October 31, 2005
No end in sight
Sigh. I rue my flat. I'm near beyond caring about it now, but it still seems to rise up and punch me in the gut every once in a while. An influx of unforeseen bills has landed in my lap, including a whopping council bill tax which is wrong and I should be able to successfully challenge, once I work up the energy to do so. In the meantime I'm still trying to sort out the tangle surrounding the three years worth of tax returns the Inland Revenue dumped on me as well. I'm increasingly annoyed with my old flatmate - this would have been far less of a pickle if only she'd forwarded on my mail, rather than sitting on it for over a year. I made a trip to the bank and they fortunately acquiesced to my request for copies of three years worth of banks statements. Once they arrive I should be able to fill out most of the required information. I still have a National Savings account for which I don't have any statements which might prove troublesome, but I'll worry about that later.
I'm not having fun.
October 29, 2005
A curious advertisement
I recall there was a considerable backlash from Americans in response to the Guardian's campaign to influence the last presidential election by persuading it's readers to mail potential voters. Consequently, I was somewhat curious about this advert I noticed in a recent edition of said newspaper:
Regardless of the merits of the campaign, I find it's attempt to target the UK particularly noteworthy. Admittedly Florida is a prime holiday destination for vast numbers of UK tourists, so it's perhaps not too surprising, but I can't help but wonder if this an indication of things to come, of local political matters reaching for global support.
Querying Zorro
I have a question and a few things to say about the Legend of Zorro. I can't think of anyway to phrase it without revealing major plots point of the film, so please scoot over to the extended section if you want to know what I'm asking....
Now, I have no problem with films featuring terrorist plots to destroy the United States or any other country. It's very much a theme of it's time, and some films will do better justice to the idea than others - such is the way of things. But is it just me, or is a storyline featuring terrorists from a secretive European cell manufacturing and distributing high yield explosives in an attempt to destroy the United States seem slightly out of place in Zorro?
As films go it's still an entertaining piece of fluff, though it suffers slightly in the face of it's superior predecessor. I was enjoying it well enough, until I came crashing out of my suspended disbelief when the dastardly plans of the villain stood revealed. Aside from the fact that it the scheme itself - not to mention the villain and his lair - appeared to have been transplanted from a James Bond film, it also seemed to contain touches that wouldn't have been out of place in Austen Powers. The covert and highly secretive religious organisation, for example, which can't resist plastering it's name and logo over every conceivable surface including a massive carved plinth deep in the heart of the lair. Because, you know, nothing says secrecy like sculpture. There's also the unintentionally comedic dispatching of the cohort who disagreed the nefarious plan.
Anachronisms and gratuitous rah-rah flag waving aside (literal flag waving - there are flags and they are indeed waved) it's not a bad film. My Hitchhikers review: Mostly inoffensive.
October 27, 2005
MFI Complaint
Well I'm thoroughly fed up with what's been going on. Dealing with MFI has just been a soul destroying experience. I believe the parts I need have finally been ordered, though in the end I had to pay for them, and they shan't be with me for another two weeks. Even with a discount it's not a situation I'm happy with. A copy of the complaint I intend to send to their head office can be found in the extended section, in the hope that it might crop up on Google and cause MFI some financial discomfit, however minor. I don't feel it's particularly worthy of sharing aside from that, and the fact that I've written it just makes me feel petty and small.
Someone send me some good news, please...
Dear Sir or Madam,
I'm writing to complain about the atrocious service I've received from an MFI store. I ordered a Milan fitted bedroom, with fitting included, from the Chiswick branch of MFI. At the time, I ordered exactly the set up that appeared in the store. When the bedroom furniture was delivered, however, I discovered that I had not been sent a chest of drawers, and the drawers were not on my original invoice. Whilst this was a disappointing oversight on the part of the store, I appreciate that I should have checked my copy of the invoice and registered it's absence myself. I'm willing to accept that this was as much my error as it was the store's and I paid for the item and it was duly delivered.
