Dom Davis (The Blog)

I’m very picky when it comes to watches to the point where they’re one of the few items I won’t buy off the internet. I need to see the exact size and how it looks in the flesh.

Having worn Fossil ‘Big Tick’ watches for about a decade I decided to go out on a limb and try something new. My first attempt met with abject failure. I broke my cardinal rule, bought something from the internet and never really got on with it. In the end I went back to wearing my old Fossil.

Eventually, however, the battery died. The display was broken (which is why I was wanting to replace it in the first place) and I had to go get a new watch. Deciding to just replace like with like I just headed to google for somewhere to buy a new Big Tick. The results page flashed up a number of results and some images for a new ceramic watch by Fossil. First impressions were that it was something I’d like, but I needed to be sure the face wasn’t too big.

That lunch I headed into Norwich and scoured every shop that sold watches for this thing. No joy. Eventually I ended up in House of Fraser where, after a long chat with the person in charge of watches, I discovered the watch I wanted would require special order and, worse still, was likely to be too big.

Since they didn’t have the watch in question we had been using other watches as examples and one had particularly taken my eye. Assuming it was going to cost a fortune (most ceramic watches I’d seen that day were hideously expensive) I made a throwaway comment about how I’d love that one but couldn’t afford it. With that the sales person pounced.

Knowing how much I was willing to pay for the Fossil I had come in about I was offered an ex-display model of the watch I liked heavily discounted (Hurrah for sales!). The only downside was the battery might need replacing sooner and there were no spare links. Given the watch was just a bit too large and I’d need a link removed I didn’t see that as a problem. I left the proud owner of a hideously expensive watch at a not so hideously expensive price. I was a very happy chap. So pleased was I with my watch I even bought a matching ring.

Now is probably a good time to mention one of the properties of ceramic watches (and rings for that matter): they’re very brittle and won’t survive a drop onto a hard surface. You can guess what’s coming next

Yup, this morning a bleary eyed me picked up a bunch of papers that also happened to be hiding my watch. In trying to work out what the heavy lump in amongst everything was I managed to drop the watch on the floor breaking two of the links. I was gutted.

Thankfully it was just the two links that broke and not the watch itself. Sadly I only have one spare link so I need a second. This will require sending it to the authorised UK service place and have them repair it. They won’t give estimates of repairs to ceramic watches until they’ve seen the damage which sounds expensive. All I can do is send it off and see what they say. Fingers crossed for good (and cheap) news.

The area at the front of Little Cottage is little more than a gravel drive giving access to the houses past ours. Getting a car up it is impractical so we use our bit to store the bins, hang the washing out, keep pot plants and, recently, somewhere to keep The Zozos bird table.

The bird table is a rather neat arrangement of large bird bath below and bird house and feeding area above made to look like it’s made from greening metal. Since it’s not actually made from metal it’s only really meant for smaller birds and not, say, pterodactyls. In fact the box clearly states “Unsuitable for larger birds, pterodactyls, dragons or other wyrms”¹.

Yesterday the bird table clearly suffered pterodactyl strike (can’t have been a dragon, there’s naff all room for them to manoeuvre and a complete lack of scorch marks) resulting in the loss of a fat ball and serious structural damage. This is not good. Replacing it is not going to be easy either. Clearly the new one will have to be able to withstand extinct creatures but there is also the local environment to consider.

The geography outside the front of our house means that when it’s windy we get serious gusts of wind. Enough to rip washing from lines, blow over clothes horses and knock over fully grown adults¹. Clearly whatever we buy must be stable and easy to fix in place. Which leads me to the next problem.

The gravel drive sits on about 1″ of soil which in turn sits on a substrate of diamond¹ which makes putting fixing things into the ground very hard. I bent all the metal fixing pins on the other bird table trying to drive them into the ground.

Of course, as always, the Internet will prevail and I’m sure we’ll find something suitable.

