Ten Years Old
Posted: Thu 9 August, 2012 Filed under: D4D™ 5 Comments »Strewth, D4D™ is ten years old today.
Who’d have thought?
Calvin and Hobbes – Sponsorship
Posted: Thu 26 July, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Art, Cynicism, London Olympics 1 Comment »via YorkshireSoul
Calvin and Hobbes on corporate logos and clothing. (c) Bill Watterson, as always.
Brand Ownership
Posted: Wed 25 July, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Marketing, Thoughts 2 Comments »If you ever want to be scared by how few mega-corporations there really are that own the great majority of well-known brands, this image should do it…
You can click on the image to get the full-size version.
It’s more US-centric than UK, but most of the brands involved are international anyway.
Alternative Version(s) of Free
Posted: Mon 23 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »While at the cinema this weekend, I saw an advert for the Nokia Lumia – this advert, in fact (although the final price was different)
Most of it’s nothing major, but the last five seconds or so hold the kicker.
“Free, from £15 per month”
And you’ve just got to wonder, how something that costs from £180 a year can be seen as free by anyone except marketers/advertisers.
Weekender
Posted: Mon 23 July, 2012 Filed under: Depression, Domestic Leave a comment »A quietish weekend, in the end – which seems to be par for the course at the moment. Not that I’m complaining. Work is leaving me with an absolute headfull of stuff by the end of the week, so decompression time is becoming a valuable commodity.
Friday night, I came home post-work (and having had a drink with some colleagues afterwards) with a blinding headache that left me sitting in a darkened room, not even really bothering with TV. I won’t say it was a migraine, because it wasn’t, but it drained me the same way they used to.
Saturday was more domestic, getting stuff done. I could/ should do it during the week, but sometimes, well, I don’t. This weekend was one where I hadn’t.
Saturday afternoon/evening was a bit down. Some of it was lingering bleh from the headache the night before, some of it was just an all-over bleh. I could’ve gone out, but didn’t really want to. I felt flat, tired, and generally just a bit shit. One of those things, but all the same, not a great deal of fun.
Sunday was much better. A sunny day, which always helps, so I went out, walked a fair section round one of the local lakes, and went to see the new Batman film in the evening.
All good…
Naming
Posted: Mon 16 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, People Leave a comment »Yesterday, I witnessed one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever heard…
I went down to the village shop, and while waiting in line at the till, the guy in front was getting served. The guy behind the till was doing all the talking
“Hi Paul, what can I get you?”
“The blue ones down on the left Paul, yeah?”
“Thanks, Paul, that’ll be [Whatever the amount was]”
By this time, even I was thinking “Yeah, OK, pal, you know the guy’s name. Fuck sake”
Guy hands over the money
“Thanks Paul, see you again soon”
“It’s Dave.”
I just about killed myself with laughter.
Olympic Links
Posted: Sat 14 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, London Olympics, People, Thoughts 5 Comments »Lord, this is becoming a theme, isn’t it?
Another item in the long list of stupid bullshit that the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics are doing.
In this case, it’s an example of how draconian organisations really don’t understand complex concepts like Freedom of Speech, or t’Internet.
In London2012’s Terms of Use for the website, it says this…
5.a. Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner. The use of our logo or any other Olympic or London 2012 Mark(s) as a link to the Site is not permitted. View our guidelines on Use of the Games’ Marks.
(Bold emphasis is my own).
Yep, that’s right. You can’t link to the London 2012 Olympics website if you’re going to say nasty things about them.
Which is pretty fucking ridiculous, when you think about it.
Indeed, the links in this post almost certainly break those Terms. Ah well. Luckily the European Human Rights Act still allows me to say that in my opinion this kind of policy from the London Olympics is draconian bullshit.
Angry Bunny
Posted: Fri 13 July, 2012 Filed under: Animals Leave a comment »While the rest of the world has serious stuff to do, I suggest you spend some time looking at the angry rabbit face in the nose of this upside-down cat. It made me laugh, anyway…
Olympic Security
Posted: Thu 12 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, London Olympics, News, Thoughts 3 Comments »Another day, another Olympian feat of fuckuppery.
Today, it’s the news that 3,500 extra troops are being drafted in for Olympic security, in addition to the 13,500 already allocated to the job.
And why is this happening? Because ‘security group’ G4S (who used to be, if memory serves, Securicor, then Group 4) can’t guarantee that they can supply the full quota of 10,000 guards that they’ve been paid £300m to provide.
Some of the extra soldiers have only recently returned from postings overseas. And I wonder how many of them have also recently been told that they’re surplus to requirements ?
Chipless
Posted: Wed 11 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, London Olympics Leave a comment »Following on from other thoughts about Olympian Idiocy with regard to branding, rules and regulations, the following one came up today…
Yep – you can’t even get chips, except for McDonalds’ chips. (Or at least McDonalds soggy wet horrible version of chips)
Now, what I want to know is why on earth anyone would actually want to go to a venue/event so Draconian in its branding and obsession with sponsorship ? (Apparently, wearing a t-shirt that features non-Olympics sponsors has also recently been banned in the Olympic Park) If I want to see anything Olympian, I’ll be able to do so from home, wearing what I want, eating what I want, without feeling ripped off, abused, or corraled.
Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe that’s the plan. To stop the transport infrastructure etc. from imploding, maybe all of this is A Plan by Boris to stop people from wanting to go and see the Olympics at the venues?
UPDATED 12/7/12 – According to the Guardian, the ban has now been lifted.
Phone Insurance – You couldn’t make this shit up
Posted: Mon 9 July, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Insurance, iPhone 2 Comments »This morning, I got three letters from CPP, the muppets company dealing with the claim for my knackered iPhone.
All three are dated the same day – 27th June! Nearly two weeks to get sent out – and all ‘signed’ by the same person. Combined, they make for a brilliant record of how CPP handle things. Well, it’s hilarious if you’re not receiving them.
- Letter 1 – “We need more information – proof of purchase, and a more detailed description of what happened”
- Letter 2 – “We need a more detailed description of what happened” – guess this means they’ve received the proof of purchase ?
- Letter 3 – “Claim denied”. So they’ve received a more detailed description? Or did the one in the initial phone call suddenly suffice?
And bear in mind, this is all two weeks ago – it’s already been appealed, and complained about.
I wonder what excuse they’ll use for these letters, and the fact it’s taken two weeks to receive them…
Motorway Signage
Posted: Thu 5 July, 2012 Filed under: Design, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »And again, some thoughts about the M1 during the works. This time, it’s about the new electronic signage…
Motorway signage (as well as other road signs) always used to be designed for clarity, so they could be read and understood at distance/speed. However, this doesn’t seem to apply so much to the latest generation of electronic signs.
There are two in particular that are nearly impossible to differentiate at speed.
 |
 |
You can see the problem, I expect – in both cases, the yellow ‘information’ consists of, effectively, a triangle of colour. From a distance, you can’t tell which is which.
It’s probably not massively relevant, I suppose, as both signs indicate “You’re going to be here for a while”. But still, they’re hard to differentiate.
Communal Spirt – Or Lack Thereof
Posted: Wed 4 July, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »Where I live now, the arrangements for the bins are a bit awkward. (You can tell this post’s going to be interesting, can’t you?) Basically, it’s a row of terraced houses- almost like a throwback to Manchester days – with an alleyway at the back connecting them all. The bins are stored in a communal hidey-hole roughly mid-way down the terrace. I’m at one end of the row, the street-access is at the other end.
However, it seems like no-one actually puts those bins out. The bin collection men certainly do fuck-all with them – I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that, anyway. But equally, no-one from the row of houses does anything with them – rubbish goes in, but the bins don’t go out.
So at the moment I seem to have taken on the role, making sure they go out in time, the right bins on the right day, and all that crap. I don’t actually mind, it’s just one of those things, but it does sort of annoy me that (as with many things) there seems to be this perception of always “Oh, someone else will do it”.
In this case, they will. It’s probably a selfish thing, just making sure that my rubbish gets dealt with in a timely and non-stinky manner, as I’ve no intention of having to deal with vermin issues and the like. But I do think it’s sad that communal bins aren’t dealt with in a communal way.
Maybe I’m just more idealistic than I’d thought.
Removing Bridges
Posted: Mon 2 July, 2012 Filed under: Change, Commuting, Driving, People 2 Comments »Over the weekend, the M1 near me (well, my entire commuting route) was closed to facilitate the removal of a bridge that is now un-used. It’s all part of the works on that stretch of the M1, and I’ve been watching as it all changes. Luckily I wasn’t going on that road over the weekend, or the detour would’ve been impressive.
The new bridge opened in May, and the last month has been spent removing all the sliproads to the old bridge, leaving it all isolated. By Friday they’d got rid of everything except the span of the bridge crossing the M1. And this morning, it’s completely gone, including the centre stanchions, and the massive block they stood on. It’s actually pretty impressive, seeing the speed it must have been demolished and removed.
Indeed, if you went past it for the first time today, you’d never really know there’d been a bridge there at all. There are no indicators of its existence at all.
Personally, I think the new junction is currently quite dangerous, although I think that’s also heavily related to the fact that people driving to the 50mph average speed limit turn into complete fuckwits. We’ll see how it works out as time goes on, the roadworks are removed, and normality fights to re-assert itself again.
Restoring
Posted: Fri 29 June, 2012 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Geeky, Technology 3 Comments »So, while the insurance bullshit rumbles on, I went to the local Apple store tonight and sorted a replacement phone. Apple sell replacement phones for ‘out of warranty’ replacements. (a much nicer terminology than “water-fucked phones”, to be fair) Apparently they’re made from some reconditioned parts, but that means they cost £140 to replace, not £500.
The entire process has actually been really simple. I know I’m no Apple advocate, but sometimes they’re worthy of praise all the same – just not brainless adoration.
In this case, the actual transfer process took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. Restoring all the data is taking a long time, but it looks like I’ll have a complete restore, that I won’t have lost a single thing. And that is impressive, however you look at it.
All my contacts, all my email, even all my photos. (which were the thing I really expected to lose) This is A Good Thing, for sure.
Phone Insurance – Rejected
Posted: Thu 28 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Insurance, Stupidity 6 Comments »So, following on from yesterday’s post about the idiots at Homecare Insurance (part of CPP Insurance) it now turns out they’ve rejected my claim, because I “didn’t take reasonable precautions”.
Now, the phone is (supposedly) covered against accidental damage. But that apparently doesn’t include accidents. Of course, with insurance, the devil is in the details.
The actual circumstances of the phone’s demise are that I left it on the cistern of the toilet while I had a shower. While in the shower, I assume I received a call or a message and vibrated, because the poxy thing was in the toilet when I got out of the shower. And since then, it’s been knackered, for obvious reasons.
So apparently, I didn’t take enough care of the phone. Sure, I could have been in the bathroom, then left, put the phone somewhere else, and gone back in. I could have put the phone somewhere else in the bathroom – a windowsill, or whatever. But the fact is, I didn’t, I didn’t even think past “It’ll be fine on a flat surface”. Which it has been in the past. I didn’t think it’d fall in, because it was on a flat safe surface, not even close to the edge.
And this all means I didn’t (currently) take reasonable precautions. I freely admit to being an idiot, but the process wasn’t a careless or slapdash one – just a stupid one.
It’s being appealed, and the entire process is now also a full formal complaint.
But short story? If you’re insured with Homecare or CPP, don’t expect accidental damage to be covered, even when they say it is.
Missing the Point – Insurance
Posted: Wed 27 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Insurance, Stupidity, Thoughts 1 Comment »Just under two weeks ago, I buggered up my iPhone. Like an idiot, I’d laid it on the cistern of the loo while I had a shower. I assume it received a message while I was showering, vibrated, slid off the cistern, splosh.
Fortunately, the phone is/was insured, so a claim is being processed.Equally fortunately, the insurance is an added benefit to my bank account – and that’s fortunate, because if I was paying for this policy, I’d be a lot more annoyed than I currently am.
The company, Homecare insurance, are part of the CPPGroup and are – frankly – a bunch of clowns.
When I first called, their systems were unavailable. So they said they’d call me back – except they can only call me back on my registered number. Which is, of course, my mobile. Which is knackered, hence why I’m calling them. But you can’t change the number, it’s only the registered one. And when I asked to speak to a manager, they couldn’t be put through because the systems were down. (Why managers are unavailable when the system is down is something we’ll just ignore for now. I suspect it’d make my brain hurt)
So. They can send out a claim form, but you can’t email or fax it back – it’s got to be posted. And then it takes five days to process. Bearing in mind that everything in the policy says “covered against accidental damage, water damage etc.”, I don’t quite know how it takes five days to make that decision.
Anyway. I got an email from the cretins today.
“We have attempted to contact you by telephone to discuss the claim you have made on your phone insurance policy but were unsuccessful in contacting you.“
Yes, they’ve tried calling the mobile number – again – and can’t get through. Considering it’s the phone I’m claiming for, I wonder why they can’t get through?
Getting Back in the Saddle
Posted: Tue 26 June, 2012 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Writing Leave a comment »As things change chez Lyle, I’m trying to get back into the regular writing here. I’ve slacked off a lot here of late, and definitely fallen out of the habit of writing.
