Finally a snippet of news that left me feeling rather pleased for a change. I don’t normally *do* news but I couldn’t help noticing a link flickering away at the side of a page which led me to read a story about how Boy George has been refused suspension of his probation order so that he can partake in the last Big Brother series. A fact in itself that left me confused because I thought they’d had the last one already – assuming this is the celeb BB?.
Anyway – too bloody right mate. Why should he be allowed to partake? I get a bit fed up with these buggers, especially the celeb buggers who think they’re above everyone else and deserve special treatment. You’re on parole, you’re on parole because you repeatedly cocked up, not least, handcuffed a man to the wall in your house thus imprisoning him.
What justice would it be to allow Georgy Boy to go against parole and continue to make money and raise his profile?
No justice – that’s what. And in a country where there is very rarely justice served to the right people, I for one am quite pleased that someone in an awful wig made the right decision
Boy George – take your silly hat, handcuffs and your ankle device and behave.
It’s for your own good – we don’t really want to hurt you.
So I finally gave up fighting the universe and got stuck into Facebook. What tipped me over the edge was having that damn FB application already installed on my mobile when I got a new one – way too convenient.
Anyway, this little widget claims to summarise your year in FB status’ – in actual fact this is more like a summary of a week if we’re honest.
Well it’s that cheery time leading up to the Christmas Holidays when people are being made redundant from their jobs, money leaves your pocket faster than it goes in and people in shopping centres turn into total assholes by dismissing any scrap of manners they were raised with. To add to the pleasure the weather turns dreary and freezing, food and sweets are the focal point of every waking moment and there seems to be an endless stream of jobs to do in addition to the ones you normally have. Ahhh… magic.
Hello all, the Grinch here.
So blogging material has been at a bit of a low recently and when anything remotely interesting has happened I haven’t had time nor inclination to sit and write it down.
Wil and I entered a Duathlon together as a mixed team. Duathlon is a Run/Bike/Run event – Wil did the biking and I did the running. There were about 60 entrants altogether comprised of 30 individuals and 30 teams split into female/male/mixed.
Out of the 30 teams we took 6th place and out of the 11 mixed teams we took 2nd place. A brilliant result that neither of us thought for a minute we’d achieve!
We traded our Mazda in! Wil has hated our new Mazda ever since we drove it off the lot just under 2 years ago. Since I’m the one who drives it all the time anyway and I didn’t particularly have a major hatred against it I insisted we keep it. I managed to keep that going until a couple of weeks ago when we dropped into a Honda dealership ‘for a look’ and ended up doing a deal. If it gives that angry midlander one less thing to piss and whinge about then I’m currently all for it. Now, mark my words – he’ll start harping on about trading the other car in sooner than you can blink.
Work wise I’ve applied for a new job within my department, managing the team I’m in and expanding it to take on a few new posts. It won’t be hugely different to what I do now but it would make a lot of the extra stuff I do official and the pay will reflect that. The awkward side of it is that the people I work along side now would actually report to me if I get the job – but I’m hoping we’ll all be fine. These aren’t people who need ‘managing’ and we should be able to tick along like the grown ups we are.
Changes are happening at Wil’s work by the sounds of it. Quite a few people have been made redundant as the company seems to be pulling things towards corporate HQ in Germany. No one really seems to know what’s going on and every day there are new stories of someone else being let go or more recently people in high up positions being shunted over into purpose created ‘bunce’ jobs. The kind they hope you get fed up in and leave on your own accord so they don’t have to pay you off. I’m not sensing that Wil’s job is directly inline for horrid things, however there could be some sort of restructuring and without knowing who he’s going to be reporting to it leaves things open to speculation. And speculation, particularly from Wil’s gene pool is rarely of the positive kind but more to the tune of ‘D’ that’s D for DOOOOOM DOOOM DOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Cameron decided to single-handedly attempt to set fire to our house. He took the opportunity of Wil and I being out of the house for just over an hour one late afternoon/early evening to light a candle and then proceed to carry it upstairs, in the dark and set it on the side of the bath. When it slipped off the bath and onto the brand new bath mat and set it on fire he picked it up and threw it into the bath, extinguishing the flame and scolding the bottom of the plastic bathtub at the same time.
