Uncomplicate Me

Use A Mobile Car Body Repairs Service To Relieve Some Of The Stress

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Stefan

Guess what I did last week? Reversed my car in to my neighbour’s Mercedes.

Being an honest sort, I owned up to my crimes as opposed to screeching off down the road in the hope I’d get away with it. Anyway, this neighbour is a very nice guy and I wanted to minimize the hassle to him in getting the car repaired.

That led to my first foray in to the world of mobile car body repairs. I did a quick Google search initially for mobile scratch repair, then upped the ante to mobile dent repair when I realized my bumper had made quite an impression on his car.

It ended up being the perfect solution.

The quote and final invoice was in line with a quote I got from a good local garage I’ve used before, in fact it was a bit cheaper. A mobile service is generally going to have less indirect costs – not least avoiding maintaining a garage – and especially if it is a one man operation.

I think getting someone to come over and do the repair in front of you perhaps gives that person a little bit more of an incentive to do a good job too. They are under scrutiny, and in my case the guy was self employed and running a one-man franchise for a larger company.

As a result, he was entirely responsible for the work and was after repeat business, so had a great incentive to do a good job.

Definitely going to use a mobile car repairs service again, whether that is for a bodywork or a paint job, or to get a tyre done.

So, pros and cons for me:

Pros:

Rough quote over the phone or exact quote on arrival, and straight in to the job
No need to drive to the garage for a quote
No need to drop the car off and arrange pick up
No need to arrange drop off and collection once the job is completed
Some inherent incentives to do a good job
No more expensive, in my case cheaper

Cons:

If you cannot work from home, make sure the mobile car service offers evening or weekend appointments
Possibly harder to solve is a follow up problem – going for a franchise where there is a customer support team might be a good option

If you’re unlucky enough to need a spot of car bodywork, hopefully going mobile will make dealing with the mess a little bit easier.

And hey, be careful out there…

Posted in Cars And All That Stuff | Leave a comment

Limited Access? Self Assembly Sofa Beds And Sofas With Removable Arms And Back May Be The Answer

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Stefan

I’ve been wasting a lot of time looking for a nice sofa bed (hard task in itself) only to find out that there’s no way I’m going to get it in through the door of the room I want it in…and probably not up the stairs either.

There are some really small ones on the market of course, and a fair few without arms, but they aren’t always the most comfortable.

Deep in to another Google search I finally found a couple of ways round the problem.

1. Self Assembly

There are one or two specialist retailers I’ve discovered that focus on providing modular furniture, so you can get hold of self assembly sofa beds or sofas that way. Easy to get in the house or flat, and from what they say, easy to set up.

The two I’ve seen in the UK are,

http://www.intosofa.com/
http://www.nabru.co.uk/

I nice bonus with these self assembly sofas is that you can easily buy and install spare parts if the seat starts to sag, or any part of the sofa gets damaged.

2. Sofas With Removable Arms

These aren’t so much marketed as self assembly sofas, rather they are fully installed by the retailer or manufacturer, only they come with the option of having the arms taken off if required.

You can also get hold of sofas with removable back options too for added flexibility. The one company I found that has both the arm and back thing available and delivers throughout the UK is,

http://www.sofa.com/

They have some really nice sofas, and amazingly will simply return your money if they cannot get the sofa or sofa bed where you want it. Sounds too good to be true, but after checking with them in person, I went with these guys in the end and it was a great decision.

I didn’t even have to go with a self assembly sofa bed, they did it all for me. The price point is higher than the first two links I gave, but it looks really nice. Lovely choice of fabrics too.

If you’re not in the UK or aren’t too keen on the companies I’ve linked to, try to Google sofa self assembly, sofa bed self assembly, sofas with removable arms and backs or variations of these, and see what comes up.

To be honest, I didn’t even know it was an option when I started looking, so hopefully this article will help you at least realise there’s another option to sitting on the floor (!) if you’ve got a house with limited access.

Good luck searching, but please do leave a comment as well if possible if you do find anywhere else that’s good. Thanks.

Posted in Furniture Madness | Leave a comment

My Easy Way To Find The Best Fantasy Books EVER

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Stefan

Over the years I’ve tried so many genres of books, but increasingly I come back to fantasy.

