Category: Humour

Technological decluttering!

Or as hypno cat would put it “recycle your electricals”

Recycle Your Electricals: Hypnocat

Oh god don’t make me go back into that place, where the Amazon parcel cardboard lives along with the wrapping paper, old TV, computer screen, countless useless cables, plugs, installation CD’s (for things no longer even installed) and laptops dating back over 20 years – don’t make me go back there again. No, hypno cat, no! 

Ha Ha, it does not feel that bad though maybe it should! I am hopefully having a clear out towards the end of this month of some items all of which really do live in my flat rent free and everything. I’ve always tried to plan to recycle many of these items but I figure most are too old or broken to do anything useful with.

You can pay for the council to remove them or if valuable enough donate to a charity shop or if clapped out enough take to the nearest recycling centre. But you need a car to take them to the recycling centre which I don’t have! But I have asked a friend if he can hopefully assist me when I have some time off work and we should be able to sort most (hopefully as much as possible of it out then.

Prior to that day I need to try and do a bit of prep like seeing if the computers still switch on and if they do wipe their hard drives and google what else I might need to do to them, I also have a collection of mobile phone’s which a programme on BBC 1 called Antique Roadshow would be proud of not so much for how much they might be worth but for how old they are. I could free up quite a bit of cupboard and draw space if I can sort this lot all out this month.

I also have a bedroom with lots of no longer worn clothes and bedding that have not seen the light of day for a good few years, which I must also try and get sorted. Just thinking and typing how much stuff there is, is a little daunting, but I am counting on this being part of the process of sorting this stuff out.

I presently have a little Huawei P30 mobile phone, which has a matching tablet with it, for my day to day needs it works really well but the battery is not as good as it once was and sometimes I can’t get Wi-Fi for it, when other people are not having the same issues with their phone as me. One of the places where I can’t get mobile data or decent Wi-Fi is the office where I work, which is not great, I was all set to purchase a new Motorola phone this evening but resisted. I figure I have had my other phone for 4 years and it still works, so perhaps wait until I have had my recycling sort out of stuff at the end of the month and then perhaps treat myself to a new phone.

What’s that old phrase ‘if it’s not broken, nor stolen, still charges and takes updates don’t throw it away, well something like that!!!

Alas though some of this stuff has long passed its use by date and it’s just now a case of disposing of it responsibly and safely with Hypnocat!

Facebook Outage!

I survived the great Facebook outage of March 2024 and you know what, so did you my friend!

I tried to login to Facebook today when it turns out it had already been down for about 3 hours and it was asking me to enter password, at this time I realised I had about 3 passwords in my phone for it and was unsure which was the right one and the fact that none of them were working was even more confusing. I then had a message come saying they would send me a message through whatsapp with a code that I had to enter and access facebook, that did not work either, so they also offered me the option of sending a text to my phone which of course did not work either.

While all this was going on I was also logging onto google to check out if there was any news on Facebook having crashed and reassuringly all over the internet there were many articles about it being down and also a comment I could relate to saying  “Anyone else freak out and think they was being hacked?” well yes for a second yes I did.

Funny how when I was a teenager I had no mobile phone or concept of wifi and yet now in a time such as this, in a county such as mine, a mobile phone with wifi and a pair of glasses on to read what is or ia not working on the screen, are all taken for granted as essential parts of everyday life. So when it stops working we try to work out what has gone wrong or what the heck s going on.

I also wanted to send a message to friends and joke around with them but on messenger or Facebook saying that the computer is now fighting back and the revolution has began, so see you on the other side! But luckily for them I could not as facebook and messenger where still down!

The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1

At age 47 and ¼ I bought my first bookcase last week

Yep it’s true on the plus side I am one more step closer to being an adult and on the downside it’s err true I am one more step closer to being an adult.

I must admit my collection of books is and has always been very eclectic mix for example I have a book of poems from a great local Exeter Poet called Steve Carnell – who a while back used to do the open mic circuit and read out his awesome poems on great drunken lad’s nights out he is an awesome guy and once close friend –but as times move on so did he.

Book of Poems called the 23rd Mojo by Steve Carnell

The next wonderful human that I know or knew who wrote another awesome book is the lovely Barbara Haddrill – She wrote an eco travel book called Babs to Brisbane about her eco travel to of all places Brisbane in order to be a bridesmaid at her friend’s wedding. Babs is such a wonderful talented and inspirational person.

Babs to Brisbane by Barbara Haddrill

My next book is not by someone I know but I think the front cover title changed and influenced my entire life from the day that I read it to this. It’s called ‘The only planet of choice’ – it’s at the very least a mind opening spiritual and philosophical fantasy concerning the evolution of earth, you, me and the universe – the choices that we make and how they impact on everyone and everything and ripple through time and space and at most it is something so much more than that!

