Month: April 2007

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
– Auguste Rodin

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
– Jean de La Fontaine

Anxiety focuses not around the issues themselves, but around the uncertainty of their outcome. And as we think about positive thoughts, we destroy anxiety around us just as a larger wave will remove a smaller wave.
– Mike George

Happy St George’s Day

I hope you English people are wearing your rose.
Happy Downshifting Week
Here’s what I said last year.
Have you made any steps towards a simpler, more sustainable, less consuming life?

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
– Marcel Proust

I meant to post this one a few weeks ago, but forgot. Still, maybe there is still someone who hasn’t heard and will benefit so I’ll mention it now anyway.
The Open University has made some of its learning materials available free online.
There are free courses available in the following subjects (the number is the number of courses):
Arts and History 24
Business and Management 16
Education 29
Health and Lifestyle 16
IT and Computing 24
Mathematics and Statistics 24
Modern Languages 6
Science and Nature 21
Society 25
Study Skills 12
Technology 13
So, for example, if you wanted to brush up your French, German, Spanish, or even English grammar, courses are here. A course about the developmental lifecycle of a database is here, and info on the principles of recruitment and selection is here. And if you want to find out how to enhance pupil learning on museum visits, or how to evlauate good classroom design, it’s here. Global warming and pain and aspirin are here. Or maybe you want to spend 20 hours finding out who makes social problems?
There are some interesting looking courses – my selection isn’t at all representative – but they haven’t made the list of courses at all user-friendly. You need to go here and click around. There is a lot more info than is inititially apparent too.
What will you do?

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
– Peter F. Drucker

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
– George Eliot

Link for a free Oyster Card for any UK resident who doesn’t already have one here.
Red Ken’s latest scheme will save you £3 for the card, then £2.50 on every single tube journey (cost with card £1.50 in Zones 1 & 2 cf £4) and £1 per bus journey (cost with card £1 cf £2). You don’t have to pay anything on application, but you will need to put money on it before you use it.
Of course, the Powers That Be will then be able to track you if you get it this way, as they need your address to post it to you, so you may be better getting one from a tube station or other outlet, unless of course you don’t live near one and just want one for occasional moneysaving use.
A word of caution though – I use mine (an unregistered one, of course!) for going into London from the edge of Zone 6. I’ve found that the amounts they deduct if you make multiple journeys using tube and bus in one day are frequently inaccurate. In theory the maximum deducted is supposed to be cheaper than a paper Day Travelcard, but the amount they deduct varies – it is sometimes lower and sometimes higher. We’re only talking small amounts (the most I’ve been overcharged is £1.80, and the least undercharged 60p), but I do think TfL’s technology should be slightly more accurate. I’m sure that 99.99% of people wouldn’t bother to check their fare, but, it’s a long way into Central London from the edge of Zone 6, and I need something to do other than cut the cords of noisy iPods with my BW Blue Scissors 🙂

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
– Martin Luther King

The Black Fluffy Familar might have been unanimously voted Patient of the Day by all the staff at the vets (“No matter what we had to do to her, she just purred”), but, given she is an outdoor cat with a job to do (catching mats and rice for my spells) rather than a pampered lap-rug, I do think that she could have done without the pink bandage with blue hearts and flowers over her splint, don’t you?
And just *how* is she meant to walk about for a month with that contraption on her leg? It’s an inch longer than her other leg and is so solid that she thuds as she moves! It was funny watching her trying to hunt a large spider that was teasing her in the utility where she is currently holed up.
Although both her ulna and radius are broken, they are clean breaks (one more a crack than a break), so she didn’t need an operation. Although the lower half of her tail is still droopy, there’s apparently nothing wrong with it.

