Remarkable things

Well it turned out to be a good birthday, despite being in work. I did have an annoying time when someone sent me an e-mail telling me something couldn’t be done. I sent them a slightly ranty e-mail back and she then rather sheepishly replied and said actually she was wrong and it could be done.

G and I went out for dinner to a Spanish/ Moroccan restaurant which was very nice. We were both very full by the end, but I’m glad we managed to find space for dessert because it was lovely. They made such nice baklava, it practically melted in your mouth. A very nice evening.

When I got home I opened some cards that had arrived in the post and one of them was from a friend I hadn’t heard from in ages. It now seems this was due to crossed wires. I had written to her about something really important last year and as far as I was aware she had totally ignored what I had said. Except it seems that she hadn’t and had actually replied by e-mail but to an out of date e-mail address. I think she then thought I was ignoring her and so we both weren’t sure what was going on with the other person and so were each a bit wary of getting in touch. I think we probably both thought it was very odd, as neither of us is the sort of person to ignore someone or give them the silent treatment. Anyway, in her card she told me how much she wants to see me and that she misses me and that was rather surprising, as it wasn’t what I was expecting having thought she had been ignoring me all this time. We actually have exactly the same birthday – same date, same year – so I guess it was a nice birthday present for both us to realise that actually both of us wanted to be friends and it was all just down to miscommunication. Thank goodness for good old Royal Mail coming to the rescue. I got a card from another friend, which was also very touching and basically it was clearly trying to get across that she loves me. As much as it is nice to get presents, those two cards were pretty much the best thing I could have got for my birthday and I have to admit that I shed a tear or two over them.

A good birthday.

Another year...

Yet another year older and today I have reached the grand old age of 33. G told me that I can no longer describe myself as being in my early thirties and that I now qualify as being in my mid-thirties. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s my birthday so it’s not a day for arguments. G and I are going out for dinner tonight, which I think is for Spanish food, which should be good.

Anyway, #happy birthday to me# and I leave you with a great song, which is Beautiful Child by Rufus Wainwright.

Things to see, people to do

G and I were thinking about going to Montreal in September but for a variety of reasons that isn’t looking possible now and we’re going to go next year instead. We’re going to Glasgow in September anyway, as G’s sister is getting married so we’re going to stay up there the following week and have a holiday. But we haven’t decided where or booked any flights or hired a car or done anything about it at all really. Perhaps we should think about that some time soon.

I was talking to the chap at work who has taken a bit of a shine to me – on Monday he even gave me an apple he had grown on his allotment. Anyway, yesterday he told me that if I was ever in an accident he would happily give me the kiss of life and he would try and make sure he hadn’t eaten garlic. I thanked him for thinking of me but said that I hoped I would never require his services.

Fables

Yesterday I discovered how easy it is to get credit in the UK, despite the ‘credit crunch’. I need a new credit card, as the one I currently have is being transferred from Visa to American Express and I don’t particularly want an American Express card. I found a cash back card that means I will get money back on all my purchases, filled out an online application form and within seconds of filling out the form was notified that my application had been successful and I would be sent the card within the next few days. That was certainly much easier than I had expected, particularly as I thought it might be loads of hassle to get a new card, but nope, it was as simple as filling out a form.

I am reading four different books at the moment. I will add the other books to my sidebar at some point, but one of them is Aesop’s Fables. I have wanted to read them for ages and they are just very short and easy to read fables that are meant to be lessons about human nature. I was a bit concerned that they might be hard going but actually they are very accessible, so if you are looking for something to read then maybe give them a go. Anyway, here is “The Eagle and the Fox”:

An eagle and a fox, having become friends, decided to live near one another and be neighbors. They believed that this proximity would strengthen their friendship. So the eagle flew up and established herself on a very high branch of a tree, where she made her nest. And the fox, creeping about among the bushes which were at the foot of the same tree, made her den there, depositing her babies right beneath the eagle.

But, one day when the fox was out looking for food, the eagle, who was very short of food too, swooped down to the bushes and took the fox cubs up to her nest and feasted on them with her own young.

When the fox returned, she was less distressed at the death of her little ones than she was driven mad by frustration at the impossibility of ever effectively avenging herself. For she, a land animal, could never hope to pursue a winged bird. She had no option but to content herself, in her powerlessness and feebleness, with cursing her enemy from afar.

Now it was not long afterwards that the eagle did actually receive her punishment for her crime against her friend.

Some men were sacrificing a goat in the countryside and the eagle swooped down on the altar, carrying off some burning entrails, which she took up to her nest. A strong wind arose which blew the fire from the burning entrails into some old straw that was in the nest. The eaglets were singed and, as they were not yet able to fly, when they leaped from the nest they fell to the ground. The fox rushed up and devoured them all in front of the eagle’s eyes.

This story shows that if you betray friendship, you may evade the vengeance of those whom you wrong if they are weak, but ultimately you cannot escape the vengeance of heaven.

I have to say that I don’t really think life is as simplistic as that or that vengeance is really a desirable answer to life’s turmoils, but it’s interesting to get an ancient take on life. Maybe, as they say, there’s nothing new under the sun.

I saw that the pier at Weston Super Mare burned down yesterday. G and I stopped off there on the way to Cornwall a few weeks ago and were not that enamored with the place, but we did only go into the town and not to the sea front. I sent an e-mail to check if G had been involved in torching the place but got an outright denial in response. I still have my suspicions though.

Flawed

Another good weekend over, good not least because of the lovely weather. Saturday G and I went for a walk with a few other people, which was really nice. However, we did the walk at the hottest part of the day and despite drinking lots of water, I ended up feeling somewhat worse for wear. We went for a bite to eat afterwards but the damage was done and I could only eat a bit of the food on my plate (it is unheard of that I wouldn’t clear my plate). People went off for a drink afterwards but I had to go in search of a chemist to get something to stop me feeling incredibly nauseous and also to get some stuff to rehydrate me. I took the anti-nausea stuff while I was still in the chemists because I was so desperate to take it. I think if I go out on such hot days again I might have a bottle of water with the rehydration powder in it to sip while I am walking to try and minimise the effects of the sun. Anyway I managed to drive home safely and I felt much better as the evening wore on and felt totally fine yesterday. Despite the above it was a good day and a good weekend.

Yesterday G and I were talking about how to pair socks. G thought the manufacturers should put some kind of code in each sock so that you could identify its pair. I was kind of perplexed by this and said I usually managed to pair socks by just matching it with the one that looks the same. G seemed to think this was not as easy as it sounds. However, I then suggested that manufacturers could attach a small magnet on each sock and when you want to pair all your socks you just throw them all up in the air and the ones that match would stick to each other and be ready paired. There does seem to be the somewhat unfortunate flaw that while you are wearing the socks they could end up sticking to each other if the magnets get too close or alternatively cans and other metal items might get stuck to you as you walk down the street. I think this might require some more thought.

I have this weird thing going on at the moment where I keep using the wrong word. Instead I use a word that is totally different but sort of rhymes. So last week I was having a conversation and meant to use the word “banana” and instead used the word “pyjama” or instead of “flaw” I used “thaw”. I don’t even always notice that I do it. Surely that can’t be normal. I am hoping that it isn’t an indication of me starting to lose my mind, what with imminently getting older. It’s very odd though and I am hoping that it has just been due to tiredness.

Reasons to be grateful

I had a fairly successful day off and got various things done like getting my hair cut and mowing the grass and such things. At least now it is Friday and so I only have to get through today and it’s the weekend. G and I are going for a walk tomorrow, which should be nice, although I think we might be due thunderstorms tomorrow.

I got a letter from my power company yesterday asking me to phone them as they were about to issue me with a very high bill. I called them to find out what was going on and the chap said that according to meter readings I had used 22,000 units of electricity. That is really rather a lot… Anyway, after a bit of discussion it seems that a couple of meter readings ago they transposed my gas and electricity readings and this mean that there appeared to be a massive difference. The problem was fixed by them simply entering the figures the right way round, which is rather better than a bill of several thousand pounds.

I contacted the water company a few weeks ago to ask if they were going to provide compensation for cutting off our water supply. They wrote back and said that they would credit my bill by £40 for the inconvenience and them failing to do it within their set timescales. It seems it pays to ask. However, I spoke to one of my neighbours yesterday to see if she’d been given a credit (which the water company is obliged to pay and we shouldn’t have to ask for) and she said no. It seems that it definitely pays to ask.

If sometimes you think that you have life a bit tough then perhaps you can take comfort in your name not being Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. Surely some people should not be allowed to breed. However, it seems that the name “Number 16 Bus Shelter” was acceptable. I know it would have been cruel but I was disappointed to see that someone was banned from calling their twins Fish and Chips. If you ever find the need to come up with names for children then I would really like you to give careful consideration to calling any offspring Fish and Chips, I for one would support you in that choice. Please.

Everyone's a winner

I woke up this morning to find that I had left the back door wide open all night. Fortunately I live in a pretty safe area, but that probably wasn’t ideal. I have been quite tired all week, so perhaps it is a good thing that I have the day off today and maybe might regain the ability to remember to shut doors.

I met up with one of my housemates from uni yesterday and she seemed on good form. She doesn’t actually live very far from me and we normally see each other very regularly but due to various things haven’t seen each other for several weeks. I told her what had happened with A and she wasn’t very impressed but mainly thought that it was just such a waste to have willingly had a relationship with me and to then lie about it. She asked why I thought A had lied to C about it and I said I thought there were two main reasons first that A is a very private person and probably didn’t want to discuss it with C particularly but that was before they were particularly good friends. Since then they have got to know each other much better and it was too late to back track (and unnecessary because it was of no consequence, until it became an issue due to me going out with G), but also because A runs away from things and has a history of this. Maybe it’s easier to run than to deal with things properly, but then I suppose you face the consequences of that instead. Anyway, I feel less annoyed about it all today, so that’s a good thing, and mainly I think the issue is that in my usual slow pondery way I am just thinking things through and when I have done that all will be done and dusted.

The surveyor has just gone and he seemed like a nice chap. I pointed out all the faults with where we live to try and make sure that he comes in with as low a valuation as possible for us buying the freehold (‘us’ being me and two of my neighbours). It feels like we are finally making progress on it.

G and I had a discussion yesterday about how the new job is going. G is really enjoying it but has an issue in that they no longer have easy access to coffee. They do actually have a kettle, but I had not realised that G doesn’t actually like instant coffee. The main reason that G works is to make sure that I can retire early*. I was hoping that I could retire by the age of 33, but as my 33rd birthday is next week I am now beginning to accept that is unlikely, so I am willing to extend the deadline to 34. However buying coffee from a coffee shop is going to seriously dent my pension fund so today I have been tasked with going out to get G some of those individual coffee filters in order to find a compromise. It’s a win-win. G gets decent coffee and I get a step nearer to my early retirement.

*G may have a slightly different interpretation on this matter...

Truth

I felt so exhausted yesterday. I think it’s a combination of having driven over 1000 miles last week and also not having got used to having to drag myself out of bed so early every morning to go to work. At least I am off work tomorrow, even though it is because a surveyor is coming round.

I am having lunch with a friend today for a bit of a catch up. We arranged it earlier this week by e-mail and while we were sorting out a plan I told her about what I’d found out about A i.e. the total reinterpretation of the past (meaning blatant lies) and this bizarre belief that me applying for that job was some grand plan to get us back together. She actually knew at the time about what happened and replied and said that she was sad to hear that this was how A now explained things, but that being the case A “seriously needs some help”. I have to say that I felt kind of vindicated that someone who actually knew a lot about what happened and with whom I had discussed whether to apply for that job was so unimpressed with A. I am also seeing one of my housemates from university tonight who also knew about when the stuff was going on with A and I imagine will be equally unimpressed. I do still feel really mad about what has happened (which is an impressive thing for A to have achieved as I had never been particularly annoyed until now!). I still can’t quite decide whether to do anything about it all but at least it helps having a couple of people who knew what was happening at the time and cannot believe how warped A’s interpretation of it all is. Having said all that, as odd as it may sound, I would still stick by what I said a long time ago about having no regrets and this post still stands. A bit bitter now? Yes. Regretful? No.

I will actually try and post something here about the role of the narrator in telling a story, which is something I mentioned a few weeks ago, but while we were away on holiday we were listening to the talking book of ‘The Blind Assassin’ by Margaret Atwood. That is a very long book in unabridged form, let me tell you – over 18 hours. Anyway, that had a really interesting quote in it which said:

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

Impossible, of course.”

Most interesting and is now sitting there in the back of my mind seeing how it fits with my other thoughts on the role of a narrator. Further food for thought.

Images

Here are a few photos to start you off with from my holaday. These are some of the ones off my phone and I need to get the ones developed from my camera.

So here is Lizard Point, the most southerly point of the mainland UK:



Some of the flowers at the Lost Gardens of Heligan:



The Giant's Head at the Lost Gardens of Heligan:



The biomes at the Eden Project:



In the Mediterranean biome there was what we concluded was a Triffid in a deckchair:



I shall leave you with a quote from G who was reading The Day of the Triffids while we were away:

"You know how you said that when you read this book you either put yourself in the place of someone who is sighted or who is blind. Well actually I don't. *raises an eyebrow* I see myself as a Triffid."

Someone get me my Triffid gun.

Discoveries

Well, how have I never been to Cornwall before?? Cornwall is such a lovely place and it was a really great holiday. The weather, on the whole, was sunny, and it was really peaceful and quiet and there were very few people about and we just wandered from place to place and saw the sights and ate food and strolled about and generally had a nice time. The place we were staying was really lovely and everything about the holiday was great – it was very hard having to come home.

A brief summary follows, which I may expand on, with a few photos, in due course:

-Stayed in a place called St Keverne, which is on the Lizard (if you think of Cornwall as a boot, The Lizard is the heel). Really nice place and there was even the local brass band playing in the small village square one evening.
-Lizard Point – the most southerly part of the UK. Very beautiful. The village there is a bit uninspiring but you can just walk past that and walk along the Cornish coast. Lovely.
-The Eden Project. I suspect I am in the minority here, but I just did not get all the hype. Basically it’s a couple of biomes and they have lots of plants in them. It’s quite interesting, but was in essence just a couple of large greenhouses. I had expected much more of it. It costs £15 each to get in, which actually we didn’t pay as we got the tickets free via Nectar, but I have no idea what would have justified that cost.
-Lands End. The shops etc that have been built there are somewhat tacky (if you have ever been to Niagara Falls it is a bit like that but not quite as tacky, there’s no Dracula’s Castle etc but there is a Doctor Who exhibition etc which seems an odd place to have it) but you can ignore those and just walk along the coast and appreciate the views and enjoy the fresh air and the sea and soak in the wonders of the English countryside.
-St Ives. A lovely town, although I think best avoided at peak holiday season (which we were there just before it started fortunately). We also had a really nice cream tea there.
-St Michael’s Mount. When the tide is low you can walk out there along a causeway and at other times you have to take a boat – a very short trip as it is only 400 metres out into the sea. We only went to the base of St Michael’s Mount, but there is also a castle there. Really lovely place to visit and we walked one way and got the boat back because the tide had come in (lots of people waded until the water was really quite deep, it’s amazing what Brits will do to save £1.50!).
-Roskilly’s Farm. They make famous Cornish ice cream – and it is very nice. This is where they actually make the ice cream and it was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. A really pleasant place to visit and you can have lunch there and eat ice cream and about 4.30pm watch the cows being milked etc.
-Around the Lizard generally – Coverack is lovely and has a really pretty harbour where we sat and ate fish and chips and ate more ice cream. Driving through Goonhilly Downs was sort of mesmerising because it is really flat land and there are massive satellite dishes on them and wind turbines where most of the UK’s communications are processed. That probably doesn’t sound interesting at all but there was something really impressive about it. There were also other small harbours that we walked to that were just so peaceful and you could just look out to the sea and watch the waves.
-The Lost Gardens of Heligan. These were the precursor to the Eden Project. These gardens were much more impressive and beautiful and also a lot cheaper to visit. I’d really like to go there again, I wouldn’t say the same of the Eden Project.
-Fowey. Another nice little town and the home of Daphne du Maurier. A nice place and set in a lovely bay. We didn’t get to spend much time there, but what I saw of it I liked.
-Jamaica Inn. This is on Bodmin Moor and we stopped there on the drive home as I had read the book, Jamaica Inn, while we were away, which is a du Maurier book of an entirely fictional story set at the inn. It is basically a somewhat touristy spot and is basically a pub, hotel and a gift shop, but there was something nice about stopping there and trying to imagine the story unfolding – and for somewhat of a tourist trap it wasn’t actually a rip off to eat there etc.

