Incompetence

Hmmm, it’s not just one of those days, it’s one of those weeks.

The people supposed to be doing the work to fix the leaking bathroom failed to turn up. Considering they were supposed to be starting at 9am, they finally told me at 2pm. Luckily it wasn’t me waiting, it was my housemate, who’s still feeling cruddy post-extraction. Instead, they’ll now “definitely” be there tomorrow. Useless twats.

And to top the day off, the agency I’ve been working for over the last two years sent out the paperwork for the contract extension. To the address I lived in until a year ago. No-one knows why, they just did. Lucky I checked up as I hadn’t received it yet, isn’t it?

Interview

The interview I found out about last week after three months of waiting was today. It went fine – so now we’ll just have to see what they say. I think Stinky®’s one is tomorrow. Comedy moments ahoy.

Bloody thing

Yes, observant readers will have noticed that I chuffed up and managed to post the thing below four times. Basically, Blogger had a fit and while it was actually publishing the post, insisted it wasn’t.

Still, all fixed now.

Online Processing

Harping back to yesterday’s post about online photo processing and the like, I opted to try the top three from the Amateur Photographer testing. Part of the reason for this is that I’ve decided to enter yet another competition with a couple of photos, and they need to be prints rather than on a CD. So obviously I want to get the best results I can, and it seemed like a good opportunity to do some comparison testing. I was only going to try the best processor, but well – I couldn’t.

The top three (in order) were :

1. Colourmailer
2. Truprint

and

3. one whose name I can’t remember, but will edit later

(it’s one of those days)

Colourmailer were OK-ish – reasonable prices for larger prints, although the standard 6″x4″ are more expensive, the upload stuff seemed to work fine and so on, but the useless bastards only take visa and mastercard. So that’s that plan stuffed.

Truprint (supposedly a really good site) which had the joint problems of a) being IE only, and b) still having errors in IE, so it wouldn’t even upload the photos.

And the third one wasn’t actually available. (Which is why I can’t remember the name of the company – it just kept on coming up with a DNS error)

So all in all, I’ve deciced that for the moment I’m going to stick with
Photobox. They might not be the cheapest, but I’m yet to have a problem with them, and the stuff they’ve printed for me so far has been excellent, all the way up to A2 size prints.

So now I just have to see how the prints come out at A4 size for the competition. They should arrive tomorrow…

Desperately Sad

Yesterday I got my complete West Wing Season 4 on DVD. I haven’t seen any of that season, as Channel 4 are utter bastards, and only started showing it two weeks ago.

Anyway, is it exceedingly sad at that point to have already watched the first three episodes last night?

Photographica

The photos from Photobox, and the quality of them is superb. As always with their products, I’m so pleased with how they’ve turned out. A while back one of the photography magazines did a review of the online developers and they came out as “average” – I must admit I haven’t tried the reviewer’s favourite yet, but if Photobox are average, then the other lot must be fantastic. I’d hope.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I’m going to be putting together some more prints on a larger format again, so I might experiment with Colourmailer, who were the top scoring online lab in the survey. It’ll be interesting to do a comparison!

Dentistry

Well, all went well – Manchester Dental Hospital seem to be people who actually know what they’re up to. So all’s been done, and all gone well.

Criticism

From this morning’s comments, I couldn’t resist posting more about adso’s one in the post below. I’d offer a link or a mailto, but they’ve not been brave enough to leave a valid one, sadly.

Jesus Christ you’re a miserable cunt aren’t you!

Really, life is too short to have such a cynical attitude as yours. There aint nothing cool about being jaundiced. You need to change your attitude before your life turns out to have been a complete waste of air.

I’m not quite sure how, in a post containing the phrase “find it funny” I get to be called a miserable cunt. But there we go – freedom of speech and all that jazz.

As for life being too short to have a cynical attitude, I’d disagree. Yes, I can be cynical (Shush, you at the back there) but it’s not a permanent state of affairs. Jaundiced? Yeah, I resemble that comment on occasion too.

But what adso has failed to realise in all his wisdom is that it’s all a matter of perspective. The stuff here is one facet, and there’s much more. But even here I’m not solely cynical and jaundiced, and if the divvy little git had read further, or perhaps removed head from arse, they’d have realised that.

All the same, it’s fun to get hatemailcomments every so often, even if only for a bit of a reality check.

Inspired

Yes, I’m sure it was “in bad taste” but I can’t deny that I found it funny seeing the story about staff from a private gym handing out promotional literature as the nearby council-run gym burned down. It takes a particular form of warped logic to seize the opportunity on something like that, and while I might disagree with the principle, I do still find myself with a slight respect for anyone brave/quick enough to take that initiative.

Frustration

Ever have one of those days where people all around you appear to be experts in fuckwitdom? Today’s been one of those for me.

Not content with the already-posted cretins of the workplace, I come home to a card on the doormat. The contractors who were supposed to be here on Thursday have decided they’d come today instead. And the mobile number they left on the back of the card was – you guessed it – wrong.

Then BT called – well, their Indian call-centre. “You haven’t paid your bill”. “Yes I have”. and so on. I ask to be put through to customer accounts. “We can’t do that from here, we’re just here to tell you you haven’t paid”. Grrr.

Then the person who was supposed to be helping my house-mate after her wisdom-tooth extraction tomorrow has decided he can’t make it after all. She’s going to be sedated for the operation, and I know how bad that can make you feel. So I’m going to be taking some time off (again) to make sure she’s OK.

It’s one of those days when I could just spit.

Filtration

Yay, the filters I ordered last Friday from Jessops arrived last night. Two little boxes, wrapped in a bundle of air-bubbles and cardboard about 8 times the size of the filters. Never let it be said they’re shoddy with packaging. Stupid maybe, but not shoddy. So anyway, now I’ve just got to experiment with them a bit and see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, I’ve ordered a selection of prints from Photobox, mainly of some of my macro shots of flowers. I’ve no idea what it is I like about doing these shots, but I find them to be extremely satisfying, and the results can be spectacular. (I’m probably going to add some more to that macros page in the next couple of days, too) It’ll be interesting to see how they turn out as 7″x5″ prints, anyway. What’s really impressive with Photobox is that I uploaded and ordered the photos at 3pm today, and by 4pm I’d been told they’d been not just printed, but dispatched. So far as I’m concerned, that’s absolutely superb service.

Security

On a regular basis, we get emails about “security” and being aware of security risks. In theory, I assume it would be nasty to get a bomb in a council office, or whatever.

So it was a bit of a surprise yesterday when I saw a satchel-type bag abandoned on one of the main stair entrances to the offices. I’ll be honest, I didn’t give enough of a shit while leaving the office to go back to reception and point it out.

