Diet and Health
Posted: Tue 3 September, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last six weeks, the quality of my food intake dropped quite significantly. It wasn’t a descent into Junk Food Hell or anything like, but I did eat more junk-type stuff than usual, for one reason or another.
The primary reason was related to doing idiot hours on the short-term contract. It wasn’t unknown to leave the house at 6am and not get back ’til 10pm or later. And honestly once it got to that point in time, I couldn’t then be chuffed to cook something vaguely decent. Hell, half the time I had to persuade myself to eat anything at all, which is never a good state to be in.
As a result, I did have more takeaways and so on than usual. not to excess, but definitely more than I usually do.
It hasn’t affected me particularly – I haven’t gained weight etc. – but it’s another of those slopes I don’t really want to get on. I’m aware of it, and I think that’s a good thing – it means it’s not yet the norm, and I don’t want it to be. It’s incredibly easy to be lazy, and it’s harder work to not be, so I don’t want to start heading down the easy route too much. With the new job being (so far) a lot saner, I think I’ll be OK on cutting it all back, and that’s certainly the plan now, getting back into cooking properly and not just taking the easy option.
Mind you, there is a small matter of going to Meatopia this weekend – but I don’t think that really qualifies as junk food anyway!
Year One
Posted: Fri 9 August, 2013 Filed under: 2012/13, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Thoughts 1 Comment »As of today, I’m no longer technically in bankruptcy. (Which is a weird word to type, but that’s something else entirely)
I declared myself bankrupt a year ago today, and that discharges automatically after one year, other than in exceptional circumstances. Basically, if the court decides you’ve been obstructive, or untruthful – or you’ve continued to build debt while in bankruptcy, or done anything else seriously stupid – they can extend the period of bankruptcy, but I’ve not done any of that, so it expires today.
There’s still a long way to go before it’s completely expunged from the record – another five years, in fact – but regardless, this is a milestone. (Rather than the millstone that the debts themselves were)
I’m still paying what I can afford for the next two years too. Once that’s done, it’s about rebuilding properly – for one thing, the amount I’m currently paying through the court system can go into a savings account. I haven’t missed the money, so I might as well keep paying it, but for my benefit rather than anyone else’s.
Bankruptcy isn’t an easy process, it’s not one I’d wish on anyone else. But it’s also not the great stigma on one’s character that it used to be, and while it’s not The Answer, it most certainly is An Answer.
For my own life, I’m glad I made the decision to go down this route – not that there were many other options, to be honest – because it’s allowing me to start again, to build up from those solid foundations that the last year has let me build.
11
Posted: Fri 9 August, 2013 Filed under: 2012/13, 2013/14, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Somehow, D4D™ has now made it to its eleventh birthday. I never expected it to do so, but I can’t deny, I’m actually fairly proud that it has.
Events over the last eighteen months have meant that the writing here has slowed down, and lost its frequency (and in some ways I feel it’s also lost its way a bit) but I’m going to see how we do over the next year, and wait ’til this time next year to see what happens. I might close it down, I might just keep it with irregular updates. Right now, I just don’t know.
The last couple of years have been – interesting, I think it’s fair to say. D4D’s been through that time with me (well, obviously) and will continue to do so, I think. There’s still a long way on this old journey, and I think/hope the next year (or two) is going to be instrumental in whatever comes next.
Driving Through
Posted: Wed 7 August, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »My local supermarket is on a small(ish) retail estate, and there’s also a McDonalds in the area, with a full “drivethrough” (sorry, “drivethru” *spitting noise*) option. Every time I go past it, there’s something that boggles my brain.
I don’t understand the drive-through option. Well, that’s not true – there’s one particular aspect of drivethrough behaviour that I really don’t understand. I get the whole “grab food while driving, and continue going” concept, that’s fine. For now we’ll gloss over the whole road-safety aspect – after all, if it’s dangerous to use a mobile phone while driving, surely it’s equally dangerous to be eating a messy burger – but I get the concept.
What I don’t get though, are the people who use the drive-through, and then park up to eat their ‘food’. What’s the reasoning? If you’re going to do that, surely it’s just as easy to take a proper break, go inside, sit at a table, eat, and then leave to go back on the road.
What’s the logical process for getting food, and then sitting right outside the premises (I refuse to call it a restaurant, sorry) to eat them?
Yet every time I drive past, there they are – people doing exactly that. They’ve bought at a drive-through, and now they’re sat in the car park to eat it. It truly makes my brain bleed.
Body-Image and Vanity
Posted: Thu 1 August, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Health, People, Television, Thoughts, Weight Loss 1 Comment »On Channel4 this week there was a really good documentary(ish) with Alex Brooker about male body image, called “My Perfect Body”
It’s interesting to see how the perception of men’s bodies has changed over the last few years, and particularly a lot of men’s self-perception of their bodies, and particularly the assertions that a man isn’t ‘successful’ if they’re overweight, don’t have a six-pack stomach, etc. etc. In a lot of ways I think the programme was right, that a lot of men do ‘value’ themselves by way of their bodies, and that this is (at least to a degree) related to advertising/marketing, and those images of male perfection.
The other interesting side to it was about male vanity, and the surge in male grooming, ‘metrosexuality’, and even how male groups react to each others bodies; the basic answer being that men are (in many ways) bitchier to their friends than women are to their friends.
Personally, the whole vanity thing isn’t something I’ve ever been prone to. Yes, I currently want to lose some weight – but that’s more for health reasons and the like, rather than wanting to be thin/’successful’/’desireable’ and all that pap. Realistically, I’ll never be some 14-stone super-fitty, and honestly I don’t want to be.
I find it fascinating how the whole ‘group think’ perception seems to work, but I’m pretty immune to it. I wonder sometimes if that’s because I’ve never really had a whole group of male mates, and never been inculcated into that type of setup. I don’t know.
I’m not going to worry about it – part of my whole self-image/self-perception is probably more easily described as “This is me. Like it, don’t like it. Your choice”. In general, I’ve always found that seems to be a fairly healthy self-image, and it certainly causes me a lot less stress than a lot of people in the documentary…
Lone vs. Lonely
Posted: Sat 13 July, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Introspective, Thoughts 3 Comments »The other day I was talking to a friend about relationships and the like, and part of the conversation was about being single versus being in a relationship. The follow-on question was “But aren’t you lonely?”
For me, I’m actually quite happy being single, and getting on with things. I know some people need to be with someone, and some are even shit-scared of being on their own – I currently work with a couple of people like that, in utterly crap relationships but won’t split up because it’s still ‘better than being single’, which drives me berserk – but I’m simply not one of them.
Sometimes I feel I’m actually better at being single than I am at being in a relationship. In general I’m too independent for my own good, but sometimes in relationships I’m also too easy-going, happier to go with doing what the other person wants than necessarily what I want to do. The stupid thing is that I know I’m doing it, and sometimes it annoys me that I’m not doing my own stuff – but it annoys me even more that I’m getting annoyed about it. Which isn’t particularly sane, smart or healthy.
I also know people who don’t like going out and doing things on their own, primarily because of how they think other people will perceive them. As regular readers (what few there are) of D4D™ know, I don’t give much of a stuff about what other people think of me. I’m absolutely happy to go off to the cinema on my own, to go out to places, even to take a holiday on my own. (Although I’m spectacularly bad at holidays anyway, and really should change that aspect of myself more than most others!) Probably the only thing I’m less good about when single is going out for meals, or drinking. Even those aren’t truly about other people’s perceptions of me, but more that if I go out for food, I like that to be a shared experience, a meal enjoyed rather than for fuel. And drinking on my own is just a slope I don’t want to get onto.
All told, I’m content being single and living my own life. A lot of it is solo, but I never really feel lonely. I know I have good friends across the country, and that – for me – is what matters. I don’t need (or want) to be in their pockets/lives all the time, and I find that makes the times when we are together all the more valuable. Additionally, I have a wide range of contacts and friends through Facebook and Twitter, and I tend to stay in contact through those mediums (media?) on a regular basis anyway. I perceive those conversations and contacts as being the same as (or at least similar to) a phone conversation, an email, or even a face-to-face chat, so a lot of the time I don’t even feel like I am alone. (And in truth I’m not alone, because of those friends and conversations. We’re just not physically close, but in every other aspect of friendship and contact, we are)
As per the title, I feel/find that I’m more Lone than Lonely, and that’s fine with me.
Independence Today
Posted: Thu 4 July, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »It’s July 4th, which means America is celebrating Independence Day.
Personally, I’ve never understood why the UK never celebrates Independence Day too, as “The day we got rid of that pestilential colony”.
Mind you, I’ve also always thought we should make more of the voyage of the Mayflower, and celebrate that initial migration of Puritans to their new land of hope and glory.
Advertising Morphosis – Comparing Confusion
Posted: Wed 26 June, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Creativity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few months, it’s been interesting to see the adverts on TV that have changed radically – and as it happens, there are two main industries who appear to have changed their advertising massively in that time. The first is insurance comparison websites, the second is payday lenders.
In both areas, I suspect the reasons for change are the same – of all the adverts on TV, those two sectors had the adverts that were the most annoying. Insurance Comparison sites advertising was pretty much universally loathed – I know that their ‘recognise the brand’ methods worked, but backfired in that I remembered the brands so I could be sure to never ever give them any money.
GoCompare was the biggest culprit on this, with their poxy opera-‘singer’ character.
He’s still around, but they’re fading the character out. (And not a moment too soon, in my opinion)
They’re interesting, because in a lot of ways they now seem to be acknowledging that the character is/was ridiculously fucking annoying, and they’re now working on keeping the character while hopefully reducing the annoyance factor significantly.
The next biggest one was Confused.com, who’ve got rid of their super-annoying animated and musical adverts…
And replaced it with a weird Wall-E-esque robot instead…
It’s all definitely an improvement, and on the rareish occasions I watch adverts (more often caused by forgetting I’m watching something recorded, and still watching the ads) I no longer feel the need to poke my eyes out and block my ears.
Power Play
Posted: Sun 23 June, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Cinema, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Sat in the cinema, waiting for the film to start, another couple come in. They start to discuss where to sit. She wants to be near the front. He – it’s safe to say – doesn’t.
Her : “I want to sit here, it’ll be fine”
Him : “let’s go to the back. There’ll be less people” (wrong, but hey ho)
Her : “I want to sit here”
Him : “fine babe, you pick where you want to sit”
She does.
Him : “well I’m not sitting there” and walks off, expecting her to follow.
She doesn’t.
Five minutes later, he comes back, and sits next to her.
Funny as hell, to the observer. 🙂
Data Migration – Kindle
Posted: Mon 10 June, 2013 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Getting Organised, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »By contrast to the ease of migrating data to the new laptop, resyncing a new Kindle is an absolutely shite experience.
The actual purchase/delivery of it is great – ordered on Friday, arrived today. But synchronising it is crap.
Rather than a simple “download everything” option – or even having a “download everything on this page” – you have to choose to download each eBook individually. Even on the website, it’s a list with individual controls. Not even a checkbox against each item and a ‘download all’.
Why? I’ve no idea. But it means that what should be a simple “connect this device to my Amazon account” to download everything becomes a nightmare of (in my case) roughly 1,000 mouse-clicks. That’s no exaggeration. I’ve got 260 books on my Kindle. For each one you’ve got to click on “Actions”, then “Download”, then Select the device (there’s only one device – at least fucking auto-select it!) . For each book.
It’s a truly painful and shit experience, and there’s an email going to Amazon to explain that.
More Broken
Posted: Fri 7 June, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Stupidity, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s obviously the month for tech stuff to break.
Following on from the laptop, the iPhone battery pack, and the iPhone cable, the Kindle’s just died. (I know, I know, “That doesn’t happen with books”, blah blah) My own fault, out with friends last night, had the Kindle (in a case) in my pocket all night, and somewhere along the line it’s got squished, and the screen has cracked in the way eInk ones do, so it’s no damn use to anyone.
I *should* have left it in the car, but forgot. That’s the way of things sometimes. No idea exactly when it happened, although it was probably when five of us crammed into a taxi, which was fairly tight.
Ah well, live and learn.
Data Migration
Posted: Tue 4 June, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Technology, Thoughts 3 Comments »Every time I get a new computer – laptop, PC, work machine, whatever – and/or change jobs, one of the biggest challenges is always taking existing data and moving/copying it to the new device. And it’s not just the data, it’s also the applications – the programs that make use of the data.
But it’s also always getting easier. The process this time was the smoothest to date, and a lot of that is down to ‘cloud’ services. I store a lot of my stuff now with Dropbox, although there’s also plenty of other services. I store my data in an encrypted fashion, so it’s also secure – while I like the ease of storage on Cloud-based services, I don’t trust them with my information – but it means that once I’d installed Dropbox on the new laptop, then my key files were all being synced and downloaded.
The other thing I like about using Dropbox and it’s ilk is that if you save your files there immediately, it’s not just a saved file, it’s automatically backed up. The risks of my losing important documents is pretty much gone, because I save everything to the folder on my machine that links to a cloud-based service. All my work stuff (which is also backed up with Subversion Version Control) goes to one service, all my personal work, writing etc. goes to a different one. But the key thing is that everything’s safe, and I don’t even need to remember to do a backup.
For larger stuff, it’s still a case of “copy onto portable hard drive” – I prefer the speed of that to doing it via wi-fi – but even that is easier now with the much larger sizes of portable drives. At some point, I could add a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box, so all the data is in one central location, and the machine(s) just access it off that box/server. But for now that investment isn’t worth the time, energy or money.
All told, getting New Laptop sorted out has probably taken the best part of a working day – but that includes learning the idiosyncracies of a new Operating System and downloading/installing the apps, odds and sods that I want/need, as well as getting the data over. It’s been a pretty easy process, I have to say.
