Dom Davis (The Blog)

Despite being a Tuesday yesterday was technically a Monday. And not just any Monday. It’s the first Monday of the year. The granddaddy of them all. The one that tells you that you have to claw your way through yet another year of Monday’s, each and every one of them out to get you.

Being a Tuesday That Was Really A Monday and being upset about not being able to foist a full week of work on us after informing us that Christmas Is Over, Monday took it upon itself to really get stuck in by giving me the gift of hard drive failure. In my laptop. The computer I now use at home since my big computer is at work. That computer I now do all my photography and freelance work on. Cock!

Thankfully this is not quite the end of the world. Short term I have my iPad for day to day use (which has pretty much replaced the laptop for much of my computing activity at home) and, push comes to shove I can either stay late at work to do stuff on my big machine, or steal The Zozos laptop and use that. I may even be able to coax enough life out of the drive to copy stuff off it before it fails completely.

Longer term there is a complete set of backups. Much of my stuff now lives in the cloud and so will simply sync automatically onto whatever computer I tell it too. The rest lives on an external hard drive which was last attached to the machine the last time I had it on. So my data is safe.

The problem is more one of cost. The period between Christmas and March is a phenomenally expensive one, what with Christmas, most of the birthdays in my family, service charges on my flat, the need to purchase a new rail card, accountants fees and the pound of flesh HMRC invariably wants (or, on good years, the accountants fees are covered by the rebate). Much as I’d love a shiny new, high speed solid state disk in my laptop it’s not something that’s going to happen without dipping into the savings. Sadly, nor is simply buying a replacement hard drive. It doesn’t help that disk prices have skyrocketed due to flooding in Thailand. While I’m sure the accountant can write off the cost of the disk against freelance earnings that’s not until next year, which doesn’t help with the needing the disk now.

Recently they have made the self service checkouts at Morissons less annoying. How? By shutting then up. Previously it would be:

“Do you have your own bag?”
“Please put your bag in the bagging area”
“Please scan a barcode or select an item”
*beep*
“Please place the item in the bag”
“Please scan a barcode or select an item”
*beep*
“Please place the item in the bag”
“Please scan a barcode or select an item”
*beep*
“Please place the item in the bag”

And so on and so forth, usually with the odd “Please wait, an assistant is coming” thrown in for good measure. There are four self service tills so it was a cacophony of requests to scan or place items.

Thankfully someone has decided we’re all reasonably au fait with the whole scanning and packing thing and we can work it out for ourselves without the incessant prompting, just the pertinent instructions at the start and the end of the process. For those who really don’t get it there is still the assistant.

I’m sure I’ve whinged about this before, but I’m going to again. The ticket barriers in Norwich station are beginning to really piss me off. Not because they’re there (I spent over a decade commuting in London, you kind of get used to them), it’s just they are so slow.

Go to any central London station and you’ll either see the new issue slimline TFL gates or (assuming any are still kicking about) the old style tube ticket gates. Now, we’ll forget about Oyster, forget about other people, it’s just you and the TFL gate. Doesn’t matter which style, either way you can walk up to one of these, feed in your ticket, retrieve your ticket and walk through, all in one deft motion without breaking your stride.

The same action at Norwich involves you trying to feed your ticket in. Assuming you can. While it’s never happened to me, some people seem to be unable to feed their ticket in, and I don’t think it’s through blind stupidity as it happens far too often and isn’t something you see often in London. The next party trick is for the mechanism to pull in the ticket, then spit it out, the pull it in repeatedly while the hapless traveler tries to time the retrieval properly. It does stop after 5 or so goes but there isn’t the immediate (and admittedly ignored) beep, “Please seek assistance” you get from the TFL gates. Let’s say you’re lucky and your ticket goes through. It’s now a wait of at least a second, if not more before the gates slowly open. It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s even accepted your ticket. Anyway, eventually you walk through and, an eon or so later, the gates close behind you.

Stick that kind of gate into Bank station at morning rush hour and you’d have queues from the ticket hall all the way to the DLR (a sod of a long way). And that’s from people who understand the concept of a ticket barrier.

