While I was on the blog-hiatus, I changed my car (though the 306 still lives with me!). I went from the RX8 to a nice, sensible, economical diesel Audi A3. Co-incidentally, the car change happened at the same time as my car insurance was due to renew, so I took it as an opportunity to shop around for a better deal.

Using the myriad comparison websites, I eventually did find a good deal, with Privilege. So good a deal, I opted to pay up-front, instead of by instalments. After a week or two, Privilege wrote to me to ask for me to send them some ‘proof’ of my No Claims Bonus. After enquiring with them, what this boils down to is a piece of paper from your previous insurer which says “Yes, this person has X years no claims bonus”.

So, I ring up my previous insurer, Esure and ask for this piece of paper. They’re very nice and efficient on the phone, and tell me that they’ll send it out and I’ll have it within a few days. Great stuff.

A couple of weeks pass and there’s no paperwork from Esure. There is, however, a stern letter from Privilege saying that if they didn’t get the ‘proof’ soon, they may have to charge me extra. So, I ring up Esure again and ask, again, for my proof of no-claims bonus. They, again, say they will send it, and that it’ll take 3-5 days.

I ring Privilege and explain to them what’s happening, and they say that everything is ok, and they’ll hold off on any excess charges for a little while longer while Esure sort themselves out.

My personal life turns upside down at this point, and car insurance is the last thing on my mind, and some more time passes – perhaps a month or so, and we come to yesterday. I receive another letter from Privilege saying that they’ll be debiting my account with around £500 within 7 days due to the no-show of this ‘proof’.

So, last night, I rang Esure again, once again requesting this proof. They claim to have sent me it twice over, and suggest I check with the Post Office as they believe my post may be being tampered with! Yes – because naughty posties are only interested in letters from Esure, and not anything more juicy.

They do offer to verbally tell Privilege (but only if Privilege phone them!) that I’m a good driver, but when I check in with Privilege, I find that they won’t entertain such frivolity and demand this mythical piece of paper again. However, they will entertain the paperwork in facsimilie form and give me a fax number. Great!

I ring Esure back again, armed with fax number – and to my utter astonishment, they claim that it’s their policy to only fax any policy details to a person’s own fax number! Back to square one. I have a sudden brainwave, and give Esure _my_ fax to email number – which, even though it’s an 0870-prefixed number, the Esure monkey does not question. I figure I can get Esure to fax me the document, then I can print it, and fax it on to Privilege. A kind of intra-insurance-company-fax-proxy, if you will. There’s a gap in the market right there, you know!

He assures me that the details will be faxed through “first thing tomorrow”, which I deem acceptable, as it is knocking on for 9pm by this point.

This morning, Thunderbird ‘bings’ at me as my fax-to-email folder recieves a new message, at 10:40. It is a fax! Hurrah! I open the fax….and it’s a blank sheet of paper. FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Hang on – it’s ok, there’s another one just popped into the mailbox – perhaps they screwed the first one up….and…no, that’s blank too. And, oh, there’s another one. It’s blank. And another… they send me 6 fucking blank fucking faxes one after the fucking other. Either Esure really, really have it in for me, or the spotty oik they’ve got manning the fax machine in their office is feeding it the paper upside down.

I’m angry now, and ring Esure to find out just what the fuck is going on. This is where it gets really, really fruity. Someone answers the phone, or, do they – they seem to be reading a script – like an answerphone message – “I’m sorry, the department you have called is unable to take your call right now. Would you like to phone back after 2pm?”. I’m still undecided as to wether it was a person or not, until the voice said “Is that ok?”

“No. NO. It’s bloody well not ok!”. What kind of absurd idea is it to have phone operators ANSWERING THE PHONE only to tell callers that they can’t help them? Surely this achieves absolutely nothing other than frustrating the caller? If they have a computer glitch, or technical problem – why not just say so. It’s a more honest excuse, and I just found it utterly incredulous that the bosses at Esure think this is a good idea.

The phone operator who helpfully won’t help me, takes down my policy number and promises to get things sorted, but I suspect I’ll be calling again later/tomorrow in a vain attempt to try and unfuck things.

