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Spat upon the earth like a piece of used cheese, Mr Squig bounced onto this earth some time ago in 1976. Many have died trying to understand what he is doing here, many hope he will go back soon.
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Aug. 29th, 2007 @ 03:04 pm Spam poetry
Current Location: home
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Rob Dougan
Tags:
Yay for spam.


What's that, I hear you say? Yay for the vilest thing to be on the internet (possibly with the exception of tubgirl.com and goatse.cx, of course)

Yar.. Turns out they're using random prose to slip past the spam sensors.. anyway, this came out quite poetically... Which was nice



People might see to be the opening
From which, thanks to symmetry,
Pierced by the mist that fades away,
and preening, dancing on the basepaths,
Over the chilly dale.
Green lilac buds appear that won't survive
to try that, to hold a terrifying beast
shaded by live oaks and bottlebrush trees
Chose to walk out of it, they'd have to pass
Against which we have been projected? What . . .
Of observation lying on the ground
Seized from creation by nonentity,
shaded by live oaks and bottlebrush trees
Away from their profundity of surface.
That only you and I can know. Les deux
Set on that tomb in the eternal night;
Astonished that you have returned to go
And Mère Chose's square of world, even as they
Glimmering of light:
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 14th, 2007 @ 03:20 pm how I got (very) politely told to ferk off by the Post Office
Current Location: home
Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: people doing stuff
In which I ask Royal Mail why their address finder can't find an address in london, and in which they, in a roundabout way, describe to me how it's Free so therefore you can't expect it to work.

There was me thinking they were a public service.. Clearly they don't care.
Google maps, however, which is free DID work.




> Date: 09/08/2007 12:26

First name.........Toby
Last name..........Powell-Blyth
Query details......Your Branch finder and Postcode finder is RUBBISH

I tried to find the post office in Chiswick, by searching your branch
finder. It seems to think that Chiswick doesn't exist (kind of a
principle
area of that part of london, the giveaway is the DTI having their offices
there).

Your postcode finder worked for my home postcode, but didn't stretch as
far
as Chiswick. So I thought about using the postcode finder to find a
postcode to tell your branch finder. This doesn't recognise Chiswick
easier. In case you're confused, it's here:


http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Chiswick,+Greater+London,+United+Kingdom&sll=54.162434,-3.647461&sspn=16.434439,34.321289&ie=UTF8&cd=1&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1


Anyway, it doesn't recognise Chiswick High road (which used to be the
principle road to travel to Slough, Reading, Marlborough, Bristol,
Cardiff
and the like (maybe you've never heard of those cities either))

So I'm a bit fed up really

You may want to switch to google maps as your address search provider.
Blimey, it actually works.. here is the post office in Chiswick



http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&q=post+office&near=Chiswick,+Greater+London,+United+Kingdom&ie=UTF8&z=16&om=1









On 10/08/07, pcodes@royalmail.com <pcodes@royalmail.com> wrote:

Dear Toby,

Thank you for your enquiry.

A postal address contains the minimum amount of information necessary to
sort and deliver mail efficiently and is not intended to geographically
define the location of a property. For the website to work correctly a
postal town needs to be entered. As Chiswick is an area in the Postal
Town
of London, entering Chiswick in the town section on the website will not
find a match.

We have the following address listed on Postal Address File:

Post Office
110 Chiswick High Road
LONDON
W4 1PU

If we can be of assistance in the future please do not hesitate to
contact
us again.

Kind regards
Royal Mail






From me
To them
Date: 10/08/2007 10:02


Subject: Re: Post Office General Enquiry - Postcode /
address finder




so, how do I find, ordinarily, the nearest post office to, say, Fulham? I
can't enter "London" as the address, there must be thousands (if they've
not
been shut down yet), I can't find the postcode for Fulham unless I know the
street name (I don't have a clue what it is)

I repeat that I think your search tool is not up to the job, and that
google
maps appears to be a more reliable tool. I would like to know, as one of
your customers, when this tool is going to be improved, or replaced by a
link to Google.







13th August 15:09

Thank you for your email. Our online search engine is a free basic tool,
for more advanced and flexible searches please contact our Address
Management team on 0845 603 9038 for further information on other products
which may be suitable for your needs.

