General Election 2015

Apparently Parliament has now been officially dissolved… a team of immigrants was brought in to clean up the mess.

Hotel Wireless

Why is that hotel wireless services always seem to have that annoying habit of being totally crap at the most inconvenient moments. I was able to stream Sky Go uninterrupted for a couple of hours (including a live stream of the Norwich Peregrines with no problems) yet when I'm sat in the bar and want to post a couple of simple blog posts (sans pictures) it craps out!

Must be something to do with the gay wedding taking place in the hotel's function room as there's tons of people attending and they must all be hammering it too but my point is is that surely they must realise these situations happen so why don't they put in a wireless service that can handle it?!

Up the Wrekin

A good day today... Had a good walk up the Wrekin and am now sitting in a hotel bar enjoying a few refreshing beers :)

It didn't start well as I dropped a pot of hair gel on the floor of a local Tesco and gel went everywhere, I cleaned it up and left somewhat embarrased, god thing I wasn't a local! Although it's probably a talking point in the local pub - "bloody townies and their strange hair gel ways"

However I must point out that this happened in a Tesco just down the road from where my granma used to live so sucks to you locals, I had family here!

Oh for those of you how don't know what the Wrekin is, it's a big mound of rock and dirt that can be seen from pretty much everywhere in Shropshire, great views from the top :p

We got lucky!

Phew, we got lock at work today, a CryptoLock virus tried to do it's business on our network, it managed to copy a load of suspect files to our main fileserver but only got that far before our antivirus stopped it.

I've spent most of the day chasing it but it's mostly been contained now, just got to do a scan on the server overnight.

To the people that create this type of malware - may your anuses be infested with a thousand fleas for all of eternity, your place amongst humanity is not required, please go and die a horrible painful death somewhere that doesn't inconvenience anyone else.

Zero Activity

No posts this week - for two reasons

1. I've been busy
2. I've not had anything interesting to post, and;
3. I've spent most of the week recovering from a monster hangover

Probably more '2' mostly though, I mean, let's face it, why post if you've got nothing to post.

6 Nations 2015

Ah well, we gave it our all but we had to contain a rampant French team and they are the hardest team to play against when they are inspired.

Congrats to Ireland for winning it, well played to Wales for giving it a go...

To Italy - don't drop your heads just because you go a couple of tries behind.

To Scotland - a team that has great potential for the future, keep slogging away and stop being so damned obsessed with beating us! Look, we are all together on this little island, let bygones be bygones, concentrate on yourselves and you can be great, again. 

Um...

Okay the timing of those last two posts looks a bit bad, the post showing the content of the boot of my car was within 1 minute of me posting a pic of my pint.

That looks like I was drink-driving, which I most certainly was not. I took the pic earlier on, way before I went to the pub.. Thing is, when I arrived at the pub and had a free moment I chose that time to post the boot pic but for some reason Blogger never published it! Then, much later on when I went back to my smart phone and published the pint pic then noticed that the boot pic had not piblished so I did that too, hence the screwy timing...

Ahh wtf, no-one ever reads these.

Saturday Shopping

This is how I roll on a Saturday - flowers and beer in the boot of my car...

FTW!

Hoopla baby!

Photography #101

There's nothing like a nice tranquil watery scene... I took this after a pretty heavy bout of rain so the lighting was just right.

So tranquil... ;)

Web Annoyances #3

Adverts that have now started to appear between paragraphs of text on certain news websites, I've just started reading and the damned column of text shifts down and an advert appears with the express intention of distracting me from my reading!

As previous posts, when that happens I simply close the tab and move onto the next article… pisses me right off that I'm inundated with advertising everywhere I go on the web…

Partial Eclipse

Newsflash: A partial eclipse of the sun was cancelled in the UK today due to health and safety fears… the government is now out looking for the moon as, strangely, they could not see it anywhere else in the sky.

MacBook Pro Baby!

So I've added another member to my computer family - a brand new MacBook Pro, I got it so I could kick back on the sofa with it on my lap and do my work in front of the TV.

Yeah baby, Apple fanboi here... livin' the dream ;p

Photography #101

Aaahh! Cows!!

Cows are awesome, where would we be without them? 

Web Annoyances #2

News websites that have started to place multiple choice options that you have to fill in in order to read the article, I just want to read the damned article, not contribute to some poxy metric that no-one will find useful... all I do is close the page, go bcd to Google News and look for another site that has the same news article.