What makes me laugh the most, however, is this. Esure’s customer services department operates out of a building at 19 Cadogan Street, Glasgow. Do you want to guess where Privilege operate from?

Yep, 18 Cadogan Street, Glasgow.

I find myself with flights booked to New York, next month. For a variety of reasons, these flights were going to be useless, and I’d be chalked up on the airline’s ‘No show’ list, but this week I’ve decided to go anyway, despite it cutting into precious work time, and upsetting some other applecarts which I have to tend.

I’ve never been to New York, though I’ve always wanted to go, and – truth be told – I’m more excited about this trip than pretty much any other holiday I’ve been on. I can’t recall being more excited about going away since my honeymoon. I think mainly, it’s because I’ll be travelling alone, and I’ve never been on holiday on my own before.

I’m staying for four nights, between the 9th and 13th of October. Though my return flight on the 13th departs at 8:50am, so I guess there won’t be any late night boozing on the 12th!

Going it alone also means making all the associated arrangements on my own too. I relied on others too much in the past for this kind of thing, and it’s quite exciting in itself to have so many little things to organise pre-trip. It took me half a day, for example, to work out that it would be cheaper for me to pre-book train tickets (even 1st class ones!) down to Heathrow and back than to drive down and park my car – plus I got the added benefit of not having to negotiate the M25 and M1 on my return, after a 7.5hr flight and all the associated jet-lag.

I’ve never been so organised about a trip before! I’ve even sorted out travel insurance!

I’ve also decided to try and ‘travel light’ (at least, for the outbound leg!), and am going to stick to just one carry-on bag, rather than checking luggage. I figure I’m only going to need 4 days worth of clothes, which to me amounts to four pairs of socks and pants, a couple of t-shirts, a couple of shirts and a pair of trousers, plus a washbag. I picked up a cheap small rucksack which ought to do the job.

I’ll also be taking my Nikon D50, and my Sigma 18-200 – I figure there is no excuse to not take my ‘good’ camera when there are all the sights of New York to take in. To carry the camera around, I’ve picked up a Crumpler ‘Pretty Boy’ Medium (no, really!) shoulder bag, as it a) doesn’t look immediately like a SLR camera bag, and b) is lighter and smaller than my current Lowepro bag which carries all my SLR gubbins.

Finally, because I just can’t leave home without a computer, I’ll take a laptop with me. But not my Macbook Pro. I’ll take a netbook.

I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a ‘small cheap computer’ (aka. a netbook) for a little while, ever since seeing the original EeePC in work a year or more ago – but i’d dismissed the idea as it seemed like a terrible false economy to me. You got a tiny laptop, sure, but it was at the expense of a decent processor, a barely-usable 7″ screen, and – crucially for sausage-fingers me – a crummy keyboard with which to type. I actually tried out a EeePC 900 for a day or two a few months ago, and I got very frustrated with how poor the keyboard was and ended up returning it.

Since then, we’ve had some HP 2133 ‘Mini-note’ netbooks at work. These are HP’s entry into the netbook market, and they are nothing short of lovely. They’re far more sturdily constructed and certainly look much more business-like than the Fisher Price-esque contruction of the original EeePC’s. It also has a virtually-full-size laptop keyboard, and is a doddle to type on. However, it fails on two crucial points – a) The CPU is an ancient Via C7, which struggles even on the bundled SuSE-based Linux, and b) the price. It’s £350 quid – and nudging £400 if you want the decent capacity battery version.

So, what I was searching for was a netbook which had a decent keyboard, and enough ‘ummph’ under the bonnet to make it actually usable. Enter the Acer Aspire One.

£220 bought me a blue Aspire One with a 120GB hard disk, and 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor. It has a far, far, far better keyboard than any EeePC I’ve played with (701,900,901 – not played with the 1000 yet) though still nowhere near the HP, but the price-point made it too good not to buy. The 3-cell battery gives around 2.5hrs life, which isn’t fantastic, but a 6-cell battery is arriving any day soon, and this promises to push the battery life up to around 6-7 hours. If I can source one of these batteries before I go away, I will buy one.