Thinking some more about what she might have done to acquire such an injury, and looking around The Coven Grounds, I have a suspicion that she jumped or fell out of Grandma Tree (a weeping silver birch planted in memory of my Grandmother), onto the low wrought iron gate that leads into the potting/oil tank area behind the workshop. The gate is partially open as we are working round there a lot at present, and it probably moved as she landed on it. This picture was taken 3 or 4 weeks ago, and, since then, we have removed some of the lower branches to give the tree more shape, which will have made it more difficult for her to get down.
It does amaze me is the way animals get better and more timely medical attention than humans in this country. Given that most people eat killed animals, I do wonder how they are prepared to spend out as much money as they do on pet animals. The vet told Mr BW that he wanted to do another x-ray in a month’s time, just to check the bones had healed well. Mr BW soon put him straight on the likelihood of that! Given that x-rays like this involve general anaesthetics, and that humans would never be re-x-rayed for simple breaks, one can only come to one conclusion. Hmmm.

By chance, on Saturday I read an article that informed me that the [‘government’ department that deals with matters agricultural] (no link = no Google) has decreed that it is now illegal for anyone who keeps even a few hens in their backyard to provide eggs for their own consumption to feed them their own kitchen scraps.
So… let’s see… we’ve got one ‘government’ department telling us to reduce-reuse-recycle before resorting to consigning to landfill. And another one telling us that the most sensible way to re-use kitchen waste is now illegal.
I’m usually quite a law-abiding person,. even though I disagree with much of the nanny-state legislation that has been introduced in the last few years.
I am going to break the law several times every day. I look forward to being locked up.
A good starting point for more info on hens and eggs.
One take on these regulations (note the linked official page comes up as a 404).

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
– Leonardo da Vinci

This is the long pond area that most of our windows overlook. Apart from the ones on the front or side of the house, that is. Taken on Thursday afternoon I think, when I sat outside with the laptop and tried to proof-read a report, but found I couldn’t because my brain was too fluffy to work. It was 22 degrees on the thermometer. I wish it had been the temperature causing the brain malfunction.
The area was tidied up and cut down over the Easter weekend, and is now beginning to grow back up. In a couple of months time there will be almost no bare areas visible and almost everything will be 4 times its current height. Oh – drD, that saxifrage I mentioned that would be perfect for your wonderful new slate creation… the magenta/burgundy one… bottom right.
Black Fluffy Kitten, now 6 months, was patrolling the pond, seeing if there was a hole in the anti-heron mesh that would allow her to secure herself a koi snack, but there wasn’t, and repeatedly running across my feet. Which turned out not to be lucky for her, because sometime late yesterday she had some sort of accident. I think she fell off the roof where she was likely emulating her sister Pointy Velcro Claws’s fearless and ridiculous antics, but the vet thinks she got hit by a car – *sighs and renews efforts to get a 40mph speed limit on our lane* – I think he’s wrong as there has never been a cat which has survived that fate and her injuries don’t fit with that. She has a broken left paw (hard to feel, so probably not a nasty break), and possibly other damage as her tail is slightly droopy (but improving), although her back legs are fine and she can do the necessary things, including purr very very loudly.
The vet wasn’t prepared to give her an anaesthetic today, and said he couldn’t do anything until Monday. We weren’t prepared to take her 15 miles to a rather nasty town to the suggested out-of-hours-animal-hospital place where she would likely be ‘looked after’ by a schoolkid or trainee vet nurse who’d spent the previous night clubbing until 5am and was still off her head, so we brought her home. She seems a lot better now. I think the spells have helped. Monday could be operation day. Or plaster day. Or D-Day.

Why is it so difficult to find substantial loo brushes these days?
They either break at the first opportunity, or are made of nasty chrome that shows every drop of water unless you polish it (and even *I* won’t ask our cleaner to polish the bog brush), or plastic that bends when you use it.
Why do brushes only come with white bristles, that look grubby in no time? The black of old was so much more pleasant. And why are they now designed as half spheres? The old washing-up brush-shape used to work so much better.
Why can’t you buy replacement brush heads for ‘pretty sets’ that cost £30?
And why are the brushes ‘built in’ to the lid so that you have to consign the whole lot to landfill within months, rather than just get a new brush? And as for the size of the pots the brushes are meant to stand in – why are they so miniscule?
Whatever happened to quality loo brushes? The sort that Addis used to make…
Perhaps people simply replace their toilets rather than cleaning them these days? And how often do you clean yours anyway? Do you even have a loo brush?