Equipment Longevity
Posted: Mon 3 June, 2013 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »As part of yesterday’s post about equipment failures, I realised just how long I’d actually had the previous laptop, which was quite surprising.
Looking back, I should have realised it was quite a while, thinking back to where I was and so on at the time I got it.
I’m pretty tough on technology, so it’s actually quite impressive that the Dell laptop lasted just under four years. I do a lot of travelling (as has been written about too many times to mention) and the laptop will always just get shoved in my backpack, rather than using a ‘proper’ laptop bag. (Mainly because I’ve seen too many idiots carrying laptop bags over one shoulder, seen how easy it is for people to steal them, and how much it makes you a target, a sign of visible wealth/gadgetry)
I dread to imagine how many hours of use the Dell laptop has had, but I’m pretty sure that it’s more than paid for itself over the four years.
Equipment Failure
Posted: Sun 2 June, 2013 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, iPhone, Shopping, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Don’t worry, this isn’t another post about the joys and pitfalls of getting older…
No, instead it’s about technology, and why the bastard stuff all ends up failing at the same time.
First of all, this post is being written on a new laptop – which I really could’ve done without having to get, but needs must when the devil drives (and/or you’re a web techie and wannabe-writer). The old Dell laptop – which it turns out I bought back in September 2009, so I shouldn’t whine so much, I guess – had been getting flakier over the last six months, but I’ve been eking out the life of it since then, suffering the occasional (and then more regular) hard-drive crash, and the ropy keyboard with some keys that only worked intermittently.
This week though it’s been crashing every time it was in use, and was obviously getting to the point where I needed to a) pull all the relevant data off it like NOW, and b) replace it with something else. And with a trip up to Manchester this week where I’m *really* going to need a reliable laptop, this was the weekend for it.
So I’ve bitten the bullet somewhat, and the new one is a (dirt-cheap) Asus thing, running the already-much-disliked Windows 8. To be fair to Windows 8, the old laptop was on the much-loathed Vista, which I never really found all that annoying. Eight annoys me more so far, but I’ll get used to it.
The other two equipment failures are both iPhone related, allbeit power-related rather than device-related. (Although I did think one of them might’ve been the phone being fucked, which was a real worry) First the Mophie battery case has failed. Again. (More accurately, the cable/charger for it, which will no longer charge) I love the Mophie cases, but they do seem to be somewhat crap, and only last about a year. And then the normal iPhone charge/sync cable also went kerfut and wouldn’t charge the phone. So I’ve had to get a new cable for that as well – considerably less expensive than the laptop purchase, but still, why all at the same time?
Oh yeah, and the fridge in the house also played up this week, with one day where it didn’t appear to be working all that well. Fortunately it’s now back up and running.
But why the hell would four things, two fairly major, all decide to kiff out within the same week? Weird things, I tell thee, weird things.
Commuting in Half-Term
Posted: Wed 29 May, 2013 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, M1, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Currently, the schools around where I live and work are on a break for half-term , and the effect this has had on my commute is just ridiculous.
During term-time, a “good” commute is 35-45 minutes door-to-door in the morning, and a “bad” one can be an hour plus. The difference in departure time to change from a good to a bad one can be less than ten minutes.
Today, my door-to-door morning run – even with still fairly heavy traffic on the M1 – was 22 minutes. That’s nearly half the time it takes during term-time.
I know more parents drive their kids to school “these days” (and yes, I also know what an old fart that makes me sound like) but the difference in traffic-flow really is surprising, even with that knowledge.
Roy Lichtenstein, Tate Modern
Posted: Mon 27 May, 2013 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Getting Organised, London, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I took a trip down to That There London, primarily to see the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Tate Modern. It’s been on for a while, and I’d meant to see it earlier, but then checked last week to realise yesterday was the final day. And so, the plan was born to get down and see it.
I’ve loved a lot of Lichtenstein’s work for many years now, and the exhibition had the originals of a couple of my all time favourites (Particularly “Whaaam!”) so it was definitely a good reason to go and see it.
But what I hadn’t realised was that this sort of stuff was only a small part of his work – although the style remains the same, there’s a lot more that I’d never known about.
My own particular favourites (in no particular order) were the Lichtenstein versions of other classic artists (including Mondrian and Picasso) and also his versions of classical Chinese landscape portraiture, which are just excellent.
I was really pleased that I’d got down to see the exhibition – although I do find that most of the stuff in Tate Modern is unconscionable piss, every so often they throw out a gem.
Ageing
Posted: Sat 25 May, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Most of the time, I forget I’m 41. Hell, most of the time I have to work it out when someone asks how old I am. No-one ever believes I’m the age I am, and most people seem to estimate it as mid-30s (or less than 12, depending on my behaviour at the time) which is fine with me. Fact is, people have been estimating my age as mid-30s since I was early 20s, so I suppose I’m aging fairly well in general – although I must’ve been fuck-rough at 20.
My hair’s been going grey since mid-20s, and that doesn’t really bother me. My mum went grey early on – less charitable souls could observe that might be related to having me – so it’s always been expected.
Recently though, there’ve been other signs of ageing, and I can’t deny, my own sense of vanity (small though it is) rebels against them.
Firstly it’s been the hair growing on my ears – what the hell is that about? For some reason I now get long hairs growing on the top of my ears, and rounds the edges. I don’t see the point of it, but there we go. It’s annoying- to me – but I’m sure no-one else cares.
And now the grey hairs are appearing elsewhere. Eyebrows first – and man do they show up! And now today, I discovered the latest ignominy – I’m even getting grey chest-hairs. Obviously they’re less publicly visible, but all the same, it’s just a bit depressing, all these combining signs that I truly am getting older…
Paying Attention
Posted: Sun 5 May, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »A few months back when I got the Saab, I thought they weren’t all that common. I’ve always liked them through the years, so I usually noticed them when they were around. (This might also have something to do with the absolutely vile colour-schemes a lot of them tend to possess) All the same, I didn’t see them that often – and I was doing a lot of miles at the time. Of course, I’m still doing a fair amount of mileage, but no more than I was doing before.
Anyway, now I own the Saab, I can’t take a damn journey without seeing at least a couple. Not necessarily the same 95 model as mine (although even that’s not uncommon) but definitely the 93 in its various guises.
I know the whole theory of familiarity, that you notice things more because you’re also doing them – hence seeing the same type of car as your own, or how everyone’s having kids if you are, etc. etc. – and I’m sure that’s what’s happening, but all the same, it feels very odd indeed.
Sweary Hypocrisy
Posted: Sun 14 April, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cinema, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, People, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’ve found a new source of amusement – the “Parental Guides” for films on IMDB.
A perfect example is here, for the new Tom Cruise film “Oblivion”
Why is it so amusing? For wondrous things like this…
bitch used 2 times bastard 1 time ass 4 times shit 6 times 1 use of fuck. Son-of-a-b***h is used once.
It’s the hypocrisy of it all – coupled with the tweeness. In the example above, it’s OK to write bitch, bastard and fuck, but son-of-a-bitch gets asterisked out? Fuck me.
Stalker TV Ad
Posted: Sun 17 March, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Marketing, People, Television, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »At the moment, Santander have a set of adverts ‘starring’ Jensen Button, Jessica Ennis and Rory McIlroy. Suffice it to say, they’re pretty creepy…
Seriously, what crack-headed advertising exec ever thought this would be a good idea? To have sporting ‘celebrities’ effectively invading the homes and lives of everyday people, and stalking them? I can’t even understand how it’s going to portray bankers and banking in a positive light.
Indeed for me all it does is serve to make me actively not want to use Santander for anything. Ever.
(Although, on a more cynical note, it does amuse me that Santander are also paying to have the logos for Nike and Adidas all over their ad)
Phone Security
Posted: Tue 5 March, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yesterday there was a load of stuff on radio news with police warning about people who don’t secure their phones with a PIN code.
Supposedly it makes them more valuable (to thieves) if they’re unlocked, and also means all your personal information is available – which is obviously usable for nefarious purposes.
Personally, I’ve always had a PIN-lock on my phones, and don’t really get why most people don’t – yet apparently only 20% of people use a PIN-lock at all.
I do understand the concerns of some people – that, for example, they may be in an accident and emergency services would need contact numbers – but at the same time I’ve always got that elsewhere in my wallet etc.
As it is, I’d rather keep my primary information safe.
Marching On
Posted: Sun 3 March, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s hard to believe we’re already in March – I can’t really believe how quickly the year has gone so far.
By the end of this month, the clocks will have gone forward into British Summer Time, and it’ll be Easter.
Time marches on…
The Value of Romance
Posted: Mon 11 February, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Food, Marketing, People, Thoughts, Valentine's Day Leave a comment »While out over the weekend, I went past a Wetherspoons pub, and they’ve got a stunning offer for Valentine’s Day.
2 for twenty quid – feel valued yet?
Yup – take your beloved out and show her how much you love and value them by making it a Meal for Two for £20. What could possibly be more romantic than that ?
And the sad thing is, I bet they’ll be bloody packed.
Infamy, Infamy, they’ve all got it infamy
Posted: Mon 28 January, 2013 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, Legal, Marketing, Privacy, Thoughts Leave a comment »Eighteen months ago, I had to issue a retraction of comments I’d made about the professionalism of a marketing manager and his company, due to some seriously heavy-handed legal threats from over the water.
As a quick “I wonder”, I did a Google search today on the name of the marketing manager and his company. And yes, D4D still comes up as the first result on Google for that search.
When you think about it, that’s really funny. (And is also what I warned them would happen when the legal people insisted I use his name as part of the apology on the title)
After all, this is a marketing manager of a major company – a company whose products also use the name D4D on some of them. He’s also always had the right of reply, I’ve never closed the comments on any of those posts. Nary an acknowledgement, not a rebuttal or apology for damaging the privacy policy of his own company, not even a “thanks for the apology”. Which, I suppose, shows the quality of the man.
And still, there I am, at the top of the search results.
It amused me, anyway.
Snow Shopping
Posted: Sat 19 January, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, People, Shopping, Thoughts, Weather 4 Comments »Where I am now, the snow hasn’t been too bad so far. Some of the roads on the way to work are entertaining (the village where work is based is at the top of a hill, so all routes in/out involve some fun slopes) and the lane to the office is deeply dodgy, but where I live has been OK. Snow, but nothing epic.
Compared to the Norfolk and Suffolk places, it’s been a doddle. It helps that all the roads around here are major – M1, and A421 are the two main ones – which means they’re part of the gritting plan and so on.
Anyway, I hadn’t worried about the snow, but did need to do a small amount of shopping today, just basics of veg, bread and the like – but having seen the media reports of people panic-buying, of empty shelves in supermarkets and the like. (And to be fair, the village shop has/had no bread etc. today)
So I girded my loins, and prepared for a shopping trip into chaos, with the supermarket full of idiots. But it didn’t happen. The roads were virtually empty, which boded well. When I got to the local(ish) Te$co, it was virtually empty. Spaces throughout the car park, and virtually no-one around at all.
Inside the store was the same- really quiet, no problems with stock, and very few idiots. (There’s always some, but well, nothing’s perfect) It was probably the best shopping experience I’ve had in that particular store – certainly the one with the fewest people. I got everything I needed, and only wanted to beat one gormless muppet to a pulp with a tin of beans.
So from my side, it just meant that for all the purported problems with snow, it actually made my life easier, better, and less stressy than usual. Which is kind of odd, when you think about it.
Acid Attacks
Posted: Sat 19 January, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, People, Television, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Yesterday I watched the Channel 4 documentary “Saving Face” about Dr Mohammad Jawad, a renowned plastic surgeon who provides pro bono work rebuilding the faces of Indian women who have been the victims of acid attacks by their husbands.
Yeah, attacks with acid – usually sulphuric – being thrown in their faces. Seriously, what the absolute fuck?
I know women in India aren’t treated with the same accord as in the UK and other countries – but seriously, what kind of mindset is there that makes it OK, indeed ‘the done thing’, to disfigure your partner ? What the shit?
It’s just totally beyond me, I simply don’t understand the process that makes this kind of thing OK.
(And yes, I do know – but don’t understand – the philosophy that one’s woman/partner is just a possession, an object you can choose to keep, throw away, or burn to fuck with acid. I know the philosophy, but still, it’s just wrong. )
Embarassing Fat Bodies
Posted: Wed 16 January, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, 2012/13, Cynicism, Food, Health, People, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Channel 4’s got a new series of “Embarassing Fat Bodies” at the moment, and it’s really annoying me. Not just because of my own ongoing issues with weight-loss, but just because of the people.
I know I’ve a long way to go, that’s a foregone conclusion. As such I’ve probably not got much room to talk, currently. You know what? I really don’t care.
You see, the difference with me is that I’m doing something about it. I’m taking the hints from my body, and I’m doing something about it.
The people on Embarassing Fat Bodies just don’t – or at least haven’t – and it’s like they’re waiting for some bloody wizard to come along and wave a wand at them to fix the problem.
One of the people on this week’s programme had a hernia the size of a basketball, a lipoma the size of two footballs, is housebound, and has a BMI of 79. Yes, seventy-fucking-nine! But still she eats – and admits to eating – meals for three or four people.
Another one, 35 stone, BMI of 66 waddled in, having done a food diary, talking about “a bag of crisps”. It turned out that what she meant by that was the huge family-bag size bag of crisps. This is someone who can’t stand, and has brought an office-chair into her kitchen so she can scoot around the kitchen rather than walking around it. But still, a diet of crisps, chocolate, full-fat fizzy drinks.
