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.