At the same time, in a lot of ways I haven’t felt I’ve got a lot to write about – there’s been a lot of stuff going on, but it’s not anything I’ve actually wanted to write about, so I haven’t.
So yeah, see how it all goes. I won’t guarantee daily posts or anything – but I’m going to keep on trying. Some (most) of it will be shite, but at least it’s written shite.
Overall there’s a lot I want to write about – not just here, but in other media as well – but first and foremost I need to get back into the habit of writing, and that’s always what was at the core of D4D. So I’m going to try and get back into it again, and we’ll see where things go from there.
Current State
Posted: Sun 24 June, 2012 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »One question that came up this week, following on from a couple of posts here, was “Am I depressed?” (Well, technically “Are you depressed?”, but that makes less sense when written here)
It made me think a bit, but really the honest answer is “No, no more than usual”. I’m nowhere near as bad as I have been, that’s for sure – I don’t feel the need for going back on anti-depressants or anything. (Probably a good thing, as I’ve not moved GP yet – must make a note to do that this week)
I’m pretty functional – but then, I always have been, even on my worst days – although motivation is still pretty dog-shit.
What I am though, rather than depressed, is just so, so tired.
I’ll figure things out, I know. But I hope to find some energy first in order to get them figured out.
Reverse Parking
Posted: Sat 23 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Parking, People, Shopping, Thoughts 2 Comments »When visiting the local supermarket – I’m not going to specify, because this set of thoughts are location-independent, having seen the same thing at at least six places – I’m always bemused by a certain parking style.
No, this isn’t YPLAC (You Park Like A Cunt) – for once – but it’s something just as bizarre. And I’m going to phrase it as a question
If they’re going to a supermarket, and doing their weekly/monthly big shop, why the FUCK do these people reverse into parking spaces ? I always see at least one per visit where they’re then faced with real issues when it comes to putting that shopping into the boot of the car.
I just don’t understand the logic – or maybe the lack thereof – that goes into this. I do get that some people don’t like reversing out of a space, although I’ve no idea why. Personally, I think reversing in to a space is far more prone to being visited by the Fuck-Up Fairy, but there we go. Still, personal choice, and all that shite.
But for loading shopping into a car, it seems like it just makes things so much harder when you’ve reversed into the space, rather than going in forwards, and leaving the boot of the car out in the open, so you can just lift’n’load.
People are, to be sure, weird.
Food Origins
Posted: Fri 15 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Education, People, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve known for a while about how some people don’t know where their food comes from – but even so, this particular story is pretty shocking.
Basically, in a poll of 2000 people by LEAF “Linking Environment and Farming” – although I can’t currently find mention of this poll on their site – 33% of young adults aged between 16 and 23 were unaware of where eggs come from – and 11% answered that eggs are produced from wheat or maize.
Additionally, 36% of the same age group failed to answer that bacon comes from pigs, while 40% did not know that cows produce milk.
Now it might be that one third of the sample were thick as mince, but all the same, it’s pretty scary.
Mind you, I’ve also known of people who
- when asked where chicken/beef/pork come from, answer “Tesco”
- didn’t know that chicken (the meat) comes from chicken (the bird) – I’ve seen that one myself
So I’m not too surprised, but all the same, it’s pretty depressing. My parents always taught my brother and I where food came from – to the extent that my brother used to refer to animals by the condiments that went with them : Cows = Horseradish. Lamb = Mint Sauce. Pigs = Apple Sauce.
Mind you, still no-one really knows what meat goes into kebabs, or just where on a chicken creates McNuggets…
Anchor
Posted: Thu 14 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Commuting, Driving, Sweary 2 Comments »I got sent this today, and loved it enough to want to share…
Don’t drive like a …
What’s next, I wonder ?
Don’t drive like a tw@ ?
Venue Regulations
Posted: Wed 6 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, London Olympics, Thoughts | Tags: 2012, London, Olympics, Venue Regulations 2 Comments »(via Diamond Geezer)
Apparently, a bundle of new signs have gone up round the sites for the London Olympics, that look like this…
Venue Regulations sign
Only those Venue Regulations aren’t so easy to find on the site. Indeed, they’re in a PDF (thanks, Google) which is going to make it pretty difficult to read them before you go into the Venue.
And the list of regulations – which you’re accepting without being able to read them – is pretty draconian…
- ‘Games’ means the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games
- ‘LOCOG’ means The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited, One Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5LN
- ‘Person’ means an individual, partnership, firm, corporation, association, trust, unincorporated association or any other legal person
- ‘Terms and Conditions’ means the Terms and Conditions of Ticket Purchase, the terms of the Ticket Application Form (and accompanying Ticket Guide), LOCOG’s Ticketing privacy policy (full details of which are available at www.tickets.london2012.com) and any other rules brought to the attention of a Person prior to entry to the Venue
- ‘Venue’ means a location under the control of LOCOG including but not limited to all venues where a Games event is to be held
- Notwithstanding possession of any ticket, security pass or accreditation, permission to enter and to remain on the Venue is at the absolute discretion of LOCOG.
- LOCOG has the right to search any Person entering the Venue. Any Person who rejects a security search or refuses to comply with rules and security notices published by LOCOG from time to time will be refused entry to or ejected from the Venue.
- LOCOG reserves absolutely the right to refuse entry to or eject from the Venue any Person:
- failing, or (in LOCOG’s opinion) likely to fail, to comply with any of these Venue Regulations, the Terms and Conditions or any instruction issued by LOCOG, a police officer or any person authorised to act on behalf of LOCOG;
- whose presence within the Venue is, or (in the opinion of LOCOG) could, be construed as constituting a source of danger, nuisance or annoyance to any other Person
- who is in possession of a Prohibited or Restricted Item as set out in the Terms and Conditions of Ticket Purchase (which can be found at http://www.tickets.london2012.com/purchaseterms.html)
- engaging in threatening, abusive or violent behaviour, and foul or abusive language; or
- causing, or (in LOCOG’s opinion) likely to cause, damage to the Venue or any equipment, fitting or fixture within the Venue.
- The obstruction of access ways, exits and entrance, stairways, common areas and any other areas within the Venue is strictly forbidden and this includes, but is not limited to, the erection or unauthorised occupation of tents or other temporary or permanent structures anywhere within the Venue and any Person creating or attempting to create such an obstruction will immediately be ejected from the Venue.
- No sponsorship, promotional or marketing materials may be brought into, used or displayed by any Person within the Venue unless expressly permitted in writing by LOCOG.
- Mobile telephones are permitted within the Venue, provided that they are used for personal and private use only and provided that no material (including audio, visual or audio-visual material) captured by a mobile telephone may be made available to any third party.
- CCTV cameras are in use around and within the Venue and LOCOG may itself use or pass to the police any recordings.
- Any property left on the Venue remains at the entire risk of the owner of the property or person leaving the same and LOCOG accepts no liability for the theft or other loss or damage of such property.
- LOCOG excludes (to the maximum extent permitted by law) any liability for loss, injury or damage to persons or property on the Venue.
Item 3 in particular has some interesting stuff about who might not be allowed in to the venue (odd, considering you’ve already gone in, and accepted these terms) – but basically it comes down to “Anyone who is – or in our opinion might be – going to be naughty”. I don’t mind the “is” part – that’s common sense – it’s the “or, in our opinion” part that causes discomfort. Who knows what might incur the blacklist ?
And according to Item 5, you can’t wear anything with logos. That’s pretty hard to do, in fact. I’m generally logo-phobic, but I know I have stuff that has a logo on it. And according to Item 6, you also can’t upload your photos to – for example – Facebook, Flickr, 500px etc.
All told, it’s a wonder that anyone actually wants to go to the Olympics at all, isn’t it?
Jubilation
Posted: Tue 5 June, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »So, that’s the Diamond Jubilee over with. I’m not an ardent Royalist (I know, you’re shocked by that revelation) although I’d far rather have a Royal family than a President. (And I’m yet to see how a President would be a better option for the UK – nor a cheaper one)
I did see bits – primarily the coverage of the boat pageant while seeing the parents – and was impressed by the Queen and Duke of York’s presence throughout the pageant.
But all told, well, I’m glad it’s over. So now the list stands at :
Diamond Jubilee- Euro 2012
- Olympics
Roll on September.
Discovery / Stupidity
Posted: Tue 29 May, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Education, Stupidity Leave a comment »Every so often, you discover something, and realise you’ve either made a stupid mistake, (even if based on a logical premise) or just never clicked on the reasons why.
An example of the latter for this was that I only realised last year that the Jubilee line is silver on the London Underground map because it was – yes – the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Another – this time from my father – was that in the “Thomas the Tank Engine” stories, James was red, because he was “ready for anything”. The look of “Oh!” on my dad’s face was priceless when he eventually clicked on to it – but it was a long time after he’d been reading the books to my brother and I.
Anyway, today’s discovery was more on the ‘stupid but logical’ side. Until looking at a map today, and seeing it by chance, I had never actually realised that Watford Gap is nowhere near Watford. Indeed, there’s about 60 miles between the two…
So I feel a bit of an idiot, although I can justify/explain the logic beneath that thought…
Savings
Posted: Mon 28 May, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 5 Comments »Over the weekend, I was in Sainsbury’s, and saw a fine example of weird savings…
I’m sure I’ve waffed on about this before, but I can’t be chuffed to double-check. (Turns out, July 2009) Anyway, it’s hardly news.
In this case, a 4-pack of 2L Diet Coke bottles is retailing at £6.50. (And let’s not get onto the price-increase side of things – It’s not long ago that that 4-pack was £5) As a 2L bottle on its own is around the £2 mark – I think it was £1.98, but who’s counting? – then £6.50 for four isn’t a bad deal.
Except – except! – that if you pay a bit more attention, they’re also doing “3 for the price of two” on the individual 2L bottles.
So you can get six bottles for £8 ( or £1.33 a bottle) , instead of four for £6.50 ( £1.62 per bottle )
Supermarkets are very strange places when it comes to saving money…
Value for Money
Posted: Tue 22 May, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »At the new house, I’m halfway between Bedford and Milton Keynes, both of which have Cineworld cinemas.
As a result, I signed up for their “Unlimited” card, which costs £15 per month, and allows you to see as many films as you want at any Cineworld. (except for London West End ones, which I never go into anyway) Which seems to be a pretty good deal. Considering that a normal ticket costs near-as-dammit £10, the card is paying for itself if you see more than one film a month.
As well as the free viewings, they also offer discounts on food/drink at the cinema, and a number of other side-benefits that might be of interest at some point.
In short, it’s a pretty good deal, and I suspect I’ll be getting my money’s worth out of it.
Flamed Out
Posted: Mon 21 May, 2012 Filed under: Cynicism, London, Thoughts Leave a comment »On a cynical note, is it just me that really isn’t enthused about the Olympic Flame ? Or, indeed, the Olympics in general.
Indeed the best thing about the Olympics at the moment for me is that I’m not going to be in London when they’re in. And that is a major success, so far as I’m concerned.
Irresponsible ?
Posted: Sun 20 May, 2012 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Last week, David Oakes was sentenced to life imprisonment. He’d taken a shotgun to his ex-partner and their two-year-old daughter, supposedly because he was ‘afraid’ of losing them. He then (allegedly) tried to kill himself with the same shotgun, and failed.
In today’s news, Oakes’ ex-wife has come forward, saying that Oakes had also been abusive towards her while they were married.
His ex-wife said the “total control freak” was regularly violent and on one occasion pulled a gun on her.
“He pushed me to the sofa, pulled a gun out of his pocket, put one bullet in the barrel and spun the barrel,” she said. He kept clicking it to my head, he held the gun straight to my head. It didn’t go off, so he went off and calmed down and came back later as if nothing had happened.”
Now maybe I’m missing something, but surely that’s attempted murder ?
I do understand that an abused partner doesn’t always go to the police – but it could be done anonymously via Crimestoppers etc. And if she had reported his instability to the police, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been allowed to have a registered shotgun…
Funding the Daily Mail
Posted: Wed 4 April, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Charm School, Cynicism, Daily Mail, Media, Stupidity 1 Comment »In yesterday’s Daily Mail, a woman called Samantha Brick wittered on wrote an article about how life was so difficult for her ‘because she was so beautiful’. (That’s a link to the story, if you really must read it – but hang on before you do so)
Predictably, t’internet – and Twitter in particular – frothed up about it massively, and the story went viral. Which is exactly what the Daily Fail wanted.
According to their own follow-up story, that original article garnered 4,500 comments. And the ‘top-rated’ comment received 18,000 ‘green arrow’ upticks. (Think of a Green Arrow as being similar to a Facebook Like)
The Daily Fail lives by advertising. The Mail’s Online Ratecard shows that they charge a minimum of £20 per 1,000 advert impressions – and it can be a lot more.