However, when the MFI appointed fitter arrived he also pointed out that four side panels for two chests of drawers were also missing. I was told that it was the fitter's responsibility to contact the store and arrange for the missing items to be delivered. The fitter did so and I was assured that the missing items would be with me shortly. A week later I duly received two panels. I then contacted the store about the two still missing panels. After a great number of phone calls to the store and to your customer service department - both of whom unhelpfully kept referring back to each other - I was eventually told that the remaining panels would be sent out. They arrived the following week. At that point I discovered that the panels were the wrong size. Thus began another series of phone calls. Most frustratingly I was rarely able to receive any sort of answer to my dilemma, and was usually told that someone would call me back with an answer. Both Lorenzo and Sumiti from the Chiswick branch failed to do so on at least two occasions each over the last week. Finally I was put through to Keiran, the manager, who was able to sort the matter out, with the provision that I would have to pay for the missing items. Even though he offered a 50% discount on the panels I'm still extremely unhappy. My complaint is as follows.
1) The bedroom that was sold to me was misrepresented. I believed, and was led to believe, that I had ordered and paid for exactly what was on display. This was not the case.
2) I believe that the error should have been visible to your employees. That the pieces I did receive do not fit together without the missing parts is evidence of this.
3) I could not have known from the invoice that the panels were missing.
4) Had I know that the true cost of the bedroom was going to be over £200 higher than I was quoted, I would likely have looked elsewhere.
5) Even now I'm forced to wait another two weeks for the missing panels to be delivered. I offered to pay for a courier to pick them up in order to sort this out once and for all, but was told that was not possible. This lack of urgency to resolve a matter that's dragged on for weeks already is particularly galling.
I genuinely feel that the service I've received over the last three weeks has verged on incompetence, and it's provided me with many hours of frustration. What's more I also feel that I'm having to pay for mistakes made MFI employees.
The store manager assured me today of the futility involved in sending any letter of complaint, but I cannot emphasis strongly enough the value I place on good customer service and my extreme disappointment with the way I've been treated over the last three weeks. I would very much like an explanation of the steps you will undertake to prevent such mishaps occurring again, as well as any reasons why you believe I should trust MFI in the future. In addition to the bedroom I've also recently ordered a kitchen from MFI and I can assure that these most recent troubles mean that I will be not ordering anything more from MFI in the future, nor, to judge from their reaction to my experiences, will any of my acquaintances.
Sincerely,
October 25, 2005
So little reward for so much effort.
Well, it looks like I'm not going to be retiring off the back of this thing any time soon...
My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?
October 24, 2005
Shifting dreams
Perhaps unsurprisingly my dreams have followed me home at last. Lest that seem overly cryptic I write not of aspirational dreams - of hopes, dreams, and wishes - but rather those of nightly slumber. Thinking about dreams I've had recently, many more of them have been centred around here than is usual. In particular a small wooded area just a short walk away (which looks particularly handsome at the moment in it's autumnal attire) has features with remarkable regularity. It's not a great revelation really, that the locale of my dreams should reflect that of my daily life, especially an area in which I formed a great many memories, but it's not something I recall observing before.
Of course, it's form varies considerably, as it always does in dreams. For example, it was definitely a touch more post-apocalypticy last night, and I'm sure there were a few more zombies milling around trying eat my flesh than I normally encounter in my day to day existence. You know, it's just as well I don't have nightmares, otherwise that might have been rather disturbing...
October 23, 2005
Mark of unseen gables
The saga of the missing gable ends continues. I'd refer to it as a comedy, but I've long lost the ability to laugh at it - more I just shake my head sadly and sigh. And painful though it is to me, it doesn't yet warrant the status of a tragedy. I'm not sure what that leaves. Farce perhaps?
In an ironic twist my problem now involves an excess of gable ends as well as an absence. The issue, originally, was the lack of these mysterious items delaying the installation of my bedroom. My order turned to be short four gable ends. Let me repeat that: Four. It's not a hard quantity to grasp is it? A quick test shows a four year old has no trouble with it. So why then, when I requested these missing pieces of my bedroom jigsaw be dispatched with all due haste did only two turn up the following week? And why did it take so long, and so many, many phone calls, for an additional two to be sent to me?
