The Pimp

Is it wrong to want to pimp your friends (and I mean as in procure their services for others, not add a super-sized spoiler and low-rider suspension)?

It’s one of those facts of life that we somehow learn to accept as we grow older, that sometimes shitty things happen to good people and equally sometimes good people do shitty things.

The world is after all a long way from fair in the short-term at least and we surely all have the capacity to treat those around us with something less than the duty of care we might hope to experience from others and that human failing whilst nothing to be celebrated, does not make monsters of us.

It’s been a rough week for a couple of friends of mine (I’ll not give details). A long chat with one of them last night, breaks my heart. His world fell apart this week and it’s difficult to see him in so much pain.

We talk and talk and he says it helps and I hope it does, but I feel like an amateur. I find myself drawing again and again on the things that helped me when I’ve hit those bad times. The kind words of friends, the sage advice, the permission to fall apart and still be loved and listened to.

I want to say to him “My friend I’m pants at this, I am but a pale imitation of those that go before; so let me instead introduce you to some pros”.

Because I realise that when my life has hit the skids, I had the benefit of some of the best in the business. The people who listened and cared and took me to their bosom (both metaphorical and literal) and slowly and surely eased away my pain and let the healing start.

Some of you will be reading this and if you think even for one millisecond that I might be meaning you, then I almost surely do. Last night I realised I’ve got the most amazing friends and I’m not sure I ever could say thank you enough, but for now, and for the record, thank you.

So as we’re supping our drinks I’m trying to do my best, to pass on what I have in my time received, to think of the things that were said and done that helped and so forth, but at the back of my mind I’m thinking, I should cut out the middle man.

I want to pimp my friends.

Death of a Salesman

Outside of the odd bit of Shakespeare, I can’t think that I’ve read a play since I was at school, so this week’s ‘book’ was an interesting experience.

Miller’s stage directions are detailed and emphatic, which I suspect gives many a director something of a dilemma, but as a reader it did at least dress the theatre of the mind.

However, one of the things that a novel achieves over plays and films, is the detailed insight into the internal monologue. A good actor may portray some of this, but a novel gives the author far more rope. Reading straight dialogue, you get glimpses of subtext in the nature of the phrasing and so forth, but it needs to come to life in your head before it truly starts to work.

In an astounding piece of “well duh!” thinking, I therefore conclude it is generally better to read a novel, but watch a play.

Tune in next week for startling new thinking as to why shoes are best worn on the feet and gloves on the hands.

Home Delivery

A phone call from Stuart. Apparently my oldest ‘favourite’ niece is experimenting in cookery for school and would I like to come round for tea tonight to try her pakora?

Sadly I need to wait in for the supermarket delivery I ordered in a moment of “I have no time/energy to shop this week moments” whilst down in London (plus I was swayed by the £10 off Ocado email – lovely Waitrose goodies at, thanks to the discount, justifiable prices!).

Well how about tomorrow, he enquires, there will be samosas tomorrow.

Damn it! Gym and the Book Group preclude even a brief sojourn to their pad. Ah well, them’s the sacrifices you have to make, think I.

A little later a text message lands: “we now do a delivery service”.

And so, just after nine, a plate arrives with some wonderful biryani and fish and chicken pakora. Mighty fine. How much am I grinning do you think?

Then whilst Karen catches up on a TV series she’s been watching, Stuart and I time the journey to what, come August, will be their new home. About 8 minutes we reckon – heck the pakora would still be hot ;-)

The neighbourhood is great and the house looks good. By the time we get back to mine (ie a mere 8 minutes later!), I feel like jumping up and down with glee and hugging Karen. So I apologise that she probably missed half the second half of the drama in question, but I’m just the teensiest bit excited!

Billing

The mysteries of the utility companies’ accounts department never fail to intrigue me.

Step One: they ‘estimate’ how much gas/electricity I’ll use and set my monthly direct debit payments accordingly.

Step Two: I’m never in when they call to read the meter (though I bet they have torches), so they base my quarterly bills on ‘estimated’ readings.