So, in the rucksack will be some clothes, washbag, camera bag containing camera, netbook, power chargers for phone, camera and netbook, and a couple of UK->US socket adaptors and that ought to be it. From my investigations, the bag should pass as hand-luggage according to KLM’s baggage policy. This should save me a lot of time at JFK, with no baggage carousel lottery to be played, and no worry of the bag going astray at Schipol on the outward leg.

The return leg is a straight JFK->LHR flight, with no connections, and as I understand New York is the shopping capital of the world, so I plan to buy a holdall or case out there, and fill it with goodies (for myself, for Aimee, Christmas presents, etc) to bring back. I will, at this juncture, also point out that I will of course pay any UK Customs and Import Duty required on any purchases over the given limits, of course. Ahem.

So – world – I ask thee – what should I go see, other than the usual tourist things? A number of people have told me that rather than going up the Empire State Building, it’s far better to go up the Rockefeller Building and view the city skyline from there – taking in the Empire State Building itself – and to go up at just before dusk, so you get daytime and nighttime perspectives on the city, and I’ll very likely do this. Plus there’s a tip to take the Staten Island ferry, rather than taking a trip to see the Statue of Liberty, as you can’t actually go all the way up the statue anymore, anyhow, and the ferry is a freebie – what other tips can travellers offer?

I realise there’s the whole Broadway and theatre aspect of things – but if I want theatre (and I rarely do) – then London’s got plenty of it, and I can’t imagine a performance of Spamalot (or whatever musical is de rigeuer) is any different on Broadway as it is in the West End, so I’m not really looking for recommendations to take in a show.

I really am terribly excited – can you tell?

So, for a million and one reasons, the blog’s fell by the wayside again. Some reasons are more valid than others, some were downright more important, but, that’s not important now. What is important is that I’m back on the hoss, and am going to try and talk up some crap on the blog again.

There are those out there that believe in karma, or in fate and the pre-ordained nature of things in general. I’m not a subscriber to any of this. You make your own bed, and you sleep in it. Your choices, your actions, your decisions, that’s all it is, in life the onus is on you.

As Forrest Gump once said, “That’s all I have to say about that”, and, yeah, I concur. Those of you who really know me, will know what I’m referring to, the rest of you, well, everything will come out in the wash, as they say.

Anyhoo.

I put the John Cooper Clark poem up the other day, well, just because I like it, and it’s suitably shouty and I wanted to see if anyone was still reading. Turns out people are, and it also turns out that my mam doesn’t like all the swearing, either. So, heartily reprimanded, here we go again.

the fucking cops are fucking keen
to fucking keep it fucking clean
the fucking chief’s a fucking swine
who fucking draws a fucking line
at fucking fun and fucking games
the fucking kids he fucking blames
are nowehere to be fucking found
anywhere in chicken town

the fucking scene is fucking sad
the fucking news is fucking bad
the fucking weed is fucking turf
the fucking speed is fucking surf
the fucking folks are fucking daft
don’t make me fucking laugh
it fucking hurts to look around
everywhere in chicken town

the fucking train is fucking late
you fucking wait you fucking wait
you’re fucking lost and fucking found
stuck in fucking chicken town

the fucking view is fucking vile
for fucking miles and fucking miles
the fucking babies fucking cry
the fucking flowers fucking die
the fucking food is fucking muck
the fucking drains are fucking fucked
the colour scheme is fucking brown
everywhere in chicken town

the fucking pubs are fucking dull
the fucking clubs are fucking full
of fucking girls and fucking guys
with fucking murder in their eyes
a fucking bloke is fucking stabbed
waiting for a fucking cab
you fucking stay at fucking home
the fucking neighbors fucking moan
keep the fucking racket down
this is fucking chicken town

the fucking train is fucking late
you fucking wait you fucking wait
you’re fucking lost and fucking found
stuck in fucking chicken town

the fucking pies are fucking old
the fucking chips are fucking cold
the fucking beer is fucking flat
the fucking flats have fucking rats
the fucking clocks are fucking wrong
the fucking days are fucking long
it fucking gets you fucking down
evidently chicken town

John Cooper-Clarke, 1980.