The first I knew of this was when I saw a large wet brown mark on my new bathmat and although he denied any knowledge of it to begin with he eventually told Wil what had happened. I’m hoping he sufficiently shocked the shit out of himself enough to never do that again – because with the nearest un-manned fire station about 12 minutes drive away there is not a chance in hell any part of this house would be salvageable if it went up in flames. And if the 11 year old went up with it, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened.
On a brighter note Wil gave me my Christmas present early – a beautiful matte black steel string acoustic guitar. I learned to play the guitar when I was 5 and continued taking lessons until I was 11. When I went to high school there were no instructors for guitar so I was left on my own with it and ended up not taking any interest. Recently Cam has been taking lessons at school and we have a little kiddie size guitar kicking around which was bought for a member of my family by his dad for £10 from a book club in the 70’s! Think elastic bands stretched around a Kleenex box and you have the tune this thing puts out. It really does sound horrendous however, it’s been great for practicing chords and getting my finger movements back on making it even better to strum away on something that sounds as lovely as the new guitar does. So far I’ve nearly perfected Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb and Wish You Were Here, Outkast – Hey Ya, Johnny Cash’s cover of (NIN’s) – Hurt, and I’m working on Oasis – Wonderwall and a number of other tracks. If I could nail quick changes to those pesky barre chords I’d be well away but it’s going to take much more practice and I imagine ten times as many blisters on my fingers. I’d also forgotten that guitarists fingernail design you have to sport. Long nails on the right hand and none on the left! What a great look!
We did have some fun on Friday. I organised our departments Christmas Lunch at a fantastic pub not too far from our office. The food was great it was just unfortunate that I was also due to attend Wil’s works do that evening which also included a large sit down 3 course meal. Planning carefully I begrudgingly only ate half of each course I was given at the lunch time meal so that later I wouldn’t have to spend the entire evening sucking in my burgeoning gut within the jade coloured snug fitting satin dress I’d bought for the occasion. It was a shame that the food at the evening meal was more like airline grub but this was more than made up for by the great people, good conversation and fun atmosphere brought about by an in-house band formed by a handful of Wil’s colleagues. They had a few people from around the department join them to play various instruments for select songs – Wil played drums for ‘Back In Black’ by ACDC (I think) and you’d have never known that he doesn’t play drums for a band it was brilliant.
Right, enough rambling. Now that I’m fairly caught up I hope to update a little more regularly. If you don’t hear from me soon, just assume that the house has been burned down, we’ve lost our jobs and I’m busking on the underground with the only possession I rescued from the fire before leaping out of an upstairs window onto the bonnet of the new car. If it’s going to happen to anyone!……
I had to ditch the Running Club sprinting session briefly this evening to answer the dire and URGENT call of nature. Unfortunately in my haste to get to the end of THE LONGEST PISS IN THE WORLD whilst squatting in a patch of woodland between a main road and an office block – trying to dodge car headlights and nighttime dog walkers, I managed to pee on the back of my trousers and partly in my shoe. Thank goodness they were black trousers and it was dark. What’s that? More info than you needed?
I’ve been a bit of a bastard today. It all started so well where I woke up early and felt awake. The house was lovely and warm so I didn’t get grumpy getting showered and dressed in the cold and I even convinced myself to bike to work since it looked a nice morning.
Deciding IN THE MORNING to bike to work is never a good idea because if I haven’t got crap organised the night before you can count on it being a real cluster-f*ck trying to find stuff I need. As it turned out I only needed to return to the house from the garage 4 times to collect bits and pieces. What did nearly taint the morning is that my rear red flashing light had disappeared from my seat post. I was sure I’d left it on the bike but thought perhaps I’d taken it in the house with me last time I rode. Riding home without this light was not an option so if I couldn’t find it, biking was not going to be an option. I searched all over the place letting myself back in the house twice to check in different places I’d normally keep the light. Nowhere to be found.
