Counting Down
Posted: Wed 18 December, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season 2 Comments »
Thank god there’s only a week left of this bullshit.
I am truly sick of somehow everyone deciding that “Christmas” means “all of December”.
Just fuck off. All of it.
False Registration – Again
Posted: Sat 30 November, 2024 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving 3 Comments »Back in 2022 (so before I moved) I received a car’s V5C registration document that wasn’t for me – not in my name, and not a vehicle I’d every owned, or even seen. It also wasn’t a name I knew, and not a plate I recognised.
It turned out that this is a known scam, where the owner of the vehicle is basically going to try not paying for parking/speeding fines and fees. It’s odd, because it relies on people being useless and just throwing the V5C away – which is *not* a good plan.
Instead, take a copy of the V5C (either a scan, or photos will be fine) and then return the V5C to DVLA – their contact details are here – with a covering note explaining that the person and vehicle mentioned have never lived here and that the vehicle doesn’t belong here. Send that ASAP.
Anyway, a few weeks back, the same happened again – a different name and registration, but the same scam. So I did the same again, scanned it and sent it back with the covering letter.
And a week later I started getting parking penalty notices – all in the name of the V5C person, and relating to that vehicle. I’ve returned a couple, and kept a couple – because at some point I’m sure it’s going to end up with a visit.
Thankfully, this week I got the confirmation letter back from DVLA that they’ve accepted that the registration is flawed/faked, and they’ve taken my address off the record for that vehicle. (I’m keeping that letter safe, obviously!)
I don’t know if the parking penalty people will re-check for reigstered addresses etc., so I’m still sort-of expecting a knock on the door. But I’ve got all the defenses I can think of on that score, so at least it’ll be interesting!
Driving Change – One Year On
Posted: Wed 27 November, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving 2 Comments »One year ago today, I finally got my new (to me) car delivered. The farce that surrounded that whole purchase was a nightmare – and it gave me great joy to see that Cazoo collapsed fairly soon afterwards (although I wasn’t responsible for that)
Thankfully though, the car itself has turned out to be a bit of a gem. I got it with 16,000 miles on the clock, and it’s now on 41,000. (Yes, I remain a daft bastard who drives *way* too much!)
I was nervous when I first got it – it’s a ’16 plate, so that mileage was exceptionally low, and I did wonder whether it would be a bit seized from being massively underused. But right from the delivery day – where I took it out for a 60-mile motorway round-trip just to make sure it was OK – it’s been fine. It seemed to say “Oh, this is a better setup!“, and settled happily into being a high-mileage car .
It’s had two services (20 and 40,000 miles, as recommended by the handbook) and the MoT, and everything’s been fine, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
All told, very happy with the entire thing. Let’s hope it does me well for a few more years!
Still Alive
Posted: Wed 28 August, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Health 2 Comments »Still alive – still feeling ropy, although at least all the chest infections and so on have cleared up.
I’ve still been left with a cough that’s just hanging around the back of my throat, and which causes the coughing up of lumpy green – not from the lungs, thankfully, but it’s still fairly grim.
It is easing – although the most recent course of medication has done absolutely sod-all – but the GP said it might take up to a month to appease, which is next week.
If it’s still bad at the end of next week, I’ll make another appointment.
In the meantime, I’ve changed a number of plans – some for not being in the mood, and some for (if I’m honest) not actually feeling like I’m up to them. Not entirely happy about that, but it’s definitely the smarter plan rather than breaking myself even further.
Unwellitude – Another Update
Posted: Wed 3 July, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »So, six weeks after the initial Unwellitude happened, my chest was still fairly well stuffed, ongoing coughing, and generally feeling crappy.
At night I was starting to make noises like the Predator, which is never a good sign.
So I finally got round to making an appointment with my GP, and saw them yesterday. (On a side-note, pretty impressed – called them Monday afternoon, not expecting anything to be available ’til next week, and instead got a slot at 8am on Tuesday!)
Diagnosis? A nasty chest infection – they wouldn’t say which one, but from previous experience and having done some reading, I’d say pneumonia is the most likely candidate. So a prescription for a week’s worth of hefty-dose Amoxicillin, and we’ll see what happens.
Excessive Sportitude
Posted: Wed 26 June, 2024 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Sport, Television Leave a comment »At the moment, things on TV seem to have gone sports-mad, and as someone that’s not into any of it, it’s *really* tedious.
Obviously there’s the Euro kickyball tournament, which appears to have been at least two matches every day for the last couple of weeks, with still another fortnight-ish to go (although the frequency of matches drops once the initial stages are done with)
Last week there was [a tennis tournament] that took over another channel – and this week there’s [a different one], followed next week by Fucking Wimbledon (to use its full title)
As if that weren’t enough, last week also involved televised coverage of horse-racing, for some fuckforsaken reason. I assume that’s just in case people felt there wasn’t enough sport on.
And the weekends seem to be full of bloody Grand Prix excitement tedium.
Then we’ve still got the Olympic and Paralympic Games to come (although at least they contain a wider range of things, some of which may even be watchable)
And of course then we’ll be back to the normal Kickyball schedule as well.
The only other alternative seems to be all the bullshit being spouted about the upcoming General Election. (Which would be far more interesting if we introduced Guillotines, in my opinion)
I’m sick and fucking tired of it all.
Ongoing Unwellitude
Posted: Sun 16 June, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Health, Single Life 3 Comments »Thankfully it’s not been non-stop Unwell, but everything’s taken a long time to finally start sodding off.
I was doing OK at the time of the last post, although the cough hadn’t quite Fucked Off yet. That stuck around for the next couple of weeks – not entirely surprisingly, as I was (against advice) busy and doing stuff, and not giving my body a lot of time off.
Then last weekend (the 8/9th of June, if anyone’s counting) I did a day-trip to Manchester (see above about not giving myself time off) for a restaurant visit. (Which was excellent, and well worth the trip) My table companion had been doing a lot of air travel and so on, and also had a similar cough to me.
I *think* that what happened there was that I picked up a second blast of what had already hit me. Or, if not the exact same thing, then at least bloody close to it, but different enough to get past any already-set-up immunity.
So this week was a kind of return to how I was a few weeks back. It didn’t mess me up *as* much, but still left me with a couple of very rough days.
It seems to be back in abeyance now, and hopefully that’ll also mean that this dry cough has a chance to piss off as well. We’ll see.
Unwell
Posted: Wed 29 May, 2024 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Health 1 Comment »Over the last three weeks, I’ve been unwell – nothing major, “just” a seriously heavy cold, but it’s absolutely knocked me for six.
I say “heavy cold”, because despite symptoms including about 60% of the current “Is it Covid?” guidelines, it never showed up as Covid on an LFT test. Not even the thinnest of thin blue lines. But it’s *felt* like Covid, and as a result I kept myself out the way of everything for two weeks.
It all started with a sore throat (almost like the feel of tonsilitis) , temperature changes (feeling both too hot and too cold) and head cold – the combination of which meant I felt awful and didn’t actually sleep for three days. That lead on to some deeply weird and unpleasant sleep-deprivation side-effects, and a feeling of deep oddness.
Once I did finally get some sleep, the dreams were strange and uncomfortable. I won’t detail them here (because telling people about dreams is deeply effing dull) but they’ve added to the ongoing sense of slight disconnection with things. I know it’ll settle down again, but *wow*, it’s been odd.
For some reason it’s also altered some core things – appetite has changed, body clock is buggered, an ongoing awareness of exhaustion, and even a change in the amount of Coke Zero I’m drinking.
I’m pretty much through it all now – albeit still occasionally coughing up chunks of Finest Green™ – but it’s definitely been No Fun.
MoT Day
Posted: Tue 16 April, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »Well, today’s the day of the new (to me) car’s MoT, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Let’s hope it just cruises through.
[Updated : It passed, no problems and one minor advisory]
Literal vs Lateral
Posted: Fri 12 April, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, I Don't Understand, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »One thing I’ve found fascinating with people – both where I live now, and previous places – is how literal they are, even when it means they take longer to do things.
For example, where I now live there are several junctions where turning right onto a busy road can mean significant delays for people. But most of those junctions also have roundabouts a short distance up the road if people instead turned left.
So here, for example – the scenario is that I’m pulling out of the Stephenson industrial estate, wanting to turn right.
If I turn left, it’s 400m to the roundabout. It’s a simple thing, an 800m round-trip, and far faster than the delay when waiting to turn right. But no-one does it. They’re so locked into “I’m turning right” that they somehow don’t even think about turning left instead.
On another regular drive, in the run-up to another roundabout, the left-hand lane gets utterly jammed, waiting for a safe gap in which to get out and turn left. But if one takes the right-hand lane, it’s all too easy to get up to the front, go all the way round the roundabout and then come off to that same route – well before the equivalent drivers in the left-hand lane have caught up. Yes, it’s effectively a 450° turn, but it’s *so* much quicker. And again, people are locked into “I’m turning left” and seem to not see the alternative at all.
It’s all very odd. I mean, I’m glad I can look at it and see those lateral decisions that make life easier, but I do find it fascinating that so many people simply can’t/don’t do so.
Car Progress
Posted: Fri 8 March, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »Somehow I’ve already had the new (to me) car for three full months, and thankfully it’s turned out to be a good buy.
I had my concerns – for a car registered in 2016, a mileage of 18,000 is gobsmackingly low, so I did wonder if it had spent a lot of its time in garages or whatever, but it seems that the previous owner just didn’t get out much. Obviously that is not the case with me, so that mileage has already increased by a third. (6,000 miles in three months – yeah, that’s about standard for me)
It’s proved to be an absolute beast on the motorway, and just handles all the miles I’ve thrown at it so far. It’s weirdly quiet in general – which isn’t a complaint, just an observation that a diesel vehicle still doesn’t feel like it’s meant to be that quiet! It’s also sitting happily at an indicated 49Mpg. I’d be happy if that were slightly better, but it’s a decent enough figure for my purposes.
It’s also meant that I’ll be able to split the costs of MOT / Servicing and Tax / Insurance Renewal – I got it with about six months MOT left, so that’ll be due in April, and Insurance etc. isn’t til November/December, which is definitely nicer than having Everything Due All At Once.
There are niggles – primarily it turns out that what I’ve got is a 2015 model that was registered at the start of 2016, so it’s just missed out on having better tech integration (no Apple CarPlay, for example) although I can – and will – fix that with some form of aftermarket sortout. On the positives though, it means I also don’t have driver “aids” like auto start/stop , or the lane-change-warning stuff (that tried to kill me last time I had it on an Insignia) which is all fine with me.
All told, it’s worked out well.
Finally Finished
Posted: Mon 26 February, 2024 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »*Ages* ago (well before I moved) I bought a load of laundry pods because they were on a very good offer. (Reduced price and increased loyalty/rewards points, I think – might’ve been a multipack deal in there too) I might even have taken advantage of that offer twice – although that was mainly through forgetting I’d done it once already. Regardless, I then didn’t get round to using them.
When I moved, I realised I still had them, so decided to use them up before going back to the methods I prefer (liquid/gel rather than pods or powder) Somewhere along the line I also discovered I’d been using the pods incorrectly – turns out they’re supposed to go into the washing machine *first*, then the laundry on top , whereas I’d been using them in the same way as the liquid/gel methods. Live and learn, and all that.
Anyway, this is all a roundabout way of acknowledging that I’ve finally – *finally!* – just used the last of those sodding pods.
The next couple of laundry loads will be a comparison exercise – do I really notice the difference?
But for now I can’t deny, I’m just happy to be at the end of the pods.
Key Information
Posted: Fri 26 January, 2024 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »When I got the new (to me) car it only had one key – although it had two fobs, it was just that the actual keyblade on one of them was missing. (Which is quite an achievement in the first place!)
I like having two working keys for the car – it means, among other things, that I can leave it with people (valets, MoT/Servicing etc.) without leaving my full bunch of house keys as well.
So I asked at the local dealership what the price would be for a replacement, and they quoted an OK-but-high price for it, saying it might take a couple of days from ordering in order to get the right one – oh, and have the V5 registration certificate as proof of ownership. And then didn’t get round to it.
This week though, I did a quick trip to my local(ish) Tesco that I know has a Timpson concession/branch at it. And (being organised, for once) I remembered to take the spare key fob with me. Nothing to lose by asking, and all that jazz.
So I asked, and got it done for £50 (less than a sixth of what the dealership had quoted) in less than fifteen minutes.
I’ve always been impressed by Timpsons (among other things, I like that they are open to employing ex-convicts and so on, opening doors that many places close) and I’m glad that I took the time to use them for this one.
Booklist
Posted: Tue 2 January, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Kindle, Reading Leave a comment »Every year, I do the GoodReads reading challenge – setting myself a target of number of books to read, and then keeping track of it through GoodReads. I usually blast through the target – for example 2023’s target was 100, and I ended up with 153 – but I’d rather aim low(ish) and succeed rather than shoot for the moon and fail.
It’s worth pointing out that there are lots of things I don’t like about GoodReads – their controversies this year about fake reviews and so on in particular – but for this kind of basic usage, they’re fine and I’m yet to find a similarly comprehensive setup to manage it. So… it’ll do.
I also rarely bother writing reviews etc. (unless it’s a particularly awful thing I’ve just read)
Anyway. This year I’ve decided that I’m going to try and reduce the number of new book purchases, and instead to carve through a decent swathe of my stuff that’s bought-but-still-unread. (Which is a huge pile, and I daren’t actually count how many things are in it) I’m not going to say “I’m not going to buy any new books” – mainly because that would be a) ridiculous, and b) unachievable (plus I’d have already failed on that score) – but I’m going to try and reduce that count a bit and get through older stuff instead.
As a result, I’m setting my target this year to be 120 books. (It was originally 100, but I changed it up a bit) I know there are some I re-read that I can race through because they’re familiar, but I think if I make new ones the majority this year, that might slow me down a bit, so 120 is realistic. (Ish. I’ll almost certainly exceed it, but it’s a number I’m happy with)
Now it just remains to see how I do with it!
Over and Done
Posted: Mon 1 January, 2024 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment » Welcome to 2024
Back to the normal intermittent rubbish, as and when I think “I haven’t written anything there for a while!”
I’ve got a bundle of things bouncing round my head that I should jot down – thoughts and plans for the coming year that are emphatically not resolutions , that kind of thing.
But in the meantime, it’s really just a sigh of relief to get to the end of another Festering Season.
Humbug
Posted: Mon 25 December, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season 1 Comment »And at last, Christmas Day is upon us.
That means that at least we’ll be getting rid of adverts for perfumes, excessive food, trite festive bullshit, and other horrors.
In return, we’ll now be seeing ones for holidays, diets, and stopping smoking. (I assume)
And we’ll be back to this old garbage in eight months or so.
In the meantime, may this bring to you and yours whatever works for you.
Solsticial
Posted: Thu 21 December, 2023 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, SAD 5 Comments »Shortest Day! Shortest Day!
Tra-la-la-la, it’s the Winter Solstice.
I don’t think I need to say any more than that, really.
Driving Change – Better Services
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2023 Filed under: Business, Cazoo, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, Insurance, Thoughts 1 Comment »Following on from the utter farce with Cazoo being shockingly shit at customer services, it’s only fair to mention that there have been other companies who have made things a lot easier than they could have been.
First among those has been Enterprise, who have always been a stand-out for me when it comes to car-hire firms. They have one simple thing that makes them stand out (and I don’t understand why other hire firms don’t mimic it) in that quite simply, they come to collect you rather than insisting on getting to them. Alongside that, there’s been no hassle when I’ve needed to extend the hire period and so on. I know that really it’s “just” a case of doing the jobs they’re paid to do, but sometimes even that feels like a rarity.
Honourable mention also goes to We Buy Any Car, who again just did what they said they would – I got the old Kia to them, they checked it out (and explained the entire process really clearly) and paid what they’d agreed within the day. All the paperwork came through fine, the V5C change of ownership and so on, and it was all smooth and easy. (Cazoo wouldn’t do a trade-in on the Kia, as it was over their mileage limit, which is fair enough)
Alongside that, even my car insurers (Darwin Insurance) made life easy. Once I’d taken delivery of the car, I checked other insurance providers so I’d got a good idea of costs, and then called my current insurer to see what the charges would be with them. It turned out that sticking with Darwin would mean a premium that was about 50% higher than a different provider, so it made sense to cancel the current policy and start a new one for the new car. Darwin made that cancellation process easy and smooth – and it turned out that I’d paid enough that I got a refund rather than having to pay the cancellation fee. (Which has just *got* to be a win!) The new policy has also all come through fine and been easy to sort.
So, despite Cazoo being a monumental pain in the arse, there’ve been others who’ve made the entire thing a lot easier than it could have been. And that’s something I’m deeply thankful for.
Driving Change – Update/At Last
Posted: Mon 27 November, 2023 Filed under: Cazoo, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised 2 Comments »At the start of November, I had to buy a new car, and used Cazoo to do so. Today, I finally received one. It has been a long process!
The first one I bought (a Kia Optima) was due to be delivered on November 6th. That day, after the delivery slot had closed, they called and said “While we were checking it, we found a problem with the rear bumper, so we need to respray it. No, I don’t know how long it’ll take, I’ll call you back“. (Spoiler : They didn’t call back) Not a great start to things, but… OK, I guess that at least they’d checked it.
Time went on. They came back a few days later, still saying “There’s a problem, we don’t quite know how long it’ll take“. I kept getting “we’ll let you know [in a couple of days time] when we know more” (which they never did, I had to call each time) We got to two weeks late, in which time “a problem with the bumper” had turned into “a problem with the gearbox” (on an auto box with less than 30,000 miles on it?!?) had turned into “we need to replace the gearbox, and don’t know how long that’ll take“.
At that point, they decided to take the Kia off-sale, and refunded my money. Which was deeply annoying. Understandable in the circumstances, but annoying all the same.
However, they offered a discount on another purchase with them (and had already offered a day-rate for inconvenience and travel costs) so I stuck with it, and ordered another car – this time a Vauxhall Insignia of similar age, and similar low mileage. (Under 20,000 miles for a seven-year-old car)
Thankfully, that one arrived today – and all seems to be OK so far. It’s had a small (in my terms) test-run to make sure it’s not totally rotten, and it’s going to get some testing over the next couple of weeks. (In that we’ll be covering a mileage in two weeks that is on a par with what it’s been doing annually so far!) As with the Kia, I’m as protected as possible – if it’s shit this week, it can go back with no penalty. From there it’s got a year’s warranty including Roadside Assistance, and it’s been paid with a credit card for that Section 75 protection.
Mind you, at the moment I wouldn’t recommend Cazoo to anyone. I’m hoping that this second purchase might ease my dislike of them – but the entire experience has been an utter, utter shambles. I suspect that they’re OK so long as everything runs smoothly and to the script, but as soon as things go awry they’re all at sea and nothing short of fucking useless.
- To date, there’s been absolutely no apology from them for pissing me about.
- They assigned someone as a “case manager”, but it took a week to even discover that. Additionally, there’ve never been any direct contact details – everything goes through their generic customer-service email account.
- That “case manager” couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag. They had absolutely no understanding of things, and were strictly stuck to their script with zero flexibility.
- That “case manager” has also completely failed to escalate things as they got worse – or at least, if they have escalated, that’s never been made clear to me.
- The daily rate for “travel costs and inconvenience” was fairly pathetic at the beginning, and Cazoo then tried to reduce it during this whole process. (Sadly – for them – they’d named the rate in their early emails, so they were knackered on trying to reduce it)
- However, for some reason they’ve wanted receipts to prove I’ve had travel costs – God knows why, just paper-pushing bean-counters – and that caused real confusion with the case manager. No matter how many times I explained that I wouldn’t get a receipt until I’d paid for the extended car hire (and that wouldn’t happen until I’d taken delivery of a new car) we were stuck on the “But we need a receipt” loop.
I ended up going to the hire company and closed off one hire (and then started a new one) in order to get that receipt. Utterly farcical.
There’s still going to be some stuff ongoing in this – yes, they’re paying the daily travel costs rate, but that’s less than half the cost of the car hire I’ve had to have while they’ve been pissing about. I’ve been reasonable, in that I originally had a week’s rental to cover over the first delivery date and I won’t include that initial period in what they need to repay. But the subsequent three weeks hire have been entirely down to Cazoo messing things about, so I feel it’s only fair for them to pay for that.
So once I’ve paid for the final week (this Friday, assuming that the Vectra stays being decent) then I’ll send the receipts and an invoice (less what they’ve already paid) to them. From there it’ll be interesting to see what happens – I know what my expectations on it are, but we’ll see.
Right now, I’m just hoping that everything is now as done as possible. This month has been a ton of unnecessary hassle, and it’d be good to end the year with no further fuckery.
Misunderstanding
Posted: Mon 13 November, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Stupidity 3 Comments »Back in February, I got a specific credit card with two years of 0% interest on balance transfers. It’s all been good so far, and I”m down to about a third of the original balance, which is how I wanted things to be.
But today I got an email from them saying “Your promotional rate is expiring at the end of the month“, and talking about the money transfer rate. Which seemed a bit odd – and very early.
So anyway, I called them up to find out what was going on, and it turns out that (unsurprisingly) I’m a bloody idiot.
Turns out that the card also had a zero interest deal for money transfers – which aren’t, as I thought, the same as balance transfers. And that’s the rate that was expiring. I’m sure I should’ve known the difference between money and balance transfers, but in that general “What the fuck?” phase of things, I conflated the two things into one.
So anyway, all’s fine. And my acknowledgement of my own idiocy at least made the call handler laugh, so there’s that.
Unhelpful Timings
Posted: Tue 7 November, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Finances, Insurance, KwikFit, Thoughts 2 Comments »The one downside of the whole “need a new car” thing is that I’d only recently sorted out all the MOT, Servicing, Tax, and Insurance Renewal for the current car. Which is, to say the least, a bit annoying.
Thankfully, the MoT hadn’t needed too much work – simply realigning windscreen wipers and headlamps, no major stuff at all – but still it’s annoying to have done all the stuff for ensuring it’s mechanically OK, only to then have something unchecked go ker-fut. (OK, *start* to go ker-fut!)
The insurance renewal is a bit more of a pain. I could make alterations, but I suspect that the massive difference in vehicle values might make it ridiculous. So I might have to cancel the newly-renewed policy – I know what that will cost, and it’s doable. And before I make a decision, I’ll find out what the costs will be, so I can properly evaluate the pros and cons.
Again, things could be far, far worse. It’s just annoying.
52
Posted: Sun 5 November, 2023 Filed under: Domestic 1 Comment »Fifty-flippin’-two. Blimey.
Onwards and upwards, as always.
Changes, Privilege, and Good Fortune
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts Leave a comment »Every so often, in situations like this week’s need to organise a change of cars, I sit back and realise just how lucky I am.
Ten years ago I was just out of my official bankruptcy period, with another five years to come with it still on my credit record. I was doing OK, but something like this week would still have made life interesting. (As it was, I did have to go through a car change while in that bankruptcy period, but thankfully got through it OK because the administration people were excellent)
It’s taken a long time, but everything since then has been in a positive direction, and I’m happy with it all. It leaves me somewhat gobsmacked that now I can again pay for a car on a credit card (and once everything’s gone through, I’ll move it all to an interest-free balance-transfer card) with no real hassle.
Hopefully the new car will also not need anything major for a while (fingers epically crossed!) which will also help a lot.
Obviously, it’s more debt than I’d ideally like to be in – but it’s feasible/affordable, and I can sort the rest. It might even give me some impetus for getting some other things off the ground and get some extra income that way. We’ll see.
Regardless though, it’s good to have these occasional reminders that I’m fortunate enough to be in a good place, and simply appreciate that simple fact.
Festerous Advertising
Posted: Thu 2 November, 2023 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Festering Season Leave a comment »“It gets earlier every year!”
We’ve entered November, and it seems like all the advertisers have gone “Fucking hell, Christmas is coming!“, so it’s all turned into a retail frenzy of fuckery. They’ve already thawed out Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé (Or “Mickey Bubbles” as I tend to call him) in ads, as well as a couple of other “celebrity-laden” ones where I know the faces and couldn’t give two shits about any of their names.
So by the time we’re on November 2nd I’m already sick of the entire bloody thing.
Bah Humbug indeed.
Driving Change
Posted: Wed 1 November, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances 2 Comments »Yesterday, while travelling to and from my on-site visit, the car started making Noises Of Imminent Doom. Nothing super-evident immediately, but a vibration I could feel through the pedals, and power that was starting to “blip” – not quite to the level of stalling, but… it felt like that was on the way.
So I got home fine, and had spent the time figuring out What’s Next.
Bearing in mind that it’s on just over 220,000, I reckon the turbo is on its way out. I got this one in September 2018, and that was at a mileage of 115,000, so yeah, it’s about on-schedule.And while it was worth doing on a car with that mileage, I don’t think the same is true when we’re heading towards double that.
So today I spent time sorting stuff out – and as a result, I’ve got a new (to me) car arriving on Monday. Unexpectedly, it’s another Kia, but this time it’s an Optima, in Silver. Not my favourite colour to drive (it disappears in rain/mist etc.) but again, meh, it’ll do.
It’s an automatic (which is what I’d intended to get) and fully ULEZ compliant – my current one isn’t – and that’s much more relevant with the recent expansion of the London ULEZ, as well the growing prevalence of them in other places I visit. Most importantly, despite being a 2016 plate, it’s got less than 30,000 on the clock – and while I paid more for it than I’d hoped/expected to, it still came in under budget at £10K. Hopefully it’ll last a good while – although I suspect it’ll initially be a shock for a car used to four or five thousand miles a year to suddenly be doing my kind of miles and journeys.
As it is, it comes with a seven-day returns period if it’s horrible, a three month warranty from the garage (including RAC cover) which is about standard. I’ve also paid for it on a credit card, so Section 75 can cover things if it turns out to be a problem past that.
And once I’ve got it, the old car is going off to “We Buy Any Car” – I don’t expect much for it, but it’s better than paying out for scrappage or whatever!
So everything’s in place, and now I just need to hope it all works out. Time will tell, obviously.
MOT Thoughts
Posted: Thu 21 September, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, KwikFit 4 Comments »Following on from getting the car’s MOT Test done this week, I had a look back on the history of my car’s MOT tests (that’s just a link to the service, not to my specific vehicle) Something I find interesting on it all is the inconsistency of what’s reported as faults.
I’ve noticed it before – but even when using the same MOT Test Centre, they don’t seem to check the same things every year.
As an example – last year I had advisory warnings about corrosion to the rear doors, and to some suspension components. This year? Neither of those problems was mentioned at all – and I know I haven’t had any work done to sort them out!
It’s not just this test centre, either – the same was true when I was using the Kia dealership down in Milton Keynes, and I know was true with the Saab (an exhaust back box that was blowing one year and not the next, for example) and I thus assume for the Ford as well. (I didn’t really check/track then)
Obviously it’s meant more for looking at current serious faults that would make a vehicle dangerous – although in that case I don’t quite get why misaligned windscreen washers or headlights result in a failure rather than a “needs fixing” – but the lack of consistency on the historical ones just leaves me with a bit of a feeling of “This is all just subjective and/or guesswork, isn’t it?“
An Expensive Time
Posted: Tue 19 September, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Finances, KwikFit Leave a comment »This September-October period is always an expensive one for me.
The main thing is the car – because I got it in October , it means that this six weeks or so includes MoT (and any associated fixes), Service, Tax, and Insurance Renewal. This time it also included a visit to the local dealership to get the handbrake cables replaced (because KwikFit decided they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it, and some other load of old cock that they told me) as it wouldn’t have passed the MoT with them un-fixed.
The handbrake thing is one that’s been going on as long as I’ve had the car – every other MoT gets a warning about “handbrake too high” or “little reserve play/motion”, whoever’s fixing it does something, and it’s OK again – but it got a better-ish fix at KwikFit last year, and then got worse again recently. So far the newly-replaced cables seem to have sorted everything though.
Anyway, the MoT was yesterday, and it passed fine. It failed initially (but only for misaligned windscreen washer and misaligned headlights) but was then fine. Not bad for a car with 220,000 on the clock!
The insurance renewal was mentioned elsewhere, as it was farcical, but is now fine – and I’ve managed to keep it at the same level as what I was paying for the last year, so happy day.
Alongside that (because God Knows, I’m shit at planning) it’s also been time to sort out my tenancy renewal on the new place – which has involved a small-ish raise in rent, although not as much as initially suggested. And then I also ended up organising for a company to come and deal with the front garden and so on, because it’s a bombsite and needs dealing with (and I am emphatically not a gardener!)
So yeah, it’s all been a bit costly. Utterly doable though (which is lovely, and still a good thing compared to ten years ago) and at least I know it’s now all organised, so the rest of the year isn’t too bad at all. Thankfully!
Insurance Renewal Fuckery
Posted: Thu 14 September, 2023 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Legal Leave a comment »This being the time I bought the current car, it’s also time for that annual festival of fuckery – Insurance Renewal.
I knew that this year was likely to be a pain in the arse – there’s been plenty of coverage about how insurance premiums have gone up massively as part of “the cost of living” (which in the case of insurance etc. seems to me to be just rabid profiteering – I don’t see how inflation and food costs have a knock-on effect to the car insurance industry!) so I was expecting it to be stupid. I just wasn’t expecting quite how stupid.
So – I got my renewal letter through from my current insurers, and they’d managed to double my insurance. For no changes – the address change happened before last renewal and the car hasn’t changed (other than in losing value for having been driven another 25,000 miles) But no, somehow they feel they can justify doubling the price.
