Standing shoes only

A couple of funny things happened while I was out doing errands this weekend.

I went to the chemist and someone I know by just his nickname was waiting for a script. When the pharmacist came out be called 'Mr Mcfly' and it was this acquaintance of mine. I was temted to ask him where the Delorean was parked!

I was in a trendy shoe shop, just having a browse. A woman was returning a pair of shoes. They were in their box so I didn't see them. She was explaining patiently to the shop assistant: 'it's alright when I stand in them, but it's when I try to walk it's a problem'. It was very hard not to laugh as the assiistant asked if she wanted a different pair (maybe another colour shoe would be more comfortable, perhaps?) Obviously these were standing shoes, not walking shoes!

Just goes to show...

Well, I did get a response to my e-mail complaining about the stupid pavement caff regs. It was quite funny though as it was obviously a standard letter, and the second part definitely hadn't been written by the same person as the first part, as the style was completely different. I know I said a while back that I had decided to get into this constructive complaining thing, but you just get these crappy standard responses back which makes me wonder what's the point? They just do what they like anyway, even though no-one hardly agrees with them. We English are so good at wingeing about stuff, and then complying.

It's like the ban on smoking in public places. Everyone just says 'oh well, we'll have to do it'. If everyone (well, the smokers) refused to comply, what would they do? Put us all in prison? I of course hope not to be smoking by the time of the ban which is 1st July. However, it's not going too well so far. I had to come off Zyban a couple of weeks ago as I got really depressed, and there was some other stuff going on so I really couldn't be doing with the mental effort of not smoking on top of everything else. I am aiming to try again v. soon though. I ought to just bite the bullet and go cold turkey!

Miserable gits

I was absolutely astonished to read about our local council’s plans for regulating pavement cafes.

The regulations include that there must be a 1 metre high fence around the tables and chairs, that there must be a 1.8 metre space between the punters and the rest of the public, and that plastic crockery has to be used. Furthermore, café owners have to pay £300 for the privilege and £3000 a year liability insurance.

The main square and surrounding area have recently been pedestrianised in our little town, and as we have just had a stunningly gorgeous weekend, the streets were full of people sitting outside enjoying a drink and/or food, there were buskers everywhere and it was like being on holiday in the Med. These ridiculous regulations are bound to adversely affect the character and economy of the town. I really think our council have got nothing better to do than come up with poxy regulations to make life more shit for people, and get more money out of them.

As if this wasn’t enough, we have just been informed within the last fortnight that both the annual fireworks display on bonfire night and the carnival held in June won’t go ahead anymore due to a lack of volunteers and too many health & safety regulations. It’s almost as if they want to ruin this town – I don’t know why because it creates a lot of wealth for the area. They just can’t stand seeing people enjoying themselves can they? The miserable money-grabbing bastards!

I have sent an e-mail of complaint but I’m not holding my breath.

Pace Eggy Time

It’s that time of year again! One of the nice things about living out in the sticks, is that there are a number of local traditions, many of which revolve around drinking, and ye olde Pace Egg play on Good Friday is one of (if not) the best. This involves the Heptonstall Players performing the said play four times during the day, starting at around 1.00 ish, with the last one at around four o’clock, and going to the local hostelry between performances.

The play is a strange affair believed to be of Middle-Eastern origin, featuring Saint George, The Black Knight (I never said it was P.C.!) and other assorted characters bashing each other with swords. We got there in time for the third performance of the day, during which Slasher managed to clatter Saint George on the head so hard that he draw blood. The mood is such that everyone is in fits of laughter, even the injured George, and the players carry on regardless. It’s a good job they’re drunk!

After the play, we retired to the local pub for a pint. The players were in there and the actor who plays the Black Knight was talking to a guy with a foreign accent. ‘You’re not English are you?’ he asked ‘No’ the other man replied. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Argentina’ ‘What – the Argentina? The big one?’ (er, no, the one next to Bradford, I thought – how many Argentinas are there for fuck’s sake?). The Black Knight then gave his sword to a baby in a pram to play with. When will people learn, weapons and alcohol are a bad mix!