Now call me dense, but am I missing something here? Wouldn’t you expect the estimate they use in step one to be the same as the estimate they use in step two? If they think I’m going to use X units and so set my monthly payments accordingly, wouldn’t it make sense that the ‘estimated meter reading’ would be similarly based on X units?

But no, year on year on year, they insist on setting my direct debits higher than my ‘estimated usage’ (which is never far out from my actual when I read the meter for them) and so every year or so I have to ring them up and say “much as it’s nice for you to be holding £80 of my money in ‘credit’ I’d really rather have it back in my account please”.

Given the price hikes over the last year, it makes this pattern even more irksome.

Since the last time I got the account straight, over the last 18 months (a period containing more ‘winter’ than ‘summer’) they have taken what amounts to £5 a month too much overall. But get this, if they return £75 of the current £80 odd credit to me, they’ll actually want to up my direct debit from £26 a month to £28.

How does that make sense?

You’re habitually charging me around £5 a month too much, I have to keep ringing you up to get the surplus back and your solution is to put my monthly payments up not down.

It’s logic like that that keeps their coffers full and the interest on everyone’s cash lining their pockets not ours. Well f*** that for a game of soldiers.

At this point I will say something positive about the utility company in question. When I argued about the sheer lunacy of the ‘computer’ prediction, the human being on the other end of the phone did at least see my point and we ended up compromising on me getting the credit back without him upping my monthly payments. So the “computer says no” circle of hell was avoided thankfully.

Even so, I still have to resign myself to the knowledge that in a year’s time I will no doubt be once again chasing a refund. Maybe I should just see it as a stealth saving scheme? Crummy interest though.

I’ve been meaning to switch the utility in question to a more ethical provider for some time now. Anyone know if Equipower are any better at this billing stuff?

Innovation or signs of madness?

Sometimes I worry about myself.

It started simply enough, I went to get readings for my gas and electricity meters.

Both are located in the walk in 'room' off the garden that doubles as a shed, but whilst the gas meter is usefully located up high on the back wall (i.e. easily readable), the electricity meter is rather more annoyingly located about a foot of the ground in the bottom rear corner.

Accordingly every time I need to read the meter or rewire a fuse (oh yes we're talking old skool!), I have to battle to get access.

So I face the choice of emptying pretty much all the shed so I can get complete access to the meter, or move a couple of items and then lean over the remaining obstacles and with a torch, take a reading.

Except right now I can't find my torch. I can't be bothered to search for it and I equally can't be bothered to empty the shed completely (not least because it may still be too dark in that low corner to read the meter).

I try to think laterally. My old phone had a light on it (for the camera, but it doubled as a fine torch), but my new phone just has a flash.

But it gives me an idea...

And that ladies and gentlemen, is how I came to be stretched over the tea crate of garden tools etc stretching an arm into that far corner and taking this:



So demented mad woman who takes photos in a her shed, or cunning problem solver who uses new technology in creative and innovative ways? In the words of Marcus Bentley - you decide!

London

Down in London with work today for the AGM of the charity my company are patrons of. No HRH this year , but it is held in impressive surroundings, the I*C*E building on Gre@t George Street. A stones throw from the Houses of Parliament, it's everything you could want from a grandiose building of it's type. The eye travels up automatically and finds en route tributes to those Engin33rs of yore (only some of whom wore stove pipe hats). The names are legendary...well in my world at least (yes some of us knew who the Smeaton was that the Kaiser Chief's refered to, without the aid of Google). The building is beautiful and for a moment I could almost forget how much of my professional subs go towards the upkeep of a building I have visited only twice in my life - a hit rate that puts me about 200% ahead of most of my colleagues!.

Between a long (working) journey down, the meeting itself and then that long late night/last train journey back, I've put in eleven plus hour workday. So it seems fair enough to me that I juggle things a little so that I also fit in seeing Mum and Dad.

Mum hasn't been at all well. The doctor thinks it may be some new medication she had been starting to take and so she's slowly being weaned off that. It'll take a few weeks to reduce the dose and then have the last of it leave her system, so we're trying to be patient, but it's hard. She's tired (like falling asleep mid conversation tired), a little confused and generally just not quite 'there'. Most worrying of all is that these are the exact same symptoms that she had before the big time crash last year.