Well, frankly they can fuck off.
So off I went to that site with the meerkats (because it annoys me less than the one with the opera ‘singer’, or the one with the weirdly confusing existential ads that make no sense) and looked at what was available.
As it turns out, I got a deal with a different insurer for all the things I wanted, and paying the same as I have been this year. Which I reckon is a total win, all told. So far it’s been painless – I’ve cancelled the renewal on the current one (while laughing on the phone at them, because doubling the quote is just fucking ridiculous) and the new one is in place to start in early October.
But it does make me wonder about what the business model is for so many of these insurance places. I have to assume that there’s a huge number of people who just blindly accept the renewal cost without looking elsewhere (and if that’s the case then they bloody well deserve to be ripped off, in my opinion) but that’s pretty mind-boggling, given the prevalence of these comparison sites and so on now.
Pods
Posted: Sun 3 September, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 2 Comments »Ages back, while I was still in Tiny House, there was an offer going on for a particular brand of laundry pods – my usual brand of laundry detergent, but the pods instead of the liquid. I took advantage of the offer, but then didn’t use the pods until after I’d moved here.
So far they’ve been OK, but nothing special. Not massively impressed – to the point of “wouldn’t bother getting them again”. They’ve been doing the job, but… yeah, nothing epic.
Anyway, this week I saw an advert on TV for (a different type of) laundry pods, which showed people putting the pod in first and then covering it with the laundry to be washed.
“Oh!“, I thought. “I didn’t know that was how they’re supposed to be used“. (I’ve been putting them on the top of the laundry or in the middle, same as I did with the liquid dispenser)
So I looked at the instructions on the container of my ones, and yep, pod under the washing, and if it’s a large load or hard water (which my area is) then use two. Which is another “ooops”, as I’ve only been using one at a time. (Because you pretty much expect it to be in a “one pod per wash” set up – or at least I did!)
Yes, I should’ve read the instructions. But I’ve been doing laundry now for decades – and I’m a boy – so that wasn’t my first consideration. Ah well. Live and learn.
As a result, I’ll just have to see how they go when I’m now using them properly. Should be entertaining…
Cleaning Up
Posted: Sat 26 August, 2023 Filed under: Domestic 2 Comments »One of the best decisions I made when I moved to New Place (almost a year ago already!) was to take on a regular cleaning service for the house.
I’m not a horrible house-keeper in general – despite what a couple of now-exes said – but I also make no claims about being perfect. There are things I won’t notice or worry about until they get (by my standards) bad, but then I’d always handle them. But when I moved out of Tiny House, the moving of furniture etc. made me realise that there were things I hadn’t done at all (like moving the bed to get under it for cleaning purposes)
So with this one, I have a service that comes in once a month and does a general cleanup. It only needs an hour a month (and they keep on being surprised by this, that a man living on his own isn’t some kind of absolute sty-dweller) but it means everything’s being kept up to date. To me, that’s absolutely worth what I’m paying.
The only thing that annoys me though, is that, despite each person saying “Oh, I’m so OCD about cleaning” and so on, not one of them has been able to clean stuff and then put it back where it was. I suspect it’s a thing that’s meant to say “Yes, we’ve cleaned round this”, and that’s fine – I’m sure they have customers who need to see that sort of thing, otherwise they’ll feel the work hasn’t been done. Thankfully, I’m not that sort of customer.
So anyway, I understand the motivations, but it still grates a little. But still, having the service is worth those minor irritations.
Finance Trials – Follow Up
Posted: Tue 22 August, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances 3 Comments »Following on from my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman about [Company A]’s fuckery, I got a response this morning from them.
Well, I say a response. More of an acknowledgement. With this in it…
We try to resolve complaints as quickly as we can. But there’s currently a very high demand for our service – so it might take around four months before a case handler gets in touch with you and starts looking into your complaint.
(That’s their emphasis on the timescale, not mine)
So on current evidence I’ll be lucky to hear anything at all before 2024…
Laid Waste
Posted: Thu 17 August, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Green 4 Comments »One of the (admittedly silly) things I’m generally proud of is how comparatively little non-recyclable waste I generate here. When it comes to my bin-collection days, I’m usually quite surprised by how full the bins of my neighbours are in comparison.
Now admittedly the other households usually have more people in, and I take that into account – but all the same, those bins are filled to the brim most fortnights.
Mine seems to generally work out as one bag per fortnight, so I generally (unless it’s been stupidly warm, in which case I’d rather be rid) actually only put that bin out every other fortnight – and even then, it’s nowhere near full. I could probably get away with only putting it out every six weeks, to be honest.
On the other hand, I’d be considerably more stuffed if I forgot to put the recycling stuff out for collection. (I base that on knowledge, I messed up one day and missed it when the collection came far earlier than usual, and it was a pain in the bits to catch up!)
I know that, all things considered, it means precisely cock-all. But I’m still happy that I’m not landfilling much stuff at all. (Obviously most of my carbon footprint is taken up with idiot drives, rather than the waste I generate)
Finance Trials
Posted: Fri 11 August, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts 3 Comments »Over the last few months I’ve been intermittently fighting with two different finance companies about their shitty ways of handling things. I’m not going to name names (yet) so it’ll be “Company A” and “Company B”
Company A
The shorter of the disputes started back in June when I logged in to the app for their credit card, and discovered that my credit limit had dropped from around £6,000 to £1,000. With no notice or warning. Which is, it’s fair to say, a bit of a concern…
I rang them (I know, old school!) to find out what was going on, and was told “Oh, well you weren’t using your full credit limit, so we dropped it”. Which is, to be honest, well within their rights – I wasn’t using it, and *shrug*. But it’s still not right to do so without any notice or warning – if they’re increasing the limit they give you 30 days notice and allow you to decline the change, so why not do the same for a decrease?
I got the change rescinded, but made a complaint about how it had been done. There could’ve been any number of reason why I might’ve been relying on that card/limit that Company A were unaware of (if I’d been getting the car significantly repaired, as one example) and where a sudden drop would’ve landed me in the shit. (Fortunately that wasn’t the case – but they didn’t know that)
Alongside that, a drop in credit limit would almost certainly have a negative effect with the credit-scoring people – at a bare minimum it would have raised the Credit Utilisation percentage (the amount of your available credit that you’re actually using) But it also makes other lenders twitchy – that whole perception of “why would Company A drop the limit if they didn’t think there was a problem?” and so on, and would’ve lessened my credit score as a result.
I got the response from them last week that my complaint wasn’t being upheld “because we can’t find any errors in how we administered your account”. Which again is (kinda sorta) true/fair. Errors weren’t made in the decisions (although who ever heard of a credit card company decreasing a limit?!?) But errors were definitely made in how that decision was then actioned, which was the actual reason for the complaint.
So today that’s gone off to the Financial Ombudsman for them to have a look at.
Company B
Company B’s problem has been *far* more long-winded. Back in December I had fraudulent transactions made on the card, which got spotted and reported. No idea where that leak came from, as it wasn’t a card I used often, but there we go. Stuff happens.
When I next used the app, as a result of the fraud, I had a flag put on for “heightened security”. Just to check it was me, verify transactions etc. And then they sent me a new card (as expected)
Only somewhere in that process, things went tits-up. I went through the “heightened security” checks, validated myself, had to call them (I know, old school again!) and that should’ve been that. But instead, the app locked up, and stayed that way – every time I went through the process for registering the new card in the app, it froze on insisting I needed to give those checks again. I did that four times, with Company B saying each time that they couldn’t understand why it was still wanting those checks, I’d definitely already done them.
I *suspect* that what happened was a clash – the “heightened security” was on the old card, which then got cancelled, but somewhere in the depths of their system, it wasn’t cleared in my account. So when I registered new card, it was still checking back and seeing that flag from old card.
Anyway, complaints (yes, plural) were made – firstly because of how badly it was handled (they agreed, and I got their default compensation payment) and then because the problem was *still* ongoing three months later, I couldn’t log in to the app. That ended up going through their app support team, who might as well have been a black hole for all I heard from them. And so I gave up for a while, and left it. I wasn’t using the card, didn’t have any payments to make, so *shrug* what the hell. Their problem, not mine.
Last week I reinstalled the app again, just to see. It’d been six months, after all…
And lo, it finally worked. No-one from Company B had been in touch, despite those outstanding complaints and support issues, but at least it was working.
I got back in touch with Complaints because not being told was a bit shit, and they agreed. (In an hour-long phone call) It hadn’t been handled well, the support team were rotten, blah blah.
So I’ve had another default compensation payment out of them, and it’s now all done and dusted.
Conclusion
All told, life could be worse. I’m stupidly lucky to be in the position I’m in now, where neither of those issues has actually caused me any more inconvenience than yelling “Oh for fuck’s sake” on a regular basis.
But both of these companies are supposedly specialists in dealing with people with credit issues – as I was when I got them – yet haven’t seemed to have any real insight on how these issues could/would affect someone who truly was still having those issues, or anyone for whom life was a bit tight at present. (and god, who *isn’t* in that situation to some degree or other – even if it’s “just” being aware of how much prices have risen and so on?)
As such, I’ll be the person to use that fortune/luck and privilege to be able to have the time and energy to raise these complaints and hopefully make things better as a whole.
But really, neither of these things should ever have been as much of a problem as they turned out to be. And that’s what makes it all so frustrating.
Standing Still
Posted: Fri 4 August, 2023 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »This weekend, I’m actually doing as little as possible. It’s needed.
The last two weeks have been busy (pretty much through my own decisions) and have both involved driving about 800 miles.
Two weeks ago involved day trips to Oxford (my normal on-site day), Newcastle and Leeds, as well as a day at the cinema.
Last week was day trips to Oxford (again), Nottingham, and Somerset.
This week’s only had the Oxford trip, and the rest of it has been home-based, with getting a bundle of other stuff sorted instead – just without the travel. No bad thing.
It’s been fun, I’ve enjoyed it all, but… it’s going to be nice to be not doing that this week!
Subscriptions and Stupidity
Posted: Mon 26 June, 2023 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, I Don't Understand, People, Stupidity 3 Comments »Interesting to see that subscription things are now the latest target in the Government’s “How can we protect stupid people from being stupid?” process.
Now OK, some of the tactics used by subscription-model companies can be a pain – particularly the “sign up for a free trial and we’ll charge you after that” thing – but also (as that summary hints) they bloody well tell you what they’re going to do! I assume that people just get as far as “sign up for a free trial” and then stop reading/comprehending, but it really isn’t rocket science.
If you’re wanting to try it, then sign up for the free trial. But at the same time put a reminder in your phone for 25-ish days away that says “Cancel [x]”. Then when the phone says “Cancel [x]”, do so. Voila, no charge.
Yes, the model absolutely relies on people being stupid and not bothering to cancel the subscription. Similarly, most gym memberships expect/hope that the majority of people will sign up for the year and only use the place for two or three months. (although that one is a contract, so they can’t easily get out of it) But a subscription model paid month-to-month is an easy one to cancel – assuming even a vague level of competence, of course. The first time the payment comes out, if you don’t want it, it’s easy to go “Oh, fuck it. Forgot that – let’s cancel that now so I don’t have to pay again next month!” and just log in and get it cancelled.
Now OK, I accept that I’m probably not “normal” on this, but I keep a close eye on my money – I know when payments come out, I know what I’m expecting to pay, and I check my bank account every couple of days, minimum. I know where I stand on all of it on any given day. So it absolutely gobsmacks me to see things like this (from the story linked above) :
John, for example, told the BBC he had signed up to Amazon Prime video for a 30-day free period and forgot to cancel it when he had to start paying for it.
“I’m just gutted I spent £6.99 a month for 18 months for no reason”.
Now, I’d like to see Amazon’s side of that story, and see whether “John” actually watched Amazon video in that time, and/or whether he got Amazon deliveries in that time. It’s worth noting that Amazon is actually an oddity in this case, in that you pay for Prime delivery and get the video stuff as well – so if he’s paid for Prime to get things delivered next-day and made use of that then it’s not been a waste of money in the first place!
As for cancelling, John comes up with this gem…
“It was such a stressful ordeal and left me with a lot of anxiety. It ridiculous, these companies only care about the money not the person”.
I mean…. A) Welcome to Capitalism. And B) it’s a simple process. Yes, they’ll say “Are you sure? Here’s what you’ll lose out on” and so on, because they do want to keep your custom/money. Of course they do. But it’s not a challenging thing to just say “Yep, cancel it”. Certainly most (if not all) of the online companies make it easy – a couple of clicks and it’s done. Even the dating sites don’t make a big thing of the people leaving – they know they’ll have plenty of other people signing up or staying on.
All told, if someone says they’re short of money (“Cost of living crisis” etc. etc.) and yet still ‘not knowing’ that they’re paying out for subscriptions, then they’re not actually that short of money. (Or are congenitally and irredeemably stupid)
On the other hand, I can absolutely see that it would be good/ethical for a subscription service to send a check-up message if the person using it hasn’t accessed that service at all in (for example) six months, and have them opt back in (or at least say “Yes, I want to keep going with this”) at that point. And if they don’t respond, then their account gets deactivated. Among other things, that would be useful in scenarios where the person has died or become incapacitated, and reduces the whole nightmare of trying to unsubscribe someone from something where you don’t even know their username/password.
Discharged/Recharged
Posted: Thu 4 May, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving 2 Comments »When I was starting the car in York on Sunday to come home, it took a lot longer to get going than usual. Never a good sign.
I figured that it had already had 300 miles of motorway driving in the last 36 hours, so was either not charging properly or the battery was fucked. (Which I’ve experienced before) But then by the time I got home, I’d forgotten about it, and didn’t check things. (I blame the post-drive “stunned monkey” phase)
So yesterday when I was due to go off somewhere (thankfully nothing essential, nor involving anyone else) the sodding thing wouldn’t start. Battery flatter than a very very flat thing. Tits.
As it worked out, I tried some mobile places for battery replacements, and while most were less-than-useful (“Oh no, fully booked today and tomorrow!” and so on, and one that promised a callback within 30 minutes to arrange and then only called back an hour after that, once I’d sorted out the people who did turn up) I did manage to book one, and it all went smoothly. He turned up early (having called to check it was OK to do so) and checked the car’s diagnostics as well to make sure it wasn’t a problem with the alternator or anything. Then when we opened the bonnet it was obvious that the battery was utterly, utterly fucked. Corrosion on the terminals and so on, definitely knackered.
Anyway, long story short, it’s all been replaced and tested, and everything is happy and smiley once more.
I’m off to be on-site again tomorrow so it’ll get a good run as a test-bed for everything, but so long as it starts and continues to do so, I’ll be happy.
(I checked back on here, and it turns out that battery was installed in October 2017, so it’s had a good run!)
Ticketed – Cancelled
Posted: Wed 3 May, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, Parking 1 Comment »Just under six weeks ago now, I got a parking ticket in Milton Keynes, despite having paid for the necessary parking. Needless to say, I lodged my appeal about it when I got home, did all the online form-filling, added the receipt from the parking payment, provided a contact email address, job done.
And then silence.
I chased it up by email a couple of weeks ago. And then silence.
Now, I assumed that as I’d heard nothing (and no further bills had come to tell me I needed to pay it) that the appeal had worked, but I’d have expected some form of notification.
So yesterday I decided to make sure it was all sorted, this time by phone.
Only… There’s no phone number.
- Yes, there’s one on the page about parking tickets, but that turns out to be only for the licensing people.
- Then there’s the council switchboard, who give you a different number for the parking people.
- Then that department give you the actual number for the parking ticket people
- And finally, on the fourth call, I got to the right place, confirmed that the appeal had been processed and the ticket cancelled, and that they’d (allegedly) sent me a letter telling me that. (And fuck only knows why they pay to send a letter when I’ve given them an email address they could use for free!)
So at least it’s all sorted, and it hasn’t cost me anything. But still,
Attacked
Posted: Sat 22 April, 2023 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 2 Comments »Over the last week or so, D4D’s been getting attacked from Sources Unknown, which has made things into a real Pain In The Chuff.
More worryingly, it turned out that my hosting company haven’t been keeping decent backups, and managed to not notice a bundle of key files being changed (repeatedly) on the sites I have with them.
Now OK, I’d been slack, and had a lot of those domains all under one username/file-owner , which was lazy of me, and shouldn’t have been done. (On the other hand, having to remember a different username/password for each site/domain is… complicated, and leads to people writing down far more stuff than they should. Swings and roundabouts)
So there’ve been a number of remedies and updates I’ve been going through, but there were still facets that weren’t working – mainly because of those key files that got over-written, and that either weren’t backed up, or weren’t backed up regularly enough. (Needless to say, that’s now changed – I’ve got backups in various places, so it shouldn’t happen again)
It’s ended up with a scorched-earth strategy, where I’ve effectively changed everything that’s possible – new username/password, new file-owner name and password, new folder location, and then reinstalled everything in a completely fresh clean copy of WordPress, and only then updating the config file to use the same database as before. And even the database tables have had their references changed.
It’s now all back and operational, and there’s been a fair amount of learning/remembering along the way. But honestly, I’ll be very happy to not have to do that again for another decade or so!
Ticketed – Update
Posted: Mon 10 April, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Driving, Milton Keynes, Pedantry 3 Comments »Following on from the post a couple of weeks ago about getting a parking ticket and the poor wording on the back of it, I got a response from Milton Keynes Council…
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The wording on the back of the PCN was checked and this was an oversight on Milton Keynes City Council.
We have notified the Parking Contract Manager of this error and he has contacted the manager of the enforcement contractors, SABA to request this paragraph is amended as soon possible.
So somehow apparently no-one had noticed this error, and no-one else had written in to point it out. Which is kind of scary in and of itself…
Ticketed
Posted: Sat 25 March, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Milton Keynes, Pedantry, Stupidity Leave a comment »This morning, I got given a parking ticket – incorrectly, as it happens, and it’s already been challenged.
However, on reading the back of the ticket, I came across this gem
Click to embiggenify
For those who don’t want to enlarge the text, what it says is :
If the penalty charge is not paid [wordy guff] or has been successfully challenged, the Council may serve a Notice To Owner (NTO) on the owner of the vehicle requiring payment of the penalty charge.
Now, I know what they mean, but that’s not what they say. The implication here (as I read it) is “If you’ve successfully challenged the ticket, we can still come after you for the money“.
So, I’ve raised that as an issue as well, which should be interesting – or at least entertaining!
Slooooooow Processing
Posted: Mon 20 March, 2023 Filed under: BT, Business, Customer Services, Domestic Leave a comment »When I moved house back in October, one of the changes I made was to get rid of BT entirely. (That one decision has saved me about £50 a month!)
As part of that, they wanted me to send back the bits of BT kit that I had, which is fair enough. That was all sent mid-October using their own pre-paid envelopes, and I got a confirmation on 3rd November that everything had been received. So that was all fine.
However, on Friday I then got another message, this one confirming that I’d actually returned the stuff I’d been allocated – rather than, apparently, any other old random crap – and that they’d *now* recycle or dispose of it all.
So, five months to process the returns. That really does tell you everything you need to know about the efficiency of BT, doesn’t it?
The Naming Of Things
Posted: Mon 13 March, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »At the moment I’m decidedly amused by the way the UK government hasn’t even thought about the name of one of its controversial Bills, and how it gets reported and described.
So what we get now is news coverage saying “[politician] has condemned the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill“, which makes it sound like the Bill is illegal.
Comes to something when they can’t even get the name right, doesn’t it?
Credit Check
Posted: Fri 10 March, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Rebuilding Leave a comment »Since the bankruptcy, I’ve used a couple of free services – Credit Karma (which used to be Noddle) and ClearScore – to keep track of my credit score. It’s always been interesting, seeing what things affect the score and what doesn’t. (For example, moving dropped it by a good 150 points until I was verified on the new electoral roll and so on)
Part of those services is the alerting, that tells you when your record has been searched (either a soft-search or a hard-search, which have different effects on the record) which is also useful in helping to prevent scams – you’ll be told if someone has tried to create a new loan or bank account for you, for example. Obviously this is A Good Thing.
This week I got an alert from Credit Karma about a soft search of my record, which was a warning sign as I hadn’t done any credit searches or applications.
So I logged in to Credit Karma, checked the alerts and yes, there was a search there.
By Credit Karma.
So for some convoluted reason, they’d decided to alert me about the fact that they had themselves been doing a (fully expected) soft search.
Sometimes I just despair of these things…
Spring Incoming
Posted: Tue 28 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic 1 Comment »So here we are, the end of February.
The sun is now officially rising before 7am (and won’t go back to a later-than-7am rise until October 1st) and setting after 5:30pm. (By mid-March it’ll be setting after 6pm)
Daylight hours are currently at just under 11hours (10hrs 45 today) which is a huge improvement from the Solstice-low of 7hrs 50mins.
There’s still a way to go, obviously, but it’s beginning to feel like we’re over Winter again. Which is generally A Good Thing.
Devices
Posted: Sun 26 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Technology, Television Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks, I’ve managed to get through two TVs – which is annoying, but thankfully hasn’t been hideously expensive.
Back in Tiny House, my TV was comparatively tiny, I think a 24″ screen. It was fine for the space I was in, and lasted me well. However, in New Place, the living room is considerably larger, so the comparatively tiny screen was less than ideal – but still worked.
This all came up in conversation with friends, and one of them offered a larger screen for free – they were moving, merging houses and so on, and had an extra 43″ screen that otherwise would just be going spare (or going to the tip) so I was happy to take that one. It meant I didn’t have to get a new one, and it was also a case of being a bit greener, rather than just trashing things. I collected it about a month ago, and it’s been fine until this week.
For some reason, it’s ended up throwing a complete wobbly – something to do with the sensor/receiver for the remote control, from what I can tell – and became a nightmare to use. If the remote worked at all, it was as if it was the key was staying down and repeating the input continuously. And it was with two different remotes (the actual TV remote, and the Sky remote that was also able to operate the TV) which is what makes me think it was the sensor/receiver. Regardless though, it made the entire thing into an absolute pain in the chuff, and even a hard reset didn’t fix things.
So… despite all my good intentions, I ended up ordering a new screen, the same size as the one I’d been given. (As I know it at least fits/works in the new living room) It got ordered on Friday and delivered on Sunday, which is pretty good – particularly as I was out for most of Saturday anyway – and it’s all now installed and set up, so I’m happy.
Obviously I’d rather that things had worked out better for that middle screen, but at the same time it’s been moved at least two (and probably three) times, so it’s at least vaguely understandable. Anyway, they’ll go to the tip tomorrow, in order to be as recyclable as possible, and all that jazz.
Spare Space
Posted: Thu 16 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »One of the reasons for my move last year was to have a bigger house, with space to have a home-office and so on, rather than Tiny House and also renting an office in Milton Keynes.
It is lovely to have a larger house, to have space for bookcases (and to have all my books out of boxes for the first time in Far Too Long) and to have that home office and so on.
However… I find that most of the time I’m still in “Tiny House” mode mentally, in that I don’t actually use that home office. It’s there, and I know it’s there, it’s just that I forget when it comes to actually working, so a lot of that is still done down in the living room instead. Additionally, I don’t yet really sit in the other part (that was the ‘dining room’, and is now ‘book room’) as a matter of course. I’ve used it a couple of times – and suspect I’ll use it more in spring/summer with some natural light coming through.
Both rooms are fine, and fit for their intended purposes. I just… don’t use them properly. Yet.
Maybe I’m expecting too much of myself. It’s not even six months that I’ve been in this place yet, and I was in Tiny House for over a decade, so in some ways it’s not surprising that I haven’t really made the mental switch yet.
I will do. I’ll get back into the mindset, I’m sure, and I’ll make use of the rooms the way I meant to. It’s just taking me longer than I thought it would.
ColdFree
Posted: Tue 14 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »Following on from last weeks “Bleurgh” post about having a cold, I’m happy to say that it’s now faded off, as expected.
It’s been pretty manky along the way, and I had a couple of days of being deeply under-the-weather, but it’s all eased off again.
Happy day.
Cold
Posted: Thu 9 February, 2023 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Health 2 Comments »I’ve not been feeling up to writing much recently. Primarily it’s down to my usual combination of keeping myself busy, a lack of impetus, and keeping on thinking “You know, I really should write something”. However, this week that’s also been tempered by the addition of a large and rotten cold. (And yes, it’s just a cold – nothing flu-based or Coviddy, thankfully)
I don’t get them that often, and bloody hate it when I do have one. For whatever reason, I just end up with a streaming nose, and currently look like Rudolph.
It started on Saturday, and has got steadily heavier through to today, so hopefully it’ll now start to ease off a bit before the weekend!
All fun and games. And snot, of course. Lots and lots of that.
*Sigh*
Christmas Debts
Posted: Tue 17 January, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Finances, I Don't Understand, People, Rebuilding Leave a comment »This week, the BBC has had a couple of pieces about Christmas Debt – the people who’ve overspent, or put Christmas purchasing entirely on credit cards etc., and now don’t know how it’ll be paid off.
According to that piece, in a poll of people who used credit to help get through Christmas and the holiday season, a third of them said they were not confident about their ability to repay what they’d borrowed. And that’s pretty scary.
You can open up the Excel Spreadsheet from that survey here : The BBC News Cost of Living Survey, Jan 2023. (It’s not mine, I got it from a link in that feature about Cost of Living and so on, but it’s a useful reference point)
Now I’ll admit that I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for people who overspend and/or borrow in order to “have a good Christmas”, but equally I do understand that lots of people feel pressure to do that, to make everything “ideal and perfect and shiny and happy” despite whatever is going on under the surface, and to hell with the cost. I understand that even more when they have children, and the thought of a bleak Christmas can be too much to handle. (Although it’s entirely beyond me why it’s too much to handle a bleak festival of gifts but OK-ish to have a bleak year as a result of paying off those presents)
But all the same, I don’t quite get that whole thing of “We’re going to buy these things even though we’ve no idea how we’ll actually pay them off“. Even in my own worst times, I wasn’t in that situation – when I bought stuff, I knew how I’d pay things off, and what I was committing to, and I was managing that as best I could until the time when I couldn’t.
It’s a terrifying situation to be in, to see those bills coming in and knowing that they can’t be paid. (Although, as always, it’s better to talk to the lenders and explain the situation, rather than hiding or running away) My own debts were the result of furnishing houses, rather than buying the latest/greatest gadgets, or just “whatever was cool” – I imagine it’s even worse when you’ve actually not even got anything to show for it other than the ephemeral “but everyone had a good Christmas”.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, really. Life’s expensive and complex enough for everyone at the moment, and we all know it – so I just don’t quite get why some people are so willingly throwing themselves even further into the shit for no really good reason.
Romance Fraud
Posted: Tue 10 January, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, I Don't Understand, People, Stupidity, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »In the new house I’m working from home a lot more, which has also led to me having slightly more TV on during the daytime. (I know, I know)
One of the things I had the misfortune to catch this week was BBC’s “For Love or Money” (that link takes you to the iPlayer page for it) about people falling for “romance fraud” – basically, fraudsters getting contact with lonely people who respond, form online ‘relationships’, and end up sending money to these “partners” for all manner of outlandish reasons.
Actually, it’s not fair to say “misfortune” – I guess that morning daytime TV is a good place for this, as the main demographic for seeing it and going “Oh shit, that’s what I’ve been doing” are likely to have it on. So it’s probably useful and good on that score.
In some ways I have sympathy for the people who fall for this shit – the main group seem to be older people who’ve usually lost a long-term spouse, and suddenly find themselves alone for the first time in decades, are lonely, and will grip onto anything that makes them feel less lonely. I do understand (kinda/sorta) that side at least.
But at the same time, Jesus Fuck, these people are bloody stupid. I don’t understand how they can class the communication as a relationship, or being “in love” with someone they’ve never met. And I really don’t understand the whole thing of giving money to someone they’ve never met. I know it’s a psychological thing, that the scam starts (comparatively) small and then people keep on paying out because they don’t want to be proved to have been scammed/stupid – which boggles my mind in all kinds of different ways – “I don’t want to be seen as stupid for sending them £200, so I’ll send £2,000 to end up proving I was right” What?!?
Even more mind-boggling are the ones who get into this trap with one “person” , realise they’ve been scammed, and then get caught again in the same situation. And (in my opinion, blah blah) those particular people are too stupid for words. And then they say *on the programme* “Oh, you must think I’m really stupid” and the presenters say “No, no, you’ve done nothing wrong“. And I don’t feel that’s right – they didn’t do anything wrong initially, but if they carry on (and particularly if they fall for the same thing twice) then the presenter should be allowed to say “Yes, you are. What kind of fucking idiot gives money to someone they’ve never even met?!?“. Shock them into realising how bloody stupid they’ve been, and it just might have a lasting effect.
I don’t know the answer – there’ll always be stupid people in these kind of horrible situations. But it seems to me like the basic thought process of “I don’t know this person, we’ve talked but I’ve never met them, yet they’re asking me for money – why?” shouldn’t really be that difficult, should it?
Working It Out
Posted: Mon 9 January, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Health, Travel Leave a comment »Over the last five years I’ve been involved with a fitness group in Bedford that was set up for overweight men over 40. We started as part of a larger organisation that did three months of longer sessions including an hour of information about nutrition, portion sizes etc., and an hour of physical exercise routines. It was a fairly decent programme, and certainly helped some of the group with losing weight.
Once that first course was over, the organisation lost the contract they had with the local authorities, so it all collapsed a bit. However, we worked with the trainer who did the exercise side, found a village hall in Bedford that could/would take us, and spawned off into our own group – and then two other related ones in other nearby locations where that organisation had also held courses.
