Mr Daz

As a landlord, one of the things I often have to do is have a property decorated for tenants. It’s one of those necessary expenses that I’d rather not fork out for, but alas has to be done.

Being a fan of the Been (Sarah Beeny) I also know that when you have a house decorated for tenants you don’t go and spend ludicrous amounts of money having it decorated to your own exacting standards. While yes, I might like the best furniture, expensive wallpaper, feature walls and plush carpets – when it’s for rental purposes a simple cheap carpet and some magnolia painted walls will suffice – which is just what I had done the last time I had a house decorated for rental (yet it still cost a few quid mind, as even cheap decorators know how to charge).

The carpets were a particular bone of contention too, as when I first let out a property at the start of 2007 I had new carpets installed for the tenants, and when they moved out (some 18 months or so later) the carpets were knackered and I needed to fit new ones again. The letting agent did try to have them cleaned, but this wasn’t working as they were in too much of a dreary state.

Thus a valuable lesson was learned about installing cheap carpets in the first place.

I remember too from my visits to Leeds University that carpets in student accommodation were fairly cheap. One of the students on a particular level in one of the halls had placed a hot saucepan down in the hallway, outside the kitchen, scorching the carpet. As nobody had owned up to this, every student on the level was threatened with being charged for the repair. The mark was burned into the carpet too, so it couldn’t be dealt with by carpet cleaning. Leeds University had the right idea (albeit unfair for students) in the way it makes tenants pay for repairs or replacements and, because it has deposits from all of the students, it can deduct the costs of repairs without worrying that they could come to more than they’re holding.

Perhaps I should look at properties near universities in future?

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Last Friday I travelled down to London for a filming of the gameshow The Cube, hosted by the silver fox himself; Phillip Schofield. While there, sat on the front row might I add, Schofe (as he likes to be known on Twitter) asked that any audience members who had an Internet enabled mobile and a Twitter account tweet at him, and he’d read them out.

Well, I couldn’t resist an invitation like that so I did. The trouble was, as the Silver Fox is so popular on Twitter it was hard for him to find tweets at him from people who were there in the audience, as opposed to just random tweets telling him how great he was, or how much someone loved him.

Nevertheless he found one from an audience member, MisterDaz

It’s a shame I didn’t record it with the phone too, as having Phillip Schofield announce MrDaz would have made a great video for the site. I’ll know for next time.

As for the show, it was a celebrity episode with Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley Cropper) from Coronation Street. I won’t tell you how well she did, because that would spoil it, but she was a lot of fun!

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Those that have only known me in the last few years may be surprised to know, but I used to be relatively fit. I would attend the gym at least three times each week (sometimes as many as five times) and would also take twice weekly Wing-Tchun classes in Newport.

Alas, due to a lack of interest in Newport the kung fu classes were moved to Cardiff (and I didn’t drive at the time) and life decisions best left alone here resulted in me moving away to Reading and beginning the next chapter of my life, a professional career in Internet marketing.

As with most people working online, my daily exercise began and ended with the twice daily trip to the vending machine for some Frazzles, or a packet of ‘Snowflakes’ (which ruined Jon’s figure, but that’s another story). My days of going to the gym and lifting weights ‘I really I shouldn’t have been allowed to unsupervised’ were well behind me, and the middle aged paunch began to set it – aged 24.

Anyhow, ten years on and now living in Manchester, or Lancashire (depending on your understanding of the every changing counties in England) I’m finding myself yearning for the days when I used to be fairly healthy and I could take my shirt off near a swimming pool without feeling as though I had something to hide (18 inch scar on my back notwithstanding).

So, I’m looking at possibly joining a gym again, maybe doing some other form of exercise such as pilates, or even taking up Wing-Tchun once more. The only thing worrying me about the gym is that my last attempt to rejoin, while initially successful in terms of buffness (if that’s a word) it also affected my back and caused me to seriously injure myself on a rowing machine… I know, I was probably doing wrong. I’ve looked at the different types of pilates classes in Lancashire and I’ve found it, on first glance, to be a more serene form of exercise without the impact to the bones and muscles that you’d get from the gym.

Then of course there’s kung fu. While I’d love to get back into that I think I may have to get fit in order to do it, rather than do it to get fit.

Then again, is this a desperate attempt to recapture youth rather than an informed and well educated decision to regain some much needed fitness?

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Now before I start complaining about this, I should first point out that I have been quad biking. It was an immense amount of fun, and was very exciting. However, due to my height (and particularly long thighs) every time I hit a hard right my leg would nudge the throttle and I would shoot off at full speed towards the apex of the bend… most exciting indeed.

However, this was at Centre Parcs, on a quad biking course and under tuition. Quad bikes, by their very nature, are for driving around on uneven surfaces, over fields and up steep slopes. They are not for driving around the roads of Manchester – which is where a lot of second hand quad bikes, bought cheaply, seem to be driven.

For some reason, the road outside my house (which is relatively long and containing a few speed bumps, or ‘hazards’) is very popular with local quad bikers. They derive immense pleasure from driving up and down the road, at full pelt, past my window when I’m trying to work, and it does nothing for the concentration.

