30 August 2011 (Tuesday) - This n That

I’ve been getting behind with watching the telly, so we had a bit of a catch-up last night. I’m now only two episodes behind with Torchwood, and I’m wondering why I’m continuing watching the program. After all, each episode is an hour of my life I will never get back.

I suppose, like all books and films and TV shows, if you can’t relate to the characters, then your interest isn’t engaged. And I couldn’t care less about the characters in Torchwood.

And we watched last Saturday’s Doctor Who as well. “Let’s Kill Hitler”… I can’t help but feel that Matt Smith is the new Sylvester McCoy – no matter how well he tries, he’s not got much in the way of storylines and scripts to work with. Previous Doctors have had companions and assistants who were fun and interesting characters. Quite frankly Matt Smith hasn’t a hope when saddled with such dull, drab, one dimensional hangers-on. Amy Pond – legs all the way up to her bum and precious little else. Rory whatshisname – what on Earth is that character even there for? And take the current storyline about River Song. Who cares? I don’t. Which is a shame….

However for entertainment with believable characters, why not try an e-book? Torn is “the best and worst of church, religion and faith. The best and worst of science. It’s about indoctrination, dogma and manipulation, even outright lies. It’s about family, expectations, mis-communication and betrayal. And it’s about love and hate. A line drawn through a Kent village, dividing families and friends.” Available online from Dawn Rite publishing, it will only set you back £2.99. Money well spent!

And then on with the business of the day – first of all to the dentist. Despite having a 9am appointment, I sat about waiting, and I wasn’t called in until 9.10am. I wonder what that was all about?

The chap had the obligatory rummage around inside my mouth, and suggested I made an appointment for a scaling and polishing. I rather suspect that had I been able to get in at 9am I would have had the scaling and polishing done today. But such is life.

I then came home to find postie had been. Last week I mentioned that the mortgage endowments had been paid, and that the building society would be writing to me to tell me how much the outstanding balance was for. Today’s letter told me that they had converted the outstanding balance into a repayment mortgage. They wanted (nearly) a hundred quid a month for the next five years to pay this off, and were charging me seventy quid for their having done this.

I phoned the number given on their letter, and listened to some rather dreadful music whilst waiting for someone to answer the phone. I got through to a chap who’s spoken English was marginally worse than my spoken Urdu, and so after a lot of mucking about I hung up and phoned again in the hope of getting someone with whom I could communicate.

Eventually I got through to Lee in Nottingham who was very helpful. It turned out that my best bet would be to go into the local branch to speak with someone there. That will be something to do next week.

With my car’s roof box gone I can now get into the tip, so I loaded my car up with loads of cardboard rubbish and the compost bin, and set off. And once at the tip I found that some things never change. The tip was virtually empty, but due to stupidly selfish bad parking, no one could actually get in to unload their cars. And for every one person that was actually throwing rubbish away, there were two or three hanging over the tip on what I could only describe as a sight-seeing mission.

I then popped round to Sainsbury’s: I had one or two bits and bobs to pick up. I had this plan that whilst I was doing the shopping, someone else could wash the bird poo off of my car for me. There are always people trying to wash cars in Sainsbury’s car park. But not today.

And then with the opportunity of taking the rest of the week off work I watched some telly, and mucked about some more with my presentation on comets. I started it ages ago, and it’s now less than two weeks until I give the talk (for the first time).

And I then spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with Steve as I pootled round the garden filling the compost bin with the greenery which was pouring over the fence from next door. I wish he’s prune back his overgrowth….