The trainer turned out to be fairly disorganised and flaky, but it gave us a good grounding in what we wanted, and we ended up with a decent group that worked fairly well and met twice a week for an hour’s workout session. Not really enough to enforce weight loss, but also far better than nothing.
Just under three years ago the trainer buggered off to an overseas posting, and our group was the only one that had anyone daft enough to step up and keep it going, organising the sessions and workouts, as well as paying for the centre we used and so on. The trainer came back to take it all back, but proved to be even flakier, and quit completely about eighteen months ago.
So at that point I took it over completely. I sorted out insurance, organised workouts, and sorted out stuff that had always been promised previously but had never appeared. I’ve kept it going since then, and it’s been fairly successful, keeping about 80% of the initial members.
When I moved, it was just coming up to the end of the current quarter’s sessions, but without enough time to hand it over cleanly to someone else – so I made the decision that I’d be the one to keep it running ’til the end of 2022. It’s added a lot of mileage over the last three months, and been a bit of a bind, but in general it’s been worth the effort.
Now, though, I’m done. Things didn’t work out perfectly on timing, so last week was my final session – and today is the first time since moving here that I’m not now belting down the M1 to do the group and then come home. And that’s a very odd feeling after so long (both there and here) but also quite a nice one.
I’m honestly not sure if the group will continue now I’m done with it. The other members have said they want to do it, but no-one’s been prepared to take on the whole thing so it’s now being “run” by three of them (which amuses me quite a bit, having done the entire thing on my own as well as that extra dollop of mileage in the last three months) and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve been able to hand it over as ethically as possible – they’ve got a whole load of prepared workouts and so on, so it should actually be easy to run, but… I don’t know. I hope it does, but I’m not holding out much hope.
But anyway, I’m going to be sitting here doing my own thing on a Monday evening for the first time in far too long, and I’m pretty happy about that.
Home-Made
Posted: Fri 6 January, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »When I moved, I decided that I was going to be doing a lot more of my meals from scratch, and I’m happy to say that so far it’s been a pretty successful change.
At the old place I fully acknowledge that I’d got lazy – not crap food as such, but more of the prepared ranges (still with fresh ingredients etc., but packaged and just shoved in the oven for 20-30 mins) alongside steamed veg and so on. So not particularly unhealthy, but also… not exceptionally healthy.
I have an odd relationship with food at the best of times, to be honest. While I can be a foodie when going out (Michelin restaurants etc., although obviously that’s not every time I go out either) when it comes to my own meals I.. really can’t be arsed a lot of the time. I don’t go for fancy stuff that requires recipes and effort, because by about halfway through I’m just bored with it, and by the time it’s done I don’t even want to look at it.
Alongside that, food really isn’t a major driver for me – I’ve had to build a kind of routine around times to eat otherwise I can easily go through an entire day and only think at the end “oh yeah, I haven’t eaten yet”. It’s not a fixed framework, not like “eat breakfast at 7am, lunch at 12, dinner at 6 and throw a strop if that schedule is disrupted at all“, but it’s more about general “Have something in the morning, somewhere roughly lunchtimeish, and something in the evening” reminders.
As a result of those, the easy stuff became the norm, stuff I don’t really need to think about or make an effort with.
But when I moved I wanted to change that a bit, make use of the kitchen gear I’ve got (and the space I’ve now got where I can use it!) and cook more from fresh, see how I do. It’s all more along the “make several portions at once” plans like soups, slow-cooker stuff and so on, but so far it’s been successful and I’ve been enjoying it.
I can’t claim perfection – there are still days where “beans on toast” or “a sandwich” is perfectly acceptable, for example – but it also helps to have made enough [whatever] for three or four portions, so it’s easy to just grab and eat when I want to. (Another side of that weird food relationship – I don’t really care about what I’m having, so I can have the same thing for three or four days on the trot and that’s fine)
I might slip back to “easy” over time, but I’m hoping I won’t – because at least with the current stuff I know what’s gone into it all, and that can’t be a bad thing.
As with all things, we’ll see how it goes. But it’s been three months already, so it seems to be fixing itself in my head quite nicely.
A Lack of Life
Posted: Wed 4 January, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Weirdness 2 Comments »When I moved here, there were two horrible globes of fake-box hanging outside the front window. (Just…. don’t ask. I don’t know.)
I replaced them with two bird feeders, because… well, it’s nice/good to feed birds.
Only it turns out that this area is weird – there seem to be absolutely no small birds in the vicinity at all. Yes, we’ve got pigeons, crows, and magpies. Occasionally starlings. But nothing else, no robins, sparrows, blackbirds, tits (ho ho) or anything. It’s very strange.
I’m leaving the feeders out for the moment, but now I’m aware of this weirdness I notice it even more, and I’ve been looking out more to see if I see anything.
As yet, nope.
I’ve no idea why this might be – the area isn’t chock-full of cats or anything. It just… doesn’t seem to have any birds.
Bureaucratised
Posted: Mon 2 January, 2023 Filed under: Accounting, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 4 Comments »One of the things that always surprises me when it comes to dealing with my accountants is how gob-smackingly disorganised a lot of their clients must be. They send out reminders through the year for people to get their receipts in order, to make sure they match what’s in the online portal, and keep on saying about when the deadlines are, when everything has to be ready by.
Personally, I hate being like that – all the stuff I can do for my accounts for last year is already done. My receipts are scanned and linked, my bank statements and transactions files are all completed, all the expenses and so on are logged, it’s basically done. When my accountant sends out their request for everything, I can supply it all by return of email.
It’s still a frustrating experience, though. They’re really geared towards the late submitters, the last minute merchants – so even though I submit rapidly, I still have to wait ’til the processes are done and so on, and that seems to be reliant on the disorganised ones.
I’ve said repeatedly to the accountants that they should have a team that specifically deals with “easy” clients, the ones who are organised and who just get stuff done. Nothing in my accounts is complex – I already know what my 2022 Corporation Tax will be, because the prediction on the online portal is (for me) rarely out by more than a couple of quid. So sorting out clients like me should be at most a week’s work, just get the files in, agree them with what’s been submitted, calculate the figures, and job done. It really can’t be difficult.
But while they always say “Oh yeah, we could do that“, they never do. So I’ve done what I can, and I’ll just wait for the accountants to catch up. It’s deeply fucking annoying, but at least I know I’m on top of things and have done what I can.
2023, We’ll See
Posted: Sun 1 January, 2023 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 1 Comment »And lo, a new year has happened.
No idea what it’ll bring. For the most part it’ll be interesting to find out.
I don’t make resolutions or whatever. We’ll just see what happens.
I would like to write more here. It’s a habit I’ve got out of, and one I at least have the best intentions of getting back into. Mind you, I said that last year. And the year before.
We’ll see.
2022, Off You Fuck
Posted: Sat 31 December, 2022 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 1 Comment »The end of another year. And what can I say? It’s been… yeah, it’s been.
For me, purely personally, it’s been OK. I’ve moved location, (mainly) settled in, and organised a bundle of stuff – both getting new things I needed, and getting rid of stuff I didn’t.
As a country, it’s been shit. We’re seeing strikes, discontent, and the culmination of a generation of politically inept kleptocrats. But I don’t need to tell anybody that – we’re all living through it already.
Hopefully 2023 will contain some improvements – or at a bare minimum just be slightly less crap than 2022 has been.
It’s fair to say, though, that 2022 really won’t be missed.
Over and Done With
Posted: Wed 28 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »And here we are, through the perils of another Festering Season, and wondering what’s next.
Yes, if you’re feeling particularly pedantic, New Year is next.
Anyway, it’ll be fun finding out. Onwards and upwards, or whatever.
Tipped
Posted: Fri 23 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green 3 Comments »Earlier this week I finally took my (currently) last load of cardboard to the local recycling facility. (Or “tip” as it used to be known) It was, I think, the last stage of the whole moving process, although I’ve kept the cardboard moving boxes just in case.
All told it’s been four carloads, and I’ve spread that over a few weeks (mainly through my own idleness and disorganisation, admittedly) so it’s taken time, but it’s been good and pain-free, which is what matters. One thing you can say for Ikea – fucking hell they use a lot of cardboard! The packaging for three bookcases, a bed, a wardrobe, two chairs and a sofa takes up a fair amount of space.
Thankfully I’ve had the garage to hold the cardboard in the meantime, rather than it clogging up the house – although that also contributes to why it took longer to get done, as it was a case of “out of sight, out of mind”.
Anyway, I’m happy that the jobs are done. It’s a good feeling.
Shortest
Posted: Wed 21 December, 2022 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, SAD Leave a comment »In happier news, today is the Winter Solstice (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) so it’s the shortest day. This year that shortest day is 7 hours 49 minutes and 49 seconds.
The changes are (as always) tiny for a while, but it’s at least good to know that we’re done with the shortest one and that we’re heading back towards the time of sunlight…
Coming To A Close
Posted: Sun 18 December, 2022 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Media, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Thankfully, we’ve come to the end of a number of things this weekend, and I couldn’t be happier.
- The Kickyball World Cup has finally fucked off. I don’t care a jot about the entire thing, and I’m just glad that we won’t have to hear about it all the sodding time.
- Strictly Come Dancing has finally fucked off. I don’t care a jot about the entire thing, and I’m just glad that we won’t have to hear about it all the time.
- The Festering Season has nearly fucked off. By now you can guess the rest of my sentiment on that score.
This time next week we’ll be done with the Festering Season too, and some form of sanity will return for a few months.
Oh, and also it’s going to be a bit warmer in the coming week. Which is nice.
200,000
Posted: Sat 10 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Driving 1 Comment »Yesterday, the car finally achieved it’s 200,000 milestone.
I was travelling at the time so couldn’t capture it on the exact mileage, but just for posterity’s sake, this’ll do…
I can’t deny, I’ve been impressed with the tenacity of this car. My previous two have both died off at around the 175,000 mark, but this one is (so far, etc. etc.) still trolling along. Still on its original clutch and so on too – indeed, there really hasn’t needed to be a whole load of work done on it at any point so far.
Let’s hope that continues to be the case.
Handbrake – Additional
Posted: Thu 1 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »Today I found out something else related to the work on the car’s hand brake last week – whatever was jammed/stuck was also obviously making some noise during the ordinary running of the car.
Driving the motorway route to be on-site today with my primary client, the car was even quieter than usual, and the only change is that work that’s been done.
For a diesel engine with almost 200,000 on the clock, twotting along at *cough* 70mph, it’s now spookily quiet inside…
Handbrake
Posted: Sun 27 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, KwikFit 1 Comment »When the car got its MOT recently, one of the upcoming issues was that the handbrake was set too high, and not being particularly effective. Not awful, not dangerous, but not great.
In fairness, it’s been similar since I got it. Every year at Service/MOT time the Kia place I used would fuck around with it a bit, but it was always high, and I just figured that’s how it was for that car. It’s never slipped or caused issues, so *shrug* what the hell, it’s fine.
Anyway, last week it stopped being fine. It was still working, but once released the handle would “bounce” back up enough to trigger the “brake still on” idiot light on the dashboard, and was showing all the signs that it now needed replacing. Like, soon.
So anyway, I rang up the KwikFit where I got it serviced and MOTd this time, booked it in (for yesterday) for the work, and that’s all fine. These things happen.
Once they’d looked at it, it turned out that it wasn’t ready to break (pardon the pun) but there was something in the run of the handbrake cable that had jammed, which they released and checked the entire thing (including a re-check of handbrake efficiency) and all sorted. Additionally, it now doesn’t need to be set as high when engaging it. (I assume because I’m not fighting against whatever the jammed piece was doing)
And the price for this? Absolutely nothing. I tried to pay, I wanted to – even if there weren’t any replacement parts, they’d spent workshop time on investigating, sorting, and re-testing – but nope, they insisted it was fine. OK, then – but they’re definitely getting any return business from me.
Health Check
Posted: Tue 22 November, 2022 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »I usually try to get a fairly regular health check every couple of years with my GP, just to keep an eye on things (and with particular awareness of the family history with a whole horde of fun conditions) However, what with Covid, lockdowns and life in general, it hadn’t happened since 2018. I was just about due for the 2020 one when all hell broke loose, and my GP refused to do anything except urgent on-the-day appointments which I try to not take up (none of what I’m doing is urgent, and there’s plenty of people with more urgent concerns than me getting a bloody health check!)
So anyway, when I moved I registered with a new GP, got a message a couple of weeks ago that I was due for a health check, and booked it in.
That day was today. And I’m pleased to say that it all went well. They took bloods for further analysis (nothing to worry about, all part of the process) but the highlights so far are :
- Blood pressure of 140/70. Absolutely fine and within NHS acceptable levels.
- Pulse – about 70. Not ideal, but nowhere near awful.
- BMI / Weight – too high, but that’s nothing unusual. They’re both absolutely normal for me, so I’m not going to worry too much. As always, I’d like to lose some, but nothing so far has really worked, so 2023 is going to involve some other stuff.
- Cardiovascular Risk – so far (and this one is also connected with those blood tests, so it may change) my results indicate I’m at something like a 5% risk of having a heart attack in the next decade.
I’m also booked to get further blood taken in a couple of weeks in order for proper checks of some of those family-history points.
I’ll also get a call in a couple of weeks to go over the results properly, but for now I’m happy with these data points, and happy to have been able to get it all done again with a bare minimum of hassle and inconvenience.
UPS – Utterly Pathetic Service
Posted: Fri 18 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »Ages back, I ordered a cool thing from the US. I knew it would take some time (it was backed through Indiegogo) so that wasn’t a worry.
About six weeks ago, I got notification that it was finally pretty much ready for sending out. I made sure they had my new address and so on, and was told when it had been sent out, although they didn’t let me have a tracking number, which was a problem.
Sadly, it was sent by UPS. Who are, in my experience, utterly fucking useless at least 90% of the time. And this was no different to usual.
Because it was coming in from the US (and emphatically Not Cheap) I knew it would get held up at Customs etc., and that was expected and fine. (Well, not fine, but… just the way it is)
What was not expected was that UPS would take three weeks (Three. Fucking. Weeks!) to send me the invoice for the VAT that was due to be paid. With no notifications, not even a “we tried to deliver, please contact us” card. Maybe I’m meant to be telepathic and to Just Know when things are wrong/waiting.
Allegedly they tried to deliver the parcel (which is a noteworthy achievement, considering it was being held by Customs/UK Border Force until the VAT was paid) but considering I was working from home and no card was left etc. (and the delivery man agreed that he hadn’t been here before, when it finally did arrive) so we know that as well as being fucking incompetent, they’re also useless bastard liars.
Anyway, it all got sorted out in the end – although not with any help at all from UPS, despite contacts from both the sender and myself to ask what the hell was going on, and why they were being so useless. All those messages went into a black hole of incompetence, never to be responded to again.
Thankfully though, despite the length of time it took to get the invoice, I did finally get the thing this week, and I’m pleased with it.
But again, dealing with UPS has been an absolute ball-ache. And now, because it’s finally been delivered, any customer service effort ends at “But you’ve received your package, so everything’s OK”. Ignoring completely the fact that it eventually took more than a month from being despatched to being delivered. Apparently that’s fine, and I should probably just be happy that it finally arrived. Nothing else matters.
So, in conclusion, yet again UPS are shite, and I wouldn’t ever give them money for anything.
Energy Bill Saving – A Followup
Posted: Sun 13 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Utilities Leave a comment »I forgot to update about this! If you’re still reading this rubbish, you’ll know that back in June eonNext Energy tried to bill me for energy used before I left them fifteen months prior. That ended up not working well for them (due to an awareness of OfGem’s rules about back-billing) and they soon effed off.
Anyway.
At the start of October (see, told you I’d forgotten to write about it!) I got a letter – thankfully I’m still old-fashioned enough to make use of Royal Mail Redirection, even though most of what I get in the post is absolute shite – from eonNext. Including a cheque as an apology for their abysmal customer service.
Anyway, yes, the cheque got paid in straight away, and all is good. It just amused me that eonNext took three months to even process an apology…
Fifty-Flippin’-One
Posted: Sat 5 November, 2022 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »Yep, birthday post again.
Fifty-flippin’-one.
Just About Sorted
Posted: Tue 18 October, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised Leave a comment »The new house is, I’m please to say, now pretty much sorted. It feels like it’s taken a long time to do – and a lot of stuff has needed to be sorted – so I also have to keep reminding myself that I actually only moved in a month ago.
In that time I’ve had to buy and build two bookcases as well as a new bed, wardrobe, desk, and office chair – oh, and a new hoover, as the previous one packed up. There’s a new sofa and chairs coming tomorrow, as well as a third bookcase – and getting that delivered and build will then allow me to unpack two of the last three boxes remaining.
Along the way there’s also been other stuff – car MOT etc., tip runs, and doing a bundle of other stuff as well. It’s been… busy, to say the least.
I’m feeling fairly settled now, although I’m still looking forward to getting rid of the final boxes. I know there’s another tip run in the offing (another load of Ikea Cardboard!) and a “bulky waste” collection has been organised for the old sofa and chairs once the new ones are sorted out. Once those things are done, it should be all but sorted.
Because of all this, my motivation levels have plummeted at the moment – I think/hope that it’s just the amount of energy that’s been being expended on sorting stuff out, not just of my domestic stuff but also work, and dealing with the ineptitude of organisations galore along the way.
It’s been busy, and I’m hoping that the next few weeks will be quieter/easier, allowing me to get on with things again.
But all told, it’s pretty positive, and I’m definitely happier with the new place than I was with the previous one.
Yet another MoT
Posted: Wed 5 October, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, MK Kia, Thoughts Leave a comment »This week the car’s been in for its MoT test – it’s October, so it’s been time to renew Insurance, pay Road Tax, and sort the MoT. For the first time with this car, I didn’t bother using the proper dealership (the car’s on 200,000 miles, and I no longer give a sod about service histories and so on) alongside which, the dealership I was using were… less than professional on a number of occasions, so I wanted to try something else and see what they had to say.
I chose (on the basis of other positive experiences) to use KwikFit , albeit a branch/location I hadn’t used before. I booked a service at the same time, just to get everything done in one go.
As it turned out, it did fail the first MoT, and needed a couple of things doing. Which was fine, KwikFit sorted everything on the same day – although obviously it made it a long day all told – along with recommendations of what I need to do (in their words) “sometime in the next year”, which I’ll get sorted at some point soon.
But all told, that little Kia has done pretty well – I’ve put about 130,000 miles on it since I got it in 2016 (just under 22,000 miles a year on average!) and it’s still really running fine. (Mind you, I’ve been very clear to it on what will happen when it becomes unreliable, so no-one’s under any illusions) That was definitely a good buy.
Online
Posted: Mon 3 October, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Happily, I’m now back to being connected to t’internet at the new house. It’s taken far longer than I’d have liked, and been expensive on mobile data – turns out, I use a lot more than I thought I did.
Even so, I’ve mitigated the mobile data use as much as possible, and I’m also making changes for the future, but yeah, not been cheap. Although the reality-check it provided has also proved useful, and will not be wasted.
It’s still going to be interesting though. I’ve stepped back from the “as much bandwidth as possible” option that was costing me a lot and was almost certainly not being used as much as it could/should have been. I’m looking forward to seeing whether I do notice the difference in the “downgrade” (honestly, I doubt I will) and of course I can always boost it up a level if I decide I need to.
But yes, anyway, back to a level of civilisation and connectivity. I’ve been OK with the mobile data, but it’s nice to be back to normality…
Offline (Kinda Sorta Ish)
Posted: Fri 16 September, 2022 Filed under: Business, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »So – I knew everything had gone too smoothly. Turns out my Sky internet connection won’t be activated for three [insert snarly sweary words here] weeks.
Now, before I go on, I have to emphasise – at least half of this is my fault. I didn’t read the “What’s Next” email completely, just looked at when the engineer would be out to fit the Sky stuff. I absolutely accept that I should’ve read it all through properly. But I didn’t.
On the other side of that, even the engineer didn’t see the information until I showed him where it was in the email – it is not evident that This Is Important – and also they didn’t send through any confirmation text messages which would’ve also made things clear.
Anyway, despite the new place already having in all the infrastructure necessary (access point, cabling etc.) it turns out that OpenReach “need to check everything” before they can allow the connection to be made. And that takes time, because OpenReach are a) a monopoly and b) fucking useless. I have to stay in on the day of the ‘installation’, even though they admit themselves that it is usually done remotely, and they won’t even book an appointment slot – I have to be inconvenienced all fucking day just in case there’s a problem. You can imagine exactly how impressed I am about that one!
As it is, I’m lucky. I’ve got a mobile-internet device (which is what I’m using now) so I’m not completely offline. I’ve also managed to sort out a desk at a local new co-working space for the month, so that I can carry things on without being too inconvenienced. It’s an absolute pain in the arse, and I’m really annoyed by it all (at least partly because I didn’t read that sodding email and try to push for an earlier connection) But it could’ve been so much worse.
As it is, I’ve got the SkyTV installed, set up, and pretty much sorted, I’ll have three or four weeks in which to learn more about the town’s facilities and centre, and… yeah, it could be worse. Plan C would’ve involved continuing to use my current office in Milton Keynes, and just swallowing that mileage for the month. Which would’ve been even more annoying!
Moved
Posted: Thu 15 September, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 1 Comment »So, it’s finally happened – and all went really smoothly in the end.
I’m still not a fan of having a removals company doing the packing/driving/delivery – I don’t like telling people what to do, and feel uncomfortable just directing things to where they should be. But the guys on the day made everything easy and efficient. They turned up on time at 9am, and everything was loaded into their van by 10:15. They had a break and then drove up to the new house, whereas I just drove up, they arrived by 11:30/11:45, and it was again all unloaded and sorted by 13:30.
Obviously there’s now a lot of unpacking and organisation to do (as well as construction of things like wardrobe, bookcases, and office desk/chair) before I feel properly sorted, but it’s all gone well so far.
Today I’ve been out and on-site, so not much happened.
Tomorrow I get broadband and Sky installed, and various odds and sods will be delivered through the day.
Mostly though, I’m just happy that the move itself went OK, and that it’s all looking positive so far!
Limbo
Posted: Sun 4 September, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised 1 Comment »At the moment I’m in the midst of the part of the moving process that I hate the most – stasis. It drives me crackers.
For now, I’ve done everything I can. 85-90% of the house is packed up (probably more, thinking about it) other than stuff I use most days.
I’ve done all the financial bits – the deposit, the first month’s rent and so on – but still don’t have the keys (I collect those tomorrow) so until then I’m not entirely convinced it’ll happen. I know, it’s ridiculous, but until those keys are in my hand it doesn’t feel like it’s real.
Once I’ve got them then it’ll be full-speed ahead. (Although again, that’ll still involve some waiting) I can get utilities here cancelled, and others set up for the new place.And, of course, ordering some stuff I need (furniture and the like) to be delivered to the new place.
I’ve already got a moving date in place, and I need to do some admin around that, but it’ll be fine. Then it’ll be about making sure I get the current place cleaned up (which is also already booked in) and be done and out by the end of September.
But for now, it’s all in limbo, all on hold, and it’s idiotically frustrating. I just want to get on with it now.
Autumnal
Posted: Thu 1 September, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »So, welcome to Meteorological Autumn.
How time flies when you’re having fun, eh?
Inconvenient Obsolescene
Posted: Tue 30 August, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »On Friday, I started off a load of washing, same as I’ve done countless times before. Only this time, it started making some seriously bad noises mid-cycle – similar to what you’d expect from putting in just a pair of steel toe-capped boots and letting them bounce around inside the machine. (I’ve heard the noise a pair of trainers makes in this sort of situation, and it was worse than that, hence the “boots” analogy)
Once everything had finished, I checked it all out – the clothes hadn’t been properly cleaned, and the drum itself was making Very Bad Noises when rotated. Yes, it was entirely and comprehensively stuffed. Bugger.
Mind you, I can’t complain. It’s lasted me nearly 14 years, and done… 4 moves, I think. All told, it’s generally been excellent all the way through (And weirdly, it looks like the last one died in much the same way as this one) with the exception of the fact that when it kicked off at top-speed spin in this house, it would trip the fuse board. Turn it down by 200rpm and everything was fine from then on.
Anyway, it’s a bit inconvenient – I could’ve done without forking out for a new machine just when I’m about to move, but there we go, that’s Sod’s Law for you. But it’s still been fine. I ordered a replacement on Friday evening, to be delivered today (I could’ve had it quicker, but the delivery charge was ridiculous, so sod that, it’s only a couple of days)
It arrived this afternoon, in the planned delivery slot. The two guys came in, disconnected the old one, took that out, brought the new one in, connected it and tested it, all in far less than half an hour. And I know, it’s their job, they should be good at it – but it was nice, because they were good at it. Entirely pleasant, just got on with the job and did it.
And now it’s done its first full load, which has all gone through perfectly. And it is *so* bloody quiet (and energy efficient – an A rating these days makes for a really impressive bit of kit!) that I even had to nip out and check it was running, even the energy monitor I have wasn’t showing anywhere near the load of the old one. (And it turns out that ‘it’s so quiet I had to check it was working’ is also something I wrote about last time!)
If it lasts me as well as the one that’s just died did, I’ll be thoroughly happy with that.
Relocating
Posted: Wed 24 August, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, M1, Thoughts 1 Comment »A while back I said about moving, and that I’d explain more about it – and then of course didn’t get round to it ’til now.
Basically, the current house is tiny – four rooms, and an outbuilding for utilities stuff. It’s suited me fine for a long time – far longer than I ever expected it to, to be honest.
But over the Pandemic (and I know it’s not over, but we’re in the “living with it” stage now) I realised that without my rented office, this place was just too small. If the lockdown had been tight, it would’ve driven me mad. (I could justify using the office I rent, as it was just me driving to an office that contained just me, in a building that was closed to the public. But still.)
Alongside that, I’ve just got more and more tired of the limitations and hassles of living in this area. I’m tired of listening to my newest neighbours argue (at great volume, and at weird times of day/night) through the walls. I’m tired of fighting to get a parking space outside my own house. (Pretty much every other house in this area has at least two vehicles, and parking spaces are… limited) I’m tired of all the bullshit, traffic and noise around school commute times, and also of the general noise and arseholiness of people coming out of the pub opposite on most weekends. And I’m tired of the ongoing dust and dirt from living with the windows open beside a busy road.
So, once things had settled post-Covid, I started thinking about Where Next. It was difficult because there was no-where that I really wanted to be, unlike most other times I’ve moved. (In fairness, this place wasn’t one that was calling my name either, it was a practical choice for the time) It’s taken me a fair while to figure things out on that score – and in the end I’ve stuck with practicality. This place has been tolerable primarily because I’ve hardly been here – it’s been easy to get to pretty much anywhere else, because of proximity to the M1 and A1 for north/south travel, as well as the A421 for east/west.
The new location will be similar, an hour further up the road, but just off Junction 22 of the M1. It’s a location that also connects to the M42 and M6, which gives me even greater flexibility. It doesn’t grab me as a location in itself, but it’ll do on the “Getting to anywhere else” front. It means that I’m (obviously) an hour closer to my friends up in Manchester and Newcastle, so it makes life easier on that score. Weirdly, it also means that seeing my friends down in North Somerset will also involve journeys an hour shorter (because I can cut across to the M5 and straight down, rather than dicking about with the M1, M25 and M4) So in those ways it’s actually more convenient than the current place!
The criteria for the new place are pretty easy to work out, given the things I’m tired of. A larger house, probably 3-bedroom, ideally with its own driveway and garden, on a quieter road, with no nearby pub or school. And ideally without paying a stupid level of rent – a house with that spec where I am currently would be at least triple my current rent, which is just insane.
Anyway, after some looking around, that’s what I’ve ended up with. A 3-bed semi in a small estate, with its own driveway, garage, and low-maintenance garden. No school, no pub. And for a rent that’s still a 50% hike over what I’m currently paying, but that’s expected – and infinitely better than a 300% hike!
I’ve done all the paperwork and finances, but don’t get the keys til the 5th of September, and then properly move mid-September. I’m really looking forward to it all.
Making More Work
Posted: Fri 12 August, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, I Don't Understand, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »As part of my preparation for moving (about which another post sometime soon) this week I ordered some decent moving boxes from SafeStore. Yes, I’m sure there are other sources for them, and so on, but I was happy with the stuff on offer, and they’d deliver it, so *shrug*, it’ll do.
For cost-effectiveness (within the provisos of “I’m sure I could get it better somewhere else, but CBA to hunt”) I got one of their “kits” – 4 each of small, medium and large box sizes for considerably less than individual prices – and also added in some bubblewrap, tissue paper, and a mattress cover. All well and good.
It got delivered this morning, as expected and on-time. Two boxes – one the ‘kit’ box, and one for the bubblewrap roll etc. Except… there’s no mattress cover, no tissue paper. So I called them up to let them know, and the lady went off to check with the despatchers. And that was where it got weird.
“Have you checked in the Kit box? They say they might’ve put the extra things in there, to keep it all together“.
And it turned out that was exactly what had happened. But that boggles my mind.
Now, I assume (and I’m aware it’s an assumption and thus could be utterly flawed) that the kit boxes are exactly that – they come as a sealed box with the kit contents in. That makes sense to me. (Otherwise they’d be assembling the kit from box stocks for every order, which seems… odd)
So, if that’s the case, the despatchers opened a kit box, put the extra bits in, sealed it up, and then put it with the other box that already had bubblewrap etc. in it. Why go to that effort when there’s an unsealed box (with space in it) right there? Why make even more work for oneself?
