Tuesday 29 November 2011

A Ramsgate rant about anything that comes to mind


I would have liked to call this a middle aged rant, as that presupposes people living to about 120 I shan’t bother.

First of all my latest brush with the world of new technology, I take it a read that if one stops learning new IT skills, one makes oneself unemployable, and that computer literacy is as important as the ability to read and write in the world today.

Anyway I bought myself a new phone last Friday and have been on the Android learning curve ever since, if you want to read about how this is going, I have been adding the information to a blog post on my test blog see http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.com/2011/11/man-fights-with-android.html

This post and the test posts there are mostly for my own benefit as I learn to use the thing, unless you are considering economy internet phone options, I wouldn’t bother to read it.

From the point of view of readers of this blog it means that I can now put up blog posts with pictures – taken with the phone camera – quickly and easily from pretty much any location. Although I suspect there will be a few more unusual test postings on my test blog http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.com/

Yesterday my younger children learnt at school that they had to wash their hands for 15 seconds – I believe this is part of their hostile health course – they were taught to time this by singing the long version of happy birthday twice. As they prepare their packed lunches, do their ablutions, have their breakfast and so on before school. I had a big dose of this in the early hours of this morning. Tomorrow their teachers are on strike and I am hoping that they learnt something different today that will make them forget what they learnt yesterday.     

Funny old thing this public sector strike, in the world of independent retailing I cashed in my pension and decided the only answer was to go on until I drop, not that this really worries me that much as I enjoy what I do. Several friends and family members work for some aspect of the government, some have been made redundant only to reemployed by the government doing essentially the same job. Pretty much all of them seem to be much better off than those doing similar jobs in the private sector. That is, with the exception of those engaged in providing essential front line services.

Back to phones and retail, I would say the largest problem for the high street at the moment is the various phone apps that compare prices.

For those of you living in some sort of dark age, this is what happens.

You touch an icon on your phone, point the camera at the barcode of an item you are considering buying in a shop, the phone finds the same item at a competitive price on the internet and presents you with a buy it now button.

In my bookshop I go out of my way to make certain that the book prices compete with this, but I fear a great many other retailers are being slow at catching on to this.

Nearly forgot, this is where I come to the hard sell of Christmas, I am reminding people that if they can’t find a Christmas present for a local person, then our local history books priced between £2 and £10, post free to Uk addresses go down very nicely.

If you want them posted direct to friends and family remember to include a Christmas message in the paypal message option, and we will wrap them in Christmas wrapping paper inside the jiffy bag with your message on the present. 

Here is the web address http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/

I am learning to sew at the moment, most of the books on the subject are amazingly sexist and assume that the only people who may wish to master a sewing machine are female.

Assuming – not difficult – that any garment I made would only be worn by me it would be useful to find something with male tailoring patterns in it.

A useful sewing tip here for going over big fabric bumps like the ones in denim, hit them with a hammer first. 

I may ramble on about this and that. 

10 comments:

  1. Hmmmmmm didnt read all of it as my life is to short but I like tour sewing tip, I have used that tip for all manner of DIY projects apart from glazing windows

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  2. Striking teachers should be sacked.

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  3. Were you perhaps caned at school 19.08

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  4. Look there should be a "Take your child's teacher to work" day.

    Like martial arts instructors who constantly talk about "In a real fight" should be taken along and forced to participate in a real fight.

    Teachers should learn about in the real world of work.

    As long as it is real work and not public sector stuff.

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  5. Ah Retired, seems fair enough to me, as long as there isn’t a, take your dad to school day, where I have to deal with a class of the youf of today or even a class of children with severe behavioural problems.

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  6. The only public support i know of for public sector workers comes from other public sector workers.
    Too many crocodile tears about working hard and deserving their pension.by the time you add up holidays,sick days bank holidays the odd 3 extra days for Christmas they don't have a lot to complain about.

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  7. What a strange chap you are, Peter, for you seem to support our local MP (who is a Tory), a resigning Tory councillor (who is no longer a Tory), Tesco stores on Margate sea front (private sector), public sector strikers and, apparently 'passed sell by date' totty with their kit off.

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  8. Peter, I did try the Love, Peace and Understanding bit once when trying to calm some overwrought bloke and got stabbed in the shoulder for my trouble. Bit more sceptical since and recognise that there are nasty bastards amongst the broadly decent majority.

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  9. Who said anything about Roger Gale or John Worrow, though the latter has just stabbed the electorate in his ward in the back. They did not choose him because of his pretty face but for his apparently blue credentials. Seems his actions may have handed Thanet over to Labour although the Conservatives had a larger share of the overal district vote. So much for democracy.

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  10. Does this mean we'll have a new TDC leader 12:45?

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.