Agh, I always do this: I go away on a holiday for a week and when I come back I blog about the first few days and then I lose interest and never do the rest. Well, here's a quick-and-dirty update of the rest of the malta trip, before I forget it all!
On the tues we decided to go to Gozo, the other island. By now we were pretty used to the buses and so got to Cirkewwa to catch the ferry without too much difficulty. Once we landed in Mgarr, the fishing village on the other side, we were mobbed by taxi drivers looking to give us a tour of the island for a mere €70 each, or wanting to bring us into Victoria, the island's capital. When we said we'd take the bus the answer was "No! No bus for another hour!". This would have been a little bit more believable if we didn't see a bus pulling into the stop right behind yer man as he was arguing with us! :-) Once we got into Victoria, we took a look around the citadel, a sort of mini version of Mdina, where we'd been the day before, got something to eat, and headed back to the bus terminal to do some more tripping around, as we were by now used to doing on Malta. One snag: it was about 3pm at this stage and the next buses to the Gigantja temples and the Azure Window, the two places I wanted to go, were at 4:30 and 5 respectively - and we had to be heading back to catch the ferry for around 6:15pm as the last bus from Cirkewwa to Sliema went at 7:15! So, we ended up getting a taxi to Gigantja and forgetting about the other place. Ah well, next time!
On weds we went to Marsaxlokk, a fishing village on the south of the island which was supposed to have an open-air market (like the one we'd missed in Valetta on sunday). Am not sure what I was expecting, but it was mostly just the same kind of knick-knacky tourist crap that you could get in any of the shops in Valetta or Sliema. After wandering around that for a bit, we decided to go to see could we find this "Peter's Pool" that I'd read about. The guy who'd given us the directions had told us it was only a 15min walk form Marsaxlokk. Well, maybe he was getting "walking" and "driving" mixed up - it took us 45mins to get there! ;-( Once we did tho, it was lovely. Unfortunately there were no real shallow bits there, and Michelle can't swim, so she just sunned herself while I went into the water. Makes a nice change jumping into water without having to stifle the scream when it hits you! I had a good bit of a splash around anyway and then we headed back. The only problem was I'd sort of forgotten the small insignificant fact that swimming washes off sunblock - by that night I was quite a fetching shade of bright red! :-)
On the thurs we headed south again to the Blue Grotto, a series of sea caves that you can do a boat tour of. The tour itself was very nice, altho I don't think that Michelle was overly impressed :-) After that we decided to head to the stone age temples at Hagar Qim, just up the coast. So, we headed for the bus stop, fending off the usual taxi drivers and their warning of "no bus for one hour!". Unfortunately, they were right! 45 very hot, very boring minutes later. we were joined at the bus stop by an american girl, asking were we waiting for the bus to Valetta. We replied no, that was the other side of the road, we were going to Hagar Qim. "But that's only 10, maybe 15mins walk up the road, I'm just after walking down from there myself". D'oh! So, me, Michelle and Sabrina, the austrian girl we'd been waiting at the bus top with, walked up. Just as we got there, the bus pulled up behind us! I know I wasn't exactly expecting to see Gandalf there, but the temples were slightly less then impressive (altho the oppressive afternoon heat could have had something to do with that). After that it was another 30min wait for a bus back to Valetta, where we all wandered around for a few hours doing nothing much in particular bar chilling before heading our separate ways again.
On the fri, we didn't really have very many plans so we just headed back out to Mdina and Rabat to see all the stuff that we'd missed thanks to our time-sharing friends. So, we wandered around Rabat a while, did the catacombs, the dungeons and St. Paul's Cathedral, where St. Paul originally brought christianity to Malta (well, the cathedral was on the site, he didn't exactly preach from the pulpit! :-P). at least the cathedral museum there was better than the one in Mdina! After having a nice lazy day there, we headed back to Sliema to finish off the pressie shopping for the ppl back home.
The last act of the trip pretty much was a BBQ on the rooftop of the hotel on the friday night, all you can eat for just €15 each. As it was a BBQ, the inevitable happened: just as we were sitting down and waiting for the food to cook, it started raining! :-) Not to be deterred, we pulled up a few of the big sun parasols to cover us and had the BBQ anyway!
The next morning, it was all over. Nothing to do but pack and head to the airport, back to cold, rainy Ireland!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Time Share!?!?
Well, our 3rd day didn't exactly get off to the type of start we were expecting for it, that's for sure! After being late for quite a few stuff the day before, we decided to get u a little bit earlier - 8am instead of 9am, so we could be on the road that bit earlier and so not get stuck with getting places just as the sun was at its hottest and everything was shutting around us for the siesta. So, up early and out of the hotel by 9:30, all set for the day - or so we thought.
We were just after literally crossing the road from the hotel when we were approached by a guy who said he was working for the Malta tourist board and wanted us to fill in a questionnaire. After we did it, he gave us a few scratch card type thingies as a "thank you" for doing the survey. I got a bottle of wine on mine, and Michelle got a free holiday!
