All I wanted to do was see Madame Web. I don't even know why. It had just become an obsession at this point. I was planning on seeing it a couple of weeks back but caught lurg.

Unfortunately at this point, there was very limited choice of cinemas. Still, Flickums assured me that the Bolton Cineworld had a good selection of restaurants nearby. So we took the drive to Bolton. It's mostly motorways so it's not a long drive once past the rush hour traffic. We got to the last turning, and there was a sign saying "Road Closed". The problem with these signs is there's always more information on them than can be reliably read while driving. Decided to go past and around the road around Bolton hoping hat Satnav would eventually direct me on a different route. It didn't. Google Maps did though.

So, we took a weird winding route the long way round and eventually arrived at the cinema complex.

What. A. Dump!

I'm amazed the place hasn't closed down yet. There were about a dozen cars parked there. There were a total of two restaurants. One of them was a Frankie and Benny's that had long since closed down. The other was a tacky looking Indian place that Flick veteod. Yeah, this was not the venue surrounded by restaurants that Flick claimed. Turns out last time she saw a movie in Bolton, it was the Vue.

So we decided to hunt a KFC. Satnav took us almost to one. It didn't have any obvious entrance to the carpark.

After along drive around Bolton's creative road network, we found our way back to KFC. Turns out the entrance is the entrance to the Health Centre. Who'd have thought?

But we ate. And saw the film. I was hoping it would be just the two of us, but unfortunately another couple walked in. It was not a great film...

The drive home was less eventful. Someone had decided that, in a nearly empty car park, really close to my car so the passenger door couldn't open was the best place.

Our usual junction - J6 was coned off. Mildly annoying but J5 is a second choice. We saw a sign that said J5 is closed!

The sign lied to us! I came off at J5.

So my conclusion is I never want to go to Bolton Cineworld again. Nor do I want to see Madame Web again.

Went to see a movie. Went to Ashton-under-lyne which is near Ikea so decided to go for meatballs as pre-movie food.

Ikea restaurant pandemic policy is weird as hell! Need to book a table. So we did. They've also close the convenient entrance near the store entrance so had to fine our way through the Ikea Läbyrinth just to get a distance of about 20metres.

They don't do the normal queue any more. We're given a menu and asked to go and order when we've chosen. So we chose. Went to queue. Queue was taking forever. turns out that they were out of meatballs!

No meatballs in IKEA!!! I knew things were bad, but I didn't realise they were that terrible.

Options were fish, fish or children's menu chicken goujons. Decided to quite and try somewhere else.

So we re-entered the Ikea Läbyrinth, defeated the Minötåur and, after an epic quest, finally escaped.

Next stop - Nandos. Fortunately we lefty early so had plenty of time. "We can seat you in an hour"

Okay...

Eventually settled on KFC.

And they cocked up the order!

At least film was good.

Well, it was F9, so it was ludicrous and paid no attention to things like logic, or physics, specifically gravity but still a lot of fun.

So it wasn't a successful weekend for making things.

Bread making failed, because I forgot to actually make it... But that wasn't a huge problem. Still, I was not all that happy with the fallout costume I'd modded for flickums. I wanted to tailor it so it was less baggy. I succeeded. But it doesn't really allow much room for sitting down. Also the yellow stripe looked way too rough. and I couldn't remove the poppers, because they're a pain in the butt to remove.

Finished off the latest batch of wine. There seems to be a leak in the bag I put it  in Didn't realise this until it had soaked the box, and the box next to it. Need to decant to a new bag/box. and get another box.

Fursuit head making - to work out a fur pattern, the recommendation is to put tape over it, peel off tape in flattenable segments. Turns ut gaffer tape is the wrong stuff here. Way too sticky and pulls the damn foam apart.

Made a tasty Thai curry for dinner. Except it was wayyyyy too hot.

So I gave up, watched Atomic Blonde. I enjoyed it. Awesome soundtrack and it's set partly in my old neighbourhood near Alexanderplatz.

I was expecting a delivery from Ikea.

Didn't receive the expected message telling me when they were going to deliver. Realised they had the wrong number. Contacted them. Fixed it. Received a text telling me that my delivery was scheduled for the 9th Oct. Yay. Apparently there was no time slot yet. Okay. Seems a bit slow but I was satisfied that I hadn't missed any important messages.