The original story had (at the time of writing the follow-up) received 1.5million hits – that’s a minimum of £30,000 they’ve made on the one story. Of course, the original story/page is still live, and there’s also a follow-up piece from Brick herself. From the Fail…
And today she is sure to provoke another avalanche of strong reaction as she defends herself in a fresh article on MailOnline, insisting that: ‘While I’ve been shocked and hurt by the global condemnation, I have just this to say: my detractors have simply proved my point. Their level of anger only underlines that no one in this world is more reviled than a pretty woman.’
So to all the people who comment, or even just click through to read the story, I say this.
YOU are the people who fund the Daily Mail. Every single one of you. Now, don’t you feel proud?
Crackers for Easter
Posted: Mon 2 April, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Festering Season, Sweary 1 Comment »Over the weekend, in Sainsbury’s, I spotted packs of Easter Crackers. Yeah, like Christmas Crackers, but for Easter.
What. The. Fuck?!?
(Looking on Google, it appears that this is becoming a common thing, somehow)
I didn’t get any photos this time – I’ll try to get some next time I’m there.
But really, what the hell is going on, if Easter Crackers are now a thing?
Smartphone, Stupid App
Posted: Wed 21 March, 2012 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, iPhone Leave a comment »Ah, RBS, I do so love the way you make life really complicated when it doesn’t need to be – and indeed shouldn’t be.
As I wrote before, I recently upgraded my phone to the iPhone 4S, which was a remarkably painless process. (I know, Apple stuff “just works”, but that’s not always been my experience, it’s safe to say – and there’s still a few niggles to sort out) All the Apps I’d purchased on the 3GS came over smoothly, all the contacts, blah blah, all worked fine – except for one.
Yep, the RBS “Mobile Banking” app wouldn’t work at all. Fair enough, security for banking, I can live with that. And there’s a button for requesting a new passkey. Clicky. Oh. It’s going to come in the post, and might take seven working days. Sheesh.
Seven working days on, nothing has appeared. So I call RBS Mobile Banking.
“Oh yes, we don’t send those any more.”
“…”
“Yes, what you need to do is text STOP (and yes, it has to be all in capitals) to 87727, then uninstall the existing app, reinstall it from the App Store, and go through the setup process.”
“You’re kidding, right? This is how RBS ‘make things easier’?”
“Yes, this is the quickest process for getting things done.”
Fuck sake. Anyway, it’s been done – but what a total bag of bollocks.
Fogtastic
Posted: Thu 15 March, 2012 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Thoughts 1 Comment »I’ve written before about moronic drivers who leave their foglights on once conditions clear up – leaving them to dazzle other people.
This week, though, there’ve been a couple of days with heavy fog – and it turns out that there are also plenty of moronic dickheads who don’t feel they need foglights at all. Or lights.
Sometimes you really just have to wonder about people.
Unrewarded Idiocy
Posted: Tue 13 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Driving, People, Stupidity 4 Comments »On my commute this morning I saw one of the more incredible things of late.
In the outside lane of the M1, two drivers had managed to have a small collision in the traffic. Nothing major, from the look of it, a few scratches, maybe a resprayed bumper or somesuch. But there was nothing major – no broken bodywork, no wheels askew, or anything like that.
The drivers had stopped to exchange details, as one should in an accident.
In the outside lane of the M1. As one shouldn’t, in an accident or at any other time.
Some people are just too stupid to deserve to live.
Celebrity Sharktank
Posted: Thu 8 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, MOTB, People, Television, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over on Twitter today, I was having a conversation with a couple of friends, and an idea came to. It would never be made – but we can dream…
The idea, as the title of this post suggests, would be Celebrity Sharktank. (Or Celebrities Swimming with Sharks – either way)
The premise – and this is the good bit – is to take ten ‘celebrities’, and let them go swimming with a whole swarm of sharks. Great Whites, Makos, Hammerheads, all the good ones. Throw in a bit of chum (bloody meat/fish, if you didn’t know) and you’ve got a TV programme to be proud of.
The ‘Winner’ of the programme would be the last one alive. Of course, if the recovery crew were really slow at getting to the ‘Winner’, would anyone care?
In my mind, the contestants for the first episode would be :
- The Kardashian sisters
- Jedward
- Simon Cowell
- the cast of TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex) and
- the cast of Jersey Shore
The first episode would be called “Feeding Frenzy” in honour of there being rather more victims (sorry, contestants) than usual. I suspect Cowell would “Win”, but only because there’s a limit to the shit that even a shark can eat.
I suppose the only downside of this would be the potential for complaints about cruelty to animals…
Tactical Driving
Posted: Wed 7 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, BMW Drivers, Charm School, Commuting, Driving, MOTB 6 Comments »Over the last few days I’ve been taking part in a fun new game I’ll call “The Tactical Driving Game”. It’s also called “the 505 game”, because it’s currently taking place on the A505.
Basically, find a route with several speed cameras on it. The A505 between Baldock and Royston is good for it, and I’d imagine that the A1 around Elkesley is another gem.
While driving at normal speed, end up with some titbag trying to intimidate you into shifting and letting them past.
Pull in when you get a chance – but particularly at certain spots along the road.
Titbag then goes blasting past, attempting to intimidate/impress with their speed/acceleration/car.
And *flash*, off goes the speed camera.
It’s a joy, I tell you. A joy.
iDevice Upgrade
Posted: Mon 5 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Change, Domestic, Geeky, iPhone 2 Comments »Just under two years ago, I succumbed and got an iPhone. No-one was more surprised than me, as I wasn’t (and I’m still not) a fan of the Apple hype and fanboy obsessions with iDevices
As it turns out, I’ve been quite pleased with the iPhone, and it’s done everything it’s supposed to without annoying me too much. There’s niggles, but I think there’s niggles with any smartphone or similar device.
However, over the last couple of weeks, it’s been getting a bit flaky. The display had taken on a weird tendency to get a purple filter on it, which is visually interesting (and I must have some photo fun with a similar kind of effect, if I can manage it) but it was beginning to annoy.
Being well past the 18month contract, I went in to the local O2 shop over the weekend, and changed phone – to an iPhone 4S. (I’d previously had the 3GS) So far, I’m pretty pleased with it – and the backup/restore process to bring everything over from old phone to new was, I’m pleased to say, a really simple process.
I did look at other phones, Android OS and the like, but in the end the updated iPhone suited my requirements/use better than the other options. Again.
(Oh, and a quick thing – yes, 2 year device life is bobbins. Anyway, once I’ve cleared/reset it, I’m submitting the 3GS for recycling, which is better than nowt)
Hidden Messages
Posted: Thu 1 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Depression, Domestic, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Recently I’ve noticed a similar ‘message’ in at least two songs on Radio 1‘s current playlist. I know, I’m way outside the target demographic for R1, and blah blah, but I just can’t bring myself to switch to either Radio 2, or some godawful commercial hunk of crap.
Anyway.
First is Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games”…
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Second is Nervo’s “We’re all no-one”
We’re all no one ’til someone thinks that we’re someone
‘Til then we’re no one
Notice the similarity?
In both cases, supposedly there’s nothing good in the world, unless we’re with someone else.
And that really pisses me off.
Intrusive
Posted: Wed 29 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, People, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’d forgotten about this ’til now, but it annoyed me at the time.
Over the weekend, I went in to the local Asda store.Along with some other things, I bought some Diet Coke in 500ml bottles. I prefer them that way for drinking in the car, or whatever.
Anyway, I got to the till, and put them on the conveyor belt thingy. At which point the woman stood behind me pointed at them and said “Osteoporosis”.
*shrug* OK, weird. I know, but frankly what business is it of yours, lady?
Obviously she hadn’t stuck her nose in enough yet…
“That’s really bad for you, you know”
“Yep, I know. Mind you, I’ve always said that it’s either Diet Coke, or I can take up heroin instead.”
Her daughter laughed out loud.
“And I can’t imagine all that chocolate and sweetener you’re buying is going to do you any good.”
Silence.
But really, how fucking rude do you have to be, to shove your (unwanted) opinion in someone else’s face in the middle of a supermarket?
Advertising Excellence
Posted: Wed 29 February, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, People, Sweary Leave a comment »Apparently, the ASA has told Sofa King to stop using this advert because of its rude phrasing…
Advert for Sofa King
I can’t understand what their problem is…
Google Web History
Posted: Thu 23 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Geeky, Legal, Privacy, Security, Technology 3 Comments »On March 1st, Google’s privacy policy is changing.
If you don’t want your web history (among other things) stored past that date, you need to delete it in the next week. If you leave it ’til 1st March, it will be too late – you need to have done it by the end of 29th Feb.
The EFF has a useful page here about how to delete your Google web history.
Marketing, Data, and Predictions
Posted: Fri 17 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Cynicism, Marketing, People, Shopping 4 Comments »Over at Forbes.com, there’s a really interesting article about how companies can make predictions about your life and life-events, based purely on your buying habits.
In this case, the US store Target did analysis on its customers who signed up for their ‘pregnancy club’, and then data-mined their buying habits in the run-up to the birth. Of course, you need something to identify these people by – that’s what ‘loyalty’ cards are for. (Tesco’s Clubcard, Sainsbury’s’ Nectar etc. etc)
And of course it turns out that they could then send out marketing to those people – in one case, knowing a girl was pregnant before her own father did.
It’s always worth remembering, stores don’t give you loyalty cards and ‘rewards’ for nothing. They own all the data about you that the cards give – what you’re buying, why, when, where etc. – and they’re using that for their own profitability.
As David Mitchell said, (and I think I’ve posted it here before) :
When you’re getting something free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
Updated : A quick add – this was also something written about in the New York Times Magazine article ‘How Companies Learn Your Secrets‘
Parking Tickets
Posted: Mon 13 February, 2012 Filed under: Charm School, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Parking 1 Comment »I *so* want some of these…
You suck at parking
Mind you, I must admit I made a *right* balls of parking at Homebase over the weekend – really should’ve submitted myself to YPLAC.
CEOP
Posted: Tue 7 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Geeky, People, Stupidity, Technology Leave a comment »And on the subject of CEOP, which is (apparently) part of the UK Police, wouldn’t you have thought they could’ve made the acronym into eCOP instead?
As an example, they probably could have called it ‘Exploited Children’s Online Protection’. Or something.
Mind you, it just goes to show how little thought went into CEOP in the first place, doesn’t it?
Internet Safety
Posted: Tue 7 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Today is, allegedly, “Safer Internet Day“.
Surprisingly, it’s not being mentioned or promoted by CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection bunch of muppets Centre. Not a thing.
Wouldn’t you think that – if CEOP were actually any fucking use at all – they’d support and cross-promote this Safer Internet Day? Or even have created the concept themselves.
You Park Like a Cunt
Posted: Tue 7 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, BMW Drivers, Driving, Parking 1 Comment »(via @thehacksaw – thanks!)
I know I’ve posted one or two ( *ahem* ) pictures in the past of people parking like titbags, but this site is just brilliant. Sterling work.
John Terry – Unproven, yet punished
Posted: Fri 3 February, 2012 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »First of all, remember, I couldn’t give the tiniest shit about football in general.
I do find myself somewhat bemused though by today’s news that John Terry has been stripped of his captaincy of England (again) – this time because he’s been accused of racially abusing another footballer.
Now note, he’s been accused of it, has pleaded ‘not guilty’, and the case is going to court in July. (conveniently just after this year’s Euro 2012 football) So at the moment he’s not been found guilty (or, of course, not guilty) of the offence. Yet he’s already been punished.
And just what kind of message does that send out to the courts, jury, fans and everyone else? Are they punishing him because they think he is guilty? (and so are acting as judge and jury before it goes to court) Or just because “it’s safer” ?
London Police Corbett
Posted: Thu 2 February, 2012 Filed under: Corbett, Customer Services, Marketing, Stupidity, Technology | Tags: Corbett, Half-Corbett 1 Comment »I see in today’s news that the Metropolitan Police have committed a Corbett, ‘inadvertently sharing the email addresses’ of ‘a number of’ victims of crime with each other. In total 1,136 emails were sent out on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said.
Yep, another case of CC: instead of BCC:
Of course, it’s not a Full Corbett, because the Met has actually apologised, and will write to the people involved, explaining what happened. Let’s hope they use BCC this time…
Silliness
Posted: Mon 23 January, 2012 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Stupidity Leave a comment »For no good reason, I give you this…
Dancing Pantomime Zebra
40
Posted: Sat 5 November, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Fucking Hell, I’m 40 today.
Seriously feeling old.
Unpleasant Experiences
Posted: Fri 4 November, 2011 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Hypocrisy, Legal 1 Comment »The last few weeks have involved legal threats on behalf of a particularly unpleasant individual who works as a Marketing Manager in Ireland. Regular readers will recall, back in June 2009 that I received an email from this company which broke their own privacy policy – the Marketing Manager in question had used CC for the addresses instead of BCC – and I made some comments about my personal opinion about his intelligence, professionalism, and general competence.
Over the intervening two years, that Marketing Manager has been in touch once – yes, once – to ask (not tell – ask) me to temper my comments. As it was, I felt perfectly justified in my personal opinion of him, so I didn’t change the content. I did write another post, to show how much nastier I could be, but other readers prevailed upon my common sense, so the post was removed.
