It is very easy to take some technology for granted. There was a time when an ATM machine was something evil that charged you for the privelage of withdrawing your own money just so that you could spend it. There was also a time when cash was King, and most shops would not accept debit cards. Things have changed, and this modern world that we nlive in now has both ATMs and debit cards as an everyday fact of life.
Of course sometimes Satan likes to do something nasty in your kettle of life. Last Saturday appeared to be my turn, as whilst on holiday the ATM at Porthmadog in Tesco's carpark did just that. It ate my debit card as I was trying to withdraw cash. The card wasn't flagged, and I wasn't trying to withdraw money that I didn't have or indeed anything else naughty like that. No, the machine just crashed and took my debit card with it. Whilst watching the tiny screen scroll through a Windows XP desktop, it was apparent that my card was not going to re-emerge. The machine belonged to Royal Bank of Scotland, though thoughtlessly they had failed to provide anywhere contact numbers in case of issues. How thoughtful of them.
The manager of the Tesco store was quite helpful, letting me use his phone to call RBS. It should have been simple, but it wasn't. RBS failed at every level to take the issue seriously. Their automated switchboard disconnected me twice before it even let me speak to a human. At least I assume she was human, though maybe it is a requirement of working Saturdays in an RBS call centre to be an unhelpful and obstinant idiot? Refusing to help at all, she instead spent ten minutes trying to lecture me on how it was their 'policy' to not return eaten cards, and instead have them destroyed. She would not even transfer me to some-one else or furnish me with any helpful numbers for perhaps contacting HSBC - my card provider.
Once again the manager was the only helpful person, finding a copy of the Yellow pages to get a number for HSBC and again letting me use his telephone to call them. HSBC (lovely 'Tom' - if that was his real name - sounding suspiciously like he was pulling a night shift in an Indian call centre) cancelled the card, and then promptly infomerd me that a replacement would be sent out 'within three to five working days'. Oh yes, nice one Tom. I just told you that I was 200 miles from home, on holiday, without any means to pay for anything else including the petrol required to get myself back that 200 miles to reach the replacement card, if it did indeed arrive. Apparently I was expected to scrounge from people any money I needed. Hey, cheers for ruining the rest of the holiday. I had £1.12 to my name, and only a cheque book that no-one would accept because cheques are so last decade don't-you-know and anyway the debit card was also the essential cheque guarentee card too.
It isn't nice having to ask friends to pay for things even as simple as a cup of tea or food. Getting them to fill your car with petrol too for good measure seems even more embarrassing and humiliating. Kiss goodbye to any daytrips because, you know, sponging for the price of a ride on the Ffestiniog railway seems a little too much to lay on the person you already begged £40 off for petrol.
So the modern world collapses faster than the operating system of an RBS cash machine. The nasty letters have been sent, outlining in advance that empty apologees without actual actions aren't acceptable. But you just know that the behemoths of the banking system aren't really interested. If it doesn't involve ripping us all off and making the world's economies collapse whilst paying mega-bonuses for irrisponsible financial risk taking, then they don't want to know.
As of yet, the promised replacement card hasn't arrived. Oh joy. It's particularly irritating because I'm off on a sailing expedition for a week and a bit on Saturday, so if it hasn't arrived by tomorrow then Satan will be laughing all the way to a second trip to that kettle.
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Monday, 9 August 2010
That just takes the custard cream
Why is it that retailers wait until just after I have bought something to reduce the price and appear to be clearing out unsold stock? It's happened with no less than three items this week, and it is getting annoying. I can only think that retailers gauge the point at which they have sold all they can at full price by seeing what I am buying and adjusting straight after I have bought. Things that I haven't bought, even within the same set, invariably hold their price. It's bloody annoying.
I can only assume that either there is a conspiracy, or that I simply have unpopular tastes in books, software and other goods and have very bad luck when it comes to money. Rememeber folks: it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you.
I can only assume that either there is a conspiracy, or that I simply have unpopular tastes in books, software and other goods and have very bad luck when it comes to money. Rememeber folks: it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Have tastes changed so much?
I've been trying to read a book called The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. It's part of a large set of 73 that I have published by Gollancz called SF Masterworks. A lot of the books in this set were published originally from the 1950s to the 1980s with a big emphasis on 1960/70s. There are, it has to be said, some real gems in this set. On the other hand, there are some real lemons too. I'm afraid that The Dispossessed probably falls into the lemon category from what I have read.
The book failed to grab me; I did try and persist. Longwinded and without any real point, the first two chapters failed in any way to give me a story or characters that I could latch onto and feel for and get into. Actually, come to think of it, there seemed very little point to what I read. When I first began writing, wordy, self-indulgent stuff was referred to as 'Purple prose' and was to be avoided at all cost. Unfortunately, Le Guin didn't go to that lecture when she wrote this. She isn't alone though; even Arthur C. Clarke's early works had a habit of falling into this trap. I am forced to conclude given the rave reviews this book had that tastes have changed, and some books have not aged well.