Still no time slot on Sunday. Contacted online chat. Apparently the delivery wasn't routed in time (whatever that means), and needed to be resceduled. Well, that's fucking great. Thank's a lot, idiots. Actually tellimg me might have been useful. Pondered options for picking up but nothing seemed viable. Decided to give up. Went out. Later on, had a look at the order status (because apparently I like to torture myself) and see the message "15:19 We were not able to deliver to you. Please contact IKEA". So does that mena they did try to deliver after all? They were meant to call an hour before.

Will elave the positive aspect of the day to another post because this is the "Ikea are useless numpties" post wshere I bitch about what complete and utter useless numpties Ikea are. They are utterly inept. Hopeless and worthless.

In case anyone hasn't got the picture. I'm kinda peeved at Ikea.

I took my car in for an MOT on the second. They needed to replace part of the suspension. They then needed to order a sodding bolt!. This bolt still hasn't arrived. The garage is crap. They never bother letting me know things are taking time. So I'm poissed off about that.

So I hired a car. Download festival was on. That added an 45 minutes or so of traffic on the M1. And the M6 was gridlocked. Holly the evil satnav got me around most of the jams, but that involved such a convoluted route that I only really saved about 20 minutes over the jam time (still better to be moving). By the time I got to the convention, I'd missed registration, opening ceremony and dinner. So that kinda sucked (although they were nice at the hotel and sorted out a sandwich and crisps and biscuits for me). Oh yeah, and my shower head came off as soon as I decided to have a shower. I don't like the Norbreck Castle hotel. It's so tatty. And so generally crap. It's like it never left the 1950's (They even have cabaret every evening. It's not very good).

I really didn't have a good time at the con. The guest talks weren't great and the sound quality in the main hall was crap. Didnt feel much of a con vibe. Plus I didn't find most of the guest talks that interesting. The Agent Carter guests were pretty good, and so were the Gotham guests. Robin Lord Taylor was absolutely lovely. The parties were okay, and it was nice chatting to people but my heart wasn't really in it. It was nive to see Ros and Nick and Kirsty and Suzy and Steve and Iain and xenaclone and a bundle of others, plus meeting a couple of new people was nice but I think I'd have been happier lurking in the bar chatting. Except the crappy cabaret was there.

Got a photo with Hayley Atwell. She was nice enough to do a cool pose but I think I screwed up my pose a bit. Oh well.

The autographs were at the same time as the talks. So it was a choice between autos or talks. And even though they called people up in batches, the bartches were wayyyy too long. There was a queue for the room and then 3 queues. Meant getting the autographs for whichever 3 guests were digning took forever. I got fed up waiting so gave up (The two guys I met were very nice though). On the whole I don't think I got my money's worth.

Woke up Monday morning and had no power in bmy room. On the drive home. M6 was clogged again. Holly took me around it again so I only had to deal with minor traffic. But then it turned out the M1 was closed. Apparenty someone on a gantry refusing to come down.

So really not all that happy. It's been expensive, spent too long in traffic, and I feel I've wasted a weekend.

I received an email offering "Black Friday" bargains on flights. Which is silly! Black Friday is an American thing, because Americans want to get their christmas shopping started early or something. We don't have a 4 day weekend, and it makes no sense to offer a discount on flights anyway!

But Victor Meldew stuff over, I really want to fly somewhere! Somewhere in the southern hemisphere or at least near the equator! New Zealand looks very appealing right now. Or maybe Rio De Janiero! Jakarta perhaps? Cuba remains fairly warm at this time of year. I have enough avios points for a return flight to Tenerife!

Looking out the window and seeing dark gloomy night, all I want is some sun! Preferably high enough not to be shining right in my face.

I just can't really afford the holiday or the time off right now.

I tried selling my bike today.

I was a little annoyed that the receipt had vanished even though I had kept it around for most of the last year. Still the guy remembered me. And while he was willing to offer me money for the bike strongly discouraged me from accepting it. Which was nice of him, I guess.

His suggestion was that I take it to the park and sit there with it and a for sale sign. Seems fair. Hope the eather's nice tomorrow.

I still have a flat screen TV to shift. It's a little too good to just abandon but ther seems to be no interest on Craigslist and there don't seem to be a lot of second hand shops around. I don't really care about the money although I do have an aversion to giving my landlady too many freebies. She's got a couple  of pots and pans and a good knife and a set of scales.

Aside from that I've spent a lot of the day cleaning. God, what a bore! Still, the bathroom is clean except the floor. The kitchen is clean except the sink area nad oven. The living room os clean except the table and skirting boards and the bedroom is clean. The rest can be done over the course of the week.

Moving out is such a chore!

