Matt Flaherty

Last updated 1 minute ago

2009-08-08T20:35:30Z

that's better

Last updated 160 weeks ago

2009-08-08T20:33:02Z

160 weeks ago. That's a long time. Why don't I ever get into this stuff? I'm a web applications developer. You'd think this would be my sort of thing. I guess I just never really much feel like talking about myself. I'm bad at keeping in touch with friends even by email. I'm not into gadgets. I don't have an iPhone or a Blackberry. I don't even have a camera on my mobile phone. Not anymore. That one broke and I got a new (old) one. Do I even still have any "friends" on here? Apparently I do have some. I haven't spoken to any of them in at least a year. I think the last one I actually saw in person was sexyworld. When was that? No idea. Well anyway, here's a hello to all those who still list me as a "friend". I hope you are all well. I'm fine. I'm all alone at the moment. My family have gone on holiday and left me to whatever it is I get up to at times like these. Today that has mainly consisted of replacing a rotten window sill and reading the New York Times and PolitiFact.org. In maybe a half an hour I'll go upstairs and pick up the book I've been reading. This is why I never talk about myself.

I've got the itch to play gigs again and I'm looking for an established band that needs a competent guitar player. If anybody has any leads I'd appreciate it. If you want to, you can follow me on twitter where I'm also listed as flayman. Hint: it will not significantly increase your tweet frequency. Thank you and good night.

Shine on you crazy diamond

2006-07-11T13:38:46Z

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,1817952,00.html

The death of Syd Barrett has prompted me to post for the first time in more than a year. No longer blown on the steel breeze, may he rest in peace.

move along, nothing to see here

2005-07-08T07:28:59Z

I was a bit late in yesterday by coincidence. I might have been stuck on the Tube otherwise. When I got to Waterloo I heard over the loudspeaker that the entire Underground was closed due to a power failure. My first reaction was to laugh. "How pathetic!" I thought. Maybe the cause wasn't yet known, but if they'd announced what was really happening I would have turned around and gone home. Instead I got two buses to Angel, Islington. While I was on the 243 somewhere around Holborn a number 30 was exploding a few blocks away. I arrived at work in reasonable time really. It's amazing how you can sort of drift through a situation like yesterday without even realising what's going on.

For me the most upsetting thing about yesterday has not been the events which claimed the lives of several dozen, but rather the rabid and irresponsible journalism. Contrary to what was reported on Sky News and even the venerable BBC, there was no discernable mass panic and hysteria in the city. I walked from Angel to Waterloo in the mid afternoon and all I could see was Londoners going about their business. Maybe that's because we're so accustomed to massive disruptions to our planned journeys. I got home more quickly yesterday than I did the day Waterloo was shut last year due to flooding. The prevailing attitude on the street seemed to be one of "I wonder when they'll open the Tube again?" My parents in the States were relieved that I was okay after they'd been innundated with relentless views of "devastation and human suffering" on BBC America. I'm fortunate that I don't know anyone who was killed or injured and I sympathise with anyone who does. But this kind of sensational reporting plays right into the hands of the terrorists. Londoners would be better served by accurate reports of our reactions to the events. We did remarkably well. And the police and emergency services responded with a high degree of readiness. For that I think we ought to be proud and not a little reassured.

funny dalek

2005-05-05T12:32:16Z

brilliant!

flayman @ 2004-08-29T22:03:00

2004-08-29T21:26:59Z

Hi. It's been a little while. Sorry. I promise to do better. So I got my guitar back finally. It was a week ago in fact. I trucked down to Guildford to pick it up from the Duty Manager's office there. There had been a slight misunderstanding in that I'd earlier been led to believe that Guildford would send the item up to the Lost Property office at Waterloo, but after waiting for a week I phoned up and discovered that they couldn't send it because it was too big to fit in the secure container(?). Anyway, no big deal. There was no charge to pick it up. I got it back and that is good.

