I can say no more

No, not a hiatus, but instead, via Scaryduck, the absolute winner of the “Let’s see what I can get past the editor” headline award of 2003.

One voice – Helen Keller’s

via an advertising link, I clicked on this link to my own bank. “Talk to the whole bank through your relationship manager” What a load of old shite. My “relationship manager” (already I loathe that expression) still hasn’t managed to pick up the phone and talk to me.

Or perhaps the phrase that the bank should be looking for is “Adding insult to injury – professionally”.

Response 2

“Dear Sir,

Kind Regards
SMS Team.”

So, that’s that cleared up then. Or not.

For fuck’s sake, m’lud

I must admit, I completely fail to see the logic in “naming and shaming” courts that are ‘underperforming’ in a new set of league tables. There seems to be a huge flaw in the logic – “I know, we’ll make them do MORE paperwork, then say that they’re not up to scratch.”

Rather than spend the money on a fucking league-table, I’d rather see the money spent on improving the courts themselves, and look at perhaps increasing their “opening hours” (sorry, I don’t know the exact terminology for the times a court operates) so they can deal with more cases. But of course, that would be logical, dare I say even sensible, so there’s no chance that Lord Falconer and the new “Supreme Court” (Hey, Tony, I wonder where you got that idea/name from?) will even be on nodding terms with it.

Response

Further to my post a bit further down regarding the SMS feature on the new landline phone, I got this reply.

“Unfortunately we do not support the telephones so we do not know how you would switch this facility off. However it is standard practice that your number be delivered with the SMS message as SMS messages cannot be sent from anonymous lines.”

So – the instructions tell me not to give out my number, but it can’t actually be stopped from doing so. Nice paradox.

At a loss for words

I know it won’t come as a shock to anyone who uses the train network, but it looks like we won’t get an efficient (and punctual) service for at least another decade yet. If then. Personally, I reckon we might have a decent infrastructure by about 2035 – by which point it’ll all need replacing as it’ll be MagLev trains or something entirely different. Although I do think that the concept of “train delays going on for years” is a bit much – it’s bad enough when they go on for two hours. *Grin*

I wonder if anyone’s still working on the idea of teleportation as a public transport device? It couldn’t be any worse than what we’ve got now, surely?

Here we go again…

Not content with the bollocks about reports that were “sexed-up” before war on Iraq, (and how the hell do you “sex-up” a report about purported chemical weapons?) that lovable bundle of happiness and hope, Jack Straw, is now insisting that Iran opens up it’s nucular nuclear programme to Western inspectors.

A more suspicious soul would perhaps think that the UK and US were trying to take over the entire of the Arabian Gulf, and grab all the oil-production sites/countries for itself.

Oops

A quick apology to Gert for messing up the site-counter just as it was getting to the grand 50,000 marker. Oops. Sorry. *Blush*

Now that’s irony

Following on from the Guardian’s stunning article yesterday on the “death” of irony, comes the story (also in the Grauniad) of story of a boy who got injured in an anti-bullying class. Which seems to be the living definition of irony.

Paradoxical

Yesterday, I went out and bought a new DECT phone, as the old one’s batteries were just on this side of knackered. This time, it was the BT Synergy 3200 which can also send SMS text messages.

The way it does the text messages is a pain in the arse – there’s a middle layer between sending and receiving, where it all goes through some company called Bizzyline (sic) – they’ve no web-presence, which is why there’s no link. If I send a text message from my landline, it gets my number appended to the bottom of it, wrapped in #’s, so it looks like ‘#0161xxxxxx#’ – and it needs that to be in the message when it’s replied to. Fair enough. It’s a pain in the arse, but fair enough.

Then I read the Bizzyline Terms & Conditions (I’d scan this in, but can’t be arsed, so you’ll have to take my word for it) that (and this is a quote) “SMS, like any Service, can allow strangers to meet and chat anonymously. … Don’t give out your name, address, or telephone number via SMS.” I’ve emailed them to ask how the hell I can send a text message without revealing the phone number. When/If I get a reply, it’ll be posted here too.

Sounded better in the head

While I can understand what was meant by the headline in this story over at the Guardian, I’m sure it could have been phrased better.

After all, “Troops return to massacre town” sounds far more like “Troops return to kill of every inhabitant in town” than it does to “Troops return to town where massacre (and do six people really qualify as a massacre?) happened earlier this week”

See, Tabloid headlines are infectious.

Another week, another time-sheet

I can’t deny it, I’ve been on a bit of a downer this week. I don’t know exactly why: there’s been an awful lot of stuff all at once, coupled with a lack of sleep, and it’s all just been chaotic.

So yes, for once I’m glad it’s the weekend, and even more glad I’ve got nothing planned. I was supposed to be sorting myself out for a week down in Devon with a group of friends – and yes, the break would have been much-needed – but got myself stuffed by my current workplace at almost the last minute. So my weekend is now open and free, and I’m planning on doing as little as possible.

I’m not going to make any guarantees about the regularity of posts over the next couple of days – it’ll either be prolific or deader than a dead thing from deadtown. I suspect I’ll decide that tomorrow morning.

What the Fuck?

I despair – when these talentless bastards are at number 2 in the UK pop chart it’s just going to get worse from here…

Fag Ash Lil

I’ve been saying for a while that the new-style health-warnings on cigarettes were more designed as a “collect the set” than a proper deterrent to smokers. So I’ve just seen that a company is selling sheets of stickers with which to cover up the warnings.

Of course, the anti-smoking lobby is getting all snotty about it, but I think the company selling the stickers has a point. As Denis Leary used to point out, “What do they expect? That a smoker’s suddenly going to read the warnings and say Yeah, Bill, I’ve got some cigarettes.. HOLY SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!’”

In the BBC story itself, there’s a quote from Deborah Arnott of ASH, saying “ Telling people that smoking is cool is a dangerous message“. Pure bollocks. You think they haven’t got the message yet? Get a grip. The simple fact is, people will smoke – no matter how much the tax on the packs is, no matter what size the warnings are made, no matter whether they’re advertised or not, people will still smoke. And that’s coming from a non-smoker.

Sorting problems

Well, I don’t know why new Blogger was keffing up my italics and making them red, but the problem has now been sorted with the gentle addition of another selector in the CSS file. I could get used to this – spot a problem, fix it in one place rather than 50. Sweet.