Cornwall is such a great place to visit and hopefully some photos will help to convey that a bit. It was just such a relaxing time, visiting beautiful places and soaking it all in. We did lots but also found loads of time to read and just not do very much at all. We both enjoyed every part of it (despite being perplexed by the Eden Project, but we did basically get in for free so we’re not complaining). Lovely place, friendly people, beautiful sites and a slow pace of life. Marvellous.

Checking Out

Today will be my last day in the office for a week. What joy! There has been a distinct lack of preparation for our holiday, but I have packed the Ark building kit just in case. I know how to prioritise. I did, however, discover yesterday that we Brits have been misusing the term ‘monsoon’ of late, which actually refers to a wind (and in a specific geographical location), not rain.

Anyway, so tomorrow, we set off for a very welcome break in Cornwall. We have the Eden Project tickets and an idea of other potential activities, plus I have a stack of books to take with me. I probably won’t read many of them, but I can’t cope without having a selection of books to hand.

Rightio people, I’ll be gone for a week, so I’ll see you when I get back. Then I’ll wow you with tales of listening to talking books, the variety of drinks I put in my flask and how many steps I walked each day. I am sure you can hardly wait.

Lessons

There are certain aspects of our lives that we might assume we never have to question. We get up in the morning and get washed and dressed, which (for most) includes putting on underwear. It’s one of those things that you just do and then hopefully forget about for the rest of the day. So imagine your surprise when during the course of the day you find your bra is vibrating. Initially you ignore it thinking it might be your mobile phone (doesn’t that give you a whole load of new ideas about where you could store your phone if you don’t want to carry a handbag…), but then you decide this needs further investigation, at which point you find a small bat inside your bra. I imagine that would be quite unexpected for most people – and you also probably never would have expected the BBC to publish your bra size on the internet (which was of course an entirely necessary level of detail). At least it wasn’t a spider, which *clearly* would have been much worse.

But how do you actually end up with a bat in your bra? Seemingly drying your bra on the washing line is more risky than we realised. Also is a bat so small that it wouldn’t cross your mind that you look slightly deformed in certain areas of your personage? Well clearly not. I’m sure there is much mileage for inappropriate jokes, but I’m not that sort of girl*.

Just to add to the concerns you probably already have about me based on the details in yesterday’s post about some of the plans for my holiday, G has already given me two of my birthday presents. G is one of those people who is rubbish at keeping a surprise secret, but actually in this instance, I have been given them already as they will be useful for our holiday. The first present is a wind up torch. I have wanted one of those for years and so that is a great present. The second is a pedometer. It’s not just one of those ones with a pea like thing in it that basically measures every slight movement – which could just be you shaking the pedometer up and down to increase your number of steps. Instead this one is meant to take three different measurements and so only counts actual steps and be very accurate (although I think that it slightly undercounts sometimes). You’re meant to do about 10,000 steps a day and since I have had it, it seems that I am doing at least 12,500 steps a day, which is pretty good. I think G is fearful that I will be insisting we walk lots while we are away, which might have some truth in it… What’s the point in having these things if you don’t make use of them is what I say. Well, I’m going to have a fun holiday anyway, even if it means dragging G along behind me.

Oh and last night I went to another radio broadcast. It was called Miranda Hart’s Joke Shop and was quite funny. It will be on Radio 2 at the end of August. Anyway, it was at the BBC Radio Theatre at the top of Regent’s Street. I have now discovered that you should never try and exit Oxford Circus tube station during the evening rush hour in torrential rain. At some exits there seemed to be a standoff between the people trying to exit the station and the people trying to get in. We found another exit and went out that way with a lot less trouble. But trying to get past all the people trying to get into the station was practically impossible and there was just gridlock. As this was keeping from eating food in advance of the recording I valiantly fought my way through, but it was quite some task. Think oxford Street at Christmas with added rain and then double it and you might have some idea of how many people were in trying to get into the station.

On the way home things were somewhat calmer, but when I changed trains I was writing for the train to depart and a female member of staff said to a couple of lads who walked past her “have a safe journey home”. They then boarded the train, but a few seconds later one of them stuck his head out of the carriage and asked her if she wanted to go for a drink sometime. She declined saying she was much too old for him. Potential romance on the tube. How lovely.



*Actually I am that sort of girl but one likes to maintain at least a vaguely respectable public persona.

Conversations

What has happened to the weather this week? This does not bode well for a holiday in Cornwall next week. On Saturday it is going to take over six hours to drive there and so I am hoping that the weather will have cleared up a bit. I was talking to a friend about the forthcoming trip and said that we have a talking book to listen to on the way there. I do think that sometimes G and I seem like we must be about 85 years old. We might even have a flask with us. I’m also taking some Tupperware in case we want to take sandwiches with us on any of our days out. I know... I know...

I was sitting at my desk yesterday and my slightly stalkerish colleague came over and deposited a biscuit on my desk (carried in his clammy hand...). I thanked him and ate it. Later on he came over again, this time with a plate of biscuits. Before he even offered me one, I said no thanks. He said “oh yes, you’re on a diet”. I looked at him questioningly and said “I’m not on a diet”. He kind of looked me up and down and went to say something and I just said rather sternly “Do not go there - or I will punch you*”. He promptly wandered off with his plate of biscuits. Remarkably effective.




*Just to clarify, I wouldn’t actually have punched him**. I have ‘people’ to do that sort of thing. Obviously.

** Possibly still have a few anger issues going on there though...

Honoured

Another weekend over and I’m now on the final countdown to going on holiday. Not a moment too soon.

It was quite a nice weekend. Friday night I met G’s (now ex) work colleagues. I have to say that I really disliked one of G’s managers, which is partly because she is a bully and I knew this in advance, but also because I found her to be a thoroughly unpleasant person anyway. I think a great cloud has been lifted from G’s shoulders to be starting a new job today.

One of G’s friends stayed over on Friday night and then was about most of the day on Saturday as well, which was very pleasant and an excuse to east scones and cakes and drink tea. After he’d gone we watched the film Crash, which for the first hour or so I found incredibly depressing and violent, but then the rest of it, whilst still quite depressing and violent put a totally different spin on things and turned out to be a really good film – about how things are not totally black and white and good people do bad things and bad people do good things and how we might object to how people treat us but then we might well end up doing exactly the same to others. Really interesting film and quite challenging.

On Sunday I commented to G that there is no set size for a football pitch and G just did not believe this (that’s what comes of watching Scottish football I guess) and so I had to go and prove this. Am I ever wrong? Well I think it may have happened once, but I don’t recall the detail of it now… Anyway this was not that instance, as you can see here. Never doubt me…

However the big news of the weekend is that the lovely Tom Foolery has given me with an Arte Y Pico Award, which was a very pleasant surprise. I now have a standard to maintain it seems (I know it might come as a surprise that there is any rhyme or reason to this blog, but if you dig hard enough you might find it. Somewhere). Thanks TF. Much appreciated.

Taking Part

The last few days a real tiredness has descended on me, which also seems to have made me feel a bit down. Anyway, yesterday was a day to lift my spirits, despite what might come into your mind when the words “work away day” are mentioned.

Whilst we sort of do the corporate thing, we usually spend the first half of the day doing something that is a bit of a laugh – and we don’t have to evaluate team building skills or say what we learnt from it etc, we just do it for the fun of it. This year, as we did last year, we had to make our way across London by following a set of clues, but also had to protect an item – that being a bear.

It has to be said that my team didn’t take it too seriously. We made reasonable progress to start with but, due to being misled by someone, decided we were so far off the pace that we might as well accept "it’s the taking part that counts”. So we just pottered around London and got to each of the places and did everything we were meant to do and stopped for a leisurely drink and just generally enjoyed the morning. We came in last time-wise, but it didn’t really matter because it wasn’t timed, as each team was going to the points in a different order and one was always going to get to the final point quickest because there’s was the most direct route, whereas we started almost at the end point and then headed further and further away. We also had to answer various very obscure questions and collect some items and I think there were other things that meant we scored points. Anyway, as it turned out, somehow the team I was in won. This was somewhat of a surprise, as we were really rubbish, so my personal theory is that one of my team mates slept with one of the judges, but it’s probably best not to look into that too much and just accept the victory.

