Blue Witch

Halloween at The Coven

*cackles evilly*

We interrupt this birthday celebration day...

... to advertise one ticket for Jackson Browne ('solo acoustic') at the London Palladium on Monday next (1st November), 8pm.

£38.50 face value, yours for £25.

For added Value, you get to meet BW, Mr BW and Pat (who was lovely enough to offer me our tickets in the first place, and now finds herself unexpectedly with another spare). And I hear that he's fab (JB that is, although Mr BW is too, but I would say that, wouldn't I? ;)).

E-mail me if you're interested (address in the sidebar), but don't expect a reply tonight - we have some frightfully good wine, and a magnum of champagne, to drink, and lobster dinner, with fresh veg from the garden, to eat :)

Intermittent blogging this week isn't it?

Due to it being Mr BW's 40th tomorrow today (oh heck - is that really the time?), and preparing for Witches' Christmas on Sunday. And a few other things in between.

Do you know, I've had to make three chocolate cakes... Which would be OK if I actually liked chocolate cake.

Still, we do still have fresh raspberries and strawberries in the garden. Can you believe that? October 29th and we still have soft fruit. The third flush on the strawberries. Talk about climate change.

Thought for the day

Dishonesty with others allows us to hide the truth about ourselves from ourselves.

- desk calendar

Rally Witches

I guess anybody who's ever had the misfortune to be in a car with me won't be at all surprised by this... Handbrake turns...








Handy hint - if you ever go rallying - wear two, tight, old-dear-type bras, one on top of the other, under whatever else you wear, because, even if you're a boy, or a totally flat-chested girl, your boobs will get shaken, bounced and otherwise abused beyond belief, driving a 280bhp race-prepared car under the tutelage of a professional rally driver/instructor.

But, that was yesterday. Back to reality.

We're doing well today.

So far, Mr BW has nearly ended up at Stansted for a flight to Madrid from Gatwick, and I've forgotten my hair appointment. I never forget appointments. Except that I just did.

And the delivery of our new chairs that I put off for a couple of weeks on Monday just tried to turn up. Luckily the delivery men couldn't find The Coven and so rang for directions. I pretended to be the house sitter who knew nothing about it, so wouldn't accept it. If it was your usual sort of cheapo multi-branch furniture firm with centralised deliveries, it would be just about forgivable, if laughable, but this one is a small, family-owned local company who should be able to do better...

That'll teach me to disappear in a puff of blue smoke won't it?

Apologies to those of you who were concerned... and thank you for all the messages in various forms *little warm cared-for glow* :)

It was a bit out of character I suppose... but, yes, I'm fine, we're fine, Mr BW and I have been off sojourning in the County of Squires & Spires, visiting, celebrating, and rallying.

I wasn't intending to post again until Sunday, as there's a lot going on this week, and I needed some space (for all sorts of reasons).

But, as I have, I just want to say, 'thank you for the music' to John Peel. Hearing of his untimely death on our way back down the M1 at 6pm sort-of took the edge off the fun we had today. Anyone who was as into punk as I was will, I suspect, understand. But, if you've got to go early, a sudden heart attack has got to be the way to go.

I suspect it will be one of those "I remember when..." moments.

The 70th Make Blue Witch Laugh Award

Oh no. The funny cupboard is bare again. And I've just remembered that I forgot to announce the winner for last week's jokes. Ooops.

Got to run along and supervise my plasterer smoothing the ceiling and planting pansies now.

He's doing the ceiling, Mr BW and I are doing the pansies. Just so we're clear.

November is Will-Aid Month

Have you made a will?

Even if you are single, or have no children, or think you haven't much to leave, it's very worthwhile, because, if you die intestate (without leaving a will) there are legal rules about who gets what and they are probably not what you'd like.

If you're not legally married and live with someone, it is vital that you have a will as your partner will not get anything if you die intestate - it will all go to your family (blood relatives).

If you are married, the first £200K and all your chattels will pass tax-free to your spouse (only £125K if you have children), BUT the transfer of the estate will take much longer without a will - and do you really want to give each other all the extra hassle of intestacy if the worst comes to the worst?

You can draw up your own will - you can even download forms from the internet, or buy a form from a stationers. But, that can make problems, and it's easy to make mistakes in wording or witnessing, which will render it invalid.

Solicitor drawn-up wills are obviously better.

Throughout November, lots of solicitors are participating in the bi-annual Will-Aid scheme. They will draw up your will for free, for a donation to the Will-Aid charity (the suggested amount is £65 - which is much less than solicitors normally charge anyway - BUT this can be a deferred donation, through leaving some money to one of the charities in your will). The charities in the group are ActionAid, British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Help the Aged, NSPCC, Save the Children, UK Sight Savers International, SCIAF and Trocaire.

Details of the Will-Aid scheme are here.

But, book up now as most solicitors will only do a few, and it's first come, first served. Mr BW and I re-did ours yesterday (even though it's not November yet!).

Participating solicitors are here.

If you're single and don't want your estate to go to your family (or the government) if you die, then why not make a will to leave it to charity?

Be charitable

Olay skincare are dontaing 50p to the Breast Cancer Care charity for every sign-up to their Club Olay during October. You can opt to receive free samples too. If you don't want to receive regular emails from them, use a made-up email address, or one you use for spam.

If everyone who visits here today signs up, this very worthwhile charity would be a couple of hundred pounds better off.

Thought for the day

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

- Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)

Controversial Witch, again

Yet another story in the news today about desperate parents taking on medical professionals in a bid to prolong the living agony that is their damaged baby's life.

I really cannot understand this. I'm sure that such people would have a pet humanely put down if if were irrecoverably ill. Why do they think that somehow babies are more able to overcome the impossible and defy nature than animals?

Someone should take those unrealistic parents to meet some parents of children with severe or complex learning difficulties. Because, believe me, that's how those babies will turn out. Those parents might then realise what they are up against for the rest of their lives. The struggle against the system. The fighting for every bit of support. The constant worry about the future. I've worked in that system for 16 years. I know. So do the doctors, nurses and other professionals who are trying to advise them.

And let's not forget who is funding the legal case (Legal Aid is a wonderful thing, but only for the lawyers and expert witnesses being paid by it - I know, I've done that too), and the NHS resources being used to keep these very sick babies alive unrealistically. Those resources are finite. While they're being used in this way there's someone somewhere else not getting the treatment they need in a timely manner. Oh, and let's not forget who is going to have to pay the hundreds of thousands of pounds for the care, support and education of those babies as they get older.

