Botchandango.com

Births, Marriages and Deaths... and Library Books

Yesterday we went to the Registrars office in Guildford to get our son's birth certificate. It is a fairly straightforward process and the Guildford office is a really nice old building on the outskirts of the city, one of those buildings that somehow still seems to exist in an England of about 60 years ago.

Seeing the Registrar is by appointment only so earlier in the week I had called up the local council and went through the standard automated menu on the telephone. Now, bearng in mind that there are three very important, emotional events each with varying degrees of trauma that you could be calling about to make an appointment it seemed really odd to me that extending the loan period of your library books is grouped with speaking to the Registrars office. Even after selecting that first option, in the next list of choices what comes first? thats right, 'To extend your library books press 1'. I don't know... perhaps this has come about through customer demand. Just had a baby?, perhaps you're too busy to get to the library. Just got married?, better renew those library books before the honeymoon. Recently bereaved? renew your library books over the phone and take them back when you're feeling more sociable.

Happy New Year

Looking forward to some interesting things in 2007... more soon hopefully.

Who are you?

Just out of curiosity I generated a google map from statcounter (click on the counter at the bottom left of this page to go to their site) to show the locations of all of the most recent visitors to this blog. That's not a bad spread I think but most of the countries shown are the ones that I would have expected. What does amaze me sometimes is that anyone comes here at all, afterall, It's not the most regularly updated site in the world or the most interesting. Still, as Bob Hoskins said in the British Telecom adverts, 'It's good to talk' even if you are just talking to yourself most of the time. It stops me getting bored anyway.

Apart from a small number of people who regularly leave comments, I could probably guess the identity of another equally small number of visitors... the rest of you are a mystery to me. Random people stumbling across this site accidentally via a search engine in search of something else must account for a large portion of the mystery visitors. Looking at some of the search terms that have led people here would tend to back that up. I just hope that the person searching for information on 'Green Monkey Disease' didn't mind too much that they were presented with an account of a particularly annoying cold I was suffering from at the time. :)

A good send off

Strippers do not feature heavily in your usual run of the mill funeral arrangements (at least none that I have been to so far)... unless you happen to live in parts of China.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5280312.stm

Negotiations

I'm currently in the middle of negotiating the price on a new house.... so far I have learnt that I have practically no negotiating skills and should definately not consider a new career as a card shark, confidence trickster.. or negotiator.

House hunting

It is seemingly impossible in the southeast of England to find a nice 3 bedroom house with a large garden that is both in our price range and not in an area populated by chavs. After one month of looking it is getting pretty disheartening. Perhaps we should take this approach... (A link to the blog of Kyle MacDonald).

A new car

I'm currently in the process of choosing a new company car. For the past four years I have been driving a Ford Focus 2.0 Zetec, a very comfortable and practical car which when I can be bothered to clean it looks quite smart. To be honest there is nothing really wrong with it but my four years lease is up and I need to select my next car. Of course I could get the same again but that would be no fun at all.

Four years ago I decided to select a car from the entitlement band below my level in order to get a little extra cash each month to compensate. This time I decided to select something from my own band and hopefully get to drive something that I wouldn't normally be able to afford (or insure) if I were buying a new car myself privately. As most cars have a 10-13 week delivery period from the signed order, I need to make a choice quite soon. I have narrowed my selection down to three cars so far and to help me make a decision the leasing company has arranged for me to borrow demonstration models.

Yesterday I borrowed a BMW 320d Touring SE for 24 hours, it is a great looking car from the outside and drives really well. However, the interior layout and appearance was very disappointing very 'Germanic' and plain. My wife's first comment on sitting inside the car was that it looked like an "Ojiisan" car (an old man's car). The drivers seat could be adjusted up/down, forward/back and tilted... but I couldn't find a comfortable driving position. There just didn't seem to be enough room for my legs due to an overly wide centre console. Another niggle was that with the centre arm-rest down getting to the handbrake was pretty awkward but driving with it up felt even more uncomfortable. There was a metal foot rest next to the clutch and I found that whenever I used the clutch my foot would clip the side of it which I could imagine becoming very annoying. These negative points are a shame as I really wanted to like this car a lot but I don't think it's the one for me. Still, it looked good on our driveway last night and no doubt got some curtains twitching along the street.

Although I'm still waiting for confirmation that I can borrow a Jaguar X-Type Estate, later this week I will be borrowing a Ford Focus 2.0 C-Max Ghia for 4 days. The C-Max is a lower class of car than the BMW or Jaguar and lacks all of the status, but where the BMW was an entry level model and therefore lacked some features this C-Max is one of the top models in the range and therefore should be jam packed with gadgets and nice touches. After having driven a Focus for 4 years I'm expecting this to be a good, solid car although I can't see myself burning up the M3 like I did last night on the way home...

A life on the ocean waves

Well a day anyway...

Today I had the chance to join the crew of the New Zealand supermaxi racing yacht Maximus through an invitation by one of our suppliers at work as part of the Cowes Week sailing festivities on the Isle of Wight. What an experience! It is the first time I have been on a sailboat although it is something I have always wanted to try. As one of the other people who had also been invited (and who also happened to be an ex-olympic sailor) said, this is like having your first experience of driving in an F1 racing car.

Maximus is 100' long, weighs 27+ tons and cost over 10 million US dollars to build. It has been designed to be the fastest yacht of its type in the world and has already won several races since it's recent launch. (It's the big one with the tallest mast in the above photo).

A handful of us had not had any previous sailing experience, but we could join in by lending muscle power for the winching in and out of sails (already forget the proper term) which was hard work. A few others with more experience could lend a hand with other tasks as we sailed around. Most of the time however was spent clambering from one side of the yacht to the other to avoid being thrown over as we made each turn. During a turn or depending on how we were sailing, one side of the yacht would be right up in the air and the angle was pretty scary. At one point I was practically standing flat against the deck looking down at the sea below me.

This has to have been one of the best days out I have had for a long time and was a great way to spend what also happened to be my 32nd birthday. Hopefully at some stage the feeling of still being on the waves will pass... 3 hours later and my body still feels like it is going up and down.

Mine's a cold one

As I don't have a valid drivers license for Japan I'm relegated to the passenger seat wherever we go. Sometimes that comes in quite handy such as today... what better way to cool down during a car journey on a hot day than a nice cold beer.

Gung Hey Fat Choi

It's Chinese New Year today, so happy year of the Rooster! Luckily, Chisato was born in the year of the Monkey making him 'intelligent and well liked'. Rooster's are 'decisive and hard working' but when all's said and done It must be better to start life off known as a cheeky chimp than.. well... a cock. :)