I'm a proud parent

After one year of study Biomedical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, our daughter has made her first important achievement - she's been awarded the Dobbie Smith Prize for 2009 which is a great honour for her and, obviously, for us as her loving parents.

Well done, Ksen!

Highlands, Scotland

The divine natural beauty of Scotland will never cease to impress me.

During the last few days we've traveled across the Highlands and every day there was something new and different for us, something that we've never experienced before. Like a crystal lake hidden between the rocky folds of Glen Coe just about a mile or so from the main road and yet invisible and accidentally discovered by us when looking for a ... mobile phone lost somewhere on the way and found by another tourist who bothered to call us from there!!!

Or, like feeding a wild reindeer at Black Mount - he liked nuts and raisins but also chewed on some apple:

Or me get caught on the Ben Nevis path in darkness and walking a few miles back to Fort William through the forest. That was quite an experience for me, as I'd realised too late that I'd forgotten to ask at hotel whether there were any wild animals in the area (like wolves, bears etc.)...

I've also made hundreds of pictures of the most adorable Scottish sheep who've proved to be really cute and very intelligent as they kept on standing still and looking at camera while being photographed!!

I love this country.

For more photos look here.

Laptop deals for students in UK

That was such a good idea to make a present to my daughter upon the beginning of her studies at university...
And it had turned into an ordeal which had lasted for three days, cost me money and nerves and ended up in a big disappointment.

This is an address you should remember if you want to make such a "present" to your child:

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/

I would've never expected from "The UK's Largest Online Laptop Specialist" the following exercises:

• to process my order with an absolutely wrong delivery address I've never given to them and have no slightest idea how it's got into their system
• to charge me TWICE for the same amount (I've received an e-mail that the second charge has been reversed and the money should be paid back to me in a few days... we'll see)
• to charge me for "the next day delivery" and never deliver anything
  UPDATE: Eventually, I've managed to receive my order being dispatched to the wrong address, after three days of extensive telephone communication, failed attempts to track the order on the web-site end general frustration.
• as they've said (by phone and by e-mail), the delivery had failed 'coz the order had been delivered to the wrong address and in order for them to correct my address I should wait for a few days 'coz they should allocate that computer first and then make changes in the order (is that my business or I have to receive what I've paid for and the rest is THEIR business?)
  

Special comment on the Customers Service: every time I'd tried to contact them, I had to wait a long - I mean, really long!- queue and if that is not enough, every time I'd managed to reach a contact person and explain my problem, I had a different response and promise like "We'll do our best to get your order in place by 20-00 this evening" and then "Sorry, we cannot do anything for you and it takes a few days..." etc.

So, this is definitely NOT a good service and I feel offended being put in a position when I'd been forced to fight for my customer rights. And it seems I'd lost...

Now, I've cancelled the order and eager to see whether the money come back to my account as fast as they've been taken without anything in exchange.

We are going to buy a laptop at a different place and I'm sure there IS a good costomer service in the UK, but we have to be more careful to make a right choice.

_________________

Previous update (the order was made sometime in the morning on Mon 08/09/2008 with an option "Next day delivery"):
This order has not yet been transferred from our webshop to our order processing system. Please check back within 12 hours.Page Loaded at : 17:16 Wednesday 10/09/2008

Off to Glasgow

I am the happiest woman in the world.
No, we are the happiest parents in the world.
Because, after all the pressure of the last two years and especially the last two months when our daughter got finished her A levels and impatiently waited for the exams results, we've finally got the answer.

And it is a "Yes"! She's got an unconditional firm offer from the University of Glasgow, Faculty of Biomedical & Life Sciences.

We've been there several times and visited various facilities and faculties, including the medical school's Open Day where students-to-be could observe the process of studying and practice their curing skills a bit (see a photo above).

Beginning September we'll go together to Glasgow and get her well accomodated and equipped for the new and unconditionally fascinating life as a grown-up kid. Sorry, a grown-up full-time student.

I love and always loved Scotland. Now I have a chance to get there way more often. Though, I doubt Ksenia will be too excited about it...

Images of my love in UK

"Love" is a very big word.
In the UK, my love is for the spirits of the cities I've visited and wish to come back again.

London - sophisticated, indifferent and yet very live and vibrating to smallest details.

Manchester - masculine, industrial and never promising.

Glasgow - all too historical and yet warm and friendly.

This is how I feel it... And try to catch the moments of my love in pictures.

Earthquake hits Britain?!

OMG! I thought it's not possible in that part of the world...

Britain was shaken by a huge earth tremor at 12.56am this morning which was felt by people from Yorkshire to the South Coast.