Then the fun bit started. Apparently to collect this prize we had to pretend to be married, as it only applied to married couples, and we had to go collect it at a hotel down the road, where yer man told us we'd probably have to take about an hour of listening to them trying to sell us time-share in the hotel before we could get out with the goods. So, we headed down to collect our winnings, thinking "an hour isn't all that bad for a free holiday!" :-)
FOUR HOURS LATER we were leaving the hotel. The first hour of the meeting was ok, we were asking the rep guy about all the things to see/do on the island, how to get there etc, and he was giving us bus numbers and times. One thing we hadn't realised was that one of the main bus terminii(?) for the island was only 5mins walk away from us on the Sliema waterfront, we'd thought that to get anywhere we'd have to go to the main bus terminus in Valetta first. After that though, it was the hard sell for 3hrs. Apparently what they were doing wasn't a timeshare scheme, oh no, you just paid your money up-front and then you had your own room in a 5-star hotel, pre-booked, for a particular week every year, for 37 years. For a small change fee tho, you could change the week of the year, or change to a different hotel in the chain, and at the end of the 37 years you got your initial fee back. And all this for a mere €12,000, payable in one lump sum or a series of easy instalments (plus interest of course). No mention naturally of the fact that your €12,000 now isn't likely to be worth anything like €12,000 in 37 years time..... Plus you had to decide on the spot, no thinking about it, no waiting around, sign the paper and pay the deposit or "lose this fantastic opportunity"
Everything was pleasant enough until we told them we weren't likely to sign up for it, at which point the hard sell really started, with varying degrees of higher management dudes being brought out to try to convince us by dropping the rate, planning more flexible payments etc. When eventually they got the message we managed to get out, me with my bottle of wine and Michelle with a pamphlet on all the places we could get out free holiday in, with a promise that they'd ring us a few weeks after we got back from hols to see when and where we wanted to go. At that stage it was nearly 1:30pm, so we headed out to find the bus we wanted to get to Mdina, our original plans for the day. Only problem is, when we got there around 2:30 and finally got something to eat, we discovered that we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted to there as most things (like the cathedral museum and the dungeons) closed at 4:30 or 5. What we saw was nice enough tho, the view from the citadel walls covered pretty much the whole island, but it would have been nice to see more of the museums and stuff.
Well, at least I got the wine I guess, which turned out to be not too bad...... Am not going to hold my breath on those dudes ringing us asking which holiday we want tho! ;-)
We were just after literally crossing the road from the hotel when we were approached by a guy who said he was working for the Malta tourist board and wanted us to fill in a questionnaire. After we did it, he gave us a few scratch card type thingies as a "thank you" for doing the survey. I got a bottle of wine on mine, and Michelle got a free holiday!
Then the fun bit started. Apparently to collect this prize we had to pretend to be married, as it only applied to married couples, and we had to go collect it at a hotel down the road, where yer man told us we'd probably have to take about an hour of listening to them trying to sell us time-share in the hotel before we could get out with the goods. So, we headed down to collect our winnings, thinking "an hour isn't all that bad for a free holiday!" :-)
FOUR HOURS LATER we were leaving the hotel. The first hour of the meeting was ok, we were asking the rep guy about all the things to see/do on the island, how to get there etc, and he was giving us bus numbers and times. One thing we hadn't realised was that one of the main bus terminii(?) for the island was only 5mins walk away from us on the Sliema waterfront, we'd thought that to get anywhere we'd have to go to the main bus terminus in Valetta first. After that though, it was the hard sell for 3hrs. Apparently what they were doing wasn't a timeshare scheme, oh no, you just paid your money up-front and then you had your own room in a 5-star hotel, pre-booked, for a particular week every year, for 37 years. For a small change fee tho, you could change the week of the year, or change to a different hotel in the chain, and at the end of the 37 years you got your initial fee back. And all this for a mere €12,000, payable in one lump sum or a series of easy instalments (plus interest of course). No mention naturally of the fact that your €12,000 now isn't likely to be worth anything like €12,000 in 37 years time..... Plus you had to decide on the spot, no thinking about it, no waiting around, sign the paper and pay the deposit or "lose this fantastic opportunity"
Everything was pleasant enough until we told them we weren't likely to sign up for it, at which point the hard sell really started, with varying degrees of higher management dudes being brought out to try to convince us by dropping the rate, planning more flexible payments etc. When eventually they got the message we managed to get out, me with my bottle of wine and Michelle with a pamphlet on all the places we could get out free holiday in, with a promise that they'd ring us a few weeks after we got back from hols to see when and where we wanted to go. At that stage it was nearly 1:30pm, so we headed out to find the bus we wanted to get to Mdina, our original plans for the day. Only problem is, when we got there around 2:30 and finally got something to eat, we discovered that we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted to there as most things (like the cathedral museum and the dungeons) closed at 4:30 or 5. What we saw was nice enough tho, the view from the citadel walls covered pretty much the whole island, but it would have been nice to see more of the museums and stuff.
Well, at least I got the wine I guess, which turned out to be not too bad...... Am not going to hold my breath on those dudes ringing us asking which holiday we want tho! ;-)
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Acclimatization!
Hmph. the one bit I hate about travelling is the, well, actual travelling part of going to places. I'm definitely going to ave to think more about planing my flight times better, to get to Malta we had to get up at 4:45am - which meant after finishing packing the night before and all, was about 5 1/2hrs sleep! We managed to sleepwalk our way to the airport for our 7:45am flight anyway, made our way out to the Ryanair prefab and took off only about half an hour late (not bad for a flight from Dublin airport!). Three and a half hours later, we finally saw a patch of land under the wing - Malta!
In our half asleep state, we had a little bit of a shock to the system - the weather. When we left Dublin it was 12 degrees and spitting rain, but in Malta, we hit 32 degrees and about 75% humidity. This felt like quite a pleasant change as we made our way to the hotel, but once we were settled in and decided to go out exploring, it started to hit us hard. Our hotel was located on the waterfront in Sliema, across the harbour from Valetta (hence the name: "The Waterfront Hotel" :-P), and as we walked along in search of something to eat, the sweat was pouring out of us (well, out of me definitely anyway).
At this point the decision to go at stupid o'clock in the morning as it was cheaper option turned out to be a not quite so good one: we were zonked out, and it was only 2pm! We took the option of least resistance: starting off with a harbour tour, offered by the many kindly gentlemen positioned about every 50 feet along the boardwalk. Unfortunately at that stage the heat, the early start and the lack of sleep started to take their toll: by about half-way around the 2hr trip Michelle was starting to doze off and I wasn't all that much better! The tour was pretty good, we were jut not in a really good mood to appreciate it. So, the saturday we arrived turned out to be a bit of a non-event, we pretty much bummed around Sliema for the rest of the day and got an early night.
The sunday started bright and early outside - unfortunately we didn't. We woke up around 9am, got breakfast, showered and dressed and were out and about by 11am. We soon discovered that by sheer accident we were in a pretty damn spot location-wise, about 200 yards from the hotel was the ferry acrtoss to Valetta, and only a little but further up the road was the main bus terminus for the west of the Island! So, we took the ferry across (for a whopping 93c each!) and started touring around Valetta. As we got off the ferry, we saw signs for "The Malta Experience", a sort of potted history of the island, 4,000 years in 30mins video sort of thing, so we decided to do that. Unfortunately we discovered that the Malta tourist board had seemingly arranged the signs pointing to this attraction with a view to giving you a tour of the city along the way - it took us ages of wandering around to find it!
After the tour we decided to take the horse-drawn carriage tour back down to the front gates of Valetta where the marketplace was supposed to be on (the signs for he Malta Experience had eventually brought us out to the tip of the peninsula), so we could maybe start the pressie shopping! Unfortunately, the market closed at around 1:30-2pm, so by the time we got there everything was shut. And then we discovered that so was everything else. We knew that Malta did the spanish-style siesta between 12 and 2, but what we didn't realise that the country was religious enough to really take the "day of rest" thing seriously - on sundays, pretty much nothing opened again after the siesta! Shops, museums, everything was shut - even some of the churches, which I thought was a bit strange on a sunday!
And then, much to our surprise, it started raining! Rain, the very stuff we went on holidays to get away from! Luckily though, rain in Malta doesn't mean the same thing as rain at home - it only lasted about 10mins and was almost pleasant (I never knew you could have warm rain before)! Once the rain was over, we managed to find one museum that was open (the archaeological museum) and so spent a bit of time wandering around that before we headed back to Sliema to bum around for the evening.
In our half asleep state, we had a little bit of a shock to the system - the weather. When we left Dublin it was 12 degrees and spitting rain, but in Malta, we hit 32 degrees and about 75% humidity. This felt like quite a pleasant change as we made our way to the hotel, but once we were settled in and decided to go out exploring, it started to hit us hard. Our hotel was located on the waterfront in Sliema, across the harbour from Valetta (hence the name: "The Waterfront Hotel" :-P), and as we walked along in search of something to eat, the sweat was pouring out of us (well, out of me definitely anyway).
At this point the decision to go at stupid o'clock in the morning as it was cheaper option turned out to be a not quite so good one: we were zonked out, and it was only 2pm! We took the option of least resistance: starting off with a harbour tour, offered by the many kindly gentlemen positioned about every 50 feet along the boardwalk. Unfortunately at that stage the heat, the early start and the lack of sleep started to take their toll: by about half-way around the 2hr trip Michelle was starting to doze off and I wasn't all that much better! The tour was pretty good, we were jut not in a really good mood to appreciate it. So, the saturday we arrived turned out to be a bit of a non-event, we pretty much bummed around Sliema for the rest of the day and got an early night.
The sunday started bright and early outside - unfortunately we didn't. We woke up around 9am, got breakfast, showered and dressed and were out and about by 11am. We soon discovered that by sheer accident we were in a pretty damn spot location-wise, about 200 yards from the hotel was the ferry acrtoss to Valetta, and only a little but further up the road was the main bus terminus for the west of the Island! So, we took the ferry across (for a whopping 93c each!) and started touring around Valetta. As we got off the ferry, we saw signs for "The Malta Experience", a sort of potted history of the island, 4,000 years in 30mins video sort of thing, so we decided to do that. Unfortunately we discovered that the Malta tourist board had seemingly arranged the signs pointing to this attraction with a view to giving you a tour of the city along the way - it took us ages of wandering around to find it!
After the tour we decided to take the horse-drawn carriage tour back down to the front gates of Valetta where the marketplace was supposed to be on (the signs for he Malta Experience had eventually brought us out to the tip of the peninsula), so we could maybe start the pressie shopping! Unfortunately, the market closed at around 1:30-2pm, so by the time we got there everything was shut. And then we discovered that so was everything else. We knew that Malta did the spanish-style siesta between 12 and 2, but what we didn't realise that the country was religious enough to really take the "day of rest" thing seriously - on sundays, pretty much nothing opened again after the siesta! Shops, museums, everything was shut - even some of the churches, which I thought was a bit strange on a sunday!