Just as I gave up and shoved my bike back in the garage I caught sight of my light – AFFIXED TO WIL’S BIKE. The amount of times I’ve come to my bike to find it missing parts like PEDALS, LIGHTS and WHEELS – yes, he’s even pikey’d the sodding wheels out of my bike at one point, I couldn’t believe I didn’t think to look there first. (For the record William – I’m SO on Cameron’s side next time he’s nicked your stuff and left it in his room)
Ready to spit fire I grabbed my light, affixed it to my bike and stormed off down the road. Fortunately the magic of riding to work did it’s job and by the time I got there I was in a great mood.
The ride home in the winter is never as great as the ride in – usually it’s colder, it’s always darker and my legs have the remnants of the morning ride still in them. It’s also subtly uphill most of the way. So when I came flying down the final decline which I use to give me a boost sprint for the home stretch, reaching a speed of 30mph you can imagine how bloody inconvenient it was when one of the cars that had just passed me got just around the corner out of sight and appeared to be indicating to turn into a driveway – only it didn’t – it stopped dead just before the driveway.
Whilst cycling in the pitch darkness it’s a little difficult to assess the speed of a vehicle in front of you which explained my screeching halt inches from the car bumper since I’d figured she was pulling into the driveway. Moving to the side of the car I shouted at the window – “what the hell are you doing?” The woman inside the car wound the window down, stared at me blankly and replied in an arsey tone “can’t you see I’ve got my indicator on?”. “Yes” I replied, “but if you were going to stop so soon, why overtake me in the first place?”. The woman just stared at me, someone else in the car didn’t say anything. I pulled my pedal back around and blasted “use some common sense next time” and cycled off with a scowl.
That’s when I wondered – Had she actually been one of the cars that’d passed me just before the bend or had she been stopped there the whole time? Maybe she’d broken down..
I felt like such an arsehole. And then I thought – WELL she should have had her hazards on if she was stopped there and not turning! Who indicates left and stops just short of a left turn IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKIN COUNTRY IN A 60MPH ZONE IN THE DARK? Answer is no one, unless they’re looking for a lambasting from an out of breath, red faced, angry PMS’ing ginger.
Can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxsden/sets/72157622726858518/
Warning – pictures involve lots of nudey statues in comprimising positions..
Incase youve been on Mars, Wil and I have come to Oslo, Norway to celebrate his 30th birthday over a long weekend.
Thursday night we drove to the hotel at the airport. Despite having found a great deal at a hotel next to the airport, their website neglected to tell us we would have to shell out 10 quid (where is the pound sign on a Norwegian keyboard?) for parking. Room and sleep great, left it a bit late leaving.
At the airport we pull into the long stay carpark. Id already prepaid for parking online in order to save a bit of money. Not sure we pulled into the right place, if I have to pay again and lose the money I already paid out Ill be cross. Ran from our car to the shuttle bus just as it was pulling away. Forgot to take note of what section we left our car in. Carpark roulette on the return then!
Airport was rammed. Wil found out where we were going after I walked him around Air Iceland, Virgin and several other desks before standing in the line at the Norwegian Airlines. He was made up.
Something to do with there not being any checked baggage claimed on our tickets meant they made us pay 10 quid to check the sodding bag. We pulled that out of our arses and went off to wait in with the huddled masses yearning to breathe free in security. We joined the line at 0810, our flight was at 0840. At 0846 we left the line and ran like our asses were on fire to get to the gate in hopes the plane would be waiting for us!We were stopped dead as we approached a screen stating our flight had been delayed until 10am. Sigh of relief.
Got on the plane and got sat in between screaming kids and snot hacking fucktard who must have unloaded every germ in the book into the back of my hair. I hate him. Got off the place without having contracted the Aids.
