Dom Davis (The Blog)

Back in my London commuting days I, like the majority of people, used a cheap plastic holder for my ticket. These things lasted about a month, although their life could be extended to nearly 3 months with care and judicious use of gaffer tape. A holder would be given to you by whichever transportation company was in charge of fleecing you to use their cattle trucks whenever you handed over the vast sums of money demanded for a season ticket which would set you up initially. Subsequent holders could be obtained as branded freebies every so often at the major stations. These you would horde and use as your current holder split down the spine.

About 5 years ago I discovered that UBS did branded leather holders. These 3 pocket holders were rigid, sturdy and swanky and I Wanted One. Sadly I had no idea how you went about procuring one. It seems they were given out to a department I wasn’t in as a one off. Not helpful.

I scoured the Internet searching for something similar but was only able to find flimsy two pocket holders that didn’t protect a ticket in your pocket at all well. Then, 4 years ago, I struck lucky. The team I was in at the time was small, only loosely associated with any larger groups and lead a nomadic life as we got shuffled from desk to desk while they refurbished our office and reorganised teams. During one of these moves I found the holy grail: a brand new, and seemingly unclaimed leather UBS railcard holder. Needless to say it became claimed there and then.

Since then my ticket holder has done sterling service, however, sadly it’s finally suffering the same fate as it’s plastic brethren. There is now a split that runs half the length of one of the spines and the other spine is about to start splitting. I’ve no idea how long it will hold out before bits detach entirely but I think it is time to source a new one.

Originally this was going to be a plea to everyone asking where I might find such a rare beast, after all, I had no luck looking last time I wanted one, however, a quick search of the internetwebs has brought up a number of potential hits which means I may be able to source something similar. Still, if you know of any good quality railcard holder vendors let me know, just in case it turns out the ones I’ve found are crap.

Yesterday I had what can only be described as a brain fart. I was putting my half full (and thankfully plastic) glass back on it’s coaster when my hand just let go of the glass several inches above the desk. Don’t ask me why, just happened.

There were two immediate consequences from this course of action. Firstly the coaster, which was a printed tile, broke. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Secondly my drink went everywhere.

Now the human brain is a remarkable thing. Within fractions of a second I had assessed the spill, identified which bits of technology now had liquid on them and ranked the items in terms of damage limitation versus cost.

First step, keyboard off. It’s an expensive wireless model and would need to be replaced by a much less expensive wired keyboard. Turning it off should stop anything shorting.

Next up dry laptop. It only got a few drops but it’s a high cost item and I’d be lost without it. Better to be safe than sorry.

Now return to keyboard. I have a roll of bounty in my drawer (don’t ask) so grab a few sheets, moo up excess liquid, place keyboard upside down on another table.

Now move headphones which are dry, but may not stay that way if the spill spreads. Dry and move sunglasses. Should be fine, but their carbon fibre and may delaminate if left in liquid for too long. Move mouse and check for liquid.

Mop up spill. Much bounty used but we need to make sure the desk is dry and not sticky.

Finally return to keyboard and clean out between each key before tentatively trying…

…and watching loads of spurious characters get typed when keys are pressed. Arse!

Work provides us with Cherry keyboards. I find them hideously uncomfortable and, after years of using keyboards with minimal key travel, I can’t type with them. Now the hope was that, once it had dried out, my nice wireless keyboard would be fine, but in the interim I decided to pop to Temple and get a nice Apple keyboard. I find them comfy and I’m used to the key layout. Worst case I have to use that from now on. Best case I have a spare keyboard.

So the whole holiday conundrum has been solved by virtue of going to various websites, finding where we could fly to from Norwich at a reasonable time, giving that up as a bad job and trying Stanstead instead. The answer is: The Algarve. Yup, if we don’t want to fly really early in the morning or really late at night, or a combination of both, and we don’t want to go all the way to the ‘main’ London airports our options are someone limited. Still, we had a destination and once that was sorted finding a hotel was simpler. I did mange to pick the one hotel that doesn’t seem to feature on the various airport transfer websites so we may be reduced to getting a taxi from the airport, but that’s a minor detail. We now have a holiday

My new headphones arrived yesterday. This was very exciting as, over the past three years, I have become accustomed to the sound quality of my SE530s and my backup headphones were not cutting the mustard, or indeed any condiment.