How long does it take to pick up the hints? If you’re that size, at least cut down what you’re eating, or go for the healthier alternatives!
Again, I’m not perfect, I know. Some of my diet isn’t grand – but my intake is on the low side, not the excesses listed by some of the people on this programme.
The Hotel, Channel 4
Posted: Sun 13 January, 2013 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, People, Television, Thoughts 2 Comments »On Channel 4, they’re currently showing a new series of “The Hotel”, about the Grosvenor Hotel in Torquay.
In many ways it’s absolute road-crash TV, the sort that makes you think “What were they thinking when they agreed to this?” . All the people portrayed are just horrendous, total idiots. Indeed, it’s so bad that you wonder if it’s not completely staged, one of these ‘scripted reality’ shows like “Only way is Essex” etc. Indeed, I’m not yet fully convinced that it’s not.
There are a couple of reasons I’m more given to believe that it’s just stupid people with no clue and no insight into how they appear. They are :
- I’ve worked with several people who have exactly those levels of self-delusion and stupidity. (Funnily enough, all in that same industry)
- The media coverage that the hotel did end up getting sold to new owners
All told, it’s another of Channel 4’s excursions into excruciating people and teeth-grinding situations.
Season Change
Posted: Wed 2 January, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Festering Season, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Now that we’re over and done with on the Festering Season, it’s a season change in the advertising world.
Away go all the ads for perfume, shitty music compilations, and Christmas stuff in general.
Instead, for the start of the new year we get adverts for
- Dating sites – eHarmony, Match.com, etc.
- Weight-loss programmes – WeightWatchers, DietChef and Slimming World
- Holidays (and airlines)
- Banks
One advert is missing from the list though – I think this is the first time in about a decade that I haven’t seen an advert for stopping smoking . I assume they think everyone who’s going to quit has done so by now. Or maybe it’s an extension of all the other laws/rules about not advertising cigarettes – they now also can’t advertise stopping smoking?
Anyway, it’s all interesting, in that it shows how much advertisers expect people to be ‘normal’, to do certain things at certain times of the year. I find that fascinating.
Cinematics
Posted: Sun 30 December, 2012 Filed under: Cinema, Domestic, Finances, Seeing Films Leave a comment »Looking back at the list I’ve kept it looks like I’ve seen 26 films this year, since May. Yeah, yeah, I kept a list – mainly because I wanted to make sure I was getting value for money from the Cineworld Unlimited ticket, but also because well, I’m a geek.
There’s probably a couple I saw pre-May, but all the same, 26 isn’t bad going. It’s been eight months since I joined Cineworld, at £15 a month, adding up to £120. 26 films would’ve cost me in the region of £260, which makes it pretty worthwhile.
In the course of 2012, I even had a couple of months where I didn’t go to see films – primarily July / August, when it was all really dire shite (in my opinion) with nothing I really fancied. So that total probably means that I really should get out more, just not to the cinema.
I won’t bore anyone with the list of films – I know I’ve got dire taste in films, but I like escapism.
2013’s going to be a year for more of the same, I’m sure. The ticket is worthwhile – it would’ve taken only 12 films to pay for itself, and I doubled that – so it makes sense to keep on with it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
What a Year
Posted: Mon 24 December, 2012 Filed under: 2011/12, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts Leave a comment »It really has been quite a year.
In the last twelve months, I’ve…
- Moved house. Twice.
- Changed jobs. Twice. (And also gone from Contractor to Permanent Employee)
- Declared Bankruptcy
- Started rebuilding everything
There’s been a fair amount of other stuff going on as well – not least, a constantly increasing workload – but they’ve been the main events.
This time last year, I had eased off D4D a lot – there was only one post in December, for example – but that’s slowly coming back. It’s not back to the old glories yet – maybe in 2013, who knows – but things are definitely on the way back up.
The Festering Season, 2012
Posted: Tue 18 December, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Festering Season, Introspective, Shopping, Thoughts 1 Comment »For whatever reason, 2012’s Festering Season hasn’t really had as much of an impact on me as usual.
Maybe I’m mellowing. Maybe I’ve just given up on it as an unwinnable fight. I don’t know.
I still get annoyed by the bullshit commerciality of the entire enterprise – things like
- seeing Christmas cards in the shops before Hallowe’en
- Hearing Christmas Carols in November
- Mince Pies with a ‘best before’ in November
- All the insane consumer-driven shopfests in December – particularly in supermarkets
But for whatever reason, I can’t really find it in me at the moment to rant about it. Maybe I’m feeling pretty chilled at the moment, maybe it’s just (as I said before) because it’s pretty much an unwinnable fight. Maybe I’m just a bit tired of being ranty.
Whatever the reason, it just hasn’t annoyed me as much as usual.
Weird Dreamage
Posted: Mon 17 December, 2012 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts 4 Comments »Last night, I woke up to the sound of one of the cats puking. It’s a distinctive sound, to say the least.
Weirdly, this morning I could find no sign of it happening – which is worrying.
It means either
- The cat puked, and then it’s been eaten (either by the same cat, or one of the others) or…
- I dreamed it. (Dreamed? Dreamt? Not sure)
If it’s Option One, that’s pretty gross, and doesn’t usually happen.
If it’s Option Two then then I think I really need to worry about my brain, because I dread to imagine what any dream analyst would come up with as a reason to dream about a cat puking.
Forward Thinking
Posted: Fri 14 December, 2012 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night, my drive home (less than twenty miles, all on motorway) took nearly two hours. The cause? A truck with a blown tyre, needing to get it replaced. Because it was an offside wheel, Health and Safety now apparently means that the inside lane needs to be coned off and closed as well, ensuring a safe (or at least comparatively so) workspace for the people replacing the tyre. And I’ve got to be honest, that’s one job I wouldn’t fancy.
I understand that need though, and it doesn’t annoy me. It’s one of those things – it’s not like the trucker planned it to happen, it’s just a facet of the number of miles trucks do. Shit happens.
But while that was the cause of the delays, it wasn’t the reason for the delays. The reason is something that does piss me off – shitty drivers (and particularly the so-called ‘professional drivers’ of trucks, coaches etc.) who don’t move out of the closed lane ’til the last possible second.
In this case, the ‘lane closed’ warnings were in place for eight or nine miles beforehand – and the delays went all that way back. And all of that distance, people were sticking into that lane that they knew was closed – that the signs were reporting as closed. I kept on seeing ‘professional drivers’ bombing down the hard shoulder as well, trying to avoid the stuck traffic. I truly hope those cunts got hauled in by the police and/or Highways Agency, but I’m willing to bet they didn’t.
The only time these (primarily truck-driving) fuck-knuckles moved out of ‘their’ lanes was once the cones were pushing them out, so they had to come in to the next lane, and squeeze in at the last second. It buggers things up, because the people already in that lane then have to move out, or brake and pause to let the fuck-knuckles in, and every time that happens, the jam behind gets worse.
If people moved out in plenty of time, paid heed to the road signs, and worked with the flow of traffic, the entire thing wouldn’t be anywhere near the hassle it proved to be last night.
Oh, who am I trying to kid? It’s never going to happen.
Life of Pi
Posted: Tue 11 December, 2012 Filed under: Cinema, Domestic, Reviews(ish) | Tags: #lifeofpi 2 Comments »Last night, I went to see the new film of Life of Pi. I’ve not read the book – when it comes to films, sometimes I find it’s better to not be locked on ‘it’s not the same as the book’ – so I went with an open mind to see what it was like.
All told, it’s an impressive film – and for the first time, one where I would actually suggest seeing the 3D version, as that added a visual layer which I imagine the 2D version lacks. Certain shots – of Pi watching the ship sink, for example – had an real ‘depth’ to them.
Visually it’s beautiful. There are some stunning scenes, and the vision of the film is exceptional.
Technically, it’s stunning – the CGI for the animals is some of the best I’ve seen, and you do believe that the tiger is there in the boat.
But – ah, there’s always a but. For a film so much about belief, miracle, and wonder, it feels (or felt, to me) soul-less. I’ve had this issue with Ang Lee‘s films before – they’re beautiful, excellent films. It’s just that they have no heart, no passion. Other people’s perspectives vary, obviously, but for me, I just come out feeling somewhat dissatisfied.
All told, it’s worth seeing, and it’s a good film. It’s just not a great film. (Again, in my view)
But I will have to go and read the book now, and see if that adds more to the film…
Greying
Posted: Tue 11 December, 2012 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »One (of many) questions about aging that keeps occurring to me :
What the hell is it with hairs growing on ears? It never used to happen – why has it started to as I get older?
Inside Claridges
Posted: Fri 7 December, 2012 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, London, People, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »On BBC currently there’s a wonderful documentary series called “Inside Claridges”. Obviously it’s a ‘behind the scenes’ look at how Claridge’s Hotel runs – and it’s absolutely fascinating, a true “How the other half live”
The entire thing is quite, quite mad – I understand why and how they do what they do, but it really is potty. For example, taking photos of how a suite is laid out when a guest leaves, so that it can be laid out the same way if/when they return to the hotel in the future. I suppose if you’re paying £5,500 per night it’s the kind of invisible thing you expect – and yes, I think paying £5,500 per night is utterly obscene – but to me, it’s also potty.
All told, it’s a really sweet little series, well worth catching on repeats, iPlayer or whatever. It’s what BBC documentaries should be (in my opinion) about – things that the general viewer will never see, the way other people live, even if those lives are completely antithetical to our own.
Sightseers
Posted: Sun 2 December, 2012 Filed under: Cinema, Domestic, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Over this weekend, I went to see Sightseers, a new British film. It is very dark, basically about two dysfunctional people who form a relationship, and go away on a week’s caravan trip. Strange – and very British – tourist places merge with a tale of murder, serial killing, and general black humour.
An example line “He wasn’t human, he was a Daily Mail reader”.
I really enjoyed it – it’s not your run of the mill Hollywood offering, which is always a good thing – but I suspect it’s probably an acquired taste. If you like oddball British films, it’ll be right up your street.
Rapid Construction
Posted: Fri 30 November, 2012 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »(I was going to call this “Swift Erection”, but thought better of it)
Over the last couple of months, a new warehouse has been being built on the Gazeley G-Park on the run in to Milton Keynes. It’s actually a new bottling plant for Barr’s (Irn Bru, Tizer etc.) which will come online in February 2013.
What’s been really surprising and interesting is the sheer speed that this building has gone up. Three months ago, there was nothing there. Then the scaffolding framework went up in a couple of weeks, and the cladding is now complete. All told, I think it’s been about six weeks from start to finish – and that’s impressive by anyone’s standards.
It’s one of those things that’s made me wish I could have set up a time-lapse camera to see it done properly. Ah well.
Little Things
Posted: Tue 27 November, 2012 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Thoughts 1 Comment »Yesterday morning, the 20-mile commute to work took nearly two hours. The M1 was absolutely rigid, the residue of earlier accidents – and the other side was stuffed as well due to shitbag idiots rubbernecking at the accidents.
About the only high point was that for the entire time, I was right behind a Mclaren MP4-12C (one of the ugliest car names in Christendom) which is a thing of beauty. It’s the little things that make a day easier.
But it was another example of something that’s always left me a bit bemused – in the UK (and probably most other countries too) just what is the point of a supercar / hypercar like the Mclaren? By the time you get to the UK’s legal limit, you’re lucky if you’re in third gear, and the top speed (205mph) is nearly 3 times the legal limit.
I can see the point of owning things of beauty – but to me, it’s also about using that thing, letting it fulfil its potential.
I guess I understand the concept, I just don’t really get the point.
Counting Down
Posted: Mon 26 November, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Thoughts Leave a comment »Did you realise that one month from today, the Festering Season will be all over and done with for another year?
How time flies…
Masterchef Australia
Posted: Fri 23 November, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks, I’ve really got into Season 4 of Masterchef Australia on Watch. I’ve liked the UK Masterchef series, but the Australian version is very different, and much more enjoyable. (and addictive)
It’s indefinably Australian in feel – while the food is (obviously) of significance, there’s a secondary priority, that of teamwork, of ‘mates’, and I think that’s what makes it as a series.
Indeed, in one particular ‘pressure test’ the two combatants ended up working together, making the entire task work, and that teamwork and friendship was rewarded with the fact that neither person was removed from the competition. (And one of that pair actually goes on to win the competition)
I don’t watch many of the so-called ‘reality’ programmes (Hell, I’m not even sure Masterchef falls into that category – it’s more competition, I suppose) but I can’t deny, I’ve really enjoyed this series of Masterchef Australia.
Seeking Proofreaders
Posted: Thu 22 November, 2012 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Education, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »One of my favourite stories today is that of the Suffolk school that’s now hiring proofreaders to check for mistakes in teachers reports. Yes, really.
From the story…
Northgate High School said the role would include correcting “spelling mistakes, poor or missing punctuation, incorrect capitalisation” and improving “poor grammar”.
The role at the local authority school pays £14 an hour.
Headteacher David Hutton said the work indicates the “high level of professionalism” at the school.
Surely a better mark of the ‘high level of professionalism’ at the school would be to hire teachers who – you know – are capable of spelling correctly and using grammar properly in the first place? After all, if they’re making mistakes on the reports, I’d be pretty damn sure they were making the same mistakes in lessons…
Waiting / Wasting Time
Posted: Wed 21 November, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Shopping, Shopping, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »One of my regular activities (and of course everyone else’s regular activities) is the domestic shop – it’s not something I enjoy too much, but it’s got to be done. And at the same time I find it fascinating in some ways.
Mainly I love observing people, looking at their motivations, habits, and mindsets. I don’t always understand those mindsets and actions – as with the Reverse Parking thing I commented on a while back.