Of course, it would’ve been nicer if it hadn’t happened in the first place, but that’s just picky really.

One down, several to go

I hope that Connex SouthCentral losing it’s train operator’s franchise is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these things. There’s at least two others that deserve a similar kicking, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. (The train company for Northern Ireland being a case in point)

Of course, the fact that National Rail are also axing 2,500 jobs won’t help sort things out any quicker. I don’t really see how much worse it can get before things have to get better.

Commiserations

The below-mentioned celebratory dance was rapidly curtailed though by news of the death of Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of the Iron Dominatrix.

Possessed of a demon wit, and also the long-running butt of the “Dear Bill” letters in Private Eye, he always managed to stay out of the firing line, and never contradicted Maggie in public – although I’m sure he did in private. Definitely an unsung hero of the 80’s.

Celebrations

Can I just say that I’m utterly pleased to hear that the Ginger Twat™ lost his court case? In fact, a little celebratory dance was done in the office in recognition of this fact.

Read all about it

Over in the Grauniad, there’s an extremely good column about the Daily Misogynist Mail losing it’s way over recent months. It seems that ever more people are noticing that as a paper, it’s viewpoint is now slightly to the right of Hitler, and getting further out there every day.

It’s interesting for me, because I used to read the rag – out of the tabloids, it used to be one of the better ones, so long as you could distill your way through the hype, bigotry and north-south divide bollocks that seemed to smoke from it’s pages. Of course “best out of the tabloids” is similar to “which serial killer would I prefer to be killed by”, which is why I now rarely buy it at all.

I’ve been migrated

Yes, I’m now on the new blogger malarkey. Not that many differences that I can see so far (although it does look nicer) so just see how it goes.

UPDATED : Further thoughts on new blogger.

• First – it seems OK on multi-edits to me, Jane.
• Second – fuck me, the post reference numbers are twice the length. That’s knackered the layout on Haloscan, for sure.
• Third – why are my italics now coming out in red?
• Fourth – nope, it still hates Opera. Quelle surprise.

Death of an Email addy

Further to a comment a while back, I’d just like to point out that anyone who has my address as lyle@ should now change it to lyle2@ (it seemed simple enough at the time) as anything going to lyle@ is now diving straight into the anti-spam deleted items folder from hell.

Fair warning? I thought so. Anyone who has no idea what the feck I’m talking about probably didn’t have the address in the first place.

Answering Phones

Why is it that as soon as you answer a phone in the office with “Hello, IT department, xxx‘s phone”, that every signle fucking time the first thing the chimpoid lemming clone on the other end asks is “Oh, is xxx there?”?

<mental_voice>No, of course he’s not fucking here, you twat. If he were here, he’d be answering his own fucking bastard phone, instead of leaving me to do it. Do you think he’d bother answering the phone as “xxx‘s phone” when it’s his own phone? No, of course he bloody wouldn’t. Don’t be a spastic all your life – go on, think about something before opening your fat gob and saying the first cretinous thing that occurs to you.</mental_voice>

“I’m sorry, he’s out all day at a meeting. Can I take a message?”

Time Out

No, not a hiatus, not even a brief holiday, just a dollop of “not really in the mood for adding loads of stuff“.

A quick note to self – being knackered enough to end up asleep on the sofa all night is not a good thing. Ibuprofen is my friend today, with my neck feeling the way it now does.

Bastard Fuckwit Bureaucratic Cunts

The saga continues. In my hassles with the professional document losers, I was given the chance to appeal their earlier decision. The response I’d received basically consisted of “It’s not our problem. You’ve got to prove that we received the documents in the first place. Hahahahaha – suck on that, mate” – the appeal I replied to was sent, recorded delivery, and received two days later at Companies House. Sealed, Signed and Delivered.

Today, I got a snotty letter from a solicitors, saying “pay up or else”. Upon calling Companies House – no, go on, you’ll never fucking guess – they’re telling me that the letter never arrived. So it’s got to their mail-room, and then been lost. I can’t wait to see what their excuse will be this time.

Some people just don’t know when to quit

Despite repeated failures over the last five years, the Grauniad is reporting that our favourite fugger, Mohammad Al-Fayed is trying (again) to get a public enquiry into the deaths of his son Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Any Charity You Can Think Of.

Personally, I think Al-Fayed is obsessed, and won’t ever let the entire thing go. No wonder the Home Office seems happy to know he’s leaving the country…

Will his robes be pink?

So far, I’ve avoided commenting on the completely farcical furore over whether the church should appoint a gay man as Bishop of Reading. This is a man who has been in a solid relationship for 27 years, which is more than I can say for most pederastic bastards priests/vicars/whatever.

Considering Rowan Williams’ comments today that the church should be ‘more gay-friendly’, and that Christianity is supposed to be about tolerance, loving thy fellow man, and all that gubbins, surely a gay priest is an ideal move? (Yes, that might be slightly flippant, but bear with me here) The Christian church has been alienating gays for years, telling them that they are sinners, evil, against God’s law, and other far worse insults and inquisitions, while still conveniently managing to avoid the issue about priests who abuse children etc. So really what this acceptance of a gay bishop comes down to is that the church would have to admit that they’re a bunch of hypocritical blinkered bastards – which everyone in the public knows anyway. In many ways I think it’s actually great that the Church has been called on it’s hypocrisy, double-standards, and intolerance towards modern life – and I hope it helps them move forwards, rather than get bogged down in some stupid schism. (Meanwhile, back in reality…)

After all, if someone who is so obviously a Man Of God is also gay, then that can’t fit in with the “fact” that it’s against God’s Law to be gay – can it? Personally, I would be far more likely to visit a church knowing that it’s main speaker had been through that kind of test of faith – I’m interested in people that have that level of conviction in their beliefs. If Canon Jeffrey John were a lesser man, he’d have bowed to his critics, and stepped down from even being nominated for the Bishop-ship (or whatever it’s called) – and I will admit to a more than grudging respect for him that he’s faced this fight head-on, and not even called for the privacy laws to be invoked himself, although others have – perhaps wanting to hide the entire issue under a stone.

UPDATED : I should also point out that Gert has also ranted about this, and she’s done a much better job than me.

Grim

I know I’ve written about this before, but the story of the man who shot his neighbour in a dispute over a hedge has taken another turn.

The man, who was accused of murder, has now hanged himself in jail. So – two lives lost over a poxy garden hedge. Was it worth it?

And I thought BT were bad…

In the same vein as the posting below, here’s one for everyone who’s ever cursed BT, NTL, Telewest, or any of the other UK phone providers. Over in Bangladesh, it took one man 27 years to get a phone line installed.

Personally, I’m amazed BT hasn’t come up with the “we’ll be more efficient if you bribe us” policy yet – maybe they will after this story. I’m sure it’ll be wrapped in some legalese mumbo-jumbo – they’ll call it an “express installation charge” or somesuch, but I predict it’ll be tried.

Ah, sweet irony

Personally, I think there are few things funnier than irony, and the story of the politician caught speeding by the camera he bought for the local police force is funnier than most.

Warped, but still somehow pure comedy.

Similarities

It’s been one of those days. And on those days I end up watching garbage TV like BBC’s “Spooks“. In fairness, it’s not too bad – complete garbage, but at least it’s fairly well constructed garbage. However, while they’re playing at being lawyers etc., Joe Bobblehat here notices that they’re using the exact same rooftop as Trust did late last year.

Always nice to see the BBC saving some money from the licence fee for once.

Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

I’d never thought about this before, but the BBC has a piece on a “pet-fostering” service where people can put their pets in order for them to be fostered out to other people. I think it’s a great idea, particularly as (according to the article) one of the things that keeps people in situations of domestic violence is a concern about what’ll happen to their pets.

As a nation, we do tend to be fairly barmy about pets, and in some ways this story illustrates that perfectly. That someone who is getting assaulted by their partner is prepared to put up with that because if they leave, the pet will receive the same treatment is slightly barmy, but understandable. Lots of shelters won’t accept animals, so Paws for Kids (a bloody horrible name, but who am I to complain?) helps by taking the pet in for a while, allowing the owner to get themselves out of the violent situation, get sorted out, and then take their pet back.

Regardless of whether it’s completely mad to have this attitude towards our pets, my personal feelings are that if this service helps even one person to get out of a situation involving domestic violence, then it’s a bloody good thing. And it seems like they’re having more than the occasional success story. Fair play to them.

Do you want a Flake with that?

I just couldn’t resist the title, considering the story of the great ice-cream van hijack in Sussex.

Although I must admit that sometimes the idea of stopping the bloody chimes at gunpoint seems like a good idea.

Now that’s more like it

A while back, the UK Government assessed that 2 out of 3 people were in favour of the UK Identity Entitlement Card – but the problem was that no-one believed the figures. So the Government checked them.

Lo and behold, the re-assessed figures are completely different and now 5 out of 7 people are against the idea of a card. not really a surprise, but quite amusing all the same.

Of course, if the programme still goes ahead, it won’t be the first time that the Government has completely ignored the wishes of the public, and it won’t be the last. But it’ll almost certainly be a cock-up.

Oh Christ, it’s started

I promise to not say much more about it, but fuck me dead, is it that time of the year already? Bloody Wimbledon. Two weeks (well, actually about a week to ten days) of Tim Henman this, Tim Henman that – he’s the new hope for UK tennis. And he’ll go out in the quarter-finals. As always.

I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than watch Wimbledon. Tennis is, for me, second only to football in sheer tedium. One year I’ll get my timing right, and sod off to Outer Mongolia or somewhere for the two weeks of Wimble-fucking-don, and with luck not hear a word about it.

But this year I didn’t get the timing right. (Big Shock) So there’s a choice of Big Brother’s new African chum, keffing Wimbledon, drecky soaps, or films from the 40’s. Not often I say it, but thank god I’m at work. The evening’s won’t be much better, but at that point I’ve got stuff on TiVo, and DVDs of Donnie Darko, Face/Off, Dark City, and Animatrix, plus the aforementioned Harry Potter. (Which I’m a third through already – sad but true)

Hopefully that little lot will get me through…

Shows how much I cared

I got a semi-spam today – via bastard Friends Reunited, of all things. Turns out that the old boy network from my secondary school has it’s own website – unsurprisingly, it’s fairly shoddy, but such things happen.

The spam-ish was about signing up with the feckers so I could be informed of school reunions. Frankly, the only reason I’d want to be notified is so I knew when to make certain I was nowhere near my hometown. In my own opinion, the cretin who came up with the phrase “schooldays are the best days of your life” either died at 15, or was a complete fucking retard – I hated school with a passion, and would only revisit it to see it being demolished.

Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be a regular visitor at that site…

Serious Car

I think this is a first for d4d, but I’ve been dribbling over a car from BBC’s Top gear tonight. I’ve always been a fan of TVR cars, but I think that the Koenigsegg has it beaten as “car to dream of owning”.

Of course, the insurance would be crippling, and it would never come out of second gear in the UK, but wow, it looks like a fun bit of gear. Just a pity that it retails for about £350,000.

No added sugar

I’ve just seen an advert on TV for Sunny Delight. They’re bollocksing on about how great Sunny Delight is, because it’s got “No added sugar”. Um – this is the same Sunny Delight that is at least 10% sugar? Or does “No Added Sugar” really mean “Well we haven’t added any more sugar over the 10% that was already in there”?

I thought there were some laws about truth in advertising – but I’m sure plugging Sunny Delight as the healthy alternative to other drinks is bollocks of the highest order. I wonder how long the advert will stay on?

Phoenix my book again, I’ll kill ‘im

Much to the imminent disdain of Green Fairy, yes, I did get the new Harry Potter book yesterday. I haven’t read it yet – and no, I didn’t queue at midnight for the thing. It got delivered at 8 o’clock in the morning, which was pretty impressive.

And no, I won’t say who pegs it. I know (my normal bad habit of reading the last chapter first to find this kind of thing out), but I won’t keff it for everyone.

Stigmata

I’d seen Stigmata at the cinema, and remembered it mainly for the sound-effects, to be honest. That might sound weird, until you realise that the particular sound effect related to crucifixion, the sound of the impact of hammers on the nails/spikes used. And it was shudder-inducing.

Watching it on TV tonight reminded me that it’s a bloody good film too – and the sound effects are still vomit-inducing. Not quite horror, not quite thriller – it straddles a lot of fences, and I think I might even have to get it on DVD…

Choices

Something Green Fairy was saying this week (look at her 17th June posting – permalinks appear to be keffed) reminded me of stuff I’ve been thinking about for a while – namely Wills, Living Wills, and all of that associated garbage. Not the most cheerful of subjects, particularly for a Saturday night, but there we go. At least I’m not cliched.

There’s a lot of stuff around it all too – mainly to do with relying on other people, wondering whether they’d go through with what I want, whether they could handle executing a living will, all kinds of stuff. Is it fair to expect someone else to be able to say “He doesn’t want to live in this state” and to allow death to happen? Is it fair to want them to fulfil the terms of the will, even if they personally disagree with the terms?

Hardly a shock

It looks like the HIV virus has now begun to develop a drug-resistance. Considering how it’s been attacked so aggresively in the last ten years, it’s not exactly a surprise. Viruses (virii?) mutate, they develop resistance to the treatments, and develop themselves. It’s a survival situation – if it’s being killed off, it’ll evolve so that the main source of mortality becomes less effective.

TB’s done it, Staphylococcus has done it, HIV is doing it. The human race never seems to learn that Mother Nature is far more powerful – the more we fight, the more she makes us work for it.

Fling me to the moon

via SlashDot, there’s a piece about using a ‘slingshot’ to catch spacecraft and hurl them up to higher altitudes, or even give them a boost on interplanetary flight. It’s not a new idea, more a re-birth of one that’s been around for a while. But in connection with all the other spaceflight stuff going on at the moment ( tourist seats on Soyuz spacecraft, the X Prize, and many others ) it looks like we could be coming up to a new decade of space exploration.

Flexible computing

Over at New Scientist, there’s an interesting piece on the future of PDA-style computers – when they’re too small to be typed on, how do we use them?

The answer may be in making them slightly flexible, so that gently bending them makes them work. Of course, you then couldn’t keep them in your trouser pocket, or anywhere else where flexing is part of the natural movement. All the same, it’s an interesting concept.

Stressless

The BBC has a piece on how to make your office stress-free. Avoiding standard comments like “resign” would probably be tactful.

For myself, I tend to find that stress is lowered by knowing that I’m only going to be there for a finite time. It’s one of the best things about doing contract-based work. Even if I absolutely loathe someone, the thought process of “ah, but six months down the line I’ll be somewhere else, and you’ll still be here” is a real life-saver. Without it, I’d probably be locked up by now.

People keep telling me I should “get a proper job” – by which it seems they mean “get a job in an office you’re not keen on, with people who bore you comatose, in a lifestyle where you know what every day’s conversation will be like before you even go in through the door”. Not for me at all. I’ve done it, given it all a fair crack of the whip, and in honesty, I fucking hate it. So for the forseeable future I’ll stick with doing my own thing, getting paid for it.

Yes, it has rough periods too, where work isn’t easily available. My finances aren’t the best, because it’s completely swings and roundabouts. Because I’m contracting, I don’t get proper holiday pay or sick pay (except what I pay myself) and my pension scheme is – well, let’s be honest – completely non-existent at the moment. But in contrast, I’m able to do a job I still love doing (regardless of shonky days/weeks where it all goes to pot) and move on when people piss me off. Or even just work from home, fitting in with my own hours and body-clock.

Now that’s what I call stress-free, or as close to it as possible.

Croc in Cannock

Adding to all the regular silly-season stories about big cats on Bodmin Moor, Harry Potter hysteria, and the annual shite about Nessie, we can now add the crocodile in the lake in Cannock, Staffordshire.

Mind you, it’s a brave crocodile to hang around in Cannock. My bet is that by the end of the week, the inhabitants will be wearing crocodile-skin shoes, and eating crocodile steaks in the local J D Weatherspoons.

Call that a present?

It’s not often I feel sorry for the Royal Family, or any member thereof, but to hear that Prince William was going on a trip to Wales on his birthday invoked the sympathy gene.

Not just Wales – which can be pleasant, when not surrounded by the bloody Welsh – but Anglesey. For a food fair. (Well, at least that won’t take long) And then off down to shitpit of the Western World scenic Newport.

Someone must really hate William.

I love IE, no really, I do

<geek mode>OK, my apologies to both Green Fairy and Jann, they were right, I was wrong. Turns out, IE6 handles some things in CSS completely differently to the method IE5.5 (and in fact every other browser I tried it on) uses.

The bar on the left was annoying me, so I made it a fixed CSS box – makes it nice, the menu stays put while the text scrolls down. Well, it does in everything except IE6. IE6 decides it doesn’t like it, and wallop, the entire screen goes to bollocks.

OK, I’ll be nice(ish) here. This link will let anyone who’s interested have a look at the CSS file I’m using. If you can come up with suggestions for making it cross-browser, with a nice fixed navigation on the left – let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to leave it in the way it is now, so it works in all browsers again, but looks shitter when a long page is scrolled downwards. (UPDATED : right, I’ve norked about a bit more, playing primarily with background colours/colors etc., and in general it looks better. Except on longer pages, where I’ve now also got bastard black on the right hand side under the blog-roll. Maybe I should just add more shit to that side. *Grin*)
</geek mode>

Oh, just get on with it

Jesus Christ, I may be the only male in the country to say this, but I wish David Beckham would just fuck off now. I don’t care that he’s going to some other football team, I don’t believe he’s worth £25m, and I don’t believe he’s worth the fucking media hype either.

Now just piss off to Spain.

The Joy of Tech

Unbelievable as it may seem, it’s just taken my direct boss all day to send me an email confirming the cost code for the work I’m doing.

Eight hours. To send an email. I’m impressed. Honest.

CSS

Yes, as the observant amongst you will notice, the (minor in appearance) redesign has happened. Well, for this page anyway. I’ll be waddling through the site over the next week or so, converting all and sundry to the CSS template, so bear with me. But I must say, I like it.

Yes, there’s still some tweaking to do on it too – I don’t know, for instance, why the left hand bar is only black (as it’s supposed to be) til about halfway down the page. Then it goes back to Yellow. Or at least it does in Opera. And IE appears to did have an issue (subsequently fixed) with inheriting the font’s weight on subsequent paragraphs. Then again, IE’s a sack of shit.

Now – do I lose the yellow? *Grin*

Job Adverts

I must admit, now that the Anne Summers chain has won it’s case to be able to advertise it’s vacancies in Job Centres, I’d almost like to see how they’re advertised. In fact, if Job Centres weren’t the most soul-less demoralising shit-pits, I’d possibly go in just for a laugh.

However, I bet they won’t advertise “various positions throughout our range of shops“, or “people needed to fill a gap in the market“. Which is a pity.

Personally, I’ve always wondered how places like Anne Summers, and their more “adult” brethren advertise for people to work in them. You never see the ads in the papers or whatever : “Wanted : Someone to deal with dirty macs, dodgy videos, flashers, giggling schoolboys, and a range of perversions. Unshockable nature a must. Knowledge of lubricants and experience of cleaning dildos is prefereable, but not essential“

Rise and Shine

Ah, what a joyous start to the day. Root-canal work and fillings before nine in the morning, followed by being comprehensively rained on. It’s what I live for.

Stand and Deliver

On a TV theme again, I’ve kept on meaning to mention BBC2’s Your Money or Your Life with Alvin Hall. He’s a very good motivational speaker, and a financial “guru” – each of the programmes I’ve seen has included a neat way of illustrating people’s debt. In fact, it’s an all-round interesting programme, and worth watching if you’ve a spare half-hour or so.

One of those days

You know those days where staying in bed isn’t just an option, it’s the only sensible option? Today’s been one of those days.

It started off with managing to slash my face with the razor while shaving. Not just a little cut, but the full length of the blade. Don’t ask how, I’ve no bloody idea.

Half the morning was then rapidly fucking wasted productively occupied with a meeting – now there’s a shocker. I swear, local authorities could do so much more if they had some decisive people working for them, instead of the chuffheads who insist on either a) doing everything by committee, and/or b) making sure that if it all goes wrong, they’re not to blame. Fucking time-wasting indecisive responsibility-dodging card punchers, the lot of ’em.

Then the joys of a visit to the dentist. Except they’ve got problems today, so I got precisely half the work done I needed to. And now the other half is being done tomorrow morning at 8.30, before another full day of work. Oh, I can’t wait. I then got whacked with the bill for the dental stuff as well – and frankly that’ll have to wait ’til Friday.

I’m waiting to see what else happens today. It started off so well, with the insurance documents, and just went downhill at a pace equivalent to Franz Klammer. But I’m not holding out much hope of it improving.

30-second Ice Cream

Over in Popular Science, a man makes perfect ice-cream. His secret ingredient? Liquid Nitrogen

Always a fun way to end a dinner-party. *Grin*

That’s the way to do it

Yesterday, I rang a recommended company about the proper business insurance I need, rather than the sack of shit I got sold by RBS. They said they’d get the paperwork out to me ASAP. It arrived this morning.

Sometimes I begin to believe I must be being unreasonable in expecting things to run smoothly, to see documents arrive on-time, be the correct documents, and generally for everything to work the way it should. It seems like the simple smooth running of things is an insurmountable problem for the great majority of companies. Then along comes something like this, and my faith goes a little way towards being restored.

I suspect it’ll take longer for RBS to cancel the existing insurance than it will for this new lot to get a new policy started and working.

Gym part II

“Ouch” was spot on. I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow. But it’s a good start, and I’m happy with how it went. And after the first one, it only gets easier.

Ketchup in Kilburn

Allegedly, people in Kilburn eat around 33% more ketchup (4,400g, to be precise, according to the report. That’s ten pounds of ketchup a year!) than anywehre else in the UK. Now, they even have a shop, stocked entirely with ketchup.10,000 bottles of the stuff.

It’s only an experiment, and the proprietor will see how sales are going by the weekend. Bizarre, but true.

Overheard

“Are you vegetarian then?“

“No, I just don’t eat meat“

“Well do you eat chicken then?“

Gym

Tonight will be my first proper workout in a gym for just over a year. I’m looking forward to it – and also to sorting out some of the issues raised by the health check etc from Saturday.

However, I suspect that by the time I get home, my main word for the rest of the evening will be “Ouch“.

Lord of the Rings – The Server Farm

Via Slashdot, the studio that’s doing the computer generated rendering of the final instalment of Lord of the Rings has just received delivery of another 588 servers, all of them with 2.8Ghz chips. This is now the world’s largest collection of Intel based linked machines, and it’s all for the CGI in a film. Sounds good to me.

I wonder what they’ll be doing with all that gubbins once the film’s completed?

Unknown Names

Over on Fortune, there’s a feature about the two people who wrote QNX, ‘a crash-proof operating system’. It’s an interesting little read, about people I hadn’t heard of, who created an OS I’ve only vaguely heard of. All the same, it’s a very positive story, and worth the read.

Neighbours and Border Disputes

Reading this story in the Guardian just amazes me. Basically, a man shoots his neighbour after a two-year dispute over a hedge, for fuck’s sake. How petty can we get?

More importantly, can you think of a pettier reason to kill someone? Because of a frigging garden hedge. I despair.

Redesign in action

Over the next month or two, there are going to be some changes to d4d. I’m working on a semi-minor redesign (well, it’s coming up for d4d’s first birthday, so I might as well give it a present) taking the entire thing to a CSS design. Which is fun, in a geeky way. In fact, it’s also a complete nightmare – stripping out all the tables, maintaining the basics of the “design”, and all that gubbins.

The next bit will be moving from Easyspace to 34sp (which’ll hopefully stop Pat nagging me advertising their service in my comments boxes too *Grin*) – then I can re-do a couple of bits with PHP, and sort out things like comments systems, and possibly moving to Moveable Type. It’s going to be busy.

Gym

Not quite as depressing as it could’ve been – blood pressure of 130 over 85, respectable heart-rate (the instructor didn’t tell me exactly), and – depressingly – a BMI of 34. Still, that’ll soon be on the way down.

So, we’ve sorted out the exercise routine, trying out some of the machines, getting some proper training, My leg muscles in particular are slightly sore, but that’ll disppear before long.

It’s not over yet

Ah joy. My earlier optimism was obviously very mis-placed.

OK, I admit, some of it is my own fault – I didn’t read the paperwork properly. To operate legally in the UK, a limited company has to have insurance – liability insurance, employer’s insurance, and (ideally) professional indemnity insurance. Now, I work in IT – and god only knows why I ever trusted RBS to sort out the insurance, but I did – and when I finally read through the reams of gubbins that came with the insurance policy, Particularly the “bits that we don’t cover” part.

Yes, in a piece of true professionalism, RBS have managed to sell me professional liability insurance that doesn’t cover IT work, computers, programs, or information. And they can’t sell me any, because their underwriters don’t cover such a policy.

So I’ve got to shop around (again) for insurance, and fight the useless cunts to get back the money I’ve spent on an insurance policy that was useless, and that they knew was useless from day one.

Google Fun

Now, I know I’m probably the last person on the planet to know this (Sometimes I amaze myself with how little I look deeper into sites etc.) but – did you know you can make Google do all of it’s message in “Elmer Fudd” style? Hahahahahahahahahaha.

No, not through the Dialectiser, but within the actual Google preferences. Look in the drop-down list of languages, where you can tell Google how you want the messages to appear. In there there’s Elmer Fudd, Bork (Swedish Chef from the Muppets), Hacker, and several others. Select the language, save the preferences. Lo and behold, Google has been Elmerised. It’s not perfect, but it’s still fun. And yes, I’m a geek.

Spam 2

As a result of a recent explosion of spam coming to my main email address from here, anyone who has lyle@destruction-for-dummies.co.uk in their address books for me should be aware that the address is soon going to the great black hole in the email server. However, anything else at the same address will still get through to me.

Spam

Yes, Sarah Williams, I’m sure you visited my site and thought I wasn’t linked to enough search engines. Whoopee-Doo. But frankly, because of the six spams you sent to different domain names I own, there’s no fucking way I’d use your service, even if I was interested. And while I’m sure that www.trafficmagnet.com is a wonderful idea, so far as I’m concerned it’s a sack of shit that I wouldn’t touch with someone else’s weed-strewn bargepole.

Hardly a shock

Yet another study reveals that ‘young people’ prefer to send text messages rather than talking to people/friends. Texting (Lord, I h8 th@ word *Grin*) is now a ubiquitous activity – it’s hard to walk down the street without seeing someone sending a message. Or (as this morning) being walked into by some fucktard who’s concentrating more on how to type the message than they are on where they’re going.

In the same vein, over in Japan there’s now a “keyboard” that can be operated in much the same way (please note, the page is in Japanese, but a picture is worth a thousand words pictograms) and a US company has released a similar device for one-handed typing *insert wanking joke here*.

Still not enough to make me live there

Apparently, Los Angeles now has it’s own Top level Domain (TLD) as of today. It’s the first city to have it’s own TLD – so you can register a site at www.la. I wonder how many film studios etc. will end up as (for example) www.miramax.la ?

Personally, I already like the idea of domain names like tortil.la, cocaco.la and pepsico.la. But hey, what would I know?

Hey, buddy, can you spare a fiver

Pardon the pun, but it looks like the Congestion Charging scheme in London is in a jam of it’s own – the scheme has been so successful in stopping cars from going into Central London that it’s now looking like it’ll be £65million in the hole by the end of the year.

Impressive.

Dinner Party Inspectors

Did anybody else see Channel 4’s The Dinner Party Inspectors this week? I must admit, I thought it was hilarious.

Two fairly upper-class grand dames watching – and bitching about – other people’s dinner parties. In the first one, the party itself was fairly innocuous, just some grotty manners and intra-diner sniping. But it was still fun to watch. Not necessarily as instantly watchable as the now-infamous “Wife Swap”, but still in a similar vein of fish-out-of-water scenarios.

The final line of this first programme though made sure I’ll watch it again. “Next time, dear, separate your female guests more – one at one end of the table, the other the week after.“

Explanation

Well, according to Easyspace, d4d was having problems yesterday and today “because of problems while they upgraded the server that holds d4d (and others)“. I don’t find it reassuring that they obviously dont have things like back-up servers and so on.

Time to start looking (again) at moving hosting services, I think.

Mission:Unreachable

Amazingly, President Blair is one of the few world leaders without their own email address. Considering all the gubbins about e-government and so on, isn’t it nice to know that he’s in the same technological league as Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe.

Because of course, that’s the kind of company he wants to be seen to be keeping.

Union Joke

According to the BBC, there’s a move to redesign the Union Jack. In theory, I think the idea of adding black to the flag “to reflect the multiracial nature of Britain” isn’t a bad idea – but of course I can already see that other “minorities” would then want to be represented as well. Which is, of course, a recipe for disaster.

UPDATED : Following on from the comments on this one, I think that if a flag were to represent our “national identity” (as in how we’re seen by other nations) then perhaps a background of the US Stars and Stripes with a white flag in front of it, covered in puke to display our image in the Balearic islands, and anywhere else the England football supporters have been. Have I forgotten anything relevant?

Status Quo

Ah – within twelve hours of working for the local authority, I’m already in meetings all day. I love government, don’t you?

Success

Amazingly, even running on less than 25% of my normal IQ, I got the contract. So it looks like I’m now doing websites for local government for the next six months, so long as everything goes OK. Woo Hoo.

And I’ve also signed myself up with a gym/health club, which will be interesting. I’m booked in for a health check on Saturday, where they’ll tell me all nasty things like my Body Mass Index (I’m reckoning it’s about 33% fat, but we’ll see) and all that garbage. And yes, in a fit of shameless behaviour, I’ll put the results on the blog. Oh Jesus, what am I letting myself in for?

Weirdness

From the look of it today, if you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones. I don’t know quite what’s going on with the site – I assume it’s the hosting service playing silly buggers, but I really don’t know.

Hopefully, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. In the meantime, apologies for stuff that’s completely outside my control.

Thanks

Dear Body Clock : I’d just like to say thank you for a major dose of insomnia, at the best possible time. As I’m doing a “trial day” for one of the local authorities, proving I can do what I say I can with websites and so on, having a brain that works and is capable of conscious thought is definitely a good thing. Therefore, I’d just like to say thanks for not letting me sleep at all last night, so now I’m more likely to be on auto-pilot than on Planet Efficient.

Luckily, it’s a well known fact that I can do this sort of stuff in my sleep – but it would have been nice if I didn’t have the chance probability of displaying that on a day that will win or lose the contract for me.

Sincerely

Lyle.

Huntley and the pills

There’s something very very dodgy about the story surrounding Ian Huntley’s suicide bid today. Supposedly, this man who has been on “suicide watch”, being checked every 15 minutes and subject to random room searches, has managed to accrue 30 days worth of anti-depressants in order to take them all at once.

Obviously, HM Prison Service say they will beconducting an urgent review into what happened. I wonder if it was a “Prison Officer of Mercy” type affair?

