New Turbine Hall Installation

Posted: Tue 14 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism | Leave a comment »

Tate Modern has unveiled it’s latest installation for the Turbine Hall as part of the UniLever series.

Although I have to say, it does nothing for me, and I’m really not fussed about even going to see it.

Take Your Dog To Work

Posted: Tue 14 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Work-related | Leave a comment »

At the moment, Herself is away from home – she’s up in Grantham somewhere from yesterday morning through ’til Wednesday evening. The only problem with this is that it leaves Hound in a bit of a state, and she turns into a complete fanny when it’s time for me to leave the house.

This morning, for instance, she accompanied me everywhere, and wouldn’t leave my side. Which is quite nice in a way – if nothing else it shows that she’s accepted me as a pack leader etc., but it’s also a pain in the backside when trying to get ready for work.

Anyway, there was no chance I’d be able to get out of the house without Her Ladyship either a) throwing a fit or b) getting all anxious and nippy, so she got put in the car as well, and has come to the office for the day.

She’ll stay in the car (yes, the windows are open for fresh air – and fuck it, it’s October anyway) and will be taken out for a walk at lunchtime as well as a quick squat at some point, and she’ll be happy. More importantly, she’ll just sleep – I know what she’s like, and that’s normal dog behaviour anyway – but won’t be stressing at home, or annoying the cat.

I suspect the same will happen tomorrow too, but then normality should return. Let’s hope, anyway.

Address Books

Posted: Tue 14 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

I’ve finally got round to sorting out my email address books, so that all the agencies I have contacts with are stored in one place, which is separate from my normal personal address book.

It’s one of those silly things that I should have done months (if not years) ago, but just never bothered to do. And now it’s done.

It also gave me the opportunity to run through the list, decide who I actually wanted to keep in touch with, and delete the rest. There were a fair number of people whose names didn’t even ring a bell, and companies who I’d dealt with once and won’t be dealing with again. (And that’s another post all of its own) But they’re all deleted now too.

So yes, I’m slowly organising the things I need to do – and it’ll stand me in good stead for the future, now those initial bits of organisation have been done.

Staying in Business

Posted: Mon 13 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary | 1 Comment »

Sometimes I wonder how some companies stay in business at all. I’ve recently had two perfect examples of this.

1. Three months ago, I ordered something from a bunch of shysters called Urban Junkie. When it hadn’t turned up after a month, I chased them up, and on the third chase-up, finally got a response.

“I have checked your order, unfortunately the item has gone out of stock and is not due back in for a few more weeks. No payment has ben taken and we fully understand if you wish to cancel due to the delay.
Sorry for the inconvenience.”

And that’s been it. Two more months and no word at all.

So I’ve cancelled the order.

2. Back when I was using the bunch of shyster twunts known as Parasol IT (I’ve now had £1800 of tax refunds for two consecutive tax years because of Parasol’s inefficiency – that’s £150 per month for two years that they were fucking up) I also got a stakeholder pension through one of their related companies.

Since leaving Parasol, I’ve told Parasol Financials on no less than four occasions that I’ve left Parasol, and need the details of the pension so I can keep on paying in to it. Last week they called, denied having ever heard from me about leaving Parasol (although that soon changed once I forwarded them copies of the emails, and replies to them) and getting quite snotty.

The snottiness changed when I then asked them to send me details, and asked what address they held for me. And (again despite repeated updates from me to them) the address was still the one in fucking Bracknell. From two years ago. Useless twats.

So yes, needless to say, I think I’ll be pulling the pension out from Parasol Financial’s control ASAP.

Really, you just have to wonder how organisations like these stay in business, don’t you?

Wood Delivery

Posted: Mon 13 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic | Leave a comment »

On Friday, we (finally, after waiting three weeks) had a delivery of a full trailer-load of logs left in the driveway.

Fortunately – they were left at the far end of the drive, by the house, so we could actually get in and park.
Unfortunately – we were getting the ride-on mower collected on Saturday morning, in order to get it fixed – and the garage where the mower lives was behind the woodpile.

So Saturday morning involved initially clearing a section of the pile, so that we could get the mower out, and then clearing the rest of the pile off to the wood-shed.

And in fact, that was all of Saturday. The load amounted to some fifty-odd barrow-loads, plus organising it all into the wood-shed. All told, a full days work.

And yes, my back and legs are still reminding me about it. I ache.

Slip of the Tongue

Posted: Sun 12 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Work-related | 2 Comments »

I felt by turns amused and sympathetic towards someone I dealt with on the phone this week.

I’d called the phone-banking service (which is usually very good, in contrast to their utterly shit branches) for my bank, RBS, to find out the benefits (or lack thereof) in downgrading my account from their ‘premier’ current account (where I use very few of the services) to their more run-of-the-mill current account that has most of the benefits I actually use, and costs half as much.

I called phone banking because their website doesn’t actually have a ‘compare accounts’ function, and so I figured that the people in phone banking might have more information to hand about this kind of thing.

Only, as it turned out, they don’t. So the poor guy was printing out various screenshots, and trying to compare them. (I only realised this afterwards, or I’d have told him not to worry) However, he’d forgotten to put me on hold, so the amusement came when I heard a bunch of papers go flying, followed by (in a Scottish accent

Och, fer fucks sake, this is crap. Fuckin’ thing

At which I laughed out loud, and he was quite shocked that he hadn’t put me properly on hold. Poor guy – I had no problem with the swearing, but I know that if the call was recorded, he’s going to be deep in the shit. I did make a point of saying in the call that I had absolutely no problem with it, but I know that won’t fix anything with his superiors.

Mileage

Posted: Sat 11 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

As part of my own business, I’ve just paid myself my mileage expenses for the last month.

As per HMCE guidelines, my company pays me 40p per mile for the first 10,000 claimed miles of the tax year, and 10p per mile thereafter. And it’s just paid me £1,050. I’ll leave it to you to figure out just what the mileage is that I’ve covered in the last month.

But put it this way – I’ll be *very* glad to be radically reducing my commute as of Monday 20th, to less than half of what I’m currently doing. That’ll be one happy happy day, if only to allow my arse to not be moulded into the shape of my driving seat for a while…

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →