Life and pondering the merits of a NO REFUND CULTURE
Modern living: From non-believer to apostle – the iPhone journey
Nov 14th
A month or so ago I was having a great Sunday lunch at the home of my business partner (Claire) and her partner (Richard) produced his shiny new iPhone and started to rave about it. So I had a proper play and suddenly pronounced: ‘I want one’…
A few of my friends have had an iPhones for ages (Ed and Jon were early adopters – Jon is an original Apple disciple) and I didn’t get what all the fuss was about:
- Yes the turning screen thing was interesting
- Yes the Zippo app was fun (if you were at a concert)
- Yes the flicking through photos was cool
But my BlackBerry Curve took photos, had a browser, could locate me on a map, let me read my emails and, oh yes, I could even make and receive telephone calls. So I pottered along in blissful ignorance and even engaged in some low energy debates with some friends on the topic which went along the lines of…
- iPhone advocate friend: ‘But the iPhone does X’
- Me: ‘My BlackBerry does X as well’
- Friend: But the iPhone does Y’
- …you get the picture
As a result I got increasingly sceptical about the iPhone and more entrenched in my belief that these poor iPeople had been brainwashed by powerful and subliminal Apple marketing.
So on the Monday after my pronouncement of ‘I want one’ I ordered an iPhone3GS. It arrived (in stunning packaging) a few days later and within a week I was up and running on it – I had a few problems with the SIM card and set up (02 inaccurate customer service advice to blame – although lady on call number three knew her stuff and got me all sorted).
It has been a life changer and I cannot believe that I resisted the shift from BlackBerry for so long.
Now I appreciate that stating that a gadget has ‘changed my life’ might seen a little over the top. I acknowledge that by nature I am prone to being 100 percent for or against something (I like to think that I am a Ying ‘n Yanger – balance gets in there somehow!) but this beautifully designed bit of black plastic is genuinely amazing. Why?
- I have all my music on my phone (which has meant that I have listened to tracks I haven’t heard in ages which is ace)
- I get to listen to my favourite BBC radio 4 showsas podcasts (this was the bit that I missed the most about dropping my car journey to work)
- I now have a really easy to use way to update this blog, my company blog, run TweetDeck, manage my work email , plus my personal Google Mail (this is both convenient but also means that I don’t have to burn my legs with laptop resting on them all the time)
- Whizzing around London just got easy: with one click I can check my train times (brilliant TrainLine app) and find a tube station with one click (Nearest Tube app). If I get lost (as I did yesterday in the maze of roads in the West End) my phone tells we where I am in seconds and as it has compass so lets me know which way to walk
- It can even save me time: on recommendation I downloaded a brilliant app which lets you take a photo of a business card and it scans and puts it in your contacts in 10 seconds
Basically, all these simple little things all come together in the palm of your hand – and it does it really fast – a sea change to the painful lurch of my BlackBerry.
So here is my analogy comparing the two phones…
BlackBerry: Is like a sweet old building porter, he is efficient and always gets the job done, but he’s really slow and does things in an old fashioned way. He does know how to use the internet but if he needed to find you a decorator he would prefer to look it up in a paper telephone directory.
iPhone: Is a really good looking personal assistant, who is just on it and they just nail it every time. They work effortlessly – no fuss – no huffing and puffing. They get just get the job done and you get a buzz out of working with them, experiencing their energy.
Now things are not perfect in the world of iPhone:
- It has crashed on me once already (I was playing music, downloading a webpage and trying to take a photo at the same time)
- Keyboard typing is a bit tricky (especially if you have sausage fingers like me) – but if you turn the phone in a landscape orientation the keyboard gets wider and minimises the errors
- …but hey, even a super PA has an off moment – it’s all easily forgiven
So if you are in the running for a phone change I would encourage you to take the plunge into the iPhone world – it’s really great (and strangely spiritual) here.
