Day: 6 November 2007

Remote control buckaroo

Do you remember that kids’ game from the 1970s: buckaroo?

Well I’ve just discovered that you can also play it on the sofa at home.

With your wife (sleeping or awake) and every single remote control that you can find lying around, e.g. TV, video, DVD player, digibox.

And why stop at remote controls? Cordless phones, mobile phones, laptops … they all work too.

Forgotten words

Today’s forgotten word was “versatile”.

There I was in the middle of writing an email when <BLAM!> I completely forgot the next word.

It was like there was a hole in the side of my head and the rest of the sentence poured out on the floor and soaked into the carpet.

“What’s that word? … it means … ohh! It begins with a ‘v’, I’m sure it begins with a ‘v’… it’s to do with being flexible … you can use it for many purposes”

Thesaurus.com came to the rescue. The word was “versatile”.

Leaving answerphone messages

Something that I’ve learned fairly recently is how to leave good answerphone messages.

In the past I’ve always left messages like this:

Hi, it’s Gareth Saunders here … blah blah blah … interesting message here … please ring me back on 01234 567890

The problem with this is that my telephone number is at the end. So if the person listening to the message doesn’t manage to write it down in time he or she has to listen all the way through the message again just to get that important string of numbers.

I now leave messages like this:

 Hi, it’s Gareth Saunders here on 01234 567890 … I’m telephoning about blah blah blah … interesting message here … please ring me back on 01234 567890

I’ve stated clearly:

  • who I am
  • my contact telephone number
  • what the message is regarding
  • the actual message
  • my contact telephone number again

It’s taken me a while to get into this new habit but it seems to work for folks.