Talk hard, I like that. It's like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind.

Hello and welcome to yet another blog that you will read, pause briefly for thought over, wonder if you should bookmark it and maybe come back tomorrow to see if it gets better (or worse)..... but then you move on to the next one of eleventy squillian blogs that are published on the Interweb, never again to muse over Hard Harry's dribble..... the thought that maybe tomorrow, Hard Harry might just reach in to your head and cause a spark of interest, is lost.....

Introductions Sir if you please!
My name is Hard Harry (Allan Moyle genius!)
Introductions over with!

I work on an IT Service Desk, I probably think I'm better at my job than I really am, there are people who probably think the opposite, if pushed I'd probably side with them. I put my succesive promotions down to being absolutely useless at the IT side of things and being slightly less useless at managing things (where the word 'managing' reflects duties of surfing the interweb, drinking tea and occasionally looking up to shout "Take those calls!"). Maybe I will tell you more about work in the future....

All I can think of today is £125,000,000, the Eurogazillions prize on offer this week. That's approx 86,805,555 pints of John Smiths in my local. It's 2116 Porsche 911 Carrera's (that's the base model version). It's also 1316 of the current house I live in (I could more than probably buy the village I live in). More importantly, is it not too big a prize?

There are two schools of thought to this. On the one hand, the higher the prize goes every week seems to result in increased sales, which in turn means more money raised for good causes. There are those who question the percentage of money that actually ends up in the pockets of good causes. Camelot state that this series of rollovers has generated £40 mil for good causes in the UK, I think that speaks for itself?

Can someone enjoy £125,000,000? It's probably more than dreams are made of. It would take care of your children, your childrens children etc etc. On the other hand people say money ruins your life and doesn't bring happiness. Is that really true? I would bet it probably is, not having had that kind of money I wouldn't know, I would love the chance to try, it certainly can't make things any worse, could it?

Should prizes be allowed to go this large? The Euromillions draw will be capped next week, if it isn't won then it will be split between the other winners. Better that there could be 20 people winning £7,250,000 each than one winning the full amount. Would you really care if you were a winner?

I guess if I win the £125 mil tomorrow night I will say it's fair and not complain
If I don't I'll be jealous as hell and complain that no one should be allowed to win that much

Finally, just noticed that Shell have announced record UK profits for 2005. £13.2 billion GBP to be exact. Does that make you feel as sick as I do? I'm paying 86.9p per litre at the moment, a lot of you are probably paying more. It seems that as the price of oil increases, not only do Shell put their petrol prices up to match, they put the odd extra penny or two on to increase their profit margins. Disgusting, in a word.

I have found a website called petrolprices.com. Once you have completed the quick registration process, you log in, enter your post code and it lists the cheapest garages in your area by distance. Certainly comes in handy, there are two garages in my area who are usually engaged in a price war. I now get a daily alert (optional) telling me which one is cheapest.

On this day: Sid Vicious dies of a heroin overdose (1979).

Talk Hard!
H.