I Am Livid

My friend TOWTAL (The One Who Talks A Lot) is in hospital with a broken leg and ankle, sustained whilst playing football on Saturday.

This meant a trip to the hospital on Sunday to visit him after his ankle had been pinned.

I don’t like hospitals.  I never have.  They are nothing like the television would have you believe, nothing at all.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that the makers of Scrubs have never set foot in a real hospital.

Towtal was in a bed in a room with four others, he had no television, or even a bulb in his reading light, so time was passing very slowly.  He is a member of Bupa, but he had not been able to reach them to sort out a private room as they are not available from Saturday lunchtime until Monday morning (if you pay for private medical care, please make sure you get sick during office hours).

Whilst I was there trying to take his mind off his injury by telling him about the run I had been on that morning, a lady came round with a menu.

This would be my first experience of hospital food.  Even if it was vicarious in nature.  The menu itself didn’t seem to bad, and certainly didn’t conjure images of prison food as I had imagined. I pointed out that some of the options looked almost as tasty as the delicious take-away that I would be having later that evening.

After a brief perusal, a frankly starving Towtal settled on Fish and Chips with strawberry trifle for dessert.  A choice I was quite impressed with.

A short while later, it arrived.

I am not sure that words can truly do it justice, except to say that I now know why no-one ever gets fat in Hospital, and it appears the NHS has done a deal to procure the global stocks of square fish.

This photo has not been digitally enhanced in any way.

Following the guilt trip I had been enjoying since telling you all about the conversation with my mother last week, I did something nice.  I took the time to print off some family photos for her that I had taken during the Christmas holidays.  I had to do this as old people do not use computers and the Internet, so sending her a link to Flickr was pointless.

There were about twenty photos in total, with family members in varying states of inebriation.  I knew she would like them.

Unfortunately, I had to visit the Post Office as I had no idea how much it would cost to send them since the Post Office changed their rules so that anything more than a sheet of rice paper requires two first class stamps.

I waited my turn in the queue and was finally dealt with by a chipper gentleman who seemed a bit too happy about the fact that he was behind a post office counter on a Friday afternoon.

“That’ll be £1.10.” he told me after weighing the photos and including the envelope I had purchased in order to post them.

I handed over some money and waited for my change.  He mumbled something at me as I picked up the shrapnel he had passed to me under the bullet proof glass.

“I’m sorry?” I queried.

“I said, can I interest you in credit card?” he repeated.

I didn’t know how to respond. I have heard of post office workers raiding personal mail in order to get hold of credit cards and spend on them before they are listed as missing, but it was a bit brazen of him to offer one to me.  I only wanted a stamp.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Would you like a credit card.  From us here.  We have some good deals.”

Ah.  It was a legitimate business offer.  This made a bit more sense.  I did not want a credit card as it happened, but I found it strange that in these times of crunchy credit, people are finding it extremely difficult to borrow money from a traditional source of cash; the banks.  And yet here, in a place I least expected it, at the Post Office, they could not give me some almost-but-not-quite-free money fast enough.

Is the solution to all our problems really as simple as getting the Post Office to lend money to the banks?

There is a rumour going around that this year’s Superstars competition will include a rowing event.  Not on actual water, but on one of those indoor rowing machines.

This is not particularly good news, as I never use a rowing machine, and I assume there is a ‘knack’ to being quite good at it.  Fortunately I have made it my mission to perfect this ‘knack’ and now include a few minutes on the rowing machine during each gym visit.

I was chatting to one of the gym workers last week waiting for some water when he mentioned we had a new world record holder in our midst.  It appeared that the guy stretching a few yards away had recently broken a world record at the recent British Indoor rowing championship.

I am a born competitor, and so this was too much of challenge to pass up.  I made my way to the machine next to him, and after a polite hello, I popped in my headphones and began rowing whilst those nice Prodigy boys told me about how they had been smaking up their bitches.

It was easy to keep up with him at first, as being a natural athlete will always get you so far in any sport.  Unfortunately, after about two minutes I started to fall back a little.  He showed no signs of slowing, and with the steely-eyed determination of a true world champion he focussed on the window ahead of him and rowed ever onwards with strokes of increasingly monotonous regularity.