Now add in all the holiday makers and day trippers to whom a ticket barrier is a novelty. They stand in front of the barrier (an act that would get them trampled to death in London), fish out a ticket, attempt to feed it in, wait for it to open and head through. Even if the person behind has their ticket to hand they’ll invariably wait for the gates to shut before making their attempt. It just takes forever. It’s little wonder they throw open one if the disabled gates and just have someone take a cursory glance at people’s tickets as people stream through. Or they could have just invested in some proper barriers that work instead of these annoying, slow cheap ones they’ve got.

Im so very tempted to start a website called youdrivelikeanasshole.com where I can vent my frustration at the absolute cocks out there on the road.

This weekend we’ve had the bike that didn’t like the fact I was slowing down so tried to overtake, only to notice the flashy yellow thing on the right of the car whereupon he aborted his manoeuvre and allowed me to turn. We’ve had the guy doing 53, regardless of the speed limit, refusing to go and faster when we hit 60 areas, and yet when someone started doing 50 in font of them they started falling back, accelerating very hard and braking sharply right up the arse of that car in order to make them go faster. There’s been multiple “I’m going to do 40 in a 60″ people, a twat of an estate agent driving right up people’s arses, lane hopping, speeding, jumping lights and brushing his hair, some moron ‘reserving’ spaces at a carpark. And not forgetting the van driver who was so far up my arse I couldn’t see a thing (I ended up slowing down to about 20, but instead of overtaking he shot down a side road, only to pull out in front of me 10 minutes later and scream off doing 60+ down a road that’s 40 for a reason). As he charged down roads that are not quite single track, but fairly tight when passing, at least two cars coming the other ways were forced to break hard and dive for the verge to let him past. The great irony being he never got that much further ahead as he was having to brake so hard for everything and I’d just catch up.

So yes, a website, where I can record as much detail as possible about each and every moron I encounter. And then, when I’m elected into power: death squads. Or failing that a sternly written email to The Daily Mail

I’ve never been a huge fan of self checkout machines. Personally I work on the premise that a percentage of my food cost goes to pay the cashier and that by doing their job for them I should be reaping a saving of that percentage. There’s also the fact that you’re not quite sure if you’re going to do it right. It’s probably because I buy a lot of the freshly prepared stuff which isn’t exactly 200g that I’m forever seeking the assistance of someone to reset the machine due to the weight being wrong. Anyway, today I also found out that, apparently, I was queuing wrong too.

I’ve always been lead to believe that ones joins a queue at the rear and I assumed that this held true for all queues but not, it would seem, the self checkout queue in Morrisons today. The shop was heaving and given I didn’t have much to buy I figured I’d go join the queue to brave the self service machines. There’s one queue that feeds four machines. There were three people queueing so I stood behind them. The next bloke to come along decided, since the person at the front of the queue had left a gap between him and the first two checkouts, that the queue was null and void and could be ignored thus he could insinuate himself at the front of it. Well, I say insinuate, it was more brazenly push in then glare at everyone behind as if to chastise them for queuing incorrectly and daring anyone to say anything. We didn’t. We’re British.

Thankfully the queue jumper only had two items and, once at his checkout he summoned the man overseeing the checkouts in a not so polite manner and demanded that he scan the items through as the queue jumper ‘had no idea how to work this idiot machine’. A few minutes later and I was able to go up to a checkout and start scanning my items. Midway through and I was aware of two people stood very close behind me. When I turned to look I discovered a couple who had decided they were going to queue at the machine and loom over me. I ignored them for a few seconds but felt I had to say something when they started fishing items out of my basket and handing them to me. Apparently they were being ‘helpful’ and allowing me to ‘empty my basket quicker’ so they could put their basket on the little shelf. I told them thanks, but no thanks and perhaps they’d like to go wait in the queue. They informed me they were happy where they were so I was reduced to the last recourse available to me… going slow.

As luck would have it the last two items in my basket were loose apples. I selected the fresh produce button, selected apples and was greeted by a display of 20. I knew exactly what type of apples they were, but I still had the odd couple invading my personal space so I politely asked the guy overseeing the checkouts if he could go check what type of apple they were to ensure I entered the right ones. I think he had worked out what was going on because he dutifully took the apples and went to go check taking a reasonable amount of time over it and driving the couple behind me insane. I just stood there smiling in amongst the tutting and sighing.Finally, however, the checkout attendant had to return and I was forced to log the apples and put them in my bag. I chose card payment, popped my card in the reader and then stopped. I was helpfully informed by my attendant couple that the machine was waiting for my PIN and I helpfully informed them that I would not be entering it until they were no longer hovering over me. It took them at least a minute to work out I wasn’t kidding. Finally they backed off and I paid.