********

What else? Oh yeah, I got my bike fixed too. This is turning out to be kind of a boring post. Okay, moving on. Today I went to rhodri's place to do the remainder of guitar work for the upcoming Free French release. We only had about four hours to do it today and I didn't think that would be enough time, but it was. We got loads done today. The five remaining tracks were all recorded with numerous overdubs and lots of stuff that we came up with on the spot. It turned out really well and we began to feel very excited about how good it is all sounding. Yeah, it's gonna be good. I'm looking foward to hearing these mixed.

thanks for last night

2004-08-18T08:34:56Z

Hello all. Last night's gig at the 100 Club opening for Spearmint was great fun. I think we will remember it for a very long time. I'd like to personally thank my friend Tom Pounder for unexpectedly turning up to see us. Apart from a couple of my wife's mates, none of my other friends turned out despite a very targeted information operation. It was a packed crowd nonetheless and scissorkicks comfortably helmed the mixing desk to provide us a great sound. I'm really looking forward to the next gig in September and another in early November with Scarlet's Well. But for now, I'm glad for a bit of rest. To top off the perfect evening I actually did make the last train home... and made it for 9am in the office. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Tonight's the Night!

2004-08-17T09:04:25Z

No, not that crappy Rod Stewart Musical! Come see the Free French at the100 Club, 100 Oxford Street, W1D 1LL. Doors open 7:30, we expect to start around 9. Guaranteed not to suck, or double your money back*! Be there and be square! Here's a map.

*Terms and conditions apply. Band's performance to be judged by band. Your home may be at risk if you fail to keep up repayments.

strapless

2004-08-16T12:11:50Z

Forgot to mention, in the middle of the third song at last Thursday's gig my guitar strap came off and I had to go down on one knee to play through. This totally messed me up as you can imagine and of course my vocals were nowhere. My favourite tune of the set as well! That's the first time this has ever happened and it will be the last because I am going to get one of those locking straps. Or better yet, a friend has informed me that you can use the clay stopper from a bottle of Grolsch to lock your strap in place. I find this intriguing as I would obviously rather spend my money buying beer. Hmmn, I suppose I'll need two... Anyone with similar experiences?

EDIT: And what was your makeshift solution?

Bury

2004-08-13T09:44:00Z

I've been very stressed at work this week, well last week too I guess. Let's start there. On Monday of last week we had a meeting to discuss the timeline of our current project. I saw that I had some major deliverables for today actually. But I knew I would be taking three days off to go to Rob and Kelly's wedding in Ire and rehearsing for and playing last night's Free French gig in Bury St. Edmunds. That would mean leaving work early and getting home late. I decided I'd try to catch up on work while at home or one the train and also try to be in the office earlier.

So Wednesday last week, the day before flying into Knock, I found myself a bit late getting out the door to catch a train and I flew on my bicycle to get to the station in time. At a red light I pulled out my mobile which has the only time keeper that I carry. I couldn't quite get it back into my pocket before the light changed and as I kicked off to get across the intersection, my phone fell out into the street. I cursed and grabbed the phone as soon as there was a break in the traffic turning left. Then just to show the world how angry I was I picked up my bike and throw it down on the pavement. It was only on the ride home that evening that I noticed my rear wheel was bent and the bike was unridable. That's gonna cost me £30. Stupid move number one.

Stupid move number two happened two days ago when I misread the digital clock on my laptop at 15:30, thinking it was 5:30 and time to leave for the rehearsal. This sometimes happens to me when I'm under stress. No one questioned my early leaving. I arrived at Rooz studios two hours early and had to decide what to do. I couldn't go back to the office because then I'd waste another hour on the tube. I went and found a Starbucks with a Wi-Fi service and sat down to work on my laptop. That worked out well, but I had to do a lot of extra legging around with quite heavy gear on my shoulders.

The king of all stupid moves happened yesterday during the morning commute. I was working on my laptop trying to catch up as usual and I had my spare guitar in a hard case on the rack above my seat. We pulled into Waterloo before I knew it and I got my bag together and left. At Charing Cross on the Northern line I realised what I had done. Dashed back to Waterloo but the train had already departed for Guildford with the guitar still on it. It made it all the way to the final destination and they are holding it there and sending it back up to Waterloo Lost Property in a few days time. That's lucky, but I can't believe I nearly lost the very first guitar I ever owned in a moment of absent mindedness. And the time I gained catching up on work was doubly lost with all my frantic running around.

All this just goes to show that I should never try to do more than I am capable of and I am not as capable as I may have thought. The deadline has slipped by the way, and it turns out it's not critical. Oh well. After next Tuesday's gig things should return to normal.

