DANIELPEAKE.COM

On Tuesday I played badminton for only the second time (the first being a couple of weeks ago) in over two years. I’m now currently going through the your-muscles-hurt-two-days-after-exercise routine, and whilst I understand why my left arm hurts (I’m a lefty so I hold my racquet in that hand), but I don’t understand why my right arm also hurts…. Maybe my enthusiastic pirouette backhands could be to blame?

In other news, I saw a bolt of lightning today. That’s my interesting-weather-in-Reading quotient filled for the year.

It’s been a stressful day, overall. The upshot of this is that I shall never ever recommend Lloyds TSB to anyone, even if it was the only bank that existed.

Today I wanted to make a deposit for the Meteorology Department – which I do roughly once a week for the tea/coffee/chocolate fund so we can buy more goodies. I walk to the Lloyds TSB branch on the campus of Reading Uni (“Black Horse House”).

The branch isn’t very good – it’s pot luck if it’s open. There have been a few times when I’ve gone at 10:30am and they’ve still not opened despite officially opening at 9am. One time I arrived at 11:30am and there were obviously people in and a note on the door saying “Sorry for the inconvenience but today we will be opening at 10:00 am”, with 10:00am scribbled out and 11:00am written underneath… and then scribbled out and 12:00 noon written underneath.

A bank being closed when it is open is annoying. When you’re carrying 10kg of coins… then it’s re-diddily-diculous.

I’ve been taking coins to the bank for 18 months, and last time I went (a month ago) they suddenly said “We’re not really meant to take coins in I’m afraid. We’ll take it in this once, and we’ll give you a call if you can’t bring them in any more”. Time passes, in blobs and spurts, and we get to today when I have the first opportunity in a month to take coins to the bank. I was a bit concerned that they wouldn’t take the coins, so I phoned ahead in advance and they said that as long as it fitted in the deposit box, they could take it.

So I leave for the bank, a 15 minute walk with a very heavy bag, and when I get there I find out that the deposit point is for notes only and can’t take coins. I tried to reason with them and say if they could take it this one time then I’ll look into finding other branches to deposit next time, but they say I can’t give them any coins because of “security reasons”. Well, that’s a first, a little bit of warning – like the phone call you said you’d give me! – would have been nice!

It left me in a bit of a difficult position. I had a back-breaking amount of money with me, and it looked like I was going to have to go into town to deposit it – but it really was too heavy to carry into town. So, I decided to lighten the load, by taking out all the 1p and 2p coins (the bulk of the weight and worth relatively little) and spreading them all over the floor of the branch. HA – Lloyds TSB you shall have my money whether you like it or not!! I hope it slowed your afternoon down – it is my protest at being treated so shoddily – I had to take more than £500 in coins in a backpack on a bus into town. Now THAT’S a security risk!!

Lloyds TSB – you are a nightmare. You  have been very difficult to deal every time, from opening the account all the way to this incident – I’ll be glad when the account is closed!

In other news, it’s been lovely and hot recently but when I’m in my room I’m hotter than a hot dog covered with Reggae Reggae sauce!

I was using the Rightmove app on my iPhone to look for a house this evening. It was either search sitting up at my computer, or search lying down in bed on my phone. You can see which of those two options won out…

Anyway, it did a search on properties based on my current location, and I got the following helpful message:

“We have managed to pinpoint your location to within 163 metres of your current location.”

Erm…… ok. And I’ve still not house yet, not even within 163 metres.

A couple of weekends ago, the NAtional Student Television Awards (NASTAs) 2010 were held in Glasgow. It’s a celebration of all things student and televisiony, with awards being given out in 18 categories ranging from Best Ident to Best Male Presenter.

I had high hopes for Accumulate!, the gameshow I help make for RUON (Reading University’s Student Television Society). We’d entered it for the Best Light Entertainment Category – it didn’t win however, which isn’t surprising as the Best Light Entertainment category was an incredibly tough category to do well in, there were lots of extremely strong formats there. I was disappointed by that.

