Invisible
Posted: Mon 14 May, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 5 Comments »One thing I did notice this weekend while driving, thanks to the shitty weather, was how certain cars just disappear in particular types of weather. (And yes, yes, I know, every time I do a long drive, I do a post about driving standards – or lack of them – afterwards. Live with it) With road conditions the way they were – heavy rain, lots of water on the road surface – there was a massive amount of spray in the air, and I realised that white and silver cars just disappear in those conditions.
On the way up, I saw the aftermath of an accident where a silver-grey car (unsurprisingly, a BMW) had obviously been driving with no lights on, and another car (amusingly, another BMW) had come up behind it at speed, and just stoved in the entire back end of the car, run straight into it. I’ve no idea about injuries – by the time I went past, it was only the police directing drivers round the wreckage- but it was impressive.
On the return journey, in the really heavy rain and spray, I was amazed by how many people still didn’t have even sidelights on, let alone headlights and/or foglights. Yes, OK, it was daylight – in theory – so lights didn’t need to be on, but the visibility was so bad, it was worth having lights on so you could be seen, even if they weren’t necessary to see. And the majority of the cars with no lights on were – you guessed it – white or silver. And they just disappeared. You be going along, knowing there was something ahead because of the spray, but you couldn’t see the car at all.
At some points, I even used the fog lights – although I had enough of a memory-span to remember they were on, and turn them off when visibility improved again- because the range you could see dropped right down to about 30 feet max. at some points. And still drivers didn’t turn their lights on. Bizarre. I swear I’ll never understand the mentality of some drivers.
Driving Progress
Posted: Mon 14 May, 2007 Filed under: Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Happily, the drives to and from Manchester this weekend were smooth and problem free, despite the weather being utterly fucking horrible both times. On the way up it was fairly wet, with some semi-heavy rain in parts, but it wasn’t too bad. On the way home, though, it was nothing short of torrential. In fact, it only really cleared up when I got to Cambridge.
Both journeys also involved small traffic jams caused by accidents in the foul weather, (I’m going to write a bit about that later on) and caused delays of about ten to fifteen minutes each time. But I managed both journeys in under four hours. Going up, that four hours was from Cambridge, because I’d chosen the wrong time to try and set off, so it took three quarters of an hour just to get out of the city (which normally takes about ten minutes), but then it was just a smooth journey.
The return leg was the full Manchester – Attleborough run, which TomTom reckoned would be 3hrs 50, and pretty much was – it was four hours dead once I’d stopped off and topped up the car at the end of the journey, which made for pretty good speed.
What did interest/please me, though, was my own endurance, and how I’ve got used to driving without really noticing it. Eighteen months ago, when I’d just passed the test, and we went up to Manchester, I could only manage two hours of driving before seriously needing to take a break. If I’d driven any longer than that, I would’ve been dangerous – that’s only happened once, where I’ve driven too far, and been utterly knackered by the end, to the point that once we did swap over, I just went to sleep in the car for an hour, which is something I do about once every five years.
This weekend, though, I was able to do a four hour stint without a break, and with no serious issues at all. OK, by the time I got home last night I was tired, and had a mental blank for about ten/fifteen minutes when I got in, but that was it, no really lingering effects at all. More importantly, my right foot – which, on that first long journey, ended up being cripplingly painful for the entire weekend- was absolutely fine, no pain at all, even when we then went out for a (roughly) four or five mile walk on the Saturday.
Really, I just find it interesting to see how much I’ve got used to driving – particularly since buying the Mondeo. I’m comfortable in it, which makes a lot of difference when it comes to these things, but also I just don’t find that type of drive stressful at all. Yeah, sure, the roads are full of tosspots (usually driving BMWs) but they don’t worry me at all. I kind of just take tosspotism into consideration.
In fact, I might actually be coming to like driving – which was something I really didn’t see happening, back when I passed. Progress indeed.
Cross Words
Posted: Sun 13 May, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts 3 Comments »Is it realy sad and geeky if I admit that I like doing the Guardian’s quick crossword online when I get the chance?
Or is it worse to admit that I complete it four days out of six?
You, the jury, decide.
(I’m still crap at the cryptic ones though)
UPDATED : A link to the Grauniad’s crossword page.
Whodunnit
Posted: Fri 11 May, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 4 Comments »Ever since the story of the little girl ‘abducted’ in Portugal last week started, there’s been something about it (OK, lots of things about it) that smelled bad.
Personally, I think the parents killed her – whether accidentally or deliberately, I’ve no idea – and the entire ‘abduction’ thing has been a ruse to divert attention and provide a reason for the child to suddenly not be around any more. I suspect that the Portuguese police are thinking along similar lines, from the way the search has never really seemed to be all that serious.
All the guff about ‘we left her and her younger brother and sister in the apartment while we went out for a meal – but we checked on them every half hour, honest‘ is just bizarre, especially when the apartment complex has a child-minding service etc.
Of course, I could be A) Overly cynical and B)Wrong – in many ways I hope I am, because whatever the result, it’s a pretty grim and sad situation.
Coincidence
Posted: Mon 7 May, 2007 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Many years ago, I shared a house in Oxford with a close friend who had just had twins. Her partner of the time hadn’t been able to cope with the complex responsibilities of becoming a father, and had buggered off into the great unknown, so for nearly a year I shared a house with her, and helped with the first year of the twins’ lives. It was a fantastic – if utterly chaotic- time, as I’d just come out of a set of jobs managing pubs and hotels, where I ended up utterly hating people. (and children in particular)
I’d emphatically had enough of hellspawn brats who were allowed to run amok while their parents got pissed at the bar, or while they had a ‘quiet’ meal in the restaurant. It was only quiet becuase their snot-gobbling little mini-demons were – you guessed it – running amok elsewhere. The last place I’d been managing before jacking it all in entirely had also had a kids play area of the ‘Wacky Warehouse’ type, which was deemed to be pretty much Hell on Earth so far as I was concerned.
So when life conspired to put me in a house with two very young babies (we’re talking about two weeks old, at most) it was quite a double-edged sword. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to cope, but it was something I had to try. In general I do like children, and get on well with them (some would say it’s down to similar mental ages) and I wanted to know whether the events and lows of the previous three years had caused me permanent damage on that score.
As it turned out, they hadn’t. That year with the twins was great, bringing them up, dealing with all the normal joys – sleep, illness, nappies- amd sp pm. as well as starting off on a track that was very new at the time- websites. Yes, that was the year that did one hell of a lot of the grundwork to bring me to where I am now. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?
At the end of the year, though, things changed. The father came back on the scene, having now decided he was ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood- and for reasons I’ll never really understand (not that I really think about them any more) my friend took him back in, and let him come back into their lives. Of course, this also meant that I was now kind of surplus to requirements, so I took my leave, and moved on.
I stayed in touch for a while, but never went back to see them, or the twins. I knew they moved away, somewhere out in the country, but never really made any effort to stay in touch after that – and it was reciprocal, they never stayed in touch with me.
On a whim this week, though, I had a look using the power of t’internet, to see whether they’re still together, that kind of guff. A couple of Google searches, and one through 192.com.
The results? Well, they’re still together, which is great – and I’m pleased to see it. It means they got over those initial problems, and that she was right to take him back. But the real “Bloody Hell!” bit is that they’re in Norfolk. And they live in the village between where we live now, and where we’ve bought the house.
I’m not going to go looking, but I suppose that the odds are high that we may one day collide. I wonder if I’d recognise them? I wonder if they’d recognise me?
Routine
Posted: Sat 5 May, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Introspective, Thoughts Leave a comment »In general, I seem to be quite happy with a fairly chaotic life. I’ve never really done the entire ‘career path’ thing – and if pushed I’d probably still stick with the definition of ‘career’ as ‘to ricochet wildly from place to place’ instead of the more standard ‘job progression’ definition.
However, in other ways I have put a lot of routine into my life. There’s a good reason for this, which I’ll get to in a minute, but I am aware that in many ways my days are quite routine when seen in the context of someone who professes to prefer a chaotic life. In fact, in general you can predict the rough outline of my days quite easily – when I’m likely to get up, what my morning activities will be, where I’ll go for lunch, that kind of thing. It’s not to any serious OCD-like level, but yeah, there’s a definite schedule to a fair amount of what I do.
Actually, there’s two primary reasons, if I think about it. First is that human life doesn’t really manage all that well when faced with a truly random lifestyle. The brain likes a routine, for whatever reason. And a ‘normal’ working life also imposes on that routine – the train timetable, the working hours, the 7½hour working day, they all combine to make a routine for a major portion of the day.
The second reason is rather more personal – if I have a sketched-out routine, I can deal with it even when my brain isn’t working at full power. And in the days where I was suffering from really serious insomnia, it was a good bet than when I was awake, I wasn’t operating on anywhere near full power. Hell, it would’ve needed passport control to even get into the same country as full power. So a routine allowed me to operate on what could be fairly termed as ‘autopilot’ – and operate fairly well. Most of the time, unless I was working on far too long with minimal sleep, moost people probably didn’t even realise how badly sleep-stumped I was.
Now though, I seem to be doing a bit better for sleep. Or at least it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be. It’s still incredibly disturbed, and so shallow that even Hound walking around will wake me up, but it’s better than it ever used to be. And the routine is still there – I’m not as sure why, now, except that it’s just ingrained into my subconscious.
Moving Numbers
Posted: Thu 3 May, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, House Work, Thoughts 1 Comment »Yesterday I called BT about us moving house, and organising the (hopefully) seamless transfer of phone and broadband from where we are now to where we will be, and all on the day we move.
Which is going to be the 25th May, just in case anyone cared/wanted to know.
It shouldn’t be a problem, as we’re only moving roughly six miles, and will still be in the same area code – but no, we won’t be able to keep the current phone number. Apparently we’re going to be on a different exchange, and this throws a spanner in the works for keeping our existing phone number.
I don’t care, particularly, but it just seems strange that BT can’t manage the (on the surface) simple thing of keeping the phone number if you move within the same phone area code. Apparently it’s fine if you’re staying on the same exchange, but it’s a no-no if you’re moving exchange. Mind you, it’s not like there’s going to be someone using that number on the different exchange, is it?
Maybe I need some landline phone expert to educate me a bit on this one…
Pyromania
Posted: Wed 2 May, 2007 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Is it me, or is the news this week dominated by fires for some reason?
- Last Friday/Saturday – Fire in Oxford Street, London
- Monday – Fire in Dale Street, Manchester
- Tuesday – Fire in old colliery, South Wales
- Tuesday – Gorse fires in Wales
- Wednesday – Boy aged 3 rescued from fire in Bridlington
- Wednesday – Fire at a care home in Strathclyde
And that’s not all of them, it’s just a selection.
But it does seem like there’s a theme for the week…
Bridge Jumping
Posted: Tue 1 May, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts 3 Comments »I thought I’d written about this before (although, on searching, it looks like I might not have done so) but in my opinion, the May Day celebrations at Oxford’s Magdalene Bridge have always just struck me as something that should be filed under “Darwinistic”.
Fair enough, the traditional bit involving the Magdalene choir singing at dawn on May Day is pretty cool. But the people (generally students) who then take it upon themselves to jump off Magdalene Bridge into the Thames (sorry, Isis – one assumes that ‘Thames’ is just a bit too common for Oxford) where it’s all of two or three feet deep just deserve to be damaged.
In fact, I’d consider aiming to get some kind of insurance absolution, on the lines of “Anyone who jumps off this bridge is responsible for their own actions, and should not expect to be able to claim for damages or injury caused under any circumstances”
Considering that these people are supposed to be intelligent, you’d think they could figure that out for themselves, wouldn’t you?
Grey
Posted: Mon 30 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 3 Comments »In line with the post over the weekend about getting older, there’s one other crystal-clear sign of that for me.
My hair is going grey. Not just a little, but now quite a lot.
I don’t mind, actually – it’s not something I worry about. Although when the grey eyebrow hairs appear, do tend to get rid of them. In the great scheme of things it’s a pretty minor vanity. I also tend to not let stubble grow too much now, as there’s significant levels of grey there too.
It’s never been unexpected though – my mum went grey very early (some less kind souls would point out that it was probably due to having me) and was pretty much totally grey by 35-40, so it’s no shock to see myself heading in a similar direction.
All the same though, well, I’m going grey…
Empire
Posted: Sat 28 April, 2007 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »One sign that you’re getting old is when a magazine celebrates its 18th birthday, and you remember reading the first one. And, unless the parents have recently thrown it out, (yes, I admit, I think there’s still a box of shit from when I lived at home) still have.
In the intervening 18 years, I’ve bought and read just about every issue of “Empire” magazine.
But it still makes me feel old, knowing that Empire has now been going that long.
Card Processing
Posted: Fri 27 April, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, House Work, Thoughts 2 Comments »One of the jobs that needs doing on the new house is to get the electricity supply and meter moved. Because of the region we’re in, we have to use EDF Energy.
Yesterday we got the quote for the work – some £320 or so – and advice on how to pay it. Of course, we want this done ASAP, so I call up their call centre to use a credit card to pay for it. Ho hum.
Anyway, I (eventually) get through – after 25 minutes on hold – and go through the credit card malarkey with the person on the other end. All fine – I’m never overly happy about giving over credit card details on the phone, but yadda yadda, could be worse. Until the end of the call…
“OK, I’ll take these details over to my supervisor, she’ll key them in, and we’ll get this done for you.”
“Woah! You mean you’ve not been doing this directly into the system?”
“No, we write it all down, then pass it on to our supervisor who’s authorised to enter the details. It’s security, you see.”
“OK, put me through to your supervisor NOW, please”
So I get through to the supervisor, who goes through the process again. She can’t understand why I have a huge problem with giving all my credit card details – including the security number on the back –and address details, and having some divvy little git writing them down before processing them. Then I say “Well, how would you feel if you called somewhere, and they did this with your credit card?”.
“Ah, I see your point. Well, all the paperwork is destroyed afterwards.”
“OK, and what’s to stop – say – one of your call takers from bringing in a sheet of carbon paper (I know, low-tech) , so they write the details down, and at the same time the carbon paper means a duplicate copy has been taken. Do you check for things like that?”
“Um. No.”
It’s all been done now, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on the card account over the next couple of weeks. And writing a snotty letter to EDF Energy about this method of payment processing…
Advance Warning
Posted: Wed 25 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Green, House Work, Thoughts 4 Comments »Now here’s a thing that’ll strike fear in the hearts of any sane individuals who read D4D™ on a regular basis…
Because we’ve bought a wood burner, over time we’re going to need logs. It’s a logical thing, I know. Now, obviously it’s better if you can source your own supply of logs, or combine with other people in the area, in order to source that supply. Apparently, these groups are called ‘chainsaw groups’ who will go out, and deal with a tree between them.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Yes, at some point this year I’m going to be taking a course to learn how to properly use a chainsaw. And, probably, buying one.
And if that concept isn’t enough to engender fear in your heart, you probably need to go see someone.
Conclusions
Posted: Tue 24 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »Sometimes, you witness something and afterwards you’re just not sure about it. There’s at least two interpretations of the events, and you don’t know – and likely will never know which one (if either) is right.
This morning, I watched something about as close to lethal as humanly possible. At a junction, a woman on a bike sailed straight through the red light, and was (at most) a couple of inches from being hit full-on by a bus. It was only the reactions of the bus driver that stopped her from closely resembling stawberry jam. With bits in.
For me though, the really grim – or, more accurately, potentially really grim- part was that the woman wasn’t alone on her bike. Behind her seat was a child seat – occupied.
And if I’m honest, it’s that which has preyed on my mind all day. I don’t know – I’ll never know- whether she was trying to commit suicide (well, murder/suicide) through getting hit by the bus (or whatever else was coming through the lights at the time) – or whether she was just stupid, wasn’t concentrating on the road and lights, or what. It’s impossible to tell.
Gun Law
Posted: Sun 22 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over this week I’ve stayed intentionally quiet about the events at Virginia Tech. There’s a couple of reasons for that, but mainly while I think it’s fairly shocking, in many ways it isn’t. It’s “just” another example of how America handles (or doesn’t)gun laws and disaffected people, as well as the media hype that explodes around such events.
I do find the entire gun legislation issue in the US to be bizarre, though. The oft-reported phrase about “if there’d been more students with guns, this perpetrator would’ve been killed before he could kill 32 other people” is just a marker of how bizarre the attitude is. Not “Hey, this guy – with recorded mental health issues – was allowed to just go to a shop, tick a box saying ‘no mental health problems’ and ta-da, could buy unlimited ammunition, and a semi-auto pistol. What’s wrong with this picture?‘ No, instead they should have more guns, to stop the gun crime. Because that’s an option that’s worked so well in the past.
However, the UK has also made a mistake. (and yes, I know, I’ve written about this before) Now, when people are saying that the US needs to strengthen their gun laws, they can turn round and say “Well hey, UK, you banned all your handguns, and that has worked really well to stop gun crime from exploding, hasn’t it?” It’s the two extremes – America wants Guns For All, and the UK has enforced (legally-speaking, anyway) Guns For None. And both have problems.
In the UK, we banned all ownership of handguns after Dunblane. Again, yes, a shocking event at the time – but the reaction was pure knee-jerk ‘got to do something‘.
Now, before I get started I just want to say that I’m not a particular fan of guns – I most certainly wouldn’t want to own one. I’ve used guns, shot with them (and done pretty well) in target competitions , using both rifles and hand-guns. I’m not pro-gun, but I’m not particularly anti-gun either.
Before Dunblane, people could own guns. The owners had annual checks against police records, (and would now be checked against CRB records etc. too) the firearms themselves were registered and licenced, and had to be kept in a secure area. More importantly, the police had the ability to knock on a registered gun-owners door at pretty much any reasonable time (Nicely slack wording in itself) and check that the guns were on the premises, in their safe, in a secure situation, and check that the firearms listed on the person’s FAC (Firearms Certificate) were the only ones on the premises. If a gun was sold, the sale had to be reported, along with who it’d been sold to.
After Dunblane, pretty much all handguns became illegal. The UK Government offered ‘compensation’ to gun owners that amounted to about £150-250 per gun – a paltry sum, when you worked out what they’d cost initially. And most gun-owners still complied with those new laws. Although, of course, some didn’t. And so a new trade in illegal guns sprang up. Which has contributed massively to where we are now – where gun crime is still increasing at a depressing rate, but there’s no records of what guns are where, who owns them, etc. etc.
Yes, there’s always been a trade in illegal guns – but licensing, and fairly strict gun control was a good system. It meant that what guns were available were generally kept in secure locations by people who had regular checks done on them. And when most handguns are owned by people who have bought them, who are older and perceived as being ‘responsible’, and do boring stuff like target shooting with them, they lose a lot of the ‘glamour’ that they’re now afforded by the media (by which I mean films, music etc., rather than newspapers)
I suspect that a lot of the current ‘gun culture’ has come about because of their very illegality. To own, or have access to, a gun is to have some level of cachet, some perception of ‘cool’ or ‘clever’ or ‘big’. But no-one knows that you have it unless you display that you have that access to guns. And/or a willingness to show off, and use them.
As the US has repeatedly shown, free access to guns doesn’t work. But nor does no access at all. Somewhere in the middle, perhaps there’s an option that will work. Or at least work better than the current methods.
Upgrade
Posted: Sat 21 April, 2007 Filed under: Geeky, Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »On the laptop, I don’t have MS Office – instead, I use OpenOffice, and for my email Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a stonking bit of kit, and satisfactorily replaces Microsoft Outlook for everything I do. I keep on considering installing a calendar plugin like Lightning or Sunbird, as it’s now the only thing missing from Thunderbird’s functionality that I find occasionally useful – although obviously not occasionally enough to actually do anything about it.