Shure no longer make the SE530s so I’ve had to upgrade to the SE535s. These feature detachable cables which means if the cables break (which they do) you just get new ones without having to replace the phenomenally expensive ear buds.

In order to provide some versatility to the cable arrangement the old SE530s had a very short cable from the buds and you could attach various lengths of cable to this or, as in my case, the iPhone mic adapter. Since you can swap out the entire cable on the SE535s Shure have dispensed with the old adapters. Sadly this means that the default cable doesn’t control my iPhone, can’t be used for calls and is a bit long for my tastes. That said there are dedicated iPhone cables with an online mic and control buttons. I have these on order.

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.

For all it’s geeky goodness the iPhone has one major flaw: it comes with Apple headphone which are, to be blunt, crap. They fall out of my ears and leak sound like a bugger. With the original iPhone the headphone socket was recessed meaning only a certain subset of headphones would work with it, plus I really wanted some with a mic so I could make calls with them.

While hunting for headphone I had a number of friends suggest in ear noise cancelling ones. I had tried these previously and didn’t get on with them, however, I was assured that if I didn’t get a cheap pair I’d have a much better experience. A quick look on the mac store shows these headphones which fitted the phone, looked good, had a mic and sounded awesome. There was a problem though, the cable broke. Within a month. So I sent them back for warranty repair, only to have the replacement break weeks later. I don’t expect headphones to last forever (the cables always break) but I expect them to last at least 6 months. After about the 5th breakage I got pissed off and decided to get something more robust.

After much research, much consideration and much asking of friends I decided to treat myself to a pair of these. They are, hands down, the best earphones I’ve ever heard. In fact I ended up having to re-rip my entire CD collection because, for the first time in my life, I could understand what people were going on about with lower quality MP3s. Although my shiny new headphones didn’t fit my iPhone out of the box Shure did sell an adapter cable that gave a mic and fitted the iPhone perfectly. The great news was the adapter cable was also the part that gave up the ghost quickest so, while I was back to cables breaking every 6 months it was a relatively cheap adapter and not a phenomenally expensive pair of headphones. In the 3 years I’ve had my headphones I’ve only had to replace the earbuds once, after about 18 months of use.

Shure also have a great reputation for customer service. Their two year warranty is generally no quibble and you send them back the broken headphones and they send you a brand new set. Since it’s a new set they come with a new two year warranty. In theory these should be headphones for life. This warranty is possibly going to be my saving grace as today I did something rather stupid: I washed my headphones. After a bit of testing I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to get my backup headphones out, hunt for the warranty documentation and hope I could get them replaced.

The good news is that I found all the relevant paperwork, everything should still be in warranty and now I just need to contact Shure and see what they say. Fingers crossed I’ll soon have a shiny new replacement set and will be enjoying fantastic sound reproduction once again.

I have now bought the plane tickets for our holiday and was indeed correct in thinking that I’d not be able to use all my discounts in one go.

After speaking to a very helpful lady I was told that I could use miles + money (basically £100 off for 7,200 airmiles), get transferred through to the Virgin partners line where I could discuss my staff discount or have them call me back when the free upgrade tickets were released which wouldn’t be for a few months.

A little more probing and I discovered that the only tickets you could upgrade were quite expensive to begin with. In the end I went for the staff discount option. It’s the same price as miles + money but doesn’t cost me any airmiles. I also got all four tickets saving us £400 or so, which was nice.

What was a little surprising is that I get 30% off the flights. Looking at a ticket price of £640ish I was expecting to see the price be much less than the £540odd it was. Of course that’s not just the ticket price is it? No, there’s taxes and god knows what else in there too and sadly I don’t get 30% off that.

