Some days, you just can't win.

Today, I have done really well. I have cleared three logs and set up visits for the rest of the week as well as sending out termination emails for logs that should be closed. Busy, busy day in fact. So how come when I find I have a log relating to Word, which I not only hate but don't know the first thing about either, everyone has partaken of the wee wee? In the traditional manner of my office, I have had a day of references to obscure and obsolete word processors.

English as she is spoken. 2

Well, at least one person agrees with me in principle about my rants over what has and is being done to the language, thanks Russ.

I don't want to give the idea that I am against all changes though. Many people are not aware, for example, that quite a few words and phrases that we think of as 'Americanisms' are invented by them and therefore wrong. This is not always true. Our cousins have a language that split from ours three to four hundred years ago and, in many ways, is purer than our version of the language. It may sound strange, but it isn't wrong. There are also many regional anomalies that crop up all the time that we should be able to absorb with little complaint. I would also include the curious dichotomy of the correct pronunciation of the letter 'H' as, at least, understandable. The correct way is 'aitch' but many people have difficulty with this and say 'haitch' with a strong emphasis on the leading 'h'. This is wrong but I am prepared to live with it because these people would probably find it nearly impossible to change. However, what I find extremely annoying is the voice-over talent on a certain digital channel who is using both versions in one trailer. The man is a pilloch!

Roll on 10. o'clock.

Not this morning, tonight. That's when I get back into bed. I've been up for over an hour now and feel the need to return. I'm not quite sure what is going on but it feels like a hibernation wish to me. I found out yesterday that Sal has ordered mega stuff from 'The Book People' and sent it to her Plymouth address by mistake. This means, of course, that dear old dad will have to organise collection of said boxes from the courier company as they won't be able to deliver during the day. Cocky has settled again after his nibble at Hazel on Sunday and is taking nuts from my fingers again. He, either accidentally or deliberately, managed to make her finger bleed like a stuck pig when she pulled away from him after trying to give him a peanut. I'm not sure who was most upset but I dare not say that to Hazel...........  

English as she is spoken. 1

Over the past few years, I have become very disenchanted with the way we in the UK are killing our own spoken language. When I was at school, many years ago, we were taught how to pronounce words and string them together to make a meaningful sentence. Over the years, I used these simple rules and seemed to get along fine with most of the population speaking in the same manner. However, about twenty years ago there seems to have been a breakdown in teaching that has produced the appalling use of language we are now being subjected to.

Top of my hit list is the use of the word 'Absolutely'. I asked my sister-in-law what she thought it meant and she explained to me as though I were a child that it was another word for 'Yes'. "So why not just say yes" I queried. "I don't know" was the answer. To clarify, 'Absolutely' does not and never has had any connection with an affirmative statement. It is an adverb and means 'in an absolute manner, esp completely or perfectly''. My fellow Brits have corrupted it and now it even appears in dictionaries as an alternative to 'Yes'. Why not just say yes?

That's it for this post but expect more to come.

I must be getting better........

Because, this morning, I actually wanted to wake up and get out of bed. I spent the final hour at work yesterday with some serious sleepiness and when I got home, slept for an hour and a half. I then felt much better on waking. and went to bed feeling better. Young Titch managed to get to my keyboard at some point yesterday and managed to do things I didn't even know were possible. It took me longer to get everything back to normal than I suspect it took her to trash everything. 

I decided yesterday that, although I have forsworn the contentious blogging that others seem to do so much of, I must begin a thread to try to protect the English language that I was taught at school and still try very hard to use. So be warned, there may be a few sparks flying here soon. All these posts will be under the same title in order that you may skip them if you so wish.

Urrrrrrgle!

Well, I made it back to work this morning after three days of blocked tubes and slime. When I woke this morning, I really wanted to get back to the office and the feeling didn't wear off until about an hour after I arrived. Despite that, I have managed to function well today until about half an hour ago when, suddenly, I had a major headache. 

Aaaaaaaaargh!