There’s going to be more of these posts, I think – it’s all making me think a lot about people, their psychology, the mindset for shopping and so on. It’s all just in my head a bit.
Anyway – back to the point of this one. Still in the supermarket carpark, I’m afraid.
So here’s the thing – why do people feel the need to park as close as humanly possible to the actual store? Even to the extent of driving round the nearest loop three or four times, rather than finding a space somewhere else? And particularly to the extent of sitting waiting for someone to load their shopping into the car, return the trolley, and then (eventually) drive off, leaving a queue of people behind, and generally screwing up the entire circuit ?
Me, I park further out, dump straight into a parking slot, and get on with the job. Last weekend I managed to do that, go in, shop, and come back out while at least one twat was still waiting for a parking spot on his circuit.
In short, I really don’t get the concept of ‘saving time’ by parking close to the store, if you have to circle repeatedly and wait for a spot.
King’s Cross – 25 Years
Posted: Sun 18 November, 2012 Filed under: Getting Old(er), Public Transport, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »It really doesn’t seem possible that it’s now 25 years since the fire at King’s Cross station in London which killed 31 people.
It’s not (for me at least) one of those events where you always remember where you were when you heard about it, but it was still a major event, and brought about so many changes with train stations, including replacing all the wooden escalators with metal ones, banning smoking in stations (it had already been banned on the trains, but was OK in stations) and secondary influences and improvements for things like fire-fighting services and so on.
But knowing it’s 25 years ago is a real surprise – time flies, and all that jazz.
Critical Reading
Posted: Fri 16 November, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Education, Food, Literacy, Pedantry, Thoughts 6 Comments »As has been observed many times over the years, I can be a really picky/pedantic bastard – particularly when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and literacy in general. And it’s true, I am all of those things.
Today I’ve been proof-reading a menu for the work Christmas Do (of which more at some other point) – and with some of the errors, had to check the original menu.
So – would you still go to a place whose menu has spelling errors? I realise that the typing and publication of the menu won’t have come direct from the chef, and will have been farmed out to someone on reception (or similar) – but really, if chefs / owners are so obsessed about control, wouldn’t that also extend to the menu, and how it represents the establishment ?
In this case, some of the spelling errors are pretty basic – Mascarpone , for example, is mis-spelled. In others, it’s the actual cooking techniques themselves, such as “Ballantine” instead of “Ballotine”. And I just find that a bit worrying – for if there’s that lack of attention to details in the menu, I can’t help but think there might be the same lack of attention when it comes to the food.
41 to 42
Posted: Mon 5 November, 2012 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and plans of things I’d like to do in the forthcoming year. So yeah, this is one of those posts. Again.
To be fair, I do get a decent(ish) lump of stuff off the list done when I post and then review a while later, but I do also have a tendency to want to do more than I actually have the time (and, more importantly, the inclination) for. But still, good intentions, and the knowledge of more personal time, we’ll see how this one goes.
Over the next year I would like to…
- Write more
- Weigh less
I might add some others along the way, but for now I think that’s enough to be going on with.
Hallowe’en
Posted: Wed 31 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Hypocrisy, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Yes, once again it’s that time of year.
The one where, after telling children all year that they shouldn’t talk to strangers, let along accept sweets etc. from strangers, it’s now acceptable – but only for one night (and the following weekend, of course) – to go knocking on doors and – um – accept sweets from strangers.
What could possibly go wrong?
I feel the same about Santa in the Festering Season – again, don’t talk to strangers, but oh, it’s ok this time because you’re talking to Santa and accepting presents. Hey, good move.
In short, ’tis the season to introduce your children to hypocrisy and double-standards. Enjoy.
Product Placement
Posted: Mon 29 October, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cinema, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I went to see the new Bond film, Skyfall. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle about the product placement in the film, Bond drinks Heineken, etc. etc. – so among other things I wanted to see if it actually made one jot of difference to the film.
And of course it doesn’t. The Heineken bottle, for example, is only visible for about ten seconds – and even then you don’t get to see the brand name. Sure, you can recognise the label, but the actual brand isn’t there. Which I thought was interesting.
There’s actually a lot of product placement – but I don’t get the current kerfuffle about it, to be honest. Bond films have *always* been a bonanza of product placement. Why scream about the product placement of a bottle of beer, in comparison to – for example – Aston Martin’s deal? Oh no, sorry, that’s ‘classic’, so somehow it doesn’t count. Bond is a label queen, always has been, always will be.
Take a second, think of all the names/brands that you mentally link to Bond…
- Aston Martin
- Lotus
- Walther PPK
- Martini (I know it’s the name of the cocktail, but all the same)
- Bollinger champagne
And that’s just ten seconds thought.
To me it’s interesting, seeing the things that people *perceive* as product placement, versus what’s there as either ‘classic’ stuff, or simply not realised.
In Skyfall, sure, the Sony Vaio brand is all over the place, and not particularly subtle. But there’s all the old favourites too. Audi cars are used in most scenes, and there’s a couple of references to VW Beetles which I’m quite certain aren’t coincidental.
Personally, I find product placement to be less intrusive than normal advertising. Well, at least when it’s done properly – I can think of a few really bad examples of super-obvious tie-ins that were just painful (I, Robot’s obsession with Converse and Audi, for example, and the Cisco overdose on Transformers films) – but for the most part it’s something my brain can gloss over.
Indeed – and again, from a personal perspective – I found that the pre-film adverts, also 90% Bond-related were far more intrusive, and led me to the point of being pissed off with Bond before the film had even started.
Product-placement and tie-ins I can live with. Related advertising is far worse.
Versions of Stability
Posted: Mon 22 October, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Not only have I been at the house for nearly six months, I’ve been in the same job now for eight months – two-and-a-bit as a contractor, and the rest as a permanent employee. By my standards, that’s pretty long term.
I’ll be there for a while yet, too – there’s plenty of challenges ongoing, and I’m actually enjoying it.
All told, it’s about having some stability for the moment. So much has changed over the last couple of years, and even more so in the first six to eight months of this year. I’m pretty sure that the next year is going to be a lot more stable – Lord, I hope it is, anyway – but with the house and the job pretty much squared away, I feel a lot better about the rest.
I do need to still make some changes – I need to get back to getting out more, for example. I’ve found that I’ve been appreciating having my own time and space, but I know that can be a bit of a trap.
But I’ll get there.
Odd Name Choice
Posted: Sun 14 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Commuting, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »Travelling on the M1 today, I saw a truck for a company called “Fly By Nite” (a courier company)
Now in my mind, “Fly by Night” (regardless of the spelling) is synonymous with something really dodgy – usually smuggling, and the like.
So it seems like an odd choice for a name, but maybe I’m wrong.
Would you use a company where the name was (in your perception) dodgy?
Advertising Irritation
Posted: Wed 10 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cinema, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »A few days back, I whiffed on about awful adverts in the cinema, ones that have a different effect on people than was perhaps expected
This piece of crap – for Coke Zero, as part of the Skyfall marketing behemoth – is a perfect example.
You can just tell that the ad agency- and probably the client- thought it conveyed a sense of humour, something new and fun to be talked about. But in the cinema, it gets no reaction, no laughter, nothing. (Although there is the occasional “Fuck sake”, or similar)
Super-Specific
Posted: Tue 9 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »Another set of thoughts about advertising, I’m afraid. It’s becoming a bit of a theme at the moment – although that probably indicates I’m watching too much TV, or something.
Anyway, in this case the advert in question is for Lloyds TSB Bank, and their Vantage account.
The ad is making a big deal of their 4% AER interest rate. But take a listen, (and/or a look) at the conditions.
- To qualify for that rate, your account must have a minimum balance of £5,000, and the interest rate is payable up to a maximum balance of £6,000
- You have to open an account and have two direct debits set up by the end of October
- Your account must have at least £1,000 paid in each month, and must stay in credit
Indeed, it’s so specific, I wonder whether anyone will actually qualify for this ‘deal’ at all…
Captive Audience – Part Two
Posted: Sat 6 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cinema, Cynicism, Domestic, Legal, Thoughts Leave a comment »While at the cinema, there’s one other piece of ‘advertising’ (Well, I suppose it comes termed as adverts, but really “lectures” is a better term) that annoys me excessively.
Those adverts/lectures are the anti-piracy lectures, and the one that really fucking grates is this one…
Now bear in mind, this is being shown at the cinema. Everyone who is watching this advert has paid to see the bastard film – we’re not the ones that need to be preached to about not pirating films.
For these pieces of shit, we – the cinema-going audience – are a captive audience. We can’t fast-forward, we can’t go and get a cup of tea, we pretty much have to watch the fucking thing. And it’s preaching to the people who are (I suspect) the least likely group to be pirating films.
Even worse, the adverts are actually counter-productive. Because let’s face it, pirate copies don’t have these bloody anti-piracy adverts on them. And that, to me, is a point in favour of pirated films.
Captive Audience – Part One
Posted: Fri 5 October, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cinema, Creativity, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few months, I’ve been going to the cinema more – the Cineworld Unlimited ticket has it’s uses, and what the hell, I like films. For £15 a month, I’m seeing as many films as I want, and that’s fine. More than one a month, and it’s paying for itself.
The downside of it, though, is the bloody adverts. I don’t know why or how, but cinema advertising is incredibly bad. Trailers are OK (although it all gets a bit samey after a while) but the adverts themselves are just bad.
And it’s interesting too, to see how the audience react to those adverts. I know that agencies do test viewings and so on to gauge reaction, but they really should try going to the cinema and seeing – and to some degree hearing – the reaction there.
Orange currently are one of the biggest culprits. They seem to do one ad per season – Summer’s one was based round the Expendables 2 film, and Autumn’s one is based around The Sweeney. They’re meant to be funny (I think) but they get so dull with repetition, and the Autumn one isn’t getting any reaction at all. (Understandable really, because it’s a) weird and b) shit )
Overall, I think the worst times are where ads try to be funny, and the audience stay stony-faced, not a noise from them. It’s just cringe-worthy.
I don’t know what can be done to fix it – other than lots of viewer research and surveys, and ideally a shitload more creativity – but it’s still interesting about the reactions, or lack thereof.
Not guilty, yet guilty
Posted: Thu 27 September, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, News, Thoughts 13 Comments »[Disclaimer : I know fuck-all about football, and generally couldn’t care less]
I really, truly do not understand the Football Association (FA).
In today’s news, John Terry has been given a four-match suspension, and a £220,000 fine for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand during a match last year. Fair enough, racial abuse is never right (even among footballers), and those doing these things should be punished.
Ah, but. In this case Terry had already been cleared back in July by Westminster Magistrate’s Court of the exact same offence.
So what I don’t understand is why someone can be cleared in a court of law, but punished by a player’s association? Or have I missed something relevant?
Mass Transit
Posted: Sat 22 September, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Public Transport, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »While I’m no hater of public transport in general (with the exception of Virgin Trains, but that’s a different matter) I find that at the moment I’m a bit bemused by the apparent craze in cities for “Guided Busways” at the moment.
When I was in Norfolk/Suffolk and working around Cambridge, they had the Cambridge Guided Busway (also known as “The Busway“) being constructed, and now I’m working near Luton, I see the same construction going on for the Luton-Dunstable Busway.
I do understand the thoughts of getting buses out of the main roadways, freeing them up to run punctually and not affect (or be affected by) other traffic. That makes sense. But as far as I understand it, the perceived negatives far outweigh those positives.
As I see it currently…
- Guided busways reduce the number of available stops, and easy-on/easy-off of ‘normal’ bus routes
- The investment required is massive
- The construction takes a long time, and so
- The disruption involved is equally massive
- In short, it appears to be a total pain in the arse.
I wonder what the real motivations for these things are – I assume there are a whole load of incentives, grants and funding whatevers for this kind of boondoggle.
Revisiting
Posted: Fri 21 September, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Thoughts Leave a comment »While I was up in Manchester last weekend, I had a bit of a tour of the places I used to live. Well, I was (fairly) close, so I thought “What the hell”.
Two of the three places were there, and pretty much unchanged.
But the third is – well – no longer there. The entire area, probably three or four hundred houses all told, is gone. It’s all been demolished, and left as green space with just wooden borders on the edges.
The view from where my front door used to be
I don’t know what the plans are for the future development of the area, and I know that the area wasn’t great – but did all the houses really need to be demolished? They were OK houses, and just that one area could’ve been used to sort out all the homeless in the city.
Mileage, Weekends and Location
Posted: Thu 20 September, 2012 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »The last couple of weekends have been (again) pretty high-mileage all told. For once it’s been more about domestic travel and friends than being work-based, although work’s also been in there.
The weekend before last was seeing friends in Middlesbrough, which was a good weekend – even with a vile detour on the way home due to roadworks on the A19. These things are sent to try us, and all that.
Last weekend I went to see other friends in Manchester, and then to a company in Stockport before coming home late on the Monday.
More than anything else, the travelling has reinforced just how central I am in the new place – everywhere’s pretty easy to get to. Indeed, looking at a drive-range of 3 hours, I can cover most of England as well as a fair chunk of Wales.
That 3-hour drive means I can get to our office down in Devon, or up to Middlesbrough. If you look at a map, that’s a huge area.
Fault Lines
Posted: Sun 2 September, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Introspective, Thoughts 1 Comment »This last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about fault, about responsibility, and about change.
I’m not perfect – thank the Lord, I’ve never claimed to be – and the recent events are a wonderful example of that. I’ve made mistakes, and plenty of them – bad decisions and bad judgement calls. And I take the responsibility for that. Even the bankruptcy isn’t absolving me of that responsibility, I’ll still be paying, except it’s through the Official Receiver.