I despair.
[Note : I actually did better than expected out of this deal – because they didn’t send me the kit box I’d ordered, and instead sent one that’s larger, and should’ve cost about £10 more!]
Getting Stuff (Finally) Done
Posted: Fri 29 July, 2022 Filed under: A428, Anglian Water, Central Bedfordshire Council, Change, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, I Don't Understand, Laziness, People, Politics, Thoughts 1 Comment »My local council are, to be polite, utterly fucking useless. Their skills in organisation, communication, professionalism and competence appear to be absolutely zero – in fact, most of the time I doubt they could even spell any of those words, let alone be good at them.
But, after literally years of nagging, they’ve finally done two of the jobs I’ve been nagging them about.
First, we start with The Bridge
Six years ago (I’ve probably written about it before, but can’t be arsed currently to check) we had a mains water line burst near the village – a burst that was so powerful, it destroyed the bridge wall that the pipe was next to. Now, it’s not a main road per se (i.e. it’s not an A-road or motorway) but it is one of the two main roads from my village to Milton Keynes and the motorway. So it’s not short of a fair bit of traffic.
Initially, Anglian Water put up some cones/barriers and traffic lights so that the road was usable (kinda/sorta) but reduced to one lane, on the side that wasn’t missing half a bridge wall. That situation remained for about six months (with regular failures of the traffic lights) until I asked Anglian Water what was actually happening, and had they forgotten about the bloody thing. Turned out, they had forgotten. And there began the saga of getting it fixed.
Anglian moved things about, put in a temporary fence and barrier, opened the road up, and tried to get a repair done. (Which was fraught with its own issues around who actually owned the fucking thing, who was responsible for what, etc. etc.) The council insisted it should be done by their Highways department, who would do the work properly, and all that happy crap. So after eighteen months, Anglian handed the entire clusterfuck over to Central Bedfordshire Council, as requested, and washed their hands of the problem.
For four years I’ve been asking when it’s going to happen, what’s occurring, and so on. It’s outlasted four admin assistants, and two managers. And every time they’ve said “Oh, it’s all scheduled, we’ll hopefully have it done in about three months time“. I do realise there’ve been a lot of hassles – again, with who owns the bridge and the land underneath it, who’ll be stumping up the money, how it’ll all work and so on. But it’s been four years where it would’ve been all too possible for someone to come off the road, through the fence, and end up twenty-odd feet down underneath it. After every decent storm we’ve had, I’ve had to contact the council and suggest that they might want to come and put the fence back up, along with the holders/barrier that’ve fallen over.
But about a month ago, signs went up around the bridge saying that work was going to start, and take about eight weeks. And it actually started, and has been progressing nicely. (Not that anyone from the council has thought to send a message saying “Hey, just to catch you up, it’s all happening”. That would be expecting far too much from them!
Second – the other bridge.
Back at the start of the pandemic, in the next village to mine, someone went on a graffiti spree, writing/spraying stuff on all the village’s road signs and so on. Nothing monumentally offensive, just stupid shit that no-one needs to see. And in fairness, Central Bedfordshire’s Highways department cleaned most of it off comparatively quickly. (I think it only took them a fortnight to get rid of the stuff that was nasty about Central Beds Council, and then about another two months to get rid of the less offensive but stupid stuff)
And then when Captain Tom hysteria was at its peak (Captain Tom was from the village I live in, so it was all relevant locally) they sprayed a big message about him on one of the other local bridges. You can see some of it below, or go to Google Streetview here for the full experience
Yes, it lasted long enough that it even made it onto Google Streetview.
That’s taken two and a half years to get rid of, but finally got cleaned off last month. Of course, others who’ve seen how long it takes Central Beds to sort these things, have also taken to graffiti’ing local walls and so on. Fine, it may be an influx of new people, but before the first lot happened (and that person has since moved away) we never saw any happening. Now though, I can easily think of eight or nine sites that have been hit.
Again, allegedly there were problems for the council in gaining permissions/clearances to clean that bridge – it goes over a railway line, and they were saying they couldn’t clean/wash the bridge while things might be running underneath, although that sounds like bullshit. The cleaning job when it finally happened didn’t go over the top of the bridge wall at all, so nothing would’ve been affected. But there we go.
Purely personally, I suspect that if that graffiti had said “Central Beds council are useless bastards” it would’ve only been there a couple of weeks. But because it was about Captain Tom, I wonder if they thought it would be worse to get rid of it than to leave it. I don’t know.
Anyway. Both jobs have (finally) been done, and it’s really nice that I won’t have to nag the useless bastards any more. But things like this shouldn’t take that long to get sorted. If it had been me in charge of either project I’d have got the work done, and *then* chased whoever needed to pay for it, including court stuff if necessary. But the general public don’t need to see those delays, regardless of the cause – we just want to see stuff that’s been broken get fixed.
I don’t know what the answers are on all this – but government (both local and national) at the moment just seems like one giant clusterfuck of ineffectiveness and general incompetence. And surely there must be better ways than what we’ve currently got?
Energy Bill Saving
Posted: Tue 14 June, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Legal, Utilities 1 Comment »Roughly eighteen months ago, my energy supplier of the time (nPower, a company I’m epically happy to be rid of) sold their domestic customer base to eonNext – one of the few energy companies with a worse customer rating than nPower. (So, quite the achievement)
For many reasons I wasn’t happy about this, and used USwitch to move over to Octopus in January 2021. I’ve been really happy with that switch, and haven’t moved since.
At the time, I had a credit balance with eOn, and expected that to go on the final bill. I was expecting that bill to happen within about two months, and pay any excess over the credit at that point. Except I didn’t hear anything from eonNext at all. I was still able to log in to the customer panel, but nothing else happened. So eventually I shrugged my shoulders and left them to their own devices.
Yesterday (June 2022, fifteen months after switching supplier!) I got a bill from eonNext, telling me what I owed them through to January 2021.
Thankfully, I remembered reading in the Guardian’s Consumer Champions pages about OfGem’s back-billing rules , which basically say that you can’t be billed for energy used more than 12 months ago if you’ve not been billed for it already (or informed by statement of account) . Within that information page, they also include a link to the Citizen’s Advice form letter for telling energy companies that they’re in the wrong – which is obviously extremely helpful!
So this morning I emailed eonNext back (I was going to phone, but decided it was better to have it all in writing) with my own adaptations of the form letter, and proposing that (as a compromise) they used the money I’d left in the account as a part-payment, and could then sod off for the rest. (I phrased it a bit nicer than that, but that was definitely the implication) Yes, I could’ve said “And I want that credit back as well”, but well, I haven’t had it for nearly a year and a half, so it doesn’t matter.
This afternoon I got a response from eonNext agreeing with me, wiping out the bill, and sending me a confirmation that my bill is now at zero. (I’ve printed both of those documents out, just in case they prove in future to still be fucking useless)
All told, that bit of knowledge/memory and research, and about half-an-hour’s effort (searching for the correct article, checking things out etc.) has saved me a couple of hundred quid. And that’s got to be a success by anyone’s standards.
Small Victories
Posted: Wed 8 June, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Last weekend, I went to the wedding of a friend. That’s nothing particularly news-worthy (hell, nor is the rest of this, but there we go)
Anyway, the dress-code was “smart”, and I’d been considering getting a new suit anyway, but before I ordered anything, I decided to try on my current ones.
I was pleased (and more than a little surprised) to find that the one I’d bought for attending the wedding where I got together with Herself – eighteen years ago!
So yes, interestingly I’ve remained the same size for that length of time. I know I’m a fat sod, but at least I’m a consistently fat sod!
Crunch/Scrape
Posted: Wed 1 June, 2022 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, People, Stupidity, Thoughts 1 Comment »Today I had my first ‘crash’ involving another vehicle. (I’d only had one other incident before, but that was an icy road in Norfolk, nearly 13 years ago, and it was only me involved) Before anything else, I’m fine – the car’s got a scraped body panel, but it was all fairly low-speed, no air-bags needed, no injuries, nothing.
As it was, I’m almost certain the responsibility wasn’t mine – although the other driver insists it was my fault, so I’m just letting the insurance companies fight it out. Basically though, I was in the correct lane, the other car was merging in and for some reason expected me to give way. We’ll see what the insurance people say.
It was at a new-ish junction, and the signage isn’t the easiest to understand, but I’ve driven it enough times that I know how it works. (Although the other driver also does it fairly regularly, so should know better! 🙂 )
Using the photo below, I was turning right out of Mike Griffin Way. You can be in either lane (which is fucked up in the first place). If you’re in the left-hand lane then that becomes the direct route; the right-hand lane has another turn-off (the rough equivalent of a hairpin turn) and then merges into the direct route. It was, in short, designed by a fucking idiot.
The junction – click to Embiggenify
So I was in the left-hand lane having come out of Mike Griffin Way, with the other car in the right-hand lane. And at the merge (top-right of the image) they decided to pull into the left-hand lane. No indication or anything, just pulling in.
Fortunately, I was aware they were there, and as they pulled across I was already braking hard and sounding the horn to let them know I was there. But still, impact. Rather than blocking the road, we went up to the nearest layby, pulled in, did the whole exchange of details, photos and so on, and then got on with life. I’m happy with how I did everything – making sure they were OK, but also getting names, details, numbers, registration plates etc., and ensuring that they got mine as well. Basically, I didn’t want there to be any chance of miscommunications, or “he just drove off” accusations.
Because there’s been no injury, no road blockage etc., the police haven’t needed to be informed (another thing I also checked with the insurance company, to make sure they were happy with not having a police incident number or anything) and I’m quite happy to not have to involve them..
I don’t yet know what the outcome will be. My car’s OK, it’s got some nice new scratches and a dent, but it’s perfectly driveable, and I don’t know if I’ll even bother getting the scratches repaired. My insurance shouldn’t be affected (even if they decide it was my fault) as I’ve got a protected 10+ year No Claims Bonus, which means I could even have another accident (not that I’m planning to!) before even beginning to worry on that score.
We’ll see what happens, but all is good so far as I can tell. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way to spend an afternoon – but equally, things could have been *so* much worse in so, so many ways.
False Registration
Posted: Thu 12 May, 2022 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Security, Thoughts 4 Comments »A few weeks ago, I got a weird piece of post – a V5 registration document for a vehicle I’ve never owned, to a name I’d never heard of, but with my address on it.
Having asked around a bit (in case the person was just a cretin who put in the wrong address) it turns out that this is a semi-common scam, registering a vehicle to a different address in order to avoid parking and speeding tickets etc.
As such, some people suggest that it should be registered as SORN (Statutory Off-Road Notification) but that still connects the vehicle to the address, and leaves you open to receiving documents, fines etc.
Instead, I decided to instead return the document to DVLA, along with a cover note explaining that I didn’t know the car and didn’t know the person, and had been at current address long enough to know that the person hadn’t lived there any time in the last decade. I scanned in both documents so I’ve also got a record of it, should it be needed.
Yesterday, I got a response from DVLA, which confirms that what I did is the best thing to do. They’ve removed the connection of my address to the vehicle, although it’s still possible that some fines etc. may come to me – but in that case, to send the issuing authority a copy of the letter received, and confirm that It’s Not Mine.
So, interesting to see how things work. Hopefully I won’t get any further issues with it, but I’m as protected as possible if anything does happen.
Lockdown – Two Years On
Posted: Wed 23 March, 2022 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Health, Lockdown, The Future, Thoughts Leave a comment »In many ways it’s hard to believe that it’s already two years ago today that the UK’s first Coronavirus lockdown was announced.
Since then, time feels like it’s done some very strange things – some things feel like only yesterday when it turns out they were three or four years ago, but stuff that was yesterday feels like an eternity has passed.
Here, I’ve been lucky, as I still haven’t caught it – although that’s more by luck than judgement, and probably that’s helped by being single, antisocial, and without children, thus eliminating an awful lot of the potential vectors. I’ve also been lucky in that it hasn’t affected me in the same ways it’s affected a lot of people – I wasn’t suddenly thrown into a world of working from home, with a lot of my social interactions removed, and nor was I suddenly having to be in close confinement with partners or others.
It’s still not been easy, but it’s been OK. It could have been a lot worse – and obviously for lots of people, it was. And is. And will continue to be.
I don’t know how we’ll handle things in the future. I know that “going back to how things were” is a pipe-dream. We’ll find ways to accommodate life with Coronavirus, and it’ll affect us less (much as it’s already doing) but it’s not going to disappear, and things won’t ever be “how they were”.
Onwards, upwards, whatever.
Refridged
Posted: Tue 8 February, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised 1 Comment »As mentioned in the previous post, I also ended up with a new fridge over the weekend.
On about Wednesday my (then) current fridge started sounding unwell, and running constantly – never a good sign. I messed around with the controls, lowered the chill factor to get it to turn off, that sort of thing. And while it did turn off, it was then back to running within about ten minutes. Diagnosis : most likely a fucked thermostat.
Now in fairness, I’ve had this fridge for coming up to 15 years, it’s been through at least two house moves, and had also had the issue of being frozen to sod for a while until I cleaned it out last year (which I suspect didn’t actually do it much good) and it wasn’t expensive in the first place, so it’s not like I’ve not had the value out of it or anything.
As a result, I ordered a new one from AO , which went (fairly) smoothly. The order itself was fine, but then over the next two days I got four silent automatic calls, which are distinctly frowned upon by OfCom . By checking the number online I figured out it was AO who were doing them – their “aftercare” department, apparently, which is really just the old “do you want an extended warranty with that?” scam. I complained to AO, who’ve now said that they’ll investigate, and who have taken me off their call list.
Thankfully, the delivery itself was fine. The delivery people arrived when they said they would, took away the old one for recycling, left the new one with me, and buggered off. Just how I like it.
And now it’s all plugged in and running smoothly again. Happy day.
Refronted
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green 2 Comments »Over the last couple of years, both of my neighbours in our little terrace/block have updated their front doors to modern composite doors, with better security and so on. That’s left mine in the middle looking like the easiest target of the three, which is never something I’m entirely happy about. (The other two properties in the block also have the same older front doors, but mine being between two new ones made it feel like that weakest option)
I’ve always worked with the ethos that you don’t bother making your house the safest/strongest on the street (because that just makes people think you’ve got stuff worth stealing) but you do make it harder to get into than those of your neighbours. It can be a bit of an “arms race” scenario, and it can be a bit selfish (“I’m OK, others can sod off”) but it’s still not a bad structure to live by.
I talked about this a while back with my landlord, and he agreed that it would be a good idea to upgrade it – particularly as it’ll also be *way* more insulated and energy-efficient (which is a consideration for rented properties now, they need to pass a certain grade of energy efficiency) which makes it A Good Plan.
So – after several mis-fires of companies measuring up, assuring they could do it, and then pulling out – the new door went in yesterday. It was a fairly big job (most of a day to do) and I’m glad that it turned out to be on a day when the temperature was actually quite reasonable (for February) so it all went OK.
Already the differences are noticeable. It’s a lot quieter (better insulation, no gaps etc.) and noticeably warmer. Definitely A Good Thing.
Now I just need to get my replacement fridge (that’s a story for a different time) delivered tomorrow and sorted, and hopefully things will then run smoothly for a while again.
Going Dark
Posted: Thu 13 January, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment »Weirdly, this week is one of my favourites in the year.
It’s the time when all the exterior Christmas decorations on houses are extinguished again, and everything goes back to being properly dark.
It’s really surprising, just how much extra light pollution those decorations cause, and I just like having things back to normal.
Obviously it’s still pretty heavily grey during the day and so on, and I’ll be far happier as the days get longer again, but it’s nice to have nights back to being properly night-like again. (Also, as it turns out, I wrote something very similar two years ago)
Chucking Out
Posted: Tue 4 January, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Thoughts 3 Comments »I really don’t like waste – but sometimes it still happens.
Over the Christmas/New Year limbo, I spent some time clearing out stuff, as it needed doing. On this occasion, that included clearing out the kitchen cupboard under the sink, and that’s where the waste kicked in. Various packs of crisps and the like, and they were all out of date (like, well, well out of date) and some part-bake bread rolls that had collapsed and compressed into horrific lumps of nope.
In the great scheme of things, it wasn’t actually a lot of value – maybe £30 all told – but it’s still annoying to throw it out. (Not that there was really anything else I could do with them)
It has, however, shown me the things I think I want to have as snacks and then don’t get round to actually eating, which helps in reinforcing (in my own head) why I won’t buy them again. So I suppose that at least this is a lesson that will work for longer term better effect.
Still makes me grouchy, though.
Normality (or a Semblance of it)
Posted: Mon 3 January, 2022 Filed under: 2022, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Legal, Making Plans, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Now we’re through all the crap of the Festering Season™ and New Year, it’s starting to feel like a return to a version of normality. Past today, people will be back to working ‘normally’ (albeit with the current ‘Work from home if you can’ ethos and so on) and schools will be open again so we’ll be back to more usual levels of traffic and the like.
Personally, I quite like this limbo time – the drive in to the office is quiet, the office itself is deathly, and it all suits me pretty well.
That said, though, I’ve found this year (and last year) that a limbo time within a Covid-driven limbo time is… a bit much. A step too far. I want to go back to a “normal” limbo rather than this weird fuckery.
Alongside all this, some of the other crap I’ve been dealing with in the background is finally approaching its conclusion, and while it’s not been openly affecting me, I’m also glad it’s nearly done. I’m being a bit enigmatic about it all because it’s now sub judice (and before anyone snarks, I’m the ‘victim’ in it, not the perpetrator!) but I’ll write a bit about it when I know more. The initial court appearance happens later this month, and once I know how the idiot pleads, I’ll be in a better position.
So… yeah, limbo appears to be (slowly) righting itself and becoming a bit more active again. I hope that continues to be the case…
2022
Posted: Sat 1 January, 2022 Filed under: 2022, D4D™, Domestic, Making Plans 1 Comment »So, welcome to another New Year.
I don’t know what it’ll bring, what new things will happen, and what other things will fuck up. We’re still in the midst of Very Very Weird Times, and I don’t think they’re going to go anywhere any time soon.
For the first time in a while though, I’m making some plans for this year – not resolutions by any stretch, but some changes and plans all the same. I’m not going to publicise them at the moment, but we’ll see how things go.
One thing I do want to do is get back to writing here a bit more (which is a pretty low bar, on the evidence of the last year or two) but we’ll also just have to see how that goes.
Anyway, here’s 2022. Let’s see whether it’s any good.
Shortest
Posted: Tue 21 December, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Time Leave a comment »And here we are, at yet another Winter Solstice.
The shortest day, the longest night.
From here, the days get longer. Not by much, but it’s good to be on the new cycle.
Vaccinaceous
Posted: Mon 13 December, 2021 Filed under: Covid, Customer Services, Domestic, Health, Milton Keynes Leave a comment »Somewhat fortuitously, I managed to get my Covid booster jab a few weeks ahead of the latest Omicron variant’s appearance, so it was already in full effect by the time Omicron occurred. (That wasn’t through anything like me being organised, of course, just the way timings worked out) At the time it was a nicely organised process – rock up at the time booked, sign in, get the jab, wait fifteen minutes (in case I’m allergic to the jab and die, or something) and then fuck off to get on with the rest of my day.
The week after, I also ended up getting my flu jab. (In my opinion, getting the “you now qualify for a flu jab” message is *definitely* a sign you’re getting old) It’s safe to say that getting that one done was pretty much the polar opposite, and not far short of an absolute clusterfuck.
I’d originally tried booking it through Superdrug, but their entire online presence seems to be “Give us a call to find out”. Utterly, utterly fucking useless.
So eventually I went to Boots where the booking process was long, with big doses of repeated information. (No idea why, but hey ho, got it booked) That bit was OK(ish) though. It was when I got to the shop that things went utterly tits-up.
I got there a couple of minutes early, and no-0ne was in the waiting area. No-one at all. Not even staff. Another couple of people also arrived to get their jabs. Eventually someone turned up, and gave me a paper form to fill in with all my details. Which was a bit of a concern.
It turned out that – in a large town-centre store – the “proper” jab person was on a day off, and no-one knew their password, or could log in to the system and see what bookings were expected. (Nor, as it turned out, mark appointments as completed etc.) So it was all back to paper, and no-one had a single sodding clue about what was happening, who was booked in (or when) and generally shambolic.
The jab process itself was fine, once everything was sorted. And thankfully I’ve experienced no real side-effects from either vaccination.
Mind you, the following day, I got a set of messages and emails from Boots telling me that I’d missed my appointment. I assume it’s also not gone into my medical record, so I could probably decide to get another one early in the new year, or something. (Not that I would, but still, fucking hell)
Anyway, it’s all done now, and so far as I’m concerned, if one of these viruses is going to get me, they’re going to have to work bloody hard to do so.
Re-Identified
Posted: Mon 25 October, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Technology, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »For some reason, this year has involved renewing both of my primary forms of ID – a few months ago it was the passport that got done, and I’ve now had to do the driving licence as well.
In fairness, both processes have been pretty painless, and made much easier through technology – the passport had some issues with uploading a new photo (because I wear glasses, and photos without a reflection on the lenses is *difficult*) but it’s all involved a lot less hassle than one would expect.
The driving licence also pulls through the photo from the passport process (although the reverse doesn’t apply, weirdly) but it needed a lot more linked information than I expected – for example, why does my driving licence renewal require me to know/remember my NI Number? I’d already connected it to the passport system/number etc. for verification, so that seems like an unnecessary extra step, really.
Still, it’s all done, the new licence card arrived promptly – and well within the quoted two weeks – and the old one got cut in two and returned.
I now shouldn’t need a renewal on these things for another decade. How time flies, and all that!
MoTivated
Posted: Wed 29 September, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, MK Kia, Thoughts 1 Comment »Today, the car got its annual service, and also passed its MoT for this year. All told, a much better process than last year – and, of course, a lot cheaper!
I did take it back to the same dealership to get things done, and they’re still as shambolic as ever, insisting on filling every slot in the workshop, rather than leaving anything free for people who need work (for example, if the car had failed the MoT today, they’d have had to book me in for work to be done, rather than having availability on the day) It’s a farcical situation – and similar to the bullshit system my GP is currently operating – and takes no account of things failing, or accidents happening. Deeply annoying, to say the least.
The thing is, despite me raising it every time I deal with them, they just don’t seem to understand that the servicing side of the business is just as much of a sales tool as any of the people on the shop floor (most of whom seem to spend their days just farting around, but that’s beside the point) The company – in this case, Kia – make a huge thing of their reliability, of their seven-year guarantee (so long as people follow the service routine, of course) which is great. But when I’m faced with a constant “Oh no, we can’t do [the work] on [that date], you’ll have to book something else” attitude, why on Earth would I buy a car that ties me in to that even more?
It’s something that would be so simple to fix – and something I’ve been told that they’ll try, but I’ve been being told that for three years now – but there just seems to be no real inclination to do it.
Still, my little car is doing OK, and as and when it does die, I just won’t get another Kia. Their loss long-term, not mine.
Non-Emergency
Posted: Mon 20 September, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Health, Introspective, Milton Keynes, Thoughts Leave a comment »Back in early 2021, I did something stupid to my knee – still no idea what – which I didn’t take overly seriously. It was sore enough that I did use a knee brace – particularly overnight – but it didn’t incapacitate me or anything.
Anyway, it turns out that the brace is quite possibly the worst thing I could’ve done, as it allowed things to heal incorrectly and so on.
The knee still plays up – but it’s intermittent. When I first stand or move, it’s sore as fuck, but then it eases off. I’m still fully capable of walking miles on it, but it’ll hurt significantly the next day, or if I then stop and leave it in one position for a long time (for example, driving home from wherever) Having talked to others with a similar thing, and doing some research, I think what I managed to do was a meniscal tear – basically ripping some of the meniscal membranes in my knee. Ooops.
Honestly, it’s pretty certain now that there’s not going to be much I can do to improve it. It’s as healed as it’ll get. But I’d like to get a proper diagnosis of it, in case I’m wrong – I’m only basing this so far on personal experience (of my own damage, and the stories of others) and Dr. Google/Wikipedia, so it’s quite possible that I could be wrong.
However, getting that diagnosis is proving problematic. It’s not an urgent thing by any chalk, but that’s an issue. My GP surgery are still only taking bookings on the actual day, so it’s a free-for-all of calling in at 8:30 in the morning in order to get a slot that day. And honestly, I feel guilty at that point about trying to get a slot that could be better used by someone with, you know, something actually important/urgent.
It really is a massively fuckwitted plan. I don’t understand why they can’t do it so that at least one of the GPs in the practice is doing non-urgent bookings for even one day a week. (Or balance the load and have a rota of who does a non-urgent day, or even week as a break from the urgent daily shit)
As it is, in this case I don’t honestly know that the GP would even be the best thing – all they’re likely to do is say “Oh, that’ll need an X-Ray/MRI” and refer it to the local(ish) hospital anyway. So maybe it’d be better to go direct to what used to be the “Minor Injuries” clinic, so I can get a scan straight away. But “Minor Injuries” is now somehow “Urgent Care” (which is somehow different to “Accident and Emergency”) and that has the same effect on me – it’s non-urgent, and there are people way more in need of treatment than I am.
I’ll get round to it in the end, I’m sure. But in the meantime it’s a situation that is utter, utter bollocks.
September Restart (Hopefully)
Posted: Wed 1 September, 2021 Filed under: D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Health, SAD, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts Leave a comment »So, yes, I’m still alive. There’s been a bundle of stuff going on that isn’t blog-friendly (or even interesting) and August has been it’s usual shower of shit.
I don’t know why it happens, but it does, and it’s not a conscious process at all. But I’ll have about two weeks where pretty much nothing goes right, and it whacks my brain hard, and then I realise that yes, yet again, it’s bloody August.
Obviously this year I also got slightly walloped by July, but well, who’s counting?
As is obvious, I got through it all – and in fairness, it’s nothing major that’s been occurring, I’m still in the same house, same job, nothing epic has altered. But it hits me hard anyway, like I’ve had enough energy to keep going ’til now, then I just feel like I’ve been slammed into a wall, and there’s little to no time or energy to do anything for a few weeks.
So anyway, yes, September. Let’s see how things go from here…
Credit Clusterfuckery
Posted: Fri 4 June, 2021 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Rebuilding Leave a comment »Over the last few years (well, really since the bankruptcy) I’ve kept a fairly close eye on my credit score – mainly using ClearScore (who use Equifax data) and CreditKarma (which used to be Noddle, and use TransUnion’s data). Both services are free in perpetuity, and have done a pretty good job so far.
Anyway, back in 2019 I’d put a few things on credit (intentionally) and then merged it all onto one interest-free balance-transfer card which gave me a longer term to pay things off. And my credit score went super-high, and has stayed there since.
In the last couple of months, I’ve completely paid that off, and all my cards now have a zero balance – which is a pretty good feeling, I can’t deny. It’s always been well within my means, but still, it’s nice to be completely clear.
However, that’s had a significant knock-on effect on my score – because I owe nothing, my credit score has dropped by about 10% this month. I know it kind-of sort-of makes sense, that they ‘can’t gauge my indebtedness’ if that figure is zero, but it also means that I could utilise 100% of my income to go into credit, yet somehow that’s less valuable. As is, of course, the perfect record for borrowing and paying back. (Albeit without paying any bloody interest whatsoever)
All of which goes to show, yet again, that credit-scoring really is a monumental load of old bollocks.
Jabbed 2
Posted: Mon 24 May, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health Leave a comment »On Friday, I got my second Covid vaccination jab. It wasn’t supposed to happen ’til 1st June, but as I live in the perineum between two hotspots of new-variant Covid increases, I’d decided to bring it forward a couple of weeks. (And obviously was allowed to do so via the NHS system)
As with last time, the entire process was quick and efficient, and went really well. The biggest downside was that the nurse managed to stick the needle right into a clump of muscle tissue/fibres, which hurt a bit more than the usual one. “Oh yes, I did see it twitch”, she said afterwards when I commented on it.
Not, of course, that it matters a damn. If that’s the worst of what happens to me, I’m pretty fine with that.
Interestingly, this time I’ve had absolutely no side-effects at all – not even a sore arm. And again, I’m not complaining about that at all. It’s just it’s a bit odd, considering how many people seem to suffer those side-effects.
And it also triggers that little paranoid part of my brain that says “Well, if you’ve not even had any soreness, how do you know it’s worked, eh?”. Which is bloody ridiculous, but still a thought process that’s been happening.
Anyway, it’s all done now – unless the PowerClowns decide we need a booster jab in the autumn/winter, of course. But for now it’s done, and I am (or at least I will be) as protected as it’s possible to be. Of course, that won’t stop me from wearing masks and so on – I think they’re going to be here for a while still – but it is good to know I’m doing what I can.
Renewals
Posted: Fri 7 May, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel 3 Comments »As it turns out, this year it’s time to do a couple of renewals – both my Passport and Driving Licence will need replacing in the next couple of months.
The passport renewal was first, and came back earlier this week (and the old passport arrived today). It’s been fairly painless, all things considered (I’d rather have had a nice red EU one, but there we go)
Doing it all online, I also used my own phone to provide the photo, which was the only bit that was a hassle. It took several goes, including a rejected one, basically because of wearing glasses. Any reflection in them causes the processing to fail – and even the one that finally got accepted was rated as “Poor” in the upload tool. (Impressive, for a 12MP camera)
So it’s been a faff, but it’s also been painless, and generally quite efficient. I also set it up for text-message updates as it went through the process, which kept things informed.
