Not just a chance to refer to an obscure Pink Floyd tune*, it’s also a chance for you to influence the final look of Mycelium Mansion.

I’ve finally bought curtains for the lounge – here they are in situ.

Do you think I should

1. leave them as they are
2. iron them, then hang them as now
3. replace them with the darker orange ones you can see in the bottom-tight corner
4. introduce one orange curtain between the two white ones
5. have two orange curtains surrounding one white one
6. do something else?

even more curtains
I have to admit here that in the rush to try to get back to St Andrews in time to sign on (see next entry), I forgot to pick up the curtains for the storage area entrance, so I have to go back to Dundee tomorrow morning. Aarrgghh!

* should that be ‘obscured-by-clouds tune’?

So here’s how it went:

• woke around 8.30 and checked out internet banking
• was phoned by one of the prospective tenants just as I emerged from the shower. Told her I’d phone back after speaking to the rental agent
• tried to phone the rental agent but was only able to leave a voicemail
• met with my lawyer to hand over the documentation I’m leaving with her
• was called by the rental agent and then called the prospective tenant and a gas engineer to get the flat checked for rental safety
• bought a fluorescent tube for the storage space
• bought the curtains
• bussed to Ninewells
• had my second rabies and Japanese B encephalitis vaccinations
• waited the rescribed 30 minutes to check that the latter had no immediate ill effects
• waited even longer for a photocopy of my treatment sheet (to convince doctors in Worcester that I only need the third vaccinations for rabies and Jap B)
• bussed back to Dundee City Centre
• realised it was now 3.05 pm and that I now had no chance of getting back to St Andrews in time to sign on at 3.25!
• phoned the job centre and was told that they were on strike this afternoon and hence I need do nothing – I’d just signed on by phone!
• arrived home, fitted the fluorescent tube and hung the curtains, then realised I hadn’t done everything I meant to do in Dundee. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER

Then a yeehah-moment: a while back I’d emailed Roy Harper’s record company

Dear Science Friction/royharper.co.uk

I’m lucky enough to own Once, HQ, In Between Every Line, Loony On The Bus and Burn The World on vinyl and Descendant Of Smith on cassette. Is it OK to transfer these brilliant pieces of music to CD and then put them into an iPod or similar? Failing this, will Once come back into stock soon on CD and will Loony on the Bus/Commercial Breaks ever be re-released?

Many thanks for keeping Roy’s work as available as possible – the negotiations with all the other labels can’t have been fun!

Bruce Ryan

—
Bruce-wotsit (you only get a whoosh with a …, cheesy as anything)

I’d given up on a reply but today I received an electronic missive from the great man’s colleague:

hello bruce,

thanks for your email. roy and i have no problems with you transferring formats for your own personal use.

kindest regards,

tracy

Better than being touched by a noodly appendage!

http://www.psychedelicrepublicans.com/cards/index.asp

Spent yesterday morning dissembling the Pismo, putting the old 30GB hard disk back in, erasing it completely, installing OSX on it and seeing if the known good 80GB hard disk will work in my firewire enclosure. The 30Gb works fine inside the Pismo (and works when in my USB enclosure or when in my firewire enclusre but attached any mac apart from my Pismo). The 80GB hard disk doesn’t mount when in the firewire enclosure yet it’s been behaving perfectly as the Pismo’s internal hard disk. So there is something about the firewire enclosure that just doesn’t like my Pismo!

Reassembled the Pismo and went to collect my prescription for anti-malarials. I’d forgotten my chequebook so came away empty-handed. Thence to rental agent to complete some paperwork and confirm to her that I was happy with wither set of potential tenants.

Then to fairtrade leaderine’s to try to diagnose the problem with her wireless network. She has an 12″ iBook G3 with a ‘brand-new’* airport card just like mine and my Pismo does detect the wireless network emanating from her router straight away. So I put my airport card in her iBook and instantly it went online. I put her airport card in my Pismo and couldn’t pick up her network anyhow. Restoring our respective cards to our own machines restored the original (dis)functionality. So at least we know it’s her card that’s stuffed and that it can go back to the dealer who sold it to her.

Back to the doctor to collect my prescription, then to other friends to while away the evening in a fun manner. I was treated to William Shatner’s latest oevre, Has Been. You should also check out Amazon’s reviews.

