Category: Uncategorized

What’s twenty quid to the bloody Midland Bank?

I had a very interesting chat with a chirpy chap from my bank the other day. I actually think it might be the first time I have ever spoken to someone at my own branch, given that it was my dad who opened the account for me (when I was about 7) at the branch in Liverpool near where he worked at the time, and in these days of Internet banking and all that, I try to avoid any contact with them (especially as the staff usually turn out to be a bunch of idiots when I do need to talk to them).

Anyway, so this affable scouser phones me up out of the blue, and basically tries to sell me some money. Oh, I could have a graduate loan if I like, and a graduate mortgage, would I like one of those? I wasn’t particularly interested in buying any of their expensive money at the moment, but I was rather shocked at just how much they’d be prepared to lend me (but not as shocked as he said he was when I told him how much rent we have to pay in London). Gone are the days, it seems, when your mortgage was based on a multiple of your salary. Instead, my bank would apparently quite happily lend me over seven times my salary, on the basis of my ability to make the monthly payments. The initial monthly payments. On a variable rate mortgage. Funnily enough, when I asked whether that might not be just a tad short-sighted (interest rates being at an all-time historic low, and fairly certain to rise over the next few years), he didn’t really answer the question.

On my way to work this morning I noticed one of those new anti-terrorism posters on the tube. Unfortunately, I’m a little bit confused about the mixed message conveyed by the poster, which consists of a picture of a person on a tube looking at an unattended bag, and has the following text:

“Who owns this bag? Don’t touch, check with other passengers, inform station staff, or call 999”

So, if I’ve got this right, they don’t want us to do anything?

Why not? Why shouldn’t we check with other passengers? Wouldn’t calling 999 be a good idea (although admittedly difficult to do on most of the underground network)?

Or is this just a case of some idiot’s appalling grammar conveying the exact opposite of what was intended?

Sal and I watched 21 Grams on DVD last night. It’s quite good, actually (if you can get over the daftness of its central premise about 21 grams being “the weight of the soul”, which is, er, complete nonsense). Naomi Watts, as usual, is excellent, doing that believable emotional range thing she does in Mulholland Drive again, but Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn also put in impressive performances. I give 21 Grams 18 grams of pseudo-scientific nonsense out of 21 grams of pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Well, it may have taken just over a month, but I was overjoyed to discover (thanks to Pete) last night that our efforts have paid off. At least until Google updates their index again, there can be no doubt what is the rudest pub in Islington:

http://www.google.com/search?q=rudest+pub+in+islington

(even better, it’s also http://www.google.com/search?q=rudest+pub)

As fantastic as this is, though, it doesn’t give me the greatest confidence in the future of everyone’s favourite search engine. As far as I know, there are only 3 websites googlebombing the website of the rudest pub in Islington. Surely it shouldn’t be that easy, should it? Just as Groucho Marx once famously stated that he didn’t want to join a club that would have him as a member, I’m not sure I want to trust the veracity of the search results generated by a search engine that can be manipulated so easily by me…

UPDATE: Ha! The Register reckons that Googlebombing a site using only 5 domains might be a record. Nothing of the sort. Clearly 3 websites is the figure to beat…

I suppose that some of you (hello Pete) might be wondering why the level of bloggage around these parts has dropped off a bit recently (and given that I still haven’t got around to setting up one of them thar RSS feeds, you’re probably getting increasingly frustratingly trigger-happy with the Refresh button).

So why the recent lack of new posts? I’m not sure, actually. I suppose it’s partly because I realised that a lot of my recent posts have been a bit on the ranting, negative side, and I had sort of resolved that I wouldn’t post again until I had something positive to talk about. Perhaps that explains why I haven’t posted anything for over a week. I could tell you all about my various battles with the incompetence of Islington council, who apparently aren’t very interested in helping us recycle, our landlord, who apparently isn’t very interested in doing anything, and the utility companies, who apparently aren’t very interested in charging us to receive their supplies.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll only talk about nice things. Well, for starters I went on a free holiday to Switzerland last weekend, our “company outing”, which was great. In a couple of weeks I’m going on a free day trip to Paris, also paid for by work.

Oh, and Spring seems to finally be on its way, judging by the appearance of a round shiny thing in the sky on my way to work, and my not really needing my coat.

Also, Glastonbury tickets go onsale the week after next, although in a bid to outwit ebay scammers, they’re apparently only available to nice people, who can send two character references via carrier pigeon to an address in Shepton and pay in coins (exact money only). Either that or it’s something to do with debit cards, cheques, and providing names for ticket holders. One or the other, I’m sure.

And, as if that’s not all, in a stroke of genius, the random play on my MP3 player just gave me the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch, which segued rather wonderfully into Kevin Carter by The Manics, neatly followed up by There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths. And what could be happier than that?

My delight on Friday afternoon at receiving my Region 1 copies of Lost In Translation and Infernal Affairs, both of which are still in the cinema in the cultural backwater that is the UK, but out to buy elsewhere in the world, was slightly tempered by the discovery that the producers of both discs think they know best how their customers will want to watch their films. When I stick Lost In Translation into my DVD player, it isn’t Bill Murray’s sad, wrinkly face, Scarlett Johansson’s bottom, or in fact any part of Sofia Coppola’s picture-postcard-borderline-racist take on Japan that greets me, but SIX MINUTES of previews that you can’t skip. Well done, Focus pictures, because that’s just what I’ll want to watch every time I put the film on, isn’t it? Worse still, the oh-no-you-can’t-use-the-next-button-to-skip-this-sorry section on Infernal Affairs includes an advert for Sony (after much hassle, I discovered that you can actually get round this “feature” on both discs, by stopping them and pressing the menu button). But seriously, which film company idiot thought this would be a good idea?

The film’s quite good though: I give Lost In Translation 4 minutes of DVD-designated-must-watch content out of 6 minutes of DVD-designated-must-watch content (after Internet’s Diary).

If I had to consign a form of creative expression to my own personal Room 101, there’s little doubt in my mind that the first of the performing arts to go would have to be the utterly contrived and predicatable world of the musical. Unfortunately, with my parents visiting me this weekend on a rare trip to London (and having expressed a desire to “see a show”), I will tonight be taking them and Sally to see the utterly shabby (but hugely successful) cash-in that is Mamma Mia. I’m only now beginning to contemplate the true horror of what lies in store. Worse still, this was the one that started it all: the success of Mamma Mia is directly responsible for Ben Elton’s new career–the horrors that are We Will Rock You, Tonight’s The Night, and Madness the musical.

Somebody save me…

Dear Mr Spam Scammer,

Look, I mean, if you’re going to try to and spam scam phish the account details of a bank account I don’t even have, could you at least try and spell simple words like “veerification”, “memmbers”, and “leter” correctly?

Honestly, some people just aren’t even trying, are they?

Kind Regards,
M Armstrong

—– Original Message —–
From: Citicard
To: Matthewjarmstrong
Subject: Citi EMAIL Veerification – matthewjarmstrong@hotmail.com

To verify _your e_mail address and _access_ _your_ Online-Citibank
account, klick on the_link beelow.

I was in the post office at lunchtime today, and while I was waiting in the queue, I was watching this big TV screen in the middle of all the counters. Most of the time it was just going “Cashier number 4 please…”, but when it wasn’t doing that, it would show information about all the things you can get in the post office (don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this…).

The reason it caught my eye was that when I first looked at it, the screen said “Did You Know? February 17 1930 marked the first flight by a cow flew in a plane. The cow was milked during the flight, and the milk was parachuted into St Louis.” Bizarrely, as soon as anyone watching had had time to digest this important flying cow-related fact, it was all “you can get your passport processed at the post office, and don’t forget to get your foreign exchange done here too…” It wasn’t like a series of “fascinating” facts or anything (I watched for a good 10 minutes while I stood in the queue after that), nor was it a “this day in history” type thing, given that today is the 27th, it was just one utterly random piece of information about a flying cow. Why? Did someone put that information in there just for me? Am I supposed to be remembering this stuff for some date in the future when it’s going to come in handy?

I almost considered taking Damien Rice up on the offer he made about a quarter of the way into his Brixton Academy gig on Saturday night. It had been a strangely dull gig up to that point, and this was the first thing he actually said to us, as yet another song ended in protracted feedback. At that point, I hadn’t noticed anyone talking–later on he said that there were probably a lot of “new” people here, and that if this was what being popular meant, he’d rather play somewhere smaller next time, so maybe he’s used to some kind of reverential silence at his gigs, or perhaps we weren’t applauding quite vigorously enough–but after he had made a big deal out of it, it became noticeable that he had completely lost the back third of the crowd. Perhaps asking your audience to leave, and then telling them you don’t want them there, isn’t the best way to win over the crowd.

The frustrating thing was that there were flashes of brilliance to his performance, but for every good five minutes, we had to stand (quietly) through twenty minutes of dull, dreary rubbish.

The best part of the whole gig was when his cellist came back between the main set and the encore to sing and play a stunning solo performance of Seven Nation Army on her cello.

She got the biggest cheer of the night, naturally.