Amusingly (and just to prove that they’re not really all that efficient) having received everything back, I also got a text message telling me that I could renew my passport easily by doing it all online…
Spamtastic
Posted: Mon 26 April, 2021 Filed under: D4D™ Leave a comment »At the moment, I’m seeing a lot more spam comments here than I used to.
It’s not insurmountable – only about 15-20 per day, and none of them actually show up on the site – but it’s still a pain in the bum.
I’m not sure why they’re happening – nothing’s changed at my end, I’ve still got the same set of plugins running as always. So I assume there’s been some kind of loophole found, and the spammers are trying to take advantage of it. (Although it seems pretty pointless in a site as under-used and under-viewed as this one now is)
All told, it’s just something else, another irritation I could do without.
Smart Motorways, Dumb Drivers
Posted: Tue 20 April, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, I Don't Understand, M1, People, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I see today that the UK has decided to stop any new “Smart Motorway” projects, insisting that they need extra safety precautions. This is primarily the aftermath of coroner’s reports into certain fatal accidents on these Smart Motorways.
From the article…
- In 2019, 15 people were killed on “all lane running” and “dynamic hard shoulder” motorways. This is four more deaths than in 2018.
- The number of people being killed on motorways without hard shoulders increased each year from 2015 to 2019, and totalled 39 deaths.
- By contrast, on so-called “controlled motorways” – a type of smart motorway which have variable speed limits and a hard shoulder – there were 24 deaths in that period.
- On conventional motorways, which cover more of the UK than smart motorways, there were 368 fatalities from 2015 to 2019.
The M1 around where I live was one of the first Smart Motorways, and I’ve written a lot about how stupid people can be on those motorways – particularly about the availability of lanes, and a lack of general driving standards (Middle-lane cunts and the like)
From my experience, a lot of drivers seem to be incapable of reading road signs saying whether a lane is open or closed (although also even whether the approaching junction is the one they want or not, until the absolute last minute) This also seems to be borne out by the latest rash of road-safety adverts telling people that they should ‘go left’ in case of problems on motorways (and fucking hell, in my opinion anyone who needs to be told this shouldn’t be in possession of a driving licence!)
As an example of this, one of the cases the coroners were looking at was one local to me where the person’s vehicle had a problem, showed the ‘engine problem’ warning light, and they pulled in to one of the emergency refuge areas. Now, when that happened to me, I got out of the car (in a snowy January) and called recovery to get me off the road safely. But not this twerd, oh no. They gave it a few minutes, started the car, no light came on, so they pulled out to continue their journey. (The ‘engine problem’ light doesn’t necessarily immediately light up on starting – for example, if the issue is to do with the turbo, the EGR valve, air filter etc., it’ll only come on when you accelerate over a certain rpm limit, at which point you’re shafted) And that’s what happened to Twonktacular – the light came back on, the engine performance disappeared, and they got hit by another vehicle. Yet somehow that’s the fault of the smart motorway, not the dumbass driver.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of motorways without hard-shoulders. And I’m sure there are considerations and gambles that have been taken about how people get to emergency refuge areas, how the road monitoring is managed/staffed and so on. But I also understand how impractical it is, with current traffic levels and so on, to have a quarter of each road surface only available to vehicles in emergencies.
All told, I don’t believe that Smart Motorways are inherently dangerous. I think drivers (and their decisions, or lack thereof) are far more dangerous than roads. You just can’t blame an inanimate road for human stupidity.
Slowly Opening Out
Posted: Thu 15 April, 2021 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Lockdown 2 Comments »It’s been very quiet round here of late – mainly because of Lockdown 3.0, and there really hasn’t been much to do, or to report.
Thankfully, things seem to be slowly opening up again, and that’s making things look a lot more positive for the rest of the year.
Last weekend had some fun, in that the “Locked Up” crime writer’s online festival was held – organised by Luca Veste and Steve Cavanaugh (who also do the Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast) It was all done via Zoom, with a range of (roughly) hour-long sessions with various writers. And it was thoroughly entertaining.
Even better, the entire thing was done to provide funds for The Trussell Trust, and was entirely reasonably priced at £20 for the whole thing.
I can actually see events like that being more common in the future – I think they make a lot of sense, allowing a sort-of-social event without needing to be social, and reducing costs along the way (it’s a lot easier to get people to talk for an hour from their own houses/offices, rather than having to bring them all in to a location, accommodate them etc.) while also opening it up to a larger audience, rather than limiting it just to people who can actually get to the location.
Jabbed
Posted: Wed 17 March, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »Yesterday, I got my first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.
It was an impressive piece of organisation (which is how you can tell it was sod-all to do with national Government) – i got to the vaccination centre at 8:55 for my 9am appointment, went straight through, giving necessary information and so on, sat down, got the jab, and was out again by 9:05.
Interestingly, I didn’t have to do the expected sit-and-wait for 15 minutes to check I didn’t have any kind of allergic reaction. I assume it was because I’d answered no to the questions “Are you on any other medication” and “Have you ever had an allergic reaction” – I know others on the same day in different locations still had to sit and wait – but no explanation was actually given.
Happily, twenty-four hours on, I’ve had no reactions of side effects at all to the first jab, which makes me fairly optimistic for things.
Obviously there’s still a way to go – there’s another three weeks before this dose is supposed to be fully effective, and my second dose is on 1st June. Even so, that means that by the end of June I’ll be as protected as possible.
Burning Money
Posted: Tue 2 March, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, I Don't Understand, Lockdown, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last year, a number of businesses have (unsurprisingly) moved out of the building where I have my office. The move to primarily working from home and so on has made them more aware of the costs of the offices, and in general I can see that it makes sense for them to downsize and so on.
What’s been more of a surprise is that other ones have moved in. Again, I get it for situations like mine, where it’s better to have the office, and where working from home isn’t practicable.
There are some of those new businesses though, that despite paying the office rental/lease for a year, haven’t actually been using the offices at all, and I really don’t understand that at all.
I suppose it’s a good write-off for tax purposes or whatever, but to me it’s still odd to be basically burning that cash for no benefit at all.
Obviously it’s not my problem, and nothing to do with me. It’s other people’s business decisions and so on. I just find it interesting, and slightly baffling.
Excessive Renewal
Posted: Thu 25 February, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Insurance, Lockdown, Travel Leave a comment »This time last year, I was planning on going to a friend’s wedding over in Madeira, and bought some travel insurance along the way.
Obviously it didn’t work out, because of Covid and the like, and the insurance didn’t get used for any other trips, for similar reasons. Thankfully, I’d had a good deal on it, so wasn’t too upset. Them’s the breaks, and all that.
This week, I got the renewal letter from the company, telling me what I’d pay this year.
Now OK, there’s been a lot going on in the world this year, and I assume insurance has taken a kicking (although I wouldn’t have thought it was a huge one, in comparison to travel companies, credit cards and the like) but still, the increase from last year to this is a 50% rise. And bear in mind, there’s no way I’d be using it ’til at least May/June, so it would cost me more to able to use it for less time.
Needless to say, they’ve been told to fuck off. I’ll buy travel insurance again as and when I need it – but that’s still not going to be any time soon.
Raspberry Jammed
Posted: Tue 9 February, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Food, London, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 2 Comments »I’ve been a fan of raspberry jam for a long time, and it’s usually part of my breakfast. I’ve tried most of the different brands and types over the year, although over the last few years I’ve settled more on Tesco’s “Finest” offering, which is pretty well priced and tasty. (Before that it was the Bonne Maman version, which was almost twice the price, and even now is £1 more expensive per jar)
Over the years, I’ve also always been interested in Fortnum and Mason when I visit London. I returned there in 2015 after far too long of not visiting, and have been back a few times since.
On that 2015 visit though, I saw they had some interesting jams – in particular, a golden raspberry one, and a purple one. I couldn’t get them at the time (because I was doing a ton of walking and theatre stuff, so wasn’t going to be carrying other stuff as well!) but on and off they’ve been on my mind since.
They are also ridiculously expensive – six-ish times the cost of my Tesco one, for a jar half the size! – so it’s a bit of a jump to be able to justify that kind of cost.
Anyway, back in October, I’d been to one of my favourite restaurants for my birthday meal (a saga in itself of rescheduling, lockdowns etc.) which is also effectively just round the corner from Fortnum and Mason. So, having done an epic lunch, and needing to walk, I went in. And having just spent a silly amount on Lunch (as well as a couple of drinks) it was probably the only time I could rationalise the price of those jams. So I did. (Although I’m still gobsmacked at the price of them)
They’ve sat around since then, waiting to be tried, and it’s only been in the last couple of weeks they’ve been opened.
All told, they’ve been good, but definitely not worth the price. The golden one is noticeably sweeter and soft-of softer than standard raspberry jam, and the purple one is slightly different in taste (and very much so in colour) but certainly neither one is anywhere close to being something I’d eant to have on a regular basis – even if they were the same cost as the usual ones.
I’m really glad I got round to buying them and trying them, and to now know what they’re like. But I can’t see me getting them again.
Gradual Improvements
Posted: Sat 6 February, 2021 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of months, I’ve slowly been upgrading some things around the house. Nothing major, but a few things had started breaking or failing, so it’s made sense to replace them with better versions.
Among other things, a lot of my cookware was on the way out – my main frying pad had buckled (my own fault for thermal-shocking it too many times), my baking trays were grim and no longer non-sticking, and my wok had gone horrible with rust. So I’ve replaced them all with better things – and in fairness, none of those bits was less than a decade old anyway, so it’s not like I’ve not had my money’s worth out of them.
This weekend, I’ve also replaced the main lamp in my living room. I’ve had a (revoltingly cheap) uplighter for six years, that I bought while bankrupt, when the previous one’s halogen bulb died. I think it cost me £20, and it was ridiculously wobbly, but did the job – and has done the job for that six years without fail, and without any replacement bulbs.
However, during the week it started buzzing – not just from the bulb, but also from the switch, and to me, that’s not a thing where it’s wise to keep it going. So I had a look round for something new, and ended up with an interesting LED light that offers a range of white-balance colours, as well as being able to move lighting to my requirements and so on. It wasn’t the cheapest, and the lamps aren’t replaceable in the same way as a ‘normal’ bulb would be, but there’s also very little that can break, so we’ll see. Regardless though, I’m really pleased with it at the moment.
All told, I’m happy with how things are going – I’m not paying out stupid amounts for things, but I’m also not staying at the cheapest levels, because I simply don’t need to. Hopefully all these new bits will last me another eight to ten years minimum, and god only knows where we’ll all be by then…
Slouchy
Posted: Mon 25 January, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Lockdown, Single Life, Thoughts 4 Comments »This time last year, I didn’t really have any ‘slobbing out’ stuff at all. The closet closest I really came were some tracksuit bottoms that I used for workouts and the like, but there wasn’t really much else.
Since then, with the Lockdowns and so on, I’ve expanded my collection a bit – after all, there’s not really any point getting “properly” dressed on the days you’re not even venturing out. So over the summer I had/have some thinner cotton trousers which are really comfortable, and for colder times, I’ve got some warmer ones that aren’t quite tracksuit bottoms, but also aren’t really fit for anything other than staying indoors.
My real concession though, and I’m not at all proud of them, are some slippers. I’d found that my feet were getting achingly cold, so it made sense to get *something*, and these horrors came up at just the right time. They’re unbelievably ugly, and I’d happily burn them if I ever got a partner, but for now they’re warm and comfortable, and that’ll do me.
But I can be sure that, no matter how warm and comfortable they are, they won’t be seen outside the house…
Clipped
Posted: Sun 10 January, 2021 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Getting Organised, Lockdown, Thoughts Leave a comment »Way back when the first Lockdown was announced, I bought a set of hair-clippers, and it turns out it was probably one of the best things I did.
It’s already more than paid for itself – I think that since then I’ve only had two haircuts at my usual barbers, and all the rest have been done myself.
Of course, it’s also been a learning experience, but once I’d (sort of) figured out the hair length thing, it’s been useful.
I’m not perfect at using them – each use has ended up with a couple of return visits as I’ve discovered bits I’ve missed (or at least that feel like I’ve missed them) – but the results are at least passable, and I’m not worried about being seen out in public once I’ve done it.
Once sanity returns, I’ll still be happy to go back to having a barber do the job properly. For now, though, I’m just happy to be not looking like Cousin It.
Return of Warmth
Posted: Tue 5 January, 2021 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, MK Kia, Thoughts Leave a comment »Following on from the post about the car’s heating system having packed up, I finally got it sorted just before Christmas.
As usual my dealership was a clusterfuck from start to finish – although there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel on that one.
Initially, I asked them to have a look at what was wrong when I took it to get the brakes fixed. They ‘checked everything they could’ and couldn’t find a problem, but the heater pack is behind the centre console, and they hadn’t allocated the time to do that, so it had to come in again.
That happened on the 21st, at which point they told me it was “only a diagnostic visit – we’re just finding out what’s going wrong“, which was what I’d suspected might be the case, but regardless, my sense of humour started to fail. Because obviously that would mean a third visit for the same problem, which is just fucking ridiculous.
As it turned out, the problem wasn’t with the heating system itself, but with a cracked/fucked radiator that was leaking at a good pace. (The mechanic actually brought me through to the garage to show me) Apparently it was only doing so once the system became pressurised (about 10-15 mins into a drive), but still, fairly serious. And because the leak meant it was losing pressure, the heating system wasn’t working. So we needed to get that sorted.
Then they told me it couldn’t be done ’til December 31st, and my sense of humour utterly failed. I wasn’t nasty, but I was quite obviously pissed off that they were happy to send me home (a not insignificant distance) with a close-to-broken car, and leave it that way for ten days.
Fortunately, at that point the light at the tunnel switched on, and one of their people (a sales manager) suggested to the reception that they move some stuff around, so that they could deal with my car the next day. Not ideal, but far better than waiting ten days. Even better, he’d come and collect it from my house, get the work done, and bring it back. (Which also meant it would be their problem if it went pop on the way there)
And that’s what happened. I filled the rad with water before he arrived, to make sure it was as good as possible. The car got collected, fixed, and returned. (They fucked up the costs too, but that’s another story) And since then, it’s all been OK, so it does appear that the problem’s been fixed.
Once he brought it back, we had a chat about how the service department had really let down the sales side on this – when it went in for a pre-MoT service, they noted that it was virtually empty of coolant, but never looked at why; they missed the leaking rad in the MoT itself; when the brakes were being replaced and they were ‘looking at everything’, they didn’t notice the rad pissing water everywhere; and the ‘diagnostic visit and then return to get it fixed’ was bullshit.
As it turned out, they’ve listened to my previous complaints about these practices, and that sales manager is now in charge of the service department, and has been tasked with making it run better, with a more customer-focused attitude. It’ll be a challenge, but it was good for him to have been able to see exactly why he was needed, and what the problems are with the current set up.
I hope it works – they’re at least aware of the problem, and trying to fix it – but only time will tell.
Exchange of Power
Posted: Sun 3 January, 2021 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, nPower, Utilities Leave a comment »Over the years I’ve been here, one thing I’ve truly slacked off on is my electricity/gas supplier.
Some of that has been due to my landlord initially asking me to not change things on that score – fair enough, I guess – and just transferred the energy account name from the previous tenant to mine. Not necessarily ideal, but there we go. And so, because of that, and it being something I just wasn’t overly faffed about, I’ve stayed with that supplier.
Anyway, that supplier was nPower, and while they’ve been a sack of shit throughout my time here, they’ve at least been a reliable sack of shit.
However. Back in the first week of December, I logged in to the nPower website to send in a meter reading, and got a redirect page, saying “We’ve transferred your account to E.On“. Which is… shit. It’s been done with no communication, no warning, nothing.
The following week, I got a confirmation from E.On that my account had been transferred over, and containing some basic information. Although there was nothing in it about what they’d be charging, or for how long, or… well… anything else, really.
So the key part of the email for me was this…
If you want to switch supplier within 30 days of your account moving to E.ON Next, we won’t charge any fixed tariff exit fees, but we’d love you to stick around and get to know us.
So that’s what I’ve done. Over New Year I sorted out a second transfer, moving over to Octopus Energy (which has a fixed-term contract, but no exit fees)
Amusingly, E.On then emailed as part of the process, and asked “let us know why you’re moving”. Which I did, in no uncertain terms. (Nothing rude or sweary, but a fairly constructive ‘With that attitude, why would I want to stay?!?’ message)
The response from their representative today just went to show that moving on was absolutely the right decision…
I appreciate you providing us with your feedback this will be forwarded to the appropriate department for future assessment.
The migration process is an automated process, which unfortunately we have no control over.
Wish you all the best with your new provider.
A pretty convincing version of “Yeah, we don’t care, just piss off”
It’ll be interesting to see how the switch goes, and how things work out with Octopus…
The End of 2020
Posted: Thu 31 December, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Politics, The Future, Thoughts 1 Comment »So here we are, at the end of a true bin-fire of a year. Covid, Brexit, Lockdowns, it’s all been more than a bit bollocks, hasn’t it?
In many ways, I’ve been lucky this year – as I’ve said before, I’ve not been too badly affected. I’m still working, I’m still healthy, I’m still solvent, I’m still going.
I’m not saying that to be smug, or to belittle anyone else. I know that in many ways I’ve been fortunate, and that some of my privilege is probably showing. But equally, I’m not complacent about any of it, and I’m not going to tempt fate along the way.
In other ways, I’ve not done well at all. I’ve missed out on seeing friends, and on doing stuff – and again, I know that’s true for most people.
This year has definitely affected me, it’s left me with less motivation to do things, and with more loose ends than I’m used to. I don’t like not doing stuff, don’t like not having plans. I’m better at having plans changed last-minute – but that’s more because those things are outside my control.
I don’t know what 2021 will bring. (Obviously – no-one does. This time last year, no-one expected Covid) I do think there’s going to be a lot of hardships still to come, but I also hope it at least gets easier than 2020 has been.
Onwards and upwards, anyway. Have a good one, and let’s hope it’s a better one.
Bow 2
Posted: Fri 18 December, 2020 Filed under: Archery, Domestic, Getting Out More, Sport, Travel Leave a comment »Having got back into my archery this year, the winter season brings its own interesting issues and problems.
Basically, everyone shoots at shorter distances – twenty to thirty metres, rather than fifty to eighty – and ideally indoors, for the wimps. And if possible, that means dialling down the power in the bow. Heavier/bigger arrows also help, as they’re slower than the usual ones.
Unfortunately, my bow is already dialled down to pretty much the lowest weight it can manage, which is around a 45lb pull. That meant at the short ranges my club uses, I was going to end up putting the arrows through the targets and into the concrete wall behind (indoors) and losing all the fletchings (feathers) as well. Which becomes very expensive, very quickly.
Having looked around a bit, I went back to my normal archery store in Newark (it’s a bit of a slog to get to, but worth it for their customer service, knowledge, and prices) and bought a second bow, specifically for winter/indoor archery. It’s a good little bow, from a Chinese company called Sanlida, and cost me £175 including the sight, arrow rest, and small stabiliser. That’s incredibly good value! Additionally, if I decide to use it all the time, I can also dial it up from its current setting (about 25lb pull) all the way up to 70 lb, which is pretty epic.
I bought it a couple of weeks ago, and have only used it a couple of times so far, but on that limited experience, I’m really pleased with it. It’s doing what I want, and the current power means it’s accurate enough, without damaging things.
But it does also mean I now own two bows – although that’s OK too, as I’m using both. If they’d gone back to sitting doing sod all, that would be a bad thing. But as it is, I’m OK with it.
New Brakes
Posted: Mon 14 December, 2020 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, MK Kia Leave a comment »Back in October when my car took its MoT, it came with a warning about needing new brake discs. Not urgent – it was a warning, not a failure – but still, it needed doing.
I was aware that, while still well within limits, they weren’t as good as they could be, so today I got the discs and pads replaced.
The difference is…. noticeable. I’m having to be a bit more careful with slowing down, because it’s all back to brand-new, and I was definitely used to the flawed and worn items.
I’m glad it’s sorted – it makes a big difference to things, and it’s something that’s not playing on my head any more, which is always a good thing.
Colder Than Necessary
Posted: Sat 5 December, 2020 Filed under: Driving, Getting Out More, M1, People, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Yesterday, for reasons I’ll write about some other time, I had to drive up to Newark.
It’s not a horrific drive, about 90 minutes usually, and pretty easy. Straight up the A1 , and then down the M1 to come home.
Yesterday though, was bloody vile. About halfway through the drive up, it started to snow – not super-heavy, but enough to make things interesting in the still-quite-dark winter morning.
It was at this point that I discovered that my car’s heating had packed up. Fuck.
By the time I stopped at Newark, it was snowing fairly heavily, and starting to settle.
When I came out to go home, the car had a good three or four inches of snow all over it, and the roads were full of it as well. The start of the drive home was emphatically Not Fun, although for me that was mainly because it was bloody cold inside the car, and no heating meant it was also steaming up a bit. The real Not Fun was more in the purview of other drivers who couldn’t handle snowy roads and/or hadn’t put lights on, and were generally utter fucksticks.
The M1 was OK – once I got down past Leicester the snow turned to heavy rain, and then it was just a slog through shitty weather and shitty traffic.
All in, the temperature (according to my car) rose by five full degrees (Centigrade) in the hundred miles between Newark and Home.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a drive where I was actually thankful to get out at the end of it. But that was definitely one of them.
Lightly Battered
Posted: Fri 4 December, 2020 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »This week, I got a delivery of pre-mixed cocktails from Manhattans Project.
Today, having done way too much driving in snow and stuff (and probably more about that later) I have imbibed in said cocktails.
They are bloody good. Even the ones based on tequila/mescal.
That is all.
December Already
Posted: Tue 1 December, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Lockdown, Thoughts 2 Comments »Somehow we’re already in December. How time flies when you’re having fun locked down for half the sodding year.
It’s been weird this year already, in that I’ve seen a number of people who’ve already put up their Christmas trees and so on, even more prematurely than usual. There seems to be a school of thought that says it’s OK because “we need something to look forward to“, but that rings with the dull plop of bullshit. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m more of the viewpoint that even if I started today, I’d be sick of the bloody event by the time it comes round. Adding another two weeks to that is surely just a way to be even more jaded about it all.
But then, as we know, I’m a grouch.
I’ve also been gobsmacked about the hysteria around “We’ve got to have our Christmas“, and the mindset that people would’ve broken all the rules in order to have “a proper normal family Christmas“. We’ll get past the horrific racism of the government being quite happy to cancel the festivals of other religions (The first Lockdown was announced less than 24 hours before Eid, and the second one blocked Diwali – and I’m fairly sure there’s been at least one more festivity that’s taken a kicking) while Christmas is apparently the be-all and end-all of UK Civilisation.
Honestly, I’ll be glad when this year’s over and done with. I don’t think 2021 is going to be any easier, although there’s some hope on the horizon with Covid vaccines etc. But it’s still looking like it’ll be another ongoing hellscape – just possibly slightly less of one than this year has been.
Again, I can’t deny, I’ve been lucky throughout the whole Covid thing this year, and I’ve been affected far less than a lot of people have. I know that, and I accept it. But I’ll still be happy to be through this year.
Alone vs Lonely
Posted: Sun 22 November, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Health, I Don't Understand, Lockdown, Mental Health, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »With the current Covid stuff, I’ve found it interesting to see how it has affected a range of people.
One of the big complaints about it is how the lockdowns have made so many people realise how lonely they are, along with the damage it’s done to those social norms and events.
Truly, this isn’t something I can empathise with. I’ve never really lived close to any of my friends – they’re scattered all over the place – so I’m absolutely used to being on my own in any particular area. So I’m alone, but I’m never lonely.
Alongside that, I don’t know, I simply don’t feel those things. I’m happy on my own, and always have been. Being sociable is my “not normal“, being on my own is the default position.
In all of that, I recognise that I’m “lucky“. I’ve come through this year OK, with far less damage than most people have suffered – whether that’s realising their lives are more lonely than they thought, being ill (or watching others being ill), or just seeing things change so much and feeling insecure because everything “normal” has suddenly tilted beyond recognition.
I sort-of understand that desire for everything to “go back to how it was“, but to me even that still carries a fair degree of self-delusion. Things have changed, and it’s (to me) far easier and smarter to embrace those changes and make progress with them (I hate the expression “the new normal”, but that’s what this is – even with vaccines and so on, there’ll still be major changes for the forseeable future)
I don’t know what 2021’s going to bring – although I don’t think it’s going to be a positive year – but I’m pretty sure I’ll get through it, same as I have this year. And all I can do is hope that the same is true for those I give a sod about.
Staying In Place
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2020 Filed under: Change, Covid, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »With everything else that’s going on, I’ve made the decision to stay in my current house for another year, and sorted out the tenancy agreement to that effect.
I’d been seriously looking at a couple of different locations (although still in the same region as I’m in currently) that would’ve worked, and enabled some other stuff to be a lot easier. It would also have been nice to have a slightly bigger place, as I’ve said before.
However, all the places that were available were at least double the price of the one I’m currently in, and weren’t making enough other things easier. Alongside that, the way things have been with Covid, and the upcoming clusterfuck formally known as Brexit, I ended up deciding that it was likely to be better/smarter to stay here, rather than over-extend things too much.
If nothing else, I’d be properly mortified to end up being in the shit because I’d moved to a better house and then everything else had gone to crap, knowing I could’ve still be in this little cheap(er) place.
So yeah, here for another year. That’s eight-and-a-half years now – by far the longest I’ve been in any one place since I left home.
For now, it still suits me enough. I’d like to move elsewhere, and I’ll look again come summer 2021, and see what happens in the meantime. If things are properly shit, I might stay again, but we’ll see.
Lockdown Weekend
Posted: Mon 9 November, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Out More, Lockdown, Sport Leave a comment »This weekend was remarkably unproductive, and yet I’m actually OK with it for once.
I’d had a lot planned – initially I was going to be going to a restaurant in London, but I moved that forward by a couple of weeks – nothing about Lockdown, just that I saw the menu two weeks ago had some things I really wanted, and they couldn’t be certain they’d still be on by now, so I moved things around.
Once that had changed, I’d then lined up an archery coaching session on the Saturday, and we were due to have a competition shoot on Sunday. However, with the new Lockdown, archery is (for some fuckforsaken reason) specifically included in the “thou shalt not operate” lists, so all of that got cancelled too. I’ve no idea why outdoor archery isn’t allowed – even in competitions, no-one’s even close to each other, and certainly when I’ve been using the range on a Friday it’s just me using it. There’s certainly no issue with any of it being crowded!
So yes, I had lots of plans, and none of them happened – which is frustrating, to say the least.
However, it’s been good to have the downtime. I meant to do some stuff from home, and failed entirely to do so, but instead caught up on some reading, and did stuff that was exceptionally quiet and relaxed. It was pretty good, all things considered.
Birfday
Posted: Thu 5 November, 2020 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten) 2 Comments »Somehow, I’ve managed to make it to 49.
Forty-fucking-nine.
In my head, I’m still mid-twenties at best. (Until I go out with a group of mid-twenties people, at which point no, fucking hell, I’m not) But no, forty-bloody-nine is where I’m at.
Usually over the last few years I’ve done a list of what I’m planning to do in the next year, and what I’ve achieved in the past one. I’m not doing that this year on either side – 2020’s been such a horrendous clusterchuff in so many ways, and there’s not really any positive end in sight, so I’m looking more at spending the coming year figuring out some of that stuff.
Of course, 2021 could be (hell, is likely to be) even more of a grimdark shitscape than 2020, what with Brexit, Covid, America, and whatever else is hovering on the horizon, waiting to dump it’s crap over all of us.
And on that happy note, let’s get on with it.
Mileage Averages
Posted: Sun 1 November, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Geeky Leave a comment »Having had the car MoT’d this month, it means I’ve had the poxy thing for four years now. And, with the online MOT record, I decided to have a look at the recorded mileages, just because I’m interested in useless information like that.
As it turns out, I’ve been pretty consistent…
| Year | Start Mileage | End Mileage | Total Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 – 2017 | 76,252 | 95,557 | 19,305 |
| 2017 – 2018 | 95,557 | 117,947 | 22,390 |
| 2018 – 2019 | 117,947 | 140,086 | 22,139 |
| 2019 – 2020 | 140,086 | 157,831 | 17,745 |
| Total for 4 years | 81,579 | ||
So even with my mileages being much reduced (because of more local contract etc. etc.) I still usually do around 22,000 miles a year. This year’s an (obvious and understandable) anomaly, but still comes in as being more than the “average” person does in a year.
I know it’s not really interesting to anyone except me, but still, such is life.
Decade
Posted: Wed 21 October, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Introspective, Looking Back, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last month, for a couple of reasons, I was looking back in the archives, and realised it’s now just over a decade since Herself and I broke apart.
Obviously things have changed a lot in that time, and some of it’s been tough, but in general it’s been positive.
Time flies, and all that jazz.
Car Costs
Posted: Mon 12 October, 2020 Filed under: Business, Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, MK Kia 2 Comments »Last week was an expensive one (and disappointing in some ways) with regards to the car.
Firstly, on Wednesday morning it failed the MoT test – three of the four linkages on the anti-roll bars were “excessively worn” (read “fucked”) and needed replacing. Slightly annoying/disappointing, but not unexpected at 160,000 miles. (And one of the linkages had a warning last year)
What was more annoying/disappointing was the attitude of the garage about it all, who told me they had no availability until a week on Friday (i.e. October 16th) in order to do the work. And that’s just shit.