And then, much to our surprise, it started raining! Rain, the very stuff we went on holidays to get away from! Luckily though, rain in Malta doesn't mean the same thing as rain at home - it only lasted about 10mins and was almost pleasant (I never knew you could have warm rain before)! Once the rain was over, we managed to find one museum that was open (the archaeological museum) and so spent a bit of time wandering around that before we headed back to Sliema to bum around for the evening.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Malta
Well, I'm off to Malta in the morning. Finally a bit of sun! Haven't seen a decent bit of weather since I was in S Africa - if this is Global warming I want my money back! Only problem is, the flight is at 7:45am, so have to get up at stupid o'clock! :-(
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Darkness
I hate this time of year. This is the first morning this year that I noticed that I had to turn on the light in the bathroom when I was getting up. So, that and the barely perceptible nip in the air definitely means that we're heading into winter! Then again, with the way the weather has gone the last few months, the only difference between summer and winter is that in the winter we have less daylight hours to be able to watch the rain out the window!
Then again, I got to put winter off for a least another week anyway - am heading to Malta for a week on Saturday :-)
Then again, I got to put winter off for a least another week anyway - am heading to Malta for a week on Saturday :-)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Only the fecking Irish!
Well, here we go, another Olympics, another horse doping scandal in the Irish Olympic team. The best part about this one though was the first comment by the head of the Irish Olympic committee on hearing that one of the horses was tested positive for banned substances
"Well, that's a bitter pill to swallow"
"Well, that's a bitter pill to swallow"
Friday, August 15, 2008
Aussies are just strange
I was hunting around the kitchen in work yesterday morning to try to find where the cleaners had hid the black mug that they keep taking off my desk (it's a morning tradition at this stage), when I came across something a bit strange:
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Salt 'n Vinegar flavoured salt? What the hell? What's wring with just using traditional old-fashioned salt and traditional old-fashioned vinegar?
Then I looked at the back, and it all fell into place: "Made in Australia". The country whose other contribution to world cuisine has been biscuits that you suck your tea up through.
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Salt 'n Vinegar flavoured salt? What the hell? What's wring with just using traditional old-fashioned salt and traditional old-fashioned vinegar?
Then I looked at the back, and it all fell into place: "Made in Australia". The country whose other contribution to world cuisine has been biscuits that you suck your tea up through.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
You have got to be kidding me!
It seems that SpamAssassin is on the side of the Georgians in the ongoing conflict in the Caucasus: I tried to send a Register article about google map's little "russians invade georgia" error to some friends of mine, and it seems that if you try to send a mail with the word "russians" then you get the following error:
I asked our admins about this and they swear blind they didn't do anything: it seems our mails are checked by SpamAssassin before they go out though, so it could be them that are doing it.
I asked our admins about this and they swear blind they didn't do anything: it seems our mails are checked by SpamAssassin before they go out though, so it could be them that are doing it.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
New Trains, at last!
Well, finally Iarnrod Eireann are after rolling out the new trains on the Waterford line. After watching for the last year while the super-fast, new, shiny Cork train has whizzed in and out of Heuston while the rest of us mere mortals climbed onto the same old orange pieces of crap as we always have, it's our turn. Finally I'm travelling on inter-city transport that isn't older than me! Irish Rail has dragged itself kicking and screaming into the late 20th century at last! I say "late 20th" rather than "21st" because now we're getting the type of trains that our brethren on the Continent have probably taken for granted since the 1990s - and people in the likes of Japan & Korea have probably had since before then even.
It seems that once they catered for the special people in Cork by giving them their special trains (I'm surprised they didn't paint them red), they're replacing the rolling stock on the lines in order of seniority, which means that even Galway got the new trains before us. Then again, they needed them. Up until recently, if you were going to Galway and were getting off in one of the intermediate stops like Athenry where my friends live, you had to go to the door, pull the window down, reach out and open the door handle from the outside. Takes a bit of getting used to!
So, what are the trains actually like? Well, when you see them, the first thought is "shiny". They're silver and green as opposed to the faded orange and black of the old ones (and at least they look like they've been painted this decade). When you get onboard, the first impressions are "new" and "clean", the seats are in blue and grey colors and the ceiling is white with recessed lighting instead of the old florescent panels. The toilets are the same as on the Cork train, all electronic buttons, automatic sinks and airline-style flushing loos except without the annoying automated announcements for everything (yes, I know I've just closed the door, you don't have to tell me mr. robot). These have a bit of a disadvantage over the old-style toilets tho, at least on the old ones the locks were mechanical, if you don't hit the button properly on these, or don't remember to hit "lock" as well as "close", someone can walk in on you. One of the other disadvantages of the new trains is that the engine is part of the carriage like on the Arrows rather than being a separate unit, so to get a long train you have to stick pairs of these back-to-back. This means you can't get on the back and walk the length of the train to get a seat like you used to be. Then again, if they got everything right first time, it wouldn't be Ireland! :-) At least the seats are relatively comfortable, not like on the Cork train. There, you're glad that the new trains are faster and it's only a 2 1/2hr trip, 'cos your as is definitely gone numb before you've hit 2hrs!
So, progress anyway! Now all we have to hope is that they don't break down as often as the old ones! :-
It seems that once they catered for the special people in Cork by giving them their special trains (I'm surprised they didn't paint them red), they're replacing the rolling stock on the lines in order of seniority, which means that even Galway got the new trains before us. Then again, they needed them. Up until recently, if you were going to Galway and were getting off in one of the intermediate stops like Athenry where my friends live, you had to go to the door, pull the window down, reach out and open the door handle from the outside. Takes a bit of getting used to!
