I stumbled across a most interesting website today – Telebid. At first glance, you might dismiss it as the usual eBay-clone fodder, but – there’s quite a bit more to it than that. See the low prices of items sold? Got your attention? Thought so.
However, there’s a catch – there’s always a catch – and the catch in this case is pure fucking genius by the site owners.
You don’t bid ‘on the item’ in the traditional sense, you’re bidding essentially for the right to purchase the item for the current highest price… And the current highest price is inflated by 7 pence every time someone makes a bid… and it costs you 50 pence to make that bid… aaaand if you’re a last-minute sniper, you’re out of luck because they extend the auction end time in the event of last-second bids. Is your interwebby ‘scam’ spidey-sense tingling now? I know mine was.
Only this isn’t a scam – it’s not particularly nice, and it leaves a lot of (foolish) people out of pocket – but people do walk away with £30 PS3′s and £50 LCD TV’s. It’s just that Telebid walk away with much, much, much more.
Let’s take an example:
Took Aimee to see the “Baaa-baa’s” and “Moo-moo’s” at Heeley City Farm today. I’d never been before, and the south of the city is largely a big grey area in the road atlas in my head, so we relied on a Navigo to get us there – and it did, which was nice.
The farm is certainly what it says on the tin – a city farm. It’s literally right in the middle of some rows of pre-war workers terraces. It almost looks like the land the farm is sited on previously contained housing, which has been demolished to make way for the farm. Certainly, it’s quite odd to see 3 residential streets bisect the farm itself.
Once you step off the streets, and into the farm, it’s like being on a real farm – complete with the sights and smells(!). I think it’s great – some city kids won’t get to see a farm, and having this on their doorstep is excellent.
All of the staff are volunteers, and I must make a special mention to the young girl who showed us round the ‘small animals’ section, who described the animals in intimate detail and even encouraged Aimee to stroke and touch the animals themselves. Really, really encouraging to see this lass, who must’ve been about 12-13 really taking an interest in the welfare of the animals and not hanging around outside the local shops.
Up nice and early to get to work on time to meet the engineer I’m assisting on-site. Gotta love working on Saturdays.
It’s dull work, but it’s stuff that needs doing and it’s the kind of thing that can only really be done when you haven’t got 300 users sitting on the network you’re in the midst of tearing apart.
Get things done and dusted for about 1pm, and head back home. Catriona is visiting for the day and when I arrive back Aimee is entertaining her new visitor.
After Aimee’s bedtime we crack out the Xbox and Wii. Not played on the Wii for ages, really. We have a bash at the Mario and Sonic at the Olympics game, and it’s great fun with the three of us playing – exhausting too! The gameplay harks back to the days of joystick waggling on Daley Thompson’s Decathlon and Summer Games on the Commodore 64!
British Summer Time steals an hour of my sleep tonight, and I won’t get it back til October. Bah.
Today has been just as dull as Thursday. Really. Nothing to report here.
Most eventful item of the day: Neither of us fancied cooking dinner, so I was dispatched to the kebab house. When I returned, I discovered that the kebab geezer had given me ‘the wrong kebab’ – and my lamb donner was in fact a chicken shish. Oh well.
Back in the office today. A very dull day indeed.
It’s today that I’m reminded that I’ll need to work on Saturday too, which makes this already very busy week even worse. Gah.
A day spent in the drizzly, cold Docklands. Installed the kit I was in town to sort out and then popped over to Harbour Exchange for my delayed meeting.
The meeting goes well and fairly quickly, and I’m left with three hours to kill before my late train back. I’d much rather get open returns, but one must always count the pennies when dealing with expense claims!
I figure that it wouldn’t be too much of a wait if I made my way over to St Pancras, and sip a couple of quiet ones at the Baby Betjeman, where I could use the wireless and get on with some stuff. So, I make my way back across town and just miss the 5pm mad-dash – which was nice.
However, disaster strikes. The Baby Betjeman is no more. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life, it lies in peace. Well. It’s closed, anyhow. All that’s left is the giant parasol and a chalk noticeboard saying that they’ve closed up because the ‘proper’ Betjeman pub is nearing completion – at the end of April! Bollocks.
