# Kids in Pontypridd make a lot more of an effort at this treat-or-treating malarkey than in Birmingham. Back at home, the nearest most kids get to dressing up is buying a plastic gorilla mask from the shop on the high street. I've just had three kids past here all fantastically dressed up. They're perfectly happy to take sweets or apples or whatever too, and arn't trying to extort money out of you. It's been good fun.
prashton said A dozen years or so ago, we had a "pin in the candy" scare in the US and ever since there has been a preference for money over candy.
That being said, we have personally escaped the "trick or treating" by moving in to an apartment. Which is a shame. I miss those eager faces behind the gorilla masks! [added 1st Nov 2002]
ajbattrick said nothing like a good urban myth is there :)
[added 2nd Nov 2002]
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# Note to self - Must go to bed earlier.
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#
How We Have Managed Industry Almost to Death - Here is a scene that happens at some point in almost every young company. The founder/CEO/technical visionary meets with his board and finds him or herself out of a job. How could this happen? Well, the company has grown to the point where the board feels that "professional management" is required, so they are bringing in a new management team. The new team is composed of old friends and classmates of the board, and the new team costs five to 10 times as much, but that's okay because the company is "hiring for growth." This new team cuts staff, cuts costs and outsources everything that can be outsourced, with the result that earnings are improved and the stock goes up or the company makes itself look better for an Initial Public Offering. The professional managers get big bonuses, they exercise mountains of stock options, sell those option shares, then go on to some other, even bigger, job having "saved" the company, which then stagnates, goes into a slow decline, and is eventually acquired by a competitor.
Or closed, of course.
A manager goes to see a programmer, and finds the programmer staring off into space, with his feet on the desk.
"What are you doing?" splutters the manager.
"I'm thinking," replies the programmer.
The manager replies "Well, can you do that at home please?"
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# Going forward to the past here in Pontypridd this evening. Ali's going to be having a festive time working for
Marks and Spencer in Cardiff over Christmas. Twenty five odd years ago, our Dad was the assistant manager of that very shop. After that he was the acting manager of the M&S just down the round in the middle of Ponty.
Back then we lived in the new suburb of Pentwyn, in a little close inappropriately called Glyn Rhosyn (Valley of Roses). It was largely a building site with new houses going up at an incredible rate of knots. Those houses that had been built were all identical and shiny, their newly turfed lawns curling gently in the summer sun.
Pentwyn is only a short step from Splott, so I took a little drive up there earlier this evening. It's funny how things change and they don't change at the same time. Glyncoed Infant school appears to be utterly unchanged, and the only change in the road I walked home along is a new zebra crossing. Bizarrely the zebra crossing is hard up against a pedestrian subway. The subway always smelt of wee back then, so I guess it must be pretty unbearable by now.
I didn't expect to recognize much as I turned the corner onto Pentwyn Road for the last little part of my journey. There's a whole new estate on the far side of the road, replacing the scrubby grassland. Then I saw a little road sign for Ty Cerrig. Road signs arn't something you generally pay attention to as a 6 year old, but when I saw it, I got an almost physical feeling of recognition. I took a little cruise round the Glyn Rhosyn - still no roses, much smaller than I recall. Like any other dormatory suburb, cars out numbered garages by about two to one, lots of net curtains, and nobody out and about.
I drove round to the shops, and crossed over a little stream. I remember playing alone down there, and somehow getting myself stung under the eye by a bee. Up the road, past a junction where I got stuck when the chain came off my bike. Bus stop on the right. The big patch of open ground where I got stuck in mud upto my knees is now yet another close.
I remember going birdwatching one Sunday with my Dad. We walked from the house to a lake, and went round with a group of people I didn't know. I think we saw a woodpecker, but I'm not sure. Years afterwards, I began to doubt that this had actually happened. There wasn't a lake round the corner from our house. Surely I'd have noticed.
Reassuring to know I didn't make it all that stuff up.
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# After much fannying around, of my own devising, I've just shipped the first paid for copy of
my other stuff.
So anyway ...