Far more of a concern was when I ambled in this morning and the bloody thing was still there though. So much for awareness, and letting people know. Bear in mind that probably the best part of 500 or so people have gone past the flaming thing. (Well, it wasn’t flaming, but you know what I mean) And yet when I checked with reception, not bloody one of them had reported it, or even mentioned it. It’s gone now, the security nork just walked up and opened it. Not the best idea should it be a device, but there we go – that’s training (or lack of it) for you, I suppose. But all the same, I find it amazing that in mind of the constant reminders and general media hysteria about terrorism and yadda, yadda, yadda no-one said a bloody thing for nearly 24 hours.

Ouchie

Thank you, Virgin Trains for this.

Ouch.

No, No, No

According to various sources, Richard Branson wants to make spaceflight more commercially viable for passengers. Now OK, it’s a nice idea, and it’s what the X-Prize and so on is all about.

But there’s one massive problem with this. Virgin poxing Trains can’t even sort out making a three-hour journey across the country on time (as commented on in MANY places on d4d) and even today’s launch of the ’tilting train’ service was a cock-up with trains breaking down or not even starting.

They can’t manage a train service – so I ask you this. Would YOU trust them with getting you into orbit?

And so it begins

Eek blimey. Because of the move in January, I’m looking at work and job ads in the area. I wasn’t planning on sorting out any applications and so on for another couple of weeks, but today’s paper contained a couple that looked interesting, so tonight I’m going to be spiffing up the CV and getting it sent off. It’s all beginning to happen…

Crap Towns

Apparently, Luton has come top of a list of crap towns. There’s a flaw in this list (well, there’s several) but the main one is simply this – how come Coventry hasn’t come anywhere in the top ten? Nor Slough?

In order, the top ten is : Luton, Windsor, Sunderland, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Clapham, Bath, Nottingham, Corby, and Middlesbrough.

Chuff only knows how “Glasgow and Edinburgh” got linked together, and Bath’s not THAT bad (well, in comparison to such dungholes as Coventry, Bedford, Bradford, Leeds, and Slough, anyway) so really I suspect that this list is just an utter sack of shit.

Arse

Not content with simply being left in a miasma of smells today, I’ve also been an utter, utter twadge, and left my phone in Reading. It now has to be entrusted to Royal Snail.

Arses.

Vomitarium

Today’s travelling has taught me one thing, and one thing only. That lesson is this :

Train air-conditioning does not get rid of the smell of vomit.

The snot-grobbling little squealing hellspawn barfed at Banbury. Then didn’t get off the fucking train ’til Manchester. Two and a half hours of the most vile smells, accompanied by additional retches from people who got whiffs of the chunk-blowing exorcist-reject barfbin’s produce. God knows how his parents stood it – I assume they’re used to it as the incompetent frunts didn’t even take him to the toilets to hose him off.

It was actually a joy to get off the train in Manchester’s rain-clean atmosphere. Of course, the smelly bastard on the bus didn’t help – but even he smelled fresher than vom-boy.

Travelation

Well, sod it, I’m travelling back tomorrow morning. It’s been a good weekend, and I don’t really want my mood altering by Virgin tonight. So I’ll do it all tomorrow, and go into work in a shitty mood instead. Sounds like a plan to me.

If I’m feeling really brave, I may even include a photo of the bruise on my leg incurred while wedged under a table on Friday’s journey. It’s not a sight for the squeamish, let me tell you.

Penetrating

via Gert comes one of the funniest (in a kind of sad and pathetic way) pieces in a while. The Sun’s Dear Deirdre answering some questions about sex. If people keep on asking, for example, “How can I stop losing my erection?” truly should be answered with “Keep it tied to you with reins, and be more careful with where you leave it next time.” As well as being a lousy trainer, I’d make a shockingly bad agony aunt/uncle, although going for the Denis Leary “Shut the fuck up” method from “No Cure for Cancer” would probably be may main oeuvre.

Moving Swiftly

Back in June you may recall I mentioned about my workplace going through a restructuring where Stinky was convinced he’d be fine for his own job and no-one else would want it.

So I stuck in an application for the job. I don’t want it, but well, I’ve never dealt well with other people’s complacency.

I’ve got an interview for it. On Thursday. It’s taken them four bloody months to get round to it. The wheels of local government don’t so much move as drag…

Learning Curve pt. 2

Of course the other problem with the current training course is that it deals with Content Management, and the office’s new Content Management System (CMS). I’m not quite sure why I’ve been told to go on this, as I’ve been using CMS’s for at least the last four years, and I was actually contracted here to – um – install and set up the CMS. (That job’s been taken away from me by Stinky who apparently fears for his little fiefdom, and his *cough* ‘superior’ role within it) So it’s hardly the most stimulating day or subject matter in the first place…

Learning Curve

I now know (well, I knew already, but today is proving it) that I’d never be any good as a trainer. I simply don’t have the patience when it comes to dealing with desperately slow people.

Trainer : “OK, now click on the button that says “close data input””
Slow person (to me, sat next to her) : “Which button’s that?”
Me (already exasperated after ten similar questions) : “It’s the one at the top of the screen. With ‘close data input’ written on it.”

See, sarcasm. Sure it’s supposed to be the lowest form of wit, but sometimes it’s the only viable form that has any hope of conveying the necessary message. I can’t help it, it’s not even a conscious decision to be sarky – it’s just there, on the tip of my tongue, and the brain’s given up on self-censoring.

It’s not really all that beneficial for working relationships – however, with luck it also means she’ll never ask me for help outside this session…

Low Levels of Input

It’s going to be quiet chez D4D for a couple of days. I’m in a training course (AKA learning how to do stuff I’ve been doing for six months) today, then away again for the weekend. I still haven’t decided whether I’m coming back on Sunday night or Monday morning (and to be honest it’s going to be a bit of a 2-person decision anyway) so updates will happen on one of those two occasions.

In the meantime, well, I may update, but I may not. It’s all a bit random really, isn’t it?

250,000

Bloody hell – sometime in the last couple of days, d4d™ had its 250,000th page impression. Quarter of a million page views – that’s not bad going at all. Of course, I missed the actual event because I wasn’t paying attention, and somewhere along the line it looks like I’ve also lost a couple of days of logfiles (they’ll be around somewhere, I know – it’s just finding the bloody things!) so it was probably really about a week ago that it went over, and I’ve only just noticed.

Mea Culpa, but all the same, bloody hell, quarter of a million. Colour me chuffed.

Inertia

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve found myself really settling into the idea of moving come January. I’m tied in to the current contract ’til then, which is a pain in the bum, but for once it gives me some opportunity to get organised, to look at what I’ll be doing when I’m down there, and generally just to get sorted prior to actually moving.

