No Security
Posted: Fri 17 July, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Laziness, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »As I’ve said before, I’m working on going to the gym more often, more regularly. I’m getting there twice a week, and so far it’s going well.
The gym’s a more local one, in Milton Keynes, and near a lot of offices (unsurprisingly)
My routine tends to mean I get into MK early, and go to the gym before I start work – which is also what a fair number of other people seem to do. And that’s fine – it makes sense to me, and to all involved.
What does surprise me, though, is that most of the guys who are in the gym at the same time as me seem to leave most of their work stuff in the changing room, on the racks, rather than making use of the lockers. Not just the shirts, but full suits, as well as shoes and so on.
I don’t know if it’s just people being lazy, or doing that so that work stuff isn’t creased – although some of the lockers definitely have hanging sections within them, but they are further away than the standard ones. I suspect it’s a combination of both.
But all told it just makes me wonder about how people can be so unconscious of security – if they’re happy to leave stuff accessible to anyone with nefarious intentions (and I have no way of knowing if they’re leaving stuff in the suit pockets or not) instead of walking twenty paces extra, then I kind of despair of things.
Staying Still
Posted: Wed 24 June, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Single Life, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »This coming weekend is my first one fully ‘at home’ in about three months. As such, I’m looking forward to it for downtime and some peace and quiet.
However, I feel almost guilty about staying home, and doing Not Much.
My brain keeps on saying “Oh, but you could do a day-trip to [x], [y] or [z]“. And it’s right, I could. But I don’t really want to – except my brain doesn’t believe it.
It’s odd. One part of me wants to just have a down-weekend, a time of not doing a lot, and most emphatically not driving any significant distances. But the other part obviously does want me to do all of those things.
It’s a bit schizoid, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see which side wins out in the end. All very strange.
Sleeping Places
Posted: Mon 22 June, 2015 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Insomnia, Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »Following on from the insomnia attacks of late, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the things that do work for me when it comes to sleep.
Because I’ve also been doing a lot of travelling and visiting, it’s given me a wide range of reference points, which always makes things more interesting.
One oddity I have noticed is that I seem to sleep better on sofas than I do in bed. It’s strange, but true. I’ve also had a few occasions of coming home in the afternoon and getting a nap on my own sofa, but that’s more for catch-ups when they’re absolutely needed, rather than becoming a routine.
It’s been true for a long time though – certainly right back to the Norfolk house, where I’d sleep on the sofa-bed when we had bad weather and I had to take Hound in to the smaller bedroom to stop her being an arse. When I think about it, it’s also applied a lot of times over the years, when going to see friends and so on, and preferring to crash on sofas rather than spare beds.
As a result, I’m doing a lot of thinking about whether I change my bedroom and bed, investing instead in a decent sofa-bed. It’s food for thought at the moment, but not going to be a change I make quickly. After all, if I make the change and don’t sleep any better, then it’s been a loss/waste of a bed and so on.
It may be that I leave it until I move house again – which is something that’s on the agenda, but not any time imminently. That’ll definitely be to a bigger place – hell, it’d be a challenge to find anywhere smaller – so I can look at it seriously at that point.
I’ll think about it more – there’s other factors in that kind of decision- but we’ll see where things go, I think.
Average Speed
Posted: Tue 2 June, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »[No, for once this isn’t about the fuckwits who can’t drive properly with average speed limits/cameras on the M1]
A couple of times in the last week, I’ve witnessed something a bit different when following other drivers on the more rural roads around me. It’s people who seem to stick to a speed, regardless of what’s going on around them.
There’s a few winding roads near me on key routes – A-roads to get me to see the parents, for example. They’re decent roads, but with absolutely no way to safely overtake when you’re following a fuckwit, crane, HGV etc. – which can make those roads… somewhat wearing.
In this case, I was behind a silly bastard who was sticking to 45mph like shit to a blanket. The road is national-speed-limit, and perfectly doable and safe at 60mph, but no, 45 it was. Then we get to a village on the road, the speed limit goes down to 30 (for good reason – it’s good a big-ass set of bends in the middle, as well as everything else) including the flashing warning signs if you exceed that. But no, silly bastard still sticks to 45. So we’ve gone from too-slow to too-fast, without him moving a muscle. That takes some skill, I suppose.
I’ve seen a couple of other drivers since with the same mind-set, and it’s no less frustrating or weird when you see more than one person doing it.
What I can’t work out is whether it’s pig-headedness (“I’ll get where I need to go at 45, it’s a fine speed”), ignorance (“I don’t care about anyone else, I’m going at my speed”) or just a complete lack of awareness of their surroundings, so they don’t even see the signs, or the line of cars in the mirror.