I wouldn’t actually have been bothered if we had lost, as I still think there must have been something very dodgy about the scoring for us to win, but it was just such an enjoyable day and I work with really nice people as well so it put me in a really good mood (despite being in a bit of pain still now after slipping over at one point in the morning and hurting my hand and arm).

Anyway, I have a reasonably busy weekend ahead which starts with G’s leaving drinks tonight and a friend staying over at mine after that. Then various other activities planned for the rest of the weekend. Only one week to get and then I’m on holiday. Hooray!

Perhaps it's time I had a holiday...

There were two articles on the BBC this week that have slightly riled me – or technically the comments have. First was one on the switch to energy saving light bulbs and how some people are stockpiling them. Basically most of the comments are from people who are affronted by the government’s plan to phase out ‘standard’ light bulbs (incandescents), in fact they are incandescent about it. *laughs hysterically* Gosh I am on good form today… Anyway… I have to say that I am not entirely enamoured by being forced to do things in this sort of way, but I also think that there is an element where as a nation we can be incredibly wasteful and somehow think that we have a right to waste resources and that as long as “we’re not harming anyone else” it’s no-one else’s business. But I think that can be an incredibly selfish attitude and that in years to come we will face the consequences of having no concern over the way we have used and wasted resources.

I accept that there might be medical reasons why low energy bulbs are not right for everyone, but most of the people who commented seem to have made up their minds a long time ago and haven’t actually considered that technology has moved on. Let’s look at some examples:

“I will resist these energy bulbs for as long as possible […] because I have just bought a beautiful light fitting that would look terrible with these bulbs”

I know that some don’t look very nice, but you can now get low energy bulbs that look like normal light bulbs. You don’t have to get the ones that look like a coiled tube.

Next…

“Something I didn't see mentioned in your article, is what about those of us with dimmers? I have one in each of the bedrooms; I don't always want full brightness, especially when I am getting up in the mornings or winding down for sleep. Why should I be made to remove these switches in order to use CFLs?”

Well you can buy low energy bulbs that are designed for dimmer switches. In fact I have one in my living room. It works on both dimmer switches or if you have a normal switch you can actually use that to dim it as well.

Next…

“Low energy bulbs do not, in any case, save as much energy as claimed. This is because unlike conventional bulbs they produce very little heat. Therefore in a house using low energy bulbs the central heating system will have to work harder to make up the difference.”

Oh come on… Let’s just apply a few pieces of logic to this one. Does using a normal incandescent bulb mean that I can get away without putting my heating on so much or as hot? I think not. Also heat rises, so even if it does give off heat surely it all goes upwards to my ceiling. Finally, since I installed energy saving light bulbs etc my power bill has gone down by over £20 per month (I get all my power from the same company so that takes into account both lighting and heating). Using energy saving bulbs has made a marked difference.

Right, the next article was on councils stealing street furniture e.g. removing Victorian street lights and replacing them with a rather less aesthetically pleasing equivalent. I do have a lot of sympathy for people who are aghast at this and imagine it is particularly galling where the council moves the street light to a ‘conservation area’ elsewhere. I have never contacted my council about this sort of issue but everything else I have spoken to them about, I have found them to be really helpful – both council workers and local councillors. People who work for councils tend to be ordinary people (I mean that in a nice way!). They could be your next door neighbour or the person you sit next to on the tube – and very possibly often live in the same area as you are affected by the same issues. They are not just faceless bureaucracies, even though it might feel like that sometimes.

Anyway this comment riled me:

“The council have no right to go against the wishes of residents, they are servants of the people, not rulers of the people. Every major change should be discussed with all effected residents, and if it is not, then its a clear breach of democracy. But then again when did democracy ever work? Politicians rarely ask the people what they want.”

That is a very purist view of democracy and simply not one that can work in a modern age. We vote for representatives and they then have the challenge of representing all their constituents’ views - those who did and didn’t vote for them. Where you have any sizeable number of people, you will have a range of opinions and sometimes it is not possible to please everyone. Councils do often consult people and they often write to people when planning permission applications come in (or mine does anyway). The alternative is this:

Dear Mrs Smith

Thank you for your recent application to have an extension built on your property. We have to get a view from all local people to make a decision on this, as representative democracy is no longer acceptable. We have checked our records and given the number of issues already pending – from changing the time the rubbish truck starts its route each day to property extensions to deciding the budget to be spent on social services, the referendum on your case will be held in June 2011. Fortunately this will give you time to save up the £20,000 it will cost to run the referendum. However we must receive a 50% deposit within 28 days in order to secure your slot.

Yours sincerely

Your local council “We’re listening”

Democracy certainly has its failures but it could be much worse…

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to learn that by me ranting here, it stops me from taking it out on my fellow tube passengers. Don’t even get me started on that man who drank his can of Diet Coke on the tube yesterday and then when he had finished put his empty can on the floor in front of me for someone else to throw away. There are bins in most tube stations now! Throw away your own rubbish!

*cough*

Have a good day all...

The Power of Advertising

In internet terms this is probably old news, but last week I was reading about a Heinz advert that has been withdrawn in the UK. I think some people have said it has been banned but as far as I know Heinz decided to withdraw it due to some complaints, which isn’t actually the same thing. I’m not defending their actions, just trying to be factually correct. Anyway, here’s the advert:



So the advert was withdrawn for showing a gay kiss. Right… well despite withdrawing an advert because people are bigots, I still think I am missing the point here. Is that a gay kiss? I know two men kiss each other but isn’t that because the point of the advert is that the Heinz product is so fantastic that the boy’s mum ‘turns into’ a New York deli guy? That’s the humour in it and people saying it’s a gay kiss are surely just a bit dense (as well as bigoted obviously). Perhaps Heinz was a bit too clever for its own good.

However, there is an advert I loathe and makes me want to avoid their product altogether – and that is Tiscali.



I just hate the entire concept behind that advert and cannot understand why anyone would think that was a good way to sell a product. Despite what it says in the advert, don’t give them a call. Well obviously you can if you want to, what with it being a free country and all that, but I’d really rather you didn’t.

Poetic Justice

Biscuits are a subject close to my heart. In fact, now I think about it, I mentioned a biscuit quote from a book yesterday. Anyway, someone I work with got back from holiday yesterday and brought some really nice biscuits for us. Where we work, there are various people nearby who we don’t necessarily know but they use the same facilities/ meeting rooms etc. They kind of camp out at some spare desks. One of those people, walked past and helped himself to the biscuits, as he went into the meeting room near where we sit. I glanced at him and he said “oh… I thought they were for everyone…” and I just said he was cheeky. He did think about putting the biscuit back, but I said he’d better eat it. But come on, surely you can’t help yourself to other people’s biscuits. If they’re left over from a work meeting, fair enough, but when they’re obviously from someone’s holiday, surely they can’t be deemed to be for everyone? Surely you can’t just help yourself. As it turned out, he hadn’t booked the meeting room and got kicked out of it a few minutes later, which I felt to be poetic justice.

G stayed over on Sunday night and just as we are falling asleep said to me “This is a bit of a morbid though to end the day on but I guess one of the advantages of being single is that you’ll never wake up in the morning to find someone dead in bed next to you. It is a risk when you’re in a relationship”. Yes… that’s true… we did talk about this for a few minutes and then we both fell asleep – and both made it through the night alive. Last night I quizzed G about this a bit more in case it was an indication of a) a desire to be single or b) a plan to murder me during the night. Apparently it was neither, but G seemed a little uncertain as to whether it would be preferable to be single or for me to dead – I’m not sure why it was always me who seemed to be the deceased in the conversation – and G said “well I’d get over it in the end, whichever it was” to which I explained that in the circumstances for me I thought being single would be preferable, as my death seemed somewhat difficult to come back from. G eventually conceded the point. I think.

