The Other Compost

Birthday Post

2011-12-17T10:05:00.001-08:00

It’s bad enough, when born this time of year, to be told “Oh I’d have got you a birthday present but I’ve got you a bigger Christmas present” by cheap skates hoping to pull the wool over already tried before eyes. But what’s worse, especially recently in the UK, is the chuffing post.

While all around me are putting up their Christmas cards in displays of social popularity I have to hold off opening cards I receive before my birthday, which, if you didn’t know, is today. A few years back I realised that when my birthday arrived I had fewer birthday cards to open on the actual day than my peers because I had opened mine by accident thinking “Oh it’s a Christmas card, it should be safe”. So recently I have taken to stock piling the cards received through the mail until the actual day and then I have a mass card opening ceremony.

Usually I get about a 3:2 birthday/Christmas card mix with some cheeky sods trying to sneak a Christmas card in with the birthday card or, if they’ve thought ahead they put the birthday card in with the Christmas card (which I don’t mind as long as that’s in an envelope marked “birthday”). However, over recent years the Post Office in Warwickshire have been a bit shit and cards sent way in advance don’t arrive until way into the later weeks so my pre-birthday Christmas card opening abstinence seems to be a bit futile.

Last year the postie had a good excuse. Most of the UK and Warwickshire was under a thick blanket of snow and poor Postman Pat was at risk of slipping on the pavement. Meaning they would be having to take time off work with a sprained foot and a personal injury claim. Fair enough. This modern snow can be lethal. Those Victorian and postWW2-pre HSWA(1974) postmen had it easy. I’m surprised today’s postmen don’t have to wear special wire lined gloves in case they get a rather nasty infected paper cut from an overtly sharp envelope.

Last year’s snows and postage backlogs meant that I was getting birthday cards well into the New Year, which was nice. Amusing in a “Ne’r mind eh?” kind of way.

This year though, I thought it would be better. No snow in the midlands. Not a drop. Well at least in Leamington Spa at any rate. Through the week I had received a good few cards through the mail. I’d say about 9 or so. A few who’s origins I could guess and a few I could not. It was going to be a good birthday morning, opening these cards.

Just after my breakfast of Cinnamon Grahams and a cup of tea, I began the opening ceremony. One by one I gingerly teased each card out of it’s envelope revealing either ageist birthday mirth or greetings of seasonal persuasion.

The score was roughly

BIRTHDAY CARDS 6

CHRISTMAS CARDS 5

A nice balance. But no fear, I thought, it is Saturday today! The Royal Mail still deliver on a Saturday. Maybe I’ll get some in the post today!

Of course, sitting round expectantly is not something I can do these days, so we opted to brave the early morning cold and penultimate-Christmas-weekend shoppers and grab a few things before we came home for the afternoon to see what exciting things were in line for the rest of the day.

All the while I was like “heheh I can’t wait to get home to the mountain of cards that will be awaiting me on my doorstep”.

It was the spirit that enabled me to battle through the shuffling horde of consumer zombies.

The vim that vigorously calmed my need to vent venom at gawping gormers goggling at festive gifts of grot.

The spice that added fire to my mental curry of warmth empowering me through the ice knife cold Warwickshire winds.

So you can imagine my face when I opened the front door with the eagerness of an expectant child on Christmas morning only to find….

EVERY

SINGLE

STUFFING

ENVELOPED

CARD

THERE…….

there was for Fruitcake.

Chuffing Nora.

NOT A SINGLE ONE delivered today was for me. NOT ONE.

ON MY BIRTHDAY!

***Frump***

***SULK***

Spare not the children, lest the evil persist

2011-11-08T13:27:00.001-08:00

The other week, Zoefruitcake and I visited our local Frankie and Benny's for a bit of a post payday treat.

It was busy; mostly because it was Halloween but also because it was the day after pay day and the world, his wife, their neighbours and their best friend's uncle's favourite mechanic's son also had the same idea.

Because it was Halloween weekend there were many children present. A good deal of these children were sat, well behaved and happy to be out with their family. There was, however, a pair of little shits present whose parents obviously went to the "freedom of expression" school of parenting. These delightful little darlings thought it fun to run rampant around the restaurant squealing with glee instead of remaining seated and only speaking when spoken to.

Spoilt shits.

You know the type. They usually have traditionally cheeky scamp names like Bob or Tommy. The type of names traditionally apportioned to working class flat cap wearing, roll-up cigarette smoking betting shop regulars but, for some bizarre reason only known to fashionable middle class Guardian readers, deemed preferable to Tarquin, Charles and Gordon.

The type whose parents, as stated previously, believe in "freedom of expression". The same parents who probably inexplicably develop a "cough" when walking near smokers. Or fuss about their children and whatever food allergy or intollerance may be fashionable at the time. The type of parent that any normal person would want to smash into a granite table face first before flushing their head repeatedly down a particularly dirty toilet.

The type of child who runs around restaurants unbidden. Screaming and tripping up waitresses. Any accidents that arise are clearly the fault of the waiting staff not taking care when carrying a tureen of boiling soup or molten lard.

That got me thinking.

Bloody kids.

When I was a kid at a restaurant (or, more likely, a Berni Inn) , if I didn't sit straight, shut up and eat my greens provided with my scampi and chips the likelihood of eating out again would diminish to the point of never again. But no, not these chuffing days. Noooo. These days it seems it is totally socially acceptable to allow your child to run rampant with no regard for other diners or waiting staff.

All in the name of "freedom of expression".

So to express my own freedom, I rose from my chair, went over to the little shits, grabbed them by the collars. Dragged them over to their parents who were sat, jaws agape in protest. Threw them into their seats and said: "If you don't fucking control your children I will pickle them and feed them to the tramps."

"Oh but they're only expressing themselves" came the protest.

"Yeah well I'm expressing myself freely too." I retorted as I stabbed the father in the nose with his blunt steak knife and forced the mother to swallow her barbequed rib bones whole. Sideways.

"Do you want a starter?" Zoe asked, snapping me out of my daydream.

"No, let's get straight to mains" I replied.

Censor this

2011-10-14T10:58:00.001-07:00

It started about the 17th September. Groups of people from all walks of life gathered in Wall Street in America in protest of the growing corporate culture. The movement is called Occupy.

There has been frighteningly little news about this in the British media. I’m not saying it has not been reported; it has. I am not shocked by this as unless children get hurt or someone famous gets arrested at the event it was unlikely it would get reported.

Monitoring the news this week has been interesting. Very little in the way of actual news. Slow news week. Slow news. Nothing to worry about…move along…But scratch beneath the surface, read between the lines and you notice things.

Little things. Like the problem with the Blackberry mobile phone network. Curious that it happens here just as the Occupy movement swells in Europe and, indeed the UK. Cast your mind back to the events in August. Riots organised by youths….USING BLACKBERRYS. Cut off the network. Invent some crap about a server malfunction. Cut off the communication of the youth. Prevent gatherings and organised flash protests. Then what happens? The problem spreads to the US. Coincidence? Maybe.

Then there’s the disappearing links on Facebook. I tried sharing a link to a news story drawing attention to the movement. Mysteriously it vanished a few hours later. I pasted a link in a comment to a friend. It too mysteriously vanished. Paranoia? Cake?? Misdirection?

Something stinks. I don’t like it. When people start disappearing, it will be too late.

Tappens

2011-09-28T10:49:00.001-07:00

I’m feeling particularly let down and screwed over but I’m not allowed to say anything other than by circumstance and timing.

Basically I have been without pay since July due to miscommunication, crossed lines and “trying to save dead money” and it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get paid for the work I’ve done this month until the end of October. Which sucks.

However, there are attempts to rectify this or at least alleviate the situation but all holding breath does is mean you are eventually out of puff. Irons in various fires are not reaching the desired temperature and every so often the universe teases me with little pitfalls like £200+ dental bills and other such similar digs. But for me to go on about it is me succumbing to the poor me paradigm and that won’t do.

Instead let me set forth a plan or at least some ambition.

Career wise my aspirations are taking shape. What is clear is that IT is not for me. Nor has it been since 2000 when I switched from an administrative to IT support career. Following the journalism foundation degree it was clear that to be a journalist I would need to do further qualifications which would be expensive and there is no guarantee that I would gain a trainee reporter job. Furthermore, the degree in Television production did provide useful skills in video production but paid television production roles impossible to find with no actual industrial experience.

So what is left? Well I thought marketing. But it appears that marketing is also difficult to break into. Even setting up my own media production company has bore no fruit mostly down to lack of time to promote it. But I’m not going to let that put me off. I knew it would be difficult to change career and I should be grateful that I have an income due to me even if my loyalty for to the company is now in the negative figures.

So my goal now is to create my own opportunity. If I cannot find the job myself, make one. I am going to attempt to find out how to start my funded community project One that will bring in some financial return and provide people in the community a pathway into what they can do. Sort of like Cameron's BIG COMMUNITY idea but with legs, arms and so forth.

What is called for, I believe, is a business plan and some financial backing to get started……CBI…..Local chambers of commerce…..it’s not going to be easy.

International I Haven’t Bred Day

2011-06-19T03:03:00.001-07:00

So mums have Mother’s Day, dads have Father’s Day and grandparents get both the gender specific card selling day AND Grandparent’s Day.

Hurrah!

Well done. You’ve bred. You’ve contributed to the gene pool. You’ve created another mouth to feed. Another housing and clothing need.

Congratulations for contributing to the overpopulation of the world. Have a day of adoration. Have special cards, gifts and a shiny new hat.

Well done.

And what do the rest of us get eh?

When I was younger I asked my parents “When is it Son’s Day?” to which they replied “Everyday is Son’s Day”. Imagine that. A month of Son Days….

Now I am older I see the injustice of it. Those that breed get recognition; those that don’t, don’t. Moreover, there are “FAMILY FUN DAYS”, “FAMILY SIZED PORTIONS”, “FAMILY RESTAURANTS” and “FAMILY TICKETS” and other such discounts. Those that don’t breed get to luxury of having to support the entitled discounts for those that do. Fair? Not very.

But what seems fair is that there should be a day where all those that haven’t bred receive recognition for their act of selflessness and their increased costs for sustaining those that do breed. A day where those that have bred send those that haven’t cards of thanks, gifts and specifically targeted benefits. Reader…I give you:-

INTERNATIONAL I HAVEN’T BRED DAY

Thanks and recognition at long last.

I propose that this day should be celebrated annually on the last Sunday of July. Which should give those that have bred plenty of time to think of gifts and remember to pop cards into the postbox for their friends that, as yet, have not spawned a new generation of people that will one day require a pension, a house, transport and food.

A day out in World War 2

2011-06-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

stegzy's photostream on Flickr.

Re-enacting the past

2011-06-12T07:06:00.001-07:00

For shitz and gigglz I took Zoe to the Great Central Railway near Loughborough. It was a special day there as they were holding a Second World War day where each of the four stations were “zoned” into different “fronts” of the Second World War. It was a very enjoyable day out, with people dressed in period costumes, stalls selling period things, period food and drink and music from the era.

While walking round I was struck by the thought of how iconic that period was. It was a time of strife, knuckling down and patriotism. It was a time that many people today lived through themselves. Unlike the likes of say Civil War re-enactment this period was still in living memory.

And that got me thinking. What will people re-enact in the future? What iconic periods have we lived through in recent years? Will they re-enact say, the 1980s? The 1970s? Or even the noughties? What would they do?

Well, now you can join in on my special 1980s re-enactment.

Collectors Edition

2011-04-25T09:11:00.001-07:00

The other day I took Zoe to the local Hobbycraft so she could choose a delicious and chewy glue gun for her Easter present. Nom. It was while we were wandering around the aisles that I was reminded about materialism and the satisfaction of surrounding ourselves with useless tat.

One of the aisle displays contained parts to make your Hornby railway set complete. As well as trains, carriages and track there were little plastic men, shrubbery and model things. These you might buy to make your little network of trains look like a piece of English countryside harking back to the bygone age of steam and rail.

What struck me first was “How ace would it be to have a railway set with all these little men and things dotted about the place? I could have my very own pre-Beeching world with stops, junctions and level crossings.”

And then I looked at the price. The price for 5 little plastic men no bigger than the toenail on your middle toe was a shocking….£8. £8 for 5 tiny bits of anthropomorphic plastic. I looked at the packs of tunnel portals; £20. The starter packs were about £80. “Blimey!” said I and as I said it, and the people in the aisle flashed me confused glares the thoughts of my passing raced through my head.

It was, ultimately, all shite. If I invested my money in such a scheme, upon my passing, they would no doubt be separated, given away or sold for a fraction of the price I paid for them. My corpse festering in a box somewhere while my worldly possessions divvied up into “Charity shop”, “Skip”, “Sell” and “Give away” piles.

Now I can understand spending your hard earned cash on something that will accumulate value like antiques, gold or stocks. I might even understand buying things that retain their value, but most of the time we are presented with useless tat to spend our money on, which in turn, makes the economy flourish.

Or so we are told.

Then there’s the 99p “fitting” fee for screen wash. Yes, you read that right. 99p for someone who works in Halfords to come out to your car, pop your bonnet, open the cap to the screen wash reservoir and empty the contents into it.

99p

Are people really that stupid? Are there people who, through some bizarre chain of events are unable to open the bonnet to their car and fill up their own reservoir? Do these people have the vote too?

This got me thinking. People + money = no sense. It’s like adorning your house with those fucking god awful stone lions rampant. Do you really think they add value to your home? Is there some people out there that think “Oh you know I’d buy this stately home but it hasn’t got fucking lions rampant on the gate posts” or people that think “You know this place has lions rampant on the gate posts, I think I’ll offer a little bit more money when I’m buying this house.

I doubt it. But I can’t be entirely sure. I mean the evidence is there around us.

I suspect this is why I have no money. I used to be materialistic. I’d want the car, the latest electronic gadgets and a little cork donkey to set off my living room. I’d want the smoked glass divides, the egg cosies, the camping pans and all the other rubbish. But then I broke myself. I now look at things and think: “Hey! Camping pans! Neat! But I could just take my own pans from my kitchen” or “Oooh hey! A pizza wheel would really make my kitchen complete. But then, what’s wrong with a really sharp knife instead?”

The paranoid part of me says the powers that be know that I am now immune to pointless spending and have engineered it so that I can’t get a job that pays a daft salary. Which of course, is daft in itself.

I find that I ask myself “Do I really need this?” with increasing regularity. Ornaments are wasted on me, gadgets are pointless and things like railway sets, hobbies and the like a waste of money.

CDs and DVDs are the same. I no longer rush out to buy the latest release of my favourite film or artist. I simply wait a year or so and buy them off Amazon for a pound or less. I no longer have the desire to rush out and buy the latest thing. Box sets are a waste of money and, if my video cassette collection is anything to go by, as soon as the format changes, the old stuff is worthless and you have to rush out and buy again.

My life free from such waste I should have tons of cash. I check my bank account and see little evidence of this…then…to help numb this realisation I fire up my laptop, sit back in my second hand couch and begin another quest on World of Warcraft. And that, dear reader, is why I am a hypocrite.

Mustard is like Custard without the sea

2011-04-02T09:47:00.001-07:00

Visiting the olds often brings mixed feelings. I enjoy seeing them. I enjoy going into town to meet up with the chaps. I enjoy sitting, drinking, chatting about any old bollocks. Then I go about the area, doing general chores, shopping and revisiting old haunts.

I suppose once you’re away from an area, when you return you notice things that you probably wouldn’t notice in your own environment. Like the shufflers in the supermarket; the fat couples with zombie like expressions continuing with their socially prescribed existentiality; the dodgy underclass being generally shifty. Then my euphoria sinks. Like some sort of shit on the toilet pan of existence being washed away by the bleach of reality.

What has happened to us as a society? Why have we become so vacuous, narcissistically self obsessed and abhorrent? You may deny this, hell I would too, but with true introspection and examination of how we, as a society, follow the subliminal instructions from those who feel they are our superior, we can quickly recognise how awful this culture we have created has become.

It is then we become reviled by ourselves. Kid ourselves that “No! I’m not like that at all!”. Yet deep inside, we know we are. It feels bad. So we numb the pain, ignore the state of affairs and distract ourselves with shopping, computer games, Facebork or other such trivialities. We should be ashamed.

Bogs

2011-03-09T09:51:00.001-08:00

When did you last use a public loo? Today? Last week? Last month?

I think my last visit to a public loo was when I went to Tenbury Wells with Z.

Usually, when caught short, I’ll try to sneak into a pub, pretend that I’m looking for someone and do my business there. Well...not in the pub lounge...more like in the pub’s bog. But you get my meaning. This, I must explain, is only for number ones. NEVER for number twos. And only recently, number ones in urinals.

You see, I have this dislike of public bogs; Dirty, smelly and dingy cathedrals of cess and unease. Or at least that is my experience of them. Every man that enters a public loo is potentially a murderer, a druggie or a rapist. Every drop of water on the floor a potential plague bearer and every surface the path to dysentery.

Not very nice.

I suppose this began at primary school. School for me was in a Victorian building. Ageing. Falling apart at the seams. Paint peeling from the high vaulted ceilings. Wooden floors. Creepy corridors. That kind of thing. The toilets reflected a similar age. Buffed greenish brown stone urinals. The trough caked with strange solid matter and verdigris encrusted plumbing. The stalls contained low porcelain thrones that wouldn’t look out of place in a retro-furbished bathroom with rising chain operated flushers. One of the thrones was permanently blocked with matter that I care not to describe and the whole room had an odorous miasma of cheap bleach, urinary infections and damp staleness.

This was probably not the thing that kick-started my dislike of public toilets. I think it was the characters that tended to loiter in this palaces of piss stink. Mostly the bullies, the ne’er-do-wells and the feckless. You know the type, they probably grew up to be successful “business men” who peddle drugs and traffic women in their vast criminal empires or, they’re locked up in prison.

The toilets were always the last place I’d want to be. I had even been known to hold off from going to the toilet until I had returned home. Something I still kind of do. British public toilets nearly always remind me of those awful facilities at St Mary’s. Sometimes even the ones in the pubs do that too. It’s like people are not proud of toilets. They’re places that, left untended, seem to rapidly decline into dirty horrid holes.

I’ve been in nightclub toilets where the floors were sodden with liquid. I’ve been to restaurants where I’ve refused to eat because of the condition of their toilet facilities. I’ve seen sights you would never believe in platform toilets on railway stations. Even abroad, I’ve used manned conveniences that I’ve paid to use where a swish of the mop wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in cleanliness.

Now, before anyone starts kicking off about how not all toilets are like that. Let me agree with you. Not all toilets that are for public usage are like that. I’ve been in pristine bogs. So clean they smell of roses. Clean enough to pass as a toilet in a private stately home. I’ve also been in adequate bogs that, though free to use, are manned by a maintenance person who spends time ensuring that any puddles of piss are swiftly mopped up.

Then today, there came the news that a number of councils in the UK are selling off or closing their public lavs because they are no longer used or they have fallen in to disrepair. A look on the internet will uncover no end of tribute sites dedicated to the grand old public lavs that once graced UK townships. These days they are few and far between as councils cut back on budgets and sanitary services suffer.

If I had the money I’d buy one. I’d refurbish the place and charge £1 to use it. I’d ensure that the place was light, airy, clean and safe for people to use without fear of a penis being stuck through a hole in the partition. Users would not have to worry about stepping into anything unpleasant and maybe even buy themselves a freshly made coffee on their way out. The attendant would be proud of their work and rewarded for such. Maybe even make it a members only place for an annual fee of say £20. Each stall would be cleaned by the attendant after each use. No fear of druggies or buggery.

Sadly I doubt I could raise the funds.

A place to rest your head

2010-11-13T02:59:00.001-08:00

This week I had the misfortune to stay in the Newcastle Central Travelodge.

Now, if I’d picked up some loose woman and had decided to head back to a room for a couple of quick shags, then it wouldn’t have bothered me that much. The raging urges of lust would no doubt have helped me turn a blind eye to the numerous faults in the ramshackle and poorly designed late 80’s building.

I might not have noticed the carpet, the smell or the staff.

So when Travelodge wrote to me to say “Tell us how we did!”

I told them how it was:-

Newcastle Central needs completely redecorating. Strong smells of curry and must in rooms and corridors. Carpet that has seen better days, mattress that had obviously been used as some sort of trampoline for energetic shaggers. Staff that had they smiled they might have looked like they were actually enjoying their work and a pillows that had the bulk of a rolled up handkerchief. I know it's supposed to be BUDGET, but I'd have had a cleaner and probably more comfortable stay in the car park. Oh yeah, the car park....that's a different story entirely. Nope...don't get me started on that....noooooo.....Premier Inn for me in future I'm afraid.

And you were doing SOOOO well too.

What's happened to you Travelodge? You used to be so much better.

Did you get taken over by Ryanair?

Much love

Gnomepants.

Oh and I've blogged this too...to tell the world….just so you know....google is your friend.

Terrorism: What to ban

2010-11-01T12:15:00.001-07:00

The scene: A secret governmental office in some seemingly innocuous building in London. Four top executive types sit around a conference table.

Man 1: Right, the department that provide us with our funds are wanting to cut our funding back unless we can prove how valuable and useful we are to the country.

Man 2: Again?

Man 1: Yes again. So what we need to do is highlight the dangers of something…like what we did before.

Man 3: Yes like with the bottled water thing. That proved effective though unpopular with voters and as approval ratings of our existence is wavering on the low side we need to appear to be proactive but not too disruptive to society.

Woman: I get it. Ok, how about getting MI7 to create another terrorist attack?

Man 1: Too costly. We’re still paying the compensation on that one.

Man 2: Could we not create some new figure of focus like Abu Hamsa?

Man 3: That requires international agreement and at the moment we’re not that popular.

Man 1: Indeed, so what we need to do is think of something like with the bottled water thing that makes us look proactive but causes the minimal amount of disruption.

The four look around the room for inspiration…

Woman: Oooh! Ooh! How about pens? A would be terrorist could pack a pen with explosive and then detonate it aboard a plane or ferry.

Man 3: Good one…but still too disruptive. Worth remembering that one though. The airlines would probably be in agreement with that and be able to sell biros during the flight for exorbitant prices….but no…not this time…let me think…

The four look around more…

Man 1: How about spectacle cases?

