I'm having trouble with Ellery Hanley, I thought I would, but thats why I chose to do him, its a challenge you see, I've never done a black person before.
What on earth are you talking about and how on earth could this racist rubbish be hosted on a site like this ?
Well its like this you see...
I've recently switched from painting landscapes to painting portraits.
I've been painting landscapes (and townscapes) in all sorts of media for about 30 years now and its time to try something else, what better subject to try than portraits ?
The problem with portraits is that you can paint the most technically superb painting ever, but if it doens't look like the person its supposed to be it will be rubbish. When you are painting a landscape no-one is ever going to tell you that you moved some trees or there are actually some farm buildings in that field, because no-one really knows what your subject is unless they were stood next to you when you did it - they just look at the landscape and consider it for its technical ability.
Not so with portraits, everyone, not least the subject, has an opinion, a strong opinion on whether or not its the person its supposed to be.
I've done a few rugby players and they came out OK, a few people have passed complimentary comments on them and I think they are OK so far although I'm still only hitting the likeness thing by chance and I'd only say that I've hit the likeness thing on one occasion, this one, but I was ready for a new challange last week.
And so I picked Ellery.
Certainly the greatest rugby league player of his generation, argueably the greatest RL player ever I had no shortages of images to work from, the big challenge is that Ellery is a black person and I've never drawn or painted black skin before.
In the event its not the skin tone that has stumped me, although black skin has a huge range of tones in it, far more (I found out) than white skin does, the range of tones in Ellery's painting range from green through a yellow ochre and all shades of brown inbetween and then finally blue, but its the likeness thats giving me problems and particularly the eyes. I've redone his eyes six times now, each time I blank them out with a deep grey (his eyes are in shadow in the picture) and the rest of the face comes together and starts to look like him - with no eyes. When I add the latest version of his eyes the whole thing falls apart again , its really wierd and although frustrated with it I'm now even more determined to complete the painting even if it takes all weekend of painting eyes.
All of which prooves one astounding fact - its not skin colour that determines how we recognise faces, its eyes, the first point of contact on any face.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
A result - sort of
Oh yes, nearly forgot, last week I wrote this stuff about one of my employees and his unfortunate littering fine.
Well yesterday I took a phone call from the Enforcement Officer at Leeds City Council.
You see I'd written to him to say that I wasn't sure who had been driving the vehicle in question that day but that it may have been "xxx xxxxxxxx" - well I'm not going to pay the fekkin fine am I ? But I also asked if he (the Enforcer) would issue a littering ticket to one of his own employees, the binman who left a newspaper scattered all the way up our street two weeks ago when they emptied my neighbours dustbin.
I didn't really expect to get a reply, it was more of a piss-take, but the Enforcer rang me in person to thank me for dobbing in my employee and assure me that he was dealing with my information regarding the binmen and that I may soon be receiving a call from the head of the binmen (who happens to be a lady) by way of an apology.
Of course I had to get all indignant then, no use telling him that I was just taking the piss, and I bristled just long enough on the phone to convince him that the newspapers really had been a risk to life and limb and someone really should swing for it.
PS : Why was I suprised that the binmens boss is a lady ? Its a perfect job for a lady.
Well yesterday I took a phone call from the Enforcement Officer at Leeds City Council.
You see I'd written to him to say that I wasn't sure who had been driving the vehicle in question that day but that it may have been "xxx xxxxxxxx" - well I'm not going to pay the fekkin fine am I ? But I also asked if he (the Enforcer) would issue a littering ticket to one of his own employees, the binman who left a newspaper scattered all the way up our street two weeks ago when they emptied my neighbours dustbin.
I didn't really expect to get a reply, it was more of a piss-take, but the Enforcer rang me in person to thank me for dobbing in my employee and assure me that he was dealing with my information regarding the binmen and that I may soon be receiving a call from the head of the binmen (who happens to be a lady) by way of an apology.
Of course I had to get all indignant then, no use telling him that I was just taking the piss, and I bristled just long enough on the phone to convince him that the newspapers really had been a risk to life and limb and someone really should swing for it.
PS : Why was I suprised that the binmens boss is a lady ? Its a perfect job for a lady.
Smoking - is it good for you ?
Well thats set 'cat among pigeons hasn't it ?
The House of Commons vote to ban smoking in all public and private licensed premises that is.
I'll declare right now that I don't smoke, never have done, may have had a puff on a few ciggies as a feckless youth, and there's a photograph of me somewhere as a pissed up 18 year old enjoying a cigar outside a pub, but apart from that I class myself as a non-smoker.
But thats not to say that I'm anti-smoking.
I hate the smell of stale smoke on your clothes the morning after a night out in a pub, but I suspect that (if they had a sense of smell, which most of them don't) even smokers actually hate the smell the morning after, but I do enjoy the smell of fresh tobacco smoke especially in a pub, its a part of the pub atmosphere, maybe I'm addicted ?
Other tobacco smells can be so evocotive too, a pipe for instance will always remind me of my first job where my boss always had a pipe on the go, all day long, most afternoons you couldn't see into his office at all and the only way to find out if he was still in there was to check to see if his car was still parked outside.
Cigars do the same thing, they remind me of the golf club that my dad used to be a member of, most of the blokes there would light one up in the mens bar when they'd finished a round of golf, I think they sold more cigars than cigarettes inthere, and it was never an unpleasant smell.
What I didn't like, and have never understood, is the all-consuming addiction to cigarettes that some people have. When I was 20-something I worked all over the country for my company and for six months or so was based in Birmingham where they found me lodgings with a lady in accounts.
She and her relationship with her husband and his mistress deserve a blog all on their own, but the main point here is that they were both chain smokers, and when I say chain smokers I mean that they were never seen during their waking moments without a cigarette on the go.
Their house fekking stank, they fekkin stank, and because I stayed there then I fekkin stank, of old stale cigarette smoke and it was not very pleasant. Everything in their house was brown, everything that she put on the table tasted of cigarettes everywhere you turned, every room in the house had an ashtray and a spare lighter, even in the bathroom, they were nice people but I was glad to move on, after I'd broken their glass dining table, but thats another story.
Of course the most ironic thing about the whole vote to ban public use of cigarettes is the fact that the bar in the House of Commons will not be included in the legislation, its classed as a Royal Palace and apparently the rules do not apply to royal palaces, which makes me wonder which other rules do not apply in royal palaces, can the Queen do literally anything in her palaces and if so then why doesn't she make the tabloids more often with tales of outrageous behaviour ?
The House of Commons vote to ban smoking in all public and private licensed premises that is.
I'll declare right now that I don't smoke, never have done, may have had a puff on a few ciggies as a feckless youth, and there's a photograph of me somewhere as a pissed up 18 year old enjoying a cigar outside a pub, but apart from that I class myself as a non-smoker.
But thats not to say that I'm anti-smoking.
I hate the smell of stale smoke on your clothes the morning after a night out in a pub, but I suspect that (if they had a sense of smell, which most of them don't) even smokers actually hate the smell the morning after, but I do enjoy the smell of fresh tobacco smoke especially in a pub, its a part of the pub atmosphere, maybe I'm addicted ?
Other tobacco smells can be so evocotive too, a pipe for instance will always remind me of my first job where my boss always had a pipe on the go, all day long, most afternoons you couldn't see into his office at all and the only way to find out if he was still in there was to check to see if his car was still parked outside.
Cigars do the same thing, they remind me of the golf club that my dad used to be a member of, most of the blokes there would light one up in the mens bar when they'd finished a round of golf, I think they sold more cigars than cigarettes inthere, and it was never an unpleasant smell.
What I didn't like, and have never understood, is the all-consuming addiction to cigarettes that some people have. When I was 20-something I worked all over the country for my company and for six months or so was based in Birmingham where they found me lodgings with a lady in accounts.
She and her relationship with her husband and his mistress deserve a blog all on their own, but the main point here is that they were both chain smokers, and when I say chain smokers I mean that they were never seen during their waking moments without a cigarette on the go.
Their house fekking stank, they fekkin stank, and because I stayed there then I fekkin stank, of old stale cigarette smoke and it was not very pleasant. Everything in their house was brown, everything that she put on the table tasted of cigarettes everywhere you turned, every room in the house had an ashtray and a spare lighter, even in the bathroom, they were nice people but I was glad to move on, after I'd broken their glass dining table, but thats another story.
Of course the most ironic thing about the whole vote to ban public use of cigarettes is the fact that the bar in the House of Commons will not be included in the legislation, its classed as a Royal Palace and apparently the rules do not apply to royal palaces, which makes me wonder which other rules do not apply in royal palaces, can the Queen do literally anything in her palaces and if so then why doesn't she make the tabloids more often with tales of outrageous behaviour ?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
How can I say this ...
OK, this is rather delicate, and it may cause offence to those of a delicate constitution, it may even put some people of their meals, or going to the toilet ever again.
My arse is as sore as an extremely sore thing that has been rubbed with sandpaper to make it even sorer.
If your constitution is feeling delicate after reading that then now is the time to click somewhere else.
It started this morning, well no, I think it started last night.
You see we (the family) were going out last night, valentines night, for a chinese meal at a swish chinese (obvious) restaurant in Leeds but then I pointed out that as it was valentines night it would probably be fully booked and wouldn't it just be much easier to get a chinese meal and eat it at home, so we did, got the banquet for two plus a load of other stuff and filled the table. Included in the stuff was a dish of beef and cashew nuts, no-one else liked it so I wolfed the lot down.
Cut to the scene this morning and I'm sitting on the toilet as I do most mornings expecting a normal crap, I'm sitting there humming tunelessly and looking at the ceiling when suddenly something feels stuck.
Something was stuck, I'm blaming the chinese food last night but really it could have been a coincidence, except for the fact that I think that some of the cashew nuts had passed through undigested and I think that one of them was sticking out of the obstruction.
Now I did geology at school and I know how, during the last ice age, glaciers would slide ever so slowly down valleys and the bits of rock and stuff that they had picked up en route would carve out the valley sides into shapes that they hadn't been before, I know all that, I listened in geology.
And this morning all that geology suddenly came flooding back to me as the iceberg up my arse struggled to get through the normal sized opening that is loosely described as my arsehole.
I had to push, I just had to, there was no alternative other than to sit there all day and the kids needed taking to school soon, so unless I was to write a note to their teacher on a piece of toilet paper and stuff it under the toilet door with instructions to hand it to the headteacher, "dear headteacher, my kids were late for school today because a huge turd won't come out of my arse this morning, I think its the chinese meal we had last night, anyway, sorry about the kids being late", then I had no choice, I pushed.
