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.