Anyway, now Thunderbird 2.0 has been released, and I’ve installed it this evening. So far, it’s looking good. A much nicer front-end (which isn’t essential, but does help) with the ability to add tags to emails for easier searching/archiving, updated junk mail stuff, and – most interestingly to me – being able to use browser-style ‘back’ and ‘forward’ buttons to navigate to replies etc. in any specific email. To me, that’s brilliant.
I’ll write more about it as I go on further with Thunderbird. But initially, yeah, it’s definitely a great upgrade.
Guilt Art
Posted: Sat 21 April, 2007 Filed under: Green, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »(via Gordon)
I’d love to see these pictures/prints/paintings at the true life-size – they must make an impact on you similar to the way some of Andreas Gursky’s ones do.
Basically, they’re artworks displaying our conspicuous consumption, and when done to life-size must be truly huge/impressive.
In fact, Chris Jordan’s entire site is pretty phenomenal.
One Month On
Posted: Wed 18 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Having looked back, I’ve just noted that actually, I’ve had the new car for just over a month now. Scary, the way time flies when you’re having fun.
Oh, and it’s now done just under 2,000 miles – not bad, all things considered.
I’m still pleased with the car (despite the additional scratch) and so far it’s performed well on all the things that’ve been required of it. Over the next couple of months there’s going to be a couple more long journeys, as well as a whole bundle of shorter ones between current place and new one, and all that guff.
But yes, so far it’s turned out to be a pretty good buy. (Just wait- now I’ve said that, things’ll start falling off the sodding thing)
Unable to Buy
Posted: Fri 13 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »All the major UK media carried a story yesterday about how public workers can’t afford to buy houses. I’m sorry, but I’m actually quite unsympathetic about this.
You see, the public workers that are mentioned in the story are teachers, nurses, police, and firefighters. And with the exception of the teachers, all the others are a self-inflicted problem. Well, not self-inflicted per se, but most certainly it’s a problem that’s come about through the decisions of the employers of these public workers about 20-25 years ago.
Before the 1980s, hospitals, police forces, and fire brigades all had subsidised accommodation for their staff/members (whichever you want to call them). In some areas, the police and nurses in particular had whole housing estates of subsidised housing. The same is true of the MoD, and soldiers having subsidised housing although even that is now coming to an end.
In the 80s and 90s, though, the various authorities (regional police forces, health authorities etc.) decided to sell off those housing areas, and make some money. OK, a load of money. So that’s what they did – bang, all the subsidised housing getting sold, giant profits being made on the sales, and not a thought to what would happen in the future.
And that’s what resulted in the current situation. If the subsidised housing were still available, the affordability of it for those key workers in the public services wouldn’t be an issue.
Just another case of short-sighted (and greedy) actions for a quick profit, and no thought to the future…
Birth Rights
Posted: Wed 11 April, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 8 Comments »I have to admit that I find myself feeling quite unsympathetic towards Natalie Evans, the woman who has just lost her case (for the fourth time) to be able to make use of embryos created with her partner of the time before she underwent treatment for cancer.
Now yes, I’m sure that it’s ‘preferable’ to have a child of your own, and all that jazz, but at the same time she appears (in this case) to be quite obsessed with the matter – to the extent of wanting the child of a partner she’s split up with, because they’re the embryos that are available. I can kind of understand wanting to have your ‘own’ child, but that- to me, anyway – is going too far, to attempt to legally force your ex-partner to become a father, even though he no longer wants anything to do with you. To drag it out for six years makes it sound even more obsessive.
In my own cynical mind I also suspect that any child this woman had borne would be an utter hellspawn , because she’d wanted it so much, its every whim would be catered for. Of course, that’s just me being cynical, I’ve no proof of it.
Personality Profiles – Part Two
Posted: Sat 7 April, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Introspective, Thoughts 1 Comment »For the first part, look here.
So yes. while I’m seriously aware that my ideas and attitude towards projects can be somewhat flighty, shall we say, I’m working on it. I know what the problem is, and over the last few years I’ve been – well, if not working on it, working with it, bearing it in mind, and trying to alter my workstyle in order to accommodate it a bit.
And so far, it’s actually been fairly successful. In some ways it’s slowed me down a bit, because I can’t/won’t just get an idea and run with it- but at the same time it’s meant that I’m actually more productive, because each idea goes from start to finish, and comes to a completion point, (in general – there’s one exception at the moment, although I’m going back to that one over the next couple of weeks, and one long-term one that’s kind of faded out a bit) before I get started on the next one. It’s meant that I’m churning out roughly one site a month – as well as my normal work – which is a quick enough process to keep me going without getting bored.
On the downside, it means my brain is rather more ‘full’ of ideas, which are all in a bit of a queue. Some of that is my own fault, because I find it easier (in general) to keep those ideas inside my head, rather than writing them down on paper, or having any kind of reference material. I could/should have a notepad of ideas – whether in the form of a notebook, or just a bundle of text-files on the laptop (of course, the latter option is rather more feasible for the way I work) so that I don’t forget any of the things I’m considering, but at the same time I know that if I were to dump out some of those ideas from my head onto some other media, I’d then come up with other ones to ‘fill’ the ‘space’ in my head. So in some ways I’m again acknowledging and accommodating my traits and flaws in order to get a better or more stable working process.
I think there’s still a long way to go before I know for sure that this set of ideas has worked – or, of course, not. But so far the progress has been good, and it’s always interesting (well, to me, at least) to come up with ways of working that actually integrate with personality traits.
And maybe that’s where the ‘Shaper’ definition from Belbin comes back into play…
Five Year Plan : 10% done
Posted: Thu 5 April, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »So, back on November 5th I turned 35, and started what I semi-laughingly refer to as a five-year plan. I’m only working on it year-to-year, and doing it mainly through non-new-year ‘resolutions’ – although they might as well be a to-do list, really. In my head I hold what is pretty much the full development curve of what to do and when, but really I’m working on it on that year-at-a-time basis. It makes for something vaguely resembling a sane approach to the entire thing.
The final goal? Making enough money that I can make my own choices, and do my own things, rather than being tied to a job for the next thirty years. (Twenty-five, by the end of the project). There’s some other stuff in there as well, but that’s the bottom line. One of the things about me is that I have loads of ideas that could, should, or might make money, but for various reasons over the years I’ve failed to follow them through and see how they did in reality instead of theory. Since last November 5th, I’ve been working on making them into reality, and seeing how I do. With most of them, the initial costs are pretty low (and intentionally so) so that if any of the ideas do take off, it won’t take a lot to knock them into profitability.
We’re now six months in, so I thought I’d jot out a little progress statement, just to see where things are going…
- Photography
Get a Macro Lens- Get a Wide-Angle Lens
Finish the Portfolio website– completed, and with extra uploads when necessary- Sell/Publish some stuff – working on it
- Join a local club
Get a decent flash– Done, a Speedlite 580EX- New : Start aiming to get work and projects – Started, and ongoing
- Writing
- Finish at least one piece of writing – working on it
- When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
- Just see how things go
- Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
- Work / Websites
- Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head – working on it, and getting some of them sorted
- Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible – so far, three new sites launched, as well as the photography portfolio
Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.– All done, and no need to get that nasty ‘proper’ job after all- Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
Merge lots of hosting accounts into one reseller account, and onto one server– done- New : Start getting better at invoicing for work done – in progress, and all being done a lot more efficiently
- New : Develop some ideas in partnership with others, and see how they do
- Education
Sign up with Open University– initially for a refresher course, and work from there- Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?
- Other
Restart the Archery once we’ve moved– booked, but not attended yetComplete the move to Norfolk– all done- New :
Buy a car– git it insured, all that.
So actually, the first six months has been very productive. All the foundations have been laid now, the website hosting agreements rationalised and merged where it’s necessary or beneficial to do so. In fact, just doing that and merging most of them into one reseller account has saved me £150 over the year, which is pretty impressive. In addition to that, the invoices I sent out at the end of last year amounted to a few hundred quid, which was also surprising – they were all for small amounts, so I hadn’t really thought about the way it all added up. Actually, though, D4D™ is going to be moving off that reseller server, though – it needs a space of its own, and it’s just taking up too much of the space and bandwidth available on the reseller server, so it’s going to go back to being a seperate entity. And that actually makes some sense, keeping D4D™ seperate from business sites etc.
In addition, I’ve been able to average at getting one solid site out per month, as well as a couple of smaller basic designs and/or amendments to existing stuff. There’s a whole lot of new stuff and new connections coming through at the moment, and that’s all going to start coming together over the next six month period, I think. That’s the plan, anyway. There’s some initial steps that need to be taken in order to make sure that everything has the potential and stability to get through (sorry, I’m sounding enigmatic, and while that’s not really the intention, at the moment it’s certainly the necessity.)
Photographically, now that the portfolio site is completed, and being regularly updated, I can start getting in touch with publishers, agencies and the like. I’m also considering doing image-library stuff, but it’s about making sure the photos get the best use made of them. I’ve also got a few projects in mind that have a lot of potential commercially as well – although the main thing about them is that they’re things that interest me – otherwise, if I’m honest, there’d be no chance of me going through with them. And of course there’s going to be lots of pictures of Hound over the summer…
Oh, and let’s not forget, within that six months we’ve also moved to Norfolk, bought a house, gone through all the bureaucratic nightmares of that little endeavour, and come through it intact. Over the next 10%, we’ll be moving in, and sorting the new place out too.
It’s been a good start. There’s still a long way to go – 4½years, to be exact, but the initial steps have been promising. Long-term I’ve no idea whether my goals and plans are realistic or not – but this way well, there’s no way I’ll be able to say “I wish I’d tried xxx” – because I’m trying it all. As time progresses, I’ll get ruthless, and if the ideas aren’t working out, they’ll be culled. Darwinian business – the good ones survive, the bad ones fall by the wayside.
Suited and Booted
Posted: Wed 4 April, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts 4 Comments »Getting the new suit is something I never really saw myself doing, I must admit. In some ways it’s incredibly traditional, a slate-grey three-piece suit with a thin pinstripe.
But that’s where the traditional bit ends. The pinstripe is purple. In some lights it doesn’t look it, in others it’s bright purple. For the lining, and the back of the waistcoat, it’s a similar bright purple. But you rarely see it – and that’s what I like.
It’s not gaudy, or eye-searing. In fact, for the most part it looks incredibly business-like and traditional, (No, I never thought I’d be writing about a suit, and using words like that to describe it) which is exactly what I wanted when I initially went in to the shop.
Even more surprising (for me, anyway) is that actually, I liked wearing it. Normally in a suit I feel like a trussed-up chicken, but somehow today it just felt right. It didn’t feel weird, and I could wear it all day without feeling crap or out of place. There’s a psychological side to it as well, but I haven’t yet got that one figured out – I’ll write more about that when I do have it sussed.
In fact – and this is something else I never thought I’d say – for the first time today, I could see myself wearing something like that a lot more. I enjoyed wearing it, and I liked the fact that actually, I looked bloody good in it, too.
Work/Life Balance
Posted: Sat 31 March, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Purchase, Introspective, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »One of the things that’s always being blethered about in TV programmes like “Relocation,Relocation” and the like is ‘Work/Life Balance’. It’s not a phrase I usually like, as it’s one of those things that’s usually indicative of someone who’ll spout every buzzword known to man at any given opportunity – but then at the same time it’s something I find myself thinking about more and more.
In fact, that was the exact motive behind the move to Norfolk. It’s also something I need to think about a lot more for the future, and how I want to plan things.
Of course, the real ‘balance’ side of things still isn’t going to happen this year – and possibly/probably not until even this time next year. There’s a lot that’ll need doing to the new house once we (finally) complete that process and move in. The garden needs a lot of work too, although I think Herself is going to do the majority of that – her fingers are far greener than mine. But there’s still going to be a fair amount of heavy labour involved. So over all, yes, I think it’ll most likely be April ’08 before we really start enjoying the place, rather than just working on it.
Work-wise, Norfolk really isn’t a great place for a web techie – well, not in the context of normal business stuff, anyway- unless, of course, you want to work in the IT department of Norwich Union. Which I really, really, really don’t want to do. It might mean that I end up working away from home during the week again, although there’s still some decisions to be made on that score too. But at the same time, and pretty much on the same timescale as the house stuff (i.e. over the next 12 months) I’m also aiming to get my own business up and moving, doing a number of smaller local sites, as well as that plan for launching my own sites, and seeing what works and what doesn’t with them.
At the same time, I’m also going to be working fairly hard on building up the photography portfolio as well. While Norfolk and its surrounds aren’t great for a web techie, they’re bloody marvellous for a photographer, and I wholly intend to take advantage of that over the coming months. Some of the ideas I’ve got on that score will have to wait now ’til Autumn comes around, but at the same time they may be all the better for it. Others really start coming into their own now, and would work less well come Autumn, so it all works out, one way or another.
In the end, I currently think that it’s going to be this time next year before things really settle down. There’s a lot to be done in that time, and it’s going to be a lot of work to get it all sorted.
But – and this is the thing – already we’re far, far happier, and more relaxed, than we were in Bracknell. Yes, the pace of some things (fucking house purchase) takes some getting used to, and in that kind of thing I’m still probably far too driven and impatient with buffoons, but well, that’s life.
Hound is definitely far happier out here – if for no other reason than that she gets to go to the beach fairly regularly, or on big long walks through Thetford Forest, or Knettishall Heath. But she’s more relaxed about other things as well – fireworks, jet planes, loud noises and so on. Of course, Hound being Hound, she finds other things to be stressed about instead – like the phone ringing – but we’re working on those. And once we’ve finally moved, we’ll have fields all around us, she’ll be able to go for decent walks on a more regular basis (for example, the morning one will be across fields, instead of the current use of the local recreation ground – if there’s one thing that Attleborough is bizarrely shit for, it’s places to walk dogs. On that score, Bracknell was far more useful)
It’s not just Hound, either. We’re (probably) more relaxed, allbeit in different ways. My commute takes a lot longer than it did from Bracknell to Wokingham (although nowhere near the shitebag day that involved working in London from Bracknell) but I get t sit on a train and usually see deer, hares, rabbits, and the occasional fox. (Of the four-legged russet-coloured variety, pervs) Or alternatively, F15s, Chinooks, or Blackhawk helicopters. (What can I say, I’m a geek) The train isn’t jam-packed with Blackberry-wielding tosspots, nor is it standing-room only. A good 95% of the time, I get to sit at a table, and either do some extra website work, or bash out rubbish like this. Or read. Whatever.
Herself has a job that is – in general – OK, and she seems happy with how everything’s working out. Or at least she will be once the fucking house purchase has completed. (Can you guess yet what our current main stressor has been? Thought not. I’ve avoided mentioning it so well.)
Yes, life at the moment is actually pretty good, and it’s beginning – just beginning, mind you – to feel like that elusive balance may not be so far out of reach after all.
Family
Posted: Tue 27 March, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Introspective, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Attending my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary over the weeked was a very odd experience. It all went well, don’t get me wrong, but it was still strange.
Most of it, really, is down to just the way my family is. We’re not really a close family in many ways, and while I do stay in (fairly) regular contact with my parents (a phone call every couple of weeks, usually) and my brother (a text message every couple of weeks, and we see each other about once a year, usually) I don’t see the rest of them from one year to the next. And usually less than that.
So seeing pretty much all of them at once was deeply weird. And trying to remember names in order to introduce them to Herself was, frankly, a process that was always pretty well doomed. I got so many wrong, mainly by giving them the names of their siblings, which isn’t as bad as it could be (calling one great-uncle by the name of the other great-uncle, now deceased for three years was about as bad as it got – but still pretty bad!) but still fairly galling and embarassing.
The very strange ones, though, were my cousins, who (we worked out) I hadn’t seen in about ten years, if not more. Time flies, and all that crap. Having at least one complete stranger come up to me, know my name, know the basics of what I’d been up to, and having NO clue who they were at all – only for my brother to later confirm that he was one of my cousins – was pretty much the high/low point of the day. Mind you, at least I was honest, and said to him that I hadn’t a clue who he was – although I dont think he believed me.
But it made me think a lot about family, and about my role within it. I can’t deny, I’ve always been pretty much the black sheep of the lot, the one who’s not in touch, and has no intention of changing that. But at the same time, it now feels kind of weird to be so out of touch with my relatives. All the cousins now have partners, and in a couple of cases children – but I couldn’t tell you their names if my life depended on it. Only one comes to memory, and that’s because it’s a bloody horrible name, for which the kid will most likely be soundly beaten throughout his school days. As for the various partners, nope, not a clue.
I couldn’t tell you what the various birthdays are, or ages – hell, I have to make an effort to figure out my brother’s age (30 next year – heh) – nor could I tell you even where most of them live. Yeah, OK, I know the towns where they live, but addresses? Forget it.
And yet they all seem to know what I’m up to, where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing, and the like. I assume my mother must do some information dispersal about that, but it’s still weird, where they know what I’m doing, and I don’t know (and, to be honest, don’t really care) what they’re doing from one year to the next. Or indeed in some cases from one decade to the next.
Still, it all went OK, and it meant I got to take a fair number of photos as well ( willing / unknowing audiences are great) which I’ll also get prints of, and send them to the parents. Well, once I’ve edited them, and got rid of the crap ones. (I know there’s a couple of those, for sure)
Identity
Posted: Fri 23 March, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts 10 Comments »One of the things I thought about back when I first started D4D™ was the identity I used in it. I specifically didn’t want it linked with my given name, and I didn’t want people to be able to find D4D™ just by Googling for my name. I knew I could be pretty acerbic (hey, who’d have thought?) and that if D4D™ took off, I didn’t want it to be able to rise up and bite me on the arse in the future. Yeah, sure, if someone does a bit of delving, it’s not all that difficult to find my ‘real’ name, but at the same time it’s not all that easy, either.
In that aim, I’ve been pretty successful. I used an identity that had been around for a fair while already – which is a whole other story – and went with it. And in some ways it’s almost been too successful. It’s now not uncommon, depending on who I’m with, to be called ‘Lyle’ to my face – slightly bizarre, to say the least. I’m used to it – and believe me, it’s a strange thing to get used to, but it happens.
But I am used to it. I’ll answer to both. And in fact even my ‘real’ name isn’t the one I was born with. That one is one I hate- primarily because it’s a name with multiple spellings, and n-one ever got it right. When I first applied for a passport, and had to get a copy of my birth certificate, even when the people creating the copy birth certificate with a form in front of them with it correctly spelled managed to fuck it up. And that really was the final straw. I was already being known by the name I’d adopted, and it was on my bank account, mail addresses and the like, so I was able to include a letter with the passport application that said
“Look, this is my true given name, but even the register-office people can’t spell it correctly. This is what I’m known as, and I include proof of that. If you absolutely have to do the passport in my given name, fine, I’ll live with it – but please, save me ten years of hassle where booked flight tickets don’t match with passport name, and if possible do the passport in the name I’ve adopted”
And they did. No-one was more amazed than me, admittedly, but they did it. And that’s the name I’ve used ever since.
Yes, sure, it causes some weirdness – particularly when I meet someone I went to school with, or extended family. But – again – I’m used to it now, and those occasions are both (thankfully) now quite rare. (Although I do have one of those family things tomorrow – but more about that on the day, I think)
Recently, though, the entire Lyle thing has risen up and bitten me on the arse a little bit.