My god it felt like I was pushing a bowling ball out of my arse, and the cashew nuts stuck in it brought tears to my eyes as they slowly, millimetre by millimetre scraped and scratched their way out of there, leaving striations that any geologist would go into raptures about and would cause a surgeon to reach for his gloves and face mask.
Eventually it came out, but I haven't been the same since.
This must be what childbirth is like.
My arse now feels three times bigger than it was yesterday and I daren't sneeze in case my dinnertime sandwich comes flying out, as yet undigested and twelve hours before it would normally exit the system.
I can't sit down, the whole of my bottom feels bruised and invaded, as if I'd just starred in "Nancy-boys do it with broom handles" it really hurts and its not fooking funny so stop laughing.
I write this in the interests of blogging and as a public information script - if you feel something stuck at anytime in the future, if something feels like its coming down sideways, then don't push, write a note to the headmaster and make your excuses for work, just let nature take its course, it will break down eventually, hopefully.
I'm limping off to bed now in the hope that the muscles can relax and restore overnight, tomorrow could be a long day.
Stop laughing at the back, its not funny.
My arse is as sore as an extremely sore thing that has been rubbed with sandpaper to make it even sorer.
If your constitution is feeling delicate after reading that then now is the time to click somewhere else.
It started this morning, well no, I think it started last night.
You see we (the family) were going out last night, valentines night, for a chinese meal at a swish chinese (obvious) restaurant in Leeds but then I pointed out that as it was valentines night it would probably be fully booked and wouldn't it just be much easier to get a chinese meal and eat it at home, so we did, got the banquet for two plus a load of other stuff and filled the table. Included in the stuff was a dish of beef and cashew nuts, no-one else liked it so I wolfed the lot down.
Cut to the scene this morning and I'm sitting on the toilet as I do most mornings expecting a normal crap, I'm sitting there humming tunelessly and looking at the ceiling when suddenly something feels stuck.
Something was stuck, I'm blaming the chinese food last night but really it could have been a coincidence, except for the fact that I think that some of the cashew nuts had passed through undigested and I think that one of them was sticking out of the obstruction.
Now I did geology at school and I know how, during the last ice age, glaciers would slide ever so slowly down valleys and the bits of rock and stuff that they had picked up en route would carve out the valley sides into shapes that they hadn't been before, I know all that, I listened in geology.
And this morning all that geology suddenly came flooding back to me as the iceberg up my arse struggled to get through the normal sized opening that is loosely described as my arsehole.
I had to push, I just had to, there was no alternative other than to sit there all day and the kids needed taking to school soon, so unless I was to write a note to their teacher on a piece of toilet paper and stuff it under the toilet door with instructions to hand it to the headteacher, "dear headteacher, my kids were late for school today because a huge turd won't come out of my arse this morning, I think its the chinese meal we had last night, anyway, sorry about the kids being late", then I had no choice, I pushed.
My god it felt like I was pushing a bowling ball out of my arse, and the cashew nuts stuck in it brought tears to my eyes as they slowly, millimetre by millimetre scraped and scratched their way out of there, leaving striations that any geologist would go into raptures about and would cause a surgeon to reach for his gloves and face mask.
Eventually it came out, but I haven't been the same since.
This must be what childbirth is like.
My arse now feels three times bigger than it was yesterday and I daren't sneeze in case my dinnertime sandwich comes flying out, as yet undigested and twelve hours before it would normally exit the system.
I can't sit down, the whole of my bottom feels bruised and invaded, as if I'd just starred in "Nancy-boys do it with broom handles" it really hurts and its not fooking funny so stop laughing.
I write this in the interests of blogging and as a public information script - if you feel something stuck at anytime in the future, if something feels like its coming down sideways, then don't push, write a note to the headmaster and make your excuses for work, just let nature take its course, it will break down eventually, hopefully.
I'm limping off to bed now in the hope that the muscles can relax and restore overnight, tomorrow could be a long day.
Stop laughing at the back, its not funny.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
That was a nice weekend ...
The posh frock do on saturday night went well, I was on orange juice all night as usual but at least it was the fresh stuff and not out of a bottle.so the headache on sunday wasn't that bad.
Within 15 minutes the format for the night had been well established, women all sat around in a circle, men all stood at the bar, and thats how it stayed until we went home at 1.30am, apart from the bit where we were all invited out onto the verandha to freeze our cobblers off while we watched and laughed as Chris set fire to £500 worth of fireworks.
The posh and ritzy golf club was just as I expected it to be, lots of pictures of past presidents in the entrance all bearing a remarkable likeness to Mr Cholmondley-Warner, rules everywhere, no-one allowed to use the club presidents chair, all the stuff that I hate about private members golf clubs, no wonder I gave up my membership at my club two years ago, it must be just me who feels an overwhelming need to park in the Presidents car park spot every time I drive into any club car park, even better if you're driving an old car or a scruffy van at the time.
Our 25th wedding anniversary will be coming around in two years time - it won't be held at a golf club and it won't involve vast expenditure either, guests may get to share a small and inexpensive firework (one between two) and dine on peanuts and crisps, money will be prefered in leiu of corny silver-based presents, but before then its my 50th birthday in September to sort out, I may just opt out of a party and get them to post money in an envelope instead.
Within 15 minutes the format for the night had been well established, women all sat around in a circle, men all stood at the bar, and thats how it stayed until we went home at 1.30am, apart from the bit where we were all invited out onto the verandha to freeze our cobblers off while we watched and laughed as Chris set fire to £500 worth of fireworks.
The posh and ritzy golf club was just as I expected it to be, lots of pictures of past presidents in the entrance all bearing a remarkable likeness to Mr Cholmondley-Warner, rules everywhere, no-one allowed to use the club presidents chair, all the stuff that I hate about private members golf clubs, no wonder I gave up my membership at my club two years ago, it must be just me who feels an overwhelming need to park in the Presidents car park spot every time I drive into any club car park, even better if you're driving an old car or a scruffy van at the time.
Our 25th wedding anniversary will be coming around in two years time - it won't be held at a golf club and it won't involve vast expenditure either, guests may get to share a small and inexpensive firework (one between two) and dine on peanuts and crisps, money will be prefered in leiu of corny silver-based presents, but before then its my 50th birthday in September to sort out, I may just opt out of a party and get them to post money in an envelope instead.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Posh Frock Saturday
Its posh frock saturday today.
Tonight is the night of our friends Chris and Sue's 25th wedding anniversary and they are hosting a party at their golf club, which just happens to be a very razzy and posh golf club, one of the razziest in Leeds and frequented almost without exception by posh people.
So despite Sue insisting that no-one has to "get dressed up" and that its "not a posh frock do", all of the ladies who are going (I use the term "Ladies" very loosely), (not that they are loose ladies or anything), have all decided that a new posh frock is in order and we gentlemen have spent weeks being dragged around shopping malls having our wallets emptied and cursing Chris for having agreed to host their "do" at his golf club, which he knows is inherently posh, as we tell him every time we see him.
I met Carmel in Asda last night, Carmel is another old friend - her husband and I have been friends since we were five years old, and that is eons ago - and Carmel asked me what I would be wearing for the posh frock do tonight, I shrugged my shoulders and she seemed shocked. She asked me if men deliberatly don't think about what they are wearing on any occasion and I agreed that that was a possible explanation, truth is I don't know what I'll wear and I probably won't know until about ten minutes before I leave the house tonight, I certainly haven't gone out shopping for stuff for the last three weeks.
Tonight the loosely described ladies will compare posh frocks, they will comment on each others posh frocks as they each enter the room, they will talk of how they have searched for weeks for the right accessory, and they will talk on the subject all night.
We menfolk on the other hand will not mention our garb once during the evening, I would curl up and die if one of my friends paid me a compliment (or otherwise) on my shirt or my trousers and I owuld be viewed with great sexual suspicion if I touched or felt a friends shirt or pants and asked him where he'd bought such an item and "my how it matches his eye shadow".
As part of the celebrations Chris has organised a nine hole golf competition for the lads this afternoon, we're not all taking up his offer though, our little group of golfers have not played for over a year and the first hole on one of the posh-ist golf clubs in Leeds is not the place to discover that your vicious right slice has returned to harrass the members watching from the posh golf club windows.
In retribution Sue has invited the loose ladies to an afternoon's pampering at a nearby hotel spa and so they are all going down there after lunch, leaving us non-golfing menfolk to stay at home and sulk, I might just get my golf clubs out of the shed and clean them up, the last time I saw them a couple of weeks ago the bag was covered in mould, another good reason not to turn up at the posh golf club with them this afternoon.
On the other hand I may just paint.
Tonight is the night of our friends Chris and Sue's 25th wedding anniversary and they are hosting a party at their golf club, which just happens to be a very razzy and posh golf club, one of the razziest in Leeds and frequented almost without exception by posh people.
So despite Sue insisting that no-one has to "get dressed up" and that its "not a posh frock do", all of the ladies who are going (I use the term "Ladies" very loosely), (not that they are loose ladies or anything), have all decided that a new posh frock is in order and we gentlemen have spent weeks being dragged around shopping malls having our wallets emptied and cursing Chris for having agreed to host their "do" at his golf club, which he knows is inherently posh, as we tell him every time we see him.
I met Carmel in Asda last night, Carmel is another old friend - her husband and I have been friends since we were five years old, and that is eons ago - and Carmel asked me what I would be wearing for the posh frock do tonight, I shrugged my shoulders and she seemed shocked. She asked me if men deliberatly don't think about what they are wearing on any occasion and I agreed that that was a possible explanation, truth is I don't know what I'll wear and I probably won't know until about ten minutes before I leave the house tonight, I certainly haven't gone out shopping for stuff for the last three weeks.
Tonight the loosely described ladies will compare posh frocks, they will comment on each others posh frocks as they each enter the room, they will talk of how they have searched for weeks for the right accessory, and they will talk on the subject all night.
We menfolk on the other hand will not mention our garb once during the evening, I would curl up and die if one of my friends paid me a compliment (or otherwise) on my shirt or my trousers and I owuld be viewed with great sexual suspicion if I touched or felt a friends shirt or pants and asked him where he'd bought such an item and "my how it matches his eye shadow".