So, what are the trains actually like? Well, when you see them, the first thought is "shiny". They're silver and green as opposed to the faded orange and black of the old ones (and at least they look like they've been painted this decade). When you get onboard, the first impressions are "new" and "clean", the seats are in blue and grey colors and the ceiling is white with recessed lighting instead of the old florescent panels. The toilets are the same as on the Cork train, all electronic buttons, automatic sinks and airline-style flushing loos except without the annoying automated announcements for everything (yes, I know I've just closed the door, you don't have to tell me mr. robot). These have a bit of a disadvantage over the old-style toilets tho, at least on the old ones the locks were mechanical, if you don't hit the button properly on these, or don't remember to hit "lock" as well as "close", someone can walk in on you. One of the other disadvantages of the new trains is that the engine is part of the carriage like on the Arrows rather than being a separate unit, so to get a long train you have to stick pairs of these back-to-back. This means you can't get on the back and walk the length of the train to get a seat like you used to be. Then again, if they got everything right first time, it wouldn't be Ireland! :-) At least the seats are relatively comfortable, not like on the Cork train. There, you're glad that the new trains are faster and it's only a 2 1/2hr trip, 'cos your as is definitely gone numb before you've hit 2hrs!
So, progress anyway! Now all we have to hope is that they don't break down as often as the old ones! :-
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sun Shares costing me money again!
Well, if I didn't need it before, I'm just after getting more validation of my rule never to accept stock options from a company ever again. I thought the time that Mercer sent me the check for 2 cents after selling some shares for me was bad enough, or the time that they offered to sell $27 worth of shares for me and charging me $30 handling fee for the privilege, but this one takes the fucking cake!
I'm just after getting a letter from Dolmen stockbrokers, who AFAIK for their sins took over from Mercer on the Sun account:
"Please be advised that the annual account fee for the period July 2008 to June 2009 is due for application now, and we are also taking this opportunity to ascertain whether prior year account harges hev been fully discharged"
Ok, so far so good. Here's what I owe:
Portfolio balance as at 9th July: €10.93
Account fee due to July 2009 Inc Vat: €54.45
What the Fuck? I owe them €55 for looking after €10 of stock for me? Screw that! But it gets better.
Account fee due to July 2007 Inc Vat: €48.40
Account fee due to July 2008 Inc Vat: €48.40
Seems I must have not bothered opening a few other letters once I saw they were from Dolmen. So, seems I owe them just over €140!
The letter goes on:
"If Dolmen does not receive your remittance by latest, 18th August 2008, we will ahve no choice but to apply Section 13 of our Terms and Conditions which permit Dolmen Stockbrokers to dispose of any investment held for you to reduce ie eliminate the relevant liability. the proceeds of sale (net of sell out cost of €30) will be applied to your acount."
Oh no, you meam I'm not going to be able to pass on this $10 of stock to my grandchildren? I say "grandchildren" because it'll probably take that long before the stock is worth slightly more than fuck-all again.
Now comes the threat:
"In the event that you have insufficient stock to discharge the liability, Dolmen will dispose of the investment to reduce the liablility and close the account"
FINALLY they say something I agree with! Yes, by all means, close the account, enjoy the €10 of Sun stock for the short time before it goes down to €8. This will also help them do their bit for the environment by not having to waste paper sending me out these stupid fucking balance letters any more! I just wish Solomon Smith Barney would do the same......
I'm just after getting a letter from Dolmen stockbrokers, who AFAIK for their sins took over from Mercer on the Sun account:
"Please be advised that the annual account fee for the period July 2008 to June 2009 is due for application now, and we are also taking this opportunity to ascertain whether prior year account harges hev been fully discharged"
Ok, so far so good. Here's what I owe:
Portfolio balance as at 9th July: €10.93
Account fee due to July 2009 Inc Vat: €54.45
What the Fuck? I owe them €55 for looking after €10 of stock for me? Screw that! But it gets better.
Account fee due to July 2007 Inc Vat: €48.40
Account fee due to July 2008 Inc Vat: €48.40
Seems I must have not bothered opening a few other letters once I saw they were from Dolmen. So, seems I owe them just over €140!
The letter goes on:
"If Dolmen does not receive your remittance by latest, 18th August 2008, we will ahve no choice but to apply Section 13 of our Terms and Conditions which permit Dolmen Stockbrokers to dispose of any investment held for you to reduce ie eliminate the relevant liability. the proceeds of sale (net of sell out cost of €30) will be applied to your acount."
Oh no, you meam I'm not going to be able to pass on this $10 of stock to my grandchildren? I say "grandchildren" because it'll probably take that long before the stock is worth slightly more than fuck-all again.
Now comes the threat:
"In the event that you have insufficient stock to discharge the liability, Dolmen will dispose of the investment to reduce the liablility and close the account"
FINALLY they say something I agree with! Yes, by all means, close the account, enjoy the €10 of Sun stock for the short time before it goes down to €8. This will also help them do their bit for the environment by not having to waste paper sending me out these stupid fucking balance letters any more! I just wish Solomon Smith Barney would do the same......
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Working late
Well, here we go, am 5 weeks into the company and this is my 2nd day going home from the office at 6am - and the second day in a row actually! This better not be the start of a trend! This is one of the problems of working with a large telco as a customer (or any large customer-facing organization), the only time they can take their big-ass databases off-line for maintenance is overnight. So, I did a full day's work on tues, came back into work at 11:30pm, left around 6:45am weds, was back in again around 11, did another day's work, came back in last night at 11:30pm again, and I should be leaving here in the next few mins provided nothing goes tits-up.