A Finale to the banking fiasco?

Finally, I’ve been contacted by the Internet Banking department of the bank that likes to say “It’s not our problem, sir”. It’s only taken two months, and three copies of the same form. Now all I have to do is wait to see whether they’ve managed to get the authorisation codes right.

But yes, it looks like I may have to find something else to piss and moan about before long. What a trauma that’ll be.

Nominet – again

Just a quick additional – looking at Nominet‘s site, and considering that they’re the registrar for UK domains, wouldn’t one have thought it might be an idea to also nobble nominet.co.uk and probably nominet.com ? Hmm, I think I might have to obtain myself a nominet domain…

Today’s Mail

In today’s post came 18 – count ’em, 18! – certificates of registration for domain names etc. that I have with Nominet. Each one contained a form to confirm that I’m the owner of the domain name.

Now, to me this seems pointless in just so many ways. If, for example, I weren’t the legal owner of the domain names, wouldn’t it be more likely that I’d just tick the “yes these are the correct details” boxes, and send them back, thus causing endless hassle at some further point? Also, wouldn’t it be easier to list the domain names by registered address, so you only got one form, one envelope, listing all of them, rather than 18 fucking forms?

The ultimate piss-take though is that each of these forms comes with a pre-addressed envelope to send it back in – but you’ve got to pay the postage. I think I’ll put all the forms in one, or at most two, envelopes, let them sort it out at the other end.

Entitlement ID Cards

Apparently, the poor misguided soul that is David Blunkett firmly believes that the UK public will support use of an ID card. Personally, I’m unconvinced – first of all, you’ve got to find something to persuade the Daily Mail readers that ID cards are a good thing. There’s no way the Mail won’t sit there and batter on about it being an invasion of privacy, and so on.

And then you’ve got to persuade Joe Public. Some will go for it – hell, some of them will stick their heads into plate-glass windows if you tell them it’ll be good for them – but I think most people won’t. There’s still all too much of a feeling of Big Brother (as in 1984, not the shonky Channel Four series) for most of the populace to like the idea of ID cards.

Hiatus Unintentionale

Blogger has been tits-up all day, hence no other updates, except for the flowers. There’ll be more in a bit, when I’ve re-tracked-down the bits I was going to say about earlier.

Flowers too

Also, during the last two blindingly sunny days, two of the lilies I’ve been growing have bloomed. So of course photos were required – and have been placed on the plants photo page. I’ve never managed to get lilies to flower before, so I’m bizarrely pleased about having managed it this time. I know, it’s hardly newsworthy, but what the hell, it’s my site, and I’ll say what I want. *Grin*.

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

It’s been a lazy day, thankfully. The last few weeks (and weekends in particular) have left me feeling fairly drained, so it’s been really good today to be able to just go out and sit in the sun by the canal, and finish John Connolly’s “White Road“. Very relaxing, even with the bunch of pissheads slightly further down the canal-side. But all things considered, it’s been a fine day, and one where doing chuff all really doesn’t seem like that bad an idea. *Grin*

Only in local government

I’ve just been given a potential contract for the next six months working for one of the local councils, twatting about working with their website, and building a Content Management System. In the contract, it says I’ve got to work a 7.20 hour working day, leading to a 36.40hour working week.

Now, I’m assuming they mean 7hours 20 minutes – but that’s not the same as a 7.2hour day. Needless to say, I don’t think it’d be approved by the Campaign for Plain English.

A political gesture

Nice to see John Prescott living down up to his nature, and making a V-sign at journalists in Downing Street. I’m sure they all responded with the official sign-language denoting a politician. (A loosely clenched fist waved gently side to side).

Oddly enough, the same gesture is also used to denote bank managers, estate agents, lawyers, and football team managers.

What about the femail ones?

The Royal Snail has announced that it will be phasing out the use of overnight mail trains after 170 years of using them. (And somewhere there’s still a letter from the first train – still undelivered, of course) Quite how they can say they want to stop using them “because of poor reliability” without getting flattened by thunderbolts is beyond me. A more perfect illustration of “pot calling the kettle black” you couldn’t wish to see.

Paperwork

It’s obviously one of those days where paperwork runs rife. As such, I’ve been stalking it, tracking it down, and completing it with a sharpened ballpoint pen. So far today that’s included :

• the Quarterly VAT return
• An application for a check by the Criminal Records Bureau
• various odds and sods for Companies House
• other odds and sods for Inland Revenue
• Contents insurance renewal stuff

And that’s it. Well, for now, anyway.

Whatever happened to the bastards?

Well, Day of the Bastard is obviously complete. My mind’s back on a more sane trip today. So far, anyway.

Day of the Bastard

Yes, for some reason every post today has had the word “bastard” in the title. I have no idea why – it just seemed like a theme at the time.

Daft bastard

According to the Sun’s website (I got it forwarded by a friend, honest) Jarvis Cocker is now calling himself Darren Spooner, and fronting his new band, Relaxed Muscle. Not quite as good a name as “Bigfoot and the Groincrushers” ( © Scaryduck) but all the same…

Cultured Scouse Bastards?

While I don’t necessarily think they entirely deserved it, I’m not surprised that Liverpool was awarded the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

There was no way that Oxford could have coped with the influx of extra people – it has enough problems with the people it gets now, and the traffic/transport system isn’t looking like it’ll improve anytime soon. I don’t know enough about Newcastle/Gateshead to make a judgement – but I’m pretty sure they’ll keep on going for bids in other years. Birmingham wasn’t really in with a chance just yet – I’m hard put to think of real culture around the Brummies anyway (*cue comments protesting my thoughts on that one*) other than Willie the Shake, and he was more Stratford. Bristol? Well, it was in with a chance, but it’s still got a long way to go when it comes to long-standing culture. Fair enough, they’ve got Massive Attack and many others, but there’s still a way to go. And Cardiff? Supposedly it’s had a renaissance over the last four or five years, but again, I’m stumped to think of real culture from there, Manic Street Sweepers notwithstanding.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it. Other comments can be found here. But they’re still Scouse bastards, at the end of the day. *Grin*

National Plaster of Paris Shortage. Bastard

I wouldn’t have fancied being the poor sod who had to deal with Barry Manilow’s broken nose – well, not unless you got paid by the time it took.

