You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
10.05am: So watch out for fake news stories. Mind you, when you start looking for fake news stories, so much of the stuff in the papers looks as if it’s been made up … I remember one year I was looking for the spoof story and I decided it had to be the one about the Japanese entrant in an ultra-marathon who had got lost in the UK because all he had to navigate by was a map provided by a petroleum company showing where all its petrol stations were.
It, of course, was absolutely true and the fake story was far less colourful.
For All Fools’ Day, our neighbours and landlords at Muncaster Castle are laying on a special day of events – Tom Fool’s Day. They’re the only castle in the world – as far as they know – still to have a resident Fool.
One of the special events is “Pelt a Pennington” – Peter Frost-Pennington – who will, we hope, get his reward in heaven – sits in the stocks and for a small fee allows himself to be pelted with flour bombs, eggs and wet sponges. We get a share in the takings, in return for which we’re going down to maintain control of proceedings.
It tends to bring out people’s primaeval instincts, somehow …
12.55pm: Yesterday, I decided that just for once I wouldn’t leave it until the last minute to do the end of year tax stuff …
(You know already that this is going to end badly, don’t you?)
So saying, I booted up the old Inland Revenue CD which promises to take all the strain out of your paperwork, followed all the instructions, pressed all the right buttons … and found a discrepancy of £42.53 between what we’ve actually paid them in tax and what we OUGHT to have paid them in tax.
I was still poking buttons crossly when 5.00pm rolled around. So, I shuffled it all to one side with a glad cry of “I’ll think about it tomorrow, after all … tomorrow is another day!” and went home.
Segue to this morning: I go right back to the beginning of the financial year and work it out from Day Zero … National Insurance and Tax for all employees, month by month, starting with April 2007. I find a discrepancy! I am triumphant as I total it all up and …..
… I’m now 9p adrift.
I think I’ll go and check down the back of the chairs in the waiting room.
STOP PRESS – 2.00PM: It’s 39p now …
3.20pm: The photocopier engineer turned up yesterday, when I was at home painting the repair to the back door (I won’t tell you how it was damaged in the first place, but if this was the US, I’d be pleading the Fifth Amendment.)
Anyway, I digress. He had the good sense to be here when I wasn’t, thus avoiding having his unworthy ear bent on the subject of photocopier engineers who naff off on holiday to Ireland when they should be
mending photocopiers … Hmph.
The photocopier is fixed.
The newsletter is printed and escaping gradually from the Centre, helped on its way by a motley assortment of family, friends and anyone who makes the mistake of standing still for too long.
The sun is even shining – which it won’t be for much longer, because more bad weather is forecast … so I absconded for half an hour at lunch time and went and disported myself in the garden with my camera … which is why this entry is decorated with jolly and springlike images that have nothing to do with photocopiers and newsletters.
I promise not to mention photocopiers or their engineers again for at least a week.
11.50am: The Newsletter arrived on Good Friday in immaculate order and beautifully printed. We are, therefore, placated. I am especially placated because printing the Newsletter is the bane of my life. Because of the fumes the copier produces, I have to open the windows, which means that I freeze at the best of times. This is not the best of times. There is snow on the hills and the wind is in the north.
I’ll tell you what would have happened …
I’d have shut myself into my sub-zero office and eventually somebody would have realized that they hadn’t seen me for a couple of days …
And there they would find me, frozen to the “Print” button. Death by duplication …
3.30pm: The saga of the photocopier continues.
Yesterday, I was at home and Andrea rang me to say that the photocopier engineer STILL hadn’t arrived. So I asked her to ring the office equipment and supplies company we have our contract with to see what was going on. They replied that he was supposed to have been with us on Tuesday morning, and they were very surprised to hear that he hadn’t shown up.
Especially since he went on holiday that morning.
From what I can gather, they only have ONE engineer qualified to deal with this particular photocopier, so we had a bit of a problem – or rather, THEY had a bit of a problem.