However, one thing I’m really bad at is waiting. The decisions have been made, and given a choice, I’d be getting everything done now, and moving within the next month. I can’t, because of the contract, and that’s frustrating. I feel like there’s an inertia effect, things have started rolling on, and now I’m just waiting for it all to happen.

In the meantime, though, it means I get to look at some of the things I need to deal with. Finances (yick), Letting Agents (yick yick yick), Job sites, Work agencies, that type of thing. Even down to filling in an iProfile for work agencies to use as a reference point. Scarily organised.

I’m even looking at stuff on the social side – thinking about doing a couple of evening courses once I’ve moved, and even ordered a prospectus to that end. Hell, I’m even looking at photography and gallery resources down there.

I don’t know, though – is all this preparation just making me realise how much I don’t want to be up here any more? Or is it simply sensible and prudent to be thinking about these things now, rather than my more normal method of moving and then sorting out all this sort of thing?

Employment Agencies

Thanks, Karen, for the advice. I’m now a lot more sorted out with regards to opting-out (and yes, as I’m a single-person limited company doing contracting, opting-out seems to be the best option) and happier about the entire thing.

Sometimes the internet’s just bloody great.

Photographic Geekery

Blimey, it’s official, I’m definitely heading into the deep dark world of photographic geekery. The evidence of this is that I’ve just ordered my first two filters for the camera – a polarising filter and a UV one. Quite honestly I’ve no idea as yet what I’m going to do with them, or what effects they’ll have on photos, but it’s all getting a bit more advanced than just point-n-shoot.

And yes, that digital SLR is looking more and more likely for the future. A sign that perhaps I should consider getting out less. Or something.

Ceefax

I bet Diamondgeezer writes about this tomorrow, but did you know that it’ll be Ceefax’s 30^th Birthday?

It’s amazing how long the service has been going, but I can understand in some ways why it still gets 20 million users per week, even in the age of broadband etc.

Happy Birthday, Ceefax.

Shit-pit

As regular readers will know, the local council is spiffing up its offices for the CPA (Corporate Performance Assessment) next month. The outside walls have been sandblasted and pressure-washed, bits have been repainted, paving slabs replaced, so forth, so fifth.

I’m not sure quite what all this prettifying has to do with corporate/council performance as the CPA is more to do with making sure that information is accessible and understandable, and that there are policies in place for relevant things like housing, social services and the like. But that’s not something I get to care about.

However, you’d think that any organisation worth anything would have figured out that if you’re cleaning the walls of the building, it’s a better idea to clean the roof first so that the shit from the roof doesn’t wash down your nice clean walls come the first rain-fall…

Paranoia and Persecution

One thing I’ve noticed about the UK (and that I get reminded of at inopportune moments) is that you really have to work at being self-employed and so on in the face of epic levels of bureaucratic shit. As most people know, I’m an IT contractor, and in the last week I’ve been taking a whole shed-load of flak lately regarding the Conduct Of Employment Agencies Act.

Currently, no-one I deal with actually seems to know a bloody thing about this act, except that they’ve now got to comply with it. Apparently as a contractor I can opt-in or opt-out of this act, but no-one can tell me which is the best option, and the only company that I was recommended to contact about it turned out to be approximately as useful as a fart in a tornado.

I think that what’s frustrating about this is that it’s supposedly something important, yet no-one knows a chuff about it. It’s bad enough having to go through all the guff of tax, NI, companies house, customs and excise and the countless other hurdles and hoops that bureaucrats hurl into the path of the self-employed, without then having to deal with even more shit that is utterly mysterious and – ultimately – pointless.

Lookalike

Is it just me, or is there a serious resemblance between Edwina Currie and the photo of Rihab Rashid Taha in this story about the fact she’s likely to be released from US custody?

I bet they’re never seen in the same room…

One of those days

All morning waiting for the British Gas engineer – arriving sometime between 8am and 1pm, so that was nice and precise. Turns out, the utter tossers at BG had sent not an engineer to check the meter, but a moron to read it. Not what had been arranged at all. Cue Lyle the Orbital.

They’re now going back over the call-tape (anyone want to bet it’s been “mislaid”?) to see what the tosspot actually said. We’ve already established that while he was calling the person an engineer, he was actually intending to send a meter-reader, as the customer gets charged for an engineer visit, whether they find anything or not. British Gas are in a win-win on that one, they don’t lose money, and instead it means that customers don’t actually save a frigging thing unless their bill has been overcharged by more than £100 in the first place. Yup, roughly £100 for an engineer visit. It’s no fucking wonder most people simply end up accepting being overcharged by the tossers.

So – can anyone recommend a better gas/electric supplier?

It’s Back

Welcome back little Blogroll, with your red stars for updated sites. It’s been odd while you were up the creek, but now you appear to be back, and so I shall now have to find new things to complain about.

Shouldn’t be a challenge.

Nightmare Site

I’ve just booked a thery test with the Driving Standards Agency. Jesus christ, what an utterly nightmarish site. Just to start with, it’s an IE-Only site – not for any good reason, just that whoever created the abortion didn’t know any better. To book the test then involves no less than three new pop-up windows (which should be forbidden as of October 1st when the new Disability Discrimination rulings come into law – I’m not sure they will be, but they certainly should be) and quarter of an hour of my time – and that’s on a serious internet connection, rather than dial-up. An utter piece of shit.

Still, it’s all booked now, so there we go.

Trains again

I’m sorry to have to post yet again about Virgin Trains, but last night’s journey was spectacular for one reason. For the first time ever, I was on a train where the driver went the wrong way.

Birmingham New Street station is (like most stations) a straight-through job. Reading can be weird, because you do reverse your journey if you’re going on from there – which is always amusing in itself, watching idiots panic as the train pulls away going in the direction it just came from. But I digree. BNS is a straight-through station.

So it was a bit disconcerting to pull away from it last night going in the direction we’d come in from. Leamington Spa – Birmingham New Street – Wolverhampton does not involve going back towards Coventry. Well, unless you’re the driver we had last night.

It took them about 10-15 minutes to realise too. So we ended up seeing BNS twice. I’d seen Stockport three fucking times on the way down, although that was supposedly intentional. This one was just a cock-up.

Quite scary too, really. You’d think someone would have figured it out – not just the driver, but also the signalling staff. And what would’ve happened if another train had been coming towards us as we “left” BNS? The mind boggles.

Harridan

Do you ever have those days where it feels like all you’re doing is nagging and chasing people up in order to get them to do the stuff they’d actually promised to do already? That’s what my day is like today.