I have spent several hours, on and off, putting together a tool in SharePoint for us to use whilst loaning hardware. By yesterday evening, I had a very rough, but working, system. Today I began refining it in preparation to building a complete new version on a different area. Slowly and inexorably, it began to fall apart. I kept putting it back together again but it was like trying to stuff a family of kittens into a small sack. I stopped and tried to build the new version and, although working, parts of that are missing too. I have obviously forgotten a step that I did correctly the first time around. Until now, this was a good day, Hazel and I both had good INR results and don't have to have another test until after Christmas and I have finally got my prescription back to normal with a repeat every two months on all items.

Busy, busy, busy.

After a very productive day at work, I spent yesterday evening sorting out the problems with the vehicles. The Simoniz pen works a treat and it has really covered the scratch well with very little sign of it ever having been there. The graffiti, I treated with a hot soapy wash to remove the surface dirt and top layer from the spirit pen marks. Then I went over it all with T-Cut which has removed the lower layer of spirit pen and made the paintwork white again. When I checked this morning, there were still a few spots I had missed but they should be easy to remove in daylight at the weekend.

Cocky had a ball yesterday. He felt bold enough to leave his cage and ride around on my shoulder. Unfortunately, he had not realised just how difficult it would be to get back into the cage when he had finished his fun. It can get very tiring having a cockatoo on your shoulder and / or wrist for a long period. The bunster was equally busy when I went in to clean his toilet out and sniffed me all over. Not surprisingly, we went to bed early.

Happy bunny - happy birdy.

The bun appears to have recovered well from his unintentional drought, he is now back in his usual routine and scoffing for England again. I must remember to not only clean out his toilet but also the rest of his hutch and playpen tonight so that he has a nice clean area again. The bird is having a wonderful time now he has remembered me again. Yesterday evening, I removed the top of his cage and he spent the evening in the lounge with me watching TV and being tickled. He also ended up having a lot of small food type treats as the evening progressed. By bed time, he was one very happy cockatoo. At this rate, he won't want to go home.

Strike two...................

Difficult to believe though it may be, both our vehicles appear to have been vandalised over the weekend. The Soul has a scratch in it's brand new paint and the Merc has been 'tagged' by a spray can artist. The scratch will probably be fairly easy to cover, I have ordered a Simoniz cover stick that should arrive tomorrow. The tag may come off easily as the van was pretty mucky to start with so it probably got sprayed on a greasy surface. I suspect some T-Cut will do that job.

What do you write about when nothing happens?

I could write something contentious and try to whip up interest............No, not my style.

I could write a short story about a bunny............................................Not me.

I could just fill the window with pictures and photos............................Nah!

I could just witter on about nothing at all and bore everyone stupid......Tempting.

I could compose a list of things to do and reject them all......................Suits me!

Continuing fair.

Weather forecast.

The brush supplier has now replied to my message as well, apologising for a faulty delivery and hoping to do more business with me. I probably will. Ian and Lulu will have moved by now, I just hope all goes well in the new place. I know it's still only temporary but it could be for a long time so let's hope they get somewhere permanent soon. Hazel is off for one of her many Christmas lunches today. I got the runner up prize of a packed lunch made by her fair hand.

When in Rome....

Well, I got a reply to my carefully crafted email to the ebay seller who sent me too much. He is of a foreign persuasion and ignored my words to ask what the problem was and could I forward a photograph of the damaged goods????? So I said not to worry, I would sort it out myself and give him excellent feedback. This I did and, lo, he has also done this for me. It's been quite a good week so far. Today we heard that Ian and Lulu are being moved to a proper flat. Not a permanent one but much better than currently. I had a busy afternoon struggling with a virtual application that wouldn't work due to a previous one not being completely removed due to.etc,  etc. I just went in mob handed, killed the old stuff dead and re-installed a non virtual version so the poor chap could work again.

I can see clearly now,

Image by B_Zedan via Flickr

My new lens has arrived.

