I blame the Americans,
When I ring a call centre I want service, yes that goes without saying, I want service.
But I don't want the guy in the call centre to act like he's my butler, I don't want to feel superior to him, I just want the info then I'll go, he doesn't have to kiss my arse as well.
Just rang Nat West Bank because I've forgotten the PIN number on one of my new cards, well actually I haven't forgotten it as such because I never knew it in the first place, I just lost the letter that they sent advising me what the number was/is, its in the house somewhere but I can't be arsed looking for it, far easier to get Nat West to waste resources and post me another letter.
So I ring the call centre and ask the guy on the phone to send me another PIN number, he's happy to get an easy question and tells me he'll send it out today, all well.
Then he apologises because it might get delayed with the New Years Day bank holiday, I tell him I don't mind I'm not in any rush for it, so he apologises again and says it might take up to four days, again I say its not a problem.
So he thanks me for not making it a problem and then asks me if theres anything else I want to complain about - if it was me I'd want to get rid of customers as quickly as possible when they are complaining, but this guy wants someone to talk to, like I'm his local branch of the samaritans or something.
I tell him no, thats all, just the PIN number please, he thanks me for calling him, I say its no problem really, he wishes me a nice weekend, I say thank you, he then wishes me a happy new year, I say thank you and he still won't put the phone down, he says goodbye and I disconnect quickly before he wants a relationship.
Just send the fuckin PIN number, you're not my best mate.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The Iceman Cometh
Today was my first real day of work since finishing for christmas on Fri 23rd.
Back in that week before xmas I'd booked an appointment to see a potential client in Hull, today.
The alarm clock awoke me at 7.30am and I wished I'd made the appointment for next week.
Going outside to the cars I found Suzannes Ford Focus at the end of the drive, blocking me in, both cars were clad in a thick coating of hard ice, mine had two days snow covering it too, the ice on both cars wouldn't shift with a scraper.
Suzannes small but perfectly formed Ford is a doddle to defrost, turn it on, switch on the front and rear windscreen heaters and wait for three minutes, piece of piss it is, the ice just fell off.
My big Nissan was another matter, why don't other manufacturers put heating elements in the front windscreen ?
Four large pans of boiling hot water later and I was getting down through the ice to what I vaguely recognised as my car, realising at the same time that I hadn't actually driven the thing since I came home from work on the 23rd and skipped merrily down the driveway at the start of my xmas holiday.
The diesel started with just a moments hesitation but it took another five minutes for the heat to start coming through the blowers so that the inside of the windscreen could de-ice, all the time clouds of diesel fumes hanging still in the frozen air on the driveway ready to poison the postman when he would eventually get himself out of the warm sorting office and do what we pay him to do, deliver the mail at some random timing during each day.
I know someone who got himself a job as a postman during the summer, he packed the job in after three days citing that the job was "not condusive to his future health, welfare and well being" and that "he couldn't see his role in the company developing in line with his expectations" all of which was bullshit to say that he couldn't be arsed walking the streets delivering mail every day, still he gave us a laugh when he told us that they made him go out finish his round on the day he handed his notice in, I do hope that no-one had any important mail to be delivered that day.
Eventually the Nissan was ready for the 70 mile trip to Hull, it started well enough, the roads are still quiet in the mid xmas and new year holiday week, but the outside temperature gauge was reading -5C when I left home and as it was the first really cold day of the year I had of course forgotten that cold dry days with the winter sun shining straight in your eyes, coupled with frozen windscreen washer jets equals completely opaque windscreen within a few miles.
I drove the M62 motorway for an hour peering through an occasional crack of clear glass that would appear now and again, or giving praise to trucks on the inside lanes throwing up a few splashes of water from the bone dry whitened road surface, why oh why don't vehicle manufacturers invent heated washer jets ?
Despite the freezing fog on a 30 mile stretch of the motorway where the temperature dropped to -7C I arrived in Hull with five minutes to spare, parked the car, got out, it was covered in ice again, looked like I'd just chiseled it out of an iceberg, every bit of moisture that I'd passed through had clung to the car body and frozen where it landed, it looked very artistic actually, heated washer jets would have helped a lot though, as would a heated car body, if the whole car could be heated on days like these then icing and smeary windscreens would be a thing of the past.
I'm going to start work on a prototype straight away.
Back in that week before xmas I'd booked an appointment to see a potential client in Hull, today.
The alarm clock awoke me at 7.30am and I wished I'd made the appointment for next week.
Going outside to the cars I found Suzannes Ford Focus at the end of the drive, blocking me in, both cars were clad in a thick coating of hard ice, mine had two days snow covering it too, the ice on both cars wouldn't shift with a scraper.
Suzannes small but perfectly formed Ford is a doddle to defrost, turn it on, switch on the front and rear windscreen heaters and wait for three minutes, piece of piss it is, the ice just fell off.
My big Nissan was another matter, why don't other manufacturers put heating elements in the front windscreen ?
Four large pans of boiling hot water later and I was getting down through the ice to what I vaguely recognised as my car, realising at the same time that I hadn't actually driven the thing since I came home from work on the 23rd and skipped merrily down the driveway at the start of my xmas holiday.
The diesel started with just a moments hesitation but it took another five minutes for the heat to start coming through the blowers so that the inside of the windscreen could de-ice, all the time clouds of diesel fumes hanging still in the frozen air on the driveway ready to poison the postman when he would eventually get himself out of the warm sorting office and do what we pay him to do, deliver the mail at some random timing during each day.
I know someone who got himself a job as a postman during the summer, he packed the job in after three days citing that the job was "not condusive to his future health, welfare and well being" and that "he couldn't see his role in the company developing in line with his expectations" all of which was bullshit to say that he couldn't be arsed walking the streets delivering mail every day, still he gave us a laugh when he told us that they made him go out finish his round on the day he handed his notice in, I do hope that no-one had any important mail to be delivered that day.
Eventually the Nissan was ready for the 70 mile trip to Hull, it started well enough, the roads are still quiet in the mid xmas and new year holiday week, but the outside temperature gauge was reading -5C when I left home and as it was the first really cold day of the year I had of course forgotten that cold dry days with the winter sun shining straight in your eyes, coupled with frozen windscreen washer jets equals completely opaque windscreen within a few miles.
I drove the M62 motorway for an hour peering through an occasional crack of clear glass that would appear now and again, or giving praise to trucks on the inside lanes throwing up a few splashes of water from the bone dry whitened road surface, why oh why don't vehicle manufacturers invent heated washer jets ?
Despite the freezing fog on a 30 mile stretch of the motorway where the temperature dropped to -7C I arrived in Hull with five minutes to spare, parked the car, got out, it was covered in ice again, looked like I'd just chiseled it out of an iceberg, every bit of moisture that I'd passed through had clung to the car body and frozen where it landed, it looked very artistic actually, heated washer jets would have helped a lot though, as would a heated car body, if the whole car could be heated on days like these then icing and smeary windscreens would be a thing of the past.
I'm going to start work on a prototype straight away.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Nobody told me there'd be days like this
Sometimes you wonder why you bother with plans.
Yesterday afternoon for instance, I'd gone to Carphone Warehouse to buy another mobile phone like the fancy pink one i'd bought Suzanne the day before, this time Jodie wanted one, but in black, handed over the cash (not bloody cheap either, two in two days and they already had handsets that I'd got on the business contract, but those ones weren't pink or shiny black) - took home Jodies handset, plugged it in and it wouldn't start up.