As part of the celebrations Chris has organised a nine hole golf competition for the lads this afternoon, we're not all taking up his offer though, our little group of golfers have not played for over a year and the first hole on one of the posh-ist golf clubs in Leeds is not the place to discover that your vicious right slice has returned to harrass the members watching from the posh golf club windows.
In retribution Sue has invited the loose ladies to an afternoon's pampering at a nearby hotel spa and so they are all going down there after lunch, leaving us non-golfing menfolk to stay at home and sulk, I might just get my golf clubs out of the shed and clean them up, the last time I saw them a couple of weeks ago the bag was covered in mould, another good reason not to turn up at the posh golf club with them this afternoon.
On the other hand I may just paint.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Dealing with self obsessed idiots
There are lots of disadvantages to owning your own business, long hours, huge responsibility, big potential for financial suicide if it all goes wrong, and the ever present spectre of HM Government leeching your profits off you in ever-more ingenious ways.
But sometimes things work in your favour.
Like being able to tell customers, or even potential customers to fuck right off and stop pestering you.
We do this on a fairly regular basis with those customers who have become a vexation to the spirit, I'm sure I don't need to explain that you occasionally meet people in your life who just irritate the hell out of you, generally because no matter what you do for them, it will never be good enough. They are the born complainers, they are never happy and the sound of their voice on the phone just plunges you into depths of despair that you never thought existed.
In an ordinary salaried job you have to bear these people like a huge millstone around your neck, you have to be subserviant to them, apologise constantly and try and find ways to appease them, although you know its an impossible task - if you don't do any of this stuff you are likely to find yourself bollacked by your boss for upsetting customers and losing business.
At my company you are allowed to tell these people to fuck right off and stick their business up their arses, followed by a recomendation that they ring our competitors and pester them instead, all our employees have this right ordained on them, they only have to ask for the key to the cupboard, explain why the customer is a pain in the arse, and I will grant them full "fuck right off" rights - we have a lot of fun with this precedure, but we realised two years ago that 90% of our time was being spent trying to appease 2% of our customers, so we told them to fuck right off and we've been much happier since, and we still make a profit.
For instance,
I received a phone call last Friday from a guy in a staffing agency who was so far up his own arse that he will never have a problem with prostate cancer, he'll see it developing long before anyone else. He commenced this huge, long pre-prepared speech about how he had to prepare a tender for a contract with "a large soft drinks manufacturer in Wakefield" to which I interrupted "you mean coca-cola", he confirmed a little suprised as if it were a secret that Coke has been canned at Wakefield for the last ten years, I muttered the word "wanker" under my breath.
I sent him a quote for some of our equipment and software, itemising everything and hoped that I wouldn't hear from him again, he had irritated the hell out of me in just a few minutes conversation but to be honest I've found that the same sort of wankers tend to work in the staff agency business, it must be a pre-requisite for the job.
Monday he rang and left a message for me to ring him, I didn't so he sent me an email asking if I'd go and see him "for an important meeting", his use of the word "important" meaning that he was the important element - I've been to these meetings before, you are meeting with someone who hasn't even won the contract yet and yet still wants to impress you as though he is the world best negotiator - I've sat in front of, and wasted so much time on these pre-tender staff recruitment wankers that I just don't do it anymore.
I emailed him back saying that I could go any day this week, he replied with the answer "you are making me work really hard for this, come on Friday, tell me a time". This answer did it for me, if he thought he was working hard now then he'd have to work fucking harder to get to speak to me again.
He rang all day Tuesday, he emailed me all day Tuesday, trying to get a time arranged, people in the office fended him off while I told them that I had no intention of speaking to him.
I picked the phone up on Wednesday morning and he was on the other end, he sounded pissed off, which is exactly what I wanted him to be, I went into belligerent mode, he demanded to know what time I would be meeting him on Friday.
"I'm not coming" I replied
"Well it very important that you do, I need some answers for my tender documents"
"What are your questions"
"I'm getting the impression that you don't want my business"
"Yes"
"But I need these questions answering"
"Ask me the questions now"
This threw him slightly, I heard him throw the phone down on the desk and shuffle through reams and reams of paper, complaining all the while, muttering stuff like "I don't believe this, I don't believe this"
He came back to the phone, I was laughing out loud at him and sharing the joke with my brother who was sat opposite wondering what was going on.
"Can this equipment be accessed remotely" he asked, question one.
"Yes" I replied, "Thats why we've itemised a modem on your quote"
"Can it link to Sage payroll" question two
"Yes, thats why theres an item on the quote that says Sage payroll link"
Silence.
If I'd gone all the way to his office that would have been the sum total of our meeting.
"Are there any other companies apart from yours who sell this stuff"
"Yes"
"Where"
"Yellow Pages"
I put the phone down, he didn't ring back.
Its times like those that make it all worth while.
But sometimes things work in your favour.
Like being able to tell customers, or even potential customers to fuck right off and stop pestering you.
We do this on a fairly regular basis with those customers who have become a vexation to the spirit, I'm sure I don't need to explain that you occasionally meet people in your life who just irritate the hell out of you, generally because no matter what you do for them, it will never be good enough. They are the born complainers, they are never happy and the sound of their voice on the phone just plunges you into depths of despair that you never thought existed.
In an ordinary salaried job you have to bear these people like a huge millstone around your neck, you have to be subserviant to them, apologise constantly and try and find ways to appease them, although you know its an impossible task - if you don't do any of this stuff you are likely to find yourself bollacked by your boss for upsetting customers and losing business.
At my company you are allowed to tell these people to fuck right off and stick their business up their arses, followed by a recomendation that they ring our competitors and pester them instead, all our employees have this right ordained on them, they only have to ask for the key to the cupboard, explain why the customer is a pain in the arse, and I will grant them full "fuck right off" rights - we have a lot of fun with this precedure, but we realised two years ago that 90% of our time was being spent trying to appease 2% of our customers, so we told them to fuck right off and we've been much happier since, and we still make a profit.
For instance,
I received a phone call last Friday from a guy in a staffing agency who was so far up his own arse that he will never have a problem with prostate cancer, he'll see it developing long before anyone else. He commenced this huge, long pre-prepared speech about how he had to prepare a tender for a contract with "a large soft drinks manufacturer in Wakefield" to which I interrupted "you mean coca-cola", he confirmed a little suprised as if it were a secret that Coke has been canned at Wakefield for the last ten years, I muttered the word "wanker" under my breath.
I sent him a quote for some of our equipment and software, itemising everything and hoped that I wouldn't hear from him again, he had irritated the hell out of me in just a few minutes conversation but to be honest I've found that the same sort of wankers tend to work in the staff agency business, it must be a pre-requisite for the job.
Monday he rang and left a message for me to ring him, I didn't so he sent me an email asking if I'd go and see him "for an important meeting", his use of the word "important" meaning that he was the important element - I've been to these meetings before, you are meeting with someone who hasn't even won the contract yet and yet still wants to impress you as though he is the world best negotiator - I've sat in front of, and wasted so much time on these pre-tender staff recruitment wankers that I just don't do it anymore.
I emailed him back saying that I could go any day this week, he replied with the answer "you are making me work really hard for this, come on Friday, tell me a time". This answer did it for me, if he thought he was working hard now then he'd have to work fucking harder to get to speak to me again.
He rang all day Tuesday, he emailed me all day Tuesday, trying to get a time arranged, people in the office fended him off while I told them that I had no intention of speaking to him.
I picked the phone up on Wednesday morning and he was on the other end, he sounded pissed off, which is exactly what I wanted him to be, I went into belligerent mode, he demanded to know what time I would be meeting him on Friday.
"I'm not coming" I replied
"Well it very important that you do, I need some answers for my tender documents"
"What are your questions"
"I'm getting the impression that you don't want my business"
"Yes"
"But I need these questions answering"
"Ask me the questions now"
This threw him slightly, I heard him throw the phone down on the desk and shuffle through reams and reams of paper, complaining all the while, muttering stuff like "I don't believe this, I don't believe this"
He came back to the phone, I was laughing out loud at him and sharing the joke with my brother who was sat opposite wondering what was going on.
"Can this equipment be accessed remotely" he asked, question one.
"Yes" I replied, "Thats why we've itemised a modem on your quote"
"Can it link to Sage payroll" question two
"Yes, thats why theres an item on the quote that says Sage payroll link"
Silence.
If I'd gone all the way to his office that would have been the sum total of our meeting.
"Are there any other companies apart from yours who sell this stuff"
"Yes"
"Where"
"Yellow Pages"
I put the phone down, he didn't ring back.
Its times like those that make it all worth while.
Methods for extracting money...part XVII
If there is one thing that acts as a signature for this current government since they came to power, its the word "fines".
I'm not a political animal, I despise them all with equal ferocity and simply refuse to accept that an MP can become an MP without having worked in a "proper" job first, its the accepted route into Westminster these days to simply finish your degree course and then brown-nose your nearest political party HQ until they accept your nomination to be an MP.
All of which is irrelevant to todays gripe.
I received a letter in the post yesterday from Leeds City Council advising me that the driver of one of my cars was seen to throw a cigarette stub from the window of said vehicle at a particular date and time, and that for this heinous crime I need to send them £50 right now (or within 14 days) as they "have a no-tolorance stand against littering".
I may be the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but I don't drive it, they explain that if I know who the driver was then I must inform them immediately as they are entitled in law to know the information whilst investigating a criminal offence (their exact words).
I may just tell them to fuck off and behave themselves.
On the other hand I will reply to inform them that it wasn't me and could they help me with more information to identify the driver on that day, its a ploy that worked once with an alleged speeding offence. You see the thing about these instant fines for any tiny, minor transgressions of the rulebook is that the pedants at City Hall know that 99% of us citizens are honest and that we will simply cough up, challenge their lack of evidence and they generally have to back down, because they have no evidence.
On the local radio news today is the story of a Leeds woman who, this very day, is to appear in court accused of avoiding payment of the correct train fare sometime last year, she didn't avoid paying the fare at all, she underpaid by ten pence, that is she bought a ticket but it was ten pence too little, she now faces an instant fine of £100 and court costs.
You can be fined for anything and everything today, national and local government offices have the power to fine you for anything they like and need offer no evidence to you, its almost a random event, and in the meantime we have one of the filthiest city centres that I have ever seen, with a complete lack of manpower or willpower to do any cleaning, cleaning the streets expends income, fining people for dropping litter raises income, its plain to see what emphasis the national government places on local authorities.
