Home decorating.... Again!!

Last year, I had a major crisis when the hot water tank burst. The water poured through the ceiling and left stain marks on the ceiling and wallpaper. So during this holiday, I decided to make a start on redecorating our dining room. the picture above, is what the wallpaper looked like before I started the decorating.









First, I started to remove the radiator. Having done this before, I am becoming confident of doing this without any major mishaps. I just needed a couple of sauspans to drain the water from inside the radiator itself. This particular radiator made it even easier for me as there were valves at both ends to shut down the water supply, so I didn't have to go into the loft and shut down the water supply from there. Once I had losened the nuts at the base, all I had to do was open the bleed valve and let the water pour into the sauspan. When the saucepan was full, I tightened up the bleed valve to stop the water flow, emptied the saucepan, and then repeated the process until all the water was drained.



Soon, the radiator was off the wall. As you can see, there were loads of cobwebs behind the radiator. You can also see that when I last did the wallpapering, I hadn't removed the radiator. I hadn't even bothered to remove the original wallpaper either! I put special end caps onto the pipes to stop any potential leaks while I was doing the decorating. I also removed the support brackets for the radiator. One problem I did have though. The plastic grommets that held the radiator in place on the brackets had become brittle and disintegrated when I took the radiator off the brackets. Luckily, I still had some grommets left from when I had taken the radiator off in the hallway. Now I have only one grommet left, I think I will need to get some more in stock for my next decorating project!







Next, it was the infrared detector to be removed. This involved me shutting down the alarm system (which took 20 minutes of the external siren wailing before it shut up), then carefully removing the sensor, and making a note of the order of the wiring connections as I removed it. As you can see in this picture, you can clearly see the water damage, and also the last time I decorated this room I didn't remove the detector (I didn't have enough confidence in myself at the time to attempt such a task).










I then put masking tape arround the windows, floor edges, and light fittings. Then I commenced wallpaper stripping, with lots of help from my wife and daughter. Once the wall paper was off, I commenced painting the ceiling, window frames and the skirting boards.












Finally, all the preparation was completed< and with help from my wife and daughter, we started putting on the new wallpaper.












It took us two days to complete the wallpapering. We could have done it more quickly, but we only did a few hours each day, as we had other things we wanted to do with our time. As you can see from this picture, the room certainly looks different. Personally, I don't like the look of the wallpaper, but I let the girls choose what they wanted, and they seem very happy with the result!

Transparency of TV competitions

Normally, I avoid watching the TV reality/celebrity shows, where the outcome of who gets voted off relies upon telephone voting. The only exception is Dancing On Ice.

I have always wondered why none of the TV companies will show the actual number of phone votes each contestant gets. They used to do it many years ago. So why have they stopped? I am sure if the audience actually saw how many votes their favourite performer received, they would be more likely to pick up the phone and vote, if their favourite was in danger of being voted off the TV programme. Surely it would be in the TV programmmes interest to increase the revenue it gains from the phone calls, and also it would be more transparent about the voting process. Then they couldn't be accused of fixing the competititon.

I have left a couple of messages to the Dancing On Ice presenter Philip Schofield, in the hope he may redirect me to someone who could actually give a valid response to my question. Who knows, I might be lucky and get a reply from him!

Spam E-mails

Normally, when I get spam e-mails, I delete them immediately. I can also normally work out from which site I had given my e-mail address to, that has sold it on, generating the sudden increase in spam!

Today, I have been highly amused, as I have started to receive spam e-mails at work, and I am very curious to know how the spammers have got hold of it.

I have just received 3 love letters, almost certainly from the same person, but with different names and emial addresses. They all seem to be coming from a Russian girl Tanya/Lusine/Lusi, claiming she is a lonely girl searching for a man's attention. Then there is an email address to reply to.

Now, 6 years ago, I might have been tempted to reply, just to see what would happen next, and maybe have some fun pretending to be interested to see how far they would go to try and squeeze money out of me (learnt the hard way the first time around).

As I am a happily married man to a Belarusian woman, I have no intention of investigating this any further, unless I get my wife to write back to this girl, in Russian! I wonder what would happen then!

As to how this girl has got hold of my work e-mail address, I can only think of two possibilities. First was I had used the work computer 6 years ago to register on a dating website, and then closed the account 5 years ago, although that was extremely difficult to do as the company I work for had massivly restricted our internet access, so it took me a bit of time to find a way to redirect the e-mails to a computer that allowed access to the main website so that I could close the account and stop the spam e-mails coming through.

The other possibility, is that my daughter has sent me some e-mails with her homework attached for me to proof read for spelling and grammar. When I have checked and altered the homework, I send the e-mail back to my daughter. I have only been doing this for the last 3 months. So it seems more likely that the spammers have got hold of my company e-mail somehow through these correspondences.

When I get home, there should be an interesting and amusing conversation with my wife and daughter.

Governments Austerity Measures Hits The Working Class Hardest

After my Land Rover Discovery had been in for repairs for an entire week, I finally picked it up yesterday. I now have a major crisis as I need to find the money to pay the bill!!

The reason for the repair was at first what seemed a minor problem of a fuel leak from the bottom of the engine. When I took the car to my local garage in early december, they initially thought it was an oil leak, and not a fuel leak as I had thought. Still, I booked the Discovery in for repairs at the first opportunity a week later.

