emchi.co.uk

This week’s observations:

• I still miss Somerset.  There’s something calming about being “home”.  The lush green trees, the atmosphere is different.  It’s like a little bubble, nothing outside matters. 
• Manners cost nothing.  So why did I have someone say ’scuse me, then barge straight past me without giving me chance to move or saying “please”.  All this in Marlborough no less.
• Our garden gets closer to a jungle with every day that passes.
• I like watching the puppy sleep.  She looks so cute with each different position she wiggles into.  It can’t be comfortable but I can’t help myself.
• I keep thinking of really good things to write about when I’m driving, or cooking or well anything that is not conducive to having a pen and paper to hand. 
• I’m fed up of adverts for Bingo… They’re all a little, chavy. 
• I’m caught in a bit of a head spin about religion following a very strange conversation with my best friend and her boyfriend.  I’m unable to reconcile things at the moment.
• There’s got to be something slightly wrong about a good salacious scent.  Like fresh coffee beans or new perfume.

We have psycho puppy.  She’s gone from nice, sweet, sleeping a lot with a bit of play, to complete psycho puppy.  I only left her with R for the day while I went to work, come home and she wants to eat me.  Alive! She has a foot fetish, we’ve had to find her an old sock to chow down on, as she’s content with pinching them off the arm chair.

We built her a little lair, and at some point while R was in the bath, she stole a par of socks from the bathroom, only we didn’t know for another two days.  We found the socks hidden in her lair.  Goodness knows what else she’s going to hide in there. 

So far she’s pulled the towel off the top of the lair and dragged it into the middle of the living room, then promptly trotted off and got the rug from the hall as well, that was only this evening, within half an hour of me getting home. 

We’ve been reassured she’ll grow out of it.  Hmmm.  Let’s just say she’s like a living re-incarnation of Marley.  As I said… psycho dog. We’ve been given instructions to ignore her when she barks, get up and leave her.  I was going to say she was fast asleep… she’s now trying to eat R, her sock abandoned along with the rest of her toys, hand is FAR more tasty.   

Five seconds after stepping off the puddle jumper, it felt as though I’d never left, that the gap of five months could have been five days.  All in all it was a duration of five, one way or another, count it in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or months.  I was back in London for a Expo at Earls Court.

I was walking down the underpass from Paddington Station and all the chilled, lassez faire approach to things went out the window and I wanted to scream at the person who was weaving from side to side with her kid, taking up all the space, “The sign says KEEP FUCKING LEFT” It took every ounce of lip biting to stop myself.  Why does London do this to me?

I don’t know what I was expecting when I got the station, but it wasn’t what appeared to be the Harry Potter film crew filming at the end of the platform I pulled into. 

Still I got lots of ideas for work, which I’ll probably forget no doubt.   It’s also nice to be home, even if it appears to have turned into the Lake District round here.

Well it’s one thing in particular.  When people give you an RSS feed but they clip the feed so you still have to go to their website to view it. Now this isn’t so bad when you’re at home, but when you’re having a crafty read of a load of blogs when you’re not at work, an RSS aggregator is a god send.  It’s a bit on the frustrating side of things.

Anyway, enough moaning, I’ve got the new Harlan Coben book to entertain me this weekend, and it’s guaranteed that it’ll only last the weekend, well if I don’t play any Ratchet & Clank.

We have jackdaws nesting in our chimney.  I worked that out this morning when the cheeky little buggers were hopping around outside in the garden.  They have to go.  Noisey is not the word, waking me up early in the mornings as my head is nearest the chimney breast they use as a home.  Grrrrr…..

In other news, it’s really not helpful that my new doctor is eye candy… how are you supposed to discuss personal matters with someone who is young and fit?  I think it’s the first time I’ve ever blushed in a doctors surgery!

I found the site to the Times Oxford Literary Festival at the start of the year and was amused, when I managed to get this year’s list of people who would be speaking at the event I was over the moon that John Connolly was going to be there, so I rapidly booked myself a ticket to go.

I’m not sure if I blogged about it, but last year I had the choice of doing something utterly glam on my Birthday, or going to Bluewater to meet John Connolly.  I chose glam, I don’t remember if it was tbh, I think brunch in Browns at Canary Wharf and then home, should have gone to Bluewater.  Anyway, I phoned up and got John Connolly’s book signed for me, saying “Happy Birthday Emma”.. I wish I’d gone to meet him, it seems like a complete cheat.

I’ve only ever met one author I liked, and ended up hating him so much I refuse to read his books any more.  I’ve met Iain M Banks, but that was for R.  He was a top bloke, really nice author.  So anyway, I’m off to see John Connolly (and Mark Billingham… but I’ve never read any of his books) do a reading on Sunday.  It should be a nice cultural experience.  Well I’m hoping it is.

As some of you may know I work with web technologies.  At the moment specifically I’m looking at a massive intranet re-development.  So part of what I do, is to look at usability and accessibility.  Most of the sites I’ve looked at have had to try and comply with WAI standards.  So one of the biggest websites that I always follow for changes is BBC.  They seem to be one of the few organisations that spends a lot of time and effort (read money) in developing websites that are of a really high standard.  They take the time to combine current trends with accessibility.

So I was reasonably surprised to be presented with a new BBC home page a few weeks ago, being a div, I haven’t really had a chance to look at the site until today.  It would appear at the moment it’s only the home page that has undergone a massive update, but even so you have to look at it for it’s revolutionary approach to delivering content.

