Later today I will have a brand new iPhone 5S, which I ordered on Friday. I wasn’t expecting to need a new phone so soon but sadly my current iPhone 5 is not in a good way.
The need to upgrade
I bought my iPhone 5, along with a new two-year contract, in September 2012, shortly after launch. My iPhone 4 had pretty much conked out: it kept randomly rebooting, and was getting rather slow. However, by September 2014, my iPhone 5 was still in good shape. Sure, the battery life wasn’t as good but it still worked fine. So instead I took out a new 12 month SIM-only contract with the intention of keeping my iPhone 5 until next year.
Unfortunately, more recently, my iPhone 5 has developed a fault with the Lightning port. It will only charge if I plug a cable in at a certain angle – and if the cable becomes even slightly loose, it won’t charge. Whilst I can usually get the cable in a good enough position to charge it at home, it’s almost impossible to do when out and about unless you actually hold the cable in position. And there have been several occasions when the cable has been knocked slightly and I’ve ended up starting the day with a phone on 30% battery.
It’s been like this for a while but it seems to have got worse of late. I’ve tried cleaning out the Lightning port as best I can, and I’ve used many different cables, but it still doesn’t work properly.
It may be fixable, but as the battery life isn’t great either, I decided that really, I’d be best with a new phone.
Rule-breaking
Co-incidentally, I recently received an ‘exclusive’ offer from Three, the network I’m with, to upgrade early to a new iPhone 6. Normally ending my contract now, and not when it ends in September, would incur a penalty, but Three were willing to waive these charges if I signed a new two-year contract with them. I registered my details on their ‘rulebreakers’ page and got a call back later on Thursday to discuss the deal.
The offer was for a brand new iPhone 6, in my choice of colour, at no up-front cost, with a 2-year contract that included 2 GB of data (including tethering), unlimited calls, unlimited text messages and a few other perks. The catch was that the monthly charge would be £46 per month, and it was only the 16 GB model. I’m currently paying £18 per month for a SIM-only deal so this would be a huge hike in my monthly payments – more than 2.5 times higher.
But I agreed to it – I needed a new phone, and I’d be getting Apple’s latest and greatest model. Even though I had the opportunity to home test an iPhone 6 in September, and found it rather too big for my liking.
Cutting too many corners
At first, I didn’t think the lack of storage would be an issue. My iPad Mini 2 is the 16 GB model, and whilst I don’t have much space left on it, it does just about everything that I need it for.
My iPhone 5, however, is the 64 GB model. And it turns out I was using half of the space on it. At first I thought these were things I could do without – a 2.5 GB full HD quality episode of Sherlock, for example. But after deleting the stuff I didn’t use, and then the stuff I occasionally used, and then stuff that I didn’t really want to delete but would do if I absolutely had to, I was still using over 20 GB of space. Essentially, if I wanted to get by on a 16 GB phone, I’d have to make do with not having all the apps I wanted, all my photos, or all of my music. And it’d be a compromise that I’d have to live with for the two years of the contract. A contract that would be costing me over £1000 over the two years.
The lack of storage might not have been so bad if it weren’t for the limited data allowance as well. Whilst I’ve only ever used more than 2 GB in a month once or twice, if I have less storage capacity on my phone then I’d need to store more data in the cloud, which would eat further into my data allowance. A small capacity phone and unlimited internet might have worked, as would a large capacity phone and limited internet, but not the worst of both.
Cooling off
I’m fortunate, in some respects, that I’d agreed to this over the phone, which meant that I was legally entitled to a 14-day ‘cooling off’ period, as per the Consumer Contracts Regulations. And in fairness to Three, they made me fully aware of my rights to cancel on the phone call and what to do. So on Friday I called them, and cancelled the upgrade, which was done without any fuss. After all, I’ll still have a contract with them until September. The iPhone 6 had already been dispatched at this point, so I’ll need to refuse the delivery when it comes today.