Given I bought the tickets on my virgin credit card and given their all trips that are eligible for miles and given I didn’t spend any miles buying them I think The Zozo and I now have something like 40,000 airmiles between us. We’re unlikely to spend these on flights before they expire so I may end up converting them into vouchers for wine from my employers. There’s a certain amount of irony there.

No blog yesterday as I had to drive into work. Unlike blogging and commuting on a train, blogging and commuting in a car first work. At least not if you’re the driver.

On the way back home the car went beep and the little petrol warning light went on. Since I normally fill the car up well before this happens, and since we don’t drive all that often, the beeping confused the hell out of me initially. A few seconds later and I’d worked it out and was being told the car now had a range of 49 miles. No problem, the garage I was going to stop at was less than 10 miles away.

5 minutes later at 50mph and the car was telling me 52 miles range. Clearly not the most accurate of fuel gauges and/or algorithms. I’ve no idea what it was telling me when I finally pulled into the garage (probably 100+ miles) but I don’t think I was in any danger of running dry. That said, it was the emptiest it’s been in a long time.

Now if you’d asked me there and then how much it costs to fill the tank I’d have told you just over £30. There’s a bit left in there so probably £32. Nope. In went the hose, up went the trigger, in went the fuel. £30 came and went, rapidly followed by £32, £34, £36 and £38. When it hit £40 I did a quick check just in case I was trying to fill the wrong car. I mean, £40 worth of fuel is for big cars, not little ones. *clunk*. The tank was finally full. £42.18!

So it would seem that, from dry, it now costs somewhere in the region of £45 to fill the tank. Maybe I’d better actually start taking notice of petrol prices instead of just whacking in fuel when I’m near a garage and the tank is two-thirds empty.

Goron, I dread to think how much your car costs to fill. Or how much pressing the loud peddle must cost.

As has been mentioned before it can get a little windy outside our house. The pterodactyl table has survived unscathed, but then it is the second largest structure in Cromer behind the church. The bin store hasn’t been coping as well.

The front of the store is a panel 1 wheely bin high, and over 2 wheely bins wide. It’s large, heavy, cumbersome and acts like a sail in the wind. It’s long since ripped out the hook and eye fasteners that used to hold it in place and it’s now secured with string. Literally. And if you don’t double up the loops of string fasting it then the wind can catch it and *whump* it’s on the floor. Again. The Zozo and I hate it.

This weekend has been particularly windy and I’m bored of picking the damn thing up. It’s time for a proper, purpose built bin store. I think I’m going to ask for contributions towards the one I want (it’s nearly £300) for my birthday.

So we’re going to Barbodos Well, we’ve booked a hotel in Barbados. We’ve still got to book the flights. I’m hanging fire on that because it’s going to require talking to a booking agent. Not for us the basic going onto the website, putting in of the details and the paying of the cash, oh no. Here’s what I’d like to happen:

• I have 21,000 odd Virgin Atlantic airmiles. My wife has 9,000 odd. I work for Virgin Group. What I hope can happen is the following:
• I gift 11,000 airmiles to my wife for £180.
• I book two (2) economy flights with a 30% discount for being a Virgin Group employee.
• I spend 40,000 points (20,000 per account) to upgrade the economy seats to premium economy.

Here’s what I suspect will happen:

• I will not be allowed to upgrade the flights because it’ll need to be on a qualifying flight and the flight isn’t qualifying.
• and/or I wont be able to use my Virgin group discount in conjunction with airmiles.
• and/or The Virgin Group discount will need to be on a qualifying flight and the flight isn’t qualifying.

Regardless, I should be able, at the very minimum, do miles + money for both of us and/or get the Virgin Group discount, so I wont be paying full price even if we do have to go pleb class.

I also need to work out what to do with all the leftover points if I can’t spend the vast majority of them on this trip as they expire. Anyway, I’ll know more once I’ve phoned them