No, really? Where do I begin. 36 days since my last entry. Very, very, very poor. Let’s see where things are at.

June came and went very quickly. Too quickly, as it turned out – as I discovered that the car tax on the RX8 was running out at the end of the month. Equipped with the fancy form from the DVLA and the interweb, I endeavoured to renew it…. and, about this point is when I discovered I’d totally forgotten about the car needing an MOT… Whoops!

So, I quickly booked the car in for the service it was due, and its MOT – on the 4th of July, a few days after I noticed the car now required an MOT (being over 3 years old), four days into the month the car’s no longer taxed for. Erk. To make matters worse, this weekend was Katy & Mark’s wedding weekend, and I was due to be in Shropshire over the weekend. Time, as the saying goes, was of the essence!

It was also around this time that I became aware of a dull pain in my right ear, and the gradual hearing loss I began experiencing. Over the course of a few days between the MOT expiry and the wedding, my hearing levels in my right ear dropped to barely audible.

I was re-assured by the garage that it _wasn’t_ an offence to drive an untaxed, un-MOT’d vehicle providing the only journey you were making in it was to the MOT testing centre. Which is a good job really, as I was crapping it – convinced I’d be pulled over by the rozzers any minute. The fact that I’d been driving the car since January without an MOT and ‘got away with it’ (as a figure of speech!) was not lost on me at all!

The garage, the ever reliable, trustworthy and competant GK Mazda on Penistone Road, accepted my note from their dealer principal saying I was entitled to a free service due to all the fuckups they’d made, which was very pleasing. They booked the car in and handed me the keys to a fucking Fiat Panda.

I have very few words to say about the Panda. I do recall being impressed by the brakes – they were very, very sharp. The seat was very uncomfortable, and the ‘City’ power steering was frankly scary – why a car the size of a thimble needs an ultra-light power-assisted steering mode, I’m not sure – but the ability to turn the wheel full circle with the barest of force from my pinkie struck me as rather…. unsafe?

So, car booked in. I had a few jobs to do, then I had to dash to Sheffield station and get the train to Whitchurch, to meet up with Emma and the family, in readiness for the Saturday wedding. I did ponder with the idea of going to my GP to see about the ear ‘thing’, but I figured they’d only give me antibiotics, which I’d probably have to avoid alcohol with, so I never went. In hindsight, I wish I had.

I got to the station, and picked up my ticket from the automated machine only to see my train departing just as I ran down the steps to the plaform. Damn. This miss cost me an hour’s wait for the next train, and another 40 minutes at the connecting station, Stockport – and as my ear was giving me gyp the idea of plugging my Shures in and listening to my iPod didn’t really appeal. So, a very long time spent waiting on the platforms of Sheffield and Stockport for me.

I arrived into Whitchurch at about 10.30pm and walked to Emma’s mam’s – Emma being unable to pick me up in her car as she’d had a few drinks. The walk was actually quite pleasant, and I managed to avoid the townie chavs and settled down with a beer or two before the big day.

For the wedding, I’d been tasked with taking some photos of the bride and her entourage getting ready and getting to the venue, taking videos of the horse drawn carriage leaving and arriving and, rather crucially, attempting to look after Aimee whilst all the chaos went on around us. I attempted to do my best, whilst I had monoaural hearing and the dull pain of the eachache. Needless to say, I didn’t do as well as I could have, and for this I’m sorry.

There are photos on Facebook, which are ‘ok’, and the video seems to be fine. Aimee, for the most part, was very well behaved but as the day wore on, she became more and more difficult and less inclined to go to bed – which was a little traumatic for both myself and Emma. Parenting skills aside, the wedding was lovely, and Mark and Katy looked fantastic. I proceeded to get roaringly drunk at the evening do, and generally made a bit of a tit of myself, as seems to be the Sheridan-family way at weddings. Right, Marvin?

