Text Spam

Most of you probably know this one. Your mobile beeps and you've got a text about compensation for an accident you were in. Or that you were mis-sold PPI. But I haven't been in an accident since I went base over apex on the dance floor some years ago at Bromyard (very dramatic, huge crash, but no damage to me). And I could tell at a glance that PPI was a rip-off.

How do they get our numbers? A junk text from Optical Express to my work and personal mobiles got me investigating.

A Google for "Optical Express" spam got about 125,000 results. A lot of people have received spam from them by text or email. I'm very careful about giving out my contact details so I decided to ask them where they'd got my numbers from.


They answered: 

We employ the services of third party marketing companies who send out email and SMS communications on our behalf to their own database where contact information has been collated from a form you may have completed online. This would have been for another service or company whereby you have not opted out of receiving promotional offers from third parties, such as Optical Express. In this case the company that sent the communication was Revive.

So I asked Revive Management the same question. Within a few seconds of my email, I had an unbelievable auto response:

Thanks for your email, your information has been immediately removed
from all databases.

To give you a bit of background Revive sources it's marketing lists
from a range of online and offline sources - predominantly surveys,
competitions, warranty cards and online insurance quotations.

If you require anything further please call 0203 5442087.

They actually rang me next day and explained that in their database, both of my numbers were associated with somebody else's name and that both of these people had entered an on-line competition and must have entered their phone numbers incorrectly.

It could be true.

If you get an unwanted text from Optical Express, do complain to enquiries@opticalexpress.com and see if you end up with a similar explanation...

Blenheim Palace

On the way to a dance in Kirtlington, I took in a walk around the park at Blenheim Palace...

 It's big, really big....

I pushed the zoom out to 384mm to get closer

Lake and boathouse

Some residents

A quiet and shaded backwater

I've long been fascinated by sunlight on water and struggled to photograph it. I think I'm getting somewhere. I forced the camera to underexpose by 2 stops. This keeps the highlights under control but leaves the background rather dark. I'm sure it was easier on old-fashioned film cameras

Finally, one for fans of Awww! without Shock :-)

Amongst the Giant Echium Growers

The Fuchsia Garden and beyond, the bathing pool

Since today looked like the first proper summer day, I took myself off  to Hidcote "an inspirational arts and crafts garden that's gradually been returned to its 1930's heyday" according to the leaflet. As I wandered around, I kept my eyes open for any Giant Echiums. I had seen some dead ones previous years and as regular readers will know, I grow them myself with some success

Didn't see any though. Then I encountered a couple of the gardening staff and asked them if they had any giant echiums?

"Somebody must have primed you with that question!" said the guy and pointed a little further along the path to where a fine young Echium Pininana was waiting patiently in a bucket! They were just about to plant it out in a sheltered area a little to the south of the "Hydrangea Corner". Naturally, we fell to comparing experiences.  They'd grown this specimen in a greenhouse and  hoped to get it through next winter to flower.

Their Echium

Even if it didn't survive, it would still have been an interesting presence in the garden this summer. The chap had first encountered Echiums in Scotland years ago before he got into horticulture. In the past, he'd tried building cages of straw around the plants for over-wintering without much success. His female companion knew that they didn't like root disturbance so it was no good trying to replant/transplant them when larger. I told them about my successes growing Echiums near a large west facing wall and they started wondering about a flower bed next to the main house...

There was lots else to see....

The Beech Alley

The Bathing Pool - people throw coins in it!

The Stilt Garden - essentially, a rather eccentrically pruned beech hedge

The Long Walk



A Mesembryanthemum

Found this in the Alpine Terrace

A budding Allium

The Pillar Garden

A Poppy?

Found this nice ground cover in a shady spot



There were several of these in the orchard area. Don't know what they are



The Plant House

They use pigs to prepare more kitchen garden space

John Marjoram census case

This is an interesting story. John Marjoram, Mayor of Stroud, Quaker and Pacifist who I've mentioned before decided not to fill in his Census form. His reason was that an American arms dealer, Lockheed Martin had been awarded the government contract to gather the data. Mr Marjoram didn't like the idea of (indirectly) doing business with them.

