Life, the Universe and Everything

A friend drew my attention to this "affordable property" - a former Telephone Repeater Station in rural Gloucestershire with easy access to Gloucester and Cheltenham and is a snip at £29,990. A few days later I was passing that way with my camera and took a closer look View of the front door through the garden from the front gate Front door - note letterbox Full fire precautions. Health and Safety is the last thing to go Reception/Master Bedroom/Kitchen/Etc The rear of the property has access to open fields So is it worth the £30k price tag? Sure, it's an expensive location but the total plot is only around 1000 square feet so you could put a modest 3 bedroom house on it with a little over for a garden. In theory, loads of parking is available at the adjacent lay-by. The only services are electricity. So it could work - if you can get Planning Permission

My old sandals fell apart and as I had a camping trip coming up, I needed to buy another pair. Browsing Amazon, I spotted a nice pair and placed an order - paying extra for expedited delivery to ensure I got them in time. Amazon passed the order to Sports Direct who passed the goods to there "delivery" company, Yodel. With a day to go before my deadline, I checked online for progress and found that Yodel had already made three delivery attempts. This was odd since our receptionist hadn't seen anyone. Confusingly, when I tried to interact with the tracking site, it told me: Your parcel(s) cannot currently be collected from our service centre. Your parcel has not yet had a delivery attempt . Your parcel(s) cannot currently be rearranged. Your parcel has not yet had a delivery attempt I got on to Yodel who told me that their driver had been to the wrong address and they'd get the stuff to me the next day. Sure enough, at 10.00am I got a text a...

They think they're a bank... MBNA: You filled in our form incorrectly Me: What did I get wrong? MBNA: I can't tell you that. I suggest you download the form again, print it out, fill it in and post it off to us. Me: I think I'm using the wrong bank MBNA: I can see it's frustrating, The only thing I can suggest is that you download the form again- Me: No, let's just close the account

There wasn't a dance I wanted to go to tonight so I decided to go to "the pictures" and see the (fairly) new Star Wars film. Google told me of several places showing  it including the Sherborne Cinema. This turned out to be a small art-Deco establishment in the back streets of Gloucester charging £5 to get in and for an extra pound, Mark made me nice mug of Earl Grey tea. There was even a small car park for "patrons" but they don't take cards or on-line bookings.  Cash works though. The Foyer   The end of cinema had long been predicted but it refuses to die. Television didn't see it off and despite on-line video on demand ventures like this still get off the ground. It's less than a year old although the building is over 100. Link

Well, probably not but I've found a very useful document for some of those arguments down the pub (or more often these days, on Facebook). It works like this: Person A wants the government to spend more money on something Person B says we can't afford it Person C says of course we can - tax the rich/cut benefits/etc. Trouble is, even if Person A knows exactly how much money s/he wants spending, no one knows whether the bill will in fact be covered by what Person C proposes. Well, I found an answer. It's a government document and I'd be the first to agree that "Direct effects of illustrative tax changes" is not the snappiest title - but stay with me! The short version is just two pages long and shows just how much money you could raise by adding 1p to the major tax rates - around £4 billion for a penny on standard rate income tax for example. You want to spend around £800 million? Easy - raise Corporation Tax by 1%. Even better, that will yield tw...

Recently I was in "Savers" and although I don't even look like a bloke who'd be interested in a special offer on lipstick they just had to ask. Today I was in Boots and in a hurry. There was a substantial queue. Them: Do you have Boots card? Me: No Them (brightly): Would you like a Boots card? Me: I'm a pay and go customer! I should have deployed it earlier really.

It's near Cheltenham - nowhere near Nottingham and famous for a very large hill fort View NW to Bredon Hill I liked the pattern of the tracks View NE to Alderton Hill In the background is “Showlands”, a “Winter Quarters” for travelling show people. After a fight lasting around 15 years, they finally got planning permission. Foreground is Gotherington Autumn colour starting in Gotherington