Sometimes medical science and medical advances aren't good things.

I wonder sometimes about why people have babies at all. What need it fulfils. What social expectation they feel they are meeting. I'm more and more convinced that many people just fall into the have children trap without really thinking about it, because it's what everyone does. I guess I was lucky in having 2 aunts who chose not to have children, so I was exposed to an alternative model at an early age.

Yesterday I spent 40 minutes waiting for a bus at a bus-stop outside a baby nursery in Holland Park. Saw all the glamourous career women dressed and made up to the nines get out of their expensive cars and totter into the place on their ridiculous heels, to emerge a few minutes later with armfuls of paraphernalia and a small bundle.

Why have a baby if you're going to bundle it off to someone else to look after at the age of a few weeks? Either be prepared to do the job properly or don't bother in the first place. Or stop being so bloody selfish and rework your lifestyle so you're not working evey hour to pay for it. Get a life, in other words. That is, other than the baby's.

Thought for the day

I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.

Anna Quindlen

Corporate gifts (aka tacky promotional material)

Gone are the days when customers were satisfied with a calendar with a few pretty countryside views and the company's name emblazoned at the top.

Thinking back to the early 80s, I can remember loyal customers, of a family-run animal-feed business that I was involved with at the time, being ecstatic when they were given calendars with a pocket at the bottom at christmas (OK, so most of them were farmers, but...).

These days people are more sophisticated, and calendars just don't cut it any more. Plus, I think there are thousands of times more commercial freebie goodies around these days. Companies have budgets for tack, with the aim of keeping their name in front of the consumer. Or maybe I am just more aware of the freebies on offer as Mr BW raids his storecupboard on my behalf regularly goes to lots of exhibitions where high technology stuff is sold, with high profit margins (although he'll no doubt argue with me on this), which ensures good quality freebies.

Pens are boring but useful. Ditto rulers. I always pick up handfuls of both from exhibitions. And stress balls. Witchy likes squeezing things when tensions run high.

But, there are more expensive things around too. Some of my favourites have been thermometers, shoe cleaning kits, headphones with built-in radios (except that those broke the second time I used them)... and... erm... *shouts to Mr BW* what else have we had dear?

I don't like pen sets (I lose posh pens), knives (weapons are not good freebies), mugs (I only like mugs with pigs or hens on), sweets (always yucky quality and I don't like sweets much anyway), or branded Post-Its (not enough room left for me to write).

What about you?

PS If you work for a company with good freebies, please send a sample to me at The Coven for evaluative purposes :)

Thought for the day

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

- Steve Bartkowski

I have a problem

I keep scrolling down the page to look at my box of blue eggs.
I don't think that this can be normal.

Identity theft

Did you know that last year 100,000 people in the UK had their identities stolen? The cost to the economy - a staggering £1.3 billion.

Tonight, on Channel 4, at 10pm, there is a docu-drama on the subject, Stealing Lives.

And there's now a Home Office website giving info and advice.

I'm very suspicious and conscious of the possibility. I shred every last piece of paper with my name and address on, and my shreddings go on the compost heap. But, I've seen people I know put utility bills, or worse, bank or credit card statements, or receipts, in the bin without even ripping them up, so many times. Most of them just look at me in amazement when I point out the risks, and I can see them adding another note to the 'BW' file in their head, along the lines of, 'more signs of paranoia'.

Good practice says that you should pay the £2 to each of the 3 credit reference agencies (Equifax, Experian, and Callcredit) once a year to check that no-one has cloned you. It also ensures that nothing untoward or inaccurate is happening to your credit record. And for stoozers like me, it's a great way of checking just how many more 0% credit card applications you can safely make in a given period :)

Better to be safe than sorry. It is very difficult, costly and time-consuming to clear yourself if you find you have become a victim of identity theft.

Moving email addresses

Over 200 spam messages per day, usually including several containing viruses, couldn't go on. I haven't found a spam filter that works to my satisfaction, without requiring a huge amount of effort. I've been setting up 'delete from server' mail rules within OE as I receive spam, but now have over 500 rules and the amount of spam hasn't lessened. It annoys me that some IPs (including NThelL) don't seem to have made any effort to address the spam problem, whereas others (eg Demon) appear to have dealt with it quite successfully.

Having changed ISPs I've now put autoresponders on all my old NThelL email addresses (and these addresses will cease to function shortly).

There's a great service that can tell people your new email address - except that not many people know about it (spread the word, won't you? It'll only work as well as it could if people know about it).

You can register any old email addresses you've ever used at http://www.returnpath.net/finder/ and they will allow people to send you a message, which is forwarded to your new email address. You can then either respond, so giving the person your new address, or ignore.

I first heard about this site at the beginning of the summer. Being a Suspicious Witch, I set up a little test using a dedicated email address, to see whether any spam would result. It hasn't. I'm therefore concluding that it's safe.

My new email address is in the sidebar (and has been for several weeks).

Please delete any old e-addresses for me from your address books.
Now, before you forget :)

Thought for the day

Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing.

- Clive James

Casting around

We need some new candle moulds before the winter beeswax candlemaking season can begin. As I'm going to be visiting the metropolis twice this week, I thought I'd plan what to get.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but... (it gets worse the further you scroll down, doesn't it?).

Excuses

I'm in one of those limbo states where I really want to write something; I've been wanting to write it for 5 weeks now, but I haven't actually made much of a start on it.

Because, to do so would risk me having to put together a whole lot of stuff that is swimming nicely round my head. Stuff that I think I've finally got swimming in a synchronised fashion after 8 years. But, something is preventing me from organising it on paper. I suspect that's because it might not make the sense that it seems to while it's just swimming. And then that would be scary and I might turn into a SAD Witch again, which would not be a good thing at all.

But, I need to write it.

But, I'm not sure where to start. I always know where to start something, so, when I don't, it suggests to me that it's not time to write it, yet.

Which frustrates me, because I don't know when it will be time. And the more I'm waiting for it to be time, the more time I'm wasting waiting and not writing. So I'm not getting much done.

And, my RSI has kicked in badly, so I can't type it (when I'm trying to write something complicated I often prefer to type it rather than dictate it as it slows my thoughts).

And, I've got loads of work I need to do.

So, instead I give you:

(1) Eggs.