Yet this wasn’t enough for our Marketing Manager.
Oh, don’t forget, the post was always open for him to put his own point of view in the comments, or to apologise, or to contact me. In 2 and a half years, this man couldn’t be bothered to put fingers to keyboard and explain or comment. Indeed, he never even bothered responding to my email explaining my position, and that it was all a personal opinion.
Then about three weeks ago, I got a letter by email from Gore Grimes solicitors in Ireland – don’t be mean to them about their website – insisting I retract my comments about the Marketing Manager, because they were untrue, (no, the categorisation of this man as someone who didn’t know what he was doing was utterly true) defamatory, (not really – they were in response to his own error) and malicious. (also not true – although I wish now that they had been)
And so I offered a version of a retraction, which wasn’t accepted. So I’ve put up their version instead, and deleted the posts in question.
I’m not allowed to mention the name of this Marketing Manager. I’m not allowed to identify him – so I’m only describing him by his role. I can’t identify him on any site I control, or any social media I use.
Everything I’ve written on D4D™ is a personal opinion. In nine years, only one person has complained about what I’ve said about them. Personally I think it’s bizarre for someone to go running to lawyers instead of dealing with an issue themselves. I think that people who work this way should be named and shamed, but I’m not allowed to do so.
Anniversal
Posted: Tue 13 September, 2011 Filed under: D4D™ 2 Comments »It’s just occurred to me that I missed D4D’s 9th Birthday, which was on 9th August.
So yes, bloody hell, I’ve been writing this rubbish (on and off, and currently more off than on) for nine years. Fark.
Ian Corbett and Toyota Ireland – Retraction Of Comments
Posted: Thu 8 September, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Toyota IE 7 Comments »Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.
(This retraction has been approved by Gore Grimes Solicitors. My personal view hasn’t changed, but legal stuff prevails over personal opinion, it seems. Maybe next time he’ll remember about BCC, and privacy concerns resulting therefrom)
Different Worlds
Posted: Fri 2 September, 2011 Filed under: Commuting, Driving 1 Comment »The more driving I do at the moment, the more convinced I am that travel news on the radio is involved with a totally different planet to the one I’m on.
A case in point :
This morning, the radio announcements were full of bits about the M11 being slow-moving between Junctions 5 and 4. Really slow, totally rigid, etc. etc. And when I got there? A totally clean run through – not even a delay or a dab of the brakes. Nothing.
It’s totally bizarre, and more than a little bit annoying.
Late to the Story
Posted: Thu 4 August, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »I see today in the news that Heather Mills is complaining today that her phone was hacked by the Mirror Group of newspapers 8 years ago. Yep – 8 years ago.
Is it only me who thinks that this might – just maybe – be a bit of a bandwagon jump? Phone hacking has been in the media for most of this year, and even more so over the last month. And it’s only now that Mills (and several others) jump into the ring too. Very odd.
Gone Huntin’
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2011 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »Over the weekend, Cricket (the silver Bengal) escaped from the house, and went walkabout.
It was my fault – a combination of an open bathroom window, and a door that hadn’t been properly closed – but it meant the little sod was out’n’about. She’s not used to it – we live near a very busy road, so the cats don’t go out as a matter of course – which meant I was pretty worried about her all told.
Thankfully, the back of the house rolls onto field, hedgerows, trees and the like, so the odds were that she’d stay on that side – and hopefully not stray too far in the interest of finding other New Fun Things.
We went out several times to try and see/find the little bugger, but with no real joy. Lots of bird alarm calls around the place, but no sign. At night I went out with a torch, and could see her eyes reflecting from way inside some of the undergrowth, but she wasn’t coming back ’til she was good and ready.
She did eventually come back – at 1am – and all’s been well. She spent most of Sunday trying to get out again whenever possible, but that’s no surprise.
Evil little sod
Impetus
Posted: Mon 27 June, 2011 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »You know, there’s been a number of things that’ve gone on over the last few weeks that I should write about here. And yet, I don’t know, I just don’t want to.
I don’t know whether that’ll change again in time, but right now it feels like D4D has come to a natural pause. There’ll still be bits here and there, I’m sure, but the personal bits that became a theme here? I just don’t want to go down that road again at the moment.
We’ll see, I suppose.
500 Days
Posted: Fri 24 June, 2011 Filed under: General 2 Comments »It’s now 500 days ’til my 41st birthday.
I’ve got some stuff that I want to have active by then, so this is just a reminder to me.
Zoo Bus
Posted: Sat 11 June, 2011 Filed under: Advertising Leave a comment »
Very clever use of advertising and wraps
Words Are Weapons
Posted: Thu 9 June, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Art Leave a comment »Arm yourself
Words are Weapons - Arm yourself
Coming Off
Posted: Wed 18 May, 2011 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Health, Thoughts 7 Comments »Last week, I made the decision to stop taking the Citalopram. It hasn’t done much for me in the year I’ve been taking it – other events have had far more effect on depression, motivation etc. than the anti-depressants have. I’ve also found that they have a nasty levelling side-effect, making me not care more than when I wasn’t taking them. (By that I mean that everything was just same-same in my head, there were no real highs – or, admittedly, lows – and it all became a bit blah, nothing provoking any form of reaction)
Additonally, the anti-depressants just didn’t seem to really work for me. There were still Bad Days on them, but there weren’t really any Good Days- things more levelled out to Just OK Days. (or Blah Days) My motivation didn’t shoot up – indeed most of the time it seemed to be harder to be motivated, because well, what was the point? I wasn’t Depressed, but more Couldn’t Be Bothered.
So, I’ve come off completely them. It’s not the method advised by GPs, but I don’t have the time, tolerance or inclination to do a “gradual withdrawal”. If the withdrawal side-effects were to become really bad (not that I expect them to) then I have a new box ready to be started. But I doubt it’ll be that bad.
Weirdly, the worst time (so far) for being off them seems to be early evening, when my head begins to feel a bit wooly, a bit floaty, not really all that level. It’s not debilitating or unpleasant – just a weird sensation.
I don’t miss the Citalopram.
I don’t know what’s next. I’m going to go back to wanting to do things, and then to trying to find ways to motivate myself to do them. So far that seems to be OK. I’m not perfect – thankfully I’ve never claimed to be – and I do have issues with motivation, or at least Getting Things Done.
I’ll still work on the motivation and so on – I’ve still got the ideas and plans, but need to bring them out into the world – but I don’t think it’s actually necessarily related to depression.
And when all’s said and done, I’d rather have the ups and downs of life, depression and whatever else, instead of the flat day-to-day numbness of Citalopram.
Spoilers
Posted: Wed 4 May, 2011 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night I watched Channel 4’s documentary about recreating Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb from the second world war. Apparently most of the documentation and research into the project had been lost in a flood in the sixties, so a Cambridge professor recreated the entire project.
However, the entire thing was let down by the first two minutes – it was based on the question “Will they manage to recreate the bomb?” – which unfortunately had been answered in the first two minutes when they showed footage of the new bomb skipping across the water and hitting the purpose-made dam. Indeed, I think they’d even shown that footage in the trailers for the damn programme.
I don’t know why they did it this way – the documentary was still interesting in all the technical challenges and so on that went into the initial project – but it would’ve been more interesting if you didn’t know the answer before the research even started.
Royal Knees-Up
Posted: Sat 30 April, 2011 Filed under: Charm School, Media, Photography Leave a comment »From a range of sources, this has to be the best/funniest photo from the Royal Wedding yesterday…
Dirty Mind, Royal Wedding
Felixstowe
Posted: Mon 18 April, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »A photo from the weekend, through iPhone and Autostitch…
Panoramic photo of the beach at Felixstowe Ferry
Taken at Felixstowe Ferry (the old end of Felixstowe) on a fantastic day over the weekend.
Shock, Horror
Posted: Wed 6 April, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Daily Mail, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, Pedantry, People, Thoughts 3 Comments »At least two different media sites are today carrying the story about the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) telling clothing company Jack Wills (ever heard of them? I hadn’t) to not continue publishing their current catalogue until certain images are changed.
The story’s on the BBC here – and on the scumrag Daily Mail here.
Only one of the two stories manages to also show the image in it’s full “offensive” version. Guess which one?
Yep, you got it – good old Daily Fail, making sure its readers know precisely what they should be offended by.
[Oh, and if you do want to know what the image is, look below the ‘More’ link]
Neutered
Posted: Mon 4 April, 2011 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Forgot to say, Cricket came back fine, and she’s been doing OK since.
The incision’s pretty much healed up, and the fur’s growing back, so all’s good.
And she’s a lot more relaxed again now, thankfully.
Cricket and Madgit, asleep and intertwined
Neutering
Posted: Tue 29 March, 2011 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Over the last week or so, Cricket (the silver Bengal) has been going through her first ‘season’, and it’s not been good for her.
She’s yowled all round the house, sprayed, yowled, had the shits, and generally been deeply unhappy. I’ve found it really upsetting to see her handling it all so badly, and it’s not something I want her (or, selfishly, us) to go through again.
So today she’s at the vets, getting ‘done’.
Of course, that involves getting her into the cat carrier. Which, with a Bengal, is a bit of a struggle.
The first time round, she escaped from M’s arms, ripped all the way round M, and disappeared.
Second time, I got her, and held her tight while we got her into the cage. Her back legs were down by my right hip, and she was held tight. Somehow, she ended up twisting round and I now have a deepish cut from her back claws in the left side of my neck, and other clawmarks all round my left shoulder-blade. Impressive.
She’s at the vets now, and I’m half expecting a call saying “Can you come and get your cat out of the ceiling tiles”. She is emphatically Not Happy. And Very Sharp.
Happy 30th, ZX81
Posted: Sat 5 March, 2011 Filed under: Geeky 1 Comment »Today in 1981, the ZX81 was released.
There’s an article about it on the Register.
The ZX81 was my first computer – seeing this stuff really brings back those memories.
£70 for a ZX81. Amazing
Blowing
Posted: Fri 4 March, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Driving 1 Comment »Over the last month or so, my car’s been playing up – any time it went over 2,500 rpm and the turbo kicked in, the entire thing went to crap: Losing power, slowing down, finally cutting out. It was booked in for a service and MOT anyway, so for the time ’til the service, it was OK so long as I didn’t go over the 2,500.
In honesty, I thought that either the turbo was knackered, or one of the pipes to/from the turbo had split. I’ve had that happen before, and the symptoms were the same. I’d done some internet searches, based on the idiot lights and the circumstances, and that seemed to be the conclusion. Well, either that or the engine was completely fucked, which I was pretty sure wasn’t the case, as it was fine until turbo time.
Anyway, Tuesday was the day of the service and MOT. I was surprised when the garage called me back and said it needed a couple of things doing – but nothing about the engine. Instead it needed a new exhaust, and a new bonnet catch.
With the new exhaust, all is fine again. I’d never thought it needed that doing – I knew it must be about ready to have a new exhaust bit, as I’ve had the damn thing four years now, but it didn’t connect in my head – there was no noticeable extra noise when running or anything, just that power loss.
I’ll know for the future, of course.
But in the meantime, yeah, I feel like a bit of an idiot – but also very pleased that the problem was easily fixed – and considerably cheaper than a new turbo / engine.
World Book Day
Posted: Thu 3 March, 2011 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Literacy, Writing 1 Comment »
Today is World Book Day. If you’re not reading something, why not?
Derek Bird Inquest
Posted: Tue 1 March, 2011 Filed under: Media, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Today the inquest opened on the events surrounding Derek Bird’s killing spree in Cumbria.
On the BBC news tonight, reporting on the inquest, the following phrase was used…
Bird’s killing spree was outlined in detail for the first time
Now, how can you outline something in detail?
3.1
Posted: Thu 24 February, 2011 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, WordPress Leave a comment »Yesterday, I updated to WordPress 3.1 here on D4D™. No idea what the real differences are, or whether there’s anything that’ll rise up and bite me on the backside.
Still, it’s good to be on top of these things. Allegedly.
Juxtaposition
Posted: Wed 23 February, 2011 Filed under: Cynicism, Daily Mail, Media, News, People, Stupidity Leave a comment »Yet another from the Daily Fail…
Organic vs. normal
Yep, in story one organic vegetables “aren’t as good for your health”, yet in story two “pesticides on fruit and veg interfere with male fertility”.
You’ve got to have some kind of admiration – and not necessarily positive admiration – for a ‘newspaper’ that can have two opposing viewpoints in two stories right next to each other.
It’s Just a Job
Posted: Sun 20 February, 2011 Filed under: Design, Domestic, People, Thoughts, Work-related Leave a comment »Via the Koriblr tumblr feed…
It's just a job - attributed to Muhammad Ali
Definitely something to remember when the workplace gets skanky
Another Tossbag
Posted: Fri 18 February, 2011 Filed under: Driving, Parking, Stupidity Leave a comment »Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Particularly when most of those words are swearies…
Cock in a Saxo
Black Swan
Posted: Thu 17 February, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »Last night we went to see Black Swan. I’d heard lots of good reviews about it, that it was a really dark, clever film and so on, so thought we’d go and see it. Of course it’s also getting loads of awards and nominations – that should’ve been my clue, really.