I’ve had to chase up the contractors who are supposed to be checking a couple of useful things in the house, (like gas supply, and making sure that the waste pipe in the bathroom isn’t utterly chuffed, and just needs to be repaired/replaced at the joint) another plumber for a quote that he should’ve done three weeks ago, the bank regarding a double-charge that stuck me over the overdraft limit (In a surreal moment they stopped a £10 direct debit that would’ve made me overdrawn, and then – um – charged me £30 for doing so, thus sending me £20 more overdrawn than the original direct debit would have done. I absolutely loathe banks.) and a couple of other minor chuff-ups (including still sending certain bits of post to the address I haven’t lived in for a year), British Gas to ensure that the engineer who’s supposed to be coming tomorrow is actually going to do so, and finally BT to check why they’ve suddenly decided I’m on paperless e-billing when I’ve always told them I don’t want that because they’re inefficient as shit anyway and I prefer to check what they’ve screwed up.

In fact, the only pearl today so far is Photobox who’ve yet again managed to receive my order by 10am and send it out by 11am. Isn’t it sad when you’re actually impressed that someone/anyone can simply provide the service that they say they can?

Paralympics

I’ve been really pleased this year to see the BBC showing the Paralympics as well as the standard Olympics. It’s been avoided like the plague for so many years, and finally they seem to be doing the right thing.

Even better, according to the Guardian (You may need free registration to see the page, I’m not sure) it’s pulling in 2 million viewers, 12% of the available audience at the time. Superb stuff.

Still Up It

And yes, four days on, and Blogrolling is still well and truly chuffed. What a joy. I’m really glad I don’t pay for the service, or I’d be even more irritated.

Mileage

I’ve been trying to avoid this set of maths and thoughts, but while sitting on this train I’ve been thinking a bit about the mileage I’ve covered this month. For once I’m going to start with the 12ish mile daily round-trip to work, which amounts to a juicy 240ish miles a month on its own. By the time September comes to a close, I’ll have been to Reading twice, Oxford once, Stanstead once, and a small matter of a trip to Iceland. It’s about a 400-mile round trip to Reading, and not much under that for Oxford when you include the travelling to the parental home. So that’s 1200 miles, and a total of approximately 1500. Oxford to Stanstead is about 100 miles (total : 1700 miles), and Reykjavik is roughly 1100 miles from Stanstead. So all told, that’s just under 4000 miles.

Come the start of 2005, once I’ve moved myself to the Reading area, it’s going to be a massive reduction in my mileage, and probably a corresponding one in my stress levels. In truth, the train service is stressing me out less as I’m a) travelling on it more (again, there’s a logic there, but I’ll be damned if I can find it) and b) knowing that whatever the torture, it’s finite – three months, and I’m done on the huge mileages for a while. Even should I end up commuting to London for a couple of months (and I do hope I don’t have to do that, but I will if I have to) it’ll amount to less mileage. Of course, the Iceland trip skewed the mileage a bit for this month, but it’s still pretty heavy going even without that.

Logical

I swear I’ll never figure out the “logic” on which Virgin Trains runs their service. In fairness the journey on Friday was only cocked up by problems outside Virgin’s control – some fuckwit decided to drive into a bridge that the train tracks went over. So they had to get the bridge checked before sending a train over the bridge. Not much they can do about that – and because it was going to take so long, they decided to re-route the train instead. 75 minutes late in the end, but what the hell, it arrived, and there really wasn’t a lot Virgin could do about it.

Tonight though, it’s (yet again) the 1805 from Reading to Manchester. 6pm on a Sunday – there’s likely to be one or two people on that one, aren’t there? So I know, why don’t we just put four carriages on? That’ll make life so much easier instead of the eight carriages that we have at stupid times like 6am or 9pm. Peak time? Lets ram ’em in like sardines.

I simply don’t understand the logistics of that. Maybe it’s just me, and there really is some great piece of logic at work. Personally, I think it’s just a big cosmic joke, except no-one’s told us the punchline yet.

Up It

On the face of current evidence (i.e. I find it impossible to believe no-one’s updating) it looks like good old Blogrolling is currently well and truly up it.

Underage

So it’s now news that the majority of pubs serve drinks to under-age customers. Shocker. This has been happening for years – when I was at school it was always well-known which pubs would serve under-age, and it wasn’t a new thing then.

There’s currently a load of media/political hysteria about “binge drinking”. Again, this is nothing new. The UK has always had a “binge” ethos to drink, where Friday and Saturday night were the big events, and the rest of the week was virtually sober. We still have this archaic (and weird) attitude to drinking – one only has to look at the excesses of things like Club 18-30 holidays etc. to prove it. Even if we were to get more “European” licensing laws, it wouldn’t work – there’d still be the trouble, the people drinking underage and fighting at closing time.

The British attitude seems to be more about “drink as much as possible as quickly as possible” – yes, I know that’s the definition of “binge” – and it’ll take generations to change that, not politics.

I don’t know what causes it – perhaps it is the entire “underage” thing. A lot of children never get to try or taste alcohol, so as soon as they appear old enough to buy it, it’s a sign of passage, a “growing up” thing. And of course because it’s illegal, the booze gets drunk as quickly as possible – and there we go, the start of a binge-drinking mind-set.

Quiet

There really hasn’t been much going on today. Stinky’s back, and has been dropped in the shit about leaving things knackered yesterday. Bonus.

And yes, in relation to the comments yesterday on Ranty, he could in theory try going the “Oh, that was the contractor’s fault” route once I’ve gone – but as all three levels of management above him know that I’ve got no access to the system whatsoever, it’s an excuse that won’t hold water.

Ranty

Stinky’s off today. That’s normally a good thing – in this office it’s a novelty to be breathing non-polluted air. However, before the motherfucker left yesterday, it looks like he’s managed to utterly shaft the content management system. So today I’m getting a shedload of calls from people trying to use it, and I can’t fix it because in a fit of glory-seeking, he refuses to give me access to it all at all.

Yes, the CMS was supposed to be what I was hired to sort out and install, but now Stinky has figured out that if that happened, he wouldn’t get the praise and kudos for doing it. The problem with this is that he also hasn’t realised that when he screws it up (as now) he’ll be the one to get all the shite for it, because I can’t even access the system – therefore any fuckups are utterly out of my responsibility. So he’ll carry the can for it. OK, so that’s no bad thing in my book. Still a pain in the sphincter though.

Other than that, I’ve been given a selection of documents by a moron a colleague who’s got less clues than feet. They’re all supposedly important, but the documents have been given names like “Appendix C” – I’ve got three of those – with no correlation to what they should have come from. It’s a nightmare – but it’s also a nightmare I can pass straight back to them, because I’ve no idea, and Stinky is too much of an incompetent tosser to have done anything except pass it on to me.

Oh, and the documents that aren’t named utterly uselessly instead have a whole range of different names such as “document 2_1995.part2.doc” – which is an utter screw-up. Filenaming is something I’m a bit of a fiend about in the first place, but when it comes to idiots who put in extra full-stops, and/or spaces into a filename, I end up turning homicidal. And again, a lot of this problem stems from Stinky, who can’t even organise things so that there’s a standard filename convention, and won’t tell people how to do things properly.