In case you haven’t already seen it, there’s an interesting post from mike here, which eloquently summarises the knicker-twist going on in many other corners of blogland. I started getting annoyed/despondent about it a couple of weeks ago, then stopped when I realised that I’d been there too many times before, and the answers weren’t going to be any different this time around.
As I said in mike’s comments,

“I suspect it all comes down to how one defines the concept of ‘friend’, and whether one has thought clearly about *why* one engages in group activity of any sort (ie whether one’s expectations are clear and/or appropriate). What ‘need’ it fulfils for you as an individual rather than a corporate sheep (or however else you might define yourself), all that sort of thing.
The phrase, “As Mr Unreliable points out, we often use blogs to say things that we wouldn’t say to someone’s face, or in normal conversation.” from Marcos above is also a key part of this to me. I don’t think I’ve ever said anything en blog (or in comments) to someone that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. Which is probably why my circle of real-life friends, like my blog circle, is small, but realiable and dependable 🙂 I can’t be doing with superficiality and I won’t spend time on situations or people who don’t meet one of my needs.
If anyone is interested in knowing more about the sort of thing I’m wittering on about, Marshall Roseberg’s Non-Violent Communciation stuff is a good place to start…
On an unrelated note, but taking another of your points, mike, there is undoubtedly now much less concern for blog buddies’ welfare than there was 3 or 4 years ago, and far fewer people post ‘explanations’ for absences than they used to. It’s a question of scale and coverage methinks. I also think many of the ‘old timers’ now use Twitter in the way they once used their blogs. The ‘generally perceived standard’ of what it is appropriate/acceptable to post on one’s blog has definitely been upped of late. Probably why my Witchy Powers made me want to post about bog brushes today, before I read any of this 😉

(and yes, unusually, I’ve artificially altered the time on this so it falls under the bog brush post, because I’m really only just recording this for posterity, so that next time round… ;))

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.
– Charles Schultz

Hot cross buns: Chocolate eggs
(consumed at The Coven over the BH weekend)
Your score?

When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others’ behaviour, we have no enemies.
– Marshall Rosenberg