Man 3: Yeah…fewer people carry those…but I don’t think the public would buy it.

More looking round and scratching of heads.

There is a knock on the door. The door opens.

Youthful IT dude: Entering room Alright…sorry…I’m from IT. I’ve been asked to change the toner cartridge on the printer in here. Would it be OK for me to do that? I’ll only be a couple of minutes.

All four: With look of universal approval and acceptance. Toner cartridges!

And that….is EXACTLY what happened.

I know this…because I was the IT dude ^*

^*May be lies

Outtamawae

2010-10-07T12:50:00.001-07:00

The youth of today. Perfect in every measure, in the eyes of their parents. Educated to the max and ne’er a want to be denied. Bliss.

The same could, no doubt, be said of the youth of my day. We were educated often beyond that which our parents had been. Needs met, fed’ and watered. Entertained for free by television and the infant home computing industry. But today’s youth have one subtle difference. They are afflicted with narcissism, an affliction which, had my studies in media been allowed to continue, could probably be attributed to social media.

It seems to me, as I walk about the educational establishment where I work, that the youth of today have this ability, or belief, that as long as they do not acknowledge your existence you do not exist and therefore their lives can continue unhindered by such inconveniences.

I should elaborate. I have noticed a phenomenon during my travels around the corridors, where youths sit, legs out stretched, oblivious to anyone else’s existence. It’s as if they believe that if they don’t acknowledge or notice you, you will simply pass through their legs with your trolley and life will continue to allow them to remain as they were undisturbed. Indeed, such is not limited to youths sat legs outstretched. Nay, for it has also been noticed that the youth of today also behave this way when they themselves are walking through the corridors too. They should not make way for you unless they acknowledge you, rather than by denying your existence you should pass straight through them ethereally else step aside yourself for their majesty and self importance out weighs any stature or presence you may hold yourself.

This does not just apply to lowly trolley pushing IT technicians, this also applies to members of teaching staff, other students and even disabled people in wheelchairs. Moreover, the same tactic is used by the youth crossing roads. As long as the car is not seen, it does not exist and will either stop or pass through you like a dose of senna. This only adds to the woe for future generations.

However, take comfort. For although will you cease to exist in your old age unless acknowledged by others, you can be sure of a perfect haircut, outstanding beauty treatment, stunning photography and advice on the holiday of your dreams. For, it seems, the most popular courses remain photography, art, music, tourism and beauty treatment.

Those that know me will probably recall a similar cry of woe from me when I worked in a Yorkshire sixth form college. There the most popular courses were tourism, media and photography. I recall feeling horrified at the realisation that instead of the doctors, nurses and care workers to look after me in my frailty; instead of the pharmacists, accountants and legal people to ensure my health, wealth and freedoms, today’s youth were going to flood the employment market with out of work photographers, beauticians and air hostesses. No engineers to fix the bridges and roads and no mathematicians to count the stars. Just beautiful hair styles, perfectly designed web pages and well performed music.

Still, it will take my mind off the disgruntled Polish male nurse force feeding me puréed parsnips in between commode visits eh?

A levels? Arse levels

2010-08-20T09:23:00.001-07:00

When I left compulsory education back in 1992 A levels were hard. I’m sure they are still hard but back in the day, they were hard. If more than 20 people at your school got A grade A level results fingers would have been pointed and investigations into cheating conducted.

At that time we were told about the various career options open to us. Either you stayed on after GCSE and did A levels with a view to getting a job afterwards or moving on to university. Or you left school, did an apprenticeship if you could find one or joined the armed forces. Because I was bright I was told that my future lay beyond university and that I should focus on what I wanted to do.

Difficulty was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. To some extent I still don’t know what I want to do. So it frequently amuses me how it is universally accepted that 16-19 year olds should some how decide what career they want to pursue and make life changing decisions.

I left school with basic job search skills. I had several ideas what I wanted to do, mostly become a customs officer, but the careers department at school wasn’t all that clued up on careers that didn’t involve a pack of Happy Family cards. All well and good if you considered the police, the ambulance service, being a butcher or baker or an estate agent. However, woe betide any pupil set on a non-typical career such as Customs Officer.

It should be remembered that the Internet in those days was basic if not non-existent. There was no vast careers database available to people at home. You would have to attend at careers service offices who would shrug and tell you that there was no work and that you might as well give up and just sign on until something comes along you fancy.

Over the years that followed, so did my career choice. Customs seemed like a nigh impossible career to break into, few vacancy adverts were placed in the local press and by 1995 my appetite for a career in Law had started to develop.
With a few months of experience in a law office I was convinced, mostly by the assurances of the adults around me, that getting an entry level job in a legal firm would be a breeze. Home printers were few and far between in those days. So all applications would have to be hand written and all vacancies sourced through either the job centre or through the local press.

Bored of life on the dole and constant rejection letters (yes, in those days companies replied to you even if it was just with a “no thanks”) I attempted to make the move into a career in law by enrolling on the only suitable course I could find in the area. That being an ILEX course based at Southport college, more than 20 miles away from my home.

It ran one day a week. Every Thursday I would travel the distance on the train and return on the last night train to leave Southport. This I did until a month from the end of the course the Job Centre told me that they would not fund the following year and besides that they had an interview for me to attend, failure to attend said interview would result in cessation of benefits.

I attended, got the job and stayed in the post for about three and a half years.
Unfortunately, it was not what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted a career in Law. “Fear not” I was told “It’ll give you relevant experience”. Desperate to escape the daily humdrum of no hope of promotion and dead end job, I bailed at the first opportunity. Following the advice that it was best to remain in employment than to leave and look again.
That was a stupid thing to do.

The next 10 years involved working in ICT. I never wanted to be a computer technician. Fuck, I’ve never met anyone who works in ICT that set out to work in ICT. In those days, jobs in IT were easy to get into because few people had the qualifications or experience. Thing was, every day I spent in ICT meant that I was limiting my future prospects to that of ICT related careers. Recruitment agencies would only offer call centre work. Applications for career changes would go without response. Those that did said “No relevant experience” or “Insufficient qualifications”.

Aware that the job market was flooding with graduates with far less work experience than myself I plunged into a Journalism degree on the advice of a career consultant. I now find myself struggling to compete in a shrunken jobs market despite the assurances of my tutors that my worldly experience should make me more employable than my contemporaries. I am back working in ICT. For less than before.

I guess having a career plan helps. Problem is I am reluctant to fix on one specific career choice. The avenues that lie before me mostly involve further study. Applications to entry level graduate careers receive “No relevant experience” and “inappropriate qualifications”, responses I believe are veiled “You’re too old” replies. And that’s only those firms polite enough to reply.

It’s hard not to think that I’m on some employment blacklist. Even recruitment agencies do not respond. Those that do give the usual “Nothing on our books as yet”. Firing off CV after CV into cyberspace results in nothing. All the time the clock is ticking. Unable to gain relevant experience because I have insufficient experience. I’m 36. I have experience. I can manage a team of administrators and teams of media students. I can type, use HTML, instruct, use computers, communicate via telephone, email and inter-personally. But no. Nobody wants me.

It’s plain to my sight that even when you take into account the lack of jobs out there, there must be something about my CV or work experience, that puts potential employers/HR departments off. Even my companion, who was recently made redundant, gets more recruitment agencies calling than I do.
I bet it’s cos I’m ginger.

Or old.

Regardless, I am conscious of the approaching wave of 2011 graduates. The flood of students with “good” A levels (better grades than me!) up to and including 2015. The lack of industry and opportunity in the UK and the fact that each day I spend in ICT I am making myself more unemployable to my chosen career change.

Further machinations of a job seeker

2010-08-08T14:10:00.001-07:00

Further to my last entry here I have managed to obtain a short contract of work. Hurrah! You might say. You might even assume that I am pleased. However, I’m not.

Four years ago I moved from Liverpool to Yorkshire. It was a necessary move and it held the prospect of stabilizing my three year old marriage which was facing difficulty. The job I left in Liverpool was well paid. £23k helpdesk technician. A job I wasn’t 100% happy in even though I had held the post since 2001. Prior to that I worked in a poorly paid civil servant post where my ambitions for career development were not being met.

At the time, there were few people with IT qualifications on the jobs market. I embraced the emerging technology with gusto and found I had a seemingly natural ability to grasp the complexities of computer software and hardware and share my knowledge with others. It was easy in those days to get into IT roles. Hence being able to get the well paid helpdesk job.

Of course, not having anything much in the way of IT qualifications at a time when a growing number of people with IT qualifications were emerging onto the jobs market meant that well paid helpdesk jobs were few and far between. Indeed, when the move to Yorkshire became reality the only jobs recruitment agencies offered me were call centre orientated and the only job I could get on my own initiative was a very low paid one in IT at a sixth form college.

By this time I had become disillusioned with my career in IT. It seemed that all I did was wipe the bottoms of better paid people who, it appeared, should really have known better.

I sat in the office one day and contemplated my career. Which direction was I taking? I never really wanted to work in IT. I had just fallen into the career. All the jobs I saw that I could do required a degree and my lack of which seemed to be going against me. Thus, the sensible thing to do, it seemed, was to start again from scratch, get myself a degree in an area I was interested in and try, at the age of 36, to carve a new career for myself.

And so that is what I did. Only the problem was when I graduated this year, the journalism, writing and media world was completely and radically different to the world I was tempted into by poor careers advice and traditional thinking. Competition for graduate employment these days is high regardless of which subject you study. Attempting to break into a new industry as a mature student was never going to be easy and only made even more difficult by an unpredictable recession.

So back to the gist. Why am I unpleased about my new job? Simply put I have fallen back into the career I had so desperately attempted to escape. The shackles of experience heavy around my neck. Even though the position is only for four months and I have only been working there a week I already feel resentment and anger with the job, the world and especially myself for being so desperate for work that I would prostitute myself back into my old industry sector, sullying my CV with even more IT related work instead of riding the storm and attempting to pepper my CV with experience relevant to the industry I want to enter.

I must tell myself that the job is only until either something better comes along , until the contract ends naturally or until depression hits. I must tell myself that I don’t have to put the job on my CV. I must tell myself that I can still do voluntary work to gain relevant experience. I must tell myself that I am not too old, that the employers looking at my application forms, covering letters and CVs are not thinking “We want someone younger” because, as we all know, that is illegal these days. I must tell myself that no matter what, I can convert the distaste for my current employment into energies better used in searching for and applying for jobs that I would prefer. Or maybe I should just stop trying to fool myself, bury myself into my work and accept that I am the exception to the “as you get older your salary increases” rule. Accept dissatisfaction and consider those people who are unable to get work themselves because of various circumstances, personal and external.

Reaching out for work

2010-07-26T13:24:00.001-07:00

Skills

Excellent at taking the blame for stuff with having over 30 years of experience in being blamed for all manner of misfortunes from the loss of data from floppy disks to the breakdown of marriage.

Have a good golf swing. Never played golf on a proper course but have been shown the correct stance by a colleague.

Can deflect embarrassing answers with the skill and dexterity of a politician while not actually telling a mistruth or being misleading.

Have experience swanning about looking important having been a prefect at school and many years of work experience in the area of walking up and down corridors with a large bunch of keys.

From good family stock. Father has a double barrelled name and I am a member of the Masons. Yes I am!

Skilled at appearing to be busy while actually not having much to do other than attend meetings at gentlemen’s clubs for lunch.

Looking for

Any chief executive job or position within a company requiring a fall guy for any failings which, of course will naturally turn out to be entirely my own fault. Examples: Oil rig leak, employees mucking about with accounts, leaks of embarrassing financial or political misconduct.

The position will offer excellent remuneration (but I’m willing to take a fraction of what all the other fall guys get paid) and a tasty pension and share options on successful completion of role.

If you are an employer looking for someone like this, please get in touch. I could save your company a great deal of money by undercutting your current fall guys by at least 75%.

Job hunting

2010-07-20T09:49:00.001-07:00

The plan today was to look around the city of Liverpool and pop into a few recruitment agencies. I’m never sure whether this is the right thing to do as most of the time recruitment agencies just say “Email us your CV” which to me means “Fuck off and don’t bother us with your worklessness”. Smaller scale recruitment organisations tend to be a bit more accommodating in that they’ll sit you down, get you to fill in forms, pass the time of day and get you to do a typing test before telling you that they’ll be in touch as soon as something comes in. Which again is code for Fuck off and don’t bother us with your worklessness”.

At least that’s the impression I get from recruitment agencies. Another impression I get is how that even though if you have a million years of administrative experience but follow it by 3 years of potato farming, they end up saying “Not enough relevant experience”. Those last three years are crucial. It’s as if all the stuff you’ve done in the past matter not and that some how your ability to function wanes depending on how long since you last did that thing. If that makes sense.

Conversely, to me at least, it appears that this rule does not apply to call centre work. You could have been a world class surgeon for the past 30 years and maybe earned a bit of pocket money for a couple of months working in a call centre back in the early nineties. However if you put that stint on your CV you are marked for life. All recruitment agencies will offer you is chuffing call centre work.

Anyway, the laws of probability mean that not registering with recruitment agencies is probably a bad idea. After all, the more walls you throw something at, the more likely something will stick. However, some recruitment agencies will tell you to only register with one to prevent your details being circulated multiple times.

But the impression I get is that recruitment agencies tend to be ultra selective. That could just be my paranoia or it could just be true. I don’t know.

So there I was, trudging round the centre of Liverpool, rain dripping off my face, clothes sodden and hair drenched. But something has happened to Liverpool over the past 5 years. Weird stuff. Stuff like…new shops….retail palaces….bars….boutiques….where once there were offices now stand posh restaurants and stuff….

After failing to locate 5 of the 6 agencies I’d set out to find….I came home. More despondent than when I set out. Guess the old ways of walking in will no longer work if you can’t find the agencies in the first place.

Qualification:Experience Relevance Quotient

2010-07-19T02:52:00.001-07:00

Looking for work is arduous. Filling in application forms time after time after time with the same information, slightly tweaked to promote relevance to post applied for.

I must have filled in more application forms during this period of unemployment than I did during the last period back in the nineties. I suppose this is because everything is online now. You fill in forms, click send, then either you get a “Thank you for your application” or you get nothing. Leaving you to wonder if you have actually just spent the past half hour filling in a form with data that has now gone into the ether or to the great spam folder in the sky.

It has been 3 months now and out of over 100 applications filled only one interview and that…well that we’ll just ignore because nobody likes bureaucracy and, as first impressions work for potential employers conversely the same applies for potential employees.

Not being restricted to looking in one geographical area should mean, according to the laws of probability, that as a job seeker I should be getting a 3:1 interview ratio. But no. This is not the case.

Being a new graduate? At 36? I can’t help think that this is not the boon that I needed to find further employment but the detriment in that employers look at my CV and think “36? Only just graduated? And in a subject unrelated to their existing career path? Must be some sort of mong”

And so the search continues. My email inbox, once filled with playful notes from colleagues and friends, now replete with job vacancies. A surprising number of which duplicate. Indeed, the duplication often means that you could apply for the same job several times. Something that has happened. Several times.

This week I shall be in one of the aforementioned geographical locations in an attempt to find work by going out and meeting people. Taking Norman Tebbit’s advice and getting on my bike to look for work. Work that, I am becoming increasingly under the impression that, does not exist.

Job search

2010-06-23T10:43:00.001-07:00

Probably one of the most disheartening things about looking for work is the fact you constantly fill in forms with the same information over and over again.

Ever since I’ve found out my results, in fact no, ever since April, I’ve been looking for something work like to do. It’s so hard. Everytime I fill in an application I think “OMG I’ve had such a shit career how the fuck am I to get a job doing this?". Admittedly, if I was an employer, I’d look at my CV and say “This guy?…nah”. Sometimes I think maybe I should become the employer. Other times I think teaching. Maybe even a stint at Tesco or somewhere.

Ye gads. It’s so depressing.

And the longer I spend not doing something, the more my qualifications seem like a waste of time. People say “Oh but you’ve got so much experience”. This is true. I have. I am experienced in customer services. I am experienced in IT. I am experienced in wiping people’s arse for tupence ha’penny. But those jobs pay shit these days. My needs are greater in line with aspirations and the like.

So far I have applied for 20 jobs and not a thing from any of them. I’m starting to think these jobs don’t exist. And no…I haven’t signed on yet. I can’t face signing on.

Degree

2010-06-15T08:51:00.001-07:00

You may be interested to know, I now hold a 2:1 BA Hons. degree in Television and Media.

Anyone wanting to offer me a job…feel free.

Landscape

2010-05-19T13:41:00.001-07:00

If I fell through a hole in time and travelled back 25 years. If I then looked out of my bedroom window across the field behind the lane with no name and beyond the field behind the field behind the lane with no name, not only would I have upset Mrs Edson's daughter, but I would have seen the winch wheel of a pit stack.

Had I then gone downstairs and beyond the rear door of San Tor, tootled down the lane with no name and onto the corner of Church Street and Common Road I would probably have been able to see one of the largest collieries in the UK stretching out in the distance before me. There would have been power stations, winch houses, the constant drone of colliery activity and the like.

I would probably have seen a constant pedestrian traffic of orange overalls walking down the hill into Grimethorpe wherein those wearing the overalls would probably have stepped into a cage and travelled deep below the ground for a day of mining. In fact, had I gone to any number of places around the neighbourhood I would have seen similar sights of industrial activity. Trains and lorries laden with coal bound for the steel mills and power stations that peppered the vista.

I would have seen people milling about; doing their daily business with smiles upon their faces asking after neighbours and discussing Morecambe and Wise or some such. These same people would have been unaware of the devastation they would face over the next fifteen years or so. When their livelihoods were taken away from them by a government leader bent on revenge for the winter of discontent. A way to quell the voices of discontent and the socialism which threatened their brave new world.

Spin forward through time once more and where there was employment, there is but social decay in the shape of unemployment, bigotry and drug use. Houses that once were grand now look tatty and unkempt. Parades of shops that once boasted green grocers, fishmongers and butchers now stand boarded up and empty or populated by takeaways and offices of antidrug and employment building social enterprise groups. The contrast is vast.

Travel to Liverpool 30 years ago and similar sights would have been seen, instead of coal miners you would have seen dock workers. Sheffield and Doncaster, steel workers. Newcastle, ship builders. The Midlands, motor industry. An industrial past so memorable yet so long gone. All gone. Thanks to the brave new world instigated by the Thatcher and perpetuated by the Blair governments.

Sure, industry would have struggled to compete with low cost foreign imports. It was a natural shift from production to service industries. However the speed in which the transition took place was so swift that few were prepared for the following years. This wasn't 100 years ago, this was twenty to thirty years ago. Heck, even during my education traditional jobs such as butcher, baker, factory worker and the like were still discussed. Now, most of these jobs don't exist.

Who to blame? The governments? They were the ones that set this passage in motion. The people? Reluctant to pay more for goods produced on home ground they would prefer cheaper imports to paying to maintain other peoples lives. Nobody? A natural transition that occurred as predicted by Marx? I can only speculate.

But what is clear is that since the industry was taken away very little has been put in place since. Sure Liverpool's main industry now is education and tourism. Sheffield's it could be argued is sport and culture. But places like the Midlands and Barnsley remain places difficult to find work in. Even the brief respite of call centres which have since been outsourced overseas only provided negligible difference.

As the population continues to grow unsustainably. The economy will continue to falter. Socialist ideals such as national health care and education now too expensive at current prices will require more and more funding. The future is bleak, the future is most certainly not orange. Taxes need to increase. With increases in taxes, salaries will need to be increased. As salaries increase so will the drain on GDP. Inflation increases, held off artificially by government backing supermarkets and industry will surge and rocket, things will be bad.

Let's think about a pie. Mmmmm pie. It is a nice pie. We all want a slice of this pie but some want bigger slices than others because they think they deserve a bigger slice. So to cater for the demand on pie we bake a bigger pie. But then people say that they want a piece of the pie that is comparative to the slice they think they deserve. The circle continues.

But let us go back to South Yorkshire and look around.

Think of the seaside town that is no longer popular with tourists. The once grand and splendid arcades now shuttered or populated by pound shops. The streets of dilapidated guest and boarding houses now multi occupancy dwellings inhabited by ne'er-do-wells, the down at heel and misguided immigrants. Pensioners wander the streets or sit outside once proud homes dreaming of times past when the new housing estate was once the local lido. Think of how this once popular place was alive with people happy and at peace now degraded, it's heart ripped out by cheap foreign holidays. Then consider this seaside town land locked. You might now be imagining somewhere similar to Grimethorpe, Goldsthorpe, Mexborough and the like. Once proud pit villages populated by hard working proud people with facilities to cater for them provided by the pit owners.

Take the pit away and these places become that landlocked seaside town. The streets once burgeoning with shops now boast 1001 curries, kebabs and tanning salons. The schools once constructed in an age when architects considered the art of the building design instead of functionality now empty, burnt out or demolished. The churches whose congregations once boasted over 200 parishioners per service, now guarded by razor wire and awful looking grills to protect the already damaged stained glass windows. The pit itself, long cleared away, the ancillary buildings few of which remain are but depots for reclamation yards or meeting places for drug addicts and the destitute.

This is the brave new post war post industrial England. Sure there are sleepy villages, vibrant cities and bustling market towns in well to do areas, but for every Harrogate, there are many more Grimethorpes. These deprived areas like a rot will take a lot more than money, social schemes and the like to treat. With the decline goes pride, with pride lost there is little but apathy, with apathy comes decay. The wealthy international companies know this and they feast on the decay with their burger shops, their big name brand supermarkets, their "you must buy this because you need it" attitudes. Sucking the communities dry of the wealth which is then sent south or overseas and not reinvested in the local communities. We really only have ourselves to blame.

Cross posted to my Livejournal.

Lovely day

2010-05-12T11:54:00.001-07:00

It was such a lovely day today I thought I’d nip out for a walk in the delightful countryside that South Yorkshire has to offer. My destination of choice was the delightful Langsett Reservoir near Barnsley/Sheffield.

Langset near Barnsley in South Yorkshire

The sun was out, the sky was blue. I didn’t have a care and I wasn’t blue. It wasn’t raining. Raining in my heart.

Langsett Reservoir is owned by Yorkshire water and there are many permissive paths. But me not being someone to stick to the boring old main track decided to follow my nose and take a well trod side path to see where it went. And I’m bloody glad that I did.