The morning after, we woke early, and with wobbly heads, took advantage of the on-site swimming pool and took aimee for a dip and a splash. She loved it, and I have to say that 5 minutes in the steam room kick started the shedding of my hangover. Pity we don’t have one at home!

On the Sunday evening, we drove back across the Pennines to home, ready for my birthday the next day! My 30th birthday, to be precise. Yeeech. 30. Three. Oh. The big 3-0. 30. Can’t believe it.

So, yes, the birthday came and went, and everyone bought me lovely presents and cards, but nothing really disguised the fact that my age now begins with a 3, and not a 2. On forms and surveys, I now get to tick the ’30-39′ demographic box, instead of the ’20-29′ one. I’m in my last year of Club 18-30 holiday entitlement! Actually, that’s probably a positive!

I think I’ll save the ‘Big 3-0′ post for another day, but, anyhow, yes, it was my birthday the other day, and I celebrated it at home, with Emma, Aimee and Fro. A lovely day. I managed too, to get to the GP, who ascertained that I had a middle-ear infection which had (somehow) perforated my eardrum. He prescribed me some Amoxicillin (antibiotics) for a week, with the instruction to drop back in if things didn’t clear up.

I’d also booked off the following Tuesday, knowing that Emma had the day off too, and that Aimee was booked into nursery – so we’d get the whole weekday, just the two of us – which is something that’s not really happened for a long time. So we went out for lunch and did some shopping and watched a film. It was really nice, just like the old days – pre mad ASBO-child.

The flick we watched was Hancock, Will Smith’s latest. It started off really well, but tailed off as it progressed into very familiar, well trodden movie cliche terroritory. Still, it wasn’t at all bad – plus, we chose some ‘premier’ (or somesuch) seats at the Vue at Meadowhall, so had really comfy reclining leather seats in the cinema – I’ve not been in this cinema since we visited Meadowhall back in student days on a day trip from Grimsby. It’s changed, just a smidge! Not sure if it’s better than the Cineworld at Centertainment, but one thing’s for sure – parking’s a whole lot easier at Meadowhall.

Last weekend, Emma arranged for some food and drinks with some friends to celebrate my birthday. We had envisaged trying out Platillos in Leopold Square, but when we came to book the table we decided otherwise – what kind of a ridiculous policy is it to levy a charge of £5 per head on a reservation, along with a 10% surcharge for parties 8 or more! There was no way we’d be handing over £60 just to make a fucking reservation, and they could stick their 10% up their arse. Won’t be going there again. So, we went with the fall-back plan of All Bar One, just over the road on Leopold Street – I didn’t really fancy going for ‘a curry’, or ‘a chinese’ or ‘a thai’, so the tapas-style approach of Platillos, and All Bar One, appealed.

We had everything on the tapas menu All Bar One could muster, and doubled (and tripled) up on a few of the more popular dishes. It was bloody gorgeous, and I’d definiately eat there again. I didn’t really pay much attention to what we’d ordered, but the duck in the toasted flatbread, and the chilli prawns stood out for me.

We had a few in there, then moved onto Bungalows and Bears (which was playing some exceptionally shit music for a Saturday night) and then to The Old House (which… wasn’t), where I had a few cheeky mojitos and bloody marys. There are photos on Emma’s Facebook profile – if seeing pictures of me drunk are your thang, anyhow.

The ear infection continued throughout this time – only less painful, but now coupled with a combination of thick pus-like deposits coming out of my ear, and a very thin watery liquid running (literally) out of my ear all day long. The pills did nothing.

So yesterday, I went back to the quack, who said that the infection had now spread to my outer ear, though the lesions in my drum appeared to have closed up, and gave me some more, more powerful antibiotics and some ‘Otomize’ ear spray, and another instruction to come back in a week if it’s not all sorted.

Last night, and this morning, I experienced excruciating pain in my ears – it feels like my ear is all swollen up and read to just _burst_ with pus and ming and bleeerrgh everywhere. My hearing is no better than it was 2 weeks ago – this concerns me greatly….

Well, that about brings us up to speed. I promise to write more often, again. Really, no, I will. Honestly!

