So this morning started off with coffee and cereal once again. It was a lovely day so I gave Ben a call. The helicopter tail cone had been bent, they are not sure how it happened but the aircraft was now out of action for a week. That pissed me off somewhat as it was the best the weather had been in weeks.

So in the end I just sat in bed and wrote a new video script. Went straight downstairs and filmed it. Popped out to find two geocaches, but in the end only found one of them. Came back and picked up Sasha, we then went out until it was dark. Came back and edited and uploaded the video:

Had a bath. Now time for food.

Started the way I like to start Saturdays. Coffee, cereal, papers. Could have done with nicer weather, it was bloody freezing. Walked Sasha. Came back and did a bit of music practice, I have a new course video, it’s very good, I picked up chord structure and all major and minor keys in about ten minutes, oddly you just need to be able to count to eight. Had lunch, drove towards town. Parked up and walked about three miles in the wrong direction to pick up a present for Jamie, lovely little shop, again would be nicer if it wasn’t pissing down with freezing rain. Walked into town, browsed. Went in the Apple store and browsed the staff, nothing which took my fancy. Picked up a card and some wrapping paper, that cost a fiver, very overpriced. Drove back via Asda, hoping Doritos were still on offer, they weren’t. Picked up bean sprouts. Came home and did the accounts, paid the balance on the holiday and had a bath. I was supposed to be cooking tonight, but I got Jamie to do it, I always burn noodles anyway.

So I got another letter from HMRC, this time giving me a tax code for two months (if they could get away with a negative one I think they would of) and one for next year, which gives me about a flat rate of 67%. Still, at least I’m getting somewhere now. Had a nice long walk with Sasha, clouded over a bit. Walked to the gym, did Pump, came back and went though my pensions as I need to dump a shit load of money into one. Found I had two, well two policies, then found I had a third, then evidence of a forth and finally a policy number of a fifth. There’s probably close to about a hundred grand there if all are correct, which I very much doubt, I’m assuming one has got transferred to another over the years and it’s probably about a quarter of that, shame. Still, I’ll make some phone calls and get all the figures. I’ll then make an appointment with a truly independent financial advisor and work out what to do. Now it’s time for pizza and beer that isn’t beer.

Started fairly early. Had the fun job of replacing a seventeen year old cygwin based pre-processor. Found a GCC one but couldn’t get it to work properly. Then remembered that a certain console SDK already had one built into the compiler, after a little fiddling it all works nicely. So goodbye cpp.exe. I’ll mourn our passing. Or should that be mourn your parsing. Many beeps suddenly shot out of the firewall, I logged in and looked at the logs, there were many failed login attempts through the backup firewall back door. I’ve closed that for the moment as I only really use it when I’m away from home for a long time. Nice day, but chilly. Sasha got a long walk as I was feeling rather stressed and want to get out for a while. Went for a run this evening.

Started a bit later as I had time o claw back, in the end I should have just started earlier. Work was quite dull, mainly building data all day. Found one of the anti-aliasing modes from the original game doesn’t actually do much. Fixed it up anyway. Got a new laptop out of the box and started to delete all the bloatware off it, its been sent to me to do some performance tests on, hopefully they’ll forget about it after I’ve done the tests. Was a lovely day today, why the fuck is it only nice mid-week? Sasha got a nice walk anyway. Walked to gym, did Pump, walked home. Ate spicy chicken wings, which were lacking in chicken.

