Peter's Journal

Miracles

2026-06-16T00:40:27Z

Will never cease, apparently. I have documented my recent travails with an attempted upgrade to full-fat (phat?) fibre internet.

Today:

This equates to approximately 6 months of internet connection monies.

In other news:

I managed to stab myself in the finger with some bamboo the other day, and I am not totally convinced I have got all of the wood out of my finger, despite repeatedly flushing with antiseptic spray and judicious use of scalpels.

Work continues to be insane, but I feel I might have been rumbled when it comes to tactical days off to avoid the office; I may also have lost one of my flock.

My elder brother turns 50 in twelve days; I have no idea what to get him as a gift, but I still haven't got him a 21st gift (the same year I turned 18).

My car is starting to behave peculiarly, which I suspect is largely due to it a) being a diesel and b) my limited mileage.

Yesterday evening, I indulged in a spot of hair-on-fire driving from Ainsdale to Skelmersdale, over old and well worn stomping paths; from WN8 to PR2 via M6 and assorted A roads; while a longer and much more mixed drive, the car actually seemed to appreciate having its neck wrung, and used the same amount of fuel as during a 25 mile mince, despite the longer and more varied route (and with not a little amount of leaden right foot):

Not that my car has, or ever would, inspire the joie de vivre when it comes to piloting it, but I rather enjoyed driving like a complete bellend over familiar turf. Simple things like remembering where the best lines through bends were, clattering grids where the apex is, that kind of jive.

My car is 11 (?12) years old now, and whilst never quick, seems to be getting more feeble. This is good for tyres, keeping Peter out of prison / hospital, but not a great deal of fun. Its days with me are numbered, along with its habit of burning out the glowplug in cylinder 2. Something more modern is appropriate.

I am, therefore, seriously considering a Toyota Corolla. Estate.

I know.

I will (totally not) be drowning in women's underwear as they see me cutting about the place in a hybrid, and their inability to contain themselves in re throwing said underwear my direction, such will their lust be for a fat bloke driving the automotive equivalent of a Which? recommended fridge/freezer.

However, the 2L version should be substantially quicker than my insignia, better for biffing around town (?Preston claims to be a city), gets more MPG, and is cheaper to fuel.

But, if there is one experience in life I can do without, it is the pantomime of buying a car, and the dickery that comes with negotiating over the finance, "bonus" extras, etc.

Truth be told, I would much rather stab myself in the finger with a bamboo toothpick.

Again.

Or punch myself in the face.

However, in modern life, car salespeople and estate agents are a bit like essential cockroaches: even if you wanted them to completely disappear, they wouldn't, and for some societal reason, shouldn't.

Going Dutch

2026-05-20T19:09:19Z

Unrelated: when "in" the Netherlands, this site loads. Not so much with other locations. Odd.

Tooled up

2026-05-20T17:21:16Z

After the disappointment of no fast internet, I treated myself to a new toy.

Yes.

I have a chainsaw.

Garden things

2026-05-19T18:43:52Z

So. Me again. This week has seen the work completed on rebuilding the garden wall, and the chaps doing the work have done a splendid job. Now that they are done, I can finally get around to doing a little work in the garden. There is much to do. Including giving a couple of trees a haircut, and getting mediaeval on some brambles and bindweed.

Other work should have been taking place in the garden today, namely laying some optic fibre cable. For reasons unknown, this has not happened.

Radio Gaga

2026-04-12T14:17:54Z

The radio now works. It's almost like I work with unfamiliar technology on a daily basis 🤔!

Canned

2026-03-17T01:05:13Z

These Momentum 4's are borderline sexual in the way that the sounds enter my head.

That is all. As you were.

Thursday, March 12

2026-03-12T22:57:47Z

Today was a day of two halves.

The first half was made of stressing myself beyond all reason about attending a medical thing in the afternoon. And then deciding to bail on work for the day.

