Sunshine, ISP and Clocks

 

Out came the Spring weather today, encouraging people to pretend the sun was hot and the chilly east wind that was cutting into you as you pass through any shadow did not exist.  I can tell you that exist it did!  I took advantage of the sun but avoided the wind by wandering aimlessly through 'Poundland' and 'B&M,' to find nothing that was useful to me existed today.  Lots of empty shelves in 'B&M,' possibly refilling stock, too mean to pay overnight staff, and changing things also for the Spring sales.

 

 

I meandered through the town, checking the prices on the fancy stalls.  Liquers began at £20, other spirits on show at £35!  Hmmm thought I, another bottle of Tesco sherry at £5:50 for me.  Ignoring the overpriced slabs of chocolate cake and the cheese stall, both of which I am supposed to avoid, I pressed on hopeful for something interesting.

I found it!  

My ISP, 'Plusnet,' is running out in June and an offer I almost took is on the table.  However, in the market a man is selling faster Broadband, not just 'Fibre Broadband,' but 'Full Fibre,' meaning not just from the copper wire to your door but full fibre from the green box.  The speed improvement is as impressive as the price increase.  Plusnet have slowed my speed from 65 to around 50, it is running at 53:06 tonight, which is good enough for me, however, sometimes 'Sky football' which I get via 'Now TV' on the laptop fades badly for no good reason.  The BBC manage OK, as do ITV but SKY are cheapskates.  Plusnet did not inform me the rate was slowing, nor did they charge me less for this delight.

Therefore this is interesting and new, indeed encouraged by the council as so many people around here, especially businesses out in remote areas where people often work from their big expensive cottage homes, are not happy with the speeds.  This sounds a good idea but all the companies sound good, it is the little things they forget to mention that go wrong.  Soon I will contact my great nephew, the telephone engineer, and take his advice before I go ahead and choose the wrong one.

 

Tonight the clocks go forward once again.  When I wake at 6 in the morning it will actually be 7 am.  The sun will be up, the chill will fill the air, many will spend much time in the morning changing every clock in the house, bar one, the one they need to be correct!  I will begin tonight and hope not to miss one.  I have no idea why I have so many clocks, but there is plenty when change time arrives.

This will lead to outrage in the 'Daily Mail,' and 'Daily Express.'  One of their favourite gripes is changing clocks.  They grumble that it affects them in the south of England but only benefits those in the north of Scotland, and their inbuilt xenophobic racism rises once again. Often the grumble is about being bossed by the EU to follow 'Berlin time,' this does not go down well.  Brexit has removed this grumble, so another must be found, I wonder what it will be?  

Does it really affect us so badly the gutter press can make use of it?  Well no, not really.  The only problem is turning up at church one hour late, as most of us have done at some time, and that may not be so bad after all...

 

  

Time/Timely

The good news is the clocks going back one hour and offering an extra sleep in the morning.  It goes without saying that I awoke at five, that was six and struggled to sleep properly until ten minutes before I had to rise.  Tsk! Struggling into the cold east wing I began looking for all the timepieces that required changing.  As always during the day others appear out of nowhere and I sometimes wonder why I have so many clocks is useful positions that I never notice except when the stop or require moving forwards or back one hour.  

Having succeeded in registering time in the house I looked to having my weekly bath, what with this being Sunday and all.  The boiler would not work!  It has been giving problems off and on and now it was just off!  The starter has decided not to start and the little red light says call for the man!  So I sent an email to the woman who calls the man who calls me and turns up probably sometime during the week.  Just as the weather turns winterish all the boilers fail, this year it's my turn.  Ah well, I suppose I can have a bath next week, no need to fuss is there. 

The thing about the Edinburgh derby is that you must realise the Heart of Midlothian always win it!  OK on occasion the wee team sometimes scrape a victory but since 1875, when we beat them one nil on Christmas Day, the Heart of Midlothian have always been the superiour side.  This is one of the blessings I have received, to be born into a Hearts of Midlothian family, how lucky is that! Hibernian fans, those few, those noble few who follow the wee team do not like this situation.  Indeed since we defeated them in the cup final, again, in 2012 one or two of the most likeable Hibs lads have only referred to me in grunts, and that via the web!  

Today the Hibs had some idea that they were in a position to defeat this mighty team, jokers that we are we played along with this allowing them to convince their feeble minded followers that a victory was on the cards.  Indeed they even managed to get the ball into our goal and with this one goal lead the happy bunch were celebrating a win long before the end.  90 minutes had been played, 4 more added by an excellent referee to cover injury time and other happenings at the end when cheering Hibbys had reality restored.  That great man Alim Ozturk strode forward into enemy territory, unleashed a shot from close on 40 yards and watched as it sailed into the air, dipped, and off the bottom of the crossbar rocketed into the Hibs net!  Oh what a shot, what a goal, what a laugh (in love obviously) as the Green and white clad lower orders stared in disbelief.  Once more they had failed to win, once more the BIG TEAM took a point, we should have had three) once more i expect to hear grunts over social media soon, when they come out of the pub/sulk/coma. 

Some feardies thought Hearts were going to lose?  Some, like me, are not old enough to experience the shock of being defeated by Hibernian.  Tsk!  The Edinburgh derby, one of the most one sided in the world.  Still, it's a giggle innit?   

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Change the Clocks!

This morning I awoke at around 20 minutes past eight. I was delighted to have forced myself back to sleep, several times, but eventually faced the call of the world to offer myself to it. The world responded by ignoring my existence. I sat here and read the papers online, depressing myself at the Heart of Midlothian's inability to score a goal against the team bottom of the league! I should rejoice they did not score and get their first win, against us! There was little that interested me, I glanced at the blogs, always poor on the weekend when folks insist on having a life instead of blogging. There were few with anything to read. I watched the beginning of the Moto GP on TV for a while until that got boring also. Being Sunday I sat in the bath and read part of 'Three Men in a Boat' and wallowed for an hour.
Back at the desk searching for inspiration I overheard someone mention the clocks going back. I phoned 1-2-3 to check the time and discovered it was not, by now, 12:25 , it was instead 11:25 am, and no-one had told me! The cheek of it! Not for the first time the nation has amended the clocks and not bothered to inform me what was going on. I could get paranoid about this but will put that aside for now. To be honest this is not the first time this has occurred. I can recall marching jauntily into a church to be laughed at by people coming out! A year or two ago I rode in the sunlight up the old railway one bright Sunday morning pleased that no-one was around. Well I had the sunshine to myself that day, it being six in the morning while I still believed it was seven! Now I think about it I really can believe this is a government conspiracy against me! 'They' are out to get me. I wonder if my phone is being tapped?