After crossing a very busy road I was soon walking through a lovely peaceful forest. Not a soul about. Lots of little birdies and squirrels foraging about. Nature can be so inspiring sometimes.

Part of me had decided that I had to do this today because I have gotten a bit fat lately. This is partly down to having a lot of stress from finishing this bloody Media degree of mine.

Another part of me wanted to take photographs because out side the hustle and bustle of urban life, the countryside is the only place left that I feel like I am not intruding or being strange when I brandish my camera.

There was a stream running through the forest. I couldn’t see it because it was hidden under lots of undergrowth but I could hear it. As I rounded a corner I could see a bridge. I crossed this and discovered a lovely peaceful little glade where I could sit for a while and reflect on my future.

After a while some walkers approached from the other direction. We exchanged greetings (why is it that in the countryside people always say “hello” but in cities the same people would just ignore you?) and they told me that they were enjoying their walk especially as they had not seen anyone else all day.

The path split once more. A higher one that crossed the top of a cliff face and a lower one that only went a short distance toward a wall. I took the higher one which led me through another bit of forest and onto a landscape that could have placed me in any of the wooly wild locations in England.

Nothing but trees, rolling hills, sheep and scree. Not a soul around. Perfect for reflection and soul searching.

Stepping over a dead sheep I realised that I was miles away from anywhere. Worse, I had very little battery left in my mobile phone. Fortunately I had thought to check the map before I left just to give me a rough idea of which direction I should head to return to my car. I had been walking by this time, for over an hour.

The sun was beating my face and the path depressingly headed up a very steep hill. Beneath me I could see a river winding its way from the peak district bound for the sea.

At the top of the hill I could see a farm house. I was reluctant to pass through the field of bunny rabbits as it kind of looked like private property. Closer inspection revealed that this was a completely abandoned farm holding. With cattle sheds, sheep dips and live stock holdings. Nobody lived there now except for the many many startled rabbits. Even so, I walked through gingerly for fear of waking a dead farmer zombie or being accosted by some inbred family of mutants bent on making me their father. But in reality I was many miles away from Grimethorpe so this was unlikely to happen.

Once through the farm I headed up the path which in turn headed up the most demonic gradient I’ve seen outside of Scotland. The winding path lead me to a lone standing stone. The view from around there was amazing. I could see the windmills out near Penistone. I could see the hills and forests for miles. I truely was in the middle of nowhere. But what worried me most was the fact that I did not have much battery left in my phone and in the distance, angry black clouds floated in the sky like water filled bin bags.

Wind turbines against the black clouds of doom

I’d just taken this picture of a vividly green tree when the unthinkable happened. My battery died. Miles from anywhere, no phone. No people. "Stuff it!" I thought and I carried on walking.

I wasn’t too worried as I was so chilled out and calm. I also knew that following the path would take me straight back to my car. It took me a good hour further to walk there.

I sat in my car just in time for PM on Radio 4. The roar of civilisation zooming past me in trucks, cars and on motorcycles. Nothing to bring you back to earth than Norbert Dentrassangle hurtling past noisly at 60mph.

A good day. :-)

Company

2010-05-08T13:11:00.001-07:00

Let us imagine you have a company. You are the chief executive big wig honorary grand poobah of this company but the only problem is you have no staff.

Now you need to find some staff for your company. You need a Chairman, a finance director, a security executive and other policy makers to run your company while you go about your day playing golf and wanking it off in the Maldives or Rhyl. Where ever takes your fancy.

So you advertise your vacancies don’t you?

But imagine if you couldn’t advertise and you let your customers decide who did the jobs you needed filling. Worse…they didn’t select the people individually, they selected a gang of people lead by someone with a big gob and wavy about hands. And it was this gobshite that selected the people to fill the vacancies….out of his mates.

You wouldn’t be pleased would you? And you certainly wouldn’t like it when your company goes to shit. So you kick the gobshite and his mates out after five years only for some other gobshite to do the same. So you kick them out and the first gobshite comes back and does an even worse job.

Welcome to the world of British politics. Welcome to the unique world of British Parliament. Welcome to jobs you get because you happen to be chummy with the gaffer.

Well. Hopefully that has put it into perspective.

Press

2010-04-23T01:47:00.001-07:00

Well it looks like the press (Murdoch) is worried that the Lib Dems are gaining more support than the press (Murdoch) likes. Judging by yesterday's newspaper headlines Nick Clegg is a Nazi paedophilic ex-priest with sadomasochistic tendencies who would bring naught but ruin.

Interestingly, last night’s leadership debate took place on....Murdoch TV. Sorry. I mean Sky.

Mr Murdoch believes, I have been taught, that he has the power to sway elections and tip the balance to his favour. This, it seems has been the case in previous elections in the UK. His support for Thatcher during her incumbency and Major during his 1992 election seemed to show that what his newspapers said was how the voting public voted. Indeed, in 1997 when The Sun switched sides to support the Labour party it is believed that Murdoch's media empire's influence saw to Blair winning that election. Indeed, it has been suggested that his support for Obama in his American owned press helped win Obama his election.

Murdoch's power does not stop at newspapers, FOX and SKY TV. Far from it. Murdoch controls ageing and failing social media giant MySpace something which he paid $580million for. Unfortunately, Murdoch is trapped in this mindset that as long as people consume something unquestioningly and uncritically, they desire something and it will never get tired . This belief, it seems, is why Murdoch was demanding to know why people weren't using Myspace anymore without being aware of the transient nature of social networking and the and fickleness of internet users. Today's Facebook could be tomorrows Myspace

[see Johnson, Bobbie (2010) “Turmoil at MySpace blamed on News Corporation” [On-line]

Available at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/14/myspace-news-corporation-owen-van-natta>]

So use caution when you consume media. Especially in during the current circus that is the lead up to the election. Don't take one viewpoint, indeed even my viewpoint for that matter, as concrete. Look around. See what the other media outlets are saying and consider who controls those outlets. Notice the tricks they play like using surveys to back up what they say - were you questioned? Did you take part? Are you in the minority? Notice how they build people up then discredit them somehow when opinion doesn't go the way they would prefer.

I know some will say "Oh I don't pay any attention to media" but I'll argue that you do. Maybe not directly but the people you interact with may have. I know some will say "I don't get involved in stuff like elections or media because no matter what I believe it won't make a jot of difference. Well maybe. But think about how like shoals of fish all move in one direction but soon as the predator appears they scatter causing chaos and disturbance in their formation.
The other danger is that Murdoch strongly believes that users should pay for the content on the internet. Now while I like the idea of charging you lot 50p to view my diatribe I am an advocate of freedom of media. But then I am also an advocate of philanthropy, something which Mr Murdoch doesn't seem to believe in either.

One thing I noticed, as a Television and Media graduate was how those in the production and direction department used dirty tricks to try and smother the Clegg message. Frequent cut-aways from Clegg when he spoke; the positioning of Clegg in the middle; etc. All pointing to the wrinkled digit of Murdoch. A dangerous man in fear of his public not following his lead.

When one man controls the media, the media becomes his voice. When only one voice is heard; there may as well be nought silence. Indeed, when I posted this yesterday on my LJ a number of commenters drew parallels with Murdoch and Italy’s Berlesconi. Both control the media to their own end but I fear the greatest danger is not a man who controls the media and sits as the head of state but a man who pulls the strings from the sidelines. Unseen. Unelected. With dangerous ideals and a belief that the public are there to be shepherded.

Law for beginners – Lesson 1: The Legal Aid System

2010-04-12T16:14:00.001-07:00

In the UK, if you are accused of financial wrong doing or fraud (and I think for that matter any criminal matter) and the case goes to court, all of your assets – your house, your bank accounts, your dealings etc are seized by the Crown.

If you have no assets you are, by right, assigned legal representation by the Crown funded by a system known as Legal Aid.

This is regardless of whether you have a billion quid in property and shares or 50p and a packet of cigarette papers.

It is a right afforded to all ever since the Legal Aid and Advice Act of 1949.

If you lose your case, your assets become Crown property and the proceeds of your assets go towards paying your legal costs and any fine or financial penalty you receive.

If you win your case, the prosecuting body – ie the Crown Prosecution Service (or in the case of civil matters - the Plaintiff) pay the court costs.

The only type of law where legal aid is not afforded to the accused is in cases of defamation or libel.

Such it is, such it has been. Hopefully, in case I get wrongly accused of financial wrongdoing at some point in my life, it will remain that way.

Now. It has come to my attention that a number of MPs have been accused of financial wrong doing in a matter that is going to court at present.

It seems on the back of this, there is currently a really terrible case of “bad journalism” going on. Twatter is alight with people saying “Onoes! This is disgusting! People like that should pay themselves” without a regard for how the legal aid system actually works and I’m certain that the low quality press and their columnists will be making similar noises. Worse, the leader of the Conservative party seems oblivious to this point and I’m sure if it was he who was being prosecuted with no funds for him to obtain legal council, he would be the first to cry “Oh no! Woe is me!”

Remember, law is there to protect you. The legal system in the UK, while often flawed and misapplied, is there to protect the key facet in all of British sovereign law. Something which the powers that be seem really keen to remove, something which the media would like to see removed. That facet is in the United Kingdom – you are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.

So even if you see Billy Blogs pinching a bag of crisps from the off licence and your convinced he stole the crisps, unless a court of law, presided over by a judge and jury or magistrate, finds Billy Blogs guilty he is innocent. Regardless of what you say.

This is something which people, often fuelled by media and moral panic, forget. They also forget that the easiest way to remove ancient rights and freedoms is to whip up such a fuss about a technicality so that ancient freedoms are swept away nought but the flourish of a pen. How many times have we, and I include myself in this, heard about people going to court and we say “They did it, they must have” when we know nothing about the situation behind the case or the evidence. This is often more the case when the death of a child is part of the matter.

We point fingers. The media guides our hands. Trials go to court and people do get locked away because of prejudicial matters.

Think Colin Stagg. Yeah I was one who went “He bloody must have done it” naively fuelled the media who also said “He bloody must have done it” and yep….he went down. Convicted by a jury. Then…he gets acquitted. Absolved of all wrong. How foolish I felt when I found out that actually, no…he hadn’t done it.

So to bring our legal lesson back onto track – two points

in the UK you are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law

AND

if you have no assets, either because they have been seized by the Crown as a bond (including your duck house) just in case you do a runner or because you genuinely do only have 50p (and a packet of green Rizlas) to your name – You are afforded, as is your right, to legal counsel funded by the Legal Aid system.

Such is the law in the UK. Daft it may be. But think…if it was you…and you were innocent….and you had no money…because your government had seized it all…or maybe you only had 50p and a packet of green Rizlas. Wouldn’t you be a teeny bit…well…miffed if you were not allowed someone to give you legal guidance on the matter at hand purely because you had no means to pay for it?

I know I would.

So bear that in mind as you cast your stones and eggs and laugh and point at the ignorant fools, who are having their basic rights wilfully eroded away because they didn’t know they actually had them in the first place…

Empee Empee

2010-04-08T06:04:00.001-07:00

Jeff Ennis goes this year. He used to live next door to Mrs Edson you know.

I live in Barnsley East. I’ve never been canvassed by an MP and shoving your tatty bit of paper through my letterbox just makes the cats and the recycle bin happy.

Currently the potential MPs for my area are (in no particular order) -

John Brown - Lib Dem: Beardy gent

Former lecturer, former manager of a plastics company.

Been about a bit. Lived in places such as St Helens, Congleton, Barnsley, Sheffield, Doncaster and Loughborough.

Has a degree in Metallurgy.

Caven Vines - UKIP: Shifty looking beardy gent

Seems to be based in Rotherham which isn’t all that far from Barnsley East but still.

Has a bee in his bonnet about immigrants, muslims and Britain being British.

Says “We need representation by MPs who are not afraid to speak out for what the people of Britain want” – Well I want a new car and £10000 please :D

Colin Porter – BNP: Odious sounding shouty pointy man

Other than a leaflet buried on some nationalist website and a couple of news clippings about him being all shouty and pointy. The only other reference I could find about this gent is this Youtube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cPDF6IDxz4

Curious really. Considering he’s putting himself forward for election. Furthermore, he seems to be stuck on issues that have no weight on the global or national scheme of things. I’m sure people living in Warrington would be furious to know that truck drivers are driving along B roads in Barnsley…..

James Hockney - Conservatives: Slimey looking toff

This guy seems to have a career covering the south. Cambridgeshire, Ely and the like. Apart from kindly “helping to get a Learner Centre up and running in South Yorkshire”. I doubt he’s even looked at Barnsley except on a map.

Oh wait…it appears he went to a brewery….in a different part of Barnsley. Bless him.

Michael Dugher - Labour: The ungoogleable man.

Seems like this chap has been floating round the country like an unflushed turd. I doubt he even lives in Barnsley...or for that matter knows where it is.

However he does seem to already have some parliamentary connections so even if he doesn’t get the job he can still make tea and advise on whatever it is he advises on.

This, it seems, is the motley band of chaps that want my vote. Now apart from virtually no web presence, these guys seem to think that they can tell me what they stand for by telepathy…or maybe some sort of osmosis or something. However, because I’ve lived my life wrong, I am unable to receive messages through the ether due to my fat head being somehow defective.

So, like last time there was an election my offer still stands. It even applies to the horrid shouty pointy man. Let us go for a pint at the Three Horseshoes and discuss why I should vote for you because unless you do…I won’t have any idea why it is I should give you my vote.

Escape from the Toilet of Doom

2010-04-07T14:38:00.001-07:00

In the West Building of uni, there is a small gents toilet. It is, as I said, a small toilet. It is fitted only with two cubicles and, unusually, there are no urinals.

This morning on my arrival on campus I made my way to the loo to clear out my cup of tea from breakfast. The long drive from Brierley to Huddersfield makes me want to wee more than a running tap so that loo is often my first port of call.

Anyway, as I entered I noticed that, as usual, the cubicle on the left was closed and engaged. It was at this point I realised that every time I’ve used that particular loo the cubicle on the left has always been engaged.

Today was a different day from all the other times I have been to uni as I was using the editing suite a few doors down the corridor and I was expecting to be in there all day (the editing suite that is, not the toilet). So I thought to myself I’d check throughout the day and prove to myself that surely people must come and go to that toilet and I’ve obviously just been a victim of bad timing.

So by 12pm I was in need of the loo again. I popped in and sure enough the door was closed and the smells emanating from the locked cubicle indicated that there was either someone definitely in there or there was a problem with the drains.

By 2pm I’d finished faffing and it was time for my third visit of the day. Sure enough the door was closed. This time the smells were accompanied by rustlings of toilet paper and shuffling about. At this point I was thinking to myself “Hmmm this chap has been in there all day. I hope he is ok”.

By 4:30pm, it was time to go home. Rather than face the entire journey from Huddersfield to Brierley with an increasingly filled bladder, I thought I’d nip into the gents and prepare myself for the journey.

As I approached the main door to the toilet, I thought about the day and the year and how everytime I’d been to that toilet someone, perhaps the same someone, had been engaged in the left cubicle.

Was it some sort of toilet monster? Was it just some errant academic of faecal studies? Could it be some weird gateway to Poo Narnia? Or maybe there was someone who lived in the cubicle…after all…there was a Chinese student in Liverpool Uni who lived in the 24hr computer centre (Troofax).

I opened the door gingerly and there….to my abject horror…and utter terror….the toilet cubicle door………was……..

OPEN!
**insert dramatic music here**

Rather than risk death by poo monster, asphyxiation by noxious gases or being sucked into some faecal version of Middle Earth I still opted for the right hand cubicle. I made my business fast and swift doing up my fly zipper as I left the room to save time.

Who knows what horrors might have befallen me had I lingered?

My Neighbour’s Cock

2010-03-24T08:40:00.001-07:00

My Neighbour's Cock from stegzy gnomepants on Vimeo.

My neighbour is always getting his cock out at the back of my house. So I went and filmed it so I can prove it to you unbelievers. Disgusting behaviour.

Geocaching 2010

2010-03-21T16:30:00.001-07:00

So this weekend saw the start of the Geocaching season for me. Ok, technically it was a few weeks ago when I went mooching round Wooley Edge and bagged two caches while trying out new software. Zoe and I decided to start out with some easy ones to get us back into the swing of things.

The first trip took us to a disused railway bridge out at Hunningham near Leamington Spa. As I say, it’s been a while but it’s the little things like spotting good places to park, working out that the direct path is not always the best and if at first you can’t find the cache – look in the most obvious place.

So on getting there it became apparent that there was no easy way to get up to where I needed to be. Short of taking a good 4 mile walk to get to the cache the only other option was to scramble through undergrowth and up some rubble.

Further adventures were had trying to navigate a field of potatoes. We could either take the direct path across the crops or round the edge of the field adding about 30 minutes onto the trip. The crops were safe as we opted for the indirect approach which, fortunately, took in another cache on the way.

The glorious sunshine which graced the midlands today meant that rather than the usual slobbing out on the couch, Zoe and I would do some more geocaching. Today’s trip reminded me of why I really enjoy the hobby.

The UK is a beautiful picturesque land. There’s so much to see but often we ignore places because, on maps, there doesn’t seem to be anything there.

However Geocaching takes you to some of the most interesting places that you wouldn’t ordinarily visit. So today’s trip took us to the lovely sleepy village of Weston Under Wetherley.

I mean look at it. It’s just gorgeous. Makes you feel British. I can just imagine poncing about the place in my blazer with service medals and being called Major or something. So this has reignited the desire to mooch about the countryside looking for bits of concealed tupperware while armed only with my HTC HD2.

Anyway, the glorious weather seems to have awoken other cachers as the travel bug – the Stegzy Gnomepants’ Badger’s Coastal Tour Travel Bug has also been on the move. So it seems the season has begun, work permitting, I intend to do many more caches this year. Maybe actually getting to places outside of the West Midlands and Yorkshire.

And yet I still find myself wishing there was something like this when I was younger….

Are you safe?

2010-03-20T16:17:00.001-07:00

The news that a school is banning ties and the news that stepping stones might be bad for your health has really got my blood pressure up of late. I blame the litigious society we now live in. I hold my hand up now and confess that in the mid 1990's I helped to propagate this terrible affliction upon the British public by working in a solicitors office that mainly dealt with tripping incidents.

People living in the UK pay a tax which helps pay for the upkeep of the area in which they live. This tax is called the Council tax [Incidentally, this year Barnsley council have levied residents a £1095 annual charge for the privilege of living in Band B houses within the district] and is paid annually. The tax funds the local services such as police and fire and coastguard (if you live in a coastal area),~~Derek Hatton's new car~~ refuse collection, ~~holidays for the councillors~~ and general maintenance of street furniture (signs, lamp posts, bins), pavements and public areas.

My job as a legal clerk was to gather evidence against Liverpool council for "Breach of duty of care". Usually this would involve Joe Scrotum calling into the office, all bandaged up, to say that he had tripped over a raised paving slab and caused distress and discomfort to his person. I would then get Mr Scrotum (or his brother or his cousin or some bloke that knew his Aunt once on a Friday afternoon in June) to sign a "Green Form" which allowed Mr Scrotum to claim legal aid and allowed the firm to earn some healthy dosh to pay its employees with.

In reality, Mr Scrotum had probably gotten beaten up in the pub for shagging Mr Knutfukker's wife up the bum; and on the way home from the pub notices a pavement slab which happened to be a bit sticky uppy. Of course some of the clients were obviously genuine, some had actually fallen or had had some kind of truly accident with a piece of council furniture. But the majority were scam artists.

A good 60% of these people put claims in as a supplement to their unemployment benefit and often the solicitor that dealt with these cases would be heard to say "Oh Mr Scrotum? Again? He is a clumsy clopper". Anyone else probably would have taken a bit more care walking down the road but because the compensation available was sometimes in the £1000's (Yeah your Honour. Falling down that manhole has put me off sex) there was a healthy income to be made. Indeed some of the injuries certainly didn't look like they were caused by "sticky up pavements".

Unless, of course, these people had been travelling along a super sonic speed and the pavement slab levitated and twatted them across the head and limbs several times. Of course the compensation had to come from somewhere. Liverpool, at the time, had one of the highest council tax charges in Britain and possibly some of the most unsafe streets in the whole North West. Not because of gun toting dudes in blacked out cars but because of the actual potholes and broken pavements. However, the money to fix the pavements was being swallowed up by Mr Scrotum and his kin, who didn't actually pay any council tax anyway because of their employment status.

But thats a tangent I didn't really intend going off on. Instead, today I got thinking about the numerous things that I probably wouldnt have experienced had I been a cotton wool wrapped child of today. Such as:-

Sitting on hot central heating pipes in the cold winter

Why

Not only is it not like the Arctic in the winter anymore but someone might just get burnt.

Possible Reason

Oh poor little Jonny! He sat on a pipe and now has a disfiguring blister on his thigh. This has (will) cause(d) him to have a lack of self confidence and all the other children will call him names and he'll grow up to be Charles Manson or someone.

Instead of

Stupid child. It was hot, you got burnt. Here have some Germoline and stop your whinging. You'll never do that again now will you. Hot pipes indeed!? Didn't you get up once they felt a bit hot?

Cutting paper with scissors

Why

The child might cut his or her or someone elses fingers off!

Possible Reason

Oh poor little Milly! She was cutting paper unsupervised when she cut her finger. Now she has no end of playground taunting and she'll never be able to play the Harp again. I mean fancy leaving a child with paper! That paper cut will never heal. It will go gangrenous and cause her to have some tropical infection like lassa fever or beri beri

Instead of

Stupid Child! Its only a poxy little paper cut. Just suck the blood off and you'll be alright. You're not going to die.

Chalk on the blackboard

Why

People are allergic to all sorts of things these days: cheese, peanuts, mucky fat, aspidistras. Chalk is no exception.

Possible Reason

I had to take my little Gary out of class indefinitely because of the dust in that class room. He would come home with his eyes streaming and his face all puffy. It stressed me so much I would have to smoke a further 20 cigarettes in disgust. How dare that school give my child an allergy! How is he going to take over the family asbestos removals company when his Dad retires?

Instead of

Oh stop your whinging. Smoke this and go out and play.

Playing conkers

Why

Conkers are notorious for removing peoples eyes. In fact in some hospitals conkers have been used in eye removal operations. The game of conkers is no exception and only increases the risk.