¹ True story^2
2OK, maybe a little exaggerated

The Zozo and I have wildly different tastes in music, which is hardly surprising given I tend to listen to fairly fringe stuff where a single track can encompass an entire genre. Now you’d think that this would cause big problems when it comes to agreeing on music for the wedding but it has, in fact, made it easier, the rule being roughly this: If it’s on my iPod it’s not being played at the wedding¹. Instead we’re picking things from a list of tracks that Zo thinks would be good that I think are fun too (see, works out well for me ).

One such track is a version of the theme to this years mass vuvuzela concerts in South Africa called, I’m lead to believe, “Waving flag” or “Wavin’ flag” depending on the version, of which there are bloody millions. Not all versions are equal either. The one I want is the one that has the line “now wave your flag” repeated during the chorus. The versions I have downloaded thus far have an alternative lyric at this point which makes the song unfit for purpose in my view. Unfortunately the preview for many versions of this song on iTunes does not include the chorus so it’s difficult to tell which version I want.

Undeterred and unwilling to blindly download version after version looking for the one I want I simply asked Google. Google pointed me at YouTube who confirmed I wasn’t making this version of the song up and gave me an artist name. iTunes said no. This is what we would describe as “a bit of an arse” and will necessitate me procuring the track from elsewhere, possibly ‘borrowing’ it from YouTube as I think I have the tools to turn it into an mp3 from a YouTube video

¹Self imposed rule. The Zozo has not made any such proclamations but I bet you she’s glad I have

My iPhone is many things to me, the hub of my mobile digital world. What with all the G’s (3G, EDGE, GPRS, GPS, 802.11g and gyroscope) and the multitude of apps it can do just about anything. Watch films and TV programs? Check. Listen to music? Check. Radio? Check. Read books? Check. Communicate with people via email, facebook, twitter, text and IM? Check. Surf the web? Check. Read books? Check. Play games? Check. Eat money through hardware costs, monthly subscription and the endless handing over of money to Apple (and now Amazon) for new music, films, apps and books? Check, check and check. I dread to think how much money I’ve handed over to Steve, either directly or via o2.

Today that changed. IG Index, who to my mind do the bast spread betting platform bar none¹ released their iPhone app. IG have had a mobile site for their spread betting platform for ages now, even one that’s formatted for the iPhone, but I’ve always found it a bit clunky and the charts (which are a must for the type of trading I do) were buggy and unreliable. The new iPhone app, on the other hand, is very slick, execution appears to be reasonably fast that the orders appear to be executed at the price you hit the button, not the price it’s at when the server finally gets the instruction. The last thing you want is a slow GPRS connection turning your big fat profit into a loss.

A quick check of the forex markets (24 hour, move fast, good for a quick test of anything with small stakes and tights stops and limits) and I spotted EUR/USD was on the up, rallying from a small retracement. 50p a point, stop at 20 points (maximum loss would be £20), limit at 2 points (maximum gain £1) and every intention of bailing the instant I struck a profit or the instant it looked like the trade was going south. A punt, yes, but as punts go not a massively risky one, not over these time scales with the entry and exit points. Worst case I loose connection, the app crashes, or some other disaster, the trade goes wrong and I lose a tenner. Best case the same as before but I get a quid. Actual result: I netted 35p.

The reason why I said the app ‘appears’ to execute at the price you hit the button is because at 40p I hit ‘sell’. Nothing happened. A quick look at the UI and I spotted the close trade button. I hit that instead (35p), a dialogue comes up telling me it’s closing the trade (20p) and the little spinney ‘loading’ icon (15p) followed by a confirmation (10p). Total time to close the trade was about 5 seconds (which is a VERY long time in forex) but a quick check of my account showed I was 35p up.

