Half a dozen comps in the bag tonight

Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.....

   Despite the naysayers, I've successfully greened up on the American Presidential market. I win £22 if Obama comes homes, £1 on anyone else. Easy money.

Taylor's Tatties 2

   Won £6.66 on Betfair today too on Italy V Germany.

Taylor's Tatties

   My tatties are growing good-style. Will be doubling up my efforts on these next year. Have got a compost bin so will be able to save a bit of cash in 2013. Elsewhere:

* Have been getting plenty of Darts practice in but still can't get by "6" on a  perfect Round the Clock. Funnily enough though I feel within myself that I am improving.

* My office is looking good now. I've got my laptop set up so that I can sit down or stand up for work however the mood takes me. I've got weights by the desk for downtime. I've got one spotlight shining down on the desk and another on the Darts board.

* Up to 200 listings on Amazon now.

Betfair Update

   Nice £6.30 profit today between the football and Wozniacki failing (yet again) at the tennis.

RBS Success!

   Very pleased to receive a cheque for £210 for my hassle from RBS (see previous post).

   Lovely biscuits! That makes complaining my 3rd biggest income stream this year after work and rent!

From Haven......

Dear Mr Taylor,




Thank you for your comments received on 26/06/2012, regarding your Haven Holiday at Craig Tara.



We are happy to initiate an enquiry into your complaint and ask you to please allow up to 14 days from the date of this letter; by which time a member of the Customer Relations team at Head Office will respond to you with the results of their investigation.



In the meantime, I would like to take the opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience caused and reassure you of our commitment to service excellence.



Yours sincerely,



Chloe Ford

Fuck You RBS!

   Paid another £180 off the Credit Card.

Complaint to Haven...

Hi,




I had a bad experience at Craig Tara last week. My caravan was EXTREMELY dirty with Dog Hairs. This weekend I have been at Parkdean Wemyss Bay and I found their caravan to be of a much higher cleanliness level.



Shouldn’t you guys segregate Pet and Non-Pet vans? As I have a toddler I found the state of the van revolting, and I wouldn’t consider using Haven (as opposed to Parkdean) again. As it was a rainy weekend, we had to spend most of the time in the van making things worse. I do not feel like I had value for money and I would appreciate some recompense.



My van was 13 Bay View.



Kind regards,



Ross Taylor.

Betfair Update 24.6.12

   £7.50 winnings on the Euros today taking my winnings from the tourney up to £100. 27 days since a loser now.

Updates

Absolutely knackered right now! Sitting at my desk at 21:30 with at least another 6 hours of work ahead of me.

On the plus side it is 17 days since I had a losing bet, and I've made around £130 profit over that time. The Euros have been good to me so far - not many late goals.

Quick Update

   Just time for a quick update as I get back from Ayr and head back off for Northampton:

• Won £6 on tonight's European Championship games. I'm now back up to 15 days since a loss.
• Have taken a position on the American Election. Have heavily backed Obama to be re-elected, with the view of trading out as soon as I can for a £10+ profit.
• First couple of sales since I got back onto Amazon.
• Considering putting a complaint letter to Haven regarding the caravan trip. On the whole it was very good - but the caravan was extremely doggy.
• The onions and tatties seem to be coming along nicely.

Off to bed now - KNACKERED!

Thursday 14th June

   Weird day - have been fighting sleep since about 4pm. Battling sleep is the story of my life!

Today's actions:

• Paid another £250 off my credit card.
• Listed another 25 books on Amazon.
• 6 Competitions and a couple of prize draws.
• Half an hour's darts practice. Missed a 180 by a ba' hair.
• Won £5.55 on Betfair.
• (Yesterday) Planted some tatties.

Off to Ayr for the weekend and then working in England on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Euro Success

   Nice £19 profit from today's Euro games.

My 7 Best Productivity Hacks

   Over 2 months ago now I switched from a 40+ hour week to a 28 hour week. I aimed to maintain my workload by working more efficiently. I think I've managed this quite well so far. Here are the practices I've been undertaking:

• Don't drink alcohol! The amount of productive time lost in the UK to hangovers is scary! As a teetotaller I don't miss alcohol whatsoever.
• Avoid inane conversations. Small talk helps some people through the monotony of office life. On the other hand I find it one step off being the spawn of Satan. Many years back I worked in an office where I liked to start early to get work done. This totally back fired when the office cleaner liked to take advantage of the fact that I was on my own to single me out for chat.
• Write a To Do list the previous day. Having your important tasks written down in front of you when you start each day gives you a chance to get cracking. Otherwise you'd lose a few minutes each morning trying to remember your most important jobs. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL.
• Leave your computer on overnight. Not environmentally friendly I know, but I think it is important to keep your computer on 24/7. Doing this saves me 5 minutes each day which would otherwise have been spend twiddling my thumbs. That's 30mins a week (I work 6 days). Last year I (very sadly) used to clock when one of my workmates turned their computer on. I could tell by the little Microsoft jingle. I found that this person NEVER began work before 9.15am. They would be at their desk by 9, fair enough, but they would then unpack their laptop, switch it on, go for a coffee, have a chat with everyone and then, finally, commence working.
• Pre-run reports. Of all the systems I use at work only one allows me to pre-run the reports I need. I wish they all did as this is an excellent time saver.
• Work a shorter day! This might sound counter-intuitive but working a 5h day has not effected my work at all. I've found that the shorter time span means I focus more closely. Work expands to fill time - it's true.
• Have a list of routine, back-up jobs. Throughout the day I hit points where I can't get on with things because I am waiting for a response from someone, or an issue along those lines. At these points in the day (and it is every day) I refer to my list of routine jobs which always need carried out. These jobs might be along the lines of preparing templates for weekly reports or recording certain figures. They never take long and are good fillers.