Half a dozen blue Cream Legbar eggs.
Actually, she's now laid 10.
Only I can't bring myself to eat them because they're too pretty.

And (2) The knowledge that Mr BW is having lunch with Prince Andrew. And, rest assured, he's been fully briefed on points to look for, for the entertainment of blog readers :) And damn, I've just realised, I was asleep when he left the house this morning so I didn't have a chance to check which tie he was wearing with which shirt...

Autumn Gold

Just a few of the early harvested pumpkins and squashes. The yellowy larger one at the top is an ex-squash already. We had him for lunch on Saturday. In soup. And very tasty he was too.

Big brother of the orange pumpkin is currently defying physics by not falling through the roof of one of the greenhouses. Goodness only knows why he chose to grow there. Mr BW has put a sheet of wood underneath him to spread the load across the metal frame struts. I've got so used to seeing him there that I don't want to pick him. Why am I so sentimental about vegetables?

It's five years since I was in California at this time of year. I was totally amazed by the fields of pumpkins. Just pumpkins. All the foilage had died off, leaving just pumpkins on huge areas of parched baked earth. And in shops everywhere there were mounds and mounds of every possible variety. I wondered what happened to all those that weren't sold.

Thought for the day

Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses.

- Kenichi Ohmae

Questions

Is it really true that men turn into their fathers when they get older and women turn into their mothers?

If so, Mr BW and I are in for a hell of an old age...

Is it true that perimenopausal women get cravings for foodstuffs like pregnant women? I've just eaten a whole plate of sprouts. Probably about 2lbs. Overcooked (sprouts are the only vegetable I will eat overcooked, and the only ones I won't eat undercooked). Luckily I'm doing paperwork at home tomorrow....

There's always someone looking at you...

Busy busy putting the garden to bed, no time to write anything at the moment.

I'd love to know who it is who's spending their weekend going through my archives bit by bit - comes in using a BT connection and IE6 on Win ME.... from a Google search for 'blue witch'. Yes, I can see you, hope you're having fun, please say hello :)

*goes off muttering, "Ruddy stalkers, Witches have Spells for them."*

The 69th Make Blue Witch Laugh Award

Guess what? The Funny Folder is bare. Oh dear. No-one's made me laugh.

So, let's see... I know.
Whoever puts the best joke in the comments box can have some points.

The Reason

Thought for the day

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.

- Henry David Thoreau

More arty craftidness

Tonight Mr BW and I start a calligraphy class.

He's got to pretend to be a Nice Lady though, as we were a few Nice Ladies short of enough to get an educational grant from the LEA to pay for the tutor. So, a bit of Creative Witch Thinking, and we got to the magic number. Well - it's now £6 for a 6 week course rather than £30. Value Witch.

As all the Nice Ladies love him anyway, it'll be fine. Except that he's left handed, so he might smudge a bit.

I last did a calligraphy class back when I was in my first full year of teaching in 1985. I even found my notes from it while sorting out my art stuff last weekend. Weird coincidence.

I think my need to do this comes from the fact that I spent the first week at seconday school convinced that the 'scripture' that appeared on the timetable was handwriting.

I'll bet his comes out better than mine...

3 vast subjects I want to know more about

These have been the same for years.

And I've done nothing major about seriously furthering my basic entry-level interest.

I don't know why.

1. Geology
2. The architecture of churches
3. Heraldry

What about you?

Art Class: Session 5

Another week of autumny things.

This time, a virginia creeper leaf, at the point just before all the leaves detach from the stem.

As with the leaf from last year a few posts down, this was watercolour, and wet into wet again. It's amazing me how easy to is to successfully drop colours into wetted areas to produce a result that somehow magickally is a good representation of the original.

The veins were mainly scraped in with the end of a brush, so that they auto-filled with the still-wet colour.

Thought for the day

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.

- J.R.R. Tolkein

It Pays to Complain, Part X

Result.

e-mail just received from Pipex:

Dear Mrs Blue Witch,

Further to your email received on the 8th of October, I have investigated your complaint and I am now able to respond.

Firstly I would like to apologise on behalf of PIPEX Communications PLC for your experiences whilst dealing with this issue.

As part of my investigation I have checked both our customer database and our fault tracking database. Our records show that the fault was finally cleared on the 08.10.04. In order to resolve the problem BT had to remove non BT wiring at the exchange. In view of the issues that you have experienced with PIPEX as a good will gesture I have decided to credit your account for the amount of £10.59 Inc VAT. This will be deducted from your next subscription fee which is due on the 04.11.04.

I hope that your ADSL service is now working as expected and you are receiving a fast and reliable ADSL. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours Sincerely,

PIPEX Customer Care

Just one small grammatical point Pipex Customer Care - 'sincerely' should have a lower case 's' (that's 'small letter' to you).

And WTF was non BT wiring doing at the exchange? Was Heath-Robinson there? Or did someone once get so p*d off with waiting for the BT fault repair service that they broke into the exchange and sorted their problem themself?

And the £10.59 (goodness knows where you magicked that figure from!) will cover the phone calls and the 4 days service I didn't get. Next time I'll be wanting more, mind you, but, it'll do for now.

And I'm jolly glad that it only took you 5 days to respond to my email, rather than the 28 that your auto-responder mentioned. Because, quite frankly, 28 days is totally unacceptable. 5 days is only OK because you were sensible enough to offer me £££, but, maybe you need to give some thought to how you might improve your service so that your customer care department aren't so swamped that it takes 5 (or 28) days to respond to a complaint, eh?

A Little Autumn Birdhouse in my Soul

Blood pressure

And, linked to the TFTD, and to lots of current health initiatives, how many people actually know their blood pressure? When was the last time you had yours checked?

I'm not going to go into a long spiel on the subject of high blood pressure, because (a) I'm not a doctor, and (b) everything you need to know can be found from here.

Just suffice it to say that the normal range goes up to around 120/80 (depending on age) and anything frequently or consistently over 140/90 can be bad for you. And it's very easy, if you're the sort of person who gets wound up about things, for it to reguarly be over that and you not to know.

Many people suffer from headaches, eyeaches and all sorts of other things that they attribute to goodness knows what - or don't attribute to anything at all (as they don't have time to think about it), and simply swallow half a packet of aspirin - when they are in fact due to high blood pressure.