Messed with it for a while then decided to take it back to Carphone Warehouse, 20 minutes later and the young guy is telling me to charge it overnight and then try it again, he then went into a non-technical explanation of how mobile phone batteries work, something about particles all stacking up nicely and the phone talking to them properly, I think he was drunk, or maybe it was me that was drunk...
This morning, the handset is still knackered, so back to Carphone Warehouse where to their credit they finally changed the handset - 11am on my day off and I'd got back to where I should have been the day before with one daughter happy on her new mobile phone.
Then they decided to go to the cinema to see "Chronicles of Narnia".
The large multiplex in Kirkstall is about 20 mins drive away on a quiet day, today was a snow day and so fekkwit drivers everywhere were out trying to drive as slow as they could in the extremely light dusting of snow that we'd had, it was actually a very nice snow day, not enough snow on the ground to even measure to any sort of depth, just one snow flake depth really, but just enough to make everything white and it was still falling out of the sky so it looked nice and pretty, but the new stuff coming down wasn't settling, it was snow like the false snow you see on a TV production set when they film in the middle of July.
So they were ready to go at 1.30pm for the film that was showing at 1.45pm, we'd obviously be late, but I'd checked with Loz, a hobbit-like person of my aquaintance who works at the cinema and who had assured me that it was "dead quiet this week, no queues or nothing".
We got there at 1.50pm to find about four hundred people in the queue in front of us and while I cursed Loz in my head I explained to the females of my family that it was pointless queueing as we were already late, they explained back that there was another showing on another screen at 2.45pm so we'd go for something to eat now instead of going later like we'd planned - I didn't want to eat now, I wanted to eat after the film so we had this to-and-fro discussion out in the cold car park until of course they won, they always do, I don't know why I argue with them because they always win, but its traditional.
Walked across the car park to Pizza Hut where we were welcomed with a queue of approx eight hundred people all waiting for a table, there was plenty of tables to be had but only one young and confused waitress to position people at said tables and then serve them.
I don't do queues and walked away shaking my head, Suzanne and Jodie followed, berating me as usual, all to no avail. We sat in the car for a while considering the options and arrived at plan B, a small local cinema, the Cottage Road Cinema, closer to where we lived but less popular as its 80 years old and looks like its 80 years old instead of being big and new and multi-screened and over-populated like the one we were sat outside.
Drove to the Cottage Road to find that it too was showing Narnia on its one screen also at 2.45pm and then quickly realised why the Cottage Road is not so popular as the multiscreen - it has no parking facilities. Couldn't find any on street parking within eight miles of the Cottage Road cinema and all things being equal I said I'd prefer the big comfy seats in the multiplex.
We drove back to the multiplex.
Parked up in the massive free car park and joined a shorter queue this time in good time for the 2.45pm screening.
It was then that I noticed the FULL sign against the Narnia 2.45pm showing.
That was good enough for me, I was totally pissed off by now and not saying anything just walked out of the cinema and back to the car but on the way back home the constant nagging from the females convinced me to return once again to the Cottage Road Cinema - I stopped the car at the entrance and as they got out told them to ring me when it finished - fait acomplis, they stood there on the pavement and watched as I sped away into the distance.
They said afterwards that the film was very good, better than Kong even, I will have to reserve my judgement until it appears on pay TV - and I found out later on this afternoon that Loz the Hobbit doesn't work at that multiplex, but at a different one in the centre of Leeds, which saves me having to kick his arse for him.
Yesterday afternoon for instance, I'd gone to Carphone Warehouse to buy another mobile phone like the fancy pink one i'd bought Suzanne the day before, this time Jodie wanted one, but in black, handed over the cash (not bloody cheap either, two in two days and they already had handsets that I'd got on the business contract, but those ones weren't pink or shiny black) - took home Jodies handset, plugged it in and it wouldn't start up.
Messed with it for a while then decided to take it back to Carphone Warehouse, 20 minutes later and the young guy is telling me to charge it overnight and then try it again, he then went into a non-technical explanation of how mobile phone batteries work, something about particles all stacking up nicely and the phone talking to them properly, I think he was drunk, or maybe it was me that was drunk...
This morning, the handset is still knackered, so back to Carphone Warehouse where to their credit they finally changed the handset - 11am on my day off and I'd got back to where I should have been the day before with one daughter happy on her new mobile phone.
Then they decided to go to the cinema to see "Chronicles of Narnia".
The large multiplex in Kirkstall is about 20 mins drive away on a quiet day, today was a snow day and so fekkwit drivers everywhere were out trying to drive as slow as they could in the extremely light dusting of snow that we'd had, it was actually a very nice snow day, not enough snow on the ground to even measure to any sort of depth, just one snow flake depth really, but just enough to make everything white and it was still falling out of the sky so it looked nice and pretty, but the new stuff coming down wasn't settling, it was snow like the false snow you see on a TV production set when they film in the middle of July.
So they were ready to go at 1.30pm for the film that was showing at 1.45pm, we'd obviously be late, but I'd checked with Loz, a hobbit-like person of my aquaintance who works at the cinema and who had assured me that it was "dead quiet this week, no queues or nothing".
We got there at 1.50pm to find about four hundred people in the queue in front of us and while I cursed Loz in my head I explained to the females of my family that it was pointless queueing as we were already late, they explained back that there was another showing on another screen at 2.45pm so we'd go for something to eat now instead of going later like we'd planned - I didn't want to eat now, I wanted to eat after the film so we had this to-and-fro discussion out in the cold car park until of course they won, they always do, I don't know why I argue with them because they always win, but its traditional.
Walked across the car park to Pizza Hut where we were welcomed with a queue of approx eight hundred people all waiting for a table, there was plenty of tables to be had but only one young and confused waitress to position people at said tables and then serve them.
I don't do queues and walked away shaking my head, Suzanne and Jodie followed, berating me as usual, all to no avail. We sat in the car for a while considering the options and arrived at plan B, a small local cinema, the Cottage Road Cinema, closer to where we lived but less popular as its 80 years old and looks like its 80 years old instead of being big and new and multi-screened and over-populated like the one we were sat outside.
Drove to the Cottage Road to find that it too was showing Narnia on its one screen also at 2.45pm and then quickly realised why the Cottage Road is not so popular as the multiscreen - it has no parking facilities. Couldn't find any on street parking within eight miles of the Cottage Road cinema and all things being equal I said I'd prefer the big comfy seats in the multiplex.
We drove back to the multiplex.
Parked up in the massive free car park and joined a shorter queue this time in good time for the 2.45pm screening.
It was then that I noticed the FULL sign against the Narnia 2.45pm showing.
That was good enough for me, I was totally pissed off by now and not saying anything just walked out of the cinema and back to the car but on the way back home the constant nagging from the females convinced me to return once again to the Cottage Road Cinema - I stopped the car at the entrance and as they got out told them to ring me when it finished - fait acomplis, they stood there on the pavement and watched as I sped away into the distance.
They said afterwards that the film was very good, better than Kong even, I will have to reserve my judgement until it appears on pay TV - and I found out later on this afternoon that Loz the Hobbit doesn't work at that multiplex, but at a different one in the centre of Leeds, which saves me having to kick his arse for him.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Snow is the new Hitler...
