I Can Definitely Smell Sh*te

So there I am lying in my bed not a care in the world. "Chap, chap, chap" goes the door. I'll ignore it then they'll go away. "Knock, knock, knock" with a greater sense of urgency, "bugger" says me. Up I get looking like complete death in my pyjama shorts and T-shirt. It's the old dear from next door (semi-detached).

First she apologies for getting me up, after having looked me up and down with a definite disapproving look on her face, then she goes on to tell me that her toilet is blocked, "so what" thinks I, and according to her plumber it's my problem... "you what?".

Off I go to get dressed and meet her and the plumber in my garden (still looking like complete death but now with the pained expression of somebody who knows they're about to be robbed of all their cash). So the plumber explains that we share the waste pipe between the two houses and the bit near the bottom of my garden, where it joins the main sewer pipe, is blocked (probably due to tree roots). He can't shift it so recommends that I call Dyno-Rod. "Hmmmmm... and how much do you think that'll be?" "Oh, about £100" says he.... "hmmmmm" says me.

Now, the job needs done and no hanging about so off I go and phone Dyno-Rod and off trots the old dear happy that'll she'll be able to flush her toilet. Two hours later the jobs done, costing £101.64 (standard charge, inc. VAT). They can't guarantee the work as the tree roots will probably cause a blockage again. They recommended a CCTV survey of the drains and then repair work to fix any problems. That'll cost a fair bit though. So now I'm wondering, the pipe is shared between the two properties, her crap flows down the pipe and contributes to the blockage (though the trees are on my land) shouldn't she be liable to share the cost of maintaining it?

I need to look out the deeds and then maybe seek the advice of a Solicitor or Lawyer as to what the law is on this sort of thing in Scotland. I was looking for a copy of my deeds recently but couldn't find them, they're about here somewhere though. You'd imagine that something like a shared waste pipe is mentioned in them. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Do check out Dyno-Rod's website regarding the best time to phone. Never phone before 8 or after 6, week days only, no public holidays, Christmas and New Year is a no-no, never let the work last more than an hour and if you live within London's congestion charge area, move.

Category:

• Drains
• Sewer
• Dynorod

Central Heating Update 4

Well the expenditure has started. Fulcrum Connections quoted a total price of £363 to install a gas line from the gas main onto our property (1m of public highway and 10m of my garden). Not bad I suppose, and less than what I was led to believe before. That bill is paid and we're just waiting for confirmation of a date for the work to be complete.

I'm thinking of changing our energy supplier (currently Scottish Gas, for the electricity) as all the comparison websites show that they're one of the most expensive (more on that in a following post). Obviously our circumstances will change soon and can benefit by signing up for a dual fuel tariff (Electricity and Gas). I'll have to make a decision soon so as I can get the new supplier to install a Gas Meter.

No movement on the Cavity Wall and Loft Insulation since the suggested contractor never bothered to show up.

Category:

• Personal
• Home
• Heating
• Insulation

Health Update 47

The Doctor has put my happy pill dosage up as I'd been struggling a bit recently. The time of year, the weather and work (usual state of pish) left me a bit down and my weight loss had all but stopped. From my peak I'm probably down about two and half stones (since September). Not bad, but I'd started to slip back hence the extra boost required.

I've got an appointment with the Liver Consultant about the NASH, where hopefully the liver function blood tests will show an improvement, next month sometime. I've also got a Dentist checkup on April 4th :(

Category:

• Health
• NASH
• Weight

TiddlyWiki

I've been throwing around a few personal project ideas with a colleague at work recently. Just general stuff in the "what if?" scenario style, nothing too serious, but we're both of the opinion that our next job will have to be working for ourselves, the corporate grind has finally done for us.

To aid in our blue sky discussions, and individual thought, I was looking for some software that could organise these ideas (which have been wide and varied) into a more cohesive form to allow for further investigation before they're lost in the mists of my memory.

Being aware of 37signals various offerings I revisited my free Basecamp account I'd set up last year. I then remembered why I'd lost interest in it. To use it for anything of real worth you needed to subscribe to one of their premium services particularly for file upload and storage. The new offerings such as Writeboards are interesting and I can see a real benefit for Small to Medium Enterprises in project management etc. but after a couple of weeks I decided to look for something more suited to my needs.

But what did I want the software to do? Well, basically capture ideas, things of interest, documents, images, URLs etc. in bite sized chunks but have them at my fingertips at all times ready for browsing or editing. I don't intend to share this info with other people so an online requirement wasn't a necessity, as long as I could get at the information was all that mattered. Enter TiddlyWiki (open source and free).

It's practically impossible to describe what TiddlyWiki is and their own tag line of "a reusable non-linear personal web notebook" doesn't do it justice either. After reading the website I'm sure you'll still be scratching your head (like me) as to what it's all about (a better overview can be read here). Trust me on this, a better way of capturing and displaying information is hard to imagine. It took me a few hours playing with it to get my head around the concept but once you do it's brilliant. Give it a go. My TidllyWiki is always with me on a USB stick and on the home network but you can have it online as well (it's just a single html file).