Errors

I went round to my parents’ house on Friday night, which was nice enough, particularly as I got to spend time with my nephew. He was as cute as ever and we sat and watched ‘Open Season’ and ‘Cars’ on DVD. At one point he walked over to my mum carrying his toy dog and knocked my mum’s cup of coffee on the floor. He looked at my mum and immediately said “It wasn’t me”, which I guess technically it wasn’t at it was the stuffed dog that had knocked it off the table, but I did say to my sister that it was good she was bringing up her son to take responsibility for his actions…

I finished reading “My Cousin Rachel” and really enjoyed that. Well worth reading. G and I actually had a really interesting conversation on Saturday about Daphne du Maurier’s books because I gave G a copy of Rebecca to read and we were discussing the role of the narrator in each of the books. The main character is the narrator in each and so you actually get this really biased view of what happens. I think that is particularly significant in how you read her books and also in how you interpret the events, so we were talking about that for ages – I shall return to this at some point soon because I find it really fascinating about the role of the narrator in how we understand and learn about things. I shall explain more another time, but it starts from the principle of when reading a book or listening to someone tell you an account of an event thinking about how objective that person is; and, how does their telling of the story affect your perception of it? G and I don’t normally have such intellectual conversations but it is something I have been thinking about of late. I did have to tell G one of my favourite lines from the book which was “I was so near, I could have tossed a biscuit at him”. That just really made me laugh, because it was such a bizarre way to explain how close someone was to you. I realise this will probably not be amusing to you at all though.

I have also been working on scanning a book for The Burgomeister and have scanned a quarter of The End of the Affair into Word and spent ages tidying it up and finding scanning mistakes and correcting them. If anyone wants me to send them a copy then drop me an e-mail and I can forward on what I have done so far and I’ll send on the other parts when I have done them. This would, of course, be so that you could point out any scanning errors to me (I would genuinely appreciate that help actually), but you would also have to read a mighty fine book in order to do this.

Deliveries

There was a card from the postman when I got home last night saying he’d left a parcel with my neighbour, so I went round to pick that up and it turned out to be a DVD of my nephew driving a toy car. Kind of difficult to describe quite what this involved but they’d had some event at his nursery and had made films of each of the children. Very cute, despite them failing to wipe his nose before the filming started. I said to my sister that in years to come that video would come back to haunt him when they got it out to show future girlfriends.

I also spent a bit of time trying to get a few people together to do a walk in July, which is going to be the weekend after G and I get back from holiday. G already tells me off for getting us to go out walking regularly (even if just to the shops) and given that I imagine there will already have been a reasonable bit of walking while we are away, I might be in trouble… Well, you’ve got to live on the edge sometimes.

I saw some research has shown that eating takeaways can be bad for you. I can’t say that I have done extensive research into this but I reckon I could have told you that based on eating an occasional curry. I would quite like a research grant to make sure I had properly looked into this issue though – and possibly to buy some new clothes that I could actually fit into at the end of it.

Anyway, I’m not really sure what my plans are for the weekend. I’m meant to be going to my parents’ for dinner tonight as my sister and nephew will be there as they are all going to Ireland for a week tomorrow. I was asked to go, but decided that being imprisoned for the murder of my father would take some of the shine off a holiday. Then G is coming over at some point tomorrow and I imagine we will find something to do to keep us amused.

Thanks for all your kind comments on yesterday’s post by the way. Much appreciated.

Mishearing

One of my neighbours came round to speak to me last night, as we are arranging to get a surveyor out to value the property so we can try and buy the freehold. She said to me that she has been trying to contact the freeholder for ages because they are trying to remortgage and have to prove that the property has buildings insurance. The freeholder is responsible for the buildings insurance but doesn’t respond to any calls or request to see the documents. That is actually illegal but there isn’t much we can do to force her to come up with things like that if she doesn’t want to. Yet more reason to get rid of her and own the freehold ourselves. It doesn’t solve my neighbour’s immediate problem though. Grrr.

I was on the tube on the way home last night and a woman sat down and her friend was left standing and the woman who was standing said something to her friend which I heard as “I always knew that my mother was tight”, but her friend didn’t catch what she said so she repeated it only this time it came out as “at the end of the day all of us are really tired”. Perhaps I have some issue with my mother that I’m not aware of and have been transferring that on to other people – not that my mum is tight. Or maybe I just need to clean my ears out.

Free

One of my favourite books is A Town Like Alice. I did have a copy of it but leant it to a friend and have never got it back. I shall replace it at some point, but I would also really like is a copy of it as an audio book. Alas, it only seems to exist on cassette, which isn’t a very useful format and also is incredibly expensive. I continue to keep an eye out for an audio version and one day hopefully will stumble across a copy.

Anyway, when I was having a wander on the interweb last night, I found an interesting site which allows you to download written versions of books (on ‘loan’), so that you can read them and then delete them obviously. Lots of recent books, which are still in copyright – hence them only being on loan. If you like the project, you could actually donate financially or by scanning some books of your own that are on the list of wanted books. I was messing about with my scanner last night seeing how easy it might be to scan a book and it is actually fairly straight forward, so I might donate a couple of books. But I think it might take a while to scan even one, as I don’t want to break my scanner and I then have to sort it out once I have converted it to Word. It is a bit time consuming, but I reckon a few minutes every night for a couple of weeks and I could have completed a book.

I was talking to G on the phone about this last night, who thought I was very “sweet” for contemplating doing something like this, I think it probably is more likely to show that I have too much time on my hands...

Numbers

My weekend went ok and that was mainly helped by having a really nice evening on Friday. I met up with my mum and sister and we had dinner and then went to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It was called Strictly Gershwin and whilst I like Gershwin, I was a bit non-plussed about going to see it. It was a mixture of Gershwin’s music and ballet and whilst I wasn’t terribly impressed by the first piece because they ballet they did to it was incredibly boring and was like watching an exercise class, the second piece onwards was just brilliant and utterly mesmerising. I was like a little kid wondering what was going to happen next. It included music like Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, which brought back memories that as a child I used to go to sleep listening to that music (it’s not exactly the most peaceful music, so I have no idea how…) and then I remembered that at school I also did a project on the Gershwin’s. Anyway… it was really great and one of the best concerts I have ever seen at the RAH. There was a fantastic ballet to “The Man I Love” and it was beautifully sung etc and whilst obviously just hearing the song won’t conjure that up, here it is anyway:



G had been asking me for book recommendations, so I have suggested a few, all of which have been a hit. The other day I was talking to G on the phone and I asked how the book was going and G replied “Yes, it’s going well. I’m on page 156”. I started to laugh and G was confused by my reaction and I had to explain that most people would reply to that question by saying something they liked about the book or what they thought of it etc, whereas G turns everything into the number of pages read. G did later say that it perhaps wasn’t normal to evaluate the enjoyment level of a book based on how many pages you have read.

I previously mentioned about the chap who was going to put his life up for sale. Well, bidding has started - and had reached Aus$2.2 million last time I checked. You might therefore have to auction your very soul to be able to buy his life, but if you get a house, a car and his friends thrown in, you might think it’s worth it.

Curious things

I read a few stories on the BBC this week and have noted a new form of discipline for work. No more formal proceedings, just lock your errant members of staff in a toilet cubicle… Of course, only do this if you have another toilet that you can still use yourself or else it isn’t just them that might feel the consequences of it.

I also read the somewhat strange story of feet washing up on a beach in Canada. The whole thing is a mystery as no-one knows where these feet have come from. Two turned up on the beach last year and now another four have turned up – mostly right feet as well. I was particularly perplexed by this line though “Police say it is not yet clear if a crime had been committed. They said they had found no evidence that the feet had been severed.”

Erm… well I think we can say that they *were* severed, what with them not actually being attached to a leg or a body. I got my dictionary out and severed means “separate, divide, part, disunite”. So it has definitely been severed. I assume they mean that there are no signs of foul play. Anyway, if you see a lot of one footed people then perhaps you could let the Canadian police know.

I’m not really sure what to say about this next link, but if you’re into cheese then perhaps this is the culinary delight you have been waiting for. Or perhaps not…

Thoughts

I just finished reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Another great read and well worth reading. I now have another of his books to read, which I will do in the next few weeks. Anyway, there was a line in that book that really struck me.

“In my experience if you run from a thing just because you don’t like it, you don’t like what you find either. Now running to a thing, that’s a different matter, but what would you want to run to?”