Last night's gig was a disappointment. The band that opened for us were called "Shooting Craps" and they play the Priors Inn a lot. Most of the dozen and a half people at the gig were there to see them. One friend of mine who lives in Suffolk came out for us. Shooting Craps were actually quite good. Their sound was a bit hard core, and when they finished we were wondering how we would be received. With the band's average age about 12 years older than the crowd I'm sure you can imagine how it went. The sound was good and we played fine but it was a struggle with kids filtering out through the front door and those remaining staring with stony faces. rhodri will tell you all about it I'm sure. Some folks did get into it at certain points and the previous band came up afterwards to chat and say that they thought we were good. They bought a CD. But to give an idea what sort of set we had, I looked down at the set list as a particularly slow number came up and just thought "Oh no." We dropped our encores and just got out of there as soon as possible. I stayed over at my friend's flat in Finchley, arriving at 2am. I haven't seen my wife and kids since yesterday morning. I find that strange.

Irish wedding

2004-08-10T10:03:28Z

I see I have missed a week here on my weekly chronicle. Oh well, last week was a little bit crazy. This week will be too. I've just got back from 4 nights in Co Mayo, Republic of Ireland having attended the wedding of my brother-in-law with family in tow. He's called Rob and his new bride is Kelly. Rosie got to be a flower girl in the wedding service and she was really cute. This was a traditional Catholic church wedding, although the priest was a bit of a ham and he kept making jokes about football. When the eucharist was being handed out it suddenly dawned on me that Rosie would wonder what was going on and probably want one. Beccy and I looked at each other for a moment. I said "We could give her a rice cake." Beccy thought that might be viewed as disrespectful. I took out a rice cake and said "The body of Rice. Amen." to which Beccy managed to keep from laughing out loud. Rosie didn't ask for one so we were off the hook.

It was a lovely wedding and a fun reception that went on much longer than we did. Rosie made a couple of friends and they spent most of the time dancing to the cover band. I can't tell you how great it was not to have to keep her occupied. Molly fell asleep in the buggy in spite of the racket. We thought we did well staying out with the kids until half eleven, but the party continued until the wee hours. I think some folks wandered back around 5 am. Naturally the newlywed couple had to outlast all of the guests and they did well.

We were blessed with generally good weather and managed to avoid major stresses of holiday away with children and inlaws. The last time (also the first time) I travelled to Ireland, we went with a 9 month old Rosie and my parents visiting from the US. Dad had always wanted to see Ireland, the land of our forebears, and so we arranged this trip that involved driving across the country from Dublin airport and stopping in B&Bs along the way to Galway and Mayo. On this three night trip we also had great weather, but we did not have such great luck with the accomodations. We ought to have had more of a plan I suppose. Too much driving and not enough joy. On this earlier trip we had driven through the town of Westport on the way to Achill Island. Westport was the scene of the recent wedding festivities and I wish we had spent more time there before because it's a really pleasant setting. I returned from our last trip to Ireland with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth and this trip was like mouthwash. Can't wait to go back again.

another week, another dollar

2004-07-29T12:41:47Z

Welcome to the latest installment of Weekly Update. Last week I neglected to mention that I won tickets on rhodri's radio show on Resonance FM. It was the Pretentious Mystery Voice competition and I happened to know that the voice belonged to synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog. I assure you there was no nepotism involved. The tickets were for a world music event at the South Bank called Global Junction that was part of the Rhythm Sticks series. It featured a British percussionist, and Indian flutist, an Italian guitarist and an Italian bass player. All were excellent. The guitarist came out and did a solo acoustic piece at one point that was so amazing it made me want to throw all of my guitars into the river! I sat there slack jawed for a good five minutes. His name, by the way, is Antonio Forcione. Check him out.

Free French rehearsal tonight in the usual place at the usual time. This is the last rehearsal until the night before the next gig, which is out of town in Bury St. Edmunds. I had to remember not to ride my bike to the station but instead to carry all my stuff with me to work today. I remembered well. Some new songs are coming along very well and should be a blast to perform live. "Don't Come Cheap" is coming along particularly well. This is one that I am really looking forward to recording in the next couple weeks.

We moved to a new managed office on Glass House Street near Piccadilly tube on Monday. That shaves about five minutes off my commute, yippee! Actually I can't complain, it's quite easy. We've had more people start this week so strangely now we are approaching capacity in this new office. And there are more starting in the next couple weeks. Hmnn...

Weekly Review

2004-07-22T08:14:33Z

My journal has become a sort of weekly affair. I think if I can't ~~be bothered~~ find the time to update my journal at least once a week then I should just stop, but the truth is I am very bad at time management. I just started a new job this week which is working for my old friend and former employer in his new startup company currently employing three people. For the first time in nearly a year I actually have to catch a train and commute to the heart of London every day instead of ~~sitting around~~ working in my house. This has its plus and minus points. Pluses include breaking the monotony of my surroundings and having the downtime for two hours each day to read a book or something. Minuses are obvious ones: long hairy commute which includes 10 minutes on the bicycle each direction, £188 in train fare gone immediately from my wallet each month, less time with family, etc. The pay is about 17% less, which is kind of worrying actually, but is no less than anyone else in the organisation is currently paid. The work is better and so is my faith in the management and the prospects of success. The share option arrangement has yet to be formally discussed, but informal discussions have suggested integer number percentage points, which is obviously quite good.

Next week we take on another couple people and simultaneously move out of our three person capacity office into one that seats eight comfortably. This is all going on while my friend, who is CEO, is out for the birth of his child. He just phoned me up a few minutes ago to tell me that they'd had their baby boy early this morning! Congratulations Josh and Jane. Everyone's fine and dandy. Meanwhile it's business as usual. We are going to be sharing our office space with a client for whom we are a technology partner. Currently we are providing a chair for one developer from this small organisation, which has put our small office at capacity. This arrangement is strange at the very least. It is not possible to speak freely about the work or the product because of the political ramifications. There have been some tense moments. Two days ago, on my second day of work, there was a bug report filed against the product demo that my company had created for our partner. The demo is related to mobile voice-mail and is being used by a handful of people, one of whom it seems was particularly irritated by this bug. The developer who sits with us read out part of an email that was obviously not meant for us saying that the guy used to think the product was good but now he didn't like it and thought it was sh1t. That's a nice way to put someone's back up! Cheek.

birthday

2004-07-13T20:24:14Z

Not mine, my eldest daugher Rosie. She turned three on Sunday. Three is a very good birthday. It is the first time a child really begins to understand what is going on. Ask a soon-to-be-three year old how old they are going to be soon and she will do a thing with her fingers and say "three". This is more than most soon-to-be-two year olds can handle. We threw her a nice party on Sunday with about a dozen of her little friends and the mums and some of the dads. beeblog made Rosie a cake out of little fairy cakes arranged as a snake. Here is a photo:

Pretty good, eh? Incredibly easy to serve too. Some would say in fact that this is cheating, although I would like to point out that she baked and iced these cakes all by herself from scratch and it was hard work. We had a gazebo set up, but the rain held off and it was a good day. The only thing winding me up was my fretful mother-in-law. She just gets so uptight around groups of children it is impossible for her to relax. She was nervously washing up and following kids around picking up after them and telling them off for basically just being kids. Sheesh! I'd like to think we could leave our kids with her for a few days once in a great while and that she would be able to handle it. Maybe when they're eight and ten.

X-sTatiC

2004-07-09T14:17:55Z

I am going to see the XTC tribute band X-sTatiC play tonight at the Dublin Castle. I'm expecting to see scissorkicks there tonight and I don't know who else. Come along if you fancy it. I might have my bicycle helmet. I would like to apologise to serious_k for pointing out in my journal what may not have been a mistake in her wonderful keyboard playing last night. She is of course welcome to come along to the next Free French gig and later point out any mistakes I may or may not make onstage or indeed off.

Scarletts Well

2004-07-08T07:43:02Z

I went to see Scarletts Well at the Water Rats last night with rhodri and Jenny and met several other LJ'ers at the same time. scissorkicks was there along with verlaine, strange_powers and the_heiress and some others that I didn't meet properly. And obviously martylog was there on stage as ever. Before the group took the stage I was speaking with Martin and I asked him for a minor favour, which was to allow me to stow my cycle helmet that I was carrying around in a place where it would be somewhat safe. At that point an American woman called Angel who Martin had introduced me to suggested that I wear it instead. I thought that was a good idea so I put it on and then strapped on my reflective belt too. Out of courtesy I took it off when we went into the back to watch the band.