The problem is that with the “new” MoT (it’s been around for a couple of years now, so ‘new’ is a bit of a misnomer) if the car fails, it’s not really supposed to be driven at all. With the time duration, I was OK to drive it home but then wasn’t supposed to use it again ’til it’s time to be repaired. And being stuck at home like that for ten days is not my idea of fun.
Fortunately, I had a way round it – albeit a potentially expensive one. Hire a car to use while mine was unavailable – and then it occurred to me that there’s a KwikFit on the same site, so I gave them a call as well, and organised it for them to look at my car and do whatever was necessary. Because it was later in the day, they said it might take time to order the parts, so it might not be done ’til Saturday (still a week earlier than the original garage could do) but that was fine. And of course it also meant I could legally get to the car-hire place!
So that’s what happened. Over to KwikFit, drop off the car and paperwork, collect the hire car, and home. All fairly easy, and a better alternative than being stuck at home, or facing any legal issues.
The next day, KwikFit gave me a call, confirmed the work, told me what it would cost, and it was all fine. So they said I could collect it Friday morning, including having re-taken the MoT test.
So all told, it could’ve been a lot worse.
The original garage have pissed me off though – I’ve had this issue before with their other dealership, and it’s frustrating. I’m happy that they’re busy, and I know there’s less availability because of social distancing and so on. All the same, if it were my business, I’d keep at least one workshop slot per day open for same-day and urgent repairs. That way these sort of things wouldn’t be a problem – and they’d show some customer service by being able to go “Oh, yeah, we can juggle this, we’ll do it today (or tomorrow at a push)“. Which would also mean the money from said work went into their account, not that of one of their competitors.
I get that they want to keep busy and maximise things, but the simple fact is that it’s cost them money – both in not having the money for the work and replacements I needed, but also in the likelihood of me going back there for any future work. Which is what makes it so sad and short-sighted.
Anyway, from my side it’s all fine, and the car’s taxed, MoTed and fully insured again.
Six Months In, and No Real End In Sight
Posted: Sun 27 September, 2020 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Health, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »This week, it’s been six months since Lockdown was announced. And in the same week, they’ve announced that the newest set of rules/laws/guidelines/guesswork are likely to apply for at least the next six months.
I wish I could say I was surprised. But I’m just not.
I don’t honestly think things will go back to “how they were”. Things will change – things have already changed – and they won’t go back to what they were. I fucking hate the expression “the new normal”, but it’s true, that’s what we’re going through, and we’re still finding our way through it, figuring out how things will be.
All the people-pleasing crap about a vaccine/cure for Covid is just that – crap. We might end up with the equivalent of the flu jab for Covid – might – but it will just be a defence. Even the flu ‘jab is just guesswork, a prediction based on what flu strains were around two years ago. Even those who’ve had the jab can still end up getting flu.
I don’t know all that the future will bring. I don’t even know how things will look in six months time – and nor does anyone else.
All any of us can really do is keep ourselves safe, and hope everyone else is doing the same thing. Other than that, it’ll just be a case of “we’ll see”.
100 To Go
Posted: Tue 22 September, 2020 Filed under: Covid, Cynicism, Domestic, Lockdown, Weirdness Leave a comment »Today is day 266 of 2020. There’s only another 100 to go.
I’m not going to tempt fate (or give it ideas) by saying things couldn’t get worse. They could. Knowing the way this year’s gone so far, they probably will.
In the meantime, I’m going to be slightly altering the restaurant plans and bookings I’d already made for the rest of this year, following on from today’s (frankly bizarre) “everywhere’s got to close by 10pm” dictat.
I’m not sure what makes things safer by closing pubs, restaurants and food places by 10pm – as other restaurateurs have said, they’ve worked hard on making sure entry/exit times were staggered, whereas now it’s going to be a big exodus at one time.
It’s all just weird.
Obsessive Dedication to Perfection
Posted: Sat 12 September, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, I Don't Understand, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »Since re-starting the archery, I’ve been going pretty regularly, and it’s reminded me of one of those things I really don’t get, or don’t understand about other people.
I don’t get obsession. I never have – I don’t get it when it comes to collecting things, or dealing with people, or things like competitions.
In the case of the archery, to excel in it you need to be super-precise, to do everything exactly the same each time. And, frankly, I can’t be arsed. When I tried collecting things, it was the same – I did OK, but then when it gets to the obsession with completing things, with finding the rarities and the one-offs, I can’t be arsed.
I know I’m not perfect – but I’m good enough. I’m almost certainly not going to win against people who practice every day, or even multiple times a week. (Although from what I’ve seen, some of those people still aren’t any bloody good at it. But there we go, that’s a different matter) I don’t insist on everything being identical with each shot, I don’t have any aiming rituals etc. Instead, my mantra tends to be “Yeah, that’ll do”
Honestly, I don’t quite see how being that obsessed with perfection makes the entire thing any fun. To be that focused on something, when it’s the minutiae that matters, it seems to (in my opinion/experience) just suck all the life and enjoyment out of things.
At the end of the day, I’m good enough. It’s rare I miss, but I simply don’t care enough to want every single shot to be in the inner gold. I do what I can, and I don’t get stressed out by something I enjoy.
All things considered, that’ll do me.
A Quiet Life
Posted: Wed 9 September, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Noise, People, Single Life, Thoughts 1 Comment »In an ideal world, I’d actually like a quiet life. Not in terms of being (and/or keeping) busy, but in terms of once I get home. Once I’m there, I’d quite happily have a place with no noise.
Yes, there’d be a TV and so on, but that’s all noise that I control. I’m thinking more at the moment about other stuff, the noise I can’t control, and that sometimes drives me crackers.
The Bengal is one of the main culprits on this, if I’m honest – as soon as I get home, I’m being shouted at. It’s not like she’s hungry or anything – she’s just shouty. Sometimes it’s even before I get through the door – if it’s late evening (even if I’ve popped home in the day to make sure she’s fed etc.) it’s not unknown for the sodding cat to be sat outside waiting for me, and shouting the moment she sees me, like a mum going “And what time do you call this!” And it doesn’t let up for bloody ages. It’s exhausting.
Alongside that, I have the joys of neighbours. Throughout the lockdown/shutdown/slowdown, they’ve both seemed determined to be out in their yards, playing music loudly, and having loudspeaker/hands-free conversations on their phones – and it’s even seemed like they’re in direct competition sometimes. So it’s not been unusual for me to come home and not even be able to open the back door, because of the noise war going on.
All I want is for things to be quieter. I’m generally super-tired at the moment, which also makes me more sensitive to it all, and far far grumpier about the entire thing.
Recently I’ve even been thinking about moving – some of which is because of those neighbours – although with the looming of Brexit etc., I’ve made the decision to not jump things just yet. But there’s still the potential for the same to happen again.
In some ways – hell, in most ways – I’d be happy to be a hermit, to be out in the middle of nowhere with zero human contact on a day-to-day basis. The only problem with that concept is that the really out-of-the-way places then don’t have the other thing I want/need in life – a decent speedy broadband connection.
I’m sure there’s a balance to be found somewhere, and I’m sure I’ll figure it all out. For now though it’s just a bit bloody annoying. </grouch>
Memory Failings
Posted: Fri 28 August, 2020 Filed under: 1BEM, I Don't Understand, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?
I don’t remember, I don’t remember(Chumbawumba’s “Amnesia”)
Within my office block, I’m regularly gobsmacked by how people seem incapable of seemingly simple tasks, like remembering to turn things off that they’ve just turned on. For example, walking in to the toilets, turning on the lights, and failing to turn them off again when leaving. (And sometimes also somehow forgetting to turn off taps that they’ve just used)
I honestly don’t understand this – and I’m potentially being charitable by attributing it to forgetfulness, rather than just being unthinking asshats – but it does seem to be ever more prevalent. Maybe it’s related to the office rentals being all-inclusive, meaning people give less of a sod about utilities and so on.
But even then, I wonder, is that also how they are at home? Do they keep leaving things on there as well? Do their partners/parents just keep on tidying up after them, turning things off again?
(And just because I’m not perfect – I’ve been meaning to write this post for the last two weeks, and I’ve kept on forgetting to do so)
Fifteen Years On
Posted: Tue 11 August, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »Looking back, it’s fifteen years ago today that I passed the driving test.
It took me a long time to get it done, and for the longest time I wasn’t bothered at all about driving. But now I wouldn’t be without it.
Indeed, if I lost my licence now, it would mean a total change for me – I’d have to move, reconsider work and so on. It would be a massive upheaval in so many ways.
For example, I looked recently at my commute on Google Maps (I do this sometimes, just to check on what the traffic’s like on my route) and saw the other travel-method options at the top. Driving from home to my office is (on average) a 20-minute drive, door-to-door. It’s pretty much my shortest commute ever (I had a stint while in Bury St Edmunds where it was slightly shorter, but not by much) and yet if I were to do it by public transport, it would take me two-and-a-quarter hours! (There is a route at specific times that would be a 50 minute bus-ride, but also drops me at the other end of Milton Keynes, so would then be a two-mile-ish walk – and that route doesn’t run at the times I commute in to my office)
In similar vein, visiting my parents is a simple hour’s drive. Public transport? It’d be three hours on a good day.
Even a simple journey to London Euston (which I can usually do in 75 mins – driving and then tube down to Euston) would be at least double that by public transport.
And my archery club? Forget it, no chance at all.
So just on that tiny subset of what I regularly do, life would be hugely different without driving. When you take into account the extra stuff – the on-site client days, the weekends away, the visits to friends, the idiot day-trips – it would now be a completely different life if I weren’t driving. Not necessarily a better or worse one, but a very different one.
Archery Return
Posted: Wed 5 August, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Personality, Thoughts Leave a comment »Back in March, I wrote about my starting to get back into archery after way too long – it’d been a decade or more since I last went, and this year I found a local(ish) club and went through their ‘beginners’ process (for insurance purposes etc.) before getting my bow checked over and slightly updated. In a spectacularly piss-awful piece of timing, I got that done on the same day that lockdown was announced. Bugger.
Fortunately, the club has its own field, so it’s been possible to use it during the lockdown. I had to sort out a first induction meeting (to establish that I knew their rules and so on) and get my membership card, and from there I’ve been able to go on a regular basis.
So far, I’ve been for eleven sessions, and enjoyed pretty much all of them – last week’s one was less good, but that was just weather and environment being a bastard, plus a healthy dose of hubris from having had a really good session the week before, and it all just clustered up into a shitfest.
As it turns out, it seems I’m generally OK at the whole thing. I’ve been taking my time, building up my strength and stamina through the sessions, rather than aiming to be super-competitive or anything.
The thing for me is that I’m good enough. As with a lot of things, I find I don’t have the obsessive side of things, so I lack that desire to do everything exactly the same way, that push for perfection and rigid routine. Indeed, the people who are like that bore and annoy me. I’m doing this primarily for fun – I like the challenge of getting things right and doing well – and it’s another way of building up my strength and stamina, which is fine with me. But no, I don’t think I’ll ever be at the high end of the club’s score table and so on, because I get to the point of “That’ll do”, and it’s enough for me.
But I’ll keep on going, and see how things go.
New Glasses
Posted: Mon 3 August, 2020 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 3 Comments »As I said in an earlier post, I now have new glasses again. I had been due to get my eyes checked back in March, but as I was getting to the time when it was due, of course Coronavirus did its thing, and we all got locked down.
I’d known that my eyes had changed, that things weren’t as clear as they had been. It wasn’t anything major, but definitely something that needed to be sorted.
So when I finally got an email from Specsavers saying “You can book again for an eye test“, that’s what I did. The process was a pig – I haven’t seen browser-specific stuff in a long while, but it took a change of browser before things got sorted. But it got sorted, I got booked in, and on we go.
The actual eye test was smooth as usual – although there were fewer people in the store at any time, no drop-ins, and everyone wearing PPE – but it all went fine. Somehow my left eye had improved, and my right had got worse. I’ve no idea how that’s possible or makes any sense at all, but there we go. Anyway, I chose the frames I wanted, paid a metric sod-load (even with one set of frames being free, the lenses I need are still cocking expensive) and waited two weeks.
The collection of them was the only thing that was a pain – because of current situation, they weren’t doing the usual proper fitting appointment, so collection was “we’ve adjusted them to how we think they’ll work for you” and off you go.
Safe to say, those adjustments weren’t right for me. For whatever reason, the initial fittings never do – I assume my head/face just doesn’t fit in with the standard fitting algorithms and so on – so I made an appointment to go back and get them redone. That also didn’t work, so I called them back again and pushed for a proper “no, we need to re-measure this” appointment, got that, and got it all sorted.
All told, it took a couple of weeks longer than usual (just because each re-fitting took a week to organise – they’re ridiculously busy, with the reduced number of customers allowed in at any time) but I’m now happy with the new glasses. Hopefully it’ll be another couple of years before I need to get anything else sorted!
Lens Cleaning
Posted: Tue 28 July, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life 3 Comments »As a (pretty much) lifelong wearer of glasses, having dirty lenses is one of those little niggling everyday things.
Earlier this year, I bought a special lens-cleaning thing called a “Peeps”, which I’m not linking to, because it was shit. The design was really nice, like a pair of large tweezers with a microfiber pad on the ends for the actual cleaning. But, for whatever reason, they just didn’t work as advertised, and even put a small scratch on one less (thankfully, on a less-used pair)
So instead I went back to basics, and went back to microfiber cleaning cloths. They always seem bloody expensive, but a quick look on Amazon and I found a ten-pack for £7, which is still not cheap cheap, but it’s a massive reduction on the usual prices I’ve paid from places.
And I can’t deny, I’m much happier with these. They just do the job. And they’re cheap enough that you’re not annoyed when you lose one, or when it gets dirty. (for some reason I also find washing microfiber cloths generally knackers them)
So now I’ve got some new glasses – which is another story – I’ll be sticking with these new cloths for the forseeable future.
One Speed Fits All
Posted: Fri 17 July, 2020 Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, People, Weirdness Leave a comment »Recently I’ve noticed something odd on my journeys to/from the office that really annoys me. And it’s to do with speeding (as the title may have suggested)
Particularly on my way home, the drive contains a variety of country roads and towns/villages, so we fairly regularly swap between speed limits of 60 and 30mph, with one small stretch at 20mph. Which is easy, so long as you’ve got a brain, and some awareness. (And you’d pretty much hope that a driver has both)
But no. On a regular basis, I see drivers who decide to drive at about 40mph the whole way, regardless of what the limit actually is. It means they’re either going ridiculously slowly, or stupidly fast.
It’s not really a problem as such – it’s just annoying, and I truly don’t understand the thinking that leads to this behaviour. It’s all just bizarre, really.
Healthy Figures
Posted: Mon 29 June, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Old(er), Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »I said a while ago that I’d write this, and then never got round to it. (I also thought I’d written it before, but a couple of searches didn’t find anything. Which is odd.)
Anyway. Back at the start of 2018, I did my semi-regular checkup visit at the local GP, which all worked out as “fairly healthy in general“. As usual, the main ‘problem’ was that I’m significantly heavier than I “should” be. So I asked for help from the GP, asked what they could do or suggest. And the response? “Oh, you’re not obese enough to get NHS treatment“. Well OK, that’s about as helpful as a kick in the cock.
So, being me, I pushed for some referrals – I already wanted to lose weight, but that kind of attitude really steamed my piss, and I wanted to get some better figures and find out more about what was going on. I’ve been logging my food intake for years now, and also keeping track of what I walk and so on, so I knew beforehand that my usual calorie intake was around the recommended 2,500 a day mark (albeit with some days/weekends of excess) and I walk an average of at least 10,000 steps a day.
First, I got a referral to Slimming World – and the less said about that, the better. An unremittingly negative and unhelpful experience all round.
I also got a referral to the Dietician service at Bedford Hospital, which wasn’t much more positive, but did end up with some good connections and results.
With the service, we tried a set of calorie-reduction diet plans, none of which worked. However, through it I also got a connection to the Uni of Beds’ Sport Science department, where I was able to (finally) get one of the tests done that I really wanted – an RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) test, to establish what level of energy I’m actually burning. RMR is basically a measure of the calories the body burns if it’s simply laying in bed doing nothing. No food intake, no exertion at all. It took about an hour to run from start to finish, and then a couple of weeks to crunch the data and produce a report.
So. My RMR is 2,800 calories a day – even if I just laid in bed and did sod all, I’d need more calories than the recommended 2,500 a day. Taking into account calories for digestion, as well as exertion, It’s likely I’m burning around 4,000 a day. (As it turns out, I did write about BMR/RMR – ten years ago!)
On the downside, this information never really sank in with the Dietician. They kept on insisting that eating less had to result in losing weight. And in all honesty, it should – but didn’t. Looking at the figures, I’m already taking in less than I’m expending, and dropping the intake simply widened the gap even further. All it did was leave me even more tired, and seriously grouchy.
It ended up with a bit of an argument as my sense of humour finally failed, I wrote a full bulleted list of what was happening (with all the information from above) and why I suspected things weren’t working. That actually finished things fairly positively, although they didn’t have any better suggestions once we were outside the standard answers.
Also along the way, I ended up joining a local group called “Gutless” for overweight men. It consisted of two hours a week, one of food education, and one of physical exercise and workouts. For me, I didn’t learn much from the food education, but the training was positive, and started me doing more than I had. And since the Gutless course finished, we’ve maintained the exercise routine with the same trainer, which has also remained positive.
All told, I feel happier with how things are – if nothing else, my health record contains the whole list of things tried from the Dietician, and the RMR figures from the Uni of Beds. It means that when the GP tries their “you’re overweight” thing again, they can see what’s been tried.
However, I don’t really know what the answer is. My food intake has stayed much the same (and some of those weekends of excess actually make me lose weight) and I do more, with the extra workouts twice a week, and the archery I’ve recently re-taken up as well as maintaining the walking I do. I’m far, far stronger than I was, my shape is better, my stamina is fearsome, and I feel far healthier – but somehow, my weight hasn’t actually changed in a good decade, no matter what I do.
I’d like to lose more some – it’s just that still, everything I try isn’t working. I think that at some point I’ll have to go back and get more data and ideas, but really I don’t yet even know the right questions to ask.
I’ll figure it out one day, I’m sure.
Zapper Update
Posted: Fri 19 June, 2020 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Single Life 4 Comments »Roughly a year ago, I finally caved and bought a big proper bug zapper for the house. One of the side effects of having cats is that the food – if they don’t eat it all immediately – attracts flies. It can be pretty skanky – particularly in Spring and Summer.
I’d had other smaller and different zappers over the years, and none of them had been particularly impressive or effective. So this one was slightly more expensive – but still less than any two of the previous zappers.
I wasn’t sure if it would last into this year, but so far it’s doing well, and is thus also making itself into even better value for money than buying a lesser zapper every year.
Obviously I’d rather not need to have any bug zapper – but while I do need one, this one seems to be a good option.
Lockdown – Non-events
Posted: Thu 18 June, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Out More, Gigs, Lockdown, London, Single Life, Theatre, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve known it’s coming for a while, but this coming fortnight is probably the one that’ll grump me the most about the Lockdown so far.
It’s the time when I had a lot of events lined up, all of which have now been moved to next year. Among other things, that list includes
- Tonight, when I was supposed to be seeing Skunk Anansie at the Royal Festival Hall
- Tomorrow, when I was likely to have been at the Taste festival in London
- Saturday, when I was supposed to be seeing Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House” at the Playhouse Theatre
- Next week, I was supposed to be at the Lead Developer conference in London for two days
- Next weekend, I was supposed to be seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe
So yeah, bit of a slump of “I should’ve been doing [x]” for the next couple of days.
I had a similar slump a while back when I got a load of “this won’t be happening” emails over a couple of days, and this is much the same. I’ll get over it, and it all could be much, much worse.
But still, blah.
Lockdown – Health and Resilience
Posted: Wed 17 June, 2020 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Food, Health, Lockdown, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last twelve weeks, it’s been interesting hearing that a lot of people have put weight on, mainly through a lack of available exercise opportunities, and generally eating loads of crap food while “working” from home.
I’m happy to say that hasn’t been the case here – in some ways that’s really bloody annoying, and in others I find it quite reassuring.
My food intake hasn’t really changed – for obvious reasons, my restaurant visits and occasional weekends of excess haven’t been happening. (Although they’ve never really affected me either) But I’ve not ended up eating a load of junk – the cake, biscuits and crisps that a lot of people seem to have been going for in a big way – which also probably helps balance things out.
However, I’ve also not been exercising anywhere near as much. (This has been intentional, as I’ll explain in a bit) Over the last two years I’ve been taking a member of a local fitness group at least twice a week, as well as my own workout routines, fairly epic weekend walks and activities, and averaging well over 10,000 steps a day.
As a result of that lack of exercise, all logic dictates that I should’ve put on weight, with maintaining my intake but not burning off anywhere near as much as usual. But it’s not been the case – throughout this lockdown, my weight has varied by only about a kilo either way.
The reason I chose to stop doing the workouts and so on was to see what happened – again, logic would dictate that I’d have gained weight, and I wanted to find out. I did a lot of work in 2018 to find things that worked for me (and failed on all scores, but came out with more information and hard data/figures) although it looks like I haven’t actually written about that whole thing here. (so that’s something else I can write at some point soon)
It’s frustrating, because I’d love to find an easy answer for losing weight. It’s reassuring, because it does also show that whatever I’m doing is suiting my body – the fact that nothing has really changed shows that. Swings and rounadbouts, and all that jazz.
Lockdown – Post-Fatcat
Posted: Mon 15 June, 2020 Filed under: Animals, Change, Domestic, Lockdown, Thoughts Leave a comment »Updates have been a bit sparse over the last couple of weeks. No particularly good reason, life has just been a bit dull.
Following on from the departure of FatCat, it’s been a lot quieter. The Bengal has, thankfully, settled a bit too, and seems to be OK with being a solo cat. She’s not behaved anywhere near as badly as I was expecting, and the entire experience has been OK.
What I’ve noticed more than anything is the hindsight with which I now realise how bad FatCat had become. I’ve had two weeks where I haven’t had to clean up puke, where she hasn’t had accidents of not getting to the litter tray in time (or just deciding that she couldn’t be bothered, and the floor would be fine) and there’ve been none of her normal noises and behaviours as well (obviously)
All told, it’s reinforced that I did the right thing, that she was getting worse and would’ve continued to do so.
But that doesn’t stop it from sucking. For me I think it’s the worst part of pet-owning, this whole process of making decisions about whether they should live or die, having that control and so on.
Anyway, things are OK. I still look at some of the stuff in the living room, expecting to see her asleep on it (particularly the Sky box, which was always a favourite) and then remembering she’s not here any more. But it’s OK, and it’s only been two weeks.
Lockdown – Chilled
Posted: Wed 3 June, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Lockdown, Single Life 1 Comment »While my weekends have been a lot quieter, I’ve done some maintenance stuff that I hadn’t got round to before.
Absolutely nothing glamorous, mind you – but I’ve cleaned out and deiced both my freezer and fridge. It’s been a long time since I’d done either, but neither job was a high priority either. However, might as well let the warm weather help out and speed up the defrosting process…
The freezer had slowly iced over – it’s an odd design with freezing elements on each shelf, so it had slowly become that opening any of the drawers was more and more problematic. I don’t actually use the freezer much though, so again it wasn’t overly important.
As it was, over a couple of hours I emptied it out – which was easily the toughest job, because of those iced-over shelves – and then let it all thaw a bit, carved out all the ice, cleaned it up, and then turned it back on and re-filled it. There was, as expected, a *lot* of ice, but that was about it.
The fridge, on the other hand, was a much mankier job. I’d noticed that there appeared to be a leak, or an overflow, and finally decided to have a look into what was going on. A quick clear out allowed me to see that at some point the back of the fridge had frozen solid, blocking the drain hole, and that was what was causing the problem. Of course, that ice was pretty vile, but again, it’s a job that’s been done now, so hopefully won’t need doing again for a while.
I’ll also keep more of an eye on both things, and (in theory at least) deal with them earlier on next time so they don’t become such big problems again. Only time will tell whether that’ll actually happen or not, though.
Hopefully, both items will now run better and more efficiently. It’s either that, or they’ll go into shock, break, and need replacing…
Lockdown – Space
Posted: Mon 1 June, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Lockdown, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »One of the weirdest things I’ve found about the Lockdown (I can’t really call it the current lockdown any more, the speed with which it’s being rescinded) is that outside my house, there have been many more parking spaces than usual.
I can’t explain it – all logic says that with fewer people travelling, the spaces would’ve been filled at the start of the lockdown and then vehicles wouldn’t have moved. However, that’s not been the case – there are fewer vehicles, and the spaces seem to vary all the time, but there are always spaces.
All I can assume is that where I live has a fair percentage of people who have second homes here (for commuting during the week or whatever- we’re only an hour from London, so it kind of makes sense) and who haven’t been here while things have been different.
I’m not complaining – it’s just always seemed odd to be able to park outside my own house, rather than having to find spaces further away.
Farewell, FatCat
Posted: Fri 29 May, 2020 Filed under: Animals, Change, Domestic, Lockdown, Milton Keynes, Single Life, Thoughts 3 Comments »Today, FatCat was put to sleep.
Over the last couple of months she’d slowly been going downhill – not eating as much, not keeping food down, losing weight, blood in the poo, and a bundle of other things. I’d initially put it down to a change of diet (for whatever reason, I hadn’t been able to get their usual food, so I’d been changing things and giving them whatever was available) but she should’ve got used to the changed food in that time.
She’s never been in pain, and I’ve kept a close eye on that as well as everything else, but I’ve been aware she’s doing less well.
This week, though, she took a bigger downward turn – more lost weight, worse poo and so on – and the really significant thing for me is that she was a lot more cuddly, and was actually choosing to sit on me or against me most of the time. That was absolutely new behaviour – she normally avoided that sort of contact like the plague – and definitely not a positive sign.
As the week went on, things didn’t improve, so I made the appointment with the vets. And today, we went in. She didn’t even fight going into the cat carrier, so she knew things weren’t good.
I’ve always known that this was how it would work out – she’s antisocial enough that even taking her to the vets for an examination would’ve led to her not trusting me as much for [x] weeks, if not months. (It usually takes her about two to four weeks to recover trust of me after I’ve applied anti-flea stuff to her, so God knows how long it’d take after a vet visit) Similarly, traumatising her daily in order to get meds into her would’ve utterly knackered her quality of life, so it was always likely that this was how it would all work out. (The same is true for the Bengal, so that’s something to look forward to…)
The vets themselves were really good – the entire process has obviously changed in the current Lockdown, but it was all done as well as humanly possible.
As it is, I still feel like an absolute shitbag. I know it was the right thing to do, I know she wasn’t well and that this was the best (indeed, the only) way to do things that kept her life as good as possible. I know she wasn’t in pain, I know she had a really good eight years here with me, and I know the end wasn’t a vile experience. But I still hate being the one to make that life or death decision, it just doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m going to see now how the Bengal – a change-averse little twat at the best of times – handles things, as she’s never been a solo cat before. She’ll either do fine and accept it, or she’ll be a nightmare for a while.
All told, a shitty, shitty day.
Lockdown – Missed
Posted: Tue 19 May, 2020 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Lockdown, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »In a similar vein to the previous post about things that might survive, I’ve thought a lot about the things I’ve actively missed in this time, as opposed to the things I just haven’t done.
The list of things actually missed – the things I’ll look forward to being able to do again – is really quite short.
- Seeing films at the cinema
- Meals at my favourite places – with Mere being the key one I’ll be at as soon as they re-open
(There are a couple of other places I want to go back to, but Mere is the only one I’ve actively missed) - Walking in London
And that’s it, really.
Of course there are other things I want to be able to go back to doing and so on, and I’ll enjoy life slowing going back to normal. It’ll be interesting to see how it all works out
Lockdown – Changing Values
Posted: Mon 18 May, 2020 Filed under: Change, Cynicism, Domestic, I Don't Understand, Lockdown, People, Thoughts 3 Comments »One thing I hope will be interesting – as and when the current lockdown is properly eased – is to see the things that people decide are important, the things they’ve actually missed, as opposed to the things they’ve just not been able to go to as part of a routine.
For example, I wonder if [big chain] coffee shops will suffer, as people have (hopefully) realised that they don’t need all that caffeine and sugar.
[Note : I amended this afterwards, following Gordon’s comment, because I’d particularly meant big-chain (Starbucks, Costa et al) places rather than independents/locals that definitely deserve the business and support]
On the evidence of the things that’ve currently re-started, I don’t think it’ll be the case – as soon as they’ve re-opened, there have been huge queues outside places like McDonalds, Burger King and KFC.
It’ll be more interesting to see what happens longer-term, once the “Oh good, they’re back!” novelty value fades.
Lockdown – Blinds
Posted: Thu 14 May, 2020 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Lockdown, Thoughts 1 Comment »A while ago, I ordered a vertical blind from Tuiss (Edited on 23/05 : who now sell as Blinds2Go – sorry, forgot to add this before) to replace the shitty curtain in the front room, and got it fitted. I’ve been really pleased with it since, and it’s generally handled life pretty well.
However, two heavy-footed felines stomping in and out of it had meant that some of the clips to hold it all together (plastic chain with connectors onto each slat of the blind) had snapped, so it was beginning to look a bit ropy. (Additionally, the fabric I chose is slightly rough, so grabs cat fur like an absolute bastard, but that’s a different issue)
Anyway, the number of snapped connectors was getting close to outnumbering the ones still intact, so I got in touch with Tuiss to find out whether I could get some replacement weights and chains.
