This evening we are experiencing something of a whiteout. Snow, lots of it, has just started to tumble from above, alarmingly quickly too. In the time it took me to drive my little brother to town and then get back myself (20 minutes maybe? 25 tops), snow had formed (yes, in the UK, in a major city, snowfall actually SETTLED) on the pavements (not a surprise) and on any road surface not being driven on (eek). Entire sections of road were just blankets of white, and road lanes were at some points impossible to see. Turning up the drive to my house, the lack of activity on the tarmac for the best part of the aforementioned 20 minutes had rendered it a tractionless white expanse, and while the car did eventually grip and find its way uphill, it was difficult to control and felt distinctly skiddy :S I don't think I will be doing much more driving tonight!

Mainly because I need to catch up with a lot of work that I have neglected bigtime. I'm not working hard enough and I know it. So, right now, I am off to do some revision (But first eat my delicious mix of tinned tuna, crunched up crips, and mustard in a bowl ... NOM!)

Stay safe in the snow kids. (Except you Vani, you and your balmy 17C days).

Term ended last week and I'm going home tomorrow ... I had planned to get a very good draft essay (real thing due in Jan 12) this week but spent 3 and a half days at the girlfriend's place so no work to speak of I had actually wanted to blog about lots of little things that annoy me recently, but ironically I couldnt because I wrote about 90% of the post before my hand accidentally pushed the "back" button on the university computer mouse and the post was erased (I HATE THAT FUCKING FUNCTION, which is why I am now only updating from my laptop )

Anyway, tis the season and all that, and I am looking forward to being in Birmingham for a bit, where hopefully I can get a shedload of work done before my stupidly early exams (for some reason the East Asian dept always does exams in lesson time which means we get examined on the 5th, 6th and 7th of January (thus wasting our teaching hours) while everyone else gets examined in the period between 12th and 24th January, which we get off as "holiday" I suppose) ... just one more thing to put on the module evaluation forms.

It's actually snowing here in Newcastle and there are "severe weather warnings" (which in England could just mean there's a slightly more significant cloud in the sky than normal, ha ha) for today and tomorrow --- I jest, but in all seriousness it could make my travel home tomorrow a bit sluggish, I'd best wrap up warm and prepare some stuff for the journey / severely delayed train and all the waiting that comes with it. I will not be impressed if the train company uses their usual "seat reservations are cancelled for this service" which they do when either "the onboard computer goes down" or the first service was out of action and the second one carries double the passengers - for fuck's sake, people make reservations for a reason, if you can't honour them you should refund the customers. Also, with regards services not operating due to weather, check the fucking calendar, you will find that more or less the same thing happens each year where weather is concerned, so be prepared. Okay that is my pre-rant over with

New Year's plans are to be in London (literally for that evening and coming back to Brum on the 1st, before Newcastle on the 2nd) ... and potentially to have a silly moustache (with silly colour if I can) for the occasion. Brilliant.

The 'tache and / or dye will have to go by the 29th though, because I have just received news that I have an interview for an "Access to Medicine" course, which I suppose is a bit like America's Pre-Med thing, except it will comprise an entire year in itself rather than my having taken medical modules alongside my current degree, a la the USA. This is great. Not so great is the ridiculous location of this course and interview, the fact it will take 4+ hours to get there (on 3 different trains), and that I'll have to go down a day early so I can be there on time for the start (0830) the next day. But on the plus side I may get on the course, and that would give my next year or so some concrete direction. The contents of my wallet will also have a concrete direction, that is to say, DOWN.

So, there, in a rather large nutshell, is goings-on for the time being Happy Holidays People )))

There are many words that end in -ad.