I will say that this band is great fun to watch and the music is quite unique. It ranges from sea shanties to stuff that can only be described as eastern European with punctuated oompah-oompahs. There was one song that I particularly liked which l thought at the time was reminiscent of "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks. I found myself shuffling from side to side quite a lot while this was all going on, acting out some bizarre dance step. Martin on his accordian performed very well as did the drummer, who I now know is called drummygirl. It's unusual to see a drummer in a pop band using brushes. One of the reasons that this band is so fun to watch is that they don't take themselves too seriously. You can see some of the members sharing moments with each other where they look like they are about to burst out laughing. At one comical moment as I was just about to turn to Rhodri and say "The keyboard player is really good isn't she?", said keyboard player hit a series of discordant notes which I believe was a mistake. The moment was light-heartedly acknowledged by the band leader as a "cacophony". She is of course still good in spite of this. So Well done everyone. And I'm happy to report that I did catch the last train home this time, though not by much.

journal slacker

2004-06-29T12:23:39Z

I've found it hard to sit down and write in my journal lately. It's not that I'm particularly busy, it's just that I'm pretty much a slacker all around. I put things off and journal writing is not a big priority anyway. But I felt I should write a bit today because of recent events. Two nights ago the Free French got together for the first time since our gig six weeks ago in order to rehearse and learn a few new tunes. I was expecting there would be some sloppiness and forgotten parts, etc. To my surprise and delight we were very tight on the previously prepared tunes and I rather enjoyed playing them after the long absence. rhodri never writes much after rehearsals or gigs which suggests that he thinks we're all sh1t, but in reality I think he just doesn't want to bore his readers with shameless band plugging, with a few notable exceptions. Since I have fewer friends than fingers on one hand I need not be so socially responsible.

The other big event that happened was the TOTO show last night at the Albert Hall. Evidently I was joined by sexyworld, although we would not have known this never having met. I am not a big TOTO fan, nor I gather is sexyworld. I went to the show because my old friend Steve is a member of the crew on this tour and he provided me with guest tickets complete with aftershow privileges. Steven Lu, who landed the gig as keyboard tech, is perhaps the most talented musician I have ever played with. For the last seven or eight years since we finished at Berklee he has been living and working in LA as a producer, composer, arranger, keyboard player, music director, and tour technician for a variety of big name artists. He has been making contacts and climbing the social and professional ladder of the LA music scene. I on the other hand have been building web sites (!). Unlike Steve, I had suffered a severe burnout following the Berklee education which caused me to abandon all musical pursuits for a good five years or more. This saw me shifting careers to IT and multimedia production, a career which began in New York's "Silicon Alley" and carried on to present day London after marriage brought me to this country as a permanent resident. About two years ago I felt the music ban beginning to lift and I've finally done something about it.

Anyway, there I was (or there we were - beeblog as well) at the TOTO show, which was alright, and the aftershow party, which for me was a disappointment. The last time I saw Steve Lu was when he played piano at our wedding over five years ago. Once Steve was finally free to come and hang out with us we only had about fifteen minutes before we had to leave in order to relieve my mother-in-law who was babysitting. We maybe could have stayed a bit later but there was a real risk the baby would wake up and be inconsolable at or around midnight. We have had a string of such behaviour. So fifteen minutes to go and Steve starts introducing us to members of the band. First he grabs Steve Lukather, lead guitar/vocals. I will refer to them as Luke and Lu in order to avoid confusion. The meeting went something like this:

Lu: Steve (who had probably just been in the middle of talking to someone famous), this is my friend Matt and his wife Beccy.
Luke: Oh yeah? Hi. (somewhat taken aback)
Lu: Matt and I did Berklee together.
Luke: (a bit softened) Holy Sh1t! Yeah.
Lu: Matt is an amazing guitar player. He's after your job, man. You'd better watch out!
Luke: (laughing) You can have it!
Me: (embarrassed) It's not true, none of it, none of it.
Lu: Don't worry Matt, I'll poison him tonight. You'll be a shoe in!
Me: What are you talking about?!
Luke: (laughing still) Hey man, I've got kids!

Ugh! After that I shook bass player Mike Porcaro's hand and didn't have a whole lot to say so that was the end of it. I was glad to have seen Brian May at the aftershow and at one point he came over and stood next to me while he was on the phone, but I would not impose myself on a celebrity even if I thought they might like it. It's just not my style. Before we left my friend disappeared because he had to find his tour manager for some reason. We had to leave without saying goodbye. The whole aftershow experience was coloured by my feeling that I had a curfew and that kind of put a damper on the experience. Pity.