Possible Reason

That Tommy, he's normally such a nice boy. But you know the other day, after his drink of Sunny Delight, he went out with his friend Eddie to play conkers and within five minutes he was going round and punching things and kicking things and pulling the heads off puppies. I can't imagine why he would do such a thing. Must be because he was playing conkers. Thats such a violent game

Instead of

Calm down. Stop kicking that boy like that. How many times have I got to tell you. When you are kicking children go for the goolies! Do it properly or not at all!

Being told off by an unknown adult

Why

Strangers. Are dangers. So they say. I always thought they were a crap indie band from Preston. But it seems that any person other than a member or friend of the family that speaks to a child is a paedophile and possibly an axe murderer or nail beautician. Or all three.

Possible Reason

That Mr Jones of number 86. He told our Jade to get off his garden today. He's a dirty shifty man. He has all those pictures of those children on his mantelpiece and wall. I just know he's watching me from behind those net curtains. He did away with his wife anorl you know? Chopped her up with an axe made out of a nail file....

Instead of

How many times do you need to be told? Stop annoying the neighbours and stop doing parkour on Mr Jones' front garden. He's old and doesn't like it. Go and apologise and ask him if there is anything I can get him from the supermarket.

Sticking things with Gloy Paste

Why

Glue as we know is bad. According to recent social studies sniffing glue is bad for you. It makes your nose all spotty, fucks your head and leads on to hard drugs like. Gloy Paste sniffing is the precursor to glue sniffing it seems though smelling the back of a postage stamp isn't quite in the same league really is it?

Possible Reason

I caught our Billy making a tissue paper collage last night. I was so shocked. I was passing his room on my way to get my Crystal Meth when I saw through his door...there he was all sprawled out on the floor sticking pieces of scrunched up bits of tissue paper onto a piece of card using GLOY! Things looked so promising for him. I always thought he'd be a dealer you know.

Instead of

Aww thats lovely Billy. Are you making that for your gran? Arrrey! You've got it all over the carpet. You stupid little child. Give it here!

Nativity

Why

It seems that childhood is not innocent. It is guilty of offending people from other walks of life and cultures. The nativity, the seasonally traditional account of the birth of Jesus, offends not only non-Christians but the papier mache rights people get offended at the use of a papier mache sheep instead of a cardboard cut out. It might also be instrument to child pornography as it seems those people with the cameras might not actually be filming or photographing their children for family posterity but for actually more nefarious purposes.

Possible Reason

I couldnt believe it! I was mortified! Imagine having a 6 year old talking about birth. It is obscene! Especially as I don't believe a word of all that "Christ is born" nonsense and I only had our Tanya baptised so she could get into the school (you know its fairly high up on the league tables). I find it all so offensive. Just wait until Julian sees the education minister when he plays golf on Thursday. I shall also be complaining about the use of the cameras in during the nativity. I mean I don't know any of those people. They might be axe murderers or nail beauticians or something and they have film of MY child! It's horrific!

Instead of

Aww look at them all act. Aren't they sweet. I mean I know I only got them baptised for educational reasons but still they did a damn good job of the birth. I think little Tarquin played Joseph so well. He should get an oscar lovey!! I'm so glad most parents seemed to be filming the event as, when Tarquin becomes an internationally famous filmstar, they'll all sell their films to the press and it will be excellent publicity for him darling.

Playing in the street

Why

God forbid if a child ever went out on the street. There are all manner of dangers. Cars. Drug pushers. Muggers. Rabid snow leopards. Level 15 Dun Modr Dwarfs. Religious nutters. Knives. Sharp pavements. Fresh air. Pollution. Things to do. Mischief to be had.

Possible Reason

I dare not let Jimmy out to play in case he falls over and damages his knee. I certainly don't like him talking to those other children. I mean what sort of dreadful and awful parents let their children out to wander the streets unsupervised. You see them all the time playing football, sitting around drinking Tenants Super, swearing at old ladies, running round Mr Jones' garden. I'd say something but I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a dirty paedo or something. Instead I'll just keep Jimmy here with me. I'll give him a nice PC to play with and he can go on the internet all day. Or I can get him a television and some of those Conker films he likes so much.

Instead of

Go on. Bugger off out. What do you mean you've got homework? GCSE's? What are they? You dont want them they cause nothing but trouble! Look at me do you think I've got GCSE's? Now fuck off out and let me watch me reruns of Trisha in peace...

This post originally appeared on Livejournal in 2007

Political Pints

2010-03-19T16:15:00.001-07:00

Margaret Thatcher had her gardening. John Major had his soap box. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; cups of tea with grass root voters. What would swing me? Well a pint with me in my local would probably help…..

I’ve blogged before on how little contact my local political representatives have made to the people that matter (See these various Livejournal entries), those people being…well…me and others like me who are called upon to do their duty and put a cross in a box every few years. Indeed, the same really could apply to prospective MPs.

In all my years I’ve never been canvassed. Either in person or by any other personal means. Now I know some will say “Oh but Stegzy you daft pillock, there are far too many people for all the MPs to go and visit them all and that is why they have special talks and things in community centres”. Others might say “Oh well you should get leaflets and that through your door surely that should be enough”. Well no…it isn’t.

When I moved to Yorkshire the country was undergoing an election. I was new to Barnsley and had no idea who was who or what the the people who were asking for my vote stood for.

So, I took it upon myself to look up the local prospective candidates in the local press and on the web and I contacted all the candidates via email inviting them to come to my house and tell me why I should vote for them. (see this entry)

Surprisingly.

Nobody came.

Not even a “Thanks” or a “Hey yeah while I’m dead busy like I can’t really drop everything just for one vote”.

Nothing

I thought to myself that come the general election I would extend that offer to the people hoping to be elected to parliament for the Barnsley East ward.

Then Gordon goes and visits some people at their house for a cup of tea.

Well. Fair enough, with having to finish my degree and being in two places most of the time I didn’t get round to making that post.

My intention, as I alluded to, was to invite political prospectives to come and tell me why they deserved my vote and not the other guy rather than have them shove a piece of paper through my door with a few general statements about what current issue they deem to have importance.

Now I can hardly expect Gordon, Nick and that other fella to come round to my gaff together and take me for a pint, but the idea would be nice. I can just imagine it, me and political big wigs having a pint in my local or, for that matter, in my lounge…like the lads…not that the “lads” ever come round to my gaff, but you get my idea.

No, perhaps expecting the big fish to visit the tadpoles is a bit far fetched. But my local MP…well that’s a different matter. They’re not there yet. My current MP is Jeff Ennis, who, you might be amused to know, used to live in G the Human Dog’s house next door to mine. Anyway, I understand that Jeff is standing down at this election. I never got to meet good old Jeffy but I can imagine him sipping an ale with Mrs Edson (the lady that lived in my house before me) or nipping down to the Three Horseshoes for a little snifter of sherry with the lads.

So as there is a vacancy coming up and I’m still unaware of anyone wanting to try and fill Ennis’ shoes I thought I’d extend the offer once more.

It is highly unlikely that anyone from Barnsley let alone anyone from the Barnsley East and Mexborough ward will be reading this but hopefully some enterprising PR person will pick up on it and see it as a boon for selfpromotion. But…here goes…if you are a prospective candidate or are hoping to run for election as the MP for Barnsley East and Mexborough….get in touch. Please. Come and meet me and we’ll have a one to one. I will ask you about the issues that matter to me and which way you would vote on my behalf, should an issue arise in Parliament.

Of course nobody chuffing will come. Nobody ever does. And then I’ll sit there, vote card in hand, clueless about who to vote for.

TV For sale

2010-03-13T12:56:00.001-08:00

Last night I thought I'd watch some TV. So I picked up the TV guide and thumbed through it with the express intention of finding something to watch. My head exploded with despair. After I picked up the pieces of skull and brain I had splattered all over the living room I analysed the scheduled programmes I had missed.

UK TV

For the benefit of our Merrycan and European cousins let me explain how TV works in the UK. If you want a television receiver in your house you must have a licence. You can have a black and white CCTV monitor without a licence as long as the equipment is not capable of receiving a television signal. To have video recorders, TV's or even a Computer with a TV card, regardless of whether they are connected to an aerial or not, in the UK you must have a TV licence.

The proceeds of which go to fund the BBC who make great TV programmes when they try. Furthermore, the BBC are also allowed to raise revenue by selling their programming to other networks worldwide. However, they are unable to make revenue by advertising so unlike in Merrycar where…

<Commercial Break>

Join the army from stegzy gnomepants on Vimeo.

Buy this car, it will make you seem more financially bouyant than your friends. Encourage your partner to buy one too that way you can feel more superior to your neighbour who never seem to invite you their kinky sex parties

</commercial break>

you get adverts every two minutes and the programmes are really just advertising space fillers

<Commercial Break>

Slurpro from stegzy gnomepants on Vimeo.

Have no life? Text "Mugme" to 833434 and get a free ringtone every 20 minutes (The ringtone is free but the text will cost you £4305 a letter) Go on! Your life will seem pointless and might as well end unless you have these ringtones!

</commercial break>

which can get a bit annoying after a while. Anyway because I pay just over £100 a year to the ~~government~~ BBC I get to watch a handful of advertisement free channels. Further more, if I feel I want to be sold to or have every intricate moment of a drama explained to me as though I am a thicko with no clue whatsoever then I can watch ITV who gain their revenue mostly from the sale of advertising space, or I can enjoy the relative "I'm immune to advertising but I'll watch this interestingly subversive factual current affairs programme aimed at the 20-45 age bracket" chinstrokery of Channel 4 (when they are not showing Big Pervert or something). Indeed, if I feel that I haven't had enough Americanisation I can tune into Channel 5 and get a fix of syrupy slush whenever I feel like it.

That is until recently. When the powers that be decided that 5 channels isn't enough and we needed to fall inline with the rest of the world and have Digital TV. Behold Freeview. A multi channel sewer of creativity, behold several other BBC channels (for free) such as BBC3, BBC4, BBC News 24, CBBC (for kiddies), CBeebies (for kiddies that don't know they are kiddies yet), ITV2, ITV 3 and ITV-somewhere-near-the-bottom-of-the-list-so-you-never-remember-its-there-4, More4, E4 (for yoofs that do EEE's man), Film Four, UKTV ~~Hitler~~ ~~Coast~~ ~~Alan Titchmarsh's Natural History~~ History, Q-PVC, Bid up, Bid down, Bid sideways all manner of shite and dirge.

All for free.

Because I pay just over £140 a year.

Good that isn't it?

What's more is some people pay a further £400 a year for the privilege of watching everything that has been shown on the free channels in the past again and again, more American TV and the experience of being sold to every 15 minutes (yet more adverts).

Ace.

I dont agree with paying twice for something I've already paid for so instead I tend to download illegally programmes I really want to watch (ie reruns of old Dr Who and Lost) or rent and rip via LOVEFilm. But each to their own I suppose.

Anyway I read the TV schedule and this is some of the "quality" televisual treats available for the general British public:-

My Dog is Fat and So am I
Fat people and their fat dogs. Gripping reality TV.
NOT

Freaky Foods
- Fat? Watching telly? Hell you'll never eat again after watching this (Though you'll still watch telly...wont you?)

Celebrity Dog Superstars
- the public vote for their favourite celebrity so that the rescued dog they are looking after doesn't get put down

Celebrity Knitwork
The public vote on their favourite celebrities knitting patterns. This week Imoelda Staunton knits a spectacle case out of her own navel fluff

Something without that annoying prick Patrick Keilty -
A programme, possibly the news, without Patrick Keilty. His mum will be disappointed

Something with Ben Fogel in it
He's not on telly enough these days so slap a repeat on and nobody will notice.

I was a Celebrity But I Bummed Some Rabbits in Michael Barrymore's Swimming Pool While off my face on Crystal Meth Make Me Famous Again (Please)
Washed up has-beens vie to be famous once more for 15 weeks while they try to rebuild their career by doing things they wouldn't normally lower themselves to do had they still had some self respect left.

Don't Poke Me with a Spoon -
Situation comedy, probably about a married couple who secretly hate each other and the trials and tribulations of everyday life with teenagers. With canned laughter in case you don't know where to laugh.

Holidays you'll never afford
- Watch dreamily as a washed up public school ponce that used to be an interior designer shows you "holidays you'll never afford unless you sell your children for medical experiments and maybe burn your house down for the insurance" in far off countries you've never heard of and are probably made up anyway.

IF...The World Still Had Protozoan Sludge
- Popular science scientists and people crying out for research grants discuss what 21st century life might be like if the world was still covered in Protozoan sludge in an effort to justify the millions of pounds already wasted on them by popular Universities.

My Mother was Adolf Hitler -
Someone like Adam Hart-Davies bumbles about the countryside on a unicycle interviewing friends of Nelly Bainbridge of Stithians who always claimed to be Adolf Hitler who escaped occupied Germany in a shoe box and had a sex change to disguise his identity.

Old King Coal
Soap Opera set in Yorkshire following the fortunes and struggles of a typical family during the Arthur Scargill era. Cunningly set at a time where if the soap isn't popular they can end the series by closing darn t'pit. Starring Dr Who's David Tennant as Arthur Scargill.

Dead Hicks -
Science fiction drama for thirty-somethings filmed in and around Solihull where every week parts of which are substitute for far off places such as Delhi, New York and Birmingham. This week the team are visited by their arch-nemesis, the sinister Tax Inspector (played by Patrick Keilty)

I'm so grateful I spend £142 a year on this quality programming. Its like Waitrose selling Kwiksave No Frills Bread. After all it must be good if Waitrose sell it!

This post was originally posted on my Livejournal in 2007

60 Second theatre

2010-03-12T04:55:00.001-08:00

Why isn't there more stuff like this out there? Empire are running a compo encouraging people to make 60 second versions of films. If I'd known about it I might have done one myself. My favourite so far is Evil Dead

Evil Dead done in 60 seconds with CLAY - 2010 from Lee Hardcastle on Vimeo.

There are loads more on the site. Voting closes today http://www.empireonline.com/awards2010/donein60seconds/

Middlemist’s Red

2010-03-09T01:58:00.001-08:00

My radio alarm clock woke me this morning to an interesting article about one of the worlds rarest plants.

The Middlemist’s Red is currently in bloom at Chiswick House hot house and is one of only two in the world. Curious, I took a look at the plant on the website.

BBC

Guardian

And I thought to myself “Hang on! That looks like the one we have at Gnomepants Manor”

The one we have is not in bloom yet as it is growing out doors. But here are a few pictures I took last year.

I’m probably very wrong and the camellia I have is probably some common variety…but still…

Chav School

2010-03-08T03:02:00.001-08:00

Every year, in Britain, thousands of young people struggle to find things to do.

The more fortunate can often be found wandering the streets aimlessly like mindless zombies looking for a tiny piece of recognition or attention from anyone who cares to give it whereas the less fortunate, hanging around off licences threatening adults into purchasing them alcohol, wearing ill fitting clothes and occasionally sat on mopeds paid for by their unloving, uncaring, sofa bound TV addicted parents .

However there are those teenagers who are not so fortunate. Those that stay at home, watch TV, do homework, use the internet, read books or meet up with friends at the local park for a chat and maybe some harmless play. It is these youths that really need your help.

We at CHAV School offer numerous educational, nutritional and rehabilitational services to empower these poor unfortunate bedroom, park and library bound youths to become less functional and less valuable members of the community. With your donation of just £1 (less than the price of a quality Saturday board sheet newspaper) we can help to provide the following:

Education -
Our ill equipped and badly supervised classrooms encourage the youth to become less focussed on their work and more focussed on craving attention. We educate and train these youngsters on our highly acclaimed courses such as:
Damaging Cars
Litter Dropping for Beginners;
Ch@ 5p33k Is kn0t 4 1am0rzzz wtf omg lollzzorzz;
Successful and Offensive Graffito;
Shoplifting;
How to Swear at Passers-by;
The Child Act & You - How Adults Are Unable to Do a Thing to Stop You Doing Things;
and our increasingly popular course
Knifing People and How to Get Away With It.

Street Skills
- We train youths in valuable Street Skills including:
The art of loitering at bus stops in a threatening manner;
The correct way of vandalising a phone boxes;
How to appear cool by doing things that would normally be seen as ridiculous;
Dropping takeaway meals so as to cause an obstruction.
As the youth progress through our courses they may even move on to advanced topics such as:
Urinating and Defecating without Shame,
1001 Things to Do When Intoxicated
and
Giving Cheek to Teachers, Elders and Police Officers. 101
We also encourage our children to display their handy work in local bus shelters and telephone boxes.

Nutrition
Science has proven that balanced diets of fruit, nuts and vegetables, clean water, protein and carbohydrates are detrimental to a child's development.
It is well known that growing teens require a steady intake of hydrogenated fat, sugar and alcohol.
Your CHAV School donation allows us to provide sustenance to our rescued children in the form of Kebab meat, pizza, fizzy pop and sweets.
Our highly skilled nutritionists help advise the youth on how to adapt their diet, for example Diamond White instead of apple juice, chips in curry sauce instead of banana sandwich on whole-wheat granary bread. We also encourage children under our care to consume vital behaviour adapting additives, flavourings and colourings. This then encourages successful social and physical development.

Rehabilitation
Many of the children that come to us are, unfortunately, well dressed, courteous and polite. Brainwashed by uncaring, antisocial parents who concentrate selfishly on their own status amongst their peers.
We at CHAV School provide correct and suitable garments for teenagers copied from leading designs and supplied to us by a bloke off the market who can do us a good deal on Burberry.
Our highly skilled youth workers encourage the teens to express themselves in mumbles and grunts rather than clear, enunciated vocabulary. At times this can be traumatic but we believe this is for the child's own good.

Preparation for Life after 18
We educate our chavs and chavettes into becoming valueless members of society, without whom society would not be able to provide such social services as Policing.
We even help them customise their cars with flared exhausts and subwoofers. We help them find a suitable mating partner (if they haven't done so already) so that they can propagate this important way of life.

Family and Community Work
We don't just do stuff for kids. We work closely with affected families and help provide parents with widescreen plasma TVs, educate them into being thoughtful adults that care that they don't know where they children are and what they are doing.
We also provide courses for parents such as:-
Apathy: How Not To Give A Shit;
Your Kids are As Good As Gold Anyone That Disagrees is obviously a Paedophile;
Shouting Matches for Beginners;
Swearing at Children the Healthy Way;
and our most popular
Making Eastenders More Important than your Child.

We also work with communities in the following ways: by encouraging the construction and development of derelict buildings for arson attacks; removal of litter bins; Provision of bus shelters and telephone boxes for social gatherings and art displays and by reducing harmful facilities such as youth clubs, organisations and the like.

But without your donation we cannot do this most important work. We know you care and we know our schemes are valuable to society as a whole. So make your donation today. Because Britain needs more chavs.

This post originally appeared on Livejournal

Stegzy's Customer Service School

2010-03-07T04:19:00.001-08:00

Hello! Thank you for coming to Stegzy Gnomepants' Customer Service School. Today I am going to show you the key skills required to succeed in this line of work^*

1. Always give your friends first class service -

If your friends are happy they will tell their friends about the good service they have had. Word of mouth is more powerful than advertising. Advertising costs lots. More money means wealthier bosses - wealthier bosses mean better working environment - better working environment means longer toilet breaks for you - you go home happy. So if your friend comes in treat them right. Chat to them for as long as you like. It doesn't matter about anybody else just make sure you look after your mates. If anyone complains then that's because they have no mates and they have no mates because they complain all the time.

2. Never Smile -

Smiling means you are being friendly. Remember the customer is the enemy and should not be befriended. Befriending a customer means everyone gets first class service. This costs money and time especially if you talk to every customer you come into contact with. Time = money

Also remember

Under no circumstances engage the customer in conversation -

Even the slightest hint of chumminess means one of the saddos will start calling in regularly. Regular contact develops into friendship and before long the saddo will be inviting you along to chess or bingo evenings and Star Trek Conventions and then every Colin, Barry and Douglas will be lining up expecting excellent service.

3. Never make Eye contact -

Customers are naturally stupid. Remember you are in charge not them. The only people allowed to make eye contact are highly skilled sales people. They have special one way contact lenses and eye contact is an excellent tool for breaking down defences. Making eye contact can reassure a customer that the piece of shit they are buying is a quality bargain but it can also show weakness to the unskilled CSRep.

REMEMBER :- Eye contact should only be made by highly skilled sales people except in confrontational situations in which case a mighty glare can make anyone have weak knees.

For more on eye contact see Appendix R. Tibetan Eye Combat Skills

4. They need you more than you need them -

The only reason you are in contact with a customer is because they think they want something you have. In reality they have something you want - MONEY and lots of it. No matter how many times someone protests or complains in reality they want to give you their money. Short of a good kicking most customers will happily part with their hard earned loot without second thought to the true cost therefore remember the following:-

Gauge your customers wealth status - The more money they appear to have the less they are likely to want to spend unless they appear to be competitive or "Keeping up with the Jones'" types. They will more than likely want the middle of the range product so show them that one and then try and push them up the range. They probably wont buy the better product but they will leave thinking "I should have got that more expensive product" and probably come back.

Less well off customers are more likely to pay double - They want the better products so that they look swish when their pals come round. Push the product that they can't afford and mention credit services. Remember the words "Interest" and "APR" mean little to most people under 40

If someone wants to complain give them to the customer complaints department - These people are highly skilled individuals and can convince customers they are getting something for nothing when in reality they aren't. Do not attempt to placate a pissed off customer with offers of goodies unless you are trained in the dark arts.

5. The Customer is always wrong -

No matter how right they think they are. Remember you are more knowledgeable of the products and services you can provide to them even if you actually know nothing about them at all. They may think they know the subtle nuances but they don't, unless of course they are an ex-member of staff in which case they should be referred to a manager who will dispose of them in a recognised place of refuse. The only exceptions to these rules are people who work in motor factor/ accessories shops (e.g. Halfords) and in High Street computer retailers (e.g. PC World, Time, Tiny etc) - If the customer had any knowledge of the subtle nuances of the product in the first place they would have gone to a specialist and bought the right thing in the first place.