Mad
Fad
Dad
Had
Brad
Bad
Ahmedinajad
Vlad
Rad
Egad
Cad

Today I am glad I skipped class to see my girlfriend to make sure she is not sad

Brown Sugar is a small cafe / restaurant in Durham, about five minutes (if that) from my girlfriend's flat. It's small, cosy, and until recently quite expensive. So we always PLANNED to go there, but never did. Yesterday, walking by on the way to another restaurant, I noticed it was under new management and was offering half price full English breakfasts for the whole of November. £2.50 for breakfast. NOM (the exclamation mark key is broken on her keyboard, damn it, but rest assured there was meant to be one right there. Future cases will be marked XC)

According to the girlfriend, Brown Sugar had not paid their rent and had therefore recently been taken over, VERY swiftly, hence the new management and their low-priced breakfast deal. So, around tennish this morning we entered their doors ... only to be greeted by one of the waiters with, "I'm sorry, we're closed."

Hold the phone a moment. You're closed? Why are there signs all over your windows saying you're open? Why are there customers sitting at tables enjoying teas and coffees? This doesn't look like closed to me.

But no, it's early and I don't want to be rude so all I can muster is, "What?", or more accurately, "Wut?". Now apparently some of the staff haven't turned up, so they're having to close for the day. Oh okay. But it gets better, because you see I didn't open my mouth, so to fill the gap he says, "What was it you're after?" and all I can get out of my confused brain is, "Er ... breakfast?"

Amazingly, with a nod from the new manager, it is OKAY to make us breakfast. Despite this being the most complicated thing on the menu and them "not having any staff"(XC) ... ho hum. It gets better still though, because while we're sitting there, more people come in, and if that waiter was busy they just got served, whereas if he was around to pounce on the door he opened with his standard "Sorry we're closed" and do you know what, people actually just said "Oh alright then" and buggered off ... PERSISTENCE PEOPLE(XC XC XC), stand your ground, because actually the breakfast was quite nice.

I will give them 3 or 4 months before I go back though, because they clearly need to sort the place out, it has all the decor and furniture from the last owners, dusty sides, side-dishes that need cleaning (I don't need to see fingerprints and dusty fluff specks on my sugar dish when I order a coffee, thank you), they are using menus printed on sheets of A4 paper which have another restaurant's address on (presumably the owner's previous or simultaneous business adventure), and finally they need to upgrade so I can pay by card instead of noticing the cash-only sign after I'm comfortably seated.

So, worth a shot, but not until they are set up properly.

Conversation over the phone between me and a telephone operator for one of my banks:

Me: Hi, I'm having a problem with my card, I think I might need a new one.
Her: What's the problem, sir?
Me: Increasingly frequently, it's not working so well with some chip-and-PIN machines, not letting me pay first time.
Her: Well if that's the problem, I think you need to go to an ATM, and select PIN options, if it's blocked, you'll be able to reset it from there.
Me: ... er, okay, I don't think we're on the same page, it's not that my PIN is faulty or I've forgotten it, or the card is blocked. It's that when I go to pay for goods in some locations, the card isn't working first time. We get there eventually, but it can take two or three goes, and I think the chip part of the card is to blame, because it's getting a bit worn.
Her: No, Mr Freakette, we ARE on the same page, you need to go to an ATM machine and check your PIN settings.

I tried to argue the point with her, that my PIN was valid, I know my PIN, and it is not a PIN problem, it is clearly a CHIP problem, but she was having none of it. Eventually, and I think in the interest of getting rid of me, she said I could have a new card anyway if it would make me feel better - why, yes, yes it fucking would you stupid bitch. There was a clue in the first sentence I said to you, the bit where I said, "I think I might need a new one" ... Honestly, what fucking relation do you think the PIN has with the CHIP in terms of function? If I am typing my PIN in right 100% of the time (and I am), do you think going to an ATM and fiddling with the PIN settings will change this? Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong but she offered no explanation as to WHY my standing in front of a random box in the wall in the side of the high street and pressing a couple of buttons would magically make card readers recognise my PIN when the same card readers DO recognise the card after the shop assistant rubs the chip section with their thumb / clothing.

More to the point, you work for my bank, I give this bank money, if you want me to withdraw all this money and move to a bank where I will be treated like someone with intelligence and not someone to be fobbed off with some shit advice like that, then I will, but I'd hope it wouldn't come to this. Seriously, I hope that she was new or something, and that that was being recorded so she can hear what a bitch she sounded like and learn from her mistakes.