Rescuing civvies in Dying Light :)

For anyone who hasn't played Dying Light, when out and about in the fair city of Harran you often come across hostile survivors who, when approached, come at you with the intention of making life very painful!



This one failed...

Messing around with Virals in Dying Light

I got so fed up of these types of vitals attacking me whilst out on night jaunts that I equipped my rifle and unloaded on one that was near the safe house I was in, immensely satisfying!

"Pursuit evaded…" lol

Photography #101

This is a picture I took whilst in a hide at a wildlife sanctuary in Norfolk, it's of a couple of Common Chaffinch's at a feeding table. I used the telephoto lens and 'sport mode' where the camera is automatically setup for a fast, continuous shooting mode, great for catching a bird in flight!

Dying Light

I've had so much fun playing this game, freerunning round an open world killing zombies, what's not to like!

Like most games of this type, the world physics can get a bit screwy, like in this video (link below) where the viral I killed gets inadvertently sucked into a spike trap despite the fact that it was nowhere near it!

Immensely satisfying though because when those buggers gang up on you it get's painful! 

Web Annoyances #1

Those thumbnails for articles that often start with "Twenty armies with the most..." or "Ten of the most terrifying" or "This amazing trick will...", all the major news websites use them in some form or another at the bottom of the page.

I call them article spam, all they are is a backdoor mechanism to show you ads. Their format is always as a 'gallery' so a 'next' button has to be selected to view more, this then enables a refresh function to show a different set of ads thereby allowing the author to sell more.

Often the grammar and/or spelling is bad and no amount of research will have been done, the author probably just Googled it and took from existing articles others laboured long and hard to research because, after all, they couldn't give a fuck about the content, all they want you to do is click on the damned annoying ads.

I admit I've tried a couple that intruiged me but I quickly saw them for what they are and no longer click on them, it still annoys me seeing them though.

The Chronicles of Riddick, an observation

Just watched The Chronicles of Riddick, seen it loads of times but I've just realised something, the Necromongers in it are just a bunch of Emos. I mean they all have a pallid complexion, wear black, enjoy pain and constantly go on about death, no wonder Riddick got medieval on them all.

Ed 'Two Kitchens' Miliband

Mine's two sugars Mrs Miliband...

No. 10's kitchen has chairs, so there!

Progress Bars

This:

Is the bane of my existence… not that I'm saving a PDF format file but the progress bar, I see them every day in all kinds of forms, I even see the damn things in my sleep.

I'm hoping that future generations, possibly a hundred years or so into the future, won't have to suffer them because computing power will be so advanced stuff will get done instantly.

Here's some more:

Slightly different style but serving the same purpose - annoying the fuck out of me and pretty much anyone else involved in DTP.

…and look at this, I've got a progress bar over the top of this page as I write this blog!

Like I say, bane of my existence… my gravestone will have a progress bar on it, with the words: "Please wait…"

Apple Watch - the story so far...

So Apple announced more details on their new watches this week and the press immediately fell on the poor battery performance. Apparently you can get a good 14 hours out of it provided you do absolutely nothing with it except treat it as a watch (which in the 21st century is completely outrageous). However if you listen to music, do all your social media stuff, makes calls, send texts etc. you'll get four hours at best… then you have to plug in the magnetic charger and leave it for an hour-and-a-half to get at least an 80% charge.

Sounds pretty rubbish to be honest and not something people will be used to when it comes to using watches. I mean, lets face it, probably 99% of the world have watches that last several years on one battery, so tweaking their lifestyle choices to include charging their watches every night would sound a bit much for some people. That is an area of the watch's design that Apple really need to improve for the next version.

As for me, I don't think it will be a problem, the Apple Watch's battery performance falls into two categories - a gadget-centric working lifestyle and a heavy social lifestyle.

I have neither, whilst I use a lot of technology at work, none of it relies on the features the Apple Watch has and I'm lucky if I get one text or e-mail off the few friends I have as pretty much all of them are married off and have families so I only see them in the pub occasionally, which negates the need to use the Apple Watch for much more than gaze at the clock to check when the bar closes.

So I'm confident I'd get at least two days' use before I'd have to charge it.

Having said that, Apple's new MacBook looks awesome, but I can't afford both!