Epic fantasy books are perfect because, being quite a slow reader, I’m set for months on end if I find a good series, and I love the escapism – getting well and truly absorbed in a different world with a good dollop of magic and weird stuff going on too.

Anyway, I get very moody (or even more moody) when I don’t have a good book to keep me going, and sometimes ‘race’ to the end of my latest one without planning my next foray in to a world of elves and goblins.

So, I’m using this article really as a reminder for me of the best fantasy book review sites I’ve found, so I can quickly get to them.

Ideally for me too, I don’t want to know that much about the plot, which is all some reviews really are. Why wreck it by knowing a final twist? And I really like that ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ feeling you get when you start a book but don’t know too much about it. Makes it more interesting for me anyway.

Here we go…

1. Fantasy Masterworks Series by Orion Gollancz

Top of my list for a series of unrelated but mostly excellent books is the Fantasy Masterworks Series. There’s a SF Masterworks Series too which is not really my thing, and actually one or two of the Fantasy Series really are a bit too SF to me (Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe).

Some are pre modern fantasy – The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison and The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany – and are beautifully crafted. Worm Ouroboros has got to be one of the best fantasy books ever written, very strange and stunningly symbolic at the end.

I also discovered the very unusual Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin and Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson.

Here’s the link to a site that lists them all – the orders a bit strange though…

http://www.sfsite.com/lists/orion07.htm

2. BestFantasyBooks.com

http://bestfantasybooks.com/top25-fantasy-books.php

This site has a nice list of the top 25 best fantasy books. One of my favourites, The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson – 10 massive books, a real epic – is number 2 so I think I might go for the no.1 mentioned there next – A Song Of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin. The only thing that’s held me back is that the last two books in the series aren’t written yet.

Each review includes a section listing similar books, not so much in terms of plot but in terms of style. Great touch that.

Loads of other cool book lists are on this website too. ‘Best Dark Fantasy Books’ for me I think – check out Elric of Melinbone by Michael Moorcock, and Fevre Dream comes up again. Also ‘Best Fantasy Series Books’ which is definitely my bag. If I like what I find, I want it to go on and on.

3. SSFWorld.com

http://www.sffworld.com/aindex.html

SSF World has some really good resources. Loads of reviews, but also I like the annual summaries (linked to from the page listed just above), so you can get a bit of a better idea of where the buzz is at by checking out what’s new for 2010, 2011 whatever.

4. Fantasy Book Review

http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/top-100-fantasy-books/

Featuring a great list of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of all time. Really nicely looked after site, and more than enough reading material on there for the rest of my life.

5. 100 Best Sci Fi Fantasy Books

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books

Too much Science Fiction in this list for my liking, but I should probably be more open minded. Looking down it, I’ve actually read a few of the SF ones – Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card really is excellent.

Anyway, it’s a nice concise list not going too much in to the plots, and based on votes cast by over 60000 people, so there you go.

Any Ideas?

I hope this list of best fantasy books helps you out too. Please let me know of any really good books in this genre you’ve read or any sites that list some decent reviews, just as long as they don’t go in to too much detail with the plot!

Cheers,

Stefan

A Cheap Disposable BBQ Grill: Far Less Hassle AND I Had Time To Eat!

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Stefan

Click HERE to go to Amazon for the best prices I could find for disposable BBQs

My BBQ Responsibilities As A Father

So, being Dad in the family means I get to sort out the BBQs. A few years back I got myself a nice big BBQ plus all the paraphernalia – skewers, forks, tongs, briquettes, firelighters, lighter fluid, THE WORKS.

Never used it much, actually it’s clogging things up in the shed at the moment. It always seemed a bit too much hassle, and I hated emptying it out, cleaning it up, realising I didn’t have enough fuel or lighter fluid and rushing off down to the garage for more.

Anyway, we’ve just had a mini heat wave in the UK, in October no less, to make up for a rubbish summer. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny Sunday, perfect for a BBQ. There was no way I was rummaging around in my shed all day – Sunday is a day of rest after all – so I popped down to Tesco and got me a nice little disposable BBQ grill.