So we're trying to be patient and stay positive, but it's hard.

Post Rapture Pet Care

I trust dear readers, that you are all regular perusers of the divine Caroline over at One Pedestrian Away; but just in case you've missed this, I give you: Jesus Pets.

The claim it's for real (I maintain my reservations), but anyway, let me explain in their own words:

What is JesusPets?

If Jesus returns tonight, who will feed your pets tomorrow?

Who is going to care for your pets after you are raptured into heaven?

Many Christians believe that animals do not go to heaven. So when Jesus comes back and you return with him to heaven, will there be somebody to take care of your dog or cat?

That’s what JesusPets is for. We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs.

Not convinced you need their services yet? Well think on my friends, read the FAQs:

Your pet in a salad with fresh edamame

This is real folks. That unnamed food conglomerate is at it again.

You have to realize that some countries are going to take armageddon a little harder than others. The ones that have been around for say 10,000 years have seen it all before and they'll hit the ground running. 250-year-old countries? Eh, not so good.

This food conglomerate has operating plans to find your pet in those younger countries, return them for processing, and then use time travel to sell them pre-rapture to a well-known fast food chain.

Excellent, time-travelling catering suppliers and everything.

But it seems all is not well in the world of post-rapture pet care policies. It looks like it's been getting nasty:

Some information has been circulating about competing services by so-called "Christians" offering similar post-apocalyptic pet care. At least one of these services, and I'm not going to mention their name, has been making arrangements with an international resturant distributor. After the rapture, they plan to sell your pets to godless Asian restaurant chains for use as food.

I want to make it clear that JesusPets does NOT condone these practices and I assure you that your pets will be safe with JesusPets. Just because we are heathens does not mean we are not also pet lovers.

The again, maybe they'd do better to avoid the term 'pet lovers' given that in their FAQs they also state:

In the news item The End Is Really Really Near This Time aliens come and have their way with abandoned pets. It's not clear whether they are better described as Angels or Aliens but either way they like to go from planet to planet and have group sex with things.

Which circle of hell are you destined for?

Courtesy of the wonderful Fragile Tender we have:

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

I'm so boringly tame aren't I?

Sister in Law

Channel Four tonight showed a fascinating documentary about women working in Cameroon's legal system called Sisters in Law.

It follows various lawyers, police officers and judges as they seek to redress the balance in a patriarchal society, where there hasn't been a conviction for domestic violence in 17 years.

Following stories of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse and so forth made hard watching at times, but the women fighting to change things are remarkable and there are beautiful moments of human nature at its best; moments between mother and child, moments when a man from a church becomes the saviour of an abused child, moments when the child is reunited with family and the joyful celebration of a group of Muslim women discovering for the first time that they might just have some rights.

One of the women featured reminds me facially of my friend M. The documentary confirms her take on the plight of women in the Cameroon and the prevalence of the opinion that is just fine and dandy for a man to beat his wife.

Sadly it would seem it is an opinion that has travelled to these shores with some of her fellow ex-pat friends. The husband has been it seems, in the habit of beating his wife, as he perceived was his right. M I understand put him right on this, as only she could. She may only be a slip of a thing, but she has an iron will of the like rarely seen, quite a formidable force when in full flow.

Accordingly, I'm not too surprised that the threat she apparently delivered to him that the next time he laid a hand on his wife, she'd beat the living crap out of him in return, appears to have done the trick.

So tonight I drink a toast to the feisty women of the Cameroon.

Late

A hectic day at work today, but somehow we manage to meet the deadline. The team really pulled together to achieve this. I send them home as soon as the main submission is in, whilst I hang on so that I'm at the other end of the phone to assist the Client as he pulls together the last bits his end. It all seems to be ok and we even get a big thank you, which is always nice.

It's so late by the time I leave that I figure I might as well go for a swim after all (the kids are allowed in until 7pm on a Friday and the pool is bedlam until they leave). In fact the pool is so nice and quiet that I swim for 2 hours, unwinding from the week with each length. Of course it's only as I leave the gym that I remember I have no food in and need to do a supermarket run.