6. Your time is more valuable than theirs -

Customers have bags of time as well as cash otherwise they wouldn't be bothering you with insignificant requests. Show your disdain for their wasting your time by tutting and sighing when they can't make up their mind. This will embarrass them into hurrying up and, although they will probably moan to their friends about how rude you were, they will probably buy the wrong thing and end up having to return. Besides you are unlikely to ever see them again anyway so what should you care?

7. The longer you postpone a problem the quicker it goes away -

This is especially true in CS in IT. The IT Monkey rule of "Ignore a problem long enough it will fix itself" is universal through out all areas of CS. So, if you are presented with a problem you don't think you can solve yourself or you think may reveal more shoddiness on behalf of your co-workers, ignore it; it will go away.

If paper work is involved, shove it in the bin inside something such as an envelope of a chip wrapper;

If there is an electronic record of the transaction or contact make sure you hide it well.

Electronic resources are easily traced so check within your department for the approved method of evidence disposal.

8. Only be pleasant when funds are changing hands -

Remember, the customer pays your wages, if you are unpleasant at the critical time the may go elsewhere with their funds.

This is true right up until the end of their period of statutory rights after which they are not your problem.

Remember you are welcome to postpone dealing with anything other than transfer of funds as long as it doesn't point back at you.

9. Every customer is stupid unless they speak to you in a civil tone

Phrases like "I don't know anything about xxxx", "You! Help me out with this" or "I'm too busy to be coming in", name dropping and airs of superiority by customers should be dealt with utter contempt. Only stupid customers would dare use such tactics.

Remember the customer doesn't know why they want something, it is up to you to tell them. It often helps if you explain in simple language or by pointing to diagrams.

Remember also that 80% of what you say to a customer will be forgotten an hour after the contact therefore when explaining important contractual obligations or financial things speed up your speech or bury the terms and conditions on the back of a piece of paper which they will never read until it is too late.

Rude customers are out to make money from your company or better their own means to an end. So if contact is in any shape or form uncivil you are well within your right to drag out any processes and make things three times as difficult for the customer than if they were pleasant to begin with. Eventually they will learn of their error and eventually, at some future point, calm down on advice of their doctor or start attending anger management sessions.

Finally,

10. Be smart with your rudeness -

A skilled CSRep can always insult a customer without them even knowing. This could be by indirect reference or by subtle ways i.e. misspelling of their name. In this day and age everyone gets offended easily so there are numerous methods of insult on the market.

However, if your insult is too direct or obvious you may be faced with difficulty and possibly reprimand so it is important that the insult is untraceable and can be easily reinterpreted by a third or independent party.

We would like to remind candidates that these rules are widely known amongst CS centre Workers and any discussion of these secrets is considered taboo though some will discuss their own methods and rules of successful CS after their period of employment has ended or if they work for a different contact/call centre than you.

So follow these guidelines and you will keep both the customer and your employers happy. Oh yes....indeedy ;-)

Thank you for reading.

^* - Disclaimer - This is entirely for fun and not indicative of all customer service in the UK. No offence, implication or accusation should be taken with anything described.

This post was originally posted on Livejournal

WTF?

2010-03-06T14:22:00.001-08:00

Taking a break from the trials and tribulations of academic research I thought I’d spend a few minutes trying out something ucrazyutaraptor was having fun with the other week.

But first of all. I did a bit of research.

If you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of Chatroulette....watch this....

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Anyway, much like Casey, in the film, I've had a bizarre experience. However, unlike Casey, I don't have a cute friend on hand. So What I did was ask the lovely Rev. Badger O'Hand to help out.....

What I’ve found most amusing is when the pervs mentioned in the film, which you will come across…believe me…keep on whacking their sausage and then rush for the “next” button when they see they’re actually spaffing to an image of a cuddly toy.

Of course, since the Reverend has been helping, my chats have increased. It seems that people feel a lot more comfortable talking to a synthetic badger than a real person with crazy hair. Of course, during these chats it would be rude of me to chat with them when they think they’re chatting to a badger, so I’ve been chatting to them in the “badger person”. With amusing results.

Anyway, I won’t bore you. I suggest you try Chatroulette (http://www.chatroulette.com) out yourself sometime. And, as a postscriptum, here are a few of the conversations I've had.

I went on to point out that he had no idea how old I was and he disconnected when I told him I was 9 years old

Some guys play along with amusing results.

I’ve also chatted with Michael from Halloween, a weird Brazillian male who thought Badger was a squirrel and had a dance with some crazy dudes with flowers…

Who dat man?

2010-03-04T04:05:00.001-08:00

Today something happened that made me hate being a man.

Before I begin my tirade, let me stipulate some things:-

I am male
I am often outside unaccompanied
I am tall
I am stocky
I don’t have children
I have an unusual hair style
I have never committed rape
I have never molested a child

And yet today I was made to feel like I was a male child-molesting rapist. How? Quite simply by walking down my street during school hometime.

Yes I know I’m probably reading things into situations but it is difficult not to. I’m sure many males will agree with me that there has definite shift toward distrust of single childless males, especially in the UK.

This hurts me. The suspicion. The prejudice. The assumption that I have singled out a random stranger’s precious snot ridden children to take to a location, lock up and do unspeakable things to.

Let me illustrate with the incidents (Yes in the plural) that occured today.

I was walking back from my afternoon in the pub. I wasn’t drunk. I can’t drink much these days. 1 pint and I start feeling ill. As I say, walking. Not swaggering or staggering like a wino. Ahead I observed, walking toward me at varying distances, several mothers walking their children home from the local school.

The first mother had a pram and a young boy of about 6 or 7. The boy was running ahead from the mother as children do. Not vast distances but obviously a learned distance drummed into him by his protective parent. As he saw me approach, he froze and eyed me with the most suspicious look. Kind of the look you might give a man carrying a box marked BOMB. He looked back at his mother who looked at him and then looked at me. At this point I was a little nearer and I smiled a friendly smile at the boy as I was, at the time, remembering fondly how when I was 7, I walked home from school on my own. The look the mother gave me was one of greater suspicion than the child. Like I’d some how asked her if she could nip out and check the length of the nettles while I inspect her purse for fake tenners. A look that said “Don’t you dare smile at my child you dirty single man”

I smiled at her.

She grimaced back.

The second mother was a bit further down the road. Maybe about 200 yards or so. This time she was walking her daughter home. The same thing happened. Child would stop. Eye me with suspicion. Wait the arrival of the parent. Grimace. Carry on walking past me.

By this time I was thinking maybe my fly was down.

If you’re a man you’ll know that gone are the days of checking your fly is zipped up without automatically being labelled some sort of perv by passing people. If you are not a man, the next time you observe a man briefly touching his crotch, he is probably making sure that his fly isn’t down. Or he’s taking his cock out to wave at you.

Anyway, I digress.

The third parent was a grandparent. The children he was with were walking behind him mucking about. As I passed he stopped, turned, checked where his grandchildren were and didn’t continue moving until I was about 20 yards past them.

By this point I was feeling a bit miffed. Why is it automatically assumed that single males walking down the street are somehow going to grab and assault children when their parents are with them? Like you’d wait until the fucking parents were watching Eastenders and creep into the childrens room with some puppies and sweets….wouldn’t you?

Let me make this clear. I have no interest, sexually or otherwise in children what so ever. None.

Why was I being looked at with suspicion? Surely if I stared at them with suspicion I’d get a mouth full of abuse. After all, it is them with the children not me. How do I know they are the rightful parents or guardians of these snot nosed scruffy brats? I don’t. So I promised myself I would eye the fourth family collective with suspicion and see how they fucking liked it.

As I passed they smiled at me and said hello.

They were definitely up to no good.

Eyes Sea Yew Ewe Seize Mi

2010-03-02T14:52:00.001-08:00

I’m told by the media and by “those who know better” that we live in a surveillance society in the UK. There are eyes everywhere. Cameras hidden, cameras in plain view. Some owned by councils, others by private companies and individuals. But in all, there are eyes everywhere.

My brother used to tell me he had hidden cameras at my school and could see if I got into mischief. This was 1977 though and more than likely a pile of fibs as tall as a giant beanstalk. However, as I was young and daft, I believed him and behaved. Mostly.

Anyway, these days CCTV cameras are everywhere. Beady unseen all seeing eyes bore into your very soul from a distance away in an unknown room in an unknown location.

But…who is watching you. Who is watching the watcher watching you? Who is watching the watcher watching the watcher watching you? Who knows? Do you? I don’t. How can you be so sure it is not I that uses my eye to watch you. You can’t. I’m not. But you can’t be sure. Can you?

This is why I propose a day. I’m not entirely sure what day….lets say a day in the future…This time next year. When, if enough people can be bothered (and I know a lot of people really can’t be arsed to do anything these days), at a proposed time, say midday, everyone whips out their camera phones, camcorders and web cam enabled devices and films the people around them.

The resulting footage could then be uploaded onto the internet and would hopefully show people watching other people watching other people. Bringing to people’s attention that they don’t know who is watching. Oooh the irony! It’s enough to make me want to put on my easy iron shirt and go to Ironbridge in an iron bath.

Finding the off switch

2010-02-24T17:46:00.001-08:00

It scares me how flappable some people get with technology. I have known fairly intellectual professionals get flustered because the mouse had been placed on the left hand side of a keyboard instead of the right.

I’ve seen grown men cry because the simple use of a caps lock button could have saved them hours of reformatting text.

I’ve known air head secretaries who received a fraction of their bosses salary feel all superior because they knew what a dollar symbol was. (It’s $ <--- one of them if you didn’t know)

And yet there are always the few that continue to surprise with their inability to cope with modern day appliances.

Today I met a classic example of lunacy.

She came up to my desk and proceeded to rant and rave about how “bloody inconsiderate” it was that we had changed equipment without her knowing. How was she to do her job when she hadn’t received training in the new equipment. Didn’t people know she had an important lecture to deliver? How dare we provide state of the art equipment worth well in excess of £5000 to replace the out dated poor quality equipment that was there before.

How bloody dare we!

How bloody chuffing dare we!

So I left the comfort and idyll of my desk. Locked the till, secured the office door. Affixed the “Back in a jiffy” sign. Made my apologies to other people waiting for attention. Because it was clear that this woman’s issue was far more important than any book return or referencing query. I did all this and climbed to the second floor of the building to a room I could have reached via the other stair well in half the time had it not been for the fact that she insisted on showing me which room she was in and proceeded to rant, rave and spit vitriol at how inefficient we were.

I entered the class room gingerly (I had a root of ginger in my pocket and my hair colour is often wrongly diagnosed as ginger") to see….no difference what so ever to the last time I was in the room.

Only…no…that’s not quite right. Because sure enough, there affixed to the wall were new video conferencing screens. Everything else was the same. The conferencing unit was the same, the conferencing podium was the same. The only difference was the screens and really, even they were disputably different.

“I can’t get it to work. It’s all totally new to me. It’s completely different to the one that was here last week.” she repeated for the 35th time since leaving the desk.

I smiled my warming smile and began to inspect the equipment.

It was plugged in.

The mains switches were switched on.

The wires all seemed to be affixed via trunking.

The video conferencing unit was working as the little green light glowed happily from its lofty position above the screens.

So in that situation, what do you do? Panic? Scream blue murder? Throw yourself onto the Town hall carpark from the top of the building?

No. You check to see if the on switch is….on….on the display panel.

Sure enough there, on the side of the panel, was a button marked with the universal symbol for on.

I called her over to where I was stood and told her that I would give her the training she needed to do her work in future. Had I been a bolder man I may have suggested a £40 training fee. But I am not bold. I am more italic. Maybe a bit subscript.

“See this symbol here” I told her

“Yes” she said.

“This is the universal symbol for on.” I replied trying my best not to sound condecending.

“Oh is that what it is” she responded as the rotting salmon of realisation slapped her in the face with the force of a well wielded wood axe.

I pressed the button. The conference suite came to life. She…just ushered me out of the room before anyone at the other end of the conference call heard me tell her what a fucking idiot she was.

My job done, I returned to my desk and the next banal query.

“Do I have to bring these books back?”

“Not unless you’re stealing them” I replied.

It was going to be a long night….

---
For more examples of stupidity go here - http://stegzy.livejournal.com/tag/stupid-users

Social Media Narcissism

2010-02-22T06:45:00.001-08:00

Two films about Social Media Narcissism

Ongoing case study saga

2010-02-18T07:59:00.001-08:00

So…thanks to the most excellent Chrissie; interview 3 is now in the bag. Providing there is no snow, natural disasters or illness, I am on track to having my PCS done for the beginning of March.

For shits and giggles I did a brief essay plan last month which outlined the questions I wanted to address and then found that if I wrote about 800 words answering each question all I would have to do is write an introduction and a conclusion and I’d be sorted. Of course…this I know now is what I should do anyway….

The questions I am addressing are -

· How much has news provision changed ?
· Is there much future left in traditional methods of content delivery or is this reliant entirely on whether the media popularises the newer methods of delivery by drawing audience’s attention to them?
· Does new media empower the individual to set up low cost, home media thus allowing the creation of individually created ultra local and public access media sites?
· Would this need regulation? How would it be regulated and policed?
· Does the way people interact with the internet and social networking herald a new dawn for tailor-made and self relevant news consumption?
· Who are the consumers of online news content and why does it appear that the majority of attempts at internet diversification are tailored toward the youth market?
· What previous attempts at local channels exist/previously exist?
· Does this new method of content delivery herald British public access television?

So far the interviews I have conducted have given the answers I’ve been expecting to hear and research is also bringing up interesting arguments (where any of you aware of this little snippet ), of course I am always interested to hear your views too…..

Final interview is tomorrow. Hopefully it will go without issue but I do have a backup plan.

Money

2010-02-09T12:16:00.001-08:00

It makes the world go round. Or so they say.

Personally I was under the impression it was the gravitational pull of the celestial spheres but then I’m not a physicist.

The news in the UK today is a buzz with talk about the BBC, “commercial sensitivity” and the salaries they pay to the presenters and stars.

Now, some background. If you’ve been paying attention you can skip this bit and go a bit further down, unless you don’t know what the BBC is in which case keep reading.

What happened was, some enterprising hack requested the expenses details of parliamentary MPs. The MPs didn’t like this because it showed some of them were up to dodgy doings and basically having it away with public money. So. To try and deflect the attention in an almost “Yeah but they’re worse” kind of way, the MPs and those critical of the BBC say “Well what about good old Auntie Beeb?”

Now if you didn’t know, the BBC is a public body funded by a television licence fee. If you own a telly in the UK, you buy a licence. This gives you permission to watch telly and you get 5 terrestrial channels and, more recently, a zillion digital channels for about £150 ($240) a year. The majority of this fee goes to fund the two terrestrial BBC channels, the numerous BBC backed digital channels, the BBC radio stations (Local and national), BBC drama, films and whatnot. Which, if you think about it, is a bally good deal. The other terrestrial public service channels, Channel 4, ITV and Channel 5 get a tiny bit of this licence fee and the rest of their money comes from advertising. The satellite stuff is on top of that and you pay something like £360 a year for a load of American dramas which are endlessly repeated ad nauseam. Which is a bit shit really, when you think about it.

So as the BBC is a public body, the MPs and critics have been saying “Tell us what you do with the money you get from the public then”. This is partly a distraction, but also a way of gaining the favour of Mr Murdoch (who owns the satellite broadcasting services in the UK, most of the newspapers and is a vitriolic critic of the BBC Licence fee).

First came the expenses. Nothing too controversial in a “Yaa boo sucks to you” kind of way.

Then some tried to make a fuss about £100 for a bunch of flowers but they were jolly nice flowers and so really you couldn’t complain really as they weren’t a duck house.

Then others pointed out that there was a substantial amount of cash going to the presenters in salaries.

Which brings us to today. The BBC finally admitted paying a total sum of £230million to artists, presenters, musicians and other contributors. [Source] but refused to disclose how much individual salaries were because such information is “Commercially sensitive”.

It is rumoured that the likes of Jonathan Ross command salaries in the millions. Not bad for a bit of prerecorded radio babbling and an hour worth of chit chat with your mates. Not bad at all. Is it? But I’m sure Mr Ross puts a lot of his talent into this and it must strain him and wear him out at the end of the day so he must surely deserve such a high figure.

However, being the selfless chap that I like to portray myself as, if I was a celeb reliant on the pay of Auntie Beeb I’d want to do all I could for my paymasters. In a selfless act I would publish my salary just to show that I don’t get paid all that much really for my amazing talents and that I deserve more. And that the fact that I am working for the BBC in a celebrity capacity is only out of charity and respect for a great and innovative British institution.

So that’s what I’m calling on the celebs to do. Don’t wait for the BBC to announce how much you earn. Get in there first. Think of the publicity. Think about how publishing details about your low salary will just highlight how much respect, charity and selflessness you have. The media, which you so adore and who put you were you are today, will be most grateful too and will no doubt show you as humble talented people deserving much much more than you are worth.

That way, struggling talentless media students and other wannabees can also admire your sacrifice and aspire to be just like you too. They can stop moaning about not being able to get their first foot on the ladder and perhaps realise that being in the spot light isn’t worth all that much really.

Unless….of course….that’s all bollocks and you do actually command ridiculous salaries for your vacuous pathetic talentlessness as you ponce about in the public eye getting people to send their money into help those less fortunate than themselves before fucking off to the Seychelles for the weekend on your private jet…..In which case…you should be bloody ashamed of yourself for ripping off the public that pay your salary and not offering to take a fraction of the bank filling sum you receive out of the public pot each year. That way the BBC can pay the behind the scenes people (ie those that actually matter) better salaries and get on with making better and more programmes which they can showcase on the world stage…..Strictly Come Dancing my arse….

2010-02-09T07:37:00.001-08:00

R36A7UTQ7GWS

Backdoor

2010-01-31T13:07:00.001-08:00

One of the most odious things the New World Order is attempting to do is sneak identification cards through the back door.

I’ve been a long time opponent to ID cards. I dislike the current environment of “Everyone is a potential terrorist/master criminal/on the dodge/paedophile”. Having to carry a documents to present to some sinister secret police man makes me think of East Germany, Stalinist regimes and people getting whisked off the streets by unmarked vans and ferried to some sinister labs where they are injected with mind control drugs and reconditioned. That may sound far fetched, but it does happen.

Last night I was enjoying a pre-gig meal at the Wagamammas in Cambridge when a young gentleman who was seated at the next table tried to order a beer. Now, to my eye he could easily have passed as over 21. He was sporting stubble and had a deep voice so was no doubt at some stage of puberty. However the waitress refused to serve him a beer and asked for some ID. The young man foraged about in his wallet and produced a postgraduate international student union card.

Now, unless you are some sort of geeky 10 year old from a family where the dad looks like the bloke from the Joy of Sex books and the mother is something to do with the Floaty Vagina Collective, you’re going to be well over 21 if you’re a postgraduate. Of course, he could have been a master forger and have made the card in his dad’s shed using toilet roll and a laminating machine.

The young man was clearly upset by this and his mood sank further when asked to present something with his date of birth AND his picture on.

Of course this got me thinking. Even though I look a good deal to the wrong side of 50, do I carry any form of identification with my picture on?

Do I buggery!

I have bank cards, loyalty cards and a few business cards of my own, but nothing showing my date of birth or with a picture. In fact, I’ve never carried anything with my picture/DOB on. So I asked if she carried anything with her date of birth/picture on it and she said that she carried her Drivers licence.

Now that’s all well and good but as we know, not everyone drives so the carrying of drivers licenses is probably only done by those who actually drive. I drive yes, but I am not required by law (yet) to carry my driving licence with me at all times. So what, other than a driving licence, form of ID has your date of birth on.

Now, unless you’ve been living in a box in the Gobi Desert for the past ten years, the British Government has been nefariously pushing for the introduction of ID cards. This has had some fierce opposition from human rights activists and from the NO-2-ID lobby movement.

However, what is happening is more and more shops are requesting ID from shoppers buying items. Most of the major supermarkets and off licence chains now operate a Prove 25 scheme where people appearing to be under 25 must present, on request, a valid form of ID. Ok…so that sounds ok….but such requests are not limited to beer and fags. One supermarket wanted ID for quiche and another for the Sunday Times newspaper.

So the solution? Well its a tricky one. If you’re propositioned for ID. Get up…walk out and write a letter of complaint to your newspaper and MP and one to the company. Highlight that you have seen through their little trick and that you won’t be party to it.

That is unless, of course, you want to live in a society where secret police monitor your every move and whisk you off the street in unmarked black vans…..

Fault Queue

2010-01-28T02:29:00.001-08:00

If you know me you’ll know, despite internal ragings, I have the patience of a saint. I haven’t given it back yet because he hasn’t asked for it, but none the less, I have their patience. So perhaps this is why what I am about to relate to you happens to me with alarming frequency.

I’ve noticed it happen a lot lately. It happens in a variety of places be it in shops, offices or on the street. It doesn’t appear to happen to anyone else but I’m sure it does. What is it? Well, it hasn’t got a name. It is more of an occurrence than a thing.

Let’s say I’m queuing for a cup of coffee. There are 4 people in front of me. Each of the 4 get served speedily and without issue. But then it's my turn.

Stegzy- Hello please may I ha....
Barista #1 - Oh sorry love hang on
Barista #2 - 'ere Barista #1, was it beans on the jacket potato or was it tuna?
Barista #1 - Oh you daft bugger, it was tuna and gravy with meaty chunks, did you get the gravel out of the fridge?
Barista #2 - No but I left the intricate lace work doillies in the sink
Barista #1 -moving away from the counter to go behind the scenes won't be a minute love
An age passes
Barista #1 - Sorry love what was it?
Stegzy - Please may I have a coffee?
Barista #1 - yes hang on
Barista #1 goes through motions of making coffee
Barista #2 comes out from back room
Barista #2 - I can't find the Rabbit and beef in jelly
Barista #1 - They're under the sink
Barista #2 - Can you show me?
Exunt Barista #1 & Barista #2
Two minutes pass
Barista #1 returning from back room Sorry love, what was it?
Stegzy - I've forgotten

The same happens in shops, petrol stations and bars. Different staff. Totally unrelated incidents. Similar events. What's worse is, while all this is going on there is a queue of people growing behind me tutting and sighing at me. As if it is MY fault. Of course, long term Livejournal Flisters will know that it is, of course, my fault. Everything is my fault. Germany invading Poland? That was me. Twin towers? Me too. Krakatoa? Yup....my fault.

