I had a call earlier from a gentleman with an Indian accent who claimed to be calling from BT Openreach and said there was a problem with my internet. I had not experienced any difficulties lately so I asked him what the nature of the problem was. He said he had been receiving error measures concerning my connection which resulted from it having been changed from a private to a public network. Although I am not really qualified to comment on the credibility of this claim I was not convinced and told him that this sounded like a load of bollocks and he hung up on me.

I have since been wondering whether my profanity was justified. I’m pretty sure it was a scam call but I suspect the caller may only have been a minion serving some higher villainy, possibly on a zero hours contract and/or minimal commission while attempting to support an extended family, although I’m not really familiar with the hierachy within the scamming community.

(I did have a call some weeks ago from another potential scammer offering to arrange my covid vaccination in exchange for a fee. I was extremely rude to this one and » Continue Reading.

I went to the local Sainsburys earlier to get some basics earlier; good news is the shelves are much fuller now and I was able to get everything on my list except for the Chorizo bites my other half requested.

I tend to rely on the statistical probabilities, a bit of imprecise social diatancing and handwashing to keep safe and don’t wear gloves or a mask. But I think about half of my fellow shoppers were wearing one of the other. The security guy monitoring the queue by the door was masked but the till assistants did not and seemed to rely on floor markings and screens.

I think the government guidance still says you don’t need a mask but I can’t say I’m fully convinced in general and across the board messages are mixed. I wonder if the advice will change at any stage.

So I wonder if anyone else is wearing specialist gear at the moment? (I suspect some of you regularly wear gimp suits normally but I’m not interested in this for the purposes of this blog). If so, does it give you any comfort?

Whatever, stay safe.

One of the great voices of my youth. In truth, I enjoyed a lot of his reviews a lot more than the films he was talking about. And why not?

The BBC’s film programme never recovered from his departure.

The current furore over the prospect of Jerome Corbyn as Labour leader seems to be based on the premiss that a left-wing LP could not win an election. Is this really the case? I would have thought having someone who gives the impression of being a conviction rather than career politician in charge offers something that the other candidates do not and that it’s worth a try having someone who doesn’t want to pursue tory-light policies a la Blair.

Or should I get real?