Bright Sparks

Wandered over to Lancing yesterday to visit some old friends who we haven't seen for ages. Much tea and cake was consumed. It seems we have found a home for much of our furniture as one of their kids is moving house in the next week and needs sofas and beds etc.

I think I've nailed the BFG's starting problems. It's been starting up on three once or twice over the weekend, and when I considered it not starting at all last Sunday which was followed by me wobbling the distributor leads and its subsequent miraculous recovery, it seemed prudent to have a look at the distributor cap. My, what a state. £12 spent on a rotor arm and distributor cap at SES and normal starting seems to have been restored. I even got round to adjusting the clutch cable free play so that the clutch doesn't drag and you can get reverse without half the street thinking "they're all in there some where".

I didn't win the Vodafone NZ SIM card on fleabay. Bid too soon but I take some satisfaction from the person who did win having to pay more for it than you'd buy a new one for in NZ. There's another one coming up on Sunday which is cutting it rather fine, but what's life without a challenge. Thankfully most of the music and nail repair gubbins arrived from the Spanish Guitar Centre. I now have all the Villa-Lobos Preludes and Etudes to get to grips with while I wait for the container to arrive.

I bumped into Derek Hasted at West Dean and he promised to pass on some contact details of various guitarista types in NZ, which he has now done. Thanks Derek! I now have some contacts in the Auckland and Hamilton areas, as well as an expat from hago who's disappearing off to Christchurch next year.

The Nyodema performance on Sunday went OK, but sadly Sam never showed up, so Chris, Karim and I had to play a little more than we anticipated, but it went OK and the audience seemed to appreciate our efforts. Next stop is Selsey on Friday.

The NZ dollar continues its earthward plummet, and is now at a 12 year low. Brilliant - two weeks before we're off and it's absolutely rubbish. We came to the conclusion that buying a new vacuum cleaner here and taking it with us was the thing to do. We managed to find a Dyson DC25 Animal for £244, from Amazon with free delivery. Over in NZ, the same model is around $1000, which is (assuming 2.5 to the pound, yeah right, if only, gnash, grrr. etc) about £400. We can't really take our old DC04, since it's in a worse state than the BFG, and it'd have to be dismantled and sterilised and there's a significant possibility that it wouldn't go back together again.

Saturday's car boot sale netted around £55, which is nice, and, oh yeah, England *won* The Ashes. Class.

Playing Like a Woman

It's been over a week since the last entry, which is down to my total immersion in all things guitar at the West Dean International Guitar Festival and Summer School. The highlight of the week, from my point of view was a masterclass with the legendary Cuban composer, Leo Brouwer. I will admit to being more apprehensive than usual before getting up on the stage, but I managed to produce a reasonable rendition of Un Dia de Noviembre despite Brouwer saying he didn't much like the piece before I started to play. Other folks told me it was my best public performance of that piece to date, so I guess that was a good time for it to come right. The 1/2 hour I had with course director John Mills was of obvious benefit, although I was admonished about the state of my nails and treated to an enforced manicure. I am subsequently the proud owner of a sapphire nail file and have disposed of the emery boards forthwith.

On of the repertoire classes was conducted by Paul Gregory, from whom I purchased my guitar a few months back. I played the King of Denmark's Galliard in what I thought was a robust and confident style, only to be told I needed to play like a woman. Thanks Paul, that's the last time I buy you a beer. Amusingly, Linda who also attended the class, was told she was playing in a slightly too gentle manner, which prompted me to remark that she should play like a man. At this point all attempts at seriousness temporarily vanished, and the joke surfaced again in the bar later that evening, although I'm a bit hazy on that one.

Overall the course was really worthwhile and really enjoyable. I was forced to work rather hard in the ensemble class by Alfonso Montes (who turned out a superb recital together with Irina Kircher) and in the orchestra with Gerald Garcia, a nutter and a gentleman. I had a good chat with Graham Devine, who recognised me from various WSGC events (mind you, as I was the one with the cheque book, it might be that this is why I was remembered!) and extended invitations to the great and the good to visit us in NZ.

My one regret about the week was not going for residential accommodation. There's such a buzz later in the evening which I just missed out on other than Thursday (after the student concert in which I managed a fair rendition of Smoke Rising by Gary Ryan) when I got a lift home and was thus able to soak up the atmosphere and maybe a beer or two. Would I go again? Yeah, I just might. 2011 will be the 20th anniversary, and it might just be worth the flight as I'm sure that they'd be upping the ante accordingly.