So, by 9am tomorrow morning, out of the last 48hrs I will have spent 29 of them in the office, and only 6 of the others asleep (well, that would be if I was actually getting into work at 9am, which ain't fucking happening!)
The worst part of it is I wasn't actually busy most of the time. I had a busy first hour shutting down al the services and setting everything up, a busy last 30mins starting everything back up again, and most of the rest of the time was just monitoring stuff every now and then to make sure nothing had keeled over! I could have done it from home but I don't have a VPN account yet so had to come into the office :-( At least I was able to being in my home laptop with my game/movie collection!
So, by 9am tomorrow morning, out of the last 48hrs I will have spent 29 of them in the office, and only 6 of the others asleep (well, that would be if I was actually getting into work at 9am, which ain't fucking happening!)
The worst part of it is I wasn't actually busy most of the time. I had a busy first hour shutting down al the services and setting everything up, a busy last 30mins starting everything back up again, and most of the rest of the time was just monitoring stuff every now and then to make sure nothing had keeled over! I could have done it from home but I don't have a VPN account yet so had to come into the office :-( At least I was able to being in my home laptop with my game/movie collection!
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Pics from Edinburgh
Here are some of my pics from Edinburgh.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miles-away-from-home/sets/72157605456554293/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miles-away-from-home/sets/72157605456554293/
Foreign Reserves
After the last trip, I was putting my UK pounds back into my foreign change wallet, when I decided it might be an idea to see how much I actually had lying around. So, here's what I've managed to pick up around my travels:
And this isn't including the currencies I have here that don't actually exist any more, which are pretty much just souvenirs now:
- 10 Macau Patacas (79c)
- 11 U.S. Dollars (€7.05)
- 50 Danish Kroners (€6.70)
- 80 Polish Zloty (€23.64)
- 85 British Pounds(€106.73)
- 100 S. African Rand (€8.18)
- 130 Singaporean Dollars (€61.04)
- 200 Czech Koruny (€8.12)
- 237 Chinese Yuan (€21.87)
- 680 Hong Kong Dollars (€55.86)
- 2,000 Japanese Yen (€12.11)
- 2,700 Hungarian Florints (€11.07)
- 116,000 Indonesian Rupiyah (€8.01)
And this isn't including the currencies I have here that don't actually exist any more, which are pretty much just souvenirs now:
- 35 Dutch Guilders (€15.88)
- 1,200 Belgian Francs (€29.75)
- 2,000 Spanish Pesetas (€12.02)
- 104,000 Italian Lira (€53.71)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Ya gotta love Michael O'Leary
Saw this in the paper this morning:
HARD-pressed funeral goers are Ryanair's most profitable customers, chief executive Michael O'Leary revealed unapologetically yesterday.
His comments came as Ryanair unveiled record annual profits of €481m and detailed plans to ground up to four Dublin planes this winter.
"The best yields (fares) are VFRs (visiting friends and relatives) going to funerals," Mr O'Leary announced. "They book late because they don't tend to have much notice, and they tend to be price insensitive because they have to travel."
.....
Mr O'Leary's comments came in response to a question from a London-based analyst, who congratulated Ryanair on its "balanced customer base".
"I'm not sure who told you we had a balanced customer base but they were bull-shitting you," the Mullingar man replied. "We don't care whether you're (travelling for) business, leisure, or visiting friends and relatives.
"All we want to know about our customer base is that they've booked and we have their credit card number."
Well, is nice to see a top exec in a company admit it: "we're only out for your money, we don't give a crap about you after that". makes a refreshing change from all that "we care about our customers" crap you get off other companies. Then again, you'd sort of expect this from O'Leary, he's not exactly shy in speaking his mind...... :-)
HARD-pressed funeral goers are Ryanair's most profitable customers, chief executive Michael O'Leary revealed unapologetically yesterday.
His comments came as Ryanair unveiled record annual profits of €481m and detailed plans to ground up to four Dublin planes this winter.
"The best yields (fares) are VFRs (visiting friends and relatives) going to funerals," Mr O'Leary announced. "They book late because they don't tend to have much notice, and they tend to be price insensitive because they have to travel."
.....
Mr O'Leary's comments came in response to a question from a London-based analyst, who congratulated Ryanair on its "balanced customer base".
"I'm not sure who told you we had a balanced customer base but they were bull-shitting you," the Mullingar man replied. "We don't care whether you're (travelling for) business, leisure, or visiting friends and relatives.
"All we want to know about our customer base is that they've booked and we have their credit card number."
Well, is nice to see a top exec in a company admit it: "we're only out for your money, we don't give a crap about you after that". makes a refreshing change from all that "we care about our customers" crap you get off other companies. Then again, you'd sort of expect this from O'Leary, he's not exactly shy in speaking his mind...... :-)
Monday, June 02, 2008
Edinburgh
Well, I've finally been to Scotland. With all my years of travelling, going to the other side of the world and (near) the bottom of the world and all, it's been sort of funny that I've never been to one of the countries that is closest to me. Well, now that particular gap has been filled, with a weekend in Edinburgh, courtesy of my g/f who booked it as my 30th b'day present (well, when I say "booked it", I mean I booked the flights she told me about on my credit card. She got the hotel tho :-P).