Eventually they came up with a solution. They would send someone down to us with a replacement photocopier for us to use while our own was being repaired. Splendid.
This morning, they telephoned to say that there was another problem … the photocopier they had earmarked wouldn’t actually do what we needed it to do. They also, however, had another solution. Someone would come up and collect the proofs and the paper and THEY would print our Newsletter for us. Great.
One problem.
“I can’t print the proofs because I don’t have a photocopier.” (And there’s a hole in my bucket …)
Ah.
But I can email you the documents.
Excellent. Do that. We’ll send our man up to collect the paper.
I resisted the temptation to suggest that they should have 6 reams of cream A3 somewhere about their corporate personage, being a stationery suppliers and all … and just said that that was fine.
Ten minutes later, they were back on the line again. They’d found some cream A3 paper in their cupboard.
I’m so glad it’s Good Friday tomorrow and I can stay in bed.
2.30pm: Still no engineer.
We’ve had someone come to read the meters, someone come to deliver bird food (yes … more bird food), our gardener is here, taking advantage of the fine spell before Easter’s coming-by-way-of-Siberia weather … but photocopier engineer comes there none.
I did consider asking the man bringing the (several tons) of bird food if he knew anything about photocopiers, but I then I remembered that I’ve given up worrying delivery men for Lent.
We DID have someone ‘phone to ask if we had any use for a couple of seven foot by three foot wall mirrors though. We haven’t really, but how could we say “No” to an offer like that? Ever since then we’ve been thinking of colourful (and mostly improper) things to do with them. We did wonder if we could put one on the ceiling above the treatment couch, so that people could stare up at themselves and be horrified by the site of their spreading avoirdupois, but then we thought perhaps not …
12.20pm: No engineer yet. He’s “working on a project” somewhere at the moment and probably won’t get to us until tomorrow … I’d ring them back again, but I’m pretty certain that neither snivelling nor shouting will make any difference …
Actually, if it was ME on the other end of the ‘phone, shouting – in particular – would just make me drag my heels. It’s what happens when some moron in a bourgemobile tries to intimidate me into driving faster than I want to by breathing down my exhaust. The only effect it has on me is to slow me down to an ultra-slow mooch … Nyah, nyah.
I think I’ll while away the time by trying to sell some of the junk antiques in my office on eBay. Perhaps that’ll make me feel better. Sort of the opposite of retail therapy …
4.30pm: Do you know that expression? No? Well – how about this one: A stitch in time saves nine?
Got me now? Good.
Well … knowing that I was about to launch into print on the Newsletter (3,000 double-sided A3 pages and 3,000 single-sided A4 copies) I decided that it was probably prudent to call the photocopier engineer out to service the printer. It was actually working quite well, but it hadn’t been serviced in a couple of years, and as we pay a substantial amount of money for our maintenance contract, I thought we’d get a bit of value for money.
So – he came, he did mysterious things in its innards, and he left. Splendid.
This afternoon, I started the print run.
Guess what happened.
Go on. Guess.
Right.
The little s*d broke down.
1.00pm: I took a call from a terribly nice young woman trying to sell us advertising space in a magazine. When I asked what manner of magazine it was, (only to make her feel wanted – not because I had the slightest intention of actually BUYING any space) she chirpily replied:
“It’s a monthly magazine that comes out every two months …”
11.05am: Dear Harry … He’s a sweetheart.
In what very little spare time I have, I pretend to be terribly intelligent and write book reviews on a book blog called Vulpes Libris. You’ll see the link to it in the side panel.
Well, on an impulse, I asked Harry (our Patron of many years) if he’d mind giving an interview to Vulpes – as a sort of plug-at-secondhand for the Centre. In spite of the fact that he’s tearing around like a demented bluebottle, he said yes … and the end product can be seen here.
We’re waiting for the Solicitor’s letters from Stephen Fry and Russell Brand …