With that sorted, I ordered a new 32GB iPhone 5S direct from Apple. Whilst not as big as my current 64 GB model, I can comfortably get by with 32 GB of space – and Apple doesn’t offer larger storage on the 5S anymore. It cost £499, which I can pay off from my credit card over the next few months, and even with a bit of interest, it’ll save me around £180 over two years, assuming that I stay on an £18 per month contract. And the phone is unlocked too – whilst I’m happy with Three and don’t intend to switch networks, if I do, then I can take my phone with me.
I also prefer the size of the iPhone 5S to the 6. I’m not bothered about a bigger screen and would prefer a device that I can use with one hand, for the times when I’m standing on a train and need to hold onto a grabrail, for example. Whilst it is last year’s model, Apple tend to offer updates for 3-4 years after release, so it should be good until September 2018. And there aren’t many other improvements to the iPhone 6 that are relevant to me: I don’t have any 802.11ac wifi devices and Apple Pay hasn’t been launched here yet.
With hindsight I should have turned down the ‘rulebreaker’ deal in the first place, as soon as I heard it was a 16 GB model, but I guess desperation got the better of me. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to cancel without penalty, and been able to find a solution that serves me better. Even if it does mean using last year’s model.
As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, 2015 is the year that we will buy a house. Originally the plan was for one of us to pass our driving test, then buy a car, and then buy a house, but we’ve starting looking more earnestly at houses already. And today we had our first couple of viewings.
The first house was… well, pretty terrible actually. One of those that looks great in the photos on the estate agent web site, but is very different in real life. I get the impression that the current owner bought it cheap to do up and only got part way before having to emigrate, so whilst it has a nice kitchen and bathroom the rest of the house needed work. And the roof was leaking. We don’t really have the time or money to spend on major improvements like that, even though it was quite a lot cheaper than other properties in the area and was already vacant.
House number two was much better though. More expensive, but bigger – four double bedrooms (three is our minimum), not too far away from the town centre, in good condition with character. Not 100% perfect but it ticks off a lot of the things that we’re looking for and will definitely go on our shortlist.
We have a third viewing tomorrow morning; a cheaper house but one that’s hopefully in a reasonable state. Although the photos suggest that the current owners have a rather… ‘unique’ sense of style.
We’re looking to stay roughly in the same area, i.e. Sowerby Bridge, or perhaps some parts of Halifax that are not too far from the railway station so that I can commute to work in Bradford. We know the area and we like it here – plus, it’s ‘up and coming’ so hopefully if we do end up selling in a few years’ time the house will have at least held its value. But we’re hoping to stay put for some time if we can.
As first-time buyers the whole process is a bit daunting – it’s certainly a far more involved process than renting a house and the stakes are much higher. We’re lucky that there seems to be enough good houses in the area that are in our price range, but as I’m about to start a busy period at work it’s going to get harder to find time for viewings. I’ll keep you posted as we progress through the year, but I’m reasonably confident that by the end of the year we’ll be living in a house that we own.
As of today, this blog becomes a teenager, as I’ve been writing on here for 13 years now. I think this blog still counts as the longest project that I’ve persisted with; whilst I may go some time without writing anything, I’ve never seriously considered giving it up. Which is more than can be said for various other projects that I’ve abandoned over the years.
Naturally, now that this blog is in its teenage years, it’ll struggle to wake up in the mornings, be prone to mood swings and struggle with emotional changes.
And a scary thought is that in around four to five years time, this blog will be as old as I was when I started it. Hopefully I’ll still be blogging by then.
Well, it’s the start of another year. As well as reviewing the year just gone, as I did yesterday, I usually also write about what is likely to happen in the year ahead.
In 2014, I expected us to buy a house, pass our driving tests and buy a car, go to the gym more, attend two weddings, go to a gig in Manchester and possibly go to Ireland. We did the gig, and we went to two weddings but one of those wasn’t one we were expecting – we were invited to one in the summer but we couldn’t feasibly get there. We didn’t buy a house and whilst we have started driving lessons, it’ll be a little while before we pass our tests and buy a car. But we did go on holiday to Dublin, and also to Bruges last year.
