Tube tap dancer

I'm on the London underground when a big man gets on, on his own, but talking. uh-oh! We all ignore him, put our heads down - and watch carefully. Is he drunk? At nine o'clock in the morning? No, so recheck. He's healthy looking, too healthy to be drunk at that time of day. He's tall, mixed West Indian perhaps, and his dialect might be West Indian - not my English accent anyhow.

I've done that assessment in the seconds it's taken him to walk past me to one end of the carriage and back to a space by the doors. I'm assessing his mental health now as he continues to talk loudly - he's addressing the carriage. Wey! Then he commences to tap dance.

Tap dance?!

Yes, tap dance. Wey hey! This is different and this man is no drunk. I dare to look up and people start to smile though they still avoid eye contact with strangers. I wonder about getting up and joining in, and take off my gloves as just the thought makes me too hot.

But it's too late! He announces that he's the tube tapper, - waves a small black money sack- says we can give him some money if we want to but we don't have to. And now there's no time because we've arrived at the next station and he wanders off.

The interesting interlude is over, but you can see a few pictures and videos of him on Facebook if you look for "tube tapper". If you've logged in to Facebook, I found it here.

Bumbling banks

It's taken five weeks to get telephone banking on Aunty's account.

1. I first went into the local bank and completed their form in January, after Lloyd's telephone service was so bureaucratically useless.
2. When I received the letter saying to ring to register, it wasn't easy, and I had to complete their form again.
3. Their letter arrived again today. So I rang to complete registration again. They passed me to a local branch, in the wrong county.
4. I rang again. They passed me to the right branch, but branches are not the place to complete a telephone registration.
5. I rang again. Alleluia! I got someone who knew what to do, and passed me to the person who could check their secret word, and set up a password.

Those three calls took only half an hour. If they'd got it right three weeks ago, the whole process should have taken less than ten minutes.

Liquid nitrogen demonstration

Husband and I took a couple of grandchildren to a demonstration of lovely liquid nitrogen at http://www.scienceoxfordlive.com/

The young demonstrator showed how some strange things happen to everyday objects when they get really cold. He experimented with shrinking balloons, shattering yellow chrysanthemeums and blu tac as hard as nails.

Liquid nitrogen is so exciting. but you can't put your hand in it, not even a finger because it's minus 200 degrees C and your finger will drop off, but you can pour it over your hand, because by the time it's reached your hand, it's boiling off into gas and there's only a tiny drop at a time, just don't wear rings where it might get trapped and damage you.

He used tongs to put a bit of blutac in the nitrogen, then it was as hard as a nail, so hard that he could hammer it into a piece of wood.

He demonstrated smashing rubber when it was normal temperature and then after he'd dunked it in the nitrogen, when it was all hard and brittle and flew into lots of pieces.

His last trick was to make icecream with nitrogen, and all the children lined up to taste it.

In the meantime, husband's trick was to leave the car lights on, so the battery was flat when we got back to the car, in the rain.

• First husband pushed.
• Then a friendly Iranian man helped us push.
• Then we gave up.

So they pushed the car (me reversing) into a spot then friendly Iranian man tried his jump leads but they didn't make good contact, so we left G'pa in the rain waiting for the rescue man.

We paddled thro the puddles to Cafe Toscano and had coke and hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream.

I've got leaky boots, so I got wet feet, and husband was a little stressed. The g'children were happy with the day, and thanked us unprompted. They're really nice children.

Research on colon cancer

We lost a family member to cancer years ago, so any news that suggests advances in preventing it is importnat. The Open University (OU) has some here, sucggesting it's something in the diet.

http://www.open.ac.uk/alumni/news-events/publications/openeye-bulletins/july-2007/diet-holds-clues-to-cancer-risk.php

Civilised tea

We went out for tea at Waddesdon Manor and had scones and strawberry jam and clotted cream with Earl Grey tea.

Very civilised.

Pension credit

If you get pension credit, you don't have to pay rent for your sheltered housing. But the council first thought that aunty did have to pay her rent, so I set up a standing order to pay it. Then the assessment officer rang me, and said that she was getting credit, so she didn't have to pay the rent, The estates manager also wrote and told me to stop the standing order, and she'll send a cheque to pay back what was overpaid.

So now I've written to the bank again (I still can't ring them because they haven't set up the telephone account) to tell them to stop the standing order.

This is so confusing that it is no wonder aunty is confused.

Banking idiots

Aunty's bank has registered the Legal Power of Attorney, so wrote to me telling me I could now start telephoning banking. I rang them up. They didn't ask for aunty's details but asked for my password.

But I don't have a password yet.
The computer in front of me is asking for a password.
How can it be doing that?
Do you have an account with us?
No I closed it in 2002.
I think they haven't closed down the old telephone password. I'll have to speak to my manager.

How awful is that! What security of information is that! And doesn't it break the 1998 Data Protection Act that says data should be

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive
• Accurate and up to date
• Not kept for longer than is necessary?
  

The bank is going to send me a new form to complete again, now they've deleted the old password. But it's horribly bad service, and it's as well that I closed the account with them years ago.