The 306 trundles on! So far my money-saving plan is going pretty well. The Pug gets over 500 miles to a tank, which is at least 300 more than the RX8 did. Sure, it tops out at 100 (and feels decidedly ropey above 90!) but in doing the job of transporting me from A to B without costing me the earth, it’s doing a great job.

What’s more, it’s coped with over 3500 miles in the last four weeks alone. Unfortunately, the concept of ‘zero maintenance’ seems to have passed by the wayside.

As mentioned the other week, the radiator appears to have a little leak. However, I can report that chucking a small packet of Radweld into it appears to have plugged it up. How long it’ll last, however, is anyone’s guess.

There was heavy rain the other day driving down the M18, heavy enough to necessitate the use of the ‘fast’ wiper settings. However, this vigorous wiper use revealed a hidden horror of the vehicle – the rear and front passenger wipers were held on with (very well concealed) zip ties! After a few minutes, the wipers were scraping the window as opposed to removing rain. A new set of wipers ran to 20 quid from Halfrauds. Bugger.

The broken aerial was a little bit of fun too. I thought I’d just drill the broken screw out and pop a replacement aerial in, but, heh – that screw is made of sterner stuff than my cheap-ass hammer drill! So, I opted for getting a new mount and aerial from the Peugeot dealers just off the M62 at Goole. 8 quid later, I have the mount, and the installation is much less fannying than I suspected. Two screws in the interior light fixture, and one small bolt holding the aerial base itself on, and that was it. I can now enjoy Chris Evans in crystal clear FM on Radio 2! Huzzah!

The airbag light comes and goes. As I write, it’s been off for two days, but was on for the preceding two weeks, and then before that it was off for a few days. Very, very annoying. I wonder if it has any bearing on the now ‘stuck’ drivers front seat, which now steadfastly refuses to fold forward? Hmmmmm….

We were away for the weekend, at Emma’s mam’s. Emma is getting her bridesmaid dress all fixed and fitted up for Katy’s wedding in July. We came home on Sunday evening, ensuring we’d left the Bank Holiday Monday free for a full day spent together as a family.

It wasn’t til bedtime that we’d realised that we’d need to go grocery shopping. The idea of wandering around Morrisons on a Bank Holiday didn’t really appeal, so I reckoned that we could get with the rest of the 21st century and order our shopping online. We’ve done this a few times before, but for some reason the habit never sticks.

By the time we’d got a list together, and found all the items on Tesco’s site, it was nearly half one in the morning. To my amazement, the site offered us a delivery slot between 2 and 4pm that afternoon! The same day! On a bank holiday! Madness.

And, just after 2pm, as promised, the Tescos van drew up with our shopping. That’s pretty damned impressive. Obviously, Tescos has a ready-made logistics and distribution network (eg. its stores all around the country) which makes this feat somewhat easier to manage than a traditional online business, but wouldn’t it be lovely if all big retailers could manage this?

So, it’s been a couple of weeks with the bargain basement 306, and I’ve spent enough time with it to find its faults – we’ll see how much more falls off in the coming weeks.

The radiator seems to have a leak. I’ve had to top the beast up with water a couple of times in the last three weeks. A red light flickers on the dashboard when the water level drops below a certain level in the system. Topping this up seems to cure the light for a week or so. I read on t’interweb that 306′s have a tendancy to eat radiators, and with age and mileage, they tend to leak at the bottom of the radiator. From a quick inspection this seems to be where my water is leaking from.

I can find a replacement radiator off eBay for about 40 quid, and I think i could make a reasonable crack at fitting it myself – the DTurbo is a purely mechanical beast, no crazy engine electrics or anything, but this car is supposed to be ‘zero maintenance’ for me, so I’m tempted to just chuck a can of Radweld in the rad and see how it goes…

The airbag light flickers on and off from the moment the engine is started. After a mile or two (or a few minutes – not worked out yet if it’s distance or time dependant) the light stops flashing, and stays solid. Again, Google-fu and the countless 306 enthusiast sites out there, all concur that this is a (very) common fault with these cars. There are some electrical connectors which run under the front seats which connect to the seat-belt pre-tensioners. These perish with age, and with regular use of the folding front seats on the 3 door model (which mine is). So, I’m not too concerned about this – after all, back in the day, no cars had airbags, did they?