I redoubled my efforts.

It began to hurt.  A lot.  But I was warmed by the thought that I was giving a world champion a run for him money, at his own sport.  If we had a keepy-uppies competition I bet I would kick his arse, and here I was, a complete novice, just a fraction behind him.  I could feel the tension in the gym as I was sure people were watching to see who this guy taking on a world champion was.  Of course, to avoid any embarrassing eye-contact moments, everybody paying attention hid their interest by going about their own workouts and pretending to ignore us.  But I knew better.

As the five minute marker drew ever closer I gave it one last burst to see if I could get passed him.  My lungs burned, and my legs began to feel like jelly, and I almost, almost made it.

There is no shame in losing to a world champion.  In fact, there is a great deal of pride to be taken from giving him a decent run for his money.  I got up off my machine to continue my work out by doing some lying down stuff.  We shared a smile, and I vowed to watch his career develop with keen interest.

All around the world there are species of animal on the verge of extinction.  This is a shame, especially when man has had an effect on the species’ survival.  They really should look to stop what this man is doing.   He is causing a lot of problems.  A discussion of the plight of endangered animals due to the impact of this man led to a friend them correcting me when I mentioned someone who had sponsored a Panda.

“You mean GIANT Panda”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.  It’s called the giant Panda.”

I am pretty sure this is just a marketing ploy, because I don’t think they are giant at all.  Not that I have seen one in real life, but they do look like small-ish black and white bears.  Admittedly, a lot of things look quite big when stood next to a Chinamen (I am still convinced the Great Wall of China is a bit like the M42), but surely calling them ‘giant’ is stretching it a bit?

So I did some research and it turns out they were correct, they really are called Giant Pandas.  Which begs the question, where are all the normal-sized Pandas?  Have they already died out?  It would be typical of our society to focus on the freaks and ignore all the normal animals.  It is the X Factor and Big Brother generation in all it’s glory.

So I did a little search, and there was a smaller panda.  Do you know what it was called?

It was called The Pygmy Giant Panda.

So it was still a giant, but it’s a bit of a small one.  However, calling it The Panda would never do.  How would they raise millions world-wide for research into a species with such a common sounding name as The Panda?  No, they have to sex it up a bit.  The Little Big Panda sounded too native-American I guess, and the Mini Massive Panda sounds a bit silly.  I am pretty sure The Titchy Enormous Panda also made the shortlist, but none had the ring of it’s final name.

So Pygmy Giant Panda it is.  Once again pandering (ahem) to societies need to embrace the freaks.

I am a big fan of that there Facebook.  I am on it, this website is on it, the podcast is on it.  Even my own little group to stop all DEATH is on it.

I am particularly impressed when I see people shunning the requests to become a Vampire, grow a plant or populate an aquarium, and instead look to use it in an attempt to effect social change.  So I was intrigued to notice that one of my school friends had joined a group called, “What [removed] Needs”.  Of course, the [removed] is the name of my home town, but I am not giving you that, because of, well, the stigma.

This group claimed to have been set up as a forum for ideas to give to the local council, in the hope of making the town a bearable place to live.  This was a good thing as far as I could tell.

Then I read the comments from the concerned locals who were hoping to make their environment better for themselves, their children, and their children’s children.

“How about a music shop or summat?  We need an hmv!”

“I’d love to see us have our own KFC.”

“A cinema, but not one of those shit local ones.  A big multiplex, at least ten screens.”

I particularly like the last one, a cinema with ten screens would obviously thrive in a town which only recently saw celebrations in the street when its first supermarket agreed to stay open past 6pm.

The comments also show a distinct lack of understanding of the role of Local Government.  I have yet to hear of a local council meeting where the minutes were full of debate over which fast food chain would best serve the community at large.  Or why access to cut-price DVDs and box sets is so limited.

And still they wonder why I left.

“So you’re absolutely positive it hasn’t been opened, and that there’s nothing damaged or missing?”

“Yes.”

“Would you be willing to put that in writing?”