Jeremy Clarkson Suspended

It's real shame Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended by the Beeb, looks like the PC fucktards are getting their way again. I'm sick and tired with all their crap, they should realise that there's two sides to the coin and without an alternate way of seeing things (which is what Jeremy Clarkson does so well) the world would become some sort of dystopian '1984' where we all trudge into work, wearing grey clothes, blinking in unison with absolutely nothing to look forward to in our pitiful existences.

This is what the middle-management, red-tape wielding, PC fucktards want us to be… Jeremy Clarkson is a shining beacon amongst all that crap.

I pay the BBC licence fee and I want him to stay!

Bring back Jeremy Clarkson!

Photography #101

I took this picture whilst out on a walk in Shropshire, just goes to show how useful a telephoto lens can be! Of course the subject of the pic - a Blue Tit - was way too busy demolishing a nut and singing about it to notice me ;)

Yay I got a nut!

Apple Watch

Won't be long before Apple bring out their new watches and I'm torn as to whether to get one or not.

I have a perfectly good watch, an Accurist and it's served me well for the past twenty-odd years. I'm like most blokes my age in that I have one watch and a couple of pairs of footwear that last decades, so getting an Apple Watch is a big, big decision because it upsets that dogmatic wristwear-to-footwear ratio that's kept me sane and fashionably grounded for all those years.

Of course price is an influence on my decision, the sporty version alone will cost three times more than what I paid for my Accurist. Battery charge too as Apple claims it will need to be charged every night and I'm running out of real estate on my bedside table what with all the other tech gadgets on there vying for space and power extension brick slots.

But probably the biggest influence is that it would be an Apple first gen model, which means that a better, more powerful, second gen model will be out a year later, then a third gen and so on... so it's a strategic call as to whether I delve in and be a first adopter or wait it out until Apple release one that will undoubtedly have better battery life and features half the world will have been screaming about for the best part of a year.

Hmm decisions, decisions... one thing's for sure my old faithful Accurist watch will still be there, I'm not getting rid of it, it's still accurate, the battery only needs replacing every three to four years and it, like my limited footwear collection will keep me sane and grounded during this crazy Apple tech fest period!

Self Cleaning Paint

Scientists have developed a self cleaning paint.

Now if they could do a self cleaning carpet that'd be awesome, save me having to do the sodding hoovering all the time.

Truly a child of the 80s :)

My god, whilst watching an A Team episode via Netflix I found myself speaking the narrative that begins each episode out load, word for word, even though I haven't seen one in years!

Sunday Full of Rugby

A full day of Rugby at the Ricoh Arena - a Wasps win (versus Gloucester) and an England loss (which we watched on a big screen in the Jaguar Exhibition hall)

I'm off now, got a date with a huge steak and ale pie ;)

Website Ad Overlays

Note to website devs: when I arrive on your site and begin reading the content please don't suddenly block my reading with an overlay containing an ad for something I am and will never be interested in. It's really annoying and when I see them I stop reading and close the page, thereby losing you a reader which kind of defeats the object of you attracting visitors.

If you have to have ads on your site, do it less conspicuously.

That is all.

Spiceworks - Spiceworld Poster Competition #5

This was my last entry as commitments outside of the webisphere would make it difficult for me to regularly contribute to the Spiceworks Community.

I chose a DOS command-line theme with a fictional Spiceworks executable with it's program switches listed.

It didn't take me long to produce and was only a half hearted attempt due to my previous entries not doing so well.

Spiceworld 2012 Poster Entry

Spiceworks - Spiceworld Poster Competition #4

2011 saw Spiceworks make the competition movie-themed, forcing entrants to narrow their design focus even more.

For mine I chose Escape From Alcatraz, with Clint trying to break into Spiceworld rather than escape ;) I put a network RJ45 socket on the wall to ram home the point!

It didn't win and I was a little gutted with this one as I thought it was quite clever… ah well, you win some, you lose loads (story of my life, particularly with online gaming).

Spiceworld 2011 Poster Entry

Spiceworks - Spiceworld Poster Competition #3

The 2010 entry found me playing with 3D, using Strata 3D.

Creating the pipes took ages, with me painstakingly adding sections and moving the camera views in order to create a tangle of piping, I added an orange tinged mist to give it an industrial feel. The dial was created in Illustrator and added as a texture in Strata.

Rendering went pretty quickly as I was using a Mac Pro with plenty of processing power, I added the water droplets afterwards in Photoshop. One thing that really bugs me with this one is that I didn't add droplets trickling down the pressure gauge's face, always wished that I'd had at the time.