You see, I’ve got to admit that while it was OK, I really wasn’t blown away by it, the way I’d expected to be. Maybe that’s the problem – the expectactions were high, so it was likely to be a disappointment. In my experience, the films that get highly rated and rewarded by the various awards organisations (Bafta, Oscars, SWG, etc. etc.) tend to turn out to be utter garbage. I don’t know why, but it’s a generalisation that seems to apply. In fairness, Bafta awards seem to be somewhat more ‘tuned in’ than the Oscars etc., but there’s still a fair number of remarkably dull films in that list of winners.
As for Black Swan, it was OK. It just wasn’t anywhere near as clever, dark, or disturbing as it wanted to be – or indeed as it could’ve been.
I liked a number of the ideas in it, but you know what? If the film had just been about the ballerinas in the run-up to a production of Swan Lake, about their obsessions, the physical and mental exercises they undertake, and everything they go through, I’d have watched it and been fascinated. Indeed the shots of the impressive muscle development in the ballet performer’s backs and shoulders, and the physical torture their feet go through were (for me at least) the most memorable scenes in the entire film.
Worth watching? Yes. Worth watching if you’re expecting a lot from it? Probably not.
Heart-Shaped
Posted: Mon 14 February, 2011 Filed under: Domestic 1 Comment »I always knew there was a use for heart-shaped cookie cutters.
This is it.
Genius
Cat Stand
Posted: Tue 8 February, 2011 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »About three weeks ago, I bought a ‘play centre’ for my cat, Cricket. It’s a cool thing, about 4′ high, on three levels.
Cat Activity Centre
The layer at the top is all padded as a cat bed, but for whatever reason Cricket never used it. Bizarre. Mind you, cats are never good at doing what they’re supposed to.
Anyway, I brought the stand back into the living room this weekend (it’d been on the stairs for while I was out at work) and she’s been on the sleeping pad ever since.
Cricket on the cat stand
I don’t know why she’s suddenly realised it’s comfortable and warm on the stand, but it’s definitely suddenly flavour of the month.
Yes / No
Posted: Mon 7 February, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Agency Idiocy, Business, Cynicism, Design, Geeky, People, Stupidity, Work-related Leave a comment »Via the linguistic/literacy genius known as Sevitz (or Svetzi) comes this gem…
Oh. My. God.
I’ve worked with some spectacular options for Yes/No, but this one is way up there.
Parking Tosspot
Posted: Sun 6 February, 2011 Filed under: Driving, Parking 2 Comments »Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these…
As always, the hatch-markings appear to designate a parking space
AJ10WUP, you park like a fuckwit.
Raise the Double Standard
Posted: Thu 3 February, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Daily Mail, Hypocrisy, News, People 3 Comments »You’ve got to love the Daily Mail, haven’t you? Much as it’s a bigoted vicious racist hate-mongering shit-rag, it’s also the most hypocritical, two-faced piece of crap outside of politics.
And then they do double standards as portrayed here…
Two stories in the same day, both about Kelly Osborne
The start of 2011
Posted: Sat 1 January, 2011 Filed under: Domestic 3 Comments »So, welcome to 2011.
The year I turn 40. *sob*
Snowstorm
Posted: Tue 28 December, 2010 Filed under: Weather Leave a comment »Just for those in the UK who think they’ve had it bad with the weather this December…
A time-lapse video of 32 inches of snow…
Makes you realise just how lucky we are/were…
Advertising
Posted: Sun 26 December, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Festering Season Leave a comment »Out with the ads for Perfume, Chocolates and Food.
In with the ads for Kitchens, Holidays, Sales and Diets.
Know what? It must be Boxing Day.
Moving On ?
Posted: Fri 24 December, 2010 Filed under: Change, D4D™, Domestic 3 Comments »2010 has been – to say the least – a year of changes round here. There’s been a lot going on, and a lot of thinking being done over the last couple of months.
One of the things that has gone by the wayside a lot in that time is D4D™ – and for the first time since I started writing it, I haven’t missed writing here. In some ways I feel like I’ve run out of things to say here – or perhaps more accurately, things that I want to say here.
Back in the day, D4D™ started off as a writing project, somewhere to put my thoughts and head down. It wasn’t going to be super-personal, wasn’t going to be lots of things. It was a kickback against people telling me I always start projects and don’t finish them. And it’s true- there’s a whole ton of things I’ve started and not completed. It’s still true today. I don’t like that part of me, but it is part of me.
D4D™’s ended up being quite personal in places, and that’s caused issues this year. It became less about fiction, and more about reality – or at least my perception of that reality.
So I don’t know, I wonder if D4D has come to the end of its life. Maybe still here for the odd random update, but in general time to go into hibernation, or perhaps even cryosleep.
I’ll still be writing somewhere once I get my finger out – between the stuff I do on CeltX for ‘proper’ writing, and a couple of other online writing projects I’ve got in mind, it’ll keep me busy anyway.
I’ll decide for sure over the Festive Break, I think. Just see how it all goes.
It’s been good, though. Now for the next phase.
Pass it on
Posted: Fri 24 December, 2010 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Excellent story in the BBC today about Good Samaritans etc.
Well worth the read.
ID Cards Scrapped
Posted: Wed 22 December, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics Leave a comment »At long last, the UK ID Card Programme has been officially scrapped. According to the Home Office :
This means that all ID cards will now be cancelled within one month and the National Identity Register, the database which contains information of card holders, will be destroyed within two months.
The Identity Card Scheme and other biometrics work has already cost the taxpayer £292 million. The Act has saved £835 million in planned future investment.
That’s one heck of a lot of money to have already spent – but far better to have saved the rest instead of spent it on such a massive white elephant.
The Girl’s Hand
Posted: Tue 21 December, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Memory, Writing 5 Comments »I’ve got a book in my head, and I can’t remember the name, the author, or anything. It’s incredibly annoying, because I want to re-read it, but there’s nothing I can do to trip my memory.
It’s a book about a killer, and starts off with the killer walking out of the woods, holding a girl’s hand.
It’s only at the end of the chapter that you realise the hand is all he has of the girl, as he puts the hand in his pocket.
And that’s it, that’s all I can clearly remember of this book. It would’ve been late eighties, early nineties, and probably by an American author (or at least set in America)
So – any ideas?
Word Lens
Posted: Sun 19 December, 2010 Filed under: Geeky, iPhone, Travel 2 Comments »It’s not often that I see a piece of technology that makes me go simply “Wow”. However, Word Lens brings forth exactly that response.
It’s basically a translation application for the iPhone, but what makes it different is that it works through the camera lens – hold the phone up to a sign in Spanish, and it’ll translate it – immediately – into English.
The demo app is free – which either removes words, or reverses them – and English-Spanish or Spanish-English cost £2.99 each. I assume that there’ll be other languages before long, and I certainly hope so. This kind of application is exceptional, and something that could/should change the way some translation is done.
Crunch – One Year On
Posted: Sat 18 December, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »A year ago today, I spagged my car into a fence on an icy corner. How time flies when you’re having fun.
Ho Effing Ho
Posted: Thu 16 December, 2010 Filed under: Art, Charm School, Festering Season, People, Shopping, Sweary 3 Comments »
Nice to see that someone else feels roughly the same way about the Festering Season as I do…
In this case,
a ‘disgruntled employee’ of Harrods disabled the correct lights until he could spell out his feelings to Harrods bosses and Christmas shoppers alike. He was removed by security guards after an hour-long stand-off, then handed over to police.
It could be is photoshopped, I don’t know. But it is excellent. (Updated : The story is originally from The Poke, a spoof news site. The original photo pre-photoshop is visible here.)
FO at Christmas
Which Deal ?
Posted: Fri 10 December, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, People, Shopping, Thoughts 7 Comments »Being a tad addicted (still) to that Tropicana Orange and Lime juice at the moment, I’m aware of which supermarkets have it on special offer at the moment. It’s odd, it always seems to be on some kind of “deal”.
Anyway, at the moment
- Supermarket One has it at 2 for £3
- Supermarket Two has it on 3 for £5.
I found it interesting, because Supermarket Two’s offer instinctively looks like a better deal. And I don’t know why.
Logically, Supermarket One is actually the better deal. But I had to think about it to be sure.
What do you think? Which one looks the better offer? (I know which one is the better one, obviously – I’m interested in perceptions rather than fact)
Detection, not Prevention
Posted: Thu 9 December, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, People, Technology, Thoughts 1 Comment »In Birmingham, the police are installing microphones/sensors to detect the sound of gunshots. It’s being marketed as a way of reducing/preventing gun crime. And I don’t quite get that.
As an overview in the BBC story says,
West Midlands Police seem sure this initiative will help cut gun crime and give officers more confidence heading into unpredictable situations.
Despite this being a pilot there is a belief that if successful this will be rolled out to other UK cities.
But it’s not going to cut gun crime.
These sensors work on the sound of a gunshot. So they’re maybe – maybe – going to detect that a gun’s been fired, and roughly where. (A 25m (80-odd feet) radius in a city is a pretty big location) But the gun’s got to be fired before it can be detected. It has issues (obviously) detecting gunshots from inside a building, or where a silencer is used.
And the detection method? Again from the BBC story,
The £150,000 system records an audio clip and sends police a GPS location.
A police officer trained to listen to the clips then makes a judgement on what they have heard before deploying officers.
So the sound has to be detected/recorded, then sent to the control room, then listened to by a trained officer, then the police get deployed.
Not really preventative at all then, is it?
Wp 3.0.3
Posted: Thu 9 December, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, WordPress Leave a comment »Just a quick reminder – if you’re running WordPress, update to the latest version ASAP.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since 3.0.2 came out, but it’s definitely A Good Thing to keep up to date.
Birthdayage
Posted: Wed 1 December, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »Oh yeah, and while I remember, a quick Happy 30th Birthday to a certain long-term friend, ex-girlfriend etc. etc.
Have a good one.
Cricket Update
Posted: Wed 1 December, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »While things are quiet, enjoy the latest photo of Cricket, the Silver Bengal.
Cricket
She really is utterly beautiful, and beginning to like me enough to come and sit on me. With Bengals (as Fabulous Lorraine says here in a fantastic post) affection is very much on their terms, like it or lump it. Cricket’s starting to trust and accept me, and that is A Very Good Thing.
Forward Motion
Posted: Wed 1 December, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Travel 2 Comments »Three four (Oops) years ago today, I/we moved to Norfolk.
How time flies.
Quiet
Posted: Tue 30 November, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 2 Comments »For the first time in eight years or so, it’s gone a bit quiet here at D4D™
There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, and a great deal of thinking is happening too. For once I don’t really want to write about it, but more to the point I don’t feel the need to write about it. Whether or not that’s a good thing is something only time will tell, really.
So for now, it’s a bit quiet.
David Attenborough on God
Posted: Wed 24 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Cynicism, Media, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »David Attenborough…
David Attenborough
I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. To which I reply and say “Well it’s funny that the people, when they say that this is the evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things. They always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses”.
But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a rier in west Africa, who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he’s five years old. And I reply and say “Well presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well”.
And now I find that baffling, to credit a merciful God with that action. And therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know to be truth, truthful and factual, and allow people to make up their own minds about the moralities of this thing, or indeed the theology of this thing.
Basset
Posted: Tue 23 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Photography Leave a comment »One of the better images of the week…
Upside-Down Basset Hound
I just love it.
Book List
Posted: Thu 11 November, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »For my birthday last week I ended up with a range of new books. (either as gifts directly, or via an Amazon gift voucher)
All told, they were :
- William Gibson’s “Zero History”
- Joe Quirk’s “Exult”
- Charles Stross’ “The Fuller Memorandum”
- Gavin G Smith’s “Veteran”
- Alden Bell’s “The Reapers Are The Angels”
That little lot should keep me out of trouble for a while…
Batman (On Fire)
Posted: Wed 10 November, 2010 Filed under: Art, Photography Leave a comment »via someone on Twitter (I think) I came across this image on Flickr…
Batman on Fire, by Mina Mikhael and Matthew Barhoma
Love it.
The 2010/11 List
Posted: Tue 9 November, 2010 Filed under: 2010/11, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts 1 Comment »In my “What’s Next?” list, I said that one of my targets would be to get off the anti-depressants, and a commenter said that should be first thing on the list.
In some ways I agree, although it’s not strictly realistic. I saw my GP last week, and discussed my dislike (OK, utter loathing) of taking these pills. But at the same time even I have to acknowledge that they’ve done me some good.
Anyway, the GP recommends staying on them for another 3-4 months, which is what I’ll do. It takes me over the hump of the Festering Season, and into 2011. After that, well, see how it goes.
That seems like the best plan for now, anyway.
Off-Licence
Posted: Mon 8 November, 2010 Filed under: Business, News 1 Comment »I had recently noticed a number of Thresher’s off-licences closed, but hadn’t actually appreciated that the entire company had gone into administration.
Turns out, that was a year ago. According to that story, only 400 of the 1,400 Threshers branches have been bought for use. The remaining thousand have now been returned to the landlords.