Amen :+)
Grumped: Things that make you go humm
Nov 13th
Not a great start to the day (it is Friday 13th after all)…
In my attempt at being more of an Eco-warrior I have ditched my car in favour of cycling, training it in or if I have loads to carry then I jump in a taxi. Collectively this is all far better for the environment than my solo back and forth to work in a car.
The weather is filthy this morning – rain, rain and more rain.
So therefore bike was a no (have two client meetings today and need to look half decent)…
…because of the rain the roads are jammed with cars, so no to a taxi…
so the train it is…
Actually I ended up in a taxi…
The train drivers are on strike (as they don’t get overtime pay – who does these days?) resulting in only a 50 percent service. This meant that that the trains are double full and you cannot get on them.
Commuters all look like they are going to blow up in anger or die in limp resignation.
So I high tailed it out of the hell.
However please don’t think I got off lightly. In my dash to the taxi from the dry station entrance a bus launched an avalanche of water on me (not quite the tidal wave that Bridget Jones got but quite close).
So I sit here in the back of my cab typing my post slowly steaming dry and lamenting the convenience and comfort of my car (climate control, leather seats, radio 4).
You gotta be tough to be an Eco-warrior – not sure that I will ever get an award for bravery – in fact I am totally sure :+)
Modern living: The uncomfortable truth: the luxury of having a pet
Nov 12th
In the last two weeks we have spent nearly £900 on medical care for our beloved cat Sophie. She has no idea that we continually invest in her longevity…
Now I recognise that spending this level of money on a cat is a strange thing. I openly admit that the money we spend on looking after our cat outstrips the money that we give to looking after humans outside of our sphere of direct contact.
I feel uncomfortable at the realisation of this fact. With so much poverty in the world – my cat health investment could make a real change to the lives of PEOPLE.
It is a strange thing…
We care so much about Sophie – she had nearly all her teeth extracted today (explanation: cat’s teeth decay quickly, she is a rescue cat and the people that had her before didn’t look after her properly, she is heading into her mature years).
She is currently eating loads but has no interest in hanging out with us and is embedded under our bed.
I have been worried sick all day about her and on getting home from work tonight spent 15 minutes lying on the floor (she was under the bed) doing ‘baby talk’ to her as she looked sceptically at me. She was thinking: don’t come anywhere near me… my mouth hurts and you let this happen to me.
OK, OK, she wasn’t ‘thinking’ anything – shock horror – cats do not think like humans. She just felt rubbish and didn’t want any attention. This human projection thing is totally uncontrollable (especially if you are British and heightened by being me).
Fifi has antibiotics for the next two days and liquid aspirin at the ready should she start wailing and be in pain. Hells bells – when you face up to this it is crazy – our furry bundle of joy is cared for and has better access to medicines than millions of people.
I am not alone though, I read a survey yesterday that showed that 29 percent of Americans have engaged in social media in relation to animal welfare – with only 14 percent doing the same in relation to human disasters.
Not sure how to resolve my musings on this topic…
I probably need to conclude that it is just the way it is. I was fortunate to be born in a rich society where we have opportunities and options to live our lives the way we choose to.
It is my choice , it is a luxury… and I do love my Fifi.
Omniumgatherum: parrots, art and a good day
Oct 27th
My favourite blogger (Sarah Morgan) recently wrote a post under the title of ‘Gallimauffry’ which I have to agree with her is the best word in the world. This has inspired a new category on my blog – my very own omniumgatherum (odds and ends or melange – yes I had to look up the definition of the fabulous G word)…
A flock of parrots swept past my car today as a drove past the perimeter road at Heathrow airport. It was an amazing thing. We are experiencing an ‘Indian Summer’ here in London (basically unseasonably warm weather) so to match the ‘tropical’ (!) climate about a hundred odd electric green parrots flapped alongside and then over my car. I googled them and apparently, according to the Beeb they are escapees from being shipped through the airport. They brought a big smile to my face (I also managed to stay on the road which was a result).
