pumpkinstrokemarrow

But woke up to read another short story from Maupassant - Les Tombales - about a variation on the streetwalking theme. As I read in the introduction, the man really is a master at the form. Makes my only other recent foray - Father Brown stories by G. K. Chesterton - seem rather slight by comparison. Not that they are not well crafted; but they are slight.

Had our annual visit from the Gas Board this week and they have scored a plus point. They managed to service our boiler without trying to sell us a phosgene detector (did you know that 3 people have died in the last 10 years from phosgene poisoning brought on by dodgy cat food? You know the sort of thing they come up with) and without telling us that we were going to have to chuck our boiler (which they recommended in the first place) away, rebuild the kitchen and install a shiny new one. All down to some shiny new regulations they have just put out. Bill maybe £15,000. Maybe they have twigged that us punters are getting fed up with this stuff. Also that we have a plumber down the road who assures me that our sort of boiler will be maintainable for years and that when that fails there are still people who make boilers which exhaust up the chimney. Including one boiler that both breathes in down the chimney and breathes out up the chimney - the catch being that it is a trifle dear.

But they could not restrain themselves from noticing that we had removed the boiler door, the shiny new regulations saying that there must not be a door in front of the boiler in case it impedes breathing in. Without regard to the fact that in this case the breathing in vents on the boiler are at the bottom of the boiler and that the boiler door stops well above the boiler vents. Nonetheless, we have to go through the ritual of putting the boiler door in the garage every time the man from the Gas Board visits us. Luckily, modern door fittings not too challenging and not full of ancient paint, unlike those on most of the other doors in the house.

In fairness, I ought to say that they really merit two plus points. Because while not trying to get more money out of us and getting on with servicing the boiler instead, they also thought to replace our rather tricky controller with a rather less tricky one. That does not throw a wobbly when there is a power cut or when there is a move to summer time and which is generally rather easier to use than the the one it replaces. We will see how we get on.

While Halifax and HSBC have between them scored a minus point. Trot down to Halifax to renew our ISAs, having transferred appropriate amounts into a current account and clutching cheque book to same. Very pleasant young lady behind the counter. Yes sir, three bags full sir. You can pay more money into these ISA accounts. But no, you can't do it here. This particular account does not allow branch transactions. But no, you can't renew your ISAs as they do not expire until the end of the month. Second thing fair enough, if tiresome, but first thing very tiresome. She is quite happy to take a few minutes to write down the necessary sort codes and account numbers for me. Unnecessarily as it happens. But no way is she going to take a cheque. Real pain the way the banks are going down the same road as the mobile phone people and festooning all their many offers with all kinds of petty rules and regulations. Which they know 99% of us are never going to get to the bottom of. As with the mobile phone people, not designed to give us choice or information, rather to maximise their take from our piggy banks. And, incidentally causing this piggy bank owner much irritation.

So back home and plug into HSBC. Where I find that it is going to take three logons over three days and four transactions to do the business. In the course of which I have fired up three transactions and scored one. Forgotten that there are limits on this sort of thing, limits not terribly well described in the help system, as it happens. So between them, Halifax and HSBC have managed to transfer most of the transaction cost to me. All in the name of service. More irritation. But I suppose they can say that I would be even more irritated if my money went missing.

Following the Conchord ensemble rendering of Schubert's Octet last Saturday, having been listening again to my recording of same, by the Melos ensemble, from which I have had much pleasure in the past. But now, having heard the thing live, the recording has gone flat. I can't hear half of what I heard from Conchord. Inter alia, most of the cello and double bass seems to have gone missing. Perhaps, with just eight players right in front of you, the visual clues are really important. Really help you hear what is going on, rather as if you were lip reading the thing. So I thought the answer might be to get a score and try listening to the recording with that. Slightly surprised to find that Amazon can deliver me what they call a study score on Monday for around £10. A good deal less than we paid for each of our tickets for the Conchords.

PS: Mr G. has just taken the opportunity to tell me about a manufacturer of gas detectors. Perhaps he has worked out that I don't want the ones from the Gas Board!