Itisi

Over the weekend I mentioned (on Facebook) that we had been receiving some weird silent calls. On Saturday I traced the number and found out it belonged to Weatherseal. Thankfully, the silent calls have stopped, but they have been replaced by sales calls. Oh, except apparently they aren’t sales calls, they want to do a survey. Yes, right, of course they do (rolls eyes). A little tip for whoever comes up with the marketing strategies for Weatherseal – I used to work in sales and marketing and can tell you that it’s never a good idea to insult the intelligence of a prospective customer – not that I am, but you don’t know that do you. No one is falling for the ‘just want to do a survey’ line, and anyone who appears to is probably having you on. Trust me!

Anyhoo, rather than rant on ad infinitum about this, here’s a little poem explaining my position.

Dear People from Weatherseal

Your constant calling is a pest,
The silent calls I do detest
And so I feel I must insist
You take me off your bloody list

If you should choose to persevere
Please heed this warning, though severe
I’ll lift the phone and with aplomb
Report your bottoms to Ofcom

Yours sincerely,

Updated to add: Coincidently, this is in the news today.

Currently listening to: Someone outside drilling something



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Just been speaking to Number Three Son who actually isn’t smelly, but is safely installed at uni. It’s freshers week at the moment so he hasn’t started studying yet, but has got to know some people which is a Very Good Thing. I was quite worried that he might find that side of university life a little overwhelming. He’s always been quite shy and it took him a while to get to know people at school, having brothers who were only to happy to jump in and speak for him didn’t help. Anyhow, my fears were unfounded, he has made some friends, joined a few societies (even one for bell ringers, oddly) and likes the city.

The downside is, one of his flatmates came completely unprepared, helps himself to everyone else’s plates, pans and utensils* and leaves the kitchen in a mess. Apparently his excuse is that he was under the impression everything would be provided, including a maid service, but I don’t think anyone is falling for that because a loooong list of essentials was sent out well in advance. I suppose there is always one.

So that’s the latest from us. If you have your own little fresher I hope they are settling in and enjoying student life.

* Mr Blogs thinks this is karma for all the times we found ourselves with 3 plates in the cupboard because N3S had 15 scattered around his room.

Updated to add: We’ve just had a sales call from someone wanting to know if we need a stairlift or one of those contraptions to get you in and out of the bath. Do these people not check who they are calling! I’m not sure if I would want a stairlift even if I did have trouble with the stairs. Whenever I see one, that scene in Gremlins comes to mind. And now I really must go, I need to put some food on my family.

I did have a really good post* all written in my head, but gave up trying to actually convert it into pixels because I’ve had a cat sitting on my arm for the past hour. I suppose I could have moved him, but he looked so comfy. Instead here is a filler post are 3 random things about me to do with religion** – yes, another one of those.

1)  As a child I had to go to church every Sunday which I found mind-numbingly boring. To amuse myself I used to make up stories (in my head) about the other members of the congregation.

2) Still at mass – I was terrified of the priest, Father Richardson. Not because he was nasty, or weird (I know some are apparently) but because he seemed to be so incredibly holy. Remember Father Merrin in The Exorcist? This chap made him look like a loose-living womaniser. I was pretty sure that while other priests had a hotline to God, God had a hotline to Father R and was grateful for it.

Anyhoo, Father R did the works at my aunt’s wedding and came along to the reception afterwards. I was a bridesmaid so ended up sitting at the same table as him, much to my consternation. I mean, imagine the chap God calls sir sitting next to you at dinner. It turned out he was really nice, just a bit reserved and thoughtful. He listened to me prattle on for ages, showed me which knife and fork to use, explained why the wine glasses were a different shape and all in a way which didn’t make me feel like a silly and annoying little girl, even though I probably was.

3) When I was 18 I went to stay with my uncle and his new wife who happened to be a Baptist. On the Sunday morning she asked me if I’d like to go to church with her. Biting down my initial response of ‘ha ha ha ha, obviously, you jest’, I reluctantly agreed because I didn’t want to appear rude***. However, once there I underwent the strangest crisis of conscience.

Despite being a very, very lapsed Catholic it seemed like an enormous betrayal to be attending the service of another faith. (Yes, inter-faith dialogue was lost on me.) If I was going to not want to go to a church, I was going to not want to go the church I had been baptised into. Fortunately, I came up with a cunning plan. I muttered during responses and hummed along with the singing – I think I got away with it.

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I’ve just been reading this post over at Rants, Thoughts and Other Things and I had to go through it twice because I really couldn’t believe what I was reading. Click over and have a look . . . bizarre or what?! How on earth can a part of someone’s body be out of fashion?!

It’s pretty much a given that the fashion industry is so far up it’s own bottom it can see it’s own back molars*, but over the last decade or so it has turned into a parody of itself. I could honestly believe they are using Ab Fab as a training aid. Once again, how can a body part be out of fashion? And, what’s next? Will ears be out next summer? Feet a definite no-no for Xmas 2009?

Being serious, it is apparent that anyone manufacturing womens’ clothes which can only be worn by the flat chested are making a product which is not fit for purpose. We wouldn’t accept that in any other area of life, so why do we accept it when it comes to our clothes. Who would buy a car that was too small for anyone over 4’2″ to fit in, no matter how good it looked? Apart from collectors and the small number of people under 4’2″ I’m guessing the answer is no one. The same should be true of clothes.

Oh, and as for the man who thinks only men can design for women, well, the words self-indulgent plonker come to mind. I’m trying to work out whether he comes from the Oliver Cromwell school of design, or just has a thing about very thin boys people clad in lots of tweed**.

* I mean, these are the people who invented puffball skirts, culottes, neon cycling shorts (for men) and in the ’90s those huge ‘Frankenstein’ shoes which made their wearers appear to have size 19 feet and legs like twigs.

** A look favoured by the Nazis.

Currently listening to: A man calling his dog. He was out there a few days ago so I’m guessing it’s a bit of a Houdini.



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I like Blogger. Really I do. I came back here from self-hosted WordPress, so I think that tells you I like Blogger. I do, however, have one small quibble. Why do the fonts used in the captchas – the letters you have to type into a box when you make a comment on some blogs – have to be so elaborate? Are spammers only able to read sans-serif? Do the designers at Blogger have a huge folder of fancy fonts that they want to share with the world? Are they attempting to ruin our eyesight because of secret deal with opticians? Seriously, can someone please tell me if there is a reason for this ever-more swirly text?

Currently listening to: Nothing really, it’s very quiet, but I can hear an owl now and again.





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