However, a couple of awards later was the Best Male Presenter award, and I was representing RUON but not expecting anything to happen. After all, I’ve never had a lesson in this sort of thing and our society is only just over a year old. Somehow then, I won Highly Commended Best Male Presenter!!! It’s not the award itself but a jolly good second. I’m absolutely chuffed to bits by it – my reaction upon hearing the results was “oh b****y hell! wow, wow, wow, wow”! This is promising and hopefully I’ll be able to use this to get more contacts to help with my career after my PhD. Maybe I should send a thank you biscuit to James Laidler, the judge of the Best Male category.

In other news, I really need to get my haircut. Exciting stuff, eh?!

In other other news, I really really want to appear on the Million Pound Drop. If you’re reading this, Peake me! Peake me! Ahem.

From the Collins Scrabble Dictionary:

CLEM (verb) – to be hungry or cause to be hungry

And also probably an informal way of referring to Clement Freud.(Can you name any other famous Clements? John can’t. Paint his tears blue.)

From Collins Scrabble Dictionary:

BRUMAL – Relating to winter.

So, not relating to brooms then? Very disappointing.

According to Collins Scrabble Dictionary:

ALOW – In the lower rigging of a vessel, near the deck.

I was rather hoping it was going to be a cockney greeting.

Well, that’s a long gap in posts. Sorry. Turns out we got some more snow, ALOT more snow, after I put the picture in the previous post. One lot of 8″, the most snow I’d ever seen in Reading at that point, and then a little while later (after the 8″ melted) a foot of snow, which is still the most snow in Reading I’ve ever seen. Apparently it’s the most snow in Reading for 30 to 40 years. Wahey!

I’m currently on a house hunting mission as the contract I have on my current house runs out at the beginning of May. This is actually more exciting than it first seems, as I’m after (for the first time) a nice place to rent that isn’t studenty! Time for me to grow up… at least financially. I don’t think I’ll be growing up mentally in a while!

I’ve been a teaching assistant for a 1st year undergrad course this past term, and it’s been really good fun. Challenging too, you really have to know your stuff to be able to teach it. The attitude of the 1st years though is what made it so fun. The best students did what I used to do – work hard but also make it as funny and enjoyable as possible – by making the work more fun they became more productive. Of course, this can backfire and you end up discussing leprechauns or pancakes instead of working (true story!).

I’m doing a website upgrade soon in amongst the house moving – it’ll be changing so that it’s less about “me me me” and more about “me and my work”.

Finally – RUON have put forward Accumulate! for Best Light Entertainment show at the National Student Television Awards (NASTA). The awards ceremony is next Saturday, so I wish all the entrants (Accumulate! in particular) the very best.

The weather here has been quite interesting recently – basically it was raining loads every day (250% normal rainfall in November). Then things changed, and got alot colder. Last night was -4.4C (24F) in Reading, the coldest it’s got so far this winter, and cold for England anyway.

Then we got some precip moving across us, and this is the view out of my office window now:

Snow, in Reading!?!

It’s not the best photo in the world, but still, show’s we’ve had snow. It’s currently still snowing now. It puts me in the Christmassy mood. So, anyone for mince pies?

So, you know how it goes.  You’re in a rush to get out of the door for that important meeting you’re already slightly late for. You’ve brushed your teeth with hair gel, and your hair is minty fresh.

You then start looking for your keys. Your room isn’t tidy, but it’s not messy either. (Oit – my room wasn’t messy, ok!) So there’s only 3 places it can be:
1 – On your desk *somewhere*
2 – On your floor *somewhere*
3 – In your clothes from yesterday… *somewhere*

Number 3 is the easiest to start with – nope, nowhere to be found. Then try number 2 – oh THAT’S where my missing bowl is. Hmm, it’s growing things. Nope, no keys. Not even anything that rattles.

Then try number 1. This is the trickiest bit as I have several disorganised piles relating to things I’ve yet to do, am doing, or have done and haven’t put away yet. Anyway, my keys are nowhere to be seen.

Repeat for 20 minutes.

Then discover your keys are actually in Place Number 4 – your chair under one sheet of paper. Sheesh.

Then run all the way to work, and have a slightly out of breath meeting. It’s a recipe for success, with a side order of EPIC FAIL. Doh.

In other news, I didn’t notice my local has a pub quiz on Sundays. Me – not notice a quiz!! Oh Nurse, I must be sick!

Also, Accumulate! Season 2 has started. 3 shows out of 7 are now up at www.ruon.org/ondemand – please let me know what you think.