Finger licking bad

When did that disgusting habit of licking your finger before turning a page go out of fashion?

I sat on the train this morning (in First Class) and watched a 60+ year old city type reviewing documents from his briefcase. Before turning the page he popped his finger in his mouth. I can remember my father doing this and have an 84yr old uncle who does it too. I can remember the practice being ‘normal’ but today it really does seem unhygienic.

What’s changed? Are pages now less prone to stick together? Or have we simply realised that passing round paperwork drizzled with spit is not very nice?

Beware - cardboard boxes are potential death traps

Wanting to post some stuff to our daughter in Ethiopia, we popped into Sainsburys and as we paid for our stuff, asked if we could please have a strong cardboard box.

The answer was that 'for health & safety' reasons, boxes can no longer be given to customers. Perhaps we're only weeks away from plastic bags also being considered too dangerous and then there're those trollies - all those hard corners etc.

In 2009 I expect all supermarkets to ban customers from doing anything more risky than walking round the aisles preparing a list of shopping that will then be delivered to your home later in the day. How did we used to manage in the dark old days of the 20th century?

BT - one week on - still no phone

I'm getting really good at surfing the BT phone system. Over the past week a number of dedicated BT employees have tried to help me get my home phone reconnected. All have failed. Today's top tip was to cancel my direct debit and then ring tomorrow to pay the outstanding (but not due for payment yet) £8.21 by debit card. Then I'm told I can have a phone again.

Others have said I'll need to pay a reconnection charge, one said there was no line to my home so a survey was needed by an engineer to see if connection was possible and a third simply hung up.

Even the online complaints department took three days to politely suggest I simply needed to place an order for a phone line. The thing is, until last Saturday I had a phone line, a phone number and was very happy. Only now it's been taken away without any reason BT can fathom out, do I realise just how happy I was until they cut me off.

Aren't BT wonderful

BT have just agreed to reconnect my home phone for free!

They can't explain why they took it upon themselves to disconnect it in the first place, but the weekend without a phone does at least mean I can get some work done without distraction.

Good old BT. Perhaps all the utlities providers could give us quality time by disconnecting their services for a few days at a time. I'll stock up on candles and buy a wind up gramaphone so I'm ready for when they do.

Of Time and City

In my view the best film I've seen in a decade, this autobiographical account of Liverpool by Terence Davies is amazing. It blends old film footage with a very clever narrative to create a moving account of life, prejudice, behaviour and social engineering over the past 50yrs.

See a clip here.

Davies has only made four films . . . now I must see the other three!

Should all world leaders be left handed?

I've been steering clear of American politics so have only just realised that the candidate for common sense is left handed. I'm hugely reassured.

As well as cancelling World War 3 and encouraging his country to be, well democratic in every sense of the word, he is left handed. This is not unique and he would be I think the USA's seventh left handed president, but perhaps he'll be the first one to seek equal rights for left handed people.

In a world where everything is adapted for people who are different in terms of ability, race, gender, sexual preference, faith, ethnicity and just about everything else, no concessions are made for left handed people. Everything you touch or use has been configured for a right handed person. It's a bloody nuisance and I'm sure contravenes some human right somewhere . . . . . .