Slightly Outraged

Ian and I are both announcing today on our blogs that we are going to get divorced after four and a half years of marriage. This was a joint decision, and it wasn't made hastily. We have tried various things to make it work, but have come to the conclusion that staying married will cause a lot of unhappiness for both of us. We would rather end it now while we are on good terms, and plan to stay close friends.

We know this is surprising news for many people; I suppose we appeared on the surface to have a better-than-average marriage. We hope that everyone will accept that we know what is best for us, and give us our privacy about the reasons. We are both sad and under a lot of stress, but are also somewhat relieved to have made a decision.

A lot of people were also surprised about the speed at which we got married in the first place. We didn't take that step lightly, and neither of us regrets getting married. We did believe at the time we would be married forever, and we do still love each other. The problems we have do not have anything to do with the manner in which we met or the speed of our marriage.

We both admire and respect each other and hope that our mutual friends will never feel that they have to choose sides. At some point, we may even continue the podcast, but it is undecided at this time. We consider ourselves 'separated' now, but will continue to live in the same house until we can sell the property or make alternative arrangements.

About 6 or 7 months ago I started the process to reclaim charges back from Lloyds TSB for all the times we've gone over our agreed overdraft or had a direct debit returned. Between us Ian and I have 3 bank accounts, and gathering them all together we had over £1000 in charges over the last 4-6 years. So far the bank has given back £750 to shut us up, but over the last two months has charged us £245. I'm going to have to start another claim to get those back. I've started the court process and have a court date for late June, so was interested to read this article on BBC News today about a High Court judge warning the banks to stop messing people around, pretending they're going to defend when they have no intention of doing so.

I knew they were pulling this crap on loads of people, as I've gotten so much help with the reclaming process from The Consumer Action Group forum. Lloyds seems to be particularly bad, so I'm expecting we'll receive the same treatment--they'll wait till just before the court date and then settle with us. The solicitors were supposed to have their court documents to me two weeks ago and still haven't, but apparently this is standard behaviour for them as they don't really intend to go to court. The article says that someone in Bristol has been awarded 80 quid or so because the bank was wasting everyone's time. Just checked the CAG forum and they have a new template for getting banks to pay up for this.

Every once in a while someone makes the argument that all this reclaiming will be the end of 'free' banking, and insinuates that people should just be more responsible and there would be no problem. First of all, I AM responsible, for the most part, with my money. Ian can tell you, I obsess over Quicken and track things to the penny. The simple fact is, we don't have a lot of money to spare, so we don't have a 'buffer' for emergencies/mistakes/impromptu celebrations/gifts/anything. We have a budget. We do our absolute best to stick to it. Every time I read articles about how to manage money, I find that I'm apparently doing all the right things. The particularly silly articles in women's magazines that tell you how to save money irk me. Their suggestions for how to save money are usually "skip your morning latte", "pack your lunch instead of buying", and "get lower-maintenence highlights on your next visit to the hairdresser". I never had a morning latte to skip, I already pack my lunch most days (and when I buy, it's cheap), and my hair colour is from a box. I don't even pay for haircuts--my friend cuts it for free, and in a pinch I cut it myself. Not once have I read anything there that is relevant that I don't already do.

So back to the 'end of free banking'. It's not really free. It has to be paid for somewhere. Currently they do it by charging extortionate amounts to the people who can least afford it. People like me and Ian who can't afford to pay £145 in one month because of a mistake in transferring money between accounts (6 direct debits bounced in that little fiasco). Note that most of our charges were during the time that we actually had a fee-charging account. We were paying £10 per month, per account already, and then an average of £200 per year on top of that. We've cut back to the basic 'free' accounts now. On the CAG forum there are loads of stories of people like us who struggle to make ends meet. Lots are way worse off then us, and the excessive and unfair bank charges make it even MORE impossible to make ends meet, making it more likely they will go overdrawn and incur more charges, etc. etc. lather, rinse, repeat. It's a vicious cycle. Is it morally fair, and more relevantly, is it legally fair to make profit off of this?

Legally, the banks are in the wrong. They know it. That's why they've paid out milions of pounds to shut people up. They don't want a test case because they will lose. There are two relevant facts. If they call it what it is, a 'penalty', it has to be a genuine estimate of losses incurred by a breach of contract. Studies estimate that it only costs the banks £2 to deal with each instance of a returned direct debit or unauthorised overdraft. They charge around £30, 15 times more than their loss! Banks try to get around this by calling their charges a 'service'. The law says contract terms, including charges for services, must be fair. This clearly isn't. That is why they won't go to court to prove it. A test case settled in the consumer's favour would force banks to do what the credit card companies have had to do: lower their charges considerably. Even while thousands of people are getting their money (plus court costs and statutory interest) back, thousands more aren't doing a thing and continue to pay these charges. Just a few months after depositing a 'goodwill gesture' of £750 in our account (without asking us), Lloyds has taken £245 of that back in further charges. They hope we won't fight back.