But, those things will hopefully happen in 2015. We still have money for a house deposit, sat in a savings account accruing interest, and hopefully we’ll both be driving by the summer. And whilst I did go to the gym in 2014, I really need to make it a habit, and not something I do for a few weeks and then forget about.
Two weddings are already in the calendar for 2015. One’s a family do, as the last of my four cousins finally ties the knot, and the other wedding is of two good friends.
No concrete plans for a holiday but we may do the ‘mini-cruise’ thing again, this time to Amsterdam instead of Bruges. We have the option of staying the night there so that we can spread it over two days. We’ll be keeping an eye out for cheap deals.
We also only managed one very brief trip to London last year, so we’ll be aiming to go again sometime this year – especially as we have friends living there. And I’d like to squeeze in a weekend in Bristol if possible.
Hopefully 2015 will be a good year. Best wishes to you all for a happy and prosperous new year.
This time every year I do a blog post looking back at the year that has just about finished, and all of the things I did (although normally it’s a few days before New Year’s Eve, not on it). So this year it is the turn of 2014 to be analysed. You can read my previous posts from 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.
January
January is my blogiversary month and 2014 marked 12 years since I started blogging. We started January at a friends’ house with a relatively young kitten, some guinea pigs and plenty of food and alcohol.
At the end of the month I saw Robin Ince again (for the fifth time – and I’d see him again later in the year), along with Josie Long and Grace Petrie who were at the same gig.
On the blog, I started a weekly series of blog posts about the projects I backed on Kickstarter, which ran for three months. I may resurrect this year with some of the projects I’ve backed since, but I’ll have to see. January was also the month when I committed myself to posting a new blog post every day – I managed it for several months straight and overall I managed to write more blog posts this year than in recent years, although recently I haven’t had the inspiration.
February
In February Christine and I went on an impromptu trip to London, which I quite literally booked the night before. And despite it being Valentines’ Day we managed to do it without breaking the bank – our transport was via Megabusplus, and we booked a reasonable cheap hotel in Croydon to stay the night. Whilst there we visited the Museum of London to see their Cheapside Hoard exhibition, had dinner in Chinatown where all of the Chinese New Year decorations were still up, and got cheap tickets for We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre – a show which has now finished its West End run. It was our first Valentines’ Day as a married couple and probably one of the best – even though it was rather manic. Oh, and we called in at the Tate Modern on the Saturday too, before heading home.
March was marred by the sudden and unexpected death of Dave, one of my closest friends. It really affected both Christine and I, and barely a day has gone by since without something reminding me of him. He would have been pleased that so many of his friends took the time to pay their respects at his funeral, and again at a get-together later in the year. He died a day before he was due to play the role of the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, along with Christine and other friends.
It also marked five years since I hit rock bottom – the end of my previous relationship combined with the passing of my grandmother, unemployment and having to move back home with my parents. Thankfully things have improved since and I’m now happily married in a good job that I enjoy.
For the first time I travelled overnight for work, to do a two-day UCAS convention in Bristol. It was my first time visiting the city, although I didn’t really get to see much of it. Christine’s never been so we’ll need to find time to go for a few days to experience it properly.
In April Christine and I had a day out in Hebden Bridge, for the first time in quite a while. I also posted a listicle on Buzzfeed, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire, and we saw two of our favourite bands – Within Temptation and Delain – play in Manchester. There was also live comedy – we went to see Gary Delaney at our local pub, The Works, who run a monthly comedy night with reasonably good acts.
I became officially middle-aged in May when I turned 30. Christine’s present to me was a trip to Dublin in Ireland, where we visited the castle, the Guinness storehouse, the old Jameson distillery, the jail, the Temple Bar district, the zoo, the natural history museum, the post office museum, and fitted some shopping in to a four night stay. And we did it all just with carry-on luggage.
Although it started in May, it wasn’t until June that we started watching Happy Valley on BBC1 – a crime thriller set in our local area. It was a brilliant, gripping series that’s well worth watching if you can – I believe it’s on Netflix in America, or you can buy the DVD from Amazon(sponsored link).
Another work trip came up in June, this time to Gosforth near Newcastle, although it wasn’t an overnight stay this time.
