Chessington

On Thursday I went to Chessington for a meeting about a possible short contract. They liked the proposal and asked me to go ahead. I have a second interview for a full time post tomorrow though, so although I'm starting work I'm also preparing for that! It looks like the short contract may take an elapsed 3 months or so which may not be good if I'm supposed to be starting work somewhere else.

It rained all afternoon, but we got out for a walk late evening. Maria is trying to "push" herself to see if she can get back to work. 

I got some feedback from the company who run the on-line tests I was doing yesterday. They said that they were about to start testing Internet Explorer 8 but their software would work with IE 7 and Flash 10. I had pointed out that IE 8 was on general release now in my e-mail, something they ignored. Why on earth did Microsoft bother with the beta test program if there are arrogant companies like this out there!

On-Line Tests

Today I went to do the on-line psychometric and other tests for the job I am applying for.

The personality profile test went okay, I rattled through the questions without too much bother.

The mathematical and verbal reasoning tests were a pain: the web site being used insisted that I could not use Internet Explorer 8, which is annoying to start with. Then it said that I must use the latest version of "Flash" and gave a link to down-load it. The latest version of Flash is version 10. It then said that this was the wrong version.

After much messing around and trying different browsers I managed to locate (on the web) an old version of Flash for an old version of FireFox and was able to use that. While I was doing the first test a guy came to the door asking if we needed any trees pruned which kind of distracted me even though I didn't answer the door and Maria sent him away. That meant I ran out of time on the last question or two.

After I had completed the tests I sent an email describing the issues to the feedback link and cc'd it to the recruitment agency.

After I did the tests we went into Farnham to get some tile grout. Maria drove for the first time in weeks and had some pain afterwards but no where near as bad as it has been at times over the past weeks.

Save Our Rail Link Demo

County Councillor Adam Carew addresses the demo crowd outside Liphook Station. The Rail-Link bus can be seen behind him outside the "Railway Hotel". South West Trains plan to stop running the Rail-Link bus on 17th May. We had 50 people at the demo this evening at 6:30 pm - plus two policemen watching us.

Apple Cake

This is a picture of the Apple Cake that I made for tea today (Saturday). I got the recipe from the May 2009 “Sainsbury’s Magazine” but I added extra ingredients as my cake tin was larger than the 20 cm one they suggested (mine is 24 cm). We had a slice each for tea, which used about 1/4 of it. It would go well as a dessert too with cream or custard.

Recipe

• 125 g soft butter (I used 150 g)
• 125 g caster sugar (I used 150 g)
• 3 large eggs separated (I used 4)
• grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
• 125 g of plain flour (I used 150 g)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 3 small, good flavoured, firm dessert apples
• 2 tablespoons of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (fan 160 degrees, gas 4). Grease the tin and line it with baking parchment.

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy and light in colour then add the egg yolks one by one beating as you go, then the lemon zest and juice. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and a pinch of salt and mix.

Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff, then add a small amount to the egg / flour mixture and stir it in. Then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites a spoon at a time, trying to keep the air in the mixture as you go.

Peel core and halve the apples. With the curved side uppermost, without cutting all the way through make as many fine slices as you can lengthways in each half.

Spoon the mixture into the greased, lined tin,then push the apples into the mixture, curved size upwards, evenly spaced. Sprinkle with the almonds and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes (mine took 50 minutes) or until golden and firm. A thin skewer will come our clean.

Allow it to stand for a few minutes in the tin and then take it out to cool on a wire rack. We ate it slightly warm. It tastes lemony, and the apples are still slightly firm, not mushy.

Bleeding Friday

I went to give blood on Friday - for the first time since September 1994 - so I'm feeling rather virtuous now. I moved house in November 1994 at which point the blood donor service stopped sending me reminders to attend (did I not tell them I'd moved?). I was also working in places where going out for one to two hours to donate was NOT encouraged. So, now I've recovered from my surgery last year and I'm fit to donate again. If you not seen the Hancock Blood Donor sketch then I urge you to watch it. It MAY be available on YouTube or you may find that you have to buy, rent or borrow it on DVD (or download it from a torrent site if you don't mind breaking the copyright laws). There was some fun and games: my sample was tested for iron by being dripped into copper suphate. Of course my sample didn't just drop like it is supposed to: mine went half way down and then came back up again. They had to do the test 3 times and use a new vial of copper suphate before it worked. It took several minutes for them to find a vein they could use to draw the blood too but all went well after that and I managed to get home in time to take my good lady wife to the Doctor's. 

She has been having some complications with regard to the pain relief that she is on but the GP was able to prescribe some ointment and stuff so that's all good.

We went out for our usual walk a bit later on - leaving home at 7 pm, we met a neighbour on the way back and stopped to chat: so we got back home at 9 pm!