The limo I had booked to take us from the airport to the hotel was not in the arrivals lounge holding a sign with our name on despite my having called to tell them the new flight time. I called the organiser and they told me to go to the taxi desk and there would be someone waiting for me there. There was and he led us straight outside to a dingey taxi cab. Not quite the glamour I thought Id paid for. On the way to the hotel he stopped for a shit at a garage. I shit you not! We sat in the car in disbelief. He spent the rest of the trip on his mobile phone handsfree talking crap with mates and at one point he got himself and someone else into a conference call! Surreal.
We arrived at the hotel which was finally everything Id hoped. The room was the same as the photo and we have a fantastic view. The bed literally swallows you up and after a great evening at a spa where we both got massaged and a gorgeous meal of sushi, that bed swallowed us both whole.
Until 0245am when we were rudely awoken by the hotel fire alarm. After sitting bolt upright thinking, “its a drill, itll go off in a mo” it didnt and we began hearing sirens from the street below. We jumped up, got dressed and bolted down the 7 floors of stairs along with masses of other bleary eyed travellers. As we gathered on the street the firemen piled into the building.
We think the coffee shop grill place next to the hotel had raised the alarm but all was ok and we were allowed to return to bed.
What a day!
Today we visited sites and shopped till we dropped. Oslo is a great place and the people are great. Ive never known people to be so happy to live where they live.
Right, I only popped down to the lobby for a coffee… Wil will be wondering where Ive gone! See you all soon..
We popped into town today to sort a few things. Wil has a penchant for parking in the NCP Car Park which wreaks of piss. Knowing him well I preempted his choice of parking locale by asking him to park in another car park which also happened to be closer to where I wanted to go in town. He grumbled and refused ‘because it would be full’. I grumbled back that I wasn’t happy about parking in NCPiss. Not only is it where the lowest forms of life gather to relieve their bladders but you have to step over half of them, lying around drunk on the pavement begging for money on the way in and out of the building. A minor domestic broke out in the car where we argued over the preference of car parks while Cameron interjected randomly with off topic blips which went something like this:
Me: Can we park at the Buttermarket please?
Wil: No, it’ll be full
Me: Oh don’t go to the NCP
Wil: Ren, the others will be full
Me: They won’t! I always park in the Buttermarket
Cam: I really liked those hotels you used to stay in in Wokingham Wil
Wil: Why can’t you just let me park at the NCP
Me: Because it stinks of piss in there, it’s filthy
Wil: All car parks are filthy
Me: Yes, but they don’t all stink like a thousand tramps took a piss in them
Cam: We should get a Bose stereo, why don’t we get one with an iPod dock? We could all listen to our music all over the house
Wil: Here we go.. Buttermarket Car Park – OH LOOK
Me: OH LOOK… IT’S FULL – what on earth gave you the idea to park here on a Saturday eh? You MUPPET
Cam: HA HA you’re a muppet Wil, YEAH WIL you MUPPET
Wil: Shut up Cameron
Me: Oh what about…
Wil: NO.. we’re going to the NCP
Once we’d wedged our car in a space conveniently sized like a toilet cubicle in the NCP we exited the building via the piss smelling stairwell which wreaked of, unsurprisingly, PISS. I used my foot to shove open the heavy red double doors leading out on to the street. Wil caught the door with his hand to hold it open and Cam remarked that he’s probably just touched someones wee.
When we returned from town and after clambering over the drunken people on the path Wil produced the parking payment ticket and inserted it into the machine in order to pay for the parking. Only, upon taking the ticket and taking payment from our debit card it then spat our bank card out (onto the floor) and kept the parking ticket so we had no way of getting our car out of the building.
With no on site staff to help with the problem and now having taken over one of only two available payment machines in the building we were a bit stuck. A long line of people waiting to pay began to form behind us and watched as we stood pushing buttons and looking around for help. Then I spied a button on the machine labelled ‘HELP’.