This small island of 60 million (or so) souls has a reputation for not taking shit from anyone, we have not been invaded by a foreign army since 1066 (the French did for us then) and we always enjoy telling the Europeans how we twice saved them from tyrany in the last century (we omit to mention the tardy influence of the USA in both of those spats), but what Hitler's blitzkreig could not achieve in 1940 can always be managed every winter by a simple and common weather condition - snow.
We don't get proper snow in the UK anymore, not what my dad would call snow anyway, the way he talks of the winters in his youth makes me imagine polar bears roaming the streets of Leeds for months on end, we have four or five months of temperatures in the 0 to 10 degree (centigrade) range, somedays wet somedays not, often our winters are described as "dry" by meteorologists and you know that if they are calling the winter "dry" in March then we are in for water shortages in the summer, the UK is turning tropical and on average we only get a few days each winter where the weather drops below freezing.
Today is one of those days. Yesterday was a nice balmy day, cool but not cold, I didn't bother with a coat when I went to the rugby match yesterday. Today its cold, cold enough to snow, and we've had what we laughingly describe as snow today.
Those of you in Canada or Scandinavia would not have even noticed that it snowed here today, but it did. By 10am there was definitely some white powder in the garden, it had melted again by noon, but a few flakes fell later on in the day and the car now (8pm) has a coating of ice on the windscreen - today is our winter.
The forecast for this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning is for snow, lots of it, all down the eastern coast of England, its predicted that chaos will ensue and people are being urged not to go out of doors tonight if at all possible, and certainly to curtail any long distance travel plans.
Which sort of buggered up our long distance travel plans today. As I mentioned yesterday we were supposed to be making the 100 mile trip up to Newcastle today to see the wifes family, and even though we rang her sister this morning, and even though she said there was no snow there yet, we decided to cancel our trip becaus eof the threat of heavy snow.
Heavy snow, according to the Met Office is anything more than 2cm - about three quarters of an inch to thos enon-metric people - three quarters of an inch of snow totally screws this country up and if we get three quarters of an inch of snow tonight then the motorways will certainly be blocked.
I can hear Canadians and Scandinavians pissing themselves laughing now, but here in this country we do not understand snow, here in this country our road services are not prepared for snow, they should be because we've know about it for 24 hours now, but no snow ploughs or salt trucks will be visible on our roads until the snow melts. So tonight and tomorrow the roads and motorway users will sink to the level of the dumbest driver, which is the reason why I was so happy to cancel our trip up north.
You see you can drive as careful as you like, you can take all precautions, we don't use snow chains in this country (ask for snow chains in a main dealers and they'll look at you as if you've just grown another head), but you can do everything right except fit snow chains, and you'll still get held up for five hours on a motorway because some smartarse BMW driver thought his overpriced German Ford could still do 80mph on a quarter inch of snow, even when it started going sideways.
I needed to be back in Leeds tomorrow afternoon and the truth is that if the snow does fall tonight then I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to get back tomorrow afternoon - bloody sad indictment that isn't it ? Hitler couldn't stop this island in 1940 and he threw everything at us then, but if he'd had a quarter inch of snow at his disposal then a handfull of troops from his eastern front could have walked into Parliament Square completely unopposed and found Churchill still snowed in in Downing Street.
PS - just looked out of the back door - its snowing, you Canadians and Scandinavians wouldn't notice it, but it is.
We don't get proper snow in the UK anymore, not what my dad would call snow anyway, the way he talks of the winters in his youth makes me imagine polar bears roaming the streets of Leeds for months on end, we have four or five months of temperatures in the 0 to 10 degree (centigrade) range, somedays wet somedays not, often our winters are described as "dry" by meteorologists and you know that if they are calling the winter "dry" in March then we are in for water shortages in the summer, the UK is turning tropical and on average we only get a few days each winter where the weather drops below freezing.
Today is one of those days. Yesterday was a nice balmy day, cool but not cold, I didn't bother with a coat when I went to the rugby match yesterday. Today its cold, cold enough to snow, and we've had what we laughingly describe as snow today.
Those of you in Canada or Scandinavia would not have even noticed that it snowed here today, but it did. By 10am there was definitely some white powder in the garden, it had melted again by noon, but a few flakes fell later on in the day and the car now (8pm) has a coating of ice on the windscreen - today is our winter.
The forecast for this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning is for snow, lots of it, all down the eastern coast of England, its predicted that chaos will ensue and people are being urged not to go out of doors tonight if at all possible, and certainly to curtail any long distance travel plans.
Which sort of buggered up our long distance travel plans today. As I mentioned yesterday we were supposed to be making the 100 mile trip up to Newcastle today to see the wifes family, and even though we rang her sister this morning, and even though she said there was no snow there yet, we decided to cancel our trip becaus eof the threat of heavy snow.
Heavy snow, according to the Met Office is anything more than 2cm - about three quarters of an inch to thos enon-metric people - three quarters of an inch of snow totally screws this country up and if we get three quarters of an inch of snow tonight then the motorways will certainly be blocked.
I can hear Canadians and Scandinavians pissing themselves laughing now, but here in this country we do not understand snow, here in this country our road services are not prepared for snow, they should be because we've know about it for 24 hours now, but no snow ploughs or salt trucks will be visible on our roads until the snow melts. So tonight and tomorrow the roads and motorway users will sink to the level of the dumbest driver, which is the reason why I was so happy to cancel our trip up north.
You see you can drive as careful as you like, you can take all precautions, we don't use snow chains in this country (ask for snow chains in a main dealers and they'll look at you as if you've just grown another head), but you can do everything right except fit snow chains, and you'll still get held up for five hours on a motorway because some smartarse BMW driver thought his overpriced German Ford could still do 80mph on a quarter inch of snow, even when it started going sideways.
I needed to be back in Leeds tomorrow afternoon and the truth is that if the snow does fall tonight then I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to get back tomorrow afternoon - bloody sad indictment that isn't it ? Hitler couldn't stop this island in 1940 and he threw everything at us then, but if he'd had a quarter inch of snow at his disposal then a handfull of troops from his eastern front could have walked into Parliament Square completely unopposed and found Churchill still snowed in in Downing Street.
PS - just looked out of the back door - its snowing, you Canadians and Scandinavians wouldn't notice it, but it is.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Another christmas done...
Its 9pm on Boxing Day - does anywhere else in the world have the tradition of "Boxing Day", supposedly created as a holiday on the day after Christmas Day when the servants "in service" at gentlemens houses were given their Christmas presents and part if not all of the day off - no I suppose only the English class system could invent a public holiday for servants.
We don't all have servants now by the way, in fact I don't know any of my friends who have servants, nor do we live in houses with servants quarters in the basement, talk with a plum in our mouths or ride horses out in the coutryside looking for foxes to kill.
Well ok, some english people still live like that and some still hunt foxes even though its been illegal to do so for the past nine months, the hunts now simply follow scents that have been previously laid by the hunt servants, the idea being that the hunting fraternity get to ride their horses across the countryside in the same manner as they have done for the past 700 or so years, the hunt horses (they are specially bred for the hunt) get their exercise and so, importantly do the hunt dogs who are kept just for the purpose of hunting foxes, or since the ban, the dragged scent of a fox (hence the term "drag hunt").
Of course if the dragged scent just happens to dragged through a copse where foxes are known to live (and the hunt masters have always encouraged foxes to live in certain copses), and a fox breaks cover at the same time as the hounds go past, then the hounds by instinct are going to chase and kill the fox instead - everyone is happy at this outcome, the huntsmen get a kill and the police can put it down to an accidental straying of the pack, its another law that is ungovernable.