I’ve made bad decisions, and I’m learning from them. I won’t make the same ones again.
Sure, I’ll make other ones – I’m not perfect. But I do at least try my best to not repeat the same ones.
I’m not trying to lay fault for my actions and choices, I’m not absolving myself. The bankruptcy is ‘just’ a more affordable way of taking that responsibility – one I can actually live with, and manage. It’s made a major change to my life, in a good way, but it doesn’t mean things are easy. Not by a long chalk.
30 Things
Posted: Mon 20 August, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Depression, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, People, Thoughts 4 Comments »via Blue Witch , I came across Black Dog Tribe‘s “30 things to stop doing to yourself“. It’s a great list – I think probably most people don’t do all of them, but most do some of them, at least.
I’ve copied it here for posterity, and so I can come back to it when I want/need to. It’s particularly relevant for me at the moment, with all the other stuff that’s going on, so I hope it helps others too.
- Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
- Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living — to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
- Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
- Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
- Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you likeeveryone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
- Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
- Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
- Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
- Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
- Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.
- Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
- Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
- Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen — in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
- Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
- Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others are doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
- Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: ‘What’s something I have that everyone wants?’
- Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
- Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, ‘What you did to me is okay’. It is saying, ‘I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.’ Forgiveness is the answer- let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
- Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
- Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
- Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
- Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
- Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.
- Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
- Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either — cry if you need to — it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
- Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility — you give others power over that part of your life.
- Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
- Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?’ If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
- Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
- Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
Enjoy.
Changing Status – The Costs
Posted: Sun 12 August, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Thoughts Leave a comment »Of everything to do with the bankruptcy proceedings, I think I found the worst bit to be the costs involved. Yes, if you didn’t know (and why would you unless you’ve had to do it?) it costs a significant amount of money to declare that – um – you have no money.
It costs £175 for the court fee, to get everything processed. That’s not so bad, and I can pretty much understand that one.
The other costs is a stonking £525 for costs of administrating the bankruptcy. That one I have rather more issue with.
So all told, it’s £700 to pay in order to declare that you’ve got no money.
And yes, if you’re prepared to wait and go through the process of being declared bankrupt, it’ll cost you nothing (I think) but that takes significantly longer, so if you’re fiscally stuffed anyway, you’re just going to keep on juggling for longer.
Changing Status – Getting It Done
Posted: Sat 11 August, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Thoughts Leave a comment »Despite the bad advice from the Insolvency Service, getting the bankruptcy sorted was surprisingly painless – indeed, it was far easier than I’d been expecting it to be.
I had filled in all the paperwork before time, which obviously made life easier as well. The documents are all on the Insolvency Service website and the how-tos and advice are very useful.
Even at the wrong court, the people were really helpful. (We’ll gloss over the person from Bedford court who didn’t know the court’s postcode…) Bedford were also really understanding of the cock-up – one suspects it’s happened before – and did their utmost to get things sorted.
I’ve never actually been in a court building before – never done jury service, never done anything court-worthy (or at least never been caught) – so I was pretty nervous, it’s fair to say.
I was fully expecting to have to see the judge / magistrate, but as it turned out that wasn’t the case. I paid the fees (of which more in another post) and waited. I had to go round to the court waiting room while the usher(?) took the documents to the judge. They came back, with everything signed off – I didn’t even have to go in.
And then it was just the time to get the order typed up and processed, and that was it. Less than two hours, from entering the building to leaving it.
Wild and Free
Posted: Fri 10 August, 2012 Filed under: Animals, Stupidity, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night, Channel 4 had a documentary on the 2011 Ohio “Exotic Animal Release” called “America’s Animal Hoarder“. It’s not easy viewing, but it’s worth seeing.
It’s an amazing documentary, reflecting an episode I’d actually not heard about. Basically, Terry Thompson, a veteran of Vietnam, had amassed (legally) a collection of wild/exotic animals – Lions, jaguars, tigers, bears and more. On October 18, 2011, Thompson released his animals, and committed suicide. No-one really knows why – he’d been in jail, he was in debt, and (from the sound of the documentary) he had significant – and known – mental health issues.
In Ohio, there’s no law about the keeping of exotic/deadly animals. Thompson had also been a licensed “Class 3” firearms dealer (among other things) which allowed him to sell automatic firearms. He was a known “hoarder” – of vehicles, animals, anything.
It’s a really disturbing documentary, particularly if you happen to be an animal lover, or a fan of (particularly) big cats – and I qualify on both. They had to be shot dead – there was no other alternative, no way to tranquilise 50-60 animals and keep them safely. All the existing pens had been cut open – Thompson had cut the wire fencing, not just opened the doors.
The final toll was
- 8 tigers
- six black bears
- two grizzlies
- two wolves
- one macaque monkey
- one baboon
- three mountain lions
- nine male lions, and
- eight lionesses
You just can’t imagine having to kill that many rare animals – and knowing there’s no choice.
Really really sad – but as much of an indictment of Ohio law (and in some ways American laws in general) as of one individual with such obvious issues. Very, very sad.
Changing Status
Posted: Fri 10 August, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Thoughts | Tags: Finances 4 Comments »So, while D4D™ was celebrating turning ten , my own life was getting changed too.
I spent the morning in county court (technically two county courts, but more on that in a minute) declaring myself bankrupt. It’s a huge decision, but it’s the right decision for me. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of months, figuring out all the options (or lack thereof) and what they meant for me.
It’s been a tough ride, this year. I’ve lost a relationship with someone I really cared about (and still miss), moved house, and changed jobs – including one contract boffing out on me and costing me quite a bit of money, although that change meant I was available for the job I’ve got now, starting with a contract and going permanent. And of course all of those changes just kept on adding kicks to the finances.
I don’t blame anyone else, or put the responsibility for it at any door other than my own. I’ve tried balancing and juggling things all year – probably longer, if I’m honest – but it’s been getting harder and harder.
Anyway, today was the day. I’d checked with the Insolvency Service which court I needed to go to (I live pretty much halfway between the Bucks and Beds county courts) and they’d said Milton Keynes. So I got there, and they said I was in the wrong one, and needed to be in Bedford. Nightmare.
Anyway, Bedford court were really impressive, and it all went really smoothly in the end. I went through the process – scarily, they’ve had over 140 others this year already- and everything was signed and typed up within two hours.
I know there’s a long way to go yet, and this is just the first step. I know it’ll take time to get properly sorted – at least a year – but this is A Good Thing.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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?
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…
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.
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…
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.
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…
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?
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.
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” ?
40
Posted: Sat 5 November, 2011 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Fucking Hell, I’m 40 today.
Seriously feeling old.
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.
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.
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]
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?
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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]
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.
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?
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?
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 ?!?
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.
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.
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.
It’s not about religion
Posted: Sat 14 August, 2010 Filed under: News, Security, Thoughts 8 Comments »In today’s news there’s been a big thing about Barack Obama defending the right to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site in New York.
The best bit of it all though was the quoted parts of the speech…
We must all recognise and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan, Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear, as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as anyone else in this country.”That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”
He told the group of US Congressmen, government officials and foreign dignitaries that America’s tradition of religious tolerance distinguishes it from “our enemies”.
“Al-Qaeda’s cause is not Islam,” he said, “it is a gross distortion of Islam”.
And that’s the primary point for me – Al-Qaeda is not an Islamic cause, the current phase of “islamic terrorism” isn’t about islam at all, it’s just about terror. Anyone who thinks that these terrorist episodes are about religion really is a bloody moron – religion is (as always) the convenient talking-point to support the ’cause’.
Zero Fatality?
Posted: Sat 7 August, 2010 Filed under: Driving, Geeky, Thoughts 1 Comment »Via a couple of other sites, I saw a thing today about Volvo’s “Vision 2020” project, which says (among other things)
By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo”. This statement from 2008 clearly formulates a long-term vision to create cars that will not crash. Volvo Cars’ strategy to achieve Vision 2020 includes cooperating with social partners, integrating preventative and protective safety systems into the car and, in particular, to better understands people in traffic situations. Driver behaviour is a contributing factor in over 90 percent of all accidents.
That’s pretty ambitious.
There’s a lot of technology out there making cars safer – ComputerWorld has an interactive view of car safety features in this ‘zero-fatality’ concept as well as a feature about how ‘zero-fatality’ cars are being designed and built.
But zero fatalities? That’s a leap. It might not be the driver (or even the inhabitants of the car at all) that die- but what about pedestrians hit by the car, for example? Sure, there’s stuff there to warn you of their presence, but if you ignore it, will the car slam to a halt anyway? And would that be potentially even more dangerous for other road users?
I still find the concept of driverless cars to be fascinating, the machine-logic necessary and so on, but I think it’s close to an impossible dream. After all, to do it properly would be one hell of an implementation, as (I think) all cars would need to have the auto-driving implemented at the same time. It would be far too complex otherwise, with the potential for auto-driven vehicles in direct conflict with human-driven vehicles.
Maybe that particular change will be driven by the HGV and road-train market – being able to reduce costs and improve efficiency would be paramount.
Repeatedly Released
Posted: Fri 30 July, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Sometimes you look at a story and think “Oh, there’s got to be a lot more than that behind it”.
In this case, the story was about Arran Coghlan, the Cheshire ‘businessman’ who’s now been cleared of murder on three separate occasions. That’s going some. But really, the guy’s either incredibly unlucky to be caught up in these types of situations, or he’s involved in some way or another.
The three cases were :
- Cleared in 1996 of shooting Chris Little dead at the wheel of his Mercedes in Marple, Stockport.
- Stood trial for the murder of drug dealer David Barnshaw, who was kidnapped and forced to drink petrol before being burned alive in the back of a car in Stockport in 2001
- (The most recent) accused of shooting dead Stephen Akinyemi in a fight at his £2m home in Alderley Edge in February
Additionally, on New Year’s Day 2008, Coghlan was stabbed in the head, face and back in a frenzied attack in Cobdens Bar in Stockport.
There’s also the ‘small’ matter of an assault charge in an unrelated matter, for which he will be back at Liverpool Crown Court for a mention hearing in September.
You look at that story and you just have to assume that his businesses can’t be completely legitimate. That’s a lot of trouble for one businessman to be in, isn’t it?
Facebook Users
Posted: Thu 29 July, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, People, Technology, Thoughts 2 Comments »Radio One’s headline on this was “Facebook users details are available online” – which elicited a “Well, duh!” response from me. They’ve always been available online – at Facebook. All of the information held in this file was already available at Facebook – it’s just it would’ve taken a bit more effort to get it all.
Every one of the people listed in the file hadn’t set their privacy settings properly. That’s more of an indictment about either
- how complex Facebook made their privacy settings
- how stupid / lazy people are when it comes to those settings
- how people really don’t think about their privacy and security at all
And that’s it.
If you can’t be bothered to check your privacy settings, you deserve to have your details published. After all, if one person can do it, so can others.
Speed Cameras
Posted: Wed 28 July, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, People, Politics, Thoughts 2 Comments »It’s currently looking like one of the victims of this new political Age of Austerity (AKA The”Can we cut it? Yes, we can!” years) will be the funding for speed-cameras. Sorry, ‘safety cameras’.
So far Oxfordshire is one of the first to say they’ll be turning the fixed cameras off, which will save them some £600,000 a year.
I have to say that I really don’t have an issue with this – I think that getting rid of the cameras will (in most cases) actually make the roads a bit safer. Yes, there are rat-runs where people are stupid and drive too fast – but in my experience, speed cameras cause far more dangerous driving than they prevent.
One prime example of this is the A11/A14 around Cambridge (and I think I’ve written about this before) – the intersection where they join has a speed camera just after it. I’ve seen far too many near-accidents at that point, where people have been feeding in just fine from the A11 at 70mph(ish) and then have to slap the brakes on because the people in front of them have dropped from 70mph to 50mph to get past the camera. Yes, it’s down to human stupidity to drop to 50mph – 70mph is fine for going past that particular camera – but it’s still a much more dangerous junction because of the speed camera.
You see the same thing all over the place – people suddenly slowing from an already-legal speed, just to “make sure” they don’t get done by the camera.
So yeah, I think that getting rid of the cameras might just be an improvement to road safety in general, rather than a detriment to it.
Ferrari and F1
Posted: Mon 26 July, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the weekend at the German Grand Prix Ferrari were deeply unsubtle about their team orders, and forced one driver to give way to the other, allowing Fernando Alonso to win the grand prix. For this, they’ve been fined $100,000 (approx £65,000) but haven’t lost points or anything.
The fine is pretty much insignificant to Ferrari, and this just sends out the message that it’s OK to run to team orders, you’ll just fork out a bit of cash. (In Formula 1 terms, £65,000 is probably a new engine or something)
If the race stewards had really wanted to send a message that running to team orders (and making it public knowledge) then they would have docked Ferrari all the points they gained from both Alonso and Massa, as well as all the manufacturer’s championship points from the race. That would’ve been a significant loss.
Personally I don’t have that great an issue with team orders. Sometimes they make sense – for example, if there were a standing order that if your team-mate is coming through, you’re not quite so aggressive at trying to block them, so you don’t wipe out both cars and stuff the team’s race completely. But the clear-cut engineering of who they want to win, that is (to me) not on. If you know there will be team orders like that, it puts F1 at the same level of competitiveness as professional wrestling.
Public vs Private
Posted: Fri 23 July, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »In my post about the mileage I’ve covered this month, Gordon pointed out
I use this invention called ‘the train’. Saves adding miles and miles to your car (cost).
And that’s a perfectly valid point. If I could, I’d use public transport – and particularly trains – a lot more. But there are some reasons why this month I couldn’t/didn’t/wouldn’t.