Ah, I’ve had enough of this – thank Christ and his seven holy dwarves that I’m not here permanently. Four months and I’m outta here, then they can take their chances with the cock-knocker.

Photographica

Yes, at long last some of the photos from the Iceland trip are online. From the sheer number I’ve taken, I may add some more – or indeed a second page – in the next couple of days, but for now they’re up in the photos section. Enjoy.

Fotografica

Harping back to last week’s post regarding a variety of things that were happening, yes, it was the Fotografica people to whom I’ve submitted the Cemetery shots. As yet I’ve heard nothing, but we’ll see how it goes.

As for the Redeye meeting, I’m going to be tactful for now and say that I need to go to at least one more before I can formulate a balanced opinion, rather than a decision based on a sample of one. However, I certainly wasn’t impressed with a lot of the experience from that meeting. Time will tell.

Confused

I have NO idea what my co-workers were watching on TV last night, but for some reason “anal leakage” (Hello, Google) seems to be the main theme of conversation between them this morning.

If I’m honest, I don’t think I even want to know what they watched. But it does seem like the ideal conversation for a bunch of arse’oles.

Editing

Making my way through 160+ images from the weekend away, and the page will be uploaded today, promise. Coming back to work’s been a right ballache – loads of useless emails (Some people should be fucking barred from “Reply To All” and sending emails to a group, I’ve had 15 that had no fucking use to me at all) along with one or two that mean I’ve actually got some work to do today. Makes a change.

So anyway, business as usual – stuff to do, pages to edit, posts to write. I’d say it’s good to be back, but well, it’d be a lie. Roll on the Festering Season™.

Comment Spam

Over the time I was away, d4d™ got hit by a small deluge of comment spam. I didn’t know Haloscan was prone to it, but yes, it got some. I almost feel now like I’m popular, or accepted. Most sad, but true.

Anyway, the IPs have been banned, and I’ll keep an eye on it in the future. Must sort out WordPress. Must.

Back

OK, normal service will be resumed – but probably tomorrow. When I said photos on Tuesday, fuck it, I lied. There’s 160 to go through, so it’ll be tomorrow. For now, suffice it to say that the weekend’s been ace, Iceland’s fantastic (but expensive) and I want to go there again. I’m back in Manchester, and putting my thoughts back together, as well as wading through a veritable shitload of email. More later, or tomorrow. But yes, normal service.

Insofar as d4d™ is ever normal.

Update

No, it´s not all rotted shark-meat as food – although you can have that if you want. However, it´s nothing short of “Fuck me dead!” expensive. Four beers – £24. Four bowls of soup with rolls (admittedly, at the top of one of the most fantastic waterfalls I´ve seen – and yes, lots of photos later…) – £36. There´s roughly one hundred Icelandic Kroner to the pound. So in theory the exchange rate is equivalent – 1Kroner = 1p. Then realise that even a pizza will run to 2,000 Kroner. Let alone anything fancy. It´s an expensive place.

It´s still fantastic though. 120 photos so far, and I´ve just dumped the memory card to the laptop, so there´s plenty more to come.

Arrival

Well, a blog entry from Reyjavik. What more could you want. I´m even mastering a bloody Icelandic keyboard. Haven´t quite worked out what´s missing yet, but several buttons have moved. Ah, including the < signs. Tags may get interesting.

Got them. Yes, I´m in love with this place – it´s small, but perfectly formed. Arrived yesterday, and on a coach tour today, with whale-watching tomorrow. Back on Monday. Photos on Tuesday.

Away

No, not a hiatus – but there’s not likely to be any posts here now ’til next Tuesday. The simple reason? I’m away – in Iceland from Tomorrow ’til Monday, but not coming home ’til Tuesday. So there.

I’m sure there’ll be plenty added on Tuesday night, but until then have a good one, and go read the other sites on the blogroll. They’re worth it.

NY-LON revisited

A couple of weeks ago I talked about NY-LON on Channel4, and gave it the benefit of the doubt. It hadn’t started overly well, but there we go, some things don’t. However, we’re now nearly halfway through it and I can honestly say, I’m not going to keep on.

I don’t care if they stay together, or split up. I don’t care who does what, or why. There’s a problem with dramas based entirely around love, regardless of whether it’s seperated by a wall or an ocean, and that is purely that to keep the drama going, it’s going to be much the same in each episode – they’re in love, they argue, they split up, they make up, they’re in love. This kind of drama is fine for a one-off single episode thing, but over time and episodes, frankly it fucking drags. No two ways about it.

So I’m sorry Stuart and Edie, but you’ve lost me. And as a result, so have you, Channel 4.

Marie Celeste

Is it just me, or have the blogging contingent been very quiet today? It seems like hardly anyone I read has updated at all…

Dodging the Blame

As some people know, I’ve been involved over the last 15 months in a project to put in a Content Management System (CMS). It’s been a fuck-up from the start, and has taken 13 months just for the council to decide which system they want. But progress is finally being made, and we’ve got a deadline of 11th October for it to go live. Nothing like pressure at all.

In a meeting today about it, half the people have suddenly realised that come next week, they’re going to be at least part-way responsible for the website content that goes up from their departments. They’ve got to check it and make sure it’s right. Now, being a bunch of workshy blame-dodging motherfuckers, we’ve just spent three hours – yes, three fucking hours talking about whether there should be an extra approval system put in (bearing in mind a deadline a month away) so that they don’t have to take too much responsibility. This project has been on the go for more than a year, and yet these cocksuckers have left it til now to realise it means they might actually have to do something. It’s like the last year has never even happened. Like we’ve not had monthly discussions and meetings where all this has been gone through. Like they’ve been sleepwalking through, always assuming that final responsibility would be Someone Else’s. (In councils that’s the best form of responsibility there is)

I’ve now got an utterly bouncing headache, but I’ve been good, I have managed to get through the entire farce without once just saying “This should’ve been sorted out six months ago, you bastards“. But it’s been close, I can’t deny it.

Roll on Christmas. Yes, you heard that right – I’m looking forward to the Festering Season. Why? Because my contract finishes on December 24th. (I may move it a couple of days forward from there, but we’ll see.) So Christmas ’04 may actually be a happy, happy time.

Weird phase

Have you ever noticed that sometimes things just all click together at once? Where things you’ve been planning to do “when you get round to them” all suddenly start happening?

This week’s already been like that here. First of all was the resurgence (at long last) of the creative writing. That’s something I’ve been thinking about for at least six months. Then I finally got round to attending the public meeting of Redeye, a photographers collective around the northwest. Again, something I’ve been thinking about for the best part of this year, just never got round to.