Anyway, why mention this ?
Its because traditionally Boxing Day was and is the biggest day in the year for fox hunting and hundreds if not thousands of, lets be honest, rather well to do people will have sent down to the stables for the horses to be brought up to the house, dressed in their white breeches and red jackets and rode off across their own countryside following a drag scent in the hope that an errant fox might just be having a bad day and get in their way.
Its been a quiet christmas in the house, the two girls are now of an age where christmas has lost its magic and its just another excuse for several shopping expeditions spread over the whole of October, November and December, Christmas Morning is spent opening presents that we all knew we were getting anyway and so there are none of the shrieks of delight and hopping around on one foot in ecstacy just because they got a particular Barbie or the particular toy that is in vogue this year.
The best reaction to a present that we saw, and captured on video, was when Amanda was 10 years old and we bought her a saxophone, she was already a talented clarinet player and had talked of taking up the sax, but the arrival of the instrument on Christmas day was totally unexpected and I can watch the video of her reaction over and over again, and probably will.
Unfortunately she plays neither instrument any more, like horse riding those interests were pushed aside as she got older and boyfriends and fashion took over, we have to be flexible as parents and cannot enforce our wishes onto our children, we have to give them some freedom and hope that maybe they'll come back to the bits we like in later years, maybe she'll take up the sax again sometime soon.
I cooked dinner yesterday as I always do at Christmas, I made far too much again, we all ate far too much again, and the fridge still has far too much food in it today, not to worry though, we are travelling up to Newcastle tomorrow to visit the wifes mother, brothers and sisters and as always will take a food and beer parcel with us, its not that they are short of food and beer but its a good way to get rid of the food and beer that we cannot get rid of oursleves, it would only go in the bin if we didn't give it to relations.
Today was also the traditional Boxing Day rugby match at Headingley, home of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team and in true traditional style I met up with some friends in a bar outside of the ground before the game for a pint. The bar was, as always, crowded with supporters but as kickoff time approached they started to make their way into the ground and the bar emptied slightly. With five minutes to we had a vital decision to make, do we stay for another pint or do we go into the ground?
Let me say at this point that the Boxing Day fixture is actually out of season and as such is a "friendly" match with no real meaning other than to extract 15000x£15 admission charges - we chose to have another pint, and then a short while later another pint.
We decided to go into the ground at half time as the gates are usually opened just after half time for free entry, but as it happened we had another pint after that as well and before we knew what was happening everyone was coming back into the bar as the game had finished - so we completely missed the game for the sake of beer, but what better way to spend a morning than with six good friends and beer ?
And we all saved £15 each, apart from one poor soul who had pre-purchased his ticket but still chose to stay int he bar with us - good choice sir.
We don't all have servants now by the way, in fact I don't know any of my friends who have servants, nor do we live in houses with servants quarters in the basement, talk with a plum in our mouths or ride horses out in the coutryside looking for foxes to kill.
Well ok, some english people still live like that and some still hunt foxes even though its been illegal to do so for the past nine months, the hunts now simply follow scents that have been previously laid by the hunt servants, the idea being that the hunting fraternity get to ride their horses across the countryside in the same manner as they have done for the past 700 or so years, the hunt horses (they are specially bred for the hunt) get their exercise and so, importantly do the hunt dogs who are kept just for the purpose of hunting foxes, or since the ban, the dragged scent of a fox (hence the term "drag hunt").
Of course if the dragged scent just happens to dragged through a copse where foxes are known to live (and the hunt masters have always encouraged foxes to live in certain copses), and a fox breaks cover at the same time as the hounds go past, then the hounds by instinct are going to chase and kill the fox instead - everyone is happy at this outcome, the huntsmen get a kill and the police can put it down to an accidental straying of the pack, its another law that is ungovernable.
Anyway, why mention this ?
Its because traditionally Boxing Day was and is the biggest day in the year for fox hunting and hundreds if not thousands of, lets be honest, rather well to do people will have sent down to the stables for the horses to be brought up to the house, dressed in their white breeches and red jackets and rode off across their own countryside following a drag scent in the hope that an errant fox might just be having a bad day and get in their way.
Its been a quiet christmas in the house, the two girls are now of an age where christmas has lost its magic and its just another excuse for several shopping expeditions spread over the whole of October, November and December, Christmas Morning is spent opening presents that we all knew we were getting anyway and so there are none of the shrieks of delight and hopping around on one foot in ecstacy just because they got a particular Barbie or the particular toy that is in vogue this year.
The best reaction to a present that we saw, and captured on video, was when Amanda was 10 years old and we bought her a saxophone, she was already a talented clarinet player and had talked of taking up the sax, but the arrival of the instrument on Christmas day was totally unexpected and I can watch the video of her reaction over and over again, and probably will.
Unfortunately she plays neither instrument any more, like horse riding those interests were pushed aside as she got older and boyfriends and fashion took over, we have to be flexible as parents and cannot enforce our wishes onto our children, we have to give them some freedom and hope that maybe they'll come back to the bits we like in later years, maybe she'll take up the sax again sometime soon.
I cooked dinner yesterday as I always do at Christmas, I made far too much again, we all ate far too much again, and the fridge still has far too much food in it today, not to worry though, we are travelling up to Newcastle tomorrow to visit the wifes mother, brothers and sisters and as always will take a food and beer parcel with us, its not that they are short of food and beer but its a good way to get rid of the food and beer that we cannot get rid of oursleves, it would only go in the bin if we didn't give it to relations.
Today was also the traditional Boxing Day rugby match at Headingley, home of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team and in true traditional style I met up with some friends in a bar outside of the ground before the game for a pint. The bar was, as always, crowded with supporters but as kickoff time approached they started to make their way into the ground and the bar emptied slightly. With five minutes to we had a vital decision to make, do we stay for another pint or do we go into the ground?
Let me say at this point that the Boxing Day fixture is actually out of season and as such is a "friendly" match with no real meaning other than to extract 15000x£15 admission charges - we chose to have another pint, and then a short while later another pint.
We decided to go into the ground at half time as the gates are usually opened just after half time for free entry, but as it happened we had another pint after that as well and before we knew what was happening everyone was coming back into the bar as the game had finished - so we completely missed the game for the sake of beer, but what better way to spend a morning than with six good friends and beer ?
And we all saved £15 each, apart from one poor soul who had pre-purchased his ticket but still chose to stay int he bar with us - good choice sir.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Dads Taxi...
So its christmas eve, its 10pm, and I'm sober and trying to get interested in "Bridget Jones' Diary" again.
I'm on Dads taxi duty again tonight so no alcohol for me, have just been into Leeds to pick up my 17 year old daughter and her boyfriend from the cinema where they have sat through three hours of "King Kong", they are now back at our house and i'm waiting for them to decide that its time for him to go home so that I can get the car out again.
This is what happens when you're a father of daughters.
You start of in the maternity hospital proud as punch at becoming the father of a baby girl, you have big plans for you both, you'll be her protector for the rest of her life, no boy will ever be good enough for your little girl, anything she wants you'll bust a gut to get for her, your life now exists to provide only for her and to be the dad that she will look up to and say to her friends "thats my dad" - and when another one comes along three years later, you'll have the same hopes and expectations.
17 years later you're sat in the kitchen waiting for her command, and like all weekends for the last two years and for the rest of your life, you're thinking "Stick a broom up my arse and I'll sweep the floor on the way out as well".
