National Express East Anglia Shambles

I arrived in Norwich 1 hour late this morning, once again NXEA were
shambolic with their lack of communication, false information, train
cancellations, and as ever sudden dissapearance of platform staff when
the brown stuff started to hit the fan.

Well done NXEA.

Why is Skip-bo not available in the UK?

This is a great card game first introduced to Justina and I by
Justina's American Sister-in-law. We bought a set of cards while in
the States, and another set from France. I tried to get hold of
another set this week and ended up having to order from America at a
cost of £15.00 (£10 or which was postage).

Skip-bo is a great game, someone in the UK should stock it.

Pointless Interactive Floor Advertising

Great that The Meadows shopping centre in Chelmsford has finally got
shot of that pointless interactive floor advertising thing that for
the last couple of years they have been trying to flog advertising
space to local businesses, including mine.

The floor was great fun for kids who ran about on it kicking away
objects to reveal company names and logos but I never saw anyone take
any notice of the businesses who paid for this advertising which was
only ever displayed when kids ran about on it.

Cash Points are annoying

9 out of 10 times when I use a cashpoint I request a £10 note with no
advice slip.

Why do I have to press through about four screens before I can press
the £10 button? Nationwide machines are the slowest to process
requests and ask the most questions. Why can't cashpoint learn what we
do and provide the familiar activities as options on the main screen?

All I want is a 'usual tenner with no receipt' button when my pin has
been accepted. Why do they all try and sell me mobile phone topups for
networks I am not a customer of, and I am on a contract? Just give me
my tenner and process me and the rest of the cash point queue faster.

Molly is Two

Happy Birthday Molly.

Apple MacBook Pro Kernal Panic and Logic Board Failure

I really like Apple, but every single laptop I've owned (Milhouse 2000-2003
, SuperTed 2003-2005, Elwood 2005-2007, Jake 2007-present) has gone
wrong and had to have a 'logic board' replacement.

'Jake' is in for repair at the moment along with Alex's machine which
also has logic board failure. Justina's iBook has had two logic board
replacements in three years.

AppleCare is such an expensive but needed protection plan.

Thetrainline.com is excellent

I never thought I would write a post commending thetrainline.com but I
am. Last year they were rubbish, virtually impossible to call when
there was a problem, tricky to obtain tickets from and their customer
service was nearly as bad a certain gas company.

This year they have a website that works, I can collect tickets from
my local station rather than from a machine at a station ten miles
away, and the whole process of booking with them at short notice is
excellent through the web.

Tomorrow I am in Norwich, if I had of bought the ticket from National
Express East Anglia it would have cost £36.70 return. The very same
train journey with thetrainline.com was £6 each way, an amazing £12
plus a £1 booking fee. The company emailed me a reference code which
I simply typed into the machine at Witham station and tickets were
spat out at me.

A 100% improvement by thetrainline.com in comparison to last years
complete shambles.

Yorkie Chocolate Genius Advertising

The 'not for girls' campaign has been around for a few years now but
is simply one of the best marketing campaigns ever. Blokes buy it
because it is great chocolate aimed at them, girls buy it because they
are not meant to.

The limited edition pink Yorkie for girls was pure genius.

Justina bought a regular Yorkie (again!) today to share with me. I
pointed out that she should not have done that as the product clearly
states she should not have it. "I like breaking the rules". Genius.

Blog spam reduction Spam Karma 2

I've been using Spam Karma 2 for a couple of years now to fend off
spam on this Wordpress blog.

Every now and again a spam comment gets past SK2 as some cheeky
spammer writes a direct comment specifically for the page on my blog
that they want to target traffic from.

I have a new strategy for the rare spam comment that gets past SK2,
but I still wish all spam commenters would go take a long walk on a
short pier.

Norwich Taxi 01603 700 700

I've been travelling to Norwich for nearly two years and have used
most of the city based cab firms, and all have let me down except for
one.

Today I needed three cabs to get around and the only company I'll call
is 1st Gold Star. 01603 700 700, they were a couple of minutes early
to pick me up each time.

I often use this blog to moan about rubbish service so I thought I'd
commend a well run efficient company that lives up to it's name.