How fantastic is this series? For those of you who haven’t seen it, Who Do You Think You Are? is a BBC series which traces the ancestry of British celebrities and watches them as they unravel the mysteries of past generations. From all accounts, the show is a huge ratings winner has been stealing viewers from all the major channels and genealogy seems to have taken the nation by storm. The Scotland’s People website has attracted 45,000 new users in the past two months as a direct result of the programme which is heavily promoting the website.

Scotland’s People is a world leading site in the field of genealogy and it is so easy to trace your ancestors on it by viewing the online certificates and census records. I just hope other countries follow its example (nudges England) and start making similar sites.

Hey, I need a job - employ me!!

This stuff is so fascinating, I could just see myself as a genealogist. Why can’t schools teach you interesting things like this instead of geometry, algebra and trig? I can honestly say I have never used any of those in my post school life and I’m quite proud of the fact!

Christmas is officially sorted! I haven’t bought all my presents yet but I know what I’m getting everyone and that is half the battle. As usual the one causing the most problems was my mum, however she casually announced today that she’d bought herself a new gold chain. It’s an expensive one, this *is* my mum we’re talking about, so she said dad and I could both contribute something towards it. Dad doesn’t know yet but I already agreed on his behalf! LOL! Serves him right for always leaving everything to me. Not only do I have to think about what *I’m* going to buy her but I also have to think of something *he* can buy her!

Anyway, it’s all sorted! That leaves just two presents to actually buy!

I pottered around with the layout today, just adding another column so I can add more content if I ever get round to it. Finally added blogrolling, although I don’t know why because I don’t really visit that many blogs. Most of the ppl I know are on LJ.

I caught the Family Tree bug again and was doing some research into one branch. The Family Search site was being a pain the backside though and was going really slow. I evenutally gave up in disgust. This afternoon, I tidyed up the paper end of things and started filling in some charts for one of the Glasgow lot from my maternal grandmother’s side of the family.

Sad to say, I don’t think I’m ever going to get anywhere with my English relatives, I just don’t have enough information and there is no one left to ask. My granddad died 10 years ago and the only member of his family left is his older half-sister, Lilian, who just turned 102 in October. She’s in a home in the south of England and not very with it. I don’t think I ever want to live that long! In her case it is pretty remarkable because she was only expected to live a few hours, and instead she’s outlived everyone else.

I miss my granddad - even after all this time. He used to call me “pet” - he was from South Shields, Co Durham. I still choke up when I hear that expression. I wish he was still here with us, he’d have loved getting to meet his great grandchildren.

I did manage to track down some info on his mother’s family though. My great grandmother Alice (she died before I was born) was born in Stockton but her parents were from York. Her parents actually died really young which is kinda sad.

No sooner do I post a blog about saving the Scottish regiments and Tony Blair makes a sudden anouncement that four out of six of the regiments will not be disbanded after all. Seems public opinion persuaded him to order the MoD to save the regiments by downsizing them to battalions instead. The important part is they get to keep their names, badges and traditions!

Now, if only, he’d bring our lads home!

So what exciting things have I done this week? Monday, I downloaded and then watched four eps of Lost - it’s intriguing but I’m still at the take it or leave it stage. I’m currently waiting on Ep5 finishing - nearly there.

In between times, I’ve been writing my latest story which is coming along nicely. My first attempt at love scenes too! Nothing graphic though - I prefer reading that to writing it. LOL! Even had a couple of ideas for the next story - I’m on a roll, folks!

As much as I try to avoid watching the news, you just can’t escape it and my heart goes out to all the families of the Black Watch troops who are currently under siege. They should never have been moved there in the first place and they have no business being at the beck and call of the Americans. I’ve more to say on that issue but it will be said in private on my LJ rather than here. Suffice to say, I think it is a disgrace that Scotland’s finest regiments are being axed, especially The Black Watch, one of our oldest and proudest regiments. There is a protest march being organised in my home town for the Argylls who are also being threatened with disbandment.

Find out more and sign the petition: Save The Scottish Regiments

I’ve just installed the WP-blacklist to my blog, so fingers crossed it works against the poker spammer from Hell! I’m so tired of deleting his shit from my blog! According to the WP Forum, I may have to install more than one plugin to stop this guy - let’s see how this one works out for now!

I did a whole load of CSI (George Eads) screencaps today just for the hell of it. I was bored and couldn’t focus enough to write so it seemed like the best thing to do. I don’t know why I’m even bothering because I’m so done with fandoms of any kind. It’s just not worth the aggravation anymore. Anyway, I thought they’d be cool for the fanlisting and I uploaded them to Imagestation so I didn’t have to worry about bandwidth or storage space. The two eps I uploaded are already 8MB in size and I just don’t have that much space available here. The space I’m not using on this domain is in reserve for MCO which takes priority over everything else. I’d delete this whole domain before I let MCO go - that’s how important it is to me.

I found out something yesterday that is really bothering me and I don’t know what to do about it. Needless to say, I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the back by said parties and that is contributing to my fandom depression. It’s getting to the stage where I don’t want to talk to anyone on the net. That’s kinda how I felt before I decided to walk away from the SG fandom - a decision I’ve never regretted. I’m done with SG and don’t miss it.

Strangely enough, I seem to be going back to my old TV obsessions like PTL which is so dead it can be classed as a non-fandom! I also really love a show called Miracles which starred Skeet Ulrich. It only survived about 16 eps but I could have really got into that. Why are all the good shows cancelled and mindless drivel renewed?