Talk to the robot

I have had a cold now for 3 weeks which has been rather depressing. I have noticed that my body does seem to deal with infections and colds but takes twice as long as it should. This week rather than getting better I seemed to be getting worse, so a quick call to my GP yesterday and I got a course of antibiotics  for the chest infection (although chances are it is viral and they will make no difference). I also gave up trying to struggle into work dosed up with paracetemol and spent the day watching TV, from the Dog Whisperer to Judge Judy! My GP surgery has an automated switch board, which means that you can book an appointment 24 hours a day. The female voice on the recorded message is about as irritating as they come!

My afternoon TV was interupted by the phone. When I picked it up it was a recorded message that I assumed was advertising so I hung up; however, when I checked the number it was the appointment departement at the local hospital. This really annoyed me. I have no idea what they wanted to tell me. I have an appointment next Wednesday so maybe it was related to that. I left a message on their answerphone:

"Hello, I received an automated message from you but as I assumed it was someone selling me something I hung up so I have no idea whether the message was important. My name is Lovely and I have an appointment with Dr Rock next week. If you need to tell me anything important about that appointment can you please call me back with a real person and not some bl**dy robot!"

I really resent public money being spent on these daft machines!

Sales pitch

When marking or reading things for work I find I get much more done in the quiet of my own living room. So, this afternoon I settled in to experience the joys of MSc research dissertations. Twenty minutes in the doorbell rang. A young lad with a clipboard was standing on the step and as he could see me sitting there I thought I ought to answer. He appeared rather shifty and a little nervous and then started into his sales pitch."Hello, how are you today?"
I felt like answering "What the f*ck is it to do with you. I've never seen you before in my life and already you're talking to me as if you've known me for years" but instead I say "okay" and try to push the door towards closed. Sadly, the opening line was the most fluent the salesman ever got as he then got into his prepared script to try to get me to sign up for some gas company that would save me money ('yes sure, so why do they pay you to tell me about it'..but you know they have a prepared script to answer that one and I really must get back to my marking). "I'm already with Scottish Power" I say , "and I have spoken to someone recently about the bill". (After all, he is only some poor lad taken from the 'welfare to work' scheme and obviously not really wanting to make a living doing this so no need to be rude). "Well, can you show me your last bill" said the lad , a little aggressively. "No", I said, getting irritated. "Oh, why not?" he said more aggressively. "Because it's none of your business, go away!", I said, crossly and shut the door. This did not deter him and he continued to ring on the door bell and bang on the glass for a further 5 minutes. I think he probably did his training in a young offenders institution!

Back to marking and half an hour later the door bell rang again. This time there was a young man and woman on the doorstep. My heart sank when he started with the same introduction. "Hello, and how's things today?" he said with a pseudo cheerfulness! "Do you have a BT Phone?"This time I managed to dispatch them a little quicker by just smiling sweetly and saying no thank you and shutting the door. He tried to wheedle his way in with a few niceties but this time I just didn't listen.

Back to the marking....

Seeing red

Chairman Bill has been blogging recently about conspiracy theories, medical quackery and pseudo science. It reminded me of a post I read the other day on a forum that is designed to give information to residents and guests staying in the region around the land. This post appeared under the title 'Food and Wine' and was a tirade against the artificial sweetener aspartame, copied by all accounts from an American website. The title of the post was 'sweet poison' and basically went on to blame every medical complaint known to man on the use of this particular substance. I found most of it vaguely amusing until I got to this part.

"In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis.. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers.

The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas."

Well, as one of the writer's so called 'victims' of a disease very similar to lupus I can say that it is this kind of unhelpful b*llocks that really p*sses off people with lupus and other auto-immune diseases. Auto-immune diseases are not caused by a toxin but by the body's immune system malfunctioning and starting to attack and destroy healthy cells. The exact mechanisms are still a little unknown but there is definitely a genetic component. And.. yes.. there are more people being diagnosed with all these diseases but this is not due to artificial sweetener but to the fact that more doctors know about auto-immune diseases and diagnosis is easier (and there are many more treatments available). My grandmother (who lived until she was 98) would get a rash on her face in the sun. This was almost certainly lupus but when she was young no one knew what it was and so she was never diagnosed. My own illness was only identified in 1976 so before then the numbers of cases were obviously limited.