I have nothing terribly profound to say about these words, they just resonated with me. I sometimes wonder if I run from things too easily and am constantly making decisions not to do something, when if I were instead making decisions about what I actually went to do things might be rather easier. It can be so easy to run from things that scare us, but that means you miss out on all sorts of opportunities and new things that once they are no longer new you wonder what there was to fear anyway. Maybe I should take those things more to heart. Embrace opportunities rather than running from the bad stuff.

Anyway, this has not been an entirely cheery week, not just because of having things dropped on my head, but more because there’s just been some difficult stuff going on that has made me feel very down and subdued. G has actually been incredibly supportive in it all and has helped to make me feel a lot better, but is now off to Scotland today until Tuesday, which is not great timing, as just the thought of that makes me feel really rubbish again. Normally G going away wouldn’t bother me, but right now, even though we will speak on the phone, I could do with G being about physically. But despite it not being a good past few days, it has reminded me how very kind, loving and generous G is, which is never a bad thing to remember. For that, I am most certainly grateful. All will be brighter again in the not too distant future I’m sure.

The video below has no relevance to any of the above, I was just listening to it last night and thought there was something intriguing about the video. It is Weapon by Matthew Good.

Not dead... just wounded...

Apologies for not blogging yesterday, which I am sure must have sent shockwaves across blogland. You can now call off the dogs, I am back! There were a couple of reasons for my silence yesterday, first I had to get up super early to get a flight to north of the border and also, as it turned, out my internet connection failed on Monday night and I couldn’t summon up the energy at some unearthly hour yesterday morning to find out if it had come back again.

I felt pretty rough most of the day yesterday. I hadn’t slept all that well on Monday night and then had to get up really early anyway and just felt sluggish throughout the day and I always find that flying never helps with making me feel on top form. Anyway, I had a bit of a headache by the time I went to check in for my flight. I had a flexible ticket so the system offered me the chance to change fights as there was an earlier one, so I did so but then just happened to mention this to a member of staff who then told me the earlier flight was actually delayed and would be departing after my original flight. So she very kindly switched me back to my original flight. So I killed some time in the business lounge and desperately wanted to just shut my eyes for a bit but was with two people that I knew so couldn’t. I then boarded the flight and settled down in my seat and my mind began to prepare for a bit of relaxation time. Whilst we were waiting to take off one of the flight crew was moving the stuff about in the overhead locker directly above my head and a walking stick somewhat unexpectedly fell out and cracked me really hard on the head. She was very apologetic, but let me tell you that it didn’t have hurt and was also not great for my headache. It’s funny because on Monday even though I knew I was going to Scotland and back in a day I felt as though I was going to be away for much longer. Perhaps it was a premonition that I might be hospitalised.

On Monday, I read this somewhat sad tale on the BBC. A dog got sucked up by a street sweeper in New York. The owner turned round to find that all he had in his hand was a lead and no dog attached to the end of it. No sniggering at the back there…

I shall end with a song that seems very apt at the moment. It’s “Telling Stories” by Tracy Chapman.

Speaking

Another weekend over and again it was quirt busy, primarily because of going to two barbecues, one on Saturday and another on Sunday. The one on Sunday was at my sister’s house and seemed to consist of me running about with my nephew trying to kick a football. I felt so full by the end of yesterday that I might need to avoid eating for the rest of this week (somehow I think I will manage to eat again though). Actually my sister gave me a birthday cake yesterday that was ‘going spare’, so I’m going to take that into work – not that it is my birthday, so everyone at work will be somewhat confused, but it’s cake so I can’t imagine they will complain too much. It is actually mum’s birthday today, but the cake wasn’t for her birthday either, it was just at my sister’s house and needed eating up…

Anyway, while we were at my sister’s my father said to me that they are planning to do something to mark their 40th anniversary in September. He asked me if I would give a speech. I was a bit dumbfounded and gave the somewhat terse reply that I wasn’t sure he had given me enough notice to think of something to say. I really do not get on with my father and have nothing good to say about him and so would have to try and give a speech that entirely consisted of speaking abut my mum. Mind you, he couldn’t complain too much because when my sister got married a few years ago he gave the father of the bride speech and entirely forgot to mention my sister, not even once did he refer to her. So, I am not happy about this suggestion at all but will have to think about it a bit more. I think what bothers me about it the most is how oblivious my father must be to even consider asking me to something like that. But that’s the thing I suppose, he always had the ability to wipe from his mind all of the awful things he used to do and instead replaced it with some idealised view about how family was “the most important thing” whilst continually treating his own family with contempt. It just makes me really angry even typing these words. The thing is that if I decline to do it, I will be the one made out to be the bad guy. I need to stop there I think, before I get really mad about it.

On a more humorous note, one of the radio broadcasts I saw being recorded, Spike’s Lookalikes, is on BBC Radio 4 tonight at 11pm if you want to tune in, or should be on their ‘listen again’ service for a week following its broadcast tonight. This and next week’s episode are the actual ones I heard being recorded, so if you listen very carefully you might be able to pick out me chuckling away.

Which reminds me… I saw another radio broadcast on Thursday, which was the funniest yet. It was called Cabin Pressure and I was so amused by it and laughed the whole way through. I’m not sure it will be as funny on the radio because part of what was so funny was the cast messing up their lines and despite it being on the radio, there was a remarkable amount of acting, which made it very funny, but obviously won’t be visible to listeners. Plus there were a number of comments made to the audience won’t make it to the final cut but made it really amusing. It had Stephanie Cole in it, who was great and Roger Allam - who has such a nice voice which I found really mesmerising. I think he is the chap who is the voice behind the HSBC adverts if you want to know what he sounds like. Anyway, it was very good and I’m looking forward to it being on the radio.

Rightio, I’m off to work…

Caution required

I read a couple of things recently that struck me as unusual. First, I bought a frisbee recently and I think it would be fair to describe the manufacturers as paranoid. Let me just give you a taster:

Make sure that people around you know you are playing with a flying toy. For use only in large outdoor recreational areas. Do not throw toy near traffic, buildings, trees, overhead wires, people or other obstructions. Do not use during electrical storms, snow, rain, high winds or other adverse weather conditions.
They really are spoil sports…

This toy contains small parts which may be hazardous.
Erm… no it doesn’t…

Remove all packaging, clips, staples, ties and similar attachments before giving this toy to a child.
Maybe they are referring to hair clips and a tie you where round your neck because the Frisbee came with no packaging at all.

Warning! This product is a toy and should not be used in competitive sports.
I will have to use another ‘professional’ Frisbee to take this up competitively. Except don’t you have maintain amateur status to take part in the Olympics? It’s a dilemma…

Second, the other day I bought a book on gardening from a charity shop and basically it was made up of various questions and the book provided the answers. For example (and I can provide the answers if needed!):

How and when should I trim my informal flowering hedge?

Can roses be grown with other plants?

I am worried that the toadstools on my own lawn may be poisonous. How can I get rid of them?

I think we can say that the book is fairly middle class, but then it surpassed itself:

Where the chalk lines are marked out on my lawn tennis court the turf seems much greener and more vigorous than the rest of the lawn. Does this mean my lawn needs lime?

Your lawn tennis court? Who has their own lawn tennis court?? I think the somewhat obvious answer to this pesky lawn problem is to ask your butler to tell the groundsman to get a man out to deal with it. I am shocked they have let it deteriorate in this way, what will the Jones’ say when they come over for Pimms?

Now I've seen it all...

As I was walking home from the station last night I could see a man in his car and he pulled away from the side of the road and then did a *very* slow three point turn and then drive off. As he drove past, I realised why his three point turn had been so slow – a child of about three was sitting on his lap (without a seatbelt on) and doing all the steering. They drive off up the road laughing. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I was not impressed by that at all.

Anyway, last night was the final of The Apprentice. I have to say that I never did quite get into the series. It is the only one that I have ever watched pretty much from the beginning, and even right until the end I couldn’t quite decide if I enjoyed the programme. It just seemed like a lot of people shouting at each other and not achieving terribly much. I wasn’t quite convinced that it was entertainment. I also just can’t imagine why people would want to put themselves through that sort of ordeal and I’m not certain that job would be quite the prize it is meant to be. But perhaps it is just me who thinks that. I remained unconvinced by it all to the bitter end.

I’m off to another radio recording which I think will be rather more amusing than The Apprentice. It has Stephanie Cole in it and hopefully we will get to hear some of her rather dry wit.