New Addition
Posted: Sun 7 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »One of the major birthday occurrences was a new addition to the house.
Curled up and wary
She’s a silver bengal, and utterly beautiful.
Close-Up
Originally called Wilhemina (from Ugly Betty – beautiful, but a complete bitch) she’s now likely to be called Cricket – she bounces round the bed attacking anything, jumping like a grasshopper. Hence, Cricket. (One could also speculate she’s bats)
Fangs
Honest Intent
Posted: Fri 5 November, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, People, Politics, Security, Thoughts Leave a comment »On this particular day, remember that Guy Fawkes is still the last person to enter the Houses of Parliament with honest intentions.
The Gunpowder Plot is a healthy reminder that terrorism really is nothing new. Mind you, if the risk of terrorism now were to involve being hung, drawn and quartered, I wonder how many would still think it such a cool thing ?
39
Posted: Fri 5 November, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Driving, People, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Today, I is 39.
Today, I is travelling down to Bristol to be at Pixeldiva‘s wedding. A camera will be in attendance too.
Today is a good day.
Zombie Stormtrooper
Posted: Thu 4 November, 2010 Filed under: Art, Geeky, People Leave a comment »via Back to Dreams comes this excellent image…
Nothing disturbing at all, honest.
Yep, Zombie Stormtroopers. How cool is that? What a fantastic idea.
Mis-Spelling
Posted: Wed 3 November, 2010 Filed under: People, Stupidity 1 Comment »On Ugly Tattoos, I spotted this the other day…
It's not spelt like that...
How to spot an idiot…
Clamper’s Contract
Posted: Tue 2 November, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Customer Services Leave a comment »James Holden has come up with an ace way of combatting car clampers…
Parking Contract
Everybody is familiar with the notices displayed in car parks. The gist of them is that by parking you are entering into a contract which obliges you to pay a sum of money if you breach the terms of the agreement. These notices are enforced by contract law and are very different to the legitimate PCN (Penalty Charge Notice) tickets that public officials can issue, which you have to appeal properly if you think you’ve been ticketed unfairly.
This got me thinking. If I can be said to have entered into a contract by simply being near one of these signs, so can they. It should cover off enough of the angles of attack, fines, clamping, towing and so on
Excellent stuff.
Signage
Posted: Tue 2 November, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Weirdness 1 Comment »I noticed this on the new DVD player today…
The full box
So yep, new cheap-ass DVD player. But what’s that security sign on the right ?
Security Tag - Do Not Microwave
Yep – a sticker telling me to not microwave the sticker / box.
Is that something I’m supposed to do to a DVD player, then? Stick it in the microwave to make it work?
Note : Yes, I do know it’s just a generic sticker, and doesn’t matter whether it’s on a microwave or any other device. It just made me smile
Autumnal
Posted: Mon 1 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Round here, the leaves on the trees have all suddenly started to change in the last two weeks. It’s something I still find beautiful, and particularly when driving (as I did this weekend) through Thetford Forest, down roads lined with Autumn colours.
It seems weird that Autumn now really isn’t starting ’til October – and that there are still plenty of leaves on the trees while we’re now in November – but that seems to be the way the weather is developing. It’s been like this for a few years now, but still jars with what I remember of Autumn starting in September.
I wonder whether the plants will be affected by these changes. I thought they would be last year, but the harsh winter seems to have re-set their clocks OK. This year though I’ve seen things re-flowering in August/September (the California Lilac of the next-door neighbour is still in bloom now) and I wonder what effect it will have to be flowering and then suddenly be in Autumn / Winter.
Weekend Downtime
Posted: Mon 1 November, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »Another weekend, another quiet weekend on D4D™. These things seem to be becoming a bit of a regular pattern.
Abusive Billboard
Posted: Thu 28 October, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Design, Domestic Leave a comment »I’m not a massive fan of the advertising world’s “Chip Shop Awards“, although they’re certainly good for making you think.
One particular case in point is the advert in the image below…
Abusive New Zealand Billboard
The text from the advertising agency is :
The Brief : Every year, New Zealand police deal with over 70,000 cases of abuse. But many more cases go unreported. We want to raise awareness for Women’s Refuge, and decrease the number of unreported cases of domestic abuse in New Zealand.
The Solution : Our idea is to create a completely unbranded billboard that makes women feel as though they are being verbally abused while driving. The success of this idea relies on the number of complaints it receives from the public. We then follow it up with a reveal, showing people that while they’re quick to respond to a billboard, they stay silent when the same thing is happening in homes all over the country. We provide a call to action for women to speak up against abuse by calling Women’s Refuge
To me, that’s genius. Love it.
‘rilla
Posted: Wed 27 October, 2010 Filed under: Animals Leave a comment »Awwwwww.
London Zoo has a new baby gorilla. Awesome. It might just be enough to make me want to go back to London Zoo.
Firefight
Posted: Tue 26 October, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, People 1 Comment »Apparently, London Fire Brigade are in the middle of a dispute about the scrapping of current rota systems, and plan to strike in protest. For 48 hours starting on the 5th November – pretty much their busiest day of the year. Way to go.
Even more impressive, Diwali this year also falls on November 5th, so that’s going to concentrate the fireworks and so on into one weekend. And the firemen will be on strike.
Genius.
Synapse Phones
Posted: Tue 26 October, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Business, Geeky, iPhone, Technology Leave a comment »If you’re tired of run-of-the-mill “standard” smartphones, it looks like this may be something that’s of interest.
Synapse Phones will take your order for a customised smartphone (running Android 2.2) and ship it in Q1 of 2011
Think about for what you use your smartphone and what you will do with it. For example if you are someone who loves to take thousands of pictures, you can choose the 12MP camera and a xenon flash for taking pictures at night or under bad lighting conditions or if you want to store your whole music collection on your smartphone just choose a high amount of memory.
Seems like a good idea – and the prices aren’t epically unreasonable either. I hope it works out as a good business.
Breaking Point
Posted: Sun 24 October, 2010 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Introspective, Norfolk, People, Thoughts 14 Comments »Roughly this time last month, life came to a bit of a crunch point. I haven’t written much about it so far – and won’t write much more about it after this – but a number of things bubbled up at the same time, and I feel it’s worth adding in some thoughts with a bit of hindsight etc. I’m not going to be going into the whys and wherefores of any of it.
Basically, I had a bit of a breakdown. Going home on the Thursday night plunged me into a huge dollop of depression, which isn’t exactly great at the best of times. I thought I could get over it, that it was a “bad day” thing, but the next day was actually worse, to the extent that I simply couldn’t face going home for the weekend. It was a real physical reaction, that I just couldn’t do it. So instead I went away for the weekend- went back to the house, sorted things there, got some clothes, and left again. I didn’t even wait for Herself to come home- I sent her a text message to let her know what I was doing.
I’m not proud of myself for that, not even slightly. It was completely unfair, unreasonable, and downright shitty. There are no excuses, no glossing over it – it was an utterly unutterably crappy thing to do to anyone, let alone a partner of five years, a friend of twenty years.
What it was, though, was a way to survive. If I’d stayed there for the weekend, I don’t honestly know what would’ve happened, or where I’d have ended up. Some people have called what I did cowardly – and fair enough, maybe it was. I can’t say I was honestly in my right mind. But at that point, where you physically and mentally can’t face going back somewhere, I don’t think “being in one’s right mind” is ever going to happen.
Again, I’m not proud of what I did. It had to happen, but I should’ve/could’ve done it one hell of a lot better.
So a lot’s changed since then, and I’m working on all the necessary changes. I don’t know how they’ll work out, I don’t know how any of it will work out. But I’m not going to put myself in that situation again if I can possibly help it.
[Comments on this post are now closed]
Water Balloons
Posted: Fri 22 October, 2010 Filed under: News, People, Photography Leave a comment »From NPR, I love this set of shots of water balloons without the balloons…
Splash (C) Edward Horsford
From the article :
Edward Horsford‘s high-speed photography freezes the spherical innards of water balloons — just as the balloon skins break open, and just before they splash to the floor. He works at night in his garden in London, using flashes to light the action.
Very, very cool.
Writing – Results
Posted: Thu 21 October, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, London Screenwriters Festival, Writing | Tags: #lsw, #lswf, London Screenwriters Festival 1 Comment »Earlier this week I submitted a script to the Short Script Competition at the London Screenwriter’s Festival. It was an idea I’d had that I thought worked pretty well, but it was hurried in the way it was written, as lots of other things all happened at about the same time.
Anyway, the results were given today, and I didn’t get anywhere. The odds were always going to be low, in fairness. As it turned out, there were 115 entries all told, and from the look of it my script wasn’t even in the top 25. I’m going to try and get a bit more feedback about where it went wrong, but we’ll just have to see.
As it is, I’m happy to have at least submitted the script. To me that was the important thing. I want to get more experienced at that, at writing, finishing, and submitting – that’s the way these things need to go.
20:10 20/10/2010
Posted: Wed 20 October, 2010 Filed under: General 3 Comments »Another geeky date/time combination…
8.10pm on 20th October 2010 – 20:10 20/10/2010
I am so sad…
Culling 1
Posted: Tue 19 October, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 1 Comment »The observant readers of D4D™ may have noticed a bit of a cull in the blogrolls over there ?
Basically, I went through and got rid of a load of blogs that either no longer exist, or that I no longer read. It was a bit of a Night of the Long Knives, but it’s cleaned things up quite a lot.
The thing is, a number of the blogs I no longer go to via D4D™ anyway – I use the Google Reader RSS Feeder, and get everything there. There are some who I go to direct as well, but the majority are primarily via RSS now.
Boom. (Or Not)
Posted: Mon 18 October, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Driving 2 Comments »Locally today, the press is full of a story about a man who died when his car left the road, burst into flame and finally exploded. It happened on the main road I take to get to work, but fortunately wasn’t me, nor anyone known to me.
The road’s closed, and probably will be all day.
Must’ve been impressive, but I’m still pretty thankful to have not been involved at all.
Closed
Posted: Sun 17 October, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business 1 Comment »via Matt Verso on Twitter, I love this notice…
Closed due to administrative cockup - click to embiggenify
It’s worth clicking on the image to see the full glory of the notice.
Weighty Considerations
Posted: Sat 16 October, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Weight Loss 1 Comment »Today I weighed myself for the first time in ages. I didn’t really know what to expect, as it’s been a long time since I’ve done any of the Slimming World stuff or whatever.
Obviously while not expecting much in the way of good news, I was also still hoping I hadn’t put too much on. I know the recent period has been pretty stressed, but still I know I’ve been pretty good on food too.
Anyway, weighed myself and came in at 134Kg. 21 stone 1 pound.
And I’m actually pretty damn pleased with that. It means that even with everything that’s been going on, and with not going to Slimming World or anything else, I’ve kept that weight the same for a year.
So yeah, I’m quite pleased with that. I do want to lose more when things settle down, but right now I’m happy to be just staying the same as before.
Writing
Posted: Fri 15 October, 2010 Filed under: 2009/10, Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), London Screenwriters Festival, The '10 Writing Project, Writing | Tags: #celtx, #lsw, #lswf 1 Comment »Life’s been a bit quiet round here of late, what with one thing and another.
One of the bits that’s reduced my writing time here has been the Short Script Competition for the London Screenwriter’s Festival , whose deadline was today. (In a couple of hours, in fact)
I’d had an idea for the project, which I wrote in CeltX (again) and wanted to get finished and submitted. And today I got it all done, dusted and submitted.
I don’t know how it’ll do – no idea at all, to be honest – but regardless, I’m happy with having completed it and got it in for the deadline. Even if nothing at all comes of it, it’s another idea completed, written, and submitted.
That makes it the second script (admittedly, short script) completed and submitted to competitions this year. My writing plan for 2010 was to get at least one – and hopefully more – bits written, and I’ve done that. I’m not going to stop there- there’s still a lot to write and a lot of ideas in my head – but at least I’m doing it now. It’s taken far too long to get to this point.
So, So Wrong
Posted: Thu 14 October, 2010 Filed under: Art, Domestic Leave a comment »There’s not much you can say to these…
Vagina Cupcakes
Parking 5
Posted: Wed 13 October, 2010 Filed under: Driving, Parking 2 Comments »And after yesterday’s resurrection of the Parking Photos – another one.
This time, at a pub close to the office.
Not so much over the lines as right in the emergency exit hatchmarks
AJ54RJX, that really does take some doing. Congratulations, you’re a fuckwit.
Parking 4
Posted: Tue 12 October, 2010 Filed under: Driving, Parking 1 Comment »It’s been a while since I posted any pictures of parking, so I thought I’d fix that…
As it's for sale, they obviously don't want any dents in it
Parked in a different Tesco, but still a Tesco all the same.
The True Size of Africa
Posted: Mon 11 October, 2010 Filed under: Design, Education, Media 1 Comment »via Twitter today, I came across this awesome infographic about the true size of Africa by Kal Krause.
I’ve also uploaded it here, because it really is an excellent illustration of the size of Africa, compared to other major areas/countries.