And then to put the icing on the cake, I found out about a gallery space that’s looking for new photographers, and so I’ve got some prints done to submit to them. Nothing to lose really, and everything to gain. But that’s also been something that I’ve been talking about doing for most of this year.

I don’t know what’s made all this come together this week – but I’m sure as hell not going to knock it either.

Godfather

At long last, after a nightmarishly long labour, a friend of mine has given birth to her first daughter, Layla. 8lb 3oz. And amazingly, she trusts me to be the godfather. That’s going to be one messed-up kid…

The Teak House, Wokingham

A while back I wrote about the St George and Dragon in Wargrave, and wasn’t overly impressed with the place. Last weekend we went to The Teak House in Wokingham, which was a far better experience.

It’s a Thai restaurant, and came well recommended – and it deserved the recommendation. I know we’ll be going back more often. The service is attentive, although it’s obviously quite a small business. The food’s ace, and it’s just a pleasant place to spend an evening. And the prices weren’t bad either. Definitely recommended.

Yawn 2

Now here’s an idea I could live with – particularly after a lousy night’s sleep. Beds in the office – that way I could snooze and get paid for it, instead of sleepwalking like I do at the moment.

Of course, I’d have to sort out something about the snoring…

Yawn

I have to say, following making two purchases there, that the Filofax website is one of the slowest sites I’ve dealt with in years. It’s taken me about fifteen minutes to buy two sets of refill pages – it really is that slow.

Of course, the irony is that Filofax always tries to make out that it’s essential for organisational stuff, and saves time. Perhaps a site upgrade is needed. Wonder if I can persuade them…

Bankers

Do you ever have one of those days where you wonder if it’s you, or everyone else? That’s today for me. The bank account I have is with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and as part of the service I pay for on the account, it includes travel insurance (as mentioned the other day) but also no charges for foreign currency. So, as I’m off this weekend to foreign climes, I thought “Oooh, best order some currency, as they won’t have Icelandic kroner just in the bank on demand”. So far, so good.

Having checked the booklet about the member services for the account, it says “call us to sort out your currency requirements” (Slight paraphrasing there, but not by much) along with a number. When called, you go into the Automated Voice Response (AVR) system, and it says “for all travel requirements except Travel Insurance, press 1″. Off we go, pressing number 1.

“Oh no, we don’t deal with currency. You’ll need to go through the system again.”
“But this is the option for everything to do with travel”
“Yes, but we don’t deal with foreign currency.”
“…” (the sound of an utterly speechless Lyle)

Another call, this time going through multiple options in order to speak to a human being (well, bank worker, anyway)

“Oh no, you need the travel section for that. We don’t do anything financial”
“But the travel section don’t do currency, I’ve just spoken to them.”
“Well, we don’t do anything financial. You need to speak to the travel section.”
“…”

I’ve ended up talking to the business manager at the branch I’ll be collecting the currency from, and sorting it out at branch level instead of the “priority” customer services line dedicated to the people with my breed of account. I despair.

New Term

It looks like today was the start of term for the local FE college. Loads of sixteen-year-olds squealing and giggling on their way to the grown-up world of Oldham College. If I’d looked out the back of the bus, there would probably have been a whole parade of dogs following, so high-pitched was it all. My head is belting again. Joy.

Still, it’s only a three-day week for me this week, which is nice.

Fluttery

According to the BBC today, the British moth population is in decline. And I can’t deny it, while I know that any creature being in decline isn’t a good thing (well, except ants and wasps, but we’re shit out of luck on that one) I can’t help but have “Good.” as my first response on learning that there’s less of the little fluttery furry-bodied bastards than usual.

Oliver Stone

I have a theory – I’ve developed it while sat on the train tonight. I think Virgin Trains don’t want me seeing people too much. They’re jealous, they’re used to the shape my arse makes on their train-seats. Bear with me on this.

Every time I’m travelling TO see someone, the train runs at least three-quarters of an hour late. And to be honest, 45 minutes delay is a good journey. However, every time I’m travelling back AFTER seeing someone, the fucker runs on time. And in some cases, as today, it even runs slightly early.

It’s a plot, I tell you, a fucking plot.

A Trickle Through The Dam-Wall

Some people who read d4d™ will know how regularly I talk about wanting to get back into writing creatively (as opposed to d4d™’s creative ranting *grin*) and seeing how I do with the ideas that have been floating around in my head.

Well today, with no special work needing to be done while sat on the train, and after a disturbingly domestic and relaxed weekend (in spite of the Virgin Trains debacle on Friday) it’s finally started to happen. Four pages may not sound much, but it’s 400% of my output in the last four years. While other things have been going on – you know, small stuff like Life, Friends, Relationships, Chaos – I’ve been uninspired to write this kind of thing. (d4d™ is, in this context, a very different type of writing method) The ideas have been flowing, but there’s been no impetus to expel them onto paper/laptop, and so it’s all been filling the reservoir in my head, staying there in idea form, waiting to fledge into something else.

And now the reservoir’s dam is cracking, and the ideas are beginning to flow out – and it’s in a positive way. When last I was writing in this form, it was more of a need to purge, to get rid of the poisons that had been built up. There was an almost obsessive need to heal, to get it all out any which way I could, to stop it harming me. That’s not there this time – it feels more like story-telling, rather than sucking out venom from wounds.

I’ve no idea where this will end up – or even if it’ll be any good when it comes to the conclusion I already know about – but for now, well, I’ll be happy just to be back writing, and seeing where the tale takes me. It’s not going to be overnight – I don’t expect to be anywhere near finished on it before 2005 at the earliest – but it’s happening, and as I’ve got (at a conservative estimate) 32 hours of train-time in the next eight weeks, I’ve got the opportunity to get a load done, and we’ll go from there really.

IKEA

It’ll come as a shock to most people, but until today I’d actually never visited an IKEA store. But I’m now an afficionado of the Swedish furniture freakshow, and to prove it I have *ahem* even made a purchase. I don’t know what his name is in the catalogue, but it really should be something like HYSSINGSID. Yes, I managed to go, and come back with a metre-long multi-coloured furry snake. Sometimes I even worry myself.

So – what were my thoughts about the joys of Brent Cross Ikea? Well, first and foremost was “Fuck me it’s big!”. But it’s got some good stuff in there – come the time to move, I can see that there may be another shopping expedition there. But it’s not somewhere I’d want to go on a regular basis – the majority of people in there today made me wonder if they’d been thrown out of the local Asda store for sheer stupidity. Abandoned trolleys, people dithering about so badly that I actually saw three people walk into display stands – not just brushing impacts, but full-on whacks. But then, one has to find comedy where you can.

If it weren’t for the people though, I think it’d be fine. The actual stuff they sell seems fine (although I haven’t braved the furniture ordering/collection section, which seems to redefine the phrase “fucked up”) and most of it is devastatingly cheap, too. Plus they’ve got some ace leather sofas to collapse on – definitely been listed in the mental notebook of “Hmmm, potential future purchase”.