Among those reasons are :
- Hound
- Cost
- Convenience
- Time
- Practicality
Let’s look at just one of the journeys I did – taking Hound down to Berkshire – Wokingham, to be more precise – and compare driving to trains.
- Hound : There’s no way Hound could go on public transport without being muzzled. In the temperatures that were around when we did the journey, that’s just not going to happen – she’d be unable to pant properly or anything. She’d also be a complete pain in the arse – not just to me, but to everyone around – for the entire journey. And taking Hound through the London Underground while changing stations? You’re having a fucking laugh. In the car, she just slept in her basket, cool in the car’s air-con atmosphere.
- Cost : The cheapest I could do the journey, for a return ticket is (at the time of writing) £48.40. That’s not including getting to the station nearest home, or the cost of getting from station to kennels at the other end. (And back again) The 300 mile round trip in the car cost me about £30 – £35 (I can’t remember exactly) all in, door-to-door.
- Convenience : Again, door-to-door vs. all the fucking about of train travel, getting to station, travelling, three changes, getting from station to kennels, and back again. All while carrying dog stuff, my stuff, and the dog basket. Yeah.
- Time : Just for the train journey is four and a half hours. One way. Driving? Three hours one way. Door-to-door.
- Practicality : I’ll let you figure out which one’s best on this score. And we haven’t even touched on delays, travelling with other people, the ability to have peace and quiet while travelling, so on and so forth.
The trip to Manchester(ish) is an even better example, even if Hound’s not a factor…
- Hound : N/A
- Cost : Train (return ticket) £80.80 – best I can find. Car : £40 fuel.
- Convenience : Train ? Office to Bury St Edmunds Station. Three changes. Manchester to Oldham. Oldham to [Village]. Car? Door to Door.
- Time : Train (again, train only, one-way, not including sodding about) five hours. Car? 3 hours.
- Practicality : Car wins. Again. And I don’t need to fix everything around when the trains run.
I would use public transport more. But when you look at the factors in this way, you can see why I don’t…
Missing Options
Posted: Sat 17 July, 2010 Filed under: Business, Catering, Customer Services, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »On Saturday, the Js and I went out to the Olive Branch in Marsden, which they’d been to before and highly recommended.
The place is/was lovely, and the food was really good. Well worth the visit if you’re in the area.
There was one aspect that was really disappointing, though – and that was the vegetarian options. Both of the Js are veggie, and they’d said that the Olive Branch usually had a good selection. On this occasion though, the option was pasta. Fair enough, it’s “Ribbons of pasta, sauteed with mushrooms, garlic & sundried tomato, goats cheese & pine nuts“, but all the same, it’s pasta.
I think it’s still tremendously disappointing to go out to a restaurant and only see one or two fairly desultory veggie options. It just shows a complete lack of imagination and/or interest in the veggie market – and there’s a lot of vegetarians out there.
Even more importantly, if Herself had come along as well, she’d not have been able to eat anything, as she’s a) veggie and b) wheat-intolerant. Now sure, the Olive Branch says that you can let them know about food allergies/issues when ordering, but by then it’s a bit sodding late in some cases.
Doing good vegetarian options doesn’t take much – even a vegetarian stir-fry with some nice spices and a sauce is easily doable – and there are plenty of options out there. I just don’t know why the options aren’t more imaginative. Sure, not everyone is going to run a business like Greens in Didsbury, Manchester which is entirely vegetarian, but any decent chef could get some inspiration from the ideas there, or in any other veggie cookbook.
TV Scheduling
Posted: Mon 21 June, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »Apparently, Wimbledon starts today.
So at the moment we have :
- The World Cup
- Wimbledon
- Big Brother
What the hell? Which kind of numpty fuckbag came up with having all of that shit at the same time?
Additionally there’s also some rugby thing, and probably other bits too.
And don’t forget there’s also the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 11th July – the same day as the final of the World Cup. Doh!
Union Street Urban Orchard
Posted: Sun 20 June, 2010 Filed under: Green, Green Garden, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »While I was in London last night, I had to take a walk to try and find the car park I had planned to use.
While doing so, I came across the (closed at the time) Union Street Urban Orchard. I think it’s a fantastic idea :
Designed by Heather Ring of the Wayward Plant Registry and built with the help of Bankside Open Spaces Trust and an array of other helpful volunteers the garden will regenerate a disused site in Bankside and create a place for exchange between local residents and visitors to the Festival.
As the above quote from the site says, they’ve taken a disused site on Union Street, and created an urban orchard in it. They’ve recycled pallets, tyres, wood, glass and more to make the orchard. Sadly it’s only in situ until the middle of August- although at that point the trees from the orchard will be transplanted to three or four other sites around Bankside.
Personally I’d like to see this done far more often, creating valuable green/growing space in disused plots and areas throughout cities. Of course I realise that London prices are huge and the cost of those plots is almost certainly prohibitive – but at the same time if you can make use of those disused plots that aren’t doing anything anyway, well why not?
If all else fails, I think that local authorities could/should do a CPO on some of these disused plots, and actually make solid use of those plots for the local community.
The Union Street Urban Orchard is a fantastic project. I hope it puts ideas in the heads of a lot more people.
Giving Details
Posted: Sat 19 June, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, People, The '10 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing 4 Comments »A while back I wrote about Emma Ward, who’s been missing from the next village for about two months now. The police have now charged her husband (ex-husband? Widower? What’s the term for someone who’s suspected of killing their wife?) with murder, even though as yet they haven’t found her body. I guess there’s enough other evidence for them to know it’s been done, just not where she’s been disposed of.
Anyway, the police are now doing door-to-doors for “correlation”, just to find out if anything else has been seen, who’s visited the house, who knows the Wards etc. etc. We got visited yesterday as part of this, and had (well, we probably could’ve refused, but it would’ve looked even dodgier) to give all our information.
In a way it’s quite interesting really – the sheer amount of information that they take, and particularly information about us. Supposedly it’s all locked into a database just for this case (and when was the last time you trusted anyone who says “Oh, the information’s only accessible to this investigation”?) and is ‘only’ used for correlation – for example if other people said they’d seen someone approximating my description walking past while another suspicious vehicle was toodling along, they’d be able to come back and ask me more about that particular time/incident.
It’s all done through HOLMES (or more technically HOLMES II) which is apparently a very good bit of database and data-mining kit.
I don’t know if anything will come of it all – I doubt we ever will, unless they find Emma Ward’s body – but it’s been an interesting insight into the entire “murder investigation” thing.
iPhone v4
Posted: Fri 11 June, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Geeky, iPhone, Thoughts 3 Comments »As regular readers know, I’ve now had my iPhone 3GS for a couple of months. I’ve been surprised by how well I do get on with it in a lot of ways (although it does have some epic frustrations as well, mainly based around the keyboard) and how much more I use it than I expected to.
But I’m still not an evangelist on the thing. I’m not addicted to it or obsessed with it, and if something better came along, I’d have no problem with moving away from the iPhone.
So – as someone asked yesterday – would I want the newly announced iPhone 4 ? Am I envious of the people who will have one? Do I feel the need to upgrade as soon as possible?
In short, no. There’s nothing really on the new iPhone that is a deal-breaker for me. In fact the only thing that I’d like from it is the more advanced/powerful battery. I don’t need/want any of the other little doohickeys. I don’t make video calls anyway – never have – and the rest of it was all a bit underwhelming, really.
So if this one breaks, I wouldn’t have an issue with replacing it with a v4 iPhone. But I’m not going to go out and upgrade for the hell of it, or to have the latest/greatest. It’ll be updated again in 6-12 months anyway.
iPhone + D4D
Posted: Wed 9 June, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, iPhone, Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Since getting the iPhone a couple of months back, one development has surprised me more than any other. And that’s been the difference in how I use the phone and how D4D™ has changed since I got it.
Despite it’s comparatively crappy camera (bearing in mind that the previous phone had an 8Mp camera compared to this one’s 3Mp-ish) I’m using the camera part of the phone far more than on any other mobile I’ve had, and that has really surprised me. Some of it is, I suppose, the ease of taking photos off it – I primarily just email them to myself, and it’s a painless process, as opposed to that on the previous Sony-Ericsson phones. I don’t really know what the rest of the reasoning is, but whatever it is, it looks like D4D™ is becoming more photographic in nature.
That’s no bad thing of course. It’s just surprising (to me, anyway) that I’ve gone from pretty much all-written to having a noticeable portion of the posts having photos in them. Strange the way things work out, isn’t it? I don’t plan for D4D to turn into a full-on photoblog – I’ve got other plans on that score, thanks – but it’s just another change in the evolution of D4D™, I think.
Village Life
Posted: Sat 29 May, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, News, Norfolk, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »This week has been fairly eventful in the life of one of the nearby villages.
On Tuesday Norfolk police arrested a man about the suspicious disappearance of his wife, Emma Ward, who hasn’t been seen since the start of April. Since then the house has been taped off, and there’s always a police person sat outside it in a car. He’s been released on bail for the moment, but it’s all a bit “wait and see if she appears”. Her friends have put up a Facebook group, and it’s had coverage in the local media too.
It’s strange really – I walk past their house every day with Hound, and you realise afterwards that you haven’t seen two cars there for a while, but you don’t really think about it ’til something like this occurs. I do keep an eye open as I walk round, but still you don’t think about that kind of thing. I wouldn’t know either of them in the street – while I know some of the people in the village,and others as I walk round, I couldn’t put names to most of them, and I certainly don’t know their life histories. Maybe I should- personally I don’t think so, but there we go- but I don’t.
I’m not one of these “Oh, it’s so shocking that it happens near where we live” merchants – this kind of thing goes on wherever you live. It’s just it’s not the first thing in your head – “Oh, the car hasn’t been there. I wonder what’s happened to the owner”.
Of course I’ve mentioned it to the plod sat outside, that one car’s not been there for a while. In a fit of community spirit I even remembered that Google StreetMap had gone through the village a while back, and was able to give them a printout of the StreetMap photo of the house with the now-missing car in the driveway. (No numberplate, but it gives them a colour, make and model to work from) I’m sure they knew already, but well, I’d rather they got told thirty times than everyone assuming they’d got the information already.
My personal suspicion is that she’s dead. If she’d just disappeared then you’d think the husband would be the first person to report it, and to take far less than six weeks to do so. Not reporting her missing just makes you look so suspicious anyway, but the entire thing just strikes me as strange.
Ah, the intrigues of village life.
Wakefield Struck Off
Posted: Mon 24 May, 2010 Filed under: Health, News, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Today the GMC has struck off Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor whose ‘research’ caused so much of the tension and bad press for the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) innoculation jabs, and a purported link to induce autism-related conditions.
The GMC also said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London’s Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.
And the panel hearing the case took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son’s birthday party.
It also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.
Quite amazing, how this doctor’s research was both so universally accepted as Truth, and was so flawed from the start. That research has caused so many knock-on effects with the increasing incidence of both Measles and Rubella in children whose parents decided not to innoculate them because of the supposed issues.
Nearly Killing
Posted: Thu 20 May, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Today I nearly killed a child. That’s a pretty scary thing to have to write – and in this case there was nothing I could do about it, except avoid the situation.
On the way to work I popped in to the little supermarket to pick up a couple of things. No biggie. There’s a car-park right next to the shop for about six cars, and a bigger one on the other side of the (very minor) road, which is the one I use.
Coming back from the supermarket, there’s a family getting out of their car a couple along from me. There’s two adults and three kids, one of which gets put in a pushchair from the boot of the car. The mother (I assume) is managing the impressive task of talking on her mobile phone (which appears to be superglued between her ear and shoulder) while also talking to her partner, who’s getting back in the car.
To get out of the car park I have to reverse out and turn towards this group in order to get to the exit. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Yup, reversed out, keeping an eye on the two mobile kids. At no point did the mother even move from what she was already doing. No call to the kids to keep out the way, nothing.
It was as I was turning that I realised the kid in the pushchair was still behind the car – about three feet away from it, so pretty much slap bang in the middle of the carpark. Fortunately I was keeping an eye open, and missed everything by a good foot or two. Even then the mother didn’t move at all.
But – And there’s always those buts in hindsight, aren’t there – what if I’d done the turn closer to their car? What if there’d been cars parked on the other side, meaning I couldn’t roll back as far as I did? That pushchair was low enough that I couldn’t see it out of the rear-view mirror, couldn’t see it if I’d looked round and out the back window. It was only visible in the side mirrors as I came round.
If I’d been driving much faster, done the turn much tighter, or not been paying total attention, I’d have killed – or at least impacted with- a child today.
Customer Perception
Posted: Sat 15 May, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »For some reason these anti-depressants also seem to be turning me into some kind of altruistic do-gooder. Pretty scary stuff.
Mind you, in this case I’m pretty sure I’d have dealt with it regardless, but there we go.
Anyway, in this particular instance I was at the till in the local Sainsbury’s, and behind me was an old couple, one in a wheelchair with one of the disabled trolley things on the front. They were having serious issues with getting the stuff from the trolley onto the till belt, so I offered to help them. It embarassed the woman a bit I think, to be seen as “needing assistance”, but still I did help, and got it all done with them.
The bit that pissed me off though is that this particular till was the one where the till “supervisor” stands, and at the time there were three members of Sainsbury’s staff at that position, along with the useless sack of shit known as a security guard. All three of the staff had looked at the old couple, seen they were having problems, and ignored them. Cue the red mist.
Once I was done, I got the till supervisor over, and really gave him a bollocking. I don’t know if it’ll have any effect, but I think it got through to him pretty clearly that I was deeply pissed off, that it was incredible for three staff (plus a useless lump) to watch that couple and do nothing, and for it to end up with another customer helping them out instead of the staff doing it.