The true size of Africa, copyright Kal Krause
Missed Dates
Posted: Mon 11 October, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Geeky Leave a comment »In having lots of other stuff on my mind last week and over the weekend, I missed out on some date fun.
I missed yesterday’s 10:10:10 on 10/10/10 .
I meant to do a post, but other stuff came up instead.
Bum.
Poll
Posted: Thu 7 October, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News Leave a comment »You’ve got to love the Daily Mail, haven’t you? And this is the perfect reason why …
Poll on the Daily Mail website
Yep – you can either be slim or with Mr Right. That’s it.
Now, don’t you just feel valued?
Apprenticed
Posted: Wed 6 October, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Television 4 Comments »Oh dear God, the Apprentice is back on.
What always gets me (other than the absolute bollocks that most of these cunts spout) is that all these high-flying business people who are ‘at the top of their game’ are all available for three months of filming.
Yep, that’s high-flying for sure – so essential to their companies, they can take three months out.
Cunts.
1 Month Today
Posted: Tue 5 October, 2010 Filed under: General Leave a comment »One month today, I’m going to be 39.
Now that’s a scary concept…
Moved
Posted: Mon 4 October, 2010 Filed under: Domestic 24 Comments »A quiet weekend here at D4D reflected a pretty mad one in Reality.
To cut a very long story short, Herself and I are splitting up, so it’s all been about finding a new place, doing all the paperwork, and moving in.
Broadband arrives today, Sky tomorrow. (No normal aerial on the house, so Sky ’tis)
Lots of other stuff still to do, but there’s a house, at least. From there, who knows?
Clubcard
Posted: Wed 29 September, 2010 Filed under: Change, Customer Services, Domestic 3 Comments »Along with the many other things I’m farking about with at the moment, I tried sorting out online shopping with Tesco last night. No particular reason, just thought it’d be a good idea to get more sorted.
Anyway, registration should’ve been easy, ’til it came time to enter in the Clubcard number. Take out the plastic proper card – embossed with my name – put in the number and the postcode. No, postcode not recognised as the one linked to that card. Um. I tried about four postcodes, just in case I hadn’t got round to registering a new address. (I’d have been surprised, but there we go, it can happen) None of them were right. Oh tits.
So I ended up calling them up on the phone, trying to find out what’s going on. And it turns out that somehow, someone else has now registered their name and address for my clubcard. It’s not even anywhere I’ve lived – the postcode they gave me was IG3, which is Ilford in Essex. Never been there, never wanted to be there. So why my card is registered there, God only knows.
I don’t mind so much – I haven’t been using the card much of late, and it’s no big thing – but it does add some levels of concern about why/how Tesco have allowed a live card to be re-registered to someone else in a completely different area.
Ah well.
Xmarks is closing
Posted: Tue 28 September, 2010 Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts 1 Comment »Over the last three years, I’ve been using the xMarks service (formerly FoxMarks) to synchronise all my bookmarks between Home PC, Laptop, Work PC, and iPhone. It’s always been a free service – allbeit one I’d have happily paid for – that made life *so* easy when it comes to keeping bookmarks in sync.
So it’s really sad news today that xMarks has 90 days to live. I don’t know of a better service for synchronising bookmarks (and passwords) in the way that xMarks does, and it’s been awesomely useful for a very long time.
For me- and it’s a point they raise in that blog post – I would’ve happily paid for the service. Not loads – but £10 – £25 a year, certainly.
A very sad day.
Alterations
Posted: Mon 27 September, 2010 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Lots of stuff changing at the moment chez Lyle, so updates may be a bit thin on the ground.
Watch this space.
Visibility
Posted: Fri 24 September, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, People, Weirdness 1 Comment »One of the more bizarre sights at AdTech this year was this…
Yellow Camouflage, Yellow Shirt, Yellow DM Boots
Very, very yellow – and very odd.
But what is the point of camouflage trousers in bright yellow? The mind boggles – I want to be concealed, fit in with the forest, but also bright yellow. Maybe it’s for hiding in fields of oil-seed rape.
Eighty Fucking Quid
Posted: Thu 23 September, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Norfolk, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »One of the more surprising things about yesterday’s trip to London was the cost of the train ticket to do the journey.
Now I wrote about it last year when National Express East Anglia decided to almost-double the cost of the trainfare overnight from £40 to £74, and ended up with a letter from NEEA telling me that oh yes, it’d been an error, and the prices would drop back down at the next revision.
Looks like that was a lie, too. Indeed, the price has now gone up, so a return ticket with travelcard cost me £80.80 That really takes the piss. I could’ve driven down, parked all day, and driven back for less than half that amount – the only reason I didn’t was that I wasn’t in the mood for navigating London and the M25.
On the (very minor) plus side, the trains are now a lot less busy than they were when I was using them on a daily basis a couple of years back. Of course, that just means that (in theory at least) NEEA will then try and gouge their remaining customers even more in order to maintain the same levels of income.
Night Driving
Posted: Tue 21 September, 2010 Filed under: Driving, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »There’s a story on the BBC today about whether it would be better for new drivers to not be allowed to drive at night for a defined period once they’ve first passed their tests.
In some ways I do think this is a good idea – I’ve said before that I like the Australian method, with limitations on night driving, no alcohol level allowed at all, and a limitation on number of similar-aged people in the same car.
However, as the story says, it would also be a nightmare to administrate and enforce.
So perhaps a better idea would be to simply insist that the learner undergoes a certain number of lessons at night, and thus gets used to night-driving in as controlled a way as possible?
WTF
Posted: Fri 17 September, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Stupidity, Sweary Leave a comment »Every so often a story in the news just makes me say “What. The. Fuck?” – this one is one of those stories.
Children at a school near Selby have had a play break cancelled and hard ball games banned after neighbours complained to the council about noise.
Barlby Community Primary School has also put up a soundproof fence because it fears a noise abatement order.
So people who live near a school – and one assumes, have either a) lived there for a while, or b) moved in thinking it would be nice and quiet (because they’re shit-for-brains morons) – complain that the school is noisy at play time.
You really have to wonder sometimes. In the town where I grew up, a housing estate was built that backed on to the local sewage farm. People who moved into those houses complained about the smell, and tried to get the (pre-existing) sewage farm shut down. When I was in Manchester people who moved in to one part of the city centre complained about the noise from the bars, and tried to get them shut down.
If you’re that fucking stupid that you move near a school, or a bar, or a sewage farm, and only then complain that there’s a problem, then you don’t deserve to be allowed to complain. Live with it, and shut the fuck up. You moron.
Plugs
Posted: Thu 16 September, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Travel 3 Comments »Over the weekend we stayed at the Premier Inn in Watford (easier than parking/driving from Wembley post-gig)
One thing that intrigued me though was the way the plug sockets were fitted in the rooms…
Australian?
Australian ?
Yep – both upside down. No idea why.
Loss of Sync
Posted: Wed 15 September, 2010 Filed under: Geeky, iPhone, Technology, Thoughts 4 Comments »When I got the iPhone (and on previous phones before that) one of the best things I used was a service called Zyb.com, which allowed you to synchronise contacts to their online database from your old phone, and then pull them down to the new phone. It made life *so* much easier, allowing you to do in ten minutes what otherwise turned into a dragged out and nightmarish process of copying contacts across one by one.
When Herself’s mother got an iPhone recently, I planned to do the same thing using Zyb, but I couldn’t. Because Zyb.com is no more.
A couple of years back now, Vodafone bought out Zyb, because it was such a good service. At the time they said it would carry on being available, and they’d got no plans to shut it down. Now though, they’ve closed down Zyb, and relaunched it (kind of) as part of Vodafone 360°. It’s nowhere near as good, fast or useful as it was as Zyb.
I’m really annoyed by this – despite having been a subscribed/signed-up user to Zyb, I didn’t get any notifications about the service closing down. It’s only having done other research about it that I find Zyb closed on 31st July.
As yet I haven’t found a decent replacement for Zyb that was as smooth and painless (and fast) as Zyb. Vodafone 360 took nearly three hours to sync things, and even then it’s not as good. Any suggestions?
Quack
Posted: Tue 14 September, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Animals Leave a comment »Bad advert placement…
Quack. Click to embiggenify
Sad, but it does make me laugh.
Mouse House
Posted: Mon 13 September, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk 1 Comment »On Friday, Bob (a neighbour’s cat) decided to catch a mouse, and bring it in to our house instead of his own one. I should point out that his ‘real’ name isn’t Bob, but he’s one of Ant and Dec, both of whom are standard black and white moggies. However for reasons unknown to me, I called him Bob when he first came round to visit, and the name stuck. He’s not an Ant or a Dec, but he is a Bob. There’s a third black-and-white cat from somewhere else, and he’s just called Not Bob. (or !Bob, in geek) In a similar way, the Ginger/White cat from the other side is named (to me) Ginger Bill. I have no idea what his real name is.
Anyway, I digress
The mouse was still alive, and Bob was going play with it. Psycho Cat, on the other hand, just looked on with disdain – it wasn’t tuna, he wasn’t interested. Hound was apparently slightly orbital about the presence of a New Furry Monster in the kitchen.
Next thing Herself knew, Bob and Psycho Cat had disappeared, and there was no sign of Mouse. She thought Bob had taken Mouse with him to continue ‘playing’.
Wrong.
We figured this might’ve been an incorrect assumption when we got up Saturday morning to find Bob standing guard around the kitchen units, and Hound sniffing around any time Bob wasn’t there. It looked like Mouse had escaped, and hidden himself somewhere.
We were out Saturday night, and there was no real sign of Mouse by the time we got back – except that cats were still lurking.
Today, Herself sent me a photo…
Mouse, hiding in the printer
Look carefully, and there the little sod is, hiding in the printer. Apparently Herself started printing something, the printer made some vile noises, and Mouse poked his head out to see what was going on. Psycho Cat at this time was on the windowsill just next to the printer, and did – as expected – absolutely nothing.
Muse, Wembley, 11/9/10
Posted: Sun 12 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Music, Reviews(ish) 3 Comments »Last night, we saw Muse at Wembley Stadium.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m not a fan of Wembley Stadium – for me it’s just too big for gigs, and you end up watching the band on big video screens rather than seeing them in action. Sure, if you can get standing tickets you might have a better chance – but I haven’t managed that with Wembley yet.
The shows are huge – they have to be – but (in my opinion) I find them quite soulless, that they really are a big marketing exercise.
In the case of Muse, this was the third time I’ve seen them – the last time was back in December 2003 and the shows have grown immensely since then. The set itself last night was stunning – and even more so when it came to life for the gig itself – with huge forced perspective buildings that turned out to be enormouse videoscreens, along with weird balloons around the back of the stage, and a lightshow that probably could’ve powered a small to mid-sized town. Oh, and the now-essential moving sections of stage. Of course.
On that technical / effects side, the entire gig was stunning – well, except for the smaller videoscreens having a lag of about two seconds, so that the sound was coming through before the video – decidedly weird, and not what you expect at a gig that size. But the lighting rig was awesome, the sound set up was spot-on, and technically it was great.
Muse were good too – but in my opinion they’re too small for Wembley. Yes, they music fills the place and is stunning, but performance wise, you just can’t see three people on a stage that size. Any theatrics that were done (including Matt Bellamy’s Glowing LED suit) were just too damn small. Even the moving sector of stage, moving, lifting and rotating was well, just too small. In the O2 it would’ve been excellent. In Wembley it was all just dwarved by the size of the Stadium.
So all told, a tad underwhelmed. Muse blasted the stage and sound system, but I just came out feeling that Wembley was too big – they could’ve done the same gig at the O2 and it would’ve been stunning, but with less people and a smaller scale to fill.
Out’n’About
Posted: Sat 11 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »[This was meant to be posted on time, but didn’t for some reason]
Away for the day – this time down in London to see Muse at Wembley Stadium.
Enjoy.
Upping the Dosage
Posted: Fri 10 September, 2010 Filed under: Depression, Domestic 3 Comments »Having been on these bloody anti-depressants for a few months now (since 15th April, it turns out – so five months already) it was time today to go and see the GP for a review.
For me, while they’ve done some good, the Citalopram dosage I’m currently on hasn’t been enough – I still have more bad days than good, and do get locked in to depression for periods of time.
So I’ve now ended up getting the dosage doubled. According to the GP, there “shouldn’t” be any extra side-effects just for upping the dosage – which was worthy of a raised eyebrow, needless to say – but we’ll see what happens.
Yello – Touch
Posted: Thu 9 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Music, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »I’ve been a fan of Yello since the mid eighties, when someone introduced me to the Stella album. From there I got the previous albums, and I’ve bought every one since. There’s a couple missing now (The Race, and Essential), but all the same, they’re a collection of CDs that I love.
The last Yello album I bought was The Eye, back in 2003, and I hadn’t heard anything more from them since then.
For whatever reason, I’ve been listening to the Pocket Universe album in the car over the last couple of weeks, and (as always) really enjoyed listening to it – and it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked in a while to see whether there was anything new.
And lo, it turned out that there was – Touch, released in October last year. Happy, happy day.
I received it yesterday, and it’s been on in the car today.