But I've complained enough about that particular error in the past, and I now have in my possession - at last - four gable ends. So let's move on to a new complaint: They're the wrong gable ends. Perhaps the mistake was mine to begin with, in that I was expected - and for my sins continue to expect - a degree of competency in those I've been dealing with. Goodness knows I'm well aware of my own inadequacies in such matters, and part of the fault is mine. I examined the pieces when the arrived to make certain that they were all in one piece, and that nothing obvious was amiss. What I didn't do was to make certain they were the correct height. And they're not.
And so the whole soul-sapping ritual of trying to get things sorted out commenced again. More phone calls which in turn led to more requests that call I customer services instead. I now abjectly refuse to do so on the grounds customer services invariably tell me to call the store back and which point the cycle repeats again. Instead I hang doggedly onto the phone until they find someone who can help me. That someone then told me all they could do was contact customer services on my behalf, and then call me back later. They never did, and when I called back to find out what was happening, that person had left for the day. For some reason people at the store still refuse to believe me when I tell them this happens, continuing to insist that they always return calls.
All I can do is call back tomorrow.
Rinse, repeat, despair.
October 22, 2005
Tainted milk
I should make my position clear: I dislike flavoured milk intensely, with particular vitriol reserved for chocolate milk, a fusion of two wonderful substances into an bilious liquid barely fit for human consumption. The other variants are equally vile.
But although I have no love for the stuff, I tolerate it's existence on the basis that it's marketed as a soft drink for the most part, rather than as a milk substitute. I doubt most people would consider adding banana flavoured milk to their tea, for example. So never the twain shall meet for the most part. Pure and innocent Milk and icky, nasty flavoured milk stand apart in their own disparate realms. Thus it is and thus it ever was.
But what then are we to make of this incursion into the no man's land between the two worlds? "A tantalising hint of natural wild strawberry flavour" says the melodious marketing campaign. Pure corrupting evil in a carton, say I.
Just say no kids.
October 21, 2005
Hierarchical list dragging
I'm afraid this is work related, but in a slightly different fashion from usual. After wittering on yesterday about whizzy javascript, I thought I might as well show you just what I've been up to. The reason for putting it up here is because I've been feeling an even greater need to show off than is usual for me, and I think this is rather cool. Do bear in mind that it's just a prototype, and still needs a lot of work. It's over here, btw - drag and drop the list items around. I've seen scripts around for handling dragging list elements around, but nothing that handles nested lists. Doing so is really rather intricate. I'm reminded of an old adage about difficulty involved in learning to juggle: On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most difficult, juggling three balls is 2, juggling four balls is 5, and juggling five balls is 34. Basically ordering a single list is relatively straightforward, ordering a hierarchy is a whole different ball game. Still, I'm pleased with the results, although there remains one case in particular that I've been struggling to handle in an elegant fashion, namely moving list items horizontally, rather than vertically, to change the hierarchies. At the moment, this is handled separately by pressing the control key and then dragging left and right. I want to integrate it in a more natural fashion, since it's rather awkward at present, though I'm not sure I can afford to spend much more time doing so. What I really need to do is make it obvious which items can be dragged in and out in this fashion, since it's not obvious at glance. Once I'm done this will form part of a web based utility to manage pages on a site, allowing existing pages to be rearranged and new pages to be inserted. The site navigation will update accordingly. I've already written the back end for it, I just need to finish off the interface. Anyway. That's it. If you've ever wondered what I spend my days doing (and goodness knows I have), this is it. And I get paid for it too. It really is a strange old world...October 20, 2005
The way it's meant to be
Lists. I've got lists on the brain. Lists of things to do, lists of people to see, not to mention something else I've been meaning to write on the subject of lists, prompted by a recent product announcement from Apple. Even my current project at work involves manipulating lists in a web browser, and promises to be terribly cool once it's complete - far cooler than anyone is expecting, so it should be received well if I can complete it on time. Unfortunately that doesn't look likely, despite the fact that it's impinging on all my other thoughts for the moment and I spent a goodly portion of this evening working on it as well. It doesn't happen to me terribly often, but when I come across a problem I can really dig my teeth into it becomes an overwhelming obsession. In many ways what I'm trying to achieve is wholly unnecessary - I could easily produce a simpler tool that will suffice, but... well, this where my argument breaks down a little. There are many perfectly valid reasons for going down the route I've chosen to go down. The whizzy features I'm developing aren't merely for show, but they'll make a big difference to the usability of the thing. Tasks that would be otherwise tedious become fast and simple. But that's not really why I'm doing it - the fact that it will be used at all has become almost incidental to me. I can envision the end product in it's shining platonic perfection, you see, and I just cannot accept any alternative. It's right, it's right that it should be like that. It's the way it supposed to be, and once I'm done it's the way it will be. Compromise is unthinkable.