I was none too thrilled when the idiot that is David Blaine decided to starve himself in a glass box suspended over the Thames a few years ago--what a twat. Normally I'd avoid anything even remotely associated with the man. . .until I found these:

David Blaine Street Magic, part 1

David Blaine Street Magic, part 2

I saw the second part first. Each of these does stand alone, but I think the second part is the best! Go and watch, you won't be sorry.

Warning: If the title of the post didn't clue you in, there are spoilers below.

See, this is why people download movies or buy really cheap illegal copies--summer blockbusters turn out to be utter shite about eight times out of ten. I feel cheated out of £7.20 (plus whatever I spent on overpriced snacks and petrol/time getting to the cinema).

Moving on....where to start about how much was wrong with this movie? Too many villains, too much crying, too much dancing. . .I can accept wussy Tobey Maguire as a superhero, but don't expect me to believe women are suddenly falling at his feet because he struts a little, musses his hair up, and does this ridiculous shooter-pointing thing at them. I don't care what kind of symbiotic muck has gotten into his spider-suit, that whole bit was just retarded.

So the villains. . .we've got three, four if you count the black splodgy stuff from outer space. First of all, we have the hot totty that is James Franco getting Goblined up and going for the kill. Amnesia strikes and disappears all too soon, and the second attempt to kill Spidey ends with Harry being left for dead. When Mary Jane gets in trouble, Peter goes to Harry for help in saving her, and he's apparently not dead, just has half his face burned off. Harry tells him to fuck off, and the butler (who I don't even remember seeing before) suddenly decides to tell Harry that his dad wasn't killed by Spiderman. You'd have thought he might have come clean about that in the second movie when Harry spent all that time brooding and announcing his intention for revenge, but apparently it took Harry going all Goblin and nearly getting killed twice for unnamed butler to think he might want to say something. So Harry goes to help, and predictably gets killed, so Peter can start crying AGAIN....at which point the audience hates them both and starts laughing.

Our second villain is the Sandman--an interesting concept, but unfortunately one that made the movie go ridiculously over budget. Great graphics, poor character development. I didn't believe that this guy could be angry enough to destroy half the city and kill people, then suddenly decide to float away on the wind after some tearful forgiveness from Spiderman. He doesn't seem to have resolved anything for his sick kid, so what the hell was the point of all that?

The third villain is a blond Topher Grace as a freelance photographer after Peter Parker's job. He fakes a photo of Spiderman robbing a bank (after Spiderman was a dick to him), but Peter Parker exposes his fakery and gets him fired. Then Topher inexplicably gets the black splodgy stuff from outer space on him and turns into an evil Spiderman-like thing, hell bent on ruining Spiderman. He bites it along with the black splodgy stuff.

The fourth and final villain (making it at least two too many) is the aforementioned black splodgy stuff from outer space that infiltrates the spidey-suit. The physics teacher looks at a splodgy sample under a microscope and somehow decides it's symbiotic and aggressive. No explanation is ever given for where it's from or what exactly it is, and the method of detering it seems to be loud ringing sounds. It's effect on Peter Parker is to make him kind of an asshole, but at some point he decides he doesn't want to be an asshole and tears off his black suit. I do wonder how he's meant to have gotten from that church back to his flat completely starkers.

Having now satisfied my curiosity about whether it was actually Kirsten Dunst singing (it was), I must say I didn't see the point of any of the musical numbers. I suppose they were trying to round out the character a bit so she had something to do besides be the 'girlfriend in peril', but in a movie based on a comic book I think the rounding isn't really necessary. I mean, yeah, it's not a very feminist attitude to take, but we're going to this movie to suspend disbelief and see a superhero. During that suspension of disbelief I can also handle a fairly one-dimensional/in the background female character who gets trotted out when the superhero needs to save someone. In general the whole Peter/Mary Jane relationship crisis was utterly boring and pointless, I really couldn't have cared less.

I still think the highlight of the movie was the scene with the Daily Bugle editor and his secretary reminding him to watch his blood pressure. Excellent comic timing from both, a perfect example of a joke done well but not carried on to the point of being unfunny. That was in stark contrast to the supposed funniness of Peter Parker going studly and prancing down the street (for what seemed like an eternity). It was just embarassing to watch, and not the really funny uncomfortable type of embarassing that you get with Ricky Gervais in The Office, but simply embarassing in the sense of 'someone really thought we'd laugh at this?'.

