My sister-in-law gave me this orchid in 2011 as a house warming gift at my previous residence. A new hasn’t shocked it and it seems to like my kitchen windowsill as it has flowered yet again.
12 years old and flowering again
All posts by Govvy
Operating hours are a myth!
I went to see a film and got back home before 10pm so… there are five takeaways right next to were I live it’s 15 minutes to 10pm and they all say they close at 10pm all but the Chinese take away were closing up and cleaning! I feel the Chinese takeaway is rubbish which looks filthy and unkept.
Ugh!
Now back home I found a pot noodle I didn’t know I had, poured myself a glass of red wine at home! So much for those take away operating hours!
Piles of Amazon packages
Since I moved into my new home in August 2021 I had been getting amazon packages for a company and wasn’t sure why they were coming to my address. But my initial research of the company name showed it was the previous people that lived here before me that was operating a business from this address.
At first, I had thought the couple have moved to Wales, they did initially, but they returned to the same area I live in, they effectively moved around the corner to a bigger house. So, I found them and had a chat about these amazon packages. It turns out they have been operating an Amazon store on the platform and the packages I get are part of the returns system. Somewhere in amazon’s great big computer network there seems to be an error with addressing and these returns that I get.
It’s now 2023 and this morning two more packages came through my letter box. I really was fed-up with phoning Amazon, their system is so poor. Spoken to Philippines, Jamaica, this time I got on the train and went to their head office in London.
After near to 40 minutes of waiting in reception I finally spoke to a guy from security! I gave him a report about my situation. They didn’t even have a customer service representative to deal with me. I noticed a few things in the head office there, like other big companies they operate security through another company, Securitas AB. They appear to operate full time staff and contractors (cheaper staff).
I was also asked and was told that they get seven to eight people a week coming in through the door reporting similar instances of these problems. That’s equivalent of 416 people a year just in London coming in through the door. If like me they have received over 60 unneeded packages a year, that’s 24,960 packages sent wrongly a year.
Amazon are firing staff, but it seems to be to save money it might be wiser to sort out these problems with the displacement. 25,000 packages could equate to a loss to Amazon of £125,000 just in England. If you want to have a guess at a worldwide figure of loss to Amazon, the numbers tell me that Amazon are losing £2.5 to £3 million plus through these system errors.
The company is worth billions, even still, that’s a big loss and the small end.
Ancient Apocalypse review
Recently added to Netflix this show takes around the globe to analyse events in history and connect them together. However, this is deep history and that has problems. It’s very hard to analyse these events and carbon dating isn’t quite as accurate as a lot of TV makes out.
Graham Hancock points out his Wikipedia page straight away at the beginning, it really seems to be a dig at the website. It’s not Wikipedia, it’s the more grounded historical societies and historians which are calling him a fruit.
Hancock is running around half-cocked! He takes us to nice interesting places to explore and shows up some interesting historical sites. But that appears to be where it ends. It’s then all guess work with flashy computer animation. There is nothing scientific about this program, I might as well have watched Ancient Aliens and have the same problems. Half-cocked mumbo-jumbo!
Hancock seems to push his apocalypse theorem at over 10,000 years ago and talks about an ancient civilisation, but nothing is confirmed. In truth, it’s very hard to piece together the ancient world at this level, as part of what he said is right, there were lots of earth-shattering moments which destroyed the world, but there are multiple times this has happened. Volcanoes, earthquakes at different periods in different areas of the planet have this effect also. But he hasn’t addressed these other problems that can cause these disasters. Hancock seems to stick to one large event and doesn’t appear to look at the picture the same as others. This view is fracturing and I can understand why there is so much scepticism.
I give him credit for trying to establish a theory, but this is just his theory. It’s so much easier to focus on a singular issue. But overall, this is too grandiose and that throws a lot of people off, including me.
House of Dragons: Fed-up after episode five
I am not sure if I enjoyed the show, the story feels disjointed and episode five felt like the nail in the coffin for me. The original Game of Thrones was amazing, the writing was excellent with an excellent cast.
The writing for House of Dragons, well there are a few good moments, but the whole script feels disjointed. You are thrown around from one location to another at times. Some of the acting seems good, then other actors, actresses, some seem flat and unemotional. Action thrown in and what you have left is miss-mash TV.
I wasn’t really enjoying the show, and I felt lost with episode five. I understand getting married, but other elements… Ugh! I don’t know how others feel. But I’ve had enough of it.
Cobra Kai season five review
Having just finished watching the season I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. It was quirky, funny, silly, and a lot of kick-ass. Johnny this season has mellowed out and some of the others seem to be lost souls at times. There are some characters searching for who they are and what they are fighting for.
Terry Silver has taken many under his wing, and trying to gangster style the valley into a brand which is just over the top. It then felt like he was mixing in a Yakuza element into his business. It’s unclear at times about where he wants to take the business but then it is revealed he wants to enter an elite Karate competition.
At times the show suffers a little from generic overtures, however it all comes together well and friendships open back up and that sense of family gets stronger.
Bringing in all the old original actors from the films really does make the series unique and that is one of the best pluses. Yep I enjoyed it.