Like the year before it got some 'wow' comments but didn't win...

Spiceworld 2010 Poster Entry

Spiceworks - Spiceworld Poster Competition #2

This entry is another abstract (I'm a fan of creating scenes and graphics myself rather than Googling an image and slapping it into a design), it's based on a Matrix-like theme, we had to put the sponsors in for this one.

I didn't win anything but it got a few up votes…

Spiceworld 2009 Poster Entry

Spiceworks - Spiceworld Poster Competition #1

For a few years I was a regular contributor in the Spiceworks Community, during that time, every year, they ran a poster competition to advertise their annual gathering which usually took place in their home city of Austin, Texas.

The first time I submitted an entry I was actually invited by Spiceworks themselves as one of their team had noticed that I had put 'Graphic Designer and IT Admin' in my user profile.

So I came up with a design and submitted it, it came second and I got some goodies off Spiceworks. For the next few years I continued to send in entries (will be shown in other posts).

This entry for 2008 is an abstract idea showing a rough outline of the state of Texas made from computer circuits. If anyone noticed (and probably didn't at the time), the spicy pepper graphic floats in a position approximately where the city of Austin is located in that state.

Spiceworld 2008

Ori and the Blind Forest

w00t! It's out on March 11, I've soo been looking forward to this game, I love detailed platformers with a quirkly playstyle - Plok (Nintendo 64), Another World, Flashback, the Rayman series, Abe's Odysee, Shadow Complex, Limbo and, recently, Unmechanical - I've played 'em all and had mixtures and fun and frustration doing so ;)

There's something eminently satisfying in completing a platformer that other game types haven't got. For instance, when I finished campaign mode in COD: Advanced Warfare I was 'ah well, that's that then' whereas when I completed Limbo I felt like going out and celebrating! I guess its the extra mile the devs put for you in the old grey matter department that makes it so satisfying.

Which is probably why I harbour such a deep recurring frustration over never completing Manic Minor.

Thumbsticks at the ready! Wait, is that a bear?

RIP Leonard Nimoy

He lived long and prospered...

He wasn't my favourite in Star Trek (had to be old Bill Shatner!) but I accepted he was an important part of it and I'll admit that I was bit emotional when Spock was killed off in Wrath of Khan and happy to see him return in ST III.

I know he did many other TV and film roles and should be recognised for those too but we all knew and loved him as the venerable Mr Spock, a role that, initially, he struggled to cope with outside of the TV series but over the years grew to accept.

The Star Trek universe will have a gaping black hole in it without him.

RIP Mr Spock, I'd be tempted to say 'May the force be with you'
But that'd be a bit wrong wouldnt it?!

Enjoy it while it lasts... wtf?!

Our chief of the Bank of England has said "Enjoy it while it lasts..." when commenting on low food and petrol prices.

That sounds downright condescending to me... oh you're okay Mr Carney with your fat banker's paycheck and ridiculously high bonuses, it's almost as if it pains you to see us stupid little poor people enjoy a brief period of financial relief.

And then to top that comment off one of his colleagues said that interest rates may rise 'sooner rather than later...'

Yeah lets rub it in on the peons shall we? Can't have them out of the red for too long can we? Must squeeze them for every penny they earn...

Live TV Debates

ITV have got the first of several live political debates between the party leaders for this election… so that means some debating may just break out between all the ad breaks.

I can't think of anything worse on TV to be honest - watching politicians waffle on... with ad breaks!

Oh no, hang on, reality TV, with ad breaks… that's worse.

A fresh start mobile-wise

Ho hum, a new contract and a new smart phone... took minutes to setup initially and half a day to get all my apps and logins working.

One thing I can't fathom though is that it lets me unlock it via the fingerprint id with my thumb yet when I set it up I used my forefinger... strange, perhaps my thumb and finger share the same prints? That or the touch id system is a bit shit...

Anyway here's to another 24 months of financial servitude...

Photoshop - 25 Years

It may be 25 years old today and the subject of great celebrations across the t'interwebs but it's annoyed the fuck out of me this morning, taking ages to save across a network connection, spinning beach ball of death appearing when I least want it and fucking defaulting to CMYK colour mode for new documents when I definitely don't want it forcing me to reproduce two files from scratch.

I won't be buying you a present Photoshop, you can fuck off.

