The Speed Of Email

These days most people rely on email to carry out their business and communicate more readily but you shouldn't assume that emails will arrive in the other person's Inbox seconds or minutes after they've been sent.

Sometimes there can be a good hour or two delay and the person may not be around to respond at the speed or in the time that you'd like. It depends on the ISP, route taken, time of day, email settings, temperature of the ether, climatic conditions :) ... etc. Servers crash, connections go down - while the majority of emails will get through safely, emails can go astray and never reach their destination. They may get filtered out by over enthusiastic spam filters, blocked by an ISP, mislaid or just lost in the volume of emails that people receive (on average 100 a day).

You can use the 'request read receipt' option when you send an email but again that doesn't always guarantee delivery - some people have this switched off or if it's set to autorespond - they may have received it in their Inbox but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've read it.

If it's really urgent, pick up the phone. Don't rely solely on email to deliver your message.

Rant: Dog Owners

... or rather dog owners that don't clear up after their dogs. There is a small park closeby where kids go out to play. On their bikes, playing football or just running around on the grass. Despite the fact that there are several dog bins around the park some of the owners just can't be bothered to clear up after their dogs and the place is disgusting. It's worse alongside the paths or even in the middle of the path where it's even more annoying that owners can't be bothered to clear up. It's bad enough clearing up after the cats that use my garden - if I could, I'd return it to them. Cat's don't do their business in their own territory.

Kids play on the grass, people like to sit on the grass in the summer but the thought of sitting somewhere where dogs mess has been is just not pleasant. Not only that but toxicara, which is carried in dogs faeces, can cause anything from stomach upsets to blindness.

It's even worse on the playing fields where people are always walking their dogs. I've just been out for a walk this morning and the kids are coming out to play football as they do each Sunday in the football season and there is mess all over the field where they're going to running around, falling over and getting muddy.

Aaarrghh!!!! Why can't they pay attention to what their dogs are up to and where they're going and then clear up after them?

Sunday - Little South Run

I set off for my Sunday run about the same time that 50,000 people set off for the Great North Run. However, that's about where the similarity ended as although they were running a lot further, they didn't have to deal with strong winds (or strong breeze according to the Beaufort scale).

I got back about the time that the first runners were crossing the line having done about half the distance and I have to say that I hadn't exactly done the same distance and I bet they weren't picking mushrooms on the way round either!

I also stopped off at the corner shop to pick up a pint of milk (or rather a litre in decimal terms) so that I can now sit outside in the sunshine while it lasts and enjoy a cup of coffee and read my book.