An unfortunate part of the work I do is that I have to write reports. Long reports. By long I mean 6-8,000 words each, which, with a bit of prettying up (paragraphs and sub-headings), is generally around 14 pages of single spaced print. If I didn’t have to write reports after each involvement I would do much more work, as I love what I do, I just hate writing it all down after as I’m a bit of a a total perfectionist and everything has to be just right.
I always send at least 2 copies of a report to the client, and sometimes 3. I see perhaps a sixth of all clients for review after a year or 18 months. I could manufacture a need to review more of them (the way that most of my colleagues do) because more reviews = more £, but I don’t believe in ripping people off, and I’m (*polishes halo*) generally good at sorting things out the first time, and the detail in my reports helps people remember what I’ve suggested. Plus, I’m always happy to talk things through with people by phone afterwards (and I make no charge for that, although I probably should, as everyone else does).
Recently I’ve had numerous requests for duplicate reports. Almost exclusively from clients I worked with several years ago, and who have no need or intention for more of my involvement. Excuses given include, “The house movers lost a box and it was the box with all my papers in,” (knowing the general disorganisation of the person involved, I can be fairly sure that’s untrue), “I gave one copy to [someone] who can’t find it now, and the other copy I kept was missing 2 pages off the back (that is certainly untrue as I have an obsessive compulsive routine – I always print all my copies, count the pages, add the cover sheet, staple the pages, sign the back page, then check through each stapled set to see that the page numbers are sequential – and sometimes I take the copies out of the envelope as I’m about to seal it, just to check again (if you need an explanation for this – I once worked with a ‘secretary’ who was useless and used to omit pages from my documents – I suspect deliberately, hence my paranoia now), “My toddler scribbled on it!” (the only one that I can believe) and, “It’s easier to ring you for another one than to search for where I put it!” (I’d much rather hear honest excuses like this).
My archiving system is quite complex as I am required to keep all papers indefinitely, and I accrue lots of pieces of paper that it’s not practical to keep in my live filing system (which already runs to 7 four drawer filing cabinets). For reasons of confidentiality I also don’t keep old electronic files on my PC in case it ever stolen. Consequently, if someone wants a duplicate report, it takes me at least half an hour to locate it, print it, put it in an evelope with a compliments slip, and do the general admin involved in sending it out (note on file that duplicate has been sent, record in post book, taking it to the post box etc etc). Incidentally, if I costed the work involved at my normal charge-out rate, it would be more than £20.
So, this week, I decided that I’d introduce a charge for duplicate reports of £20, when all that was required was another copy, and there was no call for more personal (billable) involvement. Talking it through with Mr BW, he suggested that I ensure I received a cheque before sending the report.
Given that each client had already had 2 or 3 copies of the report, that banks/credit card companies charge £12 for duplicate statements, and that last year Idiot Arch1tect charged £28 for each set of plans above 2 – when you need 6 for a planning application, plus a few for the bui1der – and that there is actually at least half an hour’ of my time involved, plus printing and postage costs, I didn’t think that was unreasonable.
I tried my new policy out yesterday when I received a very curt email from a client from 3 years ago, saying, “Blue Witch, I need another copy of the report you prepared for me, please forward it at your earliest convenience, my address hasn’t changed. Kind Regards, Mrs [Client Surname]” (given that she’d called me by my first name, I thought it was a cheek for her to use her surname, particularly in an email, but...)
I replied, “Mrs [Client Surname], I can supply a copy of the report, but, due to the number of these requests I get, I do now make a charge of £20 to cover admin, printing and postage. Please send your cheque to me at The Coven, and I will forward your copy report on receipt. Kind regards (I detest that expression, but she used it), Blue Witch”
I’ve just had the client concerned on the phone, shouting, swearing and fuming. The gist, when one deletes the language, is that she thinks I have a cheek, she’s not going to pay, she’s going to complain, and she will make me send it to her free of charge. In fact she’s going to make me send 3 copies free of charge. Not quite sure who she’s going to complain to, mind… It may surprise you to learn that the client concerned is a consu1tant in a top London hospital, and also does private work – so, not exactly hard up.
So, my question is, in the circumstances I describe, do you think it’s unreasonable for me to make such a charge? (for those of you who are not self-employed, don’t forget, one only gets paid for billable hours, that every sheet printed or postage stamp used constitutes a drop in one’s income, and that I have fulfilled my contractural obligations to a client when I send out the first set of reports)

