Fatherhood² | Henry's Blog

Archive for January, 2010

My Year in Photos – January 21st, originally uploaded by henweb.

Apologies for the slight blurriness of this image. There was a MUCH better one, but I mistakenly deleted it while trying to Bluetooth it off my phone. Don’t even start me on the evil bloody uneraser programs, which tell you they’re free, show you the file they found, then want you to pay £50 to recover it…!

This was taken while we were trying to get Robert to bed tonight – a thankless task which is getting harder and harder, but is always a lot of fun too. Here Robert was running round the bedroom with a cuddle-robe acting as a cape! He thought it was hilarious…

I’ve been delaying writing this blog for months, partially because I’m a bit worried it’s going to be a mammoth one, but mainly because I was hoping all these issues would have been resolved by now. I’m finally biting the bullet and writing it now though, inspired by the positive response I got from 1 of these 4 companies. I’d normally write this sort of subject up on the Tamar blog, but since these are all starkly my own opinions (and in some cases I may get a little snipey) I thought it safest to write it here… So here’s the low-down, as I believe the kids on the street (don’t) say:

Company: The Google Store (run in the UK by ‘Merchandise Mania’)
What I paid for: A bunch of Google branded merchandise – a baby-gro (which will no longer fit, if it ever arrives), a cool USB laser-pointer thingy, plus a few other bits.
What I got: Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Ordered on September 3rd 2010, still no merchandise.
What happened when I complained: I’ve sent numerous e-mails, submitted an enquiry on the website and tweeted about it a few times, but if I’m remembering correctly I’ve never even had a reply. To be fair to Google here, the store is operated by different companies around the world, so I suppose this is more the merchandiser’s problem, but I would have hoped Google might have kept a closer tab on complaints and issues.

Company: Lastminute.com
What I paid for: I booked a stay at the Custom House hotel for the night of Kevin Smith’s big O2 gig, which I had tickets for. Didn’t break the bank, but I spent a bit more than I could have as I thought I might as well stay somewhere nice for my “evening out”…
What I got: Upon arriving for a pre-gig check-in, I was told that due to some error they didn’t explain, I had been moved to an “equivalent hotel” – the Ibis “over the road”. After walking the 20-minute walk to the Ibis, I checked in to the crappy Ibis. I should point out at this point that the reason I chose Custom House was for 4 specific reasons: It’s closeness to the DLR station – walking around the Docklands late at night is not a fun prospect; It’s promised facilities, including “On-demand HD movies”; High-speed internet access; Room service – perfect for the post-gig dinner. The Ibis had NONE of these features – the TV barely even picked up ITV, and I had to eat my dinner in reception!
What happened when I complained: My initial query was ignored for a few days, and only when I tweeted about it did I get a proper response. The customer service lady kept phoning me at the office, despite my plea to deal with it over e-mail – a classic technique to get me to accept a cobbled apology and move on. The gist of the initial “resolution” was that the Ibis disagreed, so tough shit (I’m paraphrasing). I didn’t give up at that, so after they’d made more enquiries and ignored my e-mails for weeks on end, they eventually gave me a £20 partial refund, basically to shut me up…. I was massively disappointed by this, especially from a company who seem to pride themselves on their great use of social media and their super customer support. And don’t even start me on the next time I used them – I’ll save that for another day, but needless to say I lost the £20 I got refunded!

Company: RockYou, the Facebook app developers
What I paid for: Wanting to see what this game was like, I started playing “Zoo World” for a few days, before seeing what I’d get for a tenner. Being a long-time Packrat player, I’ve always been very impressed with what you get from Alamofire when you pay for credits in their game, so I thought I’d give this app a go. I used PayPal to buy a $20 pack of ‘wildlife points’ – points you can use within the game.
What I got: What I paid for.. at first. It has since disappeared!
What happened when I complained: Despite being the biggest app developer on Facebook, raking in millions of dollars a year, Rockyou have utterly shit customer support. I’ve complained about the disappearance of my “credits” on their offsite forum, their Facebook fan page AND the main RockYou website, but haven’t received a single reply. The bastards… :D

The silver-lining after all this cloud….

Company: Coca Cola – cokezone
What I paid for: I’ve been religiously collecting CokeZone points for almost a year, with the aim of getting one of the magazine subscriptions you can swap them for – namely, Empire. Having collected 250 points, I claimed my subscription in late November 2009…
What I got: As of last week, my “rewards” page was still listing the subscription as being “processed” – almost 2 months later….
What happened when I complained: I made enquiries through the CokeZone website, to little avail, when I decided to try Tweeting both @EmpireMagazine and @CocaCola about the problem. Both replied within 20 minutes, with Coke passing me the e-mail of a person who very quickly solved the issue. Not only did they get the subscription (hopefully) sorted, they also refunded me the 250 points as an apology. What a nice gesture!

There you go, I told you it would be a bit of a mammoth post….! :D

My Year in Photos – January 20th, originally uploaded by henweb.