a new beginning

2004-06-21T20:09:41Z

Hey. Well I gave notice at my work last week. I've been on contract so actually what that means is that I told my boss that I won't be extending my contract. We just had a major launch and I wanted to wait until after that was done. My boss and I both work from home; I live in Walton-On-Thames and he lives in Southfields. Often we meet up in Wimbledon when we have to meet face to face. This time we met up in Southfields and went to a local pub where I broke the bad news. He was a bit disappointed but supported me. My boss, Thom is his name, is a very nice guy. He is and as far as I can tell always has been more interested in people than in business. He's a bit new agey and is into things like astrology and meditation. I should give those a try because Thom is about the calmest person in my life. He wanted to know what I would be doing and the particulars of the new job, out of no motivation other than curiosity and geniune interest. I told him that I had been offered a job at the startup company run by my good friend of some fourteen years. Thom had met my friend Josh at the last Free French gig in May and they traded startup company horror stories. I had worked for Josh before over a stretch of several years and I didn't hesitate to take up his offer even though it meant I would have to commute into Oxford Circus every day instead of sitting in my conservatory. It's also for less money but with a bigger stake. There are many trade offs, but I feel confident that I'm doing the right thing. It starts middle of July. Wish me luck please.

A few things...

2004-06-16T08:41:00Z

We had a nice weekend. I expect most people did; the weather was very accommodating in these parts. Had a very successful barbecue on Saturday where I showed some Brits what hamburgers really are. We've lived in this house for nine or ten months and that was the first time we've entertained in the garden. There were children involved. It was a mess, but it was nice.

********

On Sunday we got in the car and drove to North London to see a friend in Finchley. She bought her flat and moved in around Christmas time. This was our first visit. A great two level flat with impressive views and a private roof terrace. And we got to see our cat, Egg. He lives there now. Rosie made a big deal over him but Beccy and I were mostly unmoved. We spent most of the lazy afternoon in the grounds of Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath. This, I'm told, was featured in the film Notting Hill when Julia Roberts character was filming a period drama. The house was donated to Barnet council and so is free for all to enter and use, including a collection of art for viewing. Nice. While there I took some time to study my AA book of the Highway Code, as I would be taking my driving theory test the following day. I had been studying it carefully and gradually answering all of the 894 possible questions over the past week. We drove back home around 7pm and the lack of traffic was astonishing! Of course most people were in their homes or local pubs poised to witness England throw away the football match in the last two minutes.

********

On Monday I took the driving theory test, which includes a multiple choice portion and a hazard perception portion where you need to click a mouse while watching video clips to show that you see a hazard forming. I have been driving for more than fifteen years. I am an American and this is one time when I'm proud to admit it. We invented the automobile. We take driving very seriously. I have ridden in cars with some fully licensed Brits fearing for my life while they tear up and down narrow winding country lanes, overtaking where it is illegal to do so. I am a very good driver. Well I failed the f**king hazard test. Apparently I didn't click enough. I clicked where I thought they wanted me to click but I ought to have been clicking almost constantly I now realize. You see, when you have been driving for many years a lot of what you do is a subconscious reaction to what you see and feel behind the wheel. That makes this sort of test hard to take. If you fail one part you fail both parts, so I'm going to have to rebook the test and pay another £20.50. And I'm probably going to have to buy the DSA CD-ROM training piece for the hazard test so I can learn how to take it. Ripoff. It's taken me two days to write about it calmly.

Talk-Talk, can't talk

2004-06-10T16:37:29Z

Yesterday after my pest control fiasco, I was quietly recovering my calm while working on my laptop outside in the garden. The peace was soon broken by the telephone ringing. I picked it up with the usual hello. There was a second or two of dead silence followed by a burst of background conversation noise. I have come to know what this signifies. About eight months ago I stupidly filled out a survey from a web banner ad of the company Consumer Lifestyles. There would be a prize draw to win a year's supply of Stella Artois! Holy sh1t! That was all it took. I didn't even bother to look at the terms and conditions. I had given Consumer Lifestyles consent to distribute my name, address, telephone number and very precise marketing details to all of their affiliates who then had the right to contact me and try to sell me something. As an example, our car insurance runs out in February and I'm sure that next year just like last time I will be getting calls from all sorts of insurance companies at around 7:30 in the evening. This is particularly hard to bear because as a web programmer and generally kind of savvy techie guy, I really ought to have known better.

So I was not too surprised when I heard a Scottish male voice saying to me, "Hello, Mr. Flattery?" That is close to the pronunciation of my surname, but not quite there. I am amazed at how difficult it seems to be for the English (and Scots apparently) to pronounce a fairly common Irish surname that is spelled out on a piece of paper right in front of them. Rarely has it been a problem for me in the good ole U.S. of A. "Yeah" was my feeble reply...

