Stating The Obvious
Posted: Tue 26 April, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Sweary, Television Leave a comment »Why is it that on just about every TV competition show – X-Factor, Masterchef, Bake Off, whatever – when it comes to the semi-finals, one of the hosts always has to say
Any one of these people could win it
Of course they fucking could, they’re in the semi-sodding-final. Stop stating the bloody obvious, you fatuous bollocks-spouting cretins.
More Travel
Posted: Mon 25 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »As I’ve said many, many times before, I can be a bit of an idiot – particularly when it comes to what I regard as ‘doable’ for travelling etc.
Today has proven that yet again. Well, I’ve organised it all today, but it’s happening on Saturday.
Over the weekend, I saw some really good reviews and opinions about the production of King Lear that’s currently going on at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, with Don Warrington as Lear. So today I had a look at whether there were any tickets still available.
Turns out, there were. Not many, but enough for me to book one to see it on Saturday afternoon. And that’s what I’m doing.
I’ve also (in the name of something approaching a sensible idea) booked myself on trains to get up there and back. But I did seriously think about driving, too. A 350-mile round trip to see a play. Like I said, an absolute idiot.
The reason I’m not making a weekend of it is because I’m also in London on the Sunday – although not ’til the evening – for another hopefully epic meal.
I am indeed an idiot, and quite possibly a lunatic.
Second Thoughts
Posted: Thu 21 April, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Charity, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), London, Stupidity 1 Comment »As I wrote a while back, I’ve signed up to the NSPCC’s “Climb the Gherkin” challenge in about eight weeks’ time. It involves walking (or, if you’re a lunatic, running) up the 38 flights of stairs inside the Gherkin in London to get to the top.
It’s fair to say, I’m having some doubts and second thoughts about the wisdom of it. It’s a lot of steps…
I’ve looked it up – because I’m an idiot – and now know that it’s over 1,000 steps to the top, and that’s making it all a bit real. There’s a lot of me to lift up that many steps, and really not many places where you can get to train or prepare for something like that.
I’ll still go, and I’m sure I’ll complete the challenge. It’s just that it might destroy me along the way…
London Weekend – Faustus and stuff
Posted: Sun 17 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Domestic, London, Reviews(ish), Travel Leave a comment »This weekend was another London trip, although spread over two days rather than one, which made life a bit less chaotic than usual.
The primary reason was to see Faustus at the Duke of York’s Theatre. A friend of mine had got tickets, and as part of my 2016 mission to see more stuff and so on, I went too. I know the basic idea of the story of Faust, although I’ve never read it, so had that as a basic idea of the play, but no idea of what else to expect.
As it turned out, it’s a very good production – if also very strange. I liked a lot of it – but admittedly started off thinking “This is garbage”, although I did reassess that quite rapidly. It’s got a whole lot of interesting ideas and propositions within it, so it’s an interesting production.
Other than that, the usual large-scale wandering around London, reconnecting bits of geography I hadn’t seen in a while, and generally doing a fair bit of walking, as well as everything else. As it was a weekend away, I decided to stay in a (far more expensive than usual) hotel in the area, which I’d eaten in before, but not stayed in.
All told, a thoroughly decent weekend, and much enjoyed. I should try this culture thing more often…
Foggy Roads
Posted: Wed 13 April, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Fog Leave a comment »After the gig on Monday, the drive home was one of the nastiest I’ve had in a long time – all the roads were covered in super-thick fog, which made the entire endeavour a lot tougher and slower than it would usually be. Thankfully, it was all a route I know really well – without that, I think it would’ve been even slower and I wouldn’t have known where the hell I was at any point.
The fog was so thick, in general I could only see about three cats-eyes ahead of me, so the concentration was ridiculous the entire way.
The other plus was that the roads were a lot quieter than they could have been – although the great majority of the people who were out were desperately bad at driving in fog, which really wasn’t ideal.
Still, it all passed peacefully and without any extra nastiness, so that’s got to be a bonus. It could have been so much worse along the way…
Fish, Aylesbury Waterside
Posted: Tue 12 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Gigs, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Last night, once I’d finished work I drove over to Aylesbury for a gig. Fish, the ex-lead-singer from Marillion was back in their home-town, and performing one of their classic albums, Misplaced Childhood, in its entirety for the last time, on a tour called “Farewell to Childhood”, because it’s the 30th anniversary of it being released.
I’ve liked Marillion – well, I liked the Fish-era Marillion – since their start, so seeing this gig was always going to be a good one. It’s just a pity it had to be in Aylesbury. Understandable, but a pity all the same.
First of all, I’d forgotten just what a benightedly scabrous shithole Aylesbury is. By the time I got there (just before 6pm) it was pretty much all closed. It’s always been a boil on the arse of Civilisation, and never seems to improve, no matter what the planners, developers and town-centre managers do to it. It’s an unremitting dollop of shite.
I truly don’t know what kind of sins you’d have to have committed in previous lives in order to deserve living in Aylesbury, but they must be truly epic ones.
Anyway, the Waterside Theatre itself is really nice. I’d not been before, but it really impressed me, and is back on the list of places to see stuff. Again, it would be even better if it weren’t in Aylesbury, but there we go.
The gig was thoroughly enjoyable – my brain refused to store who the support act were, which is a disappointment, as I’d like to make sure I don’t see them again by accident. But once Fish and his band came to the stage, it was all good. They started with playing a number of tracks from Fish’s solo career (which, admittedly, I’m less familiar with – but I’ll be rectifying that) before playing the whole Misplaced Childhood album, and finally closing with a couple of other crowd favourites.
I really enjoyed it – Misplaced Childhood isn’t my favourite Marillion album by a long chalk, but it was still a good gig.
All told, a good evening – despite the location…
Mysterious Delivery
Posted: Thu 7 April, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Weirdness Leave a comment »On Monday, I came home to a mysterious delivery from Amazon.
It turned out to be a DVD box set for a British TV series I’ve never heard of (from the year before I was born) – but only the episodes that still remain, so all of Series 1, and about half of Series 2 and 3.
There was no note, no delivery, nothing.
So I’ve no idea who ordered it and got it sent to me, or why. I’ve mentioned it on Twitter and Facebook, with no responses, and so it’s all just a bit weird.
Going Back
Posted: Wed 6 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Looking Back, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »When I went back to Reading over the weekend, I also took the opportunity to stop off in Bracknell.
There was a vague kind of logic/sense here, in that I expected Reading itself to be solid, through having road closures etc. going on for the half-marathon itself, plus usual Sunday shoppers and so on, so it made more sense to get to somewhere else, and then train into Reading. I knew Wokingham station’s car-park is a bit of a cluster-chuff at the moment, so I went for Bracknell instead. And as things turned out, that worked really well.
Of all the places I’ve lived, Bracknell was probably the one I liked least. (I just tried writing ‘the most least-liked’, but that’s a phrase to make eyeballs bleed) I’m not a great fan of most of the area – I don’t mind Wokingham and Windsor, but the rest I could happily never really visit again. So it was also a chance to see if Bracknell had improved at all, or if I still disliked it.
First things first, there’s a whole new roundabout and housing estate on the approach to Bracknell, which was quite a surprise. I’d thought I knew where I was going – and I kind of did – but that did come up as a bit of a shock. (Even more so, as it also didn’t come up on the SatNav) I can’t imagine the driven commute between Bracknell and Wokingham/Reading was any fun at all while all that was going on.
Other than that, there’s a lot of regeneration work going on in the centre of Bracknell, which I didn’t get the chance to have a proper look at. It wasn’t that high in my priority list – mainly because I’m still pretty sure nothing short of flattening it and starting again will do anything positive for the place.
Obviously I didn’t get to see all of Bracknell, but then, nor did I massively want to. The bits I saw were more than enough to convince me it’s still a scabrous shitpit, and definitely somewhere I’d never want to go back to for anything more than a couple of hours. In that context, it’s fine – much more than that kind of timescale, though, and it just becomes some kind of self-inflicted torture…
Negative Company
Posted: Tue 5 April, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Day Trips, Domestic, People, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »On Sunday, I travelled down to Reading, lending immoral support to a friend who was running the Reading Half Marathon. (and did bloody well!) It was her first time running it, and I was at the end of the last hill of the run, on one of the main junctions. As it was, I got to stand next to a couple who were the most unremittingly negative people I’ve listened to since my grandparents were around. *Everything* was bad. (I bet they read the Daily Mail. And agree with it)
Highlights were :…
“Well, I won’t be pleased for her if she’s running it this slowly” and “These people in fancy dress are just detracting from the seriousness of the race” Yes, they seriously said that – and with no sense of humour whatsoever.
However, my absolute favourite was her saying to him “What’s the next time marker?” and he responded “The last one was 1hr 55, so the next will be 1hr 60” (or two hours, as it’s known to most sane people) and said in all seriousness, not a stupid comment like I’d do. Pompous bellend.
The finale was when other people appeared and stood in their oh-so-precious sightline, to which he tutted loudly, and complained (loudly) about how some people were so selfish, it was outrageous, just turning up and standing in front of others. (Bear in mind that they could’ve moved forwards too, due to there being loads of room. But no, that would’ve been far too understanding)
I think my “muttered” comment of “Well, you could always fuck off” may* (*bloody well was) have been heard, as they tutted and sodded off quite soon afterwards.
Heavy Mileage
Posted: Sun 3 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend’s been a busy one, what with one thing and another.
Saturday was supposed to be quiet – because Sunday was already planned with a day-trip to Reading and had other stuff going on – but I wanted to do something. So, being an idiot, I opted for a day-trip to London, primarily to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year photos at the Natural History Museum, which I hadn’t been to in at least twenty years.
The idiot part is primarily that I decided to walk there – from Euston to Natural History Museum. And back. That’s 7km each way, plus whatever else I wanted to do. I just thought “well, I can do 5km easily, so the other 2km will be easy” – forgetting that 2km is another mile-and-a-bit.
Of course, I managed it, and I enjoyed the exhibition – but I’d miscalculated a few other things along the way. I’d not realised that it was in the school holidays, and I didn’t think there’d be so many people and children going to a museum on the first really decent warm/sunny day of the year.
So, having walked there, it was then a case of moving slowly through a 40-minute queue to get in to the place, which did an excellent job of reminding me why I’ve never wanted children. The exhibition itself was good – but by then I didn’t want to spend too much more time in the area, there were just too many people and spawn around.
That decision made – and having acknowledged that I was rather more knackered than I’d expected – I opted for walking back to Euston (see, I said I was an idiot) rather than the extra bit of walking I’d planned, to go back to the South Bank as well. That’ll wait ’til I’m next in London, which is only a couple of weeks away anyway.
Another 7km did pretty much stuff me, though – I can’t deny it.
All told, Saturday involved walking no less than 21km (slightly over 13 miles) – and I knew I was planning to walk a fair bit more on Sunday (of which more in another post) which made it all even sillier.
It was a good day, and I’m glad I did it, but yeah, Saturday night was pretty painful. I just won’t learn…
2016 Q1
Posted: Fri 1 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Business, Car Repairs, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Weight Loss, Write More Leave a comment »So here we are, in April already. A quarter of the year gone.
The first three months have been fairly awkward and problematic in some ways, but all told it’s still been a success – although in some ways it’s been a case of looking at grey clouds and finding a silver lining. Work and so on have stayed stable, it’s just other non-work stuff that hasn’t gone as well.
The worst (or at least most frustrating) part has been the car – thankfully that now appears to be sorted, but it’s been an expensive quarter, with repeated re-visits to the garage, along with replacement parts and so on.
I did have plans for writing more and so on, but they haven’t materialised. I’ve done a couple of things and started with some ideas and the like, but the intended plan hasn’t happened. Hopefully the next three months will let me write more, if I’ve got the time and inspiration.
Health-wise, I’ve slacked off a lot on going to the gym and so on. I’ve had a bundle of colds and coughs throughout the last few months, and every time I’ve thought “Ok, that’s finally gone”, I’ve picked up another one. That’s not been fun, but there we go. Admittedly, a lack of gymmage hasn’t resulted in any weight gains – everything has stayed in exactly the same place it was while I was going to the gym regularly. That’s been another thing that’s not helped on the motivational front – if it’s not making any difference one way or t’other, it becomes less important to go.
I do need to get back to it, and doing other stuff as well – because I’m a loon, and have just signed up to the NSPCC’s challenge to walk/run (OK, walk) up the 38 floors of the Gherkin on Sunday 19th June. I must be fucking barmy. This is the kind of thing that happens when Marie Curie aren’t doing their 10km walks. I blame them. 🙂 That’s in ten weeks time, so I need to do some stuff pretty quickly…
Anyway, it’s been an interesting first three months of the year. There’s some interesting challenges coming up – not least that bloody Gherkin challenge – in the next three months, and I just hope it’s a bit more positively motivated than the first three have been.
Time will tell…
Badly Worded
Posted: Wed 30 March, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Bad Ads, Central Bedfordshire Council, Customer Services, Education, Literacy, Thoughts Leave a comment »Just now, my local authority (Central Bedfordshire council) tweeted this, which is hilariously badly-worded…
I replied, asking them if they meant that it was an event for underage drinking/drinkers, or if they meant it to be an event informing about (and/or preventing/reducing) underage drinking – as it certainly looked like the former.
In fairness, they then responded, and removed the original tweet.
But still, it made me laugh, picky and pedantic bastard that I am.
[UPDATED]
They then replaced that tweet with this one…
It really isn’t a good day for Central Beds’ social-media team. But it’s a very funny one for me…
Crawling
Posted: Sat 26 March, 2016 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Single Life, Travel Leave a comment »Today I’m off down to London with a couple of friends, doing another Burger Crawl.
It’s been organised by one of the others, so I’ve no idea what the full plan/route is yet, but it should be fun.
Security Stupidity
Posted: Thu 24 March, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Design, Laziness, Milton Keynes, People, Security, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Every so often, I’ll see a scenario that just leaves me utterly gobsmacked. Sadly, they’re usually based around security of some sort – for whatever reason, it’s something I’m generally pretty tuned in to, and aware of.
Yesterday’s one was an absolute blinder – and caused by a complete lack of thought/awareness.
While I was walking at lunchtime, the person in front of me was paying a bill over the phone. Using hands-free, so it was all done out loud. (I don’t quite get why some people use hands-free for conversations on mobiles while walking – particularly when they’re still holding the mouthpiece to their mouths anyway. People be weird)
That wasn’t so bad – he was entering the card details using the keypad, so in that aspect it was fairly secure. Not how I’d have chosen to do it, but hey, I’m not one to judge.
The bit where it all went tits up, though, was that the payment line then reads the numbers back to the user, as a confirmation. “If this is correct, press 1“.
It’s a scenario where the developers etc. have thought about how to confirm the card data, and it makes sense to read it back. They’ve just not seen the real-world situations where people then do these things in public, on hands-free speakers. But it meant that – were I a bad person – I’d have all of that guy’s card information (it even read back the CV2 validation number) which I could have made use of.
And in case anyone’s wondering, I did tap him on the shoulder when he’d finished the call, and explained that he really should get that card changed ASAP. If I could hear it, or if he does that on a regular basis, then the card is compromised, and it’s only fair to make him aware of it.
It’s up to him, of course – but the fact I told him his card number, expiry date, and CV2 (correctly – I really do need to get out more) certainly seemed to focus his mind somewhat…
No 10k
Posted: Wed 23 March, 2016 Filed under: Charitable, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last couple of years, I’ve been getting involved in doing some small fundraising for Marie Curie Cancer Trust, mainly through doing their 10km walks, the “Walk to Remember”, and raising some cash through that. (At the same time, being a fat bloke who can walk 10k in less than 100 mins is something that makes me happy)
It’s a fun event, involving walking round a planned route at a stately home on a Summer evening – it’s been thoroughly enjoyable as a way to spend a couple of hours, plus travelling etc. and meant I raised an amount of money that’s not epic by their standards, but was pretty good by mine – and better than nothing, or doing sod all.
They’re emphatically non-competitive, you don’t get issued with numbers etc., you don’t get timed (you can, of course, time yourself) and it’s aimed at being a walk rather than a run/job – which also suits me just fine. I’m built for comfort, not speed (although again, I can do fast-moving fat bloke pretty damn well!) but I do cover the route at speed, while enjoying it.
Having looked this weekend, it turns out that they’re not doing these walks this year at all. That is, to say the least, a bit disappointing. I’m not sure yet whether to look at doing something else – well, I will definitely be doing longer walks and so on anyway, but it was nice to be fundraising at the same time – or what this year.
Time will tell. But it’s a bit of a bugger that this one won’t be being done.
27
Posted: Tue 22 March, 2016 Filed under: Charitable, Health, Sport, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m not a massive fan of Sport Relief – although I do prefer it to shite like Comic Relief and Children-in-Need – but regardless of any of that, I have to say that Eddie Izzard’s achievement of running 27 marathons in 27 days (including two on the final day, as he’d missed one early on) is nothing short of amazing.
That he’s also raised more than £1.35million is also seriously noteworthy.
That’s not to belittle the fundraising efforts of anyone else, as I’d rather see anyone raise £50 than nothing. Regardless though, the sheer madness of saying “I’m going to run 27 marathons in four weeks” – and then manage to do it – is a gobsmacking and noteworthy effort.
Stocking Up
Posted: Mon 21 March, 2016 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Getting Organised, Introspective, Rebuilding, Thoughts 1 Comment »Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed that I now have more back-up supplies of the stuff I use a lot of. This is mainly kitchen things – food, and household stuff – but it’s still interesting to me that it’s a behaviour/preference that has developed post-bankruptcy.
It’s not hoarding, by any means – it’s more that I find I want to have back-up items, so I’m never likely to run out.
I suspect a lot of it is still in the “what if everything went tits-up tomorrow” mindset, which I do find is also more prevalent in me than it used to be. Which is odd, as this current situation is about the best I’ve been in for a very long time. That probably makes sense though, in the context of those wonderful words of wisdom – “This too shall pass“. (It’s an all-purpose aphorism, good for hope in times of need, and a reminder of drought in times of plenty, and has been one of my favourites over the years)
I’ve no idea whether this preference for back-up supplies will fade out again or not – it’ll probably depend on how things go over the rest of this year, but equally I have no problem with it if it does stay around, and allows me to have just that extra little safety buffer.
Doing Nothing
Posted: Sun 20 March, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health, House Work, Introspective, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This weekend was the closest I’ve come in a long time to doing nothing – it’s something I am *really* bad at, which I’m coming to terms with.
I try and keep busy on weekends, go out and do stuff, get things done, and that suits me. But I still get to the point (like recently) where I’ve been constantly busy and occupied for so damn long, it feels like I’m completely burned out and I need that down-time, a weekend or two where I don’t do much.
As has been observed before, I’ve been pretty much booked solid since about October, so I really needed a quiet time where I vegetated a bit, caught up on some of the more domestic things, and generally did a bit of recuperation. And that was the plan this weekend – I had some stuff I wanted to do (buying the trees, seeing a film, organising house stuff, ironing etc.) but the rest was meant to be downtime.
That plan was successful, I can’t deny. I did get all the planned stuff done, and I used a lot of downtime.
But it gets to now, 10pmish on Sunday, and I feel kind of guilty, kind of lazy. I know it’s been needed, and I mainly feel better for having not done much – but simultaneously, I feel like it’s been a bit of a waste.
It’s safe to say, I think, that I am phenomenally bad at doing nothing…
More New Greenery
Posted: Sat 19 March, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, House Work, Shopping Leave a comment »Having sorted out some new pots and plants earlier this week, I’d been thinking about a couple of small trees to put in Big Pots, which should finish things off nicely.
Today, I got some – two ‘patio apple’ trees and pots for them to go in. They’ve been outside all the time anyway, so they’re now planted out and situated where I want them to be.
I’m done for now with plants, I think. I do want to find a more comfortable table and chair(s) next, although that can wait a while ’til I see what there is that I like. I’m not in a hurry – I’ve a chair that’s serviceable, but I do want to find something better. I just have to know it’s better before I buy it…
Seasonal Transitional
Posted: Fri 18 March, 2016 Filed under: Change, Depression, Domestic, Fog, Introspective, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »This time of year is hard for me. A lot of it is related to the change of the seasons, the transition between winter and spring/summer, the weather, and the resultant effect on my depression.
It’s weird, really. Through the winter, I expect the grey days and the lack of sunlight – it’s par for the course, and I’m used to handling it, fighting against depression and not wanting to go out. I get as much daylight as possible – currently helped by my office facing big windows, which maximises things, and walking at lunchtime – and basically just get through Winter the best I can.
Come spring though, things change. Days get longer, we have more hours of sunlight, and I know that the easier time is coming – but it’s not here yet. I’m tired from having kept the depression at bay all winter, and it hits me harder now as a result. I just don’t have the energy by now to keep on fighting with it. It’s the time when I completely lack motivation, and could happily stay in bed a lot longer, not wanting to get up.
I still do get up, and get things done. I make plans – not always conscious plans, but because I’m aware of the upcoming Glums, I make plans ahead of time, sometimes without realising just why I’m making them for that time. I still do stuff, and get on with it. But it’s definitely a lot harder than usual (as the actress said to the bishop) and a rough period.
It’s not helped by being (or at least feeling) greyer than usual. Yes, it’s getting light – but the last couple of weeks, it’s just been bright grey, with fairly thick mists and fogs most mornings. Again, a facet of the season, but one I find particularly tough to deal with. I’m OK with it being dark when I get up, I’m better with it being light and sunny when I get up. But this grey crap in between the two is just draining.
I’ll be OK. I’m used to this crap, and I can generally deal with it. I’m affected by it, but I won’t admit defeat to it.
Given a couple of weeks – usually once the clocks go forward at the end of the month – things will start to come back. But March is just a bit cruddy, with drained energy levels, and more blah than usual as a result.
New Greenery
Posted: Wed 16 March, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work 2 Comments »Last summer, I spent some time and money on my house, even though it’s a rented place. Nothing permanent, just some flooring/decking out in the back yard, repainting the wooden fences, and some plants in pots. It was a successful plan, and it looks much better now than it did before.
Over the winter, it’s all been a bit bare, and I’ve been thinking about what to do next with it all.
Today, I left work earlier than usual and went to get some new stuff, more planters and plants, that kind of thing. Some summer and autumn bulbs, a climbing jasmine, clematis, and some other bits.
Once I got home, I got it all planted up and watered, so we’ll see how it all works out. I’m still planning to get some more bits, and repaint the wooden fences again (hopefully with less marks and blobs this time) so it looks better.