You see, for obvious reasons, the company I run for web design and the like is in my real name, and so is the stuff I do for photography and the like. And because of the seperation I keep, it means I can’t link from, say, D4D™ to the photography site while saying “Hey, this is my stuff, and my site – good, innit?”, and the like.
It’s a weird situation – and I can’t complain too much, because it’s entirely self-created, even if for sane, sensible reasons. Some people do know me in both identities (for want of a better phrase) – and a couple know me in all three, which is really confusing – and I’m wholly and continually thankful to them for indulging my little identity foibles, and keeping it all seperate. It must be almost as weird for them as it is on occasion for me.
The situation will stay like this, though – as the business I run does better, and that side of my life grows and grows, it’s something that becomes more and more essential. I’m pretty certain, though, that this is it – I don’t plan to start off any other identities, the current level is enough for me.
Changing Workflow
Posted: Thu 15 March, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »While we’re away next week, I’m aiming to start getting used to the RAW format for photos. I know the camera will take RAW and JPG images simultaneously, so that’s going to be the initial stage.
As for processing those .RAW images, I’ve just downloaded a trial edition of Phase One‘s software, Capture One LE, which should be interesting. I’ll install it on the laptop, so it’s away with me, and then just see how it goes.
I’ve written before about my feelings with regard to RAW vs. JPG, but I’m slowly coming round to the idea that maybe I do need to do some work with RAW files as things progress. So we’ll just have to see how it goes – I suspect that the learning curve may be rather cliff-like, but it’ll give me something new to do…
Ooops
Posted: Wed 7 March, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Now this is enough to make any man cry. Well, that and snigger smugly too. Schadenfreude (and Month of the Bastard) is alive and well, after all.
A beautiful Bugatti Veyron crashed into a tree. Personally, I couldn’t ever spend £800,000 on a car – but all the same, the owner of it must be bloody livid right about now.
Green
Posted: Tue 27 February, 2007 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »You know how belly-button fluff is always that manky dark blue colour?
Is it just me that finds that the gunge that builds up on the back of the nose-piece bits on glasses is always green?
Canine
Posted: Sun 25 February, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts 5 Comments »Following on from all the recent guff about ‘dangerous dogs’ , and the latest “No Shit, Sherlock” advice that children shouldn’t be left alone with dogs, I wonder how long it’ll be before some politician or other says
“I know, why don’t we have a licence for every dog and dog-owner in the country?”
You know, like we used to have.
In theory at least, it would actually be pretty easy to manage.
First, you make it a legal requirement to have every dog microchipped at birth. (well, by the age of 8 or 16 weeks) The chip would be read only, and loaded with a unique identifier along with (possibly) information about the dog, its breed, etc. If a dog were found, or needed to be identified, the chip would be read (using already existing equipment) and queried against a national database.
In the database, you’d have the unique identifier, again the information about dog breed, age, blah blah, and also the owner details, address, contact details. Similar to vehicle license stuff, if you move, you would have to register that information with DogBase, so that information was up to date. This should be free – there’s no point making people pay to change the details, or they just won’t do it.
Any dog could be checked at any time – particularly when out in public – and if that information is out of date, or the owner is incorrect, then the owner can be fined. If the dog is out of control, or whatever, it can be held somewhere, and the owner contacted.
Is it me, or does that make sense?
Mass Market
Posted: Mon 19 February, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 5 Comments »Recently, I’ve noticed that I seem to have developed a really nasty habit of liking the TV series that America hates. By this I mean that – if I’m lucky – they get cancelled at the end of one season. If I’m unlucky, they’re cancelled halfway through, and we never get to find out what’s happening.
Recent/current examples of this have included
- Threshold – I know, I’m a late-comer on this one, and it’s already been on Sky One, but there we go. All the same, for the subject matter of alien invasion it’s pretty intelligent, and so far hasn’t had any dodgy monster suits. Cancelled at the end of Season One.
- Commander in Chief – OK, this one’s more of a “let’s try and beat West Wing” matter, but it’s been OK, if slower than frozen sludge. And cancelled
- Jericho – again, so far this is a pretty smart (if paranoid) vision of a nuclear war, and its effects. No word yet on whether this’ll be saved or cancelled
- Reunion – OK, I hated this one, but Herself liked it – cancelled mid-season
They’re the main onesat the moment, although there’s at least one (I’ve now remembered it was Reunion, now added to the list above) that I’ve forgotten, which didn’t even make it to a full season, and instead folded without mention – most annoying.
What’s even more interesting (to me, anyway) is that I find I really don’t like a large percentage of the stuff that makes it to multi-season status. Currently on this list (from American imports) are things like Ugly Betty, which the US raved about, and I can’t help but be distinctly underwhelmed by the entire thing. Admittedly there are exceptions to the rule (Stuff like ER, West Wing, etc.) and there are certain programmes where I liked the first season, but then just can’t be arsed with them after that (24, Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc. etc.).
I’m sure it’s of absolutely no relevance, and no interest to anyone else, but I still find it interesting – and somewhat reassuring, if I’m honest- that (again, in general) my taste in TV is pretty much a polar opposite of what mainstream America is keen on. And long may that situation last…
Unlit
Posted: Sat 10 February, 2007 Filed under: Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »Driving in to work yesterday, I was absolutely amazed by the number of idiots out there who hadn’t even turned on their headlights.
OK, this was primarily close to Cambridge, so it was around 8:30 or so in the morning. But all the same, it was pretty foggy yesterday morning, and the visibility was pretty shit. So it’s still surprising (for me, anyway) when I see other drivers – and particularly those in light-coloured cars that blend into the fog even more) without lights or foglights on. I know that I’ve written about this before – and quite recently but it still shocks/surprises/scares me when I see it happening.
Of course, the even scarier thing in Cambridge is the cyclists. Yesterday morning, not one of them had any lights on at all. Again, still cold, grey, misty/foggy, yet they all seem to believe that they’re either indestructible, or that the dozy little twadgers have some god-given right of way so that they won’t suffer any collisions or accidents.
Yes, yet again, I find myself worried by other road users. I suspect that this may become a standard mantra.
Box Junction
Posted: Sat 10 February, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »Just down the road from where I work, there’s a big four-way crossroads, which is invariably snarled up and jammed. There are actually two reasons for this :
- It’s been designed by an utter tosser
- People are tossers
Reason One is fairly standard – after all, it’s just a four-way crossroads with a nightmare of traffic lights.
Reason Two, though, is different, although it’s related to Reason One. Because the traffic lights screw things up, the planners/designers decided to make it ‘safer’, and covered the entire junction with yellow cross-hatch markings. It’s a box junction.
Box junctions aren’t difficult to deal with – well, unless you’re a BMW driver – and the simple rule is At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.. Not rocket science, is it?
But the reason this junction is a nightmare is because everyone ignores that concept completely, and instead buckets into the junction, try to turn, and then realise they can’t get out of the junction. And oooh, look – suddenly they’re blocking the next flow of traffic, which invariably includes a sodding big bus. Oops.
I have no idea how this can be fixed, and nor do I have any idea how you can get drivers to look ahead and figure out that there’s nowhere for them to go. Personally, I can’t see a problem with a car that detects the road markings, and if you stop on a box junction, it gives you a small electric shock. That’d soon stop it. Just call me Mr Pavlov…
Mind you, if I could come up with the answers to either of those things, I’d be a very wealthy man.
Snowed
Posted: Thu 8 February, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, it was supposed to snow heavily last night. Only when we woke up this morning, not even a flake of the white stuff. Which is fine.
Of course, by the time I got to Cambridge, there’s maybe (optimistically) two centimetres of it laying around, and so things are starting to go tits up. It truly scares me how many people can’t drive in the stuff – even on fairly clear, if soggy/slushy/mushy roads, I’ve already seen three cars slide to a stop. And it really isn’t that dodgy.
Then again, most people appear to be unable to walk in the stuff either. Just on the walk from the station, there were countless people either slipping and sliding along, or taking little tiny baby steps in order to keep their balance. Maybe I’m missing something – OK, I didn’t walk at quite my normal speed, but at the same time I didn’t have any problems with loss of traction, and was fine to overtake the massive majority of people.
What does concern me, though, is tonight. I’m supposed to be going in to London to see Massive Attack at Brixton Academy. The car’s booked, and everything’s in place – I’ve even brought in the satnav, so I can stick it in the car and get through London without any problems – but the idea of driving home to deepest, darkest Norfolk at midnight and gone is currently rather unappealing.
So I don’t know whether I’m going to go or not. It’s not going to be for want of trying, but I do think that a healthy dose of realism may be the primary deciding factor…
Forewarned is…
Posted: Thu 8 February, 2007 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Recently, I saw the film Kinky Boots, which was OK, but had one thing that really annoyed me.
In fairness, it’s not just that one film that does it – it’s almost a staple cliché of the film industry – Dirty Harry did it for sure, and so have many, many others.
The sin? Lazy writing. When a film – or anything else, in fact – relies on something relevant being repeated. In the instance of Kinky Boots, yes, it’s amusing when the boot lands on the microphone’s activation switch, and thus the entire factory hears what is being talked about in the office. It is NOT as amusing when that self-same device is then used again towards the end of the film. It’s just lazy. Find something else, some other way of doing what is essentially the same joke.
In the other example I used, Dirty Harry repeats his trademark line – if he’d only done so once, at the end of the film, it would have had far more impact than it does at the end when it’s already been done before. It’s dull, and makes the character – previously ruthless and decidedly unconventional – repetitive and unimaginative too. Which isn’t how it should be.
I don’t have an answer, I don’t know how to fix it. It’s just something that really annoys me.
Homeless
Posted: Thu 1 February, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »Most people won’t be surprised by this, but on occasion I can be very uncharitable. Not just when watching things like Relocation Relocation (and Dear GOD, Relocation2 brings out the uncharitable bastard in me) but also when faced with – in particular – Big Issue sellers.
I don’t know why – I think that the Big Issue is a fantastic idea- but I just never give money to the people selling it. I’ve done work with a charity for the homeless, and I do a fair amount of work with other charities, with more coming up over the duration of this year. But when it comes to actually giving money to people who are homeless, I just don’t.
A lot of it is that I really don’t like the idea of paying people to remain homeless – of giving money to someone because they’re homeless, and perhaps of contributing to a tax-free income. At least with the charities I deal with, I know that the people who benefit truly are homeless. When someone is just on the street, well, you don’t know. I’ve seen a couple of “homeless” people, even in Cambridge, who pack up their begging gear, stick it in a car, and (I assume) then go home. It’s a tax-free income based on peoples guilt.
So I don’t know. In some ways I feel like I’m really cynical and uncharitable (and OK, I am) but not all the time. And at least I try to balance that out by doing some good stuff with places where the money and work will go to the truly deserving people.
Vista?
Posted: Tue 30 January, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Thoughts 2 Comments »So, today Microsoft launches its new Operating System, Vista™. Whoopee-Doo.
Will I be going for Vista™? Hell no – and there’s a few reasons why.
First of all, I’m just not one of those people who simply has to have the latest greatest newest versions. Hell, I only started using XP on my home computers last year. Until then, Windows 2000 had done me very nicely indeed, thank you. In fact, I still don’t like a lot of XPs ‘features’, although I’m getting used to them.
Secondly, as with every other Microsoft OS, the first release will be a bug-fest. It’ll be horrific, and it’ll piss off a lot of people – particularly those who’ve paid to be able to ‘upgrade’ (I use that term *very* loosely!) as soon as Vista is released, and then find that various odds and sods Just Don’t Work. In my opinion, you’re always best to wait ’til at least the first Service Pack has come out, which will fix most of the major bugs. But I also despise the Microsoft attitude where you pay for software, and are still effectively a beta-tester of the OS. That just sucks.
Thirdly, there’s all the DRM (Digital Rights Management) that’s built in to Vista – and that’s something I really object to. In fact, that’s a whole different rant, but basically why the hell should I have limitations on something I’ve bought, and decide I want to listen to on my PC, or MP3 player, or wherever – and why the hell would I buy a piece of software that enforces rights management on items I’ve legally paid for?
So, three good reasons why I have no intention of upgrading to Vista until its absolutely necessary for me to do so. Which, by my reckoning, will be somewhere around 2011.
Handwritten
Posted: Wed 24 January, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »In my opinion, some people just deserve to be ripped off.
Picture the scene – two cashpoint machines (ATMs to the Americans) side by side, in the wall of a bank. On one, a handwritten notice saying “This machine is out of order. Please use the other one.“. And the other machine has a queue of about six people using it, complaining that this one’s a bit dodgy too.
Me? Maybe I’m paranoid. But there’s no fucking way on earth, even if it were the only cashpoint in town, that I would use that machine. And it’s for the following reasons.
- It’s outside a bank, thus making people feel psychologically more secure. (“Oh, no-one would mess with this machine, it’s right outside the bank”)
- The notice is hand-written, you pillocks. Surely the bank would have either
- some pre-prepared properly printed notices
or - just turned the damn thing off, and let it display the ‘out of order’ notice
- some pre-prepared properly printed notices
- The second machine is obviously slow, as there’s a queue
- People are audibly complaining that the second machine isn’t giving out money either
To me that’s a whole list of reasons that would generally add up to “this machine has been tampered with, and is currently recording your card details, and repeated attempts to type in your PIN” and as a result I just wouldn’t use it.
And let’s bear in mind, I’m talking about Cambridge. It’s not like there aren’t (quick mental tally) at least six other cash points within three minutes walk.
Like I said, some people just deserve to lose their money.
Smarties
Posted: Wed 24 January, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Many moons ago, I wrote about Nestlé ‘rebranding’ Smarties, changing the classic tube and plastic flip-off cap. Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I had a real craving for Smarties (no idea why, I just go with these things sometimes) And yes, the rebranding’s been done.
And somehow it’s just not the same. The cardboard tab just doesn’t have the same poppability (if there is such a word) as that old plastic cap. Even the colours have changed, and while I don’t have an objection to removing artificial colours- in fact I think it’s a good thing – I would perhaps rethink the brown ones, which now look (to be blunt) exactly like shit.
But when you get inside, well, Smarties® are still Smarties®. So it could be worse.
Green Olympiad
Posted: Tue 23 January, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »So the 2012 Olympics are going to be the greenest ever, are they? I don’t think so.
You see, when people start talking about “ever”, they’re wrong. After all, the original Olympic games were held in a stadium that wasn’t purpose built for them, thus not using shitloads of non-green cement, steel, concrete, and the like. The athletes didn’t travel in planes, buses, coaches and cars – they either came on foot, or on horseback.
The original games didn’t have a new set of stadia built every four years in some place or other, along with all the radical changes to infrastructure and environment. And they didn’t have millions of people watching worldwide on TV, thus also contributing to CO2 emissions etc. etc.
So, the greenest ever? I don’t think so, not at all.
Racism?
Posted: Fri 19 January, 2007 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Before I start, I just want to say that actually, I’ve no idea what was said on Big Brother that’s caused the racism hysteria , and to be honest I don’t really care. From what I’ve heard, neither Jade nor t’other one who’ve been accused are exactly laden with brains, and thus it’s more (as Gordon says) an indictment of ignorance and stupidity. But all the same.
What really pisses me off about the entire thing is that somehow it’s enabled bigoted hate-rags like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express to get all snotty and holier-than-thou about racism.
These are the media Andrex that are forever harping on about asylum seekers (Mail example, Express example), immigrants (Mail example) and a general ‘send them back where they came from’ attitude to life. Oh, not forgetting the odd dollop of sneery ‘told you so’ smut and gossip, just for ‘balance’.
So how do hate-mongering pieces of shit like that end up being “OK” , while Celebrity Big Brother is castigated by those self-same racist, arrogant bunches of media-whoring tossers?
Applications
Posted: Fri 19 January, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »The appointment with the IFA last night went pretty well in the end.
We got there late, due to the fact that the road we were on was suddenly blocked by a fallen tree, and then the detour route we took also involved a flooded road – which made life interesting, and just a little bit dodgy – but still got there fine. If nothing else were to prove that we want the house etc., yesterday should’ve done it. Bearing in mind that :
- I hired a car to get home in time for the appointment, once the trains were obviously stuffed
- We’d got to the appointment despite the aforementioned
- shit weather
- blocked road
- flood
- Dereham’s unutterably shit one-way system
Anyone sane would’ve given up at B
Anyway, everything went OK. It took two and a half fucking hours, but it all went OK. All bits of paperwork and bureaucracy completed, including paying for some kind of surveyor’s report for the mortgage company. (As you can tell, I really know what I’m on about. *cough*)
So it’s all still going ahead, and I’ve now no idea what the chuff step comes next.
Well, actually I do – we’re meeting an architect next Friday at the property to discuss our plans, and tomorrow we’re taking Herself’s Mother to see it. But bureaucracy-wise, not a clue…
Solicitation
Posted: Wed 17 January, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, House Purchase, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Maybe it’s just because I’m new to this property-purchasing lark, but I find myself utterly gobsmacked by the charges from solicitors.
OK, the majority of the bill cost is actually the stamp duty for the property purchase, which amounts to £2,400 , but still, the quotes we’ve had so far have all added another £1,100 or so to that price.
Mind you, it does make me glad we didn’t go for Property One (as discussed here) where the stamp duty would’ve been £7,800 or so because of going over to the 3% band – so all told, including solicitors fees it would’ve added about another £10,000 to the price.
Oh, and then let’s not forget the estate agent’s fees too. No idea what they’ll come to yet…
All the same, it just seems like more fuckin’ expense. We can handle it, but jesus, this process gets damn expensive damn quick.
Spending
Posted: Wed 17 January, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »As we’re now stepping out onto the mortgage route, I figured that I’d best do a quick check on my spending habits at the moment. Yes, it’s time for that much-mooted “spending diary”, as recommended by all the experts.
I only started on Monday, and so far it’s all going OK – and thankfully not too depressing.
Although it does rapidly demonstrate that I drink (and thus spend money on) WAY too much Diet Coke. In fact, it amounts for about 70% of my daily spending.
Maybe I’ll reduce my spending on that – but maybe not. After all, if that’s my only real spending ‘sin’, I dunno, I can think of situations that would be far worse.
Ah well.
Unexpected
Posted: Tue 16 January, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), House Purchase, Thoughts 5 Comments »I used a phrase today that, quite honestly, I’ve never expected to say.
Yes, we intend to borrow £200,000.
It hit me just afterwards, that’s one fuck of a lot of money.
Oops
Posted: Tue 16 January, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Domestic, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Whoops. I think that we’ve unintentionally dropped some people right in the shit. I hope we haven’t, but well, if we have, that’s life.
Basically, one of the houses we viewed a couple of weeks ago now was fantastic. We both fell in love with it, but had some questions that needed to be asked. Questions about things like planning permission – which we’d been told had been granted to the previous owners, but had lapsed as the current owners hadn’t done anything. There was also a small matter of a shared wall that needed repairing.
So I contacted the local council, and asked them what the deal was. Oops.
Turns out the property has never had a planning application made against it – since at least the 70s. And that shared wall is – um – part of a Grade 1 listed building. In short, “Oh, bollocks”. They also dropped in the little fact – which the current owners hadn’t divulged – that there were a number of trees on the property that were covered by a Tree Protection Order (TPO)
And I’ve just had another email from the council, saying that they’re going to be sending out an inspector today, to check those trees, and the property in general. OK, that’s all well and good.
Except, um, I think that the current owners have cut down two of those trees that’re covered by the TPO. And that could drop them right in the shit, with fines of up to £40,000 if I’m right.