High blood pressure (hypertension in medical terminology) is dangerous because it causes the heart to work extra hard. This strain contributes to heart attacks and stroke. When the heart is forced to work extra hard for an extended period of time, it tends to enlarge. A slightly enlarged heart can function well, but a significantly enlarged heart cannot. High blood pressure also causes damage to the arteries, causing arterial disease.

Once diagnosed with high blood pressure, some people are happy to have a lifetime of swallowing medication to keep it under control. I'm not. So, I'll share with you what I did/still do on occasions, to lower mine.

At the time this first was an issue for me (about 8 years ago now at a time when I was inordinately stressed by work, not sleeping, not coping, constantly on the edge of tears etc etc) I thought about what I knew about bringing other physiological processes under conscious control. A long time ago I was involved with some health visitors in a project to set up programmes to tackle problem bedwetting in young children. We successfully used biofeedback devices (basically moisture sensors linked to buzzers to wake the children up when necessary) together with a rewards programme.

My biggest problem was that every time I went to see the doctor, my blood pressure was sky-high, even though I felt that it wasn't that bad the rest of the time. But, I had no way of actually telling. And, if I couldn't tell for sure, I couldn't actually do anything about it.

Around that time blood pressure monitors were beginning to be available.

So, I purchased one and started to apply some biofeedback principles. Every morning and night, and at times in between if I felt particulrly stressed (or calm), I took my blood pressure. At first I hated that squeezy feeling as the cuff inflated round my arm, but, gradually, I came to tolerate it.

I recorded my results in a book, then, took the book with me to my doctor's appointments. He was impressed, and it gave him a much better idea of my ongoing stress levels than just taking a reading in his surgery once every couple of weeks. At that time, he hadn't seen anyone do this before. Now, he suggests it to patients who he feels would benefit, or who aren't keen to take medication.

Having 'control' over taking my blood pressure eventually helped me to reduce it in 'panic' situations over time. If it was particuarly high (*skips quickly over the time when it got to 195/120*), I worked hard on sitting and thinking about relaxing, re-taking it every 15 minutes until it was back to something acceptable.

I still take my blood pressure a couple of times a week. Like noting a cars fuel consumption over time (ie noting mileage and amount of fuel put in every time you fill up, and doing a few sums to get mpg), it helps you spot if anything *is* wrong with you, or if you need to ease up a bit.

It really is very reassuring.
And, at less than £30 (in some places) now, accurate blood pressure measurement devices are less than the cost of a few repeat prescriptions or a night out.

And, if I can't be a control freak over my own blood pressure, then what else can I be a control freak over? :)

I also firmly believe that if people were allowed to keep their own medical records, people would take more responsibiilty for their own health. Give people the knowledge and info they need, and most will do something about health issues. Let 'experts' keep all the written information, and people feel disempowered and that there's nothing they can do except rely on medication to cure all their ills.

Thought for the day

Physiologically, it simply doesn't matter whether your anger is justified or not. The body doesn't make moral judgements about feelings; it just responds.

- Doc Childre

Art Class: Session 4 (2003 version!)

I was just sorting out my art stuff into the new Open Space Project storage and found this. It was one of only a handful of proper 'paintings' we actually did with Bad Watercolour Tutor last year. It was my first atempt at wet into wet I think. And, amazingly, it looked very much like the leaf it was meant to be.

At least it's preferable to the rose hip colouring pencil one below that I dislike so much.

Art Class: Session 4

Ooops - this one's been sitting in Drafts for nearly a week now...

I don't like this one much because doing things with colouring pencils seems very '7 year old' to me.

Plus, I wasn't in the mood as I was being annoyed about lots of things at the same time. Which, in hindsight, weren't worth getting annoyed about. But hey, that's life, isn't it?

It's official

The Coven Aga is still the cleanest in this area, so the nice engineery servicey man tells me :)

Yes, but, he should have seen the inside of my lids and my top oven door at 7am before I got my brillo out for their annual scrub. Not a good task for a Witch with RSI, I'll tell you. But, an (almost) impossible task when it's on and hot (the other 364 days of the year, or 365 if it's a leap year). Ahhhh housework. I'm glad I usually avoid it.

One of the best things about Rick Stein programmes is noting how they mess up the continuity every time he does some cooking - one shot the insides of his Aga lids are covered in [whatever] and the next they are pristinely shiny silver, newly cleaned, and then they go back to messy again. I bet no one except me has ever noticed that. Or cares ;)

Talking of leap years, it occurred to me while I was in the shower earlier (and it was cold because the Aga was off and Mr BW was trying to be a Value Witch and refused to put the immersion heater on until this morning, when it should have been on last night) that people who are paid salaries (rather than an hourly rate) lose out in leap years. They get to do an extra day's work for no extra money.

Thought for the day

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

- Albert Einstein

Tonight

I am finally in the position of being able to fill my holes.

The Open Space Project - the re-use the space created by getting rid of the spare bedroom and all the furniture that used to sail in her...

The holes are now primed, double-painted (the same neutral colour as the walls, in eggshell, so they resemble the matt-painted walls), and handled, and all ready for me to move the clutter from the Inner Coven into.

*scared* It isn't all going to fit y'know...

And the project cost much less than we got for all the old stuff - £231 in total. Oh and 30 hours of Mr BW time. So, given realistic pricing of labour... over £1,000 then... And that doesn't take any account of the futuristic new multi-permutation furniture that will be delivered as soon as they've made it... (currently November 26th).

I'm in the mood for spelling...

Alan's just pointed out allowed me to conclude that yet another of my spells has gone awry...

Well, so far, I've got Tfl and BT t-shirt uniforms BW Blue, why not Dr Who characters?

Still working on spells for e though... unsure what's going on with that one... concerned that the one I had to do to make sure my broadband was activated first maybe hasn't cancelled properly... no idea what to do about it though...

Love spells are currently my speciality. And those links don't work. Because :)

The albums you should have listened to before you die

From billy, via Rob and Bonnie.

...copy the list on to your blog, put in bold the ones you have listened to (completely from begining to end) and then add three more albums that you think people should have heard before they turn into their parents - remember, it isn't necessarily your most favourite albums but the ones you think people should listen to... and when we say listen we mean from track one through to the end...

If you put a link to your follow-on post in the comments of the site where you found it, the chain will be trackable. Maybe!

1) Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
2) London Calling - The Clash
3) Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
4) Think Tank - Blur
5) This is Hardcore - Pulp
6) Moon Safari - Air
7) Elastica - Elastica
8) Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols - Sex Pistols
9) OK Computer - Radiohead
10) The Kiss of Morning - Graham Coxon
11) Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
12) The Wall - Pink Floyd
13) Setting Sons - The Jam
14) America Beauty - The Grateful Dead
15) Toxicity - System of a Down
16) Train a Comin' - Steve Earle
17) Folksinger - Phranc
18) Come From the Shadows - Joan Baez
19) Bat out of Hell - Meatloaf
20) The River - Bruce Springsteen
21) The Very Best of Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading
22) Copperhead Road - Steve Earle

Terminology

This one has been annoying me for ages.

Just clicking around this morning, I've already seen 2 references to it.

So... I raise the subject for discussion.

It's the term 'chav'.

There doesn't seem to be a generally accepted definition - it seems to vary by area (see urban dictionary) - but it does seem to be used for a certain lesser strata of culture - strata, of course, being defined in the user's own terms.

I think that the term 'chav' is just as discriminatory and pejorative a term as others describing people from any minority. For example: race - like 'coon' or 'wog'; disability - 'spastic' or 'retard'; or sexuality... or anything that groups people from 'minorities', actually.

There'd be an outcry if people used terms like those, so why is 'chav' acceptable?

Thought for the day

Composition: If you would write to any purpose, you must be perfectly free from without, in the first place, and yet more free from within. Give yourself to the natural rein; think on no pattern, no patron, no paper, no press, no public; think on nothing, but follow your own impulses. Give yourself as you are, what you are, and how you see it. Every man sees with his own eyes, or does not see at all. This is incontrovertibly true. Bring out what you have. If you have nothing, be an honest beggar rather than a respectable thief. Great care and attention should be devoted to epistolary correspondence, as nothing exhibits want of taste and judgment so much as a slovenly letter.

Online Enquire Within (No. 223) (via DG)

*sings* "Blue eggs, Witchy's g-o-t, bl-u-e eggs"

One yesterday and one this morning. As all the other hens are in moult, or in a non-egg-laying mood due to the decreased day length, Esme the Cream Legbar now has sole responsibility for The Coven Egg Supply. Edith the Buff Sussex still isn't doing her stuff, despite being a month older. Bad hen.

I've juxtaposed it with a maran normal-sized egg (which would probably be supermarket 'large' (sometimes even 'extra large')) to show how much smaller eggs are when hens are young and just coming into lay.

Puzzle

We currently have 10 D'Oves.

There are (at least) two pairs.

Most of them are related.

There are 6 D'Oveholes in their D'Ovecote.

Pairs of D'Oves, and siblings, are known to be happy to roost together (do D'Oves roost? I'm not sure if that is the correct term for D'Ove repose.)

How many D'Oves will end up sleeping on the roof of the D'Ovecote?

The 68th Make Blue Witch Laugh Award

2 contenders this week.
Sorry for the delay.

I had to help hang doors, collect paint, and keep Builder Mr BW happy - which I just knew wasn't going to be by sitting in my Inner Coven putting up the MBWLA first thing this morning. And then I had an awful headache so was forced to take to my bed for an hour. Then I had to clean out the hens and quail. And guess what - we have our first blue egg! (pic later no doubt)

I also had to go and buy some more flowers as the Autumn tubs are swallowing them. On the subject of pansies.... (you have to have been over to The Sty on Thursday or Friday to understand this I think)...

Mr Piggy tried to be a flash git in redesigning The Sty. Took him a whole week and it was truly awful. As I couldn't stop myself pointing out. Repeatedly. (poooor Mr Piggy - still, Witches only ever tease people they like) :) Actually, the flash was the problem, as Steve told him, and went on to produce some rules to prove it. Alan commented and questionned:

"I like these rules. Really, I do.

What do you say to frames and tables?

Alan | Email | Homepage | 10.05.04 - 2:13 pm | #"

Steve replied:

I say "hello frames and tables".

[snip loads of technical stuff that you can go and look at for yourself if you're interested]

Steve | Email | Homepage | 10.05.04 - 2:24 pm | #

Contender 2: Rob:

SOME SAYINGS THAT ANNOY ME

- When life gives you lemons...make lemonade!
Should be:
- When life gives you lemons...put them in the freezer overnight and then throw them at life as hard as you can.

- Who moved my cheese?
should be:
- The next micro - managing manager that changes my job description without telling me will get the beatdown of a friggin' lifetime.

- What color is your parachute?
should be:
- What color is your outsourced replacement?

- I'm lovin' it!
should be:
- I'm having a quadruple bypass!

- Women are from venus - Men are from mars.
should be:
- I'm not gettin' any.

- Pull your own strings!
should be:
- Oh no you didn't! ( with forceful removal of own earrings and shoes for effect )

- Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
should be:
- How's the job search coming, middle class?

And this week's winner of the Trophy - and an extra MBWLA point, making 2 in total - is Rob (his ongoing commentary on the Bush v Kerry comedy show is excellent too).

One day I'll get round to unpdating the scoresheet... it's only 20 weeks behind the week we're up to...

This one's for all those who've ever had problems with an ISP's technical support department

The broadband is finally working properly at The Coven

My spells have worked.

Not only did the BT engineer fix the problem ("Gosh this main box into the house is corroded, I'm surprised it worked even on a voice line!" "Er, actually, it didn't very well, but I've spent the last 9 years having the line tested and people out regularly and no-one's ever spotted that before!"), but he turned up wearing a BW Blue BT uniform t-shirt.

Complete control over TfL's colour's and BT's.
We're getting there :)

And I've discovered why they're usually so keen to get out of your house without finishing a job properly - they get bonus points/payments for the amount of work they get through. And if they manage to persuade you to have chargeable work done (eg testing beyond the main socket), they get even more bonus points, and even more bonus payments. Hmmmm.

"London is drowning - and I live by the river"

Talk about contrived post titles...

No, I doubt London is drowning, except perhaps under the weight of stuff that could be recycled but isn't, and no, we don't live by the river. And yes, I nicked this link from elsewhere.

In fact, according to The Environment Agency, apparently we have zero chance of being flooded (that's zero chance but they're hedging their bets):

The location you have selected is in an area which fell outside the extent of the extreme flood, at the time of our assessment of the likelihood of flooding. Generally this means that the chance of flooding each year from rivers or the sea is 0.1% (1 in 1000) or less.