My next book was a gift from my mum to make my book collection look a little more sensible and again adult like. It’s called RSPB Handbook of British Birds. I found it very handy when trying to identify the birds along my street and on my bird table during lockdown back in the old days of covid lockdown times.

My fiaal book that I am showing is a dream dictionary and I have a few of these but this is by far my favourite one which is by Russell Grant and is his Illustrated Dream Dictionary. I’m on my second copy of this book now as the first fell apart from me waking up too many times in the middle of the night and grabbing it and quickly trying to see what it thought about my dreams and then chucking it back on the floor when I had finished and went back to sleep. To this day I swear I am not sure if one of those darn dreams or nightmares has come true yet! But it was always interesting to read the interpretation and Russell Grant always put a positive spin on dreams and nightmares’ which from an early age I have found comforting.

Oh well onwards and upwards. Well speaking of onwards and upwards or flashing outwards with less brightness I think my TV might be on the blink and the back light might be about to give out – looks like another adult purchase might be on the cards – oh bugger, TV Don’t go dark on me just yet.

Distance, Light & Sky – Don’t Go Dark On Me 

China and back again a Jacket sale!

Not quite an epic Lord of the Rings tale to tell more of a searcher of the shops internet sale. I ordered a coat back in January 2023, and somehow it turned up on my door step today for the second time! I had been searching for a good, waterproof winter style coat in my size. How hard could it be to find something like that you might think and say. Well I’m a big feller and so my size for a coat is a UK XXXL that not a Chinese size or American or European size but UK. I have been this size for over 8 years now and though I would love to shift some weight I am also struggling to try and make sure I don’t put any more on.   

So I had been using the digital ecommerce unholy trinity of Amazon, Google and Microsoft to try and search and purchase a new coat, again waterproof, warm and the right size and my efforts resulted in me purchasing what I thought was a US made and sized coat that looked nice on the advert and also allegedly on sale for what I thought was £70 so not cheap but not too expensive either.  

 When the coat arrived I knew straight away it was sadly too small and also not great quality. So was either going to donate it to a charity shop or return to sender? After discussing the issue with my ma we both though I should send back to supplier. So I emailed them and found out how much it would cost to send back to them and the address I needed to send it too.

I posting it back to China for £26 and including the £19 I was charged for postage and insurance originally this venture has cost me about £120 so it was not a not unusable coat to purchase for me. But I would be prepared to pay that amount if I could actually wear the darn coat in my size and not have to post it back to get my £70 back.

I posted it back to China with a very exact and detailed postal address and also a small letter inside stating my name and address and order number so as not to avoid any confusion to ensure I got my refund. The item was posted international royal mail and arrived in china within a week or so but then sat in the depo awaiting collection buy the business that I had purchased it from. I contacted them sending evidence of where the coat was in China and by April this year I got my £75 refund for the coat. Job done I thought and that was that.

Well that is until this morning when I get a knock at the door from the postman and he has a parcel in his hand for me from China, it’s the exact same parcel I posted to them back in February this year with a little Chinese label on it saying it had been refused to be accepted by the people that I had purchased it off. So it looks like it is still going to the charity shop as a donation after all.

It just so happens I have a charity collection here this Friday to pick up some clothes and a chair so they will be able to have the coat at the same time, its unused and should make someone a nice gift (so long as it fits them!) Even thought this coat has yet to find an owner it has already done more travelling around the globe than me, travelling from China to me and then back to China and back to me, in its short little lifetime its done quite a few miles. I’m a little jealous of its ventures but also quite impressed.

K T Tunstall – Other Side Of The World

It’s a trap!

I’m generally quite good at detecting phone scams and normally don’t fall for them or even give them a chance to speak before I hang up on them. But this evening I really felt like I got scammed.

I was on the phone to my mum just chatting about how the day has gone and checking what Christmas parcels that I had ordered to her house had arrived today when suddenly my mobile phone started ringing.  

I instantly though oh I had better get that call and it was showing up as a UK landline number , real number, real human being and you would hope real place that they are phoning from.

So I answered the phone and they that they were phoning from Ofwat (who are the water company regulator for the UK) to do a customer survey about South West Water (my water supplier). My first and only sensible question that I asked them was, ‘do you know my address and who you are calling today?’ I figured that if this really was not a hoax call that they should potentially know my name and address. Right away the woman speaking told me that she did not have that information.