Auto-immune disorders are characterised by flares and remissions and so if anyone did feel 'cured' after stopping the diet coke then I would guess that it was most likely due to a natural remission or placebo!

I can only hope that no one with lupus is stupid enough to believe that cr*p and stop their medication in order to try the aspartame free cure! If it was really that easy to cure lupus don't you think we would all have done it by now!

I would like to conclude my moan by saying that personally, I have never really seen the point of artificial sweeteners myself and never drink coke or fizzy drinks unless they contain alcohol (now there is a proven poison!)

On a totally different note, Ian got an email from his agency today telling him that it was company policy that if he became ill with swine flu he must stay off work until he is better. Now as the only way you can be sure that you have swine flu and not the more common illness of man flu, is to have a blood test, and these are not being carried out routinely this seems to be an order that is impossible to enforce! (Of course man-flu would require a week off work anyway!)

The ports are blockaded so it must be Easter

A frustrating few days ahead I fear as we are set to go over to France on Saturday and as we are taking the newly acquired trailer (Ian picked it up a few hours ago from a Tesco's car park on the M3 and manhandled it into his garden), fully laden with plasterboard, we could not take the tunnel on this occasion. So, we are booked onto a ferry from Dover only at the moment the French trawler men are blockading Calais, Boulogne and Dieppe in a dispute over fishing quotas and we are going nowhere! Usually these things don't last too long but as the trawler men can't fish anyway since there is nothing left in the ocean for them to catch they have nothing better to do than to park their boats at the harbour entrance. This would have been timed to coincide with everyone returning from their Easter vacation and thus ensure the maximum disruption and publicity. I must say the French really know how to protest. Demonstrations in Paris usually involve riots, fires and copious use of teargas that make the climate protests in London look like a day out (which mostly they are except for the usual small group of anarchists stirring up trouble and one or two rogue police officers who have not yet been assigned to desk duties).

The fisherman all get in their boats and go home over night, only to return the following morning and start the whole thing off again! Ian and I were wondering why the navy just don't go and sink them!

We are trying to think of a plan 'B'!

Walking bus

A quick comment tonight as my mind is befuddled after a day of pointless meetings (I must invest in a hologram of myself for such occasions as I am never expected to actually say anything) and an hour and a half of French classes.

I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning and driving to work came across the 'walking bus'. This is an admirable venture where groups of children congregate to all walk to school together in 'safety' with the company of some responsible adults. But.. why oh why do they have to make them all wear those high visibility jackets! Thirty children walking in line (and there can't be more than thirty or the group is not covered by their risk assessment) are easily spotted without the need for a fluorescent yellow uniform. My concern is that it turns the simple task of walking to school into a monumental lesson in health and safety nonsense equivalent to working on a three lane motorway, and ensures that children never learn how to assess the risk of walking along a road and crossing in traffic on the occasions when they don't have the walking bus with them! Whatever happened to walking to school with your mates like I did (and no, the world wasn't safer, and there weren't less paedophiles and although there were considerably less cars I'm not convinced that the driving was any safer!)

That's my moan for the day!

The downfall of the car industry

I have decided to buy a new car. I was hoping that my ancient Ford Fiasco would last until we went to France but recent driving has convinced me that its days are numbered, my savings are doing nothing in the bank and with a crisis in the car industry I should be able to get a good deal on a car. Well, that is what I thought, so after checking my bank balance, we made a trip to the local Ford dealers prepared to spend if there was a good deal to be had. We wandered around the lot for a while with no sign of a salesman and as it was cold we entered the sales room. A couple of salesmen were engaged with clients and in a room out the back several others sat chatting. We looked around the few cars in the room and eventually the receptionist asked us if we wanted help. We asked if we could see a salesman and she scurried off to find one. However, the room of men were unmoving and dismissed her instantly. She returned and said that there was no one available and could we come back later. At this my loathing of salesmen in general overpowered me and I said we couldn't and couldn't resist pointing out to her that if they had been more willing to help that they might have sold a car that afternoon. I would have been less annoyed if the receptionist had not insisted on addressing all her comments to Ian and not me who was the person paying for and driving the car!

Time for the car sales industry to join the 21st century or go out of business!

We are looking on the Internet and have seen a good price on a new Ford KaKa!

Banking in France

Ian has been trying to organise a small loan with a French bank to tide us over the poor exchange rate. We first applied in August with a personal visit to the bank where we met Emma, the English speaking financial advisor. Although Ian speaks fluent French we had to see Emma as we are English and she is employed to deal with the English clients (even though this required an additional trip to Bergerac). She was very positive and we started off the application. All was progressing smoothly (or so we thought) until the banking crisis, when we were told that the loan we had applied for was no longer available (even though Emma had told us it was okay). Anyway, it seems that Emma's promises are meaningless once the paperwork gets as far as head office.

Here is a sample of the emails that have been going back and forth!


Hi Ian

Head office need a quote from an electrician for wiring the house and a quote from the workman who will be putting in the windows… and hopefully then I will just have to push the print key and send the « demande de financement » direct to the address you gave me in France…

I will be in my office until about 3 o’clock your time and I will try to call you again tomorrow morning if we can’t get in touch before then.

Regards,

Emma Bertillon

Banque des Fermiers
Financial adviser/Conseiller particulier anglophone

De : ian@hotmail.com Envoyé : jeudi 16 octobre 2008 15:28À : Cp-en-ligne (CR824)Objet : RE: TR: RE: Home loan information: Quotes/Contracts

Hi Gemma

I tried to ring you, but you were away from your desk.I have no quote for the electricity since I envisaged my friend would be doing it with my help and then we would have it inspected by the Consuel.The windows will be installed by Batiman (I thought this was in the quote?)I hope this is sufficient.

Kind regards

Ian


Hello,

For the electricity I need an “attestation sur l’honneur” basically a letter saying that you are going to do the work, to make things easier here it is:

Je soussigné M Ian BARTON né le 09/07/1960 au Royaume Uni certifie que pour la future construction de ma résidence principale à SAINT EULALIE D’EYMET je ferais les travaux d’électricité moi-même.
Je m’engage à ensuite faire inspecter la maison par le consuel.

Sign and date the paper and then mail to me.

For the windows I need a quote for the main d’oeuvre from Batiman (the quote I have is just the material).


Regards,

Emma


Dear Emma
Please find attached the attestation

When I looked at the Batiman quote I can see for each item the line “Pose et fournitures diverses” which I think mean installation?

Kind regards

Ian


Hi,

Dossier back from head office, we need the following things:

The devis must all be less than six months old, the only one that is is for the menuiseries exterieurs.

The permis de construire is dated 2004 which means it is no longer valid, we need a new “recipissé de depot de permis”

We need to know where house plans came from, if they were done by you we need an attestation confirming that you did them

And while we are here, I am going to ask you for an original attestation for the electricity (same as the one you scanned and e-mailed me) just in case they decide they want one of them later (precaution)… Please send to me at 25-27 rue St Catherine, 24100 BERGERAC.

Regards,


Emma


Hi Emma

This is starting to get rather silly, it has been a month since the last round of questions. How much longer are they going to take? I said previously that it was important to have this moving since the builder will need paying shortly. If the process takes much longer I will not need a loan since I would have already paid him.I am not going to get quotes less than 6 month old since I already engaged the builder back in October 2007.The permis is valid because the work started in November 2007 prior to its expiry (declaration d'ouverture de travaux sent to the Mairie).The original house plans were signed off by the architect and formed part of the dossier for the permis de construire - I wouldn't have got the permis otherwise. I will send you the original of the declaration since your head office seems to be incredibly difficult at the moment.

Kind regards Ian

The tension is beginning to show!

Pirates of the new millenium

I thought that the last time pirates ruled the oceans was back in the days of Jack Sparrow but it seems that there has been a recent resurgence in pirate activity as I heard on the news that two ships (one of them an oil tanker) had been captured by Somali pirates. It seems that modern day piracy has come on a bit since the days of the jolly roger and is now a bit more hi-tech and almost a recognised profession in some parts of the world.

Life on the border

Our return to the UK via Euro tunnel was not quite so smooth as the outward journey as a busy bank holiday weekend meant extra security and longer queues. We waited patiently, and as we were in a van we knew we would be stopped. We pulled up to the booth and a friendly chap said

"UK border agency..at least that's what we are this week..I think.. can I ask you what you have in your van"

I had sympathy. When I worked in the Health Service I did the same job, in the same place for 10 years but the headings on our notepaper changed six times!

Thunder

We have just had a thunderstorm that nearly took out all the lights and caused me to need to re-boot my net-gear box. This is something I can now do myself (with occasional prompting from Ian) and it seems to fix most problems. The first time I had difficulties getting my Internet connection to work I made the mistake of calling the SKY helpless desk. 10 minutes later, £5.00 poorer the customer support person told me that the problem was nothing to do with them and was caused by Microsoft and I should contact them! (How does anyone contact Microsoft!). I tried to argue that if there was some problem with their system and Microsoft then surely they should sort it out as it would affect a lot of people. I asked them to explain the nature of the problem to me. At this point I got the robotic reply "it is a problem with Microsoft madam, you must contact them" in answer to all my queries! In frustration I hung up and called Ian who told me to unplug the box, leave it for 10 seconds, plug it back in and reboot the computer if necessary. It worked and my connection was restored!

The storm has not cleared the air and it is still humid and sultry.

Commuting

Today I was at a study day in London. I had forgotten how awful commuting is! On Tuesday I was enjoying the delights of the River Shannon and today I was sitting in a crowded, smelly train while the girl sitting opposite me attempted to cover up her spots with her makeup, another one was having a conversation on her mobile phone to her boyfriend and seemed oblivious to the need to make any vowel sounds other than uuhh and the person on the seat next to me smelled of sick. I arrived hot and stressed after trying to battle with a station full of people to get to my destination. I couldn't imagine that not so long ago this was a daily event, however by the return journey I was already beginning to re-remember the art of dodging moving and stationary objects in order to get to my train and was almost able to block out the sounds and sights around me (helped by a glass of wine before I left for home!). It really is a mad way of existing!

Last night I came to Ian's by public transport. I walked to the bus stop and waited 35 minutes for a bus to take me into town (at a cost of £1.70), the train took over 2 hours, involved 2 changes and cost £25, and then Ian had to come and pick me up from the station (or I had a 30 minute walk). All in all it took 3 hours door to door and by car it takes 1.5 hours and costs about £15 in petrol! I have little incentive to care for the environment!

Miserable cow

I find myself a little irritated today! Firstly my green wheelie bin was not emptied again. Tomorrow I will have to phone up and a very apologetic person will put my name down on the list so that it can be emptied on Thursday. This happens more times than not and I just get weary of having to waste time and energy on it. Secondly I bought a new toilet seat which it seems does not fit either of the toilets in the house so I will have to take it back. Thirdly rather than the £14.99 offer price for the seat I seem to have been charged £29.99 (only just noticed). Fourthly, a year ago we asked for some new equipment at work. It was agreed about 6 months ago and it still hasn't arrived and no one seems to know what has happened and when we can expect it (could be because health and safety man is also responsible for ordering!). Fifthly I keep having problems accessing my blog page. Sixthly.........think I have used up my positive thinking supply this week!

How to be happy in France!

I can't help being a little cynical about the new psychology of happiness movement and those of us that have worked in the business for years realise that it takes more than a weekend with a cognitive behavioural psychologist to cure a lifetime of misery! Still, it is a nice past-time for the worried well!

The move to France was meant to take me out of all the psycho-babble talk and back to a more simple and straightforward life. Okay, I know that is naive but one can dream! My dream was shattered however when I came across this advert on the tourist information board in the village in France!

How to be Happy

a Seminar at:

Le Sarment
47350 Escassefort
France

10th and 11th May 2008

International speakers, live music, good food and local organic wine...
Plus a chance to relax in rural South West France...

There is no escape!!!!!!