The Sturdy Soapbox

It should feel like Christmas eve...

I really should be excited.  After almost four weeks of locking horns with some of the most unbelievable idiots at Vodafone, I managed to get hold of someone today, who owned the problem, spoke with his manager and immediately organised a replacement phone.

I'm going for a Nokia E 72 smartphone.  Quite unlike Vodafone, I have had 5 messages today telling me the status of the order right to the fact it has been despatched. 

The Asda man's coming tomorrow as well and with a bit of luck, my E Bay purchase of a USB powered lava lamp could turn up too.  I bought one for OBC for his birthday and liked the look of it so much, I had to order one up for myself.

Had McBark on the phone today discussing the 3 fold brochure and he still believes the Rotunda has been demolished.  He heard it from Dawn the Practice Manager who I know, so look out her when I speak to her the doofus. 

I managed to snap up a Dr. Who pencil tin with a Dalek eraser for 99p from E Bay.  Won't it be a pip if that comes too !

Unfortunately, where Vodafone are concerned, we've had too many screw ups and failures in the past 5 weeks, I'll probably receive a rubber chicken instead of a phone.

Been really busy.  I have been doing some spreadsheet creation for someone, some A3 photo posters for Bob the Butcher and of course the 3 fold for McBark.

An interesting development there came a couple of days ago, when he asked me in an e mail if I would like my old lap top back.  I bought it about three years ago, then things started going pear shaped with life in general and he bought it off me.  He doesn't use it much and knows I was hankering for one earlier this year.

It's not a bad spec despite its age.  At the time 256 Mb or RAM was the norm and this one has a Gig.  A 160 Gig hard drive is fine for me and it has wi fi.  A nice little machine.

I will offset the work I've done for him against the acquisition of the laptop.  Christmas will be coming early.

Happy Thanksgiving you odd American bods

Clevedon Pier 2

Clevedon Pier 2
Originally uploaded by Chris J Bowley

A picture from Flickr - My beloved Clevedon in a stormy mood.

I've never liked the muppets, but ...

Via Bits & Pieces, this is really well done.

A bit grumpy this morning

Went to bed last night, couldn't sleep, got up and tapped about on the puter, had a hot milky drink and none of it worked.

In the last three years, we've had some real weirdos come and go from this building for example, that guy who was screaming and smashing up furniture in the small hours about a year ago.  He's long gone as are the nutters who just rejoiced in making noise.  at all hours, you'd often hear something that sounds like someone kicking the skirting boards.  When they left, I think they left the washing machine link up dripping, because it's come through onto the communal landing and fetched a load of paint and plaster down.

The girl in the bedsit which adjoins my kitchen, looks like a cross between a muppet and a cabbage patch doll.  She got a washer about three months ago and it is never off.  I think she lives alone and the place is so small, you couldn't cuss a cat without getting a mouth full of fur, so whatever she finds to wash all day and every day, God only knows.

She'd cleverly pushed it against the adjoining wall, which is only plasterboard, so when it goes to spin, anything on either the hob of my cooker and a work surface, dances about and occasionally falls to the ground.  Then she's got some sort of alarm on it I think.  All I can say is it sounds like battle stations at Marineville.  All we're short of is Commander Shaw announcing that anything can happen in the next half hour.  It was making this racket at ten to one this morning (every thirty seconds) when I was out there making my milky drink !

When I returned to bed, sometime after two, I was lying there and around three thirty there was noise of an undetermined nature coming from the flat where the furniture smashing man once performed at a similar hour.  Before he comments, OBC, it wasn't people having sex.

It was a bit like the skirting board kicking but not quite.  At 3 o something in the morning, why aren't these tossers in bed  ?

As I lay there pondering how grumpy I would be this morning from lack of sleep (and I was right), I thought about taking some revenge on these nutters.  For example, recording some eerie Halloween type sounds off the interweb and playing them at the sort of hour they seem to be  doing their nocturnal stuff, maybe rattle a few chains.

Anyway, I got up as one of the seven dwarves and i wasn't happy!  Just watch the video, you'll hear Marineville battle stations and if you are too young for Stingray, you missed a treat.

