Friday, January 26, 2007
Hollywood lifestyle
I recently came across a link to some ads my fellow Cambridge English student Zoe Green, now a film director, has been making in Hollywood - and they're so good I just had to post them here! I hear Zo-bo is also writing for the X-Men tv series and doing the rounds in H'wood with the sci-fi fantasy gang.
http://www.them.tv/green-work.html
For me, the first working month of 2007 has been a bizarre mixture of writing some books for children about forensic detective work, doing features for one women's mag involving researching libido-enhancing magnets and a total body makeover, choosing pics of my great grandparents for a feature I did on my family past for another magazine, plotting several feature ideas with friends and finding more ex couples for Observer Woman. In between this, I've been desperately keeping up with the 15-pages-every-3 weeks workshop sumbissions for my MA course, and reading nine books for it from Brett Easton Ellis to Annie Proulx. It's all a very random combination, I can tell you!
Last night I went to the launch for the MA's published book, Bedford Square. The launch, appropriately enough, began for every guest in Royal Holloway's Bedford Square HQ, where we were issued with a combination code for the door to the party in Gower Street. It was full of so excited they were dazed new authors and the publishers, John Murray, made a really sweet speech about how they liked publishing work from our MA. They have given one or two graduates book deals in the past year or so. It's all quite intimidating and exciting. People on my course keep moaning (along with everyone else I know) about how I never update my blog, so I'll write about them! We're all completely different, lead wildly contrasting lives and write in polar-opposite styles, but all get on SO well and it would be worth doing this course just to have met them. I love you guys!!
http://www.them.tv/green-work.html
For me, the first working month of 2007 has been a bizarre mixture of writing some books for children about forensic detective work, doing features for one women's mag involving researching libido-enhancing magnets and a total body makeover, choosing pics of my great grandparents for a feature I did on my family past for another magazine, plotting several feature ideas with friends and finding more ex couples for Observer Woman. In between this, I've been desperately keeping up with the 15-pages-every-3 weeks workshop sumbissions for my MA course, and reading nine books for it from Brett Easton Ellis to Annie Proulx. It's all a very random combination, I can tell you!
Last night I went to the launch for the MA's published book, Bedford Square. The launch, appropriately enough, began for every guest in Royal Holloway's Bedford Square HQ, where we were issued with a combination code for the door to the party in Gower Street. It was full of so excited they were dazed new authors and the publishers, John Murray, made a really sweet speech about how they liked publishing work from our MA. They have given one or two graduates book deals in the past year or so. It's all quite intimidating and exciting. People on my course keep moaning (along with everyone else I know) about how I never update my blog, so I'll write about them! We're all completely different, lead wildly contrasting lives and write in polar-opposite styles, but all get on SO well and it would be worth doing this course just to have met them. I love you guys!!
Monday, January 15, 2007
And the good...
Well, feeling a little kinder towards HMRC today after managing to log on last night in the end and file my tax return worryingly easily on my own.
And in the spirit of praise, it's only fair to flag up my 5 best companies too..
5. Vodaphone. Wouldn't say they're good exactly, but they are OK, which is good compared to some rubbish competition.
2. HSBC. Banked with them most of my life and they've never messed up on anything. You don't have to hold for ages to get through and they're always competent and polite.
(To be filled in at later date - should be working!!)
And in the spirit of praise, it's only fair to flag up my 5 best companies too..
5. Vodaphone. Wouldn't say they're good exactly, but they are OK, which is good compared to some rubbish competition.
2. HSBC. Banked with them most of my life and they've never messed up on anything. You don't have to hold for ages to get through and they're always competent and polite.
(To be filled in at later date - should be working!!)
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Frickin' Taxes
Been trying to log onto Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (aka the Inland Revenue) for the last half hour to file my tax return, which is stressful enough given I'm planning to do it all on my own with no accountant and only a fluke GCSE in maths, a subject with which I've since had no contact. Massive confusion over 11-letter/number combination activation pins, passwords and IDs, followed by total inability to log on. Called the helpdesk to be told this problem has been going on all day and there is nothing they can do - there are just too many people trying to do their self assessment online. She essentially suggested I try in the middle of the night, before dawn...Sorry to sound like a Daily Mail columnist, but it beggars belief. You'd think they'd design a website that could, conceivably, cope with thousands of people all, how very surprising, wanting to do a tax return in January. But, in that terribly English way, such foresight would just be too damn clever. Honestly - you'd think they didn't want you to pay your taxes. Why not stop spending on adverts urging you that time is running out and start implementing a system that actually allows you to - yes! that's right! - pay the taxes?!
It's inspired me to come up with my top (or should I say bottom) five annoying companies for customer service based on harrowing experiences all in the last 12 months. Prepare for a heck of a moan.