When I saw Leeds on the map I was shaken too since we just came back from there...
I do remember an earthquake in Cyprus on 9.10.96 when the magnitude was 6.4 and later aftershock tremors (no less than 78!) continued for another couple of days followed by torrential rain. We were really scared then.

I wonder whether buildings in Britain posses any aseismic stability?

Let's get our windows clean!

Great Manchester.
Picture made on 13.02.2008 when the weather was unusually warm and sunny.

The world of consultancy

Impressive...

54% of total expenditure on consultants went on IT and project management (sic!).

Consistently relying on consultants for basic skills is expensive and repeated use suggests poor value for money" (sic!), the report said. It suggested departments "plan their recruitment and training accordingly.

I think that "consultancy" and "project management" are the most comprehensive and yet vague areas in which many a man could derive quite a substantial income, and of course not only in the UK. Recruitment and training sometimes have nothing to do with the use of consultancy and management services.
And I doubt it's ever possible to put a tight control over these goldmining areas - unless the legal and business definitions of the words "consultancy" and "project management" are reconsidered with stricter limitations. Unlikely.

Departments are often on the phone to consultants without first finding out whether their own, in-house staff, have the skills to do the job.

So familiar...

I wish THIS anti-terror war never ends

People all over the world and, particularly, in the UK and USA get paranoid about the resent issue at British Airports and the problem of security (as if it hadn't existed before!).

I had been one of those "victims" of the excessive measures applied at Luton Airport on the 14th of August.

Yes, we had not been allowed (by mistake, as we found later) to have a newspaper and a book in our see-through plastic bag until we pass security check-up, so we put it in the bag and had been "forced" to buy a couple of other books in the after-checkup area. Very interesting books, by the way, and I'm glad that bought them spending some extra money which would be otherwise spent on some less valuable stuff.

Yes, my precious and rather expensive lipstick had been confiscated due to the fact that it was made using liquid materials. I suggested to put it on my lips in front of them or even bite a piece, but three officers handling this issue acted against it in a united front. But they did not just take a lipstick and throw it in the bin (as the one familiar with other airports' securities might expect,) but spent quite a time to comfort me and persuade that it's not because they want to harm me - just they have their orders. I understood.

But look, guys, the order, cleanness and peaceful quiteness of the Luton Airport were amazing.

People enjoyed a longer stay by having snacks and proper English breakfast in cafes, they red papers and books, neetly queued and exchanged jokes like the last resort of terrorists is that the passengers are still allowed to wear pants in the plane.

If this is a feature of the war against terror, I vote for it to never finish.

Order always makes people good.

Let's save the planet instead...

Unbeleivable!
Is it yet another evidence of TB's descending his political ladder or we have to cheer up the new star on the Hollywood horizon?

Mr.Schwarzenegger is gaining weight anyway...

I left more comments on Nick's blog.

Do British people have a voice?

What impressed me in this post on the Nick Robinson's BBC Weblog is, actually, not the contents of the post itself (we all knew about the "poodle factor" in British politics way before!) but the comments to it.

Once again I've seen that people in the UK are very much concerned with their country's past, present and future, and they cannot watch indifferently how the current government obediently follows the US President's bold line to destroy the world with his Cold War tactics. They are sincere and open end express their thoughts on the BBC Weblog with a confidence and involvment of the true patriots of their country.

One of the respondents wrote that the Blair/Bush meeting at the White House is "just a way to make Blair more comfortable with his alliance and the British people feel like we have a voice when we have nothing of the sort".

No, it's not true. British people do have a voice and should be proud of it. And Mr.Blair will never feel comfortable with any alliance as long as he works for this country and the people of this country do not share his views and choices and, what's more important, do not keep quite about it.

Knife amnesty

This BBC update made me upset.

I've met a lot of people from the UK here, in Cyprus. Also, we have been in England some time ago and saw different people in London, Manchester, Liverpool. What I remember that, although regularly spotting crime news in Daily Telegraph and scaring articles in magazines, I didn't feel insecure over there. More on the contrary. Friendly people, nice places, interesting events... Even Manchester did not made on us as dreadful impression as some articles and blogs might produce.

However it appears that the ordinary life in England has its dark side. .This particular issue is much disturbing for me because our daughter is going to study in the UK in future. We had been at the Manchester University Open Day, saw the Uni and campus crowded with girls and boys - talking, smiling, with nice open faces. It didn't surprise me that Manchester has been voted the coolest place in the UK outside London by a survey of 18-30 year olds and that it's the third smiliest place in the UK. I was smiling over there all the time!

And now I've learnt that most victims and offenders in the Manchester crime statistics are young people, and some clubs have started introducing airport-style knife detectors at their entrances...

This is sad, and I really don't want to start thinking that there might be other palces to go for studying...