The economic prayer is hanging in my lounge! I posted a while back about the amazing art that I saw at a gallery / restaurant in Notting Hill. Well the lovely Nadia and Gareth bought it for us as a wedding present. We love it. Here it is in the gallery (rather than on our lounge wall where is now hangs :+))
A good day… Today was a great day. I met up with my favourite clients today (they know who they are) near Heathrow and we had a brilliant day. We are doing a repositioning / rebranding programme for them. Anyway it all went well – I left feeling hugely inspired having spent the day with people who are so smart (and great company).
Crumptales: Beware the power of the soundbite…
Oct 25th
In my previous post I mentioned my passport which reminded me that just after my birthday in 2001 I had a passport-related nightmare which could have affected the way my fellow Londoners experience Tube travel…
I was due to go on holiday (to the Maldives) a couple of days later and while gathering up stuff for my suitcase I got my passport out of the filing cabinet and did the obligatory check of the photo page. As I looked at it I thought ‘hell I look young’ and then I noticed with horror that it had expired months beforehand – which is why I looked ten years younger!
It was a Saturday morning (and in the days that I would even have considered having Internet access at home) so I dashed down to the post office in the centre of Bath (where I lived at the time) to find out what to do and get my photo taken in one of those booths. I paid three times to get a set that I liked. This in the was pre-digital days when you got the picture of yourself when the flash went (there was no option to ‘try again’) and it used to take five minutes for the photo to spit out (and then you had to be careful not to smudge it).
I picked up the leaflet on ‘getting you passport really quickly’ and read up on how I was going to get a passport by Tuesday at 6 am when I had to be at the airport. I discovered that the only way this was going to happen was to visit a passport office. I worked in London (I was daft and did a three hour commute each way in those days) and therefore at the time the main passport office in London was on a street called Petty France.
So first thing on Monday I went to the passport office, with my preferred photo in hand, and got in the queue. Annoyingly my preferred photo didn’t end up in my passport as the lady said that it didn’t look sufficiently like me! So I had to have another photo taken in the passport office official booth. Anyway, two hours later I left with my shiny new maroon official document and while delighted that I was ‘job done’ on the passport front (and was actually going to be going on holiday after all) was feeling a bit stressed as I had lost a big chunk of my ‘day of work before you go on a two week holiday’ day.
So I dashed to the Tube to get to the office and as I walked into the station I registered that there was an unfamiliar yet not unpleasant smell in the air. I was then accosted by the very lovely Jane Elliot, BBC Online reporter, who was doing a piece on how London Underground were piloting the fragrancing of platforms (supposedly to sooth commuter stress). So I answered her questions, let her take a photo of me, went on my hot under the collared way and thought no more of it.
Anyhow I went on my holiday, which was amazing – The Maldives totally rock (I spent nearly all the time scuba diving and snorkeling) and on my return to the office there was an email from Dad in my inbox. He had forwarded on an email from a friend of his which was along the lines of ‘I think there is a comment from your son in this article’. Dad had just written: ‘Typical :+)’ with a link to the article.
So here is the link to my ‘debut’ on the BBC (quote and photo towards the end of the piece) with my ‘insightful’ soundbite being: ‘It smells like flowers or pollen, but I think the best idea to get rid of the smells is to deodorize the people instead’.
Oh bless me and yes rather as father had denoted: ’Typical :+)’.
Now I am obsessed with the way things smell – I love the latest innovation in air fragrance technology. I am the person that buys these heavily advertised advances in smell loveliness (Chad hates them). I am the air freshener marketers dream – I’ve been on the whole journey from gels, to sprays, to three-in-one, through mini fans and infra red, blar, blar, blar – you name it, I’ve bought it. Currently I am obsessed with the over-priced sticks in the glass jar of perfume ‘home fragrance solution’. So I have to feel a bit guilty..
The Tube still smells revolting (the pilot clearly remained just that) and I cannot help but wonder if I had been a bit more positive, rather than facetious, in my soundbite then maybe my own nose, and the millions of other Londoners noses, wouldn’t be so assaulted on our ventures into the underground world.