So there you have it, the iPhone is no longer a drain on the resources. Armed with my new app, a bit of luck and a following wind I might even cover the cost of 3 iPhones (original, 3G and iPhone 4), the GPS dock, the headphones, the mic attactchment, the docks, the stipend to o2 to use their mobile network paid every month since November 2007, the 99p or whatever it is I’ve paid for each and every song I’ve downloaded from the ITMS (and there’s been a lot) and the frightening number of apps I’ve bought (and lets not forget the $15 or so spent on books thus far). Well, maybe not cover, but put a large dent in… well a dent… OK, well 24p more and I can get myself a cheap game for free

¹ Yes, I know the ProSpreads platform can do lots of fun advanced thingies but I defy anyone who doesn’t have a couple of years knowledge to even understand how it’s used. The only thing all the extra bells, knobs and whistles did for me was allow me to blow my £50,000 trial account in half the time it would have otherwise.

I should probably point out that Spread Betting is a leveraged product and the value of your investment can far exceed your original stake. It’s a wonderful way of throwing away money, even if you do know what you’re doing and probably not recommended for those who don’t know what they’re doing. That said, if you really, really want to give it a go let me know because if you sign up for an IG Index account recommended by me I get a bottle of champagne or something. You might also get some money in your account, I can’t remember, all I know for sure is I get goodies if you then go and make a few trades.

As part of the preparations for our forthcoming wedding The Zozo and I have been ordering various things from the internetwebs. One item had to be specially imported from the US (which was good fun in itself since the company in question only shipped to the continental US and wouldn’t take international credit cards. Thank God for postal forwarding companies) and needs duty paying on it when it’s finally delivered.

On Wednesday I got call from the DHL Indian call centre telling me my package would be arriving Thursday and would I be ok to pay the driver cash? I told her I wouldn’t be in and nor would anyone else. This didn’t phase our call centre worker who immediately proposed Friday as an alternative. Still no good, I told her, we won’t be home. This prompted confusion and she enquired as to when someone might be home. I tentatively suggested Saturday knowing full well that would not be an option and was promptly told as such. In the end, due to my audacity at not wanting to take time off at short notice it was decided that they would attempt a delivery on Thursday and when that failed I could rearrange it for a more convenient time or destination.

Now obviously I’m missing something here. Given the surprise at there being no one to receive my item perhaps there’s some simple option I’ve missed. Clearly this has never happened to them before. If it had then I’d be allowed to organise a time there and then that didn’t fall into the next 48 hours. Or maybe suggest an alternative address on the phone. No, they have to attempt a delivery that is guaranteed to fail and then, and only then, can we proceed.

On Saturday I went to pick up my precious which is very shiny, very comfy and very much in a drawer because apparently I’m not allowed to wear it until I’m actually married. Bit of an arse, but who am I to buck tradition?

Anyway, as part of the contributions to the cost of the wedding thing that parents are want to do, my mother had given me a load of old jewellery to sell with the proceeds going towards the ring. One piece was the wedding ring my father had given my mother when they got married. Since he can’t come to the wedding (being, as he is, somewhat metabolically challenged) I thought it was rather fitting.

Still trying to work out what to have engraved on the inside of it. Options include:

• 09/10/2010
• IX X MMX
• Dom & Zo, 09/10/2010
• 1286636400

Answers on in a comment please (“One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them” has been vetoed, so don’t even think it”)

For those of you not paying attention I’m getting married in a little over 2 months, besides, unless you’re reading this on an iPhone there’s even a little thing down there on the bottom right telling you how long until the wedding [or, if you're really late to the blog and reading this too far into the future, how long we've been married for], so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Anyway, getting married, so I needed to get a ring. This has not been an easy feat, which is odd since I knew exactly what I wanted: a 6mm heavy court ring… in 950 platinum… costing a small fortune.

I was also looking at some rings that deviated a little from the traditional rings: black zirconium oxide, titanium (as one of my friends said: “Nothing says ‘I Love You’ like a ring made from a lightweight, blast proof metal”), ceramic, that kind of thing. These were quite funky, much cheaper and stood out a little but I worried that, while I thought they were cool now, I may look at it in 10 years time and go “what the hell was I thinking?” If you’re going to be wearing something for the rest of your life you want to be sure you’re going to be happy with it for the duration

By this point The Zozo had already found and ordered her ring, solving the ‘platinum is frighteningly expensive’ problem by going for palladium instead which seems, to all intents and purposes, to be the same as platinum^1,2,3 but nearly 1/4 the price. In the end I decided to go the same route and ordered a 6mm heavy court ring in 950 palladium, a move that cut the cost of the wedding by 1/3rd in one fell swoop (yes, wow ).