Well, that was a total disappointment, wasn’t it? 20cm of snow, they said – haven’t they learned not to bother predicting these sort of things by now? The only snow I got today was a light dusting of sleet while I was driving down the M4. The big pile in the picture above is what is left over from the last batch, sat outside my brother’s house. It’s the cleanest pile of snow left, with the rest of the piles I’ve seen being a very dirty grey, or in the case of the Tesco carpark, totally black! I resisted the temptation to jump in it, mainly due to my unsuitable shoes….

My Year in Photos – January 19th, originally uploaded by henweb.

My afternoon today involved a visit to the IAB HQ in Holborn, for the monthly Social Media Council meeting. As I arrived 10 minutes early, I got to take a trip to one of my favourite London sites, which is just down the road – the “United Grand Freemason’s Lodge of England” – or as a lot of people will know it, the MI5 Headquarters from TV’s Spooks! It’s a very impressive building even before you consider both it’s intriguing contents and it’s famous TV alter-ego. Last time I visited it, I bumped in to (literally) Director Paul Greengrass, who was directing Matt Damon in what I now know was the film “Green Zone”….

As I’ve got a meeting in the centre of London today, I’m making a rare return to my train-based commuting days of old. ‘Great’ I thought to myself, ‘I can knock out a blog on the train!’ – especially since I’ve now completely lost my iPod, making the journey in to London a very dull one.

But when I opened up my blog to start writing, I realised I couldn’t think of a single (interesting) thing to write about. Not one! I’m slightly worried that this means my life must be very uneventful, but I’m consoling myself with the knowledge that Tuesday morning + January + dull weather + lack of sleep + very busy at work = lack of inspiration. Hopefully I’ve just not quite hit my stride yet, annually speaking – otherwise this blog might have been a bit of a hiding to nothing – whatever that saying actually means.

In other, equally-unexciting news, you may notice that I’ve spruced up this blog a bit, getting rid of the ugly old template I was using until now. Now that I’m getting the hang of WordPress, it’s flexibility is impressing me more and more – you’ll notice I’ve added a mini version of my social-map-thingy in a tab at the top, and I might see if I can add a few other bits and bobs in the next few weeks too – if for no other reason than to keep me from getting writer’s block!

I hope your day is proving to be more inspirational than mine has so far…

My Year in Photos – January 18th, originally uploaded by henweb.

On the day dubbed “Blue Monday”, I decided to do my bit for keeping things different (they say change is good, don’t they?) by wearing my news shoes today, pictured. Very comfortable they were too.

Yes, it really was that dull a-day. Sorry.

My Year in Photos – January 17th, originally uploaded by henweb.

Well, as my wife just pointed out to me, I’m afraid I’ve failed a bit on my original promise – namely that my ‘Year in Photos’ project wouldn’t just be pictures of my son. My excuse here is that my weekends are understandably filled with spending time with my family. So if you don’t like it, I’m sorry, ha ha. This shot is of Robert doing painting with mummy this morning, which he enjoyed a lot. We didn’t really do much else today, so this was a photographic peak of sorts : )

My Year in Photos – January 16th, originally uploaded by henweb.

As it was a fairly dull and wet day today, Robert and I took a trip to our local “soft play” centre (leaving Sara to get on with some work). The one we go to is called “Krazy Play Days” (their spelling, not mine!) and it’s generally pretty quiet, and in reasonable condition. Today was pretty different though – not only was the inside like some sort of scene from a child’s version of Independence Day (screaming children, rioting mobs etc etc) but the seeming popularity of Saturday at KPD meant the car park was chocka too. This moron (pictured) really got my goat, parking over two spaces in the most spectacular fashion. The worst part was, there was a man sat inside it the entire time – evidently he’d left his kids inside and decided to listen to the football in the car. Which obviously made him even more of a twunt, since he must have noticed all the annoyed looks his parking was getting.

If I ever park like this, you have my permission to shoot me!

My Year in Photos – January 15th, originally uploaded by henweb.

After an incredibly busy day (including a promising sales meeting with a client whose logo I took a picture of, but decided it wasn’t a wise thing to upload…!) I sat down in front of the TV and realised I was sitting on this book. Sent to us by my cousin Lucy, it’s a very funny pretend baby book giving kids instructions of how to make various cocktails and drinks. It’s very funny. It’s also about the only interesting photo I took today!

My Year in Photos – January 14th, originally uploaded by henweb.

Today was a busy day at Tamar HQ – our annual planning day, which was this year held in the delightful surroundings of Kensington and Chelsea. However, a day of planning, brainstorming and fun presentations didn’t produce very many exciting photos, so I’ve opted for a photo of the only other thing my aformentioned, detoxing colleague Milly can drink – namely some very uninspiring-looking Mint Tea. She had three cups of this stuff while I (very meanly) ate a Chocolate muffin, which almost pushed her to breaking point…! :D