Radio. The radio works, and it’s quite a nice aftermarket Sony unit with a CD player. However, the dolt that owned the car before me drove the car through a car wash…forgetting to take the removable roof-mounted aerial off. Cue; one broken aerial. The lack of said aerial makes for FM radio that sounds like Atlantic 252 Longwave radio. I need to source a replacement aerial, and drill out the remainder of the aerial ‘screw’ from the roof mount. This should be a doddle, whenever I get five minutes to do it, that is.

Rear wash-wipe. The rear wiper works. The washer jet, doesn’t. I can hear the pump whirring when I activate it, just no water comes out. It probably needs unblocking, or re-connecting.

That was my list, up until yesterday evening. Since then, the front seat appears to be stuck and will not fold forward to aid someone getting in the back. I reckon this’ll just be stiff and in need of a good hard thump.

Apart from these fairly small things, it seems to be going well. Engine runs well, stops, starts, steers. Everything else works. Even the electric windows and sunroof! Of course, it all might explode in a puff of acrid black diesel smoke tomorrow, but, for the time being, the 306 of Doom soldiers on.

Another blog hiatus – good reasons this time, though!

One, holiday. We went to Lanzarote for a week in April – blummin’ lovely. The weather was nice and toasty all week – topping out at a positively sticky 38.5C! Really very hot – especially for Aimee, who point-blank refused all week to wear her sun hat. She only accepted the sunglasses too towards the end of the holiday, and even then only because we’d managed to convince her that they were ‘cool shades’, with us demonstrating to her multiple times that mummy and daddy wore them, so she should too!

Never been to Lanzarote before – been several times to Tenerife, another Canary Island, but never to Lanzarote. It’s often been said of Tenerife that “it’ll be nice…when it’s finished” – a nod to Tenerife’s non-stop redevelopment, with more building sites and construction cranes than actual holiday resorts, and that downtown Playa Las Americas is a bit of a haven for lager louts and clubbers – and this is true, but there’s also some very nice parts of the island and the year-round summer climate is certainly welcome.

So, when we touched down in Arrecife on Lanzarote, I was braced for more of the same. As it turns out, I was quite wrong.

There is very little construction and building work going on, it seems – at least not any you’d notice, since there is allegedly a local rule laid down which says that no building should be erected on the island which is taller than a Canarian palm tree. This rule was apparently effected by the influential local artist and architect Cesar Manrique – whose works can be found all over the island.

There is only one high-rise on the whole island, the seemingly towering 14 storey Arrecife Gran Hotel. Local folklore says that the hotel was knocked up in the 70′s whilst Mr Manrique was off the island, and he returned back, disgusted. It has sat there ever since, ever more looking out-of-place, a giant tower amongst two and three-storey buildings. The guidebook we had described it as a burnt-out wreck, blotting the skyline, but thankfully it appears to have been restored, and remodelled in a more sympathetic and upbeat design. It still, however, sticks out like a sore thumb.

The other big difference on Lanzarote is something which took me a few days to actually register. I could fathom that something was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it…. the island seemed ‘cleaner’, almost, less commercialized, less touristy… but then I’d look at the resorts like Puerto Del Carmen and see the lines of English ‘Fun Pubs’ and think again. It was only after a few days that the penny dropped. Advertising. There’s no prominent advertising on the island. No giant road-side billboards promising X, Y and Z. Really – their non-presence really does make that much of a difference.

Whilst we were there we hired a car (a Seat Ibiza, mercifully with working aircon) and toured around the island. There’s some spectacular sights to be seen around Lanzarote, if you venture out of the tourist resorts. The Timanfaya National Park is a place of stark, barren volcanic lands – with the landscape littered with razor-like shards of solidified magma, with the molten core bubbling away under your feet. Inside the park they give demonstrations of the temperature just a few feet below – most spectacularly by creating a walk-in oven, containing a grill perched over an open fissure into the lava below, cooking chicken – Volcano BBQ, anyone?