The audience reaction to the movie was interesting--in a sold out showing, you had people laughing every time Maguire cried or did a puppy-that's-just-been-kicked look, and a few people couldn't even be bothered to stay till the end. They tried to cram too much into one movie, and definitely paid the price. I've already seen quite a few poor reviews. Hope this is the end for this franchise if they're going to turn out rubbish like this.

Molly Ivins has died at age 62. I'm sad. I'm sadder that noone heeded her warnings about Dubya when she was writing about him before he stole the presidency. RIP, Molly.

I've been lucky enough for the last nearly 3 years to have a really great boss. She is leaving this Wednesday. Last week the network went down for a few days, no email, no internet, no access to all our files on the network drives (where we store EVERYTHING). Today we got an email from somebody high up in Corporate World about reducing the impact of the agency on the environment, complete with bog standard suggestions about turning off lights and recycling (which we already do). This was my boss's response:

Other green suggestions:

Have a completely dodgy IT infrastructure.

Cause it to fail.

Be unable to print (save the last 3 trees on the planet).

Switch off all computers (save energy).

Switch off heating, huddle together chatting about when the networks will work with occasional dashes after IT staff to see if they know what is happening (generating and sharing body heat saves the last three pieces of coal on the planet).

Run out of things to say to each other, cancel all meetings (saves on hot air emissions and reduces rate of ice cap melt).

Leave the building, last one out switches off lights saving further energy.

Walk around London counting people coughing by making notches on recycled twigs.

Twigs can be recycled by rubbing together to start fire for smoke signals to HPUs.

Man, I'm going to miss her. . .(sigh). . .

Forgot to post this last week! This one we talk about how to get rid of mice, TV.com vs Tioti.com, TV Generations, our separate clubbing experiences last week, searching for the perfect couples' calendaring solution, and common misperceptions about RFID and how to disable the RFID tag in your passport.

We've managed to do a podcast two weeks in a row, but failed to keep it under 30 minutes. In the first bit we talk about Ian taking his car theory test & going clubbing, our thoughts on the Apple iPhone, how to answer your mobile from your laptop using bluetooth, and a bit on Dreamweaver. The lengthier discussion on Dreamweaver/Macromedia Studio is in the additional 20 minutes, and also includes several loud screeches from myself (careful if you're using headphones!) as we've got a mischievious mouse running to and from our kitchen. You can get the short 30 minute version here, and if you're really bothered about my content management dilemmas, you can download the additional 20 minutes here.

Also you should really check out Trusted Places, if you haven't already!

Wired has posted a 'How to:' on disabling RFID tags in your passport. This was prompted by the U.S. state department beginning to issue passports with always-on RFID tags. I have no idea if they British ones are the same, but I still resent being one of the first to have an RFID passport foisted upon me. Wired's advice:

The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesnt invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.

Every once in a while I get the bright idea to humour one of these guys that randomly IMs me. I think "Perhaps this time I'll have a conversation with someone that isn't a few minutes of chit-chat and then grooming for 'sexy time', as Borat would say." Alas, I am always proved wrong, as I was today. Names and some details have been omitted/changed to protect the guilty.

(18:17:37) marriedbutlonely: hi sarah

(18:17:44) sarah: hi

(18:17:57) sarah: just fyi, i don't live in wisconsin anymore

(18:18:20) marriedbutlonely: really..I didn't know u lived in wisconsi.:)

(18:18:51) sarah: ok, just that's usually why people seem to contact me out of the blue

(18:19:03) marriedbutlonely: lol..how r u doing?

(18:19:23) sarah: struggling with the finances....arrggghh

(18:19:53) sarah: so tell me, why are you lonely if you're married

(18:19:54) marriedbutlonely: oh sorry to hear that..

(18:19:59) marriedbutlonely: it can be bad at times

(18:20:11) marriedbutlonely: wife is too busy with work :(

(18:20:29) sarah: what does she do

(18:21:24) marriedbutlonely: she is in sales..she gets called to work at odd times and on weekends too sometimes

(18:21:28) marriedbutlonely: what about u? what do u do?

(18:21:53) sarah: I work for *********************

(18:22:25) marriedbutlonely: oh cool...so were u busy during ********?

(18:22:43) sarah: normally I do tuberculosis surveillance, but last month did like 80 hours overtime **********

(18:23:13) sarah: I think my husband would have been lonely, but he was really busy during december as well, we barely saw each other

(18:24:19) marriedbutlonely: do u have any kids?