So last Monday, I pitch up in sunny Splott to start my new contract. I'm working on some code for remote monitoring of fetal heart monitors, of the kind currently being used in a delivery suite near you. The code, it turns out, is shockingly bad, but that's what I'm here for.
The evening I phone Nattle. She's had the baby group round, so the house has been full of mums'n'kidz, with the added excitment of Ziggy's, purveyors of funky kiddy-clothing, also being up for their semi-annual buy-stuff-from-us house party. Normally she's that leaves her completely knackered, but she was really excited.
Let's back up again. We've seen a house in King's Heath, for which final bids had to be in on Friday. On Saturday, no decision being forthcoming, we went to look at another place smack in the middle of Moseley. It was top. Good size, cracking attic (very important), smallish garden (bit of a shame), top location. All in all a complete winner, and we both liked it much more than the King's Heath place. At the time, I was a bit annoyed we'd been to see it, because now I didn't want to move to the King's Heath place, but there was a real chance we'd win the brown-envelope competition, making us look a bit like bastards if we backed out. What a long sentence that was.
Monday again. We haven't won the bidding war for the King's Heath place. Nat phones the estate agent for the Moseley house and offers slightly under. The vendor accepts immediately, but the estate agents won't do anything until we have a firm offer of a sale. Nat calls Mario. The end result of Mario's house party is we have a crazy bidding war and a new offer, above our asking price.
Wackily, it's not from someone who came to Mario's do, it's from a woman who lives up the road. She'd actually wanted to buy the house back when we moved in, but hadn't had the money needed to fix the roof. Now she does. She'd dropped a note through the door earlier in the week, and come to have a look round. Apparently she'd been knocked out by the work we'd had done, and was really keen. She offered 315 on the spot. Later in the week, she'd come back again with an estate agent friend of hers. This friend obviously gave her a bit of a nudge, because after that she upped to 325 thou. Following Mario and his show'n'tell, she ups again to 335. We put her out of her misery and accept.
Sold. Bought. Hurrah!
In between time she sold our massive dining table, bought the Bean some new trousers, organised some more sellers for the NCT Nearly New, and made everybody a cup of tea
Not bad.
prashton said Congratulations all round! Isn't it interesting when the planets align themselves and hand you some good news. I had no idea the West Brum housing market is so robust!
[added 24th Oct 2002]
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# I leave the house for a day, and Nat sells it. Then she buys a new one.
Will explain later.
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# Just got an offer on the house for the asking price. Hoping that Mario's circus tomorrow kicks off a wild bidding frenzy.
peteychap said You can't keep us sitting here in anticipation! How did the party go? Did they start scratching each other's eyes out? Was there blood?
[added 13th Oct 2002] Simple answer is I don't know yet. We went out on viewing of our own (about which more anon) and to buy me some new work-trousers (new job, despite being on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere, is a shirt+tie shop), so by the time we came back it was all done and everyone had gone. Find out more on Monday, I expect. [added 13th Oct 2002]
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# Mario's party plans continue apace. He's now up to six for Saturday.
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# Got the job. Must be down to the new haircut. Two months in Cardiff, here I come.
ajbattrick said woo. yay. Top notch, sir.
[added 10th Oct 2002] wunderwoman said Great! Putting up the spare bed now.
[added 11th Oct 2002] smellygit said llongyfarchiadau
[added 11th Oct 2002]
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# jez: innterview!!!!!!!!
john_the_furry: yay!
john_the_furry: best have a bath
jez: already had one
john_the_furry: yeahh but this time mean it
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# Interview at 15:00. Already showered and shaved. Must iron clothes, and see if I can get a haircut.
kal_the_smelly [e] said hope you removed clothes prior to the ironing
[added 10th Oct 2002]
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# Waiting to hear if I'm being interviewed for an actual, real, start-on-Monday job. It's in Cardiff, so clear a space on the floor Mum.
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# Went back to the place in Kings Heath today with Nattle and the Bean. Looked a bit more closely this time; it's probably due to be rewired, and some of the windows need a bit of work but it's still a smashing little place. We've decided to up our offer on Friday, but if we don't win we'll let it go because there no point going over the top. If we do win, the chances are we can negotiate down a bit once the surveyor's report comes in.