Today, I’ve got near to buying curtains for the lounge and put tiles up behind the new cooker. The old one had an eye-level grill and so the wall behind it was vaguely protected. The new cooker has an in-body grill and so splats from pans on the hob would wreck the paintwork. I’ve prempted this wreckage by putting white tiles up. Now to complete the disaster by attempting to grout between them!

*brand-new to her, that is. Apple stopped making these cards a while back and they’re getting increasingly rarer. They now make cards that play 802.11b and g but these don’t fit into older machines. Well done Mr Jobs!

…. to the Customer Service person at the Dundee branch of Tiso’s.
The day-sack part of the rucsac my former colleagues had given me as a leaving present had come apart at a seam after a week or two of moderate use. The CS person gave me no shenannigans, just ‘here’s a replacement’.

Walking out of the store, my cellphone bleeped to say I had a voicemail at home. This voicemail was from the same CS person, about replacement filters for my water-bottle. I’d been told that they would order some from other branches but had been unable to do so. I walked back into the store and spoke to the CS person again. He told me that if I paid in advance and gave them a contact address, they’d order more from the manufacturers and post them to me, without charging for the postage. I like free delivery!

… to Jill Logan, practise nurse at Pipelands Road Health Centre, St Andrews
I phoned her just now to ask what I should now do to obtain anti-malarial drugs. I told her that other friends had said that Mefloquine caused them acute psychological problems and that they recommended avoiding it. Jill reminded me that Malarone is ‘fiendishly expensive’ and that Doxycycline can enhance photosensitivity. I really don’t want extra bills or increased chances of sunburn or to carry around 200 pills and at the moment I’m fairly stable from the neck up. Ms Logan was sympathetic to these issues, yet calm and clear. She offered write prescriptions for:

• 2 weeks’ Mefloquine (so I can try it)
• 7 months’ Mefloquine (for use if I get on with it)
• 7 months’ Doxycycline (for use if I don’t get on with Mefloquine)

The beauty of this is that I only need pay for the anti-malarial I actually use. I am very grateful to Ms Logan for her professional attitude and suggestion.

met the first potential tenants today. They asked some useful questions and seemed a very pleasant couple. Not students!

I think another potential tenant is coming to see the place tomorrow afternoon. By then I should have filled and painted the hole in the kitchen wall where the old gas cooker had been chained to it. (So the alert among you will realise that the old cooker has been taken away and the new one has been delivered and installed.)

Got my tickets today!

Departing 1st March, returning 27th August.

Still nervous as anything – what have I signed up for? Will I be boiled alive? Will I cope with the crowds, the isolation from other UK folk, the cultural differences? Only one way to find out – be full-on Bruce (aka Random Bozo) at the rest of the world!

As instructed by the JobCentre in St Andrews, I phoned the national jobseeker-helpline today so they could begin transferring my claim to Worcester’s JobCentre.

The helpline worker told me that they only arranged new appointments and could not help with this transfer, no matter what my local JobCentre had told me.

I then googled for the JobCentre in Worcester and found their number on a Worcester Students’ Union page. Why on earth was the top-ranking page not the govenment’s own?

I phoned the number on this page and was politely told to phone their new claims section. I did so and was invited to leave a voicemail with my name, contact number and a brief outline of my issue. The outgoing message said that one of the two ‘fresh claims’ staff would get back to me in 3 or 4 days’ time because they were snowed under.

Both of these calls were at national standard rate. I can afford the costs of these calls and frankly don’t care too much whether or not I get the dole at this point, so long as my NI records are kept up to date. However, I’m irate on behalf of the poor sods who are unemployed and need state assistance: the costs of calls and the wait involved in making a fresh claim may be more than can be born.

More on my attempts to become an evil landlord:

my contents insurers better than expected – they’ll contact the policy underwriters and should have the next step ready to go by close of play tomorrow. Kudos to Gavin Willis at Clydesdale Bank home insurance for his professionalism.

Yesterday I dug out the old seal around the kitchen sink and put new sealant in. It’s shrunk a bit as it’s dried so I think another layer will be needed.

This morning I finally bought a new cooker. It will arrive on Monday morning. They’ll also take the old heap of junk away.

To complete the flat rental/renovation piece, all I have to do is sort curtains for the lounge and the storage area, then get my my mortgage provider to agree to the actual tenant, whoever he or she might be.