This one will run and run.
I'm not a political animal, I despise them all with equal ferocity and simply refuse to accept that an MP can become an MP without having worked in a "proper" job first, its the accepted route into Westminster these days to simply finish your degree course and then brown-nose your nearest political party HQ until they accept your nomination to be an MP.
All of which is irrelevant to todays gripe.
I received a letter in the post yesterday from Leeds City Council advising me that the driver of one of my cars was seen to throw a cigarette stub from the window of said vehicle at a particular date and time, and that for this heinous crime I need to send them £50 right now (or within 14 days) as they "have a no-tolorance stand against littering".
I may be the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but I don't drive it, they explain that if I know who the driver was then I must inform them immediately as they are entitled in law to know the information whilst investigating a criminal offence (their exact words).
I may just tell them to fuck off and behave themselves.
On the other hand I will reply to inform them that it wasn't me and could they help me with more information to identify the driver on that day, its a ploy that worked once with an alleged speeding offence. You see the thing about these instant fines for any tiny, minor transgressions of the rulebook is that the pedants at City Hall know that 99% of us citizens are honest and that we will simply cough up, challenge their lack of evidence and they generally have to back down, because they have no evidence.
On the local radio news today is the story of a Leeds woman who, this very day, is to appear in court accused of avoiding payment of the correct train fare sometime last year, she didn't avoid paying the fare at all, she underpaid by ten pence, that is she bought a ticket but it was ten pence too little, she now faces an instant fine of £100 and court costs.
You can be fined for anything and everything today, national and local government offices have the power to fine you for anything they like and need offer no evidence to you, its almost a random event, and in the meantime we have one of the filthiest city centres that I have ever seen, with a complete lack of manpower or willpower to do any cleaning, cleaning the streets expends income, fining people for dropping litter raises income, its plain to see what emphasis the national government places on local authorities.
This one will run and run.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
I shall salsa no more
"They weren't for me" I explained, "Oh no, not for me at all, they were for Suzanne, honest they were"
My brother, peering over my shoulder at my email inbox clearly didn't believe me and he clutched his ribs as another spasm of laughter racked through his torso.
They were for Suzanne, they really were, its all the gym's fault.
She and a friend of hers had signed up for an aerobics class just after xmas and for the last three weeks she's been extollig the virtues of salsa-cise, a sort of, well, salsa-based exercise I suppose.
So much so that two weeks ago she got me to order the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd, plus, and because "other people who ordered this dvd also ordered this one" she got me to order the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise part II dvd, total cost £23.99 for the pair, and like a fool I ordered them on my Amazon account.
By the way, Tracey Shaw is the blonde slapper who played some hairdressing character in Coronation Street, she was Ashley's wife until Richard Hilman murdered her, not that I watch Coronation Street of course, oh no, it just explained all of that in the blurb for the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd, not that I read the sleeve notes for salsa-cise dvd's, oh no - I'll stop digging now, this hole is deep enough.
So two weeks later and suzanne is nagging the life out of me as to why her salsa-cise dvd's haven't come yet, I cuold tell her that the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise regime didn't exactly set the world on fire and perhaps they've had to get Tracey Shaw to re-record the routines in her front room with a video camera, "Hey Tracey, we've got an order for another dvd, wheres the master copy ?", "I threw it away, it was shit".
And then on Monday I get an email from Amazon to apologise and advise that the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvds could possibly take up to another three weeks to arrive, Tracey has apparently forgotten the routines and they are having to make some more up, Suzanne tells me to "cancel the bloody order".
And so I cancel them and pray to whatever god is in flavour this month that no-one intercepts my email, I check and double check the address and ensure that I haven't accidently forwarded it to everyone else in my address boook, oh the shame of having those few words "Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd" flying around the ethernet with my name associated with it.
My brother, peering over my shoulder at my email inbox clearly didn't believe me and he clutched his ribs as another spasm of laughter racked through his torso.
They were for Suzanne, they really were, its all the gym's fault.
She and a friend of hers had signed up for an aerobics class just after xmas and for the last three weeks she's been extollig the virtues of salsa-cise, a sort of, well, salsa-based exercise I suppose.
So much so that two weeks ago she got me to order the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd, plus, and because "other people who ordered this dvd also ordered this one" she got me to order the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise part II dvd, total cost £23.99 for the pair, and like a fool I ordered them on my Amazon account.
By the way, Tracey Shaw is the blonde slapper who played some hairdressing character in Coronation Street, she was Ashley's wife until Richard Hilman murdered her, not that I watch Coronation Street of course, oh no, it just explained all of that in the blurb for the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd, not that I read the sleeve notes for salsa-cise dvd's, oh no - I'll stop digging now, this hole is deep enough.
So two weeks later and suzanne is nagging the life out of me as to why her salsa-cise dvd's haven't come yet, I cuold tell her that the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise regime didn't exactly set the world on fire and perhaps they've had to get Tracey Shaw to re-record the routines in her front room with a video camera, "Hey Tracey, we've got an order for another dvd, wheres the master copy ?", "I threw it away, it was shit".
And then on Monday I get an email from Amazon to apologise and advise that the Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvds could possibly take up to another three weeks to arrive, Tracey has apparently forgotten the routines and they are having to make some more up, Suzanne tells me to "cancel the bloody order".
And so I cancel them and pray to whatever god is in flavour this month that no-one intercepts my email, I check and double check the address and ensure that I haven't accidently forwarded it to everyone else in my address boook, oh the shame of having those few words "Tracey Shaw Salsa-cise dvd" flying around the ethernet with my name associated with it.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The pink lozenge revisited...
So I'm lying there on a huge vivid pink lozenge, its just after 9am and I'm totally relaxed but I can't feel my mouth and I'm sure its three times bigger than it normally is. I'm staring straight up at the ceiling at a huge bright light feeling just like a rabbit in car headlights when suddenly this huge face appears above me, staring down into my eyes and a soft voice asks "could you bite down on this please"
No, I havent been smoking those "funny" cigarettes again and no I haven't overdosed on my well worn copy of Sgt Peppers again , I'm at the dentist - again.
I show him the crown that he fitted temporarily two weeks ago, the fact that its in my hand instead of in my mouth suggests that the glue didn't work too well and he nods in his gentle way and ignores the issue, today I'm here for the root to be filled permenantly and then decide what sort of new crown I'll have the pleasure of financing.
The filling goes fine, I lie there in a stupor staring at his light fitting while he does his stuff using gallons of water to clean out the drilled out root, he cuts my gum back and I can't feel a thing, I haven't felt anything in the last half hour but the real pain is yet to come, the pain in my wallet.
The work for today is finished, the root filling completed and I sit up in the pink lozenge as he explains what the next session will bring - he is going to fit a new carbon fibre post into the root which will apparently bond much better than the old titanium one that had a life span of "lifetime" when it was fitted, which converted quickly to just three years. Apparently they use much stronger glue with the carbon fibre ones, I hope so.
On top of that he will then fit a brand new tooth made from porcelain in his very own studio, it all sound just whoopee-doo until he explains that the tooth will cost £520, its either this or the pirate look and the gap-toothed pirate look isn't too good.
So its another £95 for yesterdays session and another appointment in two weeks time and another temporary crown in place held in with not-so-strong glue so I have to be careful eating on it, and I'm left wondering again, whatever happened to the National Health Service ?
No, I havent been smoking those "funny" cigarettes again and no I haven't overdosed on my well worn copy of Sgt Peppers again , I'm at the dentist - again.
I show him the crown that he fitted temporarily two weeks ago, the fact that its in my hand instead of in my mouth suggests that the glue didn't work too well and he nods in his gentle way and ignores the issue, today I'm here for the root to be filled permenantly and then decide what sort of new crown I'll have the pleasure of financing.
The filling goes fine, I lie there in a stupor staring at his light fitting while he does his stuff using gallons of water to clean out the drilled out root, he cuts my gum back and I can't feel a thing, I haven't felt anything in the last half hour but the real pain is yet to come, the pain in my wallet.
The work for today is finished, the root filling completed and I sit up in the pink lozenge as he explains what the next session will bring - he is going to fit a new carbon fibre post into the root which will apparently bond much better than the old titanium one that had a life span of "lifetime" when it was fitted, which converted quickly to just three years. Apparently they use much stronger glue with the carbon fibre ones, I hope so.
On top of that he will then fit a brand new tooth made from porcelain in his very own studio, it all sound just whoopee-doo until he explains that the tooth will cost £520, its either this or the pirate look and the gap-toothed pirate look isn't too good.
So its another £95 for yesterdays session and another appointment in two weeks time and another temporary crown in place held in with not-so-strong glue so I have to be careful eating on it, and I'm left wondering again, whatever happened to the National Health Service ?
Monday, February 06, 2006
Searching for ancestors...
oooooh, I've found a new hobby :)
Was given a link to a couple of websites yesterday, one of them (ancestry.co.uk) set me off on the "tracing your ancestors" trail, and I think I'm hooked now.
I tried to do this four years ago, even bought some software that helped you draw up a family tree then left you high and dry to fill inthe details when I realised it was based on access to American registery web sites - the places you go to to check Births Marriages and Deaths.
Since then the UK seems to have caught up and grown up with the idea that ordinary citizens should have the right to browse public archives online and there are something like 150 years worth of public records available now.
In two hours yesterday I followed my family through the bits that I already knew back to the 1901 census where I found my paternal grandfather as a boy living with his parents and NINE other brothers and sisters in a pub in Meanwood, Leeds.
I knew about the pub because its still there and when my dad was alive he'd poin tit out every time we passed it, telling me that if his father had won the coin toss then we'd have been running the bloody pub instead of his cousins family, quite honestly I'm glad my grandad lost the pub, its a right shithole.
So I found my great-grandfather and now know how old he was in 1901 and hence his birth year, my next task is to trace his birth certificate and move further back -its addictive !
And then we started on Suzannes family.
Suzanne comes from a mining village background where it was common for families to have six or even ten children, Suzanne has five brothers and sisters and her mother is one of nine so her family tree is going to provide full time employment for the next six or seven years.
We chose her mothers fathers line to go back down and again found our way to 1901 very easily, especially as the 1901 census is free to access, ie you don't have to pay any fees to view the info unless you want to view the actual documents. I really wanted to view her families census form so I paid £5 for access to ten document downloads and got the page from the census that listed her great-grandfathers family at the time.
