News Archives: June 2004

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Home, but late

Made it home from Wimbledon yesterday, too tired to do much. As some of you might know the Saturday was a wash out - not one tennis ball seen. Shame, we were 26 and 27 in the queue, and had front row tickets for centre court. About half three they announced that they would play on the middle Sunday. I'd already figured that play was pretty unlikely, so we hightailed it out, and rejoined the queue. Numbers 99 and 100 this time. (Priority to those who've already spent 24 hours on the pavement? Not here mate.) Sunday went rather better - into the ground just after nine, play started at eleven. We had front row seats again, although no reservations this time, so one of us had to stay and guard our places at all times. We hooked up with a girl (Catherine? Not sure) on her own, to help with the guarding. Federer against Johansen first. Federer was stunning - phenomenal skill, phenomenal athlete. Unfortunately Johansen is still not match fit - he has all the skills, but was just ten percent too slow - making the result a bit too inevitable. Henman against Arazi was next, and almost the opposite. Both players made numerous mistakes, their minds apparently going walk about at the slightest provocation. But it was a close, exciting match, helped admittedly by the excitable, partisan crowd. Final expected match was a typical Serena Williams walk over - even she seemed a little bored with bludgeoning her opponent into submission. An unexpected, but enjoyable mixed doubles was just getting interesting when the rains came back. We retreated to the beer tent, then the car, and started the long trek home. Tiredness finally drove us to find a motel somewhere north of Luton.

The only slight oddity in it all was the "People's Sunday" itself. In the past the media have given the impression that these days are hugely special - different atmosphere, more real tennis fans. I've seen Henman matches on Centre before, and this really wasn't any different. The rest of the grounds seemed a bit quiet, and the outside courts positively empty. And after the Henman match, a good seven or eight thousand people appear to have headed straight home. Draw your own conclusions...

Posted by graham @ 08:37 pm

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

From the Dept of Constitutional Affairs, to be Precise

Gosh, making a morbid, self-obsessed post certainly brings out the lurkers. Nice to see you guys. Less self-obsession today, so probably less comments as well. Except, perhaps, something helpful from Mr Brooke. I'm still pretty ill, and have done no work again today, including the Online Opinion column. I'm sure both my readers will forgive me.

I have, however, discovered new consumer rights outrages to upset me. For some time we've been trying to transfer our electricity and gas away from the current supplier, who are sufficiently incompetent that they haven't sent an accurate bill in some two and a half years now. (They send bills, but are never clear what they think the bill is for, and no two bills have ever agreed with each other, nor with how much I think we owe.) I thought last month we'd finally cracked it. I had a letter saying that the move to a new supplier had been finalised. In fact, I had two - one for gas, one for electricity. Today I discovered this was a mere smokescreen. Not only has it not been finalised, apparently they haven't asked for the electricity yet. Back to square one.

More irritating though is Barclaycard. Today I was surprised to receive a letter from Barclaycard, containing a PIN for my new chip&pin card that would arrive soon. Interesting, since I cancelled my Barclaycard about two years ago, as part of the whole "I really shouldn't have credit" drive. Now, given I've written to cancel the account, and had it acknowledged, I'm pretty sure I'm within my rights to bin it and ignore it. They want to give hundreds of pounds to random strangers, that's their problem. But being nice, and slightly worried that they might stick me for a bill somewhere along the road, I phoned up. First hunt for a free number - Platinum card? Well, I guess the Barclaycard I don't have could be Platinum, so I dial up. Explain the problem. Guy asks me to give lots of personal details. I refuse - this is a general principle, I won't give out personal details unless I have to. Far too many crooked call centre staff out there. (Most are, I know, honest. I've just never worked out how to tell the difference.) Now, my unfailing logic ran something like : "I've got the PIN for Graham Robinson. I don't have a Barclaycard account. If I'm Graham Robinson, you haven't cancelled the account like you said you did, and you have a security hole. If I'm not Graham Robinson, I have his PIN and you have a major security hole." Apparently, Barclaycard will not act unless the person phoning up can provide my date of birth. (They are, however, quite happy to continue to send me PINs, cards, and anything else I might be able to criminally abuse.) I've asked their head of press relations to comment on this before I turn it into next week's column. Of course, now they'll sort it out, and I'll have to think of something else to write about.

Other than this, I'm quite happy, if ill. Claire is baking for a party on Friday, which I'll miss as tomorrow I start the annual trip to Wimbledon. Timing looks bad for catching up with people - I might just be able to squeeze a meet somewhere in North London on Thursday or Saturday night for an hour or two. Except, I don't think I know anyone from that neck of the woods. Next year I must be better organised.