If I return (OK, When) though, it won’t be on a summer Sunday just before thousands of students go to university. Timing-wise we really could’ve done better. Next time it’ll be on a cold evening after work, when no-one sane is out shopping for furniture and house-wares. Without too many people there, I suspect it might even be an almost pleasant shopping experience. Might.

Nearlytimeforanupgrade

Bugger,the_space-bar_is_beginning_to_knacker_on_my_laptop. Oh_cunty_fuck.

2000+ starts here

Well, it pains me to say it, but I think that Prince Harry making a film about AIDS in Lesotho is probably a good thing. It’s interesting sometimes, the things that travel between parents and children, isn’t it?

To me, anything that raises the profile of AIDS and HIV is a good thing – I’ll be interested to see what he’s had to say on the subject, whether verbally or visually.

2000^th Post

Wow, two thousand posts. D4D™ has been running now for 25 months – that’s an average of eighty posts per month, nearly three a day, every day. Of course, that’s an average, as there have been small patches of time where nothing’s been written at all. But then there’ve been others where I don’t seem to have stopped adding stuff all day.


I know I’ve said this before, but I still find myself amazed by the success of d4d™. When I got the domain name, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, a name I liked and was available. It’s still not really relevant to anything I do or write here – it’s just an identifiable title. And that suits me just fine. I started off the idea of d4d nearly three years ago, actually. The domain name existed far before the knowledge of what would go on here – which, for me, isn’t an uncommon state of affairs. Eventually I thought I might try and get back into writing – and make a project of it. Until d4d™, I’d always had a hidtory of starting ideas, getting them started, then getting bored and never completing them. Perhaps d4d™ doesn’t quite fit that definition, because with a writing project like this there’s no defined process, and definitely no defined ending. Perhaps that’s what’s kept me going.

So – two years of writing, and two thousand posts. That’s quite something. And I look at the changes that have happened in that time, at the differences between me when I started, and me now – there’s a lot that’s happened over the timespan. Friendships started, friendships finished – sometimes both within that period; relationships doing the same; forming new and different social networks; seeing a shitload of concerts; starting getting involved in photography again. Moving home; changing lifestyles; and doing lots of thinking, introspection, and writing. Depression and Happiness. It’s all been here, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implied.

And for the next 1,000 or 2,000 posts? Who knows. I need to get that fucking WordPress template sorted, and move everything over to that. I want to go through some of the old stuff, move it around, possibly end up with a very different style to d4d. The rants of old have faded – or at least become concise enough to be blog entries instead of pages of their own. Thoughts may end up being born anew, and the photography section will probably gain some new ideas and perspectives. In fact, I’ve been playing with the idea of having wordy d4d and visual d4d, two different blog-type-concepts, and seeing how that goes.

All I know is that so far I’ve loved d4d™ even on the days when I can’t think of a thing to write. I don’t feel pressure to perform, don’t feel I have to write. But at the same time I do love writing and adding new pieces and ideas. It’s been a fantastic ride so far, and I’ve no intentions of stopping it yet. The next few months, in fact the next year or so are going to be a weird and new journey for me – and a huge percentage of it will be logged here. Enjoy the ride.

Coverage

Many times I hear the speculation that trains will be getting some form of wireless networking and internet access in the UK. I’m sure I’ve commented about this before, but I still completely fail to understand how they expect to get broadband internet access when half the time on a train you can’t even send a bloody text message when you want without a ten-minute wait. O2 used to boast about 95% coverage of the UK- well, I reckon that the other 5% is entirely around bloody rail lines. It’s just taken me twenty minutes to send a text because we were moving through (yet another) zone with absolutely nothing. It’s like the radio version of the effing Marie Celeste sometimes. Why do we bother?

Lulled

Should’ve known better really – the false sense of security that got built up last week by the train journeys to and from Middlesbrough now lies scuffed, bleeding, and broken on the floor. Prime suspect in this vicious crime? You guessed it – Virgin Trains.

What’s even more impressive is that they manage to still find new ways to fuck me off. It is on-time today UPDATED : was on-time, and is now running 45 minutes late, he said in an entirely unshocked fashion, and the air-conditioning is – well, if not working properly, it’s at least on and noticeable. So, dear readers, what have they done this time?

When I checked with trainline.com (yes, that’s probably my first mistake) I looked at a train leaving from Manchester Oxford Road at 14.58, changing at Crewe, then straight down to Reading, getting in at 18.45 or so. Not perfect, but not bad. So that’s what I do – get there way early due to fuck-poor timing on my part, get on the 1458 at Oxford Road, get off at Crewe. Supposedly on-time. And watch my connecting train go sailing past. Cunt-nuggets.

So off to the Travel Centre to face the whey-faced unhelpful motherfuckers lovely Virgin customer services people. Who check their system. And then tell me that the 1458 from Oxford Road doesn’t exist. And therefore it can’t connect to the one I’ve just watched leave. That route from trainline.com supposedly is utterly wrong. Yes, two computer systems, both based around the same fucking database, provided by Network Scumtwadging Bastard Rail and given the exact same data, they come up with two utterly different routings. According to Virgin CS (Customer Service, although I can think of others) I should go from Manchester to Reading via – wait for it – Newport, South Wales. Try looking at that one on a map sometime – and bear in mind that there’s a direct link between Manchester and Reading, and I’ll be getting the bastard thing on Sunday.

“Well, it’s not my problem”, quoth the raven camel, “we can’t take responsibility for the internet site”. “It’s the same chuffing database, though. So who does take responsibility for it?” “Don’t know. But it’s not us.” Ah, the “the Buck stops somewhere, but not with us” gambit – my favourite customer service attitude. Anyway, taking matters into my own hands, I end up getting anothertrain from Crewe to Stafford, then get on one from Stafford direct to Reading. Another plan that, according to Virgin, doesn’t exist. At this point I should point out that both the Crewe to Stafford train, and the one going onward to Reading were – um – Virgin trains. *Sigh*
Of course, because it’s a Friday and travelling during the high-demand rush-hour period, the train is four carriages long instead of the more standard eight, has been at least half pre-booked, and as a result it’s rigid with people. But that’s the Virgin wisdom at work – if in doubt put people off trains by realising that train travel is, in essence, shit, and only for people who can’t afford cars and/or driving lessons.

Well, my nice clean new provisional driving licence arrived this week, and if there’s one thing motivating me to pass the test, it’s Virgin Bloody Trains. Congratulations, you’ll be losing another customer. D4D™s readers will mourn the passing of this era. I, on the other hand, fucking won’t.