Scotsman: My name is (something or other) from a telephone company called Talk-Talk. How are you today?
Me: great...
Scotsman: You have probably seen us advertised and promoted on the Channel 4 TV show Big Brother?
Me: I guess...
Scotsman: Anyway, Mr Flattery, we offer very competitive rates... blah, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak... BT line. Does BT provide your telephone services?
Me: I have NTL.
Scotsman: NTL... is that a cable telephone service?
Me: yup.
Scotsman: Oh. Unfortunately Mr Flattery you need to have a BT line in order to use our services.
Me: what a shame
Scotsman: Well you enjoy your day Mr Flattery.
Me: Thanks, I suppose I'll just have to carry on somehow.

I think maybe from now on I'll begin by saying "No, I'm sorry. The Flaherty's don't live here anymore. I'm afraid they couldn't stand the constant barrage of sales calls and they got divorced and sold the house to me. I also don't like the sales calls, so you know." I wonder what they'd say?

flea bitten

2004-06-09T22:28:05Z

I've got fleas.

It's not such a big deal. I've had them before. Not on myself but in my house. Well yes, on myself too. That's how one notices them. Until recently we had a cat. We gave him away two months ago before we went on holiday. Sadly, we just couldn't look after him anymore now that we've got two kids. He deserved more attention than we were able to give him. Sniff. We used to have two cats from the same litter, but the other one buggered off when Rosie was a baby. That one was always much smarter. But I digress... Now that the cat is gone and the weather has turned hot, the eggs that have lain dormant are hatching and the fleas have been multiplying. This happened in our flat a couple years ago when we were on holiday for three weeks in the summer and had given the cats to stay with a friend. We arrived back after an overnight flight and set Rosie down on the carpet while we set about hauling the luggage in. I picked her up a few minutes later to find at least a dozen of the bastards crawling on her arms and all through her hair. That was awful! We got that situation sorted pretty quickly though. A thoroughly competent exterminator sorted them out with a single spraying of this residual pesticide. It works over 4-6 weeks, which is longer than a flea's life cycle.

I would of course phone this same company again, but we have moved outside the area so I've had to find another company. I phoned a few yesterday to compare quotes. This morning I found four fleas on me when I got out of bed so I decided I'd better do something about it. I hired the company who had given me the lowest quotation. On the phone today I double checked the figure with the man in the office. £55 for the basic flea treatment, eh? Yup, alright that's what we said yesterday. "The exterminator will be able to tell you if there's any more needed." Okay. That sounded a little bit suspicious, but hey, they could come out this morning. So I hired them. The guy only showed up one hour late. No big deal. I can let that go. I'll tell you what I can't abide though. Guy walks around my house to get a sense of the size of the place (modest three bedroom house in Surrey) and phones his guv to find out how much to charge.

Guy: "Right, guv says that'll be £140 plus VAT for the whole treatment."
Me: "£140? You've got to be f**king kidding me?!"

I'm pretty sure I said something like that to the guy. I expressed my disappointment in having been so wildly misled and I phoned the man in the office to try and understand how a £55 quote can nearly triple all of a sudden. "Well that qoute was just for a basic localised flea problem. My man says you've got six rooms that need doing and that's a lot more." Bullsh1t. There's no such thing as a localised flea problem. You've got fleas, you've got them pretty much everywhere. They jump onto you and then they jump off. And you can't tell me that my little house represents anything other then the typical customer scenario for this company. It's not like there are a whole lot of studio flats out here in the suburbs. As I started to explain to the man that I didn't think it was very good business to underquote and then try to rip off your punter at a disadvantage with lame explanations, he began to raise his voice with me.

Man: "Look, if you don't wanna pay the money I'll just pull my man off. You know, forget about it."
Me: "Excuse me? Can I just talk to you please?"
Man: "No, I'm really busy right now. This is a very busy time for us."
Me: "Oh I see, well allow me to lighten your workload."