They lived in the next village to the one they are in now but as all the villages around there were attached to pits that were owned by the Delaval family then its not suprising that they moved three miles in 100 years, they would have moved to their current location when their own pit closed.
Her grandfather had three other siblings and the children and both parents all lived in one room, looking at the address it seems to have been a sub-divided house, the father is listed as "miner, hourly paid" which basically means he was the lowest of the low and only worked when there was a demand at the pit, one of the children was also working, the eldest boy was 14 years old and was listed as "miner, pony driver" which is self explanatory - its this sort of detail that I love to read about even though you are peeking at someone elses miserable lives.
In contrast my great-gradfathers family of ten had two of the boys old enough to work in 1901, one was an apprentice plasterer and the other at 21 years of age an auctioneer - this one is interesting because one generation down from him my fathers cousin ended up as a director of a large estate agents, not sure if there is a link yet but theres another branch to climb down :)
The two families seem poles apart, one scraping (literally) a living underground and the other running a succesful business producing sons who were succesful in their own lines of business, my grandad formed the company that I run now, another one of his brothers continued the pub business.
One thing is worthy of note though - none of the daughters of either family are listed as having jobs of any description.
Was given a link to a couple of websites yesterday, one of them (ancestry.co.uk) set me off on the "tracing your ancestors" trail, and I think I'm hooked now.
I tried to do this four years ago, even bought some software that helped you draw up a family tree then left you high and dry to fill inthe details when I realised it was based on access to American registery web sites - the places you go to to check Births Marriages and Deaths.
Since then the UK seems to have caught up and grown up with the idea that ordinary citizens should have the right to browse public archives online and there are something like 150 years worth of public records available now.
In two hours yesterday I followed my family through the bits that I already knew back to the 1901 census where I found my paternal grandfather as a boy living with his parents and NINE other brothers and sisters in a pub in Meanwood, Leeds.
I knew about the pub because its still there and when my dad was alive he'd poin tit out every time we passed it, telling me that if his father had won the coin toss then we'd have been running the bloody pub instead of his cousins family, quite honestly I'm glad my grandad lost the pub, its a right shithole.
So I found my great-grandfather and now know how old he was in 1901 and hence his birth year, my next task is to trace his birth certificate and move further back -its addictive !
And then we started on Suzannes family.
Suzanne comes from a mining village background where it was common for families to have six or even ten children, Suzanne has five brothers and sisters and her mother is one of nine so her family tree is going to provide full time employment for the next six or seven years.
We chose her mothers fathers line to go back down and again found our way to 1901 very easily, especially as the 1901 census is free to access, ie you don't have to pay any fees to view the info unless you want to view the actual documents. I really wanted to view her families census form so I paid £5 for access to ten document downloads and got the page from the census that listed her great-grandfathers family at the time.
They lived in the next village to the one they are in now but as all the villages around there were attached to pits that were owned by the Delaval family then its not suprising that they moved three miles in 100 years, they would have moved to their current location when their own pit closed.
Her grandfather had three other siblings and the children and both parents all lived in one room, looking at the address it seems to have been a sub-divided house, the father is listed as "miner, hourly paid" which basically means he was the lowest of the low and only worked when there was a demand at the pit, one of the children was also working, the eldest boy was 14 years old and was listed as "miner, pony driver" which is self explanatory - its this sort of detail that I love to read about even though you are peeking at someone elses miserable lives.
In contrast my great-gradfathers family of ten had two of the boys old enough to work in 1901, one was an apprentice plasterer and the other at 21 years of age an auctioneer - this one is interesting because one generation down from him my fathers cousin ended up as a director of a large estate agents, not sure if there is a link yet but theres another branch to climb down :)
The two families seem poles apart, one scraping (literally) a living underground and the other running a succesful business producing sons who were succesful in their own lines of business, my grandad formed the company that I run now, another one of his brothers continued the pub business.
One thing is worthy of note though - none of the daughters of either family are listed as having jobs of any description.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Another shopping saturday
Its not a well known fact that as the fourth largest city in the UK, Leeds has no large shopping mall to speak of.
It could be argued that with such a vibrant city centre we have no use for an out of town shopping mall and that is indeed part of the reason, the other reason is that while Newcastle was building its Metro Centre, Sheffield its Meadowhall, Manchester its Trafford Centre etc etc etc, the Secretary of State at the time (who's name escapes my memory banks) placed an embargo on planning permission for any more out of town Malls, stating the financial destruction of existing city centres like Newcastle and Sheffield (especially Sheffield) as a direct result.
Leeds ended up with the White Rose Centre which is probably worth one fifth of The Metro Centre and a quarter of Meadowhall, and we invested in a vibrant city centre instead, which is why Leeds city centre is full of Geordies every saturday, come to visit and reminisce over what Newcastle used to be like.
Which takes us to today.
Next weekend is the 25th wedding anniversary of some close friends, they are having their "do" at a golf club, they promise that its not a posh frock do but you try and explain that to any woman who has got half a chance of buying a new posh frock for a golf club "do".
And so it was decreed this morning that the wife and my youngest daughter would like to go to Meadowhall to do the shopping thing for a posh frock for next week, I did try to explain that it was not a posh frock do, but they weren't listening, actually I told the dog that it wasn't a posh frock do as I knew they would not listen anyway.
Its a 40 minute drive to Meadowhall and once there I did my usual thing of losing them inside the mall within two minutes, they keep in touch by mobile and when they are ready to go home they call me, I'm only there for the chauffeur duties.
Its hard trying to keep yourself interested for three hours in Waterstones and WH Smith, there is only so much reading and re-reading of book sleeves that you can do, only a finite number of times that you can read every single magazine on the rack without shop assistants starting to notice you.
I went for a coffee, ate a large muffin with it, read their newspapers, sat and stared at the ceiling for a while and then the Costa Coffee assistants came to clear the table and stared in that way that they have that says, "you've drunk our coffee, read our papers, now piss off".
I wandered around shoe shops picking up shoes that I would never buy in a month of sundays, pointed shoes seem to be in this spring, I found myself in the Apple shop with no intention of buying yet another iPod, we've got three already, but they do have some very nice looking PC's and I mentioned this to a very bored assistant who was aged about twelve years old.
In Body Shop I sprayed myself with all three of the gents aftershave that they sell - just three things for men in the whole shop, Anita Roddick you're a bitch, but didn't buy any of them, left smelling like a tarts boudoir though.
I avoided the likes of Top Shop or River Island as the clientel in there seem to be still in kindergarten these days and so found myself browsing Marks & Spencers with zero interest in anything they had to sell, and Debenhams with just a flicker of interest in a big fookoff coffe machine with loads of chrome on it and some very dangerous looking tubes and spouts and loads of buttons to press to impress guests.
The coffee machine ignited an interest and I went and sought out the Kitchen Shop where apparently their stock is for professional cooks, their coffee machines were certainly fookoff professional ones at fookoff prices too, but it killed ten minutes just comparing each one and counting the number of buttons on each and how their uses differed, the interest wained as I reminded myself that I've got a perfectly good caffetierre at home that only needs you to push a plunger to make perfectly good coffee without the need for a plumbing qualification.
And then finally she rang me to ask where I was and would I come to Wallis' to see what she'd picked for herself, the thought did cross my mind that Wallis' was the very first shop that she'd walked into, it was where I'd left her three hours earlier, and sure enough when I got there she showed me the outfit she'd picked and confirmed that it was the one she'd seen within three minutes of us arriving at Meadowhall, but of course I am by now too wise in my ways to point this out to her, and not too keen on receiveing another black eye in the middle of a shopping mall.
Money spent, outfit obtained and we were on our way back home.
Until we reached the outskirts of Leeds and she uttered the words I had been dreading, "We pass The White Rose Centre coming this way don't we, I need a blouse for this outfit".
Fortunately I was as mellow as the weather has been today and so I found myself browsing again in the Whte Rose version of Debenhams, a half hour enlightened by an announcement that if all customers would make their way to the "Home" department then every adult in the store would be given a free chefs knife.
As it happened I was already in the "Home" section looking at coffee machines again, Debenhams coffee machines aren't as good as the Kitchen Shop's by the way, they haven't got as many knobs (god I must have been really bored by then), and I was nearly trampled in the tsunami of elderly women who descended on the "Home" department for their free chefs knives.
Within fifteen seconds the demonstration table was mobbed by at least 70 or 80 old ladies, many of whom probably didn't even know what was being given away, but it was free so they wanted one, whatever it was. I left quickly as something in my mind felt uneasy by the thought of hundreds of people, many of them already senile, wandering a department store armed with free chefs knives, as I left Debenhams I could already hear the clash of the cutlery at the demo table, either they were handed them out hand over fist, or the old gits had already started hand to hand combat to get at their freebies.
It could be argued that with such a vibrant city centre we have no use for an out of town shopping mall and that is indeed part of the reason, the other reason is that while Newcastle was building its Metro Centre, Sheffield its Meadowhall, Manchester its Trafford Centre etc etc etc, the Secretary of State at the time (who's name escapes my memory banks) placed an embargo on planning permission for any more out of town Malls, stating the financial destruction of existing city centres like Newcastle and Sheffield (especially Sheffield) as a direct result.
Leeds ended up with the White Rose Centre which is probably worth one fifth of The Metro Centre and a quarter of Meadowhall, and we invested in a vibrant city centre instead, which is why Leeds city centre is full of Geordies every saturday, come to visit and reminisce over what Newcastle used to be like.
Which takes us to today.
Next weekend is the 25th wedding anniversary of some close friends, they are having their "do" at a golf club, they promise that its not a posh frock do but you try and explain that to any woman who has got half a chance of buying a new posh frock for a golf club "do".
And so it was decreed this morning that the wife and my youngest daughter would like to go to Meadowhall to do the shopping thing for a posh frock for next week, I did try to explain that it was not a posh frock do, but they weren't listening, actually I told the dog that it wasn't a posh frock do as I knew they would not listen anyway.
Its a 40 minute drive to Meadowhall and once there I did my usual thing of losing them inside the mall within two minutes, they keep in touch by mobile and when they are ready to go home they call me, I'm only there for the chauffeur duties.
Its hard trying to keep yourself interested for three hours in Waterstones and WH Smith, there is only so much reading and re-reading of book sleeves that you can do, only a finite number of times that you can read every single magazine on the rack without shop assistants starting to notice you.