So we didn’t intend to drop anyone in it, but in fact we may have done so. Oops.
Getting Involved
Posted: Tue 16 January, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Now here’s something to scare the pants off most people : I’ve often thought about whether I should get more involved in political stuff. After all, I’m forever griping about stuff, and then don’t do much else about it except rant on, so maybe I should do more than that.
Anyway, that made this piece by Greg Hartnett about ’12 ways to get involved’ quite interesting to me. Who knows, maybe I’ll start angling to do more once we’ve moved, and are slightly more settled into the village…
Self-Generating
Posted: Mon 15 January, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Green, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the weekend, Dragon was questioning why people talk about saving the planet and so on.
Personally, I don’t talk about “saving the planet”. However, I do believe in working to live ethically, and as greenly as possible. With the new place, we aim to get some solar panels and/or solar tubes for hot water, and (if possible) a wind turbine for some electricity generation as well. We (well, mainly Herself, but I’ll be involved along the way) will also aim to be growing a fair amount of our own vegetables again too, and even possibly some chickens too. Who knows?
But I’m not doing any of it to “save the planet”. I do believe in lowering my impact, and doing what I can. But there’s a variety of reasons, and “saving the planet” isn’t one of them.
I like the idea of being more self-sufficient. I like the idea of generating our own power, so that we’re less reliant on the National Grid, and also on getting power from non-renewable sources. In a selfish way, I don’t want to see us in the shit as and when the power-stations start to run out of fuel, and I believe in being an example. If we start up our own micro-generation stuff, and (if necessary) fight the battles with planning officers and the like, that’s fine – particularly if it makes life easier for other people who come along afterwards.
I also like the idea of getting paid for any spare electricity we happen to generate. We’ve already made some contacts with a local electrician who is cool with our plans, and has the knowledge for doing it all. That’s a promising start. And if we can get the solar panels and/or wind turbine connected in to the National Grid then they pay us for any power we put in to the system. Again, I reckon that’s worthwhile.
Saving the planet? Nope. Helping our own little world along with a minimum of hassle – well, probably with a lot of hassle along the way, but you know what I mean – and also live in a way that allows us to be at least fairly ethical about things, that’s good with me. Really it’s about trying to find a way to live in balance, and maybe finding ways to give things back as well as just taking.
Viewing More
Posted: Fri 12 January, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts 1 Comment »Another three properties viewed last night – one was a definite no, one was a probable, and one was fantastic and would’ve been a definite yes if the price were lower. And not by just a couple of thousand.
While we do have a ridiculous upper limit on our basic mortgage offer, we don’t want to go anywhere near that figure. Partly that’s because it’s based on the fact I’m getting paid stupid amounts as a daily rate, which works out as some fucking extortionate amount per year, which then skews up the max amount on offer.
So yeah, if the property we saw were about £40,000 lower in price, it’d be a definite yes. But as it is, we would be looking at repayments of £1,500 per month, plus council tax and all the normal expenses. Yes, we could manage it, but it’s a fair amount more than we’d like to be paying back in an ideal world (and particularly when you see about interest rates going up again)
The first really great property we saw is beginning to look like it’s a lot of hassle, and I can’t deny that I’m getting cold feet (and some major reservations) about it now.
As it is, well, we’ve got about another ten properties to view between now and Sunday. We’re doing well at the moment, but there’s still a long way to go…
VAT
Posted: Tue 9 January, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 3 Comments »I figure that the moral of this story from the BBC is :
If you’re going to do it, do it properly
£54million. Now that’s what I call fraud…
Insolvency
Posted: Fri 5 January, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »
According to the BBC (and accountants Grant Thornton), overspending during the Festering Season could mean that up to 10,000 people will declare themselves insolvent/bankrupt over the next three months, as well as 20,000 other people who will declare, but for longer-term reasons than just Festerous overspending.
Now, discounting the fact that it’s a report funded by accountants, and thus dedicated to drumming up their own business, I really don’t get the entire overspending thing, regardless of whether it’s related to Festering Season or not. Over the last few years, financial institutions seem to have been promoting the entire ‘debt is good’ culture, and in the twelve months to the end of November 2006, the UK’s personal debt (including mortgages) had risen 9.5% to £1,278 billion.
While I acknowledge that I’m utterly crap with money (Well, I was ’til last year, when I got a lot of stuff sorted out) I don’t see the point in buying things simply for the act of buying, or just to amass posessions. If you can’t afford something (or can’t afford the repayments, if you’re going to get something on credit) then simply don’t get it. Or save for it. But no, the ‘instant gratification’ thing seems to bite people instead, and they work on a ‘get it now, and deal with the bills eventually’ mentality.
Over the last year, yes, I’ve bought some things on credit (new laptop, new computer, and all my work-related expenses, for example) but I’ve always known I’ll be able to repay them ASAP, without a problem. And that’s what I’ve done.
Personally, I find it hard to feel any sympathy for people who’ve got themselves into this situation, as it’s primarily a self-inflicted thing. “But it’s the fault of the banks, advertising loans and cards”, some of them cry. But you don’t have to apply for them all, do you? There’s a thought process involved here – or at least there should be – where if you know you can’t afford it, you don’t fucking do it.
That said, though, I do also find the practices of the banking community to be pretty objectionable too. Every lunchtime in the last month, I’ve walked past the local Lloyds bank, which in every window has had a promotional poster saying (I’m paraphrasing slightly, but not enough to worry about) “Don’t get hit by the Christmas spending snowball. Take out a loan with us”. And I suspect it’s people who’ve taken ‘advantage’ of offers like that who are the ones who’ll suddenly find themselves in the shit over the next three months.
Me? I just find it scary when I realise that I’ve possibly got a far healthier attitude to money than I ever thought I had…
Visiting the US?
Posted: Tue 2 January, 2007 Filed under: Security, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »In the Telegraph, there’s a very interesting story about what the USA does when you book a flight to visit them. The short answer? It’s probably better to pay cash
By using a credit card to book a flight, passengers face having other transactions on the card inspected by the American authorities. Providing an email address to an airline could also lead to scrutiny of other messages sent or received on that account.
Quite honestly, with attitudes like that, what on earth makes the US expect that people would still want to visit them?
Hmmm, redesign?
Posted: Fri 29 December, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Getting Organised, Thoughts 4 Comments »Over the christmas break, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not to upgrade and redesign D4D™ to WordPress 2 (the last upgrade was a pig, so it’s going to take some deliberation)
At the same time, I’m also thinking about whether to keep the old content – the rants, thoughts, etc. – as they’re all at least two years old now, if not three, and thus are fairly old and out-of-date.
So it could be that I don’t redesign per se but do reorganise, or I could do all of it. I just haven’t decided yet which I’ll do.
I think there’s definitely going to be some upgrading of WordPress etc. – I’ve been getting a butt-load of weird spam over the last couple of weeks, which seems to be slipping through the older plugins etc. – and probably some redirection of old pages to new locations etc.
Obviously I’ll keep everything as up-to-date as possible, and do the redirections etc. in order to keep everyone’s links working and the like. As for the rest of it, wait and see…
Londinium
Posted: Sun 24 December, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Well, we’re back home. Knackered, but it was worth it.
I’ll write more about the St Martins Lane Hotel on Where’s Good (and add a link here when I’ve got round to it – ooh look, there it is) but well, while it was OK, I can honestly say I wasn’t overly impressed. It’s OK – I’ve certainly stayed in far worse – but the overall impression is one that can be summarised as “Trying way too hard”.
Sound of Music, on the other hand, was bloody marvellous. I must be one of the very few people in the world who has never seen the film, so I didn’t really know what to expect – yes, I’ve seen clips, and know most of the songs, but I’d not seen the show in its entirety.
Anyway, it was absolutely great. On a techie front, the set is stunning – the way scenery changes and moves is brilliant. The rest of it, cast etc. is great too – well worth the price of the tickets, and definitely something worth seeing.
Not Informed
Posted: Sun 24 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Currently, I’m a little bit annoyed.
While I was returning the car to Avis the other day, I saw a little leaflet on their desk, talking about making a booking and getting Tesco Clubcard points for how much you spend with Avis. Having booked three lots of cars with them now, and having just spent £300+ on this one (although it’s on expenses, so it’s OK on that score) I was a bit narked to have lost those 300 points, plus t’others.
Now, I know that Clubcard and the like are cynical marketing ploys that allow the card owners (by which I mean ‘people who issued the cards’ as opposed to ‘people who carry the cards with them’) to track people, and target offers to those people with ever more efficiency and effectiveness (I wanted to type effectivity there, but I know it’s a made-up word) but at the same time, I don’t object hugely to them – and I allow my data to be used in that way.
(I used to do a clubcard swapping programme, so that their marketing data went to shit, but haven’t done that in a while – maybe I should restart. It always used to confuse them when a 30 year old man started buying tampons or whatever…)
Anyway, it annoyed me. Not because I’d missed out per se but because actually, it’d never been mentioned when I booked the cars – nothing on the site at all. You really had to search to find this page about it – and fortunately you can reclaim those points afterwards if you want to, by way of that same page but still, it’s just not a great promotion if no bugger knows about it…
Frost and Fog
Posted: Wed 20 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 3 Comments »Last night, I did the drive back from Poole to Attleborough. I left at 5, which was already a bad move – it took an hour just to get to the M27. Absolute nightmare.
Anyway, I got home at 9.30 in the end – so once things got going, I actually made exceptionally good time – the Laguna was an absolute joy to drive, and had some decent speed, which made the journey a lot easier as well.
What was surprising, though, even to a cynic such as myself, was how many drivers seemed to forget that
- they had fog lights on
- they had full-beam headlights on
and on a couple of memorable occasions - that they really should put their lights on once they’d left a services area.
Considering that the weather was foul – although I definitely now have no problems driving in fog – it was amazing to me just how many fucking idiots there are on the roads. I know it shouldn’t, but it did/does.
This morning it was the same thing – the entire drive was pretty much blanketed in fog, and in some areas ice/frost as well – and yet there were people (mainly in white cars/vans, which didn’t help) who didn’t even have lights on, so their vehicles just disappeared into the fog. Very scary.
All went well though, and that’s another set of ticks in the “Done That” list – but jesus, people scare me.
Driving
Posted: Tue 19 December, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »It’s now about fifteen months since I passed my driving test – and that time’s flown.
Over the last three months (i.e. pretty much since I’d gone through the one year anniversary of passing) I’ve been able to hire cars, and I’ve done so three times.
When I passed – and even before then – I wanted to be able to just sit in any car, and drive it. Just check out where the relevant controls were, sit in it, and drive. I know people who can’t do it, or who will only drive a particular make/model of car, and I don’t want to be like that.
Over the last three months, I’ve had :
- A Peugeot 307
- A Ford Focus (new shape) with less than 100 miles on the clock when I got it
- a Renault Laguna estate
And in honesty, I’ve enjoyed playing in all of them. So far, the Laguna is far and away my favourite, but they’ve all been fun in their way, and learning the various idiosyncracies, systems and controls has been great.
So yes, I’m really quite pleased with myself.
That Festive Feeling – The Good
Posted: Mon 18 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Thoughts 3 Comments »In the post earlier this week about Christmas Parties, Gordon commented
I get you don’t like Xmas but it’s surely not healthy to be quite so vitriolic about it? Surely there is SOMETHING about this time of year you like?
And in fairness, yes, there are some things about this season I like. It’s just that none of them relate to the Festering Season. I love seeing the way the tree’s leaves change colours, even the sight of them blowing down and filling areas on the streets. I love the misty mornings, the views, the way everything appears different as the seasons change.
I don’t like the way the days get so much shorter, but at the same time I love the cooler temperatures, and still walk wherever I can in just shirtsleeves. I love sitting out in the local park at lunchtime, getting fresh air , even if there’s no-one else around, or most people are complaining that it’s bitterly cold. Hell, I’ve only really started wearing a coat in the last two weeks – and even that’s only because the wind at Attleborough station is bloody freezing at half seven in the morning.
So yes, there’s a lot I love.
The next post, though, may go some way to explaining the vitriol about it too…
That Festive Feeling – The Bad
Posted: Mon 18 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, Thoughts 3 Comments »So yes, the bits I hate about the Festering Season.
I hate the hypocrisy, the materialism of the entire season. I hate the obligations – or rather, the perceived and implied obligations- that befoul people when it comes to Christmas. I know I’m a cynic, and in many ways I’m also a hypocrite, because I do get things for the people who I want to buy for. What I don’t believe in is buying stuff for everyone I know, plus work-colleagues, plus others.
Over the years, I’ve seen probably way too much of the bad side of the Festering Season, and I can’t deny that it’s had a lingering effect on me. I spent eight years running pubs and hotels, and every Festering Season I’d see too many people who were either in fairly serious trouble because of their Christmas spending, or who were depressed because they didn’t have the people around them they wanted, or they hadn’t received the number of cards and/or presents that the media and marketers made out the should have. I saw too many of the negative sides, and not enough of the positives. And for New Year, too many hypocrites who would be professing Auld Lang Syne, and peace and goodwill to all people at midnight, followed ten minutes later by beating the shit out of each other.
Once I’d left that side of things, I spent the next few years working over Christmas in a variety of places – Samaritans, Soup Kitchens etc. Again, I saw the negative side of the Festering Season, with not a great deal of the positive. But at the same time, well, I believe that it’s not a bad way to handle Christmas, to be honest – while I’m not religious at all, and don’t celebrate that aspect of it, I do believe that actually it’s no bad thing to spend the time helping out those far worse off than oneself – and that in many ways, it’s possibly a more “Christian” way of working than most.
I haven’t done that for about four or five years now, but I do still find that my thoughts at this time of year still turn to the people who’re depressed by the season, and by the differences between how it’s portrayed to people, and how it is. I don’t know if that makes sense – it’s the difference between the way dramas on TV (whether soaps, American dramas, period pieces etc., or anything else) show it as being this time of plenty, of presents, family, money, food, and happiness while some people’s personal experiences show it as a time of penury, loneliness, solitude, hunger, and depression.
Personally, I’ve had a couple of close friends die around the Festering Season, which never helps much either. I don’t harp on about it – but it’s there, it’s n my mind on occasion during this time of year, and I can’t deny it.
So, yeah, all told, I’m really not a fan of the Festering Season…
Ordering Stuff
Posted: Thu 14 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Festering Season, Thoughts Leave a comment »Despite not being a fan of the Festering Season (a revelation rapidly filed under “Sherlock, Shit, No”) I do still do an amount of present purchasing for others.
In this case, I was trying to order something that my father would like, and so went to Oddbins as they’ve been useful in previous years. This time? A good selection, but can I get it delivered? Can I chuff-as-like. Each time I try, I get thrown out with an error.
So it’s off to email customer services…
I have repeatedly tried ordering from your website, and have failed each time when I try to add a delivery address to my account.
The process throws out an error, telling me to contact the webmaster. Unfortunately, Oddbins has managed to not have a contact
for the webmaster on the site, so this’ll have to do.
Anyway, because of these problems, and the complete refusal on the part of Oddbins to guarantee delivery by Christmas, you’ve now lost the custom. Admittedly it was only £40, but all the same, that £40 has now gone to another supplier.
In the run-up to Christmas, I’d recommend fixing the website problems ASAP – it happens any time I try to add a new delivery address (whether to my address book, or just for this one delivery)
Which I think is pretty helpful, all things considered.
It remains to be seen what the response from Oddbins will be…
Resolutions – One Month In
Posted: Mon 11 December, 2006 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »On my birthday, I set up a new list of resolutions, which I wanted to work on. One month on, how’s it going?
Actually – not bad at all. There’s been a couple of new additions to the lists as well, as things progress, but yes, so far, it’s all looking a bit promising. Most unnatural…
- Photography
Get a Macro Lens- Get a Wide-Angle Lens
Finish the Portfolio website– it’s pretty much done, except for uploading the portfolio photos- Sell/Publish some stuff
- Join a local club
- New : Get a decent flash
- Writing
- Finish at least one piece of writing – working on it
- When a piece is finished submit it to the right people
- Just see how things go
- Write more on d4d™? Maybe.
- Work / Websites
- Keep on going with Where’s Good
- Build and work on the other ideas I’ve got in my head
- Work (as always) on smaller sites, and do as many as possible
- Sort out permanent job for the first part of ’07 while we’re house-buying etc.
- Redesign d4d™? It’s about time…
- New :
Merge lots of accounts into one, and onto one server– all the main ones done, couple of others still waiting - New : Start getting better at invoicing for work done – certainly started off OK on that one – time will tell
- Education
Sign up with Open University– initially for a refresher course, and work from there- Look at an official course/qualification in Photography?
- Other
Restart the Archery once we’ve moved– booked, but not attended yetComplete the move to Norfolk–first a rental, then the house-buying
Paperwork and Bureaucracy
Posted: Sun 10 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts Leave a comment »There’s always one downside of moving – sorting out changing the address details on everything.
Hell, even my poxy bank won’t let me change my address on-line. My credit card will. My bank won’t. “We’re working on it. Maybe next year” Yeah, right. Bunch of cunts. Hell, they even fucked it up when I had to do it by phone.
I think we’re now pretty much done on the changes, so we’re now officially here.
And I’ve got a little business idea…
300D
Posted: Sun 3 December, 2006 Filed under: General, Thoughts Leave a comment »Having walked past the local Jeep/Chrysler office every weekday for the past two months, I can categorically state that the Chrysler 300D is one of the most butt-ugly cars I’ve ever seen.
I mean, there’ve been plenty of other ugly cars over the years, but man, that 300D is one seriously ugly bit of tin.
Secret Millionaire
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night, on Channel 4, I watched one of the best (in my opinion) bits of TV this year. Made by the same people as “Faking It” (which was another of my long-term favourite series), “Secret Millionaire” each week takes one multi-millionaire and puts them in a scenario way outside their normal environment.
In last night’s programme (the first of the series) Ben Way was in one of the most deprived parts of London, the “Murder Mile” of Hackney, volunteering to work in the local youth centre, the Pedro Club. In an area with one of the highest percentages of under-16s in the country, this is the only youth centre, and it was really awesome to see how much they did with so little.
The kicker for the programme, though, is that these (in general) self-made multimillionaires are also looking at where their donations could have the greatest effect, the most benefits, and be appreciated the most. And it makes for great TV, when Way came back at the end of the ‘volunteering’, fully suited and booted, to give cheques to the people he’d decided needed it the most, or would benefit the most.
OK, he “only” gave away £40,000 – but to the people involved, those amounts could’ve had an extra zero on them, for the impact they made.
For me, though, it was also seeing that at the end, Way is still going back to the Pedro Centre, and is still heavily involved. To him, it wasn’t ‘just’ a TV programme – this was something where he learned about other people, got involved, and stayed involved.
Maybe I do live in an altruistic bubble, where I believe that people should work better with each other, and yes, maybe I am a bit of a hippie about some of these things. But this was a programme that kind of reaffirmed those ideas in me, and it was great to see something on TV that was about something rather more altruistic, touchy-feely, and generous than the great majority of current mainstream programmes.
Well worth the effort of finding it, if it’s repeated – alternatively, the next episode will be next Wednesday, on Channel 4, 9pm.
Life Tech
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »As I’m coming to the close of the “working away from home” period, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the stuff I’ve been doing, and the way I’ve been living over the last couple of months. While I can’t deny that in many ways I’ve been depressed and demotivated, I know I’ve also been able to get a lot of things done that I wasn’t expecting, or wasn’t necessarily planning on doing. Oh yeah, and I’ve been able to get started on some plans for the next 12 months as well, which is always a good thing, considering that it’s bloody December tomorrow.