Another highlight was the Mirador Del Rio – an outpost built into a cliffside overlooking the island of La Graciosa. The view is stunning, and the walkway across the face of the cliff is quite taxing if you’re at all acrophobic. I’ll put up some photos at some point, I will!

When we told everyone we were going on holiday, and that 18 month Aimee was coming, everyone said “Oooh, you’ll have a lovely time” whilst at the same time looking at Aimee with a ‘knowing look’ thinking “But you’re mad taking an 18 month old on a 4hr flight”. I’m pleased to report, they were all wrong. About the flight at least. Aimee was a little restless on both the outbound and inbound flights, but nowhere near as bad as we’d expected. Her first few days on the island, however, were a different story. She’s learnt the ancient womanly art of ‘stropping’.

For the first couple of days, we were quite concerned, as Aimee was being very, very difficult, but after the third day she seemed to be more herself, and I think she enjoyed her little holiday. Gorra watch her with those Spanish waiters in the future though, she’s going to be a right bugger, I can see it coming.

And – the other reason for the delay – work.

To cut many long stories short – my previous employers have decided to relocate. This was not a move universally accepted by all, and a number of people have taken voluntary redundancy. I, however, decided to contract for them for a while, until they get back up to speed.

So, I’ve been busy beavering away, speaking to bank managers, accountants and generally networking – the usual new business things. I’ve also bought another car – I’ve no intention of committing financial suicide by using the RX8 to commute the circa 100mile return-trip every day – so I’ve picked up an R-reg Peugeot 306 DTurbo from a University student in Huddersfield. The seller had it listed at nearly £1100, but I picked out some (easily fixable) faults and got him to accept £875 – I’d like to think that I out-bargained a desperate student needing quick cash, but I guess if it turns out to be a lemon then perhaps it was I that got the bum-deal.

Anyhow, it seems a nice motor, and it’s ran ok for the last few days, so far. Fingers crossed it makes it through the next three months, then I can flog it on.

Some time ago now, I bought some wine from Virgin Wines. It was cheap, and the quality middling – though their full money-back offer if you didn’t like the wine was (and still is, I believe) too good to miss. As a customer of theirs they send me their marketing offers via email every now and then, and unlike many other companies, they send me an email maybe once a month.

Other internet retailers – This is good. I don’t want to know about your MEGA SPECIAL OFFERS more often than this. Once a week is too often. Twice a week is where I look for the unsubscribe links, and any more often than that and I’ll be blackholing your mail outright.

However, recently I’ve noticed that they’re resorting to some pretty daft e-marketing ‘tricks’ with their offer emails. Like the one above, which arrived with the subject line of ‘SAVE £192.50… a bottle! Only 500 cases left”.

The email paints the picture that Virgin are selling bottles of wine that could go for £200 a time, at the princely sum of £7.50. An amazing deal, if it were true.

Sure, this wine is being produced by the same ‘vineyard’ as the £200 a bottle plonk, but to suggest it’s the same in terms of quality or craftmanship is ridiculous. It’s like a Skoda salesman telling you that their Fabia is of the same quality and from the core components as a Bugatti Veyron! Just because they’re owned by the same company (Volkswagen AG) doesn’t mean they’re the same car!

Whilst the Fabia is a good car (indeed, we own one!), and it shares some notable similarities with a Veyron (4 wheels, steering wheel, doors, windows, etc) it, plainly, isn’t the same thing – and the same is true of this wine.

I seem to recall that one of Virgin Wine’s other recent missives to me was equally ambitious in its claims – the email was setup to look like a genuine mistaken Forward of an internal mail, offering me ‘Chateauneuf du Pape’ wine for £5.99 a bottle. On further, careful, reading of the smaller print it is revealed that the ‘Chateauneuf du Pape’ being offered is in fact a ‘Vin de Pays’, a wholly different class of wine just one rung of the ladder above ‘Vin du Table’ – a lowly Table Wine. This is tantamount to bait-and-switch – I’m surprised they’re getting away with it.