Anyway, some mates pf ours had turned up and so we stayed with them to watch the final performance but it was a waste of time for me as I couldn’t see a bloody thing. I confused one of my mates as she thought it was a traditional English play ‘Er, no,’ I said. ‘It’s from the Middle East’. ‘So what’s Saint George in it for?’ she asked ‘Because he’s from the Middle East’ I told her. She was predictably astonished at this news, as are many English people who don’t realise that George was not in fact English. Furthermore, it is likely that the whole thing about England and the Cross of Saint George was a massive branding exercise, because really there was no such thing as England until the late Saxon times.

‘So didn’t he really kill a dragon?’ She asked, then added, ‘Only kidding I know that’s not true really’
‘Well’, I replied. ‘It depends on your definition of dragon. He might have’ This did her head in completely and she shut up.

One of the funny things about the Pace Egg though is that no-one really understands it, no matter how many years they have come up to Heptonstall to watch it. It’s a mystery. But then isn’t the whole Easter thing? Ahh!

Good Luck to Daisy Diva!

Now I am going to do something completely out of character… promote a brand and a product. This is different though. I know the person who makes the stuff as she used to be a neighbour, and the products were launched for sale in a lovely shop (one of those ‘needful things’ hippy places) also owned by a neighbour.

We just happened to be passing the shop yesterday after doing some less interesting errands, and I remembered they were doing a product launch for ‘Daisy Diva’. We went in, and I bought something else we needed, then looked at the Daisy Diva range and I realised we knew the person who made them! So we went upstairs and sure enough, there she was being the hostess with the mostest, getting people to try her products and offering out coffee and cake. We tried a few things out – the massage bar and day cream are both loverly, but I was absolutely blown away by the salt body scrub. I just tried it on my hands and they felt so brilliant and soft afterwards it was amazing! So we bought some.

What is great about all this is that I know the stuff is all handmade and natural, and I am really pleased that she is getting the brand promoted as I know she’s been doing it on a small scale for a while. So good luck Daisy Diva!

Dirty Robbin’ Bastards!

Well, it’s easy to decide what to winge about this week. I was so incensed by Gordon Brown’s budget that I wrote a letter to the Daily Mirror. Not that I especially like that paper, but I thought I had a better chance of getting it published there than in the broadsheets as they might find the letter a bit simplistic and to-the-point – I was going for succinct. I guess I could have tried the Mail or the Express but they are just too right wing and Middle England for me. Mind you, it’s scary when you start wondering if the Tories might be the lesser of two evils… Sod it! I’m going back to being an anarchist.

Old joke for you:
Q. how do you know when a politician is lying?
A. their mouth is open

Anyway, here is the letter:
“I was quite flabbergasted to hear in today’s budget that income tax is being cut by 2%, while only last night the government announced a poxy 2% cost of living wage increase for public sector workers as it’s all they can afford apparently. Mind you, according to the Bank of England the current inflation rate is a mere 2.8%, but where they get this figure I don’t know. Have they factored in things like council tax bills (up 4.7% in my area), house prices, petrol prices… I could go on.

I am sure I am not the only one that doesn’t mind paying tax as long as we know where it’s going and isn’t being wasted on bureaucracy (well, I can dream!). This tax cut is just a cynical vote-catcher in my view and is balanced out by the abolition of the 10p rate for low income earners and the usual increases in indirect tax increases elsewhere.”

Booker Prize – Not!

Well, my chilled out feeling didn’t last too long once I went back to work last week. It started okay with the news that we had got a Big Lottery grant and no apparent disasters had occurred while I was away, but then late4r on, a member of staff came back from a meeting and told me she was leaving at the end of the month. Thus I have to use my only space free of meetings this week doing shortlisting and interviews.