I'll leave you, without comment, with this recent government announcement.

The mental capacity bill would, for the first time, ensure
that people who lack capacity either through disability, mental
illness, brain injury or illnesses such as dementia are placed at the
heart of decision-making.

Stolen from the Guardian's Backbencher e-mail. See you when I get back.

Posted by graham @ 09:09 pm

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Ill

Weekend was fun, Sunday night and onwards was not. Game went surprisingly well - the players took to being handed new characters instead of their usual ones, and thrust into a game set a thousand-odd years before their normal time. They joined Arkat's armies during the portion of his life that ran from his turning into a troll till the final death in Dorastor. I did bollocks the ending though - totally forgot Harmast's return with Talor the Laughing Warrior. Oops. At least one of them guessed that this was in fact a heroquest, possibly one that's not strictly part of Glorantha, but should be.

Sunday started early, with a special tour of Edinburgh Zoo before the doors opened. The tour ran seven till nine-thirty. A zoo first thing in the morning is quite a different place. The animals are more curious, and several are more awake (lions and maned wolves notably on Sunday). Well worth the visit if you get the chance. After an average breakfast, we picked up Fiona & Andy, as Sunday was Claire's Mum's birthday celebration. For some reason she decided to spend the afternoon at one of our local garden centres, then back to ours for Stifado.

Then everything went horrible. Claire and I both ended up with upset stomachs. I got no sleep at all on Sunday night, then dozed off and on all day. (Claire finally woke me for the England match - scrappy, but the result is all that counts...) Last night was better - we both slept fairly well, but are still feeling pretty rough. We have managed to eat properly today, which is encouraging.

My mood has been pretty bad. I don't cope with being ill very well, and four (illegal) phone calls from marketing companies haven't helped. Partly, I'm finding the loneliness of working from home quite hard at the moment. I have friends - lots of them - but other than Claire, no one I'm that close to, or see that regularly. Seeing friends always takes on the feel of a big event. I kinda miss the drop round out of the blue thing.

Posted by graham @ 07:53 pm

Friday, June 18, 2004

Buccaneers of the Middle Sea

In Sept/Oct I'm going to start running a new Heroquest game for some of the students at Heriot Watt. So far, it looks like I've got three definite players, and will doubtless pick up more. The idea is to allow them pretty free reign in choice of character, give them a ship with a living figure head that provides cool magic (a guardian being in rules-speak) and make one of them the captain. If the probable players are reading this (Hi!) skimming through either the Heroquest main book (in the games cupboard) and/or Heroquest Voices would be a good idea. Don't worry about rules, reading everything, or whatever. Just get a feel for what sort of character you might want. The first session will go much smoother if I already know that you want an XXX character, and therefore bring the right book. In other words, read the bits that seem interesting, and let me know.

So far, the players are all novices to both Glorantha and HQ, which is pretty intentional. Anyone else wanting to play should let me know soon as they're definite. Priority will be given to newcomers to the world.

The other big role-playing news was last nights end of year session of Sacriston Barrow. Long character stories are always dull, but the short version is that in attempting to ensure the Wild Hunt was not called on us, we managed to turn one of our party into the Huntsman, who declared the Hunt on another party member, and turned all but one of the rest of us into hounds. Luckily the sole escapee (lucky dice rolls!) managed to prevent us killing the victim, but I still dread to think what the consequences will be when the game restarts in the autumn.

The garden is full of very hungry small birds at the minute. They didn't take long to find the bird feeder, and are about on schedule to devour a kilo of seed in the first week. I've taken to working in the sun room as often as possible, so I can watch them feeding, and the bird book is taking up semi-permenant residence there. Unfortunately, Internet access is not possible in that room, so I'm still mainly working in the study. Visitors spotted so far include blue tits, a coal tit, green finches, a pair of golden finches, and sparrows. Hordes of sparrows. Eight at a time arguing sparrows. The cats have failed miserably to even get within ten feet of the birds, and have pretty much lost interest, which is a relief.

The saga of the soil remains unresolved, and we've pretty much given up on getting the vegetable patches up and running this year. Most of the seed we'd optimistically bought will keep for next spring, except the potatoes. I'm trying something with them - six inches of compost in the bottom of a 50 litre compost bag (with holes for drainage) then five potatoes, then another six inches of compost. The idea is that as the shoots appear at the top, you roll the bag up, and add more compost. When the bag is full, you empty it out, and should have hundreds of spuds. I've got two bags of blue potatoes - we'll see how it works in practice.