As before, it’s all movable – well, except for the painted woodwork, of course. Whether I do move it or not (as and when I move) is a different decision – the plants and pots could easily go, the yard tiling/decking is really only fit for the current yard, so it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
In the meantime, though, the aim – assuming a decent spring and summer – will be to have an open space that’s actually usable and comfortable. Hopefully the stuff I’ve now got there is the groundwork for having that this year.
Desserts
Posted: Mon 14 March, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Brands, Daft Products, Domestic, Marketing, Thoughts Leave a comment »Another ‘Daft Product‘…
I love the idea of a set of dessert mousses, and have a company called Hipper to produce them.
And then, you can have the advertising slogan “Have a Pot o’ Hipper Mousse”.
Yes, I really do need to get out more…
Little Victories
Posted: Sun 13 March, 2016 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding Leave a comment »Back in December, I discovered that three companies had been mis-reporting things on my credit-score – reporting finances/loans/debts that had been included in the bankruptcy as still being ‘in default’ (i.e. not paid) every month since. As a result, I wrote to all three, asking them to correct the information and sort things out.
One company- one at the allegedly ‘bad end’ of the finance industry – came back to me on the same day, agreeing that they’d got it wrong, and correcting things all the way back to 2012, the time of the bankruptcy. Happy day.
The other two – supposedly more ‘responsible’ and ‘professional’ organisations – have dawdled and faffed about with it. They’ve both failed to live up to their own complaints procedures and timescales, and generally just taken their time to get things sorted.
In the end it’s taken extra hassles, extra letters and calls, and mentions of going to the Financial Ombudsman, the Information Commissioner (for dodgy reporting of information) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) And that’s the ‘professional’ companies, don’t forget.
But it’s all sorted now – my latest credit report shows that they’re now all reporting the accounts as closed/satisfied (which’ll do) but it’s taken three months to get it done.
The fix to the scores isn’t immediate – but as these things go further back in time, they fade in importance on the scores, and that will start to improve properly now. It’s been a pain in the arse to get sorted, but it’s done now, and that counts as a little victory, another improvement in the long path. And it’ll do for now.
Motoring Music
Posted: Fri 11 March, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Brands, Daft Products, Domestic, Marketing, Thoughts Leave a comment »Another for the ‘Daft Products’ thread…
How come Audi have never come up with the brand “O” for their car stereos?
It seems like a no-brainer to me, to be able to say “Car music provided by AudiO”, and the “AudiO Speakers” etc. etc.
Possessive
Posted: Tue 8 March, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, People, Weirdness Leave a comment »Round where I live, we have a block of six houses and another set of houses behind it, all of which are served by the same access road.
It sounds a bit mad, but most of the time it’s fine.
Our block all use a set of communal bins, as no one house has the space for their own set of bins. Which is fine. I’m usually the one to put those bins out for collection, and someone else usually brings them in. The houses behind all have their own bins, and put them out individually, but they’re all in the same area for collection.
Over the last two weeks, there’s been a spare bin floating around. The communal bin area has its full complement, so it’s obviously one from one of the other houses – or it should be. However, the bin has a number on it, which isn’t the number relating to one of the houses.
So, weirdly, there’s been one house at the back that hasn’t had a recycling bin for the last two weeks – I assume because it wasn’t “theirs”, as it had a different house number on. This is particularly barking – as was the fact that they kept on then moving the bin into the (very tight) alleyway to the communal bins, and just leaving it there, like ‘out of sight, out of mind’. (Which is OK, except that alleyway is also our escape route in case of problems etc.)
All I can assume is that whoever brought the communal bins in (and they’re all just green plastic, remember) took in one from the houses behind, and left out one of ‘our’ bins as it wouldn’t fit. And then some fuckknuckle wouldn’t take in the ‘wrong’ bin, but didn’t want it cluttering up either, so kept on ‘hiding’ it in our alleyway.
I truly don’t get the whole thing of being possessive about one’s bins. They’re bins, for fuck’s sake. We’re not paying for the bins themselves, they’re not ‘owned’ (regardless of house numbers being painted on etc.) I certainly don’t get why you’d deprive yourself of a bin because of that reasoning…
Daft Products 1
Posted: Mon 7 March, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Brands, Daft Products, Domestic, Marketing, Thoughts Leave a comment »Occasionally, my idiot brain will spark up with ideas about products, brand names, advertising slogans and the like – I don’t know why, but they occur. Until now though, I’ve never bothered to write them down – mainly because a lot are daft.
However, it does occur to me that it might be an idea (if only to provide evidence of who thought of this crap first) to write them down for reference, and give them a category of their own. And here it is…
So. The first one – and one that I don’t understand why it’s never been done – is for toothpaste.
Tuba Toothpaste, to be precise.
Think about it – it seems so obvious, yet it’s never been done. I wonder why?
Leap Day
Posted: Mon 29 February, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School Leave a comment »It’s February 29th, Leap Day
Only four years ’til the next one…
Gameshows
Posted: Tue 23 February, 2016 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, General, People, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »I think one of the most depressing jobs currently has to be that of a gameshow host on some of the afternoon and evening quiz shows. Quite how they manage to listen to people getting basic stuff wrong without slamming their heads into the desks, or making comments along the lines of “How the fuck do you not know that?!?”
For me, the real trigger points are where it’s a question about (usually) books – although several other subjects get the same kind of responses – and the competitor says “Oh, I’m not really a reading person”. Rage ensues.
Please note, I’m not saying that reading should appeal to everyone, I get that there’s umpteen reasons why people don’t read as much. That’s fine. But still – and maybe it’s me being unrealistic – I kind of expect/hope that people would at least know that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth and Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. You don’t have to have read them to know at least the basics about authors of classics, surely? (After all, I haven’t read either of those, but still know who wrote what)
I think it’s perhaps that the ‘general knowledge’ of a lot of the competitors is really quite focused, that there’s huge gaps in what they know. (And again, yeah yeah, everyone’s different, etc. etc.) In most rounds – hell, even some of the less-specialist sport ones – I can get a number of correct answers. OK, I’m lucky enough to be a complete bobble-hat with a decent memory – but I don’t believe I’m that exceptional.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this (you may have guessed) but it’s just something that’s been rattling round my head and annoying me for a fair while.
Ridiculously Organised
Posted: Fri 19 February, 2016 Filed under: Cinema, Day Trips, Domestic, Films, Geeky, Getting Organised, London, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »So far, this year has been pretty non-stop with travel, visits, concerts and idiot day-trips (mainly to see concerts) and I’ve kept on saying that I must calm things down a bit, build in some time for myself and so on.
And I’m trying to, I really am.
But then cool stuff comes up that I want to go to – which means I now have plans all the way through this year. Not every weekend, or anything similar – but there’s already stuff planned right the way through to December.
The latest one, last night, was finding out that the Royal Albert Hall is doing a showing of Aliens – with the soundtrack performed by a full orchestra, as a celebration of the 30th anniversary of its release. Even more fortuitously, it’s on the weekend of my birthday. Oh, I am so there.
And so yes, tickets are booked for it. I’d already got stuff booked in for December as well, so as it turns out, November was the only month this year without something already booked in.
Now my main challenge will be to not book up the rest of the year, and suddenly realise I’ve had ridiculously few ‘downtime’ weekends. Again.
150,000
Posted: Thu 18 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »Last night, during another daft day-trip drive, the Saab went over the 150,000 mile mark, just over three years since I bought it.
At that time, it had 74,000 miles on it, so I’ve doubled its mileage in three years. And one full year of that has been on much shorter commutes than usual, so it’s quite impressive all round.
Of course, I’ve been doing more daft long journeys and day-trips, which helps add the mileage on.
As I’ve written before, it’s been more annoying and a bit less reliable over the last six weeks or so (and how the hell are we only six weeks into 2016? I’ve done so much, I can’t believe it’s fitted into six weeks!) but hopefully all is now back to normal.
The problems have all been related – from the look of it, at least – to the turbo, and thus to the replacement turbo I had last year. I suspect that having a new and fully-working fresh turbo has perhaps added more pressure than the old (original) pipes and hoses can handle, so they’ve split or leaked, which has led to the issues.
Anyway, that’s another milestone achieved by the Saab. I hope we’ll get to the next one, whatever that may be…
VD
Posted: Sun 14 February, 2016 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Valentine's Day Leave a comment »Yet again, it’s Valentine’s Day.
And verily, I say to thee, Bah Humbug.
I know that’s not seasonally apt, but there’s no equivalent for Feb 14th. So Bah Humbug will just have to suffice.
Suitable Vehicles
Posted: Sat 13 February, 2016 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »At the moment, while my general commute is pretty short, I still see a lot of drivers, cars and idiots. As regular readers know, driving makes me think, so here’s the latest one…
Why do so many people buy unsuitable cars?
For example, what’s the point of buying high-end ‘performance’ cars, if you’re then going to drive them like an arthritic granny? It’s something I see every day, people with high-end hot-hatch and performance cars, lumped in the outside lane, and not even driving at the speed limit, let alone over it. Last night’s was a huge BMW X5 Mpower, pootling along, not making progress and generally just getting in the way.
The same applies with vehicles that are too big for the driver, or that the driver simply can’t handle/drive. When I’m at home and the school run kicks in, there’s any number of chelsea tractors that can’t fit down the road to the school itself – and if they can get down, it becomes an incredible palaver to turn the sodding things round, or park them up.
I just don’t get the point of having vehicles like that – but maybe I’m missing something.
Blistered
Posted: Fri 12 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Health, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This week, I went to a restaurant that insisted on a certain level of dress-code. Nothing too epic, thankfully, but it turned out my standard footwear (Cat boots) wouldn’t have been allowed in, so I needed to buy some new dress shoes, or at least thin-soled ‘smart’ shoes.
It was semi-short notice, so I didn’t have the chance to wear them in properly – and I knew it would cause issues.
I managed to plan most of it so I didn’t have to walk as far as I normally would’ve done (had I been allowed to wear my normal, comfortable shoes) and I’m glad I did, because I still ended up with a sod-load of blisters along the way.
Weirdly, both my little toes ended up blistered, and I’m really not sure how that happened. The worst one is on one heel, about the size of a 50p piece. On that one, thank God for Compeed – their blister plasters are creepy as chuff, but bloody hell, do they work.
I know they’ll all heal up this week – it’s just a massive pain in the tits while they’re around. Such is life.
(And no, the meal wasn’t really worth the hassle of new shoes and blistered feet. Sad, but true – it was good, but not brilliant, which is galling when it’s a place that’s so highly rated all round)
Stars
Posted: Fri 12 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, Geeky, Getting Organised, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Last year, I started a project to get used to going out for restaurant meals on my own – something that had always been a bit of a “thing” in my mind. Some people don’t like going to the cinema alone, or to pubs.
Part of it became a plan to do more “high-end” eating – if I’m going to eat solo, I might as well make it decent stuff – as well as the usual things, and as a result I ended up eating in a few Michelin-starred places which I really enjoyed. (Far more than I did my previous experience with Michelin-starred places)
I’m keeping up that aim this year, with a vague plan of trying a wide range over the year, and aiming to ‘collect’ a star a month. (Not necessarily at a place each month, but at least averaging it out to one star per month)
So far this year I’ve eaten in a one-star place and a three – with a two lined up for the coming month. From there, I’ve got a couple of others booked up already, and we’ll see how things go from there.
I don’t only eat in Michelin places, by any stretch of the imagination. My tastes are varied – I’m still amused by the Scotland trip I did last year, where I ate in a Michelin-starred place on the Saturday, and a daggy little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place on the Sunday – and I never want to end up the kind of up-myself twerd who’ll only eat at high-end places. This is just a silly side-project that’s also a lot of fun, and is eminently doable. I get to experience a lot of new stuff, seeing what’s good and what isn’t.
I can’t deny, I’m fascinated by the whole thing – the levels of food, the differences (or lack thereof) between places with one, two and three stars, the differences between places with stars and those that haven’t, and the whole experience of the thing. But mainly, it’s fun – and if I’m going to have a ‘sin’, a money-drain or whatever, it’s going to be this one.
Healthy Car
Posted: Sat 6 February, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the car’s various issues over the last month, it now appears (touch wood) to be all sorted.
However, it means that in the last month it’s had
- MOT (Passed with no problem)
- Two separate broken pipes to the turbo, on different occasions – but weirdly, at the exact same location. (i.e. while driving, both times the engine management light came on at the same junction)
- 150,000 mile service, which included a couple of other small fixes too
Thankfully, it’s not been massively expensive, and the fixes have been small ones. But still, it would’ve been a nicer/easier month without having to do them. (as well as the hire of replacement cars while it was being unreliable) Such is life.
There’s one more bit that needs doing, which is booked in for a couple of weeks time (a bit annoying, as I thought they were doing it at the same time as the service, but such is life) but for now it seems like all’s well again.
Since the main bits of work, it’s had another 1,000 miles added on, so it all feels like it’s settled in again. But as always, time will tell.
Missing Letters
Posted: Wed 3 February, 2016 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Way back in early December, I posted a couple of letters, both by Royal Mail Special Delivery – a service that tracks the letter, requires a signature on delivery, and is guaranteed to be delivered the next working day by 1pm.
In my case, one letter arrived, and the other didn’t.
After a week, I raised this with Royal Mail through Twitter, and they were… pretty slack, to be fair. The letter had disappeared into the system, they needed to investigate, blah blah. At no point did the words “sorry” pass their (online) lips.
Another week or so passed, and they came back with “we can’t find it, can’t you check with the recipients whether they’ve received it or not“. Which is taking the piss, as that was the entire reason for sending the sodding thing by Special Delivery in the first place. And still, no sorry.
I ended up having to file a compensation claim with Royal Mail – again, the person who paid for the service has to jump through all the hoops, fill in the forms and so on – and wait even more. Still no “sorry”.
I finally got the response today to that compensation claim. They’ve taken six weeks to acknowledge that this “guaranteed service” isn’t, has failed, and I’ve finally got my money back.
The kicker, in my opinion, is that in that letter they say…
“If you need to cover yourself against this in future, I suggest you send items by Special Delivery “Guaranteed”
So the fucking clowns recommend I use the service that lost this letter in the first place – because it’s better. What the fuck?
All told, the customer-service experience of this process has been abysmal.
- It’s taken nearly two months to get this sorted
- Once we were past that ‘guaranteed delivery’ timeline, it should’ve been an automatic process to say “Yep, we fucked up, here’s your money back”
- If you can’t guarantee delivery, don’t guarantee delivery.
- If you don’t trust your own tracking systems and still require ‘proof’ that the item was posted into the system, you’re doing it wrong
February
Posted: Mon 1 February, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Marketing, Valentine's Day Leave a comment »And lo, already we’re a month through 2016. How time flies when you’re having fun, and all that rot.
Of course, with it being February we’re now going to be pummeled for the next couple of weeks about all the romantic shite you can do on the 14th – and on no other day, according to marketing twerds – and all that gubbins.
I’m still really tempted to book a table for a meal, and then go on my own, looking really sad as if I’ve been dumped or the other person hasn’t made it, and just generally messing with the whole thing for everyone around me…
Car Health – Hopefully Sorted
Posted: Wed 27 January, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Another day, another visit to the garage.
Having been repaired last week during the MOT, the same issue (or at least what appeared to be the same issue) recurred on Friday. Annoying, to say the least.
With everything else that was going on, the car didn’t get to revisit the garage again ’til yesterday (Tuesday) for them to find out what the problem was this time.
It turns out to have been *another* pipe to the turbo inlets that had perished and snapped. So – a similar issue, but not the same one, even though it presented in precisely the same way. (And bizarrely, occurred at precisely the same place)
Thankfully, both issues have been resolved quickly, easily and fairly cheaply. All the same, I’m hoping that there won’t be any more for a while.
In a ‘tempting fate’ moment, I took the hire car back today, and I’ll use the Saab for tomorrow Manchester run. If it fails me on that run, then I think I’ll be starting to look for a new vehicle before very long at all.
Desperate and Gullible
Posted: Tue 26 January, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Marketing, News, People, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »It was interesting yesterday to see the BBC’s piece about the growing prevalence of ‘online rental fraud’ – basically, where a fraudster/criminal advertises a rental property for a great price, and people then pay a deposit for it without ever seeing the property – because it’s a great price in a sought-after area.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Yep – the fraudster doesn’t own the property, doesn’t represent the agents, and has no real connection to it at all. They’ve just grabbed photos, submitted the ad, and then people pay the ‘deposit’ into an account named by the fraudster.
Now, while I think it’s pretty scummy, I can’t help but also see it as more of an idiot tax. You’ve got to be pretty desperate – and pretty fucking dim – to put down money without seeing the place you’re renting, particularly without ever meeting an agent/agency/landlord etc. I know that these people are good at getting people to believe they’re valid, and that there’s this urgency – but really, it’s still taking advantage of people too dumb to look at a deal and think “what’s wrong with this picture?”
Maybe that’s harsh. Maybe not. For me, it’s hard to feel real sympathy for someone who just leaves themselves open to this sort of shit. Take a look at what one victim says in the article…
[He] said: “I was willing to take the flat without a viewing based on the location, just on the price of it.
[I felt] anger, disgust, I was really disappointed. I was thinking, ‘Wow I’ve spent money I couldn’t afford and what’s happening to me right now? I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up’.'”
I think the worst part, probably, is that now it’s been mentioned by BBC and on TV, it’s something that other scammers will look at and thing “Oooh, that’s a good idea”, so it’ll become even more prevalent…
Final High-Mileage Weekend
Posted: Sun 24 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Gigs, London, M1, Travel Leave a comment »As per previous posts, January has been a busy month, with a fair amount of travelling every weekend. That’s not a complaint – hell, I kind of planned it that way (well, events combined to make it all into busy weekends, but I allowed it to happen, so yeah, that qualifies as planned) but it’s definitely been busy.
This weekend was the last weekend of high mileage for a couple of weeks. (The week itself is another matter, but we’ll gloss over that for now)
Yesterday, I took my dad in to London to see Billy Connolly at the Hammersmith Apollo – and it was a really good day. We got in to Hammersmith really easily (despite a large number of tosspot drivers etc.) and parked, had food, and enjoyed the show. (I’ll write more about the show itself later in the week) Once that was done, got dad back home, and drove home myself. As usual, getting back around 2am. (I don’t know how that’s been so consistent over the month, but it really has)
Today was a far dafter plan, involving a blast up to the outskirts of Manchester and back. Basically, I’m up there on Thursday for a concert that I’m going to with two friends, and it’s been spiking my brain that the tickets are with me, and I don’t want them to miss out on the concert if there’s problems on the M1 for me on Thursday.
So I took the opportunity today to blast up there, drop their tickets off, and come back. It means that whatever happens, everyone’s happy – I’ve got my ticket, they’ve got theirs, and we don’t have to go through hordes of organisational stuff for meeting up, getting everything sorted, and that if anyone’s transport screws up, it doesn’t fuck things up for everyone.
All told, it’s been the best part of 600 miles this weekend.
I must be a complete barmpot…
Car Health – Back On Blocks
Posted: Fri 22 January, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised Leave a comment »I spoke too soon – when I took the Saab out this morning, the exact same problem occurred as had been ‘fixed’ yesterday.
Safe to say, I am unamused – and the garage are aware of this unamusement.
It goes back in on Tuesday, as I haven’t got the time to sort it before then, due to travelling. It’s a good job I kept my booking for a hire car for this weekend’s idiocy…
Car Health – All OK
Posted: Thu 21 January, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »The car, it turns out, was fine. The problem was that the hose(s) to the turbo had perished, and were leaking, which was roughly what I’d thought was happening.
So, that’s been fixed, and the MOT has been passed with flying colours. A couple of advisories that I’ll address in the next month, but really, all good.
This has made me much happier than I’ve been the rest of the week – while I may have been ‘pretty sure’ of what the issue was, I don’t have the confidence in my own technical knowledge to be 100% certain. Knowing that it actually was a minor thing is a weight off my mind.
All good – onwards and upwards, mes amis!
Car Health
Posted: Wed 20 January, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised 2 Comments »Last week, my car started playing up – not enough to be serious, but enough that I wasn’t entirely confident in it while I was ferrying others late at night and so on. As a result, I hired a car for the weekend, and as it turns out, I’m glad I did.
Having returned the hire car on Monday, I went out in mine to get some stuff done, and while doing that, the engine management light came on. The performance is still OK on it, and it got me home etc., but still, it’s not something I take lightly.
As things worked out, it’s due for – and booked in for – the MOT test on Thursday anyway, so I’ve let the garage know about the extra issue, and I’ll see what they say.
I’m hoping it’s nothing major, that it’ll be a quick, easy (and generally cheap) fix – but I’m hedging my bets right now, and preparing for the worst. I’ve got another car booked for next week, as I’m doing a bundle of miles and travel, and that’ll give me time to sort out whether I get the car fixed or replaced.
Health Check
Posted: Tue 19 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »A couple of weeks ago, I got a letter from my local GP, asking me to go in for an “NHS Health Check”. It was a bit annoying, as the accompanying leaflet said that my surgery ‘needed to update their records as I hadn’t been in for so long’ and so on. Considering I was in there for a check in November 2014, that was kind of worrying – implying that my records weren’t up to date and so on.
Anyway, they then called me up to chase getting an appointment, and today I went in. It wasn’t anything special, but still, always good to know what’s going on.
It turns out that what they meant was that this Health Check thing needs records less than three months old – which is understandable, things can change in that time. But it would’ve been good if their own bumf had actually said so, rather than implying that the record-keeping at the surgery was bad.
Still, onwards and upwards.
The Health Check is basically a quick check of the key figures: weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and the like, as well as various health factors (smoking, drinking, activity etc.) and comes out with a ‘risk’ factor at the end of it.
All told, the figures came out pretty well :
- blood pressure was fine at 130/80,
- blood sugar was fine – although I can’t remember the exact figure, it was well within acceptable limits
- cholesterol came in at 4.5 (anything under 5 is regarded as ‘good’) with ‘good’ cholesterol of 1.8
- weight is still ‘too high’, but has kept on coming down, so *shrug*
The final “risk factor” figure was 4 – which supposedly means I have a 4% risk of suffering a heart attack in the next ten years. They’re happy with anything under 10, so I shouldn’t need to darken the surgery’s door on that score for a while.
Obviously I’m going to keep on working on losing weight, and being healthier/fitter, but having a quick summary like that is good for pointing out that I’m not doing too bad, and could be doing one hell of a lot worse than I am. I can live with that, to be fair.
Barbican, Rollins and Mileage
Posted: Sun 17 January, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, Getting Organised, Gigs, London, M1, M25, Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday was another Rollins gig, this time at the Barbican in London.
It was a bit more complicated than last week’s gig in Bristol, as it involved collecting another friend of mine from over by Oxford, then getting a train to London, across to Barbican, getting food, going to the gig, and then a similar journey for the return.
All told though, it went really smoothly. I’d booked pretty much everything in advance, including the train tickets and reserving a table at the restaurant of choice, so it was as organised as humanly possible.
The restaurant in particular was a real success – the Jugged Hare, just round the corner from the Barbican itself. I’d seen it before, but never eaten there, so went for it when the chance came up, and booked for their pre-theatre menu. I am truly glad I did. They specialise in game of all sorts – it’s definitely not a great place for vegetarians! – but there’s enough variety in the menu, if game isn’t your thing.
To be fair, there is a vegetarian option on the menu – well, it says “Vegetarian – £14”, so it could be a fillet of vegetarian, for all I know.
The three-course meal was great – particularly the venison haunch, and their sticky toffee pudding was amazing. (as was the accompanying mince-pie ice cream, which has to be tasted to be believed) Knowing how easy it is for me to drive to Barbican in general, I will be returning. Several times.
The gig itself was great – Rollins spoke for three full hours, with no breaks. The show was about 50% the same as the one I saw last week in Bath, but I can live with that – it’s better than being entirely the same!
The journey home was OK – getting the trains back went smoothly, and then a drive through snow to drop off friend, and then another hour and a bit on motorways in heavy snow (though thankfully not settling) to get home, which happened just after 2am.
So a long day, but an entirely worthwhile one…
Writing More
Posted: Sat 16 January, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Write More, Writing Leave a comment »This year, I’m trying to write more – both here (which so far seems to be pretty successful) and also to get more fiction stuff done as well.
Here on D4D I’m aiming for at least a couple of posts per week, getting back into the swing of things. I don’t know that I’ll ever go back to the daily (and multiple-times-a-day) updates of a few years back, just because I’ve changed, life’s changed, and I just haven’t felt the need to update this stuff as often anyway.
On the fiction side, I’m hoping to write a short piece a week – short-story level, maybe a thousand words at a time, and see how things go. If it all clings together into something more, then even better.
There’s also the chance of writing something bigger, but I’m not going to guarantee anything on that one so far.
We’ll see what happens – but for now, at least it’s starting off pretty well.
Booking Breaks
Posted: Wed 13 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Having realised that I managed (yet again) to work all of last year without a proper break, I’m working on booking some time out this year. Taking a lesson from Herself’s methods from years back, if I book them now (or at least soon) then they’re a fait accompli, so I can present them to any new contract as “already booked”.
The first one is booked now. It’s ‘just’ a long weekend away at the end of February, sharing a holiday cottage with another friend and her dog, but at least it’s a break.
From there I’ll see how we go, but right now I’m definitely planning on a couple more breaks during 2016 as well – including, potentially, an Arvon break if I can find the right one. It all depends on what’s available, and what I fancy doing, really. But breaks are definitely on the agenda.
That’s got to be progress, I’m sure.
Mad Month
Posted: Sun 10 January, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Gigs, Music, Travel Leave a comment »January is… turning out to be pretty busy
This weekend I’m off to Bristol, seeing Henry Rollins do one of his spoken-word gigs.
Next weekend I’m off to London, seeing Henry Rollins do one of his spoken-word gigs. (Yep, seeing him twice in a week – albeit with different friends for each gig)
Then I’ve got Billy Connolly at the Hammersmith Apollo the weekend after.
And then mid-week I’ve got Massive Attack in Manchester (on a Thursday, for fuck’s sake – who does gigs on Thursdays?!?) and then in London the Wednesday after that.
I must be bloody barmy…
Run Down
Posted: Fri 8 January, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Health, Single Life 1 Comment »The first week of 2016 has been quiet round here, mainly because my health took a bit of a kicking.
Over the Festering Season I’d developed a cough/cold that was annoying and persistent, but was fading out as we went into the New Year.
Then this week, it looks (on current evidence) like I got a dose of food poisoning from the meal on New Years’ Eve. Nothing major, but enough to debilitate, with a reduced level of sleep (and when you sleep as badly as I do, that’s relevant) and knock-on effects.
The food poisoning has been reported back to the restaurant, by the way, and we’re going through that process.
That’s pretty much gone now, thankfully.
What I’m left with is another vile hacking cough/cold – which I’m keeping an eye on, to make sure it doesn’t turn nasty and infected, as some of them do with me – and just feeling ropy, with weird aches and twinges elsewhere.
None of it’s serious, none of it has stopped me from working. It’s all just a bit annoying.
Still, onwards and upwards, and all that rot.
Cat Base
Posted: Tue 5 January, 2016 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Three years ago, soon after I moved in here, I got the cats a big base thing, which they turned out to love.
It’s done well in that time, but obviously it’s three years old, so I made the decision to get a new one.
In recognition of the Bengal’s intolerance for change, I was lucky enough to find the same base again, and got it delivered.
It’s all installed now, and the monsters seem to be settling in to using it, even though it obviously all smells different and new and Not Catty.
But my God, the old one was vile – you don’t realise as it’s there day to day, but yeah, dismantling it I got covered in old fur and scabby stuff.
Mind you, if the new one lasts three years too, I’ll be happy.
New Year, Same Ads
Posted: Sat 2 January, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Festering Season Leave a comment »
As always, now we’re out of the Festering Season, the TV is full of ads for holidays, sales, weight-loss and stopping smoking.
Regardless, I’m just happy it’s over once more, and some semblance of normality can return.
I haven’t yet seen any full-size Easter eggs in the shops – although I have seen Creme eggs and Mini Eggs – but I bet they’re on sale already.
Driving Home
Posted: Fri 1 January, 2016 Filed under: A428, Domestic, Driving, People, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »As regular readers know, I’m not much for New Year, and certainly don’t celebrate it in the way so many seem to.
However, last year and this, one of the restaurants in Cambridge has offered up a great New Year’s Eve menu, which I’ve taken advantage of.
However, even then I don’t hang around for midnight – I’m heading home by then.
Last night that’s exactly what happened – I was on the road by about 11.30, and that was fine with me.
It’s interesting, actually. Firstly, that so many people seem incapable of telling time (there were fireworks going off from 11:45) but just how quiet the roads actually were. From about 11:45, I hardly saw another vehicle – it was like driving through a ghostland, I assume because pretty much everyone (except antisocial idiots like me) wants to see the New Year in with friends and family, rather than on the road.
Anyway, it was a nice way to do it (by my standards, anyway) and as midnight clicked, it was nice to see the sky being filled with fireworks as I drove through the darkness.
All told, a good start to the new year…
Into 2016
Posted: Fri 1 January, 2016 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 1 Comment »So here we are, another new year.
As usual, I’m not making any real resolutions – although I do have some plans and ideas, which I’ve been writing down and putting into lists over the last week or so, in order to get it all sorted in my head.
The main thing for me for this year is to continue with the progress that got made in 2015. That’s the main goal – to leave 2016 in a better state than I’ve come into it, and to keep building.
Too Much Thinking
Posted: Thu 31 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Films, Thoughts, Weirdness, Writing Leave a comment »Over the Festering Season, I watched (yet again) Die Hard. I still like it as a film, even though it is barmy.
But something occurred to me this time that hadn’t before. And that’s this…
Hans Gruber’s plan is absolutely reliant on the FBI turning off the power for the Nakatomi Plaza, in order to get through the final lock.
The FBI are there only because John McClane has called the police, and everything has escalated from that point.
So…
What would the plan have been, if the entire takedown of the Nakatomi Building had worked perfectly? No word out, no hostage situation, nothing – so the police and FBI would’ve known nothing at all.
How would that’ve worked, without that reliance on their plan being messed up, and a rogue operative like John McClane being able to call the police and inform them of the situation?
And yes, I know, I think about this kind of thing way too much. I can’t help myself.
Table for One
Posted: Wed 30 December, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Introspective, Self-Doubt, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts Leave a comment »This year, I’ve had a plan about going out and eating in restaurants on my own. It was a project for the year – and it’s been quite successful.
I’ve always had an insecurity about eating alone in restaurants – some people are like it about going to the cinema alone, or to the pub on their own. For me, it was restaurants.
But I’m really bad at having insecurities like that, and tend to face them head on. So I challenged myself to do more of it, to get comfortable (or at least familiar) with walking into places and just getting a table for one.
I started the year the way I wanted to go on, with New Years Eve in Cambridge as a single. It was a menu I wanted to try, so why not?
There’s been plenty of other places along the way – standard pubs etc., burger-based restaurants (no, not Mcdonalds!) and proper places, as well as Michelin-starred ones. It’s been a varied old year, and I’ve done a lot of solo dining.
It’s been a successful project, I think. It’s still not something I like doing, asking for a table for one, but it doesn’t worry me anywhere near as much, so that makes it a success.
I’ll carry on into 2016 with the same thing – there’s places already booked that I’m really looking forward to, and I’m sure there’ll be many others on a more randomised basis.
Home Security
Posted: Tue 29 December, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Security, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of years, I’ve walked round the village fairly frequently, just for extra exercise (and also, you know, why not?)
Over the last couple of days (the days between Christmas and New Year, which I saw someone call “the festive perineum”, which amused me more than it should have) while doing that route, it’s made me think about just how easy people make it for potential burglars, just by advertising that they’re not home.
No lights, curtains open, even stuff left outside the door. It’s really quite gobsmacking.
After all, it’s not like time-switches are rare (or expensive) – they’re the easiest thing to use to at least make a house look occupied. Yet even that simple thing seems to be beyond so many people. I (kind of) get it, if you’re in 355 nights out of the year or whatever, that it might not be something you bother with. But it’s not like the Festering Season comes as a surprise – and if you know you’re going to be away, why not spend a tenner and at least get a couple of timeswitches so you can put on a radio/TV and a light?
Maybe (hopefully) these people have never had a break-in, have never known that icky feeling that someone else – someone uninvited – has been in your home, has gone through your things. Let alone that that person has then taken some of those things, and you have to figure out just what has gone. I hope that’s the case, but it’s still no excuse for being complacent about it (in my opinion) and leaving oneself open to the chance of that happening.
It’s no excuse for complacency, but then, people so rarely seem to need an excuse to think “It’ll never happen to me”. Until it does – and then it’ll be everyone else’s fault.
Pushing the Limits
Posted: Mon 28 December, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Food Leave a comment »Over the last year in particular, I’ve been more and more interested in Michelin-starred restaurants, and have been to a few, as well as other high-end places that don’t have stars.
One that fascinates me is The Fat Duck, which re-opened this year after a major refit and refurb. However, regardless of that fascination, there’s no chance I’ll go – primarily because I just think their attitude currently is horrific.
For one thing, you pay upfront – the full price of the food, at the time of booking. And that price is exceptionally hefty – £255 per head, no less. That’s nothing short of obscene – while I’m sure it’s a remarkable one-off experience and rah rah rah, I could go to the three-Michelin-starred Alain Ducasse in London and have the full 10-course tasting menu. Twice.
Bear in mind, currently the Fat Duck has no Michelin stars. That’s worth remembering.
The attitude doesn’t improve when you start to read their terms and conditions, and even more so with their FAQs.
Among those, there’s a number of gems…
- You can’t get a table for one – the smallest is a two. And they won’t change that for anyone.
- You can’t arrive early and have a drink at the bar. There’s no bar. (I get that the place is small, but still)
- There’s no waiting list, or notification if someone cancels. You’ve just go to keep on checking on the website. That’s it.
- If you cancel the reservation and they can’t rebook the table (or if you cancel with less than 28 days to go) you don’t get your money back. Only if they can rebook the table do you get a refund.
- On top of that £255 per head – and a minimum of two people, so we’re already on £510 – they add a ‘discretionary’ 12.5% service charge to the bill. Plus, of course, any extra drinks, wine, etc. Even if you’ve only paid for the food, that’s an extra £63.75. That’s just taking the piss.
And all that, without even a Michelin star to its name. That is one hell of an ego at work.
So no, much as I’d love to go and experience it, the Fat Duck can fuck off.
Cinema Seating
Posted: Sun 27 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Films, People, Seeing Films, Stupidity, Weirdness 2 Comments »This year, my local cinema has started a process where people book specified seats, rather than just “first come, first served seated” I don’t mind it at all, it makes sense and should make life easier for everyone.
Except, well, people.
Every film I’ve gone to see, there’s been a noticeable percentage of the people who either don’t sit in their booked seats (for whatever reason) or just seem to be confused by the whole concept of how the seats are organised into rows.
It’s a simple process – or is to me, anyway. If you stand at the front, with your back to the screen, the seats go from row A at the front to row Z (or whatever) at the back, and from 1 on the left to 100 on the right. It’s simple, but it confuses so many people, it’s really quite scary.
Really, is this concept so difficult to comprehend?
D4D Performance
Posted: Fri 25 December, 2015 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised, Technology 1 Comment »This year, D4D’s performance as a site hasn’t been that great. I’d noticed a lot of times when pages timed out, or seemed to get lost along the way, but couldn’t find what was causing it, despite looking hard on several occasions.
Last week, I finally found what the problem was – and it wasn’t in something I’d done, which was nice. More importantly, it also wasn’t something that was showing up in code or settings – because it was a plugin that wasn’t doing what it had been told to, for whatever reason.
I’ve got a security plugin on D4D that’s supposed to take automatic backups, to add some safety and recovery to the site. That was set to take a backup every week, and to only store three backups, then overwriting the oldest.
Except that wasn’t what was happening. Somewhere along the line, something had gone wrong, and it turned out that it was taking a full database backup (with a different filename each time, so no over-writing etc.) every fifteen minutes. Then storing them in a folder that was hidden away in a non-obvious location, with a non-helpful filename.
Even on a server that says it’s got unlimited space, that was taking the piss. It was making the server work extra-hard for no good reason, and causing a whole load of problems.
I finally found it all, and ended up both deleting the old files, as well as killing off the backup task completely. (I’ve written my own automated job now which is working fine, and not causing any problems. The moral of the story? Don’t trust other people’s code.)
Since doing that, I haven’t seen the site crash. I’m hoping that the problems are now fixed, the stability will improve, and that 2016 will be a much better year for D4D™
Fingers crossed.
An Organised Christmas
Posted: Thu 24 December, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Getting Organised, People, Shopping, Shopping Leave a comment »It’s well-known that I’m not the greatest fan of the Festering Season. I do observe it and sort things out for family and closest friends, but still tend to avoid the overboard hysteria of the entire season. There’s a whole number of reasons for being this way, and I can’t be arsed with going into them on this. It’s a subject that’s been pretty much done to death anyway.
This year,the run-up to the Festering Season has all been remarkably organised and gone very smoothly, which is a thing of joy.
Everything possible was done, bought, organised, and (where necessary) posted or delivered a couple of weeks ago. The only thing that remained – albeit in two stages – was food-based, getting the week’s food order in, and then today collecting the final pre-ordered bits, which was all done at Antisocial O’clock this morning, when the roads and shops were still blissfully empty.
I hate food shopping in the week before Christmas – the shops are just full of tosspots going mad because the shops are going to be closed for a whole 30 hours. I never understood why there always seem to be more people at Christmas, all of whom are buying more. Surely if it’s all about entertaining and having guests, there’d be half the number of people but buying twice as much? Only it doesn’t work out that way.
Internet-based shopping (and delivery thereof) has made this whole process as painless as possible. So long as you’re organised, you can book a slot in the week up to Christmas, order everything you know you want, and that’s it. Yes, there’s the slight roulette of out-of-stock items and so on, but that’s more about luck and timing than anything else. In my case, I got the delivery on Monday and everything I’d ordered was in stock and all was easy and fine. Indeed, the worst thing about it was that I had to lock the cats out of the living room while everything was delivered, which disturbed them quite a lot – I don’t think they’d actually realised the door could be closed, let alone be closed with them on The Other Side.
Collecting the final pre-ordered bits today was also painless – in and out, no hassles.
It really is a most civilised way to do things.
Time Commitments
Posted: Wed 23 December, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Every year, there’s a couple of TV programmes I end up committing way too much time to. I do watch/record a number of things, but they’re not what I mean.
In both cases, the series are on every day, which takes time away from doing other stuff. Most of the other things I watch are an hour a week, but when they’re an hour a day it takes away from everything else. And of course it would be a shedload easier if it weren’t the case that both series tend to be on at the same time of year.
This year it’s been two Masterchef programmes – the Australian version, and the one for UK Professionals.
I love the Aussie one – someone else I know described it as “If you want to know everything about Australia in one programme, watch that“, and it’s absolutely true. Totally different to the UK version, much more fun, and a far, far nicer programme. But dear God, it’s a commitment – this most recent series has had no less than 62 programmes. Five days a week, for nearly three months. That’s a long haul.
The UK Professionals one is also interesting, for different reasons. It’s also less of a bind, as it’s only five or six weeks, but still three days a week. I find the different levels of professional cooking etc. to be fascinating, as well as the restaurants, chefs and challenges.
Both programmes have come to a close this week, and while I’m sad that they’ve finished, I can’t help but also think “Yay, I get more time!”
School Internet Tracking
Posted: Tue 22 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Education, News, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »Interesting to see today that there are new proposals to monitor the internet usage of all school pupils, ‘to prevent radicalisation’. (Because yeah, of course that’ll work)
It’s interesting to me, because I’d thought that was in place already – certainly at least twenty years ago, Research Machines did a whole internet-monitoring and dubious-link-blocking system, and I’d kind-of assumed that was the de-facto standard for schools even now. Apparently not.
It was certainly one of the strangest temp/contract jobs I’ve ever had – I worked for RM for three months, and the job description was to spend that time finding dodgy sites, so they could be added to the blacklist, and RM’s firewalls would then block those sites from being seen. So yes, the job was basically to look for porn. It was a challenge, honest. *cough* (Having looked, RM do still do ‘online safety’ stuff for schools, so I wonder why it’s not the standard. Maybe they’re priced themselves out of the market, or there’s just more companies that do it, and their market-share has shrunk. I dunno)
However, I don’t think it’ll be easy to do anything that will block the access now. There are too many routes – and any vaguely tech-savvy child will be able to go outside the school-enforced network on their own devices etc. Sure, you can lock a school-owned device (computer, iPad etc.) to the school network – but you can’t do the same for their own devices. On those, there’s always public wi-fi, and even ‘just’ the usual 3G/4G connection. And whatever internet access is available at home, and anywhere else.
Also, as with so much of this ‘monitoring’ crap, I’m sure it’ll only be of use once something has happened. There’s nothing that can proactively monitor these things, or flag up significant warnings beforehand. All the monitoring can do is provide a record, to say “This is what they looked at before they did something that brought them to our attention”, in true “locking the stable-door once the horse has bolted” style. As usual.
A Christmas Lunch
Posted: Tue 22 December, 2015 Filed under: Festering Season, Work-related Leave a comment »Weirdly, today I’m going to a Christmas Lunch with my current client company. It was completely unexpected – I’ve heard them talking about it on the days I’ve been in their office for the last month, but hadn’t been invited. Fine by me, it’s hardly something I’m going to take offence at.
But last week the boss invited me, and changed my day in the office in order for me to be there. At which point it’s kind of churlish to refuse. (Even by my standards)
So there we go – my fourth work-based Christmas thing ever. At least it’s only a lunch thing.
Solsticial
Posted: Mon 21 December, 2015 Filed under: Depression, Festering Season, Health, SAD, Weather Leave a comment »Happily, today is the Winter Solstice for 2015 – the shortest day, the longest night. (technically it’s tomorrow at 4.20am, but traditionally it’s today, the 21st, so I’m sticking with that)
From here, the days get longer – and that’s always a good thing. I suspect the impact of it will be lessened this year, as we’ve had such a stunningly warm December anyway, whereas the impact is always greater when November and December have been consistently grey and crap.
The day’s won’t feel longer it for a while – the increase is only seconds until at least the new year – but just knowing that it’s happening is A Good Thing.
And once the Festering Season is over and done with, it’s all improvements from there.
Lists
Posted: Mon 21 December, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective Leave a comment »As we come to the end of 2015, I’m spending some time making notes, lists, and plans for what I want to get done in 2016. It’s not resolutions or anything similar, but I’ve found over the last couple of years that having lists for things helps me to keep it all straight in my head over the year.
The lists aren’t hard-and-fast structures, more like reminders and ‘this is the stuff you wanted to do’ – but it’s a method that I’ve found to be working pretty well for me. I never used to think it would, that I’m not that organised and so on, but it’s been a surprise.
I don’t know if it’s usual, but I have two formats for the lists – my day-to-day ones sit on the mobile, but the bigger plans for the year tend to sit in my Notebook Of Doom.
A lot of the difference is in how things get crossed off, if I’m honest. Day-to-day “what I’m doing this week” works with just a tick gesture on the phone list, and that’s fine. But there’s more of an emotional and mental ‘achievement’ when it comes to physically crossing things off on a piece of paper, in a notebook, it’s a gesture of finality, of “done that”, which I really like.
Even though I don’t necessarily write about everything on here any more (and there’s some thoughts about that, which I’ll probably write and update over the Festering Season) and I certainly won’t list everything here, there’s a lot of stuff on the lists for 2016, which needs some thought and prioritising a bit.
I tend to over-load the lists too, give myself more on the plans than I’m likely to actually manage. But I’d rather have items as a backup for if I get everything done, or when a planned thing turns out to be unattainable and it’s time for Plan B/C/D.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to crossing off a lot of those items.
Rebuilding and Correcting
Posted: Sat 19 December, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts Leave a comment »As part of the whole finances-rebuilding process, I’ve recently been paying more attention to my credit score and so on, including getting reports on it via Noddle , Equifax, and Experian. (It’s worth doing all three when you’re checking these things, as some companies report to one or two of the credit scoring agencies, but not necessarily all three – which is insanely frustrating, and most people don’t know it)
Within those reports, I found that three companies were mis-reporting things – primarily that debts that had been included in the bankruptcy were still being reported every month as “Default” (i.e. late) payments, rather than acknowledging that they’d been dealt with by the bankruptcy. I have no way of knowing (although I have some suspicions) if this is ‘just’ a mistake, standard incompetence, or a tactic to keep credit-scores low for people who’ve been through bankruptcy.
We’ll find out soon enough, though. I’ve written to all three companies, giving them the necessary information and copies of certification, and requesting that they update their records. In all three cases, I’ve given them three options for declaring the debt ‘satisfied’ (which is a different status to ‘paid’, but still closes the account) :
- Update it as of this month
- Update it for this year’s records
- Update it, backdating to when the bankruptcy was discharged.
Obviously the final option is the best one – and the one generally recommended by the FCA and Insolvency Service – because once the bankruptcy is declared, all debts are nullified, and all the credit recording should reflect that with immediate effect. So I’m still trying to be reasonable and find a middle-ground by letting it be marked as ‘default’ for a further twelve months.
One company has already come back to me, taking that third option. The other two, well, they’re more ‘traditional’, so letters have had to be posted (recorded delivery, naturally) and will take time to process. In both cases, the recorded delivery gives them a finite timescale to work with – if nothing has been done in eight weeks from proven delivery, I can start to involve the Financial Ombudsman and FCA. That’s a while off yet though (obviously) and I hope things will be sorted well before then.
The thing is, none of this is essential to the rebuilding of my finances and credit-score – although it will definitely help to have these three records sorted. But the rebuilding will continue to happen, with other positive credit-score reports and transaction reports helping over time.
There’s no valid reason for the various companies to not make the changes, though. It’s a matter of correcting the information, of setting the record straight. That shouldn’t cause anyone any problems.
But I bet it does.
Ghost Town
Posted: Fri 18 December, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Festering Season, Travel, Weirdness, Work-related 2 Comments »According to the BBC, today is the peak day for travelling around the Festering Season. Schools break up, companies close down, and people piss off on holiday – so there’s travellers alongside the commuters and so on. Supposedly, there’ll be more than 13 million journeys of at least 20 miles, which makes it even less of a joy than usual. (Which seems about right for the Festering Season, but then, I’m a cynic)
That figure’s an odd one though – journeys of at least 20 miles? Does that even qualify as a journey these days? In my head (which we all know is a strange place at the best of times) 20 miles is barely a trip, let alone a journey.
Round here, it’s been weirdly quiet all week – regardless of whether it’s on the roads, in town, or in the office, a lot of people seem to have already stuffed off. Which makes it all very peaceful. I suppose it’s easy for small companies (2 or 3 people at most) to take longer breaks and so on.
As it is, I’m working right through ’til the 24th (as usual) and so are the companies I’m working for at the moment. I don’t mind – but then, I’m not travelling, or doing much over the Festering Season.
Confirmation
Posted: Thu 17 December, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, D4D™, Domestic, Finances 2 Comments »As I wrote earlier this month, I’ve made my final payment to the Insolvency Service, following on from my bankruptcy in 2012.
Last night, I came home to a letter confirming that it’s all been received and that I’m paid up and done with that process.
That’s been a real boost. There’s still nearly three years – two and two-thirds years, to be exact – to go before it comes off my record completely, but this is the final hurdle on the way.
Premier League
Posted: Tue 15 December, 2015 Filed under: London, Sport, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »As regular readers know, I couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff about football in general. It’s not something I follow, or am really interested in at all, and I’d rather shit in my hands and clap than go to a game.
However, I still listen to the news etc., and I have to ask – what the hell is going on with the Premier League this year?
At the time of writing, Leicester are top of the Premier League, Bournemouth beat Manchester United over the weekend, and Chelsea are hanging just above relegation. What the fuck?
I know it’s only a game, and thus hostage to the vagaries of luck and chance, but that’s still a pretty radical year, all things considered.
Slightly Less Festering Than Usual
Posted: Fri 11 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Own Business, People, Work-related Leave a comment »This year, most of my working week has been spent in my own small office, away from people and corporate bullshit. It’s been highly beneficial to me in general – despite realising I’ve been doing this all year with no breaks – and I’m far, far calmer and more content than I’ve been in a long time.
The run-up to the Festering Season has reminded me of this again – primarily because I’m just not filled with as much loathing of the Season as I usually am. I’ve not been nagged about being a Scrooge, or had to listen to all that interminable “Oh, but the run-up to Christmas is the best” bollocks, along with all the witterings about who’ll do what (or did what) at the annual work Christmas Do.
In short, doing my own thing has been hugely beneficial all round.
I still don’t like it as a season – it’s not something I dislike just because of the bullshit of others – but I’m certainly feeling less hateful than usual. It’s really quite odd, but in a good way.
Mind you, I’m still glad it’ll be all over in two weeks’ time…
Firm Footing
Posted: Thu 10 December, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, M1, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »In the last couple of months, as written about before, I’ve replaced all four tyres on the car with new ones. The old ones weren’t even close to their wear limits, and would’ve probably done me through the winter – but the key word in there is probably.
Because I drive a lot, I want my car to be as safe as possible – particularly as we hit autumn and winter, and the numerous joyous road conditions. Ideally, I don’t want to be driving on worn tyres in snow, ice, rain and the like. It was also the first time I’ve had a full matched set of tyres on the car, which was something where I was interested in seeing the results.
I went with Michelin Cross-Climates, which supposedly cover a wide range of weather conditions from summer through to snow and ice. On current evidence, I really can’t argue with that claim. I’ve also seen other independent reviews since the purchase that have been extremely impressed (not to say amazed) by the tyres, which is kind of reassuring.
Over the last three weeks, I’ve driven an absolute shedload of miles in some of the vilest weather this year. Serious storms, gale-force sidewinds, heavy rain, and absolutely vile roads – and the tyres have been fine, and kept me solidly on-track. I’ve seen others around me losing traction and sliding (which is fairly attention-focusing when they’re sliding in front of you!) but mine has been solid, and really that’s what matters.
I’ve been happy with my choice, and with having sorted the tyres before the bad weather hit. They’ll last me the winter, and well into next year. It’s been a good decision.
Ill-Prepared
Posted: Tue 8 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weather, Weirdness Leave a comment »Currently, we’re in the middle of one of our mildest/warmest ‘winters’ in a very long time. November was potentially the warmest on record (the figures haven’t yet been confirmed, so far as I can see) and while December has certainly been bloody wet/windy so far, it’s definitely nowhere near cold.
Yet every day, I see people who are wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats. I’m wandering around – and warm – in shirtsleeves (although admittedly I do also carry a far amount of insulation) and they’re layered up like we’re about to enter the next Ice Age.
All of which just makes me wonder, what are these people going to do when it actually gets cold?
Slowdown
Posted: Mon 7 December, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Health, M1 Leave a comment »Having had an utterly chaotic and busy three months – I’ve covered 1,500 miles just in the last month – things are finally calming down.
This weekend spent in Manchester was my last full weekend away ’til mid-February, although I still have a number of things booked in for days, and a couple of busy weekends doing lots of stuff, at least I’ll be back home in between for each one.
This is definitely A Good Thing.
A Bag For Life
Posted: Wed 2 December, 2015 Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, People, Shopping, Shopping, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the weekend, while I was out shopping, the person in front of me’s “bag for life” split open.
What really surprised me though, was the attitude of the person on the till, and (by inference) that of the store.
You see, the ‘bag for life’ was from a different store – so the till person (quoting store/company rules) wouldn’t change it for one from that store.
“Oh, you can only change that at those shops, we won’t take them”
Which begs the question – why? If it were me in charge of doing that, then I’d be happy to take a competitor’s bag and give my customer a branded bag advertising my own store/company instead. But no, it seems that each supermarket/store brand will only exchange bags of their own brand, rather than taking those from other stores.
Seems bizarre to me.
December
Posted: Tue 1 December, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten) Leave a comment »So here we are, the last month of 2015. How time flies when you’re having fun…
It’s started well though, with my final payment of the bankruptcy scheme. It’s been three years of payments, and in that time I’ve paid nearly £25,000 – which is kind of scary, seeing how it all adds up.
From January, I’ll still be making payments – but they’ll go towards my own savings, which will be a very positive step.
At the moment, current evidence is all looking like 2016 should be good…
Snotty
Posted: Fri 27 November, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »This week has been a harder one than usual, due to feeling rougher than a badger’s backside in wintertime. I’ve not been seriously ill – it’s been a heavy cold at worst, but it’s just hit me.
I think it’s been incubating since the weekend in Durham, where I got spectacularly wet and cold, and it all kicked in just in time for last weekend’s London trip. I know by the time I’d walked back to Barbican to pick up the car, I was pretty much shattered (which isn’t the normal state of things for having walked 15km) and Sunday was spent doing as little as possible as a result.
On Monday I was nothing short of a snot-fountain, but it had eased up a bit on Tuesday, and has been improving since.
I’m not normally one for popping pills for a cold, but in this case it was all sat in my sinuses, so I ended up breaking the back of it with hefty doses of Sudafed – and for once it’s worked pretty well.
I’m just about back to normal now (or at least my version of normal, before anyone else says it) so that’s counting as a win. But it’s not been a fun week all told.
Looking Forward
Posted: Thu 26 November, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment »This is almost a part of the tradition of the Festering Season round here now, but I still feel it’s quite fitting anyway.
Just think, in one month’s time, we’ll be done with Festering Season stuff for another nine months. And we’ll have Easter Eggs on the shop shelves tomorrow. After all, it’s only three months away (March 27th 2016 is Easter Sunday)
Sunrise
Posted: Wed 25 November, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, Photography, Weather Leave a comment »One of the few good things about the way the days are getting shorter right now is that I get to see sunrise, which is always one of my favourite times of day.
This week has had a couple of stunners – Monday was beautiful (if bloody chilly) as I was driving to my current client’s office. As I was on the road, I couldn’t stop to take a photo. But sunrise through mist and clouds, silhouetting trees on the hill-ridge, that was a thing of beauty – and one of the few times I wished I’d got either a dashcam to save the image, or a camera linked to my field of view.
Today I was in my own office as the sun came up, and it was another stunner…
Hell, it even made Milton Keynes look pretty…
Re-tyred
Posted: Sun 22 November, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, eTyres, Getting Organised, M1, Technology, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Over the last month, the car has had a complete set of new tyres (admittedly, bought two at a time) as it was definitely That Time Of Year when it’s a good plan., with the onset of winter with added rain, snow and ice. It’s been at least a year since the front ones were changed, and longer since I did the rears, and while they’re still well within the legal limits, I know they were nowhere near as good as they could/should be.
The front ones got changed a couple of weeks back – something I was really pleased about while I was driving last weekend. At that point, the road conditions were vile – heavy rain, standing water, and one particular section of motorway surface that could best be described as interesting – and the car stayed solid on the road, which is something that some others certainly weren’t.
I avoided using eTyres this time – partly because I’m not convinced of their services etc., but also because they didn’t stock the tyres I’d decided I wanted to try out.
Having looked around, I opted this time for Michelin Cross-Climate tyres, which seem to be a good option for going across the full range of road/weather conditions I’m likely to hit in the coming months. I’ve also never had a full set of the same tyres on a car, so it seems like it should be interesting.
The rears got changed today, and the change has been significant, even in the short time I’ve driven on them today. I’m pretty sure it’s not just a psychosomatic thing, the whole vehicle felt more rooted to the road, more stable.
We’ll see how things go. This morning was also the first serious frost of the year – I was driving through snow on the M1 yesterday – and I’m pretty sure we’ll have a few more days like it in the coming weeks. I’ve got the best part of a thousand miles to cover over the next couple of weekends (not including the usual weekly travel) so by the end of that, I’ll know a lot more about how the car feels with the new setup.
Taste of London – Winter
Posted: Sat 21 November, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Food, London, Travel Leave a comment »Earlier this year, I went to the London Taste festival in Regent’s Park, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
When that finished they started also talking about a Winter festival, I got a ticket for it ages back, and went up to it today.
The Winter one was at Tobacco Dock (same place as Meatopia, earlier in the year) but on a larger scale than Meatopia. I’d never realised that Meatopia uses less than half the space available in the Dock, which meant that on occasion it was a bit disorienting, to be in places I thought I knew, but turned out to be on the other side of the building. Most confusing.
Taste is interesting – it’s less focused than the other ones I go to, there’s more varieties of food to try, and it’s driven a lot more by restaurants showing off what they do. For that, it’s really good – nice to have variety, and ranges of food from curried stuff through to meringues, as well as a big range of street-food type stuff, tacos, sliders, burgers and the like. It’ss a lot smaller than Summer Taste (which is fine) and a lot of fun. I got to have a fine range of foods, and had a great day.
Durham Lumiere 2015
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Photography, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »Two years ago, I went with friends to see the Lumiere exhibition in Durham – which was ace.
This year, it was back, and so were we.
While it’s organised by the same people, and has some of the same artists, it was utterly different – and still brilliant. The weather this time was absolutely rotten – my coat still isn’t dry – but still it was great. The theme (if there really is one) was more about science and maths this time round, with the main ‘showpiece’ projection onto Durham Cathedral this time, “The World Machine” being more about the birth of modern cosmology from the 12th century until the present day.
One of the big draws this year was Mysticete, a projection of a whale on the river Wear, visible from the bridge above. Done by the same people as the Elephant last year, it was ace – and so clever, being projected onto a water-spray. (although with the heavy rain they could probably have just done the same onto the rain) Sadly, because of that weather it got cancelled on the Sunday, but it was well worth seeing. (we were there on the Saturday)
Image (c) Durham Chronicle
We got to see a good portion of the exhibits – although not all, by any means – and really enjoyed it. Some of the stuff was really magic and fun, other bits were ‘just’ excellent.
As per the last one, I will definitely be going again when it’s next on. I may also visit the one they’re doing in London in January 2016 – I hope that’s as clever and fun as the Durham ones are.
2015/16 – Writing
Posted: Thu 12 November, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Write More Leave a comment »This post has been nagging me – I’d written the title and post-dated it for publication, but been stuck on what to actually, you know, write. And then I did it again.
It’s somewhat ironic that the post about my plans for the coming year’s writing has been published blank/empty not once, but twice.
So – third time lucky.
I’m not honestly sure what will happen with my writing plans over the next twelve months. There’s a couple of options (as well as the fallback point, of “do nowt” or “fail”) which is never a good start, as it leaves me in a quandary from the beginning.
The thing is, I’ve got lots of ideas. Loads. I just haven’t yet clicked on how they could stick together. Or even if they could adhere at all. I’m missing that bigger picture, the whole that all these parts could/should/might fit into. Or maybe each one is a different tale, and I need to focus on one or two of the better concepts, and just develop those. Maybe that will allow the others to rest, or maybe to develop along in their own timelines. Maybe.
I’ve definitely got two concepts which are kind-of similar, but separate. They fit into different moulds, different methods, so I could do both at the same time. Or I could focus on one and then the other. Or. Or. Or.
And that’s what’s sticking me up at the moment. Too many ideas, not enough drive.
I’d love to be ironic (or meta) enough to be able to write about a writer that is stuck on the writing, so that it’s turtles all the way down. But that’s beyond me.
I think the plan for the coming year will be to do just one project, focus on it, see if it works. If it doesn’t there are others waiting in the wings. If it does, there are others waiting in the wings.
Between now and 2016, some of it is just going to be brain-dumping stuff onto paper/keyboard as a record – perhaps that’ll help too.
So yes, I think that’s the plan. But now, which to choose as the first one. Which to choose…
Decaffeinating
Posted: Mon 9 November, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Diet Coke, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Health, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »As people should have gathered, I’m currently doing a bundle of plans for the coming year, as well as continuing to make changes to my general life, health, fitness and so on.
One of those changes is – yet again – cutting down a lot on my caffeine intake, and seeing how things go.
My caffeine intake is highly cyclic, I cut it down (and sometimes out) for a while, and then it slowly goes back up again. And lo, another cycle continues.
Anyway, this time round I’m working on it again, and so far it’s fairly successful. I’m drinking a lot more water, and the Diet Coke intake is commensurately much, much lower.
What’s annoying, though, is that even with a massively reduced intake, it hasn’t affected my insomnia at all. It’s annoying because just about every person who has ever pointed out I drink too much Diet Coke (or caffeine in any other format) has said it explains my insomnia.
But nope, even when I’m just drinking water – and have been for a couple of weeks – my sleep is still atrocious. Indeed, sometimes even worse than usual.
It really is bloody annoying.
2015/16 – Health and Weight
Posted: Sat 7 November, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last year, I’ve worked on both health and weight with some success – albeit not as much as I’d have liked to.
A lot of the actual progress has happened over the last three or four months, once I’d changed gyms to one that was better located to fit in with my times and work life. That’s enabled me to go more often and more regularly, which has helped things immensely.
As a result, I’ve definitely lost inches, and gained muscle mass. That’s meant that I’ve pretty much stayed at the same weight – although it’s started coming off properly in the last month or so – which I suppose is good, if frustrating.
The plan for the coming year is likely to be more of the same. Some of it will depend on what happens for the next contract, and wherever I’m based at that point. If I’m based in London and commuting by train, the gym will still be perfectly placed. If I’m going to be based somewhere else, I’ll have to reassess and see what works.
Ideally, I’d like to lose a couple of stone over the next 12 months. That’s a feasible goal, assuming I can maintain the progress of the last few months, and keep doing more as I go on.
My other target/plan – albeit one that’s slightly less achievable – is to do another of the Marie Curie 10Km walks, and to do it in 60-70 minutes. That’s pushing it – although I’ve done other, shorted walks at that kind of pace, so it’s also feasible. It just might require a bit more training than the last two have…
For Your Safety
Posted: Fri 6 November, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Legal, News, People, Politics, Privacy, Security, Thoughts Leave a comment »You know, I for one am getting really tired of the government phrases “It’s for your safety” and “it’s for your security”, which are getting bandied around more and more.
This week it’s been used about blocking flights to and from Sharm El-Sheikh because of an alleged – but unproven – bomb in the hold of the plane that crashed in the Sinai desert last week. It’s also been used in discussions about monitoring everyone’s internet traffic and holding those records for at least a year, and in revelations about MI5 monitoring every domestic phone-call in the UK for the last ten years.
Governments like people to be scared – and more and more, we seem to be happy to let the government take these measures ‘because it makes us safer’. It doesn’t, it just gives up more information to the government – and all in the name of ‘safety’.
Basically, it’s shit.
[I know, I need to think more about this and write more. But it’s a phrase that bugs me every time it’s used]
2015/16 – Finances
Posted: Fri 6 November, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the more important things for the coming year will be continuing to rebuild my finances.
The first – and, to some degree, the biggest – step comes at the end of this year, when I make my final payment of the bankruptcy period. Really, that’s the end of it – from there, it’s just the time to rebuild and make progress. And that’ll be the plan in 2016.
Once the payments are done with, I’ll be putting the same amount into a savings account instead. I’ve got used to it going out of the account, and it’ll be the start of a good process.
I’ve got some further ideas, but the basic outline will be to build the savings up over the year, and have a decent amount by the end of the year.
I have an idea about giving myself the ability to have some time off in 2017, and the initial stage/target of that will be to have amassed at least six months pay in savings – to be able to fund a break, if that’s what I still decide to do, once this year’s plan is completed.
In similar vein, I’m considering overpaying on my bills, adding in some padding on that score as well.
Of course, it’ll also depend on having stability this year work-wise. I know my current contract will come to an end, so there’ll be a time for getting a new one and seeing what happens from there.
But all told, right now at the start of this next year’s plans, I’m feeling pretty optimistic and positive about the whole thing.
HMRC Failings
Posted: Thu 5 November, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, HMRC, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »This week, MPs declared that HMRC is still failing taxpayers in umpteen ways – which is no surprise to anyone who has to deal with them on an even vaguely regular basis.
Now that I’m doing the self-employed thing, I’ve spent more time than I should on the phone to the idiots.
From the article
In 2011-12, HMRC answered 74% of calls from the public, but by the start of 2015, it only answered 50% of them, the MPs said.
Honestly, I’m amazed it’s as high as 50%…
FortyFour
Posted: Thu 5 November, 2015 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 3 Comments »Blimey.
I’m 44. Who’d have thought it?
Weather and Maintenance
Posted: Tue 3 November, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Fog, Laziness, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »It’s November, so in the last few days we’ve seen the clocks go back and had some seriously thick fogs in the mornings and evenings. That means people are (or at least should be) driving with lights on and so on – and it also illustrates that plenty of them don’t have everything working.
As usual, I find it utterly gobsmacking how people can drive along – while maintaining the same speeds they’d drive at on dry roads with decent visibility – with broken headlamps, no lights at all, and no foglights. (And, of course there’s then the ones who leave on foglights well into clear weather, or use them at night when there’s no need at all)
I lost count of the number of – usually pale/grey – cars with no lights at all, in visibility that could be measured in feet, at best. I don’t understand what goes through someone’s head, that whole “well, I can see fuck-all, but I’ll keep my lights turned off, because even though I can’t see, it’s Day Time, so I don’t need lights” kind of process.
Equally, I don’t get how people can consistently drive with a broken/non-working headlamp, and the massively-reduced visibility that gives. I know it happens, that they can just blow without warning – I’ve had it happen. But when it has happened, it gets replaced rapidly – particularly in Autumn and Winter. Even in the poorest days, you (or at least I) still make sure that the car is safe.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case with a lot of people, and it’s a mindset I just don’t get.
Trying To Be Sensible
Posted: Fri 30 October, 2015 Filed under: Business, Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »The last couple of months here have been pretty busy, with very little time spent at home. In fact, I haven’t spent a full weekend at home since the end of August. November and December aren’t currently looking much different on that score.
So, in the name of sanity, I’ve made a couple of other decisions.
I was supposed to be going to a conference next week in Manchester – for something that’s not super-relevant *right now* but will be for some plans/ideas over the next six to twelve months.
However, it would take me away for three days, and to be honest, that doesn’t appeal all that much right now. I’d rather have the chance of some downtime somewhere along the line.
So I’ve sacked it off, cancelled everything around it, and will instead ‘just’ do my normal work instead. Which seems like a good plan.
I’m not good at the whole ‘cancelling stuff’ thing, but I do know it sometimes needs to happen, and this is one of those times.
I think the most telling thing was that having made the decision, my only real reaction has been “good, that makes sense”…
Replacing Devices
Posted: Tue 27 October, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic 4 Comments »Over the weekend, I noticed that something was wrong with my iPhone. The display had started to rise away from the case, and wouldn’t go back down. It was all still working fine – but it was definitely an indicator of Something Wrong.
I didn’t get a chance to sort it yesterday, but went in to my local Apple store today. Being half-term round here, they were pretty busy, so I made an appointment to come back in 90 minutes time – although they would send me a text when they were ready, and I could walk back to the store and get it checked/sorted.