4.5 out of 5.
The World of Stonehenge review
Currently on in the British Museum, up until 17 July 2022 is The World of Stonehenge exhibit.
Upon entering you are greeted with a graphic showing a number of henge’s, and how many there are in the UK, which is a hell of a lot. Next you will see a large necklace plate crafted out of gold, being as it’s gold, it looks like it was made yesterday.
There is a wealth of information to soak-up, and a lot of axe heads. All different types of axe heads, different stones, then onto metals. That aspect alone is an exhibit on its own.
The craft of the age, makes you wonder, how did they manage to do that! There are items on display which leaves you with questions, as no expert is sure what they were for. Exquisite detailed objects, geometric shapes, probably inspired by elements of what the people of the day saw in the landscape and produced onto their wares.
As I got to the bottom of the room I had already been there for an hour and a half so I skipped some cases and the exhibit seemed to rush through time again on the evolution of war and weaponry.
I wouldn’t mind visiting this exhibit again for a second look another time.
5 out of 5.
Time to switch anti-virus software.
I had used the free version of Sophos Home for my anti-virus protection on my Mac Book for a long time now. However, I was having problems with the software for the last few months. The Sophos icon on the top bar which is normally white was red, so I tried a few different things to try to fix it. Then I went to uninstall to reinstall, aww bugger. It won’t reinstall properly.
It started to say, create an account, but I already had an account. Onto customer services, they wouldn’t help. They were slow to respond, I felt impatient and was starting to get cranky! Instead of checking the server for my account or sorting out the server-side issue which appeared to be the case. It just felt like customer discrimination between those that pay and those that don’t. Some guy called Rashmi kept saying he couldn’t help me. This was going downhill fast.So, I removed Sophos altogether and installed Avast. Let’s see how we get on with this one.
Dealing with E.on Next
I moved into my new home August last year and I transferred over British Gas from my previous address to my new address. Not everyone likes British Gas, but I like them and their pricing is far more stable and less messy than other companies.
The previous people had signed up to the company E.on Next for their gas and electric and dealing with them! What a pain!
My home hardly used any gas or electric and they wanted to way over charge. They had estimated that I would use over 450 units of electricity in 29 days? I still having used that much yet and I’ve been living in the property for over seven months now.
Phone call after phone call, asking for a simple thing, send me a bill with the breakdown in the post. You know, this company took five months to get that done. I knew something was wrong with the original bill that had no breakdown. They would send letters out, pay this amount now. And on a lot of those letters, they didn’t even tell you how to pay! Weirdness! When I finally got the right bill, I saw the estimated reading they had done, way off!
I also phoned up Ofgem the regulator for help. On the phone again for over an hour, I explained to them what was going on, the overcharging, etc and they put me through to some woman at E.on Next and I was talking to them again.
It took seven months for a company to work out there were over charging me by £200 and this was based from British Gas readings. E.on Next went as far to employed another company pastdue credit solutions to try and steal my money. Even know I had paid the more correct amount and they said they would tell this credit solutions company, they in fact didn’t. Leaving this other company trying contact me. I had to block the number of them on my mobile because it really was turning into harassment.
To date, this has to be the worse company I have ever dealt with in my life.
Not a great week for anyone.
I tend to shy away from politics and the news, but I feel I need to say something, get a bit of weight of my chest. A lot is happening out there and it feels pretty close by, and at times all-most on top of me.
Economic doom.
A lot of people were surprised when Russian invaded, others knew it was coming, I watched one video on YouTube started before the invasion, showing what will happen and being updated as the invasion happened.
The NATO border to Russia, oil and gas. This appears to be a war about commodities and who can control what. Ukraine has or had access to huge amounts of gas to mine. This could be worth trillions in dollars. Putin waged a war with a country, that is also a heist. It’s a selfish act by a man acting like a tyrant and a dictator. What I see is people losing their homes, homes destroyed, lands seized, burned and destroyed. The NATO alliance can’t help, so all that is left is the economic sanction and seizure.
I drive past the petrol station and see the prices up ten pence. Time for me to get an electric car? The price of heating the home, up! The cost of living, up! The money in people’s pockets, down!
The people on either side of the conflict can’t win, there are no winners in war, there are only losers. Even when a country wins a war, it still loses. The whole planet will see economic strain. There will now be countries that could end up in recession, the super big squeeze, everyone’s pockets will be plundered. Keep those purse strings tight. Because of this everyone needs to be smarter with their money.
In the café
When I was in the café this week getting some lunch there was this one customer who was on his phone, pinging away, seemed very agitated. I was curious and spoke to him. It turned out this workman was Ukrainian, trying to contact friends and family to see and know what is going on in Ukraine with them. Showed me videos of burned dead Russians on his phone, I really didn’t want to see that.
I wish him well and hoped his family and friends are safe.
At IKEA
Another day I wanted to get myself a chair from IKEA for my bedroom, getting to the checkout, there was this gentleman who was buying 50 lots of bedding and towels. I said that’s a lot of bedding to him. He straight up told me it’s all going to Ukraine, I was surprised but not surprised. I hope that stuff gets there and helps those in need.
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