Revisitation
Posted: Tue 11 May, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday we went back to visit a pub I worked in at the end of ’95, the last pub I actually worked in. I was pretty much burned out by then, and the pub in Worcester was the last straw. It was a deeply negative experience, although it gave me the impetus to change things for the better.
It’s taken a long time to get even close to wanting to go back there. When we decided to come here, I had a look to see if the place even still existed – and it does, although it’s now been renamed “The Barn Owl” instead of The Poachers Pocket, which it was when I was there.
It’s been heavily redone since I last darkened the doors, totally refitted, old rooms closed off, new ones created. The place where I used to live (as a live-in assistant manager) has been sold off and is now a vet’s surgery. I could still all too clearly remember how it was, but it was interesting to see what’d been done to it, too.
All told, it’s really nothing like it was when I worked there – no bad thing. It’s still not a great place, and not one I’d choose to go to regularly, but all the same it’s a ghost that’s been laid to rest.
No bad thing.
My Own Policies
Posted: Fri 7 May, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts 2 Comments »Thank the lord, we’re finally through all the election guff. At the time of writing this, I don’t know who’ll have won the election.
I do think, though, that a plainly-put list of policies and ideas would’ve been a far better idea than the wanky ethereal guff spouted in most of the manifestos this year. And I reckon that if a party had put forward the following list, they’d have had a pretty good chance at getting in. I could be wrong, but I figure it’d be a set of policies I’d vote for, anyway.
The policies I’d put in are (in no particular order, but as they occur to me) :
- Banning HGVs and coaches from the outside lane of all multi-carriageway roads. That would mean HGVs and coaches could overtake etc on three-lane motorways by using the inner two lanes, but wouldn’t be able to do so on dual carriageways and two-lane motorways like most of the M11
- Reducing fuel duty
- Reducing our energy imports by increasing our nuclear-power capacity and promoting green energy
- Making Inland Revenue into an efficient organisation
- Local authority management reductions
- NHS improvements – removing managers, increasing “front-line” staff
- Speaking plainly and clearly rather than evasive waffle
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Electoral reform, making it law that everyone eligible has to vote, but there is a “None of the above” option on the ballot.
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Enforcing use of fuel duty/road tax to maintain/upgrade transport and roads
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Looking at re-nationalising train service, along with investment from the above point to upgrade rail network/rolling stock
How would this be paid for? By (to a greater or lesser degree) :
- Increasing tax for earners of >£100,000
- Chasing non-dom non-taxpayers
- Increasing VAT by 2.5% to 20% – when it was dropped from 17.5 to 15% everyone said it was a piss-poor reduction – so will they complain if it increases by the same?
- Improving efficiency – not by cutting costs, but by improving efficiency and reducing red tape and crap
There’s probably other bits I could add to this, but it seems like a pretty good list so far.
Mind you, I fully expect to be ripped apart on some of these by certain readers. 🙂
Election Day
Posted: Thu 6 May, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »In this democracy I as a citizen reserve the right to stand up for what I believe in
In this democracy I as a citizen I’m not accountable to the government
In this democracy the government is accountable to us, the people
In this democracy the government is elected by us, the people
To represent us, the people
In our best interests, on a national and international scale
And if they’re not doing so, In this democracy, I as a citizen reserve the right
To rise up
I will not move, I will not change
I will not bend or play their games
I will stand tall with a full frame
I will take pride to stake the claim
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To stand up for what I believe in
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To not just sit around, bitching and mourning
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To take action if action be needed
I swear, as a citizen of this country
To realize that the power is with us
And no one else…
I will not move, I will not change…
I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim
I will stake a claim
I will not move, I will not change…
© Scroobius Pip “Stake A Claim” (You can also find out more about Scroobius Pip here)
Contrasting Stories
Posted: Tue 4 May, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Looking at BBC News this morning, I saw this :
Contrasting Stories on the BBC
So toddlers watching TV causes them long-term harm, but more people are watching TV because they’ve no money.
Awesome.
New York
Posted: Sun 2 May, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Media, Thoughts Leave a comment »As always, I have a bit of an issue with the entire New York car bomb ‘plot’. Like the one in London, it’s a supposed car-bomb which fails to do anything.
What it does do though – if we’re to believe the entire over-arching terrorism theme of the last decade – is bring it all right back into the limelight (again) but with no casualties, no body count, no negative press, just front and centre in the media and stories where terrorism (yet again) paralyses a city.
I wrote a piece many many many moons ago (way before D4D was even an idea) about terrorism and PR which made the same kind of points, that if terrorism is about keeping one’s cause in the media, then the ‘best’ way is to do so without causing damage or loss of life. That way it’s all about how people are reacting to the threat of terrorism, not to the reality of terrorism. There’s a world of difference between the two.
After all, if you can “design” a device/event that can be the lead story in world-wide media for a week, and paralyse a city (even if only for a few hours) and do no damage whatsoever, that’s quite an achievement.
Even better, when people then go on TV to make big press/media announcement about how their country and their people won’t bow down to terrorism and it’s in response to something like this then I’m sorry, but terrorism’s won. You’ve already bowed to it, made people aware of those causes, and kept it in the mind.
Craven
Posted: Fri 30 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Much as I was disappointed by Frankie Boyle when he played the Cambridge Corn Exchange (and wouldn’t bother going to see him again anywhere) I do still like a lot of the things he says, does, and jokes about. (We’ll also get past that thing about the Down’s Syndrome jokes, which were stupid and based on attitudes from about twenty years ago)
I’ve also been impressed with his statement here about the apology issued “on his behalf” (and apparently without his knowledge) by the BBC in regard to jokes he made on a radio programme two years ago…
In case you missed it, the jokes in question are: ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well…that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’
I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.
The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.
The full statement (as per the above link) is available here
SNP and Equality
Posted: Thu 29 April, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yesterday the Scottish National Party were told that they won’t get a plinth in the final televised election debate. And quite right too.
The debates are for the national parties, the three with a chance of national rule. The SNP (and Plaid Cymru) haven’t got a chance of that. They’re not running a national campaign – so why should they have a national mouthpiece ?
Dickheads Day Out
Posted: Wed 28 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »The last two days of driving in to work have been populated with complete idiots, and one really close near-miss.
Yesterday I was belting under the A11, and a (female) driver came down off the A11 and turned out in front of me, didn’t even look to her right. She was on her phone, which is apparently some kind of excuse for being a fuckwit. Even better, when I swerved round her – fortunately there was nothing coming the other way – and used my horn, she decided that it was me being unreasonable.
Other than that notable experience, there’ve also been a whole bundle of people pulling out in front of me – allbeit while looking – as well as incredibly slow-moving trucks and tractors.
With tractors and farm machinery on the road (as I’ve said before) it drives me barmy that so many people seem to be so nervous about overtaking- particularly when there’s a long sweep of straight road where several cars could overtake the sodding things.
Still, all’s OK, and you do get to your destination eventually. But dear lord, it’d be nice to have a dickhead-free drive home…
Extended Life
Posted: Tue 27 April, 2010 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, iPhone, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the things that’s always irritated me about Herself’s iPhone is the piss-poor battery life it gets in everyday use. She has to recharge hers pretty much every day, which after a while just gets depressing. After all, it’s a step back to when I had my first digital mobile, back in 1994 (an Orbitel 902, if anyone cares) which needed charging daily. Since then my phones have gone up to being charged about twice a week at most, so going back to daily charging was always going to be a bit of an arse.
As a result, when I got my iPhone, I also ordered a Mophie Juicepack Air, which is an iPhone case with a built-in battery pack, which pretty much doubles the usable time of the iPhone. And of course me being me, it’s in a bright purple. You can get other colours, but once I saw the purple there wasn’t going to be any other colour that worked.
It’s taken nearly a week to get here, but it arrived yesterday and is in use now. And so far I’m damn impressed with it.
Battery life is definitely extended, it’s been easy to fit, set up and charge, and all told so far it’s a nice bit of kit.
A further review will follow in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure.
Writing, Script Frenzy, Etc
Posted: Fri 23 April, 2010 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Script Frenzy, The '10 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »While I don’t look like I’ll be anywhere near completing the Script Frenzy project of 100 pages of script in April, I have at least started off an idea.
I’m not going to go into too much detail on it here, but even being able to have started it is (in some ways at least) more than I actually expected to happen.
I don’t know whether it’s related to the taking of the anti-depressants – I don’t think it has as they’re not really supposed to have built up to a usable/viable level til somewhere in the middle of next week – but equally they may have worked faster, or it may be a psychosomatic thingummywhatsit. Whatever though, I actually did sit down and write the first couple of pages.
It’s a start.
I do plan to continue with it, even once the Script Frenzy thing has closed up shop for another year. What I wanted was an excuse to start – no, not an excuse, a reason to start – writing something. I don’t know yet whether I’ll complete it – the idea’s a good one, but it might fizzle out, I have to be honest. Still, we’ll see.
And I’d rather have something started than for it all to still be just in my head. So I’m measuring little successes along the way. And for now that’s enough, when combined with all the other stuff that’s going on.
iPhoner
Posted: Wed 21 April, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, iPhone, Thoughts 5 Comments »I have to say, O2 are very impressive when it comes to delivering upgrade phones. I ordered the iPhone on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday it arrived at the office.
Of course, as I wasn’t in the office on Monday that made it a bit more awkward, but it was here on the desk when I came in on Tuesday, which meant that last night was spent setting it up, getting everything sorted and taking data etc. from old phone to new phone.
So far it’s all worked pretty well. Moving the contacts over is a piece of piss because I use Zyb, which is an online storage for contacts. Sync from old phone to Zyb, get the Zyb iPhone app and download from Zyb to new phone. That’s it. (And before any fanboys start piping up, that’s been easy because of Zyb, not because of the iPhone)
So yeah, it’s all OK so far. Set up the things I need, and I’m sure some other bits will get set up in the coming days.
But will I turn into an iPhone evangelist/obsessive? Somehow I doubt it. For a geek/techie I’m really not all that evangelical about technology in general. It’s a tool, not a belief system.
Electioneering
Posted: Fri 16 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Politics, Thoughts 2 Comments »So it’s the run-up to another General Election – don’t tell me you’d missed it!
This time round I wonder who people will vote for. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two main parties, they seem to be Siamese Twins (sorry, conjoined twins) rather than polar opposites. In both cases their policies (or lack thereof) seem only to differ in punctuation and tiny things to argue about while the main points lumber through regardless. The options seem to be a dour Scottish tosser that we know is a scumbag or a perma-tanned PR weasel who’s slicker than greased owl-shit, and who we simply are pretty certain is a scumbag. More a case of “whichever devil you know”.
All of which makes me think that perhaps this election is the Liberal Democrat‘s best chance ever.
I wonder how many other people are thinking “Well both Brown and Cameron are cunts I wouldn’t trust to run a bath, let alone a country. Maybe I’ll go for the Libdems, see what they’ve got“. (Or at least words to that effect)
All Nick Clegg has to do really is look like less of a fuckwitted u-turning scumwad than the other two and (in my opinion) he’s got a real chance at being the next PM.
Maybe it’s time for that third way.
Antidepressed
Posted: Thu 15 April, 2010 Filed under: 2009/10, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Introspective, Thoughts, Writing 2 Comments »A couple of weeks back I wrote about making an appointment to see the doctor about depression, lack of motivation, lack of drive etc. etc. I didn’t – and still don’t – want to ask for help, but I know that in my current state I have/had to.
Yesterday was the day of the appointment. 7am and I’m at the doctors. That’s never going to be the start of a good day…
Anyway, I talked through some of the stuff with the GP – who’s extremely wet and wanky, but means well. Better than being completely useless I suppose. But you never really get the impression he could give much of a damn one way or t’other. I suppose that’s one of the risks of being a GP though.
And now I’ve got a prescription for Citalopram, an SSRI anti-depressant. I’m going to take them, and see how things go.
I’m not happy about being on these pills, but I’m at the point where I know that I need something to break the cycle/spiral I’ve got into. This is the first step in that process. Well technically it’s the third step, I suppose- the first one was acknowledging I’m in that cycle at all, and the second was doing something about it by going to the GP.
I don’t like the thought of being reliant on pills or medication – I’m crap at even taking painkillers unless I really need them.
Also I can’t help but wonder what I’ll be like on anti-depressants. I’ve been living with depression for such a long time now, I wonder what changes there’ll be if it’s not around. It’ll be interesting to find out, anyway.
Demolition Perfection
Posted: Mon 12 April, 2010 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »A quick link to a video/story of a quite spectacular – and beautifully planned/managed/executed – demolition of a footbal stadium in Texas.
I love things like this, and the video’s good enough that you can see the individual dynamite blasts happening in sequence to destroy the structure so it implodes and caves in on itself rather than exploding outwards. Really nice work.
Roofwork
Posted: Sat 3 April, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, People, Thoughts 5 Comments »One thing I find weird living out here in Norfolk is the times people get work done.
All three winters we’ve been here, a noticable number of properties get their roofs redone. I’ve never quite understood that – surely it’s better to get the roof of your house redone in summer when the weather’s better, rather than in winter when it’s cold, wet, snowy and nasty?
The same seems to be true of chimney work – there have been several chimney-stacks this year with scaffolding around them, and again I’d probably rather work on them during summer when the fires aren’t lit and there’s no need for the extra heat.
Of course I realise I’m not at all practical and there’s probably some other very good reasons for roofing to be done in winter. I hope someone can explain it to me.
Time Leaps
Posted: Tue 23 March, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Time, Travel 5 Comments »And along with it being nearly April (OK, they’re connected in a way) it occurs to me that come this weekend we’ll be doing the spring forward time change to BST instead of GMT as well.