Anyway, of all the stuff I’ve been thinking about, there’s been two – OK, probably three, but only two are ‘recent’ additions – things that’ve made my life one hell of a lot easier than it could have been in other circumstances.
Of course, being a geek, they’re both/all techie things, but really that shouldn’t come as any shock.
First, and this is the one that’s not ‘recent’ is just a mobile phone. It’s meant I’ve been able to keep in touch with Herself, as well as sorting out a lot of stuff that would have been far, far harder (and far more expensive) in the days before mobile communications.
Second, and probably the saddest, would be the little USB Freeview dongle thingy. While it was initially shit, and is/was utterly crap with the supplied mini-aerial, once it was connected to a proper “real” aerial, it’s been bloody marvellous. In honesty, I’ve watched some unutterable shite, but again it’s also kept me up to date with the things I do want to watch, and keep up to date. (Which reminds me, Torchwood is improving in leaps and bounds – and it was pretty good to start with!)
And the top thing that’s made my life a lot easier? The new laptop that I got just before starting this job. No, it’s not cutting edge, but it’s a fairly decent spec, and it’s been great over the last two months. The previous one, while it had a shit-hot battery life, was pretty slow, and would have been next to useless for a lot of the things that I’ve been doing – even the simple stuff, like watching a DVD, or the USB Freeview dongle.
All very sad, but it’s some of the things you never really think about unless you’re in the same situation.
Pizza Hut
Posted: Tue 28 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »Why on Earth would anyone queue to get into fucking Pizza Hut ?!?
Lunchtime today, going in to the city centre, and yes, a queue of people outside bloody Pizza Hut.
Even better, in true irony, Pizza Express over the road was totally empty…
People are strange.
Mondays
Posted: Tue 28 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I wish I knew why Monday nights at the moment were such a complete pain for me.
For some reason I just seem to invariably have a shitty night’s sleep (well, lack of sleep) on a Monday – I don’t know if it’s the results of the day, or of the travel, or just being in a new bed (although I’ve been in the same room at the B&B for the last month or so, so that shouldn’t be relevant really) but Mondays are always bloody awful.
Packed
Posted: Sun 26 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Currently, the living room is a maze of boxes. So’s the kitchen. So’s the office.
Why is it that as soon as you pack everything into boxes, it all seems to expand to fill all available space? You wonder how you’ve managed to accumulate so much crap – and yet when it all comes out at the other end, it’ll all revert to it’s normal space allocation.
Bizarre.
But it does have the side-benefit of making me realise (again) how much stuff we have accumulated, while also working as a bit of a rationalisation exercise (again) to reduce those levels of stuff, or at least re-allocate them off to
- a local charity shop
- recycling places
- a skip
or - the local tip, as a last resort
Drinking Habits
Posted: Fri 24 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »One year ago today, the UK licensing laws changed to allow 24-hour drinking, which in theory was going to mean that there wasn’t the crush of people at 11pm when the pubs closed, and that it wouldn’t mean loads of drunk people were all chucked out at the same time to wait for taxis etc., which was when fights broke out.
So, one year on, has it worked? According to the BBC, No
There was also a load of old bollocks being spouted at the time that 24-hour opening would mean people went out and drank more, or more regularly, and so it was The End Of The World (© Daily Mail, Daily Express, et al.).
One year on, has that happened? According to the same story, No.
What a shocker.
Of course, it’s not the time that’s the issue when it comes to drinking (and to many other things) – it’s the fact that in most cases, the amount of disposable income that can be used for socialising, drinking, whatever is a) finite and b) hasn’t changed. So while people have more hours in which they can drink, they still have the same amount to spend on drink, and so the change hasn’t happened.
Quelle surprise.
Bobble-Hats
Posted: Fri 24 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 1 Comment »I know I give them fairly regular links and comments here, but I still really like Innocent Drinks and their attitude to life in general.
At the moment, they’re doing a very silly, but really good promotion where the bottles have little knitted bobble-hats. Even better, for every one of these bottles sold, innocent will give 50p to Age Concern. With the 175,000 bobble-hats that’ve been done for innocent, that adds up to £87,500 given to Age Concern.
Absolutely brilliant – and really nice to see a company leading the way on things like this.
Oh, and the bobble-hats fit perfectly on mobile phones, for extra silliness.
Seasonal
Posted: Thu 23 November, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Festering Season, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of days (well, this week, really) I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been, and the stuff that’s been going on in my head.
I know that my motivation has been rock-bottom for a lot of the last two months, and that there’s a lot of stuff I could’ve done (perhaps even should’ve) but I just didn’t get round to it. I’ve actually preferred going back to the B&B, and – if I’m honest – really not doing much.
Of course, that’s still my version of “not doing much”, as opposed to anyone else’s version. I’ve still started an OU course, written loads of stuff for D4D™, put together two websites, written some snippets of code to help out other people, and gone through the jus of debugging those snippets when the recipients had NumptyMoments®, (I’m not going to name names – they know who they are!) written a butt-load of emails, sorted out various other odds and sods, written letters, and generally caught myself up on a fair number of things.
But still, I know that deep inside me, it’s been unproductive in a lot of ways – there’s a lot more I could’ve done, anyway- and that instead I’ve wanted to be curled up in my room/cave/whatever, rather than going out into the big wide world.
It’s no bad thing, in general. And I know that I’ve also needed the down-time. The first two-thirds of this year have not been great, and I’ve needed recovery time from all that crap.
But equally I do think – with perfect hindsight – that the old Seasonal Depression has caught up with me a lot this year as well, and I can now see/feel the effects of that too.
Once we’ve done the move, I’m hoping that things wil settle down a bit, and I can get on with some stuff. That’s the plan, anyway.
But more than anything else I think it’s just that I’m going to have to keep an eye on that old SAD this year. It’s been a couple of years since it’s really hit me, but I’m beginning to think that this year will be the one where it returns…
Schadenfreude
Posted: Thu 9 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I can’t deny it, there is something very satisfying about being a witness on some occasions. This morning’s walk to work proved to be one of those occasions.
At one of the sets of traffic lights, I got to see one cyclist ignore a red-light, go belting into the junction, only to collide with another cyclist who was also ignoring the red-light on their section of junction. Neither cyclist had checked to see if there was any other road-users, and both had just assumed that they had right of way.
Neither was hurt in the clash, but I think it brightened up the day of several drivers and pedestrians…
Out Of Whack
Posted: Wed 8 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »In fact, my entire week is completely out of kilter following that long weekend.
It is Tuesday today, right?
Christmas Stamps
Posted: Tue 7 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, Thoughts 2 Comments »Today, Royal Mail has released the images of their Christmas Stamps for 2006.
What I want to know is why they’ve gone with an image of Father Christmas taking a shit down a chimney as the First Class stamp ?
Starting Off Badly
Posted: Mon 6 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Having signed up about ten days ago for that Open University course, I was expecting to get a bundle of paperwork, course information etc. last week. But it didn’t arrive. Hmm, that sounds familiar from last time I signed up with them.
Anyway, having given it a clear two weeks ’til today to allow them time to be inefficient, I gave them a call today. Turns out, despite having paid, and the money having left my account, they’d still got my account listed as “on hold” , rather than “registered”.
I’ve sorted it now, and the paperwork should be on its way. But really, it’s not an auspicious start to the course, is it?
Away
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Things are likely to be quiet this weekend. We’ve gone off down to the wilds of Somerset. Primarily this is to keep Hound away from the worst ravages of fireworks (ravages? Barrages? Either works) by being in the arse-end of nowhere.
Personally I still quite like fireworks, although I’m sure some of that’s also down to being born on Fireworks Night, but at the same time I do hate the way they seem to be everywhere for about a month either side of November Fifth now, and I hate the way they affect Hound.
I would still like to see fireworks completely banned from sale to the public – and with some heavy fines to anywhere that did sell them. However, that doesn’t mean I want to see fireworks banned. I just want to see them only used in properly organised public events, rather than being set off by people in their back gardens without any real safety or consideration of others. I’d like to see public displays, but not displays by the public, if that makes sense.
Anyway, we’ll be back on Monday, and while there’s almost certainly going to be some updates over the weekend, it’s going to be quieter than usual.
Have a good one.
Awake
Posted: Tue 31 October, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Why is it that even whem I’m utterly knackered, having been awake since 5.30 this morning that my body wakes up again at about 9.30pm ?
It’s now half midnight, and I’m not even vaguely interested in going to sleep.
Grrrrr….
The Return Drive
Posted: Mon 30 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Well, the return drive from Bracknell to Cambridge went OK in the end.
It didn’t start off well, as at 6 in the morning I couldn’t start the fucking car, and ended up having to call out the breakdown people. Turned out that the steering lock had engaged, and locked the key barrel of the ignition too, although it only took the AA man a few minutes of wiggling the wheel and swearing before it all worked. Fucking thing.
Finally left Bracknell at around 6:45, and got in to Cambridge for about 9, 9:15 – so not too bad at all, considering the M4 and M25 were starting to get busy. If I’d started off much later, I think the entire thing would’ve been a nightmare.
Would I do it again? No, probably not. It was more expensive than the train, more hassle (bizarrely) and saved me about 20 minutes all told. So no, not really worth doing. But it’s the first time I’ve been able to rent a car since passing the test, and it answered a lot of questions for me, so in that context the entire thing was a success. It means I know now that if I need to, I can rent a car easily – and in the next month or so it’s likely that I’ll need to do so at least once in order to go and check out rental places in Norfolk (far easier to do from Cambridge than from Bracknell) and so on, so yeah, it’s good to know that I can do it with no problems.
Mind you, I’m fucking knackered now…
Resolutions – The End of The Road
Posted: Sun 29 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the year, I’ve had a list of resolutions, and thought I’d do a quick update before the birthday rears its ugly head in a weeks time, as a kind of progress report.
- Photography
Macro Lens– yesPortfolio– working on it as a websiteTalk to Agents/Publishers– spoke to some photographic publishers, which is why the above item changed.Submit work to various places– started off with ImageKind, but no joy yet.Join local camera/photography club– tried, and it all turned to bollocksLook at potential for “proper” photography qualification– looked at it, but nothing that’s viable for 2006/7 academic year- Work
Get the three main sites up and running– two of three, and other ideas too- Make them successful – getting there
- Keep track of how they do – yes
- Reassess in Jan 2007 – if they haven’t worked, kill ‘em – moving this to various times in 2007
Get more smaller sites done and paid– yep, two so far, and more on the way- Writing
More “proper” writing– it’s starting – nothing publishable yet, but it’s starting- Longer pieces for d4d? – no, and that idea is back ‘on hold’
- D4D
- That bloody sweary filter. – nope
- Installing WordPress 2.0 – nope, and not going to
- Photoblogging? – nope, but may come up elsewhere
Thankfully, it actually it looks like I’ve managed to get a fair amount done since the last update back in July. And that’s something I’m pleased about – seeing how little I’d got done by that time was quite demoralising. I knew that the work I was doing at the time, and the influence of Arsehole Boss in general wasn’t helping my motivation one jot, so it’s good to see that moving on work-wise has started having a positive effect on everything again.
On Song
Posted: Sat 28 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 6 Comments »Watching a fragment of ITV’s X-factor tonight, I realised what it is that I dislike about it.
Bascially, it’s just karaoke, isn’t it? All you have is a performer ‘singing’ someone else’s lyrics, with backing that’s either pre-recorded, or a bunch of session musicians. OK, so it doesn’t have the lyrics rolling up on a TV screen, but when all’s said and done, it’s just a person performing someone else’s songs – no musical talent necessary.
Autumnal
Posted: Wed 25 October, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Thoughts Leave a comment »Outside my window at the office is a tree that’s had gorgeous red leaves since I started here.
This week, all those leaves have suddenly disappeared, and now the view is of grey buildings on the other side of the road, rather than the bright red leaves. This is Sad Thing.
All of a sudden it seems like everything has gone “Fucking hell, it’s October! When the hell did that happen?” – all the leaves have started falling, the sky has been dull and grey, and the weather keeps on going back to the “wet and windy” October default.
Yes, Autumn has suddenly appeared with a vengeance.
Sounding the Alarm – Additional
Posted: Wed 25 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Following on from here, Gert made a comment saying, effectively, that I could use my phone as an alarm.
And yes, I could – and indeed I do while I’m away- but I prefer to have a stand-alone device to work purely as an alarm clock. And there’s one very good reason for this, which I re-discovered this morning. It’s pretty simple, but still very relevant.
If the phone is on silent (and even more so if it’s on ‘silent mode, but not vibrate’) then the alarm effectively doesn’t go off. It’s muted.
And I have a habit of muting my phone while either a) at work or b) in a restaurant, and then forgetting it’s been muted, so the alarm doesn’t work the following morning.
And that is why I don’t use my phone a lot as an alarm. Because I’m a fuckin’ numpty.
Recorded Delivery
Posted: Tue 24 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Ten days ago, I sent a letter to the scumbag bandits at Holmes Place via Royal Mail‘s “Signed For” service. (“Signed For” being the dumbed-down name for “Recorded Delivery”) Basically, I wanted to know that Holmes Place had received the letter and cheque – not an unreasonable concept, really – and I wanted to be able to check online when it’d been received. And Royal Mail emphasise that you can use their “Track and Trace” online system to check that an item has been delivered.
Only, well, you can’t. It’s been ten days now, and still all I see when I key in the Track and Trace number is
Come back later
Recorded Signed For™ items are only tracked after the item has been delivered. Depending on whether the item was sent first or second class, this may be a few days after posting. Please try again later.Information on your item is not yet available online.
So frankly, what fucking use is that as a service?
Adopting Madonna
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »I must be missing something relevant in the farce about Madonna adopting a boy from Malawi.
Personally I don’t give a monkey’s toss what Madonna does or doesn’t do, and I think a lot of the hype around this story is just that – hype.
But I do have to wonder (in the little brain-time I’ve given this) one thing. If the boy has a father, what the blue blazing fiddly fuck has he doing in an orphanage?
Or do I have the wrong meaning of “orphan” stored in my head?
Counting Down
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s less than two weeks now ’til my birthday, and I can’t deny, it does feel like it’s beginning to loom a bit.
I shouldn’t be bothered by it, and after all, it’s “only” thirty-fucking-five, but there we go – I’m not bothered by it per se, but it’s something I’m conscious of. I think that some of it is that turning 35 is a change of demographic – I will no longer fit into the 29-34 demographic, or the 25-34 one, or whatever. I’ll be in the 35-44 range, and that’s kind of old.
Ah well, I’m sure I’ll be fine.
Besides, we’ll be away in Somerset, making sure that Hound is away from the full “fun” of fireworks night…
Breakfasts
Posted: Sun 22 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the last month, I’ve been in a selection of different hotels and B&Bs, and one thing I’ve noticed is the sheer difference in quality that’s around. However, there’s also a weird little equation that seems to keep on coming up – it’s not just in the last month I’ve noticed this, but over the last rumty tumty years.
The more a hotel is per night, the poorer the breakfast is
I still don’t really understand how this works out, but I know that the cheapest B&B I’ve used is the one with the best breakfast – and the one that cost me the most was easily the worst. (And yes, that was the one with the watery scrambled eggs)
Very odd.
Sounding the Alarm
Posted: Sat 21 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 4 Comments »During the week, my alarm-clock of long standing finally curled up its (metaphorical) toes and died. I can’t complain, it’d lasted a good ten years. Anyway, one of the main reasons I bought that clock was that I knew the alarm was one I could tolerate.
I’m a ratty twat in the mornings – and that’s one of the politest descriptions I’ve heard – and one thing that drives me crackers is an irritating alarm. Which list includes pretty much all of them. So when I heard the alarm on the one I bought (a friend had one, which is how I found out what it sounded like) I knew it was one I could live with. It’s an Oregon Scientific clock, and the alarm started off with a single “beep. [pause] beep. [pause] beep.” tone, which was enough to wake me up just fine. (As well as being ratty, I sleep remarkably shallowly for the most part) Eventually it did rise to four beeps in a row, and that could be quite loud, but it never got much past the second beep with me.
So now I’ve got to buy a new clock. And I was thinking – why is it that there’s no website that displays alarm clocks and the like that also allows you to hear the alarms? On a website, I’d think that would be fantastic – just a simple sample of the alarm sound, so you know what the god-dam thing will be doing when it wakes you up.
After all, I can’t be the only person who doesn’t want some blaring, buzzing piece of crap that vibrates itself off the desk, or that makes me want to connect a baseball bat with it. (See, told you I was a ratty twat)
As it is, I’ve ordered a new one from the same place, and now I just hope the alarm won’t have changed – or at least won’t be too horrific. Still, it’s only cost me a tenner, so I won’t be financially sad if it does need to meet that baseball bat…
80s
Posted: Wed 18 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 3 Comments »Currently on my MP3 player :
- Depeche Mode : Black Celebration
- Depeche Mode : Violator
- The The : Mind Bomb
- Peter Gabriel : So
The most recent album in that list? Released in 1990. Which, worryingly, makes all of the stuff I’m currently listening to at least fifteen years old.
I’m getting disturbingly old. Well, it’s either that or I’m starting to hark back to “when music was decent” AKA “When I were a lad”…
Woman of the Year
Posted: Wed 18 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m really pleased to see that Camila Batmanghelidjh has been recognised for some of her work, and won the “Woman of the Year” award for the things she’s done with Kids Company and the like.
(Pause at this point, as I was hunting for something I thought I’d written a long time ago about Kids Company on d4d™, but can’t find now)
Kids Company is, from what I recall, a fantastic charity based in London, with Camila as the main person. They do a lot of work with exceptionally vulnerable children and young adults, particularly those with emotional and/or mental health issues.
Oh, and her book is bloody fantastic too, and well worth the time/money.
All in all, a truly fantastic woman, who utterly deserves the recognition.
Inconsiderate Twats
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Tonight, while out having my evening meal, I saw something that I personally consider to be one of the rudest things I’ve ever seen.
I won’t describe the person involved, except to say they were about 18. Even that’s not overly relevant, but there we go.
Anyway, this person took a call on their mobile (or they might’ve made the call, I wasn’t paying that much attention at the time) in the restaurant, which- while it’s not something I tend to do, unless it’s really important (and this really wasn’t an important call) – isn’t really something that bothers me all that much. What I did find incredibly rude, though, was that this person then proceeded to wander round the restaurant, around a whole range of different tables where people were eating, while on the phone. I’ve no idea why they did it – it wasn’t like they were having problems getting reception, they just wanted to wander around while talking.
Personally, if I’d been one of the waiting staff, I think I’d have probably told this person to either sit back down with their family, or fuck off outside and take/make the call there, rather than the way they chose to do it. It was coming close to me just telling the person to fuck off anyway.
I just don’t get that mind-set – why the hell would anyone do that?
To PhotoBlog or not?
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 3 Comments »I’ve been doing some more thinking about the site for my photography that I was writing about yesterday.
Basically, the question that came up was this : Do I make it into a photoblog like Chromasia, DDOI et al, or do I have it as a simple portfolio site, just to show off what I can do, along with contact details, etc.?
I can’t deny, I’ve always kind of liked the idea of a photoblog (I hate that word, but can’t come up with a better one at the moment. Hey Ho) although it does have the potential downside of not updating every day, or – to my mind even worse – the intention of adding a new shot every day, but never quite managing to do so. Combined with that is the part of me that worries about diluting “the brand”, or similarly of diluting the strength of some of the images by just having one every day, so some are great and others merely so-so.