What's next? I reckon that my productivity could still improve greatly. One thing I would like is to have 2 laptops on the go so that I can switch and continue working when one crashes. I also need to build more macros for repetitive Excel tasks. My final aim would be to farm out the easier stuff to a virtual PA - but that is miles off.

Tuesday 12th June Actions (contd.)

Haha - forgot to mention (like last night) that I won £6.33 on Betfair too. It was a bit of a funny situation really. I put £666 on "under 4.5goals" on the Poland-Russia game at about the 83rd minute. The market had virtually closed as there was £40k+ in the lay column waiting to be matched. Unbelievably, when I checked back at the end of the game someone had indeed taken my bet. Very strange.

Tuesday 12th June Actions

Today:

• Climbed Myretoun Hill in the afternoon (1200ft).
• Walked 5 miles in total.
• Half hour gardening.
• 10+ Competitions.
• Grub (bad boy): plate of soup, sausage and chips.
• Half hour Darts practice.

Monday 11th June (Contd.)

   Forgot to mention that I pulled in £11.47 on Betfair too.

Monday 11th June

  Today's Actions:

• Got another 50 titles listed on Amazon.
• Got an hour of Dart's practice in. Got up to 7 on Round the Clock.
• Short walk and small amount of Gardening.
• My onions are doing well. Have now got the 3 ingredients I need for "Mel's Mix" (google it!)

Targetted Practice

   I've been saying to myself for a while that I won't go to a Dart's club until I can go round the clock and hit all the fat numbers without missing. However my practice has been varied - going for twenties up to 1000; playing the "27" doubles game etc.

   Think from now on I will target my practice towards the goal of a perfect "round the clock".

Walking 9.6.12

   Did an 11 mile ramble round Clackmannanshire on Saturday morning. Alva to Menstrie to Glenochil to Lornshill to Sauchie to Fishcross to Marchglen to Tilly to Alva. Was very sweaty at the end of it!

   I've done a 20 minute video of the walk and hopefully I'll be able to get it up on Youtube soon.

Perth Racing/ Betfair

   If you have the time check out the amount of claiming jockeys who win handicap races at Perth. I bet it is significantly higher than the national average.

   Betfair winnings at £33 for the week.

Complaint to the Supreme Group (the catering company who do the burgers at Perth Racecourse)

Hi,


Sorry but I couldn’t see a complaint or customer services email address on your website. At Perth Races today I asked for chips and gravy and was really disappointed to see that the gravy was taken from the tray which had the meat and mushrooms for the baguettes. This obviously means that the gravy had lots of Mushroom floaters. Having worked in catering for a long time I know that there is no food that people are more squeamish about than Mushrooms. Surely it wouldn’t be too difficult for a jug of gravy to have been kept separate?

I didn’t want to complain at the time as the van was very busy and the girls were doing their best, however I don’t think this is very good service and would appreciate my money back.

Kind regards,

Ross Taylor.

Contact

Tried to make contact with Mark Labbett (From The Chase) and Tim Vine today. Let's see if I get any replies.

Friday 8th June

Actions today:

• Complaint in to Tower Bakery.
• Won £18 on Betfair.
• 45 minutes Darts Practice.
• Grub - All Bran, Soup, Homemade Chicken Tikka Massala.
• Transferred some onion seeds from the propagator tray into pots.
• Applied for a part time job.
• Listed 50 books on Amazon.

Going to go for a long walk tomorrow morning.

Email to Off the Ball (Radio Scotland Football Comedy Show)

Dear Stuart and Tam,
Next season I am going to try and beat the record for the most pies ate during a football match. Do you guys have any idea of how many the World Record might be?
Kind regards,
Ross Taylor
Alloa Fan from Sauchie.

Complaint to the Tower Bakery, Perth

First complaint in a while:

Hi,




unfortunately the Pink Empire biscuit I purchased from Alva Co-OP yesterday was potentially the worst Bakery product I've ever tasted. It was extremely salty and the biscuit was soft as if it was past its sell by date.



I don't think I'll try your products again.

Arras Prakky

   Half an hour on the oche today hitting twenties.

Compo

   After a long break I used my rest time after the Ben Cleuch walk to do some comps. 17 in the bag today. Fingers crossed for my first win of the year.

The Derby Ten Year Trends

   Made good money on the Derby where I layed the horses who didn't fit the 10/10 Ten Year Trends. Basically it only left two horses of the nine unlayed, the favourite and another. The favourite duly romped home and I enjoyed a fine cigar.

Ben Cleuch Charity Walk

   Walked up the 2395 foot King of the Ochils today - Ben Cleuch, raising £52 for a Children's Cancer Charity in doing so.

   It was bloody tough and I actually thought about giving up a few times. I was glad I stuck in though as the views from the top were fantastic. Great exercise too - I was sweating buckets. For a while I needed to stop for a breather every 100 steps. Over the last week I've been trying to do some practice runs. In the end these were woefully inadequate. I had walked up to 1000 feet on four occasions in the last fortnight, and once up to 1500 feet. In reality it was the last quarter that was the toughest.

   Here are some pics.

   It's amazing how far you can see from the top of Ben Cleuch. I could easily make out the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, Ben Lomond in the West, the high flats in Cumbernauld to the South and Highland Perthshire to the North. There must be over 1million people in that area.

   I'm going to give the Hillwalking a rest for a week and then start preparing for a longer trek. Hopefully one day I can be the "Tom Weir of the Ochils".