Eventful

How long has it been since I last posted here?  More than a year, incredibly.

In that time, a lot has happened:

1. I have a new job.  I get to call myself a 'director' and everything.  
2. I went to Amsterdam.  Twice.  And no, I didn't do that thing that everyone does in Amsterdam.
3. I went on this waterslide:

Not so Christian Aid

So, a guy from Christian Aid called me a "fucking idiot" in Leicester Square a couple of days ago.

Although, technically speaking he wasn't from Christian Aid - but was actually just some teenager in a Christian-Aid-emblazoned anorak who works for a company that somehow sucks profitable blood from the stone of British charitable giving.

It seems that these companies hire teenagers, bedeck them in anoraks, and send them into the streets of our towns and cities with nothing more than a ream of standing order forms and a head full of vague ideals about philanthropy, personal boundaries, and how much sex they're going to get by working for a charity.

These teenagers are expected to stand on our streets and generate long-term financial commitment from perfect strangers who are busy, tight-fisted, full of hatred, on lunch, already charitable thank you very much, in the grip of a terrible global financial crisis, anti-social, sexually repressed, angry, in a rush, and British.

In short, people who haven't got a single iota of desire to even look someone in the eye, let alone hand over their credit card details to help out a bunch of orphans, or dolphins, or whatever the fuck it is they're collecting for today.

As a result those poor teenagers have to subject themselves daily to such appalling interactions that I almost feel sorry for them. It goes a little something like this:

Teenager (to an approaching businessman): "Hey mate, care to stop and have a chat for a second?"

Businessman: "Get fucked"

These very same teenagers are quickly discouraged by such conversations. Who wouldn't be, after all? And so they begin to employ strange techniques to encourage a friendlier response - or to numb the burning pain of so much public rejection.

Techniques like dancing in front of you as you're walking down the street. Or lunging in front of you just as you begin to hope you've passed them unnoticed. Or saying really odd, almost-sinister-but-in-a-way-you-can't-quite-pin-down opening gambits. One of them once said to me:

"You don't want to stop and talk to me, do you?"

With a fucking massive stupid grin on his face.

At the very least I can say that, on that day, he was right about one thing for one fleeting moment. It must have felt good. I hope that good feeling motivated him to quit his horrible job and do something better. Like be a fundraiser directly for the charity, rather than for a blood-sucking third-party agent which generates profit directly from humanitarian crises and suffering, animal cruelty, tree destruction, false-imprisonment and torture. Oh, and tiger death.

I hope that good feeling motivated him to quit his horrible job, and do something better. But sadly, I doubt that it did.

And apparently I'm the "fucking idiot".

An Open Letter To Foxton's

Dear Foxton’s

I want to publicly state, for the record, that I think that you are absolute cunts.

Estate agents are, like many other businesses, third parties who muscle in on a pre-existing commercial relationship. It's not unique - recruitment companies do it, advertising companies do it, technology companies. Where there's money being made, why not carve out a chunk for yourself?

However, for such blatant leeching to be widely accepted by the pre-existing customer and client it is implied that the third party will add value to the relationship in some way: provide a unique and useful service, speed things along, add expertise where it's needed.

See, by doing that you justify your place in the middle of the pre-existing relationship. If you can justify your place in the middle of the relationship, then no one will hate you.

Did you notice, Foxton's, that nearly everyone you deal with ends up hating you? I knew this before I got involved with you, and like the fool I am I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. I regret this.

Because, in the case of your business, Foxton's, the only added value that I can perceive is that, for one miserable afternoon whilst flat hunting, I got to ride in a garishly decorated Mini whilst some moron, fresh out of failing his degree and dropping out of the normal rules of meritocratic society, regaled me with pointless small talk.

Yes, that was as good as it got between you and I, Foxton's. And let's be honest. It wasn't good. I thought that guy was a bit of a twat.

Your staff are unhelpful. They are slow to respond. They have bad attitudes. They dress badly. They are obviously stupid. They sound disinterested when you talk to them. They say they'll get back to you and don't.

Your business overcharges for its “services” and then underdelivers. Your business does not treat its customers as human beings.

Your business will do nothing, literally nothing, above and beyond the bare minimum required to ensure the collection of its fee. That, right there, is a shitty business.

Your business, a third party leech remember, is so blatantly concerned with profit and profit alone that it has neglected to remember the all-important trade off required when leeches get involved in pre-existing commercial relationships in the first place.

That is the aforementioned: add value.

Add some fucking value.

Add some fucking value.

I challenge you, as a business, to live up to the desperate needs of the rental property market. Provide some much needed thought and care in your service. Provide a tonic to the bullshit landlord dominance of the rental situation. Provide an alternative to the epidemic overcharging for your services. Provide some training to your staff, who desperately need it.

Do this, and I will love you.

Please, stop being such a bunch of cunts.

Yours sincerely

Phil Haslehurst

Corporate Affairs

Sometimes a question of mathematics just gets into your head until you can't wait another second before you work it out.

Like this...

Hypothesis

It is uncanny, weird, and improbable, that I frequently open the communal toilet door at the exact same time that someone on the other side of the communal toilet door is opening it. This happens to me at least once a week, and usually more frequently.

Proposal

To use the rules of probability to test the accuracy of my hypothesis

Workings

How many men on my floor use the communal toilets?

15 in my office
15 over the hall
20 on the other side of the floor
= 50 men

How many times a day does the average man urinate?

If we go with once every 3.5 hours then, in a working day an average man urinates:

8.5hrs / 3.5 = 2.4 times a day

How many times does an average man defecate in a working day?

This is a bit harder to estimate but let’s go with 1 defecation at work per day per man.

How many instances of toilet take place in the communal toilets in a working day?

Urination: 50 men x 2.4 times per working day = 120

Defecation: 50 men x 1 time per working day = 50

Total visits = 170

How many seconds are there in a working day?

8.5 hrs x 60 minutes = 510 minutes
510 minutes x 60 seconds = 30,600 seconds

So, in a given second, the probability of somebody being in the communal toilets is:

170 / 30,600

Or

85 / 15,300

Or

17 / 3,060

Or

1 / 180

Which is 1 visit to the communal toilet every 3 minutes

If go to the toilet 3.4 times every working day then the probability of me being in the toilet in a given second is:

3.4 / 30,600

Or

1 / 9000

Which is 1 visit to the communal toilet every 150 minutes.

The probability of me opening the communal toilet door in the same second that someone else opens the toilet door is:

(1 / 180) x (1/9000) = 1 / 1,620,000

/2 because it can happen either entering or leaving the communal toilet = 1 / 810,000

Or

Once every 225 hours

Or

Once every 5.29 working weeks

Conclusion

It is weird that it happens to me every week

Excellent Photojournalism

I love the way Mario's angry face is used to illustrate the seriousness of Nintendo's reaction.

If I was the hacker, I'd be worried. Mario doesn't take kindly to people meddling in his business.