» Hotel Splendido

No perving
In '06, my then-girlfriend came over to live with me and a couple of friends from Oz were stopping past Edinburgh. Between us we decided to have a road trip around Scotland, we figured it would be the best way to see a lot relatively cheaply.

Most of the hostels were ok, I pre-booked them online or over the phone well in advance. We got to Thurso (excellent hostel there btw) and I realised we hadn't booked anything for when we got over to the Orkneys.

Mrs Plowna had a quick flip through her lonely planet book, which despite being a few years old had been pretty spot on. We settled on what sounded like a nice little place on a farm. Gave them a call, and yes, no problems, we've got a room. And its dead cheap - by far the cheapeast so far. Result!

So, upon getting off the ferry at Orkney, we decided to check it out. At first, the girls were quite enthused about the whole deal. It was basically a couple of bunk beds built into an old barn.

Things just went downhill from there. First, there was the kitchen area. Smaller than your kitchen at home. We'd brought some supplies so we were planning on cooking something.

Then we asked about the oven and heating (not at the same time, bear with me). It was explained that all the electricity in the place runs off an old electrical system that required (old style) 50p pieces put into the box to keep it running.

We would be expected to put in for electricity (this was late Autumn so we would need the heating at the very least). Our host disappeared for a while, and there was much a-grumble amongst the ladies.

As we resigned ourselves to staying there, we realised that our host would be sleeping in one of the bunks provided. This place was also "open plan" meaning nowhere really safe to change except the bathroom. It became apparent that our host lived in this little barn.

There was quite a bit more indignation and general consternation from the ladies. As couples we decided to sleep on these mattresses that were on the floor, that had curtains round them for a bit of privacy.

The final straw came when it came time to have a shower. The owner had a built a couple of shower cubicles in the back of the barn, they were the newest looking thing in the whole mess. After chatting with our host, it turned out that there would be "oh, like, 4 minutes of hot water, but its probably only 1 minute now because I just had a shower".

Fair play to the girls, they waited until he had gone before putting a hole through a wall with the dummy they spit.

We had booked to stay 4 nights, but after staying the first night, I made some excuses to the owner (not the host), got our money back and we legged it over to Stromness and found a much better hostel there.

To make matters worse, the other couple busted our "host" perving on them in the morning through the little curtain, and the kicker for me was the little sign above the stove as we were walking out.

Besides explaining about the electricity situation, it laid what was and what was not allowed to be cooked in the kitchen. There was to be no meat cooked in the kitchen. (These people really didn't appear in any way to be muslim) Upon asking the host about that, he said his parents "didn't like the smell of meat". Fucking hippies.

Length? Quite small from the cold.
(Fri 18th Jan 2008, 23:03, More)

» My most gullible moment

Not a multi-meter
My boss got me last week ... he asked if he could test out his new multi-meter. Said it would give me a bit of a nip. I figured, sure, those things don't put out much power.

The "multi meter" was actually an earth leakage tester, which apparently puts out about 1000 volts.

So where's my 50 quid then? :p
(Sat 23rd Aug 2008, 1:17, More)

» Debt pron

Only had a couple of "small fuck-ups"
When I was a student back in Australia, they had this thing call Austudy (not sure if they have it anymore). Basically if your family was poor enough, the government would give you an allowance for you to be able to attend school etc. It was some sort of sliding scale based on assets & income of your parents.

Being in the section of middle class closer to the poor side, my Mum obviously had this organised as soon as I was eligible.

After the first year, they sent us a letter to say they had "changed the rules" regarding the sliding scale. Oh and it was backdated, you owe us $1500. Fine we said, sign us up for it next year, and take the $1500 from that.

So all was well and dandy for another year. Then we got another letter, saying they had "changed the rules" again. This time it was something like $2000 that we owed them.

Mum told them where to go, and she organised to pay it off. At the rate of $10 a fortnight. Three or so years later it was finally paid off. Our little "fuck you" to the man.

Other one was from a loan I had for my 2nd-hand clunker I bought. It was only a small loan, something like $6k AUD. I set up an automatic payment on a Thursday morning every fortnight for the payment, as I'd deposit my pay cheque into the account the day before every fortnight.

This worked out well, but being the spender I am, I would usually have an empty account by the end of the fortnight. Then the company I worked for changed their pay date to a Thursday, and I forgot to change the automatic payment. As my statements were quarterly, and I am naturally daft, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until reading through my next statement, which detailed how about 40% of my pay was going towards the bank charges for failed direct debits.

Apologies for length and the funny smell.
(Sat 25th Nov 2006, 11:45, More)