Thursday continued - Jehovah's Witness, Utility prices

I've had a busy couple of days since my last post about the flowers opening.

Just after I posted it we had a knock on the door, followed by a "bang" - the visitor had rapped on the glass by the door with his walking stick! I was reminded of the opening chapter of "The Hobbit" in which the wizard Gandalf bangs on Bilbo's front door with his staff. However, when I opened the door there was no tall, impressive, wizard in front of me, but a rather short, stout man wearing a tweed jacket and a Tyrolean style hat. So he looked more like a hobbit. He said to me "What is the name of your God?" which I thought was an interesting opening line. We had about 5 minutes discussion about the nature of the Trinity (which he said was "lies, all lies"), whether Jesus was the son of God and the existence of the Holy Ghost. I wished him good luck on his mission as I closed the door, but privately I was wondering how successful he was being by telling people that their faith was "lies" and trying to damage their front doors. "She who must be obeyed" said after he had gone that she was ready to have a major discussion on the divinity (or not) of Jesus, but she didn't come to the door. She suggested a couple of arguments that I could have used - "why didn't you ask him to explain Pentecost?" - but I wasn't going to ask him to come back.

An hour later the door knocker went again. This time my visitor was a young man in jeans and a tee shirt from Southern Electric asking whether I had taken advantage of recent price changes for my power supply. I said I had checked our tariff (which was sort of true) and that we were okay thank you and sent him on his way. Back inside we discussed it - notably that our last electric bill had been for £75 for the month whereas a year ago we had been paying £55.

I dug out the old bills; I went onto the web site for our provider (EDF Energy); I spent an hour with a spreadsheet working out how the usage became the charge (the first 900 KWh used per year [pro-rata for the billing period] are charged at tariff A, the balance is at tariff B - so you need a formula to calculate the "split" between tariffs and then the sum becomes a straight addition between the two, plus taxes, etc.). Having done this for the electricity I found that of course the cost had gone up, but also our usage was up by around 2000 KWh per year. 

We discussed this and worked out that most of it was because I had been at home most of the year, so the kettle and lights had been on more. But also, the computer had been on for an additional 6 hours per day and this was the bulk of the extra usage.

We adjusted the computer's power settings so that it would go to standby sooner (screen off after 20 minutes, standby after 1 hour).

I then went on to a price comparison website to see if we were on the best deal. At first it appeared that we could save £250 per year, but then I realised that the website had miscalculated the amount we actually spent based on the values I had put in for our usage in KWh (kilowatt hours). So I went back and put in the amounts in pounds rather than the values in KWh. This time it miscalculated the usage at which point I realised that either the site had faults in its code or it was designed to make you think you could save money when that may not be the case. Lets be charitable, there must be so many variables to take into account that it has to be a simplistic calculation and hence it cannot be relied upon. There is probably a disclaimer somewhere on the site.

I looked in more detail at the tariff proposed that would save me £250 per year. The charge for each KWh was higher than we are paying at the moment, the break to move to tariff B was earlier though and there was a standing charge on top of the basic usage. I decided to modify my spreadsheet to allow me to change the variables and see the effect. So that's a bigger project - watch this space!

The lesson for the day though is to doubt the truth of the words on the price comparison sites. It is not just a simple choice, nor is it made easy for you to decide which provider to use as you are not comparing "like with like". I guess that could extend to the door-step discussion on faith too, but I am not going to change my beliefs based on whether or not my church gives me loyalty points or better value for money: you just know when it is right for you.

Birthday Flowers

 

The flowers that I got “She who must be obeyed” for her birthday finally opened today, so the whole room is now full of the smell of Lilies. Lily pollen is toxic of course, but luckily the cats are not allowed in this room.

 

I heard this morning that I have got a second interview for a firm in Andover next week – yay!

Birthday

It was the birthday of “She who must be obeyed” today. I gave her some books from her Amazon.co.uk wish list, some perfume (CK Escape), a new hair brush and some flowers.

This evening I cooked her a meal of sirloin steak in peppercorn sauce, loaded potato skins and onion rings!

Prawn cocktail to start, and ice cream to finish!

Andover

I drove over to Andover for an interview today (Monday 20th April). It seemed to go okay: fingers crossed!

Easter Sunday and Monday

On Sunday we went to the In-Laws for a meal. This seemed like a good idea, but after 2 hours in the car and a few more sitting at the dining table "the wife" was in a fair amount of pain by the time we got home again. A nice meal: roast beef and all the trimmings, profiteroles for "afters". Nice not to cook too!

In the morning I noticed that Ancestry.com had identified a link between my father-in-law's grandfather on our tree and a person with the same details on another tree. That showed up a link that revealed what is probably my father-in-law's grandfather's wife's family back to the 18th century. We just need to verify a few points and then we can probably accept the link. It seems very well researched, so I don't think that will be an issue.