Best decision of the day.

In case you haven’t checked one of these things out, they are seriously easy to light, one match needed to light a sheet of paper under the grill bit that’s impregnated with lighter fuel.

15-20 mintues later, time to cook. All you have to do to maintain the heat is give it a gentle prod ever so often to move the coals around. It cooked really evenly too and not too quickly to burn the food.

That’s it. Detailed instructions end here. I suppose I should say do read the manufacturer’s guidelines. There are a few obvious but important safety considerations too, as with any fire.

So, When In Need Of A Disposable BBQ Where To Buy The Cheapest?

Thought I’d check out the best buys today for my next BBQ extravaganza. You can always pop in to Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco or often your local garage if it’s a last minute thing, but it looks like Amazon definitely has the cheapest deals out there.

I paid just over £12 at Tesco. You can get pretty much the same thing at Amazon for less than half that. More choice too. Different sizes of BBQ trays for just a couple of you or the whole family. Any some cool holder options…

How To Impress: Go For A Disposable BBQ Stand As Well

If you’re out to impress, it looks a little bit more posh when you sit your BBQ in one of these. Quite nice as well if you want to get the BBQ up a bit higher and off the grass – it’ll stop the grass getting singed. Otherwise go for a corner of the patio.

They cost just over £10 but of course can be used again.

Recycling

Not much worse than any other option really. You have to throw away the ash, but the main element of the BBQ is aluminium so you can separate this and recycle it.

My Thumbs Up

Anyway, if you want things just a little bit easier, or if you’ve just packed away your fancy main BBQ, this instant option gets my vote.

Herein ends my Disposable BBQ Review. Hope you liked it. Off to clean up the dishes I never got round to yesterday. It was that or a cheeky nap in the garden.

Thanks for reading…

Posted in Garden Fun | Tagged disposable bbq, disposable bbq grill, disposable bbq holder, disposable bbq review, disposable bbq stand | Leave a comment

Boots For Thin Calves Impossible To Find? Buy The Ones You Love Instead And Go See A Tailor

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Stefan

A Bit Of Relationship History

For the last 10 years or so I have been intimately involved in the search for beautiful boots for slim calves. They are my wife’s calves actually, and very lovely they are too, not at all skinny.

But boots are made to fit one classic size of lady it seems, and for most, their calves are either too big or small to fit the manufacturer’s dream woman, whoever that might be.

Anyway, I’m definitely not moaning about my wife taking me round a bunch of shoe shops every autumn/winter, because it is a complete nightmare to find nice looking boots in the first place, let alone to find ones that fit at the calf.

The End In Sight?

Just a few weeks ago Helen (that’s my wife) found her perfect boots, and they looked pretty damn good I have to say. Of course they didn’t fit up top unless they were too tight at the toe, so we were back to square one again.

For some reason though, I wasn’t prepared to give up and return to the mythical quest for skinny calf boots that actually look good and don’t cut off the blood to the toes.

I rang a few local cobblers instead hoping they’d be able to alter them. No luck for a while until someone mentioned ‘John The Stitcher’. We drove over there and entered a pretty unique shop. Leather, tools, off-cuts, you name it, everywhere.

A Bit Of Romance AND Boots That Fit: What A Combination

But what a decent guy, talking through styles, techniques, where he gets his leather, and exactly how he’d be able to cut a strip of leather out of the back seam of the boots and resize them for Helen.

Anyway, we’ve got the boots back now and THEY FIT! And they LOOK GREAT!

I’m pretty chuffed with my role in this – in fact, Helen thought it was romantic, so there.

So, next time you vainly search for sexy knee length boots for thin calves, over the internet or across the country, another option worth thinking about is getting a specialist shoe tailor/cobbler to take them in for you.

I did a bit of Googling and found an online forum or two where people recommended cobblers who’d do this well, so there are definitely a few out there if you make a few calls.

Far easier than endless failed shopping expeditions and you might meet someone nice along the way.

Jon the Sticher’s contact details are below so might come in handy if you are local to him,

1 East Street
Thame
Oxfordshire
OX9 3JS
UK

Telephone: 01844 214591

Thanks for reading,