Archive for category Journal
In defence of cynicism
It has occurred to me that as the years go by I start to sound more and more like an anti-BBC, anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-capitalist nutcase; the sort who skulks around on forums extolling the virtues of indy media, ranting about the police surveillance state and how fair trade is a scam and we should all be growing our own organic food.
However, I think my distinguishing feature is that I’m not convinced it’s all some deliberate conspiracy. Almost all of my rants about the failings of any particular organisation stem from a belief that I think they’re just not very good at what they do. Examples:
- I regularly find myself talking about how bad BBC News is, but not because I think they’re left-wing or controlled by the government; I just think they’re bad journalists. Especially Rory Cellan-Jones.
- I’m quick to point and laugh whenever Google fall foul of violations of privacy law, not because I think they’re evil and exploiting users, but because I think they rush into things without really thinking them through more often than they should for people who are are supposedly very clever.
- I’m opposed to national ID cards, but not because of a fear of the government knowing too much about me; I just know they’ll bugger it up and all our records will be sent to the Russian Mafia one day by some useless prat who thought that email attachment he opened was going to be naked photos of Maria Sharapova.
In short, I think it’s all too easy to ascribe to malice what can more easily be explained as incompetence. Conspiracy theorists, take note.
Dear Royal Mail: using the same name for two different services is retarded
Full text of my letter to Royal Mail. This is long and probably only interesting if you’re hacked off with Royal Mail or the Post Office, but it does highlight the complete lack of joined-up thinking going on there, and the lack of training that their staff receive.
Betrayed
Just when I thought I could trust Ikea, they screw me over my bumping the confirmed delivery date so that it’s a whole week later than the estimated delivery date, meaning we won’t get our new furniture until well after we move in.
That means I actually have to move the old furniture, then get rid of it later, instead of disposing of it when we move out.
DAMN YOU, IKEA!
Traction
My first attempt at getting up the now very icy hill we live at the top of was a miserable failure. My initial run-up was broken by a Jaguar which had failed its run, and in having to slow to manoeuvre around it, I lost momentum.
A few hours later, when the road was once again empty and quiet, I took another long run up and just made it up in first gear, at far higher revs than my speed would account for, due to the tyres half-slipping all the way up.
The ice rink will only solidify overnight, and we are forecast more heavy snow by tomorrow evening. The car is staying put. I’m walking.
Oh, the irony
As seen while reading BBC News – TV buff’s thrill over test card

