Washing the Brain

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to an interview with Doris Lessing on Radio 4, about her Nobel Prize. She was deliciously dismissive of the whole thing (unsurprising when you hear the background), and then somehow the subject of blogging arose. When asked, Ms Lessing conceded that she didn’t know too much about it [blogging], but that she thought it must be like ‘washing the brain’. Is that what I’m doing? And if it is, is it really such a bad thing?

Tiscali - Taking the Service out of Service Provider

In this time of economic turbulence and daily news of impending doom, it seems to me that your average, law-abiding, bill-paying-on-time consumer is totally screwed when it comes to fighting for what’s right with the big companies. In essence, you CAN’T fight because they hold the trump card - they can lay a non payment order on you and bang goes your credit rating. And now, of all times, we all need to hang on to clean credit ratings if we possibly can.

I am not here to gratuitously slag off Tiscali; I’m just posting my experience in the small hope that anyone trying to decide on a broadband provider might stumble across this post and think better of a vote for Tiscali. And I can do this because I am saying nothing that isn’t true - and this is my one little area of control. This is my blog. I say what I like.

I don’t remember how long I was a Tiscali customer - a good couple of years before everyone else jumped on the happy ship and connection speeds began to dwindle. But I stuck with it because I’m not overly bothered about connection statistics, as long as I can get on the Web and do what I need to do. Then came the day that I could no longer do what I needed to do; my connection speed was worse than dial up, with websites taking stupid lengths of time to load.

I spent hours on the telephone with ‘Customer Support’ somewhere in deepest India. Well, when I say with them, I do of course mean waiting for them. After half an hour on hold, I would get through to a script reader support person who would listen to my description of the problem and then run through their get-the-customer-off-the-phone-as-fast-as-you-can things-to-try list. This is a one size fits all list. Reset your computer, reset the router, run a speed check (which couldn’t run because the speed was so rubbish), run a virus check blah blah blah. Finally, on about my sixth call, someone actually registered the fact that there was a problem, advising that they needed to switch on refresh my connection. This worked - for one day - and then the problem was back and I’m on the telephone again. This time, they are in denial. No Ma’am, we never refreshed your connection, there is a problem with your telephone line and we need to speak to BT. We will call you back within 48 hours. 48 hours - another two days with no connection.

OBVIOUSLY, nobody at Tiscali called me back 48 hours later and I called them. Again, they are in denial. No Ma’am, there is no problem with your BT line, we don’t need to contact them. By this time, my connection had been down for at least a fortnight. I gave up on Tiscali and moved to another provider.

Six months later, I receive a bill from Tiscali for a final payment of £19. If I were to invoice the hours of wasted time I spent on their so-called service, I reckon they owe me about £700, so I tear up the bill and let them whistle. Three months later, and they have called in the heavies; I have a collection agency on the telephone and as much as it pains me, I have to pay the damned bill or risk having a black mark on my credit record for the sake of £19.  I feel like I’ve been mugged.

Notes on a Spillage

Tonight I knocked an empty saucepan into the cat’s water bowl and the result was Lake fu*king Windermere in my kitchen. How can one little bowl of water create THAT much water?

Now, some three and half hours later as I sat all mellow and relaxed watching Question Time, sipping a large mug of Darjeeling tea and idly browsing the rather splendid barleyhut.com, I knocked said mug of tea and have spent the last fifteen minutes tending to a mini tsunami in my sitting room. I am relieved to report that no Macbooks were harmed during this disaster and that Darjeeling tea appears to have remarkable cleansing properties for oak floors.

Someone is sending me a sign. Someone is telling me to go to bed and avoid the bath at all costs.

Wake Up Call

This video is doing the arounds at the moment. Any cat owners will relate immediately, it’s hilarious and well observed:

Bank Holiday Reading

I spent most of today reading through this book:

It’s a wonderful book! The design reminds me of the trendy cookery books that you get nowadays, where the pages are made from lovely thick paper with great illustrations and lots of attention to layout. But beyond the look and feel, it’s a great insight into how ‘proper’ authors write. I’d like to say it inspired me … and it did… but I didn’t actually settle down and write anything. *sigh*.