As for having it as “just” a portfolio, that quite appeals too. It’d certainly be simpler, and (in theory at least) a lot less work than a constantly updated site with new photos all the time. This is of particular relevance at the moment, where I can’t deny that my motivation is pretty rock-bottom and merely ticking over, and also where I’m away from home for four nights a week. While this should give me the time to get a lot of stuff done, I can’t deny that at the moment it’s leaving me a bit numb, and slightly “CBA” about the entire thing.
So I think that for now it’s likely I’ll leave the site as “just” a portfolio site, where a selection of my better/favourite photos can be viewed, rather than doing stuff for it every day.
Although, of course, that doesn’t mean that at some point in the future I won’t add in a PhotoBlog section…
Recidivist
Posted: Sun 15 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »I was thinking the other night while out for a meal, in some ways I really am an incredibly sad 80’s throwback.
And what caused it? The fact that, no matter how sad it sounds, I actually do like a prawn cocktail. Proper decent Marie Rose sauce, good sized prawns, the necessary greenery? Yep, sometimes I’m very easily pleased.
Binge Drinking
Posted: Sat 14 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »So I see that the Government is releasing a ‘hard-hitting’ advert to show young people the risks of binge-drinking. Oh dear God, here we go again. Yes, OK, it’s actually quite a strong advert – particularly at the end, where the guy has fallen off the scaffolding, and is just laying there twitching. Will it work? No, almost certainly not.
At the end of the day, there are a couple of things that are actually needed. Adverts about the risks doesn’t come on that list. Neither does the other (incredibly dumb) idea that there should be health warnings on bottles of wine and spirits. Because, let’s face it, if you’re going to try and change the minds of the people who’re seriously binge-drinking, wine and spirits ain’t on the list. It’s beer and the inevitable ‘alcopops’ that appeal to that particular market.
But the two things that are truly needed are :
- A government that doesn’t get involved in all these bollocks sound-bites, and renaming one thing as another. ‘Binge Drinking’ is just the new government/media title for “Getting Pissed”. Binge Drinking? It’s drinking 6 (for women) or 8 units of alcohol (for men) in one session. That’s – um – about three pints of semi-decent lager. Figure it out for yourself. A pint of Grolsch (my preferred ‘general’ beer) is three units. So if I have three pints, I’m a binge-drinker.
- Instill the concept of personal responsibility. I’m sorry, but if you can’t control yourself when you’ve been drinking, and don’t know your own limits, you shouldn’t be fucking drinking. I can understand (to a degree) a one-off “drank more than I usually do” episode. I just truly don’t get the thing about going past your limits and being a twat every weekend. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I’ve always preferred independent thought instead of caving to peer-pressure.
Personal responsibility is the biggie though. It’s about saying “I’ve made that choice”, rather than absolving one’s responsibility to the power of drink, drugs, whatever. The entire “It’s not my fault, it’s because of x,y and z” philosophy where basically everything is the fault of something else.
Maybe if we started working on that idea, we’d have less issues with ‘binge-drinking’ , addictions, and the like.
Or maybe I’m just full of bollocks. I’m sure you’ll let me know what you think…
Watery
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 4 Comments »Every morning this week, the hotel I’ve been using has done scrambled eggs. It’s another buffet-style breakfast thing, similar to last week’s Travelodge effort, but with some kind of attempt at being better than a Travelodge, of course. After all, it was £30 more per night – there must have been something to define it as better. (Although I have to admit to being slightly stumped as to what that improved index of value perception might’ve been. Lack of rattly air-conditioning, perhaps?)
Anyway, scrambled eggs are – in general – fine. But this place somehow managed to make them watery. And I just don’t know how. I’ve made scrambled eggs on many occasions, and on at least a couple of those occasions I’ve made a complete bollocks of them. Burned is possible. Squash-balls of scrambled egg is possible. Bits of shell is possible, if unlikely. Undercooked is possible, if even more unlikely than the bits of shell.
But watery? Nope, never managed that. These were cooked OK, there was no possibility of under-cookage (is that a word? You know you’ve been involved in marketing departments for too long when you find you’re making up words, or not sure whether it’s a real word or not. Impactful, I ask you. Feh. Still, that’s a rant for another day) and I’ve never used water in the production of scrambled eggs, so where the chuff did it all come from?
Is there some kind of catering invention that’s like ‘instant’ scrambled eggs – just add water? Is that even remotely feasible?
Interactive
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the best lines I’ve heard in a while came up on last night’s “Mock the Week” on BBC2.
Talking about North Korea’s nuclear test this week, Hugh Dennis said
“I first heard about it on BBC News 24, and they said ‘for more information about Korea’s nuclear detonation, press the red button now'”
Brilliance. And a joke that would be completely forbidden in North Korea…
Friday 13th
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »Friday 13th? And I’m supposed to be travelling?
Oh dear…
Crustless
Posted: Thu 12 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »I can’t find a link to it, but I have to admit, I think that the idea of Kingsmill bakeries selling a loaf without crusts is utterly bizarre. Genius in a way – knowing the way that some children refuse to eat bread crusts, for some godforsaken and unknown reason – but still bizarre.
And I wonder what happens to those crusts? After all, the bread must (I assume) still be baked and get a crust, which must (again , I assume) then be trimmed off before the loaf is packaged up. So what happens to it?
Are there just a whole parade of very fat ducks waddling along outside the Kingsmill bakeries, stuffed full of fresh bread crusts?
Wrong Trains
Posted: Mon 9 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but I have to confess that I still find it amusing when people get on entirely the wrong train.
This morning it happened to two people in the same carriage as me. The service was a non-stop train from Kings Cross to Cambridge. It said so on the platform boards that list all the trains, times, platforms and destinations. It said so on the individual platform displays that tell you where the train currently at the platform is due to go, and when. It said so on the tannoy system on the train, before the doors closed and it pulled off (giving idiots time to get off the train first)
But no, still these two numpties had got on the wrong train. One of them wasn’t even going anywhere near Cambridge. The other thought it was a stopping service.
Really, how dim do you have to be to make that kind of mistake?
Coming Up Fast
Posted: Sun 8 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, in less than a month’s time, I’m going to be thirty-fucking-five. How scary is that?
In the time between now and then, I’m working on getting a few things set up so that I can get going with my plans for the next five year period, and start getting some of those ideas off the ground.
Should be interesting, and more about it as the time comes closer, I’m sure.
Accuracy
Posted: Fri 6 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Do you ever look at an email that’s been “personalised” (i.e. data about your preferences, or the other things you’ve bought from the same company, has been used to modify the content so that it’s more ‘targeted’ towards you) and just think “Man, they’ve got that one so wrong”.
Today’s example came to me from those uber-twunts of the gig-ticket world, TicketMaster. The subject line, to get my attention, was – um –
Lyle, don’t miss Lionel Ritchie
Wow, how wrong can one line get?
Wet
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Note to self : The best location for one’s waterproof jacket is not back in the hotel/B&B/Travelodge.
I am very, very wet. (Hello, Google)
Debt-Ridden
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Thoughts 3 Comments »I don’t quite know why, but the BBC website’s diary pieces by this woman trying to sort out her debt situation have managed to annoy me quite seriously.
My husband Thomas owns a French restaurant in Holborn, London.
To buy the restaurant, my husband and I had to re-mortgage the family home and my two small buy-to-let properties.
OK, fair enough, in some ways her situation is pretty crappy – dropped from her contract job because of being pregnant, for example – but I find it very hard to find much sympathy for someone who has bought her London home (and remortgaged it), has two other buy-to-let properties on mortgages, and has invested in her husband’s restaurant business. So that’s three mortgages, plus her husband’s one on the business premises, and various other debts, loans, etc. Again, fair enough, she’s not spending money all over the place, but still, three properties? (Four if you count the restaurant)
I dunno, the entire diary just strikes me as being more than a bit whingy, with an overtone of “It’s not fair!” running through it.
I do think that the way banks and lenders deal with people who are in debt – particularly the ones who are at least trying to deal with it, and keep them informed – is utterly scummy, but the phrase “Banks are fiscal-vampire scumsucking leeches” is never going to be headline material. And neither is the fact that their entire systems are gauged at getting as much money out of people as possible, while preferably being deeply inefficient, and going “lalalalala-can’t hear you” at potential problems.
Eventually, I suggest a year-long payment holiday, with interest frozen until I return to full time work after my maternity leave.
But it also strikes me that attitudes like that displayed in the quote above are perhaps unrealistic, naïve, and actually quite self-centred. Yeah, sure, a payment holiday for a year is a lovely idea. But I can’t think of any financial institution that’s going to turn round and say “Of course you can take a break for a year. And of course we won’t charge you interest in that time! Hey, why don’t we bake you a cake at the same time?” They’re businesses – they exist to make money. They’re not charities. OK, it would be nice if they were more understanding of situations and so on, but frankly it’s not going to happen.
I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here, or what I’m trying to get at. It’s just the entire set of ‘diary’ posts annoys me.
I’ll think more about it, and probably most some more thoughts about it some other time.
Desperation
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »Another thing I watched on TV on Tuesday was a documentary on Channel Four about mail-order brides from Russia. It was an interesting thing, but dear God, I hve to say that I felt the blokes were pretty desperate.
And yes, I know, there’s similarities between my feelings about it and the stuff in the previous post. But for me, I just don’t really get the entire “must get married” thing, let alone being so determined to get married – to anyone – that you’ll go to another country in order to find someone/anyone. Mind you, I also simply don’t get how someone could go through that route, trying to find a bride in Russia, and not make any effort to learn anything in Russian at all. That, to me, is just fuckin’ weird, and shows some major levels of selfishness, and – rudeness. If I were to be in that situation (and I truly can’t see that I ever would be) I would at least make some effort to learn. But then, I suppose the difference is that I would want to have conversation with a partner – and conversation, or companionship, didn’t seem to be the primary goal for the men in the documentary.
Just bizarre, really. Well, to my mind anyway.
Negative Influences
Posted: Wed 4 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I was watching a drama on BBC1 last night, “The Amazing Mrs Pritchard“, and something struck me while I watched it. Of late, there seems to have become a trend in these dramas for there to be strong female roles, and the women’s partners seem to always have a very diminished role, and be a negative influence on the women, providing a downside of everything, blocking the development, and wanting the women to stop their plans for [whatever]
I realise that drama needs conflict, needs that portrayal of issues, and that the protagonist being supported all the way through by her partner would (in theory, at least) not be dramatic or whatever, but I do find that these cliches are really becoming quite wearing.
After all, if a drama were to portray things the other way round, with the female character holding back the development or dreams of the male character, it would be portrayed as sexist, biased, and many other things. But when the “norm” of negative portrayals of men happens, that’s fine.
I don’t mind as such, and I’m not concerned about it on sexist levels. I do however, think it’d be better if both portrayals were allowed to happen, and for there to be balance, rather than bias.
Wheels
Posted: Mon 2 October, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Following today’s journey, I’m now fully convinced that everyone who uses a small wheeled suitcase should be summarily executed.
I don’t mind (as much) with the big “two weeks in Spain” type wheeled suitcases, but the littler ones that seem to be deemed “carry-on” are just a pain in the arse. Or ankles. People just seem to drag them without any thought or consideration, and definitely don’t realise that they’re suddenly three times as long as they normally are, and thus can’t squeeze through the same gaps in the crowd.
I find now that if someone does hit me with their poxy little pull-along toy, a hefty kick seems to get the message across. (Kicking the pull-along, not the person, I should point out) But all the same, summary execution seems to be a better bet. After all, if it’s only that size, the lazy fuckers can carry the poxy things. I’m carrying a week’s worth of clothing etc. in a holdall (of which more later, I suspect) and have no problem. In fact, I suspect that half the problem with these pull-along things is that actually the solid handle, base, and wheels actually make the things so heavy that it is hard to carry them. Whereas a backpack, or simple carry-on satchel type thing would be fine.
Gideon
Posted: Thu 28 September, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »What on earth makes the Gideon people believe that people in hotels or B&Bs will want a bible to look through?
It’s something that’s always befuddled me, and the point is just getting reinforced yet again this week. I’ve never wanted to read a bible while in a hotel. OK, come to that, I’ve never really wanted to read a bible.
But if someone’s enough of a believer to want to read a bible in a hotel room, surely they’re more likely to have brought their own one with them?
Or am I missing something?
Daytime
Posted: Tue 19 September, 2006 Filed under: General, Thoughts 1 Comment »OK, it’s only Tuesday, but I have to say, Jesus God Almighty, daytime TV is truly abysmal.
Even with shitloads of channels, it’s utterly pisspoor.
Thank god for music, laptops, and a DVD collection, that’s all I can say.
Wanker
Posted: Sun 17 September, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Sweary, Thinking About..., Thoughts 3 Comments »I wrote about this fucking idiot before. A man “addicted” to branded clothes, he’s now going to burn all his branded possessions, and then write a book about his experiences of trying to live brand-free.
What an utter, utter cunt.
There are plenty of ways that this tosser could use to get rid of these items instead of burning them. He could give them away to charty shops. He could sell them off to one of the companies that re-sell second-hand clothes, particularly those with designer labels. Hell, he could just go and shove them all in a clothing recycling bin.
But no, this fucker has to make a show of it, so he’s going to burn them. Not content with being a shallow-minded cunt in the first place, he’s now tagged himself as an egotistical self-centred cunt who’s still shallow-minded as well.
Tosser.
9/11
Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 Filed under: General, Thoughts Leave a comment »So it’s five years since the events of 9/11, and the destruction of the World Trade Center. Blimey, doesn’t time fly?
I do still recall where I was when it happened – nothing special, just working in the Arndale Tower in Manchester. Which made it kind of noteworthy, with the paranoia that followed on from the events in New York. Being sat in a tower block in a city on that day was – well – interesting.
But that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. Everyone else is saying far more than I, and for once I don’t really have anything to add to the general babble.
So I won’t.
Remembering
Posted: Wed 6 September, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts Leave a comment »Ah, memories. This post on Waiter Rant has brought back lots of memories of idiot customers and the things they used to say, back when I was in that game.
Makes me even more surprised I’m still thinking about the possibility of going back to it…
Drivers
Posted: Sat 2 September, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »(Note : In this post, I aim to use Anna’s Swearword of the day – Pisswit)
Yesterday, due to the vagaries of a) trains and b) traffic (having had the interview, I was waiting for Herself to drive down and meet me in Cambridge after her interview in Norwich finished) I had plenty of time to sit around and just people-watch. It’s something I haven’t had a great deal of time for of late (well, except on the commuter trains, of course) so I had a thoroughly fun, and very lazy, day following my interview, and just spent a couple of hours at Cambridge station, watching people, and drivers, and the weirdness that is the Cambridge station forecourt.
It’s really hard to describe the area at the front of the station. One thing’s for certain though – it was designed by a total pisswit who had no idea about human nature. First it can only be approached by one road, which is fairly narrow. This funnels all the traffic for the station : bikes, cars, taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles – all of it down one narrow road. Brilliant.
At the end of the road, there’s a lay-by for the buses, and a turning circle. Actually, it’s almost two turning circles, because while there’s one for traffic that’s still moving, there’s also a wider area up a small kerb, where drivers are supposed to pick-up/drop-off people. Human nature being what it is, though, the driver’s mindset is that you’re supposed to never drive over a kerb. So most drivers don’t use the proper pick-up/drop-off points, and instead stop in the turning circle. (There’s also an offshoot road where there’s a few short-term parking spaces – but to get to that you’ve got to a) go up the kerb still, and b) it’s a pain in the arse, as half the time it’s obscured by open-top tourist buses). Oh yeah, and there’s a stopping spot for the tourist buses, opposite the layby for all the normal buses.
So all it takes is for drivers to not use the proper up-the-kerb stopping point, and the entire thing paralyses. The main buses can’t do the turn, particularly if some shitwit parks up on the apex of the curve, once the turning circle’s finished, but before it’s the proper road. Then you have the open-top buses reversing and nearly hitting cars/cyclists. The cyclists have no regard for any other road user – I’m amazed more don’t die, if yesterday was any example. The taxi-drivers pretty much get it, but they’re still nightmares on the stopping circle, and then you’ve got just general every-day drivers who’ve rarely (if ever) seen the layout before, and get epically confused by it all.
In fact, it’s not difficult to handle. It’s just that the stopping circle should’ve had its own seperate traffic lane, rather than being reached by going up a kerb, which is paradoxical to all of a driver’s normal “learned” experience. And as such, the entire thing was obviously designed by an official pisswit.
Commuters
Posted: Thu 31 August, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 2 Comments »One thing I do find really amusing while commuting to London is the other people on the trains, and on the Underground.
I have to admit, I just really don’t understand the drive and rush that surrounds these people. On the way home last night there was one guy who was about two points short of a coronary (or stroke) on the Tube – OK, he’d obviously got a train to catch, but at every stop he was swearing, sighing, checking his watch, swearing, sighing, checking his watch, and once the train got moving it’d always be “About fucking time too”. To me, it was very, very funny. To him it was obviously some kind of “life or death” thing to get on the train. And when we got to Waterloo, he shoved his way through the people, ran up the stairs, ran up the escalators. And still missed his train.
I know, because I was on the same one he got on – a whole ten minutes later, going to the same place as the one he’d just missed.
So I have to ask, “Was it worth it?“. No, I didn’t ask him – obviously it was all a bit stressful, the poor dear. But what’s the point of getting so stressed and apoplectic about that kind of thing?
Admittedly, I’m on the other end of the scale, and truly don’t give a shit what time I get in to the office. So I can stroll through the platforms and tunnels etc. of the Underground, and it’s no problem. (Although I should point out too that my “stroll” still ends up overtaking most people) But I just can’t be arsed to get stressed about missing a train – and definitely not about missing a tube train, as they run every couple of minutes anyway.
I just don’t get the entire “rush everywhere, every second is important, time-is-money” crap that so many of these people seem to spout.
Like Bueller said, “Sometimes you just have to slow down and look around“. It’s much more fun.
Business Planning
Posted: Thu 31 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts Leave a comment »One thing I absolutely hate about starting up a business is : the business plan. To me they’re always a masterwork of bullshit, balancing out all the aspects of what might happen. And yet, over the last week or so, that’s what I’ve been doing. Writing a business plan.
It’s not for anything that’s going to happen just yet. This is stuff that’s all still in the offing. But for once I’ve seen some sense, and decided to get it written down. That way, I don’t have to keep it in my head, and it’s got rather more chance of actually happening.
The business name (well, the potential business name, and the concept that’s linked to it) is sorted, and so it’s more about just brain-dumping the stuff onto some paper, and/or onto a Word® document, so I know where it is. That way it’s just some more space that I can free up in my head, and use for useful stuff.
All the same, dear god, the business plan itself is still a load of old shite. Just figuring out the basic costs, profits, and predictions – it’s all shite. You can say “What If” ’til the cows come home, and basically a business plan is just a way to get banks/investors to lend you money, and so they can have some figures to say “well that’s what you said would happen – why hasn’t it?” Of course, the other side is that you can massively underestimate, in which case the banks/investors might just look on you favourably as being bloody great instead of bloody useless.
But for now that’s a worry for the future. Right now I’m just glad to have it somewhere that’s not in my head.
Branded
Posted: Wed 30 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, General, Thoughts 2 Comments »Is it me, or is this person just incredibly shallow?
From an early age, I have been taught that to be accepted, to be loveable, to be cool, one must have the right stuff. At junior school, I tried to make friends with the popular kids, only to be ridiculed for the lack of stripes on my trainers.