The instant my card was out of the machine they had swooped. The lady was now frantically trying to scan her first item and the bloke had two more in his hands ready to go. That they had to wait for my receipt to be printed before they could start was causing them visible discomfort. The irony being that by the time I’d left and they got started at least 4 people had been through on the other tills and they’d have paid and been gone. That said the irony wasn’t enough for me and if anyone tries that with me at the supermarket again I think I’ll swing for them.

RMG, the people who handle being the management agents for the development my flat is part of, have recently written to me explaining that a) my ground rent is due and b) they’re launching a ‘Brand new portal’ which will allow me to ‘manage my account at the touch of a button’ and that I can find my login details below. This final part was on a letter that started ‘Welcome to RMG Living, your online portal to account management’.

This is fine if it weren’t for a few small points:

I’ve been using this online portal since the day I’ve moved in, although I wasn’t sure if I was just looking in the wrong place because…

They never actually listed the URL for the portal anywhere on the letter, I just happened to find it was the same URL in the small print of the letter demanding payment and annoyingly…

From my cursory look about nothing has changed on the portal (including the bits that don’t work and haven’t worked properly for two years) except for…

My login details which means changing my login on 3 machines and trying to remember not to login using the details I’ve been using for over 2 years now because apparently if I use the wrong details they’ll happily take payment and then continue to hound me for the money and it will incur possible administration fees. Finally…

The letter asking for payment is saying that my new reference number (and one assumes login) is purely for my ground rent and that my reference number for my service charge remains a number that I’ve never actually seen before, and certainly not the number I used to use, so I may actually end up with three logins, my old combined one and my two new individual ones that have been created ‘for my convenience’.

Anyone want to buy a hideously overpriced flat with good rental potential?

The Zozo has her work Christmas do tonight which involves a meal at the zoo followed by heading out and getting raucous in Cromer, in so far as it’s possible to get raucous in Cromer. I understand karaoke may be involved. Knowing the people involved there will be much giggling and laughing involved too. I’d be willing to put money on the phrase “fwiend” being used once a few drinks are had. I will not be going. Instead The Zozo suggested I head into London for a night out there. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my wife very much and I love spending as much time as possible with her but she’s going out tonight, is working tomorrow and has handed me a late pass for free. Not something I, or indeed any sane man, is going to turn down

So I’m going to London. Train to Norwich, train to London, tube to destination, dance, tube to Liverpool Street, train to Norwich, train home. Simple, right? Wrong. This is England. At the weekend. On NXEA trains. No, we have to do the following:

Get the train an hour early to Norwich. Change at Norwich for a train to Ingatestone. Get off the train at Ingatestone where I get on a bus that takes me to Newbury Park where I then ‘transfer’ to London Liverpool Street. Transfer in this context means getting a central line tube which gets me to Liverpool Street, according to the TFL website, 1 minute later that NXEA said it would. Personally I trust (for a given value of trust) TFL more than I do NXEA so I’m going to go with thier estimate. What time I arrive, give or take a few minutes, isn’t so much of an issue as it’s a walk to Moorgate, tube to Angel and done and it doesn’t really matter what time I arrive.

Getting home, on the other hand, is going to be a laugh. It’s going to be early on a Sunday and NXEA tell me that I need to ‘transfer’ from Liverpool Street Station at 07:23 to arrive at 07:55 whereupon I get a bus that leaves at… 07:55. I’m thinking giving myself 0 minutes to get out of a tube station, find a bus, get on bus and head onwards is not exactly a sensible proposition.

So what time do I need to leave Liverpool Street? According to the TFL website I need to depart at 07:20 to get to Newbury Park at 07:44. So either NXEA are lying about the departure time, journey time or arrival time. Or all three. So I realistically need to arrive at Liverpool Street at 07:15 so I can get to the Central Line platform. This isn’t going to happen on a tube, there being no Northern Line trains at this time in the morning. It could happen by bus, but I tend to avoid those where possible in London given, historically, the timetable has been more of a serving suggestion than anything they’ve stuck to. No, I’m going to take the only form of transport that’s reliable, available to me and cheap. I’m walking. Leave at 06:45, should get to Liverpool Street for before 07:15 allowing me to get the tube to arrive at Newbury Park in time to get my bus.