The second half of which was made of feeling foolish about the first half.

The main event? An eye screening appointment where the NHS wanted to see if I was going blind as a result of being diabetic. On doing the eye chart test, it seems I still retain the 20/13 visual acuity I got as a result of have my eyes lasered sixteen and a bit years ago. Then the nice man was all about putting some drops in my eyes to relax the muscles of the iris, which resulted in my looking like I had been whacking the class A's, and led to a drop in vision that really only made itself apparent after it had gone dark. Huge starburst / halo effects from lights.

However, given my relatively recent inability to walk any distance comfortably, trotting the mile or so to the clinic and the mile or so back was much easier than expected. Shows how far I have fallen from not thinking twice about a 30 mile bike ride in the evening, to seriously considering my options as to how I get to and from a place a mile away without being able to use my car :/

Still, onwards and upwards!

Anyway

2026-03-08T23:42:47Z

Postmonkeyism likely!

I may

2026-03-08T23:41:24Z

have been somewhat over enthusiastic at a working Semagic client. Got a bunch of 403 errors when trying to update the previous entry. Ho hum.

Iran

2026-03-01T03:58:18Z

I'm not going to weep over the passing of the Supreme Leader /Ayatollah _if_ he has been rendered very much unalive by the combination of The Orange One and Bibi Netanyahooo.

I can't claim to be a scholar of current events or history; I do enterprise technology, often at the granular level. Bombing the ever loving gently caress out of that part of the middle east strikes me as not the way to de-escalate things.

Is it just me, or does the tanned ding-a-ling look more and more like Frank Cross' dead boss as time progresses? The dude doesn't look healthy.

Today

2026-02-27T19:51:18Z

Today, I have mostly been in ~~indoctrination~~ a training session. One of the principal drawbacks of now having staff is that I am required to attend training on how to manage people.

Today it was about difficult conversations. Monday was surviving change. Wednesday afternoon was how to use the HR system. Next wednesday is some other guff.

I'd much rather be left as I was, and not having any responsibilities outside of doing my actual job. But there are limits as to how far one can sensibly progress without the encumbrance of line management, and I've done fairly well to dodge it thus far, I suppose.

The results of the Gorton and Denton by-election were interesting. The Green candidate romped home (relatively) but there were an awful lot of votes for a chap representing Reform UK Ltd. who seemed to think that The Handmaid's Tale wasn't a warning about a dystopian future, but something to be emulated.

Also

2026-02-26T02:17:51Z

Randomly, I only appear to be able to access this site when I have fully decloaked. Even the bypass tunnel in PIA struggles.

ಠ_ಠ

Housekeeping

2026-02-26T02:12:51Z

Posts from years ago with big photos will now have less photos, as I have done blatted them.

Shame, but UK banks do not appear to jive with Russian banking.

temporary carbon

2026-02-25T19:59:23Z

Hello Livejournal! I am still alive (technically).

Tempus fu...

2024-05-14T17:32:17Z

Well, you know. Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. I am still ambivalent as to this platform, being as it is, operated by the russkies.

Part of me thinks that it would be grossly unfair to hold everyone in that nation responsible for the actions of the few lunatics at the top; that said, I have no means of paying for the service, so by using it, I'm actively adding to the deficit of that economy? IDK.

On the other hand, I have twenty odd years of life erratically and poorly documented on here, and have made (and lost) good friends along the way, lost my marbles, got them back, lost them again. It's a big thing to walk away from...

To business, then; or at least something akin to a proper journal entry...

What's been happening?

On the home front, I have been here now five years. Which is remarkable, as it doesn't feel that long. This milestone has also necessitated interacting with brokers and legal types, as the fixed rate mortage I was on would have increased in payment by something in the region of £170 a month had I done nothing. The crowd that did all the legwork last time around wanted six or seven hundred sheets to find a better priced offering, and whilst my bank is not currently doing new mortgages, they did point me in the direction of a firm that would do all the legwork at no cost to myself. Bonus!

