I’ve finally got around to looking at my Orange mobile phone bills as they’ve been £5 more per month for the last four or so months. I could see from my online statements that my £5 loyalty discount suddenly stopped late last year so I gave Orange a call.
The first woman I spoke to said that the loyalty discount had expired after 9 months of my new contract and that this matched with the notes on my account from the time when I renegotiated my new contract. That’s incorrect I told her, so she put me through to the cancellations team who’d left the notes in the first place.
I got frustrated with the second lady. She was friendly enough but very inflexible, claiming as the first lady had done that my loyalty discount wasn’t supposed to be ongoing. How can that be? No one mentioned that at the time. Have you ever heard of anything like that?
She went on to explain that I didn’t have enough ‘credit’ at the time of renewal and that most of it was used to give me my new phone for free. What nonsense - initially they said I was on too low a ‘band’ to get close to the deal I eventually got. To tell me now that the tariff I had was always going to increase after nine months?! First things first, I’m going to get rid of my Internet bundle as I hardly use it and it costs £5/month.
So it’s time to launch a complaint, either via e-mail or good old letter.
It was on the 3rd to last ball of my basket at the golf driving range when a strange sound emanated from my driver upon impact with the ball. I looked at my club only to see half of it missing! What power! Perhaps I missed my calling. You guys in Japan had better watch out when I come to play with you next time 
Whilst on a little walk through London yesterday I past the long since closed Strand Station near to King’s College. I love these pieces of history scattered throughout London.
Just when I thought the bitter cold of this winter had past it’s come back. For some silly reason, I went out in a light jacket both yesterday and today and really paid the consequences.
This afternoon I went to a golf range and although I thought it was pretty cold, all of a sudden a beautifully fine snow started falling. It didn’t last long but it was still cold enough that my toes were numb after twenty minutes!
This weather certainly hasn’t helped me fight off a cold that seems to be trying to attack body. Actually, having a cold would explain why I’ve been really feeling the cold - something that’s rare for me .
‘Hang on, don’t tell me I’ve forgotten to…’ Yep, as I opened my gym bag I realised that I’d forgotten to pack some shorts. D’oh! Really wanting a work out for a split second I wondered whether I could do some gentle shoulder physio in my trousers but I quickly reconsidered!
Seeing as I was already in the changing rooms I decided to have a shower to freshen up and blow the morning’s cobwebs away. This got me thinking about something I was talking about with a Japanese friend.
Apparently there is a growing trend in Japan for certain people, notably ‘Gyaru’ (how do you type that in English?) and homeless people, to stay at manga cafes overnight; in fact, to almost live at such cafes, using the showers and sleeping there. It makes sense if you think about it - it’s an inexpensive way to have a roof over your head.
Is this phenomenon really an issue? If the cafes have a problem with it then they’d raise their prices so I’d surmise that it’s other people who take issue with it. What do you think?
Electronic notice boards are starting to become the norm at many London Underground stations. The benefits are obvious but there are times when a simple whiteboard and pen beats Microsoft Windows.
A friend sent me a photo of an electronic advertising board running Windows that had crashed in the City. This probably isn’t the type of advertising that Microsoft wants.
As part of an effort to stretch my legs more and not stare at my screen for too long whilst at work I started to hunt around for some simple software to nag me every once in a while.
A friend recommended a program called Eyes Relax. It’s simple but really works well. You set intervals between breaks and the duration of breaks, then you get a reminder pop up at the appropriate time. You can do thinks like cancel a break or delay it for five minutes.
I’ve tried setting the time interval to 10 minutes but it seemed to be popping up practically all the time. It’s amazing how fast time can pass when you are focused on something. 15 minutes seems more practical.