When I say revolutionary, I mean look for the navigation.  Breaking with a massive norm, the main navigation is at the bottom of the page, below the fold.  To do something like this, and not have people shouting “you can’t do that” is quite an achievement.  I suspect not many people have noticed though, because what you’re presented with is an eye catching diversion from the norm.

At first glance the page does appear a bit cluttered, but if you stop for a moment and click your way around it’s very well thought out.  Whilst they have taken the time to include bright promo panels, they don’t flash and move around distracting you from the content.  OK so they don’t have to have advertising on the site, but you have to ask why so many companies need to cram in as much junk as possible.  There is no need for it, a well thought out advertising policy, that’s controlled by the site owners and not by the advertising agencies that buy the space is important.  Anyway, I feel that even if BBC had to have advertising content on the site, they would approach the problem with good thought and the users of the site in mind.

The customisation abilities of the page on their own are quite impressive.  You can control you location in individual components or select a page wide change to your location.  So if you want to keep an eye on the weather in one part of the country, but the news in another, it lets you do that.  Quite clever.

As for the seemless changes to the colour when you click on the bottom tabs of the promo box on the right of the screen, completely effortless. Smooth transition without juddering effects.  It’s a really well presented page.  I hear on the grapevine that the news and sports pages are due for release next week, I’m looking forward to seeing what changes they have made here, as it’s always been one of my favourite websites.  Let’s hope they’ve moved into the middle of the page and lost the big chunk of whitespace down the right of the screen.

Now for website nightmares… go check out the Sky Showbiz news website.  What they were thinking? I have no idea, but with lack of decent navigation, page weighting, structure or sense of direction, it’s a wonder anyone uses the site any more.  With all the money they have, and all the design agencies in London, they end up with something that’s akin to Heathrow Terminal 5, i.e. a complete disaster.

I love BBC, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fantastic website, but the thing that drives me up the wall is that they always put who has won a Grand Prix on the home page.  Nine times out of ten I’ll forget and open the website and see who’s won a race before I’ve watched it.  Today, thankfully, I remembered not to.  For a news junkie like me, it’s a bit of a nightmare. 

Anyway, I’m thankful I didn’t, what a race.  I think I’ve hurt my shoulder clapping at the likes of Raikkonen going off and subsequently retiring from the race.  Yet another fantastic drive and a great start to the season for Hamilton.  Yes I’m unashamedly a Hamilton fan.  I hope he actually wins the championship this year.  Goodness knows he deserves it.

It’s been a long drought of a winter without F1 to watch, so I’m pleased the season has now started!

The saga of the decorator continues… the pre-pubescent idiot at the letting agent phoned yesterday and said “oh the decorator will be there starting work on the 17th”… err, no, he won’t.  To recount the conversation I’d had with the wet blanket two weeks previous.  The decorator is NOT coming back until we know specifically what he’s doing and when he’s doing it.  If he says it should take five days to finish, what exactly is he finishing?  Is that five days the rest of us work, or the four hours he works, if so he can do two and a half days FULL work, not five days.  Oh and I also said that I wasn’t permitting anyone to come and do decorating next week, we’ve got house guests, and the last thing I’m doing is entertaining in the kitchen because the workshy lazy fat painter has kicked us out our living room. 

To top that all off the bumfluff boy from the letting agents turns around and tries to get shirty with me.  I don’t bloody care if he’s the middle man, that’s what he’s paid to do.  God knows they’re not doing anything.  I’d rather converse directly with our landlord, I have WAY more respect for him than I do for someone who’s just left school.  This is our home for goodness sakes.

Now, do I chase the letting agents about their inability to do anything
close to communicating with us regarding what is happening on the  bird
in the chimney?  How long does it take a person to call up and say
“I’ve spoken with the landlord, he’s not going to do anything
until…”  How on earth do these people stay employed?

In other news I’ve noticed the trees are starting to blossom on the commute in.  Oh and having moved our new magnolia into the conservatory to get it out of the gales that might knock it flying, it’s started to flower.  I shall have to take some photos of it, it looks really pretty.  Gentle little white flowers.  Going to go and have a sniff tomorrow. 

I must be completely slovenly and also getting into the village life.  After the door men had finished today I had to move my car, so I thought I’d be lazy and take a trip down the butchers to order meat for collection tomorrow.  So off I trotted in my jogging bottoms, mahoosivly oversized amazon fleece and sheepskin boots.  I looked a mess.  Anyway, made it to the butchers to get the question

Butcher: “why are you ordering meat?”… um…
Me: “Because you told me to when I came in earlier this week and you didn’t have any diced lamb”
Butcher: “ah, good to see you’re doing as you’re told”

Hmmm… anyway on the way back to the car, I passed the landlady of one of the village pubs, the one I know by name (having spent a week staying there, and not having been in the other pub), managed to see her drive home (a 2 minute walk), she only lives in the nicest house on the village green (the house has lovely paintwork and manicured gardens).  It’s also right next door to the other village pub that everyone tends to go to.  I’m completely jealous now.  Oh for my premium bonds to come up!! 

The doors are in now, the draft has gone completely and we have light in the utility area, which is a tad novel.  Still feeling disgusting, opted to be lazy and have Waitrose deliver tomorrow.  Also decided that I’m going to try a couple of recipes from Delia’s new cookbook.  I’ll let you know how that goes.