I just don’t know. They’re bloody scary to follow though…
Self-Inflicted Damage
Posted: Wed 13 May, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Sport, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »[Note : As always, I don’t actually give a shit about sport/cricket – I’m more interested in the mindset beneath it in this case]
Over the last couple of days, the news has been full of bloody Kevin Pietersen throwing a strop about not being allowed – yet – back into playing cricket for England.
Apparently a while back it was…
suggest[ed he] could add to his 104 England caps if he joined a county and scored enough runs to merit a recall.
(Quote from the BBC story)
Pietersen did this, and fair play to him. Earlier this week, he scored a personal best innings, something like 350 not out. So he’s assumed that on that one showing, he should be allowed back into the England team.
He met Andrew Strauss – the new ‘director of cricket’, apparently – who said there was no chance this summer, and that some people didn’t trust Pietersen. Which is also fair – Pietersen’s always been an asshat.
But now he’s thrown his toys out the pram about it, and has written about how he feels ‘deceived’ and so on in his column in the Telegraph.
Really, all it seems like is a whining brat. Yes, he’s done what was asked, and had one excellent innings. But that doesn’t make a team player, and doesn’t mean he has to be immediately accepted as part of the England team.
Indeed, if anything is now going to make sure he doesn’t get back in, I’d say it’s his own behaviour in this. (Of course, he won’t see it like that, because he’s perfect and no-one else is. Rah rah rah. Standard asshat behaviour) I would’ve said he might have a chance if he continues to excel at county level – the same criteria as could be applied to any other up-and-coming player.
But really, how can you trust anyone who throws their toys out like this at any opportunity? When they decide to destroy their own chances and credibility, in a fit that looks more like the act of a stropping toddler kicking their feet and screaming in a supermarket than one of someone wanting to play for – and thus represent – a country’s cricket team?
A Very Good Deal
Posted: Sun 3 May, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Shopping, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the weekend, my toaster finally died. (You can tell this one’s going to be interesting, can’t you?) It’s done fairly well, daily service for three years, if not more. Over Easter it had started playing up, but then on Saturday it gave up completely.
So – off to the retail superstore of gloom. (It’s closest, I couldn’t be arsed with faffing about too much, and I had some vouchers to use up)
I had a look, and decided on this one, mainly because it’s purple – I’m shallow like that – and because it was £10 off the marked price, so £40 instead of £50. Fair enough.
But when I got to the tills, it scanned at … hang on … £19? OK, I’ll check it with the customer services, but that’ll do.
As it was, I also had a number of vouchers (all in “You would’ve saved £x at a different store, so here’s the difference” price-match vouchers) that came to £25. So I effectively ended up with Tesco paying me £6 for my new toaster…
I don’t know quite how it all worked out like that, but I’m not going to complain.
[Additional] : When I went to customer services to check, in case a) the price was wrong or b) their system was wrong, I waited ages to be seen and then the person involved said “Oh, for electrical enquiries you’ve got to go back upstairs and ask them“. To which my thought response was “Fuck that, if you can’t be arsed to check it, I can’t be arsed to report it any further“.
So – a nice new toaster for the princely sum of minus six pounds. I can live with that.
Creatively Becalmed
Posted: Fri 1 May, 2015 Filed under: Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »This year so far – and probably for a bit longer than that, if I’m honest – I’ve not been getting all that much done on a creative front, and I don’t really know why. It’s more a feeling of being bogged down, uninspired, and just not in the mood.
Writing is going better than anything else – lots of ideas, but nothing is particularly gelling at the moment. I’ve got a couple of things started, but it’s still bogging down, and not flowing.
Photography-wise, I haven’t even taken my camera out in ages. Really it’s been since I did the NCFE course, which is a bloody long time now. I don’t know why that seemed to flick the ‘can’t be arsed’ switch, but it has. I’ve tried a few things and ideas, but it’s just all a bit “meh”, with no real desire to take the photos.
In some ways, the day-trips over the last few months have helped on that – I’ve taken photos, even if ‘only’ with the phone (although that’s a surprise, considering how good they’ve come out) but still can’t really bring myself to take the actual camera out for a day. A lot of that is also because I can’t be arsed with lugging it around and faffing about, but mainly it’s just the faff of it all at the moment.
I’m sure things will change again – I certainly hope so – and that the changes will be positive for once. The rest of this year to date has been positive, so I’m hoping that once I have some headspace and time, I’ll be more prompted.
(And I’m sure I’ve written about this a couple of times this year already, so forgive the repetition. It’s just something that’s bugging me at the moment)