Oh well. I feel like I need a good complain as I haven’t had one for a few weeks, ,but I can’t decide which hobby horse to get on. I was going to complain about the council tax bill I just got today, then I found out we are in the lowest band. I can’t believe it’s over £900! It must be loads if you have 2 toilets! But I decided to keep quiet in case they decide to come round and re-value the house and we end up paying more…

I have managed to detract from boring old work and house-related chores occasionally to start my creative writing again. The stuff I already wrote for my book is still funny if I say so myself so I have decided to carry in with it. Only 100,000 words to go for a decent-sized book!

Anyone for mixed animal?

A different flavour to my blog this time . I am feeling chilled out as I have been away on holiday for a week in Istanbul and had a great time. Have a few days leave left so I am just enjoying the extra time to sort my life out a bit and taking the opportunity to do loads of internet shopping ready to have the bathroom done. The realities of work life are not set to return until Wednesday. Bliss!

As usual, we managed to have a laugh on holiday, particularly at the expense of the hideous clothes they sell everywhere. At first you wonder who buys them, and then you see the Eastern Europeans…and then there’s their favourite word which appears to be ‘Maximum’. This might not be funny out of context, but when you hear and see it everywhere it gets quite amusing. And let’s not forget the mixed animal! I almost died laughing when I saw this label in the Islamic culture museum, and then when I realised you could get kebabs made of it… mind you, have you seen how many kebabs exist in the world? And did you know they don’t all come on sticks or wrapped in bread? It was a revelation!

Is this all there is?

I stopped taking Zyban just over a week ago because I started to get itchy feet and hands. I have since found out this is a really common symptom and it’s all in your head! Nonetheless, it didn’t stop ‘til the other day. The dizziness went, but appears to have come back again today, so maybe it’s just nicotine withdrawal rather than the pills. Last week I didn’t smoke at all even in the evenings, but did have a few again at the weekend. Oh well; I’m getting there!

Today I had a really riveting (sic) day at a conference which was yet again going on about how government agencies want to work with the voluntary sector (or ‘third sector’) as they call it. These things are always the same. Some people from a government agency go on about what good work we do in the voluntary sector and how they really need us, then someone from the voluntary sector goes on about how special and great we are, then there are so-called ‘workshops’ which are actually someone else spouting off about something or other, and then we go home none the wiser as to how we actually in reality get the contracts to carry out work for these statutory bodies. You have to go to these events to be seen, and everyone knows we are doing more and more work for less and less money, and keep having to bend what we do to get contracts and stay afloat, but the message never seams to get up to the top where people can really make a difference. There has to be a better way surely!

Moaning Minies

I did actually stop smoking cigarettes last Monday (hooray!) I did have the odd mini- cigar on a couple of occasions in the evening. Phil reckons this isn’t too bad as you don’t inhale it – not sure this is true but at least I almost gave up. Last night I went out for the first time since I stopped, and did have a few, but as most of my social circle smoke, it is nigh impossible not to do so. Anyway, I woke up this morning really not wanting a cig., and I could really smell it on my hands so I have gone back to stopping again. I am quite pleased really, because there is a danger that if you have a few, you’ll start smoking full-time again but I haven’t. The zyban has started making me feel a bit dizzy sometimes but I am coping. Hopefully, I won’t need to take it for much longer.The other event of note this week was getting my letter published in the local paper. I was wingieng about all the wingers who write in protesting about the doing up of the town centre, don’t even get their facts right, and have a go at people like us who moved into the area because we like it. I thought it only right to point out that if it wasn’t for new people moving in, the town would be dead. Anyway, I am waiting for a certain person to write in again next week slagging me off so I can have another go at them – could be war!

My friends all thought it was ace and about time someone had a go at the moaning minies!

Still Hooked

Well, I have cut down smoking a lot but I have not put any money on me actually stopping altogether by my target date of tomorrow. It is Soooo hard! My theory is that those people who think it’s easy to give up smoking are either lying or still having a crafty one (or ten) when no-one’s looking, or aren’t really addicts at all.