It turned out that, for whatever reason, the battery had ‘swollen’. It turns out that this is a known issue (although my phone was purchased a bit later than the timescale in that story) and the store dealt with it quickly and efficiently.
Basically, I left the store with a brand new phone of the same model/capacity. And because of the automatic backups it runs every night, I didn’t lose any data at all, either.
I can’t deny, I’m pretty impressed. The original phone was near-as-dammit two years old, so I was expecting to pay something for a replacement. That would’ve been fine with me, but no. I’ve got a brand-new phone, and it’s cost me nothing. That’s pretty good customer service.
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Posted: Wed 21 October, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, 2015 vs 2014, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Looking Back, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »In preparation for another post (one of the usual ones for a couple of weeks’ time) I’ve been looking at things from (roughly) this time last year, and it’s been a bit odd in some ways.
There’s a distinct synchronicity between the two years, which is surprising. Last weekend, I bought some new tyres for the car – and it turns out I did the same a year ago. It also got a full service done – which I’ve just booked in again.
It’s also just under a year ago that I started doing the day-trips when I could (and/or when I wanted to) on weekends, which has continued and been pretty cool. I haven’t done one in a couple of months, mainly due to a madly busy period with no weekends ‘off’, but that doesn’t mean I won’t again.
Along the way, there’s also been a lot of good stuff.
Comparing where life was last October to this is like comparing pearls with cow shit.
October 2014 was a low point, although nowhere near my lowest. (There’s some competition for that ‘honour’, mainly September 2010, April 2012 and August 2012, although I’m sure there’s a couple of other close-runners too) At the start of it, I’d just walked out on ShitCo with nothing to go to, nothing even in the pipeline. That was a bit scary, but infinitely better than the prospect of staying working for them. I know, I still haven’t written much about that time, and probably won’t – safe to say, it was No Fun At All.
I got a new contract within two weeks though, and that was the start of the recovery process and climbing back to where I find myself now. I’m still working for the same people, and will be ’til at least the end of the year. It’s been good – and helped by being a role where I work for/by myself for four days a week. I’ve rented an office in central Milton Keynes, which works best for my schedule and environment, and keeps me vaguely sane. (Which working from home four days a week probably wouldn’t)
I’ve done a lot of rebuilding again in the last twelve months, and I’m pleased with how it’s gone.
Onwards and upwards!
Another London Run
Posted: Mon 19 October, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, London, M1, M25, Parking, Reviews(ish), Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday was yet another day spent in London. Thankfully, it was also a different area (again) which helps to keep things fresh.
This time, it was Hammersmith, primarily to see an American comedian called Gabriel Iglesias at the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo with a friend (who was the one who knew of Iglesias first) who was doing a one-off, rare (and sold out) London gig
It’s a long time since I’ve been to the Apollo – December 2008, from the look of it – and Hammersmith has changed a bit since last time. The places I’d used to use for parking had – unsurprisingly – changed, and disappeared, so it was time for a bit of a new explore.
Because it was an evening thing, we aimed to have food before. So mid-afternoon we went into London via a circuitous-ish route that allowed us to avoid the vagaries of the peak-time weekend M25, and simply blat straight into Hammersmith. Into the parking area I’d chosen, and job-done.
Had a decent meal, a couple of drinks, and then to the Apollo for what turned out to be a brilliant show – thoroughly enjoyed. (Although lots of people doing American-ised whoops at lots of things, which isn’t really my thing at all) Paid a small fortune for parking – which is taking the piss, as that parking wasn’t being used for anything else – and a pretty simple escape. Certainly nothing like as bad as getting out of Wembley…
And then a straight motorway blat home, dropping off friends at houses along the way (we’d met another couple of people at the gig) so I got home at about 1am, and didn’t get to sleep ’til gone 2.
It’s fair to say I am not fully awake today…
Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy
Posted: Thu 15 October, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, London, Media, People, Reviews(ish), Travel Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s post about my most recent day trip to London, this one focuses on the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the RA.
It’s a great exhibition, and shows a wide range of Weiwei’s works, including his massive (and understandable) loathing of China.
The first thing you see, as you enter the RA’s courtyard, are the trees, made of assorted pieces of wood
Hidden in there as well is what looks like a knackered leather armchair. Only it turns out to be made from black marble…
In the exhibition itself, there are just so many different things. Tables that have been melded with timbers from 14th century temples, and/or bent to rest with legs against walls, epic cubes (including one that is a ton of compressed tea leaves), video installations, 3000 porcelain crabs, and many others.
The cubes are fantastic, and a particular favourite of mine was the wooden epic-scale puzzle box (that needs two people to get it to work) which was just beautiful, and so tactile…
There’s also a work called ‘Straight’, which is entirely constructed from steel reinforcing rods, and is a thing of beauty. (Although you do wonder just how long it took to get it all to work!)
On the walls in that room there are also two panels, listing every single identified body from the 2008 earthquake. Just the scale, the number of names, is gob-smacking, and upsetting in a strange way.
There’s also a lot of humour in the exhibition – surprisingly so, and in contradiction to what I’d imagined and understood of Weiwei’s work. My personal favourites of the entire exhibition are the two wallpaper designs. (Yes, wallpaper) The first is this, whole patterns created from a stencil of a man’s torso and arm, ending in a fist with a raised middle finger.
I think it’s the first ever wallpaper I’ve seen and gone “Yeah, I could live with that”. Although at nearly £500 per roll, I won’t be able to do so…
The second wallpaper, “Golden Age” is even more clever. Surveillance cameras and Twitter birds predominate
And then you look closer, and realise that in every Twitter bird, there’s Ai Weiwei’s face. And that’s really clever.
There are many, many other pieces – in a variety of sizes, materials, and styles. (I also loved the chandelier built from bicycle wheels) It’s an impressive body of work, and I suspect a number of pieces will stick with me for quite a while.
All told, I loved the exhibition. It’s so much better than I’d expected/assumed, and is so worth going to see.
Even better, the RA are actively encouraging people to take photos of the exhibits, to promote it themselves, and to touch most of the items. It’s very tactile, very open – and so nice to see that kind of understanding. (Although they did still tell off the German who slammed his camera and bag onto one of the bent tables, impervious to the fact it was an exhibit – but you can’t do much about idiots, in fairness)
The only (small) downside is that for the price you’re paying to see the exhibit, and the fact it’s only ticketed admission, it was still crowded. I would rather that there were fewer people allowed in at once, and thus those people can see the exhibits better, without being being constantly blocked, wandered into, and having others drifting into one’s eyeline. But then, I’m an antisocial git.
All told though, it’s great. I’m actually considering going again before it finishes…
A(nother) Day In London
Posted: Wed 14 October, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Food, London, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »On Saturday, I had another London day – they seem to be becoming more common for me currently, and there’s a few more in the near future – which was thoroughly enjoyable, in sometimes unexpected ways.
The primary reason for going was that another friend had bought tickets for a matinee performance of the National Theatre’s “Three Days in the Country“, which I knew absolutely nothing about, but was happy to go and see. (In fact, that was pretty much the theme for the day, as it worked out)
However, me being me, I decided to make a day of it, and went in dead early. I went in by train, for once (it being an easy walk from Euston down to Waterloo and the South Bank for the NT) and had a basic outline ‘plan’ of “Get in to London, walk down to somewhere central, do something, meet up, see the play”. It really was that basic.
So, for the random thing to do, I ended up going to the Royal Academy and seeing their exhibition of works by Ai Weiwei. I’d been in two minds about seeing this – mainly through not knowing much more about Weiwei than the general media gubbins, and not being overly taken with the stuff of his that I knew of.
As it turned out, the exhibition was brilliant – I really enjoyed it, far more than I’d expected to. As with the Hepworth one I saw a while back, it still had too many people dithering around being fuckwits (which rankles a lot when you’re paying to go in, on allegedly limited numbers) but was still great.
I’ll write more about the exhibition in a different post (because it requires more detail than this one) but if you do get the chance to see it, it’s well worth doing so.
From the RA, I crossed the road and visited Fortnum and Mason, which I hadn’t been in for years. You can be sure I’ll go back there soon for some naughty treat-like things that you don’t see anywhere else. While there, I had a brunch of eggs hollandaise, which was ace. It was just that kind of day.
And then a continued walk down to the South Bank, meeting up with friends, having lunch, seeing the play (also excellent) and eventually walking back up to Euston and heading home.
A really enjoyable and utterly relaxed day, with 20km walked as a side benefit.
Picked Up By The Fuzz
Posted: Fri 9 October, 2015 Filed under: Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Food, Milton Keynes, People, Weirdness 2 Comments »Last night, while driving home from a meal, I got stopped by the police. The conversation was kind-of entertaining…
“Hello sir. Do you know why we’ve stopped you?”
“Well, it’s half nine on a Thursday and there’s been football and rugby on, so I’m guessing that you think I’ve been drinking, because I’ve taken two roundabouts absolutely correctly, which is something that no other sod in Milton Keynes ever does”
“Yes, sir. You’re driving carefully and trying to not attract attention, so we think you might be over the limit. When did you last have a drink?”
“Ummmmm. June?” (I’ve since realised I had one in September, but hey ho)
“OK, can you blow into this device please”
“Yeah, no worries. I should warn you though, I’ve just eaten a brutally spicy curry, so it might melt the little plastic tube”
I blew an absolute zero – same as I have on the other two occasions I’ve been breathalysed. And the tube didn’t quite melt, but it was close. I’ve also now recommended the curry place to the local police, which has to be a good thing.
However, I can’t deny that it does gall me slightly that I’ve now been pulled over twice in my driving history – and on both times, it’s been for driving properly and to the limits/conditions, rather than anything that’s actually wrong to attract attention.
Massive Attack
Posted: Wed 7 October, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs Leave a comment »As regular readers will recall, I’m a bit of a fan of Massive Attack, and have been for a long, long time. I’ve seen them live a good few times, and really love a lot of their stuff.
So I was thoroughly happy to see the news that they’re releasing new music this year, and doing a tour in Jan/Feb 2016.
Pre-sale tickets became available for the tour this morning, and I’m now seeing them twice – once in Manchester, once in London.
Needless to say, I’m already looking forward to it!
London – Parking and Walking
Posted: Tue 22 September, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, London, Travel Leave a comment »I’ve written before about my discovery that London’s Barbican Centre is bloody great for visiting London on a weekend – and the weekend just gone reinforced that for me.
Again, I drove in early-ish on both days (I was at Barbican by 9.30 on both occasions) and the run in was easy.
Parking was worse on the Saturday than I’d seen it before – but I still found plenty of spaces, albeit on the next level up, rather than the one I usually use. (It turned out that Barbican was hosting a graduation ceremony thing for the Open University, which explained why it was so busy) Still not a problem though.
In this case, I was walking down to Tobacco Dock – roughly 5km away – as the weather was great, and I had plenty of time to do it. (The venue doors didn’t open ’til 11.30 on both days – so I knew I was OK, regardless) So I got time to explore a bit, wander around, see stuff, and generally enjoy early-ish mornings in City of London.
The best (for me) was wandering down, turning a corner, and unexpectedly seeing the Tower of London, with the Shard behind it…
All told, it meant I got to explore some bits I didn’t know all that well, cover a decent amount of kilometres, and still do everything I wanted to at Meatopia – so just a win all round, really.
Even better, once I got home yesterday I filled up the car with what’d been used over the weekend. £30 of fuel, £18 for parking (Barbican put up their prices at the start of September by a whole pound – shocking!) – so it cost me less to do things that way than one day’s train and Underground fares would’ve been. Not bad, not bad at all.
Stasis – Weight and Health
Posted: Wed 16 September, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »It seems to be the season for stasis – and for thinking about it, which is kind of odd. But there we go.
Anyway, one of my goals for this year was to lose more weight – I lost two stone in 2014, and wanted to do a similar thing this year.
Well, that hasn’t happened.
(At this point I know I have to remind myself that there’s still three-and-a-bit months to go of the year, blah blah – but still, two stone in three months is less-than-likely)
It’s annoying in some ways, but in others it’s been an interesting process.
I have definitely, and visibly, lost inches. My strength and muscle have improved significantly, particularly since getting to do regular gym visits. But the weight has stayed the same.
In general, I’m OK with that. I know I’ve improved, and have reduced body fat by about 20% (although there’s a way to go still) over the last eighteen months. I know I can beast through a 10Km walk in 100mins (an average speed of 6Kph) and I’m content with that. I know I can also do more on weight machines at the gym than the majority of the other users I see.
There’s still a good way to go – I’ve got my own targets, both short- and long-term, and I hope to get there. But I know I’ve made progress, I can see it and I can feel it.
I do wish that those bloody scales would show it though. I step on most mornings, so I know it’s not some weird coincidence that only sees me measure when I’m that weight. It varies by a pound or two either way – but that’s it.
I suppose I should be happy that my body is in some kind of balance/stasis, that it’s managing to replace fat with denser (note, not heavier, just denser – that’s a bugbear that I’ll write about some other time) muscle in a balanced way. And in most ways I’m content with it, with knowing there are changes that just don’t show on the scales.
But I’d still like to actually weigh less…
Stasis – Locationally Static
Posted: Tue 15 September, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Milton Keynes, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s somewhat scary, and horrifically organised, but I’ve just signed another tenancy agreement for the current house, so I’ll now be here ’til at least November 2016.
That will make it the longest time I’ve lived in one place since I left home a long time ago. No-one is more surprised about this than me.
In fairness, there’s a few reasons to stay – and not enough to move on. Reasons for staying again include
- It’s well-located, and easy to get to anywhere else (which helps negate the travelling itch)
- It’s a decent enough place, and suits me for 95% of the time, as well as facilitating my anti-social side
- I’m kind-of settled for a while (and so are the cats)
- There’s nowhere else I particularly think “*That* is where I want to be living – let’s go!“
This time next year, things may be different. There’s a couple of significant change things happening over the next twelve months, which will make moving a bit easier in a years’ time (assuming I want to) and which contribute to staying put this year.
Not least among those is the simple fact of time passing. This time next year, my bankruptcy will have been cleared for three years, which puts it an ‘acceptable’ time in the past for credit checks. Still another two years before it disappears completely, but there appears to be a ‘wisdom’ that if someone has kept their fiscal nose clean for three years afterwards, it’s more likely that they’ll continue to do so in the future.
At the same time, I’ll have been done with the repayments plan (that expires in January) and will instead be putting the same amount directly into savings, which will be helping on building things up decently.
So yes, for the next year-and-a-bit I’m staying in the same place. And I’m surprisingly OK and non-twitchy about it…
Longest Reign
Posted: Wed 9 September, 2015 Filed under: Media, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Today, Queenie becomes the longest-reigning monarch of the UK – 65 days, 7 months and 2 days (at the time of writing, naturally)
I’m not the greatest fan of the monarchy – although neither am I a disliker of it as such, I’m just completely ambivalent about the entire thing – but that’s one heck of a time, however you look at it.
Whatever though, it’s always good to be able to resurrect this image – and yes, I know, it’s Photoshopped, rah rah – which you can’t help imagine is what she’s doing to Charles on a regular basis…
Privacy Breach
Posted: Wed 2 September, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Agency Idiocy, Business, Corbett, Customer Services, Geeky, Laziness, Marketing, People, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yet again, today there’s a story about another place revealing a confidential list of customers in emails – and as usual, in what’s known as a Corbett round here (courtesy of a certain Irish marketing person) it’s looking like the leaker sent the email using CC instead of BCC.
In this case, the information is even more sensitive than usual, as it’s people who’ve used a particular STI clinic in London, and may have also revealed their HIV status. Oh, bloody whoops.
It amazes me how often this seems to happen – and how easy it should be to fix.
The first answer is, obviously, train people.
But after that, it’s about defending against laziness and stupidity. But even that’s pretty easy.
All it really needs is a block on recipients in CC. If you’re sending an email and it’s got more than (say) 10 addresses in the CC field, it simply asks if you’re sure you want to send it with those people in CC rather than BCC. That’s an email-client thing – but is easy to do.
It can’t be that difficult – my own email clients all already ask if I want to send an email with no attachments if the message contains keywords like ‘attached’ or ‘CV’, after all.
A similar thing could be done on the mail-server as well – put in a rule that if there’s more than [defined limit] of addresses in the CC, it doesn’t send without an authorisation, an acknowledgement that this is OK.
There will still be the odd blithering fucktrumpet who manages to send out a whole mailing-list in CC (or even To) – but at least make it harder for them to do so.
Surely that’s not asking too much?
The Beginning of The End – 2015
Posted: Tue 1 September, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Media, Television Leave a comment »It’s the start of September, and that means that we’re in the run-up to the Festering Season.
The signs are all there – X-Factor started last weekend, and Strictly Come Dancing starts this coming weekend. I don’t watch either of them, but they’re both timed to finish up just before the Festering Season, and as such they qualify as the harbingers of doom.
I’m sure there are other pre-cursors to it (perfume ads on TV, for one) but these two are the main ones I notice now. It’s a sad state of affairs.
New(ish) Places – Some More
Posted: Sun 30 August, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Memory, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from last week’s post about rediscovering places that are local (and that I hadn’t realised were local) I did a similar thing this weekend.
Having dropped off the Uborkans back at Stoke Bruerne, I had all day to play with, so mooched over to another blast from the past- Rushden and Higham Ferrers, in Northamptonshire. While I didn’t work there myself, friends did, and I got pretty familiar with the area.
As before, it was odd to be going along routes I remember from bus and taxi rides from Northampton, the way those routes tripped my memory – as did arriving in Rushden, and recalling a bundle of landmarks.
I ended up walking round Rushden, as well as up to Higham Ferrers (roughly 3km each way) to revisit places I used to frequent. It was odd to see the changes, as well as the bits that haven’t changed – particularly the hotel that my friends worked in, which is now a set of apartments, with a new connected building, and a new supermarket over the road. It’s bloody weird, seeing old memories overlaid with new changes.
Once I was done, I drove home via a very perverse and winding route – I kind-of knew where I was, and where I was heading, but definitely took some of the odder routes and diversions, basically just learning sections of the local geography (and linking together bits I already knew, but hadn’t figured the road connections) and enjoyed doing so.
All told, a pretty decent way to spend a day.
Shoe Issues
Posted: Mon 24 August, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Health, Milton Keynes, Stupidity Leave a comment »Since doing the 10km walk for Marie Curie, my feet have been having some issues, which have been no fun.
In the preparation for the walk, my feet had gained some hard skin areas, which – like a twat – I’d picked apart. To stop them from hurting or getting worse on the walk, I put on a couple of blister plasters – whose glue melted off during the walk, and actually caused the blisters I ended up with. Oops.
The blisters cleared up and healed quickly, but left some weaker spots of skin, which have then been a bit of an issue.
Basically, the Cat boots I’ve had this year haven’t been anywhere near as good as usual, and the lining had dissolved in places – again, causing blisters in the bits that rubbed, and those weaker spots of skin. Because I’d bought them from Schuh, I was able to take them back to the store, and they’ve exchanged them for a new pair without question – which is pretty stunning customer service, in my opinion. However, because they’d died, I had worn an older pair for the day – and that exacerbated the problem tenfold.
Because I’m an idiot – so I’d walked a lot in those old, old boots, with their worse wear. I didn’t think anything of it ’til the end of the day, when I got home – at which point I had blood-filled blisters on blisters. Pretty skanky, and very sore. As a result, yesterday I spent the day doing amazingly little, and just giving my feet some recovery time. Which seems to have been a fairly good plan, all things considered. I didn’t even do half my normal walking for the day – which I feel bad about, but at least it was for a vaguely good reason.
All this has been within a couple of weeks – it’ll all heal, but it’s been a painful time because of my own stupidity (and some ropy build quality along the way).
So really this post is just a reminder to future me to not be such a fucking idiot, and to take more damn care of my own feet.
And that’s it.
New(ish) Places
Posted: Sun 23 August, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »As has been noted many many times here, I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to travel, and think nothing of doing a two-hour-each-way drive for a day trip. Somewhere in my head, I don’t really think “locally” for exploring and finding new places. As a result, I’m sometimes surprised by locations when I’m doing other stuff.
This weekend I was helping the Uborkans with a bit of taxi-work to make their lives easier. That involved nipping up to Stoke Bruerne to collect them, and dropping them off in Linslade – a dead easy journey, and not at all far for me.
I’d been to Stoke Bruerne a few times as a kid – school trips and the like – to the canal museum and so on, and I’d never realised how close it actually is to my current location. We’re talking less than half an hour’s drive – it’s really close. Because it was a nice day, I got there early, and had a wander along a decent-sized length of the canal too, for fun – definitely somewhere I’ll return to.
Once I’d dropped them off at destination, I also finally discovered a pub I remembered from years ago, when I worked and lived in the area. So I’ll have to give that a go at some point – we never visited it the first time round, I just remember going past it on a regular basis, but didn’t remember the roads properly for how to get to it – I’d actually decided it was a different pub that I have tried and not been impressed by, which is in a similar location. So yeah, that’s on the list.
And finally, in the evening the Uborkans had come back up to the edges of Milton Keynes, so we arranged to meet at a pub. It was in Simpson, an area I’ve been past on the main roads several times, but not actually been into at all – and it’s really nice, to the degree that you wouldn’t believe you were in Milton Keynes at all. Indeed, it’s nice enough that it’s been added to the “yeah, I could live there” list, for if/when I decide to leave the current location.
It’s just interesting, how you (OK, how I) can still find new places in an area you’ve lived in for a number of years. I regularly bugger off far and wide, but I haven’t really explored a lot of the local area. Maybe that needs to change a bit…
London – Hamlet
Posted: Fri 21 August, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, London, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s post about London, Burgers and Hamlet, I thought I’d add some thoughts about the actual presentation of Hamlet.
The basic version is that I enjoyed it, and thought it was bloody good – although I’ve also got no solid reference points to compare it against. Technically it was still in the previews when I saw it – although paying full price for the tickets when it’s still in previews is a bit of a piss-take. But it was worth seeing, and thoroughly enjoyed.
Happily, by the time we saw it, they’d put the ‘To be or not to be’ speech back in its proper place, rather than done as a speech at the start, and for that I’m thankful.
The staging is spectacular – as per previous reviews and thoughts, I’m a real geek for the technical side of shows, gigs and plays – and absorbing.