Busy indeed. Busy ripping people off and/or wasting their time. I suppose if I'd had to make special arrangements to stay home from work I would have felt obliged to bend over and take it. Currently I work from home. So I sent the guy on his merry way. Poor bloke, I'm sure it's nothing to do with him. As I was arguing on the phone I could see him shaking his head in dismay. I wonder how many times this has happened to him. I've got a different company coming around tomorrow. They gave me a very reasonable quote yesterday after taking the relevant details and they're sticking to it. And tonight I'll just have to put up with the odd flea crawling over my ankle. The important thing is that my dignity is intact.

useful mother-in-law

2004-06-06T21:41:38Z

I've just spent the weekend at my mother-in-law's house. Not on my own, naturally. My wife and two children were also in attendance. Often when we go up there it is a very stressful affair that ends in some sort of misunderstanding with one or the other of my wife and her mother throwing a huge strop. This particular visit however was rather successful. And somehow despite the kids not sleeping well we managed to get more sleep than usual last night. Well today, really. And that helps alot. But anyway, what this post is actually about is not this weekend's visit but a thing my mother-in-law did, or rather said, few days ago when I was in the midst of my wrestling match with the Potterton Suprima 70L (piece of sh1t) boiler. She said, "Don't you have an immersion tank?" I thought for a moment. I remembered that at the top of the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard there was this inexplicable mains power lead hanging down and not plugged into anything. I had always wondered what that was for. "Yes." I thought. "Yes, I believe we do." I plugged it in and 20 minutes later there was hot water to have a shower with!

So there you have it. I no longer need to futz around with dodgy boiler parts with a hangover risking electrocution. I've got the tank on a timer delivering hot water twice a day and I have the leisure of waiting two weeks for an engineer from Three Valleys Water to pay me a visit to discuss my water pressure and then to decide just what type of new boiler I want to install and hire one of the three companies who quoted me to install it. So I say "Thanks mum!" That was very useful.

Potterton piece of sh1t!

2004-06-01T09:58:07Z

Please pardon my French, but don't ever buy a Potterton boiler for your home. I have a Potterton Suprima 70L and it has been nearly as useless as a bag of crap. This explains why you see the name mentioned so often on plumbing DIY forums and newsgroups. Intermittent faults are what you mostly hear of. Well, I've had loads of those and also some of a more permanent nature. I called a guy out for a service and a fault find back in November/December last year. The problem was intermittent lockout. Occasionally the boiler would shut down and refuse to fire up again until the user (that's me) presses the manual reset button. This resets the overheat thermostat and restores normal operation. Of course when this happens in the dead of winter while you're sleeping you may find you can see your breath when you wake up. This was happening often enough for it to be sufficiently annoying as to warrant a service. Anyhow, the engineer replaced the printed circuit board (pcb), which I've discovered is a common remedy for such faults. In fact these pcb's are so shoddy that I've read threads recommending that you remove the board and look at the contacts under a microscope for loose solder joints and then using your soldering iron, which I know you have in your utility cupboard, to reflow the solder and restore the contact. Here is an example of your typical thread: http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3857 . That new board was supposed to be an improvement over the original release. Well that board permanently failed THE SAME DAY! So I got the company to send out another engineer to replace the board again. The new new board eventually began to have intermittent faults shortly after 30 days, the event horizon for having to pay again.

I've been fiddling with it myself ever since then. When the new new board finally failed permanently about three weeks ago I swapped it with the original board still in my possession. That worked fine for a while but then got dicky a few days ago so I took the board out and cleaned the contacts with cotton buds and surgical spirit. That gave good results until yesterday when the boiler locked out and looked like permanent failure. So I disconnected the overheat thermostat and powered it back up to see if the thermostat was actually the problem. The boiler wanted to light. I could see it trying but just before it was meant to light it would lock out again, probably detecting that the overheat thermostat was disconnected. Then I reconnected the thermostat and powered up. Everything seemed fine once again. I went to bed because it was 12:30 am. This morning it was acting up again. So basically I'm going to replace the piece of sh1t with a reliable system from Vaillant based on their reputation. I wanted to have a combination boiler anyway so now's my chance. I have no idea how long this will take or how much it will cost so I will be making some calls today. In the meantime I will have to try to maintain the boiler so that we can take showers. Fortunately there are some sites that sell spare parts directly to the public. I may pick up a new thermostat, thermister and air pressure switch for a few quid each and then see if I can get the new new board working, which to be fair might only be complaining about one of the other components not working properly. I'll try the soldering thing, something I'm comfortable with but I don't have a soldering iron at the moment. If it seems to be working then I'll sell the whole system on eBay. I've noticed one or two others selling their Pottertons that way as well as some sellers selling nothing but the boards. That ought to tell you something.

what a buffoon

2004-05-31T09:04:23Z

Yesterday in the evening I visited rhodri

bi-directional friendship

2004-05-26T13:05:46Z

Hey I have just been added to rhodi's friends list! I had no idea that there were loads of other posts I couldn't see before. And even then I was wondering how you managed to get any work done.
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