Anyway, as if this wasn't some sort of global shop keeping conspiracy, the same happens when I'm driving. I'll queue at a give way sign. The cars in front have no problem getting out of the junction. Some go straight out. But when it gets to me, it's like all the travellers in the world have to use that road. Worse, some don't use their indicators. Or when one direction clears, everyone coming from the other direction decides they want to come past or turn right into the road I'm turning right out of.

Then, there's the drivers that go reeeeeeeeeeeeeally slow. They pull out in front of you from some give way junction because they are clearly in a hurry, but then proceed to stick to 20 mph when you can't over take them, and when it's over take time, the fuckers speed up....I mean what's going on there?!

It's hard not to think it is just me. It's harder not to think that this is all some sort of conspiracy against me. So because of this difficulty....that is what it must be. It is a global conspiracy. Against me. A global penance for everything being MY fault.

Annoy annoy annoy

2010-01-25T09:14:00.001-08:00

My alarm clock is furry. It is black and white and furry. It doesn’t tell the time very well, but it knows to wake me up in the morning.

Would you like to see my alarm clock? No? Well tough….Here is my alarm clock.

Questions questions

2010-01-20T10:59:00.001-08:00

Are you one of those people that attach yourself to a member of staff and can not possibly go a day without asking some inane question?

Do think REALLY hard about a suitable question to ask?

If you asked two questions does that mean you have reached some sort of nirvana? If you don’t ask a question will your head explode?

Through out my customer service career I have been able to identify at least twenty individuals who cannot go a day without contacting either myself, the helpdesk, the inquiry desk or a shop counter to ask some needless question.

Some of these people do it like clockwork. They come in at the same time every day and ask a question. Others do it completely at random often catching you off guard.

Let me give you some examples:-

HALFORDS – when I worked in Halfords we used to have this guy who would come in to the shop every Saturday and look at the bicycles. He would accost one of the members of staff and enter a dialogue with them about why Raleigh were not as good as Peugeot and how Carrera were poor compared to Dawes. He was clearly a lonely person, I believe he eventually got a job there in the end.

THE SOLICITORS – At the solicitors there was a family which everyone that worked there knew. Nothing was ever their fault and the council had some how singled them out for persecution. They made a living out of compensation claims and kept the firm comfy in legal aid commissions well into the mid nineties. If a day went by when one of them didn’t come in to enquire about an on going case of theirs they would probably be being visited by the duty solicitor at the local police station in regard to some packets of bacon that somehow got planted on them by vindictive shop staff. Theory was that they did this to save on fuel costs at home.

THE OFF LICENCE – Every night. Rain, wind or snow, Mikey would come in. Yes Mikey. He would introduce himself to new members of staff and would frequently stay behind the protective shop screens (some offlicences in the UK have protective screens to protect the stock and staff from violent piss heads and druggies) and talk about cabbages or how the foreigners were taking over or how Thatcher was the slag bitch from hell or some such. Mikey was very lonely. I suspect he is even lonelier now as the Offy on Allerton Road (not far from where the long lamented Livejournaller celticblissy lives) closed long ago.

THE CHURCH CLUB – Now here I met lots of people like that, but as the place was a drinking establishment I suppose it goes without saying you’d get regular people coming in at the same time every night (usually about 10:45pm) having the same drinks (usually Guinness) and then going home drunk at the same time (usually 3 in the morning). Usually in their cars.

THE CIVIL SERVICE – When I was a civil servant there was an inspector who would ring at the same time every day to ask if he had any post or if there was some staples he could have or if I could order him something from stores. The same time. Every day. Without fail. Even when he was off on holiday or at a conference. He was lonely too come to think of it.

THE UNIVERSITY #01 – Simon Blackman. Business School. Every day. Without fail. Something would go wrong. Or he would have to check if there was anything wrong. Or if we could do something on his behalf. One time he tricked us by pretending he’d called the wrong department by accident. There was no fooling me. I knew. I knew he was a sad lonely sod. I had the opportunity to visit his office one day when I was doing my virus disabling service. He conveniently wasn’t in his office when I called. Almost as if he was just simply a disembodied voice trapped in the archaic telephonic network.

THE UNIVERSITY #01 – Joy Ball. Anaesthesia. Possibly the most annoying person in the world. Every day. No matter what job I was doing in the office (for those that don’t know/remember/care the job rotated between dealing with telephone queries, dealing with email queries and dealing with desk queries) she would somehow get through to me. Her voice was so recognisable. I remember being ULTRA rude to her in an effort to get her to cease calling with her stupid stupid questions like “Oh my monitor doesn’t work” (have you tried turning on the power?), “Oh noes my mouse is on the wrong side of the desk” (No I won’t send out an engineer) and “Aieee, there’s something wrong all my emails have gone from my deleted items folder” (Well that’s what happens when you delete things duck). But she would call every day. Even when I wasn’t in. With stupid questions. Stupid stupid questions. It got to a point where she would just say “Department of Anaesthesia here” and I’d just say “Oh hello Joy”. When I left the job I thought I’d seen the last of her, but she came back…as a different person….as you will read later.

THE UNIVERSITY #01 – Student X. Student X would come to the helpdesk at the library every day to enquire about books. I think he thrived on the confirmation that it was a Computer helpdesk he was enquiring at and not a library support desk. Four years this went on for. He was a medic. He’s probably some sort of Surgeon now.

6th FORM COLLEGE – It must have been written into their job description to pester me with something inane every day. Even if it was just to enquire about what I’d got up to over the weekend. The difference was she fancied me. **sigh**

6th FORM COLLEGE – I must be disabled because my in built people tracking device does not work. You have a functioning one don’t you? It is just me that doesn’t isn’t it? Well had mine been working I would have been able to furnish Martin with the location of my boss while I was having lunch. The answer phone message, the sign on the door and the signatures of the emails stated clearly that the helpdesk was closed every day between 12 and 12.30. Every day. But that didn’t stop him from calling, emailing or knocking at the door when nobody answered the telephone/replied to enquire if my boss was in. I suspect that Martin and my boss were having illicit bum sex in the media building.

6th FORM COLLEGE – Joy Ball. Joy Fucking Ball. No…not Joy Ball from University #01. A different Joy Ball. A Joy Ball by marriage so probably completely unrelated. She was my bosses bosses boss. Because of this status she would ring. Every day. With a thankless task/job/non-urgent-but-urgent thing to do for me. My boss wished she would FOAD. I wished she would FOAD while my boss was FingOADing too. One day I just told her straight. She was a clueless over paid fucktard. In a nice way though. So I kept my job. She persisted less.

THE UNIVERSITY #02 – I thought I’d escaped it. But no. Here there are at least ten different people that all cannot allow an opportunity to ask a question pass by. I know them by name. They have me on their facebook. They are probably reading this. Are they lonely? I don’t know. Are they having illicit bumsex with my boss? I doubt it. Are they just weird? I couldn’t possibly comment. Are they you? Maybe.

So if you are one of those types of people that have to ask the same people the same or similar questions on a regular basis. Do you ask because if you don’t you will explode? Are you just lonely? Are you weird? Or do you think that people that do my type of job are put on this earth to make sure you’ve washed behind your ears and that you’re wearing the right undergarments for the day?

On the radio

2010-01-19T16:59:00.001-08:00

This evening broadcasting history was made. I suspect only about 4 people witnessed this event and 3 of those were in the radio suite at the Huddersfield Student union. And I was one of those 3. The other 2 were my co-presenters.

None the less it was good stuff. Radio gold as they say. Another notch on my ever growing CV.

I worked out I need to pen about 400 words a day to have finished my case study by March 1st. This means I need to pull my finger out and get those interviews done that I’ve been pestering people about.

Incidentally, if you know anyone that works in media, be it magazines, newspapers, radio or TV, online or offline (though preferably online) and they could spare 30 minutes of their busy schedule before March to take part in an interview about the work they do then shove them in my direction.

On another note, despite my loathing of the service I appear to be using Twatter a bit more recently. This may be because I have the new sparkly phone and it has Twitter integrated into it but it may also be because even after 3 years of being on there, I still only have 43 followings, none of whom are vacuous celebrities.

Also on another note, I appear to not have shaved since new year and I am sporting some fine facial hair. I hope it doesn't put local news reader Nina Hossain off when I meet her tomorrow.

BBC News & Look North

2010-01-17T13:40:00.001-08:00

The cringeworthy Charlie Stayt and Susanna Reid were being particularly awful on Friday morning on BBC Breakfast. Everytime I switch on my telly on a Friday morning I just see them being vacuous, poorly researched and generally crap at their jobs. Now it would be big headed of me to say that as a media & television graduate I would be a million miles better than them so I won’t. Instead I’ll say it as it is. A skip full of decomposing monkeys would be a million times better than them. Their interview technique and loud brashness just make BBC News look and sound like it’s presented by morons. Which, conversely, it is.

What’s worse is the local news. In case you’ve been hiding in a box in Sumatra for the past two weeks, Yorkshire has been under a blanket of snow and ice recently. For the past week everyone’s favourite Tango lass, Christa Ackroyd (who had the pleasure of meeting me face to face last year), has been presenting the evening show from the comfort of outside her house. Every bloody story has been about the snow. How it’s effecting the region and how schools have closed and how some postman used a surf board to get from one side of his village to the other and so on and so borkingly forth.

That is…until Wednesday of this week, the snow almost melted…but then Harry Gration, who had also been presenting the evening programme from outside his house, announced “The snow causing CHAOS to the region has started to go but new problems affect the region with…”

Can you guess what it was?

Can you?

No?

“….Black ice!”

Black ice. Not terrorists. Not earthquakes. Not mutant radioactive snails. Black ice. Chuffing black ice.

The terror meant that people crossed a road on their hands and knees. These same people were featured on the programme and Harry Gration presented the article as though the Queen had died.

It seems like those that produce the news have been going through a really dry patch. I imagine that we will hear more and more about Haiti for the next 2 weeks unless something worse happens. Of course…they could switch to this story.

Dance pants

2010-01-11T07:32:00.001-08:00

I’ve had an idea for a new TV show. Looking at current and past trends in British TV shows I think any programme commissioning bod reading this would be foolish not to create the following television programme. It would be a definite success.

The Dancing DIY Property Developing Fashion Disasters On Ice Factor

I think that covers all the things that seem to be popular at the moment.

It could be presented by Brian Cox (since his return from the US he seems to be on everything these days), Ant and Dec (modern day Cannon and Ball), Cat Deeley (modern day Cilla Black) and Graham Norton (a Terry Wogan/Larry Grayson fusion). With extra bits by Davina McCall and some entertainment (in the form of song and shouting) by John Barrowman.

It’s a sure fire rating success.

Ice ice baby

2010-01-10T12:57:00.001-08:00

There now follows pictures.

Buying stuff

2010-01-09T11:43:00.001-08:00

In March my contract with my mobile phone provider, O2, is up for renewal.

After much deliberation, illness and snow bound cabin fever I pondered my options. I could end my contract early (costing £60), start a new contract early or just wait until March.

March seems like forever off. It isn’t. But it feels like it is. Besides, I haven’t had a gadget fix since I inherited the wife’s laptop. So I did a little spreadsheet and worked out my current spend through my current contract.

My contract allows 400 minutes and 500 texts per month but no data discounts. Which, in hindsight, is daft as I use data services a hell of a lot these days. My previous contract also lacked data service and looking back at my bills I was paying ridiculous amounts of money to faceless executives allowing them to play golf in Surrey on Wednesday afternoons.

I currently have a Nokia N95 8GB which is a good phone. It does it’s job, it allows me to make and receive calls, send texts, take photographs and video, find my way to places using the GPS and play Snakes when I’m bored daft.

Sadly it doesn’t really allow me to write notes without mucking about and the proprietary software that allows the phone to communicate with my PC sucks hairy monkey balls.

Coupled with the fact that lots of the kids I see these days have iPhones which, to me at least, just seem like fashion accessories and expensive ones at that, getting a new phone this time was going to have to be thoroughly investigated.

Initially I was going to opt for the Acer F1 to go with my Acer desktop and Acer Laptop. I was all set to click “BUY NOW” but I thought I’d better check the GPS first as GPS is something I do rely on at the moment for Geocaching. As it turned out some reviews claimed that the GPS functionality of the Acer F1 was a bit pants so my itching mouse finger held off clicking “BUY NOW” until I compared other phones for their reliability.

And there it was. The HTC HD2. The phone that I just had to have. I watched videos of people reviewing it, I read articles, sought out software and even tidied up my Outlook in preparation.

By this time it was Wednesday afternoon, I’d found the best tariff for my needs on buymobilephones.net, compared the competition and benefits via my spreadsheet, filled in the application form and clicked send. It was 3.30pm, the site hinted that it very well may be possible that I could have my phone within 24 hours, which I thought, would be Friday…or Saturday at the very least.

Buymobilephones.net sent me a confirmation email an hour later. Excitement swelled inside me causing me to cough more from this wretched cold I’ve been suffering from. More mooching and reading and trying to find anything I could about my new toy. The confirmation email said that they would send another email when my phone had been processed.

I waited

And waited.

Waited a bit more.

Still nothing. A whole day passed. Snow storms had cut off most of the UK and yes…I thought maybe a bit of snow would hamper my hopes of getting my phone for the Friday. Indeed by 6.30pm that Thursday evening, a further email was sent by Buymobilephones.net to say they were coping with a 24 hour back log due to “seasonal demand”.

Fair enough, I thought, the weather and excess demand would hamper anything. By Friday evening I was getting restless. I still hadn’t received any further emails. Three days had passed. Where was my order up to?

Saturday. Same thing. No email…nothing….

See…this is what happens to me. I buy things online with the expectation that they’ll come a day or two later. When they don’t I get really miffed. I miss the high street store option of walking into a shop. Mooching round for the item I want, going to the checkout. Paying for it. Going home. At least then, the excitement was contained by my journey home. This waiting for buymobilephones.net to get their act into gear is killing me. Now I’ve got the little voices in my head saying “They’ve lost your order” and “There’s a problem with your new mobile subscription set up”.

Had it not been for my horrid cold, the snow and the ice and the lack of high street shops selling sim free mobiles, I’d have risked the drive into town to buy one today. This is symptomatic of the culture of now (CON). I have given into the CON. CONsumerism has bitten me and I must have a new toy…I must I must I must.

I looked at the prices of my old mobile phone, my old Acer Laptop, my old Playstation 1. All of these items cost shit loads when they were new. Now…you can get all three for just under £200. I need to remind myself….electronics and keeping up with the Joneses….bad game to play. I never win.

It’s Snow or Snever

2010-01-05T05:00:00.001-08:00

Thought I’d share some pictures of the lovely snow. Fortunately I don’t have to go to Huddersfield this week. Snow and blurgh don’t mix.

Cold

2010-01-04T14:38:00.001-08:00

I don’t know the meaning of cold.

I do. It’s just that when people say to me “It’s bloody cold” that’s my stock answer.

It’s bloody cold.

Therefore I don’t know the meaning of cold.

I then usually go onto talk about my first flat and how I managed to try and keep warm during my days as an ~~unemployed~~ workless youth.

My first flat was above a fishing tackle shop on Smithdown Road in Liverpool. You can see the flat from the main road if you’re ever down that way.

My old flat is the top three windows.

In summer the flat was so hot you had to have all the doors and windows open so that you didn’t melt into a pool of flesh. Furthermore, the wearing of clothes during this time was seen as foolish as the heat would cause you to sweat buckets full of perspiration.

The flipside though was the winter. During the winter that flat was so cold, you would come home from work (or in my case, from somewhere warmer) to find polar bears sat round holes cut in the floor trying to catch fish, while Inuit tribesmen would try and barter cigarettes for blubber and animal furs.

The windows were those awful sash window jobbies. The sort that when the wind blew, it would come up between the top and bottom sashes and be like sheets of sharp cold steel piercing the air and stealing what little warmth you could generate. The window gaps soon got sealed with newspaper and the frames were shrinkwrapped with that double glazing plastic bobbins, you know the type that you heat with a hairdryer?

The mains electricity was delivered through an old 50 pence meter….and I mean old 50 pences. I had to buy the old coins off the landlord. With coin metered electricity you really don’t get a good deal. 50p would last you about an hour in cold weather.

To heat the flat, the landlord provided a calor gas heater and a two bar electric fire. The two bar electric fire only increased the temperature after I managed to procure 2 red bulbs to fit to the “Real flame effect” thingie that the fireplace had. So I think that was psychological heat anyway.

The single calor gas heater was as much use as a cigarette lighter and just made everything taste funny. Further fortune befell me however, when I managed to procure a second calor gas heater. That made it feel a bit cosier.

So with 2 calor gas fires and a two bar electric fire with real flame effect lighting you’d probably think you were nice and warm enough to hibernate for the winter. Well bollocks to that pal. It was still cold. More heat was generated by an electric fan heater (donated by the parents) and by switching the hot water boiler on. Yet it was still too cold.

So to further combat the chilly knives of doom the only line of defence was the clothing. Pyjamas were worn under everyday clothes and over underwear and a fleece coat was also employed in the “lets keep warm” fashion parade. The pyjama legs were tucked into socks and the sleeves were tucked into fingerless mittens. Gok Wan would have been so proud of my fashion statement.

So you’d think that you’d be nice and snug with all that going on….well you’d be wrong. On the couch I had a sleeping bag AND a spare duvet and in the bed I had an electric blanket and two more duvets. Honestly! It was so cold in that flat….Sleepwear consisted of two layers of pyjamas and the fleecy coat under a fluffy dressing gown.

Morning routine involved getting out of bed half an hour before you had to get up and switching on the shower so that it had time to heat up. With the shower switched on, the smaller calor gas heater would be moved to the sitting room (the bathroom adjoined the sitting room too) and switched on to heat both the sitting room and the bathroom.

The larger calor gas heater would then be switched on with the kettle, the electric blanket and the TV and a further half hour in bed was claimed while the shower heated up.

The dash to the bathroom helped generate some body heat and a long shower was often had because leaving the warmth of the hot water would often be too much. On finishing the shower, the body would be wrapped in two towels and the fluffy dressing gown, a further cup of tea was had and, money permitting, a bowl of microwaved porridge consumed in front of the small calor gas fire and the electric fire on one bar (to conserve electricity).

After dressing quickly (well as quick as you can when you wear 4 layers of clothing) the flat would be left to cool down and the day’s activities, whatever they were, were conducted, usually in the free warmth of someone else's flat, the pub or in the city centre shops, cinema or library…..

And to think I moan about the cold now…..ha!

Only 363 Shopping days until Christmas

2009-12-27T14:46:00.001-08:00

It came. It went. It felt like any other day. Only with presents. And cake. And food.

As I’ve said on a previous post here on spotty-bum, Christmas is like waiting to go on a rollercoaster ride while standing in a really long queue. You wait for hours, sometimes longer, everyone around you seems full of anticipation. You step into the carriage. The safety harness comes down. It’s all very exciting.

But then the ride lasts about 30 seconds.

You get off and then, bewildered as you are, you wonder what the fuss was all about.

Then you see the queue and think “Hey! That looks like an exciting ride!” and join up again.

Bah Humbug – Final edition Part 24

2009-12-24T01:06:00.001-08:00

Day 24 – People that moan about Christmas

Miserable fuckers. All they do is bring everyone down. “Oh I hate Christmas, it sucks” and “It’s not as good as it used to be”.

Personally, I think by doing away with the whole festive season you would actually do away with these incessant moaners. Sitting there with their bottom lip on the floor. Anyone would think they had wasted a shit load of money on a load of old junk and eaten so much they had to diet for the next three months as a penance.

People like that should count their blessings. It could be worse, they could be in debt, fallen out with family members or some how broke bones when walking in the snow and ice.

I hear that the poor children in Africa aren’t sitting round moaning about the Christmas period. They’re more likely to be moaning that they had corn maize and flies again for dinner.

And then there are those that don’t get irony. They ask for it and all they get is socks. I mean how can you press your shirt and trousers with socks?

Now…does anyone want this strange smelling old Aunt that’s been sat in the corner drinking all the port? Oh and you can take them decorations down now, they make the house look untidy.

Have you kept the receipt?

Bah Humbug – Part 23

2009-12-23T05:00:00.001-08:00

Day 23 – Dinner time

If you are reading this on Blogspot you are missing out on a good poll over in LJland. But basically it is all about what people have for their dinner at Christmas.

However, as you are ~~special~~ specific and a blogspot reader here, as usual, is a ~~special~~ specific festive poem.

I like sprouts
I like carrots
I like gravy
I like parrots (roasted)

I like turkey
I like cheese
I like custard
On my knees

I like sausage
Wrapped in bacon
I like stuffing
With the Paxo make on

Do you like a plate full
For your Christmas meal?
Or would you prefer to watch
Deal or No Deal?

Such questions pose a quandry
With much to consider that’s bland
But best of all for Christmas lunch
I like it all to hand.

Ah thank you

Bah Humbug - part 22

2009-12-23T00:16:00.001-08:00

day 22 - giant green radioactive maggots

There is simply just nothing more frustrating about Christmas than giant green radioactive maggots. They're everywhere! I really cannot see the appeal or see any reason why people insist on having them. All they do is ooze slime all over the place and lay eggs in the ears of sleeping people.

Bah Humbug – Part 21

2009-12-21T07:23:00.001-08:00

Day 21 – Traffic Chaos

Much akin to the problems with snow, the Christmas period is renown for traffic problems. This year, it seems, is no exception.

If it’s not snow causing gridlock and road closures it’s everyone travelling at once to get from A to B. Traffic jams, slow moving queues and giant maggots blocking motorways, traffic at Christmas can be as taxing as the VAT on presents. Today, it took me 40 minutes to travel my usual 20 minute journey from Brierley to Barnsley. Mostly due to people deciding, quite rightly, to crawl along the snow covered roads at 20mph. Now I wouldn’t usually mind because I am a fairly considerate chap but when I say “snow covered roads” I am exaggerating. It was mush. Mush covered roads. So there was plenty of grip and traction and very little in the way of ice.

I recall one year travelling from Wakefield to Liverpool on the M62 and I saw 8 cars broken down. Foolishly the wife exclaimed “Imagine being broken down on a motorway at Christmas!” just as the Vectra decided that enough was enough and veered toward the hard shoulder. Oh how we laughed as we later ate reheated Christmas dinner all dried up and shrivelled.