The Bradford Playhouse faced an uncertain future in June, as the building was due to be sold at auction. Thankfully it’s now been saved – a friend of ours who had a fair amount of money from a recent house sale bought the venue and kept the current management team, and now it’s going from strength to strength. I spent quite a bit of time there at various points throughout 2014 and I have no doubt that I’ll be back there in 2015.
The big thing that happened in Yorkshire in July was the Grand Départ of the Tour de France, which I watched on TV over the weekend – even though it passed within a few miles of our apartment. Whilst I wasn’t so interested in the later stages of the race, it was great to see so many people out cheering the riders along and Yorkshire looked fantastic in all of the TV coverage. From 2015 onwards there will be an annual professional cycle race in Yorkshire and hopefully it’ll be just as popular.
In May I started taking lactase enzyme tablets to ease my lactose intolerance symptoms, but it wasn’t until July that I wrote about it. It seems to work, as part of a strategy of also cutting down my dairy consumption and eating lactose-free alternatives instead.
In mid-July Christine and I both started learning to drive again. We’ve both had lessons years ago, and I’ve previously failed my practical test twice, but now we really do need to be able to drive and own a car. The lessons are coming on well – we’ll both be taking our theory tests soon (when we book them) and hopefully at least one of us will be qualified to drive by the summer.
I bought a Roku box – it’s been a great purchase and we’ve used it a lot, to watch programmes on catch-up services or on demand. Christine found it really useful when she was at home on sick leave as it’s really easy to use.
On the blog, the 10,000th comment was posted; there have only been another 40 since as few people bother commenting on blogs these days, it seems.
August
August is always a busy time for people like me who work in university admissions, as it’s the time when A-level results are released and universities try to fill up their leftover places on courses through the Clearing process. As usual this meant working long hours and 13 days straight.
Over the August bank holiday I did manage to get out into the countryside – I met up with friends from university and we did a couple of days walking. On the Saturday we did Whernside, one of the Yorkshire three peaks, and then Brimham Rocks on the Sunday.
September saw me being nominated for the ice bucket challenge, which pretty much ceased to be a thing at the time when I did it. I drank some free beer with friends, and had an iPhone 6 to play with for a few days. Which actually put me off buying it because it was so huge, so I’m sticking with my iPhone 5 for a third year on a cheaper contract.
Work was still busy in September so not much else really happened.
October
By contrast October was rather more eventful. We went on a ‘mini-cruise’ to Bruges in Belgium – I’d been 22 years ago but it was Christine’s first visit. We were only there for a day, but managed to squeeze quite a lot of sightseeing in and enjoyed ourselves. Because we went there by ferry from Hull, on the way back we called in at The Deep.
I had the last week in October off work so I went with some friends on a day trip to Hawes, where I ate and bought lots of cheese.
November
In November Christine and I went to Nottingham for the first time, to meet up with friends who had recently moved to the Midlands. It’s quite a nice city with a newly-renovated railway station, expanding tram system, and a good selection of independent shops in the area around the Lace Market. We’ll have to go again some time, though perhaps not by train as it takes about 3 hours each way – which is as long as it takes us to get to London.
We also went to our first ever comic convention – Thought Bubble in Leeds. It was another opportunity for us to get out our Steampunk outfits and spend lots of money on comics and other related paraphernalia. We’ll almost certainly be back again next year as it was great fun.
On the blog, I wrote a long post about the history of an under-threat bus route, and how I ended up on the ‘chav’ page on Wikipedia. It was also about this time that Google decided that my blog was reasonably important after all and so my older blog posts started appearing more in its search results, leading to an increase in traffic. Which is paying off financially – clicks on the banner ads have doubled and the amount of money I’m making through affiliate links to Amazon and iTunes has increased. Whilst this still means that the site runs at a loss each month, it’s a smaller loss than before.
December
And finally to this month, in which I haven’t blogged much. I was ill for a week recently – it was a cold, but one that really knocked me back. Christine had it before me and it had also been spreading around at work. I ended up taking two days off work, and probably should have taken more had there not been things that I really needed to be in to do.
