Recharging and Vindication
Posted: Mon 9 October, 2017 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Milton Keynes, Single Life, Technology Leave a comment »A couple of weeks back now, I took my car to the local Kia dealership (as it’s a Kia) for its MoT. It had been serviced there a couple of weeks prior, and at that point the dealership hadn’t impressed me for a couple of reasons I won’t go into for now.
It passed the MoT just fine – needed two bulbs replacing, and that was it. But that evening, once I was home, the car wouldn’t start – the battery was completely flat. The only thing different to its usual treatment was the MoT, and the recovery guy who came out to sort things agreed it was likely they’d done something to flatten the bloody thing.
I spoke to the dealership the next day, and they denied all possibility that the problem was down to them. Couldn’t happen, sir. You left here fine (forgetting that it was running when I got in, I hadn’t had to start it) so it can’t be us. Just one of those things. If you really want to check, we’ve got a super-expensive tool for testing batteries properly, you can come in and we’ll do the check.
Which I did. Went in, and this super-tool said “Battery 100% OK”. Fair enough, it might be one of those things, I suppose. They were quite patronising about it all, and again insisted it couldn’t be anything to do with them. The only other way to find anything (“sir”) would be to drop it in for a couple of days, let it wait around and we’ll see if it drains, or what might be wrong.
However, the problems went on. It’s never completely flattened on me again, but I’ve been more aware of the delays on starting, and I’ve given it some bigger runs just to ensure the battery is as topped as possible.
So last week, knowing I’d got a hire car for a day-trip to Leeds (of which more in another post) I also booked it in to the dealership again for today, so they could have it a couple of days and find out what the problem is. It led to a bundle of fucking about, but it all came together in the end.
Lo and behold, this evening I got a call. Apparently, the battery *is* fucked, despite what their super-tool said a week ago. So they’re replacing it, and will then see tomorrow how everything goes, and hopefully I’ll collect it on Wednesday.
It’s fair to say, we’re going to have words when I do collect it. This has been a shitload of hassle, and it’s taken me a bundle of time away from work in order to keep on getting things sorted. My sense of humour has, as they say, somewhat failed about the whole thing. It’ll be interesting to see what happens – but I do feel somewhat vindicated about the whole thing.
What the dealership doesn’t seem to realise is that the servicing department is as much of a sales tool as the showroom is. I’ve got a Kia, and so far I’ve been quite pleased with it. I would have considered getting another one – and it would likely have been from that dealership. But if they can’t sort me out with a cheaper car and be competent, why the *fuck* would I stick with the same company once the current issues are sorted, let alone buy a new (to me) Kia?
Fancy Footwork
Posted: Fri 6 October, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, 2017 Inspirations, 2017/18, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, London, Single Life Leave a comment »[Caution : Contains a post about semi-manky feet.]
Following on from my foot woes two weeks ago, yesterday I went to a podiatrist to find out what the hell had gone wrong, and what could be done to fix it.
Happily, while the damage is unpleasant (you know that when even a podiatrist says “Oooh, that looks nasty” – fuck being someone who has to look at feet fot a living. *boak*) it’s not long-term or massively serious.
Indeed, what it looks like is that basically the whole ball of both feet was covered by a layer of corns and calluses. That was, in general, fine. However, when I damaged them at the end of August, the blisters disrupted a lot of them. And the healing process added a layer of hard (but effectively brittle) skin over the corns and callouses. So the walking in the marathon attempt split that brittle skin completely, reopened the mostly-healed underlying wounds, and generally made things a whole lot of Not Fun.
So yesterday she spent time taking off the layers of corn and callus, which has left them a bit sore and raw, but also feeling a lot better.
I’ve also got a treatment plan for improving my feet and hopefully not getting a recurrence of the same problem. But if they do recur, I’ve also got the plan in place for going back, getting them sorted again, and establishing a timeline for how long it takes to happen.
All told, I feel pretty positive about it all. There are a couple of other smaller foot issues that I’ll be working on sorting out at the same time, but the primary problem appears to have been sorted.
It’s also been a far more optimistic resolution than I’d been expecting – I’d had visions of needing two or three months worth of treatments, but thankfully that now doesn’t seem to be the case.
I’m still going to try and take more care of my feet, and carry on finding out more about what I need to do for next September’s re-attempt at that Marathon distance…
Quiet
Posted: Mon 31 July, 2017 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Single Life Leave a comment »For the first time in far too long, yesterday I had a day of doing absolutely sod-all. And it was pretty good.