I know shirtstorm is news, but it's been really infuriating me.

Bullying has always been an issue I'm passionate about. I identify with those who speak out and campaign against it. Yet this week, because of a shirt, a mob formed. Hundreds of people weighed in to criticise someones choice of clothing. Telling him he's the reason women aren't going into STEM; that he's a sexist pigdog, that anyone who wears a shirt like this is a sexist pig. Over a shirt! Over what he was wearing. I mean sure, he probably should have been a little more circumspect. Hey, he probably should have covered those tattoos as well since not everyone likes them. He didn't. It was a fairly minor mistake and he didn't deserve the abuse.

Matt Taylor made a mistake. He apologised. The apology was accepted. Those who harrassed him also made a mistake. They are yet to recognise they have even made a mistake. Outside of the small echo chamber that's defending this hrassment, I see comment where people are ashamed to be associated with feminism.

As far as I can see, this is ganging up. I checked the people who are usually socially aware of bullying. A lot of them not only weren't critical of the mob. They were actively joining in! When people say "hey, this is bullying" tweets were disected and analysed and the bullies decided, that what they were doing wasn't bullying. Not one of them even considered the possibility that perhaps this was an overreaction.

When you gang up under a banner and collectively harass a guy over what he wears, then it is bullying. When you drive a man to tears, then it's bullying. The bullies aren't the ones who get to decide what bullying is.

I tried adressing this with other people. My complaints are dimissed.

This is bullying plain and simple, and the worst thing is, it's been defended by those who usually take a stand against bullying. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy. These people have formed a morality police, telling people what they may and may not be offended by. Well, I reject your assessment. This offends me, but the hypocrisy offends me more. Anyone who defends the haters digusts me.

All I want to do is transfer some money from my account to another account. It's all EU stuff. Should be easy enough. I need this for a rent deposit.

So, decide to do a bank transfer. Pretty reliable generally. Takes a working day to Eurozone countries. Great! That means we'll be done by Tuesday. Landlord gives me his IBAN number. Go onto online payments. Click on "I don't have the SWIFT code. Apparently if I'm transferring to Germany, I need the SWIFT code. Ask landlord for SWIFT code. Get it by end of day.

Log onto online banking. Enter the SWIFT code. isn't accepted. Thanks, Lloyds. Later experimentation showed that a SWIFT code that I'd successfully used before didn't work either. For that matter, nor did Lloyds' SWIFT code.

So, I call my parents. They have plenty of cash kicking about, and they'll be happy to sort this out for me. Except they aren't really all that good with computers. Dad insists that his online banking only allows him to move money between his own accounts (don't believe him), and mum did her best but didn't seem to be able to find a way to pay in Euros.

Thought about using an online service. Some of these are rather good and all you need to do is give a debit card number. All well and good, but they need me to send proof I am who I claim to be (Money laundering regulations). I don't have access to a scanner right now, and I don't think I have access to a bank statement.

My brain hurts.

I'll be fine after a good night's sleep, but it's been an irritating tiring day, and I'm just going to have to be irritated for the rest of the evening.  All first world problems.  Doesn't stop them from irritating, so shall new rant.

Started off okay.  Until I got stuck in traffic.  There's always a bit on a Monday morning, but enough to add 50 minutes to my journey is very tedious. 

Agent is constantly harassing me about this contract. Yeah, sorry I can't rush things while working at a full time job.  Still, have decided on an umbrella company.  Probably not the best deal, but declaring that I work for a Bulgaria of Gibraltar based company and I'm just being deployed to Belgium tends to go against my innate honesty.  Of course it's all "compliant" with the law, but seriously, this does seem kinda shady.  That, and my vague sense of social justice tells me that taxes are actually a social benefit.  Taking advantage of what a country has to offer sort of suggests an obligation to give back.  Seems I'm about the only person who actually thinks that way.  Maybe I'm an idiot. 

Needed to get code doing what I actually wanted it to do rather than what colleague made it do.  Managed the main part of it but the levels of abstraction drive me nuts.  Piles of code that does next to nothing, apparently out of a desire to make it maintainable and adaptable. Except it isn't. 

Was sent an email telling me I need to renew my TV licence.  Except that will give me a week's TV viewing before I leave.  Perhaps I shouldn't actually bother with that.  Disconnect TiVo. That will mean dealing with TVL though, which is itself a hassle.

Too much noise in the office.  No idea whether I'm going to Bristol next week, and I like to be able to plan ahead.  Also would like to actually get this final working version in Bristol and doing what we want.