Tomorrow is the first Grey Dog game for a while. I'm slightly nervous, partly because I'm currently too tired to run the game, and partly because my players may lynch me within the first ten minutes...

Posted by graham @ 09:30 pm

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Proportional Representation

Under PR, the UKIP has gained twelve seats (of seventy-eight), having secured a vote from just over six percent of the electorate. Under first past the post, they would have secured only four or five, with their victories confined to the East Midlands, South East and South West. Their record to date is worrying, they campaigned on an openly racist anti-immigrant/anti-foreigner interference platform, and their future plans are to act as "wreckers". Could someone who supports PR please explain to me why this is a good thing? If the election of xenophobic trouble makers to Europe doesn't worry you, consider that if the same voting pattern repeats in the next general election, the BNP would have something like eighteen seats under PR.

Posted by graham @ 09:12 am

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Pathetic

What a start to the England Euro 2004 campaign. A pointless foul and an incompetent back pass turned an 89th minute lead into a loss. Would have only been a draw, but Beckham can't take penalties. Far too high and close to the keeper. Admittedly, it was a good save... I don't think I've ever seen a team throw a match quite so effectively.

Brighter thoughts in the garden, where I've just been watering and trying to calm down. Claire will probably banish me from the house if I don't... Today, we've erected a metal shepherd's crook post, with a shiny copper and plastic feeder hanging from it, full of seed. Whether this turns out to be a bird feeder or a cat feeder remains to be seen - so far, the birds haven't apparently noticed it. We've tried to position it so that the cats can't reach it without being very obvious to the birds. Round here there are so many cats that the birds are a paranoid, twitchy lot. Hopefully they should be safe.

Posted by graham @ 08:58 pm

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Childish, Offensive, and Very Funny

For those who've heard me mention that strange phenomenon called "Goats" but were unsure of whether they'd get it, yesterday's strip is a good jumping on point. The standard/kind of humour and artwork is well represented, and it includes no recurring characters at all, so you don't need to have read the previous 1499 strips to get the joke. (The joke is, admittedly, potentially offensive...)

Posted by graham @ 08:45 pm

Creature Comforts

Sometimes clicking on random things on the Internet pays off. Yesterday, just before heading off to the Watt Gamers BBQ, I received an e-mail from the Radio Times, telling me I'd won a copy of Creature Comforts on DVD. A pretty good start to the weekend.

The BBQ itself was, as a BBQ, pretty much a wash out. The BBQ wasn't lit till eight o'clock, and never really got hot enough to cook properly. The food that was provided (this was a buy a ticket in advance deal) was lousy, and not much of it. I'd always thought I could happily eat any burger. Someone managed to find burgers that proved me wrong. Other than the lousy food, it was good fun. Lots of friends, including Mike who I haven't seen for a while. (Ben introducing him as "Nick Brooke" made his night...) A few people who I didn't know before, which is always cool. Everyone else seemed to be chatting and joking and contributing to the general fun, apart from one girl who made a bit of a prat of herself. Someone had brought a water pistol, which went through a variety of hands while we searched for a responsible person to look after it. Since we couldn't find one, I ended up with it. Heh heh heh.

Today was largely spent in the garden. The final compost bin has now been painted with green woodstain, and the bottom hedge has been trimmed. For dinner we had some really good burgers - made by Claire's own fair hand. This evening is dedicated to relaxing and recovering.

Posted by graham @ 08:13 pm

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

The Sun County Vinyard

On a lighter note, Jane Williams is putting together a pretty wonderful sounding Eat at Geo's for Continuum. The basic theme is Sun County (although there are some threats of troll food as well) and she muttered something on the list about date wine. Quick check in my recipe book, and both date and fig wine are possibles. Actually getting hold of dates was a little tougher, so we've got fig and apricot wine on, along with more ordinary chardonnay and shiraz. The last two are for private consumption, but the former two might appear at the con. They'll be far too young, but if vaguely drinkable, I'll take along a bottle or six.

Posted by graham @ 09:19 pm

Moan Update

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent part of this morning on the phone shouting at people. The soil people wanted nothing to do with me, so after the second call where I got a vague "someone will phone you, honest" I just rejected the shipment. After all, the Trade Description Act gives me the option as to whether I'll let the retailer attempt a "repair" or just require a refund. That got a reaction - shortly after I had a phone call from an irrate man, who wanted to inspect the soil. He claimed he wanted to speak to some other people first, then hung up. An hour or so later, a knock at the door turned out to be the same man - a large chap, taller and broader than me. Nothing like checking the time is alright before turning up. He proceeded to poke through the soil with his bare hands, stuffing rubbish in his pockets and declaring it all "fine". When I stated that chunks of metal was not acceptable in soil, he started waving the one off the top under my nose, and was soon effing and blinding. Being sworn and shouted at by a large man six inches from your face. Nice. So I told him to leave, having to repeat myself three times and threaten to call the police before he finally left, still swearing, calling me names, and making vague threats.