I pressed the button and it began to make a phone call which everyone around us could hear bellowing from the speaker. The payment screen was replaced by a little cartoon character looking confused like he needed help. We could identify. After a short stint of cheesy elevator music and a soothing womans voice telling us we were ‘being held in a queue’ a deep voice broadcast out of the speaker grabbing the attention of several people still stood around using the other payment machine.
‘HELLO, THANK YOU FOR CALLING NCP, YOU’RE SPEAKING TO DAVE’ said the voice in a tired broad Essex accent.
Wil glanced around the lobby and everyone watched to see how he was going to react. Was this crazy man about to talk to a machine? He was.
“ER.. Hello Dave” he replied with an uncomfortable grimace… and then in true Kitcher overdramatised style he gave a long winded story about how he’d parked in the piss smelling car park – the one we’d chosen over the cleaner Buttermarket option, had been and done a bit of shopping, returned, arrived at the machine, was reminded of the time when, as a baby his legs were really skinny and his mum was embarrassed so she kept them covered up with a blanket which somehow has resulted in his debit card having been charged and his ticket failing to reappear from the paid ticket slot which meant WE MIGHT NEVER LEAVE THIS PLACE with our car and er, so, “Dave, can you help?”
There was a long pause wherein I thought Dave either pondered an identical tragic story that his own mother had embarrassed him with in front of people a thousand times over in his life or where, like the rest of us do, he just had to filter the pertaining facts out of the story he’d just been privy to; and then he spoke.
“So you paid for your ticket, got your bank card back but not your ticket?”
Wil, quietly impressed at the way Dave cut straight to the point agreed and then began a small episode whereby the machine carried out a lot of whirring and ticking. Slots lit up and went dull again and Dave appeared to be tapping around on a keyboard, then he spoke.
“How much was your ticket?
It doesn’t look like it’s charged your debit card..
Your ticket is stuck inside the machine…. right, lets see here”
Dave’s voice was rumbling very clearly from a small round speaker just above the screen. The whole thing became slightly surreal as suddenly a white ticket shot out of the slot and into Wil’s knee before landing on the floor.
Wil picked the ticket up and inspected both sides of it.
“Did you get that ticket?” Dave asked
“Yes” said Wil
“Throw it in the bin” instructed Dave
Wil looked perplexed, turned and threw it in the bin on the wall next to the machine and awaited the next instruction.
“Have you thrown it in the bin?” asked Dave
“Yes” replied Wil looking pleased with himself.
Dave went quiet and the machine clattered about a bit more. Wil began looking around the sides of the machine and over to the line of people who were queuing out of the door of the lobby waiting to pay. One lady had begun videoing us with her phone. Wil inspected some of the slots on the front of the machine more closely and while pointing at the machine mouthed in a loud whisper
“Is he actually sitting INSIDE the machine?” which was funny but altogether a possibility we couldn’t discount.
With the scene slightly akin to the beginnings of a Derren Brown trick unfolding, two more white cards shot out of the machine and Wil took them from the slot. According to Dave one of these would get us out of the car park. He continued “it’s what we like to call ticket roulette”.
With a sinking feeling of helplessness that in a few minutes time we’d have shoe-horned our car out of its shoebox space and would be staring at a stern barrier across our exit which was refusing to budge with our roulette tickets, we left the machine to the next group of people stood waiting to give Dave a go.
I felt wholly fulfilled by our experience at the NCP. Park in a cubicle the size of a room you’d use for a piss, enjoy the aroma of piss on all 9 levels and when you pay, the ticket machine takes the piss. At the press of a button you get to speak to a bloke who sounds like he couldn’t give a shit.
(my phone cut off – Dave’s final words are “one of them will get you out of the car park”
Finally a snippet of news that left me feeling rather pleased for a change. I don’t normally *do* news but I couldn’t help noticing a link flickering away at the side of a page which led me to read a story about how Boy George has been refused suspension of his probation order so that he can partake in the last Big Brother series. A fact in itself that left me confused because I thought they’d had the last one already – assuming this is the celeb BB?.