Anyway, the matter came up at the Magistrates Court in February and he pleaded "not guilty". They asked him "Why?" and he explained. They were not impressed and told him that his reasons didn't amount to a legal defence. Still, he was set for his "day in court" on 31st May.

Then something odd happened. The Crown Prosecution Service told him that they were dropping the case against him due to a lack of enough evidence ‘to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.’

Now, it would seem to me that there was in fact plenty of evidence. Not only had he not sent in his form, he'd admitted it!

Now, had the CPS persisted, Mr M would have ended up explaining his point of view to a Jury and anyone else who could be bothered to wander down to Bristol Crown Court. The judge would probably have strongly advised the Jury that Mr. M didn't have a leg to stand on.

Juries don't always follow the advice of learned judges. They might have brought in a "not guilty" verdict which would have been embarrassing. Even if the case had ended with a "correct" verdict, Mr M would have got a platform.

That's probably why the CPS withdrew.

Press report of the case
Clive Ponting case has some similarities
"Jury Nullification"

Perspective

This is one of the stories that I tell. I didn't make up the original but in the best traditions of storytelling, I added quite a lot. Naturally, it contains a great deal of truth...


Some guys were driving to a business meeting in the mountains. As they went down a steep and winding road, the brakes failed. The driver nearly lost control and bounced them off several crash barriers before bringing the car to a stop. Shaken, they climbed out and started discussing what to do.


One guy was the company Quality Manager: "We must have a meeting to talk about this and together we can work out a programmer of continuous improvement that will prevent this happening again!"

The Training Manager demurred: "I see this as a Training issue!" he announced, "when we get back to headquarters I shall update the training manual to include motor maintenance and defensive driving techniques"

The Engineer rolled his eyes. "I have as Swiss Army knife and some duct tape. I will repair the bakes on this vehicle!"

The HR guy (who had studied counselling) could stand it no longer and burst in. "You're all completely on the wrong track! What we should do is to sit down and share how we feel about this terrible thing that has happened to us!"

The software engineer looked at the HR guy sneeringly, "You're right about them being wrong but you're wrong too - what we should do is push the car back up to the top of the hill, get in, drive down and see if it does it again"

The 99p Restaurant

This place opened up in Cheltenham a couple of months back and it's still open. It's on the High Street in the town centre so the rent can't be peanuts. I'm not sure if  being nearly opposite Poundland was deliberate or not. I tried a toasted bacon baguette and it was good. I'm sure you could buy the same elsewhere for twice the price. There's not a lot of seating inside and a lot of the trade is takeaway. Apparently they plan to expand to other towns so look out for them.

Bowl of Petunias

The late Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy may have lodged the word "Petunia" in my memory. One of the minor characters was a Bowl Of Petunias (actually, a reincarnation of Agrajag, and can Petunias really be an reincarnation?)

Anyway, Petunias are quite a good thing to grow in the garden, so I do. They flower a lot and for a long time despite drought and poor soil. Years ago, you could have any colour you liked so long as it was purple. Nowadays, you can get white, red, yellow, etc. (My tip: Stick to purple. I've tried red and yellow and they do work but they don't thrive the way the purple ones do.)

For shear performance, don't only choose purple, choose 'Surfinia' hybrids. They're sold in shops and garden centres everywhere. They're often described as "trailing" with the suggestion you use them for hanging baskets but they spread nicely in conventional flower beds too.

Unfortunately 'Surfinia' seeds are not available (and harvesting seeds to use next year is unlikely to work). You can get seeds for other hybrids that grow into quite reasonable plants. I've had some success with F2 hybrids from Wilkinson's

Growing from seed isn't difficult - once you know the tricks.

1. For germination, you need warmth. 70-85F is good.I have a room that is normally heated to 25C which works well. Another technique is a heated propagator. These use about 8W.
2. Scatter the seed on the surface of the compost, don't bury them.
3. Keep them somewhere light 
4. After germination, you can reduce the temperature to say 65F and plant out after your last frost date.

Playing with Picasa

I've just been playing with Picasa - it's Google application for manipulating images. In particular, what they call "HDR-ish" can make an otherwise dull picture into something better. See below for two examples - the images on the right of each pair are after the HDR-ish filter. Click to enlarge.

A street in Oxford

Tulips in my garden