Five a Day

[tamaranth]

1. If you book a car repair for a specific date and time, would you expect to have it carried out on that date at that time?
- Yes
- Hell yes
- No, I am getting used to Toyota Cambridge, and shall be visiting them again tomorrow. WITH PREJUDICE.

2. Convention programme items: what percentage should be phrased as questions?

3. TinEye -- reverse image search: upload an image and search for that image online. (Though their database is still growing, this is cool.)

4. I shall be switching off my lights for Earth Hour on Saturday. (Or, more likely, not home to switch them on.)

5. Quick, fiction authors whose surnames begin with X ...

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

1. Hell yes. I can understand force majeure, but I've never yet had an appointment missed.
2. All?

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

1. Goodness, yes; wouldn't use them again if they didn't unless they had the Best Excuse Ever.

2. I'm not sure. What do you think?

3. I adore TinEye, even if it does show my squirrel photo on a bazillion Russian sites.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

As far as the cars are concerned, I've always used the franchise dealers - something which is slightly difficult currently, being as I am the owner of a last model MG-ZT [*]. But our gracious hostess is presumably patronising Toyota Cambridge to the same effect, so that should be no excuse.

(I'm slightly surprised that Toyota isn't one of the Marshalls franchises. But then nor is Renault (Wests at the top of Coldhams Lane) or Audi (Vindis, out on Babraham Road).

[*] Actually, since they do have brand new MGs for sale, they're really doing their best to stay MG dealers. It's just that the cars these days ship in from China, not the Midlands.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Is only Toyota dealer in range -- and they have usually been okay before. But deeply unimpressed last Friday not to be phoned when the check-and-quote was completed (tho' I did get an extra couple of hours chez la_marquise_de_) and utterly hacked off at wasting 2 hours this morning because the paint on replacement fuel-flap wasn't dry WHY NOT YOU KNEW I WAS COMING.

It is not as though their coffee is very good. And I did not want to watch morning news on TV, or mingle with commoners listen to other people's mobile conversations.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

1) would depend on the nature of the repair. Sometimes they need to get parts.
%) Xi Xi; Xiao Hong; Xu Zhonglin.
Xu Zhonglin was Ming dynasty writer, who historical novel about the Shang dynasty is available in translation (it's called The Creation of the Gods -- sadly, I don't have it). Xiao Hong'[s short stories are also available in English.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

1. They knew they needed the parts -- that was what all the waiting around on Friday was for, so they could work out what was needed. Today's waste-of-time was because the paint on it wasn't dry. Because, y'know, you wouldn't think of painting it in time for the scheduled fitting ...

Thanks for Chinese writers!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Damn. You were ahead of me...

I'm pretty sure I have The Creation of the Gods. Somewhere. In two volumes: probably not together...

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

Xenophon! Anabasis. Where is Dr Keen when you need him...

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

I shall be switching off my lights for Earth Hour on Saturday

Oh, the National Grid's gonna love you...*


* well, not you specifically, but if enough people join in it'll save however-many watts of electricity/whatever carbon emissions are measured in and bugger up the electricity balancing mechanism...

Or, according to this guy (regarding last year's Hour), not save any emmissions at all:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/27/climate-change-carbon-emissions