This was an unusual end to a conversation held with a B&Q employee during the January sales.  But it was necessary.  I was in need of a bathroom cabinet, and the last one on the shelf looked as if it had been opened up and then taped back up by an arthritic Parkinson’s sufferer.  I had little confidence all would be fine when I got it home.

“Maybe we should open it, just to be safe then?” suggested the B&Q operative.

And so open it we did.  To find several components missing, and a large scratch on one of the panels.

“I guess you were right to insist we open it then.” they continued, a little sheepishly.

Unfortunately this was the last one in the store, but I was given the item code and a number to call to reserve one after the next delivery.  Which is what I did two days later.  A helpful man said he had put one aside in the warehouse for me, and I could pick it up any time the following day.

I headed to the Bathroom department and explained my situation, and a lady headed out to the warehouse to fetch my cabinet.  She came back and put it on the table in front of us.

“This one has been opened as well.” I pointed out.

“That’s probably because he wanted to make sure it had everything in it after your last experience here, he wouldn’t want the same thing to happen again.”

This made sense, perfect sense, why would they want to upset me any more than they had already?  So, under time pressures, I paid for it and headed home.

If this was Question Of Sport, this next bit would be known as the “What happened next?” round.  Can you guess?

The following morning I opened to box and prepared to mount it on the wall.   Then I noticed the scratch.  And the bits that were missing.  I felt like one of those punters who has been conned by a street entertainer, cheap and used, but with a valid receipt.

I headed back to the store waited in the alarmingly long queue at the Returns desk.  Three months later, I reached the front.

“Look, I bought this cabinet yesterday, but it’s clearly not new.  It was opened, it’s scratched and there’s bits missing.  That’s not the worst bit though, I think you tried to sell it to me once before, only that time I….”

“Do you have your receipt?” he asked, interrupting me mid flow.

“Well…yes.”

“Would you like a replacement?”

“I suppose so.”

“If you’d like to select the one you want, bring it here and we’ll sort that for you.”

I headed off to select a replacement cabinet, and fortunately enough, there were two on the shelves.  Both of which had been taped up.  I picked them both up and took them back to the counter.

“Before we go any further, I want to know.  Do you put returns back on your shelves?” I began.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well twice I’ve been given a pre-opened cabinet, and now both of these look like they’ve been opened before.”

“We don’t sell returns without making clear they are returns.”

“Can we open these then?”

And so open them we did.  The first one had an extremely familiar look about it.  Partially constructed, scratched, and in no way a new item.  It even had a screwed up B&Q receipt in the box.  Still he continued to insist that they do not sell returns.

The other box, thankfully, contained what appeared to be a brand new cabinet.  And so I took it, and I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t wait around for a good enough answer as to why used items were on the shelf.  The old me would have kicked up much more of a fuss, but I could not be arsed to wait an hour until the manager returned.

Maybe I am getting too old for this?

Outgoing US President George W Bush’s recent flying visit to Iraq was dramatically improved by a brief incident during a press conference.  An Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at him.  Technically, I suppose he threw two shoes at him, but it was the first one that got most people’s attention.  In fact, as he missed with the second one too, he might as well have not bothered throwing it.  It was all a bit embarrassing for him by then, a bit like watching women play Cricket.

I could not help but chuckle at the hilarity of a plimsoll based attack, but as I am not from the Middle East, I was surprised to learn that shoe throwing, and showing the soles of your feet, is just about the most offensive thing you can do in that part of the world.  Yes, shoes.

I must admit that I think us Westerners are having our legs pulled a bit here.  In the land that invented the suicide bomber, they claim the worst thing you can do is throw a shoe at someone?   If it really is the biggest insult of all, then why aren’t Al Qaeda arming themselves with racks upon racks of Flip-Flops and Espadrilles?

I feel a bit sorry for Muntadar al-Zaidi, the shoe thrower, as shoes cost real cash money.  However, a bag of your own excrement, does not.  A bag of shit would have made an even more entertaining clip, as would a bit of throwing practise.  If there were concerns about sneaking in a bag of faeces then he could simply have headed in a bit early, armed with an empty bag.

All in all I praise his efforts, as once again people are taking an active interest in Middle East politics, which can only be a good thing.