The play itself is, of course, equally absorbing, and interestingly done. I was surprised by how many lines and expressions from it are now in common usage – not something I’d realised at all. I thought Cumberbatch himself was good (but perhaps not excellent? I don’t know, with nothing to compare to, but he didn’t strike me as having that absolute star quality) and the rest of the cast were equally good, although at least one could’ve done with having a microphone arrangement, as his voice didn’t really carry at all.
That aside, I did enjoy the entire thing, and would happily go again, should the opportunity arise. (I doubt it will, but you know, it’s still something I’d be content to see again) And now I need to see more Shakespeare stuff – as well as read more of it – and get a better grip on these things.
London – Meat and Hamlet
Posted: Thu 20 August, 2015 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, London, Single Life, Solo Dining, Travel Leave a comment »Last weekend, I was very lucky. A friend had gained tickets for Hamlet (with Benedict Cumberbatch) at the Barbican for herself and a few others. As it turned out, one of those people couldn’t go, so the ticket was up for grabs. And I thought “Yeah, OK, go for that”. So I did.
I have to be honest, it’s not something I was eagerly wanting to see. I’m a bit of a philistine, and don’t really know Shakespeare’s stuff as much as I could/should. Yes, I know Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet – plus bits of Tempest, but only because I’ve seen Return To Forbidden Planet. I’d never been to see a Shakespeare play at the theatre, and really had no idea what to expect.
Anyway, things being as they are, I decided to make a day of it – and then both Honest and Blues Kitchen revealed new specials on their menus. Well, it’d be rude not to, wouldn’t it?
It turns out, you can park at the Barbican for the whole day on weekends for £8. That’s not far short of remarkable – and something I’ll definitely be taking advantage of again in the future. I figured it would be ridiculously busy later in the day, so went up early, when the entire place was virtually empty. (I’m glad I did, because the parking spaces are… entertaining, to say the least)
From Barbican, I could easily walk to everywhere else I wanted to be that day – bearing in mind, that’s “easily walk” in my terms, not necessarily those of anyone else/sane – so it was an easy day. A long one, as it turned out, but pretty easy.
I got to Barbican, parked up, and wandered. I knew where I was heading – but hadn’t actually clocked how close things were. It was about a mile, so not a long walk at all. (As always, for my values, not necessarily those of anyone else) As a result, I was there far earlier than expected, and well before they actually opened. So – a further walk and explore was the result.
Once they opened, and I’d ordered, the Blues Kitchen burger was absolutely stonking. Best I’ve had in a long time…
Then a walk down to Honest – again, about a mile, maybe a bit further – and more of the same. I wasn’t overly taken with that special – it was still good, but not actually all that special.
From there, I had quite the wander – bits I didn’t know all that well, so spent some time mooching around, making discoveries, connecting parts of my mental map of London, and all that kind of thing.
And then eventually back to Barbican, where I spent a very relaxed time on the Lakeside Terrace, reading and people-watching.
I’ll comment about Hamlet in another post – but safe to say, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Getting back was a doddle too – I’d expected the car park to fill up for the evening, which didn’t happen. So the performance finished at about 10.30, and I was home just after midnight. All told, a very civilised way to do a Saturday…
Three
Posted: Thu 13 August, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised Leave a comment »This one’s not quite on the actual anniversary of it happening – mainly because there was a small matter of D4D™’s birthday happening on the same day – but it’s close enough that it’s all good.
Anyway, it’s now three years since I was declared bankrupt, and it’s been a long old road.
I’m happy with where things are, and it’s all looking positive. There’s still a way to go – the next stage comes at the end of this year, but really from here on it’s all about rebuilding. Much the same as it has been for the last couple of years, but it’s a continuing process. Long may it continue to be so.
Changing Meters
Posted: Wed 12 August, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, nPower, Single Life, Utilities Leave a comment »Over the last couple of months, I’ve been – again – having issues with nPower and their circus-clown cohorts, Lowri Beck. I’ve written about this before, where they had said they hadn’t been in my house for four years, despite being supposed to be checking things at least once a year. (And having supplied meter readings to nPower – so fuck knows how they managed that without having been in the house!)
Anyway, when they did come round back at the start of July, it turned out the electricity meter was fucked faulty, and so needed replacing. Fortuitous timing, as it’d been OK two weeks previously, when I took a reading from the damn thing.
The problem – as usual, with Lowri Beck – is that their meter replacement teams don’t work weekends. And nPower won’t do anything to compensate their customers for having to take time off to replace a meter (or anything else), even when it’s at nPower’s behest. All of which left us at a bit of a standoff.
Eventually, having progressed through the layers of nPower’s customer services section, I finally got to speak to someone who had the power/rank to be able to book in a job for a Saturday. It was still a bit random, as more urgent jobs would take precedence over a lowly meter reading – but it got done. And only one cancellation before the person came out to do the job.
Because Lowri Beck couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, the fitter had actually come from… London. All the way up to Milton Keynes – so was only able to do one other job on the same day. It does make you wonder just how Lowri Beck stay in business, when they’re that disorganised and cretinous.
Anyway, an hour later, I’ve got a new – well, new to me – meter, and we can hopefully start seeing something approaching account normality.
Mind you, they did still manage to mis-enter the supplied readings from the new meter, and would’ve over-charged me quite significantly if I hadn’t been keeping an eye on the account…
Clowns, the lot of ’em.
Ten
Posted: Tue 11 August, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, People, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Ten years ago today, I finally passed my driving test. How time flies when you’re blatting round the country, and all that.
Prior to passing, driving had never really bothered me – I’d usually lived in places with decent public transport links, and when I hadn’t there’d always been friends, or lifts. It also helped to own very little for a lot of that time – there were a few occasions where I moved by train, and could still do it in one journey, albeit with three or four bags.
However, now I wouldn’t be without my driving licence (and car, naturally – or at worst the ability to rent one whenever needed) and would hate to lose it. If something were to happen that made me lose my licence, I’d have to change everything – house, job, life in general. It would emphatically not be fun.
It still surprises me, though, how much I’ve changed in that ten years, and how much my attitude to driving has changed too.
Because I was such a late adopter of it – pretty close to mid-thirties – I thought I’d stay with using public transport, and that I wouldn’t drive much. Oh, how wrong I was.
In that ten years, I’ve covered *at least* 180,000 miles. That’s just a calculation based on the two cars I’ve owned, and doesn’t include hire cars, Herself’s car when we were together, or any other journeys. With all that included, it’s probably damn close to 200,000 miles in ten years. Considering I’ve had some years (like this one) where I’ve been working far closer to home than others, that’s still quite an average to have been covering.
As I’ve said before, I really don’t think anything of a day trip involving two hours driving each way – one of those can add 4 to 500 miles to my total on its own.
Oddly, the general attitude to driving and miles seems to be a family trait – my brother covers even more miles than I do, Dad always used to cover a fair amount too, and none of us think anything of doing journeys that most people class as “too far”. Or maybe it’s just being daft that’s a family trait…
Marie Curie 10k
Posted: Sun 9 August, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I did my second 10km “Walk to Remember” for Marie Curie. Last year it was at Boughton House in Northamptonshire, this time it was at Blenheim Palace.
I like the setup for these walks – it’s done on a summer evening, no numbers or rankings, you just go and do the walk. I’m interested in how I do, and some comparisons, but I’m also happy to just get it done. They do some other stuff afterwards, but that’s never been of much interest for me, so I don’t bother.
Last year, I did the 10km route in 1hr 51 – still not bad – and enjoyed it, but I did want to do better this year.
Safe to say, I managed to do so…
Walk track and times for Blenheim Palace
I came in within the first 20 people, so I was pretty chuffed all round. I’d started off in the middle of the crowd, but within the first kilometer I was up at the front – and stayed there for the rest of it. Some of the people I’d overtaken came back past me (I’d particularly narked one person who was very ‘professional walker’ by overtaking them and staying ahead for a good few kilometres)
Anyway, it was a good day, and I really enjoyed it again. My feet hurt a bit today, but nothing traumatic, and it’s all good.
Into August
Posted: Wed 5 August, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Looking Back, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Somehow, we’re into August already. The year’s racing by (as usual) and here we are. August.
August is a funny (as in ‘odd’, not as in ‘ho ho’) month for me – for some reason it’s always been rather more eventful than others. It seems to be generally a month of change for me, in ways both negative and positive.
It’s definitely the month I get twitchy about, more than any other. I’m sure that’s because my parents first pointed out what a consistently change-laden month it was (which may have also gone some way to making it a bit more self-fulfilling) but I try to not focus on it. By that, I mean that I don’t consciously go “oh, I’ll do that in August”. August just seems to happen.
As examples…
- D4D™ got started in August. Not intentionally (well obviously it got started intentionally) in August – that was just when everything came together for it to happen
- My bankruptcy was in August. Again, that’s just when it came about.
- I finally passed my driving test in August.
- I’ve had *lots* of job changes in August, contracts ending and so on.
This time round, it looks (so far) like things will be a lot calmer.
I was a bit twitchy, as my current work contract had an end date next week – and even though I was 99% sure it would extend again, there’s always that “But it’s August, and thus could bite me on the bum” nagging doubt. However, it’s been confirmed this week that it’ll extend again, through to October (which will mean I’ve been doing this one for a year) so that’s all good.
To the best of my knowledge I’ll be staying in the current house for at least another year. That’s the plan (and renewal isn’t ’til November, so not a concern) and I see no current reason to change it.
There’s currently nothing else of major import and change looking like it’ll happen. I’ve got stuff planned for the month, but nothing change-laden. All the same, during August I’ll be…
- Doing a 10Km sponsored walk for Marie Curie
- Seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet (a happy surprise instance, brought about by a friend of a friend not being able to go)
- Possibly another London visit, or alternative Day Trip
- Sorting out (renewing) car insurance again
And there’s a bundle of other stuff as well, alongside the weekly working normality.
So with any luck, this August won’t be too eventful and change-laden. We’ll see.
Where There’s A Will
Posted: Tue 28 July, 2015 Filed under: Charm School, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Legal, News, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »In the news today, there’s a lot going on about the person who’s managed to get her mother’s will overturned, and thus inherit a third of the money from it, despite the mother’s written explanation of why she didn’t want her daughter to get anything.
Personally, I find this kind of thing deeply unpleasant – not least for the greed it shows, and the all-round contempt for final wishes in this case. I think if a will has been made out with certain intent and intentions, that’s what should happen.
As it is, in this case the person is going to use the proceeds (although what’ll be left after legal costs is another question) to purchase their house from the local authority, which appears to have ‘always been what was intended’.
And – again, personally – that’s what drives me crackers, that expectation of (and reliance on) inheriting money, and even making plans for the money that will come when parents die. I’ve known a few people of similar mindsets over the years, and it always leaves me cold, that whole “Well, when they’ve died we’ll be able to [x]” attitude. It’s just unpleasant.
I know parents die – it’s a logical assumption that they will do so. But counting down the days ’til it happens, effectively looking forward to them dying, that’s just wrong. (Again, and as always, in my opinion)
As and when my folks go, I would hope that their will says “We’ve spent the lot, and anything else can go to the cats home”. I’d be fine with that – and you can be damn sure I wouldn’t be fighting through the courts because it was “unfair”.
Grrrr, People. They really do piss me off sometimes.
Spaces
Posted: Sun 26 July, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Laziness, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about laziness – and noticing a lot of it, as well. As such, there’s likely to be a few more posts about it, while it’s in my head.
One thing I’ve noticed over the last few weeks is around parking on weekends. Milton Keynes, for those who don’t know, has no shortage of parking spaces. It’s basically a fucking huge car-park with added shops and housing.
And yet every weekend I see drivers queueing to get into the multi-story car-park that’s the absolute closest to one end of the shopping centre. Queueing past loads of spaces that are empty (and cheaper than that multi-storey one) and fucking up junctions, all to get to the closest (or at least perceived to be closest) parking place.
I don’t get it – but then, I’m the idiot who walks from one end of central Milton Keynes to the other, because I’m too lazy to be bothered with driving it and faffing with parking. So who am I to judge?
(Not that I’m judging, I just find it weird to queue for spaces in an expensive multi-storey when there’s tons of closer street-level parking)
Easing Up
Posted: Thu 23 July, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less Leave a comment »As regular readers will know, I’ve been working fairly hard over the last eighteen months when it comes to weight loss.
In 2014, I’d lost two stone, and I was planning (hoping) to do the same this year, which would get me to something close to where I want to be.
However, this year it’s not gone all that well. (And yes, I know we’re only halfway through the year, there’s still time to sort things) I’ve stayed around the same place weight-wise, although I’ve been doing a lot more – both more walking, and also getting back to going to the gym.
As a result, my health and fitness are improving significantly, but the weight is staying the same.
I know there’s a load of guff spoken about muscle being heavier than fat, and all that, but I’ve still been finding it pretty demoralising to do a load of work, walking, or working out, then step on the scales and see the same figures there, week after week.
So – I’m not giving up, but I am easing off on checking my weight. I can feel the changes, and see the differences in measurements etc. (although I haven’t recorded the measurements themselves) and that’ll do me for now.
No Security
Posted: Fri 17 July, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Laziness, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »As I’ve said before, I’m working on going to the gym more often, more regularly. I’m getting there twice a week, and so far it’s going well.
The gym’s a more local one, in Milton Keynes, and near a lot of offices (unsurprisingly)
My routine tends to mean I get into MK early, and go to the gym before I start work – which is also what a fair number of other people seem to do. And that’s fine – it makes sense to me, and to all involved.
What does surprise me, though, is that most of the guys who are in the gym at the same time as me seem to leave most of their work stuff in the changing room, on the racks, rather than making use of the lockers. Not just the shirts, but full suits, as well as shoes and so on.
I don’t know if it’s just people being lazy, or doing that so that work stuff isn’t creased – although some of the lockers definitely have hanging sections within them, but they are further away than the standard ones. I suspect it’s a combination of both.
But all told it just makes me wonder about how people can be so unconscious of security – if they’re happy to leave stuff accessible to anyone with nefarious intentions (and I have no way of knowing if they’re leaving stuff in the suit pockets or not) instead of walking twenty paces extra, then I kind of despair of things.
Revised Plans/Targets
Posted: Thu 16 July, 2015 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Car Repairs, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the things that came to my attention last week with the car being sorted was with regard to my finances.
Now, this year is the first one where things have (so far) gone OK, and I’m pleased with where things are in general.
However, looking at what I’ve managed to do this year, I did feel I had done less well than I could’ve done. I’ve saved less than was perhaps possible or ideal – although still far, far better than I also could’ve done, or have done in previous times – but I do also know that there’ve been things I’ve bought and done this year that took some of that money away from being saved etc.
From here on, though, it’s going to be a bit different. I still plan to be able to do what I want when I want, but I’ll also be bunging a but more into savings as well.
I’m doing a full spending-diary at the moment, because I want to know where it all goes, and what it goes on. I’ve already been monitoring my monthly outgoings, and have a far better picture of them now than I used to – and have also been able to reduce a couple of things on there, plus a couple more will be dropping in the next month or so, come renewals time.
So that’s where things are.
The end of this year is the next big change, when I’m done with the repayments plan that’s been in place the last two and a bit years. When I’m done with that, the same monthly amount will be going direct into savings. It’s money I haven’t actually missed (well I have, but I’ve done without it just fine) so it can carry on going elsewhere, but to my benefit instead.
So yes, a way to go yet, but everything so far is at least in a positive direction…
Back on the Road
Posted: Sun 12 July, 2015 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Milton Keynes Leave a comment »Following on from last week’s fun, I can confirm that the Saab is back on the road and (so far) sounding and running OK.
It’s done a couple of decent(ish) runs, although for the moment it hasn’t had my semi-traditional post-serious-work run down to Devon and back. (Yet)
It’s not been cheap, but I’m happy with the decisions and work. Of course, that might change if the damned thing goes ker-fut again tomorrow, but for now I’m happy with how it’s all gone.
Ker-Fut 2 – Getting to the Garage
Posted: Mon 6 July, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Insurance, Milton Keynes, People Leave a comment »F0llowing on from Friday’s car issues, it’s been a semi-eventful weekend.
When I got home on Friday, my first job was sorting out a hire car for the coming week (possibly two) as I’m all over the place. That got sorted relatively easily – one place was closed, and I’d have had to call their Glasgow office to try and find out what was available (a ridiculous state of affairs, and frankly, fuck that) and the second one, while closed, enabled me to book a car to be collected the following morning, in a dead easy process.
And then it was a small case of hunting for the necessary identity documents. Driving licence (and the new necessary code from DVLA for the online driving record – needed since the paper part of the licence is now outdated) was OK, as was passport – but finding documents to prove address were somewhat more difficult, as I now do all my bills online, so rarely get anything “official” through the post. (As an aside, I wonder how that will change things over the next couple of years, as more and more paper-based stuff is removed/reduced/made into a cost) I did find the necessary bits in the end, but it’s getting to be more hassle than it should be.
Collecting the car (a new Vauxhall Insignia, which is not at all bad, as Vauxhall’s go) was an absolute doddle. The place is quite new, but was really a case of walk in, do the paperwork, check the car, bugger off. All told it was less than 30 minutes – fairly impressive. Because I’d used the same company before (when the Mondeo died on me) I had a lot less ID-checking to do – which seemed odd, as that was two-and-a-half years ago, and lots could’ve changed since then – but it was a nicely painless experience all round.
I’ve plonked about with it a fair bit over the weekend, and yeah, not bad at all.
I’ve also been looking at replacement vehicles – I suspect the Saab has blown up significantly, and will be more to repair than it’s worth, so I’m sounding out alternatives – and there’s a couple I’m going to check out this week, once I know more about the state of the Saab.
And then we come to getting the Saab to the garage. I’d thought a lot about this, and decided that the best plan would be to drive it (slowly, and along backroads) to the garage on Sunday, avoiding all the heavy traffic and any potential issues. If it died, well, I’ve got recovery as part of my car insurance. I left it ’til later in the Sunday, rather than trying to do it while people were still going shopping and so on. I did have my doubts about the plan – but figured it was infinitely better than trying to do it on Monday evening, let alone Tuesday morning!
Anyway, set off lateish on Sunday afternoon (about 5.30) and it was all fairly successful. I got most of the way fine, but then it did die out properly, so I had to do the recovery thing. In fairness, even that ended up going really smoothly – the recovery vehicle turned up within half an hour, and took me to drop the car off at the garage. (I was actually really lucky, because one thing I hadn’t taken into consideration was the fact it was the Grand Prix at Silverstone, so traffic and breakdowns were greatly increased later on!)
Then it was just a case of dropping off the keys, and getting a cab home – all told, I was home by 8pm, which wasn’t bad, when everything was taken into consideration.
Reducing Available Excuses
Posted: Fri 3 July, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last month, I’ve been getting back into going to the gym. At first it’s been more about just adding it in to my regular routine – and that’s been fairly successful, I’m pleased to say. I do intend to go through things with a personal trainer and so on, figure out what my goals and targets should realistically be (and there’s some other parts to that too, but more of those at another time) but for now it’s been more about just going, doing some stuff there, and just getting it back into my normal day.
With the exception of last week – where I’d twatted my foot (again) enough that it was painful to walk on, let alone do any serious exercise/workout/walking – it’s worked out fairly well, and I got in at least twice a week.
This week, with the foot back to being OK (or at least OK enough) I was back to going, even though I really wasn’t in the mood, and frankly I was too fucking hot to want to go. But I still went.
My philosophy at the moment is to go when I don’t want to, when the conditions are crap – too wet, too windy, too hot, too whatever – to make sure that I’ve no excuses on normal days. The only time where excuses are allowed are when I’m hurting, and it’ll affect them (and possibly make them worse) by going. That’s it.
So having been on the hottest day of the year, I’ve no real excuses any more when “it’s too hot”. Yes, it’s definitely not nice (and an extra change of clothes was a very good plan!) but it got done, and I can’t make that excuse. (I was actually surprised by how few people were in the gym on that day – I assume ‘It’s too hot to work out’ had an effect on that, too)
So – making progress. We’ll see how things work out from here…
Weekend of Quiet – the nPower farce
Posted: Thu 2 July, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, nPower, Utilities Leave a comment »As I said earlier, the only scheduled thing for the weekend was a visit from Lowri Beck, the clowns who are nPower’s third-party partner in the area – who needed to check my electricity meter.
Supposedly they legally *have* to do this once a year – and they allege they haven’t been inside my property in four years (i.e. before I even moved in), so it’s hardly a legal requirement in the first place. Saying they haven’t had access is utter bollocks, by the way, as someone from the company was in there to check the gas one a month ago, and I’ve had people from the same company in to do readings before (except they then lost them, due to being useless cunts)
Anyway, the guy turned up, and in his most helpful manner said “Oooh, that’s not good. How long’s it been doing that?”. To which, of course, I said “Doing what?”, as I’m not a fucking mind-reader, and couldn’t tell you one end of a meter problem from the other. “That” he says, and points at the meter. “Go on, give me a clue.”
Turns out, there’s a flashing light that says “I need replacing”. It wasn’t there two weeks ago when I took my own meter reading, but now the clowns are here, we get the full circus lights. *sigh*
So – I now need to get a replacement meter.
But in a fit of truly inspired crap customer service, Lowri Beck’s installers only work Monday to Friday, 9-5. So to get a new meter, I’m going to have to take time off work, costing me money for something that’s entirely not my fault. And nPower won’t offer any alternatives, compensation, or understanding. (Which is no surprise whatsoever)
I’ve got it booked in, but it looks like it may just be time for yet another fight with the asshats at nPower. Oh goody.
The Weekend of Quiet
Posted: Wed 1 July, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Milton Keynes, Seeing Films, Sleep - or lack thereof Leave a comment »As planned, last weekend was fairly quiet – and much needed.
The only booked thing I had in was to get someone from nPower’s third-party partner company in to look at my electricity meter. I’m going to write about that in a different post, because it gets long-winded, and slightly farcical. (As do all things nPower)
Other than that, I didn’t do much. The total of activities was
- Visit the cinema (twice)
- Keep up my walking targets, so I did wander round Milton Keynes etc.
- A bit of shopping
- Sorting out the back yard, including buying new pots and plants, and getting them installed/planted.
- Other very small odds and sods.
So it was decent. It would’ve been better if I’d actually been able to sleep well too, but there we go, that’d be pushing my luck too far.
More Practical Stuff
Posted: Sat 27 June, 2015 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, House Work Leave a comment »Following on from previous posts, the yard project was something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
Last summer, I saw some wooden decking tiles in Ikea, and thought they’d look good in my yard. I didn’t bother at the time, as there were other things to do, and I was more than slightly mired in dealing with a particular shitbag employer (I griped about them at the time, and can’t be chuffed to do so again) so it went on the back-burner and I didn’t get round to it.
