Monthly Archives: November 2011

Daily Life, Gripes

Sports Personality of the Year

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If you only have a passing interest in one incredibly pointless award this year, why not make it Sports Personality of the Year?

I’m not a sports fan, but people who like sports, tend to like… sports.
I’ve got friends who are into football, and what they seem to like is seeing good passes, good tackles, well produced goals, and hard-fought victories.
Of all the tediously-dull sport-based conversations I’ve ever stood on the outskirts of, while yawning internally, I’ve never once heard them go “ah but that player x.. he’s got a great personality. He’s shit at football, but what a nice bloke.” Continue reading Sports Personality of the Year →

Business, Gripes

Young Apprentice – Future business brains?

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From the title, you might think I’m about to rip into the contestants, but you’d be absolutely wrong. I’ve disappointed you there, I can sense it.

I used to enjoy The Apprentice, and I’ve blogged before about the show’s questionable moral points and prize. Partly as I’ve been busy, but partly as I think I’d find it really annoying, I’ve not really been watching this series of Young Apprentice. However, I was half-watching something else last night, and switched over mid-way through the episode, to discover they’re still doing that fucking stupid task with the Yellow Pages directories. Does Sugar have shares in them or what?

The task goes like this: Continue reading Young Apprentice – Future business brains? →

Technology

Review – Navfree GPS UK & ROI

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Last week I had been invited to an interview, and I needed to find the company’s office. The office in question was in a village I’d never been to before, and while I can print off some of Google Maps, I’m not very good at following a map (especially when I’m driving). While my iPhone can do me a route via Google Maps, it doesn’t work if you can’t guarantee the signal (as I would find out later, the signal went from full strength to nothing and back within 2 miles of my destination) and it doesn’t do turn-by-turn navigation either.

So what better time to try out a proper sat nav iPhone app?

Continue reading Review – Navfree GPS UK & ROI →

Business, Gripes

Business response

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Recently I’ve had a change of credit card. I’ve had a new card, and a new pin. Not because I wanted it, but because one bank bought part of another bank, and my card transferred to another supplier.

As a result of this, I had some queries, which I sent to my old bank. I messaged them several times very near to the transfer date, through their online secure message system, and each time, they replied within 4 hours – in plain English, with the tone similar to the one I had used to contact them. I contacted them via their online system, so they replied via their online system. Well done them, especially considering they were probably receiving lots of questions from other customers about what happens to their direct debits after the changeover, or whatever. Continue reading Business response →

Daily Life, Gripes

Occupy Bristol – Permission?

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I read some interesting things today. First, that it looks like a branch of Costa Coffee is going to open on Gloucester Road, despite having no planning permission. That’s unusual, isn’t it?

Well, not as unusual as you might think. As the same franchisee has just opened a branch of Costa Coffee on Whiteladies Road, despite having no planning permission.

They’re both being investigated and/or served with notices to return the buildings to their respective former states, and rightly so.

With this in mind, I can’t help but notice there are some other people misusing space in Bristol, without planning permission. They’ve got a quite picturesque area in Bristol – a nice piece of grassland by the cathedral, surrounded by some of the nicer Christmas lights. Continue reading Occupy Bristol – Permission? →

Gripes, Technology

BT Yahoo Email – odd wording, isn’t it?

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I get my broadband (if you can call it that.. 3mb (on a good day), 2miles from the city centre ffs!) from BT. I didn’t want to but Virgin Media don’t cover my street, and the local BT exchange is over 2km away, for some reason, making every ADSL provider as crap as each other for me.

With my package from BT (one of the 5 billion different packages they do, which change every 6 months or so, as part of their ongoing complexity pledge), I get:

  • Free evenings and weekend calls (which I don’t use);
  • Fined if I don’t make a minimum number of calls every month (I’ve been fined a couple of times);
  • Some sort of inclusive VoIP tie-in (given I don’t use the actual calls, I’m far too lazy to bother looking at what VoIP calling entails);
  • Ability to use other free wifi at BT Openzone and BT Fon access points (I have never managed to get Fon to work, and O2 include free wifi with my mobile anyway). However, to use Fon, you have to allow other BT Broadband customers to use your router to get online (which is how Fon offers it for free), and I’ve got a shit enough speed as it is, without letting other people piggy-back off my connection; and
  • BT Yahoo Webmail.

I don’t use the Yahoo webmail, obviously. Who uses Yahoo mail? It’s 2011 for heaven’s sake. Surely the only people using Yahoo mail are people who set it up 10 years ago and can’t be bothered to change it.

Why would I want another email address to bother checking? What if/when I change providers? Who wants the hassle of changing their address everywhere?

I tried not to have the email address/account, but you have to have a BT email address apparently. A couple of days ago I got this email:

Continue reading BT Yahoo Email – odd wording, isn’t it? →

Gardening

Growing: Parsnips – completed

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Here’s another post I should have written earlier.

Planted first batch: 2nd May.

These didn’t have the best start. The first batch were planted on the 2nd May, and none of them germinated. It was due to a combination of things, but I think it was mostly down to the fact that according to a few websites, parsnips don’t keep very well. The seeds I used were at least 2 years old.

So, I bought a fresh packet of seeds (which irritatingly contains about 300 seeds – so they will also get old and go past their best before I manage to use them all), which were planted on the 27th May.

So, more planted: 27th May.

These picked: 1st October.

Just over 4 months from seed-planting to edible parsnips. There’s been a smattering more of small ones on/off since that point.

Smaller than I expected

Note: I also planted a load more at the allotment on the 3rd July. They grew, but as the allotment isn’t that near my house, they were left in the ground too long, not looked after very well, and all eaten away by insects.