It also explains why I've currently spent nearly £300 on driving lessons for her so far, as soon as she can drive herself I can look forward to boozy weekends again, and maybe she'll start giving me lifts everywhere, theres method in my madness you see.
All of this could be different of course if only we had a reliable public transport system in this city, Leeds is the fourth largest city in the UK, the city centre is ram-packed full of bars and nightclubs, we have hotels on every streetcorner to cater for the young people that travel from all over the North of England for a clubbing night in Leeds - and yet tonight, Christmas Eve, the bus company has declared that their services will stop at 6pm, and here's me thinking they are supposed to be providing a public service.
I've just got the call, I'm booked for the lift home in 8 minutes, then the rest of the night is my own.
Merry Christmas everyone.
I'm on Dads taxi duty again tonight so no alcohol for me, have just been into Leeds to pick up my 17 year old daughter and her boyfriend from the cinema where they have sat through three hours of "King Kong", they are now back at our house and i'm waiting for them to decide that its time for him to go home so that I can get the car out again.
This is what happens when you're a father of daughters.
You start of in the maternity hospital proud as punch at becoming the father of a baby girl, you have big plans for you both, you'll be her protector for the rest of her life, no boy will ever be good enough for your little girl, anything she wants you'll bust a gut to get for her, your life now exists to provide only for her and to be the dad that she will look up to and say to her friends "thats my dad" - and when another one comes along three years later, you'll have the same hopes and expectations.
17 years later you're sat in the kitchen waiting for her command, and like all weekends for the last two years and for the rest of your life, you're thinking "Stick a broom up my arse and I'll sweep the floor on the way out as well".
It also explains why I've currently spent nearly £300 on driving lessons for her so far, as soon as she can drive herself I can look forward to boozy weekends again, and maybe she'll start giving me lifts everywhere, theres method in my madness you see.
All of this could be different of course if only we had a reliable public transport system in this city, Leeds is the fourth largest city in the UK, the city centre is ram-packed full of bars and nightclubs, we have hotels on every streetcorner to cater for the young people that travel from all over the North of England for a clubbing night in Leeds - and yet tonight, Christmas Eve, the bus company has declared that their services will stop at 6pm, and here's me thinking they are supposed to be providing a public service.
I've just got the call, I'm booked for the lift home in 8 minutes, then the rest of the night is my own.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Friday, December 23, 2005
No more Toga Parties for this penguin...
The UK is in mourning tonight, christmas eve eve is not the time to be informed of your favourite penguins probable death, but this is the news being carried on all the networks tonight.
Toga the baby penguin was taken from his pen at the Amazon World Zoo Park last Saturday possibly by someone who thought he would make a good christmas present for his grandma, something to tell her friends down at the Gala Bingo, "ooooh yes, my grandson bought me a penguin you know" ...
This action sparked a huge public outcry with newspapers and TV shows dedicating huge chunks of their output to "save the penguin" campaigns and a reward of £10,000 was quickly raised. Yesterday however, an anonymous phone call from a young man in the South of England claimed that he had taken the bird and dumped it in Portsmouth dockyard.
Its now highly likely that the three month old baby penguin has now died as it can't feed itself and was dependent on its parents (who are also penguins) for its sustenancee.
The country is devastated, grown men weep in the streets and in pub tap rooms whilst raising their glasses in silent homage to the penguin that no-one had ever seen, and now never will.
Once christmas is out of the way its likely that there will be a public memorial service, perhaps in St Pauls, in order that a proper public outpouring of grief can be sustained, after all its unhealthy to bottle all that emotion up inside of you and us Brits have learned in recent years that a good public blubbing is necessary at least once a year.
It all started with the death of Princess Diana in 1997 which resulted in a tidal wave of grief that was previously thought impossible for the stiff upper lipped British public to demonstrate, what on earth would Churchill or Margaret Thatcher have thought ?
Since then hardly a week goes by without a huge mountain of flowers appearing at a roadside shrine somewhere, in the past a road death of a stranger would have been greeted with a "oh dear" from the population at large but now whenever you hear such news then you simply must run out and buy flowers then seek out the roadside shrine to place then at - a florist shop near a dangerous road junction is definitely the business to be in these days, especially if that dangerous road junction is in Liverpool.
Liverpool is the UK's centre for exhibitions of grief, the city is forever knee deep in floral tributes and most citizens have accounts at their favorite florists to keep up with the constant requirements for tributes.
A serious story was told in the UK press some months ago about how two police officers on patrol in Liverpool late one night found what they thought might be the torso of a small baby in an alleyway. The alleyway was cordoned off and the torso removed for forensic examination, a police officer stood guard at the site through the night.
By 8am the next morning he was knee deep in floral tributes, the citizens of Liverpool had hardly had time to eat their morning cornflakes before dashing down to their florists for their own tributes, going out of their way to visit the alleyway and place flowers on the ground.
By lunchtime the flowers were causing major traffic disruption and it was fortunate that the forensic lab had put all other work to one side in order to examine the torso in haste - the findings were broadcast to a grieving city together with an appeal for no more floral tributes at the site - the chicken had led a good life but it was likely that the restaurant in front of the alleyway had left the torso out of the fridge too long to cook and a careless kitchen porter had slung it into a waste bin, missing the bin in the process.
Its a nice gesture though...
In the meantime Toga the baby penguin will not be having his christmas fish dinner...
Toga the baby penguin was taken from his pen at the Amazon World Zoo Park last Saturday possibly by someone who thought he would make a good christmas present for his grandma, something to tell her friends down at the Gala Bingo, "ooooh yes, my grandson bought me a penguin you know" ...
This action sparked a huge public outcry with newspapers and TV shows dedicating huge chunks of their output to "save the penguin" campaigns and a reward of £10,000 was quickly raised. Yesterday however, an anonymous phone call from a young man in the South of England claimed that he had taken the bird and dumped it in Portsmouth dockyard.
Its now highly likely that the three month old baby penguin has now died as it can't feed itself and was dependent on its parents (who are also penguins) for its sustenancee.
The country is devastated, grown men weep in the streets and in pub tap rooms whilst raising their glasses in silent homage to the penguin that no-one had ever seen, and now never will.
Once christmas is out of the way its likely that there will be a public memorial service, perhaps in St Pauls, in order that a proper public outpouring of grief can be sustained, after all its unhealthy to bottle all that emotion up inside of you and us Brits have learned in recent years that a good public blubbing is necessary at least once a year.
It all started with the death of Princess Diana in 1997 which resulted in a tidal wave of grief that was previously thought impossible for the stiff upper lipped British public to demonstrate, what on earth would Churchill or Margaret Thatcher have thought ?
Since then hardly a week goes by without a huge mountain of flowers appearing at a roadside shrine somewhere, in the past a road death of a stranger would have been greeted with a "oh dear" from the population at large but now whenever you hear such news then you simply must run out and buy flowers then seek out the roadside shrine to place then at - a florist shop near a dangerous road junction is definitely the business to be in these days, especially if that dangerous road junction is in Liverpool.
Liverpool is the UK's centre for exhibitions of grief, the city is forever knee deep in floral tributes and most citizens have accounts at their favorite florists to keep up with the constant requirements for tributes.
A serious story was told in the UK press some months ago about how two police officers on patrol in Liverpool late one night found what they thought might be the torso of a small baby in an alleyway. The alleyway was cordoned off and the torso removed for forensic examination, a police officer stood guard at the site through the night.