In some respects, the 1960/70s were the years to be trying to get published if you wrote sci-fi. Stick a rocket on the cover and you could be forgiven for thinking that anything sold in this genre. On the other hand, maybe the glut of boring self-indulgent books of this time were responsible for the decline of sci-fi as big genre for those who came afterwards. Now it is quite hard to get sci-fi published.
Other books in the set have impressed me, and it isn’t all doom and gloom. Flow my tears, the Policeman said by Philip K. Dick is an astounding work, and so were Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, I am Legend by Richard Matheson and Mission of gravity by Hal Clement were all excellent reads. So there were still excellent works in amongst this glut of over written rubbish. What makes me surprised is the fact that some of these bad books won prizes, gathered rave reviews and - above all – are considered masterpieces. I think that tastes have changed an awful lot. Would any of these poor works have been published today if Le Guin had gone to a publisher in 2010 and punted that manuscript around? A part of me thinks probably not.
Still, what do I know? Well, maybe beyond what I like.
The book failed to grab me; I did try and persist. Longwinded and without any real point, the first two chapters failed in any way to give me a story or characters that I could latch onto and feel for and get into. Actually, come to think of it, there seemed very little point to what I read. When I first began writing, wordy, self-indulgent stuff was referred to as 'Purple prose' and was to be avoided at all cost. Unfortunately, Le Guin didn't go to that lecture when she wrote this. She isn't alone though; even Arthur C. Clarke's early works had a habit of falling into this trap. I am forced to conclude given the rave reviews this book had that tastes have changed, and some books have not aged well.
In some respects, the 1960/70s were the years to be trying to get published if you wrote sci-fi. Stick a rocket on the cover and you could be forgiven for thinking that anything sold in this genre. On the other hand, maybe the glut of boring self-indulgent books of this time were responsible for the decline of sci-fi as big genre for those who came afterwards. Now it is quite hard to get sci-fi published.
Other books in the set have impressed me, and it isn’t all doom and gloom. Flow my tears, the Policeman said by Philip K. Dick is an astounding work, and so were Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, I am Legend by Richard Matheson and Mission of gravity by Hal Clement were all excellent reads. So there were still excellent works in amongst this glut of over written rubbish. What makes me surprised is the fact that some of these bad books won prizes, gathered rave reviews and - above all – are considered masterpieces. I think that tastes have changed an awful lot. Would any of these poor works have been published today if Le Guin had gone to a publisher in 2010 and punted that manuscript around? A part of me thinks probably not.
Still, what do I know? Well, maybe beyond what I like.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
All over the house » Archive » Parrot fashion
Beware of Parrots belonging to rude people - they pick up all those snarky private comments and repeat them when you least expect it...
All over the house » Archive » Parrot fashion
All over the house » Archive » Parrot fashion
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Now that's what I call, er, crap? 17
Today in the post I received a lovely copy of NOW 17 on double LP. It's in mint condition, and I hasten to add that the reason it came here is because I collect records and am currently collecting a complete set of all the NOW albums that existed on LP (1-35, for those who are interested).
One thing I have noticed about the NOW albums is that a lot of them are packed with what we ought to politely refer to as 'better suited to being spread thinly on a field of vegetables to aid their growing' than music. NOW 17 does not disappoint in this respect. Actually, I would go as far as to say that the needle on my turntable now feels dirty for having dragged itself through that filth. I count only three, maybe four tracks that are remotely worthwhile. In honest truth a fair few of these records don't even register in the section of my memory entitled 'crap music I remember and hate from my formative years'. That means that they must have been total here-today-gone-tomorrow one hit wonders. Well, if you can call them that.
Depeche mode's 1990 hit "Enjoy the silence" is certainly the best track on there. However, I understand why there are now so few surviving copies of NOW17 - it is utter rubbish. Manufactured sacharin pish and false psuedo dance mucis that leaves the impression of a record exec who was about as far away from 'it' as it is possible to be saying "Hey, I know what the kids want, because I'm with it!". Sorry matey, but they changed what 'it' was sometime in the late 1950s and forgot to send you the memo. It is little wonder that there was such an explosion at the time in popularity of underground groups and styles that led to the first great revolution and death of the charts. I remember now why acid house and rave became so big so fast when the 'official' record company offerings comprised of garishly dressed teenagers in sideways baseball caps and not a trace of stubble on their clean cut and (urggggghhhh!) wholesome faces.
The NOW series went through a really bad time. I can recomend wholeheartedly copies of NOW 6, 8 and 10 (available for no more than £1 from any decent secondhand record shop) but after 10, they certainly slipped bigtime. It wasn't until NOW 20 that they started to find their way again, and there was certainly another big blip to come. But that was after LP copies stopped being pressed (the end came at NOW 35 - a very rare copy to find on LP) so is luckily outside the scope of my LP collection. I shall breath a sigh of relief.
