Yesterday was October 11th. “Crikey”, I can hear you all thinking, “the boy’s mastered how to use a calendar at last”. All in all a pretty average day; I made a few phone calls to my father, mainly to get him to find the contact details of a government agency who I urgently need to talk to and whom have sent me a letter with a “please contact us within 7 working days on the freephone number below”. Very thoughtful of them to provide an 0800 number – thanks UK taxpayer. Only one problem: UK 0800 numbers only work from phones in the UK. There were no other contact details, just a PO Box number as an address. Anyway, to save me the hassle of ringing them up and calling them a bunch of fuckwits, I got my father (who could use the 0800 number) to do that for me and get a direct number so I could also ring up and explain in much greater detail why they are a bunch of fuckwits.
So, I spoke to my father on a total of three separate occasions. He was his usual self; chatted a bit, we managed to swap jokes, discuss whether Michael Owen really was worth £17million and how good he was for Newcastle, how my sister had been on a hunt horse and hounds exercise and quite a bit else. The one thing I didn’t say to him was “Happy Birthday”, despite it being at the top of the page of my diary. I finally remembered at half-past midnight, so 23:30 UK time. I gave him a quick call. He was completely okay that I’d not mentioned it earlier, but was very, very pissed off that he’d been woken. I’m not going to tell you who he was dreaming of, in case my mother ever reads this…..
German word for today “enterben (verb /t.)” - whoops!
Song playing as this was published: Ben Folds Five - “Underground”
I’ve been disinherited many, many times. It’s not so bad. I suspect that my sister will make off with all the loot and I’ll just get stuck with the memories (which I would happily trade for the loot- or a cookie- or pretty much anything else).
You might have been able to find a direct number via this site:
Say No To 0870.
My eyes…my eyes, now I’m seeing spots. Was it a color explosion on my computer monitor?????
Sorry, am messing about with template design. I thought bright green text on a yellow background might work. It doesn’t does it?
IAF, I’m coming out of my status as a lurker to tell you WELL DONE on the design. I died laughing when I saw it, particularly since I referred to you as ‘Moonman’ when your Parisian Paramour was first telling me about you. You must be all right to have such a great sense of humor.
I agree, good design.
The In-Law, 820: Thanks. The layout is not quite what I wanted - it’s a slightly edited version of “3 line relaxation” by Clemens Orth. Which has several features I like. The top image should cycle through one of four automatically every two hours or so and the numbered comments.
Sorry it doesn’t fit on an 800×600 screen, next time I’m procrastinating about what I should really be doing I’ll finalise how I want this to look. Which is mostly to move away from the centered Kubrick standard.
For future ref, next time you need to ring and 0800, I am able to do so in Switzerland from my Swiss mobile phone. Perhaps the same would be true in Germany.
Costs wee bit more but worth the spared hassle of having family/friends doing it.