Modern living: To waste or not too waste? That is the question
Oct 24th
Today is the International Day of Climate Action. I’ve written in the past the quandaries that I often find myself in as a modern citizen of the world. I like to consume but realise the impact of what I like doing contributes to more ppm CO2 in our precious atmosphere.
I like to travel all over the world for pleasure (Australia for three weeks next year) and I have to travel all over the world for work (Hong Kong in a week or so – very exciting). However these airplane based activities are really terrible for my dirty black (carbon) footprint.
It’s such a difficult thing to sort out in my head.
If I recycle all our household waste (which we do) but I then take one return flight to Paris then that flight totally outstrips my recycling for probably more than a year (I haven’t done the exact sums by the way). So you could think – what’s the point then? I have to admit that five years ago I did think like this. Thankfully Chad is a lot wiser (and younger) than me on this, and he has re-educated me on the need to do our little bit and put in some effort.
My little olive roll up bag (the fabulous envirosax) has become a permanent feature in my life – it lives in my man-bag and I reckon I have, in the last nine months, used it nearly every day (often a couple of times a day). I estimate that I have used 400 fewer plastic carrier bags that would by now be attempting to rot down for the next couple of hundred years in a land fill somewhere in this green and pleasant land.
Overall I think that it is just really important to think about what we are doing
- Is there an alternative?
- Could we reduce waste?
- Could we be less wasteful in our actions?
Some recent examples in the world of Crump:
- Can I travel to Paris from London on a train rather than fly – yes – CHECK (and the Eurostar is so much more civilised than Heathrow / BA hell)
- Could I cycle to work rather than take my car – yes – CHECK (although when it’s raining the spirit wavers)
- Could I turn off lights in a room that I’m not in – yes – CHECKISH (I’m in high performance training on this one)
So every little helps – we cannot be ostriches on this one – it’s too important.
Now where is my passport. D’oh… See what I mean!
Loved stuff: My advice… get on and commit to ‘The One’
Oct 16th
Now you may or may not know, but on the 29 August, six odd weeks ago, I married my boyfriend. I am so pleased that I have done it. Chad and I are officially partners in crime.
There have been a duo of recurring questions that people have asked me:
Question one (in the one hour lead up to and after the ceremony): Are you feeling / did you feel nervous?
Question two (from about two weeks after the ceremony): Do you feel different?
So the answers to these…
In response to question one the answer is ‘no’ – I’d never felt so serene and content in my life.
The response to question two is ‘yes’ and also ‘no’ – let me explain myself – yes I do feel different, but not different different – just a more intense range of emotions than before: more secure, happier, more loved, more committed, closer, just more of a range of positve feelings that started in the first few days of meeting my (now) husband.
In the finale of my official wedding speech I talked about one of my favourite characters from one of my favourite TV shows of all time: Charlotte from Sex in the City. I loved her character – she always believed that there was ‘The One’ and she never lost the faith, despite the disappointment, despite kissing many frogs that never morphed into the prince.
As I mentioned in front of my friends and family (having consumed a suitable volume of bubbles) – I’ve ‘kissed’ many (many, many) frogs and had the most disastrous and toxic six and a half year relationship (that a therapist [I need a whole separate post on my belief in the power of talking to a professional] decided was with a narcissistic psychopath). But I never lost my faith, like the fictional Charlotte, that ‘The One’ is out there.
My toast at the end of my speech was: ‘To Chad, to my amazing Chad, my The One’.
He is just that, and I am going to work really hard to make sure of it.
I am sorry that this post might come across as ’smug married’ but I don’t apologise and I don’t care if I sound preachy.
So many of the people I know don’t throw themselves into a relationship – they hold back, play games and quite frankly waste time. You know if the one you are with is a keeper or a stinker who needs to be binned.
If your partner is your best mate (who you love doing intimate stuff with) then just go for it.