It's not an easy point of view to explain to a manager - this much I've discovered in the past - but fortunately I don't have to explain myself until it's late. I've got until Monday, though it's not a huge project which buys me only a degree of latitude.
I'd better get a move on...
October 19, 2005
Fade to white
The end point is rarely where I expect it to be, and the point itself is even more rarely what I expect it to be. It's the problem with trying to create anything: so many twists are turns pop up along the route that it's nigh impossible to stay your course. What's all this naval gazing in aid of? Well, there's another new theme added to the blog and no, it's not what I set out to make. On the other hand it's exactly as it should be, and I'm inordinately pleased with it. However basic the design may look I love it dearly. It's different from anything I've done before, which is a great part of it's appeal to me, but it also captures exactly the feeling I hoped it would when I started work on it. I can also flatter myself by saying that the implementation is fiendishly clever too (I'll pay myself that compliment because I know just how much time I spent getting it right).
I've a few things left to sort out yet, but I'm happy enough with the results thus far to loose it upon the world. It's called "Whiteout", and as ever can be found lurking in the theme selector in the links bar over to the side.
October 17, 2005
What a carve up
My brother showed me his designs for last year's pumpkins and most impressive they were too. He's quite the skilled artist, having put a lot of effort into becoming so, and I enjoy seeing his sketches. He's yet to achieve his goal of creating a pumpkin that will scare the beejezus out of young children but he's definitely moving towards it. It's been a while since I've carved a pumpkin (nothing came of my musings about doing so last year), but since there's a friendly rivalry between us when it comes to such matters I may give it a go this year. We both share a similar attitude along the lines "It's not worth doing unless other people look at the results and query your sanity" which adds a little extra impetus.
October 15, 2005
Deliver me again
Yes, I know I've complained bitterly about my struggles getting items delivered in the past, but I feel another rant is warranted. The few items missing from my bedroom order were supposed to turn up today. And to be fair, most of them did...
It's frustrating for a multitude of reasons. I originally expected the bedroom installation to be one of the easy parts (though I must be careful when I say that - it implies that that have actually been easy parts). The bedroom was the very first thing I ordered for the flat. Back in May 2004 if you're keeping track. It seemed easy at the time. With hindsight now I realise that it seemed too easy. I walked into the store, wandered around a little, and then came across a bedroom suite that I thought looked rather lovely. More importantly, it was set up in an area whose dimensions corresponded exactly with that of my bedroom. It was ideal. I basically ended up walking over to a sales person, where I pointed at the display, and said "That. I want that." Of course, that wasn't what I paid for in the end, as it turned out that the list of items produced was missing some important components. I'll raise my hand and admit some of these I should have been aware of had I checked the list of items more carefully. The missing chest of drawers for example. On the other hand, there were more whose absence I had no way of recognising. Four gable ends, for instance. Even now I'd be hard pressed to describe what a gable end is, but I can tell you they've taken on undue importance in my life right now.
The delivery today contained 2 gable ends and for my present purposes 2 gable ends is functionally identical to no gable ends. And thus I began a trail of phone conversations that would have driven even Patrick McGoohan's Number 6 to distraction, such was it's frustrating illogicality. I don't really want to go into the details, since it doesn't paint a particularly flattering portrait of myself. I will say that I lost count of the number of different people I ended up getting upset with as I was passed from person to person and department to department, speaking to a succession of people who seemed to have a decreasing ability to aid me. In the end, I found solace with one enterprising young man who couldn't help me directly - no one, it seems, had the ability to make the missing gable ends materialise - but who could report that the original two gable ends I'd received were damaged thus setting in motion a chain of events that will hopefully result in the missing items arriving on my doorstep.