Of course the relation is that GMT always starts on the last weekend of March. I still find that the mnemonic of “Spring Forward, Fall Back” is the best one for remembering whether we’re gaining or losing an hour, despite the horrific Americanism of “Fall”.
It’ll confuse things for us a bit, as we’ll be coming home from the Peter Gabriel gig at the O2 at the time, but I guess that might help too as we won’t be missing an hour while asleep. Still, makes for an eventful weekend.
Time Flies
Posted: Mon 22 March, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, General, Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »It hadn’t occurred to me ’til just now that April is just round the corner. A week on Thursday, we’ll be out of the first quarter of 2010.
How the hell did that happen? Where’ve the last three months fucked off to?
Night Drive
Posted: Sat 20 March, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night I had to do a late(ish) night drive – a delivery from Herself to some friends who are testing out some of her cake recipes. (Don’t ask) They’re in a village the other side of Dereham from us, and a drive of about 20-ish miles. Not much, but enough. Because the roads are seriously winding, the AA route finder estimates that the journey takes 57 minutes. For 20 miles. No idea how they work that one out, it as it’d mean (hey, no shit Sherlock) an average speed of 20mph. Suffice to say, I wasn’t driving at 20mph…
Running late, Herself had said she’d be there by 10pm, and I didn’t leave the house ’til 9.45pm. I volunteered to do the drive/delivery, as I knew I’d be faster than Herself, but also that if Herself came with me I’d knock her sick, as she doesn’t travel well…
In the end the delivery was made at 10.10pm. 25 minutes to do 20miles. That’s quite a lot faster than the AA’s expectation then.
I love night-driving – in fact it’s probably one of my favourite aspects of driving. There are bits that are dodgy about it for sure- and night-driving in snow or fog is no fucking fun whatsoever. Well it is, just in different, and not entirely positive ways – it certainly highlights both how stupid other people are, and how easy it is to zomb out in those situations. But anyway, night-driving in general is just fun – in my opinion, anyway.
Strangely I tend to drive faster at night where possible – I think it’s because you can effectively see round corners a bit, in that you can see approaching headlights a significant time before you can see a car. In daylight you’re reliant on line-of-sight a lot more, but at night there’s a bit of advance warning. Of course, I could still come a cropper with animals in the road, or some twerd driving without lights, or a stopped car by the side of the road round a blind corner. Or something.
All told, I made it both ways in one hour dead – including conversation time at the delivery point. And thoroughly enjoyed the drive – particularly with it being soundtracked by the new Massive Attack album, “Heligoland”. Excellent stuff.
Double Standards
Posted: Tue 16 March, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »A few days ago I noticed that a certain hate-filled hypocritical shitrag had a big story about how shocking the latest Lady Gaga video is. And then goes on to have screenshots in the story of all the pieces of the video for Telephone that people should be shocked or offended by.
Anyway, now it’s time to make your own mind up, as the video for Telephone is available online. Choose for yourself, not based on what the hate-rag says.
Connections
Posted: Wed 3 March, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, People, Thoughts 2 Comments »Two stories in the same day… [UPDATED : OK, as Andy C points out in the comments, they weren’t on the same day, just one linked from the other, and I can’t read…]
Number One : Jon Venables, one of the two who killed James Bulger, is taken back to prison “for breaching the terms of his licence”. People are surprised, one quote being
“He could have been recalled on licence if he committed an offence, it could be that he returned to Merseyside, it could be he might have approached the family. There is no evidence so far that he did any of these things.”
Number Two : Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger, tells how she found Robert Thompson, the other one who killed James Bulger, and stood within twenty feet of him, although she couldn’t confront him.
Mrs Fergus said it was now her aim to find Venables and track him down in the same way.
I wonder if there’s a connection? Particularly if the News of the World is in on the act/witchhunt…
Bridge and Terry
Posted: Mon 1 March, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, News, People, Stupidity, Thoughts 2 Comments »Am I the only one that thinks both John Terry and Wayne Bridge need to grow the hell up?
To me – and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a great team-player, and don’t give a tin shit about football in general – Bridge’s stepping down from the England team (and thus international football) is a self-destructive dummy-chuck of weapons-grade proportions.
And besides, why on earth does Bridge (and/or the media in general) think Bridge has got any fucking right whatsoever to throw a strop about who his ex-girlfriend decided to be with once they’d split up? Let alone do the full petted-lip and “taking my ball in” strop about it. In the same perspective, what right has Bridge got to throw a strop about who John Terry decides to shag?
I must have missed something relevant in this entire farce, because it seems to me that this is all the kind of thing that most people got over in secondary school.
Litrucy
Posted: Sat 27 February, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Education, Literacy, News, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Via Margo and Phiala I came across this story about literacy in Americans, which says that in America someone reading 4-9 books a year is classified as an ‘avid’ reader, and that 1 in 4 [American] people read no books at all. As Margo says, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar figures for reading / book buying habits here, too although I can’t currently find a link or evidence of it.
As with Margo, I can’t really recall a time in my life that didn’t have books. My parents read stories to me every night, and that’s where I started learning to read, by learning the patterns the words made and linking them to the sounds they made as my parents read them. I was more than able to read by the time I started school, and I’ve been reading ever since.
I don’t have anywhere near as many books as I used to – if I’d kept all of them over the years, I could probably stock a decent-sized library. Even so, I’ve probably got around four to five hundred books all told, and they’re all the ones I’ll go back to and read more than once. Additionally I’m a regular visitor to the local library – on Herself’s persuasion, admitterdly – but normally get through about 10-20 books a month just through that. If I see books I want to read now – particularly new ones or new authors – I try to get them through the library rather than buying them outright as an experiment, which is what I used to do.
I can hardly even imagine only reading even 9 books a year. I mean really? One book every six weeks? Jesus.
Just as a current example, this week I’ve read (or am currently reading)
- Steel Beach by John Varley (in the car, reading at lunchtimes)
- The Shift by George Foy(also in the car, finished this week before starting Steel Beach)
- Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss (at home, in the bedroom)
- Missing by Chris Mooney (also at home)
- Spider by Michael Morley (really really crap)
- The werewolf’s guide to life : a manual for the newly bitten by Duncan Ritch
- Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffmann (just about to start)
And that’s a quiet/slow week where I’ve been doing a ton of work as well. Even so, that puts me near the top end of the American average book level for the year within a week. I don’t honestly know how many books I read a year – on that level, it must be a couple of hundred per year.
But more to the point, if that’s my reading level, and the average number of books read per year in the UK is (hey, let’s be charitable) 20 then that still means there’s a whole bundle of people at the other end of the scale who are reading maybe one book a year, or less. And to me that’s really quite scary.
Crimewatch
Posted: Fri 26 February, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Another month, another episode of Crimewatch.
What I don’t get with Crimewatch is how it gets away with
- Glamourising crimes – and usually violent ones
- Making crime and violence into entertainment.
I dunno, maybe I’m just too cynical.
Rhyming Slang
Posted: Tue 16 February, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »On the local news just now, there was a story about Cambridgeshire county council workers protesting against cuts and job losses within the council. (We’ll currently gloss past the fact that a good 50% of the workforce for any local authority are useless workshy cunts – or at least that’s my experience of council work, anyway)
The chant that was being used by protestors was :
“Sack the bankers
Not the workers”
Which isn’t quite rhyming slang – but I assume that “sack the bankers, not the wankers” wasn’t quite the message they were trying to convey…
Sporting
Posted: Sat 13 February, 2010 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Once more it’s time for the Winter Olympics – one of the few sporting occasions where I actually do watch some of the events – and already the luge run has claimed its first victims. Unfortunately in this case one of those lugers has died, which is never good.
I’m always in awe of the people who do the luge, skeleton and (to a slightly lesser degree) bobsleigh. Just the concept of going down a run of solid ice on what amounts to a tea-tray with blades is scary enough, let alone actually doing it.
I hope that there’s no more fatalities in the contest.
Tower Block of Commons
Posted: Mon 8 February, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »I’ve been watching the new Channel 4 series “Tower Block of Commons“, where politicians leave their homes and move into council estates across the country, to see the reality of the resident’s lives.
It’s not bad, as these things go, although obviously there’s some aspects that are pretty “Made for TV”. Personally I think that MPs should live in among their constituents – not necessarily in council houses, but certainly in “standard” accommodation for each ward/district/whatever. After all, how can you represent the people of your district if you don’t know what their living standards are truly like?
I also find that the priorities of the families the politicians live with are fascinating – in some cases they’ve got no carpets, live on the absolute cheapest food and so on, but still have what looks to be Sky+ boxes and widescreen TVs. There’s also the families where they’ve got the kids and so on, living on benefits, but somehow still manage to get methadone and the like.
It’s interesting to watch, in a similar way to Secret Millionaire and other programmes of a similar ilk, but still leaves you with that “made for TV” cynicism…
Captaincy
Posted: Sun 7 February, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Media, People, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »So John Terry did end up getting sacked as captain of the England Football Team and replaced with Rio Ferdinand.
Purportedly the sacking is because of Terry’s shagging around with the ex-girlfriend of a team-mate, which somehow makes it impossible to be a captain, as it’s a bad influence on the players, and the perception of the England team. Or something.
And then you get to this part of the BBC story…
Ferdinand, 31, is currently serving a four-match ban for violent conduct after only just returning to action following a three-month lay-off because of a back injury.
So, replacing a “bad influence” with someone currently serving a four-match ban for violent conduct. And that is the message we want to send out to the impressionable people who follow football and (apparently) model themselves on the behaviour of footballers.
Shagging’s a terrible thing, but violence? Oh, that‘s OK.
I really don’t understand sport/media, obviously.
Newsworthy
Posted: Sat 30 January, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, Media, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Today a lot of the mainstream media are bleating on about the England captain, John Terry. Apparently he’s had an affair, and the other person was the girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend – sources vary currently) of another player at Chelsea (Wayne Bridge, if that means anything)
Now bear in mind that I couldn’t identify John Terry in a line-up. Hell, I didn’t even know he played for Chelsea.
But I still really don’t see how this is newsworthy. Sure, he’s been a fuckwit, and being a fuckwit the the partner (or ex-partner) of one of your team-mates is even more fuckwitted. But is it news? No, not really.
The other side of it is that he’s supposedly going to lose the captaincy of England because of this – and again, I don’t quite see how the two are related. As Adrian said, it could be that the friction between Terry and Bridge would affect the team at the World Cup – assuming Bridge is on the team, and I can’t comment on that one, as I’ve no feckin’ clue. (And don’t really care, either)
To me though, it’s still not news. It’s not relevant to the world in general (it’s not like Tony Fuckbag Bliar and the Iraq War, for example) and really there’s only three or four people that are affected by it – Terry, his wife, Bridge, and the other woman. That’s it. No-one else cares.
So why is it in all the papers, and every news broadcast? Maybe I’ve missed something, I don’t know.
Creative
Posted: Fri 29 January, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Agency Idiocy, Creativity, Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »When I went to see “Avatar”, I got in in time to see some of the adverts before things started – not just the trailers and ads, but the localised ones that show while people are coming in.
I don’t know how much they cost – they’re just basic flat ads with not much happening – but one caught my irritation all the same. It was for a company called Selesti, and was just a plain white page with blue text saying “We make websites”, and some contact details.
It was pretty much the dullest ad in the set – an achievement in itself – and really surprised me. For a company that’s supposed to be all creative and whizzy, the ad didn’t speak of any of that. It actually conveyed “We paid for this, but really couldn’t be arsed to do anything with it”. Even if they’d used “We Write Websites” it would’ve been better, and would’ve at least implied the connection to www. addresses/domains. But no, “We make websites”.
I wonder how much business Selesti have gained through this ad at the cinema? Even more, I wonder how much they’ve lost…
Avatar
Posted: Wed 27 January, 2010 Filed under: Media, Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »After wanting to see it for a while, I finally went to see “Avatar” last night. I even managed to get to see the 3D version, which made it the first “Real3D” film I’ve seen.
In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much from the film – most of the reviews I’d seen made far more of the technology and so on in the film than of the film itself – but I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it’s a bit too long, could do with losing about 20 minutes of trite shite, and has some deeply vile sickly-sweet bits for American audiences, but overall it’s pretty damn good.
In fact probably my biggest bugbear with it was the name of the wondrous material that was being mined on Pandora – “Unobtainium”. I mean, please. It’s not unobtainable – it’s fucking difficult to get, fine. Call it “fuckingdifficultium” or something. But “Unobtanium”? Sheesh – just make up something new, don’t try for sounding cool – and miss it by a mile. I do realise there’s a cultural history for calling things Unobtainium – but for a film that’s trying to be fresh and new, it just seems to be something that harks back to the 50s/60s, an in-joke that’s just not very funny.
So yes, there’s little bits that irritate – and the occasional bit of “Look! It’s 3D!” that grates – but in general it’s actually a pretty good film.
The director, James Cameron, has brought in a number of his standard themes – particularly Evil Big Company going ahead with plans at the expense of other less capitalistic influences (survival, global dynamics etc. etc.) – which makes it quite interesting in the current situation with global warming etc., and the awareness of “Going Green”, which is itself quite a major theme of the film.
As for the effects, and the way it’s filmed, I think it probably is one of the more radical developments in film/cinema history – I found myself thinking back to it, wondering how some of the stuff was done at all. In that context, it’s remarkable – in a similar way to when “The Matrix” came out, with effects no-one had really seen before. Avatar’s the same – it’s not quite “the next thing from colour”, but it’s pretty remarkable all the same.
All told, it’s a good film. Not a great one- although that’s really what it aspires to be – but pretty good all the same.