For your daily dose of cuteness, you might like to take a look here. At least she’s not destined for the sausage factory.

Reading

I’m reading “The Sound of Laughter” by Peter Kay at the moment and I have to say that it is a funny book. I might almost have broken the golden rule on the Tube and smiled a few times. Just the names he comes up with for the nuns who taught at his school is amusing enough, but it’s a really nice observational type humour. A very light-hearted read.

I am trying to think of a book to listen to in talking book form on the journey to and from Cornwall in a few weeks time. It’s about a six hour journey each way, so we thought we might listen to a book, but I’m trying to think of some suggestions. We don’t want to be stuck in a car for all that time and have picked a book that bores us to tears (which obviously isn’t safe when you’re driving). Of course, we can switch it off if we don’t like it but then it would be a missed opportunity. I was thinking maybe a Daphne du Maurier, as a lot of her books are set in the region, but we shall see.

If you want to read books on the interweb then there is a site here with some books you can download. This might have been useful for G yesterday who was trying to read a book whilst at work without any colleagues noticing – which is a challenge when you sit next to them. It’s much easier to look like you’re working if it’s on your computer screen. Just tap a few keys every now and then. Alternatively, get books e-mailed to you via this site - many of which are free.

There are some things you just don't need to know

Going back to work was ok. Not exciting, but ok. I went out on my lunch break and amongst other things found a really good supermarket that isn’t totally packed at lunch time. Marvellous. I did have to drag myself back to work though, which was painful given how nice it was out.

Anyway, we had a section meeting yesterday morning and we give an update on what work we are doing. I didn’t have much to say, given that I had been off for the last week, but then it was a colleague’s turn and he said:

“I have an interview for a promotion tomorrow; it’s my daughter’s second birthday on Saturday; and this might be too much information, but I have had confirmation that my vasectomy was successful.”

Er... yes maybe a bit too much information. I replied “I’m trying to work out which of those to give you a card for”. Everybody else’s updates, which were merely about work, were rather more tame by comparison.

Returning

So my week of leave is over, the weekend is over, and now it’s back to work… *sigh*

Anyway, it was a very good weekend and had lots of highlights. Friday night I went to see a radio recording of a programme called New World Order. To be honest I was a bit non-plussed by this. It was basically meant to be about the world coming to an end and the people in the studio audience were the only survivors and we were introduced to our new world leader, who turned out to be Simon Munnery. The programme was presented by Danny Wallace, who was funny, but Simon Munnery just kept saying he didn’t care when he was asked various things and it got a bit wearing after a while. The programme was obviously quite scripted, as there were various pre-recorded clips that they played and they followed one from some of the conversation between those two, so maybe something got lost on translation. I think with some good editing it could be quite funny, and I would be interesting in hearing how it turns out.

On Saturday, G and I went for a walk in Docklands, which was good. We actually started by going to a pie shop on Tower Bridge Road, the famous (if you know your pie shops) M Manzes, where only I ate as they had run out of vegetarian pies, so G couldn’t have anything. I would have happily forfeited eating there but G thought that was a waste as we had gone to the trouble of going there. Then we stopped elsewhere for food for G and then walked from Tower Bridge to Canary Wharf, which was very pleasant and we stopped at a put en route and had a drink. I haven’t been to the Canary Wharf area for ages and parts of it have a really continental feel to it. I would like to go back and have another wander around there again. However, we couldn’t do that yesterday as we had to head back into the centre of London, grab a quick bite to eat and then go to another radio recording. This time it was “It’s Later Than You Think” (possibly not the title they will finally broadcast it under) presented by Marcus Brigstocke. This was much funnier than the previous night and Mark Steel was the guest and he had to try various things he had never done before – tea at the Ritz, a wet shave by a barber etc etc and that was all very amusing. This was the third episode in the series and the previous recording has been with Paul Daniels and let’s just say that all the comments Marcus made about Paul Daniels will have to be edited out before the broadcast because he was not fan. I think “woman-hating bigot” would be the politest summary of how he was described.

We headed home after that and G had been wearing a pedometer and it seems we did over 21,000 steps on Saturday, but then we rather balanced that out yesterday by hardly moving at all. It was a good weekend, including having really nice weather and drinking fizzy Vimto.

A couple of things to point you towards. First is Caroline Smailes’ blog which refers you onto a new blog started by her husband to try and broaden people’s reading. You can suggest books yourself or just try out other people’s ideas. Second, if writing is your thing rather than reading, then a post by Stray over at Chasing Sheep might assist. I am very impressed by Stray’s little crib sheet.

Anyway, time to head off to work… *sigh*

Finished. Almost.

The boiler is now installed, which is good news. Just as the chap was finishing he said “you’ll have to get an electrician out to cross bond it for you”#, which I think means to earth it. I wasn’t very impressed by that because I had used this firm so that everything was done by the end and had they told me in advance that they couldn’t do that bit I could have made an arrangement for someone to come and do it while I am on leave this week, but I haven’t got any time to arrange it now. I think he could tell I wasn’t entirely pleased. However, I am pleased with the work they did, despite the water leak and my bedroom still smelling disgusting. I’ll have to redo the ceiling in a few weeks time. I still can’t put a light bulb in the overhead light in my room. I tried yesterday and the light came on and flickered loads despite me not having turned the switch to the on position. I think I might need to leave it longer to dry out…

Yesterday was my father’s birthday and so I went out for dinner with my parents. That was ok, but I really do struggle with spending time with my parents. I feel like teenager again and feel really uncomfortable whenever my father ask me a question, as I don’t really want him to know anything about my life. I really need to get my head round all that because it makes me avoid my parents and then whenever I see them I always feel on edge. I’d like to see my mum more often, it’s just my father that I really struggle with, but it is difficult to avoid him every time I see my mum.

Anyway, today is my last day of leave and I am going to go and do a bit more observing for my possible volunteering and a few bots out and about and then meet up with G tonight and we are going to another radio recording. Then tomorrow we are going for a walk in the City of London and then to another radio recording (although I have my doubts that we will get into that one, but we shall see). I don’t want the week to be over *sigh*

Oh and yesterday on the news they kept showing a report about a woman who bought an emu egg which was sold to her to eat, she incubated it as she thought it might be possible to hatch it and she did, so she now has a baby emu. I saw it on the news a few times and kept wondering what was significant about the story?? It wasn’t that she boiled it for her breakfast and a live emu popped out. So… she deliberately incubated the egg to try and get a baby emu and it worked… is that newsworthy? It’s not like one of those stories where someone buys a bunch of bananas and finds a tarantula in them. Or she bought a kitten and it turned into a snow leopard. She bought and emu egg and hatched it. Sorry, I’m just very confused by this story…

Anyway, on that note, have a good weekend all.

#Does anyone know if this is strictly necessary and if I am likely to die if I don’t get this done??

Problems...

The boiler installation was all going so well and was on course to be finished yesterday. Until I walked past my bedroom afternoon and saw water coming through the ceiling. Oh dear. My neighbour wasn’t about but fortunately I knew where she worked and looked up her work number and called her because the workmen urgently needed access to her property. She contacted her dad who came over about half an hour later and let us in. There was water coming through her ceiling and her bedroom carpet was soaking.

The workmen went up into the loft and found the source of the problem. They had switched my water from the hot water tank to mains pressure, as they should have done, and this meant that because of the higher pressure an outlet pipe was being used that previously hadn’t been needed. That pipe drained into the water tank in the loft. However, at some point someone put a cover on the tank so when the outlet pipe was used the water just drained off the top of the tank onto the rafters in the roof. Until now the only reason that pipe would have been used would be to let pressure off my tank if it boiled. So… had that happened boiling hot water would have poured on to my neighbour’s bed. I wasn’t really looking to apportion blame, as sometimes things do go wrong, but in this instance no was at fault apart from whoever (back in the mists of time) put a cover over the tank.

I took my Vax upstairs and got loads of the water out of my neighbour’s carpets. I spent about an hour and a half doing it and whilst the carpets were still damp when I left they were soaking before I started so it was a big improvement. By the time my neighbour got home the crisis had passed and it was about assessing the damage. Her only concern was whether the floor boards might rot. I said that I thought that very unlikely but she should get her home insurance people out to assess it if she’s concerned. In my property, I have a damaged ceiling, which might improve when it has properly dried out, and there is a somewhat strange smell that is a bit like a combination of paint and wet wood. Hopefully that will go as well. I could claim on my home insurance but I’m not sure I can be bothered. I can repaint the ceiling myself and so the only problem will be if the ceiling paper needs replacing. So it could have been worse...