Anyway, it’s stayed in my mind since then. Once I’d done the fence last weekend, I started thinking about it again, decided “Nuts to it”, and went to Ikea on Friday after work. (It’s not bad directly after work, although admittedly I left earlier than standard working hours, and with only one thing in mind to purchase) In the spirit of being organised, I also bought some weed-proof membrane to go under the tiles, which should help keep it looking better.
Purchase successful, I got home and decided that I’d make a start.
Less than two hours later, I was done. Admittedly, it’s not a huge yard, but everything went together so easily and worked so nicely, I was really pleased with the entire thing.
I’m really pleased with it. And for an all-in price of less than £200 (including the weed-proof membrane) I can’t really fault it at all.
The final bits of the project now will be some pots and plants, although I’m yet to decide what stuff I actually want. That’s the next stage though.
Domestic Simplicity (Again)
Posted: Thu 25 June, 2015 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Thoughts Leave a comment »A while back, I wrote about not being practical, yet still getting stuff done when the need arose. A similar thing happened last week, and I’m equally chuffed with how it’s worked out so far.
Basically, the fence panels around my back yard haven’t been treated in a long time – since the cottages got revamped, at a guess, which is probably about ten years now. I’ve been in mine for three years, so I know for sure it hasn’t had any treatment in that time.
So basically, I decided to do the whole wood-painting thing, and sorted it all out. Basic preparations got done – purchase of supplies, and cleaning off the fence etc. of all dust, spiderwebs and general grut. The paint is ‘woodland green’ – I kind of like it, and if the landlord doesn’t then I can paint over it easily with something darker when it comes time to move on/out.
And on Sunday, because I was up horrifically early, I just got on with it. I’m really pleased with the results, too. Even better, I didn’t cover myself, and didn’t cover the rest of the yard with it either. Some small specks, but nothing major.
I’ve got a couple of bits still to do – one of the fences also has a lagged water-pipe against it (don’t ask, I’ve no idea) and I still need to do under/below it. (I hadn’t bought any small brushes to get into those tight spots, but I’ve got some now) And it all dried nicely, to a decent colour – and without being trampled through the house by the bloody cats.
I’ve got some other ideas for the yard, for doing some extra stuff with it in the next couple of weeks – once I get ideas in my head, I like to get on with them – but all told it’s been remarkably positive, and I’m deeply cheered with how it’s gone so far.
Staying Still
Posted: Wed 24 June, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Single Life, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »This coming weekend is my first one fully ‘at home’ in about three months. As such, I’m looking forward to it for downtime and some peace and quiet.
However, I feel almost guilty about staying home, and doing Not Much.
My brain keeps on saying “Oh, but you could do a day-trip to [x], [y] or [z]“. And it’s right, I could. But I don’t really want to – except my brain doesn’t believe it.
It’s odd. One part of me wants to just have a down-weekend, a time of not doing a lot, and most emphatically not driving any significant distances. But the other part obviously does want me to do all of those things.
It’s a bit schizoid, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see which side wins out in the end. All very strange.
Sleeping Places
Posted: Mon 22 June, 2015 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Insomnia, Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »Following on from the insomnia attacks of late, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the things that do work for me when it comes to sleep.
Because I’ve also been doing a lot of travelling and visiting, it’s given me a wide range of reference points, which always makes things more interesting.
One oddity I have noticed is that I seem to sleep better on sofas than I do in bed. It’s strange, but true. I’ve also had a few occasions of coming home in the afternoon and getting a nap on my own sofa, but that’s more for catch-ups when they’re absolutely needed, rather than becoming a routine.
It’s been true for a long time though – certainly right back to the Norfolk house, where I’d sleep on the sofa-bed when we had bad weather and I had to take Hound in to the smaller bedroom to stop her being an arse. When I think about it, it’s also applied a lot of times over the years, when going to see friends and so on, and preferring to crash on sofas rather than spare beds.
As a result, I’m doing a lot of thinking about whether I change my bedroom and bed, investing instead in a decent sofa-bed. It’s food for thought at the moment, but not going to be a change I make quickly. After all, if I make the change and don’t sleep any better, then it’s been a loss/waste of a bed and so on.
It may be that I leave it until I move house again – which is something that’s on the agenda, but not any time imminently. That’ll definitely be to a bigger place – hell, it’d be a challenge to find anywhere smaller – so I can look at it seriously at that point.
I’ll think about it more – there’s other factors in that kind of decision- but we’ll see where things go, I think.
Insomniac
Posted: Sun 21 June, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Insomnia, Thoughts Leave a comment »While life’s been busy over the last few months, it’s also been a rotten period for my insomnia.
Well, the insomnia’s been doing really well – it’s just that what’s good for insomnia is (by definition) fucking bollocks for my sleep. So I’m knackered, and have been for a fair while now.
Obviously it varies – and to a degree I’m used to rotten sleep – but it’s been pretty cruddy of late, even by my own standards. I’m used to – and pretty much fine with – around 4 hours a night, and can even get by for a while on 3 a night. But recently I’ve been lucky to get two.
This, from last night, is the best night I’ve had in ages…
Frankly, that’s just messed up.
The thing is, no matter what goes on, nothing changes it significantly. I can go to bed early, I can go to bed late. I can drink coffee and diet coke, or I can cut out caffeine – either from sometime during the day, or completely. Eating early, eating late. Reading, not reading. Temperature, clothing, bedding (i.e. on the quilt or under it) – i’ve tried changing all of those things.
And none of it affects whether I sleep badly or not. When it was really bad a while back, I cut out caffeine totally for a couple of weeks. Even by the end of that period, I was sleeping even worse than usual.
All told, it’s just a pain in the bits. I’m hoping it’ll settle a bit more now, but well, we’ll see.
People-Carriers
Posted: Sat 20 June, 2015 Filed under: BMW Drivers, Commuting, Driving, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »[Note : There may be some sweeping generalisations in this, but at the same time I’m trying to avoid them]
As has been noted many times over the years, I drive way too much, way too many miles (in comparison to pretty much anyone sane) and get to see an awful lot of crappy driving. I’m not claiming my own driving is perfect – but with that number of miles I cover, nor is it bloody awful.
Anyway, as always there seem to be certain categories of drivers who are worse than others.
Invariably, the worst of all tend to be the drivers of BMWs and Audis, but there’s another class I’m seeing more of on the roads – the people-carrier vehicles, the MPVs and their ilk. In particular, there’s something about drivers of Citroen Picassos (I’ve always suspected that people only buy those because BMW don’t make a people-carrier – if they did, that’s what the fuckknuckles would buy) but it’s actually most of that vehicle type.
I don’t know why it is that certain types of vehicle seem to attract crap drivers, but it keeps on appearing to be so.
[I had a theme in there, but it’s now gone. Grrr]
Short-Term Let
Posted: Tue 9 June, 2015 Filed under: Advertising, Agency Idiocy, Bad Ads, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Housing, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Three years ago, when I was looking at moving (and ended up where I still am now) there were a couple of other places in the running – they fitted my plans, location and cost wise, if nothing else.
I go past one of them regularly on commutes, visits to parents and the like – so I see it come back on the rental market every six months or so (which is, not coincidentally, the usual period for a first short-term tenancy)
It’s pretty grotty, and right on a busy main road, so I’m not surprised it’s regularly in need of new tenants – and it looks like this, so it’s hardly appealing…
That’s the only photo of it. There’s nothing of the inside at all – which always triggers my alarm bells, and is why I didn’t even visit it, so I’ve no idea what it looks like inside. I can’t imagine it’s much good though.
Even the sales description doesn’t do it any favours.
A One bedroom cottage situated on the outskirts of [village]. The property benefits from a parking area to the side and views of the countryside to the rear. Offered Unfurnished and Available Early July.
Entrance to Rear, Kitchen, Lounge, Bathroom, Double Bedroom, Shared Courtyard Garden, Double Glazed Windows, Electric Heating.
What fascinates me is that people choose it at all. OK, it’s dirt-cheap – although actually still a bit more expensive than the place I ended up with – but that doesn’t make it an appealing proposition. I’d imagine it’s even less of one after you’ve visited, seen the location and heard the road noise.
So I do wonder what type of person chooses it, and why. And (of course) where they go next, once their six months there is done…
Pooh and Pooch
Posted: Mon 8 June, 2015 Filed under: Animals, Day Trips, Domestic, People, Sociable, Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday was a warm and rather relaxed and pleasant day. All very surprising.
One of my friends is involved in the organisation of the World Pooh Sticks Championships, which was held yesterday at a new venue for the first time in thirty-odd years.
She’s also recently bought a new dog, a Cavachon (Cavalier King Charles mixed with Bichon Frise) who’d had her final jabs and was finally allowed out in the world. So it seemed like a great idea for getting her to meet lots of people and dogs, and see how she did. And that was my work for the day, which was obviously a real hardship.
And it was a good day all round. The competition was a success in its new venue – with loads of people visiting and watching – and Pooch was excellent. She’s had a really positive first Big Day Out, and was knackered by the end of it.
Now that is what weekends are for…
Getting Back In The Saddle
Posted: Sat 6 June, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Weigh Less Leave a comment »Following on from this week’s ‘Heavy Thoughts‘, I’m aiming on getting myself back into more exercise and so on.
Among those plans, I’m heading back to a gym – and it’s another new one.
I signed up with one in Milton Keynes (MK) earlier this year, thinking that it would be a good plan due to working in MK four days a week. However, it didn’t work with everything else – it was a bit in the wrong direction, and a ballbag to get to. It didn’t fit with how things were working for me, so I wasn’t going.
As a result, I cancelled it – no point carrying on paying for something that’s not being used, just because of good intentions, after all. Thankfully it was one of the newer no-contract gyms, so wasn’t any great issue.
This week I’ve signed up with a different one (but still contract-free, and actually cheaper still than the previous one) and went for the first time as well. It’s closer to my office, allbeit still a decent walk, and means I can park near the office as usual – I get in early anyway, to avoid rush-hour traffic – and walk down to the gym, then walk back and get to work.
I’ve not chosen the best time to do this – this week and next are chaotically busy with other stuff as well, so I’m not in the MK office as much as usual. Initially though, it’s aiming to get me into going again, and getting into a routine for doing so.
And from there, we’ll see how it all goes. I’m optimistic for the moment, but time is more likely to tell.
Heavy Thoughts
Posted: Wed 3 June, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Thoughts, Weigh Less 1 Comment »Last year I did pretty well when it comes to weight loss, dropping two stones over the year. (It was actually a bit more, but then went up again towards the year end) The plan this year is/was to do more of the same, and lose a similar amount of weight.
So far, that’s not gone well. It stayed pretty stable through January to April, and then May was – for unknown reasons – really bad. Basically, I had a real desire for sugar, coupled with a lot of idiot days, journeys, activities and meals. It felt pretty non-stop, and for whatever reason from that, my brain/body wanted sweet stuff.
When I weighed myself on Monday, I’d put on nearly a stone, which has really annoyed me. I’ve been pleased with the weight loss, so putting some back on is a bit of a setback.
But it’s only a setback, not a major issue. From here on things are a bit calmer again – although saying that I’ve still got weekend trips to Oxford, Manchester and London coming up – and I’ll reduce that sugar intake again. That has, I think, been the main trigger for weight gain.
I’m going to get back to doing some other stuff too, and seeing how things go. But that’s the plan, and I’m not changing my goal for the year. I just have to work a bit harder than expected to get there…
Average Speed
Posted: Tue 2 June, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »[No, for once this isn’t about the fuckwits who can’t drive properly with average speed limits/cameras on the M1]
A couple of times in the last week, I’ve witnessed something a bit different when following other drivers on the more rural roads around me. It’s people who seem to stick to a speed, regardless of what’s going on around them.
There’s a few winding roads near me on key routes – A-roads to get me to see the parents, for example. They’re decent roads, but with absolutely no way to safely overtake when you’re following a fuckwit, crane, HGV etc. – which can make those roads… somewhat wearing.
In this case, I was behind a silly bastard who was sticking to 45mph like shit to a blanket. The road is national-speed-limit, and perfectly doable and safe at 60mph, but no, 45 it was. Then we get to a village on the road, the speed limit goes down to 30 (for good reason – it’s good a big-ass set of bends in the middle, as well as everything else) including the flashing warning signs if you exceed that. But no, silly bastard still sticks to 45. So we’ve gone from too-slow to too-fast, without him moving a muscle. That takes some skill, I suppose.
I’ve seen a couple of other drivers since with the same mind-set, and it’s no less frustrating or weird when you see more than one person doing it.
What I can’t work out is whether it’s pig-headedness (“I’ll get where I need to go at 45, it’s a fine speed”), ignorance (“I don’t care about anyone else, I’m going at my speed”) or just a complete lack of awareness of their surroundings, so they don’t even see the signs, or the line of cars in the mirror.
I just don’t know. They’re bloody scary to follow though…
Credo
Posted: Mon 1 June, 2015 Filed under: Thoughts, Words, Writing Leave a comment »From this week’s New Statesman, guest-edited by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (and read out by Neil at their event on Thursday, which I went to)
I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea, because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.
I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatise and deny.
I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people, smashing their heads with rocks (to let the bad ideas out), drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like. Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds, and are as difficult to control.
I believe that repressing ideas spreads ideas.
I believe that people and books and newspapers are containers for ideas, but that burning the people will be as unsuccessful as firebombing the newspaper archives. It is already too late. It is always too late. The ideas are out, hiding behind people’s eyes, waiting in their thoughts. They can be whispered. They can be written on walls in the dead of night. They can be drawn.
I believe that ideas do not have to be right to exist.
I believe you have every right to be perfectly certain that images of god or prophet or man are sacred and undefilable, just as I have the right to be certain of the sacredness of speech, of the sanctity of the right to mock, comment, to argue and to utter.
I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me, and that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that you think.
I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things, and that I do not have the right to kill you, maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting. You probably think my ideas are pretty vile, too.
I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win.
Because the ideas are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they are even true.
Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.
©Neil Gaiman / New Statesman 2015
Says it all far better than I can. Stored here for posterity, and further referencing as time goes on.
Successful Dining
Posted: Sat 30 May, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, Introspective, Single Life, Solo Dining Leave a comment »One of my things this year was to get myself being better at going out to restaurants on my own – something I’ve never been keen on, and one of my weaker points when it comes to being single.
So I’d made it a goal – a resolution, if you will – to go out and eat more in places on my own.
Thus far, it’s actually been remarkably successful (He said, modestly) and I’ve been really pleased, if I’m honest.
As well as the ‘proper restaurants’ I’ve been to – Grillstock in Bath, Kitchin in Edinburgh, Meat Liquor in Brighton, and a couple of others – I’ve also been doing the same sort of thing when I work on-site on Mondays. That’s more pub-restaurant than anything else, but it still applies to the ethos. Basically, when I’m on-site and it comes to getting home, I can choose to sit in solid traffic for two hours and more, or I can wait in the pub, have some food, and then drive home in 50 minutes. Really, that’s a no brainer.
All told, I’m getting used to it, it’s not something that causes me a problem per se any more – and that rates as a success in my eyes.
There’s still more places to go, more restaurants on the list, and it’s all good.
Out and About
Posted: Thu 28 May, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Food, M1, Travel Leave a comment »The end of this week is another busy one.
Thursday, I’m in London seeing Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer at the Hackney Empire.
Then for the weekend, I’m in Manchester, seeing friends and attending the Grillstock Festival in the city centre. I went last year and it was good fun, so a repeat visit should be entertaining.
Single Life
Posted: Wed 20 May, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life, Writing Leave a comment »Just a small filler post for the moment – others in the process of being conceived/written – but it’s something I’ve been bouncing round in my head for a while, so what the hell.
This piece in Standard Magazine by Helen Walmsley-Johnson on Single Life sums up so much of what’s in my own head and heart, I just wanted to bookmark it here.
Domestic Simplicity
Posted: Thu 14 May, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Housing 1 Comment »As has been pointed out before, I am emphatically Not very practical. I can do some stuff, but I’m not good at it, and more likely to fuck it up than not. And usually I’m OK with that – I accept my limitations on that score, and just pay someone to do it who knows what they’re doing, and is infinitely more likely to not fuck it up.
But I’m always happy to have a go, so long as there’s a back-up plan.
This week though, I didn’t have that Plan B, but the simple job worked out OK.
Basically, one of the brackets on the toilet seat gave out, and snapped. That seat’s been there a *long* time, so it’s not a massive surprise. But obviously it’s something that requires replacing sooner rather than later.
And that’s what happened – I got the new seat, and also some pliers because I had a feeling it was going to be a twat to undo the remaining fittings and screws. It had been there a while, remember. And it’s rusted and nasty. So – pliers.
I got home, used the pliers, got the old seat off, put the new one in the right place, and did it all up. And it’s all gone together fine, first time.
It’s a small thing (story of my life) and I’d fully expect to be told “Jesus, anyone can replace that kind of thing” – and it’s true, they can. But for me, it’s still a nice feeling, knowing it just got handled and replaced with no hassles and hindrances.
That’s all.
Self-Inflicted Damage
Posted: Wed 13 May, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Sport, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »[Note : As always, I don’t actually give a shit about sport/cricket – I’m more interested in the mindset beneath it in this case]
Over the last couple of days, the news has been full of bloody Kevin Pietersen throwing a strop about not being allowed – yet – back into playing cricket for England.
Apparently a while back it was…
suggest[ed he] could add to his 104 England caps if he joined a county and scored enough runs to merit a recall.
(Quote from the BBC story)
Pietersen did this, and fair play to him. Earlier this week, he scored a personal best innings, something like 350 not out. So he’s assumed that on that one showing, he should be allowed back into the England team.
He met Andrew Strauss – the new ‘director of cricket’, apparently – who said there was no chance this summer, and that some people didn’t trust Pietersen. Which is also fair – Pietersen’s always been an asshat.
But now he’s thrown his toys out the pram about it, and has written about how he feels ‘deceived’ and so on in his column in the Telegraph.
Really, all it seems like is a whining brat. Yes, he’s done what was asked, and had one excellent innings. But that doesn’t make a team player, and doesn’t mean he has to be immediately accepted as part of the England team.
Indeed, if anything is now going to make sure he doesn’t get back in, I’d say it’s his own behaviour in this. (Of course, he won’t see it like that, because he’s perfect and no-one else is. Rah rah rah. Standard asshat behaviour) I would’ve said he might have a chance if he continues to excel at county level – the same criteria as could be applied to any other up-and-coming player.
But really, how can you trust anyone who throws their toys out like this at any opportunity? When they decide to destroy their own chances and credibility, in a fit that looks more like the act of a stropping toddler kicking their feet and screaming in a supermarket than one of someone wanting to play for – and thus represent – a country’s cricket team?
Another Visit to Brighton
Posted: Tue 12 May, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, Single Life, Solo Dining, Travel Leave a comment »On Sunday, I did another day-trip down to Brighton. I’d known I wanted to go somewhere coastal, and it was really a toss-up between Brighton and Whitstable (although I could also have chosen Somewhere Else, but couldn’t decide where I wanted to go) as both were known quantities, and a dead easy two-hour drive to get to them. There’s only about five miles of driving distance between them, so it really was a toss-up.
It was also somewhat dependent on my insomnia – if I’d had the rare event of actually sleeping well/late, I wouldn’t have bothered, and would’ve done something else instead. But as I was awake by 5.30 – thanks body-clock, you bastard – then the day-trip was Go.
Anyway, for whatever reason – and I’m not completely sure myself what the deciding factor was, other than “Fuck it, that’ll do” – I ended up opting for Brighton. It’s still not somewhere I know super-well, although I’m familiar enough with it that I’ve a rough idea of where I’m going and what I’m doing.
So – a two-hour easy drive down, and I was there by 9am, when it’s still nice and empty. I ended up walking a large section of the seafront, hindered only by a number of joggers, runners and cyclists. (Although it’s always amusing when I’m walking and overtaking joggers – they really don’t like it)
Yes, the weather was that changeable…
The weather was pretty good – although changeable – and despite dollops of cloud and greying over, it was still warm and sunny for the most part. I’d walked a lot of seafront, and ended up finding somewhere slightly sheltered – it was also quite breezy – to vegetate and read for a while. Sadly, I’d chosen a place that seemed to be on a main walking route for people from the Marina end of Brighton, with a constant stream of people saying “Oh, is that a mile already?” (thanks to a sign on the esplanade) and commenting about the weird Gaudi-esque construction that was on the beach in front of me. So after a while I decided to wander back towards the car, and probably stop for lunch along the way.
Cue a bit of a furkle on the phone, and oooooh, look, there’s a MeatLiquor. That’ll do as a target!
And that’s what happened.
Now that’s a lunch
Wandered round a bit more afterwards, and then another drive home – managing to avoid all the people getting up later, who’d decided to spend the remains of their day by the sea.
All told, a very successful day.
The next day-trip will be somewhere different, although I don’t yet know where/when. But they’re certainly being good for the soul…
Electioneering
Posted: Thu 7 May, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), People, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »I will be really glad to see the end of this week, with the General Election being completed and a result being in.
The biggest challenge this year has been in finding someone – anyone – that I actually want to vote for, and wouldn’t want to punch myself repeatedly in the face if they got in.
I suspect today’s election will end up being another coalition and a parliament built on compromise and cobblers, but I still hope that all the punditry and bullshit will be confounded by one party winning enough votes to have overall power.
But that’s it, and I’ll just really be glad when it’s over. And from there, a new idea/phase/plan can kick in a bit, and see how things go. Another five-year project/plan, shall we say?
Three Years In One Place
Posted: Tue 5 May, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, Single Life, Thoughts, Time, Travel Leave a comment »It’s now three years since I moved into the current house – which also means I’ve been single that long. How time flies, and all that rot.
I’m definitely still here for another six months (that’s when the current tenancy expires) and I’m still undecided on what I do from there.
I suspect I’ll stick with it for another year’s tenancy, to be honest – unless anything in life changes radically in that period. That’s quite scary in some ways, it’s almost like I’m feeling more settled and (almost) putting down some roots.
That’s not the case though – the current place isn’t where I want to stay longer-term, but at the moment it’s just convenient, and – as I’ve said before – makes travelling easy to just about anywhere else.