Neighbours From Hell

I love my little house. I have loved it since the moment I saw it. It is part of a row of three cottages, but it’s a funny layout and I am fortunate that only a little part (the kitchen) is joined to next door. However, the down side is that my sitting room and my bedroom overlook the gardens. My garden, and the neighbours gardens.

I confess that, until recently, I have been rather spoiled when it comes to neighbours. When I first moved in, my immediate neighbour was a mad old woman in her 90’s who caused me no grief whatsoever. Oh, except when she built an extension in my back garden. Admittedly, that was a low point in our otherwise non existent relationship, but after a short battle, the porch was taken down and she moved to a home for the mentally ill not long after. I like to think that the two things were entirely unrelated.

After that, Trendy Tim moved in next door. He was fine - professional type - often not there. No problems at all in fact. Oh, except for the night when there was a party in the garden until 3am and I shouted at him in my pyjamas…I mean, I went out wearing pyjamas, not that he had found his way into my PJs. But basically Tim was fine, even when his girlfriend moved in, it was fine. Even though she laughed like a train and I sometimes had to turn the TV up to compensate for her enthusiasm.

I wasn’t even overly worried when Alcoholic Paul moved into next door but one, not even when he invited me round for a glass of wine and double bolted the front door once I stepped inside. I hear him ranting and raving every now and then, but he’s harmless enough.

However, it’s all spoiled now. Trendy Tim and Laughs-Like-A-Train girlfriend moved out and Mr and Mrs Chav moved in. They came complete with Chav Cat, Chav Greyhound and Chav Parentage-Unknown-Bloody-Big-Dog. As yet there is no Baby Chav, but it must surely only be a matter of time.

Mr and Mrs Chav are stuck on high when it comes to volume. They shout everything. Even when they’re not rowing. Even a simple question like “do you wanna cup of tea?” is bellowed. Mrs Chav looks (and sounds) like Vicki Pollard:

… and Mr Chav looks like Butch Dingle from Emmerdale Farm:

Enough said.

But none of this is the problem. No. The DOGS are the problem. The dogs bark and howl from dawn to… errrr…. dawn. No joke. They bark because they want to go out, and as soon as they are out, they bark because they want to go in. They bark because somebody comes in and they bark as soon as someone goes out. I am starting to suspect these are agraphobic dogs. So of course, all this barking happens right beneath my bedroom window. This morning, I was woken up at 5.45am when the poor dogs were kicked out into the tiny garden, and proceeded to howl for 40 minutes until someone let them in. 5.45am!!!! And how can anyone ignore a dog that’s howling like that? It’s beyond me.

I’m at the point where I either have to complain, or kill someone. The trouble is, I have complained about noise before, and I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory in the process. It was one morning, about 7am, when Mrs Chav opened her kitchen window (directly below my bedroom) and (a) blasted out Billy Joel’s greatest hit(s) at full volume and (b) had a bit of a sing-along. I’m afriad I snapped. Again, in my pyjamas, I stomped round to their front door, told her to switch “that bloody row” off and stomped back to bed. We haven’t spoken since. I ask you. Billy fu*king Joel.

So you see, this is not a great context in which to start complaining about the dogs. I need to handle it gently. So I have written a nice letter today and even went to buy a nice card with a picture of a dog on the front. I even went in a Chav card shop to buy it. I will put the letter inside that and see what the response is. I am half expecting every window in my house to be smashed.

More on this trauma as it unfolds. Or smashes.

Handbags & Glad Rags

I know that this is supposed to be a blog about writing - and I will get to that at some point, honestly - but I feel compelled to write about something else that is very dear to my heart. Is it a man? NO. Is it a child? NO. Is it a cat? NO. It’s a handbag. And, before you run off with the impression that I’m a shallow, shell of a woman who thinks of little more than handbags and designer labels, let me put your mind at rest. ish. Well OK - I might just have a bit of an addiction to handbags - but never of the designer label variety. I prefer mine to be a bit more organic - always leather, always dark brown, always big enough to house at least half a mobile library and/or a great dane. I go to work, I live alone, I have no responsibilities other than than the need to provide cat food from small round tins, not larger square trays or (heaven forbid) plastic pouches. So, if I want to pay a fair whack for a lovely new bag, then I will.