I eventually get in at about half ten. What a start to the weekend. A madly busy week, but productive all in all. Looking forward to a quiet couple of days off.

As the saying goes...

S texts:

Regular caller at door: "any chance of a butty and coffee?"
Me: "I've run out of bread, is just coffee ok?"
Man: "Ok, beggars can't be choosers..."

Maelstrom

The Client lands a panic job on us today. He needs the entire five year programme of work, broken down into set construct1on cost categories. The team is going to have to work flat out if we're going to achieve this in two days as needed.

Through the day however, the winds rise to gale force and then some and the message comes in that the Thelwell viaduct is closed.

Predictably enough at this point, the traffic diverts through Warrington and chaos ensues. Today this is helped along by trees falling and roofs being blown off and streets being closed as a result.

I ask the team if they'd like to head home early due to the transport bedlam that is building. Due to the rush job however, I have to be mean boss and ask them to take work with them. Still, one of us needs to stay in the office to cover the elements that can't be done remotely. I figure I'll pull a late one and hopefully kill two birds with one stone, break the back of the workload and sit out the worst of the traffic (the predictions are that the winds will drop later).

Our young graduate E commutes in by train from Manchester. I ignore the voices in my head that say "don't be a mother hen" and pass her my private mobile number and tell her to call if she's ever stranded.

I worry too much.

The office empties and in the peace and quiet that results (well if you ignore the sound of gale force winds outside) I manage to get a lot done.

Then my neighbour M from across the road rings and my heart sinks.

A huge willow tree has come down and hit the bungalow next to me. It's resting on their roof apparently. Unfortunately I don't have a day time contact number for the owner J either. Poor bloke - imagine coming home to that.

M fills me in on how the rest of the close is fairing. Another bungalow has lost part of its roof, a six foot wall has collapsed across the passageway (fortunately no one hurt) and various trees and lamposts are strewn across the ground. From what her son can see it looks like I've lost a small tree and a bit of fence, but sounds like I've got off light in the circumstances.

Then my phone rings again and it's E. The station is closed and there are no trains and no replacement buses.

Sometimes I'm right to worry I guess.

She makes her way back to the office and around 7pm we head off, wonderfully assisted on the way by the wonderful Stuart, who provides excellent traffic advice, updating us on which roads are closed as we go. We make it to her place in under an hour and a half (not bad in the circumstances) and then it takes me about another half hour to get back to mine.

In the darkness it's hard to assess the level of damage properly, but from what I can see there is remarkably little damage to J's house. The tree is resting on the roof, but its fall seems to have been retarded by the pavement around its roots. A few broken tiles maybe, but miraculously the roof doesn't appear to have been 'broken'. The full damage won't be clear though until the tree can be removed. Let's hope the wind tonight doesn't pick up too much again.

Running Training

Myself and a colleague have been running training for the past two days. It's an intensive course and by day two I'm drained. We've stuffed their heads full of our combined knowledge (yes dear sarcastic reader, it does take two days...my colleague is a very wise and experienced eng1neer) and by the end of the course the cartoon above would seem appropriate. Stick a fork in them, they're done.

I think it went well though. The feedback sheets would suggest the delegates found it useful.

Predictably enough one participant is a little aggravating, thinks he knows it all, ignores our instructions in the exercises, rubs people up the wrong way etc. I don't envy his mentor.

Oh bugger.

Time for another session I guess.

Retro

Remember the days of these?



Well thanks to the lovely people here you can now relive those heady days of innocence, when bits of toast flying across a screen seemed even more wondrous than a digital watch.

A slightly more modern version is also available:

Result!

ust before 2pm a text lands from K: “they offered us the church”.

It’s the news we’ve been waiting for…hoping for.

The job in question, seemed just so right for S and K and indeed the whole family. Everything about what the churches are about, their priorities, what they’re looking for in a minister etc, just seemed to fit.

Of course on a personal level, the fact that they will be moving even nearer is fantastic. There’s not many families that take you to their hearts the way this household does (even the dog is in on the act), and there’s only so many buddies in one’s life that you can just sit and talk with until 4am.

I’m so happy for them that this has all worked out. And yes on a selfish level, just a little bit happy for me as well.