McBark lays an egg

In this morning's e mail, instruction to go to print on the brochure, but he asked me if I could find another picture of the City of Birmingham, because the Rotunda was demolished about 5 years ago.

Personally, I stay clear of Birmingham, I've never liked the place, but the picture left is of the building in question from 2007 when it was undergoing refurbishment.  It's a lot better looking than it was (which is also pictured) and has been as iconic a building to the Brummies, as Banbury Cross is to those who live and visit there, Coventry Cathedral in that city and maybe even the Empire State Building in New York (though I am not comparing).

There are more modern high rises on the skyline these days, but the Rotunda and the BT Tower have both been there since the 60's.
 
Wikipedia link

McBark's office is about two streets from the BT Tower, I hope he realises that's still there.

Anyone who reads this and travels through Birmingham, please take a picture, send it to me and I will ensure McBark is alerted to the fact the building is still very much standing.  I'd best break the news to him gently about Elvis !

No, it's not me !

OBC won't agree, but I promise you, this is not me !!!

And I spoke too soon...

So there I was feeling very smug with the 3 fold flyer I sent over to McBark for review.  Then he came back with "where's the piece on Occupational Therapy" ?

He never gave me any text on the subject and when he did, it was two hefty paragraphs and we hit the quart into pint pot syndrome.  I had to change the font and the line spacing and mess about a lot to get it all in.  Publisher has an annoying habit of hyphenating words, so I had to go through editing the spacing to stop that.

He liked my cityscape idea, but then asked for a cityscape of Birmingham (typical McBark), but I actually found him one for the front cover at least !

Unlike Birmingham City Council, I managed to use a picture of Birmingham UK and not Alabama in a promo leaflet.  What was worse in their case, whoever was responsible for the clanger tried ot lie their way out of it by saying it was a 'generic cityscape'.

Well here on mine, the round building is the recently refurbished Rotunda building, the new Selfridges building in the  foreground and on the right the BT tower (which McBark wanted most of all seeing how the practice is very close to it).

Provided one of the doctors in Birmingham who are now looking over it, don't want me to add the Lord's prayer or other wordy text, it can go to print.

So if you need a doctor in Birmingham, remember your surgery in the city, but don't call him McBark !

Truly oinkalicious

When I cooked the chicken tikka on Friday, rather than throw the marinade away like I usually do, I had two lamb chops in the fridge.  I chucked those in the mixture.  They've been there all weekend until a moment ago when I cooked them under a hot grill.

They were terrific.  I've not done lamb tikka before and unlike chicken, I didn't put salt and lemon juice on the meat before it went in to soak.  Can't believe how good it was, oink !

DTP Sunday

Feeling quite chuffed with myself.  Been working on the 3 fold flyer for McBark's surgery "Your surgery in the City...  Really please with it, right down to the cityscape as I imagined, faded down and placed behind the text.

I can't feature it yet for you to have a look at, because McBark's not seen it yet.  I just sent him a PDF and I do think some of the text supplied me is a bit ropy and so a bit of alteration is needed yet.

I'm more pleased because I said to OBC only on Friday, that it's only in the last three weeks, I have been feeling a lot stronger and mentally sharper in myself.  I've been able to function for some time now, but I would have lacked concentration for a project like today's and certainly wouldn't have turned out the quality it has especially in the couple of hours it took to produce.

It's HAPPY BIRTHDAY to OBC today.  I spoke to him earlier and as you might expect for someone as popular as he is, lots of presents have come his way.  He likes the USB lava lamp I sneaked in the bag with the curry.  It's also Happy Birthday to Beacon Tone and thought for my late pal Bill the Wag who's birthday also fell on this day.

I shared a fascination for Limericks with the Wag, but most of them I would not be able to reproduce here.  Mind you, there was a clean and clever one, so in memory of Bill the Wag, here goes:

    A mosquito was heard to complain

    these scientists have addled my brain

    The cause of my sorrow is 2-4 Di Chloro   

    Di Phenyl Tri Methyl    

    Methane

    (that's DDT)...