However, even I have limits. I have, I feel, found the ultimate bag and it is the first time (I think in my whole life) that I have coverted a so-called designer label. It’s a Mulberry bag. Normally, I scoff at Mulberry - over priced and over fussy (in my humble opinion), but this one is different. This one is, I believe, perfection. And apparently, perfection comes at a cost of £350.

Three-hundred-and-fifty whole English pounds. Alas, I do not have the kind of girly girlfriends who support me in such a purchase. When I emailed one and tentatively raised the subject, her response was: “I could buy TWO of the new top of the range twirly Samsonite suitcases for that!”. Hmmm. Not what I wanted to hear - though I should probably point out that she was a Girl Guide until she was twenty and is now a travel journalist, hence her rather unnatural enthusiasm for suitcases, albeit twirly ones.

Anyhow, I cannot bring myself to stump up that amount of money - even if it is big enough to carry the whole ten pages of my novel-in-progress and “would probably help me write” - so I have a plan. I am going to raise the money by selling some of my worldly goods on Ebay. Oh yes. I am heading for the great car boot sale on the Information Super Highway. So, this weekend, I gathered no less than nine, highly sellable items (including three lovely, large, brown leather handbags, *coughs*) and spent far too long putting them up for sale. They are there now, like my little babies - I feel terribly proud and have to keep going back to peek at progress. Actually, that’s a bit of an under statement; I am currently refreshing the page at a rate of 120 times an hour, and I am extremely offended that there isn’t so much as a sniff for my Without a Trace, Season 1 DVD box set. Do people have no taste?!

That said, I am pleased to report that there are a number of people watching my bags and if they sell, I can probably afford two-thirds of PERFECT BAG and everything will be lovely.

Even my fridge is neglected

You may or may not have noticed the tag line for this blog. I am a fraud on both levels. I am not writing and I am not cleaning my fridge. My fridge contains:

1. One almost-empty bottle of milk
2. One shrivelled romana lettuce
3. Four bottles of vodka ice - mmmmmm
4. One bottle of pinot grigio
5. Boursin cheese
6. Houmus (is that spelt right? it looks wrong)

So, it’s not exactly a FULL fridge in need of reorganisatioin, but it could probably do with a clean. Apathy is my middle name. I have no excuses for apathy because I have something so amazing to help me write now that I know the only thing stopping me is me. I can’t write about what that thing is yet because it is too lovely and deserves more attention than I can give it now, while watching Desperate Housewives.

Bow and I are in Lothlorien. She is curled up on the desk right beneath the anglepoise lamp - in other words, she is slowly cooking herself. Bow is my cat (not the one featured elsewhere on this blog). I don’t know how she knows when I’m in Lothlorien, but she always does. Lothlorien is the name of my office, which is a glorified shed in the garden - I will post some pictures one of these days.

I think Bow must listen for me to leave the house and then she trots out and scratches the door of Lothlorien so I let her in. So I’m thinking that maybe she does that every time I go out. What if she spends entire days scratching at the door while I am at work? That would be too sad! Maybe I need to fit a cat flap for Lothlorien. That would solve the problem.

How come the couch is always free in Central Perk?

When did you ever walk into Starbucks (other coffee chains are available) and find that it was free? The place is crowded, people are sat at tables but for some reason, nobody has bothered with the super-comfy couch. Hmmmm. Let me think. That would be NEVER. Obtaining the couch in a coffee shop always calls for stealth manoevures. You go in, and you check who’s on it, then you check how full their cups are…anything less than half and there’s a chance it will be free before you finally get served so you keep watching, slipping your coat off so you can bagsy the couch if the lazy gits ever move. Which of course they don’t so then you reach the counter and your purse is on your bag but you can’t look properly because you’re holding your coat and the girl serving tuts and rolls her eyes, meanwhile the bastards on the sofa look like they’re falling into a coma.

You never get the couch in coffee shops. It’s the law.

Unless your name happens to be Monica, Rachel, Chandler, Joey or Ross.

Procrastination Idea #4 - music again

Joshua Radin - Closer

So I’m not writing but listening to a lot of music. I like to think of it as research. And anyway, I figured how to use the audio plug-in and it would be a shame to waste it.