| lesley153
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Thanks, I hadn't heard the song before, but just listened to it on a slightly shaky YouTube clip.
Ray Davies has still got it, hasn't he? |
Reply #2361. Feb 25 11, 8:30 PM
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satguru 
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Since you mention concerts, Ray Davies was the only thing that got me to the door of a concert in probably over a decade. Last year (probably the one before now but lose track) he was at Kenwood, and although the rules are changed that stop people coming in and standing on the edge of the field used for the audience (it's more surprising they ever let them, but they did) I hoped either I could hear him at least from outside, and if not as it's outdoors would pay and just avoid the crowd. That night the skies came in, and at 7.30 it was a downpour that lasted from when he was meant to start to well after 9. I turned up just to see what happened and he had had to start late, and was still raining so hard I'd have got soaked simply walking there from parking the car. As they wanted about £40 to enter the outside door and would have caught whatever respiratory complaint was going around for the following week I decided the drawbacks outweighed the benefits. Sometimes fate decides which directions things go but I expect he'll do it again as he's still local as far as I know.
Reply #2362. Feb 25 11, 9:09 PM
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| lesley153
|
You win some... In 1985 in Wembley, I could hear the Live Aid concert through the kitchen window.
And you lose some. People used to take deckchairs and park them in the tennis courts in Bedford Park so they'd be able to hear the "Proms in the Park" for nothing. (I think that's been stopped.)
I hope Ray Davies is back before too long, and gets there before the rain does. |
Reply #2363. Feb 25 11, 9:26 PM
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| lesley153
|
I met an old neighbour for the first time - I know the woman and children, who have been here for a few years, but it's the first time I've met her husband.
I also met a new neighbour for the first time. He's moving in on Monday with his other half and their two-year-old daughter. I think they'll be an improvement on most of their predecessors.
Shame they didn't move in the other side where the scum live, let a screaming three-year-old run round the garden at nine and ten o'clock in the evening, tell me she carn elp it - she's ahnly free... and use quite a lot of rude words. The three-year-old probably has a richer vocabulary than mine. I can't wait for barbecue season.
And I got chatting to a rock musician who looked about thirty, clutching his guitar, in a ticket queue at Kings Cross. He was on his way to meet his bandmates and cut a CD. Will that make him rich and famous? "Nah, too old for all that - I'm forty-two." How many rock guitarists look younger than they are?
We had ten minutes to chat. Kings Cross, a busy station at the best of times but this is Friday afternoon rush-hour, there are six service windows, and only one is open. And London Transport want to cut staff. Ha!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I also had a brief "conversation" with Merv, and remembered something he did that annoyed me - and he's still doing it. Merv doesn't like other people talking when he's talking, and doesn't seem to have learnt that a conversation is an exchange of ideas - Taking Turns To Speak. If he is doing all the talking, there's no point in my being there. He can talk to himself all the way home, and regale the walls with his wit when he gets there.
If I started off, he would pick up my first sentence and run with it in whatever direction he chose. If I did that, it would be called interrupting. When he does it, it's called talking. I have apologised to him for talking while he was interrupting, but it went right over his head.
If I attempted to make a contribution to the conversation, he would stand "patiently" listening till I'd finished, and then say:
"Well *anyway* - as I was *saying*..."
He says that his new lady friend "doesn't half talk a lot." He says she admits she does it, and they've turned it into a joke. He's really only telling her that everything he has to say is more important than anything she has to say. He has to get his message across, without making the effort of listening to hers. I wonder how long she'll carry on managing to pretend it's funny?
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Reply #2364. Feb 26 11, 9:09 AM
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Jazmee27
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That depends... on how much of a woman she is!
Appologies-couldn't resist :)
Reply #2365. Feb 26 11, 10:01 AM
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| lesley153
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| Don't apologise - I like it! |
Reply #2366. Feb 26 11, 10:08 AM
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Professer
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Sorry Lesley Merv sounds a right pratt, cleaned my view up btw. He is someone i could easily punch on the nose, from what i have heard.
Reply #2367. Feb 26 11, 10:49 AM
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| lesley153
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| You're absolutely right. And GarrySouders was going to run him through with a lance. You could get together and do it simultaneously! |
Reply #2368. Feb 26 11, 6:14 PM
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daymare
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Superglue applied to lips.
Press lips together.
End of Merv interrupting.
Anyone for ice cream?
Reply #2369. Feb 26 11, 6:43 PM
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| lesley153
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| Oooh chocolate please - my favourite! |
Reply #2370. Feb 26 11, 6:45 PM
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Jazmee27
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Mine, too :)
Reply #2371. Feb 26 11, 8:16 PM
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| lesley153
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Superglue for Merv, ice cream for us. Perfect. :D
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lovely concert this evening - Mahler's resurrection, with the college orchestra, college choir, and a choir from Dorset.
Every year, one of the college orchestras goes to Dorchester. Local families put them up. They give a concert with the local school choir, and that's the Dorset choir that sang this evening. Jonathan has been three times, and has stayed with the same family each time: a couple with two daughters, one of whom is in the choir, and they told me today that he's like an honorary son. They are such an outgoing, affectionate family - I'm actually happy to share him with them!
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Good journey there, uneventful journey home (just one sad, sweary young drunk), long day. I think I shall sleep well tonight. Message timed at 3.05 am. Night. :) |
Reply #2372. Feb 26 11, 9:06 PM
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| lesley153
|
Having fun with my favourite supermarket.
Got two bags of £2.49 oranges labelled two for £3, but they went through on my bill at 2 x £2.49. The girl on customer services said either the offer wan't in force at the time (what? I'm prescient?) or I hadn't bought the right kind of oranges. I said the shelf label clearly said "any" oranges, and she apologised for the inconvenience. How useful is that?
I rang their customer service careline and got £5 put on my loyalty card.
I bought two £1.83 bags of crisps labelled two for the price of one. When I got home, I found I'd been charged two for the price of two. Result: £3.66 credited to my loyalty card.
I bought three fat fresh herrings. You don't see fresh herrings very often - I think the French get them first. I've been buying whole fish for ever, but once bought herrings, put them in the freezer for a while, then got them out to find them full of little wriggly white worms. Since then, I want my herrings gutted. The woman on the fish counter said "sorry, I can't do it, I'm not trained, and there's nobody here who is. If there are worms in them, you can always bring them back." Great. I picked up a booklet on display on the fish counter. It promised that they have skilled people who will prepare the fish exactly as we like it.
Rang the magic phone number, just to say what happened wasn't what the booklet promised would happen, so perhaps it needs a rewrite? Got the price of the fish put on my loyalty card.
I also got a refund on some dishwasher rinse. It was unnecessarily difficult to get the cap open. You have to squeeze the top at both sides to open it: not easy when it's about a third of an inch high. When you did manage to prise it open, the liquid squirted sideways. Rang, complained about the packaging... got a refund.
I could get to like this game! |
Reply #2373. Feb 27 11, 8:45 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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Love that game! Congrats! It always seems that to get such good results, I must appear in person at Customer Service. Hummm.:)Maybe I'll give it another go!
Reply #2374. Feb 27 11, 9:26 PM
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| lesley153
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Depends who's on customer service. :(
Seems that Kerrie can get away with murder (and incompetence, and a stinking attitude) because she's bosses' pet. I wonder if there's anything I can do about that? {evil grin}
Keep trying! |
Reply #2375. Feb 27 11, 9:51 PM
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Professer
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wow Lesley well done, we both done well, you with grocries me with Virgin Media
Reply #2376. Feb 28 11, 2:54 AM
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Jazmee27
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Good job!
Reply #2377. Feb 28 11, 7:31 AM
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| lesley153
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Thank you both. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing much to report. My cousin whose father died two months ago, wife died a couple of months ago, and step-daughter got pretty close in the last month, had another kick - his favourite uncle has just had a stroke.
He says it's a three, because he no longer thinks of his father as a father, because of the way he screwed him over. The uncle is 90, so it's not too surprising, but still not nice.
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New neighbours started moving in today. I found an estate agents online description, complete with a filmed guided tour. The occupants before last did a lot of work inside the house, and he said I could have a guided tour for £10. Very funny har bloody har.
The people who have just moved out did a lot of work on the structure of the house - can't help thinking that it was a substitute for shoring up their marriage - and the guided tour made it look like a furniture advert: black and white and soulless. Black and white doesn't have to be soulless, but they managed it. This will all change with a two-year-old living there! :)
I told Jonathan that the house had gone for about £400k, and he laughed. Near South Kensington tube, a hotel (I stayed in) and a few other buildings are being replaced by a block of 70-odd flats. I suggested £5-6m and he laughed. Try £52 million each.
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Nearly finished demolishing the cardboard house. I'll describe it some time when I have less than nothing to report. |
Reply #2378. Feb 28 11, 2:14 PM
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Professer
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hope new neighbours are good for you Lesley
Reply #2379. Feb 28 11, 2:46 PM
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| lesley153
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Thanks, Gary - me too. About time I had some nice ones again.
When we first moved in, next door was a delightful young couple with a jaw-droppingly undisciplined child. They taught me that it's easier to clear all your surfaces before the child visits, and that it is possible to paint over blackcurrant juice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next, a couple with a dog. They were adults and their children had long moved out. A neighbour asked him to change a tap washer in her kitchen. He insisted on draining the whole system, and refilled it with Fernox, just to change a washer, charged her over the odds, and then made a pass at her. His wife spent her life looking over her shoulder for younger, prettier models. She looked after her granddaughter one day a week. I thought she and Jonathan could play together, and she said "No - you know what little boys are like." Well actually no, I don't. Tell me what little boys are like.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next was a financial consultant (that's right, an insurance salesman) with his wife and three children. He was earning shedloads of money and was hardly ever at home. Her job was spending as much as possible of the money he earnt, shouting at the children to get out of the way of the vacuum cleaner, putting newspaper under carpets where the dog had urinated (and leaving it there when they moved out!), and blowing the leaves from her garden into my garden.
There were so many people coming and going at all hours of every day that my security light burnt out in a few months. They usually last for years. He parked in our drive and so did his brother and parents, and I was the bad neighbour when I wanted my car and they'd blocked me in. "Worse things happen at sea, Lesley." Hmmm, thanks for that little gem of wisdom. You can tell Jonathan that next time I'm late picking him up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next was a couple with a young son, and a hand-knitted sports car which he left running in the drive every so often because the engine needed to be warm when he checked the oil. It needed to run for five minutes, but it was usually longer as he'd have a cigarette and make the odd phone call... I asked him if he ever went for a run in it to warm it up. It would warm the engine but be more fun. He clearly thought I'd taken leave of my senses. What, take the car for a drive? why would I want to do that when I can rattle my neighbours' windows and flood all the gardens with the stink of petrol fumes? He was the cleverdick who offered me a guided tour for a tenner. They had a second child then disappeared without trace.
Actually, there was one trace - the older boy had a baseball bat and every so often a broken bit of (my) fence would drop into my garden or just disappear. He said it was because my fence was old. Yes, old and living next to a 5yo with a basball bat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then another couple moved in. Late 20s, early 30s, with good careers if their company cars were anything to go by. First thing they did when they moved in was install a burglar alarm. All that does is tell the outside world you think you have things worth having. Lucky you. They gave the key to the woman in the other half of their semi. They were away a lot, and the burglar alarm sensitivity was set to leaf rustling ant cats' whiskers passing, so the neighbour was forever getting her children out of bed rather than leave them for a minute, to go and switch the alarm off.
I saw him in the drive sometimes if we were coming or going at the same time - a wave over the tops of the cars. I saw her when she called with plans for a proposed extension, which I knew would be a wonderful change to the slightly odd layout, but didn't realise how much it would block the light to my kitchen. Too late now. I just have to put the light on a bit more... She also sent me a text saying that they were such good customers that their builders were offering them a very good price for replacing MY fence. They would do the whole length of the fence for about £1,200. I said I can't think about things like that right now because I'm in hospital and if that's a good price I don't want to hear what a bad price would be. I did try ringing her but she didn't reply. I suppose it's easier to make your demands and run, than it is to engage with people.
She suggested that I just have some of it done, like just the front, but she told me that my back fence was falling down and had gaps in it. Silly me, I said in that case I'd better do something... go ahead. She said good and would I just pop in with a cheque for £360 made payable to the builders. It's a long time since I "popped in" with anything, let alone a cheque for more than tuppence.
The moral is, don't make decisions like that from a hospital bed. When I got home and eventually found the strength to go in the back garden, I found that my old seasoned fence was still there but that they'd got some hideous raw orange wood, propped it up against my fence on their side, just peeping out two or three inches over the top. Gaps? what gaps? I was annoyed at letting myself be taken for a mug. They wanted a new pretty fence to look at and I don't care, they've got the money, they can get it themselves. Rowena reminded me that it's my fence, and it's up to me if I have new wood, old wood, chicken wire or nothing.
So I never did "pop in" with money, and they never did pop in to ask me how I was after my hospital visit. A couple of weeks after I got home, I learnt that she'd moved out. He moved out last week. I know that because I saw him go. Love's Young Dream, departed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The new people moved in today. I am cautiously optimistic.
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Reply #2380. Feb 28 11, 5:22 PM
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