So, on Tuesday evening all the paperwork was formalized and signed off, and the keys to my little flat were handed over to me. I unloaded all the stuff that I’d packed into my car at the weekend and brought them into the flat. I am terribly, terribly disorganised: I packed a kettle, yet forgot to bring any mugs, tea bags or milk. I brought no cutlery or plates, but I remembered the toaster. I even brought a bottle of Sheffield’s finest Hendersons Relish, yet I didn’t bring anything to put it on.
Whatsmore, I had no furniture, and as this is now ‘home’ – I needed something to sleep on, so I planned to go to the nearest IKEA (Wembley) and get a bed – which is exactly what I did. For future reference, if you have an Audi A3 Sportback, you can fit a MALM double bed and a double mattress into the back, with the seats folded down. It is a bit of a squeeze, and you do practically need to dislocate your arm to change gear, but all the doors and boot shut. That was the good part of the evening. Read More »
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th President of the United States
I know, I know. It’s been ages. I’ve broken promises and resolutions, hearts and heads, but the blog is back again. For a while, at least. Maybe. Fuck it – who knows? The last… puhhhh…. year has been, well.. – an absolute, total and unrelenting disaster for me, on several levels, and – to be brutally honest – the idea of actually writing down and chronicling my misery at the time was just a bridge too far for me.
So. Change. Things have changed. Irrevocably. Things(tm), as they say, are unquestionably better. They are – by no means – perfect, though, this will come in time. Read More »
The blog, its coming back.
Watch this space…
Dear Retailers / Giftmakers,
I am a man. This means that I lack the necessary genes for success in the field of ‘present wrapping’. In the future, please can you design your gifts and presents to fit into neat rectangular boxes, as I find these somewhat easier to wrap (though they’re still sufficiently challenging!) rather than the ornate moulded plastic designs in shapes which wrapping paper just wasn’t designed to cover!
Many thanks,
James.
I love my car. Really, I do. It’s great, economical, fairly sporty, and has a load of space in the back for Aimee and her copious paraphenalia. It has lots of toys – like parking sensors, dual climate control and loads of three-letter-acronymns that I don’t fully understand (like ABS, EBD, ESP, TCS and so on), it also has a bluetooth mobile phone system, built in. The phone system is one of the reasons I bought the car – what with doing quite a bit of travelling, and the ban on using mobiles in cars. Everything is great in the car, absolutely wonderful German quality – except this phone system.
Firstly, the number of phones it supports is meagre at best – most of which are old and retired now. None of the Nokia E or N-series phones (or indeed, any Series 60 Symbian phones) are supported – though that’s a Nokia issue, rather than an Audi one, which they’ve only just fixed with the E71 and N96.
Secondly, when you have a compatible phone, and you wish to utilize the Audi’s wonderful voice-activated controls, it all turns to goopy shit. To illustrate this, I recorded my attempt this morning at trying to dial my voicemail box using the voice controls. All the car needs to do, is dial ’901′.
Apologies for the quality of the recording, it was done by using another phone’s Voice Recorder and then exporting the audio off.
Painful MP3 here. (4:19)
Didn’t really stay out late last night – got back to the hotel around 11pm, tired and with my feet aching.
Woke around 9am to another sunny morning and, my last day. I really, really need to get some presents sorted for folks at home, so I decide to make that the aim of the game for today, and, I think I’ve done ok. The weak dollar at the moment makes New York an attractive proposal – and its clear that I’m not the only nutter that’ll be going home with a shiny new suitcase, full of booty.
All the ‘discount’ electronics and giftware stores have hastily arranged ‘Luggage’ sections, with all manner of cases, from $400 Samsonites to cheap Asian knock-offs. I, obviously, plump for the cheapest bag I can find that’ll hold my stuff – $45 for a mid-sized expandable suitcase with a trolley handle. If it only lasts this one journey, I’ll be happy! Read More »
PS. I just looked in the mirror and realised that I am very, very sunburnt. WTF? Sunburn in New York? In October?!
Ok, so, the updates stopped. Even my mum thought I was dead, murdered by a crazy New York gangster, but, I wasn’t. I was just bloody busy. Busy, and tired, in cycles.
I went out for a quick look around when I arrived – even though I had been awake for 20+ hours by that point, to fool my mental chemistry into accepting the time-delay. This proved to be a great idea, for two reasons – 1) I have no jetlag at all, now, and 2) I found Smiths Bar, a couple of blocks from Times Square.
I like to think that I’m not the ‘regular’ tourist – sure, Times Square is pretty neat, but it’s a tourist trap ready to suck the dollar bills out of your pocket as just as soon as it can. I don’t really understand the notion of going all the way to New York to go to franchised eateries like Planet Hollywood, or movie-spinoff-moneyspinners like Bubba Gump Shrimp where you’ll eat some godawful microwaved shit served to you by a waitress that’s getting minimum wage and providing minimum effort. So, I went out on Thursday night and had a bit of a ‘recce, just to help me get my bearings. Read More »
I’m finally here, typing this up in my hotel room on the 22nd floor. What a pickle! Everything was going swimmingly perfectly well until I reached the check-in desk at the hotel.
Me: “Hello, I have a reservation for Mr Sheridan, for four days”
Snooty hotel man: “Ok”, tap-tap-tap-tap, raised eyebrow, “ah, yes, I see. Sir, your card was declined (equate my emphasis to his volume), so that booking is now gone.”
I’m sure I don’t need to give examples of some of the choice words I used here – I’m sure you can get the picture, and the long and short of it is, well, I’m on the 22nd floor looking out over Broadway 
, but I do need to ring my bank tomorrow – it looks like the card I ‘paid’ with is barred from international transactions, presumably as an anti-fraud measure. Read More »