Nagging bastard *Grin*

Over on Troubled Diva, Mike has named and shamed some UK bloggers who weren’t listed on weblogs.co.uk (or somewhere similar). I was sure I’d done this once, and it appears to have not worked, so I’ve done it again.

And it’s all self-inflicted if you now get two notifications. So there.

Useless bastards

On a tangent, just how fucking long does it take an accounts department to decide that an invoice has been filled in incorrectly? You wouldn’t have thought it would take long, would you? Particularly when the “essential” information (their words, not mine) is the address of the company that the invoice was done for. But no, two weeks down the line, and the only reason I find out about this “error” is when I ring them to find out why the hell they haven’t paid me yet. Then they find the time to tell me what the problem is. Two weeks. Cunts. Absolute fucking cunts.

Why did no-one tell me that 2003 is obviously the year of the pedantic fuckwit bureaucrat? I’ve had enough of ’em, and we’re not even halfway through the year. If I’d known it was Chinese Year of the Twat, I’d have gone into hibernation ’til 2004.

</rant>

Robbing bastards

Yet again, I’ve had to visit the bank that dare not whisper it’s name. Various reasons, but the main one comes down to this :

• I’m overdrawn – within my agreed limit, but it’s close
• I get charged £20 for going over the agreed limit
• I got charged for being over the overdraft limit.
• This charge put me over the agreed limit
• I’m now getting charged again for going over the limit – because of the charge that the bank took out of the account with no warning.

So can someone explain the logic of being charged on a bank’s charge?

Travelling

I swear, only my parents get this kind of luck. They were going off to France today, going by ferry (I think) – so of course it’s the day that there’s a strike in France. They’ve ended up travelling twelve hours later, and going via the Channel Tunnel instead. I hope the rest of the break goes more smoothly for them.

Enquiries

The Guardian has a story about the UK Government continuing to reject calls for an inquiry into whether the intelligence reports were bollocks (to paraphrase it slightly) – which seems almost to negate the need for the investigation. So far as I can see, if the reports had been accurate/true, then the government would be saying “Yup, no worries, investigate away“. The fact they’re saying “there’s no need for an investigation” stinks of avoidance, denial, incipient cover-up, and virtually admitting that the “reports” were all a load of old shite.

Sometimes it seems to me that the current Labour government is doing absolutely everything in it’s power to ensure it’s ousted in the next General Election. I wonder what it is they’re trying to run away from?

Evanescence

In a weird set of coincidences in the last week, the band Evanescence have come to my attention. I’ve ended up with a copy of the album, along with some EP stuff, and it’s really pretty impressive. I don’t think my neighbours like it – but then, I’m only playing it during daylight hours, so it’s kind of tough – and it beats the everloving crap out of shite like “Hot in Herrre” and all the other rap-based garbage I get inflicted on me most of the time.

Quid pro quo. *Grin*

Political Brother

The BBC has a piece on what politicians can learn from Big Brother. (Personally, I thought the Government’s Big Brother programme, involving installing CCTV on every street corner in the country – but no, this is about the Channel 4 programme of the same name.) Supposedly they could learn more about how the public perceives them (other than as the only industry estate agents can look down on) from the way the media and public reacts to events on Big Brother. Which sounds like a complete load of bobbins, but then I’m not in PR, so what would I know?

However, it did give me a vision of a future where we had “Big Brother – The Election” – the leaders of the major parties go into a secluded House with a limited budget, and discuss their relative policies and politics. Then the people phone in their votes for the party they like the most. Worryingly, it’s actually likely to be a way of attracting more of the electorate (particularly those precious 18-30 votes, the apathetic ones who can’t be arsed to get to a polling station) than the current methods.

Then again, maybe we can just return to ancient rome, and have a Gladiatorial Circus as an election method. Survivial of the fittest, and all that.

The Wedding

Unaccustomed as I am to attending these ceremonies, I still find that I actually enjoy attending them. I know it’s a paraphrasing of a line from another film – most of which I hate, but I find I’m completely in awe of people who make a commitment on this level, to see the people I care about being this happy. To know that (regardless of divorce and so on) these people have decided that they want to be with each other, and with no-one else, for the rest of their lives, I honestly wonder if I could ever see myself doing the same thing.

The wedding was held in Westbury-Sub-Mendip, (a small picturesque Somerset village.) in the church of St Lawrence. Very pretty – and again, held on a perfect summer’s day, which always helps immensely. One good thing was the brevity of the service, at just under the hour – and it was a really smooth service. I’ve seen some that were pretty chaotic, or just that went on for too long – this wasn’t one of them.

Even the photographer was fairly swift – although he did have a bloody annoying habit of standing in the way of everyone else who was wanting to take photos. There were several comments around about what could be done with that flash-gun…

And then on to Chelwood House for the reception.

For fuck’s sake

According to The Grauniad, the J D Wetherspoon pub chain is contemplating banning people for swearing in their pubs. Considering their normal clientele, I reckon that could halve their business in one fell swoop.

And basically, to coin a phrase, for the people who are complaining about people who swear in pubs – if you don’t like it, fuck off.

Wells

Saturday morning dawned amazingly sunny – absolutely great. So we went off and wandered around Wells for the morning. I haven’t been to Wells since I was about six – and yes, it did hit me to realise that that’s now quarter of a century ago. Time and tide, blah blah blah. Anyway.

Because I’m completely disorganised, I left the camera back in the hotel – so there’s no pics of Wells. There will be next time I go there though. It was fantastic – we were wandering around it early enough that most of the true tourists weren’t even out of bed, and that made it a whole lot better. Wandering around the cathedral (one of my more religious days in a long time, what with the wedding in the afternoon as well) was glorious, and so was the rest of the town. Even looking at property prices didn’t induce a heart-attack, although it looks like I’d need a mortgage involving about quarter of a million pounds before I could feasibly live there.

And yes, Pat, the Vicar’s Close was lovely – many thanks for saying about it beforehand. It’s a street that’s been constantly inhabited since the 1200’s – the oldest continually inhabited street in Europe. As soon as yuou walk through the gateway that leads to the street, it’s as though silence descends on the place – you can’t hear traffic noise, or people, nothing. A real dream-place to own a house in.

I freely admit, I love finding places in the UK like Wells – it was completely unexpected that I’d like it as much as I did, and finding new places that I want to re-visit. Wells is definitely on that list.