Things on our house are starting to move. We've got a couple coming back for a second go round tomorrow, someone up the road dropped a letter through the door saying they're interested, a couple we met back in ante-natal classes are interested, and Mario the estate agent is bringing four different people all at the same time on Saturday. The Property News comes out on Thursday so a lot of viewings get booked on a Friday. He's aiming to have a bit of a party apparently, with maybe ten or twelve altogether, get them all going a bit and see what happens. I've read about that kind of thing in the papers, but always imagined it was a swanky London thing. Never really imagined it would happen in my house. It's almost a shame we're going to take the Bean'n'Bidg out and about and miss all the fun.
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# Moving house continues to swing this way and that. Towards the end of last week we'd been actively discussing a whole new plan. Rather than move to Moseley, we were considering buying a terrace house in Bearwood. It'd cost about £120 thousand, we could clear the mortgage, car finance and all the rest of it, and sit tight for a year or two. In that time, hopefully, the IT market will stabilize a bit and we'd be able to get sorted then for our leap to Moseley.
We'd already made appointments to see a couple of houses in Moseley on Saturday, so we went off to see them anyway. The first one is actually in Kings Heath, but who's counting. It was a funky little end-terrace, with a crackingly wacky garden. It has largish patio area by the house, then a little passage way down between the gardens of the house-round-the corner and the house-next-door which opens out onto a lovely little grass and fruit trees arrangement. The house itself is rather lovely and, since it doesn't have a conventional terrace house layout, it's rather beyond my meagre descriptive skills.
The second house we saw was an imposing five bed place. We met the vendor briefly as we arrived and she left. I'm not staying, she said, I can't stand the embarrasment. We sympathised, but she continued The place is in a right state. I'm not really a slut, I'm just very busy. Then she jumped in her car and drove away. The place, it has to be said, was a bit of tip. On the other hand, the house was shot through with stuff you pay a fortune for at the reclaimation yard. The entrance had an enormous piece of stained glasswork round the door. The hall had pretty much all of its original tiling, although it needed some restoration. Virtually all the doors were original to the house, complete with door handles and finger plates. From that point of view it was really pretty impressive, once you could see past all the junk cluttering up the place. What it needed, though, was a new kitchen. Badly. Nat estimated the work to restore the house and refit the kitchen at £40,000 plus, which on top of the asking price of £260,000 is a lot of anybody's money.
Over the course of the weekend, something strange happened. We changed our mind again. We'd could buy the place in Kings Heath, clear all the debts, be all but in Moseley (currently we're officially Edgbaston, but everyone would say we're in Bearwood, including me), have a much smaller mortgage, and a funky wee house that we wanted to be in. Cool.
So we slapped in an offer. And so did four other people. Doh! It's final bids at dawn on Friday to decide it. prashton said The odds don't look good but we'll keep our fingers crossed.
Earlier this year we had an opprtunity to buy into a nice apartment in our block. The owner worked for an oil company and had been transfered to Australia. The company had placed the property with an agency to find a buyer. We decided to make an offer. Out of the woodwork comes a competitor. The agency tells us to make a one time sealed bid and the winner will be selected. We bid low. So, apparently does the other party. The agency decides to up the ante. We drop out "on principle". We're not really disappointed but wish the agency had kept to their word as we might have got the place. The agent could have kept the auction up for as along as there were players. Think about that in Kings Heath! [added 9th Oct 2002]
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# Today on Fritz's Hit List: the TinkleToonz Musical Potty. - This handy toilet training aid offers a "magical, musical land of potty training," by playing a tune whenever liquid is deposited in it. Since it plays digital audio, it qualifies for regulation as a "digital media device" under the Hollings CBDTPA. If the CBDTPA passes, any newly manufactured TinkleToonz Musical Potties will have to incorporate government-approved copy protection technology.
Fight piracy -- regulate potty chairs!
Remember! Where American Intellectual Property law leads, Europe tends to follow. Check out this Critique of the Proposed UK Implementation of the EU Copyright Directive.
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