The paperwork for the remortgage is best part done, and I think I have done everything correctly. Hard to say, as this is my first attempt, and it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't some random invoice on the way. However, the new mortgage payments are a little over £100 more a month, and the term of the loan is a shorter duration — down from 15 years left to 13 years left. Hopefully in five years, I'll be able to shave that down to five years instead of eight.

The increase in cost is pretty much squarely down to the antics of the shortest serving Prime Minister in UK government history, a woman who was famously 'outlasted' by a lettuce.

Partly for reasons of my being a ferocious dickhead occasionally, and partly because I found a website that would print and post a letter completely gratis to Mrs Truss, I wrote to her office at the Palace of Westminster, requesting details of how I went about invoicing the Conservative party for the additional expense I will incur as a result of her cavalier approach to national finances. To date, I have yet to get a response.

I suppose that I am fortunate in having a job which is both secure and compensatory enough that I can absorb the additional expense without putting too much of a dent in my "lifestyle", and I am pleased that the gaff is all but sorted for the next few years.

Speaking of the job, the 22nd of March this year saw me having worked for the same employer for twenty years. This is quite remarkeable, as it means I am one of the more seasoned veterans of the place, though there are people kicking about with 35, 40, even 50 years before the mast. This longevity comes with a couple of bonuses — I get an additional free day off this year (which I am taking on Thursday), and I also qualify for an award, in the form of something that costs upto £380 + VAT, which I think means a target budget of £520 or similar.

I have no idea what to treat myself to. A set of tyres?

Locally, there has been some movement. The old dear in (what was) Gordon's place didn't make it through the winter; the crowd in the place next to me in the corner seem to rotate and change; some times they are OK, other times, they seem to spend most of the day bouncing balls off the wall. All very strange. Downstairs currently is a family of Indian extraction — ma, pa, one smallish child and a not terribly old baby. I did shudder when I first clocked ma, as the idea of living under the same roof as a newborn had (and has) a similar appeal to group sex. Happily, the child seems quite content, and rarely makes any noise at all that I have noticed.

I'm still expecting to be annointed and made Director of the management company here at some point, but I don't know when that will be.

That's probably enough rambling for now. Hope everyone is well!

Things of note (?)

2023-08-02T22:39:12Z

We find ourselves in August. Again. Tempus fugit and all that...

So, what gives?

The Ashes this summer have been by turns infuriating and enthralling. I'll let you guess as to which innings were which.
Pootypoot's adventure to the south still goes poorly, which is amusing, if one doesn't focus on the number of lives being lost.
My neighbour has a car which is loud enough to set the alarm off on mine on startup. He's all kinds of apologetic about this.
My father treated himself recently on the occasion of his 77th birthday to an air rifle. I can only assume that this means that I might be getting my rifle back (mostly gifted to him a decade or more back). From discussions, I should be getting it back serviced and in "new" condition, if one ignores the cosmetic aspects.

As and when this happens, I'll need a new scope, and somewhere to shoot the thing to zero the scope. Not the easiest in communal gardens with a collapsed boundary wall. Might have to brush up on what the caper is with legally shooting the thing over land I don't own (such as a beach, out to sea), to get the scope dialled in. Few things more useless than a gun than don't shoot straight or a blunt knife.
The boundary / garden wall is still in the same state as it was when it collapsed. I can only imagine that there is some manner of legal dick-waving going on between insurance companies as to who is liable.
I have new neighbours downstairs. A family of 2, a nipper, and what I suspect to be a bump. They are blessedly quiet thus far.
I should be going into the office tomorrow for the weekly appearance. I have little desire to do so. Haven't set foot on the premises for a couple of months, and I can't really see the benefits of changing this. I am one of the few weirdoes that the whole "lockdown" thing worked for. Suited me down to the ground.
My uncle (was going to say maternal, but my only paternal uncle died a few years back) got married last week. He's also 77. Strange times.