It wasn’t (quite) through choice – the friend I’d been supposed to be meeting up with was ill, and cancelled at pretty much the last minute. Which is fine, these things happen. So as a result, I didn’t have to do anything – and I chose to stick with that plan, for once.
This year so far has been pretty manic, and while the next five or six weeks are quieter than the rest of the year, there’s still a fair amount going on. After that, September and October are already booked solid, with November and December also pretty blocked up. So some downtime right now is no bad thing at all.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me from also feeling a bit guilty about it. As I’ve said before, I’m really not good at Doing Nothing. I get to the end of the day, and feel like I’ve wasted a day off by doing nothing, that I should’ve at least been doing Something.
It’s a guilt I should get better at assuaging. Sometimes, a day of zilch is no bad thing.
I’m just keeping on trying to remind myself of that at the moment – it was a good thing, not a waste.
Heated – plus Animals
Posted: Fri 23 June, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life, Thoughts, Weather 2 Comments »Another thing I hate when the weather gets ridiculously warm, as it has this week – cat food, and the way warm weather interacts with it.
I’ve got two cats, and they have sachets of wet cat food on a regular basis. However, they don’t eat all of it at once. That means that it attracts flies – the buzzing which annoy me intensely anyway – who lay eggs on the food and so on.
Obviously any remnants (and or course the now fly-blown cat food) get thrown away, but with the heat, it also makes the bin stink. And with fortnightly bin-collections, it makes the main bins stink too. I don’t mind fortnightly collections in general, they’re a fact of life – but I do think there should be an ability to cater for hot weather and so on, and change things to collect those bins weekly if the temperature goes above a certain limit. (I know it’s probably utterly impractical, but it’d still be nice)
All told, it’s just skanky, and I hate it. All the fun of summer.
Weekend Walking
Posted: Wed 31 May, 2017 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Health, London, Single Life, Theatre, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »On Saturday, I went into London – primarily to see Don Juan in Soho again, as I’d booked a ticket for myself, and then my friends booked theirs for a couple of weeks earlier. If I hadn’t enjoyed it when I saw it with them, I’d have given up the ticket or whatever, but I did like it, so I was OK with seeing it twice.
This time though, I wasn’t going to be drinking beforehand. Among other things, there were some bits of the play I was hazy on, or couldn’t get to gel with the rest of it, so that was another reason to see it again. Instead, it was a nice day, so I decided to go for a bit of a walk.
And, because I’m an idiot of world-shattering proportions, I came pretty close to breaking myself. I didn’t, but it came closer than usual to happening.
I hadn’t accounted for a couple of things – primarily, the sun and temperature. London on Saturday was bloody hot, and sunny. Me being me, I hadn’t really made any plans or preparations, I’d just got a route in mind, I’d got my boots on, and walked it. Two hours, and 7½ miles later, I was pretty knackered.
Because of the warmth, I also noticed that the plane trees along a lot of the route were chucking out something that affected the back of my throat, and made it harder to breathe – not life-threatening by any stretch, just harder work than usual – which made it all more tiring.
Having now read that Wikipedia page, I’m more sure of this – the quote
However, it has a number of problems in urban use, most notably the short, stiff hairs shed by the young leaves and the dispersing seeds; these are an irritant if breathed in, and can exacerbate breathing difficulties for people with asthma.
seems to confirm my theory somewhat.
By the time I’d got to the Albert Memorial, I was pretty much stuffed, and also thinking I’d probably been in the sun for longer than I should’ve been. But by then, well, I was on the ‘final straight’ so I kept on going, just at a slightly slower pace.
I did OK though, and was then more sensible once I’d got to my intended destination, by opting to sit downstairs in the shade, drink lots of water, and generally take some time out. From there, it was a simple short stroll to the theatre, and once the play was done, I closed the circle of that route, and walked back up to Euston.
Once I was home, I was properly knackered, and my legs were more sore than I’d have expected as well. But happily it all recovered overnight and was fine, so I’m happy with what I did – I just could’ve been more sensible about the entire bloody thing. I suppose that “being sensible” might actually happen one day, rather than only ever occurring to me in hindsight, but well, we’ll see.
King Arthur, Legend of the Sword
Posted: Fri 19 May, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Films, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Single Life Leave a comment »Last night, I went to see the new Guy Ritchie film, “King Arthur – Legend of the Sword“. It is, to be charitable, a bit of a mess.