As it turns out, when I say it was bought and installed “a while ago”, it turns out I meant “nearly six years ago”. All things considered, that means they’ve lasted pretty well.
Tuiss found my order, and we discussed what bits I needed – and at each point I was clear and said I was happy to pay for the pieces, it seemed only fair after six years. But they’ve kept on insisting that they’ll just send them out – and they’ve done so.
The bits arrived yesterday, and are now all in place on the blind. I’m really pleased with it, and impressed with Tuiss. Depending on how things go, if I decide to replace the blind then I’ll go back to them and do so, and see what they’ll charge me for a replacement blind without needing the infrastructure (the actual holding frame/mechanism and so on)
Lockdown – Error #2 Revisited
Posted: Mon 11 May, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Lockdown Leave a comment »Following on from when it broke last week, my boiler’s now been replaced and I have hot water again. (And heating, although that’s been less of an urgent requirement)
All told, it’s been quite an impressive process – one week from letting my landlord know that it was knackered, and it’s now sorted.
As with a lot of things currently, it could’ve been a lot worse. I know of other people who have waited six months for parts (admittedly on a new boiler where parts weren’t yet easily available) and others whose landlords wouldn’t work anywhere near as quickly to sort out problems.
All told, I feel pretty damn fortunate.
Lockdown – Ongoing
Posted: Sun 10 May, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, I Don't Understand, Lockdown, News, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Tonight, the PM has announced a “conditional plan” to help the country get through the next phase of Covid-19.
To be honest, it is (as expected) a bit of a car-crash, with mixed messages, bloody awful phrasing, and no real clarity on any of it.
So for me (and, I hope, for a lot of others) I’m sticking with my own Plan A, which is to carry on doing what I was doing before.
I’m still planning on mainly using my office – which is OK (so far as I can tell) because I go from a house on my own, to a car on my own, to an office on my own, with no real human contact at all, and thus an absolutely minimal chance of catching it, or passing it on. If my office building gets too crowded then I’ll re-assess and figure out a different plan. Until then, we’ll see.
Other than that, all I’m doing is keeping myself as safe from everything as possible, and hoping that everyone else is doing the same. Really, I don’t see that there’s anything else that can be done.
Eight Years
Posted: Tue 5 May, 2020 Filed under: 2012/13, 2019/20, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Turns out, it’s eight years today since I moved to the current house.
A lot’s happened in that time, and I’m still here. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I left home, which still feels very weird.
I keep on thinking about moving on (and, as I said in a previous post, right now I’m glad it hasn’t happened) and being somewhere new, but so far I haven’t found anywhere I really feel right about moving to.
I don’t know what the future will bring, or where it’ll find me, but for now well, eight years. Wow.
Lockdown – Error #2
Posted: Mon 4 May, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Housing, Lockdown 2 Comments »Other than haircuts based on a misunderstanding, currently the worst thing that’s going on is that my boiler has broken. As in spectacularly, expensively broken – to the point where it’ll be better to replace it with a new boiler, rather than the costs of sourcing and installing the bits that’ve died.
Thankfully, in all the relevant ways, it’s not really my problem. My landlord was informed that it’s broken, an engineer came round the next day, and gave the verdict that it’s buggered. The landlord’s agreed to replace the boiler, and hopefully it’ll happen in the coming week.
Fortunately it’s not too cold at the moment, so I’m not too affected. The worst bit of it for now is that there’s also no hot water, which makes washing up a pain. But to be honest, if that’s as bad as it gets, things could be a lot worse.
Lockdown – Error #1
Posted: Wed 29 April, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Lockdown, Single Life, Thoughts 1 Comment »This week – week seven of Lockdown, in case anyone is counting or cares – I learned something really important.
Hair clipper grades are not the length of hair in mm.
So this week, when I decided I’d had enough of my hair being too long (by my standards) I got my new clippers out, and put on the blade that would do a 2mm length. Because that’s a Number Two, right?
Wrong. So, so wrong.
It turns out, each grade is 1/8th of an inch, so a Number One results in hair 1/8th of an inch long, a Number Two in quarter-inch hair (about 6, 6.5mm) and so on up to Number Eight, which is a full inch long.
So currently my hair is just under a third of the length it would usually be after a trim. It looks and feels like a kiwi-fruit. (However, it’s also lost the silver halo that was developing, andlosing that’s A Very Good Thing)
As it is, I really don’t mind it. I’ve done a decent enough job of trimming it, it’s smooth enough with no tufts, and I won’t have to do it again for a while. It’s not the same as going to the barber, and it’s not something I’m going to end up doing for myself for ever. (Besides, I actually like going to my barber)
All the same, I’ve had a learning experience, and I’ll know better next time.
LockDown – Getting On
Posted: Mon 27 April, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Lockdown, Single Life, Thoughts, Weight Loss Leave a comment »It’s been a strange couple of months, with all the Coronavirus stuff, and the resultant lockdown. At the time of writing, we’ve completed five full weeks, and it’s looking like there’s still at least another couple of weeks of it to go (at a bare minimum)
All told, I’ve actually done OK (so far, so far) with the whole thing, and it hasn’t affected me too badly – indeed, for the most part my daily life hasn’t changed all that much.
A lot of people have found it tough to be on their own (or in a very restricted domestic situation) and they definitely have my sympathies, but for me it’s been much the same as usual. Indeed, the whole thing has really just proved to me that – for me – it was right to go back to being single, and staying that way. (That one might end up being a larger post in the fullness of time)
Additionally, a lot of people seem to have had real issues with shopping, panic-buying and the like – and again, so far I’ve been pretty lucky, and been able to get things done without running out of anything. (That’ll definitely be a bigger future post) There have been things where I’ve changed the supplier, or found a different method on-line, but so far there’s been nothing I’ve run out of (or even short of)
My health’s been fine, and so far there’ve been no signs of picking up the virus or anything. I’ve slacked off a bit on the whole exercise thing – although I’m still doing some, it’s just nowhere near what I was doing – and in a fit of irony, I actually lost a small amount of weight as a result. (Yeah, my body chemistry is still epically fucked) But I’m also not snacking and nibbling – which again seems to be a lot of people’s coping mechanism – so in general things are pretty good.
Even work-wise I’ve been lucky and most of my stuff is keeping on going. Obviously that might change with time, but for now it’s all still stable, and going well. And there’s a couple of new projects coming in as well, which should (I hope) make things easier as well.
So all-in-all things are good here. And I know that makes me ridiculously fortunate, and far, far luckier than many others.
Lockdown – Still Around
Posted: Sun 26 April, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Lockdown Leave a comment »It’s a funny old time, with the lockdown and so on. I keep on meaning to write more here, and then forgetting to do so.
So, I’m going to keep on meaning to write more (and hopefully being more successful) but for now, well, I’m still here.
Losing My Traditions
Posted: Thu 9 April, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Weirdness 1 Comment »Over the last few years, I’ve always bought myself an Easter egg from Hotel Chocolat – I really like the thickness of their eggs and so on, but also the fact that each half is individually wrapped. That’s important for me, because (as I’ve said before) I can’t leave a half-pack of something – if I’ve opened it, I’ll finish it. So with the Hotel Choc egg, it becomes four things – the two individual halves, and the two bags of chocolates inside.
The eggs also keep well – which is a good thing, because it takes me ages to get round to eating the damn thing. I don’t mind small doses of chocolate, but I have to be in the mood for a larger dose like a half-egg.
Anyway, this year I’ve decided that I’m not going to get an egg at all, which must be the first time in at least a decade.
I had the final half of last years egg about a fortnight ago, and if I’m honest, I didn’t even enjoy it. I wanted to, but it was just blah. And I’ve looked this year, and there’s nothing that makes me want to buy it. So, I’m not.
It feels a bit odd, really, and a bit sad. But not sad enough to make me change my mind. Maybe next year will be different, I don’t know.
Silver Linings
Posted: Wed 8 April, 2020 Filed under: Business, Domestic, Lockdown, Looking Back, Thoughts 1 Comment »I don’t really need to update anyone about the current Coronavirus Lockdown and all the fun and games that entails. (Suffice to say for now, I’m doing fine, but there’ll probably be a separate post about that some other time) It’s generally a bit shitey, and a bit dull, but it’s OK.
However, I was also thinking this week that for me things could’ve been so much worse – and very nearly were. So as well as the shitey-and-dull bits, it’s time to look a bit at silver linings, the things that – if they’d happened – would have made things shitey-er. (That’s not a word, but in context it’ll be fine)
At the start of this year, I was looking at renting a different office – still in Milton Keynes, but with a nicer specification, some more facilities and so on. And, of course, significantly more expensive. They were still fitting it out when I went for a look – which was perhaps a short-sighted move on the part of the company, as I’d have far rather seen things when they were a bit further along, rather than saying “This is where the walls will be” – but all the same, it looked nice, and suitable for most of my needs, along with some interesting extras for being “one of the first in”. But for a number of reasons (primarily the cost, and that I don’t like being hassled by sales people afterwards – particularly when they then can’t even follow their script efficiently) I decided to wait and see. And if I’d taken it, I’d have moved in a month ago, and then been effectively locked out a week later, while still paying that contracted rent for a locked-in 12-month minimum. (At my current one, if all else fails, I can now give them a month’s notice and be done and dusted)
In a similar vein, back in November I was looking at a couple of other houses I could move to instead of the current one. My tenancy was expiring on the current one, I’ve been here a scarily long time, and in many ways I’d like somewhere with more room. (That would’ve been nice in the current situation, I’d have had space to set aside a room as a home-office, which simply isn’t possible where I am now) But again, the ones I liked were a lot more expensive, and not quite right enough to make the decision. So again, if things had worked out differently, I’d be in a bigger house and so on, but also be paying considerably more for doing so.
There have been (and even are) some other silver linings to this whole thing, but for now, I think these two will do, to remind me that things really could be a lot worse…
Bow Time
Posted: Sun 29 March, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Change, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Getting Out More, Health, Looking Back, Norfolk, Thoughts Leave a comment »Decades ago, I used to be highly into archery, and enjoyed it a lot, including shooting up to County level.
Then life got in the way for a while, until I was reminded (15 years ago now) that I enjoyed it when we went to Center Parcs that I went and sorted out a bow and so on and started to get back into it again, and then life got in the way again.
I’d kept the bow and so on, even though I wasn’t doing the archery, and kept on looking for local(ish) archery clubs whose schedules worked with my own. (This is actually a lot harder than you’d think – most of them are on school grounds or similar, so only open specific evenings, and usually ones where I was already doing stuff)
Anyway, about a month ago now, I found a semi-local (within about 30-40 minutes drive) club that has an outdoor range which is open to use seven days a week, which does suit me. But before I could join properly, I had to do their beginner’s course, in order to prove I could use a bow safely.
I did that a couple of weeks back, and again really enjoyed myself.
The final step was to get my bow properly checked out and serviced (it’s not been fired in eight years, I wasn’t going to try it without getting it inspected!) and that happened a week ago on Friday at a place I’d been recommended to use. Again that was a really good – if not cheap – experience, and by the end of my time there, I was grouping my arrows (at a shorter indoor range) within the space one gets if you circle fingers into an OK gesture.
I filled in, signed and sent off the membership forms the following day, so now I’m just waiting to get my confirmation and card.
All told, I’m generally feeling pretty optimistic about it, and looking forward to seeing how things go.
Quiet
Posted: Sat 28 March, 2020 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Health Leave a comment »A lot has changed in the last month – not really for me personally, but for the world. As a result, I haven’t felt much like writing, but while I’m here and not doing much, I thought I’d at least update a bit, catch up on some posts, some thoughts and braindumps along the way.
But regardless of that, I’m still here.
A Flaw In The Safety
Posted: Fri 6 March, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, London, Technology, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the post a while back about driver assistance things, I had another interesting one a few days ago.
I’d hired a Vauxhall Insignia in order to ferry people around a bit, and the weather was disgusting – heavy rain, lots of spray, and lots of idiots with no lights on.
Anyway, on the section of the M4 I was driving on, there were roadworks, and the lanes had been narrowed as a result. And that was where the problem came in.
The Insignia had the Lane Change Warning thing, which detects when the driver is drifting across lanes without indicating – and in the case of the Insignia, it also tries to push you back into the lane you’re departing. Not my favourite thing at the best of times, but in this case it was actually picking up on the wrong lane markings (because they were glossy and shiny in the rain) and so actually kept on pushing me “back” towards the crash barriers, and would have left me scraping along them if I’d not been paying attention.
I can understand why it happened, and how. It was also easy enough for me to sort things out (eventually by turning off the Lane Change completely) but I can also easily see how things could’ve gone wrong, if I were the sort of driver who relied on these aids, who didn’t pay attention, or left those aids to do things because they’re there to help.
And what would’ve happened in that situation if it were a fully autonomous (“self-driving”) vehicle with no controls, or potentially people who didn’t drive, or couldn’t understand the danger signs?
There’s still a way to go on these things, I think…
Levels of Stupid
Posted: Tue 25 February, 2020 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, I Don't Understand, People, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »At the moment, I get a *lot* of spam about property investment – probably an average of five to ten a day. I don’t know why it’s suddenly this subject, but it’s definitely noticeable.
Student flats in Hull, Hotel rooms in Leicester, Apartments in Liverpool and Manchester, and even some overseas stuff. I don’t pay attention to it, but it does make me think.
Basically, what kind of idiot (or lunatic) is going to decide to invest in a property, based on receiving a spam/junk email? It’s a huge amount of money, however you look at it.
I mean, obviously people do fall for this crap – the spammers/scammers wouldn’t bother sending it out if they didn’t – but I can’t deny, I figure that the people who do so pretty much deserve everything they get.
Self-Incrimination
Posted: Fri 21 February, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, I Don't Understand, Legal, M1, People, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s no secret that I tend to assume people with dashcams are usually shit drivers. Obviously that’s not always the case, but in my experience it’s predominantly true – as though there’s an attitude of “Well I’m perfect, and it’s all these other idiots on the road” or something.
I also know that it’s now far easier to upload one’s dashcam footage to report driving offences when the police haven’t been there.
What I do wonder is how many people self-incriminate on those uploads? For example, if one were to upload video of someone undertaking on a motorway, only for that footage to also show that the reporting driver had been middle-lane-hogging for the previous ten miles, and thus being at least a partial cause of said undertaking…
And no, this doesn’t involve my own driving. Just something I noticed occurring in front of me on the M1 this morning, and then started thinking about the extrapolations.
Road Muck
Posted: Tue 18 February, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »It’s that time of the year again where the roads are filthy, and all the grut ends up on cars. I’m not quite sure how it all works out – I think it’s a combination of grit/salt for expected sub-zero temperatures, plus rain lifting and loosening the daily-wear dirt off the tarmac and making it airborne.
It surprises me how dirty everything gets, and also how unaware people are of how vile their cars are – I regularly see lots with their number plates completely obscured and unreadable because of that caked-on junk.
Personally, I don’t get that – regardless of how well one drives, why draw the attention of any passing police, and give them a reason to stop you?
Admittedly, last week when I was driving home one night I did think I’d had a headlamp blow, as there was considerably less light/illumination than usual – but I checked when I got home, and it was just congealed gunk on the lenses. Easy to sort (and I took the car to the car wash the next day) but still, I don’t get why/how people leave their cars to get into a state where you could pretty much scrape off layers of dirt…
Ciara
Posted: Sun 9 February, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, M1, News, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Today the UK got hit by Storm Ciara – nothing in the scale of American weather and so on, but still, enough to be entertaining
Among other things, it meant that there was a record-breaking subsonic crossing of the Atlantic – just under five hours, arriving at Heathrow a full 80 minutes ahead of schedule – because of the storm’s effect on the Jetstream.
Fortunately, the area I live in wasn’t too affected – we had several trees come down and so on, but they were all apparently cleared away pretty quickly, and a couple of trucks on the M1 were blown over, which must make life interesting. However, other areas were hit far harder, with some winds over 90mph, as well as flooding and so on.
Thankfully, I wasn’t doing much today. I had thought I was back down in London to see a play, but it turned out that is actually on a different day/weekend completely. And I can’t deny, I’m really quite pleased about that.
Petrol and Diesel
Posted: Fri 7 February, 2020 Filed under: Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Green, Green, Thoughts 1 Comment »This week, one of the main stories in the news was about the UK announcing it had brought forwards a ban on the sale of petrol and diesel-fuelled cars to 2035 from its initial target of 2040.
That’s all well and good, but it does have its problems as well. To my mind, the biggest of these is the necessary infrastructure.
You can tell that the great majority of the people proposing these requirements (and expecting everyone in the country to follow suit) live in houses with driveways – or at least off-road parking – as well as the funds to pay for a significant increase to their electricity usage.
However, lots of people don’t live in those situations. Those in blocks of flats, for example, wouldn’t necessarily have access to anything. For those who (like me) live in a house with on-street parking – and even then it’s not guaranteed or reserved parking, so I regularly end up parking a distance away from my place – but even if I were parked outside the house, an electric car would mean dangling a power cable out of the house, and across the pathway that’s regularly used. For that scenario, I’m honestly not sure what the infrastructure requirements would be – and I don’t think anyone else knows either.
The costs are another matter. Yes OK, you’re cutting out the costs of fuel, but if the demand for electricity shoots up that much, then so will the costs of it. Additionally, there are plenty of people who are on paid-supply meters, or high tariffs (whether because of laziness and not changing, or because that’s all they can get because of debt, income, whatever) and that can also be an issue.
Alongside those concerns – and just using myself as an example – there are plenty of drives that fall outside the range of all but the most expensive electric vehicles. An ‘affordable’ vehicle like the Nissan Leaf, for example, apparently has a range of 135 miles. So I could do a return journey from home to London, no worries. But I couldn’t do a trip down to see my friends in Somerset (which I can do in 3 hours currently) without a recharging stop each way. (And again, they don’t have a power point for charging a car down there) Same when I go to see friends in Manchester, or Newcastle.
Hell, I’ve even done daily commutes that would take me past that kind of mileage – and the office was (again) somewhere with no connection to a decent charger, it would’ve been power-cable-tastic – which would have been entirely impractical.
If that kind of target for everyone to have electric vehicles is to be realised, I think there need to be quantum leaps in several aspects, including (but not limited to)
- Infrastructure for charging vehicles
- Battery technology, to improve both the range of electric vehicles, and to improve the speed of charging
- and to improve at-home-storage, allowing the potential for using home-based renewable generation – solar, wind, whatever – that can be stored to provide the charging without draining the grid
- A huge review of the costs of that electricity, and to ensure increases to the supply that will handle all that extra demand
- Consideration of the impact on petrol and diesel industry – including the effects of all the staff who might then be in less demand at filling stations and so on
Personally, I think a lot of stuff round electric vehicles is a load of old cock. I’m not convinced that they’re any more efficient (among other things, there’s a lot of power lost in the transmission over cables, so it needs a *lot* more generation in order to provide the supply) and while they’re less polluting at the point of use, I’m not convinced that it’s doing anything more than moving that around. We don’t know what happens with the constituent parts of the car batteries, or what happens when they expire (or when a car crashes or whatever)
I don’t claim to know what the answer is – but I also don’t think that a wholesale change like this is necessarily the best plan. It needs a lot more thought, and a shitload more planning than currently seems to be happening.
A Quieter January
Posted: Sun 26 January, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health Leave a comment »Back in December I said about planning to have things being quieter and calmer in 2020, and I’m working on it. But it’s decidedly odd in some ways.
Each weekend of January has had a day “off”, where I’m not doing as much. I usually prefer to at least get out and do something (even if, like today, ‘something’ is just going to the cinema to see stuff) but there’ve even been a couple where I didn’t leave the house – and they definitely felt weird.
It’s actually something that is – for me – very hard to do. It’s taking time to think of it as being “OK” to have days like these. What makes it harder is that I’m physically used to being out and doing stuff – the days of doing Not Much actually leave me feeling achy, tired and grouchy. I honestly don’t yet know how long it’ll take for that to stop happening, or at least get easier.
I’m still working on it though. February is currently planned to be similar – I’ve only got one weekend where there are things booked for both days. So we’ll see how things have progressed in that time, and whether I’m doing better on Not Much days than I currently am…
Driving Assistance
Posted: Sun 19 January, 2020 Filed under: Driving, Technology, Thoughts 2 Comments »During the last three months of 2019 I ended up hiring a few cars for longer rides and so on. There was no particularly good reason for it – the primary motivation was that some of the drives were likely to involve heavy traffic, so having an automatic seemed like a decent plan. Outside of that, cutting down some of the mileage on my own car, and also well, it was just fun to play with some different cars.
Out of it all, it was interesting to me to see how much driving has changed, and primarily the plethora of driving assistance things that’ve been added in the last few years. Things like auto start/stop, lane-change warnings, automatic lights, automatic windscreen wipes, intelligent cruise control (the one that automatically adjusts speed based on vehicles around you, rather than just ‘70 mph and that’s it‘) , road-sign recognition, and speed limiters.
In general, I’m really not a fan of these aids and “helpers” – as has been noted before, I’m a bit of a control-freak, and I don’t like ceding driving decisions to them. My main reasoning on this though isn’t actually about my own driving, it’s about the driving of others. It seems like a lot of these things help to make drivers feel that they don’t need to be so aware of what’s going on, and so they become less conscious of their surroundings, which makes for things being more dangerous, rather than less.
In the end, there were only two that I found to be useful, and even then there’s only one that I’ve “missed” having at all.
I used the speed limiter more than I thought I would – mainly on trips where I’d been an idiot and done big day-trips (three or more hours each way) or where I was coming back after a long and active day. On those occasions, knowing that I couldn’t take the car over whatever I’d set meant it was something I didn’t have to concentrate on, and that meant I could give more awareness and concentration to the actual drive. I wouldn’t use it on a day-to-day basis, but it was definitely useful on the times when I did activate it.
The only thing I’ve actually missed though is the automatic windscreen wipers. It’s more about reducing my own annoyance than actually being useful as such, but I’ve noticed its lack. Particularly on motorways (which is still the great majority of my driving) I find rain is too changeable, too random for regular windscreen wipers to be effective without occasionally squeaking when there’s not been enough rain, or not clearing rapidly enough when a sudden dollop lands (or there’s more as one passes a truck or whatever) So you end up changing the intervals, or only triggering a manual sweep when it’s needed, or whatever. Anyway, it annoys me whatever happens.
The automatic wipers took all of that away. Leave them on auto, and they’d handle it all without hassle. Yes, it’s odd (in some ways) to see them go from nothing to a sudden three wipes, or increasing the cadence in response to that truck chucking up a load of water or whatever. But it still meant it was something that wasn’t annoying me, which tends to be a positive…
Organising
Posted: Sat 18 January, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Business, Change, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised Leave a comment »Among all the usual stuff, I’ve spent some time this month getting things a bit more organised, and kicking off things that had slipped last year.
So in the last two weeks, I’ve…
- Moved/merged my credit-card crap onto one interest-free balance-transfer card.
It’s not a huge amount, and not something I’m worried about, but it’s good to have it in one place and no interest for the next two years. - Started playing hunt-the-pensions, seeing if I can find them and merge them into one fund, so I know where the hell things stand.
I’m not expecting much, but again, it’ll be good to know - Started sorting a new will, as the last one was done while I was still with Herself. So yeah, that *really* needs to be sorted
- Booked in cat-sitting people for all the stuff I’ve currently got lined up (which is more than it should be, but less than it could’ve been)
- Actually also done less – in each of the three weekends so far, I’ve had a day of doing very very little, as per the plan for this year. I don’t know if that’ll keep on happening (in some ways I’m finding it more exhausting than being busy, but I’ll write about that another time) but so far it’s worked out
- Completed another project outside of my usual work, which has already made me more productive than last year
- Oh, and visited my first Michelin-starred restaurant of the year as well (and it was bloody excellent)
It’s been interesting, and eventful – and it’s good to have some of that stuff checked off the list already
Unaffected
Posted: Tue 14 January, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Legal, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »There are times where I really wonder about our legal system. Today is one of those days.
There’s this story on the BBC, about a driver who killed a cyclist while driving like an utter dickhead. He drove away from the crash – still driving like a dickhead, and nearly causing another crash as well – and sold the car (his girlfriend’s, so he wasn’t even legally able to sell it) that afternoon in order to try and avoid being caught/blamed/arrested.
That all failed, he was caught, and yesterday he plead guilty to a whole range of driving offences.
He pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and has been sentenced to six years in prison.
He also pleaded guilty to causing death by driving whilst disqualified, causing death while uninsured, dangerous driving and two counts of leaving petrol stations without paying for fuel.
He’s never passed a driving test – indeed, he says he’s never even taken a driving test.
He’s been jailed for six years, which means he’ll likely be out in three. But that’s not where I wonder about the legal system. This is…
Dellaway has also been banned from driving for six years and was told he would have to take an extended driving test before being allowed on the road.
Now, I’m sorry, but if someone has already shown that they’re quite willing to drive without passing a test, what on earth makes them think that a prison sentence is going to change him enough that he takes a driving test when he comes out, let alone an extended one?
Come to that, what on earth makes them think that being banned from driving will stop him from being back on the roads as soon as he’s out of prison?
Going Dark
Posted: Tue 7 January, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Festering Season, Thoughts Leave a comment »Now we’re at the end of the Festering Season, and it makes me happy.
With Twelfth Night having just passed, it’s the time I honestly like the most – all the decorative lights are off again, and the streets return to being much darker.
I don’t really know why it makes me happier, but I noticed it again this week, that whole “Oh, this is different, it’s really nice” thing as I drove home.
I know, I’m a grouch and so on – it’s not something I could ever deny, after all.
Into 2020
Posted: Sat 4 January, 2020 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Looking Back, Milton Keynes, Norfolk, People, Rebuilding, Single Life, Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »It’s been interesting (for no good reason other than that this is a year that ends in a zero) to look back at what was going on this time ten years ago.
It’s fair to say that a lot has changed in that time – albeit none of it recently.
Back then I was still in Norfolk, and working in Bury St Edmunds (and I did keep the promise to stick with the one workplace for the full year of 2010…) I’d just had the first (and still only) accident of my driving career, sliding on ice onto a set of concrete fence posts, which did a blinding job of twatting the front nearside.
So in that ten years, I’ve
- split with Herself, had another shorter-term relationship, and been single now for much longer than either one.
- moved four times – and been in one place (the current one) for far longer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived since leaving home
- changed jobs more times than I care to think about (I could work it out, but truly can’t be chuffed) and been doing the current one for far longer than I ever expected
- been through the whole bankruptcy process, and come out the other side
- been to more plays and theatre things than I’d ever have thought I’d have been to
- and the same for restaurants – Michelin-starred and otherwise. This time ten years ago, I’d not been to any Michelin places – that happened in mid-2010, and I wasn’t impressed at the time. Maybe I should go back there, maybe not.
- changed car twice, and rented a bundle of others as needs directed
There’s a lot of other stuff – it’s interesting to see how a lot of the things I wanted to change then that I still want to change now, for example – and I’ll write more about that elsewhere/elsewhen.
It’s a whole new decade out there (and I can’t be arsed with the argument about whether that’s 2020 or 2021, so don’t bother) and it’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
Multicrunch
Posted: Sun 29 December, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, People, Weirdness 1 Comment »In the town where I live, one of the major roads in has a roundabout at the end of it. It’s busy, but that’s generally fine.
Anyway, the weird thing is that in the last week, two cars have come off that roundabout into the verges/ditches. Going in different directions (they’re on opposite sides of the roundabout) but both somehow off the road.
It’s weird because I’ve not seen any other accidents on that roundabout in the seven-plus years I’ve lived here.
The road’s safe – I’ve been over that roundabout at least twice a day every day, and I’ve been using it during the time of these accidents without any problems. It’s just it’s had two accidents in seven days, for some reason.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane – National Theatre
Posted: Sat 28 December, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, London, Reviews(ish), Theatre, Theatre, Thoughts Leave a comment »Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to get to see the play of Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” at the National Theatre. It’s on for a comparatively short run – only about eight weeks, I think – and in the smallest theatre (the Dorfman) which only seats 400 people – so it’s fair to say that demand for the tickets were pretty high.
It’s been an eventful couple of months for “Ocean…”, as prior to the play starting there was also a new version released with illustrations by Elise Hurst (which is beautiful) although as I understand it the two things aren’t actually related or connected.
Anyway, the play itself is superb – I would say it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen this year – and the staging and lighting are excellent as well. It’s hard to explain things without spoilers, but basically the story of a man returning to his childhood home, and remembering the things that happened back then. It’s a lot more than that, with themes of magic, loss, change and sacrifice.
I truly hope that it goes on to another theatre, and/or on tour – if it does, it’s totally worth making time to go and see it.
2019/20 – Doing Less – Plans
Posted: Fri 27 December, 2019 Filed under: 2019/20, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »In the comments on the post about doing less, Gordon said
For your ‘busy’ do you get anxious when the calendar is empty, do you just like having ‘a plan’? Would it work if you planned an afternoon of deliberately doing nothing? (the challenge being to stick to it?)
It’s a bit more – and less – complicated than that.
I don’t need a full plan of “I’ll do [x], then [y], then [z]” for either a day or a weekend. In general I’m happy with an outline idea, even if it’s just “I’ll go to London” or whatever.
However, I do like having at least that idea. A blank space in the calendar is an oddity, and it does leave me feeling uncomfortable.
The other side of it is that my time off is precious to me, my weekends are important. I make sure that I do all my domestic stuff during the week, I refuse to spend half of those important two days doing cleaning, laundry, shopping and so on. They’re my own days, and if I do nothing with them, I feel they’ve been wasted.