Anyone who has listened to even a few minutes of one of the podcasts will know that I can not resist making a cheap knob gag.  It is the way my brain is wired.  Some people can complete Sudoku puzzles after looking at them for moments, whereas I can spot a cock joke in just about any situation.  It is not that I can not do high-brow cutting satire, I can, and in fact did at least twice in early 2007.  Yet still, aged twenty-thirteen, I can not pass up the opportunity to revert back to my thirteen year old self and go for the easy bum/fanny/knob (delete at appropriate) gag, whilst offering myself a virtual high-five across a twenty-year rift in the time-space continuum.

So my thirteen year-old self was quite excited to notice that my local pub had replaced the normal toilet sign with an A4 sheet of paper adorned with a hangman style matchstick man.  The matchstick man was underneath the word ‘GENTS’ in large lettering, and I admired their thoroughness in preventing any embarrassing accidents for their illiterate visiting guests.

I was excited to notice the sign because my first though was, “Wouldn’t it be be funny to draw a cock on it.”

This is not grafitti by the way.  I saw it as extra clarification for the illiterate visitors.  Technically, the matchstick man could also be a matchstick woman as he was missing any sexual organs of any kind.  I suppose it would have been funny to add a vagina to the matchstick person (as a lesson to illiterates to go back to school), but I really do not know to draw a convincing cartoon vagina, and I did not want to draw an unconvincing one and add more confusion to the situation.

So I decided to draw a cock.

But then, as I approached the sign I noticed that someone had beaten me to it!

The drawing (click for the full size) is somewhat juvenile in that they have depicted an erect penis in the process of ejaculation, which would normally call for the addition of a ‘cum face’ to the matchstick man, but it is not my place to adjust someone else’s work (I do not live in a Daniel Powter video).  At least they had included the testicles, so it was anatomically correct.

I have yet to find out the identity of the phantom knob-artiste (it is difficult to conduct such an investigation without drawing unwanted attention), but I will keep looking, as I get the feeling we would get on very well indeed.

I have travelled to or from most airports in the UK.  Most of the nine London airports, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Luton, and of course Birmingham International.

It was this last airport that had my attention drawn to it by a friend who works as a pilot after he had been reading their annual report from the website. Available by clicking here.

After reading the first ten pages of boring aviation stuff and corporate information, he got to page 11 about Safety and Security, something of obvious interest to a pilot.  That is when he noticed their choice of image to accompany the security message.  I have included it below to save me describing it (click the image for the full size view).

I appreciate him sending it to me, and it is heart-warming to know that that there are people out there, no matter how old they get, or how responsible their job, they will always be on the lookout for a cheap knob-gag.  For that I am truly grateful.

It then begs the question of what sort of person is unable to pack for their holiday without including that special set of plastic cock and balls?  Perhaps the owner of this suitcase was emigrating, and we should give them the benefit of the doubt.  But then the suitcase does look rather sparse apart from the cock and balls.  A small make-up bag?  A nail file?  A hairbrush?  Hardly the stuff with which to launch a new life on the other side of the world.  Unless you are going to find work as a very specialised beauty therapist.

There is also the possibility that it was put there deliberately by the security services as a coded warning to Al Qaeda.

“Yes, we are English, but should we suspect you of being a terrorist, we will not let our crippling embarrassment or our innate wish to avoid a scene stop us from opening up your suitcase case and waving around prosthetic genitalia.  That is how much we want to beat you!”

So if you are sat reading this in a cave in Afghanistan, whilst taking a break from cramming semtex into vibrators, think again, because we are on to you…

*** STOP PRESS ***

Tideliar has informed us below that the offending Phallus has been photoshopped out of the brochure!  I was wrong, we HAVE let our crippling embarrassment give the advantage to kinky terrorists.  We are doomed!

Having finally made my way airside, I had a small amount of time to get something to eat before boarding my flight.  It was still early, so I fancied a light breakfast.

I took a seat in The Tin Goose pub /  Restaurant and perused the breakfast menu.  It was full of overpriced variations of the English breakfast, with little option for someone wanting something on the ‘light’ side.  I settled on Eggs Benedict and waited for someone to take my order.

And waited.

