy a smaller property out-right, or a similar property with a smaller mortgage.  And believe me, I have seen this done.

I have no problem with someone who has lived in a Council House but paid their own rent being able to purchase their house as they will have probably paid more than its total value in rent, but why should someone who has never lifted a finger in work, or collected a wage, be in a better position than someone who works full time but simply cannot afford a mortgage?

Right-to-Buy should stop for those not paying rent, it will reduce the need to provide more Council Houses.

And we wonder why the benefits system is so abused.