I’m all for quad biking, and would love to do it again. Heck, if I lived in a house with a lot of land, or near some fields (as I did in Wales) I might even consider buying a used quad bike myself, but I don’t… I live in Manchester, near the M56. This is not prime quad biking territory, but someone should tell that to the locals.

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I must confess I’ve never been something of an Apple lover. I’ve shied away from Macs my whole life and never really wanted to get an iPhone, but having seen one recently I have to admit, it does look pretty cool.

However, I currently use a HTC Touch HD and have an application called Vito Audio Notes that I use to record my phone calls (in my line of work, recording calls is important). Whenever I make, or receive, a call the Audio Notes program kicks in and automatically switches the phone to speakerphone, then it begins recording.

It’s also useful for makeshift conference calls, as I had to do last week, or for recording telephone interviews as I also did last week when I appeared on local radio on a talk show.

While I do like the HTC, it’s not the best for the Internet – and having seen the iPhone 4 and the way it accesses the Internet, I’m feeling sorely tempted to finally make the switch when my contract expires in under 3 months. But… if I can’t record calls with the iPhone, it’s of no use to me, and I’ve had a look for available apps and can’t seem to find anything that does it without first jailbreaking the phone.

It appears that the Americans are very coy on recording phone calls (something to do with different laws in different states) so there’s no call recording app in the App Store.

Does anyone know of any way to record phone calls with the iPhone 4?

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Those who know me will know that I can be fairly superficial, but I choose to look upon that as having good taste. For example, I’ve wanted to own a decent desk from which to work for years, as I’ve always made do with cheaper, flat-pack rubbish (usually from Argos). There’s nothing worse than your entire desk shaking when the printer is running, knowing that the screws are working themselves loose with every pass of the printer cartridge.

I have looked for a decent pedestal desk a few times, trying new furniture shops mainly, but haven’t found anything that I like. It has to be old, preferably Victorian, and come with a suitably regal captain’s chair – although I know from trying them out that captains’ chairs aren’t that comfortable.

I’m going to start looking again soon, so that I can get rid of my latest flat-pack job from Argos, and will be starting with eBay and antique dealers around my local area, such as Manchester and Lancashire.

Hopefully, thanks to the power of the Internet, I won’t have to look for long before I find the perfect antique desk in Lancashire, close enough to have one delivered and cheap enough that it doesn’t break the bank. Quality is important, but as I’ve seen them online for well over £4,000 I may yet end up disappointed.

This is the type of antique desk that I’m looking for, so hopefully I’ll find one within budget. I can just see myself sat at this, sipping wine while annoying people online in a professional capacity.

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I dug out this old photo recently and had to upload it here. It was taken somewhere around 2004 and shows a 1987 Ford Capri that I bought, unseen, on eBay for £1,100. It was in excellent condition when I bought it, but alas due to daily commuting from Cwmbran to Bristol (around a 70 mile round trip) it didn’t last too long before it needed repairs that were too much compared to its value.

It’s still a great looking car though and maybe one day I’ll get one again. Though, if I do buy another Capri it will be a 3ltr rather than the 1.6ltr that I had here. I might also go for Professionals silver, instead of white… or maybe one of each.

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It’s a little late this year, but I thought it time to tie up my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009 to see how well I did. Here are the resolutions in case you want catch up, and here’s the success, or lack of it.

1. Buy a house
This one’s a check! Bought a house in Manchester in March and have been living there since then.

2. Clear my bank loan
Another score. Cleared this loan around the same that I bought my house, so now I don’t have any more debts draining my finances each month.

3. Don’t buy a new car (unless it’s a DB9)
Another success. I have managed to avoid buying a new car, or a second hand one, and am driving the same Z3 that I’ve had since 2004 (even though it has been stolen once).

4. Be more outspoken on MrDaz.com
Things have been quiet on here lately, but due to content on other websites I have managed to garner another two solicitor’s letters for different incidents. Good stuff!

5. Invest more
I did buy some shares at the beginning of the year. They haven’t done too well, but I still have them and hope that this particular bank makes an upward turn before too long.

6. Don’t have any fault (or non fault) accidents
Success! I didn’t crash once in 2009. I made it a whole year without hitting another car, inanimate object or pedestrian. Go me!

7. Go to the premiere of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
This one was another big check. I attended the premier and the press conference with Megan Fox and Michael Bay. That was pretty damn good.

8. Get my back sorted
This was sort of a success. I saw a surgeon and found that I also have a slipped disc, but an operation would mean going through my stomach due to my steel spine. The surgeon advised I leave it as most slipped discs get better, and it has slightly. I still can’t walk very far, but it’s better than it was in March.

9. Get in shaped (at least try)
The key word here is ‘try’. No, I didn’t get back in shape, but I did ‘some’ exercise. I’m chalking this one down as a success too, but there’s more to come in 2010.

10. Cook more
The final resolution was also a success. I pretty much cooked something from scratch every month, which is about 12 times more than the previous year, so I’m happy with that.

That’s 10 successful resolutions. I have another 10 for 2010, and I’ll reveal those shortly.

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