On Monday I did some more family history research. I found an article on the German Wikipedia that mentioned some of my ancestors and gave me the name of my 2x great grandfather - but not his dates, or his wife's name, or where he was born. But it's a start. My ancestors owned department stores in Germany before the war (until they were "Aryanised"in 1933 anyway) and German Wikipedia had an article about them. The research seems legitimate, and the other facts tie in with things I already know. I did some more digging and found another reference that gave me my great grandparent's address in Cologne before the war. A nice looking location - judging by Google Maps!

More4 Pub Quiz

We spent a happy hour tonight drinking wine and playing the More4 Pub Quiz - see http://www.more4pubquiz.com.

It may have been better to start in the easy room and work up, but we managed to get the rooms back to front and started "hard" and then went for "easier"

A new Doctor Who episode tonight too! See Planet Galifrey in the "blogs I'm following" for details!

Irish Music at The Mill Tavern

Yesterday evening I met my brother at The Mill Tavern in Shottermill, near Haslemere. We had a drink and a chat together, then he played the violin with a group of people. I only stayed until 9 pm (they were going on until 11) as I had left "the wife" at home in pain. Back home I described the performance for her and showed her the pictures and video footage that I took. My brother doesn't want them published on-line though so I can't put them on here in full.  

In the morning I went to the Alton Executive group meeting - 3 of us turned up, so we are now merging with another group. About a third of the original group are now working, but I guess the others are on holiday.

Save our Rail-Link

Yesterday I went to the meeting of the Save our Rail-Link group at the Community Centre. I ended up volunteering to take the minutes.

South West Trains are planning to axe the link between our town and the nearest station at Liphook on 17th May 2009. They will put on extra buses for people travelling to London, but people going South or to Guildford will be disadvantaged. This does not encourage use of public transport or tie in with the "green town" vision either.

The website for the group is at www.saveourraillink.org. There is an on-line petition to the Prime Minister at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/saveourraillink/

So you can lobby Gordon Brown on behalf of the group!

Police Interview

I went off to Aldershot yesterday to be interviewed for a voluntary role as a "Safer Neighbourhoods Support Assistant". 

I was interviewed by a pair of typical HR people - Caroline and Beckie who asked me 4 questions each, asking me to provide examples from my experience. Questions like "what software have you used?"; "Have you worked in a team?"; "How have you adjusted your behaviour to be more inclusive for minorities?" The last one threw me, I said that I didn't adjust my behaviour for minorities, I treat everyone the same. What she meant was things like storage of files on shelves when working with a colleague in a wheelchair. I was then able to describe not over-doing the wrapping of a christmas present for a handicaped person. I suppose she was allowing me to think about different treatment of different faiths as well as the disabled.

During question 7 the fire alarm went off. I answered the question, then asked if we should react to it. Beckie went to check and then came back to say that the did normally check the alarm on Monday afternoon but it was still going so we were evacuating.

We trooped out into the yard and then into the car park. I noticed that they evacuated the prisoners from the cells too - into a Police Van and left it in the yard with a guard.

After two minutes we went back in, back up three flights of stairs, and did question eight.

Interviews, Dentist, Blessing the Bounds

Another manic week. I had two interviews: one in High Wycombe on Wednesday, the other in Great Missenden on Thursday. On Monday I asked the agent about the role in Hove - I'm not "out of the running" yet, but I see that they are advertising it again which can't be a good sign. On Friday I called the company who I went to see in Wokingham. The woman in the HR department said that I "should have had a letter" explaining why I didn't get the job. She said they had appointed someone with "more retail experience". She was going to find their copy of the letter and call me back. She didn't call me, so hence I conclude the letter was never sent. I thought at the time of the interview that the hiring manager may feel a bit threatened by me. I went through a few minutes hoping that he gets into trouble for not sending the rejection letter - and maybe for inventing spurious rejection reasons too. The interviewer in Great Missenden gave me some genuine feedback at the time, which is great. I have heard that a couple of other roles are back on too.

We went to the dentist on Wednesday morning, which seemed fine: no problems detected. I got home too late from High Wycombe to go to the Woolmer Forest Hisorical Society meeting on Wednesday evening. On Saturday I was supposed to be going to "Bless the Parish Bounds" with the mayor and other people from the Historical Society but we were in Petersfield. I was doing the weekly shop and Maria was getting her hair done. We knew it would be tight, but with Maria unable to do any bending or lifting it took longer than I planned to unload the car. I got to the rendezvous at 13:15 but they had already left (the start time was 13:00 for a 13:15 departure). So instead we sat in the garden, we watched the cats playing/fighting and we read. I fell asleep and nearly got sun-burned too.