Tag Archives: life

Hello, world

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I just thought I’d announce that at some point today the planet will have orbited the sun exactly 44 times since I first opened my mouth, took a deep breath of fresh Northern Ireland air and howled my protest at being evicted from my nice warm home of the last nine months. We’re shortly off to see Slumdog Millionaire, which is probably something we’d have done anyway but for the sake of argument is officially the Birthday Treat.

In other news, Far Frozen North CID have been in touch again; there are a further 12 eBay accounts linked with the gentlemen under investigation and it’s thought he may have profited by about £50k over the last three years. That’s a lot of Galactica boxsets.

Eat justice, perp

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Well, this is exciting.

About a year ago I got stung on eBay, foolishly sending off a cheque for £35 for the boxset of Battlestar Galactica series 3, which never arrived. The vendor’s feedback seemed good but clearly the system doesn’t always work.

(Note to close relatives and family members: if anyone tries to give me a hard time about this confession, I will bring up the subject of who recently ordered a £55 bottle of wine in a restaurant without checking the price. Are we understood?)

eBay themselves spotted something dodgy about the vendor because they emailed me to say they were closing the account – conveniently and thoughtfully, it was soon after I had mailed the cheque. It was too late to cancel, the cheque had already cleared, and frankly it wasn’t worth going round to the guy’s place because he lived in the Far Frozen North. I put it down to experience and nowadays only buy DVDs’n’stuff on Amazon, if I do it online at all. And I pay by Paypal or card.

But today I get an email from a detective constable in Far Frozen North CID, saying the guy is under investigation, and my name is one of the 255 eBay have provided him with as having bought something off him in December 2007 or January 2008. Would I mind letting him know what happened? All the sums involved were quite similar to mine, most stingees did like me and put it down to experience … so over a two month period the perp was quietly amassing 255 x £35 or thereabouts, which = quite a lot.

I’ve sent off my report and copies of the emails that were exchanged. Funny that now I can fantasise far more exciting punishments than I could a year ago when I was quietly resigning myself to my loss. Gene Hunt is never around when you want him. Or Judge Dredd. Or Lord Vetinari.

A flaw in the BCP

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If the Chief Technology Officer is going to send an email to everyone saying “stay at home”, he really should do it earlier than 8.32, a time at which on a normal day almost everyone is at their desks.

My own manager did try to phone me, but the call came as I was pulling out onto the main road and I don’t answer the phone while I’m driving. By the time I had slithered into work and seen the almost deserted carpark, I could guess what the voicemail she had left would say.


The roads were much less crowded than yesterday but also much more slippery, cancelling out the advantage. To be honest I only pressed on to work because I had seen the queue of traffic heading in the other direction. Still, having got there I was able to give a colleague a lift back to Abingdon, to catch any bus that might be heading for Oxford, so I felt warm and fulfilled.

Tonight’s recipe: gnocchi bolognese, hot and with lots of garlic. Perfect for the season, I think.