Do you speak broken website?

Every so often I get the urge to learn a foreign language. Normally when I spend some time in the company of someone who, despite having learned English as a second language, speaks better English than a lot of English people I know.

The last time this happened I came across a piece of software called Rosetta Stone - it claims to teach languages in an "intuitive" way, and has an endorsement from Eddie Izzard, which is quite impressive to me. However it costs a small fortune (~£400 for a full course) which put me off at the time.

Recently though it was bonus time at work (woohoo!) and I was reminded about Rosetta Stone. So I did a bit more research.. and found one or two reviews that talked about a concern of mine - that Rosetta Stone's "intuitive" method completely avoided teaching grammar, leaving you with a good stock set of phrases for various situations, but little ability to develop your knowledge beyond that point.

Another product seemed to deal with that - Tell Me More claims to be used by substantially more European governments, universities and businesses, and will happily tell you all about grammar if you ask. Iiiinteresting..

So tonight I decided it was time to just go for it - out came the debit card, onto Tell Me More's website goes the browser. After being redirected to the correct site for buying in the UK, I started entering my details. I tend to have things delivered to work (cos most of the time I'm there, not at home - clever eh?) so I had to enter a separate delivery address. The website invited me to check my details - it listed the correct addresses, but had me as "Miss" on the delivery. Oops! Must've filled that in wrong - "amend".. I set it to "Mr". Invited to check my details again - I'm still "Miss". Hmm. I tried to fix this a couple more times but the site was adamant. Whatever, it's only an address label. Next stage! I entered my payment details - and was sent back to step 1. Getting quite peeved now. Payment details again.. back to step 1. Right. RIGHT.

Off to the "contact us" page. I entered a polite message suggesting that I expect somewhat better service when they're asking me to part with £400, and hit the send button. Javascript errors galore! *sigh*

I went back to the front page. "Contact us". "Consumer". I'm presented with a slightly different contact form. This one has a field marked "Date:" followed by SIX boxes, marked "Day", "Month", "Year", "Day", "Month", "Year". You want two dates? Which two dates? I only have one birthdate, so it can't be that. If it's the date I got really fucked off with your website, that's today. The date I went to your competitor and gave them £400 - that'll be tomorrow.




(In case you were wondering - German)

HF2 earphones

Executive summary: Apple 0, Etymotic 1

A few weeks ago I tweeted my annoyance at Apple refusing to replace my knackered Etymotic HF2 earphones. A few people have asked "what happened next", so I thought I'd post the (slightly odd) tale here..

My headphones started having problems a few months ago - I sometimes had to wiggle the cable around at the jack to get sound in both channels. In hindsight it was obvious the wire was coming away internally, and I should've taken them back to Apple then, but I didn't *shrug*. As you can probably guess, some months later one channel died completely, so I took them back to Apple.

The guy in the Apple store was remarkably difficult. At first he told me I couldn't bring the earphones back as I'd owned them longer than two weeks. I pointed out that since the earphones were faulty that rule wasn't relevant (you can take something back to a shop for no reason at all within two weeks of buying it). He went to talk to the manager.. when he came back he asked if I had the debit card I'd used to buy the earphones. I said no, the card had been replaced since. His face lit up - "I'm sorry, we need the original card to trace the electronic receipt!". His smile faded when I showed him the emailed version of the receipt in my gmail. He went to talk to the manager again.. and this time came back beaming - "Apparently we don't stock them any more, so we couldn't replace them anyway. Sorry about that!" I didn't think I could demand a refund as I'd owned them for about 8 months, but I wasn't sure.. so I left it at that.

I did a little more research when I got home (as I couldn't get data on O2. Again. Oh, I can't wait for this contract to be up.. anyway) and found things a little hazy. The only concrete rule I could find was that if something you buy develops a fault in the first six months, the law considers that the product has always been faulty, so the retailer must replace it for you. After six months, the onus is on the consumer to prove they didn't cause the fault - which of course they can rarely do. I certainly couldn't..

Etymotic have a 2-year warranty on HF2s, so I guessed I'd have to go to them. The thought of possibly having to pay postage to and from the US, and the potential lengths of time involved concerned me, but I didn't have a lot of choice. I emailed Etymotic's tech support, and tweeted my woes.

A day or so later @Charles_Kennard rather enigmatically offered to help with my HF2s. Google suggested links to Etymotic, so I mailed him. He was very helpful, and interested to hear what happened at Apple. I explained all, and sent my broken earphones to the address he gave me (in the UK, handily). My shiny new HF2s arrived on Monday. Thanks Charles!

Etymotic's tech support got back to me yesterday.. suggestion was that they would pay the postage back to the UK, so it wouldn't be quite as expensive as I thought. But I told them I didn't need their help after all..

So I've learnt to be much more of an arse with Apple - the next thing I buy from the Apple store is being returned if anything about it is less than perfect. Etymotic, on the other hand, have come out of this ok in my opinion. HF2s have really good sound quality, and they're the most isolating earphones I've ever owned. The cable problem is widespread, and that's disappointing in a product so expensive, but the warranty does much to ameliorate it.