I wasn’t expecting high-art, or a high-brow version of the Arthurian Legends – it’s a Guy Ritchie film, so anyone expecting that would be sorely disappointed anyway. But I was expecting a Guy Ritchie film – a significant portion of silliness, snappy and smart dialogue, and some impressive visuals/shots. This is the man who brought us “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, “Snatch”, “Sherlock Holmes” (and its sequel) and “The Man From Uncle” – all of which qualify on all those things, and all of which I like.
But this one… well.
It’s got silliness – but in this case it veers more towards the ridiculous. Yes, ridiculous even within the pantheon of Arthurian stuff. The mage-driven war-elephants larger than mountains were a particular “high” point in this. But at least they were visually impressive. Which leads me to…
Visuals – it’s got some gloriously shot scenes and set-pieces. But the rest is a mess. Even some of those setpieces, there’s just too much going on for it to make sense. It needs to convey the speed and fury and chaos of battle – and in some ways I guess it does that, as no-one has any fucking clue what’s going on. But it’s also a film, and you should be able to at least see what’s happening. There are bits that are visually brilliant, but then the rest just detracts from those pieces.
Dialogue – it’s got it. But again, like the silliness, it feels forced, and it doesn’t fit with the characters, or the time. There are a couple of larger pieces that are definitely meant to be “Lock, Stock and Broadsword”, but they simply don’t work, even with snappy camerawork to accompany them.
Some of it may also be down to the cast – I like Charlie Hunnam in most things, but he does come across as being more of a supporter than a star. So having him as the main character doesn’t necessarily help things – but it does seem far more like the script is a complete dog-egg, and they’ve all just done what they can with it. And if that’s the case, then it’s really Guy Ritchie who’s primarily responsible, as he’s the writer of the original screenplay too.
All told, the nicest I can say is that it’s a mess. Not one I’d go and see again, it’s fair to say.
Drinking and Don Juan
Posted: Wed 17 May, 2017 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, London, Reviews(ish), Single Life, Theatre, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »On Saturday, I went into London for the day. The primary objective was seeing David Tennant in Patrick Marber’s “Don Juan in Soho” at Wyndham’s Theatre. However, that wasn’t til the evening, so I had time to walk and be bad in the meantime…
So, having driven down to North London, I took the tube down to Old Street (which is the laziest I’ve been in a long time, as I usually only get to Euston then walk) and visited Blues Kitchen to try their new special.
Then a walk back towards Soho, and the newly-discovered joys of Chick’n’Sours, where I had their special of Bang-Bang Chicken strips, which is all kinds of awesome. And alongside that, a couple of cocktails – with hindsight, a bit of a bad move, but well, it was par for the course.
After that, it was time to meet the people I was going to the play with – first of all, M, and then (later) two of her friends. In between, we had another drink, and then when the other friends arrived, they decided they wanted cocktails. I know just the place, said I, and lo, back to Chick’n’Sours, where a significant number of cocktails were consumed…
Before the play, we’d got reservations at Marcus Wareing’s new place, Tredwell’s, and so that was where we ended up next, and more drinks were had as well as decent food. The final bill was higher than I’d expected, but I’m assuming that’s down to a) drinks, and b) possibly not taking advantage of the Prix Fixe menu. (I’d need to go back in order to figure things out – I failed to keep the receipt, so can’t check , and honestly don’t really care all that much) It was good though, and all four of us enjoyed it.
By the end, I was… somewhat the worse for wear, although not ridiculously or dangerously so. Besides, by the time we got to the theatre I was already sobering up.
The play itself was thoroughly enjoyable – as always, I didn’t really know what to expect, and some of it was a bit odd (small dance scenes and the like) but all told, I really liked it. Tennant himself is obviously having a great time playing the vile and reprehensible Don Juan, and the supporting cast were all pretty damn good as well. It’s on ’til June 10th, and I’d recommend it if possible.
However, the seats at Wyndham’s are some of the most uncomfortable known to man. A two-and-a-bit-hour performance was more than enough time to spend with my knees wedged into the back of the seat in front of me.
And then, once everyone else was on trains back to respective stations and homes, I took some time to return to the station where I’d parked the car. I was completely sober by the time we’d got out of the play, and the extra time/walking boosted that even further. If I’d been in any doubt, I’d have waited at the car, or found somewhere to get some food.
Then a quick drive home, and all good. All told, a decent way to spend a Saturday…