My latest acquisition is a large lens on a headband with clip in extra lenses for even closer viewing. It's great, I can actually see things without squinting. My new brushes have also come. I found a supplier of very small - #000 - brushes suited to painting on finger nails and bought a couple of sets. They also look terrific. The supplier made a mistake and sent me someone else's order as well and I will be buying that too as it's a set of coloured varnishes that may well be perfect for my models. We shall see.

Too much can be a bad thing

Especially when it's magnification.

I have a hobby, I build and paint small, 32 centimetre, figures. As a Discworld fan it seemed a good idea to work on characters from that series. So I bought two witches, Granny and Nanny, and some brushes and paint and started work. All was fine but I soon realised that my eyesight wasn't up to the fine detail. So I bought a magnifying lens and tried again, not good enough. Next, I purchased, from China, a special loupe that has a 20X magnification, very good but just too powerful for anything except very, very fine detail. So, back to ebay and I now await a set of wrap-around lenses that can be mixed and matched for up to 5.5X magnification and a set of incredibly tiny brushes normally used to paint artwork on finger nails. I should add that none of this was expensive. In fact most of it was stupidly inexpensive, the big drawback has been the time taken to reach this point.

I have just heard that my clever daughter has secured the job she went after. She is now the staff manager for a training company in Hampstead. Already, she is wanting to spend money. A printer / scanner seems to be first on the list.

Is somebody reading my blog?

After yesterdays catalogue of things that are just wrong with the road works around my home, I have to report that the main areas of complaint seem to have been addressed. The sign-age has been changed to all show the correct instructions at last and we no longer have a police presence stopping almost every car. The awkward layout for locals will always be there but at least, without the bluebottle bottleneck, we were able to slide through with no problem this morning. So, "Thank you", whoever it was sorted it out.

By the way, my friend Fred thinks it should be 'Pea soup' and not 'Booze up' in yesterdays posting. At least, I think that's what he said......................

New roads.........................Pah!

For nearly twelve months we have had major road works taking place here in the east end of Plymouth. They promised us a quieter life and much improved local access as a result of the new road layout being built. They promised us a better gas supply as a result of the gas works. They neglected to promise us chaos as a result of the whole lot being done simultaneously. "Never mind", we thought, "it will end soon and all will be calm and we will have improved local access". Not so as you would notice. The new road layout began yesterday with traffic backed up everywhere. The police had two men speaking to every single driver that drove down Embankment Road and that really helped.......NOT! The new bus lane is, obviously, on the left side of the road but splits at the fork where Embankment Road joins Laira Bridge Road with bus lanes in both directions. This is fine for cars going in the Plymstock direction via Laira Bridge Road. Those of us who have no option but to use the Embankment Road side before turning left in order to reverse our direction now find ourselves squashed between the buses turning right and the cars turning right with no other choice but to stop dead in our tracks. And the police were back again this morning................... And our street was one way west to east and was due to be changed last Friday east to west. This didn't happen and yesterday we had people coming at us from all angles. Today, I checked the sign-age in the street and we have, possibly, the smallest stop sign I have ever seen, and only on the one side of the road. Of the internal signs, one is correct and the other still points in the original direction. The new entry sign appears to allow two way traffic and none of the original road markings have been deleted. The expression, "Booze up in a brewery" springs readily to the lips. Or something like that anyway.

Some days, things just work out..

My intention, today, was to spend a lot of time sorting and reducing the logs I inherited as a consequence of the move to Office 2010. Well, the first thing that happened was I picked up a log that took nearly an hour to research and then seemed very simple to fix - I hate it when it looks easy and it took all that time to find and make look easy. Then I took an urgent call to check out a PC which may or may not have had a dead power supply. Went to the building, climbed two flights of narrow stairs, panted a lot and said "Yes that is a dead power supply" before heading back to the office to call in the engineer. Eventually, I was able to sit down and compose my clever email to check on the state of the Office 2010 moves. Once sent, I had lunch and then the replies began to arrive. And lo, most of the problems have magically sorted themselves out and gone away.

Sometimes things just work.