Then I noticed that this restaurant was ’self ordering’ as opposed to table-service or self-service.  You go to the bar to order, give them your table number, and they bring the food to you.

This presented a dilemma.  I was eating alone, so I would have to leave my table whilst I placed my order, and due to the constant security warnings I was not about to leave my belongings there as a sign the table was occupied.  I did not want to be at the centre of a “Extremely popular blogger causes airport chaos!” story, not again.

I finally got to the front of the queue and ordered.

“We have no Eggs Benedict, sorry.”

“Right.  I’ll just have some scrambled eggs on toast then?”

“We don’t do that.”

“Poached?”

“Nope.”

“Boiled?”

“Nope.  You can have fried.  As part of a breakfast from the menu.”

I acquiesced and chose the “mini” full English, because I am on a healthy eating kick.  I also ordered an Orange juice.  He bent over and opened the fridge behind the bar and pulled out a ready-poured glass of orange juice.

“I don’t want that one.”

“What’s wrong, it’s fresh?”

“It was pre-poured, you could be secretly trying to rohypnol me or anything.  I’d like a fresh one, poured in front of me, please.”

He did as I asked and requested my table number, which I handed over, before he pointed out that an elderly couple were now sat there.

“Well I WAS sat there, before I had to come up here to order, whilst carrying all my belongings so as not to cause a full scale security alert, ensuring the table looked vacant.”

We settled on a recently vacated table close by, and I went off to use some incredibly expensive wi-fi.  My breakfast arrived, without the toast, and I tucked into the worst ten pound breakfast I’ve ever had.

One of the problems about organising a holiday for twenty-four adult males, is that they regress into their childhood selves and come to you with issues they would normally resolve themselves quite easily.

As a result, my first few drinks of each evening tended to be of the soft variety in order to take in the issues of the day.

The waitress came over and took drinks orders from the various groups among us.

“I’ll just have a pint of coke please, mucho gracias.” I said, having finally mastered the local lingo.

She returned a few moments later with my large coca-cola.

“That’ll be seven Euros please.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Seven Euro.”

“I think there’s been some mistake.  This is a coke.  Are you sure you don’t have me mixed up with someone who ordered a beer?”

“No.  The beer is six Euros a pint.  Coke is seven.”

“A coke costs more than a beer?  Seriously?  I used to work in a cinema, in fact I was stand-in manager on Sundays, despite only being 17 - but that bit is not important, except to show how responsible I was a teenager - and I know for a fact that post-mix coke, which this is, costs about twenty cents a pint!  That’s a mark up of……HAS ANYONE GOT A CALCULATOR?   ANYONE?…..A CALCULATOR?…..that’s a mark up of about 3500%!”

“I don’t make the rules, sorry.”

I decided to drink only alcohol from this point, which is apparently not a suitable excuse for not adequately sorting out everybody’s issues.  Yes, your luggage might still be lost, but you should blame the profiteering Spanish landlords.

With twenty four in our group, the only sensible option for transporting us to the golf club each day, was a coach.  Which we duly hired in advance, like any sensible northern European.

Now, the thing about Spanish coach companies is that they tend to supply coaches driven by Spanish drivers.  After picking us up on time, we arrived at our destination and I went about confirming the pick up time with him.

“WE WILL NEED PICKING UP AT SEVEN THIRTY, OK?” I articulated, perfectly clearly.

“No hablo inglés.” he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.

This was disappointing.  There were twenty four of us, and only one of him.  It would have been much easier for him to learn our language than for all of us to learn his, twenty-four times easier in fact, but he had selfishly decided to stick with a language that had served his country well across the millennia.

Luckily enough, I vaguely recalled seeing a series of instructional business videos with John Cleese early in my career, so I knew how to handle the situation.  I remembered one particular lesson where he struggled to get his point across to a small Spanish waiter.

“LOOK.  SEVEN THIRTY?  CI?  NINETEEN THIRTY?  CI?  I WILL WRITE IT DOWN HERE ON THIS PIECE OF PAPER.  CI?”

His cab was slightly elevated so I could not reinforce the instruction with a clip to the back of the head as Mr. Cleese had suggested.   Still, he smiled and implied he had understood.

