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Business datacentre

Timico gets Royal Visitor – Duke of Kent

Coat_of_Arms_of_Duke_of_KentJust had a bit of a Royal visit from the Duke of Kent. He came over specially for a butchers’ because he’d heard of our growth/work with apprentices/new datacentre/NOC/awards etc etc etc.

I was a bit disappointed to see that his car didn’t have a flag. The last time I came across the Duke was at the Farnborough Air Show where I was his guest for lunch. At the time I was on the Exec of the Parliamentary Space Committee. Lunch was on the roof of the Society of British Aerospace Companies pavilion – the spot where the Harrier jump jet used to bow to.

I was there with a group of British and French MPs – members of their respective Parliamentary interest groups. We had an extremely informative and enjoyable afternoon at the end of which we all piled into the Jaguar courtesy cars to go back to the bus for onward ferrying to Westminster. All that is except me. There was no room!

“No problem” said an able assistant. He whipped the flag off the Duke of Kent’s Bentley and drove me to the bus himself. All of which is why I was disappointed the flag wasn’t to be seen anywhere. I guess the Bentley will be knocking on a bit now and his 7 series will be far more comfortable…

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competitions End User

Royal baby name competition winners

And the winner is… Well 27 of you got one of the names right and 4 of you got two of them. If nobody got it completely right I was going to pick one “innovative” winner but this doesn’t seem fair considering the 4 “2 namers” and I’m not about to buy 4 bottles of champagne. I’m going to give everyone a fabulous Timico mug (assuming we have enough otherwise it’s first come first serve)  and the top four will also get some other stuff that I can find in the marketing cabinet. You will have to let me have an address to send these things to (tref at trefor dot net).

Alternatively if the top four would like to write a guest post on a subject of their choosing then that would be perfectly acceptable – keep it clean – the editor’s (ie me) decision is final. Let me know.

I’m on holiday for two weeks after this Friday so delivery might be slightly delayed unless I can persuade someone do do the fulfilment for me in my absence.

It’s been a great competition and a big thanks to everyone for entering. Also it’s such a relief that we won’t have to worry about the royal succession for  long time now innit? 🙂 Old Henry VIII would be v jealous if he weren’t dead.

The list of people with at least one right guess is provided below. If you think your name should be on it by all means let me know. I’m only human you know:)

Dantiumpro: Alexander Harold George Windsor
The fishing Gardener: George , Philip, Louis, William,
paul h: Louis George Philip Arthur
Mike P: David George Richard Louis Wales
maggie fawcett: George
Matt Benson: Henry George James
harry singh: George Charles Windsor
Kate b: George Arthur
Phil Veale: Philip, George and Andrew.
Alistair: James George
Jayne: Henry George Edward
Victoria: Galbraith George William
craig: George
Sam Trendall: George Richard Samuel Windsor
Lucy Knighton: James George William Windsor
Emma H: George William Richard Windsor
Erica ward: Frederick Alexander
Rob Pickering: Louis Charles
Brian Sentance: Charles Louis
Gary Hough: George, Michael, Edward Windsor
hansk: George William Charles
chris: Arthur George Henry Philip Windsor
Andrew Ellis: George
Kate B: George Charles Edward James
Beverley: James Charles Louis William
Liz Cowley: Edward James George
Ewan: George Charles Mountbatten Windsor
Annette Sames: Peter Louis William. Windsor.
Faye: George, with Charles, Richard and James
Michael Green: George Reginald
Lee: George William Charles Windsor

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competitions End User Weekend

Royal baby name

tom graduationWent to our first born’s graduation yesterday (pic inset). It was a proud moment for us parents though I couldn’t quite reconcile the fact that most of the people in the audience were grey and must clearly have been a lot older than me and Anne (!? 🙂 ).

“Uhuh” I hear you say. “Okaay. I thought this post was about the royal baby? It’s the only reason I’m reading it!”

Well the point of this conversation is that when Tom was born, Boxing Day, 21 1/2 years ago Anne and I went out every night for a month before the due date. Anne in particular wanted to cram as much social life into her last days of freedom because she knew it was about to vanish, for a long time.

On one of those nights out we decided to have a sweepstake, pound in, to guess the arrival date of the baby. He or she (we didn’t know the sex then) was due on the 12th December. The only date that couldn’t be chosen was the 26th because had the baby not arrived by then Anne would be going in to have the birth induced. Blow me down if he didn’t arrive on the 26th which apart from blowing out Christmas night was fortuitous because on the way home we had blown the money on a curry.

Today is the due date for the royal baby and we are going to have a name the baby competition. I don’t think the sex is known. It certainly hasn’t been made public. You can have two guesses  – boy and girl (obv). The winner will be the closest to the actual name remembering that royal babies tend to have lots of names – Reginald William Arbuthnot George etc.

Get your entries in quick because it could arrive any time. Leave a comment. I’ll find a suitable prize for the winner.

PS our Tom has started working at the BBC, initially reading the travel reports on Radio Oxford. It’s a very competitive world out there. The royal baby is entering an uncertain world and will have to work hard to make sure his or her CV looks right for the job market of the future 🙂

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competitions End User

Short announcement on royal baby naming competition

Crown_thumbJust so that you can start thinking about it I will be posting a name the royal baby competition at the beginning of July. It’s due on 13th July according to the Daily Mail which presumably knows its stuff when it comes to such gossip.

The name the Beckham baby competition attracted a load of entries but I expect this one to get a lot more. Will probably have a few side bets going re weight etc

That’s all for now. Ciao…