William Essex
Shall I tell you a story?
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So it's working ...

31/7/2012

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Okay, I'm less convinced than I was on the thirty-first of the seventh - and what a surprise that it's taken this long to get back here - but the short answer is: the replacement technology came in on time and seems to be working. Yawn. Broke off in mid-word last time, and what a word - Creatio. Latin word? Neologism? More later.
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Seven days or forever?

4/7/2012

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Okay, I'm convinced by the argument that we should blog about the consumer experience. Maybe not every time, but often enough. And anyway, when I talked about blogging the experience today, the man behind the counter looked worried. It's the adult version of "I'm going to tell on you," and maybe it'll have an effect.
    Although that isn't to say anything's necessarily bad. Ten months ago, I bought a Kindle. Couple of weeks ago, it froze. Went online, tried the 'restart' suggestion, it froze again. Tried the 'restore to factory settings' idea. It froze again. And again. And finally ground to a halt in the middle of that process whereby you see a little tree with a boy under it, and a progress bar across the ground underneath.
    Went to Amazon customer service, sent an email, they emailed back saying - try a restart. If that fails, call us. So I called.
    And it was a really pleasant conversation. The replacement arrived two days later, the old one was collected a day after that. So far, the new one is fine. [And all my books are safe in the archive.] The two things I'm not going to do are: reattach the cover (an idea from a forum); keep all my books on the thing. It can supposedly take whole libaries, but from now on, my library's staying at the Amazon archive.
    But I'm a happy customer, frankly.
    And then - these things are sent to try us - couple of days ago my new (two months) Hewlett-Packard laptop failed to start. Did the diagnostics (press f something while it's waking up) and the hard drive was revealed to be faulty. Took it back to Comet in Camborne, and watched the man behind the counter ring the HP helpdesk and go through the same diagnostic process. Apparently people pour coffee into their laptops and then bring them back.
    The thing's gone off to HP and they're going to get it back to Comet in seven days. And Comet are going to ring me. Watch this space. My statutory rights don't extend to getting it replaced on the spot or my money back, they tell me (I've confirmed this; they have the right to fix it instead). One odd thing: If I had bought the insurance, which I remember being offered as "replace with no questions asked", they would still have gone through the same process. Happy not to have bought that, I think.
    Seven days from now, I'll know what I think of Hewlett-Packard. And, I suppose, Comet.
    I already know what I think of Amazon.
    "Six Days Or Forever?" That was it. Title of a book that's somewhere on the shelf behind me. Do I Google it, or spend some time finding it? About creatio
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    Picture
    In a desk diary scavenged from a house of the dead, a man records his own experiences of the end times: what he has to do to survive; how he came to be marooned where he is; how he reacts to the discovery that he is not alone.

    Picture
    Over coffee, a young journalist gets The Message.

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    What happens here

    This site is updated weekly, usually on a Friday although I might change that (again). I write it because (1) I like writing it and (2) I like having a deadline. More often than not, it works out as a commentary on the week just passed*.
      There are no ads, no pop-ups and no tricky business with cookies. I don't take money for my own opinions. [Except when they come out in book form.] I write this for myself, without a set agenda, on any subject that catches my attention. If you're interested enough, it's not hard to work out my interests. Not impossible, anyway.
    *Although I seem to have gone away from that recently. Normal service may or may not be resumed.


    No data is kept on this website overnight. Blog posts are usually shared to my Facebook page. We can discuss them there if you feel so inclined.

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    There's a page for this, but maybe you'd like to see the cover here?

    Where are we now? We're hurtling round the sun, held to the ground by a weak force that we don’t begin to understand, arguing about trade deals between the land masses on a planet mostly covered by water.
       The dolphins must think us ridiculous. No wonder they only come to the shallow water to play with us, not to signal their most complex philosophies. More.


    Riddle. It takes two to make me, but when I'm made, I'm only a memory. What am I? Scroll down to find out.

    Is that a catastrophe I see before me? Could be. There was a clear sky earlier, but now clouds are encroaching from the North. We could be in for a storm. More.


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    Read My Shorts?

    Here is yet another page of old blog posts and other writings. Sorry, but I need my metaphorical sock drawer for metaphorical socks. The link to the page is right at the end of the paragraph here.

    A very green picture. I can't remember where I took this.


    Roads without end

    Here is a passage from a review of the book The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart. I haven't read the book (yet), but the collected reviews would make a worthwhile set of political arguments in their own right. More.

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    Also available in English. Look further down.

    State of the Union

    Several commentators today saying that they've lost confidence in the US. Making their point by talking up the glories of the past. After two weeks of this administration, they're not going back.
         Were they wrong, and they've seen the light? Or has the US changed? I guess the latter is the intended meaning. But we should at least acknowledge the possibility... More.

    Categories
    (Started 4th November 2017; forgotten shortly after that.)

    All
    Abuse
    Consent
    Media


    Kitchen parenting

    I have teenage children. When they're home, sooner or later one of them will come to me and say: "Dad! We're going to make a mess in the kitchen!
       "Great!" I will reply, picking up on the tone of voice. "What are you going to do?"
        "We thought we'd slice up some peppers and onion and bits of chicken and leave them glued to the bottom of the frying pan. Burn something in one of the saucepans and leave it floating in the sink."
        "Anything else?" More.

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    Variously available online, in a range of formats.

    No pinpricks

    Okay, so a certain President recently made a speech to his people, in which he told them that their country's military "don't do pinpricks". His intention was to get across that when those soldiers do a "limited" or even "targeted" strike, it hurts. But those of us in the cynical wing of the listening public took it the other way. More.


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    Ceased to exist. Sorry.

    Making mistakes

    We all make mistakes in our relationships. Some are mistakes that can be corrected with an apology. Sometimes - "if only I'd said that, and not that." Sometimes, they're mistakes that are incomprehensible even to ourselves, and sometimes, we do things that show us up as not quite the likeable hero of our own story that we want to think we are. More.

    Man down?

    There's a report by the Samaritans about men and suicide. It's titled Men, Suicide and Society, and it finds that men are more likely to take their own lives than women (in the UK and ROI). More.


    Not available for women

    Offending the status quo

    Looking at both the US election and the revived Brexit debate in the UK, the question is not: who wins? but: how did we get here? More.

    Thinks: populism

    Bright, sunny morning. Breeze. Weather forecast said fog, but it's a blue sky overlaid with vapour trails. Windy season, drifts of Autumn-coloured leaves. Thinking, on this morning's walk, about populism. More.

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    Early morning, Church Street, Falmouth

    9th May 2014

    On the day that I wrote this, the early news told us of a parade in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Crimea remained annexed, and the Russia/Ukraine crisis was not resolved. At around half eight, the BBC’s reporter in Moscow was cut off in mid-sentence summarising the military display; the Today programme on Radio 4 cut to the sports news. More.

    Riddle. What are you? You're a conversation!

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No animals were harmed in the making of this website. Other websites are available online (and off). All the content here is copyright William Essex, this year, last year, the year before that and, you
guessed it, the year before that, although I don't have the time right now to hunt out that little symbol. This website uses organic ingredients and respects your privacy. Come back some time.