And yet a previous year we managed to travel the 80 miles in just under an hour!

This is because, in Britain, if you want to get an idea of what it was like travelling on Motorways in the 1970’s you should set out on a journey on Christmas day. For you will behold how empty the roads can be.

But not to be outdone, this year the good old Christmas demons have pulled out all of the stops. My sojourn to Liverpool this evening has gone the way of the last bus as the exwife in her infinite wisdom went to Eurodisney this weekend.

Now, if you have been hiding under a rock this week or you live in the US, you probably won’t know that the Channel Tunnel (that railway line that connects Britain to the continent) suffered failures and has been closed since Friday night because of the cold. This means the Exwife is now stuck in France, though last I heard they were going to catch a ferry instead. Because of this, my visit to the olds and Liverpool has had to be postponed until tomorrow throwing my plans out by one day boo hiss.

So my effort to thwart the Christmas travel chaos has been….thwarted and tomorrow I face a long drive over the M62 to that jewel in the West coast through yet more ice and loads of trucks and lorries making that last minute Christmas delivery and tonight I spend time in the ever so conversational puss cats. Joy!

Big. Hairy. Monkey. Balls

Bah Humbug – Part 20

2009-12-20T16:00:00.001-08:00

Day 20 – Mad Friday

Venturing into Barnsley town centre on the last Friday before Christmas is possibly the stupidest thing to do ever. Unless of course you like thronging crowds of pissed up Yorkshire people vomitting, fighting and being squeezed like sardines into the variety of bars and clubs there are in the metropolitan area.

Personally, I’m glad I didn’t bother. I mean getting jostled about and crammed into bars is not my idea of fun. But be under no illusion. Mad Friday, or Black Friday as it is known in some areas, is a national, if not international, phenomenon.

Seriously, do people like this kind of thing? Is it a new level of socialising I’ve just not grasped? Another example of me doing life wrong?

My idea of fun is sitting in a nice quiet bar, enjoying audible conversation about old toot whilst supping refreshing beers from around the country. Not trying to move my elbow to lift a lukewarm lager to my lips in a sardine tin rugby scrum of buffoons and underdressed ladies whilst my legs ache from trying my best to remain standing in between jostles. Bah. Humbug.

Bah Humbug – Part 19

2009-12-19T15:19:00.001-08:00

Day 19 – Nuts

Nothing says Christmas more to me than nuts. I love nuts. Especially walnuts. Hazelnuts are ok, Brazil nuts are a pain in the bum to get out of their shell, peanuts make me snore and almonds…well I can take or leave almonds.

But I love the nuts. Can’t get enough of them.

So why would I include nuts in a grincheque series about Christmas? Surely, if I love nuts I wouldn’t put have written about them. Well…it’s easy…Nuts make me fat. So the easy availability of nuts at Christmas guarantees that I will be a tub of lard by the end of January. Not only that, but the excessive amounts of peanuts, which I can’t help but scoff down, means that I will snore and wake the entire county of South Yorkshire.

Admittedly that’s not a strong enough reason to include nuts as a bad thing about Christmas, especially as I’ve got a love for nuts. But to be honest. I wrote “Nuts” down for my reminder for todays post and I haven’t the foggiest what it was I was going to gripe about….

Now where are them walnuts…..

Bah Humbug – Part 18

2009-12-18T14:57:00.001-08:00

Day 18 – Snow

Though not entirely a Christmassy thing snow is one of those things that really irritate about the season. Well…maybe not the snow…But the British reaction to snow….that’s a different matter entirely.

A case in point was last night. All this week the news on the telly and radio has been “ZOMG TEH SNOWZ0RZ A COMING!”. You would think the world was preparing for a famine or a war or something. Not just a little dusting of snow.

Of course the vast majority of the snow landed and settled in the South East of England. For those unfamiliar with British Geography, the South East is where the busy parts of the country are. Mostly London and Kent and other associated areas.

Now if you were any right minded individual you would think “Oh in such a metropolitan area I should expect that a little bit of snow would pose no problem to infrastructure.” Well…yes…you would. But no. You would be foolishly wrong to suggest such a thing, and those that normally do not listen to your wise wise words would have perversely listened to every word and inflection you spoke and mock you for being incorrect. People would point at you in the street and old ladies would giggle childishly as you walked past. As they do.

Last night it snowed. The Breakfast news on BBC this morning (Today presented by Charlie “I need to go on a presenters course” Stayt and Susanna “Today I’m dressed up like a turkey in this silver top” Reid) had nothing but “ZOMG! SNOWZ0RZ” and “ZOMG TIS TEH END OF WORLD” and “ZOMG SNOW WE’RE ALL DO0M3D”.

Now, had I been a foolish person, which I assure you I am not, I might have thought that by going outside I would be putting my own life at risk and the lives of emergency services too. I should stay at home as the media suggest, barrage my doors and windows and survive on the 30 year old tin of self warming baked beans I have in my larder. But one glance out of the windows of Gnomepants Manor would have told any person of sense that the snow in this part of the world was “small potatoes” compared to previous years and one would have said “Bunch of southern poofs” in reaction to the fuss being made by the people on the telly.

To be fair though, the snow “down south” was fairly deep comparatively and yes, Tarquin Posh-Bastard would probably have been flapping at the prospect of getting snow on his brogues and disgusted that his pre-Christmas round of Golf with the board of directors would have to be cancelled. But with Tarquin’s woes aside, the fuss….well it was a bit too much. Considering.

Anyway, it is generally accepted that where there is Christmas there should be snow. Is this because we can gaze safely from the comfort of our centrally heated house comforted in the knowledge that nobody really goes out on Christmas day or is it something more traditional and sinister?

Who knows. I suspect there is something sinister behind it. Probably involving the secret government weather machine and insiduous enforced iconography of snow. But what ever it is, it’s nothing I am able to put my finger on at the moment….

Bah Humbug – Part 17

2009-12-17T04:50:00.001-08:00

Day 17 – Birthdays

Now those that profess to knowing me in a personal capacity will know that today is my birthday. Now what has this got to do with Christmas you may ask, well don’t ask me….ask the many other people that suffer the unfortunate circumstance of being born in December or during the Christmas period.

It’s not like we were in the womb and decided “I know, if I come out at Christmas I’ll get twice as much presents!”. No. Far from it. In fact, it’s more of a pain in the arse than you might think. Now, I’ve already pontificated about this situation in the past on Livejournal so if you want to read that you’ll just have to look in the archives. But the key issue remains the same.

A case in point is…this week I have received more cards through the post than in the entire month of December. In fact, the cards I have got this month all arrived this week. Now, some forward thinkers know about this problem for me and mark their envelopes with either CHRISTMAS or BIRTHDAY so that I can differentiate between cards. Others, not so forward thinking.

In fact there are those who try to save themselves the cost of a stamp by shoving the christmas card in with the birthday card.

Now forgive me if this is not how you do birthdays….but what I understood was that birthdays should be celebrated on the anniversary of the day of your birth…Is that right? So like if I was to send you a card for your birthday 2 weeks before your birthday, would you not find it a bit odd? Or a bit strange to have a birthday card already on display days ahead of your birthday?

Surely the enjoyment of birthdays comes from opening cards from people who remember you…

Of course it is not just about cards. The presents count too. Ask any person born around this time and they’ll tell you the same thing, they get told “Oh I’d have bought you a birthday present but it’s Christmas soon and so you’ll just have to have a bigger present then”. Thing is, come Christmas you don’t get anything more than other people.

I know it’s worse for people born ON Christmas day…I mean just think how the poor suspiciously Caucasian infant Christ felt. Every year he’d get told “Here have some presents” and then told “It’s christmas so I’ve had to double up” or “You can have a birthday or a christmas present but not a birthday present”. He must have felt absolutely left out…no wonder he went round upsetting Pharisees and Romans….a life time of shit birthdays is enough to piss anyone off.

So think about how Christmas is crap for people born around this time of year. Give them something extra special…Remember those born on the actual day…and instead of celebrating Christmas…Celebrate their birthday instead. Just imagine what your own birthday would be like if everyone got presents and you had a big celebratory meal. Of course the pubs tend to be closed but you can’t have everything now can you….

Bah Humbug - Part 16

2009-12-16T04:06:00.000-08:00

Hope you're still enjoying this series.

Day 16 - Time and anticlimax

A weird thing happens. I think it starts at puberty but it could develop later on in life. I'm not talking about facial hair here.

So when you're little, Christmas day feels like it goes on for a week. But somewhere in your lifetime something happens and Christmas day ends up feeling like 5 minutes long. Yet, in reality, the day is only 24 hours long. It's really weird. Am I the only one that's noticed this?

I suppose the old adage, "Time flies when you're having fun" applies here, but trust me, I don't always have fun at Christmas and it still feels like five minutes. Maybe it's the prechristmas build up. The weeks upon weeks upon weeks of "Buy this before we sell out" and "Get your Christmas stuff here" and "ZOMGOMG AM SO EXCITEDZ0RZ @ XMIZ!" that add to the whole "Is it bed time yet? What do you mean it's only 10am!" thing. Maybe it's the opposite, I don't know.

I do know that Christmas always feels like a "Is that it?!" kind of thing. Do you know what I mean? Maybe you don't. Maybe you do. Either way, I'll give a comparison. You know them big scary rides at theme parks? The ones where the queue snakes round the park? The ones where you can expect to queue up for an hour before you even get to see the turnstile? By the time you've got to the last safety gate you're like "ZOMG!" and you're so excited you feel like if you pee you might piss out a kidney. Then you get on the ride and just as you're opening your mouth to go "Yaayyy" it's over and you're like "Was that it?" It can be such a come down.

I suppose it might be because in some places I've worked I've had the whole work right up to the last minute of Christmas eve then come in again first thing Boxing day. I've even worked in places where coming in on a Christmas day went on a rotational basis. But working at the Universities and in the Civil service where you get a nice free 2 week holiday didn't make the feeling of Christmas anticlimax go away. Those two weeks just felt like a week.

Even one year, 2003 I think, I managed to manipulate my annual leave to allow me a whole month off work because of the way bank holidays fell that year. Even then, it only felt like I'd had five minutes out. I suppose relativity has something to do with it and no doubt the whole "fun" thing too.

But yeah....time at Christmas...where does it go?

Bah Humbug – Part 15

2009-12-15T04:14:00.001-08:00

Day 15 – The Fat Man in the Red Babygrow

Let’s say you have children. Let’s say they tell you there’s a weird fat bloke in a red baby grow that comes to them and tells them if they are good they can have toys. They tell you he comes to their room at night and he gets in through the chimney.

You’d call social services.

Well wouldn’t you?

Well I would hope you would. Or call the police at least.

Why is it fine to have a fat stranger with a babygrow fetish come to children once a year, threaten them and give them toys when in normal circumstances this would be frowned upon?

Worse still, he tells them he comes from the North Pole and yet he bares no resemblance to Nanook or any other Innuit tribe member.

Surely this man is deranged. A paedophile, a creep, a suspicious character.

Worse still is when you find out he is financially backed by global toothrotting megacorp Coca-Cola. Surely that should set alarm bells ringing.

I blame him for all the evils of Christmas. The greed, the avarice, the sloth and the lust (have you ever seen them cute students dressed in sexy “Santa’s little helper” costumes? mmmmmmm). And yet people decorate their houses with effigies and portraits of him. He has been slowly crossing the globe like some slow acting dictator from a Consumerist capitalist state. Karl Marx would probably be rotating so fast in his grave that Groucho and Zeppo would be trying to get out of his way

It’s quite simple to break this spell. When you go out and about this week, whenever you see a picture or effigy of the fat man in red, mentally change the image to that of say…Fidel Castro…or…George W Bush….or….Nicolae Ceaucescu…and you’ll soon see what I am on about. Not only has the fat man’s image replaced that of the Christ child and his cosy little pre-nuclear family, the Green Man, the Christkind and the Happy Badger, but he is slowly warping the minds of children everywhere. Promising them items of value in exchange for their very souls….

And people don’t do a thing about it….

Bah Humbug - part 14

2009-12-14T13:20:00.001-08:00

Day 14 - books

Getting a good book at Christmas was once one of the highlights of the year. People who bought me books as gifts used to put a lot of thought into buying a book. Some gems I've received over the years include timeless classics such as The witches handbook , haunted inns and mysteries of the sea. It was clear that people that knew me knew what subjects interested me and would contemplate which cool would be liked the most.

Of course, as I became older and my hair got thinner my interests broadened and my library became stuffed with books that only held a passing interest. Curious really as bookshops became better stocked and Amazon allowed shoppers more choice.

Of course, since Borders saw off the smaller booksellers and is now going the way of Woolworths I suspect the days of the "christmas book gem" will go the way of the round christmas pudding.

This saddens me, especially as I know the only books W H Smith sell are celebrity biographies and amusing trifles which tend to be read once and then sold at a car boot sale and most of the people I know in RL are intimidated by Blackwells and Waterstones.

So I suppose this entry is more of a lament than a moan about something that annoys me about Christmas. Will my stocking contain Gordon Burns' autobiography? Or will it have 1001 amusing uses for a spoon? Who knows? What I do know is it won't contain a pictoral history of Yorkshire pit villages or a guide to making your own steam engine.

Or perhaps it will. One last time.

Bah Humbug – Part 13

2009-12-13T13:35:00.001-08:00

Do you really need this preamble?

Day 13 – Christmas Trees

When I was a kid….wait..have you noticed how most of these posts refer to moments when I was a child? Hmmm…patterns….

Yeah…as I was saying. When I was younger, every year my dad would go up the ladder into the loft and get the musty old boxes filled with decorations. One of those boxes contained a green plastic tree which you would put together bit by bit. It was state of the art. Cutting edge. Made in Taiwan.

There was another tree in the house. This was a silver flu brush, wire draped with silver tinsel. It would be placed in the porch draped with fairy lights. My Nan had a similar one, only hers was green tinsel.

When the exwife and I spent our first Christmas together we had a tree which was one of those put them together ones, a bit like the one my olds had. This tree did us several years until the great cat-astrophic Christmas of 2005 when we considered it wise not to bother putting it up again.

Anyway, trees…now if at any other time of the year someone went out to chop down a tree and bring it into their house you would probably call social services. I mean, why bother? They’re usually full of spiders and creepies anyway and having a whopping great lump of foliage that’s going to drop needles all over the carpet is hardly going to do the vacuum cleaner any good is it?

I mean I can understand the plastic ones and the flue brush ones but why people take real ones in in this day and age I have no idea. “Oh but stegzy it’s so much more than that, it is aesthetic”. Well what a load of cock. If having to trap spiders and other creepies is aesthetic why don’t you just nip out to the garden and scoop a few up from underneath the rockery and sprinkle them liberally around your front room. Then, while you’re at it, grab a few leaves and pine needles if they are at hand and scatter them about too. You’ll soon have that authentic Christmassy feel.

Bah Humbug – Part 12

2009-12-12T16:16:00.001-08:00

Spamming flist…blah blah blah…should have done more…blah blah….doing uni work is no excuse…blah blah.

Day 12 – Midnight mass

Ok, I doubt a lot of you will have experienced this. But this is the 4th post of the day and I’m struggling with ideas.

Anyway, when I lived in the family home, it was written into the tenancy agreement (the one you sign by being born) that as long as you live under that roof you are to go to midnight mass with your mum.

Now to the non-catholics out there, midnight mass is like ringing someone up at midnight on the day of their birthday just to say “Happy Birthday”. God, is no doubt, very pissed off by this.

Anyway, my mam would say “Right, put down the Radio Times, it’s time for mass. This would always be at about 11pm. It would take half an hour to walk through the freezing mid winter cold and up the slippy icey hill, through the village and into the church which would already be filling with the well to do families keen to make an impression on the omnipotent one that they were there to say happy birthday to the lad.

Since then, well ok, during that time, I began to realise what this annual event was. It wasn’t a sudden need to praise the deity. It was an annual call to parade. Well-to-do village families would gather outside, dressed up in their smartest having just rolled up in their Jags with the arse warming seats and they would swank about showing everyone how they were guaranteed a place in the afterlife because they were the epitome of holiness once a year.

The parade was just a show of well-to-do-ness and my mother liked to swank about and show them all that she was a council estate girl that had made good. Seeing past the other swanker’s executive statuses and community roles and she would hold her head high, with her youngest child there to back her up and show those toffs that Betty Gnomepants was just as good as them.

After some out of tune caterwauling from the choir and some mutterings from Father Tom Wood, it would end up being something like 1am and it would be time to make the arduous journey back down the slippery hill through the ice and biting fog. But before that, there would be more milling about in the church carpark as the posh and the poor would compete in this show of grandeur.

Them – well my Tarquin has just done his A levels and got straight A’s and is off to Oxfart in his own BMW which he bought through saving up his paper round money.
My Mam – Yes but he still wets the bed doesn’t he?

These days, of course, because I don’t live there anymore I am allowed to not bother going to midnight mass with my mum. Especially as she’s approaching 75 now and I’m living about 80 miles away. But every year I ask how the midnight mass was. Who she saw, what they said and how their children are.

Of course the well to do all sold up when their house prices reached £1mill back in the early-mid noughties and have all fucked off to Barbados or somewhere. But my mam, bless her, she still goes up and down that hill every Christmas eve…just to show off that she’s better for staying round in her semi….the council estate girl that made it good.

Bah Humbug 11

2009-12-11T15:54:00.000-08:00

Day 11 – Relatives

Now, I have to be careful here as rellies might one day read this for themselves. Therefore, see the disclaimer at the bottom of this post.

Just who is that mysterious woman?

That’s what I ask myself every year. Every year she is there. Sat in the corner. Drinking the house dry of port and yet nobody else seems to notice her. It’s probably Mrs Edson. Though I suspect it might be the mother of the grinning emaciated man that sits at the end of my bed just grinning. Or perhaps FJ Warren projecting astrally.

Well it’s not me al mam. She’s always too busy fussing in the kitchen, my grand parents are all dead and unless it’s Cousin Sally or one of the wives of my brothers, she’s probably just someone in my imagination.

Anyway, relatives. They’re like buses really. You can wait all year for one then seven of them turn up on Christmas day.

To be fair, it pleases me to see rellies at Christmas as for most of the year I don’t get to see any of them. To be just, I must also add that they don’t all turn up on Christmas day.

In times past, in the Gnomepants manse, Christmas would be a “relative safari”. We would wake Christmas morn, have prezzies, have dinner, then drive round to the grandparents for Christmas there. Then the following day, we would be inundated with more rellies then we’d sod off to Auntie Pat’s for more relative mixings in her house behind the toxic paint factory. (I can still remember the smell of that factory. Her house has long since been demolished and Pat and her husband succumbed to the noxious paint fumes even longer ago).

Then, as rellies started carking it, Christmases changed. They would be Gnomepants centric. We would just be sitting down for dinner and the doorbell would always ring. You could guarantee it would be a relative to see my elderly grand parents (both my nans, who by this time were widowed would come to the Gnomepants Homestead rather than spend it alone in their respective houses in the middle of council Hell).

So yes. You were just pulling up the chair and there would be Uncle Fred and the spawn grinning and full of cheer. The turkey would be shoved back into the oven and we would have to pretend that we sat around the dining table anyway. And that we weren’t about to eat and by no way would they be disturbing us.

Was this a surreptitious attempt at trying to get a free dinner out of my old mum? Or was there something more sinister? Like dropping off that strange old smelly Aunt that sits in the corner drinking the house dry of port? I have my suspicions.

Anyway. An hour would pass and I imagine the sound of our rumbling bellies and the sight of eyes that say “Fuck off” caused them to make their excuses and so we would turn our attentions back to the meal that was now dried and withered and resembling something from the night before. Of course, the dinners will have their own post in the next few weeks so let’s not loiter in that area for too long.

The point I’m getting at is somehow, at Christmas, relatives develop this radar and know when to appear at the most inconvenient moment. Worse still, they somehow manage to eat all the chocolates, make dinners go cold and end up drinking more port than is humanly possible.

Of course it’s not limited to immediate family. Sometimes you’ll just be about to nibble a prawn and mum will come in, whisk away your prawn cocktail and then run to the door to welcome in some relative you’ve never even heard of. Ohhhhhh it’s great Aunt Fenella! Oh you haven’t seen me since I was 2? That’s nice. Yes of course I’ve changed I’m 35 now. What’s that? Port? Yes sure I’ll get you a glass. No you’re not disturbing our dinner. We always sit round the dining table…burning? No that’s just the cat…

DISCLAIMER – Names and relations have been changed to protect the status quo of family relations. Some,if not all, of the events in this post are or may be fictitious. If you think anything in this post is about you, then you are probably very wrong and you should pay a penance by buying me a nice pair of socks for thinking I would be as callous as the person you obviously think I am for writing defamatory comments about you on a public post. So yes. Socks. Black please. With coloured toes. Or I’ll tell someone about that thing you did with the thing.

Bah Humbug – Part 10

2009-12-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

You see what happens when you get behind in blogging….I’ve had to do the same on LJ too you know…

Day 10 – Kids

Yes, I know I was one once. But when I was a kid, you sat in the corner, kept quiet and got made a fuss of by that strange smelly Auntie that sat in the corner getting slowly pissed on port.

These days, I’m told “Christmas is for the Children”.

I’ve got news.

BOLLOCKS IT IS.

Its for everyone. Why do children always get preferential treatment?

When I was a kid, I’d be happy with a hoop, a stick and a sock full of satsumas. These days it’s Wii this, Playstation that, I want this, I want that, Gimme gimme gimme. Whinge whinge whinge. Ungrateful little shits.

They have no experience or love of the TV guide hunt. They’ve never even been sent to bed at 8pm and told if they wake up before 9am their presents will turn to dust. Spoilt they are.

They don’t even have to suffer a thousand pensioners groping their tussled curls and being told they would have girls queuing up round the corner for them. It’s like the Christmas they experience is a pastiche of the Christmases they should experience. Worse still, is when they eat all the sweets and chocolates and end up running round like excitable little wasps for three hours.

My niece, 6 year old Charlotte, bless her, is the centre of attention at my mum and dad’s house at Christmas these days. She gets to open her presents first. She always seems to get more presents than me too. She doesn’t have to suffer the annual relation safari until Boxing day. She has no experience of the smelly odd looking aunt in the corner either. Instead, her Christmas day is one of presents, presents, food, presents and more presents.

