I’ve just waved goodbye to my Vespa. The man who bought her seemed to know little about scooters, had never ridden one, had no idea how to start it, didn’t ask for a test drive, paid in cash, and took her away in a large white transit. I could probably have saved myself the price of a tank of petrol too, as he didn’t bother (or know how) to check that I’d provided a full tank as promised in the ad.
All a little odd, perhaps - but I got a decent price and now all that remains to do is polish up the Peugeot, and get that sold too.As I’m driving to and from Cumbria a couple of times over the next week, the actual ’selling’ will probably be carried out by my mum after I’ve left the country…
August 23, 2008
So Long…
August 20, 2008
Now you see it…
… now you don’t.
Less than three hours after I put my scooter on eBay, it sold. Buy it now, no questions asked: a grand. I’m still a little stunned - I guess I’ll believe it when I’ve got the money in my sticky little paws…
August 13, 2008
Melbourne Streetviewed
I stumbled upon Googlemaps ’streetview’ for the first time this evening while looking up a friend’s address in Melbourne. It looks as though pretty much all of Melbourne is viewable at street level on Google Maps, so it probably comes as no surprise to hear that I spent much of the evening wandering up and down the virtual streets; checking out favourite haunts and wandering down streets in areas that we’ve been considering moving into…
It was quite interesting to see that many of the stores and bars that I remember from my last visit, four years ago, still exist (’Vegie Bar’ on Brunswick Street, for example). On the other hand, while the upmarket areas to the east of Prahran look nice and sunny and twee, places like Fitzroy look shabby and deserted by comparison. I wonder what time of day the pictures were taken, can anyone spot a clock?
One area where Street View has come in really useful is going to ‘look’ at estate agent properties. Don’t forget that that pretty little home on that quiet residential street is only the pretty little home that the estate agent wants you to see. Often by wandering fdown the street in question you’ll see a very different view (bins on the street, nextdoor to a run down clothing factory). Compare these two pictures for example:
August 12, 2008
August 8, 2008
More problems with Nationwide.
The saga continues… yesterday I received a letter from Nationwide’s ‘Account Transfer Team’ informing me that they are unable to transfer my current account from Smile to Nationwide because ‘my existing bank account has been closed’; a note in the corner of the page in biro reads ‘no open a/c’.
Clearly, this is bullsh!t. I’m still using my Smile current account on a daily basis and most of my bills are paid from that account. I rang the phone number at the top of the letter I received.
“Sorry but all of our lines are busy; we apologise for any inconvenience, but ask that you call back later”. Line goes dead. I tried again five minutes later and was greeted by the same message and same lack of a queueing system.
Smile 2, Nationwide 0.
August 7, 2008
More wonders from the world of Customer ‘Service’
The original message was received at Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:59:23 +0100 (BST)
from hagrid.orange.co.uk [193.35.135.133]
—– The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors —–
customer.services@orange.co.uk
—– Transcript of session follows —–
… Deferred: Connection timed out with dcr4e1b5.orange.co.uk.
Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 5 days old
- Show quoted text -
***********************************************************************
Original-Recipient: rfc822;customer.services@orange.co.uk
Final-Recipient: RFC822; customer.services@dcr4e1b5.orange.co.uk
Action: delayed
Status: 4.4.2
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 451 4.4.1 reply: read error from dcr4e1b5.orange.co.uk.
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:04:59 +0100 (BST)
Will-Retry-Until: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:59:23 +0100 (BST)
In which Mike is unimpressed with Nationwide
I recently transferred my current account from Smile to Nationwide, largely because Nationwide offer a debit card which can be used worldwide without charges - very handy, and cost effective when travelling. I was with Smile for around ten years, during which I had no complaints whatsoever (except the time they let my ex-wife bleed our joint account dry, but that’s another story…). So it was with some disappointment that I logged onto my new Internet account this morning to be greeted with the message “A problem has occurred trying to process your request. if the problem persists, please call 08457…“. By clicking around the screen I eventually managed to access my account but a lot of the functionailty, as shown in the literature screenshots, was missing. I got the same error when I logged out.
I called the number and held for 10 minutes before it was answered by a person who (eventually) told me the problem was at their end; but no, he couldn’t give me a timeframe for when it would be fixed. I told them I’d try again this afternoon, and call back if the problem still existed. Not great.
Smile 1 - Nationwide 0.
August 6, 2008
Nokia Sports Tracker
Last night I scootered over to Twickenham to buy a hammock for my holidays; on the way home I thought it would be fun to test the new Nokia Sports Tracker application on my phone. Here’s the data it provided, care of Googlemaps:
To be honest, I didn’t think it would keep up with me on the scooter and thought it would just grab a some coords every few 100 yards or so at best - but it’s got pretty much all the turns I took, with the exception of a shortcut I took over the roofs of Shoreditch.
August 4, 2008
New adventure, new blog…
I know i haven’t posted to this blog in a long, long time with anything interesting, but that’s because I’ve been planning and I’ve been busy.
To be specific, I’ve been planning to emigrate to Australia! With that in mind, my partner and I have set up a rather basic travel blog on blogger. Over the coming months, as we travel through China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia we hope to find the time to update it with photos and stories to keep you all entertained and informed of our progress (or otherwise).
Please stop by and leave a nice inspirational comment once in a while.
You’ll find the blog at http://helsandmike.blogspot.com
July 3, 2008
No excuse…
I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in a long, long time - I’ve gone all facebook and ‘ting.
Maybe I’ll take it up again post November, assuming I can find a decent Internet connection!