Hope you're all well, internet.

All change

2023-05-25T20:23:04Z

Much comings and goings here. The crowd downstairs moved out yesterday / today, and have left about the average amount of crap about the place that ex-tenants seem to do. The flat above Mad Val's old place is up for sale, as is Jim's gaff. Personally, even though it requires a goodish amount of modernisation, I think it's worth more than they are selling for, but hey ho.

Work continues to be hilarious. I've genuinely no idea what I'm doing, or supposed to be doing a lot of the time, but I have people from Director level to the most junior in a few services asking Serious Questions. All very surreal.

Olde Meme

2023-03-31T18:57:11Z

Just been out to the shops. Came back, and there is an ambulance parked up, lights going. It's been a while since I've been able to play the game of guess who the ambo is for... My shortlist:

Wheezy Jeff.
Barbara from the end.
Derwin.
Mrs Chris.
The old dear who moved into Gordon's place.

Who knows? Place your bets now!

In other news, work this week has been hard. Very difficult, a lot of it, and no end in sight.

Bah

2023-03-14T16:55:38Z

Hoover asplode. Well, not quite asplode, but it has stopped working. There appear to be essentially no spare parts for this particular model either. Only had it three and a bit years :/

Aren't new ones expensive? gosh.

error.throw(towel)

2023-03-11T23:06:07Z

I've been trying to throw the twenty quid or so for non-poverty level access to this site for a few weeks. My account here is old enough to vote, fight in a war, get drunk and fight in a bar, etc.

However, I remain snootered. I'm wondering if that is visa/mastercard blocking payments to russian businesses?

In other news, the reaction of the BBC to a presenter calling out fascist BS is akin to taking a two pounder cannon, and pointing at their foot. And then being shocked when the foot is blown away.

Random

2023-03-09T19:43:54Z

It's cold, windy, and snowing here. Not very nice at all. A while ago, I nipped out, came back, and found a Muslim chap outside, praying.

Not sure if he's a new resident, or what. Still, I have to admire his dedication. I don't think I would be kneeling on the floor barefoot praying in this weather.

Several different kinds of awesome

2023-02-22T01:27:27Z

The people downstairs seem to be having a lively exchange of views. It's half one in the morning.

What could be better?

BANG. THUD. BANG. THUD.

2023-02-04T19:07:43Z

So, the people in number 31 I referred to, with the muted banging? Today, they've been well at it. Somewhat annoying. Especially as I can't for the life of me work out what it is they are doing to make the racket. Still, Captain Birdseye in 30 will be getting it worse than me, and I can always adjust their staircase with some lubrication.

In other news, the sportsball today has been disappointing. Everton won (taking them out of the bottom three), ManUre also won, Liverpool lost, and in the egg-chasing, Scotland squeaked a winner at Twickenham.

Bah.

What ho, Internet

2022-09-21T19:57:22Z

I'm off work this week, which is nice. Monday was the funeral of QE2. I have to confess to feeling a bit sorry for her — not only had she croaked, but her body got moved from pillar to post before it actually got buried.

I have no idea what kind of monarch Charles will be. As heir-apparent and prince-in-waiting, he's been a rum sort. Far-sighted and somewhat cuckoo at the same time.

Still Alive

2022-08-05T23:06:33Z

Yes. I'm still alive. Still plodding on.

Out of a fit of whimsy a few minutes ago, I decided to have a look at the state of my account with my electricity supplier, given all the recent doom and gloom forecast relating to the cost of such utilities, and the general state of the national economy for the next couple of years...

So, I went on the internet, and I found this. Yes. My most recent meter reading is a third of the previous one... I am therefore anticipating a massive refund, or a bill that is large enough to stop a supertanker. Which, remains to be seen.

Unrelated: free lj accounts seem to be seriously hamstrung in the options for posting entries.