Proof of light

Following a gut-busting trek through Ormeau Park earlier this afternoon, I spent this evening unwinding in Botanic Gardens Belfast with an ipod and a big book of zombies. Thankfully no sign of the undead in the city and, better yet, the sunshine made for some nice photos. You might be able to spot the 'yella' cranes in the distance. They were once tree to build the titanic, but now spend most of their time just looking pretty damn cool.

It beeps, it freezes and it dies

And that is how an Xbox 360 comes crashing down with the dreaded Red Rings of Death (RROD). It’s the second time my Xbox has been hit with this notoriously common hardware failure.

Looks like I better get on to Xbox support and arrange for them to collect the corpse and perform more surgery. I expect it’ll be some time before I get to run thorugh Beautiful Katamari, Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Far Cry II and Pro Evo again.

Well, at least the weather is nice and last time the collect return process was fairly painless. Here’s hoping for a fast resolution.

Off now to soak up some beautifully rendered sunshine. In the real world!

What a twit

See that thing there on the right? You could eitehr call it my Twitter-feed, or a badge saying I've succumbed to the latest Web2.0 novelty trend.

All I know is that when I send text messages to 'teh interweb" some magic works and they end up on the blog. See, now I can push my brain cheese onto the blog in an all new way (well new to me) and the three of you can read it.

Sociable nerd

The line has officially been crossed.
Today I bought the Battlestar Galactica boxset for 30 quid.

Yeah, there goes my life, dignity and plausible deniability when people ask me what ‘frak’ means.

Crap bank rebrands itself

The woeful Abbey is now to be renamed ‘Santander’ as its parent group realigns its individual brands within the UK.

For some reason they seemed to overlook my suggestions of:
“Don’t bank here”
“Worst bank in the UK”
And my favourite “The biggest threat to your money”. Maybe they’ll use that as a tagline.

Looks like the blogging community may have to rebrand some of their pages in response, like:
www.switchtoabbey.co.uk a great resources on why no one should bank with Abbey/Santander

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22902555060 a facebook forum for tired customers to vent their spleen

http://shabbey.blogspot.com/ a blog dedicated to Abbey’s crapness.

Hopefully Abbey will also change the logo to something more fitting like a big smoking turd, echoing their service. Let’s be honest it wouldn’t take much remodelling would it.

S

More gripes about Abbey Bank

I’m not going to turn this blog into a corporate hate machine, but sometimes it feels like the bank won’t be happy until they’ve lost all their customers.

My much derided Abbey account now exists more for my own amusement than as a serious account – which is fortunate as their operations are nothing but shocking. So here’s today’s doesy:

Last night I missed a call from ‘Abbey’ allegedly concerning on issue on my account. The message left (seemingly a prerecord) advised that I rang this number – 08456016313 – which I did and heard another auto message telling me that it was Abbey’s fraud line. Interestingly the department is only open from 9am until 5pm – yet the call I received was at 7pm!

So I rang again today and got through to a call advisor called Louise who asked for my bank number and date of birth, neither of which I gave. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that you should never give your details to someone you don’t trust. So being a former employee I pushed for some proof of ID:
• When do Abbey staff get paid?
• Who is the head of Abbey in the UK?
• Where is the Abbey saving call centre?

‘Louise’ couldn’t answer a single question, claiming she was agency staff and has just started. Maintaining she was with Abbey, I set her a small challenge to find my account based on my postcode and nothing else. No big task as I am the only person at home with this joke of an bank. Guess what? Couldn't do that either!

If it is fraud, then be wary. If it’s not and you have an Abbey account, you should be terrified that you bank with an organisation that encourages you to give out personal details which can be used to access your account.

Off to the branch now for more fun and games with Shabbey employees I can look in the eye.

S.

Getting what you deserve

As a fan of the club it’s tough to admit, but this season Newcastle United have gotten exactly what they deserve. Dreadful performances at all levels – board, management and players – have brought few points and ultimately relegation.

The press will pick over the bones in the next days/weeks but no one at the club can really escape the finger of blame. The club simply is not good enough for Premiership football.

Some fans are concerned that the big names will depart in the summer. I’m not. In fact the sooner they go the better. For too long the squad, admittedly threadbare, has struggled to put in a performance worthy of a top-flight team. If you want premier league wages then you need to put in premier league performances. A team of hungry young players and seasoned correctly-paid Championship players will lift the club more effectively than most of the current squad are capable of.

Hopefully the Toon gravy train has ended, with overpaid stars - Owen, Viduka, Barton, Coloccini, Duff, Nolan, Lovenkrands, Ameobi, Gutierrez, Smith - getting their marching orders sooner rather than later; relieving the financial burden they placed on a club with whom they still owe a debt of effort and commitment.

