Always look for a positive...

Well today has been an interesting day at the office.

Suffice to say that when the management team are suddenly summoned to the boardroom at short notice, it's seldom to tell us anything particularly pleasant.

Then an hour or so later after the site briefing when you are all handed a letter that contains the phrase "consultation period", it is seldom bearing encouraging news.

I'm increasingly inclined to agree with Little Sis that these things usually happen for a reason. The reason in this case is that I've spent the last 14 years of my life working for a bunch of...

No, that would be unfair as it's only in recent years that things appear to have taken a bizarre direction and gone pear shaped, not solely down to reasons of global recession.

Still, many of us have said that perhaps its the kick up the backside many of us needed to start making some serious decisions about our future. I'll settle for that as a positive right now while I try and figure how what the hell to do next...

A Quick Plug...

What a brilliant idea this is...

Nothing Succeeds Like Excess...

You can't beat an opportunity to help friends celebrate something really special, even more so when they go to the extent that Andy and Sharon did this weekend for their wedding.

I'm not going to post a minute-by-minute account of the weekend's activities, but I doubt that any of the 90 or so guests involved would have any cause for complaint whatsoever.

The actual ceremony had everything you could asked for, from the beautiful bride to a sincere but light hearted service from the local vicar. For those who like to keep track of that sort of thing, the bride entered the church to "Heaven" and they left to "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" both sung by Bryan Adams with yours truly at the controls. OK, CD player.

There were mountains of food throughout from the generously stacked barbies on Thursday and Saturday to the heavily laden tables with all manner of things sweet and savoury to make sure that everyone had their fill throughout the afternoon and evening receptions. All skilfully co-ordinated by our friend and chef Dave.

You are possibly familiar with the phrase "enough booze to sink a battleship" but I think I may have actually set eyes on such an amount this weekend. In the marquee erected behind the holiday cottages were drinks of every conceivable description. Countless bottles of real ales, a paddling pool full of cold water and cans of beer, cases of bottles of red, white and rose wine and bottles of every spirit you were likely to look for. And yet with all of this free alcohol available, it was reassuring to see that nobody seemed to be abusing the situation. Sure, I guess all of us drank more than we know was probably good for us but we still left plenty behind this morning.

Yesterday afternoon we took a couple of the cars out for a scenic drive around Derbyshire on our way to Bakewell (you've got to love sat nav eh?!) and I'd forgotten what a charming little town Bakewell is. From the stone buildings which are quite commonplace throughout the area, to the trout in the river Wye being admired by the passers-by and of course we couldn't leave without stopping off for a quick cuppa and a Bakewell Pudding (not to be confused with Bakewell tart).

So there you have it, three days of total excess and excellent company in some absolutely beautiful surroundings. I highly recommend that you discover the area for yourself and you can book one of their holiday cottages here, but I would respectfully ask though that you don't hassle them expecting any of the free booze and food that we've just enjoyed...

Movie Subtitle Mistakes...

I know that Twitter has been taking a bit of flack in that many people, celebrity or otherwise, are using it to share every boring minute detail of their day to day lives.

Sure there is an element of that sometimes, but you always get to choose who you "follow" and you can easily "unfollow" people who are guilty of that. With a bit of effort though it can really bring out the imagination and talent of some people and this last week has been an interesting one.

On Monday night, they hosted a live comedy gig with comedians (unsurprisingly) invited to tweet a set each with material in chunks of 140 characters at a time. It went fairly well given that it was really quite experimental, but I'm sure they will get even better as they organise some more. The full transcript if you're interested is here.

This weekend, twitterers were invited to join in a game of movie subtitle mistakes by being a bit mischievous with photo editing software and there were some hilarious results. My contribution was from Goodfellas, which I didn't think was too bad until I saw the sort of talent I was up against. My personal favourites were from Superman, First Blood, Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club, Airplane, Snow White, Gone With The Wind and the one that went on to win, Sixth Sense, but if you want to see them all, follow the Twitpic links from this page.

I accept that Facebook is maybe more easily accessible, but I've never known it as entertaining as that...

Pause for thought...

Reading Delcattos blog this morning, I was reminded of a story I heard on Radio 2's "Pause for Thought" a few weeks ago and decided perhaps it was worth sharing with you all.

A Buddhist student had travelled far and wide in search of a wise old teacher and after many days of travelling through treacherous conditions, he finally spotted him on the other side of a wide, fast flowing river.

He glanced up and down the river bank and with no apparent crossing place, he became frustrated that the end of his journey was so tantalisingly close, but unattainable. He called across to the teacher, explaining about his long journey and asked how he could cross to the other side.

The wise old man looked up and down the river, paused, then eventually replied "but you are already on the other side"

Don't get me wrong, it's not my intention to preach to anyone, the sentiment behind the story applies to me as much as anyone here...

Calling all the heroes...

No apologies, you know the drill by now. I've just got back from the blood donors and once again I'm going to get all self righteous about how simple yet important it is.

To those that already go, good on yer, I think we have every right to feel proud of ourselves.

To those who don't (and can) please believe me, there are few opportunities to do something so potentially heroic with such little effort. Just ask yourself when was the last time you took about an hour of your time to do something which very realistically could save someones life?

Please click on Billy's picture below to find the next session in the UK near you...

Virgin on the ridiculous...

I'm ashamed to admit I've been 'ad.

Further to my last attempt in January, last month I rang Virgin Media to check what special offers they had running as I've been itching for an excuse to upgrade to 10MB broadband but (quite typically) wanted to pay as little as possible for it. The best they could offer at the time was an upgrade to 10MB, keep my existing TV package and switch phone package to include free evening and weekend calls, all for the princely additional monthly sum of 45p. In a moment of uncharacteristic extravagance I agreed to accept the deal there and then.

Now it wasn't the end of the world, but I was a bit irritated that a couple of days later I received both email and a leaflet in the post explaining that as a valued customer, they were upgrading my broadband to 10MB for free. I figured this was just unfortunate timing on my part but rang them anyway just to clarify what was going on and sure enough, my upgrade and their offer had crossed somewhere along the line so I would still have to pay the additional 45p. Irritiating sure, but not exactly going to keep me awake at night, then my bill arrived today with a couple of unexpected surprises.

Firstly, despite a month's notice they had not updated my bank details and as a result had not taken my direct debit payment last month. In fact they were so annoyed that they had neglected to take my money, they decided to charge me a late payment fee of a tenner for good measure.

Secondly, my monthly charge had actually increased by £2.45; again not exactly the end of the world but this coupled with their absurd late payment charge led me to think that perhaps it was time we had another little chat.

Fair play, they accepted that their late payment charge was unreasonable and refunded it. As for the new bundle fee she couldn't understand why I had only been quoted 45p extra - twice actually, I reminded her. Not only are they unable to keep to the quoted price (which unfortunately I only ever had verbally), but I couldn't even revert to my previous package because the phone deal it included was an old one that is no longer available, so I'm stuck with it.

I realise we aren't talking enormous sums of money here, but with a few pence here, a couple of quid there and the occasional charge that many people may feel too uncomfortable to challenge, it's little wonder they are making money...