24th February 2011 (Thursday)

That really takes the biscuit for intrusive calls. You know the automatic pop-up versions of ‘virus checker alert’ scams that get you to buy/download software that either you simply don’t need of that actively screws up your computer? Well I think I just got a version of that on the phone.

Couldn’t quite believe it was happening. We’ve had an absolute deluge of telemarketing calls recently but this really creams them all. Someone (who merely introduced themselves as ‘from the computer support department'… of what, the World? Afterwards clarified on request as something like Excel, Express, whatever) calls to say that as a registered used of XP there ‘might be infected files in the system, and if I just go and turn it on she’ll tell me where to find them.” Registered? The XP we’re using (even the one we bought in Australia) was registered at our previous address so how the hell did they get our number anyway? Answer’s obvious, of course – everyone uses Windows so they can just call anyone. If they happen to hit on someone who doesn’t have XP oops, it’s a rare error in the database.

No matter how much I asked and pushed, she was absolutely unable to tell me what was in it for her company to be calling every single damn person using Windows. When I put it to her that no company calls millions of users out of the goodness of its heart, she simply moved on to something else.

I absolutely HATE telemarketing calls, and I completely FUCKING HATE scam virus alerts, so I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out what I thought of that conversation.

… Now, where was I. Ah, Lara. Yes, Jekyll seems to have turned into Dr Hyde again as fast as he popped out. On Sunday she was yelling and screaming and jumping off the chair saying she didn’t know what 1+1 was. (This is not an exaggeration, it’s a literal description). On Monday she sat down and did 25 maths questions, plus and minus mixed, with carrying and borrowing, double figures the lot of them, in 3 minutes.  

No, I don’t know. All I can think it the hormone rush explanation. The spots are fading fast and are now just a slight unevenness in skin texture. She’s doing her work and being polite and happy. What set one off and then the other really have no idea. Just thankful that at the moment it’s at an end.

I really hate to think what a tantrum is going to be like at 16, though. I think I’ll just start digging the bomb shelter now.

Meanwhile we had two parcels, one from the Pie and one from Uncle Camel, both absolutely fantastic, thank you both! The huge contents of the Pie’s parcel are still sprawled all over the dining room table and she’s slowly going through all the goodies, hopefully she’ll get to wear some of the clothes at the weekend.

As for Uncle Camel’s watercolours… you can’t imagine what fortuitous timing that was. Yesterday she came home with a book from the library called ‘The Dot’, a wonderful little book about a girl who’s not confident about art until her art teacher frames and displays a felt-tip pen dot she’s presented as her drawing. After that she goes round drawing loads of different dots. Gets famous. Passes on the torch of inspiration to the next kid. Well, out came the brand-new set of paints, just like in the book (they even LOOKED the same) and there goes Lara, painting dots of all colours and sizes.

I could go on a whole ‘nuther rant about the vagaries and trickeries of trying to upload MP3s to sell, but I already feel I’m boring even myself. Whatever. It’s done, it’s all sent through, only I have no idea if it’s accepted, when they’re going to put it on sale, what’s happening, why I ended up having to pay $60 for the privilege when they said it would only cost me $20, or how people are ultimately going to be able to buy it, supposing it comes onto the market eventually. I’m talking Sonnets here, of course.

However, today I’ve put an intro page on the website, and now all that’s left is to do a couple of the paraphrases a day for the next few weeks. I’m not spending any more time on it. Hopefully at some point the MP3s will come on sale, and I can do a bit of marketing later. For the moment, mercifully, it’s more or less put to bed. I’m a bit jaundiced that I can’t publish the website yet as it’s monumental and I’m reasonably proud of it, but I guess it can wait.

In the meantime, here's the new cover I designed for it yesterday. It was all ochre beforehand but I reckoned it needed to stand out a bit more. Sure stands out now.