DIY

You know, sometimes things become seriously domesticated. A day of assembling desks and bedside furniture. Quite fun, in a “oh you fucking bastard piece of shit, why won’t you go together” way.

Away again

Chuff this, I’m off to Berkshire. Again.

There may be posts over the weekend. There may not. We’ll see.

Milestones

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll be posting d4d™’s 2000^th post. (This one is #1994, if you’re interested) As of Monday, it was on 220,000 page impressions, so there’s probably at least another 5,000 or so since then.

d4d™ keeps on going on, and I’m still deeply pleased with it.

Moving On

Yes, as I alluded to earlier this week, I’m pretty sure that come the start of 2005, I’ll be moving on from Manchester. By that time I’ll have been up here for five and a half years, and really that’s more time than I ever intended to be here.

However, the last three to six months have provided the impetus I needed to start looking at moving. Following the break-ins last year, I got more aware of the scallie element of Manchester, which really isn’t appealing in the slightest. So in some ways the changes have been getting ready for a while, but it’s the more recent things that have been the real impetus. Or impetuosity, whichever.

In the last five years, the city has provided me with lots of what I needed at the time – plenty of concerts, work, social contacts, and in many ways it altered a lot of my perspectives on things, and proved pretty much life-changing, looking back on the differences between then and now. But sometimes a place has a life-expectancy too, and I think that Manchester’s life with me is coming to a close.

Changes galore have happened this year – and I suspect there’ll be more in the near future. I’m still going to be based up here ’til the start of 2005, the contract with the council is going to run ’til then, having been extended yet again. For the most part, that’s a good thing, it gives time to make sure that everything is being done for the right reasons, and there’s also plenty of opportunity for the necessary introspection and assessment of what needs doing. Hell, I might even think about writing a new “to-do” list.

What’s changed? Well, primarily the new relationship in my life, and the changes that are being wrought around that. There’s a lot still to be sorted out and looked at – will we share a place from the start of ’05, or is the move initially going to be “just” to cut down on the 400+mile round-trips? That’s a decision for the future, and we’ll play it by ear. But there’s other reasons too – after five years, I need a change of scene, but I also want to explore more about my creative side, the photos, and writing, and see what I can do with them. Yes, I could do a lot of that up here too, and I will be doing in the meantime (those round trips have to have some use, after all) but there’s also that air of “new start” that’s coming up.

Would I be moving on even if the relationship weren’t there? Yes, I would. Maybe not right from the start of 2005, but yes, it wouldn’t have taken long to get it sorted. Of course, the destination would be probably rather more random than it is now, but well, that’s life. There’s a lot going on, a lot happening, and probably the strangest thing of all is that I feel fairly optimistic about the entire thing.

In Sewer Ants

I wish I could remember what book that title came from.

But anyway, I digress. This time next week I’ll be flying off to Iceland for a four-day weekend – with the parents, no less. It’s the first time I’ve been off with the family for a break since I was thirteen. That makes it – oooh, shit, shouldn’t have done the maths – nineteen years ago. Nineteen and a half, if we’re being picky. Scary.

Anyway, I finally got through the travel insurance stuff from my bank – it’s all part of the current account I’ve got, which makes life a lot easier. But having read through the document last night, it’s really pretty comprehensive – and it’s valid all year, and doesn’t care how many times I go away. Happy day.

Breakthrough

So, there’s a thing called the Breakthrough Generations study. They need over 100,000 women to join their study about lifestyle and breat cancer. Any women over the age of 18 can take part.

You can find out more about the study here – go on, sign up, do your bit.

Going Postal

Out of interest, did you know that if you send something by Recorded Delivery, it actually doesn’t get any kind of special treatment at all, and just goes in with normal post? If you want something to get there for the next day, or whatever, then it needs to go by “Special Delivery” instead.

So really, it seems like Recorded Delivery is more useful as a “this way you know it hasn’t been received” than as any kind of relevant guarantee. It’s no wonder Royal Snail missed all 15 of its performance targets recently. Useless bunch of chuffers.

Feeling Fruity

Ah, excellent. A selection of god-botherers has decided to complain about the drawings on a new range of Haribo sweets. Supposedly they show the fruits enjoying various types of sex. The progress of porn is an endless thing – and particularly in the minds of certain prudes.

“If pornography is available on any street corner for $5, isn’t that too high a price to pay for freedom of speech?”
“No. On the other hand, $5 is too high a price to pay for pornography.”

© West Wing Series 1 Episode 1

CPA

Currently the council I work with is expecting to start a CPA and panic is everywhere. God knows why, because the CPA is basically the same as a visit from the MD – everyone knows about it months in advance, so all should be perfect for the visit. Of course, that still means we’re likely to fail it, same as last year.

As it is, the Chief Exec pledged that this year the CPA would be far better, and the council would get at least a “satisfactory” grade. In the meantime, nothing’s really been done to improve the performance or organisation, but hey, we’ve hired some git who got another council through their CPA, and we’re currently sandblasting the front of the offices, making them look all clean and nice. Which, of course, is a great point-scorer when it comes to corporate performance.

As always, it looks like we’ll be going the “no idea what we’re doing, but doing it in a pretty way” gambit. And we know how successful that can be, don’t we, Tony?

M$ Publisher

Dear God I hate this software evil sack of shit. Thankfully I don’t have much cause to use it, except when some chutney-monkey decides that it’s a great piece of software for producing an Annual Report, or a couple of demos for a website.

Yesterday provided a different type of challenge though. An old Publisher document – knowing I use Publisher (when I have to, and never out of choice), can I open it up, and save it to something useful (or just print it out and fax it). “No problem”, quoth I, knowing fuck-all.

Turns out, I use Publisher from Office 2000. The old document was in Publisher ’97 or somesuch. Now yes, it’s the same piece of software, just an upgrade. Shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

Oh Bill Gates you utter, utter cunt, what the blue blazing fiddly fuck were you thinking? Instead of having any form of backwards compatibility whatsoever, it turns out that Publisher 2000 simply refuses to open any documents from earlier versions. Not even an “I’ll open it in a basic format, because 2000 has more stuff than ’97” – just “Publisher cannot open documents from earlier versions”. You fucking whoreson’s ringburned bumdonkey piece of software – what the frig is that about? It’s not even about upgrading from one version to another – because the upgrade still won’t read the old docs.

I despair. Cock-knocking bumnuggets, the lot of ’em.

About bloody time

As of today, the main shopping centre in Oldham has gone non-smoking – although I’m willing to bet that it’ll be a struggle for the first couple of months getting people to realise it.

Ninth

Um. September? Where the hell’s the year going? Before I know it I’ll be thirty-bloody-three.

On the plus side, <celebrate> Only three months left at Oldham – at most. </celebrate>

Hamza

I’m sorry, but when did the word de-arrested makes its bastardised way into the English language?