Connections

Thanks for the positive response to yesterday’s postcard idea. I will set to work on this and find some nice cards and think if some suitable words or quotes and then try and give it a go. I might be one of the only people in the UK who makes use of the paper version of the BT phone book!

Yesterday I went out for lunch with my mum which was really nice. We were going to go for a bit of a walk as well but the weather was so miserable that we didn’t do that. I went back to my parents’ house afterwards and had a look at my parents’ TV. A few weeks ago my father found that he couldn’t record anything on his DVD recorder and didn’t know how to fix it. I messed about for ages and established that the problem was with getting a signal and that the DVD recorder was working just fine. I messed about with wires some more and then the conversation went as follows:

Me: Oh, you get your terrestrial signal through the old Cable box wiring.
Father: No, the signal comes through Sky.
Me: No, the Sky channels come through Sky but the terrestrial channels came through your old Cable wiring because it is plugged into the aerial socket.
Father: No that wiring doesn’t do anything. That’s why when the builders built a new wall for us a few weeks ago I told them they could cut that wire and remove it.
Me: *penny drops* Is that the same sort of time that you lost the TV signal?
Father: Yes, but it was fine for them to remove it because that isn’t how we get the signal.
Me: Erm, I think you’ll find that it was important. Did it not cross your mind that there might be a connection between them removing that wiring and you no longer having a TV signal??

Clearly it hadn’t crossed his mind because it was only after I actually took him through the wiring system that he could accept that the Cable signal was actually quite important. Oops. Anyway, after some searching through loads of wires (and cobwebs. Yuck.*) I managed to find the original aerial that they used to get their TV signal before Cable or Sky were even dreamed of and got their TV signal back and then I retuned the TV and DVD recorder and got it all working again. Sometimes I despair of my father and his ability to think laterally.

On other matters, if you are in any important business meetings today, it might be worth noting that the quality of the biscuits could make the difference as to whether you clinch the deal. The advice seems to be to go for chocolate digestives. I’m not sure that I see them as what I would think of as quality biscuit, but maybe other people have simpler tastes than me. My personal favourites are those ones that usually come in gold wrappers and have a layer of orange fondant in them and are then coated in milk chocolate. I might agree to pretty much anything after one of those.


*My parents have a clean a house by the way. This was down the back of some cupboards.

Uplifting

They weren’t meant to be doing anything on the boiler installation today, but yesterday the installers did far more work than they thought they would be able to and have realised that they can get on with more work today without having to wait for the wall repairs to dry out. They think they might be finished tomorrow now rather than on Friday as they had previously thought, which is good news.

I’m meeting up with my mum for lunch today. She has to go to the hospital this morning for her annual check-up because she had cancer a few years ago and then we’re going to go out somewhere for a bite to eat, which is quite handy because it’s kind of difficult to do much in the kitchen at the moment because that is where all the work is going on.

I was lying in bed last night and for some reason I was thinking about a variation on a theme of PostSecret. So a kind of post-PostSecret... I was thinking that you could get a phone book and pick out someone at random and then put a postcard anonymously in the post to them and you just write something uplifting or positive on it. No signature, no way to track it back to you, just a positive message. I think this was partly influenced by me getting my new phone book delivered the other day, although I have no idea how it turned into this particular idea. Just in case you are wondering, I am in the phone book twice, at my own address and at my parents’ address (as there phone bill is in my name), so I am expecting twice the warm feeling from anonymous senders. I might ponder this idea some more - and also check out if this might be an arrestable offence!

Perfect

My first day of leave and despite checking what time the chaps were due to turn up today to fit my new boiler, I was still in bed when the builder turned up – because he was arriving separately to the boiler people. I chatted to him a bit in my night clothes and made him a cup of coffee and then went and had a shower. I did feel a bit weird about that, what with him being a stranger and me not having a lock on my bathroom door, but he seemed like a nice enough chap and I figured that as my hot water will disappear today for a few days, time was of the essence in having a shower. Three of them are now here and standing looking at my boiler coming up with their plan of action

My plan for the day is to do some work in the garden, put down loads of weed killer and take some pictures to a local place to try and get them framed and other such things. The chaps who are here were commenting that it seemed a bit of a waste to have taken the week off for a boiler, but I told them that I was just so pleased to have some time off work and one of them was advising me on where to go in Cornwall as, over the weekend, G and I booked a cottage to stay in for a week in July.

I read a couple of articles on the BBC last week and was surprised to learn that typewriters are still a reasonably big seller in the UK. I could believe that some people still use old ones, but that there are still thousands sold every year is quite surprising, but given how unreliable my computer is being at the moment, perhaps I might be better off with one.

The BBC also reported on some research into the ‘perfect voice’. If you look at the article, they have samples of the (computer generated) perfect voice. I have to say that I’m not sure that I agree that I think they are really great, particularly the male one. I think a richer, deeper voice is what I would see as more appealing. Years ago a chap called Michael Hordern used to narrate Paddington Bear and I used to think he had the most amazing voice. It’s maybe not one that was likely to be that common though I suppose. Perhaps they are the perfect voices, but I’m not convinced and maybe it just proves that no matter how much research is put into such things, it is all subjective really.

Drink like a man...

I don’t know what to make of the above advert, which I have seen a few times on my travels on London Underground. I am someone who is not a fan of alcohol. I don’t drink alcohol at all and am always wary of people who drink to excess. Alcohol is something that makes me very uncomfortable. So you would think that anything that encouraged people to drink less would be something that I might favour. But that advert troubles me. In part, I think it is because the advert is based around looks and image. I’m not sure anyone would aspire to look bedraggled like in the advert, but it concerns me that looks are a way by which we should judge ourselves or that others should judge us. I think it is the judgment that I see in the advert that troubles me.

I also don’t like the stereotypes that seem to underpin the campaign. What it says to me is that the underlying message (beyond the one of not drinking to excess) is that men are meant to look one particular way and women are meant to look another and there should be no ambiguity in that. But surely there is a lot of grey in how people look, or choose to look, and not all women look like ‘typical’ women or all men look like ‘typical’ men – not that I have any idea what ‘typical’ actually means. Perhaps it just reflects a view that as a society we are quite shallow and how we look is something that motivates us in many different and unexpected parts of our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important that people are aware of the social, physical and emotional impact of alcohol consumption. I don’t have a problem with that being highlighted. I just feel distinctly uncomfortable with it being highlighted in this way. I would also ask if men could interpret this advert as telling them that “if you don’t drink like a man, you drink like a girl” and encourage them to drink more? I think this an unlikely scenario, but that is actually the flip side of the message in that advert.

Maybe it has achieved its aim by making me think – although as a non-drinker, I’m probably not really the target audience.

Justification

I read a report on the BBC yesterday that power was being restored to London, Cheshire, Merseyside and East Anglia on Tuesday after power cuts. What power cuts? I didn’t even see it mentioned on the national or local news. Did we plunge into some crisis, but someone forgot to mention it – or maybe due to lack of power the message didn’t get through? Perhaps there were power cuts but I was totally oblivious to this (nothing new there then) but I asked about and didn’t find anyone else who was aware either. How very odd…

G is thinking about getting more fit and healthy and we were talking about Paul McKenna’s philosophy on healthy eating. There are four principles, which are:

• Eat when you are hungry
• Eat what you want
• Eat consciously
• Stop when you are full

All seems fairly straightforward. G is not actually following this eating regime but, nonetheless, seems to particularly like the first one and on Monday this voice kept piping up “I’m hungry. Paul McKenna says I must eat, so you need to feed me”. If I queried this then G would just reply “But Paul McKenna says so”. Hmm… The other thing is that G seems to think this would be a marvellous excuse to eat chips everyday because you can “eat what you want”. Yes… technically within the rules, but probably not the wisest choice.

I’m not knocking Paul McKenna’s plan because I do actually know some people who have had great success with it – it is basically about taking control of your eating and understanding what makes you eat and helps you to work out if it is really hunger that you’re feeling, but I think G has rather taken the choicer bits to heart and that it will regularly be quoted back to me to justify many things!