Um.

Do you ever have one of those days where there’s loads of things you want to say, but none of them seem to be working out quite right? All the ideas are just rattling round, clamouring for some form of escape, and yet every time you try, they just come out looking like (and sometimes smelling like) shite? Well, today’s one of those days.

I’ve already hit the “delete” button on Blogger more times today than any time in the last month – maybe I’m getting more self-critical or something, but I suspect it’s more likely that I just know that what was being written was utter utter shite. There will be stuff written here today, I’ms ure – but for now it may just get written off as “shite night, no writing skill at all, so don’t hold your breath. Besides, there’s a blogroll over there…”

Kilroy Silk

Google’s obviously getting hit lots for anything to do with that Kilroy-Silk weasel. As such, I currently come up third for Robert Kilroy Silk Prick – and oh lord I hope that’s an epithet, not a request for images – and seventh for Robert Kilroy-Silk bastard. Yahoo lists me first for Robert Kilroy Silk webpage too.

I’m glad I issued a rapid disclaimer to the theory that he’s a bastard. I’d better not call him a cocksucker. *Grin*

A special room in Hell

So, Harold Shipman has been found hanging in his cell – so sad. This man has never shown any remorse – and in fact continued to deny his crimes at all. There aren’t many who I find myself hoping that there’s a hell for – but Shipman is one.

Roast.

Cadbury’s Creme Eggs

Last Wednesday, during my post about the finale of the Festering Season, Gordon asked “what do I have against Creme Eggs?” I was going to write something about it over the weekend, but quite honestly, I forgot. So – here goes.

I don’t have anything against Creme Eggs per se. They’re revoltingly sweet and sticky, and put diabetics at risk of insulin coma just by walking past them, but there we go – that’s a personal viewpoint. Some would call it a taste thing, except everyone knows I’ve got no taste anyway. The TV adverts are incredibly annoying, but again, hey ho. Most of the time I can avoid them.

In fact, it’s more about the advertising than anything else – or more accurately, the marketing of them. No sooner has Christmas disappeared over the horizon (and not a moment too soon, so far as I’m concerned) than the TV adverts start to happen. The hoardings appear, and the little teaser adverts. Easter’s not until the 11^th April this year, so that’s near as dammit four bloody months of advertising for yet another consumer-fest. And in between we’ve still got Valentine’s Day – although that’s still a rant for another day.

So no, Gordon, I don’t hate Creme Eggs themselves, just the marketing wazzocks who foist them on us from January 1^st each year.

Flak and Character Assassination

Oh, the joys of working for local authorities. Talk about blame culture. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to work with such a bunch of jobsworth responsibility-dodging fadge-lickers.

Each week, the council’s chief exec publishes his “briefing” on the events of the week as a Word^® document on the council’s intranet. It’s wank, and no-one reads it. Recently it’s been made more “reader-friendly” by adding a photo of him to the document. Part of the problem is that apparently it’s beyond the skillset of the chief exec’s secretary – or the PR department – to put the photo into the Word^® document themselves, so it’s down to the web monkeys to do it. (i.e. me, or my manager – and it normally falls to the manager) God knows why, but the secretary and PR department won’t take any responsibility for it.

Last week, my manager was off sick, so it was down to me to put the briefing on the intranet. No worries. The secretary sent down the image, and the document. Lo and behold, 30 seconds later the two were married together, and five minutes after that the entire thing was on the intranet. Rocket science this ain’t. All’s well, and I naff off home for the weekend.

This morning it’s been like a scene from the Dambusters, there’s been so much flak flying. The PR department has decided that “the wrong photo” of the chief exec was used, because he looks smug and complacent as though he’s smiling, while the briefing has a message of condolence for a member of council staff who died over the christmas break. Big focking deal, I hear you cry. But of course it’s the web department that’s taking the flak – and I’ve never been exactly great at taking the blame for other people’s idiocy and incompetence. Today’s no different to normal on that score. Luckily, I’d kept the email with the photo attached, and have been able to say “not my problem – they sent it, I stuck it on”. Cue the next period of flak-flinging.

At this point, my sense of tact rather went out of the window. I wondered aloud why the secretaries can’t add the picture in themselves (along with mutterings suggesting “well, my pet gerbil can manage it, so why can’t they?”) and thus take responsibility for the entire document (and yes, that does answer the question) as well as a rather vocal suggestion that perhaps the head of PR could be replaced by a badly-trained mongoose, which would almost certainly do a better job.

This one could run and run…

Oh, Arse

I’d been planning to start a course with the Open University, but I’ve missed the dealine. Fucking arse. I’m annoyed at myself for not getting my finger out in time, although I did actually receive the paperwork on the day before the deadline, as it turns out – so the chances of getting in were pretty low anyway. But all the same, yes, I’m still pissed off with myself for missing it. I’ll get in for the next course start though…

And in the meantime, I’m going to take the time to make sure that I set myself up for it, make sure I can do it properly. And in the meantime? I think I might wedge in an extra course on something geeky – learning to use Photoshop properly appeals bigtime.

Customer Dis-service

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to drive me barmy, then it’s customer services. This time it was my old favourite – BT. I’m going to try and be good for once, and not swear – but it’ll be a struggle. In another of their fits of *cough* professionalism, I got a snotty red letter yesterday telling me to pay my bill within seven days. OK, fair enough – but it would’ve been nice to receive a bill in the first place, particularly as apparently I’m spending £50 per month on calls at the moment, which is definitely wrong.

I was out all day yesterday, so I didn’t get the chance to call them. Fair enough, call them on Sunday. So I go through the four levels of their AVR (Automated Voice Response) system for billing, and finally get put through to the right department.

“This department is closed. Please call back between 8am and 8pm Monday to Saturday. Thank you for your call.

Now, I’ve installed AVR systems, and I know that they can be set up with a timing system – so why doesn’t BT’s own system have the ability to tell you at some time before you’ve gone through the entire set of menus? Grrrr.