Changed Plans (Again)

This weekend I was supposed to be at Brighton Shock, the 2010 the World Horror Convention.

Next weekend, I was supposed to be at Odyssey 2010, the SciFi Eastercon.

As it happens, plans have changed (now there’s a common theme) and I won’t be at either.

This weekend ended up clashing Brighton Shock with both WebSourceEast and the Peter Gabriel concert at the O2, plus I figured I couldn’t really justify being away for two long weekends on the trot with work and home. So Brighton Shock got the boot.

As for Eastercon, when I signed up for it I hadn’t realised that Easter was the date it was, and it would’ve meant being away for Herself’s birthday. (Less charitable souls might suggest that me not being around would be a good present in and of itself, but that’d be nasty) Additionally I did some maths and figured out that the cost of it all would be feckin’ expensive, as it’s at the Radisson hotel at Heathrow – not a venue known for its low prices, I think it’s fair to say.

So instead I’m at home for the next two weekends and not travelling round the country like a loon. In some ways that’s disappointing, in others it actually makes a lot of sense.


Out Of Office

Today I’m out of the office, and instead attending WebSourceEast. No idea whether it’ll be any good or not, so a review will follow at some point.

It’s being held in Norwich, and I figured I couldn’t really miss it, so I booked my ticket when I got the mailing, and then told work about it afterwards.

Because of my contracting background, I really wasn’t expecting anything back from the company about it, but they’ve actually offered to pay for it, and to let me take the day as “out of office” rather than holiday – which was what I’d originally planned to do.

It’s quite weird, this thing of working for reasonable people…


NewlyWeds

One of the funniest Twitter things this year was NewlywedsOnTJob , a prank by a best-man, automatically recording every time the newly-married couple went at it – start, stop, times, “frenzy index”, “Judge’s review”, the lot. It was very funny to just get the updates saying they were at it again – sometimes in the middle of the working day – and ended up with twenty-odd thousand followers all told.

Things went quiet at the end of February, when Best Man had said he’d be telling the groom about the prank. I hadn’t heard anything, so today did a quick search and found the end of the NewlyWedsonTJob story at I Am Staggered.

It’s well worth the read – made me laugh, anyway.


Budgetary Concerns

So, the 2010 Budget then…

  • A “staggered” 3p rise in fuel tax – great, that just means the companies will add on 2 or 3p per rise, rather than one big rise. Overall it’ll mean about 10p on a litre, rather than the 5p that would’ve come from a 3p rise
  • No stamp-duty for first-time house-buyers on houses <£250,000. – Big deal. The entire “first-time buyer” thing’s a bag of shit anyway in my experience. My “first-time buy” was nullified by the fact it was Herself’s second buy, so we couldn’t get any of the first-time buyer deals. Cunts.
  • No changes to allowances on incomes <£100,000 – Well thanks a bundle for fuck-all.
  • No other changes to VAT or income tax – that does surprise me, as a change to these would’ve been an almost certain vote-loser, and I’m still generally convinced that Labour want to lose this election, which’ll make the current shit-fest “the next person’s problem”. But then, I’m a cynic.
  • Wine, beer and spirits up by 2% – Guess they’re not wanting us to drink our way out of recession then
  • Tobacco tax up by 1% – Or smoke
  • Cider duty up by 10% – Seriously? 10%? Guess Labour aren’t worried about the cider-drinking voters then.

Political Baby

While David Cameron might bleat on about how his wife’s pregnancy “isn’t ideal timing” with it being in an election year, I’m willing to bet that he’s pretty chuffed.

After all, a baby in an election year? That’s got to be a pretty good dollop of votes right there…


Time Leaps

And along with it being nearly April (OK, they’re connected in a way) it occurs to me that come this weekend we’ll be doing the spring forward time change to BST instead of GMT as well.

Of course the relation is that GMT always starts on the last weekend of March. I still find that the mnemonic of “Spring Forward, Fall Back” is the best one for remembering whether we’re gaining or losing an hour, despite the horrific Americanism of “Fall”.

It’ll confuse things for us a bit, as we’ll be coming home from the Peter Gabriel gig at the O2 at the time, but I guess that might help too as we won’t be missing an hour while asleep. Still, makes for an eventful weekend.


Time Flies

It hadn’t occurred to me ’til just now that April is just round the corner. A week on Thursday, we’ll be out of the first quarter of 2010.

How the hell did that happen? Where’ve the last three months fucked off to?