A Very Good Deal
Posted: Sun 3 May, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Shopping, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the weekend, my toaster finally died. (You can tell this one’s going to be interesting, can’t you?) It’s done fairly well, daily service for three years, if not more. Over Easter it had started playing up, but then on Saturday it gave up completely.
So – off to the retail superstore of gloom. (It’s closest, I couldn’t be arsed with faffing about too much, and I had some vouchers to use up)
I had a look, and decided on this one, mainly because it’s purple – I’m shallow like that – and because it was £10 off the marked price, so £40 instead of £50. Fair enough.
But when I got to the tills, it scanned at … hang on … £19? OK, I’ll check it with the customer services, but that’ll do.
As it was, I also had a number of vouchers (all in “You would’ve saved £x at a different store, so here’s the difference” price-match vouchers) that came to £25. So I effectively ended up with Tesco paying me £6 for my new toaster…
I don’t know quite how it all worked out like that, but I’m not going to complain.
[Additional] : When I went to customer services to check, in case a) the price was wrong or b) their system was wrong, I waited ages to be seen and then the person involved said “Oh, for electrical enquiries you’ve got to go back upstairs and ask them“. To which my thought response was “Fuck that, if you can’t be arsed to check it, I can’t be arsed to report it any further“.
So – a nice new toaster for the princely sum of minus six pounds. I can live with that.
Creatively Becalmed
Posted: Fri 1 May, 2015 Filed under: Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »This year so far – and probably for a bit longer than that, if I’m honest – I’ve not been getting all that much done on a creative front, and I don’t really know why. It’s more a feeling of being bogged down, uninspired, and just not in the mood.
Writing is going better than anything else – lots of ideas, but nothing is particularly gelling at the moment. I’ve got a couple of things started, but it’s still bogging down, and not flowing.
Photography-wise, I haven’t even taken my camera out in ages. Really it’s been since I did the NCFE course, which is a bloody long time now. I don’t know why that seemed to flick the ‘can’t be arsed’ switch, but it has. I’ve tried a few things and ideas, but it’s just all a bit “meh”, with no real desire to take the photos.
In some ways, the day-trips over the last few months have helped on that – I’ve taken photos, even if ‘only’ with the phone (although that’s a surprise, considering how good they’ve come out) but still can’t really bring myself to take the actual camera out for a day. A lot of that is also because I can’t be arsed with lugging it around and faffing about, but mainly it’s just the faff of it all at the moment.
I’m sure things will change again – I certainly hope so – and that the changes will be positive for once. The rest of this year to date has been positive, so I’m hoping that once I have some headspace and time, I’ll be more prompted.
(And I’m sure I’ve written about this a couple of times this year already, so forgive the repetition. It’s just something that’s bugging me at the moment)
Make Up Your Damn Mind 2
Posted: Thu 30 April, 2015 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Food, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »It seems like a developing theme (although I don’t intend it to be so) but I’ve been noticing dodgy signage/labelling this week.
This one is at a local restaurant…
So – not all day every day then
If you’re advertising a menu as “All day every day”, you can’t then qualify it as “up to 6pm on Friday and Saturday”, can you?
*sigh*
Make Up Your Damn Mind
Posted: Wed 29 April, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Food, Health, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »While shopping this morning, I looked at “Glaceau Vitamin Water“. Not for any intention of buying, just out of interest (I got a promo thingy for it, so thought I’d look).
The labelling is….. interesting.
Zero or not?
So… “Zero Calories”, but 100ml contains 1.5 calories, and 500ml contains 8calories.
All told, that makes it a pretty interesting interpretation of “zero”…
Burger Crawl
Posted: Mon 27 April, 2015 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, London, Reviews(ish), Sociable, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I took part in a very silly event that I’d discussed and come up with – a Burger Crawl in London.
It started off with a conversation about alternatives to pub crawls – I can’t even remember why it came up – but it seemed like a fun idea.
Originally it was going to be four of us as a trial run, but two dropped out, so it ended up just being one friend and me doing it, but that was fine.
Because it was the first one, and my idea, it ended up being my plan for where to go. So I made the choice that it was going to be all new places, nowhere we’d been before, and all in a similar area of London, rather than roaming all over the place.
As it turned out, it almost started badly. The place I’d picked for the first one – breakfast at Honest Burger‘s place near Liverpool Street – wasn’t open, they only do breakfasts Monday to Friday. So, a bit of a trip on the first hurdle, but we had other places on the list of possibles, and went for one of those instead.
So the final list was
- walking up to Dirty Burger in Shoreditch (with a donut from DumDums to start, as Dirty Burger wasn’t quite open when we got there)
- a coffee at Fix 126 on the way to the next place
- another burger at Blues Kitchen in Shoreditch
- walking down to Brick Lane (ish) for an NYC Torta (a sloppy messy burger-type affair which was ace) at DF/Mexico
- a much bigger walk down to Whitechapel, then a tube to Embankment
- Drinks and a break at Scoff and Banter in Leicester Square
- The final meal bit was the “Gentleman’s Afternoon Tea” at Sanctum Hotel in Soho
- And then walked back up to Euston Station in order to go home.
We did well – much more food and it would’ve involved exploding stomachs – and was a brilliant day with all the new venues being excellent. I plan to return to all of them – just maybe not all in one day again.
Oh – and we covered a fair amount of distance as well, which probably helped in dealing with the amount of food…
There will be more BurgerCrawls in the future – and we’ve had a couple of other related ideas too – but for a first go, it all went really well, and definitely a success.
Resurgence Of Ills
Posted: Tue 21 April, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Late last week, and into this, the lung-crap made a bit of a revisit.
It’s nowhere near as bad as the full-on Bronchitis of a couple of months back, but it’s been noticeable, with the cough and the lumps of coughed-up green. Over the weekend I did wonder if I was going to have to make a return visit to my GP – not that I wanted to – because of the breathing issues and crackles in the lungs again, but for now that seems to have receded again.
I’m actually feeling OK, and pretty healthy – which makes it even more annoying that this crap keeps on coming back round.
It’s back on the wane now, thankfully. I just hope I don’t get battered by a third round of it.
Overtaking – On the decline
Posted: Thu 16 April, 2015 Filed under: Charm School, Commuting, Cynicism, Driving, People, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 2 Comments »Over the last few weeks of driving, I’ve been noticing more and more that other drivers seem to be quite averse to overtaking, even with miles of clear and visible road ahead. I don’t quite know why it is – maybe it’s about how generally risk-averse we’re becoming – but it’s bloody annoying.
I do overtake – so long as it’s safe, and the road is clear. (That should go without saying, but still) But I now seem to be in the minority.
Of course, the irony is that when you’re then on a multi-carriageway road, every single one of those motherfuckers is sitting in the outside two lanes, overtaking fuck-all. But I digress.
The thing is, if you’re behind five or six – hell, even two or three – vehicles who aren’t overtaking whatever’s holding everyone up/back, then my own overtaking manoeuvre becomes difficult, if not impossible. So you just end up sitting there, because no-one else is prepared to do anything.
It’s an odd state of affairs – and sometimes bloody annoying. But there’s not a lot that you can do, except accept that it’s just going to be one of those days…
Edinburgh Trip
Posted: Tue 14 April, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »All told, the Edinburgh trip was fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed all of it, even though I’m knackered by the end of it.
The travel itself was exceptionally smooth – and all on-time, which made it even better. Coasting past jammed traffic on the M1 (which I would’ve been using otherwise) was a particular high point.
The hotel was great (with the minor exception of a 2am fire alarm on the Saturday night, but these things happen) and everything generally went well.
Over the weekend I walked about 25km around Edinburgh – including being too lazy to wait for taxis and buses, and walking from Leith to the City Centre (and back) – as well as visiting two galleries, which was the kind of thing I wanted to do with the weekend.
Finally, the restaurant was absolutely brilliant. I really enjoyed the entire thing, and really want to go back (as well as going to other similar places) for a different menu and different choices. It also helped that the first person I saw as I went in was Tom Kitchin himself, which I figure is a pretty auspicious start.
So yes – a great weekend, and a great break. More will follow.
Getting Sent Home
Posted: Sat 11 April, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, News, People, Stupidity Leave a comment »[Posted delayed, while I’m away]
One of my favourite articles this week has been the BBC’s telling of the man who air-mailed himself home from Australia – and nearly died several times over.
It’s a gob-smacking tale – and beautifully written – that makes you wonder at both the desperation to leave Australia, and the sheer madness of how he did it.
I won’t ruin the tale – it’s a good ‘un.
Travel Time
Posted: Fri 10 April, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Public Transport, Thoughts, Time, Travel 1 Comment »The trip to Edinburgh this weekend is also pretty much the first time I’ve taken a long-distance train journey since I lived in Manchester. I was considering driving, but looked at a minimum of six hours each way, as well as the consideration of fuel costs etc., and thought “You know what? Eff that”. (Which is pretty novel in itself)
So I checked out the train costs – the journey’s about 5 hours each way by train, and the ticket price is pretty much on a par (within £10 or so) of the expected fuel costs. Plus it’ll mean I get to read, write, or just look out of the window, rather than being stuck having to concentrate on driving the entire way.
All told, it’s really been quite a sensible decision. I’m not sure how it happened – I normally see a sensible decision and run in the opposite direction. I’ll write more about it once I’m back, and know how it all went.
April 1st
Posted: Wed 1 April, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, D4D™ Leave a comment »And so, another International Day of Japery and Shit Tricks/Jokes/Pranks.
Happy Happy Joy Joy.
Normal programming will be resumed tomorrow.
Six Weeks and Counting
Posted: Mon 30 March, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, News, Politics, Thoughts 1 Comment »Last night (well, technically this morning, as it happened at 00:01) the UK Parliament was dissolved, in preparation for the General Election on May 7th.
So that’s six weeks of most televised news coverage/programmes, with pontificating ballbags – both politicians and commentators/experts/specialists spouting loads of crap from all the available parties about what they promise to do for the next few years (and almost certainly won’t actually do, once they get in)
As with the run-up to the Festering Season, I’m going to try and avoid as much of it as possible.
I will do (and have been doing) my own reading on who to vote for – mainly by using the actual party’s websites, but also this outline guide, which is vaguely handy – who to support and who not.
I’m still considering (and at this point strongly considering) doing my own party for the next General Election, and seeing how things go. It could be entertaining – which is more than I can say for the next six weeks of bullshit…
Missing Limb
Posted: Mon 30 March, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Getting Organised, Stupidity, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »This morning I somehow managed to leave my phone at home. (Well, I hope it’s at home – otherwise I’ve done something really stupid with it)
It’s quite an odd feeling really – you only realise how much you use the damn thing when it’s not there. The ubiquity of a smartphone for simple things is suddenly noticeable.
Already today I’ve had several thoughts of “Oh, I’ll just get the phone and…”, followed by the realisation that I can’t.
Calling it a “missing limb” is a bit hyperbolic, but it’s definitely a feeling of something missing, something you’re used to having around that’s not there any more.
I’ll be fine – it’s not like I’m surgically attached or anything – but every so often something will jar, and I’ll think “Bollocks” again.
Let’s just hope the damn thing is at home. I’m sure it is, but there’s that nagging ‘what if you did something dumb?‘ mental voice going on…
Changing Temperatures
Posted: Sun 29 March, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Weirdness Leave a comment »One of my family traits is that we all run warm – I’m rarely cold, my dad was infamous for having gone into a new office, turned off the heating on his first day and not re-activating it for five years ’til he left. I don’t know why we’re like it, but we are.
At night I’d sleep outside the quilt for the most part, because I was too warm otherwise.
This last year though, I’ve noticed a change.
I bought a quilt with a slightly lesser tog – 10.5 instead of 13 – but now I tend to sleep under the quilt rather than around it, or outside it completely.
It’s not anything that’s got a point – just something odd, that I’ve noticed changing.
Whitstable Day-Trip
Posted: Tue 24 March, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Travel 2 Comments »The day trip to Whitstable was thoroughly pleasant, and much needed. Among other things, I’m coming to the conclusion that I really need to have more sea and seaside in my life – it’s something that’s been missing for way too long.
Having written last week about feeling down/flat, wondering what’s going on and so on, I found myself feeling far, far better as soon as I got out the car and heard the noise of waves on the beach. I don’t know why it works like that on me, but it does.
Anyway, as a result, I walked along a large length of the seafront. What the hell, I was there early, and most places weren’t even open, so it was pleasant – and I got to meet a huge Irish Wolfhound as well, for added bonus points. Mainly though it was about just walking and appreciating the noise of the sea. (Such a bloody hippie)
There’s also a load of beach huts along the front, all different – not just in paintscheme, but in style – and I ended up taking photos of a number of those, too. Again, no-one else around, and it was a pleasant way to spend a morning.
It was just what I needed as a ‘day off’ activity, and I ended up walking 5km along the front, taking the odd picture, and just relaxing. I stopped off at a few places as well, and also spent some time sat in wind-free areas – of which there were few – just reading amid the sounds of the waves.
The weather wasn’t perfect – it was grey and blowy – but that didn’t bother me. I wasn’t going there to soak up sun, but instead to just have time out from lots of stuff. And I got that in swathes.
Whitstable’s definitely one of those places I’ll be going back to, and could easily consider as a place to live. It’s not ideal – some of the travelling would be more problematic than it is currently, for example – but at the same time it’s a place I like. It’s on the list when I finally do decide to move on, and let’s leave it at that…
Too Long
Posted: Mon 23 March, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »While writing stuff last week, and looking back through D4D™, I realised it’s now very nearly seven years since I was last in Ireland.
That’s too long – I feel the need to return.
Something else to organise as a break for this year, then…
Slowtime
Posted: Sat 21 March, 2015 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s notes about being a bit flat/tired, I’m taking this weekend as being a bit slower, a bit calmer – well, by my standards, anyway.
Saturday is going to be a cinema-day. There’s a couple of things I want to see, the timings gel nicely, and the weather forecast is mediocre, so sod it, that’s the plan. An afternoon of cinema.
Sunday though is likely to be a bit sillier. Because all I want to do is curl up and do nothing, I’m going to do another day-trip. I’m unsure of exactly where yet – the main options being Reading, Whitstable or Brighton – but all are within a two-hour drive. I’m quite tempted by Whitstable, to go and sit by the sea and generally chill out a bit. I used to work near there many moons ago, so a bit of a revisit too. I did go back there a while back – although a site search has revealed that ‘a while back’ actually means 10 and a half years – so it’ll be interesting to see what’s changed (and what’s stayed the same) in that time.
And that’s the plan for a quiet weekend…
Flat (Again)
Posted: Fri 20 March, 2015 Filed under: 2015 vs 2014, Cynicism, Depression, Domestic, Finances, Health, SAD, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s all been a bit quiet chez D4D™ – but I’m OK. The Bronchitis is pretty much gone, bar the odd cough – so that’s good.
I do still feel quite drained and flattened by it all, though – and I think that’s what’s finally coming through this week. I have to keep remembering that it’s only ten days since I finished the antibiotics, and that I’m still fighting off the remnants.
While this year’s been pretty good so far – and how the chuff are we nearly in April, for goodness’ sake? – it’s also been pretty manically busy with work and life, and I suspect that’s having a knock-on effect as well.
Basically, I’m tired, demotivated and just a bit flat. I really can’t be arsed – particularly with work. I’m still plodding through, but it’s an effort. Sleep is always an issue with me, but I am beginning to wonder if depression isn’t rearing it’s ugly head.
I don’t think it’s depression – but then, that’s what people say when they’re depressed. It’s not at vicious levels or anything, but I’m aware that I’m just all a bit Meh. Herself used to note that I was OK in Winter because I know I get hit by SAD , and so prepare myself for it – which means I’m less affected by it. However, then Spring comes along with longer days and more sunlight, and I relax, expecting to be doing better, and get sledgehammered by depression again when I’m not prepared for it instead. I don’t know if that’s valid – but it’s something that’s been bouncing round my head a bit this month.
I’m going to see how things go though. The current work situation only has three weeks left to run, at which point I’ve booked a break anyway. (Up to Edinburgh for a very chilled long weekend) Then we’ll see how things progress from there, I think.
At worst, at least I’m aware and conscious of it all, and will deal with it if necessary. At best, it’ll ease up once the current work stuff is dealt with, and things can progress again from there.
At the same time, I’m aware that I’m in a pretty decent situation and life is looking up, so maybe I’m more just worrying about stuff, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Time (as always) will tell.
Televisual
Posted: Wed 11 March, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Technology, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »A couple of months back, I damaged my TV. Nothing major – the cats were being arseholes. I chucked a cat-toy near them, and hit the screen, resulting in a broken line of pixels, and a broken bit of display crystal so it had a bit of a blob. (Think how an LCD-display watch used to look when it broke/cracked, and you’ve got it)
It’s been a minor irritation since – not even big enough to be an annoyance, just every so often the line of pixels would flicker white and be noticeable, or the broken bit of display would be more noticeable with the rest of the screen (depending on what was on it at the time) and it was getting worse.
So anyway, this week I finally decided to replace it – and I’ve done so. It’s a bigger unit than the previous one – 32″ from the 24″ I had – which is a significant increase of screen size, that I hadn’t quite catered for in my head. It still fits in fine, and doesn’t dominate the room the way I find lots of the really big ones do, but I think it’s at the upper limit.
What really surprises me – although it shouldn’t – is the difference in prices and screen sizes to fifteen or twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago, when I bought my own first new TV, it was the same screen size as the one now – but it was a massive beast, needing two people to lift it safely, and cost me about £800. It was a serious unit, to say the least.
Now, the same screen size – and I know, it’s an LCD/LED rather than a CRT display, which makes a massive difference – is easily carriable by me, and cost maybe a third of what that old Sony one did. Even the image quality is markedly improved. It’s quite remarkable, the way progress and changes in technology have come on in that time period. Food for thought, of what we might have in the next twenty years…
Bronchosaurus
Posted: Mon 9 March, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Sorry, couldn’t resist the punning title.
Health-wise, things are much improved now that I’m coming to the end of the course of antibiotics. It’s still not 100%, but all of the really rough stuff is gone, so I’m happy with that all round.
It did hit me hard though – all of last week I was in bed by 10pm, which is pretty much a novelty of epic proportions. I didn’t sleep any better – which didn’t help – but I was just wiped out by everything.
Still, things seem to be on the way up again. I’ll keep an eye on it this week, and just see how everything goes. And really, that’s all you can ask for, isn’t it?
GP Revisit
Posted: Wed 4 March, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Health Leave a comment »Having been to see my GP – well, my GP Surgery, as I don’t appear to have an actual named GP, and the surgery is locum-tastic – on Thursday with the onset of something unpleasant, and having been told “It’s a cold, take paracetamol – or Neurofen if you must“, nothing improved. I know, you’re as shocked and surprised as I was(n’t)
Monday, as usual, was spent on-site with one of my work clients, and things were pretty unpleasant with lots of coughing and so on. The icing on the cake was on the way home, driving at 70 in the outside lane of the M1, when a coughing fit hit, including a lump that triggered the gag reflex. Believe me, that all focuses the mind somewhat! (I’m fine, and nothing was harmed/damaged or had any negative outcomes, but yeah, not much fun all the same)
As a result, on Tuesday (yesterday) I went back to the GP Surgery to find out more.
This time, with a different GP/locum, it was a different story. He could hear how bad my breathing was, and checked not just breathing/chest with stethoscope, but also temperature, and heart-beat and blood oxygen levels.
And of course it’s not ‘just a cold’ – I wouldn’t have bothered the buggers for a cold – and now turns out to be Acute Bronchitis, with a side-order of sinus infection. So I’m on a mega-dose of antibiotics and firm instructions that if they haven’t started working by Friday morning, to go back in immediately, not waiting ’til after the weekend.
So we’ll see how that all works out. But it’s good to know that it’s all rather more than “just a cold” – although it would’ve been nicer if that’d been picked up last week…
Sick Day
Posted: Thu 26 February, 2015 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Health, People, Weirdness Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s post, last night was vile. I won’t go into details – safe just to say it was bad.
Anyway, as a result of that, I took the decision that I’d take today as a sick day, as I wanted to visit the GP (among other things) and generally Not Do Much. Which was a mistake.
The GP – as usual – was fucking useless. Having waited 90 minutes to see the incompetent git, I was in the room for less than five minutes. I explained that I’d spent most of the night with an insanely sore throat – to the degree that I thought it might end up being tonsilitis – , and coughing up big green lumps. He checked my throat and decided that it wasn’t tonsilitis. Fair enough – I know fuck-all, so I bow to their supposed knowledge. But at the same time, despite being told I’d coughed up a ton of crap, he still didn’t bother to check my chest at all – something you’d think would be pretty elementary.
And the final verdict? “Nothing I can do, take some paracetamol, and maybe Neurofen if you feel the need”. That was it. Useless shyster bastards. (And yes, there’s another complaint in with the practice manager)
After that, I went back home, still feeling like shit – only also feeling annoyed. Never a good stage in the day.
Within half an hour, there was a crunch of noise outside, the sound of plastic and so on getting splattered down the road. It didn’t sound promising – and I had a nagging feeling…
Yep, a driver had managed to smash off the door mirror of my car – which was all parked up, in the same place it usually is. Oh fuck.
In fairness, she’d stopped, and was seeing what had happened. I know any number of people wouldn’t have even slowed down, let alone made an effort. So you know, fair play on that score. She was a very new driver, had misjudged the width of her car while another one was coming the other way, and smack. It could’ve been so much worse – so, so much worse – and she was properly upset.
I spoke to my Saab garage, and got a price for the replacement mirror, and we exchanged details. I showed them where I lived, and all was well. A bit later, her dad came round – in a good way! – and we discussed it, that she was a new driver, and if we did this through insurance, it’d hit her very hard, for something that really wasn’t worth that much money. I’m fine with that – I’m not going to penalise the poor girl for something, when she didn’t even have to stop – and I think it’ll all work out by people dealing with it as adults.
And so I’ve ended up, on my day at home and feeling crap, going over to the Saab garage, getting things sorted – and as it turned out, actually getting a replacement mirror far, far cheaper than I expected. Basically, they’d got a silver car that they were stripping for parts, and I got the mirror. The colour isn’t a precise match, but I don’t give a shit about that.
The full replacement should’ve cost £300, with labour etc. on top of that. The swapped part has cost me £100 including labour, and took less than an hour from start to finish. I can’t deny, I’m pleased with that, and well chuffed with the garage – they’ve always been good with me, as has been shown by what they’ve done today.
It’s all worked out OK – but for a day doing nothing, it really hasn’t been all that successful…