The only other option is the on-platform ‘Champagne Bar’, which is entirely as pretentious as it sounds. I find a seat by the bar and order a cup of tea, in true British stiff-upper-lip style. However, tea doesn’t last 2 hours and curiosity gets the better of me, and after supping my (rather bland) tea I take a look at the drinks menu.
Coo – A couple of days go by without a blog entry, and I’m surprised to find that people appear to be relying on my entries as proof of my day-to-day existence! I receive a few emails and smses from colleagues and friends wondering ‘what’s happened to you?’ and ‘where are you?’ – blimey!
Up fairly early as I have a long day today – travelling down to London for an overnighter. It is, by happy coincidence (as these things often are!) also LONAP‘s 10th Birthday Party this evening too, at The Old Bank of England on Fleet Street.
The train journey is uneventful, and I’m sure the 3G service that I use (O2) is getting worse. I manage to sustain a connection for a few minutes, but the signal is so shonky that by the time I’m at Chesterfield it’s gone. I can’t even connect up directly on my phone. Crap. So, I spend most of the journey guiding Birmingham City through the mires of a underachieving Premiership season in Football Manager 2008. I wonder how long it’ll be before the board get sick of me and give me the boot?
The afternoon meeting I have scheduled with our datacentre account manager is pushed back until tomorrow, which is both a blessing and a pain – but it gives me some time to catch up with work, before heading across the city to Temple station for this ‘do’.
Another great night’s sleep. We really must get some blackout blinds for our bedroom – I’m convinced it’s the darkness that helps me to sleep sounder.
We have a wee walk with Aimee and get back just as the snow starts to fall again. The weather is all over the place recently. Next they’ll be telling us to expect 30 degree heat in December.
Watched the second part of The Colour of Magic. Eventually I found Tim Curry’s character rather grating – almost like a sub-standard pastiche of Alan Rickman’s roles as The Sheriff of Nottingham (in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. Nice to see him ‘back’ though – I’m not sure I’ve seen him do anything noteworthy since Pennywise the Clown in the ‘IT’ TV movie.
Well, Easter Sunday went as fast as it came. A day spent around the house, running after Aimee and keeping the inlaws entertained.
Emma was extra kind to me, and I got a lie-in until about 11. Which was fantastic, and just what I needed. Beats an Easter egg, anyhow! 
Emma has a mad scheme to redecorate the living room, and has painted some of one of the walls to illustrate her ideas. I’m not totally convinced, but then – I’m no Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, and every time she’s redecorated in the past, I’ve been proven totally wrong and it comes out looking ace.
Melody is a Pratchett fan, so we end up watching the Sky interpretation of the first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic. Surprisingly, I’m drawn in. I’m not a Pratchett fan, really. I read a Discworld book in school once, and I found it quite tedious.
The TV interpretation, with David Jason as the slightly manic, bumbling Rincewind and Sean Astin hamming up the ‘tourist’ inn-sewer-ants (insurance) salesman Twoflower, is pretty good. It’s clear that Sky have poured in some serious cash following the success of Hogfather a couple of Christmases ago, and the production is excellent. It’s a two-parter, so I’ll have to catch the end tomorrow.
Last night in the ‘lid’ tonight. I feel a little sad – I was quite enjoying stopping up there!
Wake up after a lovely sleep. Perhaps we should sleep up here more often? The blinds on the skylights block out most of the light, so it stays darker longer, and I guess the ‘buzz’ of the computer equipment blanks out other incidental noise that you might ordinarily hear. I’ve not slept this well for weeks. I’m looking forward to another good sleep tonight!
Melody had seen an outfit she wanted for Emma’s sister’s upcoming wedding in The Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Nantwich, but they didn’t have her size, and she’d discovered that there was a branch in the Co-Op ‘department’ store in Hillsborough. So, we traipsed over to Hillsborough in the morning to do a little shopping.
I’ve only really passed through Hillsborough centre – I’ve been to Dunelm with Emma before a few times, and I know where the bus stops and tram stops are, but I’ve never really been shopping up there before. Today, I can see why. It’s a little run-down, but there’s some nice individual shops that you don’t see in town centres.