Speaking of work, in December we moved to a new office. It’s much bigger as we’re sharing it with a couple of other teams that we already work with, and it has brand new furniture and better facilities. It’s on the ground floor, rather than the eighth floor as before, so no more waiting for the lift – although the view out of the window isn’t as nice. We’ve also been moving to Office 365 over the year: email in the summer, which meant that I stopped using Thunderbird after all these years, and we’ll be moving our calendars out of PeopleCube’s Meeting Maker over the Christmas break.
Outside of work, I went on a pub crawl around Skipton, and we saw Mitch Benn in Hebden Bridge – we’d also seen his show, Mitch Benn is the 37th Beatle, in Leeds in June. We spent Christmas with Christine’s mum, and then went to York after Christmas for my Dad’s 70th birthday. No, I can’t believe he’s 70 either – he’s certainly very fit and healthy for his age. But then his father – my grandfather – is still doing well at the age of 94.
We’ll be the ending the year tonight in Blackpool, probably in the same way that we ended 2012. Happy New Year.
Not a big Christmas for us this year – a few small presents, and we only put the tree up yesterday. We’re staying in our flat in Sowerby Bridge due to work commitments.
But I get to spend it with my amazing wife and that’s all that matters. Merry Christmas to everyone.
Oops, looks like I forgot to post any new blog entries last week. This is mostly because a lot of my free time has been spent playing the new World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor.
I didn’t play it much in the first week following release, which is probably a good thing as it meant that I avoided the worst of the launch issues, although it was almost two weeks’ after the expansion became available that the game settled down reliably. Apparently a higher than expected number of former players have returned to the game and Blizzard Entertainment hadn’t foreseen this, so there have been capacity issues. A few weeks on and the game is now playable without queueing, disconnects or lag, for the most part.
During the last expansion I effectively retired my main character, a human paladin called Hexorious, and mostly played on a shadow priest. Because it’s been so long since there has been any new content, I managed to level four characters to level 90, and another one was boosted using the offer that came with the purchase of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. However, I decided to go back to my main for this expansion and now he is level 100 – the other four still at 90.
Indeed the player character development features of this expansion make it less-alternative character friendly, in my view. The big new feature of the expansion is Garrisons – your own base of operations where you can construct buildings and gather resources. Building this up is a major time investment and not one that I’d necessarily want to repeat on another character. This is not to say it isn’t fun and I spend quite a bit of time every day tending to my garrison – starting and collecting work orders, sending followers on missions and building up resources to expand. My garrison is level 3 – maximum level – but the buildings are all level two as I haven’t come across any level three plans yet.
I think I would have enjoyed Warlords of Draenor even if it wasn’t very good, because it’s the first major bit of new content in the game for over a year and overcomes the staleness. But it is a really well-done expansion. So far I don’t quite think it’s my favourite – that would be Wrath of the Lich King – but it’s probably a close second, and certainly far better than Cataclysm which didn’t feel very immersive despite the decent story lines. I particularly like how we get to see the planet of Draenor in a different timeline – some bits still recognisable from Outland and some completely different but still familiar. And the non-player characters have a more defined back story – without wanting to reveal too many spoilers, Alliance characters should pay attention to Vindicator Maraad, especially paladins.
I’m still questing through Nagrand and have a number of bonus objectives to complete too, so even though my character is at the maximum level there is plenty more to do. And I’ve only just started setting foot into dungeons. So far, I’m really enjoying it, although hopefully I’ll have time to write things here too…
After seeing Frisky & Mannish on Friday, Christine and I went to another comedy gig on Sunday. This time it was to see Susan Calman, a diminutive Scottish lesbian and stand-up comedian on her tour ‘Ladylike’, at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. Hebden Bridge is something of a lesbian capital and so it was not surprising that the gig had sold out a few weeks ago.
I’m familiar with Susan Calman through her work on BBC Radio 4 – she is a regular guest on the weekly panel show The News Quiz, and has presented two series of her own show Susan Calman is Convicted. On TV, she’s appeared on Have I Got News For You and a few other programmes, mainly in Scotland. She’s been top of my list of stand-up comedians whom I have yet to see live so last night was a chance to fix this.