Didn’t have the greatest nights sleep, must be said. Started on time. Lots of annoying people. Phoned the accountant people and made an appointment for twenty minutes later. Walked to them as they are just up the road. Had a very nice meeting with a lovely lady. Basically all my calculations and theories were correct, I’m paying 60% tax on a portion of my earnings, I ain’t happy with that. So it turns out my way of reducing this somewhat is legitimate, providing I’m willing to stand in front of the tax man and state that what I’m buying is work work purposes, which it is. Even though as accountants they’ve never come across a case of an employee claiming capitol allowances, although there is nothing to stop you and even a box to put the number in. It comes down to, “Do your employers provide everything required to do your job, and is it stated in your contract.” The answer to that is ‘no’, unless they want to pay for my entire network infrastructure. So I have some hardware to purchase, I’m also going to put a significant amount into one of my private pensions, not that I wanted to, but I’m buggered if I’m losing 60p in the pound for bugger all. We discussed going back as a contractor, considering the perks of me being an employee are absolutely zero. It would be advantageous if I went back to a limited company. I opened my own again today anyway. I spoke to our corporate accountant about it, his response was, ‘There are no real advantages and the tax people won’t let you do it’. This is the same guy who’s clueless about personal allowances eroding. If I want to resign and become a contractor then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Managed to start fairly on time. Sleeping seems to be fine at the moment which is nice. Flipped over to new shader system today which is leading to a whole host of fire-fighting type tasks. Still, managed to get a couple of other things in at the same time. Dinkley’s got back to me, I need to make an appointment, apparently the first hour is free. Need to discuss the fact that I seem to be paying 60% tax on about twenty grand, not happy with that at all. The weather today was interesting, actually it was quite cold and very very windy. Sasha and I almost got blown away. Walked to the gym, did Combat. All gay front row again, the guy there likes to stare in the mirror more than I do. Walked home, it actually was quite a nice evening. Did final hour of work, I’m trying very hard to stick to a fixed time amount, it’s difficult. I’ve logged out of the forum from the laptop, when I finish now, I’ve finished. It’ll wait until the morning. Watched the X-Files again, blah, it’s okay I guess, it will take a while to get back into it. Good to see it’s back to ‘monster of the week’ again next week. See how it goes.

So spent the morning reading about a three month old paper briefly. Coffee, cereal, usual. Then did research into tax, looks like I have to spend seventeen grand to actually only spend ten, the fun joys of the UK tax system. Going to speak to a couple of people about it, but looks like an can get a new iMac out of it, plus a few other toys. We went to the Apple store and found the one I want anyway. We also went into the Virgin holidays place, and were offered beer, which is all a very odd concept. Came home and walked the dog in the rain. Then edited a new dog acrobatic video, okay they aren’t juggling, but running around with GoPro’s attached so quite fun. Then had a bath and poured some of this alcohol free wine. It was sweet and disgusting, so then tried the other bottle, it wasn’t as sweet but still disgusting. Poured down sink, had an alcohol free beer instead. Jamie cooking tonight, cheese and crackers on stand-by.

We spent the vast majority of the morning (okay, all of it) in bed. It is the most awful weather. I ran Sasha round the block. We ate and then ventured out. Parked up in the centre and then went to the piercing shop. I wasn’t getting pierced, I have enough. I paid for two piercings. We then walked into town, I bought new shoes, you can never have enough shoes. We then got Sasha a new bed for downstairs. I picked up some more non-alcoholic wine and beer. I’ve found the one called ‘Bavaria’, which is really good. Did the accounts, was playing with my tax spreadsheet and realised that I’ll owe almost four grand at the end of the tax year. I’m not overly thrilled about this prospect. I’m looking at writing off some serious capitol expenditure, so I may get a new iMac or something, put it this way, if I spend 3K on one, in reality it will actually cost 800 quid, the mad way the tax system works. I cooked tonights dinner, all very nice.

So I did the shopping list last night and thought I’d do a search for alcohol free products, as I’m on my fasting month. Surprisingly there are now quite a lot. I remember years ago you could just buy this truly awful lager called ‘Kaliber’, it tasted like sweet piss and after a couple of bottle of that your stomach felt like you’d consumed a vat of sulphuric acid. Now they do ‘alcohol free’ Becks. I guess they can’t get every last trace out, but it’s 0.05%, so I’d have to drink a hundred bottles to get the equivalent of one, I’d get bored after about six. Also, as it doesn’t have the tax on it, it’s very cheap, I think I paid about two quid for six bottles. And here’s the best bit, it tastes exactly like normal Beck’s, okay, perhaps it is just a little sweeter. It’s also only twenty-four calories, but still high in carbs. And here’s the best bit….alcohol free wine. Yes it exists. I did a bit of research, they take an ordinary Chardonnay and then distil it to remove all the alcohol, so I’m looking forward to that with my bath on Sunday. May be this month won’t be so bad after all.