Throughout this whole frustrating process, one thought remains constant in my mind: "It's not supposed to be this hard."
October 14, 2005
All's well
Mum's fine. She arrived back home this afternoon, after the doctors gave her a clean bill of health and small array of pills to take on a daily basis. She was basically told to carry on as normal and seems quite content with the situation now. She also doesn't seem to be giving any more tours of her valuables, much to my relief.
All's well, everyone's fine, if a little stressed and life carries on as normal. Now if you'll excuse me, she's being a little quiet through in the living room and I'll just pop through and check up on her...
No, not later. Now!
Sometimes my family can be so obtuse I could scream. I'm sure it's a trait I share in common with them. We'd rather dance around an issue, carving out the space where it should belong, rather than highlighting it directly.
Tonight offered a most exemplary example. My Mum came up to me and said she had something to show me. She then proceeded to point out to me where she kept her important papers, some envelopes of money, share certificates and the like. I didn't quite see the point of this, and I queried her about it. She calmly replied "I think I might be having a heart attack."
She wasn't haven't having a heart attack, fortunately, although we didn't know that at the time. She did have an excessively high heart rate however, around 150bpm. We rushed her off to the hospital as soon as we were able, despite a quite incredible lack of urgency on her part - I swear I was almost ready to drag her off to the hospital myself at one point as she wasted time fiddling around with a heart rate monitor she'd gotten hold off. A lot of waiting ensued at the hospital during which time a seemingly endless array of unpleasant and unwelcome thoughts flitted through my head. After a few hours we were able to see her again, and the doctors reassured us a little. They'd brought her heart rate down, and she looked, and felt she said, like normal again. She's been kept in overnight for further tests and hopefully we'll know more tomorrow.
At somepoint in the near future I'm going to have a conversation with her that's going to include a close approximation of this phrase: "If you think you're having a heart attack, for goodness sake tell me first, and worry about wrapping up your affairs second."
October 12, 2005
I abjure thee winter
I've few enough tools in my armoury to fight against the coming onslaught of dim and dreary winter days. What little I have? A camera, some knowledge of the dark arts of Photoshop, a sprinkling of css and a memory of the saturated hues of summer in times past. It's slightly ironic then that my attempt at brighter theme should end as a reproduction of a reproduction of summer. It was pure expediency of course, since my meagre library of photographs otherwise lent itself poorly to the task at hand. But the photo I chose stood out easily amongst the rest, and I gleefully cannibalised it to do what I needed. The results can as ever be seen from the theme selector over at the side. I've named this new creation Industrial Sunshine, and I'm rather attached to it, even so much as to make it the default theme for the site, for visitors who come afresh.
October 11, 2005
The sound of unseen children
I headed along to the post office near my flat this afternoon to pick up a much delayed parcel (it arrived at last!). Along the way I passed by a school, or what I assumed was a school. The building itself was invisible behind several rows of thick hedges and a variety of other shrubbery. The only clue as to it's presence was the disembodied voice of children floating through the air. It's a generally happy sound, the noise children make whilst playing, but without the physical presence of a child to connect it with, it takes on an almost sinister quality, enhanced in this case by the absence of other pedestrians and a lack of traffic on the normally busy road I followed. What is it about kids that makes their rhymes, games and accouterments seem so eerie when taken out of their natural context? Is it just a result of some form of Pavlovian conditioning from watching horror films over the years, or is there really something about children that's inherently scary?
October 09, 2005
The flat taketh away and the flat giveth
I've long considered work on my flat to be a zero sum game, especially when it comes to money. Leaving aside the fact that I've spent more than double my original budget (where did it go? where?), it seems that whatever savings I may have clawed back along the way are immediately swallowed by some other work that's required. Most famously I saved a good few hundred pounds on the installation of my gas fire, only to receive a phone call a few hours later informing me that the cost of the kitchen worktop had risen by that same amount. So it is, and so it has been since I started, way back at the dawn of time.
