Songs of innocence and of experience

Obviously, I'm available on other social media platforms.

Warmest congratulations to the Church of England, which has recognised the validity of the ministry of women in the role of bishop.

It seems to me that, having recognised the validity of the ministry of women in the role of priest years and years and years ago, it made no theological sense at all to deny to us the validity of their ministry as bishops. I'm glad the church is gradually getting a clue.

Now all we need to do is grant parishes who don't want to be overseen by a male bishop the opportunity to opt out and be overseen by a female bishop instead. That would be a suitable concession by those who demanded the opposite "suitable" concession before they grudgingly assented to this measure.

Oh, wait, I'm being mean-spirited. Stop that.

Next stop, recognising that not all people who offer themselves for ordained ministry are exclusively heterosexual. How long, do we think, before that happens?

I've just posted the following tweets to @sguod:

Apologies in advance to users who aren't interested in the next twenty-four tweets -- feel free to fast-forward as required.
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That's it; Sorry to non-DNS-wallahs for flooding your timeline.

This is a complaint: It should be fielded and handled as such.

I have several domains in the .UK space.
The UK Registrar, Nominet UK, has a period of six months before a .UK domain expires, during which you can send them a renewal request.

And yet the renewal request for the domain "dougs.org.uk" will not be actioned until fifteen days AFTER it expires.

This is more-or-less the definition of not-fit-for-purpose in a registrar.

THEREFORE this is a complaint about your handling of the renewal of the domain "dougs.org.uk", and specifically about the fact that, in general, you don't renew the domain with the national registrar until fifteen days after it expires.

Please explain to me on what planet this is considered acceptable behaviour, and on what basis I should consider you as fit-for-purpose to host any of my (multiple) other country-specific-TLD domains.

Please further explain to me what steps you will make to repair the God-awful provisions you have in place for hosting .UK domains in time for the next occasion when I have a .UK domain hosted with yourselves which is about to expire with the national registry.

Be aware that this issue won't go away, and I'll be rigorously checking your progress in the latter part of July when, without doubt, the fact that I've chosen you as my registrar will return to bite me in the arse once more.

Customer Service 101: Treat your customers in such a way that they aren't trained to fear or despise you.

Please keep me up-to-date with your progress repairing this systemic mismanagement.

Thanks in advance...

I watched an antique traveller, from a band,
Who seemed too stoned and legless, vast of trunk,
Try his dessert. It wasn't as he'd planned
(A shattered soufflé, dried and burnt, half sunk);
With wrinkled lip and sneer, he called it "bland",
This dish that he had sculpted, left for dead.
But wait! He had not cooked his spicy wings,
Suffused in scobels, marinated red!
Yet when the guests came round he boldly bloked
"My name is Ozzy, man! Dine on these things!"
They looked upon his works and nearly choked;
Nothing but sweet was cooked. The wings were raw
As was the main course, while his soufflé smoked,
The sacrificial pyre of cooked-too-far.

Julia and I have a new food processor, which means we are retiring the one we inherited from Julia's mother.
The old food processor (Moulinex Masterchef type 663) comprises a big solid electric motor/gearbox unit, a bowl that sits on top of it, a lid for the bowl that has one of those cunning holes in it with a plunger, for feeding bits of food in, and a small handful of rotating knives and so forth to cut up, shred, mix, and generally molest the said bits of food.

One only, very old, no warranty, no manual but we can show you how to use it. "What condition is it in?" -- "it's in free condition". Does anyone want it? Free if you make it easy for us to hand it over. Non-Sheffield types might have to wait until a convenient point, Sheffield types might get it a bit sooner.

Edit: Looks like we have a taker over on FB. Didn't take long.

A few years ago, those clever chaps at HSBC gave me the option of no longer receiving paper statements in the post for the business account, instead relying on just the PDFs from the website, so that they could save the planet, save a few bob, and make life easier for people like me who can't be doing with the tedious business of moving bits of paper about.

All well and good.

I don't, therefore, get bank statements from them in the post. However, they still send me, on paper, in the post, every month, a breakdown of all the bank charges and fees that they levy against the account -- information which appears on those PDF statements I can get off the website.

Today, I received this month's mailing -- two A4 sheets of paper in an A5 envelope detailing, on a single line, bank charges accumulated during July of £1.16. I get something similar every month.

I'm glad I'm not an HSBC shareholder.

I suppose it's time to roll out this icon once more.

Who would you like as the next pope? non-serious answers only, please. And I was voted in last time (hence the icon), so someone other than me.

This is a question about what you use when you want to edit a file that contains text.



[ Context ]

In case I haven't made it obvious before -- If you have my email address, don't pass it on to financial services companies in order that they can email me telling me that you recommend them. It won't earn you any rewards or commission, all it will do is earn my contempt for you. If you want to recommend a company you use, do so by passing their details to me and not by passing my details to them, and even then only in response to a need for those services expressed my me.