Mars One

I think it's an absolutely brilliant idea and probably, in my opinion, the best use of the reality TV format yet. We humans, when we're not fighting each other, are natural pioneers and stuff like this is what gets us to places we wouldn't normally go… think of what Columbus and Marco Polo did.

Unfortunately it will probably fail for two reasons:

1. It won't have Z-list celebs having hissy fits on it, that'll put off all the chavs which subsequently won't bring in the viewing audiences the advertisers need and;

2. It will probably be covertly derailed by the American, Chinese, or Russian governments because they will want to put one of their astronauts on Mars first for political purposes

Shame really, ever since the Apollo missions stopped we've been in a red-tape rut where Nasa and others have spent the time messing about with near earth orbit projects because they're easier and cheaper, I know that they've put robots aplenty on Mars but it's just not the same! We want to see humans there, and not only Mars but all the other pieces of rock in our solar system, once that starts happening technology developments will increase exponentially. As tech companies ramp up their research into making space travel better so the 'filter down effect' will improve the technology we use daily, think what Formula One has done for the car industry over the years.

We need to get on with exploring space, and quickly, before President Putin fucks it all up and drags us into a nuclear-armed conflict.

This is why Mars One must succeed, it'll give everyone the kick up the arse they need to get us off out into space and start colonising worlds.

So ends my ha'penny's worth ;)

SETI Plans to Reverse the Charges ;p

Plan to broadcast messages to alien worlds leaves cosmologists worrying

Have any of them even SEEN Battleship yet?!

I think they left a window open?

Birmingham 'safe' despite parent firm calling in receivers

Now this is what really fucking annoys me about what's happening in English football, one of our oldest clubs is threatened because they're owned by dodgy foreign investors. They couldn't give two shits about the club itself, just the prestige of owning a professional football club yet and that's happening all over our two top leagues!

Then there's the matter of £5 billion spent on broadcast rights for the Premiership, a great day for estate agents, football agents and car dealerships, same old day for grass-roots English football, i.e. they'll see fuck all.

A Cricketing Wake Up Call?

Moeen Ali admits England were given a wake-up call by defeat to Australia

You mean a wake-up call realising that they're shit at Cricket?

Conan the Destroyer

Just been watching Conan the Destroyer ...

Ahh Grace Jones, mad as a box of frogs but probably great fun on a night out. I think she'd be in my top ten list of celebs I'd like to have a few beers with. Arnie too :)

Brain Blasterz

I have just eaten one of these sweets…

Warning… may contain dark matter?!

…and it felt like my taste-buds were stripped from my mouth, raked over broken glass, stamped on, killed with fire then reinserted with a blunt, rusty implement. This one was Blueberry flavour apparently but that's in name only to be honest, the flavour didn't matter, it could be dog shit flavour for all I care, it's senseless raping of one of my senses is all that mattered!

and it was such a small sweet too, barely the size of my thumbnail.

Fifty Shades of pr0n smashes opening box office records…?

I can't believe that happened, are there THAT many pervs out there?

It's just a film adaptation of a book with loads of shagging in it, amateur porn is probably better, with more shagging… and you don't have to spend a small fortune on a cinema ticket and a bucket of popcorn.

I can see the Oscars - "and now the award for the best cock goes to…"

Mascot Race at the Ricoh Arena

During half-time at the Wasps v Harlequins game yesterday, which Wasps won 37-6, they decided to have the sports mascots from the local area race against each other. The mascots were Sting (Wasps), Wilbur (Warwick Races) and Sky Blue Sam (Coventry City FC)…

Sting won… by a mile ;p

Fawlty Towers - a cure for depression

I'd just like to personally say a big thank you to John Cleese, Connie Boothe etc... a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers have cheered me right up! :)

Om Nom...

Best. Snack. Ever …

Full of chocolaty peanuty goodness!

Train Fail...

Caught the wrong train home last night and found myself heading the wrong way, I was so engrossed in a book on my Kindle I didn't notice until I was several stations into the route so I got off at the next station as soon as I realised.

Fortunately the rail route I was on wasn't going in the opposite direction but more of a 'fork' away from the rail route I was supposed to be on so I had the option of a long but do-able walk home however I didn't for two reasons: I couldn't be arsed and my smartphone maps app failed me displaying a message saying: "Couldn't load route information at the moment"

So I steeled myself, took a deep breath, did a few 'woosah's' to calm my anger, crossed to the other platform and waited for a train back the way I came… it's interesting that when you find yourself in this situation the Law of Sod becomes rife, enter's centre stage and takes great delight at flicking you in the forehead annoyingly whilst throwing inconveniences at you left right and centre based on your current predicament.

