Car insurance: I got home today, opened the insurance company letter, and sat. Quickly.

They think I'll be paying more than £130 per year extra to them.

Ah, no.

A quick price comparison site search shows that, if I'm careful choosing the cover, I could get a policy £500 cheaper than I'd be paying if I allowed inertia to dictate terms.

RAC Insurance: yourselves you can go and fu[CARRIER LOST]

It would be fair to say that I'm between social networks. I don't mean I'm not participating, no. I mean that I'm inhabiting the void between those I used to be active in. Ok, ok, I'm bouncing about in either the Venn diagram voids or the overlaps between services. Or both.

It's an odd sensation.

So, my past:

• MSN Chat, from early 1997 until autumn 1998 was my entry point into online chat. It was easy. I fell into the What's Cooking Online (WCOL) room entirely by accident and stayed there for a while,
• Facebook appeared in my life around 2008. It's still there, though you wouldn't know I'd been around since then were you to look at my 'Friends' list. They're pretty-much all people I know, see?
• btinternet.chatter grabbed me in 1998 as a BT phone customer with the related btinternet ISP, once I'd spread my wings away from the cosy MSN. Though it was shut down some time ago, I occasionally attempt to keep in touch with the lovely people who inhabited it. Closure notwithstanding it's been around 11 years since I was last active there anyway,
• Twitter, we all know about Twitter; it was my home from 2010 until…
• I discovered App.net, early in April 2013. A great community, lovely people, an ad-free and owner-meddling-free environment; I can't quite figure out why I'm not there right now…
• 10Centuries.org is where I 'am' right now though, more of a dipper than prolific. Great people (a number* from ADN) and a comfortable, spam and ad-free environment. The network, as I'm sure you've heard me say, is in an invite-only phase right now. I have some.

Well ok, I do know why I'm not active. I've spent more time programming/developing/attempting to fix and evolve my 10C client – and avoiding talking about it online – than being 'social'. Weird.

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*100%.

During winter the darker hours bring out the worst in people. I'm not talking about death, mayhem, increased criminality; it's a simple as a disregard for child and personal safety.

Every morning I've been seeing see cyclists ride along busy roads, black clothing, black bags, black bikes. Even on the wrong side of the road. Lights? None. Adults don't seem to care, and children… Well, surely parents and schoolteachers should be monitoring departures and arrivals?

There's a phrase. Most don't seem to know what it means, don't seem to care:

"Personal resonsibility"

noun,

modern, ambitious, ambiguous:

1. An overwhelming reliance on state initiatives to promote a sense of wellbeing in self.

Yesterday evening around 5pm, as I was driving home, I spotted a young man walking past a high hedge above a low wall. That is I eventually spotted him; his clothing (not camo) hid him very effectively. Though visibility was reduced by that time of day, by no means everyone had side- or headlights on…

And don't get me started on drivers of black cars – overwhelmingly the most common group to avoid side- and headlights entirely, Is it a part of the mindset involved in the purchasing decision?

Modern LED car sidelights are annoying too. Daytime running lights at the front, but absent entirely from the rear, bypass common sense entirely. Drivers get in the car safe in the knowledge that people in front can see them…

A stealth, Darwin-Awards-winning society, that's what we have.

My wife was watching TV earlier; Monty Don, the gardening programme host, mentioned a flower variety and I'm assuming a caption appeared onscreen.

A quote from her email:

"As soon as Monty Don said it I weed my pants laughing. And then I though of you x"

So…

Rubus cockburnianus.

Really.

It's a bramble.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus_cockburnianus

Do your own research. It's real, not a 'funny' Wikipedia plant.

Posting something about the upcoming Rio Olympics yesterday, I asked a question:

"Who are we supporting this time?"

It should have been obvious really. But it wasn't. In case it's not for you, watch this YouTube video…

Turn the sound up…

Its only 1-1/2 minutes long.

Martin, thanks.

It's nearly 4 years since the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. 4 years. Wow!

Rio De Janeiro!

Er…

Where's the advance publicity here in the UK? Look, I know a country hosting an event is bound to have a crazy run-up to the main event; local interest in the shape of homegrown heroes* and the possibility of winning a ticket lottery to view a niche sport on a weekday evening are things everyone can grasp hold of…

Who are we supporting this time?

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*No, not heroes. Emphatically-not heroes. Role models of course (until the wheels fall off) but a single-minded dedication to accuracy or speed does not a hero make.

3 plumbers were asked to quote for work – to replace 2 radiators. Here's a mercifully shortened tale of woe…

Dear Plumbers, how difficult can it be to:

1. Visit when someone asks for a quotation?
2. When a potential customer is visited, to prepare a quotation, estimate, something, in a reasonable time, i.e. not simply disappear?
3. Do a good job when you get the work? And that's the key here; we got a crap 'un…

He changed the radiators, that much is true. The rest though, naah,' twas a bit crap.

• Rescheduled twice, from times that suited us to times that emphatically did not,
• Flexible plastic piping to join up to the rigid copper stuff,
• The cut ends from the copper pipes left by the side of the bed for me to stand on,
• He obviously hadn't doors at home; Ruby dog got out, he'd left the front door open as far as it could possibly go. Twice,
• Left the packaging materials for us to clear away,
• The hall carpet is soaked,
• Black gunk left in the bedroom carpet and outside, he mustn't have put a sheet down – or used the packaging materials,
• Didn't bleed the air out of the system before he left,
• When he returned to get heat into our home he spent more time telling me we had a crap system, that our new boiler wasn't working, that…

The worst bit though, when he told me he was on a course in London today & tomorrow. My wife mentioned afterwards that he'd spoken on his phone (loudspeaker of course) with a woman just around the corner about a job he was doing there today.

During his followup call later, after I'd got rid of him, he let me know that I could ring him today and if we were having problems he could look on Thursday. The thing is, consistency is all in attempting to spread positive feedback about a business. To tell me "I'm not being evasive" when telling me why he couldn't make it today; sorry mate, I'll be looking for tradesman review sites now.

So I spent time bleeding the system until it just worked.

2am.

Today for lunch I went around to the café and bought a spam & egg butty and blueberry muffin, and sat at my desk to eat them.

Feeling much better now.