(18:24:40) sarah: nope, we can't even have a dog!

(18:24:46) sarah: we work too much right now

(18:24:48) sarah: you?

(18:25:13) marriedbutlonely: lol..no..not yet

(18:25:19) marriedbutlonely: so what do u look like?

(18:25:46) sarah: oh don't start that please. I'm happy to chat, but not going to get sexual okay?

(18:26:16) marriedbutlonely: lol..hey..looks aren't sexual..are they? :)

(18:26:43) sarah: there are specific chat rooms for that sort of thing, you can get all sorts of ladies (or lady-boys) to tell you what they look like....and they'll probably be lying

(18:27:01) sarah: but I don't do that kind of thing

What a terrible ending for what otherwise was a really brilliant night! I'm slightly embarassed by my behaviour, but on the whole I think most people understood where I was coming from, given the stress Ian and I have both been under for the past couple of weeks, and given the fact that this woman was, in fact, a total bitch.

So what happened....the BBC Backstage Christmas Bash was on the whole really lovely. Ian's been running around stressed as anything for at least a month to make it all happen. I'll set the scene. . .It's after 1:00am, the party is officially over, and we've just finished dragging all the leftover stuff downstairs for the courier to pick up tomorrow. I'm standing upstairs with our good friend Sheila, when this woman wanders up, bitching about how you can't smoke downstairs so she's come up here to have one. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I have absolutely no sympathy for people who want to smoke indoors in public places. Pollute your own lungs with whatever the fuck you want, but I shouldn't have to breathe it in. The great outdoors was about ten feet away and she could have done it there.

Moving the story along. . . this woman starts saying things like "I'm never getting involved with this thing again, everyone was so horrible and rude." Now given that my dear husband has organised this whole thing, and is honestly the nicest bloke you'd ever want to meet, and I know some of the other organisers and they are lovely people, I'm honestly shocked and surprised and genuinely concerned about this woman's complaint (despite her puffing smoke in my face).

So I say, "who was rude to you?" and she starts pointing at the guy next to her saying "everyone! you, and you, and you. . ." and points at me and Sheila in turn as well. Mind you, anyone pointing their finger at me and saying I've done something I haven't.....well that's going to piss me off...so I starting saying "Excuse me? I've been rude to you? I don't even fucking know you!" And she keeps up this pretense for a minute that I've been rude to her, then finally realising I'm getting really pissed off, launches into this explanation of her superior "Scottish-Irish sarcasm"--the obvious implication being that I'm too stupid to understand when she is kidding.

Okay, now I'm really fucking pissed off. If there's one thing I'm really sick of, being an American expat in the UK, it's people who want to look down on me because I'm very earnest and don't always clue in when people are being ironic or sarcastic, mostly when I don't know them. Sorry, but where I come from, you don't do that kind of shit when you first meet someone, because you don't know them well enough to have an understanding of when they are winding you up. There is a huge possibility for misunderstanding, and being witty at that point is not worth those types of misunderstandings.

Having had enough of this woman's winding up and then putting me down for not understanding her wind up, I give her a big old "FUCK YOU!" and storm downstairs. This was a good move on my part, as I felt, for the first time in about 10 years, that I really wanted to punch someone. Had I stayed up there a minute more, I probably would have. I was a bit drunk and definitely overtired, giving all the shit I've been dealing with at work lately (that's for another post). Considering it later, I honestly don't think she knew I was Ian's wife either--though maybe it wouldn't have made a difference.

Anyway, I stormed downstairs and interrupted the somewhat quiet contemplations of the night by screaming about how there was a total bitch upstairs who needed to be gone by the time I went back up there. Sorry to everyone who had to hear that! I'm normally a very nice person, and I really hope it wasn't the first time I met you. That's not a great way of representing myself, screaming like a loon about "the total cunt" upstairs and that I wanted her to "die of cancer really fucking soon". I was letting off a bit of steam, and I'm sorry you all had to witness it. Thanks especially to Tiff, Harry, Matthew C., Miles, Dave C. and Sheila for calming me down and letting me alternately shout like a prize-fighter and cry on your shoulders. Matthew especially I hope we'll meet under better circumstances!

So Deirdre, or whatever your name is. . .at some point being witty is not worth it. You could have ended it all when you realised I wasn't happy by saying, "Hey, I'm just winding you up. Tonight was really cool." The fact that you chose to pull the "my humour is so superior and you're an idiot for not understanding" act, THAT is the sole reason I am saying you are a bitch--feel free to prove me wrong by explaining that you were drunk, make whatever excuse you want, I'm willing to hear it and forgive. I've made my apologies to the people I feel I need to apologise to. Your turn.