What about you?

Thought for the day

Something is obscene if viewed by a recipient as obscene.

- McPherson Report

Open Space Project update

(Introductory post here)

Last night to tonight...

I've been making tea all day.

Well, apart from the times when I've been doing all the things you need to do when you're changing ISPs, email accounts etc etc.

Oh, and covering myself and the whole of the kitchen in tomato, lentil and chive soup. Don't you just hate it when you liquidise soup and it sneaks out from under the edges of the food processor at high velocity?

I'm quite exhausted.

Tomorrow is The Doors.
So I'm told.

And I don't want any comments about how dangerous / ?illegal driving along like that is. I know...

Free broadband speed test

Before I lose the link, and further to last night's discussion on broadband speeds, here's a quick and easy anonymous speed test that I've just found. (For my future reference - or to giggle about in a few years time - I'm currently doing 462Kbps downstream and 241Kbps upstream).

And if you don't like your ISP you can decrease their performance score at the same time :)

Although, after yesterday's fiasco, Pipex seem to be getting it together. I think they must be scared of me.

Suffice it to say that, rather than the 96 hours it was supposed to take for it to get through their tech system and get escalated to BT, I have a BT engineer coming round at 8am tomorrow to change my wall box into a new-fangled thingy in an attempt to sort out my long-line problem that is making the broadband part of my signal interfere with the voice part. If not it's diggy uppy the roaddy time to put on some new lines out to the area around The Coven, I'm told. Which will be most interesting to see as the current lines are in fact overhead...

What always amazes me is how helpful and sensible the BT engineers who actually do the work are, once you manage to get through the front part of the system.

And how do I do that? I just keep going on, and on, and on, until I wear them down. I am unfailingly polite, but assertive, persuasive, and persistent. I don't take 'no' for an answer, and I can think fast. I'm the customer for goodness sake, I'm entitled to what I pay for! I really dread to think how most people manage in this life though. Maybe they just give up?

Makeovers

Do you remember when I went away a couple of weeks ago, The Coven got invaded?

Weeeell....

It seems to have happened elsewhere :)

Mr BW DIYs, again

Mr BW and Cleaner BW have spent the morning fighting over use of the dyson (it's a blue one, of course - and bloody hell, I didn't pay anywhere near that much for it!!!). He must have won as she's gone home now. I tried to persuade her to stay for the rest of the weekend to keep on top of the mess that I know there will be... but, she has small children to attend to she said. Pathetic excuse I thought...

You see, for the next 4 days I have Builder Mr BW working for me...

When in 'Builder' mode, Mr BW's normal tidiness and cleanliness go out of the window.

He's building the 'invisible' storage area in the new Open Space Room (the one that used to be the little-used spare bedroom before I sold all the furniture). I've worked out that it could hide 35 large plastic storage boxes, just to give you some idea of its potential capacity. And we've only lost 18" off the room's length.

All the photo albums, all my art/craft equipment, all the gardening things that can't be stored outside (seeds etc) are going to disappear out of my Inner Coven into there, as well as the Present Store (which currently lives in assorted places where I'd rather it didn't), and the BW Honey / Preserve Store, and my motorcycling gear, which came out of the wardrobe which has gone (and which hasn't been used as a wardrobe for at least 7 years).

After much discussion with client (ie me) about requirements, and much furtive scribbling on the back of envelopes careful drawing and then redrawing of the design plans, during last weekend, he made a long list of items required. He then spent every lunchtime this week down at B&Q getting pieces of white-faced conti-board and MDF carefully cut to size. At least it made him have some time away from his desk at lunchtime, for once.

Every night this week he has come home with a car full of stuff.

As you can see: (or will be able to as soon as I get the pics downloaded, which is after I make my dear Builder some lunch... or he downs tools, apparently....)

Update: Pics now a couple of posts up.

Chapter and Verse

I managed to put up the wrong 'Thought for the day' yesterday. By the time I noticed, it was too late to do anything about it. I'd been saving that one for today, which is National Poetry Day. Silly Witch.

The day is largely co-ordinated by the Poetry Society, and this year's theme is "Food", a subject close to many people's hearts :)

There's a special anthology out today, containing recipes and foody poems. Called "Poetry on a Plate". It's published by Salt Publishing (love the probably-not-deliberate pun ;))(ISBN: 1844710769) and seems good Value at £7.99. It's going on my christmas list anyway. The blurb says:

"Poetry on a Plate" contains mouth-watering recipes by chefs and food writers, including Tony Singh, Frances Bissell, Mary Berry and Anton Edelmann, combined with a delicious assortment of poems. This unique feast features chefs talking about poetry and poets talking about food, garnished with poems selected by the Poetry Society which relate to the ingredients or composition of each recipe. Poets include some of the UK’s top contemporary poets as well as their predecessors ­ Keats and others.

My thanks to one of my newer readers/commentators, Peter Howard (whose excellent poetry can be found here), for providing the info and links for this post, as a result of a chance comment during an e-conversation last week. And, oooh look, I've just discovered that he has a blog too. He tried to keep that very quiet, but Detective Witch never misses a clue (or a line in one's email footers :))

(And, shhhhh, don't tell him I told you, but he's got a poem in that Poetry on a Plate book (blimey - *tick, tick, tick* that means.... see last line of text in box - I'm humbled that you choose to read my drivel Peter ;)) and is reading in Cambridge tonight with his poetry ensemble, the Joy of Six - hope it goes really well Peter.)

Thought for the day

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

- Golda Meir

Witches 2 (Essex Men + Pipex) 0

Tra-la-la-la laaaaa!

Witches spells are strong :)

How can I be getting 576.0 Kbps when I'm only paying for 512?

Pipex you are in my spells

Dear Mrs Blue Witch

Ticket Reference : *****
User Name : ######

Further to our recent communication¹ regarding the problem with your PIPEX adsl service, we have so far been unable to resolve this issue.

We believe we have identified the cause of the fault as lying within the BT network². We have passed your fault to the PIPEX repair team who will investigate the matter further and will contact you with an update within the next 48 hours³.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause⁴.

In the meantime if we can be of any further help, please do not hesitate to contact us⁵.

Kindest regards

A Complete and Utter Plonker of a 22 Year Old
(who's only working here until something better comes along)
PIPEX Customer Support Team

1. We know you waited 20 minutes on the phone at 9.10am to speak to a human being, then gave up as you had to go out; and then another 13 minutes before you got to speak to a human (??) who then spend 39 minutes of your time dithering about.

2. We accept that you didn't want to take your modem to a shop to get it tested because (a) you didn't believe that it was the brand new modem that was faulty, (b) you didn't know of a shop that would test a modem from Pipex (let alone for free), (c) you didn't see why you should have to do a 20 mile round trip in your car, taking 2 hours of your time, even if you did know of a shop to take it to, which you don't, that would do free on-the-spot tests on a modem supplied by Pipex. Furthermore, we accept that you live in a rural area and that the only other person you know who is using ADSL (who anyway lives 3 miles from you) wouldn't want to give you access to his PC to try to install software to check whether it was the modem that was faulty. And yes, we understand that you weren't prepared to disable your firewall and leave your PC permanently on for the next 48 hours so that we could do more of our delaying 'tests' on your line. We don't really understand why you should find this an outrageous thing for us to be asking you to do though.

3. We're just saying this to get you off our back because we're scared of you. We really have no intention of getting back to you, but, haha, there's nothing you can do about it.

4. & 5. And we can assure you that there will be another 20 minutes on hold, except if you call between the hours that Mummies are taking Johnnies to school, when it will only be 15 minutes before you get to speak to a human. If you can call our employees that. We pay peanuts, so we get monkeys, as you discovered. But hey, we've got your money now, and you're tied into a year contract, so what do we care how badly we treat you? And yes, we do accept that one of our monkeys staff lied to you, when you rang up specifically to check our service before you signed up, when they told you that our tech support operate 24 hours a day when, in fact, it is only 9am-8pm, but, see point 3, and point just above.

Oh, and PS, we forgot to re-iterate that IF when you send an email to customer care as our monkey member of staff told you to when you raised the issue, saying that you're not prepared to pay for a service until you are able to receive it, it will be as a gesture of goodwill that we agree to push your billing date forward. As you have already been told in no uncertain terms, this is not something that we are normally asked to do, we do not see the need to automatically do it (as most customers wouldn't dream of asking, and/or daring to ask) and we certainly cannot guarantee that we will do it (see points 3 and 4/5 above).

So far - no better at all than NThelL. Out of the frying pan into the flippin' fire.....

Body clocks

Interesting experiment going on at The Science Museum until 4th November.

Researchers from the University of Surrey are questionning and DNA swabbing 1000 volunteers. If you want to be help, details are here.

Apparently 12 genes that determine how your body clock works have been identified.

There's a quiz here that gives you your degree of larkedness or night-owledness (I'm in a made-up word mood today).

But, in yet another totally unscientific BW survery,

What sort of person are you?

Morning, afternoon, evening, or night?

Me, I'm a morning person.

Thought for the day

I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats

War isn't over

I cannot help but think that Bush is a racist.

Allport defines ethnic prejudice as based on a faulty and inflexible generalisation towards a group or toward an individual who seems to represent this group.

Hence this can be a cryptic explanation for Bush's lack of understanding of what is/was going on in Iraq, and indeed fear of all terrorism. He perceives all terrorists as the same.

My evidence?

Donald Rumsfeld said it all, didn't he?

Additionally, Milgram's research shows how conformist we are as people.

He estimated that less than 8% of people either implicitly or explicitly would be conscientous objectors about any real issues. (Ha! bet a large proportion of regular BW readers would be in tha 8%)

Looks like we're stuck with another term of Bush then...

Broadening Witch

Is it co-incidence that NThelL held onto a message from Pipex sent at 16.15 yesterday (saying that my broadband connection had been activated) until just this second?

Now... do I see if I can get it up and running, or do I carry on with the report I'm writing?

*checks webpage quoted*
*scared*
*waits for Mr BW to get home*

Personal details

I'm worried.

Mr BW has just been updating his CV. One of the advantages of being a manager with responsibility for appointing staff is that you get to see lots of other people's CVs and can steal good ideas for presentation and phraseology.

He's just sent it over to me for comment.

Somehow he's managed to turn a simple Word document into a 1.37MB file by including an inch square photo at the top (*sighs and sorts it out*). Roll on broadband (any day now - the modem arrived last week) - no more 20 minutes waiting for this sort of file to download.

Anyway, reading through, I noticed one or two, mostly typographical, mistakes. As I do.

It's all fine.
In fact it's jolly good.
And it was nice to finally find out what he does all day.

But, then I came to the 'let's make this person appear a rounded individual / real' section (the bit previously known as 'interests' that many people would tell you to miss out these days). All of it is true. Apart from the last word. 'Camping'. Camping? When did we last go camping? Probably about 8 years ago. e could tell you a story about Mr BW's negative attitude to sleeping out under the stars these days ;)

Unless that wasn't the sort of camping he meant...

Tis the season to be... Witchy

It happened last year. The minute October started, so the searches for everything connected to The Witches' Christmas started.

They're getting more sophisticated this year.

Someone dropped by a couple of hours ago looking for "wav files witch laugh".

Thought for the day

Refuse to be an actor in someone else's drama if you did not audition for that part.

- adapted from today's offering from the desk calendar

Words, words are all I have...

There's an hilarious debate occurring on one of the education lists I read, entitled:

How do you define a so1opist?

Just the sort of existential zeitgeist stuff that makes one's day.

Salad days

I love this time of year.
Harvest time.

The time when there's still some of almost every vegetable and salad stuff growing in the garden.

The time between everything having come to fruition and the first frosts cruelly destroying the most tender.

I can't remember the last time I bought anything in that line other than potatoes and onions (both of which we only grow in small quanities of specialist varieties) from a shop. Months ago.

This was yesterday's raid the garden and slap it on a plate effort.

Yellow cherry tomotoes, red beefsteak tomatoes, cos lettuce, sorrel, garlic chives, rocket, cucumber, red pepper, quail eggs, rosemary jelly, green tomato jam, all dressed with blackberry vinegar and olive oil with a touch of honey.

Now, if I were one of those posey restaurants I'd talk that lot up into some wonderful concoction of over-flowery phraseology. I didn't need to. I had the joy of eating it. Priceless.

Thought for the day

All the world's a blog...

Poll Results: The Grumpy Old BW Readers' Top Ten Most Annoying Annoyances of Modern Living

The Returning Officer and Research Analyst declares the following to be a true and accurate summary of votes cast, according to the pre-announced scoring formula:

1st Unsupervised children (41 points)
2nd Inconsiderate drivers (34 points)
3rd= Inconsiderate use of mobile phones (30 points)
3rd= George Bush (30 points)
5th Automated call centres (24 points)
6th Smokers (15 points)
7th Inconsiderate cyclists (13 points)
8th Spam and junk mail (7 points)
9th Gum chewers (1 point)
10th Inconsiderate use of supermarket trolleys (0 points)

Any observations?

Poll Results:

The Grumpy Old BW Readers' Top Ten Most Annoying Annoyances of Modern Living

The Returning Officer has declared.

Just waiting for Natasha Kaplinsky to get here so that the results can be announced... (I know she'll come, she owes me, I once mentioned her name before and it's my top Google term after 'blue' and 'witch')

The 67th Make Blue Witch Laugh Award

Ooops - I posted this 2 hours ago. Well, would have, had I remembered to change 'draft' to 'post' as well as changing the date. I also forgot to put any underwear on this morning.

So, already today we've done some autumn cutting back, summer pot emptying, and planted some winter hanging baskets. Now Mr BW has started changing the summerhouse window that has rotted through. Later (if/when it rains as the forecast says it's going to), he's going to start on building the cupboards for the new 'open space' project in what used to be the little-used spare bedroom.

Not much to laugh about around the blogworld this week, I've found.
Plenty to despair about.
I find it really hard to understand why people behave the way they do sometimes.
Less said.

Anyway, in the absence of anything amusing out and about, I'll tell you about what happened yesterday evening. At the time it was scary and frightening, but now that I've stopped being angry, every time I think about it I'm laughing. Maybe I'm an Evil Old Witch. *cackles* :)

I can't remember the last time that I had to go shopping on a Friday evening. I usually avoid shops when they will be crowded. But, events transpired to make it necessary.

Having fought my way round the big Sainsbury's in Local Big Town (not the one in Local Small Town that I usually go to), and suspended my disbelief about the complete and utter lack of nutritional value in almost everything that they still had left on the shelves at 7pm on a Friday, I returned to the car park, in the dark, just in time to see Essex Man (20+ stone, skinhead haircut, no discernible neck, gold chains, and estuary accent - sorry, forgive the stereotyping, but it's all true) open the door of his 4WD carelessly and violently onto the side of my blue broomstick, leaving a big crease/dent in my driver's door.

The conversation went like this:

Me: [calmly, keeping a lid on hysteria and desire to shout and scream] Excuse me, you've just made a big dent in the side of my car.

Him: So, wot? Wot the fuck are yah gonna to do abowt it? [assumes defensive posture with hands on hips]

Me: [still calmly, but with anger rising, and more assertively] Excuse me, you've just made a big dent in the side of my car with the door of your vehicle.

Him: Yeah, and wot yah gonna do about it laydee? I know that an' you know that, but yah nevva gonna proove it!

Me: [madly trying to avoid getting punched, and to keep calm] There's a dent in my car door that was caused by your car door [pause, glares intently].

Him: Yeah. So?

Me: So, I feel that it would be fair if you offered to pay for it to be put right.

Him: Dreeeem on laydee! [laughs and moves closer to me]. Like I sed, yah nevva gonna prove it. So just get in yah car and fuck right off 'ome.

Me: [realising there's no hope of him paying up voluntarily, no way of getting him to pay up as there are no witnesses, and still calmly] So, to be clear, you're not prepared to pay for the damage that you've caused?

Him: Too fuckin' right I ain't! So, wot yah gonna do abowt it? [steps menacingly closer still]

Me: [realising there is no point carrying on] [sudden flash of inspiration] [long pause, glaring intently at him with steely Witchy Paddington hard stare]

Him: Yeah... and?

Me: [in very measured tone and speaking v-e-r-y slowly and deliberately - an Oscar winning performance] You need to know that I - am - a - Witch. And that I've just put a curse on you. Every time that anything bad happens to you, anything bad at all, for the whole - of - the - rest - of - your - life, you will think of me, you will think of the dent you carelessly put in my car, you will think of the abusive and impolite way you have spoken to me, and you will think about how your bad luck is a result of this curse. And you will be sorry. Very, very sorry indeed.

Him: [speechless] [colour draining from face]

Me: [quickly gets in car and drives away, looking worriedly in mirror all the way home]

I tell you, it was worth every penny of the £100 or so that that dent will cost to have knocked out.

And with a bit of luck he'll be a bit more careful next time. Bastard.

Never doubt the Power of Witch.

And so... I've given the trophy to myself this week. Wot yah gonna do abowt it? :)

Friday Quiz

First, if you haven't already voted in The Grumpy Old BW Readers' Top Ten Most Annoying Annoyances of Modern Living (down 2 posts or approximately 20cm), please do so.

Then, find out your personality type here. It's from the same Jungian perspective as the Myer5-Br1ggs (which is often used in personnel selection), but simplified.

It will assign you to one of 16 categories: Big Thinker, Counsellor, Go-getter, Idealist, Innovator, Leader, Mastermind, Mentor, Nurturer, Peacemaker, Performer, Provider, Realist, Resolver, Strategist, Supervisor.

Due to my own erm, knowledge, in this area, I generally dislike this sort of test, but this one seems to be fairly robust.

I'm apparently a 'Realist' (the most common type).

Summary of Realists

Loyal and steady workers who meet deadlines
Believe in established rules and respect facts
Think of themselves as mature, stable and conscientious
May appear too logical or tough-minded and forget their impact on other people

More about Realists

Realists are loyal to the people around them and work hard to keep their promises. They are honest and straightforward with others and expect the same in return. Realists believe in standard procedures and will only support change when there is a demonstrable benefit.

Realists respect factual information, which they store up to use when making decisions. This group likes to have time to think quietly and carefully before taking action.

These extremely productive people like to be occupied in their leisure time with pursuits such as craftwork, hiking or reading.

In situations where they can't use their talents or are unappreciated, Realists may become obsessed with schedules, be critical of others or have trouble trusting other people to get the job done properly. Under extreme stress, Realists may complain loudly that events have taken a turn for the worse and predict negative outcomes.

Realists typically only share their opinions or personal experiences with trusted friends.

What are you?

Update: I've just added another site where you can get an even better analysis (it's in the comments if you're interested).

Thought for the day

What one person says or does can make a whole difference to your day.