I went for a coffee, ate a large muffin with it, read their newspapers, sat and stared at the ceiling for a while and then the Costa Coffee assistants came to clear the table and stared in that way that they have that says, "you've drunk our coffee, read our papers, now piss off".
I wandered around shoe shops picking up shoes that I would never buy in a month of sundays, pointed shoes seem to be in this spring, I found myself in the Apple shop with no intention of buying yet another iPod, we've got three already, but they do have some very nice looking PC's and I mentioned this to a very bored assistant who was aged about twelve years old.
In Body Shop I sprayed myself with all three of the gents aftershave that they sell - just three things for men in the whole shop, Anita Roddick you're a bitch, but didn't buy any of them, left smelling like a tarts boudoir though.
I avoided the likes of Top Shop or River Island as the clientel in there seem to be still in kindergarten these days and so found myself browsing Marks & Spencers with zero interest in anything they had to sell, and Debenhams with just a flicker of interest in a big fookoff coffe machine with loads of chrome on it and some very dangerous looking tubes and spouts and loads of buttons to press to impress guests.
The coffee machine ignited an interest and I went and sought out the Kitchen Shop where apparently their stock is for professional cooks, their coffee machines were certainly fookoff professional ones at fookoff prices too, but it killed ten minutes just comparing each one and counting the number of buttons on each and how their uses differed, the interest wained as I reminded myself that I've got a perfectly good caffetierre at home that only needs you to push a plunger to make perfectly good coffee without the need for a plumbing qualification.
And then finally she rang me to ask where I was and would I come to Wallis' to see what she'd picked for herself, the thought did cross my mind that Wallis' was the very first shop that she'd walked into, it was where I'd left her three hours earlier, and sure enough when I got there she showed me the outfit she'd picked and confirmed that it was the one she'd seen within three minutes of us arriving at Meadowhall, but of course I am by now too wise in my ways to point this out to her, and not too keen on receiveing another black eye in the middle of a shopping mall.
Money spent, outfit obtained and we were on our way back home.
Until we reached the outskirts of Leeds and she uttered the words I had been dreading, "We pass The White Rose Centre coming this way don't we, I need a blouse for this outfit".
Fortunately I was as mellow as the weather has been today and so I found myself browsing again in the Whte Rose version of Debenhams, a half hour enlightened by an announcement that if all customers would make their way to the "Home" department then every adult in the store would be given a free chefs knife.
As it happened I was already in the "Home" section looking at coffee machines again, Debenhams coffee machines aren't as good as the Kitchen Shop's by the way, they haven't got as many knobs (god I must have been really bored by then), and I was nearly trampled in the tsunami of elderly women who descended on the "Home" department for their free chefs knives.
Within fifteen seconds the demonstration table was mobbed by at least 70 or 80 old ladies, many of whom probably didn't even know what was being given away, but it was free so they wanted one, whatever it was. I left quickly as something in my mind felt uneasy by the thought of hundreds of people, many of them already senile, wandering a department store armed with free chefs knives, as I left Debenhams I could already hear the clash of the cutlery at the demo table, either they were handed them out hand over fist, or the old gits had already started hand to hand combat to get at their freebies.
Friday, February 03, 2006
It starts again...
At last, its time, the season starts this weekend.
What ?
The rugby league season of course, my game of choice, for viewing that is.
Tonight sees the World Club Challenge, a made-up invention of a trophy which in theory should have the ultimate status in terms of club rugby league, its played between the last seasons British Superleague Champions and the Australian NRL Champions, in fact its viewed as an almost meaningless friendly by most supporters of the game (apart from those supporters who's team win) but its a great curtain raiser for the start of the Superleague season next week.
Also this weekend is the first round of the RL Challenge Cup and Bramley are competing at home to Thatto Heath, we won't go into the complications of explaining which leagues the respective teams play in, suffice to say that all the teams in the challange cup at this stage are amatuer, with the superleague teams joining at round three.
So there we are, bottles of beer are currently chilling in the beer fridge for tonights World Club Challenge on Sky Sports and I'll be wrapped up on Sunday for the short trip to Stanningley and more beer and rugby on the hill watching Bramley - with a bit of luck I'll even get to see the bench coats that I sponsored last year (which idiot uses his company money to sponsor insulated bench suits to keep the substitutes warm in a summer game ?) - (me, thats who, it seemed like a good idea at the time).
What ?
The rugby league season of course, my game of choice, for viewing that is.
Tonight sees the World Club Challenge, a made-up invention of a trophy which in theory should have the ultimate status in terms of club rugby league, its played between the last seasons British Superleague Champions and the Australian NRL Champions, in fact its viewed as an almost meaningless friendly by most supporters of the game (apart from those supporters who's team win) but its a great curtain raiser for the start of the Superleague season next week.
Also this weekend is the first round of the RL Challenge Cup and Bramley are competing at home to Thatto Heath, we won't go into the complications of explaining which leagues the respective teams play in, suffice to say that all the teams in the challange cup at this stage are amatuer, with the superleague teams joining at round three.
So there we are, bottles of beer are currently chilling in the beer fridge for tonights World Club Challenge on Sky Sports and I'll be wrapped up on Sunday for the short trip to Stanningley and more beer and rugby on the hill watching Bramley - with a bit of luck I'll even get to see the bench coats that I sponsored last year (which idiot uses his company money to sponsor insulated bench suits to keep the substitutes warm in a summer game ?) - (me, thats who, it seemed like a good idea at the time).
More Apologies...
'kin hell
More apologies in order.
Anyway its sorted now - comments should appear without delay, 'kin tick box options, grrrrr.
More apologies in order.
Anyway its sorted now - comments should appear without delay, 'kin tick box options, grrrrr.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
They've caught the bastard
I received a letter over the weekend from Her Majesty's West Yorkshire Police Force informing me that they had caught and charged the scrote who burgled my house in December 2004, well done to them.
Let me at this point state that I am very pro-police, I have family members who are serving officers and the friend that we go on our summer holiday with is a serving officer, so I have an insight into what goes on behind the closed interview room doors.
Obviously what has happened in this case is that the suspect was suspected all along and they've just been waiting for him to make a big mistake (instead of the small mistakes he made at our burglary) so that they could nail him then get him to admit to (probably) hundreds of other offences.
Still, it was nice to get the letter, the police are much more communitative these days, especially as they are always having to justify their council tax inspired budgets.
In my case the lowlife had peeked in the kitchen window, seen my wallet and mobile phone on the worktop and kicked the kitchen door in to snatch the two items, a not inconsiderable feat as its a steel framed upvc door with five locking points and two internal bolts - it just burst open - the attending police officers were most impressed and not to keen to go out seeking the superhuman person who had achieved this.
We of course were in bed when this happened, three loud bangs on the door was what we heard and by the time I'd tip-toed downstairs and searched the rooms before finding the knackered back door wide open, the scrote had long gone. jake the Golden Retreiver was sleeping in the kitchen that night but of course he doesn't bark and so I found him stood at the back door staring out with a "what the fuck was that" expression on his face.
The police got lots of evidence, a big shoe print on the pvc door which they could identify without even sending to a lab, we got the phone records and found that he'd used his own phone to ring mine, presumably to see if it worked, then used my phone to ring for a taxi to take him home to Becketts Park, and we found from one of my Switch cards that he'd called at a local garage and used the card to buy cigarettes and £20 cashback, the garage provided their own cctv evidence to the police - it was all pretty conclusive really.
And that was the sum total of it until this weekend, I wonder how quickly I could become a magistrate and if so would they let me apply the death penalty ?
Let me at this point state that I am very pro-police, I have family members who are serving officers and the friend that we go on our summer holiday with is a serving officer, so I have an insight into what goes on behind the closed interview room doors.
Obviously what has happened in this case is that the suspect was suspected all along and they've just been waiting for him to make a big mistake (instead of the small mistakes he made at our burglary) so that they could nail him then get him to admit to (probably) hundreds of other offences.
Still, it was nice to get the letter, the police are much more communitative these days, especially as they are always having to justify their council tax inspired budgets.
In my case the lowlife had peeked in the kitchen window, seen my wallet and mobile phone on the worktop and kicked the kitchen door in to snatch the two items, a not inconsiderable feat as its a steel framed upvc door with five locking points and two internal bolts - it just burst open - the attending police officers were most impressed and not to keen to go out seeking the superhuman person who had achieved this.
We of course were in bed when this happened, three loud bangs on the door was what we heard and by the time I'd tip-toed downstairs and searched the rooms before finding the knackered back door wide open, the scrote had long gone. jake the Golden Retreiver was sleeping in the kitchen that night but of course he doesn't bark and so I found him stood at the back door staring out with a "what the fuck was that" expression on his face.
The police got lots of evidence, a big shoe print on the pvc door which they could identify without even sending to a lab, we got the phone records and found that he'd used his own phone to ring mine, presumably to see if it worked, then used my phone to ring for a taxi to take him home to Becketts Park, and we found from one of my Switch cards that he'd called at a local garage and used the card to buy cigarettes and £20 cashback, the garage provided their own cctv evidence to the police - it was all pretty conclusive really.
And that was the sum total of it until this weekend, I wonder how quickly I could become a magistrate and if so would they let me apply the death penalty ?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
British troops in Iraq
A serious blog !!!
My first in two months, unless you count the ones about my errant tooth.
Anyway, this country awoke yesterday morning to the sad news that another British soldier had been killed in Iraq, its unfortunately not as newsworthy as it used to be nowadays, except for the headline fact that this unfortunate combatant was the 100th British soldier to give his life for the Iraqi cause.
Compared to the American combatant deaths of around 2250 at the latest count, the number 100 pales almost into insignificance but the British media dined out yesterday on the number 100 and predictably called for troop withdrawals, or at least a plan for eventual withdrawals.
GMTV started the ball rolling with one of their mind-numbing Yes/No telephone polls - "Should British troops be withdrawn now" the question asked, I didn't even stick around to see the result as the poll was always preceeded by an interview with a grieving mother.
GMTV viewers vote for whatever option the producer has placed at the top of the list, in this case the option to vote for was clearly "Yes" and so I assume they got their overwhelming answer, GMTV polls are always overwhelming. it makes for good reporting, they can't really announce "well none of you can be arsed voting in our poll this morning, how are we going to pay for this TV station if you won't vote ?", its almost as if the reaching of 100 British deaths was the original quota, as if Tony Blair will sit before his cabinet today and ask "well chaps we've reached the 100 figure, are you going to vote for another 100 or do I get to pull the troops out"
If only it were a Yes/No solution, if only Tony Blair could ask GMTV to decide his Iraqi policy for him, or indeed any policy come to think of it, we could have a government policy vote on GMTV every morning, "Do you want to pay more tax, vote Yes or No, calls should cost no more than £1".