I had some fun with the BFG on Sunday. Having driven to West Dean and back on Saturday, in a slightly more flamboyant manner than Di would have, the BFG failed to start on Sunday morning. I tried pushing it and along with a couple of passers by tried push starting, but it wasn't having any of it. Annoyingly I had filled it with petrol and even checked the oil level. After much swearing, huffing and puffing I pushed it back on to the drive way, single handed and popped the bonnet up. Di came out to see what all the fuss was about. I attempted to demonstrate the non-starting BFG, only for the damn thing to fire up first go. Hmm. No further hiccups were experienced and I resolved to drive like a woman, although not as dangerously ;-)

NZ wise not a lot more has happened. Di is at a car boot sale this morning trying to offload loads of tat that will not be coming with us. The NZ dollar continues to tank, very annoyingly. $2.50 now looks a long way off. We will I suspect have to exchange dosh hand to mouth in the coming weeks until it all sorts itself out. I have my eye on an NZ Vodafone SIM on fleabay, which is currently going for £1.20 with 2 days to go.

I missed out on Ashes tickets, despite Di's best attempts. Annoyingly she was successful in the ticket ballot, but failed at the "verified by visa" nonsense you have to go through these days. My old credit card was no longer valid, having been cancelled following a cloning incident a while ago which was picked up pretty sharpish. I made the fatal mistake of entering a debit card, which ticketmaster allowed me to do, but then failed to let me use when push came to shove, insisting on a credit card. Grrrr. NOT impressed, particularly as England are looking like they're going to win the Ashes on Sunday, assuming they can post a decent total following Stuart Broad's decimation of Australia. With 7 wickets in hand, this should be more than doable. Come on, England. Some people have asked me who I'm going to cheer for when we're in NZ. The answer is: NZ, unless England are playing, but always the other lot if Australia are the opposition.

I received a refund on the car insurance, less the "administration fee" of £35. Bandits. Still, £156 is better off in my bank than theirs.

WSCC Take The PSS

Oh my lord. Talk about a right bunch of jobsworths. We received a letter from WSCC outlining what we had to do in order to have the container lorry outside our house. Talk about the wrong end of the stick. The "woman" who we spoke to (actually, who shouted at us) wouldn't listen to any sense and seemed to be anally fixated on the word container, and was completely unable to comprehend that it was on the back of a lorry and wouldn't be coming off until it rolled up at the docks. She just would not listen and was very aggressive, patronising and apparently revelling in her own importance. We discussed the letter with PSS, who laughed and confirmed that this useless moo has completely lost the plot. Apparently this sort of nonsense does happen occasionally when some jobsworth decides to loose it big time. We rang up the council again, and this time asked to speak to Madame Incompetent's boss. He was appalled at the dog's dinner she'd made, was very apologetic and basically told us to bin the letter as it was total rubbish. He said he'd be "having a word", which we are hoping means a bit of disciplinary action.

The bus was sold today. I felt somewhat sad at its departure since it has been a reliable old thing, (well, one episode with smoke coming out underneath but still going) and with 130 horses to play with made for some exciting get aways which often upset some of the GTi brigade who had to try really quite hard to overtake. It's gone to a good home and will I suspect get an easier life both from its driver and from its passengers.

I'm on the look out for an NZ SIM card, having bought an unlocked Nokia 3410 (yes really) off fleabay for £8. My original one has outlasted about 15 of the kids newest and latest versions. Sure, it has a black and white screen, no camera, no mp3, no memory, but it MAKES PHONE CALLS which is all I want from a phone. My old one was locked to Virgin, and I couldn't seem to find the right code to unlock it. There are apparently 4 different locks and all the websites seem to give only one or two unlock codes. It seemed about the same price to buy an unlocked phone as to have mine unlocked, and this way I get a spare battery, charger and casing. Di can't believe I've gone for such a jurassic model again, but watching her struggle to read her display in bright sunlight makes me feel smug. I've tried her NZ SIM and it works just fine, so I should be tooled up once I pick up a SIM card, either off fleabay or at the airport when I land.

NZ dollar continues to play silly beggars. I was hoping for somewhere near $2.60 when we leave, but It looks like we'll be lucky to get $2.50. Grrr.

On a brighter note, I've a sniff of some tickets for England V Australia at the Oval, depending on whether I'm successful in the online auction which opens at 12 on Monday. Actually, Di is going to have to give it a go since I'll be at West Dean and won't have access to a computer. Fingers crossed...

Taxing Times

The council jobsworths now seem to be insisting that a skip licence is required, even though the container is not leaving the truck. Quite how they figure this out is anybody's guess and an absolute mystery but is doubtless a money making scam as most things related to local authorities tend to be. PSS have to arrange this, not us, so it's over to them. Good luck boys.