By 8am the next morning he was knee deep in floral tributes, the citizens of Liverpool had hardly had time to eat their morning cornflakes before dashing down to their florists for their own tributes, going out of their way to visit the alleyway and place flowers on the ground.
By lunchtime the flowers were causing major traffic disruption and it was fortunate that the forensic lab had put all other work to one side in order to examine the torso in haste - the findings were broadcast to a grieving city together with an appeal for no more floral tributes at the site - the chicken had led a good life but it was likely that the restaurant in front of the alleyway had left the torso out of the fridge too long to cook and a careless kitchen porter had slung it into a waste bin, missing the bin in the process.
Its a nice gesture though...
In the meantime Toga the baby penguin will not be having his christmas fish dinner...
Desperate for a fag
First of all an obvious word of explanation to our american friends...
A fag in the English(English) language as opposed to the English(American) language, is a cigarette and not a homosexual offering favours, you are therefore advised to bear this in mind when reading the following (after all, we invented the language) ...
On the other hand the English(American) version would fit too, read it how you like...
Just how desperate for a fag would you have to be to stand outside on a busy main city street in your stripey pyjamas ?
Would you stand there in your stripey jimmy-jams while hooked up to a saline drip ?
Would you have left your surgical ward and walked downstairs dragging the drip on a wheeled stand to stand outside on the roadside on a busy city centre thoroughfare
Well I've just seen someone do just that today as I drove through Leeds city centre.
Its actually a common sight to see patients dressed in their pyjamas or dressing gowns stood right outside the main hospital entrance sucking on a fag (hilarious this isn't it if you're reading the English(American)version). The Leeds General Infirmary is right in the centre of the city with its main door right on the pavement of a busy through road and I often see them stood there in the rain having a final puff before going back to their sick beds, to be more sick.
Its now common practice to withhold certain treatments from smokers until they can demonstrate that they are at least attempting to give up their habit, some of this is sensible, for instance where smoke-and-mucus-addled lungs would struggle to maintain oxygen levels under anaesthetic , or where the actual act of smoking has caused the problem in the first place, in the UK all such treatments are free on the National Health Service so there is the argument that the taxpayer needs to get full value from every operation and treatment and if a smoker is going to continue to abuse his/her body then where is the value ?
I've never smoked so cannot comprehend the level of addiction that drives smokers to blindly ignore all the health advice available, I have some sympathy for such addicts but there are a lot of free treatments available on the NHS to kick the habit and it still suprises me to see addicts puffing and coughing away outside the entrance to the LGI even while they are receiving treatments for other ailments.
Maybe one day the NHS will address the real issue - my chocolate addiction.
A fag in the English(English) language as opposed to the English(American) language, is a cigarette and not a homosexual offering favours, you are therefore advised to bear this in mind when reading the following (after all, we invented the language) ...
On the other hand the English(American) version would fit too, read it how you like...
Just how desperate for a fag would you have to be to stand outside on a busy main city street in your stripey pyjamas ?
Would you stand there in your stripey jimmy-jams while hooked up to a saline drip ?
Would you have left your surgical ward and walked downstairs dragging the drip on a wheeled stand to stand outside on the roadside on a busy city centre thoroughfare
Well I've just seen someone do just that today as I drove through Leeds city centre.
Its actually a common sight to see patients dressed in their pyjamas or dressing gowns stood right outside the main hospital entrance sucking on a fag (hilarious this isn't it if you're reading the English(American)version). The Leeds General Infirmary is right in the centre of the city with its main door right on the pavement of a busy through road and I often see them stood there in the rain having a final puff before going back to their sick beds, to be more sick.
Its now common practice to withhold certain treatments from smokers until they can demonstrate that they are at least attempting to give up their habit, some of this is sensible, for instance where smoke-and-mucus-addled lungs would struggle to maintain oxygen levels under anaesthetic , or where the actual act of smoking has caused the problem in the first place, in the UK all such treatments are free on the National Health Service so there is the argument that the taxpayer needs to get full value from every operation and treatment and if a smoker is going to continue to abuse his/her body then where is the value ?
I've never smoked so cannot comprehend the level of addiction that drives smokers to blindly ignore all the health advice available, I have some sympathy for such addicts but there are a lot of free treatments available on the NHS to kick the habit and it still suprises me to see addicts puffing and coughing away outside the entrance to the LGI even while they are receiving treatments for other ailments.
Maybe one day the NHS will address the real issue - my chocolate addiction.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
The groom wore pink, and so did the other groom
Yesterday saw the introduction of a new law permitting the legal union of gay couples in the UK, together with a special civil ceremony that can be performed in the style of a wedding at any premises licensed to do so.
Good news you'd think, at last gay couples are afforded the same rights as hetrosexual couples in the UK in that they can be recognised in inheritence laws and also (for example) will be recognised as a partner if one of them is ill in hospital - too much evidence exists of one gay partner being unable to visit the other because on occasions hospitals will only allow close relatives at bedsides.
But much more important than hospital visiting rights is that its given the UK's Christian Fundementalists an opportunity to spew out their religious bigotory once again.
Use of the phrase "Christian Fundementalist" brings visions of terrorists with masked faces holding hostages or exploding themselves in hotel lobbys, but far more dangerous than these middle east christian fundementalists are our own home grown fundementalists.
They lurk everywhere in our communities, from the little old lady who runs the cake shop on the High Street and bakes those lovely fruit loaves, to the chap called Roger in accounts with the beige shirt and tie combo who is the first to "bless you" in the canteen every time you sneeze - these people are the new christian fundementalists and they are every bit as dangerous to our all embracing society as if they'd strapped ten pounds of semtex to their waist and were heading for a local train station.
Of course the BBC broadcast the news yesterday and its website message board was suddenly bombarded with vitriolic and spiteful messages of hate and intolorance from the sort of people that you'd normally think were completely harmless as they walk down your street in their Sunday best on their way to bother their god at 6pm every Sunday evening.
The tone of the messages changed towards the end of the day as the more normal citizens of the UK joined int he debate, but early on we had the opportunity to observe some real crackpots ...
Good news you'd think, at last gay couples are afforded the same rights as hetrosexual couples in the UK in that they can be recognised in inheritence laws and also (for example) will be recognised as a partner if one of them is ill in hospital - too much evidence exists of one gay partner being unable to visit the other because on occasions hospitals will only allow close relatives at bedsides.
But much more important than hospital visiting rights is that its given the UK's Christian Fundementalists an opportunity to spew out their religious bigotory once again.
Use of the phrase "Christian Fundementalist" brings visions of terrorists with masked faces holding hostages or exploding themselves in hotel lobbys, but far more dangerous than these middle east christian fundementalists are our own home grown fundementalists.
They lurk everywhere in our communities, from the little old lady who runs the cake shop on the High Street and bakes those lovely fruit loaves, to the chap called Roger in accounts with the beige shirt and tie combo who is the first to "bless you" in the canteen every time you sneeze - these people are the new christian fundementalists and they are every bit as dangerous to our all embracing society as if they'd strapped ten pounds of semtex to their waist and were heading for a local train station.
Of course the BBC broadcast the news yesterday and its website message board was suddenly bombarded with vitriolic and spiteful messages of hate and intolorance from the sort of people that you'd normally think were completely harmless as they walk down your street in their Sunday best on their way to bother their god at 6pm every Sunday evening.
The tone of the messages changed towards the end of the day as the more normal citizens of the UK joined int he debate, but early on we had the opportunity to observe some real crackpots ...
this is so unbelievalbe only in a non religious country could you do this i believe that such things should have strong penalties what kind of thing is this to show little children, if the people want to be gay let them do so quietly they do not need to show everyone else
L, VILNIUS
Why stop at same-sex 'marriages'? What next? Why not eliminate the age of sexual consent and allow paediaphiles a back door to respectability.
This recent development suggest to me that the removal from the statute books of the offences that condemned Oscar Wilde was not an occasion for rejoicing.
W.S.Becket, Bangor. North Wales
God is most definately a God of love but also of righteous judgement. He made the law and told us how we were to live and conduct our lives and Jesus came to fulfil that law.. not to take one iota of it away. Jesus was emphatic about that. How could the man who came to offer salvation and be a propitiation for sin, then condone it.. he could not and does not.. he forgives our sins if we repent and change our ways. His love is a holy love which hates sin... but loves to show mercy to the sinner.
Barbara, Carlisle
Sue, Bourne
Mark Perryman, Maidstone, Kent
We need to have a debate on whether Gay people should be classified as mentally sick. They need help, we need more psychiatric hospitals to deal with this.
Thank you
David Lyons, Surrey
If the whole world was gay, the human race would die in one generation.
Sean McCullough, Barrow - in - Furness
I can only find examples of heterosexual relationships being encouraged in the Bible, such as the very first example of Adam and Eve. It is impossible to change God to suit Man's needs and wants.
Gwawr Esyllt, Llangefni
...and theres a load more good stuff like that, plus a reply to the last comment from Gwaar in Wales that her example of Adam and Eve is not really a good one as the ultimate extension of the Garden of Eden story must be that God encouraged incest as the only way that humans could have evolved from just two people is if they had sex with their children, or their siblings interbred.
Its a fine example of the teachings of the church, any church, brainwashing people into thinking inside strict boundaries in order to control them, it had to work that way several hundred years ago, it was the only way to control a largely lawless and leaderless population and also the only way to raise revenue, but such bigotory has no place in society today, and yet it is endemic in all religions.
For myself I like to look at church as an option, an option that I have yet to adopt for myself, and I look at churchgoers and those who start every sentence with the phrase "I am a christian" as people who have chosen that option as they feel a need to go and sing songs to something that they cannot see or touch but can only imagine in their own suggestive minds when told to do so by a man (or sometimes a woman) who likes to dress up a bit of a Sunday.
They speak of their God as being the creator of mankind in which case He also created gay people, they speak of their God as being benevolant and tolorant in which case He should not be annoyed or disturbed by gay people as his followers obviously are, and they claim that their God can talk to them and instruct them on how to live a good, caring and christian life, in which case then he really does need to have a bit of a hard word to some of them this Sunday, the day of his lads birthday (apparently).
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Will it stay in this time ?
I once laughed at my dad because he glued a filling back into one of his teeth rather than have a dentist fit a new one - I laughed but actually to the best of my knowledge the Araldite was still holding the filling in place when he finally fell off his perch years later.
I mention this because a couple or three years ago I had a full crown fitted to a tooth root, which is basically a full false tooth that is fixed to the root of the old tooth by drilling a hole into the root where a titanium spike which is attached to the new tooth can be glued into place.
I had this done and paid the dentist £300 or so for the pleasure of him drilling out my tooth root, but as he said, "it will last forever".
Two years later and after that dentist had sold his practice (fortunately and by coincidence to another dentist), I noticed my new tooth was wobbling slightly, and in no time at all I had been informed that the root to which the new tooth was fixed had snapped and the new tooth would have to come out.
I was given three choices involving treatment which ranged from a few hundred pounds to several thousand pounds for an operation to graft a new tooth onto my jawbone, all of which sounded a bit OTT, I plumped for the option four which the dentist never mentioned which was to leave the tooth wobbling.
It wobbled for another two months at which point it promptly fell out while I was eating a curry in an Indian restaurant in Bradford, so I booked an appointment to see the dentist again.
I smiled at him as I walked into his consulting room at which point he mentioned that the tooth appeared to have fallen out, he's good is my dentist, you have to get up early to put anything past him.
We went through the choices again, mentioning the one at several thousand pounds which he recommended. I mentioned that Her Majesty's Government are currently under the impression that I owe them many thousands in back tax and that next year could be a bread and water year and he shook his head with a sorrowfull face and gave me that look that all tax defaulters understand, "Me too", its bad enough me having to pay my own tax bill I'm not going to provide him with the wherewithal to pay his own too.
I then mentioned that I was happy with the huge gap in my smile as it made me look like a pirate and could he just check the root of the old tooth as it was obviously still in there and I was aware that there would be a deep hole drilled in it, would it need filling or removing ?
He looked into the root for a while then asked if I still had the crown that had fallen out, indeed I had, it was in my pocket I explained, I gave him it, he worked out which way round it should fit then rammed it back into the hole from where it had fallen two weeks earlier.
"It fits" he declared
I almost reminded him that at £300 I already knew that it fitted, it had been custom made for me, it was the root that was knackered not the tooth.
He then murmured something about being able to temporarily fit it back in while I decided what sort of permanent job I wanted doing on it, he basically wanted to glue it back in.
Seemed reasonable to me, sounded cheap and the pirate look wasn't actually that glamorous anymore, so with his back turned to me he set about mixing some glue with which to stick my tooth back in with, and I was reminded of my dad doing the same thing with his filling all those years ago, I asked him if he was using Araldite and he looked over his shoulder and gave a sort of half nervous laugh as if to confirm that I was perhaps joking - I think he really was using Araldite.
He shoved the tooth back in its socket and cleaned off the surplus glue from around its base and charged me £35, I asked if this was possibly option five, a permanent fix but he was very noncommittal about his handiwork and said he see me at my next inspection visit.
Like my dad, I've now got glued-in teeth.
I mention this because a couple or three years ago I had a full crown fitted to a tooth root, which is basically a full false tooth that is fixed to the root of the old tooth by drilling a hole into the root where a titanium spike which is attached to the new tooth can be glued into place.
I had this done and paid the dentist £300 or so for the pleasure of him drilling out my tooth root, but as he said, "it will last forever".
Two years later and after that dentist had sold his practice (fortunately and by coincidence to another dentist), I noticed my new tooth was wobbling slightly, and in no time at all I had been informed that the root to which the new tooth was fixed had snapped and the new tooth would have to come out.
I was given three choices involving treatment which ranged from a few hundred pounds to several thousand pounds for an operation to graft a new tooth onto my jawbone, all of which sounded a bit OTT, I plumped for the option four which the dentist never mentioned which was to leave the tooth wobbling.
It wobbled for another two months at which point it promptly fell out while I was eating a curry in an Indian restaurant in Bradford, so I booked an appointment to see the dentist again.
I smiled at him as I walked into his consulting room at which point he mentioned that the tooth appeared to have fallen out, he's good is my dentist, you have to get up early to put anything past him.
We went through the choices again, mentioning the one at several thousand pounds which he recommended. I mentioned that Her Majesty's Government are currently under the impression that I owe them many thousands in back tax and that next year could be a bread and water year and he shook his head with a sorrowfull face and gave me that look that all tax defaulters understand, "Me too", its bad enough me having to pay my own tax bill I'm not going to provide him with the wherewithal to pay his own too.
I then mentioned that I was happy with the huge gap in my smile as it made me look like a pirate and could he just check the root of the old tooth as it was obviously still in there and I was aware that there would be a deep hole drilled in it, would it need filling or removing ?
He looked into the root for a while then asked if I still had the crown that had fallen out, indeed I had, it was in my pocket I explained, I gave him it, he worked out which way round it should fit then rammed it back into the hole from where it had fallen two weeks earlier.
"It fits" he declared
I almost reminded him that at £300 I already knew that it fitted, it had been custom made for me, it was the root that was knackered not the tooth.
He then murmured something about being able to temporarily fit it back in while I decided what sort of permanent job I wanted doing on it, he basically wanted to glue it back in.
Seemed reasonable to me, sounded cheap and the pirate look wasn't actually that glamorous anymore, so with his back turned to me he set about mixing some glue with which to stick my tooth back in with, and I was reminded of my dad doing the same thing with his filling all those years ago, I asked him if he was using Araldite and he looked over his shoulder and gave a sort of half nervous laugh as if to confirm that I was perhaps joking - I think he really was using Araldite.
He shoved the tooth back in its socket and cleaned off the surplus glue from around its base and charged me £35, I asked if this was possibly option five, a permanent fix but he was very noncommittal about his handiwork and said he see me at my next inspection visit.
Like my dad, I've now got glued-in teeth.
One of our penguins is missing
For the past two days the radio and TV news bulletins have been dominated by the shocking and tragic news that a baby penguin has been stolen from a zoo on the Isle of Wight, according to the bulletins the baby penguin will die unless its returned to its parents, who incidently are also penguins.
This issue raises important questions that remain unanswered, mainly because no-one has the balls to stand up and ask them,
I will now ask them...
1. Why do TV and radio news people seem to think that the British public should be saturated with this sort of news item? On a day when gay "weddings" become legal, a suspect for the failed bombings of the 21/7 is arrested, and the Saddam Hussein trial has recommenced, all of the British media outlets are busy focusing their mock horror that the baby penguin will die if it is not fed soon.
We now learn that the penguin has a name, Toga, and its parents are called Kayala and Oscar, presumably some journo has interviewed the parents at length as we also learn that they are "pining for their baby" and have not eaten since it was stolen on saturday, a penguin keeper at the zoo tearfully pleaded "please return Toga to his mother for his first xmas, because if you don't, then it won't be" (quote from the Daily Mail). Its all good stuff.
I cannot help but cynically note that in the build-up to xmas this story has an ideal "awww" factor rating around the 98% mark, and will I be surprised when the absent young penguin turns up safe and well on xmas eve - no I won't be surprised. Even more cynically I note that the latest film release at the cinema is "March of the Penguins", a film which features, erm, well, penguins marching - any connection there then ???
2. Just how easy would it be to catch a penguin from inside its pen ? All of the penguins I have seen in zoos live in concrete enclosures with the concrete painted white to trick the penguin into thinking that its really back home in the Antarctic, they shit on the white concrete a lot and it all looks very slippery, which if course helps the penguin to think its standing on ice and not concrete, in fact if the concrete could be made to be cold all the time then the illusion would be complete.
So who would willingly go into a shitty, slippery, cold and wet enclosure just to nick a baby penguin?
Presumably some sort of mad deranged parent who has been insanely pressurized by their children to get them a penguin for xmas, I can just imagine the scene now ...
"What do you want santa to bring you for xmas darling ?"
"A penguin"
"Are you sure ?"
"Yes"
(turns to husband)
"She wants a penguin"
"I'll pop down the zoo tomorrow, they might have some"
Yes, it would happen just like that, the penguin will now be wrapped up in foil xmas printed wrapping paper with a red bow around it, waiting under the tree for the child to open on xmas day, by which time it will be dead and the nation will be weeping and wailing onto its xmas turkey dinner while a newsreader announces to the nation that there is no news on the missing penguin baby and it must surely be dead by now.
3. What games do you play with a penguin, whether live or dead ?
How would any sane parent think that having a penguin in the house would be of educational or emotional value to a child ?
Penguins eat dead fish, well actually they don't, they eat live fish in the wild but its easier for the zoos to feed them dead fish, they shit a lot and they swim a lot and they quack occasionally, not like a duck quacks but a more raucous penguin quack, the zoo people in the daily Mail article said that they bray not quack, but that is quite ridiculous as everyone knows that its donkeys that bray.
So there we have it, this country now holds its breath while the news media broadcast at half hourly intervals, the penguins days are apparently numbered but I confidently predict that we will be rejoicing by xmas eve.
This issue raises important questions that remain unanswered, mainly because no-one has the balls to stand up and ask them,
I will now ask them...
1. Why do TV and radio news people seem to think that the British public should be saturated with this sort of news item? On a day when gay "weddings" become legal, a suspect for the failed bombings of the 21/7 is arrested, and the Saddam Hussein trial has recommenced, all of the British media outlets are busy focusing their mock horror that the baby penguin will die if it is not fed soon.
We now learn that the penguin has a name, Toga, and its parents are called Kayala and Oscar, presumably some journo has interviewed the parents at length as we also learn that they are "pining for their baby" and have not eaten since it was stolen on saturday, a penguin keeper at the zoo tearfully pleaded "please return Toga to his mother for his first xmas, because if you don't, then it won't be" (quote from the Daily Mail). Its all good stuff.
I cannot help but cynically note that in the build-up to xmas this story has an ideal "awww" factor rating around the 98% mark, and will I be surprised when the absent young penguin turns up safe and well on xmas eve - no I won't be surprised. Even more cynically I note that the latest film release at the cinema is "March of the Penguins", a film which features, erm, well, penguins marching - any connection there then ???
2. Just how easy would it be to catch a penguin from inside its pen ? All of the penguins I have seen in zoos live in concrete enclosures with the concrete painted white to trick the penguin into thinking that its really back home in the Antarctic, they shit on the white concrete a lot and it all looks very slippery, which if course helps the penguin to think its standing on ice and not concrete, in fact if the concrete could be made to be cold all the time then the illusion would be complete.
So who would willingly go into a shitty, slippery, cold and wet enclosure just to nick a baby penguin?
Presumably some sort of mad deranged parent who has been insanely pressurized by their children to get them a penguin for xmas, I can just imagine the scene now ...
"What do you want santa to bring you for xmas darling ?"
"A penguin"
"Are you sure ?"
"Yes"
(turns to husband)
"She wants a penguin"
"I'll pop down the zoo tomorrow, they might have some"
Yes, it would happen just like that, the penguin will now be wrapped up in foil xmas printed wrapping paper with a red bow around it, waiting under the tree for the child to open on xmas day, by which time it will be dead and the nation will be weeping and wailing onto its xmas turkey dinner while a newsreader announces to the nation that there is no news on the missing penguin baby and it must surely be dead by now.
3. What games do you play with a penguin, whether live or dead ?
How would any sane parent think that having a penguin in the house would be of educational or emotional value to a child ?
Penguins eat dead fish, well actually they don't, they eat live fish in the wild but its easier for the zoos to feed them dead fish, they shit a lot and they swim a lot and they quack occasionally, not like a duck quacks but a more raucous penguin quack, the zoo people in the daily Mail article said that they bray not quack, but that is quite ridiculous as everyone knows that its donkeys that bray.
So there we have it, this country now holds its breath while the news media broadcast at half hourly intervals, the penguins days are apparently numbered but I confidently predict that we will be rejoicing by xmas eve.
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