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
– Carl Jung

Way, way back, when I completed my professional training, which was so long ago that the internet was not even properly born, every year there was an end-of-course conference where all the propspective new entrants to the profession from all the universities running training courses got together.
I’m not quite sure of its exact purpose, but it seemed to involve drinking, talking, drinking, moaning about one’s tutors and practical placements, drinking, and – the highlight of the 3 days – a presentation from each course of some aspect of professional practice. Oh yes, and 2 weddings and a baby ensued from our particular conference. But I’m sure that wasn’t its intention.
Generally the presentations were viewed as a way of a course group getting a paper published in one of the professional journals, which would look good on one’s CV.
There were 8 people on my course. 7 of us were free-thinking rebels who questioned everything and debated with anyone at every opportunity. One was a goody-goody. Only 3 of us are still working in the profession, and only one of those still works in the public sector, who are the profession’s main employers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that person is the goody-goody, and she now runs a hugely powerful tranche of the country’s services.
Only the goody-goody wanted to do a serious presentation. The rest of us decided, from the moment that we heard about the expectation, that we weren’t going to play ball, and would instead do some amusing skit that would send something up. I suspect that basic principle might have been my fault. Such rebellions often are. Only no-one had an idea, and it got to a week beforehand before people started to panic and the course leader got wind of the fact that we had nothing prepared.
So, 3 of us sat down together late one evening, with 15 doughnuts (I vividly remember that, because one of our number was an anorexic and ate none of them, although her plate was constantly covered in sugar, meaning that two of us had quite a large number each, even though we believed we’d only had 5), 4 bottles of wine and a blank page.
All three of us had completed training placements within what was, at the time, the most forward-thinking service in the country. And we’d all noticed the growth in buzz-words used in whole team meetings.
10 minutes of effort produced a list of 30 or 40 annoying and meaningless expressions that continually fell out of our more experienced mentors’ mouths.
Another 2 hours and we had written a script for our presentation, that would, 6 days after, eventually bring the house down and have people crying with laughter. I like to think that we invented the concept of bull5hit bing0. Certainly, at that time, no-one had heard of it before, and it was a totally novel idea inspired by copious amounts of jam, grapes, flour and yeast. It was years before Dilbert came up with it:

Nowadays, such trendy idioms are commonplace. Rampant in the workplace and littered throughout every serious TV and radio news broadcast or topical discussion programme. I detest them and try to avoid their use, and challenge those who use them to explain what they mean. Plain English is best. There are even websites dedicated to the phrases, and others that will auto-generate bull5hit bing0 cards for ‘office use’.
What are the current favourite meaningless ‘management speak’ phrases in your workplace?
What purpose do you think they serve?
And are you guilty of using them?

The ultimate goal of a more effective and efficient life is to provide you with enough time to enjoy some of it.
– Michael LeBoeuf

Chris Rea may think it’s the M25, but I’ve got news for him.
I counted 34 huge lorries registered in Poland, Slovakia or Lithuania between the Huntingdon junction on the A14 and the Stansted turn off the M11 this afternoon – which is perhaps a 30-35 mile stretch of dual carriageway.
Most of these juggernauts were old, filthy, and belching visible pollution (and there is, of course, no requirement for them to adhere to our strict standards of vehicle maintenance or roadworthiness). They’re not paying us a penny to use our roads. I’ll bet they arrive on our shores with full tanks and wait until they are back across the North Sea or Channel to fill up with diesel for their homeward journey, so we’re not even getting the benefit of the tax on the fuel. And does anyone check their insurance when they come into the country?
I have never seen such traffic on that section, and as for road courtesy – well, non-existent doesn’t adequately cover it. Miles and miles of being reduced to 35 or 40mph in the outside (second) lane while they played their games of trying to overtake each other up hills. Constantly watching them pull out on passing vehicles without signalling, or trying to avoid being the driver pulled out on. Some of this might be due to a good proportion having no, or inadequate, mirrors on their right sides, so no way of seeing what was overtaking. Or maybe their rules of the road are different to ours and you give way to vehicles pulling out to overtake? I’m not saying that the UK registered lorries weren’t also involved, but, generally, they were at least signalling and checking there was an adequate gap before pulling out.
I’m just glad I don’t have to use that stretch of road very often.
I wondered what the vehicles had been transporting? Surely not lorryloads of builders? Or supplies for the Eastern European delis that seem to be opening on every corner? And couldn’t the cargoes be moved by rail?
Time we had charges for foreign vehicles using our roads methinks. And spot-checks on roadworthiness, knowledge of our Highway Code, and a requirement for mirrors on the RHS. For starters.
I’ve just discovered that a 12 month ban on overtaking lorries was introduced on the A14 yesterday – but only on 2 sections further north, and only between 06:00 and 20:00.

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.
– Cary Grant

Let everyone sweep in front of his [or her] own door, and the whole world will be clean.
– Goethe