The ring is now waiting at the jewellers for me to pick up tomorrow (yay!) whereupon I shall take it round the corner to the engravers to have something put on the inside. Not entirely sure what that will be yet, shall have a ponder tonight.

¹OK, granted, if The Zozo goes shoving her hand into a container of concentrated acid her wedding ring is not going to survive as well as her engagement ring but, at this point, we’ve got much bigger issues to deal with so I think we can let that one slide.

²And yes, it’s going to melt before the engagement ring, but again, bigger problems to deal with at 800C, like dying.

³Weighing less is A Good Thing™, now stop being pedantic.

So given my recent dillema I spent enough time with iMovie to realise that it wasn’t going to cut the mustard and that cash was going to have to be spanked. One of the nice things about where I work is that we get employee discounts at various places, including Apple. This is about 8% for hardware so I figured I’d toddle to Temple and find out what savings could be had. Turns out the goof folk at the Apple Store were going to give me a 17% discount which, on an upgrade that costs £254, comes to over £40. Bonus. Hopefully I shall finish installing tonight (it comes on several DVDs and a full install is over 50Gigabibbles so it takes a while). I can then work on my video projects… which I won’t be sharing with you lot

My new job is 15 minutes walk from the station in Norwich which, unlike London, puts it a little out of the way. I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest Starbucks is, Pret has to be over 10 minutes walk and I don’t even know if Eat exists outside of London. While there are analogs closer we’re still looking at a 5 minute walk before you get to a news agent and sandwich vending establishments.

There is, of course, the ubiquitous Sandwich Man, which I think is now mandated by European legislation offices over a certain size, who comes at 11ish and apparently we have access to a canteen over the road that supplies overpriced, badly cooked food to another company and is quite happy to rip off employees from surrounding places which I’ve been warned off.

I discovered all this on my first day, choosing the sandwich man (prawn in maryrose sauce bap, crisps) and being quite impressed with his fayre.

Tuesday I brought a packed lunch. Cheaper and much better for me, plus the paucity of snack vending establishments nearby means I can’t easily supliment my lunch with crap and defeat the object.

Wednesday was a team lunch so we went out for food, Thursday and Friday I was off.

Monday there was no bread (we’d been away and not got round to shopping) so I had a tuna and red onion sarnie with crisps from the sandwich man.

Today I made my lunch, put it in my shiny new lunch box and promptly left it in the kitchen. Sandwich man again for me then. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll get into the habit of packing my lunch and actually remember to bring it. As it is tomorrows lunch will be today’s lunch rescued out of the fridge (if I remember :S )

So recently I’ve been spanking large sums of money with these lovely people (actually, who am I kidding, I’ve been spanking large sums of cash with them for some time now given half my camera kit was bought from their website) since they are one of the better camera shops about and I need lots of things for my course and photography business. On Saturday I needed to get a background so, on my way home from my course, I swung by the showroom. It was heaving. Turned out there was a 1 year anniversary for the new, bigger showroom so there were loads of special offer on, lots of reps from different companies, various events and a prize draw. I vaguely recalled hearing something about it but had not realised it was then. Anyway, I waited my turn to speak to a sales bod while they dealt with the masses and looked at the shiny things on display. 30 minutes later and I walked out with my stuff, they put my name in the prize draw box (free entry if you bought something) and I headed home.

Today I received a call from them. At first I thought maybe I’d left something there, or maybe I’d been charged for the wrong item, but no, turns out they want to give me a rather nice A3 printer as a prize (the most expensive prize in the draw no less) which I think is rather sporting of them. I don’t think I’ve won anything like that before