I would have and perhaps should have hung up there and then but I did not. The thing is this the second time that South West Water survey people have tried to call me and the last time a couple of weeks ago was in the day and I said that I would answer a survey from them but could only do so after 5pm and this call was just after 5pm. So I thought they were either a very dedicated or lucky scammer.

Sadly I also was interested in the questions that they were asking and also wished to express my views on those questions such as, what were my views on the pollution on the coastal areas and what South west water were doing about it and that kind of thing so if this was a real questionnaire I did want to provide my views.  

There were 3 questions that I thought were dodgy but 3 questions is more than enough, firstly they asked me what my job was a just said officer for council (nice and vague), secondly they asked me for my annual household income, I said I was not prepared to provide them with these details it just seems the perfect kind of info a hoax caller would want to put me in a how much money we can extract form this idiot category on their hit list. Finally and the very last question they asked was my name, which I went ahead and told them to which after 20 minutes of survey I thought oh well I hope this is genuine!!!

So back to trusty Google, I searched about scam calls and South West Water and they had a 24 hour emergency phone line open for reporting water leaks on but you could also call them about scam calls and so phoned that number got put in a queue as you do waiting to ask a human being whether or not I had been scammed and who do I call about it?

So finally got through to a human and asked them if they knew of any surveys I was due to take and they confirmed that Ofwat were due to phone me and there was nothing to worry about. ARR FOR FECK SAKE!

On a plus note I found out I am in credit in my water account when I logged on trying to contact them so am going to cash in on that, well at least I should get some cash back in time for Crimbo, so long as that’s not a trap!

It’s cold outside

Sleep is my drug of choice!

Having survived my teenage years of drug experimentation in the 90’s with an eye on the cool hippies of the 60’s I am very grateful to be alive today, without too many side effects emanating from my past. With that in mind now sleep is probably the main mind altering substance I seek to use these days.

An ode to Sleep

When my head is weary and my eyes tired too,

There is gentleness in the dark,

I can close my eyes and can no longer see a view.

Though I do not seek to live in darkness all my life,

I do enjoy the rest bite for a while,

I can find peace when I fall asleep at night.

Recharge my batteries for another day.

Without such darkness I might not appreciate what I see tomorrow,

or appreciated the new point of view.

So when the next problem comes my way,

I’ll sleep on it and see what I can do.

Birdy – Keeping Your Head Up

We should be as mad as hell!

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” declared the longtime news anchor Howard Beale in the 1975 film classic Network. In the picture, people everywhere toss open their windows and repeat the catchphrase with a barbaric yap. They rush to the streets in maddening throng to air their grievances.

Quite fitting for our own time even though it’s from 1975.

With my own Prime Minister or so called leader of Britain Boris Johnson having had a birthday party, which he did not remember having or going to and then after remembering that he did actually have it and attend then deciding it was not after all a party! In the meantime he is trying to spread out the time it will take to admit what the hell was going on and what he has actually done or not done, that by the time the truth is finally out there we might not be so mad with him anymore as we have had to move on to the next bit of drama or TV rating fodder that we are following instead.

Leader of Britain – Boris Johnson

The present piece of TV rating global drama is the potential invasion of Ukraine by the new age Tsar Putin – the man is a power hungry monster, who will only be happy when the blood sweat and tears of other members of humanity, suffer and surrender at his throne. He really wants to make people suffer whether it’s by interfering and spreading disinformation in democratic countries or poisoning or imprisoning potential political threats in his own country. I used to just think he was a Russian mafia man but he has far greater ambition than to be the local god father of mother Russia.

European powers very much rely presently on Russian gas for fuel and energy of homes and businesses and if he flexes his muscles to cause a confrontation in Ukraine just to prove a point and invade a sovereign nation it will be a line in the sand that once crossed can never be taken back.

Moving They Keep On Moving!

Well a lot has happened since I last wrote in this space. Parents are both packing up all there belongings into boxes in their separate homes. Mum is moving back to Devon and Dad decided that he would move out of his bungalow into a new flat too. Who knew the stress of moving could be so much fun, no really who does know about the stress of moving as it is no fun and it’s not even me doing the move.

I thought the whole point of moving was to go to a place that you actually want to live, not just a pit stop along the race track of life. I’m very lucky in that I have a lovely flat and although it’s not my own the rental property is secure and the amount I pay is low, so I will stay here for as long as I can.  

I started trying to help my Dad move into his new place and pack a few boxes last Friday I travelled out from Exeter to Crediton. My only problem was I had picked up a cold probably from work and my voice box had packed up on me so had to screech my destination to the driver on each bus I was travelling on. I did not feel too unwell but my voice box was knackered. I took a Covid-19 rapid flow test to just to be sure I had not picked up Covid-19 and that came back as me being in the clear.