Kind regards



Address Maintenance Administrator
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 30th, 2007 @ 08:57 am DIY
Current Location: home
Current Mood: ptarmiganed out
Current Music: R4 9:00 news
So, I went to my dad's this weekend to floorboard his attic. Yay. Except I spent all Saturday aching and aching and aching as I was bent double hoiking bits and pieces all day. Then on sunday we started to move things into the loft, I was exhausted before we began, and my dad's way too ill to be much help lugging heavy stuff around.

Anyway, turns out that at some point in the past, the dozy people who put his header tank in left the overflow pipes hanging in the air. 20cm off the ground. Anyway, Dad had loft insulation people in, who put lagging stuff (the big yellow fluffy stuff) in, ON TOP of said pipe, and caused a weak joint to collapse. Some dozy idiot on Sunday (that would be me) put some spare lagging (rolled and bales) on top of the header tank causing the ball valve to depress (no hard cover). Which caused water to leak into the overflow. Which wouldn't be a problem except for it being disconnected.

The result? water dripping through my brother's ceiling, through his ceiling lights! nothing more alarming than watching someone's light fitting with water dripping through it.



In other news, this is my world holiday calendar :) if I could afford it

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/158-total-solar-eclipse-map-2001-2025/
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 25th, 2007 @ 12:57 pm Cor bliemy, loads to say
Current Location: home
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: myriad chillout albums
In an effort to keep this journal up to date, I am posting my christmas gift list






It's a DVD player with built in projecter!
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 25th, 2007 @ 12:50 pm Floods and stuff
Current Location: home
Current Mood: Dry
Current Music: video above
Tags: , , , , ,
it's all headed this way


http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6910000/newsid_6915400/6915438.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&asb=1&news=1

should be ok though, but I nearly moved to Oxford.. makes you think.
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 24th, 2007 @ 04:24 am Yay and partees and things
Current Location: The Village
Current Mood: ptarmigan
Current Music: World Service
thanks to [info]snathe and [info]sleep_er for top partyness the weekend just gone. I had to go up the The Hamlet by train (thanks virgin trains) and I was dutifully ferried around lots by both of these kind ppl. (who needs lots of public transport anyhoo)

Thanks again guys.. I had a top varnish time, and really enjoyed it.
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 16th, 2007 @ 10:22 pm blog thingy
Current Location: home
Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: SImpsons S18 E11
I am 5% White Trash.
Not at all White Trashy!
I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.



apparently I'm not white trash (duh!)
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Jul. 14th, 2007 @ 11:33 pm Looo everyone
Current Location: London Village
Current Mood: LOOOO everyone
Current Music: Star trek enterprise, series 1 episode 7
The news is that I still don't post much to my weblog thingly


However, if you're curious, I'm now a self employed PHP web developer type person, my current project is a nice Diet website (development not yet launched, due september 2007

Anyway, I'd like a certain major internet player to be aware of this link, so people please don't read beyond this



This is where you can find a website belonging to a freelance PHP web developer who can do consultancy on technical website projects
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Oct. 9th, 2006 @ 12:51 pm Do You Know What it is Yet?

this is sooo cool
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Oct. 21st, 2005 @ 10:18 pm Nervousness
Current Mood: nervous
Tags: , , , , ,
Turns out I've got to have an operation to sort my knee out :(

An Arthroscopy.

Keyhole surgery apparently.. Worst case is a blood clot (unlikely), mediumish risk of them damaging something on the way in or out, or an infection or something. High risk of not being able to do much for a week or so afterwards. "most people return to work within a week" according to them.

Thing is I can't drive back from the hospital with it, and the tube sounds like a nightmare when woozy from anasthetic.

All feeling scared and not in control now :(





In other news, I was suitcase-jacked... Some silly middle age to old person stole it from the suitcase rack, mistaking it for hers. Ours was much thicker, and Black, theirs was Navy

Got a phone call from her this evening:
"is that mr Powell-Blyth?"
"yah"
"HAve you lost a suitcase?"
"yah"
"oh. I feel terribly silly. Got off at Didcot with the wrong one."
"oh. I'm in Swindon if it helps"
"I can meet you at swindon station"

So there ends the stress of this evening... I feel quite week and weady now... Kind of deflated and nervous and all sorts.

