New Stuff

As we set about our unplanned renewal of many of our household appliances, this week sees us take ownership of a new hoover and a new cordless DECT phone.  The former is a mighty fine piece of engineering, I am sure, but to be honest, all I should really report is that it picks up dirt, and is much easier to move around than the old Dyson we temporarily borrowed off my parents.

The latter is a thing of beauty.  Actually, to be precise, it is fine as a DECT phone, however we have come to realise that with all the smartphones around these days, your average DECT phone looks just that - average.  Nevertheless, it does all the things a phone should do; it rings people, has an address book, you can ring the other extensions (we have 3 handsets) and you can transfer external calls to other handsets - hold the line please caller - and you can do hands-free.

This final feature is my favourite.  When I work from home, I spend around 3-6 hours per day on calls.  In know, bonkers, however that is the nature of a remote organisation such as Starfleet.  Anyhow, as a result of often hours of back-to-back calls, a chap does not have much time to do the essentials in life, such as have a pee, make a coffee, answer the door and make lunch.  So, I can often be seen with the phone on speaker, microphone muted, and the phone tucked in the collar of my shirt.  This provides me with a hands-free experience for life's essentials, whilst enabling me to nominally keep in touch with the discussion, to avoid those "what do you think Mark?" embarrassing silences.

Otherwise, I have been limbering up on the mince pie challenge.  I had two yesterday, just to loosen up the muscles, and my goal is to eat my own body-weight by the new year.  Wish me luck.

Until tomorrow . . .