I've been doing some calculations, and reckon that HMRC owe me the best part of a grand since I've paid too much tax. A "P85" has been filled in and is winging its way over to the tax office. How long they actually take to come through with the dosh remains to be seen.

The NZ dollar seems to have nosedived since I asked Hifx to buy when it hit $2.60. Having tanked to 2.43 yesterday, it's recovered to 2.47 but it's still way too low as far as we're concerned.

I wandered over to Selsey last night, to represent the club at the opening ceremony for the Selsey Festivities. Sir Patrick Moore was alas unwell and therefore not in attendance. I shall therefore have to leave this septic isle without making his acquaintance. I'm sure he's over it already.

I've been invited to participate in one of the masterclasses, presumably with Leo Brouwer, since It's his Un Dia de Noviembre I sent in as an audition. I also get a lesson with John Mills before hand. I'm particularly interested in what John Mills has to say about NZ, as he lived there for a number of years.

Licence to Skip

More nonsense and Chinese whispers from the council. Various voice mail messages have been exchanged and the latest one seems to thing that PSS must request a "skip licence" from the council. What? This seems very bizarre since it's no different to parking a removal truck. Further googling seems to suggest that we're right and the council are wrong. We suspect that all the relayed messages have resulted in the fact that the container is not going to leave the lorry getting lost in translation. We'll just have to see what develops.

Our TV licence renewal has just dropped on the door mat. Our current licence runs out on 31st August and as we're on the plane on 7th September I somehow doubt that we'll be renewing it. Our telly isn't coming with us (Mother is having it) and it'll be transported before we leave anyway, so if the licence fascists do turn up there will be nothing to hide anyway.

The Arundel Castle gig went reasonably well. The first attempt was a bit scruffy but I played quite reasonably the second time around. There were even some people sitting down to listen.

Hard to Contain

We've been in contact with PSS today with regard to the container. Good job we were - they had us down for space in a container not our own container. The price is the same, but space in a shared container takes twice as long because they wait for someone else to fill the other half. Or quarter.

We've also been working out the insurance, which is 2.8% of the items we choose to insure. We could avoid insuring anything, but we've acquired a few things over the years which we would like replaced if they got lost or smashed to bits so we're looking at about £220. Not least are my couple of bottles of vintage frog, which at £500 each I would rather not loose. They are totally irreplaceable and doubtless worth a lot more than I paid for them but at least the compensation would buy sufficient beer to drown my sorrows.

PSS were adamant that we should notify the council that we would be depositing a container on the road for a few hours. The woman who we rang up was most confused by this and is apparently sending someone out. Lord only knows what sort of nonsense will now ensue. The road has no parking restrictions, so I fail to see what the problem would be, other than taking up two car parking spots. It' not like it's staying there over night.

The Road to Hull - Riveting

We ventured north bound this weekend to catch up with some mates we haven't seen for years, since it's unlikely we'll be able to manage it for quite some considerable time. A couple of sets of friends have suddenly discovered that reproducing in their mid forties is a fine idea. Both have produced a single offspring within a year of each other and both appear to be doing just fine. We have pointed out that having just the one is not really on - you need at least two for domestic nuclear war and one just doesn't work for the full parent experience. Hull itself still looks pretty grim, but much of it is unchanged since our last visit some years ago and driving past our old haunts was a little nostalgic.

The BFG's passenger door window decided to sink into the door out of sight this afternoon and consequently I spent the rest of the afternoon endeavouring to fix it and keep the swearing to a minimum. The intense practice session I had planned while listening in vain for a thrilling England victory will have to wait until tomorrow. It seems that the window winder mechanism on the Vauxhall Corsa is riveted on, and after 13 years the rivets give way and the whole lot drops off and hits the bottom of the door. As I have rather annoyingly slung my collection of old nuts and bolts in preparation for the great journey down under, I had the misfortune to visit Halfords in search of spares. They didn't seem to have much in the way of nuts and bolts, but did have a hand riveter, which seemed to be just what I wanted. Except that when I got it home, I discovered that some joker had obviously used it before, broken it (by using the wrong size rivet) and simply taken it back for an exchange. Thus I had to make two trips which added to my sense of humour failure. Finally about 18:30 I managed to get it all back together and it's now a lot easier to use than the driver's side.

Westpac have kindly sent us another bank statement informing us that we have nought cents. This serves as a reminder that we really must do something about changing some money soon. The Dollar does seem to be heading upwards again, having leapt back to 2.5381 from under 2.50 a few days back. We've a bid in to buy at 2.70, but I'm thinking we ought to buy some at 2.60 just in case it does tank again. Hifx will be getting a call in the morning I think.