Scottie James Granger

Personal injury claims are expected to increase in all parts of the country because of the harsh winter and the heavy snow falls in January with more now expected throughout February. This is due to icy roads and treacherous pavements at this time of year, which has been further exacerbated by some of the heaviest snow falls seen in this country for 30 years or more. Solicitors specialising in No Win No Fee claims are anticipating a rash of claims due to the adverse conditions that have been experienced, both through icy roads as well as pavements. The range of injury claims can be as routine as someone slipping on ice to more unusual causes such as being hit by a huge amount of snow falling from a roof.

Although the recent legal review of the country’s civil justice system headed by Lord Justice Jackson has recommended change to the No Win No Fee system, this will require primary legislation and anyone who has suffered during the recent spell of bad weather should contact a No Win No Fee specialist for advice about claiming compensation for injury or hardship that has been caused. The system more properly know as “conditional fee arrangement” can mean that your case will be assessed and if the solicitor considers that there is a good likelihood of success he will take this on for an agreed fee, usually an aftermarket insurance premium. If they won their claim, the solicitor acting for you earns their fee and usually a success fee (bonus) from the opposing party, typically an insurance company. If you win you should also keep 100% of any compensation sum awarded to you!

It’s my brother in laws birthday next week and he’s bit of a smoker to say the least. So i thought I’d get him some blunts as he currently uses a bong and i thought he might like a different method of smoking.

Packets of blunts are quite cheap so I’ve spent around £10 on varying makes and flavours, I also bought him a tobacco tin to keep his blunts in, that way the open packet will keep fresher for longer, not that it will get much chance to lose flavours at the rate he smokes.

Hopefully he’ll like his present as my birthday is coming up soon and i don’t want a poor present, else his wife will be getting a tenner in a card.

I’m hoping they’ll be able to get me a voucher for asda so that i can get a new game for my xbox 360, ive been looking at getting Battlefield Bad Company: 2 when it comes out in march. To be honest I could probably hope for asda to stock it at £25 on the day of release and that means I’d probably only need to spend a fiver on it.

I’m pretty god dam sick of our bathroom been cold all the time in winter, I think it’s mainly to do with more than 50% of it been tiled which i don’t mind as its easier to keep clean but it can just be so cold.

So I’ve been looking at bathroom radiators which also include those tall towel radiators. They can be quite expensive if you’re looking for a fancy design or a chrome one but if you opt for a standard white radiator and a usual design they can be found quite cheap.

Our hot water pipes run right past where I want to place the radiator which makes it easier and cheaper for the plumber to do, but also because it’s going to be a heat safe so we can have a slightly larger and will usually get the first of the heated water.

The Plumber reckons he’ll be done within a morning and also he says that it will generate a lot of heat which is what I want.

All in i think it should only cost me around £500 which isn’t bad if I’m going to gain an extra warm bathroom.

The family will benefit from this greatly since everyone is always in and out of the bathroom and we’ll always have nice warm towels.

My wife has been looking for a red toaster for a while now to match the rest of our kitchen accessories, and we finally found a decent one that hopefully will last longer than the old one. We had a red one before that we got in a bundle with our red kettle but it broke after three months and we’ve been using a cheap Argos one ever since.

The toaster is made by Dualit and although it was quite expensive, the customer reviews are only positive so we decided to spend a bit more and purchase it. The Dualit 2 slice toaster features a patented ProHeat technology, which increases the life and efficiency of the elements and provides a consistent heat to the bread.

I used it for the first time this morning and have to say that it is quicker than the last toaster we had, but the only thing that’s bothering me is the chrome insert in the middle, which picks up finger and grease marks like no one’s business.

All in all, the Dualit 2 slice toaster is a decent bit of kit and although it is more expensive than other toasters it is well built and should last for many more breakfasts.

I’ve been looking at updating my kitchen for some time now and have been doing some internet research. I don’t really want to rip the whole thing out as the cooker and fridge are relatively new and the layout of the cupboards is useable, so I have decided to change the work surfaces and cupboard doors to create a new look.

I quite like the idea of having quartz worktops as they are heat and scratch resistant and require very little maintenance. Quartz is also available in over 40 colours and are more consistent than granite worktops, meaning that you can easily match the surfaces if you want to extent the kitchen or match it to your existing worktops.

The cupboard doors will also be changed for a more modern look, I was thinking about maybe a simple gloss finish, but haven’t decided on a colour yet. I will also be fitting laminate flooring and tiling the walls in between the cupboards to finish the look.

All I have to do now is measure my kitchen and choose some colours, then I can start ordering the quartz worktops

I have decided to bite the bullet and get some double glazing to replace my existing windows that can only be described as rough. They have probably been there since the house was built (sometime in the 1960’s) and have deteriorated a great deal over the winter, so it’s time for a change.