Tomorrow I need to write a formal letter, rejecting the goods in writing, and giving them a deadline to remove them from my property. I'm not going to mention the name of the company online - I don't need more legal problems with this lot. But, if you want to buy top soil, ask friends for recommendations...

Posted by graham @ 08:31 pm

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Mutter, Moan, Sigh

So I spent all day faithfully glued to the house, because I had a delivery of three tonnes of top soil due. Around four o'clock I started to get a bit doubtful, so I phoned up. Woman promised to look into it, and would phone back. Half an hour later I phone back. It's on its way, and it'll be with me soon because the guy has to be back to base by five thirty. Ten past six, guy phones for directions. Half six, he's unloaded (an impressive feat with big crane on back of lorry). Phew, at least it is here. And then we take a careful look. I now have two tonnes of top soil in the front garden, and a tonne of what turns out to be infill. Bugger. Guess who spends tomorrow morning shouting at people on the phone? I need a secretary.

Posted by graham @ 06:34 pm

Monday, June 7, 2004

My Ghost Likes to Travel...

The weekend was slightly less hectic than originally intended. Probably just as well - I'm exhausted anyway. I spent much of Saturday gardening. The new lawn/veg patch is almost ready. We're expecting three tonnes of top soil tomorrow. Once that's spread, edging put in, and grass seed planted, all will be ready. Nearly there...

Saturday evening was Peter Gabriel at the SEC. Anyone not there missed a stunning show. Support was from Daby Toure, who I've never heard before, but was impressed by. He does a fine line in bouncy folk music. Apparently the album is more modern - I'll let you know once I've checked it out. Gabriel himself appeared by tricycle, climbed onto the circular stage, and treated us to a solo piano version of "Here Comes the Flood" before the full band appeared for the menancing, moody "Darkness". Too many songs to list them all. Most accompanied by some form of visual silliness - balloons and balls appearing and disappearing through an orfice in the ceiling, like some Freudian nightmare, Gabriel and daughter singing from on top of Segways ("Games without Frontiers") or walking upside down on the underside of the lighting rig ("Downside Up"), Gabriel mounted on a bike or wearing a jacket made, apparently, from car headlights. And of course, the hamster ball. Musical highlights for me included "San Jacinto" and set closer "Signal to Noise". Only slight disappointment was the crowd, who were a bit quiet, and remained seated until "Solsbury Hill". Given that I appeared to be one of the younger people there, age may have been a factor. Full set list in the comments...

Sunday, Claire and I recovered, pottering around Edinburgh zoo. They're busy rebuilding, introducing larger enclosures, paths that go through or over the habitats, and generally making everything much more interesting for both animals and visitors. Latest addition is a pack of African Hunting Dogs. Stunning animals.

Posted by graham @ 08:53 pm

Friday, June 4, 2004

The Reverend Robinson

The last week or so has been hectic. Most of my time has been spent in the garden. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to lift the scruffy grass at the top of the garden, and replace it with some nice new grass, and a vegetable patch. Needless to say this was more work than it sounds. (I know it sounds like a lot of work - it is still more.) Apart from lifting something like four tonnes of earth, turf, bricks, small plastic kids' mugs, polystyrene, and an old wine bottle, getting rid of it all has been the problem. Which has left me little time actually on the computer - hence no posts.

I've also been out a fair bit. Tuesday, dinner with my parents. Wednesday, dinner with Grant and Moira, then pub with various other friends. Yesterday was Fading Suns, where in I organised a slave auction for charity. (In the best possible taste...) I went for the second lowest price - I was up second, and everyone went for more than the one before... - and now have to have dinner with a cute girl, her "uncle" Jerry, and a surprisingly cute alien. Hard lives my characters led.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Peter Gabriel gig at the SEC. Looking forward to the giant hamster ball. Claire has opted out - unsurprisingly. Probably as well - my HeroQuest game was supposed to be tomorrow as well, but Claire is rather under the weather so we've postponed. Again. I'm beginning to think this game is cursed.

One conversation twist that seemed to amuse Grant was the fact that I am an ordained minister. I promised him the URL, and can't deprive the rest of you. Join the Universal Life Church.

Posted by graham @ 08:58 pm

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