Flat finances have been on my mind even more than usual since I realised I'm more than likely indebted to the Inland Revenue for a not inconsiderable sum. I've been somewhat lax when it comes to accounting my monies. Usually I don't pay that close attention to what's in my bank account. Often I simply have a rough idea of what's in it at any given time, and if my irregular checks on it don't throw up any obvious anomalies I'm content. However, with things being as they are I thought it was for the best if I gave it close scrutiny than is my norm and decided to open up the small stack of bank and credit card statements I've accumulated over the last few months.
And lo, my checks threw up a fair whopper of a discrepancy. The balance in one of my accounts was unexpectedly down by a hefty amount, but for once it turns out to be good news. It transpires that I'd paid for several expensive items not by credit card as I'd supposed, but with a debit card instead. The net result of this is I'm considerably better off that I'd supposed. And by dint of good fortune, the surplus I've just discovered is almost exactly enough to cover my estimated debt to the taxman. Better yet, it's just as well I discovered my tax debt before the surplus money, since otherwise I'd have very likely spent it already (doors and rugs amongst other items, in case you're wondering). It seems that the vast karmic pendulum that's been governing my life since it became entangled with the flat has finally swung back in my direction.
Hurrah!
Cracking film Grommit (waggles fingers)
Just got back from viewing Wallace And Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The best praise I can think for it is that it's everything a Wallace and Grommit film should be: groanworthy puns, knowing humour, hilarious set pieces, meticulous attention to detail that shines through in every scene and the most believable chemistry you'll ever witness between two lumps of plasticine. And fortunately, despite having an extended running time to play with, the film never outstays it's welcome. Upon viewing it's easy to understand just why the film took so long to complete - it practically demands a second viewing in order to catch all the visual gags flying around in the background that you missed first time around. It's very obviously put together with exactly the sort of loving touches we've come to expect from Nick Park over the years.
If such ratings mean anything, I'd place it only very slightly behind The Wrong Trousers (which I believe to be perhaps the finest thirty minutes of television ever conceived). It's pretty much a joy from beginning to end, and it's been quite some time since I've laughed out loud so many times during a single film. It's worth your time and money - go see it!
October 08, 2005
Serenity now
Serenity is an amazingly dense piece of storytelling and Joss Whedon is a magician. The latter is the only explanation for the former - it's physically impossible to pack as much story into such a short time-frame otherwise. At the end of the film I had to check my watch to convince myself that only two hours had passed. If it had been three or more I wouldn't have been in the least surprised. Serenity picks up the pace in it's opening moments and then proceeds to accelerate, until it arrives, breathless, at it's conclusion. Along the way I recall fearing that it's momentum was unsustainable and that the film was about to come to an abrupt end, denying us a resolution until a sequel. I was wrong. Serenity delivers. It fulfils much of the promise of the series that spawned it, and doesn't shy away from giving us revelations of substance. Characters grow, and are forever changed before our eyes, secrets are laid bare, questions are answered.
It is, by turns, funny, and frightening, and visceral, and exhilarating, and moving, and enormously ambitious. I was skeptical as to whether a film version of Firefly could possible work. I struggled to recall any series which has successfully transitioned from film to television. But Whedon manages it, as much as anything else by throwing a ludicrous number of balls up in the air and then proceeding to juggle them with consummate ease.
For those of you who haven't seen the series, I still recommend it. The required exposition is elegantly woven into the fabric of the film, cleverly explaining the backstory whilst revealing in detail events hitherto unseen to even committed fans. Perhaps more importantly, Serenity succeeds on an emotional level. I dare anyone to watch this film, having seen the series or not, and fail to engage with these characters. They're not standard action heroes by any means, and their flaws are all too visible, but if you're not on the edge of your seat during the final stand off, willing them all to survive, then you're made of stern stuff indeed.
It's time to dig out and dust off those old reviewer cliches because Serenity is the film they were intended for. "A rollercoaster ride!", says iMark. "Rollicking good fun," says member of Delete The Web. Etcetera, etcetera. Go see it now.
October 05, 2005
The outcome of income
Ah, October. The month in which autumn hits the realm in full, hues of scarlet and gold blanket the forests and I can look forward to finally ridding myself of the year's accumulated debts.