I have been looking around on the internet for a couple of weeks now and found lots of helpful articles about double glazing and that it can reduce heat loss by up to 50%, which would be nice for next winter as it’s been really cold over the last few months.

I also never knew that there were so many types of double glazing, I just thought they were all made from white plastic, but you can get double glazing with wooden, aluminium or PVC frames and in a range of different style to suit most houses.

I haven’t decided which type of double glazing I’m going to go for yet but will update the blog when I order them and hopefully it will not only make my house look a lot better but also save me money on my heating bills.

I’ve been looking at getting a few t shirts printed with funny slogans on and flogging them on eBay. There are quite a few online t-shirt printing companies on the net so it took me a will to decide on one that I really liked and found easy to use.

I’ve finally found a company to use, there website offers an easy to use design tool which offers you options like t shirt colours and styles, and a few other options like where you want your logo.

I have a few simple comedy lines, that I’m going to have put on the front of t shirts, I’m looking at getting around 5 of each in two colours which will be black and white which means I’ll be getting around 50 shirts.

I have managed to negotiate a good price of £3 per printed t shirt, which means i’ll have to pay out around £150 for the t shirts alone. Hopefully eBay auctions will be under £1 each if not free.

I’m only ordering a mixture of small medium and large, anything else will have to be a special order from my t shirt printing company.

My £150 is a bit of disposable money that i have, so if this doesn’t take off then it doesn’t matter and people will be getting t shirts for Birthdays, Christmas and Bar Mitzvah’s.

La Norma sits with a view of the Vanoise National Park of France; it’s near the Italian border and is a great place for ski holidays. It has eight green runs, six blue, 11 red runs, and two black. It is also good for snowboarders, and has mostly downhill pistes. Some of the pistes are above the 2500 metre level, so snow is very consistent, and the area has snow cannons to keep snow on the other slopes; 19 ski lifts service the area.

Six airports service the region. The Geneva and Chambery airports are quite close – within two hours of the area. Eight hotels are close to the slopes, and some of them have spas, saunas, and exercise rooms. Several restaurants and nightclubs are nearby, and you can sample local, French and Italian foods.

The resort of Le Planolet has 16 ski lifts, and 24 different ski slopes encompassing 35 kilometres; there are also 50 kilometres available for cross country skiing. The slopes are in the Northern Alps, along the French-Italian border. The area has 35 km of lifts to serve the area and 70 km of the runs are cross country. The ski lifts go from 900 metres to 1,800 metres, and there are six green runs, five blue, nine red, and four black. You can also snowboard in the area.

Several fine restaurants allow visitors to sample the local cuisine. You can obtain hotel accommodation right on the slopes, and there are 11 other hotels located across the resort.

The area sits almost midway between Grenoble and Chambery airports (little more than an hour away), and the Lyon airport is about two hours away.

I read in the paper yesterday that naked cruising (the cruise ship kind, not the other kind….) was the big prediction for summer 2010 according to those in the UK travel industry. Apparently, the tourist industry is going to actively target naturists, and cruise companies will play an important role in attracting new and naked customers.

I’m not a naturist myself and, to be honest, the thought of strolling around with my and my wife’s bits on show is frankly terrifying. Suddenly a cruise holiday becomes less of a relaxing break and more of the stuff of nightmares . Never mind being naked yourself, fancy having to look at naked people all day long and night – naked people of all shapes and sizes and ages. I’m sure this is just PR (and pretty good it is to as it made all the papers yesterday) but I know the wife is looking at cruise deals for August so I’ll be asking her to make sure to check the small print very carefully in case she books us on one of those nudey cruises by mistake!!

I read an interesting article on the BBC website today about a prototype cycle aid called the Copenhagen Wheel. This new project developed by MIT, with help from Ducati Energia and the Italian Ministry for the Environment promises to change the way we cycle, whether to and from work or just for fun.

The Copenhagen Wheel can be fitted to almost any bicycle and features an oversized central hub, housing various electronic gadgets designed to make it easier to ditch your car and take your bike instead. The wheels hub can store energy every time the rider pulls the brakes, which can be used to give the rider a boost when riding uphill or negotiating traffic; this is similar to the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) used by Formula One cars.

As well as giving riders a handy boost, the Copenhagen Wheel also has a series of sensors and Bluetooth connectivity, which can connect to a users iPhone giving information about the speed of the bike, direction and the distance travelled as well as collecting data on air pollution and even where the riders friends are.

The Copenhagen Wheel is expected to go into production next year; there is no information on how much it will cost at the moment.

Will this new product get people out of their cars and on to their bikes? It might sway a few people who are thinking about it, but I can see a bigger benefit to the people who already ride their bikes to work and the fact that you can fit it to almost any bicycle makes it even more of a beneficial project.