The sad, undoubtable and (we should be) proud fact is that the British Armed Forces have a reputation second to none in world armed forces rankings and we are the obvious choice when allies wish to put their "world policemen" theories into practice, whatever you think of those policies it is not an option for us to say "No thanks we don't want to come to this party this time".
And its probably a tad insensitive at the current time as 100 families are reminded of their loss today, but our armed forces are not exactly strapped for volunteers, young people who want to be a part of this extremely professional force, whether for patriotic or personal reasons (I'd like to come out with a good trade etc), despite the knowledge that they will invariably be placed into a combat situation during their contracted period of service.
And its an even harder statement to make but its a hard fact that as taxpayers we contribute mightily towards our armed forces, admittedly the sums are getting smaller in real terms year on year and the armed forces are screaming for more as a result, but still, our so called "defence budget" is huge, topping £30billion, and if our armed forces aren't going to be deployed to the worlds trouble spots, then what the hell do we need so many of them for and why do we need to equip them so expensively ?
There is no simple solution, Bush does not have a simple strategy, Blair cannot make any promises on Iraq other than allow murmurs to creep out of the Defence Ministry that we will start a withdrawal "sometime this year", maybe.
And in the meantime troops will die, like they always have done, there is statement issued every year in November by the British Legion that a British soldier died in conflict in every year in the 20th century, we are always in conflict, even as peacekeepers we are in conflict, its what our armed forces are there for and the crocodile tears of the media are frankly shamefull.
My first in two months, unless you count the ones about my errant tooth.
Anyway, this country awoke yesterday morning to the sad news that another British soldier had been killed in Iraq, its unfortunately not as newsworthy as it used to be nowadays, except for the headline fact that this unfortunate combatant was the 100th British soldier to give his life for the Iraqi cause.
Compared to the American combatant deaths of around 2250 at the latest count, the number 100 pales almost into insignificance but the British media dined out yesterday on the number 100 and predictably called for troop withdrawals, or at least a plan for eventual withdrawals.
GMTV started the ball rolling with one of their mind-numbing Yes/No telephone polls - "Should British troops be withdrawn now" the question asked, I didn't even stick around to see the result as the poll was always preceeded by an interview with a grieving mother.
GMTV viewers vote for whatever option the producer has placed at the top of the list, in this case the option to vote for was clearly "Yes" and so I assume they got their overwhelming answer, GMTV polls are always overwhelming. it makes for good reporting, they can't really announce "well none of you can be arsed voting in our poll this morning, how are we going to pay for this TV station if you won't vote ?", its almost as if the reaching of 100 British deaths was the original quota, as if Tony Blair will sit before his cabinet today and ask "well chaps we've reached the 100 figure, are you going to vote for another 100 or do I get to pull the troops out"
If only it were a Yes/No solution, if only Tony Blair could ask GMTV to decide his Iraqi policy for him, or indeed any policy come to think of it, we could have a government policy vote on GMTV every morning, "Do you want to pay more tax, vote Yes or No, calls should cost no more than £1".
The sad, undoubtable and (we should be) proud fact is that the British Armed Forces have a reputation second to none in world armed forces rankings and we are the obvious choice when allies wish to put their "world policemen" theories into practice, whatever you think of those policies it is not an option for us to say "No thanks we don't want to come to this party this time".
And its probably a tad insensitive at the current time as 100 families are reminded of their loss today, but our armed forces are not exactly strapped for volunteers, young people who want to be a part of this extremely professional force, whether for patriotic or personal reasons (I'd like to come out with a good trade etc), despite the knowledge that they will invariably be placed into a combat situation during their contracted period of service.
And its an even harder statement to make but its a hard fact that as taxpayers we contribute mightily towards our armed forces, admittedly the sums are getting smaller in real terms year on year and the armed forces are screaming for more as a result, but still, our so called "defence budget" is huge, topping £30billion, and if our armed forces aren't going to be deployed to the worlds trouble spots, then what the hell do we need so many of them for and why do we need to equip them so expensively ?
There is no simple solution, Bush does not have a simple strategy, Blair cannot make any promises on Iraq other than allow murmurs to creep out of the Defence Ministry that we will start a withdrawal "sometime this year", maybe.
And in the meantime troops will die, like they always have done, there is statement issued every year in November by the British Legion that a British soldier died in conflict in every year in the 20th century, we are always in conflict, even as peacekeepers we are in conflict, its what our armed forces are there for and the crocodile tears of the media are frankly shamefull.
An Apology ...
An apology to those who have posted replies in the last month and not seen them appear on the blog, fekkin technology eh ?
How did I know I had the setting made so that I had to approve them first, anyway, I've unticked the box and comments should appear now, even the spam ones, I'm frightened to tick any more boxes to get rid of the spam ones as I'll probably delete myself next time.
How did I know I had the setting made so that I had to approve them first, anyway, I've unticked the box and comments should appear now, even the spam ones, I'm frightened to tick any more boxes to get rid of the spam ones as I'll probably delete myself next time.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Routine Maintenance
The tooth dropped out again today, its been loose since the pink dentist put it back in temporarily (see blog from ten days ago, or so), but today it fell out just when I picked the phone up and started to talk to someone, so now I've got the gap toothed pirate look again until I go back to the pink dentist next Monday and find out what the next stage of the treatment is, presumably it will be something ont he lines of "we have to find some good glue before we go any further".
I also went to the opticians yesterday where he gleefully informed me that it would be in order for me to get a stronger pair of reading glasses, I picked them up today but once again I didn't ask him yesterday how much the new lenses would cost, my account is now £60 lighter.
In ten days the bill for my routine maintenance is standing at £160 and the pink dentist is I fear nowhere near finished yet - didn't we used to have a free NHS service ? I'm sure I remember my parents talking of free health treatment, mind, they also got a pension when they were old enough, am I being ripped off here ?
I also went to the opticians yesterday where he gleefully informed me that it would be in order for me to get a stronger pair of reading glasses, I picked them up today but once again I didn't ask him yesterday how much the new lenses would cost, my account is now £60 lighter.
In ten days the bill for my routine maintenance is standing at £160 and the pink dentist is I fear nowhere near finished yet - didn't we used to have a free NHS service ? I'm sure I remember my parents talking of free health treatment, mind, they also got a pension when they were old enough, am I being ripped off here ?
Saturday, January 28, 2006
They aren't from Venus, its much further than that.
I confess right up to never having understood women, I never have done, ever.
Which makes it all the more ironic that I should live in a house with a wife and two teenage daughters.
I don't understand any of them, and make no effort to do so.
Today was a fairly average day in our house but illustrates my point very succinctly...
Daughter mk2 (13 years) wants to go to the cinema this afternoon with a group of friends from across the other side of Leeds, they'll meet in the centre but it creates a little problem in that she'll be left on her own when the film is finished until I can get there to pick her up, the wife does not like that idea and refuses permission.
Dmk2 then comes to me and asks if she can go to her friends house after the cinema and I could pick her up from there, this seems reasonable so I agree, I then get bollacked by wife as she really doesn't want Dmk2 to go at all, she doesn't like the friends and wants her back at home before we go out on our pre-arranged Tapas evening.
I'm now in the middle of this argument, stuck where I normally am and trying to apply logic to two females opposing opinions - an impossible task.
Daughter mk1 (17 years) then approaches and asks if she can be dropped off in Leeds when I drop off Dmk2, off course I agree, but she then asks to borrow £40 for some hair extensions. I ask, quite reasonably I think, why she needs hair extensions when she had them done just ten days ago at great cost.
Eyes are raised to the sky inexasperationn and she explains that the false hair has fallen out, in a manner that leaves me in no doubt that I am the idiot around here rather than someone who needs £40 every ten days because they can't wait for their own hair to grow.
I ask how much the beauty maintenance budget is as its only two weeks since she had a complete set of nails fitted and they've all fallen off since, at which point all three females join in the affray and verbal pummel me into submission on the grounds that I am male and cannot possibly understand the intricacies of the beauty budget, I retire to lick my wounds.
Dmk1 finds my retirement hole and asks again for money for hair extensions, as I reach for my wallet I am heard to mumble that if I fund any more artificial beauty aids to my family then I won't recognise them soon at which point Dmk1 storms out of the room, slams the door and is heard to shout "don't bloody bother then" at which point I rejoice and put the money back in my wallet.
In the meantime Wife has devised a plan wherby when I drop two daughters off in Leeds I will take her to Pudsey and the mind-numbingly large Marks & Spencers there in order to buy "a new top and a jacket" for the anniversary "do" that we are attending at a posh golf club in two weeks time - I don't argue as its fruitless.
But out in the hallway whilst waiting for me a huge argument is developing between Wife and Dmk1 who wants new hair money and Dmk2 who wants to change the cinema arrangements again, it culminates with another "well don't bloody bother then" and Wife stomps off this time, at least I haven't become accidently involved in this one.
I take two daughters into Leeds and when I return ask wife if she wants to go to M&S, she's in a big mood now and denies that she ever wanted to, this is just hunky dory by me and I retire to settee to select my afternoon TV viewing, I've saved having to pay Dmk1 her £40 and I've saved having to buy new outfit for Wife, she's also not talking to me through no fault of my own so I am guilt-free, can this day get any better ?
Later on she has calmed down and asks to be taken to M&S to resume the search for "a new outfit" for the golf club "do", I resist pointing out that my outfit for the golf club do will be chosen from a selection of existing clothing topped off with the free tie that I got at Barrie McDermotts testimonial "do" on Thursday night, this would be tantamount to the perfect excuse for homicide for her so as usual I remain silent and obey.
In M&S we fall into the regular and familiar routine of husband and wife shopping for wifes clothing, I trail several paces behind her while she browses the racks, taking things off the pegs, holding them up, putting them back, occasionally asking "do you like this", me replying "yes it suits you", her snapping back "I don't like it", me mumbling "neither do I" as if I really give a flying fook.
But eventually she actually finds a blouse that she likes and a matching military style jacket in a plum colour, this is good news as its only taken 30 minutes to find both items, the bad news is that both items will cost a total of £100, once again I remain silent, I'm walking a very thin line here and one wrong word will result in a three day sulk.
