We're 'aving a run. To London. Get some chairs.
Not really.
1) Went to Sainsbury's to get some ingredients for baking. Think I managed it OK... the nice Sainsbury's lady helped me use the self-checkout, which is slightly confusing and very, very loud.
2) Went to B&Q looking for a padlock and chain... got very bewildered by the array of padlocks and chains so gave up and came away empty-handed. Would also like to complain that even in B&Q, which really should be safe, one can't escape moderately pretty young women.
3) What makes people think that just because they have three cars but only two parking spaces, they can 'park' the other one halfway onto the pavement, on a T-junction?
4) What makes people want to overtake as I'm turning left into a side-road? On the brow of a hill, in a residential street?
5) Pruning is very bewildering, too.
6) Time for some tea.
---
I'm glad I'm not paying council tax to our ridiculous local administration...
i) the planning department, that allowed, on a major A-road into town, the construction of four houses so clumsily 'designed' that they prompt passers-by to exclaim "dude, wtf?"... actually I'm more concerned about the sanity of those people who've decided / will decide that, for the best part of £500,000, this is the house for them.
ii) the same planning department that allowed, on a greenfield site at the top of one of the tallest hills in town, a development not of bungalows that would hug the landscape and leave the skyline intact, but three-storey houses visible from miles around. Not interesting ones either, just standard developer's hutches.
iii) don't even get me started on the highways department...
---
I'm driving Mum's car again now, on the basis that it's about ten insurance groups lower, about ten mpg more economical, and more likely actually to be here when I need it. Oh, and I can fit a bike in the back. All the controls feel ever so light (except the clutch, which is very jerky), and the brake pedal seems to go a long way before it does anything (must find a deserted industrial estate and practise some emergency stops)... I'm not all that keen on driving it on the motorway, cos it feels like it'd be very easy to drift out of lane, so I tend to keep my arms tense to make up for the lack of weight in the steering. Probably unnecessarily.
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My screen-select 'free trial' expires today and I note that they've so far acknowledged the receipt of one, but not the other, of the two DVDs I posted back to them simultaneously on Thursday. So presumably they'll use that as an excuse to charge me £12.49... watch this space...
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Why do so many books and movies - even Disney movies - have a romantic subplot or even superplot? Don't they realise some of us just aren't interested? Or worse, are interested but would rather not face up to it? [rolls eyes]
---
More tea, I think. Rather hot, though.
---
No tea yet... are car colours getting more boring? I don't like the current range of Mini colours, for a start... have something against a car in "black-eye purple" whatever it looks like... there's a lot of grey around atm. Sign of the times? Of course most cars from the last five years ago or so seem to be silver - hence Mum's insistence that the new car can be any colour except silver!
---
I read in the New Scientist of the controversy over DRLs - Daytime Running Lights, a.k.a compulsory headlights. Personally I tend to drive with headlights on if it's dull (especially when in a car that's not bright yellow), but I know that this can make the roads a bit dazzly, so I'm beginning to think that sidelights - which I previously thought were pointless except when parked - may be the answer. Oh yes, note to those pulled up at side of road - sidelights good, headlights bad!
1) Went to Sainsbury's to get some ingredients for baking. Think I managed it OK... the nice Sainsbury's lady helped me use the self-checkout, which is slightly confusing and very, very loud.
2) Went to B&Q looking for a padlock and chain... got very bewildered by the array of padlocks and chains so gave up and came away empty-handed. Would also like to complain that even in B&Q, which really should be safe, one can't escape moderately pretty young women.
3) What makes people think that just because they have three cars but only two parking spaces, they can 'park' the other one halfway onto the pavement, on a T-junction?
4) What makes people want to overtake as I'm turning left into a side-road? On the brow of a hill, in a residential street?
5) Pruning is very bewildering, too.
6) Time for some tea.
---
I'm glad I'm not paying council tax to our ridiculous local administration...
i) the planning department, that allowed, on a major A-road into town, the construction of four houses so clumsily 'designed' that they prompt passers-by to exclaim "dude, wtf?"... actually I'm more concerned about the sanity of those people who've decided / will decide that, for the best part of £500,000, this is the house for them.
ii) the same planning department that allowed, on a greenfield site at the top of one of the tallest hills in town, a development not of bungalows that would hug the landscape and leave the skyline intact, but three-storey houses visible from miles around. Not interesting ones either, just standard developer's hutches.
iii) don't even get me started on the highways department...
---
I'm driving Mum's car again now, on the basis that it's about ten insurance groups lower, about ten mpg more economical, and more likely actually to be here when I need it. Oh, and I can fit a bike in the back. All the controls feel ever so light (except the clutch, which is very jerky), and the brake pedal seems to go a long way before it does anything (must find a deserted industrial estate and practise some emergency stops)... I'm not all that keen on driving it on the motorway, cos it feels like it'd be very easy to drift out of lane, so I tend to keep my arms tense to make up for the lack of weight in the steering. Probably unnecessarily.
---
My screen-select 'free trial' expires today and I note that they've so far acknowledged the receipt of one, but not the other, of the two DVDs I posted back to them simultaneously on Thursday. So presumably they'll use that as an excuse to charge me £12.49... watch this space...
---
Why do so many books and movies - even Disney movies - have a romantic subplot or even superplot? Don't they realise some of us just aren't interested? Or worse, are interested but would rather not face up to it? [rolls eyes]
---
More tea, I think. Rather hot, though.
---
No tea yet... are car colours getting more boring? I don't like the current range of Mini colours, for a start... have something against a car in "black-eye purple" whatever it looks like... there's a lot of grey around atm. Sign of the times? Of course most cars from the last five years ago or so seem to be silver - hence Mum's insistence that the new car can be any colour except silver!
---
I read in the New Scientist of the controversy over DRLs - Daytime Running Lights, a.k.a compulsory headlights. Personally I tend to drive with headlights on if it's dull (especially when in a car that's not bright yellow), but I know that this can make the roads a bit dazzly, so I'm beginning to think that sidelights - which I previously thought were pointless except when parked - may be the answer. Oh yes, note to those pulled up at side of road - sidelights good, headlights bad!
posted by Z31 at 3:31 pm
4 Comments:
you're a bit behind on the NS reading, aren't you? That was a couple of weeks ago I think...
Yes, the planning council should be shot, possbily after you've burnt on the stake the highways dept.
Yes, my copies of NS come third-hand via Caroline!
There's no escaping pretty young girls (women). They are everywhere, and they are coming to get you ;-)
Also, you coming to Vix's?
Also, sorry if you didn't hear about my gathering a couple of weeks ago, I didn't leave you out on purpose, just used a pre-existing mailing list :-o
Remember, Audaces fortuna juvate.
jonc
Jon, long time no see etc.
They are almost everywhere, but I think it's now pretty clear that they are not coming to get me! Not during waking hours, at least. Ahem.
I'm certainly intending to come to Vix's - just comparing costs by train and by car - though the fact that Mum's going away in her car that same weekend might settle the matter for me!
No offence taken regarding your gathering - in case it wasn't clear, that wasn't the one I got irate about :)
I managed to translate that without recourse to google! - well, at least I suspected it.
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