The punchline of this whole thing is that I spent so long without HF2s my ears have regained their virginity :)

the 13 1/2 lives of captain bluebear

Is a book by Walter Moers which I'm currently reading (swapping occasionally for Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth).

There is a gushing quote from the Telegraph review on the back which starts "Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all". I'm 100 pages in.. and I still think it's bobbins.

I looked it up on the web tonight in case it was meant for under 11s and Waterstones had just mis-shelved it - apparently not. Not only is it for "all ages" (and it appears to have quite a devoted following) but it is often compared to The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. I can't help but find that slightly irritating.. Hitchhiker's is a book full of witty insights on human behaviour. Despite the fact it started as a vehicle for various of Douglas Adams' sketches it had several plotlines and many well-developed characters. Arthur Dent particularly was so well characterised you couldn't help but feel an affinity for him. Against this we are to compare a blue bear who is born into a wacky situation before moving into another wacky situation, pausing briefly to describe the new wacky situation before tumbling headlong into, yes, another wacky situation. Not only is that not particularly entertaining, it's easy. Let's see if I can show you what I mean:

I don't remember how I first met the trolls of Hum-da-woo, but my earliest memories were of their warty faces peering in at me in my basket of custard. For reasons unknown to me at the time they took me in as one of their own, combing my feathers and changing my custard regularly. In return they expected me to help hunt for Toffee Wombats on the plains - a task for which I was ideally suited, being a parrot with a sweet tooth and eyes that could see a thousand yards.

Gradually my need for custard became too great for the trolls to satisfy, and after many years of friendship I knew we had to part. The fateful day came when I perched atop the handle of my little custard basket and, with tears in my parrot-eyes, squawked a fond farewell to my carers of many years. Their eyes similarly moist, they turned from me and walked back toward the village - the Toffee Wombats wouldn't hunt themselves after all. Taking a deep breath I picked up my basket in my beak and flew off into the sunset.

Bedazzled by the brightness of the sunset I quickly got lost. I say I got lost, I didn't really know where I was going in the first place, but nonetheless I wasn't going in the direction I had intended and this caused me some anguish. After some hours of not knowing where I was I decided to land. I came to a standstill on a large grey rock. I put my basket down, and preened for a moment. To my deep astonishment, the rock spoke! "Have you no respect?" it boomed, "How dare you stand upon an Elder of the Granite Magisterium?! I, who have beheld the Darkening of The Wonkysocks - I! who single-stonedly thwarted The Army of Miserable Pasties!"

(etc.)

It's train-of-thought nonsense. It's hardly the beginnings of a novel.

I don't know, maybe I'll change my mind in another 100 pages.

sunny, lovely, cuddly manchester

© Tom Jolliffe

It's days like this I'm happy to just wander aimlessly around Manchester like a tourist. From my beautifully overgrown, tree-filled adopted home of Whalley Range to the various beautiful and striking buildings and views in the centre, Manchester stuns on a sunny day.

I went into town for a dull 5-minute errand this morning, and ended up staying most of the day - hopping between coffeeshops across town, sitting outside each one for an hour or so reading another chunk of novel and watching sunny people meandering by.

© temjin

I wandered into St. Ann's Square to find one of those peculiar markets that always sells the same things, whatever theme it claims and wherever it's meant to be from. Basically fudge and wool. And stollen if it's a German Christmas Market. A few elderly people were listening to a female guitarist sing some sugary ballads, clapping politely between songs and smiling serenely, probably thinking how nice it was to see a young person who wasn't stabbing someone to death in a drug-fuelled craze. Families were happily being fleeced at the fudge stalls (my favourite is covered-in-fluff-because-it's-been-out-in-the-open-all-day flavour), and young women were dragging their boyfriends around the clothes stalls cooing excitedly about bargains while said boyfriends nodded absently, calming their thinly disguised irritation with memories of just how much she put out last time it was this sunny. The advance guard of this year's gay freshers was also in town, looking oddly sweet in their identikit Top Man clothes, each one's eyes like saucers at the opportunities for moral turpitude; many salivating at the thought of binge drinking and casual sex, some salivating at the fudge. They'll figure it out.

© mijoli

On the fringes of this jolly scene there was a man shouting at the happy people as they milled past, causing brief expressions of confusion to pass some of their faces - what was this incongruous dog turd of hate in our collective mixed salad of summery fun? Ah - after a few sideways glances (never look a madman in the eye) the confused passer-by spots that he is carrying a book. That explains it - he's one of them. Yes, the one man in the square who isn't remotely happy is the one who's found the love of Jesus. I don't understand why St. Ann's Church doesn't send out some kind of hit squad to deal with him. There is a man stood next to your church, clearly demonstrating that God's love is corrosive and malignant. That can't be good for business. Surely this is the Christian equivalent of a man stood outside a Scientology shop handing out leaflets on dianetics and vomiting into a bin? "I used to be stressed but scientology fixed me - BWWUUAARRGGGHHHH - no, come back.."

I was sorely tempted to stand next to our man in St. Ann's, loudly shouting extracts from my own currently-beloved book. Unfortunately it's "Making History" which is largely about Hitler - rather difficult to precis without people thinking you're a Nazi. Perhaps next time I'll try with a Robert Rankin..







(By the way, Manchester also looks lovely by night - yowzer!)