Later that evening, as eight-thirty rapidly approached and we were still stood outside the golf course, and with twenty three angry holiday makers moaning in my ears, I vowed to follow Mr Cleese’s intructions to the letter for the rest of the week.

I recently visited my friend Brillo in Leeds.

He is not from Leeds, but he is a born and bred Yorkshireman, so when he says he is taking us on a bit of a pub crawl, it does make you wonder about the type of establishment we will be gracing with our presence.

After a few of the nice pubs in the Chapel Allerton area, we passed a pub even Brillo had not been in before.

“Why haven’t you been in there before?” I asked, perfectly legitimately.

“No idea, but we might as well pop in for a swift one though?”

As we entered, at approximately three in the afternoon, it became apparent that everyone present had been in there since it opened, and had been drinking studiously in all that time.  They did manage to stare at us for a bit though, which was nice of them.  I do like a good acknowledgement.  Too often you enter a pub and are completely ignored, but there is something about the burning gaze of forty or so drunken locals in the early afternoon that makes you feel wanted.  In the “Reward: dead or alive” sense of the word.

As Brillo made his way to the bar we surveyed our surroundings, which appeared not to have been altered since the smoking ban came in, judging by the holes burnt into the carpets and the nicotine stained ceiling.

I went off to make us of the facilities, in order to avoid further accusatory glances from the locals.

That’s when I saw the sign.  It was placed high on the wall to the right of the urinal.  It was a hand-written sheet of A4 and was enclosed in a cheap plastic wallet and fixed to the wall with masking tape.

“If you are reading this, you are probably pissing on the floor.  Don’t.  Please be respectful to other toilet users.”

I have never been asked not to piss on a floor before.  This was truly a first.  I would imagine that post potty-training it is not something that most people need reminding of.  This sign was proof however, that without the sign, the floor was in danger of being flooded with piss.  In fact, the smell suggested it was a fairly common occurrence.

I went back to my other friends, and whilst waiting for Brillo to return with our drinks we discussed what a complete shit hole it was.  Very Quietly.

Eventually Brillo returned.  “£6.36 for four pints!  This place is fucking brilliant!”

We were on our way back from one one of Cornwall’s most famous golf courses, when Ickle suggested we should stop off somewhere for dinner.

“Padstow is just down the road,” he said, “Rick Stein has got a quite famous fish and chip shop there?”

Ickle’s record that week for suggesting activities was far from impressive, but I quite like fish and chips, though I do not like celebrity chefs.  It was a dilemma, to be sure.  My argument that any celebrity chef opening a fish and chip shop is clearly going to be doing so not for Michelin stars, but just to make a shit load of cash fell upon deaf hears, and so off towards Padstow we headed.

We were surprised to find that there was a small sit-in area at his chip shop, I suppose to give us the faintest illusion of being in a restaurant.  We stood in the queue and waited for a table.

And waited.

At about ten to nine we had finally reached the front of the queue.  A waitress came over to us and I began handing over my order.  She immediately interrupted me.

“I’m sorry.  We close at 9pm, so I don’t think we’ll be able to seat you now.”

“What?  We’ve just queued for quarter of an hour!”

“Sorry about that.  You can still get a take away?”

Faced with with having nothing to eat, or having fish and chips in the car, we joined the take away queue,  which moved only marginally quicker than the sit-down queue.

“I’ll have cod and chips with mushy peas please.”

“We’re out of mushy peas.”

Out-fucking-rageous.

What sort of chip shop runs out of mushy peas?  A really fucking shit one, that’s what sort of chip shop runs out of mushy peas.  One that is more interested in ensuring massive profit margins and minimising potential waste than serving it’s customers.

I picked up a can of Coke and headed to the till with my tiny box of cod and chips.

“That’ll be £9.20 please.”

“£9.20? Are you sure? I mean, I know I’ve been queueing for quite a while, but inflation in Cornwall is hardly at Zimbabwe’s levels is it?”

“Urm, right.  That’s £9.20 please.”

I sat fuming in the car whilst eating my ridiculously expensive tiny dinner and vowed not to listen to any of Ickle’s ideas ever again.  Unless he suggested going to the pub.