So long as I do *something* with them, I’m OK. And even ‘just’ spending a day at the cinema catching up on films counts as “doing something”, so my criteria are quite low on that basis.
It’s that balance I need to find, somewhere between going out – day trips and time away, seeing friends, that kind of thing – and just doing enough to appease my work ethic. I also probably should find a way to be able to class days of doing nothing as also somehow counting as doing something.
It’s not an easy balance to find, and I’m not quite sure how I’ll get it right, but I think it’s time to at least try…
Festerous
Posted: Wed 25 December, 2019 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic 1 Comment »Hurrah, the Festering Season is now over for another year nine months or so.
In fairness, I haven’t been quite as virulently anti it a usual. Well, that’s not true – I have been, I just haven’t been so *volubly* anti it.
It’s still gone on way too long, with the perfume adverts starting back in mid-September, and all the bullshit about Christmas ads and so on since mid-November.
But this time round it just hasn’t felt like it’s even worth complaining about, it’s just been one of those things.
Ah well, fun and games.
Extending Daylight
Posted: Mon 23 December, 2019 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, SAD Leave a comment »As of today, the days are getting longer again (for the next six months, anyway) It’s only five seconds longer today than yesterday, but at least it’s heading in the right direction.
This is A Good Thing.
That is all.
CostCluster
Posted: Fri 20 December, 2019 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Have you ever noticed, there are some times where things all just decide to cost money all at once? And it’s usual at the most inconvenient times…
The last ten days have been a pretty good example of that. Since last Wednesday…
- The car had a front tyre blow out , so has needed a replacement tyre.
- The clutch on the car also started playing up, so has needed to be replaced.
Admittedly, it wasn’t yet completely stuffed, but you could feel it was well on the way, and I’d rather not be stuffed by that over the Festering Season - In the kitchen, the steamer I use most days died (tripping the circuit breaker along the way) and needed replacing
- And one of my smoke alarms also started doing the beep-of-battery-death. And of course it’s a non-replaceable battery (not my choice, but that of my landlord) so that’ll need replacing
On top of that, all the usual stuff for the Festering Season and so on, and it means it’s been an expensive month…
2019/20 – Do Less
Posted: Fri 20 December, 2019 Filed under: 2019/20, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised 2 Comments »With my plans for 2019-2020, the first key thing (although it’s not really something quantifiable) is to do less.
The last two years have been particularly hyper, with very few days/times where I’ve not been working, or travelling, or doing stuff. I don’t resent it – most of it has been my choice, after all – but it needs to slow down a bit.
I don’t yet quite know how I’m going to do it – some of the problem is my own mindset and work ethic, where I feel I’ve wasted a day if I’ve not done things. In particular, my weekends are precious and important to me, and I don’t like seeing them disappear without something to show for it.
But I also know that I need to not be quite so hyper, to take some down time and space. There’s a balance in there somewhere, and I hope to be able to find it.
I suspect that what will happen is that this will work alongside “be a better friend” and “be better to myself”, and that it’ll involve still travelling to see friends, but also doing so for things that work for me.
2019/20 – What’re the plans?
Posted: Thu 19 December, 2019 Filed under: 2019/20, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Having thought about it way more than originally expected, my plans for the coming year are actually pretty basic. It can all be summed up as :
- Do a bit less
- Write a bit more (both here and elsewhere)
- Be a better friend – see friends more, that kind of thing
- Be better to myself – do some different stuff just for me.
- Consider a new location
So that’s the basic plan and points. I’ll aim to explain them out in a bit more detail over a couple of further posts – which might seem like I’m padding things out, but it’s more about wanting some time and space to figure it out, rather than just brain-dumping right now.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Posted: Tue 17 December, 2019 Filed under: 2019/20, D4D™, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »Needless to say, it’s been quiet here for the last month or so.
There’s been a fair amount going on in reality, but primarily it was just about taking a break.
OK, I can’t deny, a lot of this year has been a break on D4D, and that’s something I plan/want to change. (That’ll be another post)
The last month, though, has been an intentional break rather than the accidental ones that’ve been occurring. I wanted to take a break from even feeling like I should be writing stuff on here, and to see whether there’s been any further drive to write anything away from here.
It’s been kind-of successful – I’ve got ideas of things I want to write outside here, but I’ve also had ideas and thoughts for posts here as well, so I’m regarding it as generally a positive thing.
There’ll hopefully be more about those things and thoughts over the next few posts, and we’ll see how things to.
2018/19 – What Happened?
Posted: Wed 6 November, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, 2019/20, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, Self-Doubt, Single Life, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, I had some plans for the last twelve months, and it’s time for an update. It won’t make for hugely positive reading…
The list from the post a year ago is as follows.
- Keep on working on losing weight.
This one is a long-term thing, and one I’ve written about before. For me, it’s a struggle – I’ve worked with a number of resources this year so far, and feel better-informed than I was, but there’s still a long way to go. If nothing else, this year so far has eliminated a lot of options and bullshit.
RESULT : Absolutely sod-all difference. Which is both positive (I’ve not gained any) and negative (for fuck’s sake, nor have I lost any) - Keep on improving fitness/health
Linked to losing weight, I’ve had more success with this one over the last 12 months, but there’s still stuff to do and improve.
RESULT : Fitness and strength have continued to improve, with very few visual clues/hints that it’s happened. - Continue doing the stuff I enjoy
Various bits here – but basically, do stuff I want to. Not as a “fear of missing out” (“FOMO”) thing, but just as in “I really want to see/do [x]” and doing so. (This is, of course, in direct contrast to ‘doing less’ in the list below, so it’s a bit of a balancing act!)
RESULT : This one’s been a success, actually. Although it’s not been a great year in many ways, at least I’ve kept on living my life and generally enjoying it. - Be more sociable
I’ve realised this year that I’ve been utterly crap with seeing friends – I’ve been doing a lot of stuff, but at the same time it hasn’t been overly sociable, hasn’t involved going to see friends at all. And that needs sorting.
RESULT : And this one’s been a failure. In fairness, it hasn’t got much worse, but it hasn’t got any better either.
I’m getting rid of some of the longer-running goals. They’re still things I want to work on – I’m not giving up on the plans, just on the having them as goals – but it affects me more when I see my ongoing failure to complete/do/start them year on year.
So I’ll note them here as reminders, but they’re not part of the main “What I’m aiming for” list. See if it works better for me as advisories, rather than as targets/goals. And those reminders are…
- Writing
I want to do more writing – I’ve got the ideas, but it’s finding the time, inclination and drive to get them actually going. I hope to schedule more in – I’ve also invested in some tools that should allow me to do so – but we’ll see.
RESULT : Nope, hasn’t happened. Even more ideas bouncing round in my brain, and an absolute zero on getting them addressed - Business plans
As with the writing, I’ve got the ideas, but need to allocate time and energy to getting them to work. In some cases I’m frustrated by time, in others by funding for getting them how I want them. We’ll just have to see how things go.
RESULT : Nope, nor this. Ideas are still there, but I’ve done keck-all with them - Doing Less
This is kind-of related to the above two – if I could sort my brain out so that ‘doing less’ was better, then I’d hopefully have more time to spend on the writing and business ideas.
RESULT : Nope. Still been an idiot all year and kept busy for about 95% of the time - Plan Better
And the final one, which controls all of the others – make better plans, notes, and be better organised.
RESULT : Again, Nope. Not even close.
So, all things considered, while it’s not been a bad year per se, it’s also not been a good one. Which also goes to sort of explain why I’ve been crap at getting this organised/written, and why I haven’t yet thought about whether I’m doing this for the coming year, or just sacking it off.
48
Posted: Tue 5 November, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, 2019/20, Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten) Leave a comment »Usually at this time of the year I write about what’s happened over the last year, and what I’m planning for the coming twelve months.
That’ll probably still happen – it just won’t be perfectly in line with my birthday this year. How do I know that? Because today’s my birthday, and I’ve done sod-all about preparing those posts and thoughts. Which might be a bit of a hint.
So anyway, today I’m 48. I don’t feel it at all, but there we go, that’s how things work out sometimes.
Anyway, blah, resolutions stuff later.
Sequential
Posted: Fri 1 November, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Geeky Leave a comment »Over the last week, I’ve had two significant (to me) numbers come up on the car’s odometer. I missed one, and managed to capture the other.
So the one I got was this
And the one I missed was (the even better) 141414 . That’s annoying, because obviously it’ll be another 10,000-ish miles before I even get a chance on that one.
I know these things are silly, but they amuse me along the way.
Smart Motorways, Dumb Drivers
Posted: Thu 24 October, 2019 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, M1, News, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m really not surprised that there are now some calls to do a safety review of the “Smart Motorways” concept. It’s a particular source of interest as I travel on the M1 on a regular basis, and that’s one of the roads that will be looked at.
The concept of Smart Motorways ( flexible speed limits, the ability to make the hard shoulder into a running lane at peak times ) is a decent one, but it also missed out a couple of key factors.
The first – and most important – of those is that a huge number of drivers are fucking idiots, and have no idea how to handle the flexibility of the hard shoulder. I’ve lost count of the number of times I can see the hard shoulder being in use – with signs saying so every quarter-mile or so – and no-one using it. (Admittedly, I tend to then use it and make progress past idiots, but I’d rather see the lane being used correctly) And of course there’s also a significant number of drivers who won’t even use the inside lane, preferring to stay in the middle one, overtaking fuck-all for mile after mile, which also screws things up.
The second factor is that they didn’t seem to think about what happens when someone does have a breakdown or an accident, it necessitates at least a full lane closure (because there’s no hard shoulder to get in to) which screws the traffic up worse than it used to. Yes, there are refuge areas off the main running lanes, but there was a stat (which I can’t find in a story right now) that only something like 30-35% of breakdowns manage to get to the refuge areas rather than stopping in the live lane.
So yes, I’m not surprised that they’ll probably be getting reviewed – I do think they’re a good idea in general, but at the same time I don’t think they’re all that suitable for UK drivers, primarily because of some of their apparently unique behavioural traits.
Environmental
Posted: Sun 20 October, 2019 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Green, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »On my post about mileage and so on, BW commented “No environmental conscience chez toi, then, eh? 😉” And I can’t deny, that annoyed me a fair bit.
So…
-
- That weekend, I hired a car that was supposed to have a better Eco-profile than my current car. Sadly, that turned out to not be the case – it got a lot less MpG than mine, and generally wasn’t very good. But the intentions were there, at least. Even though I should’ve stuck to my usual car.
- Where possible – in this case, the run to and from Oxford – I carried friends, rather than everyone driving individually
- Taking public transport was simply not a realistic option, for a range of reasons, including
- I’d still have to drive to my nearest station, and (as I understand it) shorter journeys like that are the worst environmentally, as most of the nastys happen on start-up/warm-up, rather than on longer runs
- The runs to Oxford and Chichester would both have been over three hours each way, and cost more than the fuel for the entire weekend
- The journey to Kent wouldn’t have been possible at all
- Also, knowing the mileage etc., I make use of a carbon offset programme – it’s not perfect, but (I hope) it helps
- The Big Cat Experience in Kent use most of the money from the experience days and so on to go towards ecological and animal protection/preservation projects overseas.
Outside of those things, there’s also the following other little bits
- I’m still using a car that’s now ten years old (and passes the MoT emissions test with flying colours) rather than using up a load of resources with a new vehicle
- My domestic waste/rubbish is absolutely minimal – indeed, if I didn’t have cats, I’d be easily able to get away with one domestic waste collection per month – and I recycle far more than most people.
- I rarely fly anywhere – the last time was two years ago
- Most of my electric/electronic devices are recharged via a battery bank that charges off a solar panel, rather than via the mains.
There’s probably other stuff as well, but anyway, it’s a pretty good start.
I fully accept that my environmental profile isn’t perfect – my main downsides are electricity and driving. And I balance as much of that as possible. However, I’m also pretty sure that it’s a lot better than that of most people.
Even more importantly, no matter what I do to improve my profile, it’s utterly irrelevant in comparison to other environmental things. For example, if the new phase of advertising on video screens (particularly the stand-alone street-furniture versions) were deactivated/turned off overnight it would save more in a week than I could contribute in a lifetime.
So – do I have an environmental conscience? I’ll let you decide – although I think the answer is generally yes.
Mileage
Posted: Sun 13 October, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Getting Out More, Single Life, Travel 1 Comment »This weekend has been one with a fair bit of travelling. It’s just the way things worked out, but it made for a busy one.
On Friday I was over in Oxford, seeing XKCD‘s Randall Munroe at the Sheldonian Theatre doing a talk about his new book. That was enjoyable – and I’d never been in the Sheldonian before, so that was an additional bonus.
On Saturday I was down in Chichester to see a staging of Macbeth, starring John Simm and Dervla Kerwan.
And then on Sunday I was in Kent, at the Big Cat Experience, as they were doing a “meet the big cats” experience. I’d decided that I wanted to go, and classed it as a birthday present to myself. It was a lot of miles/driving for a two-hour-ish thing, but it was also worth going, and I’d certainly consider going again.
All told, I’ve covered nearly 800 miles over three days. I’m a daft, daft, daft sode.
Annual Car Costs
Posted: Fri 4 October, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »The start of October is expensive when it comes to the car, because it’s the anniversary of when I bought it.
So first there’s the renewal of the vehicle tax, although happily that’s not a big expense at £30 for the year.
Then there’s the insurance renewal, which is always a fun dose of bureaucracy and weirdness. And at least that one is an expense that’s spread through the year – I could do it in one payment, but find I usually can’t be bothered.
And then of course there’s the MoT test. Never fun – even if it passes with no problem, you’ve still spent time beforehand worrying about what’ll happen, and figuring out as many of the financial permutations as possible.
Last year, it passed the MoT OK, with just a couple of advisories – although one of those was about the brakes needing attention next year. So I knew that was going to come up, as well as the MoT and a service – which makes it all already Not Cheap.
Luckily though, that was it. I got one small advisory for this year, but absolutely nothing else to worry about. I suspect the clutch is likely to die sometime this year (although I said that last year too) which’ll be an expense at some point.
But for now, it’s all sorted, and my wallet isn’t as light as it could’ve been, so I’ll take that as a positive…
Withdrawn
Posted: Fri 27 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Gigs, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last week, I was supposed to go to two different concerts. In the end I didn’t go to either of them.
The first one turned into a farce, with tickets not delivered, a venue with a remarkably disinterested customer services team, and all just became a lot more hassle than it was worth. I’ve been in touch with them since, and there’s been some progress, but still, not a good experience at all.
The second one, well, I just wasn’t in the mood at all. I’d purchased the ticket when the gig was initially announced, but as it came closer to the day I was totally unfussed about it, not at all excited or even looking forward to it. And then on the day itself, I’d been for lunch at one of my favourite places (newly re-fitted and re-opened) and was feeling epically fat as a result, which isn’t really conducive to a good concert.
In both cases though, I also just wasn’t really in the mood for dealing with people – and particulary the type of vacuous bastards that seem to be the gig-going majority at present.
I was going to write a bit more about how I was dealing with it, and some of the other stuff around sociability (or lack thereof) but at the moment I can’t really be chuffed to do so.
More during the week, I’m sure.
Reinsuring
Posted: Wed 25 September, 2019 Filed under: Advertising, Brands, Change, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Finances, I Don't Understand, Insurance, People, Weirdness Leave a comment »The world of Car Insurance is very, very strange. I truly don’t understand how it all works.
My car insurance is due for renewal in October, so I recently received the renewal gubbins from my current insurer. They’ve put my insurance up by £60 for the year. Bear in mind, I’ve not even spoken to them all year, let alone made a claim, and I’ve now got another year’s no claims discount as well. And yet it’s gone up.
So I shopped around, doing the usual comparison website thing (Meerkats rather than opera singers) and got one that’s actually £120 cheaper than what I was being offered by the current insurer – and with slightly better cover.
Brilliant, I’ll sign up and do that. Job done. And this is where it all gets weird(er)
My new insurer is actually one I used a couple of years ago. So when I log in to their ‘self-service portal’ to see my new policy, all I can see is the details of the old one. Fuck sake. (It looks like the policy is actually tied to a combination of my username and password – so I can change password, and now view the new details instead – but I didn’t know that at the time)
So first things first, I call my current insurer to tell them I won’t be renewing with them. It’s the usual automatic phone gubbins, and gives the name of the insurance provider – let’s call them ABC Insurers, for the sake of argument. I give the correct information, go through, tell them I won’t be renewing, explain why, and it’s as easy as that.
Then I call the new insurers. Who are also using ABC Insurers. So I go through the correct information for the new insurance, get things sorted, get the documents emailed to me, and it’s as easy as that.
But it’s weird – I’ve used two different companies (well, two different front-ends) and given them the same information (obviously) but one faction is offering me a significantly better deal than both the one I’m on, and the renewal quote from the one I’m on. But they’re both the same company underneath!
How the fuck does that make sense? Offering the same person two completely different prices (and slightly different packages/benefits) Why not allow my current insurer to offer the same price as my new one? It’s all just a bit bizarre.
Equinoctual
Posted: Mon 23 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »Today is the Autumn Equinox, when the day and night are equal in length.
What that means is the from now until next March, the nights will be longer than the days.
Winter is coming, my friends, winter is coming
Zapper
Posted: Fri 20 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Back at the start of July, I finally caved and bought one of the big bug-zappers, to see how it worked out in comparison to the other devices I’d purchased in previous years that proved to be far less successful.
And I have to say, I’ve been really pleased with it – it’s not 100% perfect, but that’s mainly because flies and bugs are stupid, and don’t just dive straight into the zapper. However, it’s been a lot more successful in its body-count than any of the other devices.
Even better, it’s been pretty good (surprisingly so, in fact) on power – considering how much it’s been in use, I think it’s added a pound or two to the summer’s bill, but that’s it.
Really, the only downside for it is that it’s somewhat… explosive. The fly/moth bits can pop outside the case/grille of the zapper, so I’ve had to use the hoover a couple of times to just clean up the bits. And sometimes the zapping itself is noisy – occasionially, the bugs get caught on the wires, and sit buzzing away for a surprisingly long period of time. Even the usual zaps can sometimes be loud and sudden, if it’s been quiet for a while beforehand.
Regardless though, it’s been a good buy. I hope I won’t need it as much between now and next Spring, but we’ll see.
Kindling Discontent
Posted: Sat 14 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Kindle, Reading, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last weekend, while down in Devon, I lost my Kindle. Entirely my own fault, and primarily due to being a dickhead – but still, bloody annoying.
I ordered a replacement pretty much immediately, and hoped that Amazon had improved the method for restoring all the books I’ve got onto the device. It’s been a bloody awful experience the last couple of times, but the last time was three years ago. So, knowing how swiftly they release new stuff on AWS/Cloud, it’s got to have been worked on, surely?
Welllllll, yes and no.
The experience is a bit better – at least now it keeps a record of what books have been put into Collections (think of each Collection as a bookshelf) which sort of makes things easier. But not much – because you can’t actually select, for example, a set of Collections and say “Deliver these”.
Instead, it’s still horrifically manual, and dirt-slow. You have to go to the Amazon site, and then “Manage Content and Devices”. If you only have a few books, then great, that’s fine. I haven’t – I’ve got about 600. So even selecting the maximum of 200 books at a time – which is sort-of easy, although still involves scrolling the page down until it’s got that full 200 listed, and then “select all” – then takes forever to actually push them to the Kindle.
With the Collections, once the books have been pushed to the Kindle, it should then put them into the right places – so that’s at least a small improvement. Last time, I had to re-add books to the Collections as well, which made the entire thing a massive pain in the arse.
The thing is, none of this should be difficult. So long as one does backups of the device (and the Sync process is actively encouraged by Amazon, so one can read a book on one device and then continue it on another) then it should be a simple matter of going “Copy the stuff from this backup onto that machine”, in the same way it does for my iPhones.
All told, even with the improvements, it’s a rotten first experience with a new device. It surprises me just how bad it actually is – the entire thing seems to be something that Amazon doesn’t expect to happen, or that’s only been tested with five or ten books. I wonder if it’s something Amazon will ever get round to fixing…
Slightly Clobbered
Posted: Fri 13 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Single Life Leave a comment »The last month here seems to have been a parade of minor health complaints, and it’s been more than a bit annoying.
This time last month I got stung by that poxy wasp, and that’s only just healed. Because it was right in the crook of my elbow, it kept on opening up with every movement of my arm, so it’s scarred up a bit more than I’m happy with. Still, there we go, that’s life.
The weekend after that, I was spectacularly unwell – and no-one needs the details of it, but it wasn’t fun.
Then over the start of September, while also doing the whole Meatopia thing, I’d picked up a summer cold. Again nothing epic, but it hit me hard during the week once Meatopia was over.
This week, I managed to slightly bugger up my back – again, nothing major, just the muscles around the lower back rather than the spine itself. Not that that stops it from hurting like a twat every time I stood up, of course! It’s easing off again now, at the end of the week, which is at least some kind of positive.
Individually, nothing has been significant – but when it’s all combined, I’m just feeling a bit run-down. Let’s hope it gets better from here on.
Summer Cold
Posted: Mon 2 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »All through last week, I’ve been dealing with what appears to be a summer cold, and not a nice one.
No idea where or how I picked it up, but it’s been bloody unpleasant – almost verging on the feel of tonsilitis a couple of times.
It seems to be on the wane again now, thank god. It’s been a week of feeling like absolute rubbish (and also while doing a lot of the idiot walking for Meatopia and so on) so it’ll be good to be back to normal.
Meatopian
Posted: Sun 1 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Food, Getting Organised, Getting Out More, London, M1, Stupidity Leave a comment »As usual, my September is looking like it’ll be my normal levels of silliness, with lots of travel and so on.
And also as usual, it started with Meatopia, a festival of various barbecued meats. It’s one of my favourite events of the year – and this time I was at all three sessions. Because I’m a complete lunatic.
I had intended to be more sensible – going down for the Friday was still silly, but I’d intended to then park up at Barbican on Saturday, have a hotel on the Saturday night (being able to collect my bag from the car at Barbican on the way, and deposit it on the way back before Sunday) and then come home.
But then I checked the football schedule – and it turned out that Arsenal were playing at home on the Sunday. Not usually relevant, but when driving back on the Sunday, it would’ve shoved me right through all the traffic and people at Highbury, which would add at least an hour to the drive. And frankly, sod that.
So it meant a change to plans, and instead doing my usual thing, parking in Very North London, Tube to Euston/Angel, and walk to Tobacco Dock. Yes, I *could* have still used the hotel, but it meant that all the travel to and from the car to drop off clothes/bag etc. would’ve made it a lot more hassle and a lot less fun. So it was ‘easier’ to travel further, but on my terms and with less general fucking about.
All told, as well as a ridiculous amount of food, it meant I did six walks of 6km, as well as further walking on-site and so on, so all told over Friday, Saturday and Sunday I covered no less than 44km (27 miles)
Meatopia was totally worth it again, and I’ll be there next year.
Anniversal
Posted: Tue 13 August, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts 3 Comments »Having gone through the six years of the bankruptcy process (as I’ve written about many times in that period) today marks a year since that process completed. Time flies, and all that rot.
It’s the final real anniversary of any significance though – even though it came off my record a year ago, most of the banks work on a “Six years plus one” basis (fuck only knows why, but that’s their choice) when it comes to ‘full’ current accounts and the like.
So that’s where we are now – the full “six years plus one” is complete.
It shouldn’t affect things much – it would be nice to have a ‘full’ account with overdraft facility and so on , but only because that’s another thing that is good to have. I’ve done fine over the last seven years with no overdraft and never needing one, and I don’t see any reason why that would change now.
However, it does mean I’ll almost certainly move away from my current bank’s offering, purely because they were lying dicks about it all the way through the process. Once I’d gone through the first year where I was officially bankrupt, I was fine to have a basic current account. When I got it, I was totally honest with the bank, and they said I could try to apply for an upgrade to a ‘full’ current account on a regular basis (every six months or so) and see how I did.
It was only after three years that anyone mentioned that they wouldn’t give me an account until the “six years plus one” – ‘but it’s not that we have a policy, sir, it’s just that’s how it works, we won’t do it before then‘ – and so had basically lied and wasted my time for all those reviews. That did cost them money in the end – a complaint went all the way to the Financial Ombudsman, who found in my favour. (The rule in this case is keep a record of all paperwork and appointments, so you can show a history of wasted time, and stuff that you wouldn’t have done if they’d been honest and said to not bother for seven years!)
So yes, I’ll probably change banks for the current account – I’m not yet sure who to, but we’ll see what happens.
But the most important thing really is that now, seven years on, there’s nothing else keeping me back.
Stung
Posted: Mon 12 August, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Looking Back Leave a comment »Last week, I got stung by a wasp. Nothing major (thankfully) and not something I’ve experienced often.
Indeed, looking back, it’s nearly nine years since I got stung by a hornet, and god knows when I last got stung by a wasp. After all, it’s not like I generally provoke the bastard things.
It was a silly thing to happen – the wasp got caught in my hair after I’d been doing a workout, so I brushed it out, it landed on my arm, and stung me. Poxy buzzy twat.
Anyway, fortunately there’ve been no negative effects – it was sore for about an hour, and has then just been itchy as fuck for the last four or five days.
All seems well now, happily. And hopefully it’ll be another bloody age until it happens again.
The Last Month
Posted: Sun 11 August, 2019 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »It’s been awfully quiet here on D4D over the last month – and that’s primarily been because it’s not been at all quiet in reality.
Some things never change, I suppose.
However I do acknowledge that it’s been dafter than usual of late – work stuff kicked in as well as private projects and social life – but I’m hoping things will calm down again from here, so I can do a bit more writing.
In the meantime though, I’m still alive.
Wallets
Posted: Sun 14 July, 2019 Filed under: Advertising, Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts 1 Comment »Back in October, based on a recommendation (and a liking of the style) I bought a new wallet from Rains. Not the cheapest of things, but also not world-shatteringly expensive, I liked the (slightly weird) sort-of-rubberised material it’s made from, and that it wasn’t leather.
Over the last three or four years I’ve swapped wallets a few times, trying out new things and designs, most of which haven’t really worked out for how I do things.So far though, the Rains one has suited me pretty well.
However, last week I realised that the rubber holding strap was breaking – along the line of the cut-in company name, which wasn’t really a surprise. But for a not-cheap wallet, I would still have expected it to last better than that. So I emailed Rains to say about this problem, and attached a photo of the problem. I could’ve lived with it – once it finally snaps I could cut the strap off completely, and it wouldn’t affect the actual functionality at all – but still, might as well let them know.
Within the day they’d come back to me, offering a replacement or refund – and either way, to not worry about returning the faulty one. I chose a replacement, which was sent out the same day, and arrived (from the Netherlands) a couple of days later.
I’ve again offered to return the faulty one (I figure they could at least see what’d gone wrong – but maybe it’s more of a common thing, I don’t know) but they’ve insisted on me keeping that as well, so fair enough.
All told though, I’ve been really impressed with Rains and how they’ve done things. There’ve been no questions or quibbles at all, just a simple smooth process that really stands out from most places. It shouldn’t stand out just for that (ideally this should be just how things are done) but it definitely does.
Disconnecting
Posted: Fri 12 July, 2019 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding 1 Comment »As part of the whole bankruptcy process (now well and truly complete, of course) I’ve been using a couple of free services to keep track of my credit score. It’s been useful to know what’s going on, and where things stand.
I primarily use ClearScore (who use data from Equifax) and CreditKarma – who used to be Noddle – and use data from Transunion (which used to be Legatio)
Part of the reports from both of those (and from Experian, whose ‘free’ service is an absolute dumpster fire, and absolutely refuses to allow me to view my own data) involves past addresses, and people with whom one has had a credit connection – things like a shared mortgage, or whatever.
Looking through the CreditKarma stuff in particular, I noticed that they still have a record of my old addresses going right back to Bracknell – bearing in mind, I moved there back in early 2005… It also still had me linked to Herself for the mortgage we had back on the Norfolk place (which must’ve been 2007/8, if not earlier)
So, I asked them about why this stuff was still on there – bearing in mind, credit stuff is supposed to stay on one’s record for six years and then go – and got a response back that was… less than encouraging. (Note, I’m going to edit some of this so it’s comprehensible without being comprehensive)
There are several reasons why TransUnion UK hold historic address information [including] something called asset reunification, which is when TransUnion UK helps clients trace the holders of lost or forgotten financial accounts, such as pensions or bank accounts. So, if you have an account associated with an old address that you don’t know about, financial institutions will be able to find you.
Another reason [we hold] old historic address information is to help organisations trace individuals who have moved without telling their creditors where their new home is (this is known as debt tracing).
For now, let me confirm that TransUnion UK holds address information indefinitely. However, they are reviewing their policy to see if a fixed upper limit can be set on how long they will keep address data for.
The “Indefinite holding” of that data is definitely a no-no. So far as I know, it’s still the case that if a company doesn’t get in touch with a debtor at all for six years, that debt is no longer viable, and is effectively written off. So historic data could be stored for (I’ll be charitable) seven years, and then get erased. I’d be OK (ish) with that, at least.
But this is information going back more than twice that time. I’ve now filed requests to lose all of that data – I’ve now been at this one address for longer than the six years usually required – and also to take away the connection to Herself. (I can’t imagine she’d be overly happy to still have that connection either) We’ll see what happens on those things.
I’m also going to refer this to the Information Commissioner, because I’m pretty sure they’ll be interested in anyone who claims to be storing personal data indefinitely…