And I’m pleased to say it was really worth waiting for. Calman is a fantastic observational comedian, with all of her material drawn from her own life and experiences. It helps that she has an interesting story to tell – about her height, her sexuality, her career change and her three cats, each of whom has its own theme song.
Her tour continues into next year and whilst a number of dates are already sold out, hopefully there will be a gig near you with tickets still available. If you want to hear someone who is charming, inspirational and, most of all, hilariously funny, then find the time to go and see her when you can. Tour dates are on her web site.
Now, to make time to see Bethany Black and Chris Addison, who make up the rest of my list of comedians to see live.
On Friday Christine and I went to The Wardrobe in Leeds to see Frisky & Mannish – a cabaret act who parody popular music. We’ve seen them before in September 2012 when they came to Bradford – we stopped back after the gig for the above photo. Which, incidentally, was one of the last photos taken on my iPhone 4 before I replaced it with my current phone.
Anyhow, as we enjoyed ourselves so much last time, we made a point of booking tickets for their gig in Leeds. This was for their new show, ‘#justtoomuch’, which was a departure from their previous shows. Whereas in the past they have focussed on ‘educating’ people about pop music, this show was about celebrity excess and the inevitable fall into depression and drug abuse – see Amy Winehouse, Miley Cirus et al.
Which sounds depressing but it’s put together in a great way. 2/3rds of the show was made up of new material, including some topical jibes at Bob Geldof, ballet dancing and made-up letters from Sinead O’Connor.
The rest was set aside for their greatest hits – nursery rhymes set to the tune of ‘Sound of the Underground’ by Girls Aloud (“The wheels on the bus go round/The wheels on the bus go round and round…”), ‘Beep’ by the Pussycat Dolls in the style of a Blackpool end of the peer variety act, and various love songs with creepy undertones sung in a psychotic way.
Frisky & Mannish have a very loyal fan base – Frisky asked the crowd who had been to one of their gigs before and more than half had – but it’s easy to see why people keep on coming back. F&M’s current tour has a few more nights to go, so if they’re in your area I’d thoroughly recommend taking the time to see them. If you remain unconvinced, their previous three shows are free to watch on YouTube, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Last night I went to a preview night at Bradford’s newest bar, The Record Café, on North Parade. Officially it opens tonight, and it will be a great new addition to Bradford’s new independent quarter.
The Record Café is three things. First and foremost it’s a bar, with four hand-pulled cask beers and six keg beers, along with a fridge full of bottled beer. Most of the beers are either British (Saltaire, Great Heck, Brewdog and Camden Town were present when I visited) or American, including the Anchor Steam Brewery’s Porter available in a keg – this is the first time I’ve seen their beers in anything other than a bottle in this country. There were also a small number of bottled continental beers, and an eclectic selection of gin that eschews the more common brands. No mass-produced mainstream lager here.
It’s also a delicatessen, offering platters of ham and cured meats – there were plenty of samples available at the preview, and it was good quality stuff. In this sense, by offering beer and charcuterie it’s a bit like Friends of Ham in Leeds, but less hipster-y.
Where it differs is the third thing, and the clue is in the name – as well as being a bar, it’s also a record shop. There’s an upstairs mezzanine where you can browse and buy records on vinyl. This wasn’t quite ready with limited stock and some decorating to do, but the emphasis will be on new music, rather than it being an exchange for old records.
It’s located just opposite The Sparrow, which was Bradford’s first ‘bier café’ – that opened in 2011, just as craft beer started becoming popular in the UK. That’s still going strong, and joins Al’s Dime Bar further along North Parade, in an area becoming known for bars serving good beer. Next year, the Bradford Brewery opens around the corner, along with another new bar called The Beerhouse and an independent cinema which will have a bar as well.
For once, it’s becoming an exciting time to be in Bradford, and I hope these bars will do something to improve Bradford’s nightlife. In recent years people have travelled from Bradford to Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield for nights out and I hope some of those will choose to stay in the city in future.