She tries on the jacket, its her size but its too tight across the shoulders, I forget the cardinal rule for once and suggest that she tries on the next size up, she looks at me as though I have grown another head and reminds me that she does not wear that size, she wears the size that she is trying to get into, I am stupid enough to mention that it is just a number and that if it fits then she could tear the label out so as not to remind herself that she's gone up a size, I am lucky that she doesn't hear this.
The day culminates with her buying the blouse but not the jacket, not even the jacket that would fit her, not even when she really liked the jacket and there was a size that would fit her, she didn't buy it because it had the wrong number on the label.
All of which proves once again my lifelong theory that men and women are actually completely different species and its only through an accident of evolution that we have arrived at this point together and that we can actually breed - its rather like the sometimes reported births in zoos of "Ligers" or "Tigons", those freak accidents when Lions and Tigers are left in the same cage and produce offspring, everyone knows it can't and shouldn't happen, they are not even supposed to live on the same continent, but nevertheless it happens and we pretend that Lions and Tigers can live happily together.
Which makes it all the more ironic that I should live in a house with a wife and two teenage daughters.
I don't understand any of them, and make no effort to do so.
Today was a fairly average day in our house but illustrates my point very succinctly...
Daughter mk2 (13 years) wants to go to the cinema this afternoon with a group of friends from across the other side of Leeds, they'll meet in the centre but it creates a little problem in that she'll be left on her own when the film is finished until I can get there to pick her up, the wife does not like that idea and refuses permission.
Dmk2 then comes to me and asks if she can go to her friends house after the cinema and I could pick her up from there, this seems reasonable so I agree, I then get bollacked by wife as she really doesn't want Dmk2 to go at all, she doesn't like the friends and wants her back at home before we go out on our pre-arranged Tapas evening.
I'm now in the middle of this argument, stuck where I normally am and trying to apply logic to two females opposing opinions - an impossible task.
Daughter mk1 (17 years) then approaches and asks if she can be dropped off in Leeds when I drop off Dmk2, off course I agree, but she then asks to borrow £40 for some hair extensions. I ask, quite reasonably I think, why she needs hair extensions when she had them done just ten days ago at great cost.
Eyes are raised to the sky inexasperationn and she explains that the false hair has fallen out, in a manner that leaves me in no doubt that I am the idiot around here rather than someone who needs £40 every ten days because they can't wait for their own hair to grow.
I ask how much the beauty maintenance budget is as its only two weeks since she had a complete set of nails fitted and they've all fallen off since, at which point all three females join in the affray and verbal pummel me into submission on the grounds that I am male and cannot possibly understand the intricacies of the beauty budget, I retire to lick my wounds.
Dmk1 finds my retirement hole and asks again for money for hair extensions, as I reach for my wallet I am heard to mumble that if I fund any more artificial beauty aids to my family then I won't recognise them soon at which point Dmk1 storms out of the room, slams the door and is heard to shout "don't bloody bother then" at which point I rejoice and put the money back in my wallet.
In the meantime Wife has devised a plan wherby when I drop two daughters off in Leeds I will take her to Pudsey and the mind-numbingly large Marks & Spencers there in order to buy "a new top and a jacket" for the anniversary "do" that we are attending at a posh golf club in two weeks time - I don't argue as its fruitless.
But out in the hallway whilst waiting for me a huge argument is developing between Wife and Dmk1 who wants new hair money and Dmk2 who wants to change the cinema arrangements again, it culminates with another "well don't bloody bother then" and Wife stomps off this time, at least I haven't become accidently involved in this one.
I take two daughters into Leeds and when I return ask wife if she wants to go to M&S, she's in a big mood now and denies that she ever wanted to, this is just hunky dory by me and I retire to settee to select my afternoon TV viewing, I've saved having to pay Dmk1 her £40 and I've saved having to buy new outfit for Wife, she's also not talking to me through no fault of my own so I am guilt-free, can this day get any better ?
Later on she has calmed down and asks to be taken to M&S to resume the search for "a new outfit" for the golf club "do", I resist pointing out that my outfit for the golf club do will be chosen from a selection of existing clothing topped off with the free tie that I got at Barrie McDermotts testimonial "do" on Thursday night, this would be tantamount to the perfect excuse for homicide for her so as usual I remain silent and obey.
In M&S we fall into the regular and familiar routine of husband and wife shopping for wifes clothing, I trail several paces behind her while she browses the racks, taking things off the pegs, holding them up, putting them back, occasionally asking "do you like this", me replying "yes it suits you", her snapping back "I don't like it", me mumbling "neither do I" as if I really give a flying fook.
But eventually she actually finds a blouse that she likes and a matching military style jacket in a plum colour, this is good news as its only taken 30 minutes to find both items, the bad news is that both items will cost a total of £100, once again I remain silent, I'm walking a very thin line here and one wrong word will result in a three day sulk.
She tries on the jacket, its her size but its too tight across the shoulders, I forget the cardinal rule for once and suggest that she tries on the next size up, she looks at me as though I have grown another head and reminds me that she does not wear that size, she wears the size that she is trying to get into, I am stupid enough to mention that it is just a number and that if it fits then she could tear the label out so as not to remind herself that she's gone up a size, I am lucky that she doesn't hear this.
The day culminates with her buying the blouse but not the jacket, not even the jacket that would fit her, not even when she really liked the jacket and there was a size that would fit her, she didn't buy it because it had the wrong number on the label.
All of which proves once again my lifelong theory that men and women are actually completely different species and its only through an accident of evolution that we have arrived at this point together and that we can actually breed - its rather like the sometimes reported births in zoos of "Ligers" or "Tigons", those freak accidents when Lions and Tigers are left in the same cage and produce offspring, everyone knows it can't and shouldn't happen, they are not even supposed to live on the same continent, but nevertheless it happens and we pretend that Lions and Tigers can live happily together.
Back on the wagon again ...
I like a beer.
I like the idea of sitting in a pub with good friends and sharing a laugh over a beer, or two, or more.
But beer doesn't like me.
I don't know exactly when it started, it was maybe 15 or so years ago when I noticed that the incidents of hangovers after a Friday night out were becoming more and more frequent, and if I had a few too many then I could guarantee that I would again become aquainted with the toilet bowl through the night.
And so I cut the Friday night drinking down, I started drinking bottled lager, which seemed to help, but soon the intolorance crept back and I was finding that three bottles could start the hangovers again.
And then one hot day in August '98 I came in from work, opened a cold bottle of lager, took a couple of mouthfulls, and a headache started straight away, the bottle went in the bin and I stopped all alcohol consumption.
I stopped for five years, then one afternoon found myself at a rugby match stood behind two lads who weren't really interested in rugby but were very interested in drinking lots of beer - I was transfixed by the beer, like a rabbit in a car headlights I stood drooling at the thought of tipping a cold beer down my parched throat.
And at that point I was bored - its fuckin boring when you don't drink alcohol, I can't explain how terribly, mind-numbingly dull it is to sit in a pub with all of your mates and watch as they sample different real ales, talk about how they taste and enthuse over each and every sip - while you sit there with a little glass of orange juice and occasionally add "mines a bit cloudy" to the conversation.
And so on that fateful day on the way home I bought myself a bottle of red wine on the presumption that if anything would give me a headache again it would be red wine - I had two glasses and I was OK.
Since then I have been a very imoderate drinker, any more then two bottles of lager and I'm really pushing my luck, I haven't re-enacted the nocturnal toilet bowl sessions but I've had some cracking hangovers on just a three bottle session.
And I'm finding something else strange.
I've been good since christmas, haven't had any alcohol since Boxing Day, but on Thursday night I was at a rugby function and on J2O orange all night - had a headache in the morning.
Last night I went out with friends for a (now rare) pub night, stayed on J2O again - I have a headache this morning that two paracetamols won't shift.
Tonight we're all out for a Tapas night, I'm driving so will be on the oranges again but I'm really wondering whether its worth it now if I'm going to be waking up with a headache for the third day running.
So the question is ...
Is it something in J2O ?
Am I developing an intolorence to sugary drinks ?
What the fook am I supposed to drink on a night out ?
Why don't licensees cater for non-drinkers ?
I like the idea of sitting in a pub with good friends and sharing a laugh over a beer, or two, or more.
But beer doesn't like me.
I don't know exactly when it started, it was maybe 15 or so years ago when I noticed that the incidents of hangovers after a Friday night out were becoming more and more frequent, and if I had a few too many then I could guarantee that I would again become aquainted with the toilet bowl through the night.
And so I cut the Friday night drinking down, I started drinking bottled lager, which seemed to help, but soon the intolorance crept back and I was finding that three bottles could start the hangovers again.
And then one hot day in August '98 I came in from work, opened a cold bottle of lager, took a couple of mouthfulls, and a headache started straight away, the bottle went in the bin and I stopped all alcohol consumption.
I stopped for five years, then one afternoon found myself at a rugby match stood behind two lads who weren't really interested in rugby but were very interested in drinking lots of beer - I was transfixed by the beer, like a rabbit in a car headlights I stood drooling at the thought of tipping a cold beer down my parched throat.
And at that point I was bored - its fuckin boring when you don't drink alcohol, I can't explain how terribly, mind-numbingly dull it is to sit in a pub with all of your mates and watch as they sample different real ales, talk about how they taste and enthuse over each and every sip - while you sit there with a little glass of orange juice and occasionally add "mines a bit cloudy" to the conversation.
And so on that fateful day on the way home I bought myself a bottle of red wine on the presumption that if anything would give me a headache again it would be red wine - I had two glasses and I was OK.
Since then I have been a very imoderate drinker, any more then two bottles of lager and I'm really pushing my luck, I haven't re-enacted the nocturnal toilet bowl sessions but I've had some cracking hangovers on just a three bottle session.
And I'm finding something else strange.
I've been good since christmas, haven't had any alcohol since Boxing Day, but on Thursday night I was at a rugby function and on J2O orange all night - had a headache in the morning.
Last night I went out with friends for a (now rare) pub night, stayed on J2O again - I have a headache this morning that two paracetamols won't shift.
Tonight we're all out for a Tapas night, I'm driving so will be on the oranges again but I'm really wondering whether its worth it now if I'm going to be waking up with a headache for the third day running.
So the question is ...
Is it something in J2O ?
Am I developing an intolorence to sugary drinks ?
What the fook am I supposed to drink on a night out ?
Why don't licensees cater for non-drinkers ?
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