What a twat. Bush has just said in his usual "folksy" way that anytime you kill someone it's "murder"--the obvious implication being that this is "bad". I never understand how people with this view reconcile themselves to promoting the death penalty! Aguuhhhhhgggghhh.....cognitive dissonance!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh god, how I hate hearing him speak!!! It's Nu-Cle-ar you fuckwit!!!!!! Not nu-cu-lar! arrgghhhh!!!

And there we go...he's done the obligatory mention of 9/11. (sigh....) Why do I watch these things? Oh thank god it's over......

The Roman Catholic church has taken the first step towards what could be a historic shift away from its total ban on the use of condoms.

Pope Benedict XVI's "health minister" is understood to be urging him to accept that in restricted circumstances - specifically the prevention of Aids - barrier contraception is the lesser of two evils.

Gee we're only 25 years or so into the AIDS crisis....you think it might be time to start telling people to use condoms? The article goes on to discuss the previous pope's assertion that the Catholic Church would never agree to contraceptive use, that every act 'must be open to life'.

I can't for the life of me fathom how in this day and age some people are still trying to pretend sex is for procreation only. Women are only fertile for a few days a month, or in my case, a few times a year (owing to polycystic ovarian syndrome). Are we all honestly expected to abstain when there's no possibility of conception? It's just stupid. Some people believe homosexuality is unnatural (even though it's been documented as occuring in nature among dozens of species); honestly, it's ABSTINENCE that is unnatural. Once we accept that, we can finally move on to educating people in a non-judgmental way about how to protect themselves from disease.

That's what I was thinking when I saw this:

Why do some men persist with these ridiculously bad comb-overs? I'm not the only one noticing!

Does anyone besides me reckon that Torchwood, the Dr Who spinoff, is pretty disappointing so far? I've watched 6 episodes, and am still failing to be impressed. The way I remember it, it was billed as a more 'adult' program. Now here's me thinking that would mean more complex, intelligent plots with a bit too much violence/gore to show kids...sorta like X-Files. But no, 'adult' apparently means references to 'shagging' or 'snogging' every five seconds, and sex invading every single plot or sub-plot. The innuendos are just annoying/unfunny. A few of the sex bits rammed down viewers throats (no pun intended) included:

• Episode 1: Owen gets women to shag him by spraying alien pheromones around.
• Episode 2: Alien addicted to sex screws people until they disintegrate. Gwen snogs (female) alien while rest of cast watches.
• Episode 4: Ianto's girlfriend is a sex machine (or half-cyberwoman wearingly a suspiciously revealing outfit). Gwen and Owen snog for no apparent reason.
• Episode 5: Episode opens with exceptionally long shot of John Barrowman shirtless (okay, so I'm not complaining about this).
• Episode 6: Gwen starts inane conversation that goes on for far too long about most recent snogs. Owen pushes Gwen up against a tree and talks dirty to her. Gwen and Owen shag.
• Episode 7: According to the preview, the japanese one (I'm so unimpressed I can't remember her name) turns into a lesbian alien-shagger.

Episode 6 also pissed me off because at least 25% of it was just Gwen and Jack posing with their guns a la every cop show you've ever seen. I think it was supposed to create tension or something....(yawn).

And oh my god, the fucking episode guide on the BBC site is incredibly irritating. Whose bright idea was it to have the words appear one after another with typewriter sounds? Hello!! Some of us can read faster than that and don't think it's cute at all!

Can't wait for the Dr Who Christmas episode with Catherine Tate. It should be waaaaaay better than this pile.

I work on the 7th floor of a building in central London that, up until mid May this year, had a perfectly serviceable front lobby. We only moved in this past February, and our reaction on seeing the original lobby was pretty favourable, considering the crumbling wreck of a government building we were leaving behind.

Nevertheless, someone in charge decided the lobby just wasn't good enough, and we were told the front entrance would be closed for three months. This past Monday (five months later), the new lobby opened. I asked some colleagues what they thought of it, and the reaction was always the same--"Oh it's great. . ." I was a little confused at first, but then realised that once again, I had missed the irony. Well, at least we all agree--our new lobby looks ridiculous.

The floors are a stunning shiny white tile which will no doubt be perpetually dirty and very slippery during the winter. A jutting triangle of putrid green perspex above the door provides a helpful landmark for visitors ("go to the really ugly building by Cafe Nero"). My particular favourite are the new, probably expensive, certainly ugly purple chairs that go so well with all the yellowish-green plastic features. My first impression on seeing the chairs was that "they look like giant purple butts, complete with ass-crack". Judge for yourself: