Remember when all DIY shop staff wore brown coats and went out of their way to be helpful, even to the point of hunting in the storeroom for an age for that double-sprocket 2 and 2/16ths wassname you wanted? It was an oft repeated and genuine example of what is now euphemistically referred to as "Customer Service", something that back then did not have to be advertised as such because it was ubiquitous and taken for granted.
Right, rose tinted spectacles off, it's back to the here and now. Today B and I made our annual visit to B&Q specifically to take advantage of their much advertised "20% off" day. I wish I'd stayed at home. Firstly as we don't drive we always have the bulky items delivered. This entails going to a separate order point and have the sales assistant punch in the order details. Well, she would have done if the computer terminal had not frozen. A trek to another terminal which worked produced an order sheet which we take to the checkout. At this point it has to be said that the ignorance and rudeness of Joe & Jemima Public was starting to grate. At both computer points we were interrupted by various noobs butting in to ask where the gardening section was or somesuch. Why couldn't they bleeding well wait until we'd finished? I could sense B getting slowly more wound up, but I have learned to control my once instant temper by taking an almost Zen-like outlook. It's only after the event that I tend to go a bit wibble!
Anyway, we reach the checkout with our delivery order and sundry smaller items to take home, only to be told that the woman who had processed our delivery order should have put the 20% discount with it, but hadn't, so checkout woman rings other woman - no answer. Instead of sorting us out she then serves another customer - un-fucking-believable! We're then told to stay where we were while she slouched off to find our original helpful lady. Eventually she comes back and I tell her I was on the verge of just leaving everything and walking out, to which she says cattily "Well, I'm only helping you get your discount" as if it was my fault first woman had left it off the form. I bit my lip. B had steam coming out of her ears. Checkout woman now interrupts her reprocessing of our order to answer another queue butter's question. Iwasthisclose to telling him to fucking wait his turn, but remained in "Zen" mode amazingly. I paid for it all, she gave us our receipt which I instantly felt did not look right.
Having eventually paid for everything we went for a coffee to chill a bit and while sitting there I discovered we had been overcharged to the extent of half the discount due on the delivery order - it's a good job I'm an accountant, as I'm sure others may not have noticed, at least until they got home, if at all, such was the complicated nature of the receipt. I decided I would sort this out on my own, as I could see B was ready to "have a go"! After another twenty minutes I had been given a refund for the missing discount, and the guy who sorted it seemed to become much more helpful once I told him my profession - can't think why!
In the end the "shopping" part of the visit to B&Q took less than half the time spent paying for it and sorting out the various cock-ups. It may seem on the surface that all the staff at B&Q speak English, but don't be fooled, as none of them appear to understand a word each other are saying.
In the words of John Cleese, "if you want anything done in this country you've got to complain until you're blue in the face." As he said that over 40 years ago, he doesn't know the half of it!
If anyone from B&Q Northampton reads this, how about you invest in a computer system that doesn't crash at the slightest hint of hard work, and tell your staff to treat discounts in a standardised manner. It's not rocket science surely?
When I got home the release valve flew open and a good stream of invective poured forth from yours truly, but was soon tempered by the fact that something had told me earlier in the day to have a flutter on the Grand National for the first time in years, and Ballabriggs won! Yee and indeed ha, times one hundred!!
9 Apr 2011
8 Apr 2011
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
As you all know there's some local elections coming up. Here in Shoesville, with its unpopular LibDem council, who like the other two major parties have a long history of ineptitude, self-interest and inertia where running the local authority is concerned, it simply beggars belief that Labour, as the party most able to make large gains, is not putting up candidates in 14 of the 45 seats up for grabs! According to independent councillor Tony Clarke this is due to a collapse in the organisational capabilities of the Northampton North Labour Party since the defeat of Sally Keeble at the last General Election.
If Labour can't be arsed then why should the voters? The good thing is that Tony is predicting a hung council with the Independents/non-aligned holding the balance of power. Could be interesting. Read more here.
..............................................................................................
The other issue to appear on the ballot papers on May 5th is the voting reform referendum. I still can't make my mind up on this. Proportional Representation is probably a good idea, but the option we're given in place of First Past The Post, namely the Alternative Vote system, is to put it mildly, bollocks. I've given scenarios on this before (second article) but here's another showing that AV is just as if not more unfair than FPTP. A seat that say has Labour at 40%, LibDem 30% Tory 20% Others 10% at first showing - after the Others drop out you've got Labour 42% LibDem 31% Tory 27%. The Tory voters are almost certainly going to put the LibDems above Labour on the list, so the outcome here would be a LibDem MP who started out 10 points behind the Labour candidate. Is that any better than FPTP?
You can also see why the Tories are dead against it because in any three way marginal there is no scenario under AV where they would get in as Labour voters will almost certainly put LibDem higher up the list than the Tories, and LibDem voters, despite their party's current unholy alliance are still more likely to put Labour above the Tories. As for Labour it's a case of swings and roundabouts for them, so maybe aligning themselves with the LibDems on this issue is a sweetener for possible future partnerships?
Although I'm generally in favour of PR, AV is a very poor system so I think I may vote No, as in addition it could be the start of the end game for the coalition if the LDs lose this core issue.
Happy voting!
..............................................................................................
If Labour can't be arsed then why should the voters? The good thing is that Tony is predicting a hung council with the Independents/non-aligned holding the balance of power. Could be interesting. Read more here.
..............................................................................................
The other issue to appear on the ballot papers on May 5th is the voting reform referendum. I still can't make my mind up on this. Proportional Representation is probably a good idea, but the option we're given in place of First Past The Post, namely the Alternative Vote system, is to put it mildly, bollocks. I've given scenarios on this before (second article) but here's another showing that AV is just as if not more unfair than FPTP. A seat that say has Labour at 40%, LibDem 30% Tory 20% Others 10% at first showing - after the Others drop out you've got Labour 42% LibDem 31% Tory 27%. The Tory voters are almost certainly going to put the LibDems above Labour on the list, so the outcome here would be a LibDem MP who started out 10 points behind the Labour candidate. Is that any better than FPTP?
You can also see why the Tories are dead against it because in any three way marginal there is no scenario under AV where they would get in as Labour voters will almost certainly put LibDem higher up the list than the Tories, and LibDem voters, despite their party's current unholy alliance are still more likely to put Labour above the Tories. As for Labour it's a case of swings and roundabouts for them, so maybe aligning themselves with the LibDems on this issue is a sweetener for possible future partnerships?
Although I'm generally in favour of PR, AV is a very poor system so I think I may vote No, as in addition it could be the start of the end game for the coalition if the LDs lose this core issue.
Happy voting!
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A Cautionary Tale
Whenever I mow our lawn I am always perplexed by the strange Health & Safety warning signs staring up at me...
Perhaps it's trying to tell me something...
Warning, warning...
....Books! We'll have nun of your educashun round 'ere, mate, like....
...or you will be swallowed into a vortex and end up being one side of a 1970s Atari Pong game.....
....just to remind you, it's a simple game of man vs paddle....
Meanwhile, back on earth, always unplug the machine before you look at the book with the nice pictures, as you can't read, remember?
If indulging in a spot of tickling to coax out debris while the blade is moving does not do the trick, and although you've already lost your fingertips, resort to slicing your toes off with the blade....drastic, but it works.
Perhaps it's trying to tell me something...
Warning, warning...
....Books! We'll have nun of your educashun round 'ere, mate, like....
...or you will be swallowed into a vortex and end up being one side of a 1970s Atari Pong game.....
....just to remind you, it's a simple game of man vs paddle....
Meanwhile, back on earth, always unplug the machine before you look at the book with the nice pictures, as you can't read, remember?
If indulging in a spot of tickling to coax out debris while the blade is moving does not do the trick, and although you've already lost your fingertips, resort to slicing your toes off with the blade....drastic, but it works.
If it all gets too much, run around in circles, and try not to overbalance due to lack of toes, but remember to eventually stop, or you'll be sick.
...and whatever you do, do not under any circumstances wear a hair grip.
All perfectly reasonable advice I'd say!
4 Apr 2011
Let's talk utter bollocks...
See if you can guess what this is about........
"A lot of fruit flavours, maybe even cherry pie. I get a lot of ink, sort of ballpoint pen ink, and I've heard others talk about the phenolic, gluey, sticky notes"......
.....it's actually a quote from a bloke called Dave Kahle on the merits of a bottle of lager, brand unknown. Dave, who is described as "one of the world's first beer sommeliers" (arf arf) is clearly so far up himself he can see his own tonsils swinging (if that's what tonsils do) before his very eyes.
This little gem inspired me to search out that never ending fountain of bollicky verbiage, wine tasting. Here's a few of the more larger testicled and pseudo persuasion:
"Medium-weight and freakishly evil white. Throws out whole-wheat bread, hopeless frosted pop-tart and semi-weak sweatsock." Ah, wine like old socks...lovely...and the "..hopeless..pop tart.." must have been the one "cooked" by Bolton footballist Kevin Davies!
"Tightly wound but over-ripe Dessert wine. Starts with roasted meat, open-ended onion and semi-weak raisin." A raisin with a semi! God forbid!
"Powerful and aggressive Rhone. Starts with strawberry jam, french-oaked tangerine and hopeful chutney." Hmm, I've often thought that my glass of plonk was missing a spoonful of Branstons...
"Pineforest nose, early warm rain, summer fruits, then bongwater, latterly sweet oily slippage. Drink through 2004." Can't argue with a bit of oily slippage...
"...sufficiently young to make my molar fillings ache." When it grows up it'll knock yer falsies down yer throat...
"On the nose, this is very lactated at first. As it opens up, you can smell delicious sour cherries. On the palate, you can feel the youth of this wine...it's really rich, poised and complex but still tight." Make your nipples explode it will....Oooer, missus...
"Heavy-weight but longingly elegant Barbera. Forcefully bites you with currant, astounding blackberry and corpulent clay. Drink now through Tuesday." Barking mad....
"Well worth the suicidal hangover achieved by drinking it." One I understand, at last!
One of these was made up my moi, and one was concocted using Silly Tasting Notes Generator, the rest are supposedly genuine!
...........................................................................................
Facebook continues foisting shite on the world with it's "Which Is Best?" rubbish, where some cove (you know who you are) puts up some nonsense like Which is Best? Yorkshire or Lancashire? Like me, if you're gullible enough you vote for one or t'other (heheh). Lancashire, obviously.
One came up today asking which I considered to be the best James Grant solo album. Utterly impossible to answer, as I'd never heard of him. The choices I'm presented with are "Sawdust In My Veins", "My Thrawn Glory", and "I Shot The Albatross", titles so daft I thought the whole thing had been made up. I particularly liked "Sawdust In My Veins", Mr Grant's concept album about erecting a shed in his back garden, so that gets my vote!
Our quizmeister summed it up by asking us all to vote Yay or Nay on whether or not "This "Question" cobblers on Facebook is a pain in the 'arris, just clogs News Feeds with irrelevant and worthless muppetry and is a waste of Bandwidth." I must admit I ruined the irony by voting Yes - doh! But Mr Quiz then spoilt it too by answering the James Grant question. ;)
Having checked on Amazon I'm confounded to find that the Grant albums actually exist, and by clicking on some sound samples my curiosity is roused as his voice has a lot of the Scot Walker about it. Hmmmm...This was meant to be a rant on some useless Facebook app, but as it might mean I've discovered a singist whom I could actually like, I eat my words...chew, masticate (upmarket chew), chew again, spit, splutter.....
..........................................................................................
"A lot of fruit flavours, maybe even cherry pie. I get a lot of ink, sort of ballpoint pen ink, and I've heard others talk about the phenolic, gluey, sticky notes"......
.....it's actually a quote from a bloke called Dave Kahle on the merits of a bottle of lager, brand unknown. Dave, who is described as "one of the world's first beer sommeliers" (arf arf) is clearly so far up himself he can see his own tonsils swinging (if that's what tonsils do) before his very eyes.
This little gem inspired me to search out that never ending fountain of bollicky verbiage, wine tasting. Here's a few of the more larger testicled and pseudo persuasion:
"Medium-weight and freakishly evil white. Throws out whole-wheat bread, hopeless frosted pop-tart and semi-weak sweatsock." Ah, wine like old socks...lovely...and the "..hopeless..pop tart.." must have been the one "cooked" by Bolton footballist Kevin Davies!
"Tightly wound but over-ripe Dessert wine. Starts with roasted meat, open-ended onion and semi-weak raisin." A raisin with a semi! God forbid!
"Powerful and aggressive Rhone. Starts with strawberry jam, french-oaked tangerine and hopeful chutney." Hmm, I've often thought that my glass of plonk was missing a spoonful of Branstons...
"Pineforest nose, early warm rain, summer fruits, then bongwater, latterly sweet oily slippage. Drink through 2004." Can't argue with a bit of oily slippage...
"...sufficiently young to make my molar fillings ache." When it grows up it'll knock yer falsies down yer throat...
"On the nose, this is very lactated at first. As it opens up, you can smell delicious sour cherries. On the palate, you can feel the youth of this wine...it's really rich, poised and complex but still tight." Make your nipples explode it will....Oooer, missus...
"Heavy-weight but longingly elegant Barbera. Forcefully bites you with currant, astounding blackberry and corpulent clay. Drink now through Tuesday." Barking mad....
"Well worth the suicidal hangover achieved by drinking it." One I understand, at last!
One of these was made up my moi, and one was concocted using Silly Tasting Notes Generator, the rest are supposedly genuine!
...........................................................................................
Facebook continues foisting shite on the world with it's "Which Is Best?" rubbish, where some cove (you know who you are) puts up some nonsense like Which is Best? Yorkshire or Lancashire? Like me, if you're gullible enough you vote for one or t'other (heheh). Lancashire, obviously.
One came up today asking which I considered to be the best James Grant solo album. Utterly impossible to answer, as I'd never heard of him. The choices I'm presented with are "Sawdust In My Veins", "My Thrawn Glory", and "I Shot The Albatross", titles so daft I thought the whole thing had been made up. I particularly liked "Sawdust In My Veins", Mr Grant's concept album about erecting a shed in his back garden, so that gets my vote!
Our quizmeister summed it up by asking us all to vote Yay or Nay on whether or not "This "Question"
Having checked on Amazon I'm confounded to find that the Grant albums actually exist, and by clicking on some sound samples my curiosity is roused as his voice has a lot of the Scot Walker about it. Hmmmm...This was meant to be a rant on some useless Facebook app, but as it might mean I've discovered a singist whom I could actually like, I eat my words...chew, masticate (upmarket chew), chew again, spit, splutter.....
..........................................................................................
29 Mar 2011
Balls! And Wheels!
England manager Fabio Capello reckons "(he doesn't) have to speak about a lot of different things. Maximum 100 words" when talking tactics with the England squad so in his view he need not improve his sometimes impenetrable English. That's 92 more words than Kevin "Run around a lot lads, I feel lucky" Keegan ever used then, so Fabio is probably right in his assumption!
Capello bashing has become a large participant sport in recent times, and amongst various misdemeanours our Fabio is being slated for is failing to remind Wayne Rooney that he was already on one yellow card before his needless booking on Saturday, which now means Wazza will be suspended for the Switzerland qualifier. What, is Rooney incapable of remembering simple things like that for himself?......Ah, stupid question!
Exactly what is the point of a friendly international being played three days after a competitive game? Answers on a postcard to Lancaster Gate. Speaking of which, insanely over-priced £35 million pound lummox Andy Carroll will start the game. Capello has told Carroll he should drink less beer and that he needs to improve. Improve? Just a touch, say by about 1000% then he might be worth about half what he was bought for.
..............................................................................................
Predictably enough, the England cricket team lost (ahem...alright, they were utterly Murali'd) to Sri Lanka in their quarter final at the World Cup, thus ending a ludicrous five months on the road. What do the ECB expect when they, and let's be fair here, all other worldwide cricket authorities, insist on daft amounts of cricket being played? What in my opinion did for England, mounting injuries aside, was the seven game ODI series with the Aussies immediately after the Ashes where we played so well. Firstly the ODI series was at least two games too long and secondly it should have been played before the Ashes to maintain both spectator, and, more importantly, player motivation. When we arrived on the sub continent for the World Cup we were already jaded, and never really got going. The ECB should at the very least ensure that this length of overseas tour must never happen again.
..............................................................................................
Those of you who follow the well heeled circus that is F1 may be worried, like me, that with the increasing dominance of Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel that we are in for a period of Ferrari & Schumacher style boredom, sorry, dominance for the next few seasons. Sunday's race was so dominated by Vettel he won it without really trying, and Vettel has all the charisma of an oil sump, so he's well up there in the Schumacher snooze inducing stakes. All the signs are there, then.
Capello bashing has become a large participant sport in recent times, and amongst various misdemeanours our Fabio is being slated for is failing to remind Wayne Rooney that he was already on one yellow card before his needless booking on Saturday, which now means Wazza will be suspended for the Switzerland qualifier. What, is Rooney incapable of remembering simple things like that for himself?......Ah, stupid question!
Exactly what is the point of a friendly international being played three days after a competitive game? Answers on a postcard to Lancaster Gate. Speaking of which, insanely over-priced £35 million pound lummox Andy Carroll will start the game. Capello has told Carroll he should drink less beer and that he needs to improve. Improve? Just a touch, say by about 1000% then he might be worth about half what he was bought for.
..............................................................................................
Predictably enough, the England cricket team lost (ahem...alright, they were utterly Murali'd) to Sri Lanka in their quarter final at the World Cup, thus ending a ludicrous five months on the road. What do the ECB expect when they, and let's be fair here, all other worldwide cricket authorities, insist on daft amounts of cricket being played? What in my opinion did for England, mounting injuries aside, was the seven game ODI series with the Aussies immediately after the Ashes where we played so well. Firstly the ODI series was at least two games too long and secondly it should have been played before the Ashes to maintain both spectator, and, more importantly, player motivation. When we arrived on the sub continent for the World Cup we were already jaded, and never really got going. The ECB should at the very least ensure that this length of overseas tour must never happen again.
..............................................................................................
Those of you who follow the well heeled circus that is F1 may be worried, like me, that with the increasing dominance of Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel that we are in for a period of Ferrari & Schumacher style boredom, sorry, dominance for the next few seasons. Sunday's race was so dominated by Vettel he won it without really trying, and Vettel has all the charisma of an oil sump, so he's well up there in the Schumacher snooze inducing stakes. All the signs are there, then.
 |
| Warm Leatherette |
27 Mar 2011
Strike Like An Egyptian..
..was the wording on a banner at Trafalgar Square on Saturday's march against the cuts, made me laugh that did.
Firstly, despite the impression you may have got from the news the main march was entirely peaceful, as even the police have admitted. The lowlife scum who caused all the trouble were less than 0.05 of a percent of the nearly 500000 marchers, and all the trouble caused was away from the official route. I suppose it's inevitable that these wasters tag on to any large scale protest, mistakenly assuming it legitimises their thuggery. (I now reckon I'm wrong on this - See this for a more likely explanation)
Anyways, back to the theme. Boarding a Unison coach organised by the redoubtable Wilkie in Shoesville at 9am, me being probably the only non-union traveller, although I'm sure there were many more of the non-affiliated on the march itself who disagree with the speed and depth of the Tory (forget the Liberals, as they have disappeared without so much as whimper) cuts, we arrive at the coach park in the East End of London at around 10:45.
A while later, emerging above ground at Southwark tube station, on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge, we met up with Martin, a Londoner friend who it is always good to see on rare sojourns to the capital. Now six strong, Phill, his workmates Mandy & Cheryl, Martin and his mate, and yours truly joined the back of the march on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge. We found out later that the march was being added to at a rate of over a thousand an hour, and when you consider that Hyde Park was filling by 2pm, and the entire two and half mile route was still full of marchers, there must have been around 500000 in total. Not bad! In fact in the four and a half hours we were marching we only covered about a mile and half, having to tube it back to Docklands so as not to miss the coach home. Admittedly that included a detour to a pub for sustenance, food as well as beer, I hasten to add!
I'm a veteran of countless demos in my time, and this one had one of the most peaceful atmospheres of any I've been on. The marches that had the feeling they would kick off at any moment were the numerous Anti Nazi League confrontations with various groups of brain dead skinheads waving MY flag as if they had some prior claim, way back in 70s & 80s. Ironically some of the CND marches I've been on also had an air of menace, but yesterday's march was a stroll in the park (or street), not that it detracted from the seriousness of the cause.
Apart from some of the seriously deluded far left, I'm sure that the majority of the marchers do not deny that cuts have to be made, it's simply the speed and depth of Osborne's slash'n'burn that aggravates the man or woman in the street, and again, sometimes news bulletins give the impression that the marchers are against any form of belt tightening. Not so.
I must admit however that I'm glad we never made it as far as Hyde Park as having watched some of Labour leader Ed Millibrand's speech later on TV I despair of Labour's chances at the next election. The man has all the gravitas of a damp cloth. The kind of voter Labour need to win back at the next election are people like my next door neighbour, an ambivalent man where politics are concerned. Steve, who comes from a solid working class background, gives the impression that he would consider voting Labour again, but says that Ed Millibrand is his main stumbling block simply because of his perceived lack of clout. He also told me a tale of how the unions shoot themselves, and by association Labour, in the foot. A friend of his, along with a train load of late commuters coming home to Northampton from London were told at Milton Keynes that as the driver had worked his allotted hours and as the RMT was on a work to rule, the train would not be going any further, leaving most of the passengers stranded 30 miles from home. As if that wasn't bad enough, some passengers standing within earshot of a guard heard the driver tell his colleague on his walkie talkie that once the train was empty, he'd be driving it to the depot in, you've guessed it, Northampton. A mini riot ensued.
It's stupid logic-defying behaviour like this, rooted in bullet headed 1960s & 1970s politics, that wins the unions and Labour no friends at all, and rightly so. Mind you, this is the RMT we're talking about and their leader Bob Crow is a particularly frightening example of dinosaur throwback! Although the likes of Unison may have a reserve of public sympathy, it's only a thin veneer. If strikes happen, particularly over their generous pension rights, that support would evaporate quickly. If we are to get a Labour victory at the next election, the unions have to be very careful how they tread.
That rambled a bit, I know. Here's some pics of the march...
And a video....
Firstly, despite the impression you may have got from the news the main march was entirely peaceful, as even the police have admitted. The lowlife scum who caused all the trouble were less than 0.05 of a percent of the nearly 500000 marchers, and all the trouble caused was away from the official route. I suppose it's inevitable that these wasters tag on to any large scale protest, mistakenly assuming it legitimises their thuggery. (I now reckon I'm wrong on this - See this for a more likely explanation)
Anyways, back to the theme. Boarding a Unison coach organised by the redoubtable Wilkie in Shoesville at 9am, me being probably the only non-union traveller, although I'm sure there were many more of the non-affiliated on the march itself who disagree with the speed and depth of the Tory (forget the Liberals, as they have disappeared without so much as whimper) cuts, we arrive at the coach park in the East End of London at around 10:45.
A while later, emerging above ground at Southwark tube station, on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge, we met up with Martin, a Londoner friend who it is always good to see on rare sojourns to the capital. Now six strong, Phill, his workmates Mandy & Cheryl, Martin and his mate, and yours truly joined the back of the march on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge. We found out later that the march was being added to at a rate of over a thousand an hour, and when you consider that Hyde Park was filling by 2pm, and the entire two and half mile route was still full of marchers, there must have been around 500000 in total. Not bad! In fact in the four and a half hours we were marching we only covered about a mile and half, having to tube it back to Docklands so as not to miss the coach home. Admittedly that included a detour to a pub for sustenance, food as well as beer, I hasten to add!
I'm a veteran of countless demos in my time, and this one had one of the most peaceful atmospheres of any I've been on. The marches that had the feeling they would kick off at any moment were the numerous Anti Nazi League confrontations with various groups of brain dead skinheads waving MY flag as if they had some prior claim, way back in 70s & 80s. Ironically some of the CND marches I've been on also had an air of menace, but yesterday's march was a stroll in the park (or street), not that it detracted from the seriousness of the cause.
Apart from some of the seriously deluded far left, I'm sure that the majority of the marchers do not deny that cuts have to be made, it's simply the speed and depth of Osborne's slash'n'burn that aggravates the man or woman in the street, and again, sometimes news bulletins give the impression that the marchers are against any form of belt tightening. Not so.
I must admit however that I'm glad we never made it as far as Hyde Park as having watched some of Labour leader Ed Millibrand's speech later on TV I despair of Labour's chances at the next election. The man has all the gravitas of a damp cloth. The kind of voter Labour need to win back at the next election are people like my next door neighbour, an ambivalent man where politics are concerned. Steve, who comes from a solid working class background, gives the impression that he would consider voting Labour again, but says that Ed Millibrand is his main stumbling block simply because of his perceived lack of clout. He also told me a tale of how the unions shoot themselves, and by association Labour, in the foot. A friend of his, along with a train load of late commuters coming home to Northampton from London were told at Milton Keynes that as the driver had worked his allotted hours and as the RMT was on a work to rule, the train would not be going any further, leaving most of the passengers stranded 30 miles from home. As if that wasn't bad enough, some passengers standing within earshot of a guard heard the driver tell his colleague on his walkie talkie that once the train was empty, he'd be driving it to the depot in, you've guessed it, Northampton. A mini riot ensued.
It's stupid logic-defying behaviour like this, rooted in bullet headed 1960s & 1970s politics, that wins the unions and Labour no friends at all, and rightly so. Mind you, this is the RMT we're talking about and their leader Bob Crow is a particularly frightening example of dinosaur throwback! Although the likes of Unison may have a reserve of public sympathy, it's only a thin veneer. If strikes happen, particularly over their generous pension rights, that support would evaporate quickly. If we are to get a Labour victory at the next election, the unions have to be very careful how they tread.
That rambled a bit, I know. Here's some pics of the march...
 |
| He does! |
 |
| A load of balloons |
 |
| As far as the eye can see |
 |
| A big clock... |
And a video....
25 Mar 2011
Some telly
Anyone watching that Caroline Quentin: A Passage Through India prog on ITV? Probably the worst travelogue programme ever. It seems to be the trend now to send a celeb who really does not like travelling much at all to the hottest most crowded places on the planet. Channel 5 actually did this quite well with Paul Merton in China & Paul Merton in India, and although Merton, ironically enough Quentin's former hubby, was uncomfortable most of the time he's very much a people person so he managed to overcome his environmental discomfort to produce some decent entertainment.
Quentin on the other hand looks permanently slightly ill so perhaps they should re-title the programme India: A Passage Through Caroline Quentin. She also looks constantly overheated and flustered. Her two reactions to the sights sounds and smells of the sub-continent are either blubbing or hysterical laughter, and her self-conscious presentation style is somewhat forced to say the least. She makes the jolly hockey sticks patronising of Kate Humble in Spice Trail seem a welcome relief. Yep, I'm not that keen on it!
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Spoiler Alert - If any of you plan to but have yet to watch any of the new and final series of Waking The Dead, or The Killing then read no further....
We've arrived at the final series of the once wonderful Waking The Dead, and boy is this a tired old nag of a series. Once brilliant, if only for the utterly bonkers Peter Boyd, it is now a mere shadow of its former self. Four episodes and two stories into the final series sees Boyd with a new and equally ranked team member Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish, ex of the anti terrorist squad, who because of recent misdemeanours as yet not fully explained has found herself decamped to the dark basement that houses the Cold Case Unit. We know she's probably an alcoholic, and something happened in her previous posting that makes her baulk at entering suspected crime scenes. So far so formulaic. The other characters continue where they left off. I've always liked Dr Eve's leaps of imagination to come up with bizarre connections that Boyd dismisses with a raised eyebrow or an impatient demand for translation into English. I can see his point.
It used to be the case that the glaring plot holes were more than made up for by Boyd's various skirmishes with mental collapse, but so far, a few impatient asides apart, he has not really been the centre of attention which leads one to concentrate on the barely believable storylines. Not a good idea.
The first story featured a labyrinth plot featuring Munchausen's by proxy, missing bankers, a young boy who collects back issues of Readers Digest, and an old couple who might or might not be spooks. Wantonly barking, and actually it wasn't too bad.
The second story however was an absolute stinker that tried to play it straight and vacuumed any sense of believability out of the viewer like a thundering great black hole. Set around a care home it was as if the the writers sat down with a list of all the most horrible nasty things you could imagine would happen to kids in care and ticked off the clichés one by one. Oh, and let's add incest with the foster mother as icing on the cake. This kind of thing is so typical of many run of the mill Brit cop shows, and waaay below what you would expect Waking The Dead to come up with. Hopefully this final series will improve or it should be renamed Bury The Dead About Twenty Feet Down And Pour Concrete On The Top.
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Here in Burwood Towers we have become big fans of Scandinavian crime drama. This started with the Swedish original versions of Wallander, which were far better than the still good but predictably hammy UK version starring Kenneth Brannagh, and continues with the compelling Danish offering, The Killing.
This Saturday sees the tenth and final two hour helping of intricate understated and completely cliché free storytelling that the Scandinavians seem to do so well, set to a backdrop of dimly lit offices, and lots of wintery gloom in the outdoor scenes. The whole twenty hours of the show is focussed on solving the killing of one late teen girl, and interspersed with the machinations of Danish town hall politics. Particularly heart tugging is how the victim's parents cope with the loss of their daughter and how their relationship breaks, rebuilds, and breaks again under the unrelenting strain. One can only hope for a happy ending for these two.
Superbly well written, it is hard to imagine a UK TV exec taking the risk to do something similar as it assumes the audience have an attention span of greater than half an hour, and also assumes them to be intelligent enough to appreciate the intricacies of a very slowly evolving plot. Utterly marvellous.
The Danish crew have just finished filming a third series and the second series starts on BBC4 (probably the best UK channel in my opinion) later this year. If you missed this first series, do yourself a favour and catch the repeats if they come up, but definitely do not miss the second series.
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Quentin on the other hand looks permanently slightly ill so perhaps they should re-title the programme India: A Passage Through Caroline Quentin. She also looks constantly overheated and flustered. Her two reactions to the sights sounds and smells of the sub-continent are either blubbing or hysterical laughter, and her self-conscious presentation style is somewhat forced to say the least. She makes the jolly hockey sticks patronising of Kate Humble in Spice Trail seem a welcome relief. Yep, I'm not that keen on it!
.............................................................................................
Spoiler Alert - If any of you plan to but have yet to watch any of the new and final series of Waking The Dead, or The Killing then read no further....
We've arrived at the final series of the once wonderful Waking The Dead, and boy is this a tired old nag of a series. Once brilliant, if only for the utterly bonkers Peter Boyd, it is now a mere shadow of its former self. Four episodes and two stories into the final series sees Boyd with a new and equally ranked team member Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish, ex of the anti terrorist squad, who because of recent misdemeanours as yet not fully explained has found herself decamped to the dark basement that houses the Cold Case Unit. We know she's probably an alcoholic, and something happened in her previous posting that makes her baulk at entering suspected crime scenes. So far so formulaic. The other characters continue where they left off. I've always liked Dr Eve's leaps of imagination to come up with bizarre connections that Boyd dismisses with a raised eyebrow or an impatient demand for translation into English. I can see his point.
It used to be the case that the glaring plot holes were more than made up for by Boyd's various skirmishes with mental collapse, but so far, a few impatient asides apart, he has not really been the centre of attention which leads one to concentrate on the barely believable storylines. Not a good idea.
The first story featured a labyrinth plot featuring Munchausen's by proxy, missing bankers, a young boy who collects back issues of Readers Digest, and an old couple who might or might not be spooks. Wantonly barking, and actually it wasn't too bad.
The second story however was an absolute stinker that tried to play it straight and vacuumed any sense of believability out of the viewer like a thundering great black hole. Set around a care home it was as if the the writers sat down with a list of all the most horrible nasty things you could imagine would happen to kids in care and ticked off the clichés one by one. Oh, and let's add incest with the foster mother as icing on the cake. This kind of thing is so typical of many run of the mill Brit cop shows, and waaay below what you would expect Waking The Dead to come up with. Hopefully this final series will improve or it should be renamed Bury The Dead About Twenty Feet Down And Pour Concrete On The Top.
.............................................................................................
Here in Burwood Towers we have become big fans of Scandinavian crime drama. This started with the Swedish original versions of Wallander, which were far better than the still good but predictably hammy UK version starring Kenneth Brannagh, and continues with the compelling Danish offering, The Killing.
This Saturday sees the tenth and final two hour helping of intricate understated and completely cliché free storytelling that the Scandinavians seem to do so well, set to a backdrop of dimly lit offices, and lots of wintery gloom in the outdoor scenes. The whole twenty hours of the show is focussed on solving the killing of one late teen girl, and interspersed with the machinations of Danish town hall politics. Particularly heart tugging is how the victim's parents cope with the loss of their daughter and how their relationship breaks, rebuilds, and breaks again under the unrelenting strain. One can only hope for a happy ending for these two.
Superbly well written, it is hard to imagine a UK TV exec taking the risk to do something similar as it assumes the audience have an attention span of greater than half an hour, and also assumes them to be intelligent enough to appreciate the intricacies of a very slowly evolving plot. Utterly marvellous.
The Danish crew have just finished filming a third series and the second series starts on BBC4 (probably the best UK channel in my opinion) later this year. If you missed this first series, do yourself a favour and catch the repeats if they come up, but definitely do not miss the second series.
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