Still, cheers me up a little knowing that the Lost Property office is in Bristol, they take 48 hours to process lost luggage, and there's no-one there till monday.

next time be clever and RECOGNISE YOUR OWN BAG!!!!
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Oct. 6th, 2005 @ 08:41 am EWWWW
Tags: , , ,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4313978.stm

The snake tried to swallow the alligator then exploded... Ewwww
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Oct. 5th, 2005 @ 02:24 pm YAY
How cool is this?
I've booked four tickets to see Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic theatre (by Waterloo) in Richard II.

£106 in total!!!!

On the second row

Right in front of the stage

Up close and personal

YAY!!!!!

References:
http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whatson.php?id=15 - the play (with two broken images :( )
http://www.oldvictheatre.com/images/whats%20on/richard%20ii/seating_large.gif - the seating plan

Oh..

YAY!
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Oct. 3rd, 2005 @ 10:23 am It's official
According to this website, I'm officially a member of the team.

http://www.pod1.com/profile.php

From now on, I'm Head of Development at Pod1. If anyone needs work as a PHP developer, please feel free to let me know about it. My address is toby.powell-blyth@pod1.com
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Sep. 22nd, 2005 @ 10:14 am YAY
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: MAgical trevor, of course
Magical Trevor three :)

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/magical+trevor+3/
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Sep. 14th, 2005 @ 03:18 pm YAY
Current Mood: cool
Current Music: some random stuff someone else is playing
Tags: , , ,
Google just launched a blog searcher.
Well, It's just interesting anyway

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=snathe&btnG=Search+Blogs
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=mr+squig&btnG=Search+Blogs
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=sleep_er&btnG=Search+Blogs

To name but a few.
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 31st, 2005 @ 02:00 pm blimey
Current Mood: sad
As spotted by [info]snathe

Michael Sheard died. HE of Mr Bronson fame.

But what surprised me:
http://www.michaelsheard.com/photos.htm

He was also in Dr Who a load of times, Raiders of the Lost Ark (deleted scene) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Oh, did I mention Star Wars?

Blimey!

Sadly missed, yet I didn't know him well enough.
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 24th, 2005 @ 09:38 am still alive here
Current Mood: YAY London
Current Music: Chill FM on digital
Yay.

Job's going well, new laptop keeping up under the strain which is cool.

I've also managed to leech a whole bunch of MP3s (in exchange for some of mine, of course) so that 's cool


We're still debating whether to hang on here for the Notting Hill Carnival or not. Seems like it starts just outside our office (close by anyway, on Portobello road) so Friday should be interesting while they're setting up. They've already delivered the portaloos, which are pleasant to walk past.
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 18th, 2005 @ 01:29 pm New job
Current Mood: woo
Current Music: All sorts, we have a central CD player and an xbox here
Tags: , , , ,
YAY I started my new job today

Thanks for all the congratsonyournewjob messages.

I'm now working for pod1 in London (020 land, thanks [info]snathe). Just started today with my shiny new laptop what I bought with it's shiny new screen. What's the betting I drop it sometime before the new year?

Anyway, coding away some PHP stuff for an intranet. All to do with companies and countries and things.

Looked at some houses yesterday, some nice, some acceptible, all 1 bedroom!!! What a comedown after mine and Ms Squig's house in Pig Town
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 15th, 2005 @ 07:19 pm YAY
I was a bit bored at work the other day waiting for someone to stop gassing.



So I drew this:

dragon


What should I call it Him?
About this Entry
toby, tiger
Aug. 15th, 2005 @ 06:45 pm Yay for new jobs and things
Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Engaged tone
I start my new job on Thursday, all very exciting.

Still got nowhere sorted to live.

Still have to get registered as self employed and ensure that the Inland Revenue do not think that I should fall within IR35 legislation. Still, I'm learning loads about that. Apparently it's only called IR35 because of the headed paper it was sent out from. Or something like that. They never called it that, but seem perfectly happy to muck around with it as a name now.

Anyone else gone through the hassle of registering self employed? All I get is an engaged tone :(
About this Entry
toby, tiger