The bus then arrives at Ingatestone with a good 11 minutes to spare so I’m hoping that, this time, I won’t be getting to the station to watch the train pull off and strand me there for an hour making me late and buggering up my connections. Spending an hour at Colchester station last time was dull enough. An hour at Ingatestone will be torture.

Assuming all is well I get on the train to Norwich which has to arrive on time as I have 7 minutes to transfer to my train to Cromer. NXEA do not have a good track record of making tight connections to Cromer, although my experience is generally on a Friday evening with the train having come all the way from London not further down the line and a Sunday morning. It’s this bit that is causing me the most stress. If I miss that train I am stuck in Norwich for two (2) hours. Bearing in mind that, at this stage, I will have been awake for well over 24 hours my mood will not be such that I will accept this with good grace, or indeed any grace at all. I will be using those two hours to prize whatever compensation I can out NXEA for the grief and inconvenience caused.

So there you go. A simple 6 hour round trip is going to take over 8 hours, involve many transfers and much stress and could take over 10 hours and much shouting. It should be so simple and yet it isn’t. And this, this is why I hate the trains. Still going though

I’d forgotten that the river path from the station to work is only open from dawn until dusk. I have vague memories of walking the non scenic route when I first started work but that could just have been because I’d not found the river route. Anyway, last night I had to deviate mid way as two nice chaps in high-vis jackets told me the gates further down were locked. It wasn’t great weather yesterday so I just assumed it was flooding or something.

Today I was greeted by the same blokes even further up the path. Again, the gates were closed they said. It was then I twigged what was going on. As the days grow shorter and dusk falls earlier each day they’ve been making their journey along the river earlier and earlier until they were now locking the gates before I could get through them. What with the clock changes next week there will be no more river walks home for me in the evenings until spring. Hopefully I’ll still get my morning walk though.

For some reason known only to itself my body has decided that the latter part of the train journey into work (and, it would appear, the walk into work) should be done in a state of mild panic. Not the “Oh crap, I’ve got exams today”¹ type of panic, and definitely not “Oh crap, I get married soon”². No, this is a much more immediate “I’ve forgotten something important” thing. No idea what though and, after wracking my brains (and searching my todo lists), I can only conclude that my Spidey Sense has misfired and will now taunt me mercilessly for the next few hours. Either that or my subconscious really does know something I don’t and, rather than doing something useful about it like flashing a memory into the conscious brain it’s just going to jab the adrenaline button. Personally I blame Monday. Regardless of the real reason there is bound to be a Monday behind it, lurking.

¹ Although The Zozo has some this week, so it could be referred panic.
² I’m actually looking forward to that I’m much more worried about the hours in a metal tube 2 days later.

After the incident yesterday I was faced with a conductor this morning who looked at my ticket, looked confused, then went “ah!”, smiled and moved on. I checked my ticket, I’d put it back in upside down yesterday. So it’s acceptable and readable upside down.

To avoid any future problems though I riddled to the ticket office and got my replacement. While she was filling out the required forms (by hand, love this modern age we’re in) I mused about the plastic tickets.

“Our machines won’t print on plastic” was the reply.

“Yes, but you could print a temporary one and send a nice plastic one by post later”, I suggested.

“Our machines only print on plastic.”

Giving up I waited for the form filling to be complete and then enquired about a refund for yesterdays ticket.

“Oh dear, you leave your ticket at home yesterday?” was the slightly condescending reply.

“No, I’d have a return then”, I said, “The conductor wouldn’t accept it. Made me buy a ticket.”

“Really? Why?”

“Claimed he couldn’t read it.”

The lady actually got the ticket out from the drawer looked at it and said “Well I can see it’s faded, but you can still read the date.”

“Exactly!” I replied, “But I was told that if you can’t read the station names it’s not valid.”

“Really?” she said.

“Apparently so.”

And so we started filling in the refund forms. By hand. Joy.

Still, I got my new ticket, got my refund and was only 15 minutes late for work. God I hate NXEA.