I then spent much of my weekend back in my lovely warm flat sleeping off my cold non covid-19 lurgy until this morning when I needed to join my Dad again for the actual moving out of property day to help direct the removal men to which box was going in which room in the new flat. This went well, and I feel a lot better in myself now and less worried for my Dad so I hope he settles into his new home.

Mother on the other hand although has sold her old home and bought a new one to move into will be moving into rented accommodation in December or January as the property that she is moving into will not be finished until June.

So that moving thing will be going on twice for her and no doubt I will have something to do with some parts of her move too. On the plus side the property she has bought to move into in June is a lovely house in a lovely village.

One thing over the weekend that kept on making me think my illness can’t be Covid-19 was that I did not lose my sense of taste although with everything happening all at the same time I do have to report I did lose my sense of humour, though I am pleased to report is coming back again now.

Supergrass – Moving

Taking a little time out

Well I am just coming to the end of a week off work, had an eclectic mix of things that I have done, went and caught up with some friends that I have not seen in over a year at a barbeque I made time to sort my home out a little too, taking out some stuff to the recycling centre and also some charity donations to the Oxfam shop.

Also made time to go to a friend’s birthday which was a great quite night in a local bar on a Monday where said friend was running around in a dinosaur suit, I have not laughed that much in a long time, a good night was had by all.  

Kyle’s Birthday Suit!

So I will be back in work tomorrow and a little nervous because I am so darn tired today and have not left the flat since Thursday. I have no idea why I am so darn tired. It’s been a great week though.

I have not lost any weight this week though but I think that is down to the drinking of Guinness on a couple of nights out and also eating larger meal sizes than I have been used to of late. I did not put any weight on also which is good.

Still in two minds presently about the unlocking of lockdown, it’s lovely for us all to be catching up with people we have not seen for a long time and also be just around people in general. But you just hope that the vaccines continue to work their magic and we get on top of the virus in the long term.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions!

Well what can I say other than there is so much to say, so little I want to express and so little time to express it within.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions

The saying means to emphasize that you must not simply intend to behave well but you must act according to your intentions, because you will have problems or be punished if you do not

So many stupidly horribly wrong things going on in the world at the beating heart of all great powers across the world right now, by allegedly wiser people than us common folk.

Trump in USA is in denial about Covid-19 and still refuses to wear a mask, maybe it will cause his makeup to run. Putin the wannabe Tsar of Russia is busy stitching up, yet more elections for himself, the man is poison. Xi Jinping in China has decided not only is the principle of free speech and democracy no longer relevant to his own citizens in China but it is now decreed that Hong Kong has lost the right to free speech, self determination and other vaules that make us mere mortals feel safe to sleep at night.

I sometimes fear or question Gods sincerity towards us puny humans. Or think that he has a deeply wicked sense of humour with which humanity is either the butt of the joke or the punch line. My point being Putin and Xi ridicule democracy as a failed way of working because the result being you get a Donald Trump in power a TV host who has now gotten so board of the job of President even he has now stopped reading his own tweets due to the piss poor job he is doing.

Putin on the other hand is a state sponsored gangster. He knows he is a hardcore fucknutt who cares about no one but himself and how long he can personally stay in power. His so called democracy is a sham. He knows it, we know it and those that vote for him know in to power know it to. He genuinely gives the impression that he is holding on long enough for the Russian state to invent immortality for their Russian Puttiny Tsar. Once he declares himself immortal he will probably decide that even then Russia no longer needs to believe in democratic rule of law either. There is no line Putin won’t cross no, no deed he won’t do in order to remain in power. The recent reports of the Russian state sanctioning paying of the Taliban in order to kill US soldiers is only one example of the depravity of the man that is Putin.

Song Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradice

Xi Jinping has also from today decreed that anyone in Honk Kong wishing to advocate through peaceful process the right to have democracy and free rule from China is now likely to risk being sentenced to life in prison. What an absolute bastard of a man. The amount of so called well educated state apologists actually having the gaul to stand up and defend this nonsense on TV today was astonishing.

So these three super powered stooges are the most powerful humans on earth with a trigger happy finger on a nuclear button. I hold more compassion in my little finger than they have shown to their fellow citizens since the time they came to office. The Self-interest that existed within these three souls on this earth who though marked for greatness in the eyes of our world and for the potential good they could do for all because of the positions of power and responsibility that they find themselves occupying is simply squandered and wasted in their hands and their ancestors must be turning over in their graves. Like I said near the beginning of this little post God must have a wicked sense of humour!   

The Three stoges – Slaps, Smacks and Pokes