No refund culture: Sidewiki just made it all more interesting…
Oct 14th
OK – have you heard of sidewikis? No, well I hadn’t until a couple of days ago either. The bottom line is that if you have downloaded the latest Google Toolbar you are able to leave a sidewiki entry (and also read the entries of other people) on ANY page on the Internet (where the ‘owner’ of the page has NO control).
I won’t go through all the details but Phil Baumann has written an excellent article on it here. In the post he covers some very interesting points. I just left a comment on his blog that makes me sound a bit like I have social media phobia (which I do not :+)). It read…
This is a really excellent article on sidewikis – I’ve been googling away trying to get a good understanding for the last few days and there was this post just sitting there in my reader! You have summed everything up brilliantly. My concern is that there is no notification function to inform you that a sidewiki has been left on a page. If you are running a huge website then how can you keep track of this? Especially since if this is meant to encourage engagement then you wouldn’t know if the comment is there whether or not it is a bitch-slap or a compliment. I love to engage – it is just that now we have to check every page of our blogs / websites that we run in order to do it!!!
Do you get my point – you are literally going to have to hunt down people’s sidewiki comments (oh boy).
This aside it really is an interesting development. If someone is dissatisfied with a person, an association or a company they can literally put a comment (as long as it follows Google’s policy) that can be seen by anyone on that page. Crazy world hey!
The challenging thing though is that people could easily publish inaccurate information – this is a bit worrying in settings where what people write could have a serious impact, say for example in the area of healthcare (in which I work)… Someone could post an ill informed or inaccurate entry with medical advice that another person might act upon. This could have potentially fatal outcomes. Eekk.
…I am not a big techie nerd so I’m not sure how this will evolve – maybe it will remain in the world of the geeks and will pass us by (although my gut says this won’t happen – remember when you didn’t use RSS functionality? OK YOU still might not but millions of other people out there do and it has changed the way they sift through information on the web.
Anywho folk in the meantime if you have a blog or website I reckon you should have a little read up, download the toolbar, keep an eye out and prepare to engage…
Loved stuff: Bring back The West Wing
Oct 1st
The night before last we finished our The West Wing box set – seven season, 157 episodes of total and utter brilliance. Chad calculated that we have watched it all in 160 days (since I got it from Claire as a birthday present back in April) – now that is dedication.
I’m sad that it is over and that I’m not going to get to see how the Santos presidency differed from the eight years of Bartlett’s. Ho hum.
If you don’t know anything about the programme then the Wikipedia entry is really good. I can only encourage you to buy a box set – it is totally ace. My friend Sally has recommended that I watch the one season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip that was also written by Aaron Sorkin.
Well at least I have achieved one of my goals of 2009 to watch the whole thing – it’s good to achieve one’s life ambitions ;+)
Crumptales: The ying and yang of motherly love (feline style)
Sep 26th
While we were on holiday a friend came and cat sat for our beloved moggies. Unfortunately poor old Tiggy died while we were away – she didn’t come in for her dinner and the next morning Ed found her under her favourie bush in the garden.
A huge thank you to Ed for sorting this out and taking her up to the vets. We aren’t sure why she died but the odvious thing was that she was a bit of a fatty and one of her organs was under too much pressure and failed as a result. We had tried to get her weight down since we got her a year or so ago from the rescue centre – she was on diet food – but she never lost any weight (the vet thinks that she was ‘popping’ into other houses and helping herself to their cat’s food).
It is really sad that she died – she was adorable and Chad and I are missing her loads.
The interesting thing is the personality change in Sophie, our remaining cat. The loss of her mother has totally changed her personality. Whereas before she was shy and retiring, now she is highly vocal, affectionate and sits on our laps for attention (this NEVER happened even once before). I have done some googling on this and it is probably simply that she was being submissive and was under oppressive mother rule.
So there we go – we have a much happier cat on her hands. Motherly love not always good love it appears.
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