And it’s really good – as usual. Much more accessible than most of their stuff, and much less mad – rather than heavy electronica it’s got a really bluesy feel to a lot of it, which I really like.
I hope it’ll be a lot less than seven years before the next album comes out.
Stupid date 2
Posted: Wed 8 September, 2010 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Another of my stupid date posts.
Done at 08/09/10 11:12 .
I so need to get out more.
Stupid Date
Posted: Wed 8 September, 2010 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Today has two potentially stupid date/time things.
This is the first- written for 05:06:07 on 08/09/10
Writing Project – LSF
Posted: Tue 7 September, 2010 Filed under: 2009/10, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, London Screenwriters Festival, The '10 Writing Project, Writing | Tags: London Screenwriters Festival, LSF 1 Comment »Another writing project has come up, which is making life interesting – if chaotic.
As I plan to be attending the London Screenwriting Festival at the end of October, it only seems right to enter their competition. I’ve got the idea, and I’ve started writing it. I’ve got a month to complete it – which should be enough time, I hope.
Currently I’m about a third of the way through the plan, so it’s on schedule. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
Drawing In
Posted: Mon 6 September, 2010 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Norfolk Leave a comment »Yet again it’s that time of the year where I really notice the nights drawing in.
A seemingly short while ago, there was light in the sky ’til 10pm or so, and the chickens didn’t get put away ’til then.
Tonight they were in their coop and all locked up by half eight. Soon it’ll be seven, six, and they’ll be away before I’m even back from work.
Winter’s coming.
Scrabble
Posted: Sun 5 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, iPhone, Literacy, Sweary 6 Comments »One of the addictions I do have with the iPhone at the moment is the Scrabble® App. It’s not perfect – it cheats, and uses some really dodgy Americanised (sorry, Americanized) words which drive me barmy. But it’s fun, and I’m playing it way too much.
Today though I had a small dollop of success – allbeit in a silly and sweary way.
Yep, I got to swear properly in Scrabble. Aces.
Yes, the word ‘cunt’ in scrabble. And it was allowed! (Scored OK too…)
The full board here…
Can you tell what it is yet?
Taxing
Posted: Sat 4 September, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Politics, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »According to the BBC, Tax through PAYE has been (in some cases) utterly stuffed for the last couple of years.
In the story, about £2bn has been underpaid – but about £1.8bn has been overpaid. Now to me, that’s a case of “Oh sod it, it kind of balances”. But no, in a fit of efficiency (or at least Inland Revenue’s version of efficiency – which isn’t efficient at all) they’re going to send out six million letters telling people that they’ve over- or under-paid, and the differences will be refunded or paid back in the new tax code.
So. Six million letters. Even in second-class post, that’s a minimum of 32p per letter. Which makes a cost of £1,920,000. Doing the letters first class would be a cost of £2,460,000.
Let’s look at this sensibly.
We’ve underpaid £2bn in tax.
We’ve overpaid £1.8bn.
Which leaves £0.2bn to pay.
And Inland Revenue are going to spend £2 million to get back that £0.2 billion.
Is it just me that sees the idiocy in this? Talk about throwing good money after bad.
And actually, why the flying fuck should the people who have underpaid – through no fault of their own – be penalised by having to pay extra this year for a mistake made by Inland Revenue itself ?!?
Pigs Arse
Posted: Fri 3 September, 2010 Filed under: Art, Driving, Norfolk, Weirdness, Work-related Leave a comment »Yesterday while driving home I had one of the more surreal driving experiences of late.
Pulling out in front of me was a truck with a load of topiary pigs. Yes, topiary pigs.
So half my journey home last night was spent looking at the arses of three green pigs.
Three Pigs Backsides
It’s not the best of photos – taken while waiting for traffic to sort itself out – but you get the idea.
User Unfriendly
Posted: Thu 2 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts 2 Comments »Last night I was setting up Mother-In-Law with her new iPhone. This necessitated (among other things) installing iTunes on her laptop, and setting up an iTunes account. Which caused me a noticeable amount of hassle, all things considered.
Setting up the account should be easy. Except it’s not – bearing in mind that it’s not something that just techies do. Maybe as a techie I read too much into the entire thing. I don’t know. The main issue was with setting up a password, believe it or not. I tried the first one – say bumbag99 – , and got this error…
The full error message - click to embiggenify
The first part, by the password itself, looks like this…
Information about the format of the iTunes password
Fine. I’ve got letters and numbers, maybe I can’t type. So here we go again, ‘bumbag99’.
And lo, the error returns.
Then you finally see the bit at the top – completely separate to the main password error…
An extra error - nice to know about it
Nice of them to let you know everything at once, and in one message, isn’t it?
Bumbag99, and all done. Only took three goes.
Batman vs Penguin
Posted: Wed 1 September, 2010 Filed under: Art, Geeky, Media Leave a comment »Nabbed via @Mattverso on Twitter (and hosted originally on imgur), I think this is seriously cool…
Batman vs. Penguin
I love images like this, where you can turn them round and see something else. I can’t remember the precise name for them – but they’re cool as hell.
In a similar vein, the 20th Anniversary collector’s edition DVD of Princess Bride was equally cool.
The lettering is the same both ways
Core Sleep
Posted: Mon 30 August, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Sleep - or lack thereof Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I caught up on some sleep. I’ve said before, my “core sleep” hours are between 7 and 9 am – if I get woken up (or have to wake up) within that time, I’m foul for the day, and resemble a grizzly bear woken from hibernation.
Come the end of those core hours, I usually wake up naturally within a couple of minutes, and all is right with the world. It’s weird, but true.
Anyway, this weekend I couldn’t work out why I was waking up at 10am instead.
And then it occurred to me.
It looks like my core hours are actually 7 to 9am GMT. We’re in BST, so that’s 8-10am.
Bizarre, but true.
Welcome Home
Posted: Sun 29 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »When you’ve been out for the day, walking on beaches like this…
Wells Beach
What you really want is to come home to a picture like this…
Welcome Home, from your happy smiling cat
And yes, that is one of Herself’s handbags that the little shit is sitting on/in.
Parking
Posted: Sat 28 August, 2010 Filed under: Driving, Parking Leave a comment »Oh goody, another one. But for once, not at Tescos…
Fully in the hatchmarks, not even *close* to a parking spot
In short, a total, total cunt.
Damage
Posted: Fri 27 August, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »Over the weekend, we were breaking up wood for the wood-burner in winter.
Some of it was old fence-panels, which needed each strip of wood to be split up into manageable pieces. Like a knobhead, I chose to do this mainly over my leg, snapping the bits as necessary.
However, when the wood snapped in the wrong place, it didn’t half make a mess of my arm…
Woodpile, not self-harm
Ouchy
Failed Recall
Posted: Thu 26 August, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Introspective, Thoughts 1 Comment »For once, I’ve got a situation where my memory is failing me. I wasn’t even aware of it ’til today, but now it’s driving me mad.
On Radio One this morning, Chris Moyles mentioned having been in Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent. And I know I went for an interview there many moons ago. It’s just that I can’t remember the name of the place- which is odd, because I normally can remember these stupid useless details.
I know it was some kind of jazz bar/restaurant, but that’s it. I can’t remember much about it – something about the location, but not much.
It’s really bugging me. What’s worse is that I know it shouldn’t annoy me – it was something for half a day, back in what must’ve been 1993/94. I shouldn’t really even recall that I’d been there, so little does it matter.
But up there in my head, for whatever reason, it does matter. I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.
Irritation – Follow Up
Posted: Wed 25 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk Leave a comment »As it turns out, the irritation on my foot from the hornet sting now appears to have eased off.
I took a dollop of Piriton anti-histamine this morning, and all now seems to be fine again. Thank chuff.
Irritation
Posted: Tue 24 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 2 Comments »Following on from that hornet sting over the weekend – from which thankfully I haven’t had any unpleasant side-effects, results, or pain – I can honestly say the following from experience.
- Hornet stings hurt like fuck. It’s not agony, nor broken-bone type pain, but it’s certainly bloody unpleasant.
- Anti-histamines don’t do a great deal are bloody marvellous. (This got edited, because I didn’t think they’d done much, but on thinking more about it, the anti-histamine cream and tablet probably contributed a lot to it not being unpleasant for longer. Also, the tablets have helped with reducing the itching, a couple of days later)
- Once everything else is done, they itch like a total bastard.
I’m in the “itching” stage at the moment. Don’t know whether it signifies anything else, but Jesus God, it’s irritating.
Rain, Storms
Posted: Mon 23 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk, Sleep - or lack thereof, Weather Leave a comment »When it rains heavily (particularly when it does so at night) having the animals becomes distinctly harder work than any other time. This weekend has been a perfect demonstration of that – we had a proper thunderstorm on Saturday night / Sunday morning, and heavy rain last night/this morning.
Hound has decided that heavy rain equals Thunder, and skitters round the room to lay next to my side of the bed. I don’t mind this too much – she’s been really good this weekend on this score, without getting stressy and stupid, let alone trying to burrow through the wall as she has done on previous occasions. But she still makes enough noise to wake me up, which isn’t great. Saturday night we ended up moving into the living room again (for some reason one of Hound’s “safe places”) because it was proper thunder etc., and it’s easier to have her in there than down the side of the bed.
Sunday night we had heavy rain, so Hound came round to my side of the bed again. This time though it was Psycho Cat that was the pain in the arse – having got utterly soaked, he decided that the best way to warm up and dry off was to snug into the back of my knees, and then turn round repeatedly so that everything dried off evenly. It has to be said that there is little worse than being woken up by the sensation of cold wet cat fur in the back of your nice warm legs.
The little shit even then went back out again once he dried off and warmed up, and was whining again by 7am that he was cold and wet and why wouldn’t anyone do anything. I seriously wonder sometimes whether it wouldn’t be easier to just drown the little fucker and be done with it.
So all told
Hornetage
Posted: Sun 22 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk 2 Comments »Until this weekend, I’d never even seen a hornet.
This weekend though, we’ve had five of the buzzy bastards in the house, including one which stung me. Not, it has to be said, the most positive introduction to the species.
We don’t know where they’ve been coming from – no signs of a nest anywhere around etc., but they’re definitely making their presence felt.
The sting was kind-of my own fault – Herself told me there was one in the bathroom, and I went in to splat the sodding thing. Being aware that it was a flying buzzing thing, I was looking in the air for it, not on the floor – and so I stood near it, which was apparently enough provocation to the fucker.
I’ve never been stung by one before either, so had no idea what to expect – or even whether I was allergic to the stings or not. (Fortunately, it looks like I’m not) Liberal dollops of antihistamine cream and some ibuprofen later, all’s been OK today. But I can tell you for sure that the sting hurts like a motherfucker.
Hopefully that’ll be my last dealing with hornets. But if they are making a home somewhere close by, it probably won’t be. I’ll be damn sure to be wearing shoes next time though.
Refurbishment
Posted: Sat 21 August, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving, Parking, Stupidity Leave a comment »Currently, our largest local(ish) Sainsbury’s store is undergoing a major refurbishment – a project which looks like it’s going to roughly double the size of the store.
Not that you’d know it from the Sainsbury’s information page about the Longwater store.
You’d think that information like “we’re refitting this store” would be useful – and positively easy to add to a webpage, wouldn’t you? But no, no mention of it.
As it is, the improvements mean that the main carpark has been reduced to (at most) half its previous size, along with being completely replanned. But that’s OK, because there’s a big simple overflow carpark over the other side of the access road.
Except – um – there’s not. Because in a fit of total planning genius, they’ve also ripped that up to re-plan it and generally fuck about with it.
So of that 694 spaces listed on the information page ( 647 normal spaces, 22 disabled and 22 ‘parent-and-child’) there’s about 250 left. Of course, all the disabled and ‘parent-and-child’ ones are kept available, it’s just the other ones that’ve been epically reduced.
So fuck you, Sainsburys.
Shit for Brains
Posted: Fri 20 August, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »I love the story on the BBC this week about a council who’ve used the word “shit” in their adverts about dog-fouling. (even though it’s starred out to “S**T”) Supposedly a number of people have complained about the word “S**T” appearing in print. Which strikes me as pretty Mary Whitehouse at the best of times.
Way back when I was working with the council in Oldham, this was something that we discussed heavily. One of my projects there was working on a lexicon of expressions that people actually used, and then translating them into council-ese. For example “roadworks” becomes “Highways maintenance”, “bins” becomes “refuse collection” and the like. I always said – and could prove with the search logs (pardon the pun) – that “dog shit” was the most common search-term when people were looking for information about dog-fouling, reporting issues with dog-shit etc. But the powers-that-be in the council at the time were very sure – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that having “shit” in the lexicon was A Bad Thing, and would lead to Bad Press – another Very Bad Thing. Considering that most people at the time used the word “Shit” as pretty much synonymous with that council in general anyway, I always figured they were on a hiding to nothing on that one.
Personally I could never figure out why people thought – and obviously still do think – that councils can’t use words like shit, when they’re the ones that most (if not all) of their constituents/inhabitants use.
*sigh* People are strange.