This trip was actually an unusual one for me in that the plane took off on time from Dublin Airport and we got into Edinburgh airport a bit ahead of time! I reckon the only reason we actually got into Edinburgh airport proper was that there's no other airport close enough nearby that Ruinair could call "Ryanair Edinburgh" with a straight face. So, no need to pay them the extra €10 each to take their bus into town, we could rely on public transport. Problem was, there were roadworks going on in the street that the Airport Express normally drops you off so the stop was in a different spot to where the maps said it was - and the girl in the airport tourist office told us it was in a diff spot from where it was! So, was a bit of confusion with finding the hotel, but we got there in the end anyway.
Saturday morning started off lovely and fine and sunny, and then got hotter - almost too hot. Deciding that I wasn't going to end up looking like a tomato on this hol, I finally got sense and put on sunscreen before I started to crisp! We started the day by climbing the Walter Scott monument, all 270-odd steps of it, and then went on the bus tour. There's a fair difference all right between the old town and the new town, and who would have guessed that the lovely park we'd had lunch in had previously been a sewage-encrusted loch? The rest of the day was spent mostly wandering around the castle, before heading out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant several people had mentioned was really really good. They also said it's normally so busy that if you don't book you're not getting in, so we went more in hope than in expectation. We walked in the door, got a table straight away (the last table in the place), and spent the entire evening watching the manageress turn people away who hadn't a booking, saying the place was too full! ;-)
Later in the evening, we decided to do one of the ghost tours that Edinburgh was famous for, so we went on the Witchery tour. The tour was good, but it lacked a certain something. A ghost tour should really be done on a dark and preferably foggy night, but we unfortunately picked the wrong time of year: the tour was at 9:30pm, but it didn't get dark until about 11ish! The tour was very tongue in-cheek, and after the 2nd time the "jumper" jumped out on us we were on the look-out for him and it became a bit of a running joke. Was good fun tho. After that, we were pretty knackered after being up and about and walking around since about 10am, so we just went back to the hotel and to bed.
The next day was not quite as nice as the sat had been. In other words, it was pissing rain all day! Luckily, all the outdoorsy stuff had been done on sat so we spent the day doing the indoor stuff like the Camera Obscura, the Whiskey Museum or a tour of one of the old, now underground, tenement buildings. There were plans for doing one of the ghost tours as well, but it was a little bit too damp for wandering around town! Our flight back was on monday, but was an afternoon flight so there wasn't very much time to do anything, so the only thing that got done on mon was the obligatory present shopping for ppl back home!
All in all, a nice city, wud definitely go back. am thinking of trying to organize something for Hogmanay..... :-)
This trip was actually an unusual one for me in that the plane took off on time from Dublin Airport and we got into Edinburgh airport a bit ahead of time! I reckon the only reason we actually got into Edinburgh airport proper was that there's no other airport close enough nearby that Ruinair could call "Ryanair Edinburgh" with a straight face. So, no need to pay them the extra €10 each to take their bus into town, we could rely on public transport. Problem was, there were roadworks going on in the street that the Airport Express normally drops you off so the stop was in a different spot to where the maps said it was - and the girl in the airport tourist office told us it was in a diff spot from where it was! So, was a bit of confusion with finding the hotel, but we got there in the end anyway.
Saturday morning started off lovely and fine and sunny, and then got hotter - almost too hot. Deciding that I wasn't going to end up looking like a tomato on this hol, I finally got sense and put on sunscreen before I started to crisp! We started the day by climbing the Walter Scott monument, all 270-odd steps of it, and then went on the bus tour. There's a fair difference all right between the old town and the new town, and who would have guessed that the lovely park we'd had lunch in had previously been a sewage-encrusted loch? The rest of the day was spent mostly wandering around the castle, before heading out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant several people had mentioned was really really good. They also said it's normally so busy that if you don't book you're not getting in, so we went more in hope than in expectation. We walked in the door, got a table straight away (the last table in the place), and spent the entire evening watching the manageress turn people away who hadn't a booking, saying the place was too full! ;-)
Later in the evening, we decided to do one of the ghost tours that Edinburgh was famous for, so we went on the Witchery tour. The tour was good, but it lacked a certain something. A ghost tour should really be done on a dark and preferably foggy night, but we unfortunately picked the wrong time of year: the tour was at 9:30pm, but it didn't get dark until about 11ish! The tour was very tongue in-cheek, and after the 2nd time the "jumper" jumped out on us we were on the look-out for him and it became a bit of a running joke. Was good fun tho. After that, we were pretty knackered after being up and about and walking around since about 10am, so we just went back to the hotel and to bed.
The next day was not quite as nice as the sat had been. In other words, it was pissing rain all day! Luckily, all the outdoorsy stuff had been done on sat so we spent the day doing the indoor stuff like the Camera Obscura, the Whiskey Museum or a tour of one of the old, now underground, tenement buildings. There were plans for doing one of the ghost tours as well, but it was a little bit too damp for wandering around town! Our flight back was on monday, but was an afternoon flight so there wasn't very much time to do anything, so the only thing that got done on mon was the obligatory present shopping for ppl back home!
All in all, a nice city, wud definitely go back. am thinking of trying to organize something for Hogmanay..... :-)
Monday, May 26, 2008
Coke need to rethink their belgian marketing strategy
I was in Zaventem Airport just outside of Brussels the other week, and I saw this on a coke machine:
.jpg)
Now I know that the Mannekin Pis is one of the tourist icons of Brussels and is probably it's most famous image (and also probably one of the few tourist attractions in the world where you can get a souvenir bigger than the original), but when you're going to get a Coke, do you really want the mental image of a little boy pissing into your bottle before you get it?
