The very best of luck to William and Kate today. What a joy to see two people sharing such a happy day, and making so many other people happy in the process!

And what a great excuse to sit around with family and sandwiches and revel in the pageantry 🙂

Whooohooo! Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim!!!

Major GOOD for Tim, the amazing American cook 🙂

I love Masterchef, but I’ve never seen a series where just about everybody’s been so fantastically talented.

Tim was a star from the start, though, and I’m so glad that John Torrode kept him in. All the finalists were fantastic cooks, but Tim’s cookery was different, inspiring and exceptional (IMO, anyway), and right from the start it seemed clear to me that he deserved to win.

Congratulations, Tim, and the very best of luck to all of them. My heart broke a little bit when the veggie, with a love of Asian street cooking, went out in the last round. I’ve no doubt, though, that all of the last 5 can make a big success in the cookery business should they really wish to do so 🙂

Masterchef…

It’s already finished, I think, but I’ve not watched it yet… So I can’t search for a picture because I’m afraid that it would show me who has won.

Tim–the American–has seemed to me from the earliest rounds to be a truly exceptional cook, amongst a group of people who are themselves all all outstanding in the context of those who normally compete in Masterchef.

Who’d have thought that I’ve ever have found myself supporting an American to win Masterchef!? He who cooks best deservest to win, though: and therefore my vote is all for Tim tonight. I just hope nothing horrible happens with anything unusual he decides to present! Thank goodness Thingy Torrode has managed to overcome Whassisname Grocer Greg’s opposition to anything that doesn’t conform to the tastes/combinations/cliches that have come before!

Fingers crossed for Tim ♥ ♥ ♥

My website — peewiglet.com is now at weepiglet.com

As I’ve mentioned on here before, I accidentally allowed my domain name (peewiglet.com) to expire last December. It was promptly snapped up by a predatory US internet company which specialises in registering the domains of those disorganised enough to forget to renew them, in order to attempt to sell them back at an easy profit.

I’ve looked into buying it back, but I’ve concluded that it’s too complicated, uncertain and expensive a process. So! Good luck to overseedomainmanagement.com with my old address, and I’ve uploaded my website to weepiglet.com instead. Hopefully I’ll manage not to let the new domain expire this time!

I hope it’s all working–it seems to be, from my computer–but if anybody who takes a look finds any problems then please let me know and I’ll try to fix them.

If anybody had any links to the site at its old address, I’d be grateful if you’d please update them. The new address is probably easier to remember 🙂

House surveys — how long?

Can anybody who has recent experience of house surveys give me any idea of how long the reports normally take to come back?

My buyer’s buyer surveyed my buyer’s house 2 weeks ago. Despite Easter, I’d have expected the report to have come back by now, but my Estate Agent says 2 weeks is normal and is reluctant to make telephone enquiries until later in the week. Since Friday is another Bank Holiday, though, and my buyer is currently only 1/3 of the way through a 3 week holiday abroad (and is going off abroad on business for another week the day after he returns from holiday), I’m keen to try to find out whether there’s been a problem with his survey or not.

Does anybody know whether I’m being unrealistic with timescales? Thanks for any guidance.

The ‘new’ Paypal payments page

Pictured above is the page I got yesterday when I tried to use Paypal to buy some Quo tiles. Click it for a larger version.

Pictured below is the one I got when I tried it again today. See how there was no little padlock security symbol at the bottom left y/day, but there was today? Presumably that’s something to do with the fact that y/day I went to the tiles from within Quo and therefore the page loaded in the Quo browser, whereas today I used Firefox.

I’m sure there’s no problem with Mapyx, and I expected the Paypal representative to confirm that Paypal had simply introduced a new page. He was insistent that they hadn’t though. Anyway, I’ve emailed Paypal about it, in accordance with instructions from the rep. Maybe they’ll email back and explain.

More Paypal weirdness

I had what felt to me like a disturbing Paypal-related experience a couple of weeks ago, which I described here.

This morning I’ve had another. I was trying to buy some 1:25k Quo map tiles from Mapyx, and when I got to the payment part I clicked on Paypal as the method. The screen that came up wasn’t the usual Paypal payments screen, and it said at the top ‘Welcome to the new Paypal Checkout – A faster, easier way for you to complete your purchase’. I had the impression initially that I might still have been on the Mapyx page, rather than the Paypal page, and there wasn’t the usual little security padlock symbol at the bottom of the page, and so I rang Paypal to check that all was well.

The bloke I spoke to told me that they haven’t made any changes “yet”, and advised me to go over to Ebay in order to see what the Paypal screen should look like. When I pointed out that I’d have to buy something to see the screen he suggested that I should simply not complete the Ebay purchase. Um…??? He advised me to go to the Paypal site and report the incident as a potential fraud, so that they can check out the page.

I’m quite sure Mapyx are entirely legitimate, so I rang to ask whether they could explain what was going on. The bloke I spoke to there was very helpful, and said he thought it might have something to do with new arrangements that Paypal are introducing for businesses. I paid him over the phone instead, so now I have my tiles.

I do wonder, though, whether Paypal is in the process of attempting to introduce a global system whereby users are expected to share their Paypal login details with vendor sites rather than being directed to the Paypal site to enter them there. If they do then I for one won’t be using Paypal any more. I do hope that’s not the plan, because I’ve found paying with Paypal very convenient for a number of years now.

Trip along the pier

Piggle and me on the train on the pier in the sun

Piggle and I took the little train along the pier at home, yesterday, with some pals. We enjoyed the journey very much.

On the way back, Piglet met a dog who told her a story about an experience he’d had out walking in the hills a week or so ago.

Three Men on a Hike

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came upon a large raging, violent river. Needing to get to the other side, the first man prayed: “God, please give me the strength to cross the river.”

Poof! .. God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice.

After witnessing that, the second man prayed: “God, please give me strength and the tools to cross the river.”

Poof! .. God gave him a rowboat and strong arms and strong legs, and he was able to row across in about an hour after almost capsizing once.

Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed: “God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligence to cross the River.”

And poof! He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, walked one hundred yards up-stream and walked across the bridge.

Ahahahahahahahahaha!

🙂

Mini potato rant

Perhaps this is just me, but I find it incredibly annoying to find bags full of tiny spuds at the supermarket when I want to buy potatoes for mashing or roasting. All the big ones have been removed, so that they can be sold seperately as baking potatoes. Or at least that’s my theory.

It’s extremely annoying! The tiny ones are too small to make decent roasties, and by the time they’ve been peeled they’re so small that they disintegrate into mush if I try to cook them for mashed potatoes. I tried to get some decent King Edward’s or Maris Piper this morning, but all the bags contained one or two medium sized spuds and a collection of tiddlers. I had to buy some okay-sized nameless ‘white potatoes’ in the end, which is something I swore I’d never do.

Grrrrr! Roll on the day when I can grow my own…