Can haz house now?
15 July 2009
Filed under Text
Soph and I have been attempting to buy a house for many hundreds of months now; every time we think it’s all done and dusted, a new requirement surfaces. For posterity, here’s the latest email thread between the solicitor and me (anonymised, obviously):
Solicitor: It appears the mortgagee requires the insurance policy to be for a minimum of a three month period from settlement and yours is renewable on 29 August. Can you please arrange for the policy to be extended and another Certificate of Currency to be provided.
Me: They can’t do it. They would require me to cancel my existing policy, institute a whole NEW policy, and go through the hours upon hours of crap that goes with that. I will get a renewal for the current policy in the next couple of weeks, and once that happens they’ll give me the new certificate of currency - but they claim they absolutely can’t extend the existing policy.
Solicitor: Sorry Virginia. I just spoke to the mgee’s sols asking if 3 month requirement can be waived, and they said no. “It is an [redacted] requirement”. You will have to cancel existing policy and do fresh one, and then ask for a Certificate of Currency.
[Some time passes, during which I may or may not have a tantrum on the phone to the insurance company representative, during which I may or may not use the words “retarded” and “fucking”]
Me: There are few things that make me want to go on a machine gun rampage more than talking to insurance companies. Nevertheless, I attach the hard-won certificate of currency. Hooray! I can haz house now?
Solicitor: That was easier than expected. Well done. Will email it directly to the mortgagee’s sols. Settlement soon!
Me: Easier than expected from your end. Poor old [redacted] in the [redacted] office might have had a nervous few moments wondering if I was REALLY going to come after his family.
Anyway, surely that’s the end of it. The solicitor must think I’m completely barmy (she doesn’t strike me as the type to be familiar with LOLspeak), but I can live with that. In my new house.
Sharing is caring
3 February 2009
Filed under Books, Text
I’ve just paid for and downloaded a PDF book by Mark Boulton called Five Simple Steps: Designing for the Web. It’s a really nicely-designed publication, and although I’ve only glanced through it so far, it seems to be chock-full of great advice and examples. I’m also really impressed the way Mark’s gone about promoting it via his networks over the last six months or so.
The only sticking point for me is the application of a software-license-style fee structure: 12 pounds1 for ‘one user’, 25 pounds for five, and 50 pounds for a ten-user license. I haven’t really got that much to say about this, other than that books are surely meant to be shared, and in their sharing gain all kinds of attributes not as easily quantifiable as cash – influence over a broader audience, for example.
Compare Mark’s payment structure with that of Massimo Vignelli, who recently released a book-length PDF of his musings free of charge - I’m not for one second suggesting that Mark shouldn’t profit from his book, but rather that it may be interesting to try to gauge the comparative merits of reach and profit, to determine whether over time, reach leads to greater influence, and therefore – presumably – more demand for your services, and thus more money). Of course, Vignelli’s got both reach and (one assumes) cash in bucketloads, so perhaps he’s not the best example.
1No, I can’t be bothered finding the pound sign
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