The garage took a look at the car, and discovered that the cylinder head was cracked, and fuel was leaking into the engine oil. I was told that a new cylinder head would cost £1100. They couldn't do the repair before Christmas, so I had to book it in last week.

I had worked out that the cost of repairs would not leave me with much change from £2000. Imagine my shock when I was presented with a bill for a few pence short of £3000 !!!

Looking at the breakdown of costs, about £1600 was for the parts, £900 for labour, and a whopping £500 VAT charged! I had to pay an extra £62.50 to the Government because the car was repaired this month instead of last month!! The garage even refused to give any discount for cash!

The garage has now lost my custom!

I have also noticed that the price of petrol and diesel have gone up by 10p a litre over the space of a month. So now it is even more expensive to have a car than before. Of course, public transport should be a viable alternative, except, due to previous Governments privatisation policies, the cost of public transport has gone up enormously, and any route that was unprofitable, reduced or eliminated. Where I live, I would have to add another hour to each end of my journey if I switched to pedal power. Buses are of no use as they do not operate outiside of daylight hours!!!

If the present Government continues with their plans to reduce the deficit so rapidly, I think they will kill any growth in the economy, as more and more people find that they cannot afford even the smallest luxuries anymore. If labour get into power again, all they will do is spend, spend, spend, and ultimately bankrupt the Country!

I've just received notification that my electricity is increasing by 8.5%. I am sure that gas, water and telecommunications will follow soon, it has to, as VAT has increased. I am almost certain that this year, very few employees will be given a pay rise that will negate the erosion of their wages by the government taxes imposed upon them.

I heard a guest on Radio 2 a few days ago mention that a good way to beat the VAT hike is to buy items second hand, as they are exempt from VAT. As a form of protest, I am now going to look closely at items I buy, and refrain from buying items that have VAT charged, unless I have absolutely no other option available. Does anyone know where I can buy second hand petrol and diesel from?

An Evenings Entertainment

Last night, my wife and I trundled off to London to see a special private (not a premiere as I had first thought) screening for investors only of the film "The Mortician".

My personal assessment of the film is as follows :-

I found the film was very slow to get started. I found it difficult to work out what was going on, and where the story was leading to.

The 3D effects were very good, although I did notice that when the camera panned along a street following a character, any graffiti writing on the walls went all blurry.

I found that Method Man's character, had very little depth to it. We learn he is a mortician and a taxidermist, but even with the flashbacks of his past, it is difficult to see what makes him tick emotionally.

The baddie in the movie is Dash Mihok's character "Carver". Again, I felt that more could have been done with his character, especially early in the film, showing more of his ruthless methods of keeping rivals and victims down. Then the second half of the film would have been even more tense.

Once the film got going, and the characters had taken on personalities, then it became interesting. I must admit I have never seen a movie where the principle character (Method Man) is shown as a coward, and basically frightened of his own shadow. Even with having to cope with his fears, he still manages to help others stand up for themselves. He eventually arrives at a position to help clear up any loose ends both physically and emotionally, as he comes to terms with his own demons.

There was one part that had me confused. When Method Man goes back to his home town to seek information about his mother, a woman who knew his mother informs him that she was murdered, and he was taken away without ever being given the chance to see her and grieve. So, why then is there a flashback of Method Man as a child looking at an open coffin of a woman, presumably his mother?

As an investor, I sincerely hope that people will go and see this film. In reality, It definitely will not catch on the way films such as "Slumdog Millionaire", "Ghost", and "The Full Monty" did. As the film was completed on a shoestring budget, it is quite an impressive achievement, and perhaps there may be a little profit in it for us, eventually.

Secretly, I was hoping that during the end credits, there would have been a special thanks to all the investors who had contributed to the film. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to remain anonymous!

We're off to see a premiere!

As I have mentioned previously, I was lucky enough to be able to invest in a movie. This was three years ago. Now, on Monday 13th December, my wife and I have been invited to see the premiere of "The Mortician". We will meet the actors, directors, and other investors, and probably move on after the film to the celebration party afterwards.

I am hoping that I will be able to get an extra ticket, so that my daughter can also come along too!

Deed Poll Disaster

My step-daughter wants to change her name, so she has the same surname (family name) that her mother and I have. To do this in the UK is fairly straight forward, or so I believed!

When I searched the web, there are numerous sites offering a Deed Poll name change service. All of them charge varying amounts from as low as £7.00 up to £35. There also was some information stating that changing your name is actually free!

Now that word "free" got me searching for a way to complete this task without having to pay someone else to do it. So I eventually found a site where you could download a template, fill in the information, and then print off your own copies.

I duly downloaded a pdf file, put the relevant information in, and then printed it. I got a witness to sign the form when my daughter signed it, and merrily printed copies off to take to the banks. That is when I discovered I had a problem.

The banks will only accept original documents, so any kind of seal mark downloaded via a pdf file and subsequently printed will always look like a copy!!! I have now gone through an official site, to get documents that have an official seal or watermark, that the institutions will accept.

Perhaps I could have gone to my local stationary supplier and tried to get specially embossed paper, or had an embossing tool made. I actually have one that belonged to my fathers business, hidden somewhere in the house, but somehow I do not think that the authorities would accept a Deed Poll document for my daughter embossed with "Abbotsbury Laboratories Ltd" on it!