For my current predicament I was out of position from my normal commute, miles from home, it was dark and I had to face heading back the way I came guaranteeing a tedious time-wasting trip, time that could have been spent getting my favourite meal from Subway and arriving home earlier. So what did the Law of Sod do? It made sure that all the trains on my platform were delayed, 'due to a slow running previous service' and not only that, the next train wasn't stopping at any stations other than the one that I originally started from which meant that I had to go all the way back to the city.

I blame the Law of Sod because I catch trains every day and I'm lucky that the train services I use are good, they rarely get delayed so the probability of what happened above could only be from Law of Sod's divine intervention.

Anyway after waiting longer than I wanted to I got the train back,  then got the correct train home… Law of Sod must have gone to sleep then because I didn't have to queue to get my Subway meal ;)

Fifty Shades of pr0n

So the film adaptation Fifty Shades of Grey is out this weekend… a 'critically acclaimed international phenomenon'… wtf?!

My advice to everyone is to save your money, download some proper porn and watch that instead.

The price I pay for a night out...

So I went out Friday night to watch this year's Six Nations opener - Wales v England.

I don't get out much these days so when I do, I treat them as special and look to enjoy myself as much as possible, clearly the gods (if any) had other plans for my enjoyment.

Firstly the ATM I went to get cash out of threw a wobbler, turned itself off and retained my card so I had to spend 15 minutes on the phone to the bank, freezing my nuts off whilst I waited for them to confirm that the card had been cancelled and a new one ordered. Then, at the end of the night (most of which was spent cadging beers off the others due to not having much cash on me), I get some food from our local chippy which has had me almost permanently sat on the bog for most of the weekend.

Dodgy ATMs and food poisoning, it's no wonder I don't go out...

Oh and on a side note - why the hell don't people dance anymore? I was the only one on the dancefloor strutting my stuff whilst everyone else stood around looking miserable, and we were in an Irish pub so it's not like it was full of Welsh fans?!

A cure for the common cold?

British scientists have published a theory on a way to cure the common cold... from what I can gather it involves meddling with the virus at a genetic level, which will force it to adapt by mutating and the more we fiddle, the more it mutates... and then?

Zombie apocalypse!

Braiins!

Auntie Beeb looses The Open

So the BBC have lost out to Sky for coverage of The Open Golf Championship, ending a 60-year coverage relationship.

I don't play Golf or watch it much but I respect it's traditions and importance in the world as a sport, and with that in mind surely it needs as many people watching it as possible? They won't get that if Sky shows it, not everyone has a subscription… but pretty much everyone has a TV Licence. The Beeb also has Peter Alliss, his Golf commentary is legendary (and it's very relaxing to listen to).

Clearly, the people running The Open are only interested in the money… oh well, another one lost to free-to-air TV.

A big bogey for the Beeb then

Windows XP & Windows 10

I downloaded the technical preview of Windows 10 earlier on and ran it in a VM, then I loaded Windows XP, put the two next to each other on my Mac's desktop and made a screenshot so you can see what a difference 11 years makes ;)

To be honest I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about with Windows 8, I've been using Windows since Windows 95 and I didn't have a problem with the Start Menu gone… I guess some people are stuck in their ways.

Windows XP and Windows 10

Anyways, the Start Menu and has come a looong way!

Lookey Likey!

Whilst watching the film Serenity the other day it occurred to me that Summer Glau could be Sigourney Weaver's love child…

Of course both actresses get to play sic fi characters that kick ass too… plus Aliens and Serenity are two favourites of mine… so goes the inner workings of my mind.

Magical Powers

If I had magical powers I wouldn't use them to give myself a million pounds or make myself invisible so I could perv at women, I'd use them to solve small everyday annoyances.

Like when one of the printers I use at work output's a customer's prints at really crappy quality I could just stare at it to make them better or if the colours were off, I'd imagine them to be correct and they'd change. Or when my Sky HD box doesn't update it's planner, I'd speak some sort of spell and it'd sort itself out.

Those are just two examples that would've saved me so much grief and loads of time, enabling me to get on with my fucking life... and it wouldn't have affected other people either. In fact, pretty much all the little things I'd solve with magic would help me with a stress-free life and a guaranteed positive experience for everyone else.