Be Excellent To Each Other

"We're going to the pub for lunch" says the wife. So I pull on my everyday trainers and hooded top and off we go. Good news is the Forester does not look out of place in the car park. Bad news is everyone is in tweed save me. Balls.

The one time you should have worn tweed

I know

Still, lunch was good. Shitpants has got the "rip a newspaper up and unfold it undamaged" trick halfway down, too.

Drove to work in the pouring rain, got there and settled in for the day. Only for wife to call to say water coming through bedroom ceiling. Drove all the way home and waited for The Man who found a hole in the roof. Balls.

I've been on set filming all morning. I'll hopefully make it on to the telly! I'll let you know when I do though.

Back in Germany again. Only had 2 nights at home

Managed to play rugby and fix leaking and loose toilet. Previous owners or tenants had used PTFE tape instead of a washer. I never want to remove a tiolet again...eeeew

And now my blackberry has died. Fucking hell

Fantastic! Looking forward to it.

We'll have to get you in Union blue next.

Gah. Sorry to hear that. Hope it gets sorted soon and hasn't caused too much damage.

Given the nature of the insurance policy, it'll be me up a ladder tomorrow with flashing tape.

How often do you need to change the batteries?

No, he means a video of him in the park

Just over heard the pub drunk compare the place to the one at that end of '1984'. I love Oxford.

Happy Mali Day! Red shirts at the ready!

happy birthday MaliA!

I've had an email at work from the BBC. It's pretty vague but its asking for applications for a new game show with Miranda Hart. That'll be the Generation game then. I'm tempted!

/perks up

For an application form and more info, email mirandahartapplications(at)bbc.co.uk

I love how you're not wanting her to receive any spam.

Thank you for your kind thoughts. And to Kern, Shitpants, MrsA, Mummy and Old Man Afterthought and the in laws for the consol to play these on. Whilst wearing my new dressing gown. And socks. And The Last Of Us.

I'm nice like that.

Happy Birfday Mali!

Happy birthday Mali. That's an awesome present.

Happy birthday Good haul!

Now, go get Shadow of Mordor.

Dude who lives in my rental house is interested in buying it, so that is convenient Remains to be seen if he can get a mortgage though, but should find out this week.

In a mild dilemma as to what to do regarding the next house though.

Location 1) Houses cost X amount, but are 5 miles from the station. The commute into london is 35-40 minutes on a fast train, an hour on a slow one. There are fast trains every 30 minute. I'd have to cycle or moped my way to the station on top of that and there are no easy cycling routes.
Location 2) Houses cost X amount, are 3 miles to the station, but generally are a bit smaller and don't have a garage. Commute to London is 40 minutes fast, an hour slow. Fast trains are every 30 minutes or so. I'd cycle to the station and there are dedicated cycle routes.
Location 3) Houses are 10% cheaper, are 2-3 miles to the station. Commute is 1 hour to London. The cycle to the station is along a canal path.

My current train journey to London is 40 minutes fast, 1 hour slow. I usually have to get the slow trains due to the timings of them. I've been doing that for years and isn't an issue.

Which location would you choose?

The one where it's most convenient to get to the shops, and where you'd be happy making a home.

That's the thing, they are all equally as convenient for the shops, and we'd be happy in any of them. Two of the houses in fact are exactly the same house style, built by the same builder, just in a different town. If it was as simple as choosing the one that we know we'd be happiest in, then it wouldn't be a problem

I think we need vote buttons

Buttons for president!

Isn't it a no-brainer to go for the cheaper house? If the commute is the same and the cycling route is good.

That's my current thinking, I think. The train commute in location 1 has a chance of being half the time, but getting to and from the station will take up most of those time savings.

edit to say: writing the options out like that, helped make that more obvious

C

Come live in Goldington with me.

If Mrs Grim... has an issue with only buying nerf guns, I suspect she will have a bigger issue with us moving in

Do any Beexers live in the vicinity of Wakefield?

Yo!

Heh, brilliant. I'm moving away from Scottish Gas as my energy provider and yesterday got my final gas/leccy bill in from them for £4.93. It says this in big letters on the front of the bill and is absolutely the headline piece of information. But, when I log into the website to pay that it instead reckons I owe them £19. Looking at the details of the bill there's what look like duplicate sections but with different numbers on them which do eventually add up to the £19 figure. But there's conflicting and/or unexplained numbers all over both parts of the bill and certainly no explanation why the front page confidently asserts a number that the rest of the bill isn't so sure about. I've paid them the £4.93 and sent an email thing via their website saying they can whistle for the rest until they explain what the hell's going on. Of course, the website says they're experience "high volumes of customer queries" and might not get back to me until after I'm supposed to have settled this bill.

Prediction:

• Someone will contact me saying the £19 is a mistake and I've paid all I need to and it's cool. They will be mystified as to what's going on with this odd bill I've received.
• A demanding letter will later appear looking for the balance
• I'll phone them only to be told that no, I do actually owe them the rest and they've no idea why I was told otherwise
• I'll pay the money just to shut them up
• Some other bill will appear looking for more money due to <reasons>, probably because of the 'late' payment of the full balance
• Umpteen phone calls will result in different responses every single time I speak to a different person, which will be every time
• About a year from now some form of this bullshit will still be dragging on

Does anyone doubt for a second that's the sort of shit that'll go down?

'Hilariously' when I said to them I wanted to move energy providers (which was the instant I got in the door, I'm only dealing with them as they were the initial 'default' provider) the guy asked if the problem was price and I replied that no, I was going with someone else because they had a very good reputation for customer service. Perhaps this is some kind of corporate level revenge for my casting aspersions on them?

I've recently swapped energy providers to save £40 a month. I'm currently around £400 in credit so it'll be interesting to see what happens to that.

I fear the worst.

I still think it's odd that adult families living together isn't a "thing".

That wasn't an invite.

I managed to overpay my previous gas bill with npower and they just sent a cheque out through the post to the new address.

If either of the providers are first utility, about ten hours of phone calls over three months including ones where they hang up on you for asking to speak to a supervisor, finally ending up with a complaint to the ombudsman.

Took me four months to get my credit refunded from First Utility. Bunch of twats.

Pretty sure the regulators are starting to crack down on this sort of thing now. May not see the effect just yet, but should eventually.

That sort of thing is why I've always resisted setting up a monthly direct debit in the past and chose instead to just pay an actual bill every quarter as energy providers have always over-estimated my useage and then you end up with an utterly needless balance building up over time. I'd rather keep my money than see it piling up with a third party for no reason at all. With the company I'm moving to (SSE) I've gone for a monthly direct debit but I'll be keeping an eye on the balance over the coming Winter months and if it creeps up I'll be on the phone to them to change it.

No way, that's shocking.

I built up over £200 in credit, and the electricity provider sent me a letter telling me to reduce my direct debit or request a payment for the credit amount. I emailed them, and 5 days later, they transferred the money.

I ran up a load of credit (300 or so) and so they just halved my monthly payment without my asking. After a year I was down to about 3 quid credit, and they have put it up closer to the first number again. Been pretty decent, Npower.

My wife is ruining my credibility on Facebook.

Ship. Sailed.

Horse. Bolted.