Category:

• Tiddlywiki
• 37signals
• Software

Blogger Sucks

Blogger is dicking me around again and I'm just sick of it. It's taking all my will power to stop myself from deleting the whole thing and be done with this crap. I sincerely hope Google don't mess SketchUp the way Blogger keeps going down.

Category:

• Blog
• Google
• Blogger+Sucks

A freezer full of Veda Bread

It's St Patrick's day and I've got the family over from Norn Iron for the weekend. Naturally they arrived with loads of Veda Bread for the freezer. Happy days.

On a similar note I can confirm that Marks & Spencer import the Wheaten Bread from Norn Iron. If your an ex-pat like me desperate for some decent bread then get yourself down to M&S. Interestingly though they call it "Irish Brown Soda Bread" but it's what you and I would call "Wheaten". Lovely with some butter and raspberry jam.

Still no sign of proper Ormo Veda Bread outside of Norn Iron though :(

Category:

• Personal
• Northern+Ireland
• Veda
• Wheaten

Marvelous Marvin

Marvin Andrews, Glasgow Rangers "defender", visited Lesley's school (she's the school cook) yesterday, at the request of their football daft headmaster, on his only day off from training. Lesley confirmed that he's a really nice man (even though she'd never heard of him until that morning) spent time with the kids, having photos taken and giving autographs. Lesley managed to get one for me and it says "To Richard, Marvin Andrews #5 God Bless". Whaddaguy.

We're now firmly behind Trinidad and Tobago in their up and coming World Cup adventure including the match against England. Come on Marvin (the only man who genuinely believed we could win the SPL last year).

Category:

• Sport
• Football
• Rangers
• World+Cup

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

I've decided to make a concerted effort to learn a language, in my case German. Now, I stayed in Germany for four months in my final year at Uni, 12 years ago and did learn a "smattering" of the language but as we spent most of our time in the Irish Pub, McMurphy's Braunschweig, it was never the best. Time to change that.

Read more...
I remember seeing a documentary years ago about this guy who went to an inner city school and in the space of a couple of days made amazing strides in teaching a bunch of no hopers French. Michel Thomas was his name. I can't continue without mentioning his wig. Appalling, one of the worst ever, had to get that out of the way. Anyway, as a language teacher he's good, very good.

His method requires no writing or memorising, you learn the language as you learnt your own, by listening, thinking and repeating. Very quickly you can string sentences together without worrying about the theory of subjunctive verbs and past participles etc. Maybe not so good if you want to read or write in the language but for a good grasp of conversing in a foreign language this is the one.

My iPod is packed with 8 hours of tuition and I intend to fill my spare time with listening and learning. Our attitude to foreign languages in Britain is appalling (I blame the bitch thatcher). I deal with Engineers and customers from all over Europe and Asia and they all speak English perfectly well (many have more than one foreign language under their belts) it's embarrassing. I'm not intending to make use of German in my work life but at least it's a step in the right direction to an equal footing with people from all round the world.

Back to Michel, his false teeth don't fit too well which can make listening to the MP3s interesting :-) but the guy's results can't be faulted. That wig though, sheesh.

Category:

• Language
• German
• Michel+Thomas

Google Empire

@Last Software have just announced that they've been bought by Google. Best known for their superb 3D software, SketchUp, this is big news. I love SketchUp as one of the easiest to use 3D software packages on the market, especially for Architects and the like. The reaction from the SketchUp community seems favourable as they were all worried that Autodesk would get their mits on them first to take out a major contender to their AutoCad stable. Time will tell.

SketchUp and Google Earth is a fantastic combination and we can only guess where SketchUp will go from here. My only concern is my reliance on Google owned services. Google Search, Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, Google Earth, Google Adsense and now SketchUp... where will it end?

Category:

• 3D
• Google
• Sketchup

Let it snow

The view from our bedroom (click image to enlarge) and you could say the forecast is for snow. Thankfully I've already been out for the papers and rolls (before it got really bad) and fully intend to hibernate in front of the telly to watch the football and rugby while working on my website's template.

Category:

• Scotland
• Weather
• Snow

The Apprentice Series 2

I hope you're all watching the best programme on the telly by a mile, The Apprentice is back, oh yes.

I'm not going to a give a running commentary on this years show, as it was pretty pointless last time, so check out the BBC website for details, past and future clips, current news, the applicants, games etc. Great stuff.

Just a quick comment about this years lot; they're all pish beyond description. At least the women have smartened up a bit in the dress sense but a more clueless bunch it would be hard to imagine. Inspired casting (maybe a bit PC) has left a number of identifiable loony tunes fighting like cats in a sack, Jo... Jo will be sectioned after this.

Take a look at their CVs on the website, and count the number that have Manager or Consultant in the their job title. Managers are a plague and need culled. If The Hitch-Hikers Guide to The Galaxy, Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B, was ever to become a reality I'd leave off the hairdressers and telephone sanatizers and fill it with MBA waving, tory boy, clueless, f*ckwit managers[1].

Before I forget, don't switch over after next week's episode and watch "The Armstrongs", BBC2 10:00PM, for some more jaw dropping TV.

[1] Yes, I've had another reason to hate managers added to my extensive list. Lucky the b*stard in question has just "left" (punted) otherwise he'd get a slap after what I heard yesterday... 'nuff said :)

Category:

• TV
• The+Apprentice