Or so I thought.
I started to look at my tax returns earlier today, masochism having gotten the better of me at last. Asking advice from someone at work who seems to go through these things on a regular basic reminded me that I'll need to declare the income I derived from renting my flat for 18 months or so. I wasn't too concerned about this, since for some reason I was still labouring under the belief that all such income under £4250 per year was tax free. Because the time during which I was renting out the flat was neatly nestled between two different tax years, the rent I collected during each year fell safely shy of this figure.
Guess what, I labour no longer. Some further investigation revealed that the scheme I'd been looking at only applies when renting out a room in a place in which you're dwelling. Renting out an entirely separate location, as I've been doing, means that tax is due on the full amount, less 10% depreciation. As near as I've been able to estimate, it this works out equivalent to another six weeks of debt, bringing me to the middle of December.
Insert appropriate swear words here.
October 04, 2005
If it's a swiz, it's my kind of swiz
One of my great pleasures and peeves come from the weekend newspapers. I tend to skip over newspapers during the weekdays, instead saving myself for binge spread over Saturday and Sunday, when I'll set aside some time to curl up and wade through the voluminous mass of paper which comprise the weekend editions. That's the pleasure part. The peeve is the ludicrous number of inserts which cunningly lie in wait, hidden between the pages until they have a chance to escape and maliciously litter wherever you happen to be. Only slightly less numerous than the leaves on the trees, there seems to exist a never ending stream of the dratted things. My first task when sitting down to read is to inevitably discard the weighty mass of useless bumph (actually, that's not true - the first thing to go is the sports section. I do have an image to maintain after all).
This last weekend, however, I'm ashamed to admit that one of the pamphlets I was about to rid myself of caught my eye. True to my usual form, it's for a chocolate tasting club. The leaflet itself is a glossy affair, with rather respectable production values. It certainly serves it's most important purpose by making the chocolates on offer look quite divine. As with the more familiar book clubs, the mechanic is a straightforward ploy to eek as much money out of you over as long a period as possible, whilst providing you with a product or service to make the drain on your accounts seem worthwhile. In this case a shiny new box of carefully selected chocolates will be delivered to your doorstep once a month. On the one hand, it's expensive for what's on offer - 400g of chocolate for £15.95 (inc. p & p), working out at 61p per chocolate. But on the hand, it's chocolate and... actually, no and - it's chocolate. Perhaps it's just the fact that I haven't eaten any today, but it all looks rather tempting, and it seems like a fun way to discover new and exciting chocolates each month.
Alas, however much I may desire chocolate (which right now is quite a bit), I despise the newspaper inserts more, and thus I cannot possible condone ordering anything from a company that chooses such methods to advertise.
Principles suck.
October 03, 2005
Even I'd sit down to watch this version
To date, I've only encountered one film I've been unable to sit through. It's true that there are some I'd rather not have sat through (take a bow, the insufferably awful Batman and Robin), but for very different reasons. No, The Shining just creeps me out on some deep and primal level, such that I find myself clawing at the door in search of release each time I try to force myself to watch it. I take great comfort then, in one of the entries for a recent competition which sought to produce trailers recasting famous films into different genres through careful editing and voiceovers alone. Some are ingenious: the twisting of West Side Story into a zombie film, for example displays an especially warped sense of humour. Others are less of a stretch, such as the transformation of Titanic into a standard horror flick. However, my favourite, and the most widely blogged about from what I've read, is transmutation of The Shining into the sort of upbeat, life affirming comedy drama that would have Kubrick spinning in his grave. The trailer, along with the competition that birthed it, an is excellent example of why you should never wholly trust what you see on the screen, and a fitting tribute to the power of the editing room
October 01, 2005
So that's where they went
My old flat mate from London sent me a small bundle of envelopes that have apparently been accumulating at my old hauntings since I abandoned them last year. Welcome amongst them was a cheque for pleasant sum of money I hadn't realised I was due (and which I've already spent). It also included a heap of communications from the Inland Revenue dating back a year or so. Better late than never, it's true, but I rather wished they'd been passed on to me just a little sooner...