The Naming Of Things
Posted: Mon 13 March, 2023 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »At the moment I’m decidedly amused by the way the UK government hasn’t even thought about the name of one of its controversial Bills, and how it gets reported and described.
So what we get now is news coverage saying “[politician] has condemned the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill“, which makes it sound like the Bill is illegal.
Comes to something when they can’t even get the name right, doesn’t it?
Credit Check
Posted: Fri 10 March, 2023 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Rebuilding Leave a comment »Since the bankruptcy, I’ve used a couple of free services – Credit Karma (which used to be Noddle) and ClearScore – to keep track of my credit score. It’s always been interesting, seeing what things affect the score and what doesn’t. (For example, moving dropped it by a good 150 points until I was verified on the new electoral roll and so on)
Part of those services is the alerting, that tells you when your record has been searched (either a soft-search or a hard-search, which have different effects on the record) which is also useful in helping to prevent scams – you’ll be told if someone has tried to create a new loan or bank account for you, for example. Obviously this is A Good Thing.
This week I got an alert from Credit Karma about a soft search of my record, which was a warning sign as I hadn’t done any credit searches or applications.
So I logged in to Credit Karma, checked the alerts and yes, there was a search there.
By Credit Karma.
So for some convoluted reason, they’d decided to alert me about the fact that they had themselves been doing a (fully expected) soft search.
Sometimes I just despair of these things…
Spring Incoming
Posted: Tue 28 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic 1 Comment »So here we are, the end of February.
The sun is now officially rising before 7am (and won’t go back to a later-than-7am rise until October 1st) and setting after 5:30pm. (By mid-March it’ll be setting after 6pm)
Daylight hours are currently at just under 11hours (10hrs 45 today) which is a huge improvement from the Solstice-low of 7hrs 50mins.
There’s still a way to go, obviously, but it’s beginning to feel like we’re over Winter again. Which is generally A Good Thing.
Devices
Posted: Sun 26 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Technology, Television Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks, I’ve managed to get through two TVs – which is annoying, but thankfully hasn’t been hideously expensive.
Back in Tiny House, my TV was comparatively tiny, I think a 24″ screen. It was fine for the space I was in, and lasted me well. However, in New Place, the living room is considerably larger, so the comparatively tiny screen was less than ideal – but still worked.
This all came up in conversation with friends, and one of them offered a larger screen for free – they were moving, merging houses and so on, and had an extra 43″ screen that otherwise would just be going spare (or going to the tip) so I was happy to take that one. It meant I didn’t have to get a new one, and it was also a case of being a bit greener, rather than just trashing things. I collected it about a month ago, and it’s been fine until this week.
For some reason, it’s ended up throwing a complete wobbly – something to do with the sensor/receiver for the remote control, from what I can tell – and became a nightmare to use. If the remote worked at all, it was as if it was the key was staying down and repeating the input continuously. And it was with two different remotes (the actual TV remote, and the Sky remote that was also able to operate the TV) which is what makes me think it was the sensor/receiver. Regardless though, it made the entire thing into an absolute pain in the chuff, and even a hard reset didn’t fix things.
So… despite all my good intentions, I ended up ordering a new screen, the same size as the one I’d been given. (As I know it at least fits/works in the new living room) It got ordered on Friday and delivered on Sunday, which is pretty good – particularly as I was out for most of Saturday anyway – and it’s all now installed and set up, so I’m happy.
Obviously I’d rather that things had worked out better for that middle screen, but at the same time it’s been moved at least two (and probably three) times, so it’s at least vaguely understandable. Anyway, they’ll go to the tip tomorrow, in order to be as recyclable as possible, and all that jazz.
Spare Space
Posted: Thu 16 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »One of the reasons for my move last year was to have a bigger house, with space to have a home-office and so on, rather than Tiny House and also renting an office in Milton Keynes.
It is lovely to have a larger house, to have space for bookcases (and to have all my books out of boxes for the first time in Far Too Long) and to have that home office and so on.
However… I find that most of the time I’m still in “Tiny House” mode mentally, in that I don’t actually use that home office. It’s there, and I know it’s there, it’s just that I forget when it comes to actually working, so a lot of that is still done down in the living room instead. Additionally, I don’t yet really sit in the other part (that was the ‘dining room’, and is now ‘book room’) as a matter of course. I’ve used it a couple of times – and suspect I’ll use it more in spring/summer with some natural light coming through.
Both rooms are fine, and fit for their intended purposes. I just… don’t use them properly. Yet.
Maybe I’m expecting too much of myself. It’s not even six months that I’ve been in this place yet, and I was in Tiny House for over a decade, so in some ways it’s not surprising that I haven’t really made the mental switch yet.
I will do. I’ll get back into the mindset, I’m sure, and I’ll make use of the rooms the way I meant to. It’s just taking me longer than I thought it would.
ColdFree
Posted: Tue 14 February, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Health Leave a comment »Following on from last weeks “Bleurgh” post about having a cold, I’m happy to say that it’s now faded off, as expected.
It’s been pretty manky along the way, and I had a couple of days of being deeply under-the-weather, but it’s all eased off again.
Happy day.
Cold
Posted: Thu 9 February, 2023 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Health 2 Comments »I’ve not been feeling up to writing much recently. Primarily it’s down to my usual combination of keeping myself busy, a lack of impetus, and keeping on thinking “You know, I really should write something”. However, this week that’s also been tempered by the addition of a large and rotten cold. (And yes, it’s just a cold – nothing flu-based or Coviddy, thankfully)
I don’t get them that often, and bloody hate it when I do have one. For whatever reason, I just end up with a streaming nose, and currently look like Rudolph.
It started on Saturday, and has got steadily heavier through to today, so hopefully it’ll now start to ease off a bit before the weekend!
All fun and games. And snot, of course. Lots and lots of that.
*Sigh*