Revenge of the taxi driver

After dropping April off in the cab yesterday after picking up our rings (she works a few minutes walk from my building), the cab driver apologised and said that he'd already stopped the meter so he'd have to start it again costing me another £2.20 (minimum fare).  Thieving gits!  I guess I should have told him before hand but still???

The only explanation I can think of is there must be a fairly regular readership of my blog in the cabby community and they passed on the info about my windfall earlier in the week.

3 year anniversary

It was the three year anniversary of me working at my current company yesterday.  It's flown by.  3 more?  Maybe not... although if I do another 7 i'll get a paid 2 month sebatical.

Change pot exchanged

Just changed £250 worth of coins at my bank in the city.  He was surprisingly okay about it.  It was only 15 bags or so so wasn't too bad for him.  20p pieces were the smallest denomination.  Luckily for him i'd ran out of little plastic bags otherwise i'd have brought the lot in.  Probably another £40 or so.

Inflation?

I treated myself to some new socks and pants yesterday from m&s.

A pack of 3 boxers £17
A pack of 7 plain socks £12

WTF?

I'm pretty sure the last time I bought boxers from m&s they were £10 for 5.  I know I don't buy pants very often (usually I get them from my Mum each Christmas) but come on!

Rings finalised

Just got back from Hatton Gardens with April.  I now have a ring that fits (additional rugby injuries permitting) and April now has an engagement ring that doesn't slide around her finger.

More the merrier

Approximately £250 in my change pot going to our honeymoon fund.  I was hoping to fill it before exchanging it for cash but flights aren't cheap!

Not quite Spielberg

Here's me attempting to film Poppet attempting to scare a big cat out of our back garden.

Office for £8.95

Not bad at all.  Now that my company is about to start using Office 2010 they've offered it to staff for £8.95 each.  Pretty good.  I did have 2007 on my old laptop but can't seem to find the disks so another 9 quid isn't bad.

I'm quite excited...

Welcome to 2010

Just had some training for Office 2010 and Windows 7.  Argh!  Where have all my lovely menues gone?  It looks good though and the formatting looks pretty impressive.  Looks like my many spreadsheets will be getting a makeover in the next few weeks.

Whatever next?

http://www.loureedmetallica.com/

Metallica's next album is a collaboration with Lou Reed. 

Looks like Kirk Hammett is holding up a stuffed Lou Reed in the photo.

What next?

Rob Zombie and The Cheeky Girls?

10% pay cut

I've just paid for a cab back from Hatton Gardens at the fare came to £5.50.  As I was handing him the correct cash the driver said not to worry about the 50p!  That's nearly 10% off!  What an idiot.  I'm not tipping a driver again as by this evidence they can clearly afford to do without.

Well, that was fun

Back home after a long boozy weekend.  Good fun though and great wedding.  My speech wasn't half bad either. 

Third time lucky

I'm best man at a wedding tomorrow.  Eek.  It's my third now, I still hate it.  I think the speech is good so nothing to worry about there.  Just the fact that I won't know 60 out of the 70 people there.

Blue Steel

We had our pre-wedding photo shoot yesterday evening. Despite a little rain to begin with we were quite lucky. So lucky in fact we saw 50 professional cyclists whizzing by as part of the Tour of England bike ride. Pretty funny.
It was quite awkward to begin with but the initial embarrassment died away pretty quickly. Hopefully we should get the finished photos sometime this week. Eek!

It can't be comfortable

Poppet rolling around the floor upstairs with her tail wrapped around the rung like a snake.

Catch of the day

Biscuit may claim to have caught this frog but it was in fact a local neighbour cat.  It was stalking away in our garden yesterday afternoon for about 20 mins.  We wondered what it was up to before spotting a massive frog / toad leaping away from it.  Yuk!  Luckily Poppet wasn't about otherwise we'd have had a nice present in the house.

Surely that's an improvement then...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14945773

Sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2011 has passed its annual minimum, reaching the second-lowest level since satellite records began, US scientists say.

Photos from April's gig

 In order of appearance:  April, James, Steve, Ian, Bernard and Trisha

Cats' birthday

It was our cat's fictional birthday yesterday.  I like to think that they were reborn when we took them from the cattery.  That mean's they're about 10.  The big ONE ZERO.

What did we get from them?  Not much.  Although they did have the privalige of having me with them all day as I was off ill.  Biscuit did also eat an aweful lot of ham.  Biscuit likes ham.

Catch up

Being off ill has finally given me the chance to catch up on the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica.  I last watched it about 1.5 / 2 years ago. 