One thing I have noticed about the NOW albums is that a lot of them are packed with what we ought to politely refer to as 'better suited to being spread thinly on a field of vegetables to aid their growing' than music. NOW 17 does not disappoint in this respect. Actually, I would go as far as to say that the needle on my turntable now feels dirty for having dragged itself through that filth. I count only three, maybe four tracks that are remotely worthwhile. In honest truth a fair few of these records don't even register in the section of my memory entitled 'crap music I remember and hate from my formative years'. That means that they must have been total here-today-gone-tomorrow one hit wonders. Well, if you can call them that.
Depeche mode's 1990 hit "Enjoy the silence" is certainly the best track on there. However, I understand why there are now so few surviving copies of NOW17 - it is utter rubbish. Manufactured sacharin pish and false psuedo dance mucis that leaves the impression of a record exec who was about as far away from 'it' as it is possible to be saying "Hey, I know what the kids want, because I'm with it!". Sorry matey, but they changed what 'it' was sometime in the late 1950s and forgot to send you the memo. It is little wonder that there was such an explosion at the time in popularity of underground groups and styles that led to the first great revolution and death of the charts. I remember now why acid house and rave became so big so fast when the 'official' record company offerings comprised of garishly dressed teenagers in sideways baseball caps and not a trace of stubble on their clean cut and (urggggghhhh!) wholesome faces.
The NOW series went through a really bad time. I can recomend wholeheartedly copies of NOW 6, 8 and 10 (available for no more than £1 from any decent secondhand record shop) but after 10, they certainly slipped bigtime. It wasn't until NOW 20 that they started to find their way again, and there was certainly another big blip to come. But that was after LP copies stopped being pressed (the end came at NOW 35 - a very rare copy to find on LP) so is luckily outside the scope of my LP collection. I shall breath a sigh of relief.
Monday, 19 July 2010
Lie back and think of something.
Starting a new book is the hardest thing. I've written about this before, and I make no apology for mentioning it again. Not least because it's that time of the year again. My usual methods in writing a book involve a planning stage that usually sees me doing a lot of listening to music whilst thinking (stop whinging, because you can't do the same where you work and charge the time as valid business expense). With basic plot summary in my head I have a rough idea of sort of what I'm going to write. I discuss ideas a lot with people at this stage too, as bouncing ideas off some-one does help develop things, iron out wrinkles that you yourself missed and gets it well stuck in mind so that key details dreamt up to the soundtrack of Space Brothers and Delerium don't get instantly forgotten again.
Commiting to the page comes when the guilt of having no tangible output that I can hold up and say "Here, I have been working - honest. Look what I did, Mummy - stick it to the door of the fridge" gets too much. I find opening that plain, empty document template is really hard. Staring at white empty space in a word processing programme really does get you down. Current word count: 0. Target word count: 90,000. Ouch. So at this stage I try to think of an opening that flows quickly to the page, just to get something down. Sometimes this really works well, and I keep what I write. Other times (more often) it quietly gets deleted or substantially rewritten once I've got a few more words written and I think I won't miss those first few thousand hastily written daubs. In the writing section of my website I recently posted an example of the original opening to one book I wrote. Nothing of it is in the finished book, but it got the ball rolling so it did its bit.
I've written maybe 500 words, and I'm already blogging as a means of writing-avoidance. Before you know it I'll be vacuuming the carpets and dusting shelves - the joys of being a writer. Still, I've already written two books this year, with a third prepped for going to print, so it's not like I've had seven months of staring at the ceiling doing nothing but listen to music, honest.
Commiting to the page comes when the guilt of having no tangible output that I can hold up and say "Here, I have been working - honest. Look what I did, Mummy - stick it to the door of the fridge" gets too much. I find opening that plain, empty document template is really hard. Staring at white empty space in a word processing programme really does get you down. Current word count: 0. Target word count: 90,000. Ouch. So at this stage I try to think of an opening that flows quickly to the page, just to get something down. Sometimes this really works well, and I keep what I write. Other times (more often) it quietly gets deleted or substantially rewritten once I've got a few more words written and I think I won't miss those first few thousand hastily written daubs. In the writing section of my website I recently posted an example of the original opening to one book I wrote. Nothing of it is in the finished book, but it got the ball rolling so it did its bit.
I've written maybe 500 words, and I'm already blogging as a means of writing-avoidance. Before you know it I'll be vacuuming the carpets and dusting shelves - the joys of being a writer. Still, I've already written two books this year, with a third prepped for going to print, so it's not like I've had seven months of staring at the ceiling doing nothing but listen to music, honest.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Twinkle little star.
I've just finished doing the editing on the sequel to 'Bringing home the stars'. I've also finalised the name which will be 'Twinkle little star' - sounds somewhat James Patterson in style, but hey - I like it and it fits with the plot. It's only the second draft, and it didn't take anywhere near as long as the first draft did to write (thank goodness). It now goes to Zoë who will read through and suggest corrections and then I'll do a third draft of it (who ever said that writing a book was write it and print it? Oh no!). In the mean time I have another book to start work on.
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