Category: Uncategorized

There’s something slightly bizarre about doing the Last Night of the Proms as a link-up from the Albert Hall to Swansea, Belfast and Glasgow. Surely, all those sea shanties, waved crosses of St. George, and Union Flag boaters would incite riots around the nations and regions?

Nah, through a cunning ruse it seems each prom was a cavalcade of appropriate nationalist fervour; while London was bathing in Elgar, up in Glasgow we had a bit of a ceilidh. By the time Jerusalem was builded, the Scots were singing with the best of them. Which, as an Englishman, was pretty bizarre to be in the middle of.

Thus, a fun time had by all. Bravo BBC for turning an event that’s always dangerously close to both jingoism and loony panto into something of a (genuinely national) party. Perhaps by next year the howl-round will be sorted, and the Glasgow promenaders will be able to hear the orchestra, hmm?

I guess it’s true, then?

Blimey.

I’ve been a Demon customer for eight years. I call them about once a year on a support issue, less of late since I’ve been using NTL or ADSL broadband. Demon do a couple of twiddly bits I appreciate, and their support has previously been relatively good. And unlike, say, Nildram, at least they haven’t dropped me in steaming piles of oozing goo, from a great height.

And then today, I called their helpdesk. I’m still on hold. Meanwhile, I’m trying to text-chat ‘live’ to their agents, which appears to be the preferred option. Since they’re saving the chat session ‘for quality-control purposes,’ I don’t see why I shouldn’t too. Here goes;

[2:35] Jonathan: [intro to the effect of: Four months ago I received many, many emails, returned as ‘undeliverable.’ Changing my email password stopped them, which is either a coincidence or evidence to support the view that my mail account was compromised. The situation is now recurring.]
[2:40] Jonathan: Is there anybody there?
[2:45] Jonathan: [Tumbleweed rolls through the helpdesk room]
[2:47] Jonathan: Hello? Anyone?
[2:50] Jonathan: Help help, the virus is mutating. Now it’s, like, *so* big! Arrghhh! It’s got my leg! It’s dragging me in! Help!
[2:52] Jonathan: Alternatively, help me with someone who appears to have compromised my mail account on your server. Thanks.
[2:56] Jonathan: I’m blogging this, by the way.
[2:58] Jonathan: [twiddles thumbs]
[3:00] Jonathan: Old Zen conundrum: If a tech support request goes unanswered, does it leave a job ticket?
[3:02] Jonathan: Oh, look! Another two bounced emails!
[3:05] Jonathan: Incidentally, why does the text chat window scroll the wrong way? It’s mightily confusing. Or at least, it would be if there was anybody else in the chat session!
[3:06] Jonathan: What are Pipex like these days?
[3:08] Jonathan: That’s more than half an hour. Forget it. I’ll just let your mail servers gum up and get you blocked by other ISPs, that’s fine. I don’t use them anyway.

Stuff this for a lark. I’m off to look at my new flat.

…and other perambulating politicians. I’m particularly fond of Gwyneth Dunwoody crushing a car, though it doesn’t quite fit the criteria.

Most pleasing, perhaps, is that only relatively few of the respondents were entirely po-faced about the matter. And of course, they’re the ones left looking stupid.

[another find by my dad, of course.]

My first comment spam! That’s got to move me up the weblog hierarchy, surely?

Hint to the poster: nobody reads this blog. Reminder to Martin: please don’t post anonymously.

My solicitor just called to tell me that, apparently, I’ve bought a flat in Glasgow.

Oh. Gosh. I wasn’t exactly… really? Which one?

It seems I have five weeks of financial mayhem, and then I’m in. As soon as I believe it, I’ll doubtless be terribly excited. Right now I’m frantically trying to remember what the place looks like, since they’ve all blurred together rather.

I have a home.

We are blog. You will be trivialised. Journalism is futile.

Welcome Vinay to the cadre of bloggers.

One of the dirty secrets of being a Mac user has been that Flash performance, frankly, sucks. No more. Today Macromedia’s long-awaited Flash Player 7 finally came out of beta: get it here, install it, and enjoy about twice the speed you had yesterday.

What a relief, I tell you.