I know that branding means a lot to many many people, but to me it’s one of those things I’m pretty impervious to. Maybe it’s just because I never got into the entire “Nike vs. Adidas vs. Reebok” thing at school, maybe it’s because the branding stuff was really only just coming in at the time I was in school (Waaaay back in the dark ages) or something, I don’t know. Hell, maybe it’s just because I was dragged up by my parents in a way that meant I could identify myself by methods other than bloody labels. God, reading that back it sounds epically snooty and disparaging. But I think it’s meant to. To identify oneself by ones labels and possessions just seems – to me – to be incredibly shallow and dull.
But then, as I’ve speculated before, I think that most people are actually quite tribal, and it’s these labels and so on that now provide us with the tribe names and ideals. People identify themselves by the fact they were Nike, Adidas, Gucci, Prada, Vuitton, whatever. It’s all part of the lifestyle. And the hooky labels, the faux Chanel, Prada, Burberry, whatever – are they for those who aspire to the lifestyle portrayed by that brand? For those who want to wear all Prada, but can’t afford it?
Diffusion labels are another part of the faux branding, too. Can’t afford Armani? Get Emporio Armani, or even the other one I can’t even recall right now. But it’s all part of the same thought process. “Identify with us. We’re cool, and if you wear our stuff, you’ll be cool too!”
Perhaps I’m just a cynic. Perhaps I’m a hypocrite – I do wear branded stuff, although out of preference (although that preference is based on the practicality of “they do stuff that fits a brick shithouse like me”) I tend to wear either stuff by M&S, or Cotton Traders. But like I said, that preference is based on practicality. And let’s face it, the M&S brand is never likely to identify anyone as owt except Sad. Or maybe Practical. There’s certainly no glamour involved…
But in general I find I don’t give a damn about what label is on something. I tend to not buy anything with huge brands on it – after all, why the hell should I pay money to a company in order to advertise their stuff? Chuff that – I’ll avoid as many brands as possible. But you can’t avoid them completely. Even the famous “no label” brand Muji (where ‘Muji’ is literally ‘no brand’ in – Japanese?) has become a brand in itself. In short, everything’s branded in one way or another.
I guess the decision comes in whether we decide to live with those brands, and buy only specific brands, or whether we go out and make a choice based on something other than a logo. Looking around my desk I see Dell, HP, iMate, Coca-Cola, Dymo, but that’s it. Most of my stuff is bought for non-logo reasons. I don’t know what the answer is to the current brand-addiction, other than that there’s plenty of other things out there that can be far more valuable than identifying yourself through a bloody label.
Staples
Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 4 Comments »Here’s a thought :
What would ITV do if Ant & Dec were suddenly involved ins ome tragic accident?
I think ITV would just curl up and die. And maybe that’s no bad thing…
Food Quiz
Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts 15 Comments »A quick question :
If you were to go to a restaurant (and think more ‘pub-restaurant’ here instead of ‘silver service specialist perfection restaurant’) what meal would you most like to see on the menu? What would make you go “Oh, I’m SO having that?” as soon as you saw it?
I realise that these things can change on a daily basis, but for now I’m just thinking about the “ideal” menu, and what you would have on it.
You can have starter, main course, dessert, or all of them – it’s “perfect meal” I’m looking for…
Another cynic
Posted: Wed 23 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Following on from my own heavy dose of cynicism regarding the entire “airport terror plot” two weekends ago, its good to see that I’m not the only one who feels the same way.
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
V – Part Three
Posted: Tue 22 August, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 1 Comment »OK, so perhaps I should write a little bit more about V than I did yesterday. Maybe.
First of all, we didn’t do the camping thing. Definitely a sign of getting old, or something, but I just can’t be arsed to spend money/time sleeping in a tent. I did it when I was a kid, and fucking hated it then. I also did it for a couple of weeks back in ’97 until the place I was going to be renting became available. I fucking hated it then, too. OK, so it was Dorset, in March, but being constantly chilly and damp was no fun. I can’t see my attitude having become more charitable in the last nine years.
So we stayed in a local(ish) hotel, in sunny Telford. Again, somewhere I hadn’t visited in a good ten years – and even then only once – and was pleased to be leaving. In fairness to the town, though, it wasn’t horrific. It just also wasn’t somewhere I’d choose to go again. The hotel itself was OK, but I’ve written about that over at Wheres-Good.com rather than duplicating effort.
Oh, one other thing – when you’re going to an outdoor festival, in August – particularly when it’s supposed to be “the hottest August on record” – pack some waterproof clothing. Needless to say, I didn’t, and thus had to buy some having driven up through some seriously torrential rain.
As for the rest, I feel it’s best to remain tactful, and say nothing more about V itself than “Nope, never again.”
I’m just not a festival person any more.
Would I go for just a day? I don’t know. Even then I think the line-up would have to be pretty damn good, to be honest, and also it’d have to be of people who were doing one-off appearances, or where I couldn’t get to see them any other way. I just prefer gigs to events.
V – Part Two
Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Hmm, so, what can I say about V?
I think the main thing really is that it’s become obvious that I’m no longer really a festival person. Too many people, too many bits I don’t want to see/do, and just, well, bleh.
All in all we did have a good weekend, but would I go back? No, probably not.
I must be getting old.
Unsettled
Posted: Sun 20 August, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 1 Comment »At the moment I’m really not in the mood to do much at all.
I find that I get really hacked off with people who don’t do what they say they will (as regular readers may have noticed over the last few months) and the council where I’m supposed to be going for the new job is managing to seriously piss me off before I even join them.
It’s now three weeks since they offered me the job, and they still haven’t bothered even sending a written confirmation of that offer. Needless to say, I’m not actually handing in my notice ’til I get the entire thing in writing, and so it doesn’t actually affect me all that much that they’re obviously fucking incompetent. And besides, I should’ve known that this is what they’d be like, and expected all the crap that’s been flying around.
But really, it’s not rocket science, is it? Having all your paperwork and budget crap ready to go when you actually do get round to offering someone a job? Or am I being unrealistic?
Anyway, it all just gets me down. Combining that with other fuckwit stuff to do with other sites I’ve been working on, and it’s all just built up to a point where I’ve had enough.
In fact I walked away from one of the website projects last week, having got to that point where it was either walking away, or getting done for murder. I figured it was better to walk away – and it’s certainly dropped my stress levels like a stone. But it’s still frustrating to have to deal with people so chaotic you wonder how they manage to get dressed in the morning, or to handle website requirements for someone who really doesn’t know what they want, just that they’ve been told they need to have a website.
There’s a lot of other stuff going on as well, but that’s just a small dollop of braindump on the matter.
WWID – The thoughts and responses
Posted: Fri 18 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 6 Comments »OK, so – following on from this post where Gordon asked what I’d do in relation to terorrist plots, here’s a few thoughts.
Bear in mind these are all based on a couple of fairly major assumptions, namely
- I’m Prime Minister, or equally high up in government
- I can also turn back time
- I have the power and support to do these things – although not as a dictatorship, obviously. That’s got its own problems
Because the first thing I’d do is tell the US to sod off, heed my own people’s obvious protest and marches etc., and not get involved in the war in Iraq. Personally I believe that one decision would’ve saved us all a lot of the hassle that’s followed. Simply standing up, heeding the electorate’s voice/wishes, and looking like a respectable statesman and “man of the people”, rather than some renfield of Bush.
As for the hysteria and hype regarding terror plots and the like, I would probably do the following:
- Not use the “threat level indicator” as a political and media tool – Bruce Shneier writes about this far more eloquently than I can – but instead attempt the (for a politician) earth-shatteringly different policy of being honest. Currently that level is “Severe” which means “an attack is highly likely”. Which really is just mealy-mouthed political bullshit. It doesn’t give a timescale, it doesn’t give any indications, and that status could apply anytime, anywhere. There’s always the chance of an attack somewhere, sometime.
- Carrying on from that, I think just a basic rider of Being Honest would work wonders, particularly if also blended with some common sense, rather than hysterical reaction.
- Personally I’d also try to have worked to provide a relationship with the media that also wasn’t based around hysteria and panic. Perhaps prosecuting some of the papers and/or TV media for promoting racial hatred and bigotry would do the job.
And with regard to airport security and the like? Hmm, I don’t know just yet. I agree that security checks are necessary – but (again going with that Honesty and non-Hysteria thing) I’d want ones that actually did something. The hysterical reactions to stupid shit like the “shoe-bomber”, and now having to remove shoes – that’d get stopped. Or if shoe checks are necessary then you bloody well make sure that you provide benches or something for people to sit on and put the damn things back on again afterwards…
I’d not have put in a lot of the crap about nail-clippers etc. in the main security check, though. What I would do would be put the security screeners on a decent wage, rather than being at minimum wages. If it became necessary, make that section into a government organisation, and do it efficiently. Pay for decent people instead of minimum wage, and get people who are capable of making the process a lot smoother and more efficient. Enforce getting decent training, and also arrange for full-blown training exercises. That is the way to get both the airports, the staff, and the public used to this sort of issue – do it, while making it very public that this is a training exercise – give people warning of what they will and will not be able to do during that training exercise. So you make it real, and yes, it’ll be a pain in the arse, but it means everyone knows what’s going on.
I think actually that works as an idea.
But it’s not just airports – it’s making people aware without making them paranoid. I haven’t quite got that sussed yet.
What I would do though is look at the bigger issues. Personally I believe wholeheartedly in an integrated society – where all people are treated the same. I know I’ve caused ructions about this before, and I never explain it all that well, but basically I believe that people should be treated the way we wish to be treated. I don’t want to force my religion, beliefs, creed, or whatever down anyone else’s throat, and I don’t believe anyone else should be allowed to do the same to me. At the same time though, I think that people should accept others, and not try to use the differences in order to divide and pigeonhole. Unfortunately, I think that’s too optimistic, because by nature Man seems to want to divide, categorise, and pigeonhole – and build up wars and conflict around those differences.
So if I were PM? The main thing I would do would be to bring in a policy of equality. Not lip-service, not this bullshit “inclusive” society where every little faction has it’s own sector – which seems to be what most people think “inclusive” means. In my experiences with local government and the like, being “inclusive” meant having a seperate department and “team” for every different faith in the area, every racial background, every sexuality and orientation, and to me that was actually divisive, not inclusive.
Equality – treating everyone the same, that’s the idea. Working so that people don’t feel minimised, disowned, disenfranchised, and thus don’t despise their own country.
Or am I completely wrong? I’m looking forward to the comments on this one…
Strange
Posted: Wed 16 August, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »Would you worry if you worked in an office of techies and developers, and not one of them could manage to close a call properly on a DECT cordless phone? (Sorry, “normal digital cordless phone” – like this. i.e. it cuts the call by pressing the red “call end” button, same as on a mobile phone)
Affected
Posted: Wed 16 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts, Travel 4 Comments »So now we’ve had pretty much a week of the new security regime at airports, and what I was wondering was this : Who actually wins in this “war” against terrorism?
Supposedly there was a “plot”. Fine. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. Whatever. I’m not going to dispute it for the moment.
But because of this plot, everyone who was taking a flight was affected. The authorities and government are forever banging on about how they’re making us more secure, so that terrorism can’t blight our lives. We’ll never bow down to terrorists. We’re making sure that terrorism can’t affect your life. Blah, blah, blah.
But actually, the terrorists win this one before they’ve even started. Without setting off a single device, without hijacking anything, with no deaths, injuries, or – really – effort at all, they’ve managed to paralyse all the major UK airports, get their cause on to every single piece of worldwide media, and have knock-on effects for hundreds of thousands of people. If not millions of people. Talk about effective!
And it’s still ongoing. After September 11th, all the airport security was stepped up. It’s still like it today. That’s five years down the line, and people still think of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Bag, et al. Our lifestyles have changed because of terrorism. Now there are even more restrictions in place, and it’s because of terrorism. Governments and authorities have reacted – to a purported plot, not to an event – and by those actions have affected every single person flying from (or to) the UK for the last week. They’ve put the thoughts of terrorism into people’s heads, made them think about it, and really have done the terrorists job for them.
Good, isn’t it?
Inconveniencing
Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Excellent cartoon about the recent security scares/hype/hysteria*
(* = delete as applicable)
Dog Shit
Posted: Mon 14 August, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Health, Thoughts 4 Comments »Every morning, I get annoyed by a certain percentage (and I assume it’s a minority) of dog owners. Now, we own a dog, the ineffable Hound, who goes out for a walk every morning. During that walk, she normally has at least one major shit. It’s what dogs do.
If I actually see her taking her shit, I clear it up. I pretty much always carry at least a couple of shit-bags in a pocket. As a responsible (well, at least semi-responsible) dog-owner that’s fine, it’s part of the job. (To make life more complex, I don’t technically own Hound – I inherited her. She’s Herself’s dog, bought with previous partner, but I’ve inherited the role of dog-owner/walker/plaything) If Hound disappears off into the bushes and bracken for her shit then I admit, I don’t chase in after her in order to get it. I’m not that dedicated, frankly.
But what really annoys me is the people who take their dog out, watch it having a shit on the path, or anywhere else in full vision, and just leave it there. Don’t even bother cleaning it up. If I see them doing it, I do tend to ask whether they plan on picking up their dog’s shit – and do they need to use one of my spare shit-bags? (I never did manage to be subtle) But most of the time you just come across the discarded article, and it really pisses me off.
If you’re going to own a dog, then picking up that dog’s shit is a simple part-and-parcel of the process. It’s a job that grosses me out completely, but it’s part of the deal, so I do it. I’d love to never have to pick up a still-warm (and in winter, slightly steaming) fresh-laid dog log. (you can feel it through the bag – I don’t mean pick it up in one’s bare hand)
I just don’t understand the people who don’t get that, who think it’s OK to leave their dog’s shit all over the place for Someone Else to clear up.
Chaos
Posted: Fri 11 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 11 Comments »OK, so supposedly the UK police have foiled a terrorist ‘plot’ to blow up a bundle of planes. Aye, right.
Maybe I’m just an utter cynic, but isn’t it great how
- this got released one day after Our Illustrious Leader flew off (long-haul) on his hols
- this got released one week after the decision to make the UK ‘shit-scared level’ publically accessible
- it supposedly makes people feel ‘more secure’ by making them wait longer at airport checkins
What it does go to show is just how shit the current security checks are when you get to an airport. In fact, let’s face it, they’re all there to make the public feel safer. “Oh, terrorists can’t get on our flight, because we’ve been checked once, and all our stuff’s been X-rayed.” We’ll just gloss over the entire farcical fact that once you’ve gone through that X-ray machine, you’re in the food area, where you can get served meals with metal cutlery (order a steak – see what you get to cut it with!), buy perfume bottles you can shatter into heavy glass knives, and buy gift sets with the dreaded nail file and/or scissors.
At the moment you’re not allowed to take on most of your hand luggage, instead it has to be checked in to the hold. Now OK, that’s fair enough. But hang on, um, if there are explosives in that hand luggage, they’re still going to be putting it on the sodding plane!
And on the subject of explosives, OK, you’ve uncovered this plot to blow planes out of the sky. Right. You’ve buggered up the plans and announced them to the world, but the current security scare is because “there might be people we haven’t detected yet”. Now, any prospective terrorist who’s got a brain cell won’t be heading to the airport. Oh no. They’ll be going to the train station, or the bus station, or the motorway service station, where there’s no security, and causing chaos that way instead. If they’ve got the explosive, they’ll use it – just not on a plane. That’s not cynicism, that’s common sense.
Personally I’m a total cynic, and don’t believe this “plot” at all. It does, however, provide a viable story (which could equally be made into a Hollywood action movie) for the resultant media hysteria, as well as the security forces being able to say “Look, we’re great, we broke this ‘plot’ – we need more money in the next budget so we can keep on breaking up these plots” and for the government to trolley out the same old shit about “we need ID cards, so this sort of thing won’t happen, and it’ll be easier to process people through airports etc. Oh yes it will. Honest” It works on the slightly warped logic that people will feel safer because we’re “stopping terrorism”, and we’re aware of these plots to kill people, so we’ll tell you all about it, scare the shit out of you, and you’ll fucking welcome the extra security measures and totalitarian surveillance that we bring in on the back of it. In fact, you’ll bloody well want to have your lives on camera, your calls listened to, your ID stamped in a barcode on your forehead, because it’s Special Home-office Intelligence on Terrorism.
Or SHIT for short.
Half a Million
Posted: Thu 10 August, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 3 Comments »Well – the day after D4D™’s fourth birthday, the word count goes over 500,000. So that averages out as 125,000 words per year on this site (excluding Rants, Thoughts, etc., which the word-count doesn’t include).
Apparently, the “average” hardback novel contains somewhere around 100,000-150,000 words, so in theory that means that D4D™ roughly works out as a novel a year. Blimey.
Of course, D4D™ was never intended as a scheme to get a book deal – that’s no disrespect to those people who do, because I just think good for them, but it’s not really what I was ever aiming for. But still, you can see why publishers are trying to get book deals and so on out of bloggers, if that’s the kind of word-count they’re putting out…
Plasma
Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Cynicism, Domestic, Thoughts 5 Comments »When I was walking Hound last night, it was getting dark, but quite a few people still had curtains open. (God that makes me sound like a perv, doesn’t it? Ah well)
Anyway, one thing I noticed while out was quite how bloody ugly a lot of the new wall-mounted plasma TV screens actually are. They’re hard to miss, to be honest.
So first of all, wouldn’t it make sense to – well – close curtains etc.? Otherwise surely you’re just advertising “Hey, we can afford (or at least get the credit for) a big 40″ plasma” ?
But also, to me they’re just intrusive. I don’t want to lose half the wallspace in a room to a fucking TV. Great, it’s thin, and can hang on a wall. But why would I want it to? Personally, I much prefer to take up wallspace with prints of photos I’ve taken, or that other people have taken. The TV can sit in its proper place, in the corner of the room.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just some kind of Luddite, but I simply can’t see the appeal of hanging a TV off the wall, and letting it dominate the room.
Truth
Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Thoughts 2 Comments »I just saw this (sadly unattributed) quote, and thought it summed up a lot of the problem (in corporate terms) for green energy in general…
We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem — how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
Carriers
Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 Filed under: Green, Sweary, Thoughts 6 Comments »First of all, it’d help if when you do the (supposedly greener, as you’re not driving to the supermarket, and they can do multiple deliveries on one run) shopping online, they don’t deliver everything in fucking plastic bags. Particularly when you end up with so many bags with just one bloody item in them. That’d help a lot more.
And why not “just” make bags that actually, you know, biodegrade? Rather than lasting for the next 150 years in a sodding landfill? Waitrose had them at least fifteen years ago, and they were photodegradeable – slight flaw, as on sunny days they did have a nasty habit of breaking before you got home – but still, it was done fifteen sodding years ago.
If Tesco (and all the others) were actually bothered, instead of just paying lip service to the entire Green thing, then they’d buy in degradeable plastic bags, or do a far better job of promoting their “bag for life” scheme. (which seems to have done a bit of a disappearing act of late) But as it is, well, it’s just a buzzword, a theme for the moment, and so long as they’re seen to be paying lip service to it, and so long as it doesn’t actually cost them a fucking penny, then they’ll be all for this kind of bullshit PR stunt…
CAPS LOCK
Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 3 Comments »I wonder, do some people just not realise how fucking annoying it is to KEEP CAPS LOCK ON when writing comments?
The comments here from last night are a perfect case in point. I’m debating going in and changing it all to proper case. But then again, that’d ruin the impact…
Revisiting
Posted: Sat 5 August, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »You know, sometimes it’s really weird, looking back on what might’ve been.