.jpg)
Now I know that the Mannekin Pis is one of the tourist icons of Brussels and is probably it's most famous image (and also probably one of the few tourist attractions in the world where you can get a souvenir bigger than the original), but when you're going to get a Coke, do you really want the mental image of a little boy pissing into your bottle before you get it?
Sunday, May 25, 2008
New Job
Well, the new job starts in the morning. Am not sure how I feel about it. Apparently in the new place they are big into dropping you in the deep end, so we'll have to see how that goes. Hopefully I won't be mad busy already by tomorrow evening! At least I wont be on my own, is already one CAPEy there, and another guy that I know from college, plus a few more CAPEys following me in the next few weeks. Will be a lot different at lunchtimes anyway, I'll be able to come back and have my lunch in the flat if I want.
I know one thing I WON'T be doing anyway, and that's giving the ppl at work the URL of this blog! :-P
I know one thing I WON'T be doing anyway, and that's giving the ppl at work the URL of this blog! :-P
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Pimp my Helmet!
I was at the Star Wars exhibition yesterday when I was in Brussels (it's doing a tour of europe), and at the very end of it they had a pretty cool display. apparenly they'd gotten a load of Darth Vader helmets and given them to local artists to "pimp up" as they saw fit.
These are some of the results!
The Green Bay Vaders
"El Vador", the Sith Luchador
Darth Moule
El Diablo!
These are some of the results!
The Green Bay Vaders
"El Vador", the Sith Luchador
Darth Moule
El Diablo!
Ruinair again!
Well, you have to hand it to Ruinair, they sure know how to give their victims customers that wonderful warm fuzzy feeling of being loved. As well as charging more on taxes than you pay for your ticket and charging you for bringin luggage, leaving you play musical chairs for your seat, you also get their wonderful customer experience when you're getting on the plane.
A few months ago, they opened up the new multi-million-euro pier in Dublin Airport, Pier D. It looks lovely and shiny and new and pretty - hell, it looks like an airport in a real developed country! And where are the Ryanair gates in this wonderful new pier? Down in the same fecking prefabs they were in before the pier was open! You walk down this wonderful new building, and you get to the sign for gates D74 to 78, pointing down a stairs, You look out the window, and you see the prefab, tacked onto the side of the Peir like a lean-to shed on the side of a Bel Air mansion.
And then when you get in there: "Air conditioning? Shur what do you need that for, this is ireland!". Is only 800-odd people crammed into a prefab with no opening windows and an outside temp of about 19 degrees (hey, it's hot for ireland). Then, just to make things worse, a full 10mins before we were due to board (well, the time it said on the boarding pass anyway) and a good 45mins before take-off, someone decides to stand in the queue, the herd mentality kicks in and I have to stand with the rest of the sheep to avoid being last on board and have nowhere to put me bag. There wasn't even any sign of the plane at that stage! And because I hadn't remembered to bring my passport into work with me so that I could check in online, I was at teh end of the pleb's queue and had to watch all them "priority" passengers get on ahead of me.
A few months ago, they opened up the new multi-million-euro pier in Dublin Airport, Pier D. It looks lovely and shiny and new and pretty - hell, it looks like an airport in a real developed country! And where are the Ryanair gates in this wonderful new pier? Down in the same fecking prefabs they were in before the pier was open! You walk down this wonderful new building, and you get to the sign for gates D74 to 78, pointing down a stairs, You look out the window, and you see the prefab, tacked onto the side of the Peir like a lean-to shed on the side of a Bel Air mansion.
And then when you get in there: "Air conditioning? Shur what do you need that for, this is ireland!". Is only 800-odd people crammed into a prefab with no opening windows and an outside temp of about 19 degrees (hey, it's hot for ireland). Then, just to make things worse, a full 10mins before we were due to board (well, the time it said on the boarding pass anyway) and a good 45mins before take-off, someone decides to stand in the queue, the herd mentality kicks in and I have to stand with the rest of the sheep to avoid being last on board and have nowhere to put me bag. There wasn't even any sign of the plane at that stage! And because I hadn't remembered to bring my passport into work with me so that I could check in online, I was at teh end of the pleb's queue and had to watch all them "priority" passengers get on ahead of me.
The last day
Well, tomorrow is my last day in WeDo. It's pretty much all over bar the shouting now, I've had my exit interview and my going-away piss-up as well, and I brought home all the crap from my desk this evening. The going-away do was a good long session, we went to the pub at about 5:30 and I got home (from Copper Faced Jacks, oh the shame!) at about 4am-ish. The exit interview was a bit strange, we didn't really talk about the usual stuff ("why are you leaving", "is there any way you think we can improve things here" etc), I sort of went through all that in the last 1-1 with Darina the HR head, was more like just a regular chat about random crap.
Feels a bit strange to be leaving. I won't miss some of the muppets we have for customers, but it was a very good learning experience regardless, and I'll miss all the ppl I work with (well, those that are left in the place).
So, so long WeDo, hello Newbay!
Feels a bit strange to be leaving. I won't miss some of the muppets we have for customers, but it was a very good learning experience regardless, and I'll miss all the ppl I work with (well, those that are left in the place).
So, so long WeDo, hello Newbay!
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