Why This Is Hell

So, I need to go to return library books, to pick up my prescription, get tickets, be brave in a copy shop and do things online that my modem will likely freeze up on and a bit of tidying wouldn't come amiss.

One trip to town or two?

How much will obsessing about it cut into time which could be spent doing it?

Or give up and travel north with laptop after all and postpone computer stuff?

I would like to book three tickets for an impressionist, whose show you assure me will sell out. In fact, I'd like to check ticket availability before I book. You have a snazzy website, with a page for every show, and a PDF of your programme which generously donates a page to each evening. I guess you are wedded to dead trees.


But the website is pretty, and you've invited me to click on the link above from the booking page to book a show. You tell me that, unfortunately, certain kind of discounts cannot be bought online. As far as I can see, you cannot buy any tickets online.

For link above to click on, there is none.

I've tried signing up, so I gain access to a users area, where I am inviting to write a review. I'd love to write a review.

But I want to buy a ticket to a show please.

How about having a button on each page of a show marked BOOK NOW.

... I should write tomorrow's presentation. Or I could just wing it. It's not until... 11ish. I never got round to emailing and saying I don't want to be filmed.

A day trip to London - a painless trip to the Whitechapel Art Gallery; train to Victoria then District to Aldgate East rather than the five changes suggested on Travel Direct. (Why did I not remember that Aldgate East is adjacent to the gallery? I wonder if I've always used the wrong exit despite explicit signage?)

Less painless down to Blackheath - via a mistaken use of self-service checkout at Major Supermarket, whose own brand credit cards work everywhere in the world bar Major Supermarket, and whose divi scheme works neither when I want points but pay by cash nor want points but pay by the same card. There's nothing on the card to scan. I pressed the same button as instructed several times.

Walk from there to Whitechapel station and the Overground - which seems actually somewhat underground to me. Two observations, the announcement that a train will stop at all destinations to West Croydon is misleading if there's nothing on the platform to tell you which these are (and New Cross clearly is one of them, but I wouldn't necessarily know that; I cannot remember how New Cross and New Gate relate to each other) and simultaneous announcements on adjacent platforms make both inaudible. I got there.


Last time I went - I believe the day of the Clarkes - I failed to check for opening times on their website and so didn't know (by looking at the contact page on their website) they closed on Wednesday. This being a Thursday, they'd be open, right?

Wrong.

Closed for half term.

I've now checked their website, but there's nothing telling me that.

Oddly enough, the place just appeared on House Gift, with one of the designers spotting something in their window. It wasn't clear that this was filmed on a Wednesday, but the place was shut. Is the Bookshop on the Heath ever open?

I realised I could get back via Gillingham rather than going back into Victoria, but it was an epic journey and I suspect it shaves off only a couple of minutes.

Today... slept in, bad encounter with door to door electricity rep, and seem to have been answering emails. Have I time to read drafts? I suspect not. Not today, anyway.

I really need to get writing. I know what I need to write. Am I writing?


No.

Today nearly turned into a four coffee shop day.


( 1: Caffe Nerd )

Down to Oxfam, where I picked up a Kilworth I'd thought I'd had (and more to the point assumed I had read) and a book against porn, and browsed through the 1965 Dr Who Annual on sale at £15. Some browning to pages, an inscription, biro mark on side, but looks a clean copy. Features Sensorites in one tory.

Needed something bakery-y for lunch, and whilst I disapprove of the West Cornwall Pastie Company doing bacon and cumberland sausage in rolls, neither of them being pasties, I object even more to them not indicating on their menu that these are pre-11 o'clock only. How am I meant to know? I am almost channeling DFENS, but fortunately I have not weapons on me. I had a cumberland sausage in a roll after noon at King's Cross so he's lyung about it being company policy. And get a separate breakfast menu. I am channeling the folk hero who was escort from a shop for not buying a bagel in the right manner.

( 2: Caffe Nerd )

"Confirm 72 hours before" it says, and yes, it is nearer to 36 but I'm not clear how to confirm. Yes, as expected, my modem does not like the necessary website and, whilst maybe a phone call to the agency would be wisest, I have time to go back into town (I'd thought of having a drink in town tonight, at the Bell End Crown) and use wifi there. Theoretically there's Albatross House, but I'm not sure if I'm able to get in on a Sunday as I don't have the correct ID yet.

( 3: Bux )

The agency is open til six, and apparently it means confirm the return. This is not at all clear in context of the instructions, nor is how to do it clear. I'm given advice about getting a phone number at the airport. Might as well go back to a coffee shop and get an hour's work done there, as have lap top will travel.

( 4: Caffe Nerd )


I wonder if I have dry clothes at home yet?

Email from credit card:

"We're shore you'll love what we've got"

Know weigh.

It's not been the best of days thus far - my body surfaced about 10, and I got up to feed Tilda. At some point I noticed the takeaway mouse at the bottom of the stairs and trod in the puddle of milk I spilt last night and hoped would be gone by morning. My plan was to watch the first two Superman movies today, but they aren't in either of the three places I thought they'd be. I'm convinced I took them to Leicester, but if so I'm fairly convinced they came back (unless I tucked them on the shelf in the wardrobe and pushed them out of sight). I had a tidy of the bedroom last week, and I thought all the videos got stuck in a pile then. I think the only thing to do is weight for them to surface, but it blocks the chapter.

Trapped the other side of the bed, I heard the phone ring, and tried to squeeze around the bedside cabinet. Crash went the pile there, and a favourite mug lost a handle. It may be gluable. I didn't reach the phone - it was a polling company who has just received a stiff message and may well find themselves added to some junk mail lists.


So, onto rewatching Return of the Jedi then which is not exactly 1970s, but I probably ought to deal with the whole trilogy, even if it is just in passing for the sixth episode.

ETA: Superman located such that I don't think it went to Leicester. Superman II still MIA, but may be on spare bed with the seventies books. Copy of Shark in Venice also located. Additional grumpiness has been brought to you by a request for a heavy rewrite of a review, the edited version putting words in my mouth.

If you've in one breath a) asked me a favour and b) told me not to put myself out, please don't complain, even sweetly, if I appear to have not put myself out. Being put out is not always visible - and a kick in the teeth often offends.

(Obviously, this isn't about you.)

I know it isn't wrong but it is misleading to have a price quoted in the form "Bed and Breakfast from £39 per night" and for that price to exclude breakfast - but such practice makes me doubt a little whether there is also a bed.