Jealous? Me? No…but, as you will see on the 17th day, I have my reasons…..

Bah Humbug - Part 9

2009-12-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

Blah Blah blah, to finish essays, blah blah hiatus blah blah sorry blah fish blah blah bumsex blah Christmas.

Day 9 – Christmas TV

There was a time when I would rush out to the newsagent and buy copies of the Christmas editions of TV Times and Radio Times.

These were days long ago when in the UK we were so poor we only had 3 TV channels. Of course, when this went up to 4 channels that didn’t stop the annual trip to the newsagent for the magazines. Gosh no.

So, once I had the television listings in my hands I would pour over each day looking to see what was going to be shown that festive period and highlight the programmes I would watch, carefully colour coded so that lime green would be “watch” and hot pink would be “video tape”.

Of course these were the days before DVD, the internet and being able to stay up late (Yes, there was such a time).

I remember being awed at the choice of excellent programming, the dilemma of do I watch this or do I watch that and the awful paradox of having to decide what to do if four programmes were on at the same time.

Those days went in 2001.

Television programming started to suffer in the UK and the choice of “Do I watch the fiftieth repeat of Back to the Future” or “Do I watch that episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del Boy falls through the bar for the 90th time” got tiring. TV listings had lost their sparkle.

These days I don’t bother. A lot of this stems from having to work over the Christmas period and missing all the great films and stuff because I was at work but it is also the fault of TV stations for not showing anything more compelling than the Doctor Who Christmas Special. In fact, if it wasn’t for the Doctor Who Christmas Special the telly probably wouldnt go on at Christmas.

My brothers still do this annual habit. I’m pleased to say I have out grown it, or maybe I have matured enough to realise that Del Boy falling through the bar is not funny anymore. Nor is watching family breakdowns on Eastenders compelling enough. Has it really come to this? Has TV really had its day? Will generations to follow simply look to see what the latest government approved Youtube upload is? Or what?

I cannot recall I time when I’ve seen something advertised on the Christmas listings as something I must not miss. Even this year, with the choices of Abba The Movie, Gladiator, and the thousandth showing of Speed I am frankly underwhelmed.

I suppose there’s always Del Boy falling through the bar….

Bah Humbug Part 8

2009-12-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Blah Blah blah, to finish essays, blah blah hiatus blah blah sorry blah fish blah blah bumsex blah Christmas.

Day 8 – Office Parties

Possibly the most loathsome thing about Christmas….is the office parties. God I hated them. Fortunately being a lazy student, I don’t have to suffer “office parties”.

However it was not always like this. My first office party was one when I worked at Halfords as a spotty teen. It was at a hotel in the centre of Liverpool and basically involved getting fed, then very drunk, dancing like twat and ending up feeling £50 lighter.

It was fun. For an uninitiated youth.

The following years were similar fayre. Conveyor belted Christmas food, too much drink and failed attempts at trying to gain the affections of Cheryl Crotty.

There then followed several years of where I worked Christmas parties. By worked I mean I served at a bar where there were at least 5 Christmas parties a week. That was arduous. Watching drunken proffesionals embarrass themselves dancing and trying to gain the affections of Cheryl Crotty.

Without giving an indepth breakdown of Christmas parties of the past, I soon realised what a hellish thing the office Christmas party was. I would sooner share a bath with twelve randy tramps than go to another office Christmas party.

Office Christmas parties are big money. Sure they’re good for schmoozing and even better if you’re trying to gain the affections of Cheryl Crotty. But when you get under the bonnet all they are are a handy little money spinner for local hotels and function suites.

Remember the mass served often cold flacid Christmas dinner? The god awful cheapo crackers? The urgent need to try and get yourself sat next to someone who isn’t going to talk shop all night or make you wish you’d sat at the other end of the table where they’re always having more fun? Recall the dreadful looped Christmas muzak as Jona Lewis sings about that fucking cavalry again?

Don’t forget the awfulness of having to socialise with a group of people you pray you never see ever again when you finally leave your place of employment. Nor the frightful bollocks you have to put up with when the new starter or office junior tries to cop off with you because Cheryl Crotty has told them to fuck off.

Then the horror of having to find a cab…in the dark…and realising you’ve drunk far too much….

Why do people bother?

Bah Humbug – Part 7

2009-12-07T13:10:00.001-08:00

Blah blah, moan about Christmas, blah blah another gem blah blah blah swallowed up into cyberspace blah blah should get published blah blah fish cakes blah.

Day 7 – Symbolism

If you are reading this on Blogspot you might miss the following interactive bit. If you are on LJ you can pretend to have read the whole thing and just fill in the poll.

But just for you Blogspot person. Here is a poetic intermission

I have got a box of chocolates

I’ve eaten all the nuts

I’ve eaten all the caramels

And all I hear is tuts

The reason why is clear to see

The soft centered ones

Disagree with me

And so I munch on the chewy

And hide the little menu.

Christmas eh….Are you fed up with it yet? I am. What really annoys me is the modern trend for the iconisation of fat men in red, candles, snowmen and puddings.

Because this issue is a big one, let me just go through each symbol and why it offends me.

Big Fat Men in Red – Any other time of year, if someone put up posters of a big fat man in red pyjamas the social services would probably be very concerned. Unless of course the person in question had some weird fat guy in pyjama’s fetish, in which case you’d probably let them off just so you could mock them. Why big jovial fat men? Why not skinny women with their tits out? I mean that’s just as festive…Isn’t it? Well, maybe that’s just town centre Barnsley on a Thursday night.

It’s easy really. If it was Jesus who, in legend, went round the houses popping sweeties and gifts into socks on his birthday then I imagine we’d have given up the idolatry of the fat guy before he even got his arms into the sleeves of his red coat. But our love for freebies and material goods mean that the bearded skinny guy with the holes in his extremities doesn’t get a look in. Really, what we should do is do away with the fat bearded guy and have pictures of our parents up about the place. Of course if your parents were evil, dead or anti-Christmas then you probably won’t, so instead maybe you could opt for pictures of another parental surrogate. The Kween and Prince Fillup maybe?

Regardless, the fat guy is bad, unhealthy and out dated symbolism, which, really, deserves it’s own post. Maybe on Day 8.

Round puddings with holly stuck in the top

Do you know? In my life, I’ve never ever ever ever seen a round Christmas pudding. I’ve seen a pudding basin shaped one. I’ve seen one in the shape of a Christmas tree. But never a round one.

Now I’m sure people like FJ Warren will say “Oh when I was living in a shoe box while eating gravel and trying to keep warm round granddad’s phlegm during the poor times we used to have round Christmas puddings!”. Yes, I’m quite sure you did. But in this day and age of plastics, tin foil and basins, puddings tend to be basin shaped.

Besides, what about those people, like me, who find Christmas pudding abhorrent? Are we allowed to put up festive picture of ice cream everywhere? No we’re fucking not. Instead we have to put up with imagery of foul tasting brandy drenched mush. Well I don’t like it and I won’t have it. And if you think I’m staying sat at this table while everyone else finishes theirs, well you can think again, cos I’m going to my room to sulk.

Snow scenes, Snowmen and snow flakes – Do you know? I cannot remember the last time I saw a real snowman or for that matter a real snow flake of a Christmas. Now I know people like Zelest and Kingdavey will probably be shoulder deep in wintery goodness now. But here in the UK, I think I’ve only ever seen about 2 white Christmases in my 35 years. I could be wrong. So instead, lets do away with snowmen all together and the snowflake, well that can fuck off too, let’s have rain drops instead, because it’s always sodding raining in the UK.

Stars and Candles – What the fig are they about? Yeah I know the three nomadic oriental types followed a star, but they were obviously sniffing too much myrrh or frankincense. Besides, I see stars all year round. Likewise candles. I used to see candles at Christmas too, but they were mostly on my birthday cake or on the table because there was a power cut. Now I see them all year round. I fail to see the symbolism still relevant.

Presents – Yeah ok. I suppose the wrapping up of unwanted gifts still hold some symbolism. Besides, big corporations would prefer the subversive subliminal symbolism of consumeristic iconography. Now I’ve seen a few socks knocking about the place, I think they’re supposed to be stockings, you know the type you hang on the mantle, but actually, the shift is toward socks because, as everyone knows, you get socks at Christmas. It’s the law.

Fat farting Aunt that sits in the corner drinking port

No…I haven’t seen them either.

Bah Humbug – Part 6

2009-12-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well, if you’ve been reading since day 1 you know the drill…..of course you could save time and look at the one I did in 2005

DAY 6 – Gifts

I remember spending lots of time thinking about it. I had enjoyed reading it myself and thought that it would appeal to my brother’s sardonic wit. I’d browsed bookshops looking for another copy and gave up and got one off Amazon. He was going to love this, I thought.

WRONG!

He absolutely hated it. So much so, as the amusing knob sock he is, he wrapped it up for me the following year and gave it back. This, he told me, was what he was going to do each year.

Of course such an example is extreme. But up and down the country and throughout the globe many suffer silently as, yet again, someone thoughtfully but thoughtlessly gives an unwanted gift. Be it aftershave, perfume or cosmetics for someone with allergies, to socks or gloves for an amputee. The reason for this? Well it’s simple. Nobody actually likes shopping for presents for other people. Especially when no thought goes into the purchase at all.

For example, let me try to imagine how your average Christmas gift buying session goes.

You – Hmmm I must buy **insert relative here** something….what is there? Hmmm Tinned prunes? No…How about a nice spatula? No…did that last year…..Gift voucher? Too practical……Oh bugger, that shop is full…look at the queue there! Blimey! She’s a bit fat….Oh shit it’s him from that place….hide….It’s ok they’ve fucked off elsewhere…Now what was I going to get? ….oh bugger…I can’t find anything…oh what's this? Ah I know…Socks! :D

Close? Thought so. You can spend hours trawling shops looking for that one thing you think they might like, or worse, what they have asked for. And still you will end up getting something without too much thought. Let’s rewind a bit…..tib a dniwer s’teL. thguoht hcum oot tuohtiw gnihtemos gnitteg pu dne lliw uoy llits dnA. rof deksa evah yeht tahw, **play** What they have asked for.

WHAT THEY HAVE ASKED FOR

Surely this defeats the object of a gift. If I asked for…I dunno…a Maclaren F1. Would I get it? No. I wouldn’t.

A result of not asking and getting; Seventies style

My Granddad used to say to me, “Ask don’t get, Don’t ask don’t want". It was like some weird mantra he used to say. Clearly he was a stonebonker but in those paradoxical words are the root of all solutions to the worlds problems. ASK don’t get – exactly. If you ask, you don’t get. Or you shouldn’t. In this consumerist world we ask and we get. Most of the time. Want a house? Ask an estate agent. Want help paying your bills, ask a customer service person and they’ll usually do what they can (though this is often not as much as you want them to do). Regardless, to me at least, asking beats the point. Gifts should be things you don’t expect, or things which can be cherished.

So like buying a box of cheese or beers or aftershave is not really conducive to gift giving. I can buy beers, cheese and aftershave whenever I feel like (providing the shop is open). Furthermore, I have more socks than I have grains of talcum powder. So probably the last thing I need is socks and aftershave in a ~~special~~ specific cheesy beer gift set. I should be able to look at a gift and say “Oh so-and-so bought me that back in 1990 and I still get a good use out of it”. Of course that is not an excuse to buy tat. Sure my ceramic Tardis cookie jar is a good ornament, but really, it’s clutter. As is the Cyberman helmet. In fact, clothes are equally a bad idea. Yes theoretically they will last a fair while depending on their quality, and yes I am grateful for my Cat boots my olds bought me 3 Christmases ago. But when those boots are worn through and full of holes, what then? Do I cling onto them because they were a gift? You see, when I buy a gift, I’d rather the person I buy the gift for keep hold of the gift forever. Look at it and think of me. Smile and think “Aww Stegzy bought me that.”

Chuffin’ Denim? Again?

This revelation, again like one St Paul might have had, struck me when for the umpteenth year my olds asked me what I wanted for Christmas. The fact that, at that time, I could, theoretically, afford most of the things I wanted (excepting a Maclaren F1) whenever I wanted kind of made me stuck for an answer. What do you say when you have everything?

So I told them. I said how I felt about the word WANT. I said how the whole concept of Christmas made me feel isolated and wasteful, I also said that, if they truly wanted to, they could get me something but, it had to be something with a message. Something which I can cherish and look at and say “My mum and dad bought me that” something that a lot of thought had gone into.

I got a Terramundi Piggy Bank that year.

I still have it. I still use it. It’s great. Every time I look at it I think “Aww my mum and dad bought me that” and I feel all cosy and warm and loved. Then I look around my room as I type this and I look at the various other things, mostly gifts, I have accumulated over the years. With the exception of Malcolm Bird’s Witches Handbook (my favourite Aunt bought me it when I was 10) , the Tardis cookie jar (my eldest brother got me for Christmas following my ultimatum that gifts should require thought not want) and the T Shirt bought for me by that ~~special~~ specific person in my life the rest of them, I have no recollection if they are gifts and who bought them for me.

I’m not ungrateful. Far from it. I am heart renderingly grateful for all the gifts and things I have had over the years. But my point is, only a very small minority of them remind me of the person who gave the gift. An even smaller minority still exist in one form or another, and the vast majority are only still in existence because you cannot eat, wear or spray onto the skin.

Unfortunately, Christmas has become an oversized mega orgy of consumerism. We must go forth and purchase anything. Wrap it in paper. Give it to someone who then unwraps it, pretends to like it, then takes it back to the shop for a refund. Or, it gets looked at for an hour, then left to collect dust on a shelf until the house clearance people come to take away the cadaver’s belongings.

So, this year, if it is not too late. Maybe to recapture that little bit of Christmas spirit and enjoy the magic of actually giving an accepted gift. Put some thought into what you are buying. Think about the person. Think what would they like that would remind them of you forever and ever (or until the Alzheimer's sets in). Then get them gift vouchers.

Bah Humbug – Day 5

2009-12-05T16:20:00.001-08:00

Rather than actually do some work…yaddayaddayadda. Background noone is arsed about yadda yadda yadda …..blah blah. Christmas blah.

Day 5 – Christmas Music

It is fortunate to live in Gnomepants manor at this time of year. Especially as the house looks dark and spooky without the lights on outside. Moreover, there is no doorbell on the front door and you have to sneak down a passage to get to the tradesman's entrance.

Why is this fortuitous?

Well, kids are normally scared of coming round to beg. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against carol singing. Sure, I did it myself as a youth. Calling into old peoples homes to sing a carefully practiced variety of carols including classics by Rutter, Holst and Sharples. Yes, ok, it a was middle class kid thing to do and the blue bag bless the little enterprising scrotes that are brave enough to call and sing. But, as I've written before on LJ, if you want to get paid, you have to sing something other than We Wish you a Merry Christmas. However, though I am fairly safe from the caterwauling of preteens, I am not safe from Christmas musak. Neither are you.

I’ll wish you a fucking merry christmas

I really cannot explain the reason why shops have to pipe endless Christmas classics through their PA systems. Nor can I understand the endless appeal of Jona Lewis' Stop the Cavalry. If I actually still went Christmas shopping I would probably have tracked down Mr Lewis and shot him with a World War 1 rifle myself.

What I do understand though is that if you can work the phrases "Get up it's morning" "Happy Birthday" and "It's Christmas" into your song, you're guaranteed an instantly lucrative annual royalty payment. By slowly irritating the masses with your cheerful "Be happy you miserable fucker it's Christmas" message you are writing yourself into the annals of music history.

It’s fucking Slademas

So what I propose is this. Instead of having to listen to culturally enforced saccarine Christmas cheer for the entire month of December, why not put some nice industrial atmospherics on a Walkman or Ipr0d instead? Maybe even Crazy frog would be less annoying? (Or is that a step too far do you think?) Or, controversially, how about an embargo on shops that play Christmas music?

This would surely lead to having to buy off market stall holders and dodgy looking pikelets selling 5 lighters for a pound thus stimulating micro-economies and bankrupting the last of the musicians who think they can sit on their fat arses all year round just because they once sang about waking up on their birthday one Christmas.

Bah Humbug – Part 4

2009-12-04T12:41:00.001-08:00

Despite having shit loads of Uni work, I thought I would try and do a series of posts each day about the bahhumbuggness of Christmas to go with my new seasonal background.

Day 4 – Cards

Every year I feel sorry for the postman. Down the lane with no name he comes bumbling. His sack laden with cards. I feel I have to hold my hands up here. I was once a victim of the Christmas card bug, as many long term LJ Flisters will remember. Sending cards was as much a part of getting into the Christmas spirit as drinking mulled wine and munching mince pies.

Every year I would compile a list. I'd check it twice. To find out who was naughty (by not sending me a card the previous year) and who was nice (those that did). I would go into town and spend loads on postage. Then, the year before last it struck me. Who the hell really gives a stuff about me sending cards? It was like I was sending them out of habit. Most of the people on my card list I had no interaction with and frankly I couldn't give a stuff whether they had a good Christmas or not.

My mum was the same and still is. Every year, about this time, she will spend evening after evening scribbling addresses and filling in cards from a bumper bargain box to send out to people she really had no connection with. Each year I would stand admiring the walls that became increasingly covered with cards.

Stegzy - Who's Mary McGuire?
Mum - Oh I used to nurse her father (my mum retired from Nursing about 7 years ago)
Stegzy - And who's Bill and Jill Smith?
Mum - Oh I once sat next to them on the tram back from the Pier Head back in 1953
Stegzy - And what about Sandra and the cats?
Mum - I think she used to be a friend of someone I once sold a raffle ticket to, but I can't be sure.

It became clear to me that my mum didn't actually have a clue who half of these people were. But, true to form she would send cards to them every year. I would often try to imagine what it would be like in their house holds

Bill Smith - Eh up, we got another card of that Betty Gnomepants.
Jill Smith - Oh bugger, I thought she'd not bother this year, pass us that box of cheap cards from Oxfam and I'll write her one up now.
Bill Smith - Who is she again?
Jill Smith - Fucked if I know

So again, like St Paul, I was struck with an astounding revelation. Who gives a stuff if I send them a card? Actually, come to think of it, why do I need to send family a card either? It's not like anyone would wish someone a miserable arse sucking Christmas is it? So by default, you can assume I wish people a happy and peaceful festive celebration without debt, arguments and cholesterol. Though there are a few people that I would and I imagine they think the same about me. Indeed, there really is no need for me to pay money for bits of gaily coloured card to wish family a happy Christmas when I see them over that period usually anyway. It's like wishing it again. Which, in my book, is over egging the nog. And so, again, this year, the sending of Christmas cards is not happening for me. Already, people are showing their distaste at me not sending cards by not sending me any. Mrs Gnomepants, the wife from whom I am separated, gets cards on an increasingly daily basis addressed to her, and yet I get nothing addressed to me but bills and threats of stick waving.

Now don't get me wrong, I get no displeasure from not sending cards. Quite the opposite. I get the warm glow that I am not contributing to my carbon weighting buy using card that is made from recycled paper. I feel safe in the knowledge that the Posties hernia was not caused by my fan mail. Indeed, I am comfortable with the awareness that I wish no ill to people all year round and no ill especially during their festive period. I am however conscious that some people will think of me as a miserable old cunt that is too cheap to send out cards. But far from it. It is not me, but those that gauge their narcissistic popularity by how many cards they receive. Moreover, these same people probably are concerned with how many Facebook friends they have. Well bless their black narcissistic cotton socks.

And so a short cut. For those that think by my not sending cards I am some how snubbing their ~~special~~ specific day....have a mooch round. See if you can find one of the cards I sent on previous years (What do you mean you've recycled them already?! Do you know how much hard work went into making them cards??) and prop it up on your mantelpiece, desk or wherever and pretend I've sent you it again. Of course, there are those who may have already disposed of the card I sent all those years back and there are those who I have never sent a card to. So to get round this, let's come to a compromise. I'll dig out an unused card. I'll write "Happy Christmas With Love from **insert your name here**" and prop it up on my mantlepiece and I'll pretend it was sent by you to me. If....now here's the biggy....YOU WILL DO THE SAME FOR ME. Then, come January when I'm chucking stuff out, I'll box that card up, and I'll fish it out again next year. Unless, of course, you state that you wish me an unpleasant Christmas with worms and maggots and debt and shit some how, in which case I will keep it boxed away until you change your mind. Yes? Is that not simpler? I mean if you really want that authentic card experience....stick it into an envelope, write your name and address on the envelope and stick it in the mail. That way you're spending the same money on postage as I would have done and then that's fair isn't it? You don't have to feel done out of 40p. I'm happy, you're happy. Then, get your friends to do the same. Of then course, if you really don't like a person, why not just send them a card with "I hate you, I hope your Christmas if full of fights and parsnips" and they'll feel badly done to because they went to the effort in pretending to get a card from you Then it will be a greener and much pleasanter Christmas for all....except that person you don't like.

But still feel free to send Birthday cards….you know…to massage my own narcissisms.

The Other Compost

Birthday Post

Spare not the children, lest the evil persist

Censor this

Tappens

International I Haven’t Bred Day

A day out in World War 2

Re-enacting the past

Collectors Edition

Mustard is like Custard without the sea

Bogs

A place to rest your head

Terrorism: What to ban

Outtamawae

A levels? Arse levels

Further machinations of a job seeker

Reaching out for work

Skills

Looking for

Job hunting

Qualification:Experience Relevance Quotient

Job search

Degree

Landscape

Lovely day

Company

Press

Law for beginners – Lesson 1: The Legal Aid System

Empee Empee

Escape from the Toilet of Doom

My Neighbour’s Cock

Geocaching 2010

Are you safe?

Sitting on hot central heating pipes in the cold winter

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Cutting paper with scissors

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Chalk on the blackboard

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Playing conkers

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Being told off by an unknown adult

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Sticking things with Gloy Paste

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Nativity

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Playing in the street

Why

Possible Reason

Instead of

Political Pints

TV For sale

60 Second theatre

Middlemist’s Red

Chav School

Education -

Street Skills

Nutrition

Rehabilitation

Preparation for Life after 18

Family and Community Work

Stegzy's Customer Service School

1. Always give your friends first class service -

2. Never Smile -

3. Never make Eye contact -