Feeling a bit better this morning

I think i'll be back in tomorrow, that latest dose of lemsip seems to be working. Let's see how I am in 4 hours once it's worn off.

Not feeling well

Left work at lunch today as i'm not feeling well.  Fingers crossed i'm better by the weekend.

The cheek

The cheek of the cat, a fat local cat has taken to sunning itself in our only remaining deck chair.  Good job our cats didn’t see it as they are very protective.

Cool cafe

A tiny cafe at the Sunday farmers market in Tonbridge.  All good, although somehow April managed to spend about £20 of my money.  Keeping the money in the community I guess.  Plus the chicken and apricot pie we had last night was very good.  Biscuit enjoyed it too.

Sunday lunch

Caramelised pork chops with tandori potatoes and avocado and sweetcorn salsa.  Yum, yum.

The wonders of science

"We inserted one gene into the cat to help it resist feline aids.  We inserted another that makes it glow in the dark because it would look funny."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14882008

Feel like i'm coming down with something

I feel as if i'm coming down with something, I was fine this morning but I felt it gradually taking hold this afternoon.  I hope it clears up quickly.

What would the neighbours think?

My brother asked for this book as a birthday present this year.  I ordered it a couple of weeks back and it was due to get delivered on the 1st September.  It eventually arrived on Friday, opened, the day of his birthday.  The guys that printed the address label didn't check that my house number wasn't printed so it was passed from house to house until someone openned up the package and found my full address.  Now, not only will I get spammed by Amazon with similar items but all of my neighbours will think i'm a massive geek.  Thanks Steve.

Look where you're going

We went to Sankey's after work on Friday and had a great meal. More lobster for me.  Yum, yum.  Here's a picture of me winding them up.

Waiting for our cab home I spotted a BMW reversing into a tight spot, I thought to myself, he's going a bit fast.



The passenger had a very quick look in the dark then proceeded to pick up his pizza.  They then drove off.  I had a quick look but there was no real damage.  Idiots.

Today I was crossing the road to my station when I heard someone shout out.  An idiot pedestrian got hit by a bike and fell over.  Luckily nobody was hurt.

Why don't people look where they're going?  It could have been a lot worse.

We've had them for about 3 years now

Phew! A tough week

Just finished this years 2012 capital numbers and uploaded them to Lloyd's.  Phew!  There's nothing tremendously difficult about it just lots to it.  Roll on next weeks Friday deadline for the LCR.  Urgh

Glad it wasn't my round

I had a couple of beers with Shaz in Borough Market last night.  I stung him on his round for a pint that cost £9.70.  A Norwegian IPA.  Ha, ha.  I was stung before that however in the bar that he suggested we meet up in.  £8.44 for two bottles of Peroni.

1.71p / ml v's 1.29p / ml

I win on getting the cheaper drinks!

9/11 memorial special...

From Lorraine Kelly on itv now. Watdefu? That's what the family and friends of those that died need.

Whiplash

The new monitor has arrived and here is my new desktop layout.  E-mail on one, internet on the other.  Nice.  I can't even see my bosses face.  I may of course get whiplash with having to move my head across two lots of 24 inch screens.

Idiot estate agents

I had a call from an estate agent yesterday, he stated that he was doing 'market reseach'.  It's from the same company that we didn't want to work with as he was too much of an arse.  Too pushy.  Well after 2 mins talking to this cocky twat i'd had enough and said thank you and goodbye.  Even though our current estate agent doesn't appear to be that great either I think we'll use someone other than the idiot if we decide to move.

Ha, you thought you'd beaten me

My new monitor stand is spring loaded but with only one 24inch monitor on it, it sits too high.  It's spring loaded so if you move it down it springs back up.  If you look cloesly, i've fixed it...  An old nokia charger cable is strapping it down.  My second monitor arrives soon.

Here are a list of some more amusing fixes.
http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/

Stag weekend

The main thing to take from this weekend's antics is that nobody died.  I think that's a plus, although James did go AWOL for a little while which left his girlfriend extremely worried.  I was fast asleep so only found this out the next day.  Believe it or not BIG James was hammered so had to take him back to the hotel leaving SMALL James with the others. 

Good day at the races though.  Ultra conservative Stu managed to win a wapping -£1.  Half of my £20 bet on the first race came up trumps. The other half didn't resulting in a net loss of £1.  That was the only race I bet on.  I was however the winner as I lost the least.  A mugs game.

9 years working in London

Wow! that's gone quick.  03/09/02 is when I started all those years back in the Office for September 11th at Lloyd's of London.  And look at me now...