5. Royal Mail. For some reason they seem incapable of ringing the doorbell when they have a parcel that won't fit through the letterbox. Or as a fun alternative, they ring the doorbell and then are off halfway down the street before I can answer it. Instead, they push one of those red cards through with a note asking me to collect said parcel. With a phone number on it that can only be answered between 10am and 12, on alternating days, after 48 hours have elapsed since the failed delivery. Which when you call, rings forever with no answer.
4. Elephant Insurance and their loss recoverers, Albany Assistance. It's been 14 months since a foreign lorry drove into me on the M25, and Elephant still haven't managed to reclaim my excess from the third party. They say they're going to call you and they don't. I wouldn't say they're the worst, and I think they do kind of try to help, but they're basically pretty bad at recovering money owed you in my experience.
3. Network Rail. Last night, the tree surgeons turned up at midnight, finally, after 10 months of trying to get Network Rail to let us cut down the subsidence-causing trees and 2 months' delays from Network Rail promising to allow it this weekend, then the next and then the next weekend, then never showing up or bothering to let us know. Guess what - this morning, the trees are still there! Apparently some dufus at NR forgot to turn off the overhead power cables on the railway line. FFS...How much more can we residents take...
2. Plus Net ISP. God am I mad about this one! When I signed up with Plus Net in 2004, they were a great little company. You could call customer services and get through within minutes, and there were never any technical problems. About 9 months ago, I believe the company was bought out. At any rate, things have gone right downhill. Among other fandangos, they not infrequently lose your mail into black holes in cyberspace and when it happens, it's virtually impossible to get through to them to ask about it. You're forced to log into their website and post a question, to which invariably you get some inane response that absolutely fails to address any of your concerns. I could go on but I'm stirring myself up and getting mad!
1. (worst). Sterling House bike mail order company. All I can say is OK, it was stupid ever to buy from them. The guy in my local bike shop nearly died laughing when I admitted to him that's where I paid good money for a pile of barely rotating, skewed wheels and mashed up mechanical randomness that I even had to put together myself like something from Ikea. They lied to me, sent goods that didn't match what I had bought or what was advertised, sent goods way later than their promised catalogue timescales, and basically gave me the distinct impression of being..weell..it has to be said -the kind of company that should be on Watchdog, basically. Six months later, I threw the bike away (it barely worked) and spent more money on a proper one.
It's inspired me to come up with my top (or should I say bottom) five annoying companies for customer service based on harrowing experiences all in the last 12 months. Prepare for a heck of a moan.
5. Royal Mail. For some reason they seem incapable of ringing the doorbell when they have a parcel that won't fit through the letterbox. Or as a fun alternative, they ring the doorbell and then are off halfway down the street before I can answer it. Instead, they push one of those red cards through with a note asking me to collect said parcel. With a phone number on it that can only be answered between 10am and 12, on alternating days, after 48 hours have elapsed since the failed delivery. Which when you call, rings forever with no answer.
4. Elephant Insurance and their loss recoverers, Albany Assistance. It's been 14 months since a foreign lorry drove into me on the M25, and Elephant still haven't managed to reclaim my excess from the third party. They say they're going to call you and they don't. I wouldn't say they're the worst, and I think they do kind of try to help, but they're basically pretty bad at recovering money owed you in my experience.
3. Network Rail. Last night, the tree surgeons turned up at midnight, finally, after 10 months of trying to get Network Rail to let us cut down the subsidence-causing trees and 2 months' delays from Network Rail promising to allow it this weekend, then the next and then the next weekend, then never showing up or bothering to let us know. Guess what - this morning, the trees are still there! Apparently some dufus at NR forgot to turn off the overhead power cables on the railway line. FFS...How much more can we residents take...
2. Plus Net ISP. God am I mad about this one! When I signed up with Plus Net in 2004, they were a great little company. You could call customer services and get through within minutes, and there were never any technical problems. About 9 months ago, I believe the company was bought out. At any rate, things have gone right downhill. Among other fandangos, they not infrequently lose your mail into black holes in cyberspace and when it happens, it's virtually impossible to get through to them to ask about it. You're forced to log into their website and post a question, to which invariably you get some inane response that absolutely fails to address any of your concerns. I could go on but I'm stirring myself up and getting mad!
1. (worst). Sterling House bike mail order company. All I can say is OK, it was stupid ever to buy from them. The guy in my local bike shop nearly died laughing when I admitted to him that's where I paid good money for a pile of barely rotating, skewed wheels and mashed up mechanical randomness that I even had to put together myself like something from Ikea. They lied to me, sent goods that didn't match what I had bought or what was advertised, sent goods way later than their promised catalogue timescales, and basically gave me the distinct impression of being..weell..it has to be said -the kind of company that should be on Watchdog, basically. Six months later, I threw the bike away (it barely worked) and spent more money on a proper one.