Because of a post elsewhere I was just looking at a couple of places that I had interviews at for management positions. We’re talking about at least ten years ago now, but still, looking at things like the Crinan Hotel and the Cluanie Inn make me wonder what I could’ve been doing now, if I’d taken that kind of job on.
Mind you, I also could’ve had a great deal of fun managing Duff House…
Selecting
Posted: Mon 31 July, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Thoughts 1 Comment »One interesting thing we did over the weekend was spend some time going through some of the photo files/archives I’ve got from the last three years. The sheer number of photos is really quite scary, and I should perhaps consider killing/deleting some of the older ones.
Or, of course, I could just do a back-up of them, and dump them all to a DVD. That’d be sensible. But no, instead I suspect I’m far more likely to just keep them all on the hard-drive, although I do have a back-up of them on another portable hard-drive too. But it’s interesting to see the way my photography has improved and changed over the years – I’ve been taking photos properly now for about five years, which is pretty scary in itself – and the way things have changed with the use of different cameras and so on too.
As it was, we were going through trying to find the images we wanted to enter in to a competition, so there was quite a critical eye being used, and many fell by the wayside for just not being technically great, or for the lesser offence of just not being “right”. Whatever that means.
Anyway, in the end we narrowed down the list to about 20. Not good, but not bad either – considering that initially we had a list that numbered into the hundreds. So I’ve ended up running those 20 to Photobox, so we can have 6″x4″ copies of all of them, and then narrow it down from there.
Blocked
Posted: Thu 27 July, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I don’t know why, but my brain’s just not working right today.
I’ve got three posts in “Draft” version at the moment, and I can’t get the right wording for any of them. I hate being like this – thankfully it’s not a common occurrence. However, when it does happen, it drives me nuts.
I know what I want to say, I just can’t think of the best way to phrase it. I need to dump my brain somewhere, and for once D4D™ isn’t the place…
Shatter
Posted: Tue 25 July, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Hmm, maybe this is just me as well, but if you saw workmen heaving on a sheet of glass in order to pull it from its frame (we’re talking about a sheet of glass probably 8 feet high and 10-12 feet wide) would you decide to walk behind them as they were pulling with all their force?
The stupidity of some people – or maybe it’s just the completely blinkered lack of awareness of surroundings, I don’t know – just befuddles me. This morning I’ve seen not just one person do this, but seven or eight. The window is being replaced because the blackout film on it is bubbled up and knackered, but it’s one huge sheet of glass, and if it had shattered (as it eventually did) while some numpty was walking past, and they’d been hurt, you can bet that said numpty would’ve been first on the line to the personal injury lawyers, and it would never have been that numpty’s fault for walking past people obviously having a problem with a bloody big sheet of glass.
I despair.
Flying Kites
Posted: Mon 24 July, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Had a wonderful sight at lunchtime today – a red kite floating above the place where I eat my lunch.
No, not just any old red kite – that’d be dull – I mean a red kite as in bird-of-prey, shitehawk, scavenger – but still a beautiful sight to see against a summer sky.
You’ll Never Put A Better Bit Of Butter On Your Knife
Posted: Sun 23 July, 2006 Filed under: Green, Thoughts 2 Comments »One of the best print adverts I’ve seen recently is for Country Life butter. (Most people will probably best remember Country Life for it’s slogan that’s the title for this post, and the “buttermen” adverts)
The Ad points out that Anchor (their nearest rival in the market) is made in New Zealand, then shipped over in frozen containers across half the world. It’s a bloody good point…
Generation Terrorists
Posted: Fri 21 July, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »Why is it that so many countries – and in this case I’m referring to Israel, but it’s hardly a one-off – don’t realise that evicting people from their homes, citys, and homeland isn’t going to make them think “Oh, that’s OK then – at least we’re safe”, but is instead going to make these moved-on, homeless people think “Fucking Israel. They’ve kicked us out of our homes, our cities, our country. Fucking bastards”.
In short, aren’t they just creating the next generation of Hizbollah members, of anti-Israel fanatics, and of building up another generation of hatred in the area ?
Thames Water again
Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »So Thames Water are in line for a huge fine because of their utterly deficient customer service?
How much do we want to bet that they’ll weasel out of it one way or another?
New Paradigms Redux
Posted: Thu 20 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »I’ve been asked to point out by Herself’s Sister that, despite what I wrote on Tuesday about GameTart.com, they’re actually still a useless bunch of fuckers when it comes to customer service.
She’s tried on multiple occasions (and we’re talking “in the tens” rather than “one or two”) to get hold of them and sort problems out, and so far has never yet been successful.
So while they may check out their own references on Google, they’re still a bag of shit when it comes to the important stuff.
Inventing Toys
Posted: Wed 19 July, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »(via Slashdot)
There’s an interesting interview here on Business Week with the man who’s now in charge of Mattel’s toy car section. That’s Matchbox, HotWheels, and Tyco – hardly small names.
What makes it interesting is that he’s talking about how technology can go into modern toys, but at the same time that it’s better to leave some things up to children’s imaginations, rather than getting tech to do everything for them. I think it’s a valid point, and makes for an interesting read.
Insuring
Posted: Tue 11 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts 8 Comments »You know one of the most depressing things around? Getting quotes for car insurance.
Up ’til now, I’ve been a named driver on Herself’s car insurance – it makes a lot more sense for the first year of driving, as that’s when insurers add on an arbitrary amount, just for having passed the test. Of course, the downside is that after a year’s driving, I still have no No Claims Bonus. Ah well.
Anyway, once we’ve moved – as and when it happens – to Norfolk, it’s most likely going to mean that we need two cars, which’ll mean the current one becomes mine, and another (smaller) one becomes Herself’s. And that means I’ve got to sort out insurance on the current one. So I’ve been getting quotes.
So far, MoreThan will cost me £646 , or £57 per month, and DirectLine will cost me £690, or £57 per month. (No, I haven’t quite worked that out either – I probably mis-read something)
Then I went to Norwich Union, just for a laugh. Their “Quote Me Happy” campaign has been laughably bad, and I know when I was looking for house insurance they were awesomely high – in fact, about twice the price of anyone else. So OK, same details, and *quote* – fucking sweet Jesus H Christ on a smelly warped pine crutch – £1532, or £140 per month?!?!?
Quote me fucking incredulous, more like. Now I can see why all the people in the adverts piss themselves laughing when they get their quote…
Anthropomorphic
Posted: Tue 11 July, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Thoughts 3 Comments »One BBC series that I do love watching is the Big Cat Diary. I’ve always been a fan of the big cats in general, and I find the basic premise of the series to be great, and make for fantastic TV.
But one thing really bugs me – it’s the way they give all the animals identities, names, and attribute human characteristics to them. I can understand (to a degree) why it’s done, and I suspect it’s actually very difficult to not do it, particularly when (as with one lion pride) you’ve been following them for 18 years. but I personally find it very distracting.
I’d rather know the facts, the information, etc., without the anthropomorphic extras.
But it’s still a brilliant programme.
Fair?
Posted: Mon 10 July, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 5 Comments »OK, before I get started on this one, bear in mind that I’m a self-confessed numpty when it comes to football, so I’m probably barking up entirely the wrong tree with this one…
Anyway – what I was thinking about, particularly in light of the end of the world cup, is why is the final result (assuming full-time and extra time have been completed) dependent on penalties? To me it seems actually quite unfair, basing it all on a “sudden death” kind of thing after two hours of play – particularly since the goals that have happened become irrelevant. (And before any smart-arse pops up with the comment, I know that the penalties thing only happens when it’s a draw, so perhaps the goals from the main match are now irrelevant – but bear with me on this, OK?)
So why does it go to penalties? Why not base the final victory on something that’s at least related to the game of the last two hours? Examples that spring to mind would be ball posession – that the team that’s had the most posession wins; or base it on fouls and/or dives – where the team with the lowest figure (either in the match, or in the tournament – which would be a nightmare of record-keeping, but would provoke rather less fouls, dives, and bookable offences, I suspect) wins at the end of it.
Surely those methods are fairer, or at least more relevant? To base the final result on penalties seems to be far more “luck of the draw”. Perhaps basing it on something match/statistic-based would be a bit of an anti-climax, I suppose – but it would still at least have a basic connection to the game they’ve been playing for the last 120 minutes…
July 7
Posted: Fri 7 July, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 5 Comments »OK, first of all, I’m not saying any of what follows to be denigrating to the people who did suffer in the suicide bombings on July 7th last year. I just want to make that absolutely clear.
However, how does huge media coverage of the memorial events make any difference? And why are we all being pushed into a 2 minute “memorial” silence for it? I don’t have a problem with the various news services showing the memorial events – personally, I think they should be private, for people who were involved and affected by the events, rather than this Diana-esque national outpouring of faux grief, but that’s my view – but I don’t see why entire breakfast programmes and so on had to cover the subject.
Maybe it’s just me, but the BBC and ITV programmes this morning seemed to be glorifying the acts of terrorism – and wasn’t that supposed to be becoming a criminal act? The BBC bleated on earlier this week about how a survey said that 13% of those surveyed thought the bombers were “martyrs” for “the cause”, yet now they’re going through the events in detail, showing how badly everything was affected. Is that not making the bombers, the causes of these events, into – to some minds at least – heroes?
I realise that the London bombs affected a lot of people, and I agree that there should be memorial services, events and the like. Should they be made national, with things like the 2 minute silence? Probably not. Should the memorial services be televised, with people’s grief and memories of the events made public, made into just so many more 3-minute filler items? No.
And how do the people who were involved feel? Surely these news reports, with video footage of the events, just brings it all back to life for them?
I don’t know. I don’t know anyone who was affected by the London bombings. I can’t speak from experience. What I do know is that the media coverage just leaves a really nasty taste in the mouth.
Thames Water – A Response
Posted: Thu 6 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts 3 Comments »A while ago, some of you may recall I sent a snotty email to Thames Water’s Customer Service People. For ease of reference, this is what I sent…
To whom it may concern,
If, as your current news story puts it, “Approximately a quarter of all leakage is on customers’ pipes.�, that still means that three-quarters of all leakage is on TW’s side of the pipes.
How does a utility company justify selling people a product, and then telling them they can’t use it?
How does a utility company justify leaks that amount to the equivalent of 6.6 million people’s daily usage ( using the DFID’s estimate of 135 litres per person per day ) every day ?
I’m just interested to know.
Sincerely
Lyle
In return, I today received this scintillating effort…
Thank you for your e-mail of 21 June 2006.
I note your comments regarding our water leakage rates and your concerns are understandable.
We know that we need to improve our leakage detection and repair rates and are working hard to achieve this. We currently have over 150 repair teams fixing leaks every day. We also have leakage detection teams working during the night to detect and pinpoint leaks.
OFWAT have agreed that we need to focus our attention on reducing leakage from our ageing mains network in London. We have been set very tough targets and it is not an easy task but we are determined to resolve this issue. The sheer volume of pipework means that we cannot complete this overnight and it will take time. We have, however, already made a good start.
During the early part of last year, OFWAT agreed a series of bill increases over a period of 5 years. We have been given strict guidelines on how this money should be spent and last year we began a #3.1 billion project to improve our services, including replacing thousands of kilometres of ageing water mains throughout our region.
In addition to the money we are already committed to spend on leakage reduction, the extra investment of #150 millioin announced by OFWAT will be funded by shareholders and will accelerate the Victorian Mains Replacement Programme to complete at least an additional 230 miles of new mains by 2010.
For the last 15 years we have been able to provide water services without any restrictions. However we must acknowledge that increased use of water in the home, population growth and climate change are placing increasing demands on our water supplies. To simply ignore these issues and refer everything to our own leakage rates would be irresponsible. Indeed, we have managed with similar leakage rates for the past 15 years without imposing a ban.
We need to employ numerous methods to safeguard our future supplies. We are working hard to increase sources of water, for example more boreholes to access groundwater and seeking planning permission to build a desalination plant to treat salt water in East London. We are doing all we can but we must ask our customers to work with us to conserve water. You may be interested to know that in Berlin, domestic water consumption is 115 litres per person a day compared to London’s 155 litres, although interestingly the prices there are approximately three times as high. Clearly this shows that there is room for water efficiency amongst our customers.
The simple fact of the matter is that this ban is as a direct result of the lack of rainfall and even if we were to repair every leak we would still be in a drought situation.
We do not seek to justify leakage; we are taking on the challenge to improve our services to benefit our customers.
I note that you refer to a particular point made on our website with regard to leaks on customers’ pipes. We use this information to highlight that not all leakage comes from our pipework, however, we wholly acknowledge that our own leakage standards need to be improved.
I appreciate your frustrations but trust that this addresses your concerns and explains our position.
Considering it didn’t answer any of the questions, and in fact studiously avoided being anything except PR flak, I’m currently debating the best response…
Stormy Weather
Posted: Wed 5 July, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »This morning, weather-wise, has been bloody marvellous. After a week of sweating like a perv in a playground, this morning the threatened storms broke at about half six, the full thunder/lightning works, and you could actually feel the temperature dropping. It was lovely.
Of course, Hound hates thunder, so she came and laid under the bed – one of her “safe places” – but other than that handled it all pretty well, I’m pleased to say.
So all told, yeah, a pretty good morning. Just a pity it’s been ruined by having to go into work…
Motorways
Posted: Wed 5 July, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 8 Comments »Well, everything went OK yesterday with the interview in the end. I don’t yet know whether I got the job, but we’ll see – hopefully by end of the week.
Even the driving between Bracknell and Cambridge went OK, which was a pleasant surprise – two hours door-to-door each way, and I managed to avoid all the really nasty rush-hour crap, which is no bad thing at all.
However, it did make me realise just how much I hate tosspot truck drivers. I should point out, by that I mean “truck drivers who are tosspots”, not necessarily all truck drivers. But the sheer number of tosspot ones that are out there is really quite amazing. I lost count of the number of times the traffic flow slowed down to 55/60mph, because two lanes of traffic were taken up by fuckwit bastard truckers trying to overtake when they can only go maybe 2mph faster than the one they’re overtaking. Watching trucks overtake is like watching tortoises shag – it’s so awesomely slow – and fucking annoying too.
I just don’t see the point of it – in fact, I’d like to see motorways etc. with one lane specifically for trucks, and then to have them barred from overtaking. You get your place, you stick to it – after all, they’re all going at 56mph. And that way it frees up two lanes for normal traffic, rather than limiting all the cars to the outside lane, and thus fucking that up too.
This post has been brought to you by the number 56, and the letters C, U, N and T.
Stickup
Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, General, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »With the van that’s been parked outside our office for the last hour, blocking half the road, I’ve gone back to wanting to make up some stickers – with hyper-strong adhesive – that I can slap onto people’s windscreens, printed (on the sticky side, so they can see it when they sit in the car) with the phrase
“Thanks for parking like a cunt”
in very large bold print.
I know, I’ve proposed it before, but the desire is getting stronger and stronger, the more I work in this office and see just how cuntish these drivers are.
Mind you, in twunt-boy’s case, I’d also love to see some grumpy trucker (and that’s not rhyming slang) just barge past, and scrape all down the side of the van. Now that would be funny as fuck.
Credit
Posted: Sat 1 July, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over the last few years, my credit score has been a nightmare. Not for any good valid reason, really, except that I moved around a lot for several years, changed jobs a lot, went self-employed, that kind of thing. Nothing wrong with any of that, except in the eyes of banks, and their credit-scoring crap.
So I’ve made do with a current account (obtained by dint of a minor miracle, and no small amount of bullshit bureaucracy) and the bank debit card. Which is fine. Oh – and an overdraft, which wasn’t so fine. In and out of it on a regular basis, but never over the limit.
Anyway, every so often I apply for a credit card, and fully expect to be declined. My credit score stuff is roughly zero – half the time they couldn’t find me on the records, or on the electoral roll, or somewhere else, and the other half it was the standard crap about “You’re self-employed? We want six years of audited accounts before we’ll let you have anything”. But I’ve only been in business two years, and the accounts fall below the Companies House level for requiring audited accounts. “We don’t care, we want six years of audited accounts”.
And then people wonder why I hate banks.
So, a couple of weeks ago, in light of various other developments, and talking to the IFA in Norfolk, I applied again. And lo, knock me down with a wafted feather, I got it. Bloody hell – I must be getting back on the radar again, or something.
It arrived this week – with a credit limit of far more than I wanted/needed. So now I’ll use it for one or two items per month, then pay it off. I’ll probably use it for a couple of larger items too, and pay those off over two or three months – still building up that bloody credit rating, after all – but that’s it. It’s not even being carried in my wallet – instead it’s safe at home in a locked drawer.
The only reason I’ve got it at all is to build up the credit rating. That’s it. I don’t want to live life on credit – and before Herself complains, I admit, I don’t see the overdraft as “credit” per se, although I should do. I like being able to pay for what I want when I want, but only so long as it doesn’t destroy me for the rest of the month.
That’s the way I’ve lived for the last eight or ten years, and I really don’t intend to change things now.
ChickenBoy
Posted: Thu 29 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 6 Comments »Ah, so, it was the second round then. OK, he was unlucky to be against someone like Federer so early on, but well, let’s face it, Henman’s a wet fart whoever he’s against when it comes to Wimbledon.
Role Models
Posted: Wed 28 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »While I don’t understand it personally, I know that a lot of people will use various famous people as their style icons – dressing like Victoria Beckham, Naomi Campbell, [latest R&B pop person], fashion guru x or designer y, high street stuff, or whatever. Fair enough. Not my thing, but who am I to dictate to others?
However, on the train today was a woman whose style “icon” appeared to be Jade Goody. Which, really, is just scary.
Wifi for all
Posted: Wed 28 June, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Thoughts 1 Comment »Now this is a brilliant idea.
Sell wireless routers for $5 in return for a 12 month agreement from the user to keep the router open to access by other users of the same phone network. (Non-FON users can get a 24-hour pass for €3) That way (they hope) you can build a decent wireless “hotspot” network, street by street, user by user.
“Wi-fi is universal in cities, but access isn’t,” said Juergen Urbanski.
Mr Urbanski said Fon was aiming to have 50,000 working hotspots worldwide by September, 150,000 by year-end and one million hotspots by the end of 2007.
To date, 54,000 people worldwide have signed up to become “foneros,” up from 3,000 in February, according to the company.
Brilliance.
Conversation
Posted: Tue 27 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »Standing at the platform this morning, waiting for my train to arrive, I was “treated” to the following conversational gem…
Him : Where’s the train? It says up there it’s at 8.50.
Her : It’s late. It says on the right, it’s due at 8.59
Him : But it says there it’s at 8:50. Look underneath, it’s 8:55. The train’s late.
Her : Yes. Because it says right there on the right, it’s due in at 8:59
Him : But it’s 8:55. It’s late.
Her : …
Him : And it said it would be 8:50 on that TV fingy in the ticket office
Her : very gritted teeth And it said ‘on that TV fingy’ that it would be nine minutes late too…
Him : But it’s 8:56 now, and it’s still not here…
I opted to move at that point – I figured she didn’t need the witnesses, if she pushed him under the fucking train. I’d’ve pushed him, you can be sure of that.
HP7
Posted: Tue 27 June, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »So, JK Rowling is planning to kill off two characters in the final Harry Potter book? So what? Is this news?
Personally, I’m rather more surprised that she’s only killing off two. I’d have thought that you could have far more fun with Voldemort going on the rampage, and killing off all the do-gooders one-by-one ’til the final showdown.
But hey, what would I know.