The development of a youth players, a wage cap and a decent transfer policy will not happen overnight but will go a long way to making the club viable and capable of generating a premier league return. But serious questions remain over the capability of the owner, chairman and board – those who brought in many of the expensive failures at the club and who:
- Sacked a manager for wanting a say in the players he was to manage
- Put the entire squad up for sale during the last transfer window
- Repeatedly tried to sell the club

Relegation won’t kill Newcastle, but I suspect its current owner may.

Don't be surprised if the club is stripped of all assets (stadium, training ground, etc) before the club is back up for sale or plunged into administration and financially writen-off as a play-boy's experiment gone wrong.

Conspiracy nuts point finger at Obama

Stumbled across a YouTube video called The Obama Deception which aims to 'destroy the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people.'

Apparently he's really 'a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery.'

Complete hocum of course illustrated by the fact it's directed by this highly rational professional:


The production is pretty dry but the passion of the nuts often gives rise to some comedy gold, like rapper KRS 1 comparing Obama to a Burger King manager (see below.


According to Mr 1, we need to see the franchise owner, appranently.

Love this image

Spotted this graphic on the front on the Guardian Weekend Magazine a few weeks ago and have been looking for it ever since. It's designed by Thomas Fuchs and Felix Stockwell and is entitled Deconstructing the GOP.

The artwork led an indepth look at the challenges facing the Republican and is well worth a read here.

Tuesday night’s Italian night

Hard to believe but it’s only a few weeks until good friends Emmett and Gail tie the knot in Italia. Having been generously invited along and with no command of any language (even my English is questionable most days) I’ve set aside Tuesday nights as an excuse to have a little fun with the Italian tongue.

Mostly an excuse to eat pizza and drink wine, I have actually taken some real steps to make sure I can chew out more than three phrases on command. The BBC has a useful, if limited, course here and I’ve downloaded the Rapid Italian audiobook to work on pronunciation. It all feels a bit like being 12 again and starting (and failing) French lessons in school – except most phrases now are about ordering wine and beer.

The audiobook is especially weird, with all dialogue set to a rhythm. Starting to think I should pack my maracas in case I need some help with recall. This week’s lessons online are all about sightseeing something I plan on doing plenty of during my stay in Lake Garda.

The only question now is what is on the menu to aid tonight’s learning? Vino de casa e pizza?

Va bene!

Let's hear it for Cleveland

This made me laugh like a loon.

Tripping back

Another whirlwind trip comes to a close as i set off home from Edinburgh. Its my second time here and really enjoy the cool vibe of the city and it's people. Since i last visited the city has begun a massive project to introduce tramlines. Its ambitious to say the least and many of the most iconic areas are closed to traffic as the roads are opened up. Really interested to see the finished result and will be part of my excuse to return as soon as possible.

Airport aesthetics

Reading about the new facelift for Belfast International Airport while waiting for a plane out to Edinburgh. Anyone who has caught a flight from here recently will agree that proposed changes cannot come quickly enough. Apart from the bizarre name for the airport, which is some 25 miles from Belfast, the layout has been in massive need of an overhaul for sometime. At present most of the restaurants and bars remain on the 'land' side of the gate leaving passengers with little access to got food once done with check in. The 'air' side has is also has little to offer beyond limited and relatively small outlets. The developments here should go along way to addressing most of the obvious problems, but much more work is needed to make the north accessible and welcoming to our international visitors.

DO NOT BANK WITH ABBEY

It’s the last Friday of the month – payday for millions – and the day before the bank holiday weekend. If you are a planning a weeekend getaway and hold an Abbey account, formerly Abbey National, you may want to revise your plans as their systems have taken yet another case of the sniffles.

This outage, which seems to happen on an almost weekly basis, means you cannot withdraw money, use your credit/debit card or even check your balance. The money you own is not available to you nor is critical account information.

A quick google for Abbey reveals the widespread feeling that ABBEY IS THE WORST BANK in Britain:

Abbey is easily the worst bank that I have ever dealt with in 45 years

Abbey – worst bank ever?

Abbey – worst bank ever!

Abbey just a pathetic pretend bank

Britain’s worst bank accounts

Abbey’s incompetence knows no bounds and outages are the tip of the iceberg. Last year a ‘system error’ froze my account leaving me stranded in Dublin without access to funds for bus home and all the call centre advisor could recommend was that I sleep rough until the nearest branch opened again! (nearest branch is some 60 miles away in Newry if you're wondering)

This year they’ve managed to accelerate their bungling: increasing an overdraft limit on my account without consultation and following up by gifting someone in England £500 from my account, over the counter. To top it all their fraud department implied that all fault was mine!

In my experience, Abbey is well on the way to being the worst bank in the history of banking. Avoid like them like the plague they are.