The funny thing is that Phil decided to go into competition mode and also started cutting down last week without the aid of medication or nicotine replacement. He is now smoking about the same as me, but whereas for me this is about half what I used to smoke, it’s about 25% for him and he is suffering quite a bit. I have therefore advised him not to try packing in altogether just yet and persevere with the reduction plan instead.

Not that he ever listens to me on these matters. He is always in denial when he’s ill so makes himself worse rather than resting. Mind you, I suppose that is unusual as most men are complete babies when they are unwell.

Back to the Zyban, what seems to be happening is that it reduces my craving for nicotine bit doesn’t eliminate it altogether so I can go longer without smoking, but still crack eventually. My record so far is 3.5 hours, expect when asleep (Ha! Ha!). I also had a few mild but weird side effects last week such as feeling odd and jabbering in meetings, and I’ve had some odd dreams of late, but otherwise nothing drastic. Mind you, I did talk to someone who got an anaphylactic attack after taking it for 2 weeks so there is still time!

Don't mess with my head!

I have still not heard further from the BBC since my follow-up query, but I have had a response from the Council on recycling. It is quite detailed and explains the targets and how this might go up soon etc. Also says we might get the coloured wheelie bins but this would mean having about 3 bins outside the house and we barely have room for one, so I have asked for more information about this – local politics is rivetting isn’t it?

Talking of which, we now have a draft constitution for our community group to take charge of and look after the ‘community garden’. However, it looks like the council want us to buy it and if that means market rate, we may have to do some serious fund-raising. We will see. In the meantime, I need to get a solicitor to look at the constitution gratis –luckily, I do know one who lives nearby but not sure if it’s his area of expertise.

I have recently started taking the drug Zyban in a bid to stop smoking, and have begun found out how many people have drugs stories once you start to talk about it. A friend of mine has been on Seroxat (the one that makes kids kill themselves) for 12 years and has been wondering why she always feels tired, until someone told her it makes you drowsy! Another friend of mine got put on anti-depressants when she was 18 because she was ‘confused about her sexuality’. You’d think this was back in the dark ages not the 1980’s wouldn’t you? It is absolutely disgusting what they do to people’s heads when the main crime seems to be ‘not fitting in’. I am so glad I never told anyone about my feelings of detachment when I was a kid or I’d probably be addicted to valium or something! It really makes me angry how they treat people – I would like some statistics on how many people it affects, but haven’t had chance to look yet.

Will keep you posted, and also on if the Zyban works!

World-class service?

I said some weeks ago that I was going to start complaining about stuff and I started in earnest last week, with two complaints. One to the local council about them not paying for plastic recycling, and the other to the BBC about the lack of digital terrestrial in the area. I thought I would post the correspondence so far as part of my blog, so the rest of the world can see that whilst the BBC might have an enviable reputation across the globe for its high quality programmes, some aspects of the technical system are a bit crap to say the least, as is the case with much of British infrastructure!


To the BBC 23 January 2007

Can you explain to me why we are continually badgered to 'go digital' when our area is not scheduled to 'go digital' until September 2011?

We cannot get freeview reception in our area, so will have to fork out for s sky box and dish if we wish to view digital programmes. And yet, the technical quality of the programmes we can get seems to be continually getting poorer with a plethora of ‘digital’ glitches evident on a daily basis. I would love someone at the BBC to explain this to me as I am sick of those stupid adverts saying it's easy to 'do digital' Spare us!

From the BBC 23 Jan 07

Dear Ms C

Thank you for your e-mail.

The BBC recognises some sections of our audience do not currently have the opportunity to get digital television through their aerial.

The digital promotional trails are to inform the public of what digital services are provided by the BBC and to help them prepare for the eventual switchover. We cannot currently expand digital terrestrial television further as this would cause interference to existing analogue services. Once the analogue television service has been switched off, we will have enough frequencies available to extend the digital television signals to those areas still to receive it.

We do appreciate you taking the time to make us aware of your views on the use of our digital trails and rest assured your comments have been fully registered on our audience log which is made available to senior BBC management.

Thank you again for contacting the BBC.

Regards
Tony Brown
BBC Information


To the BBC 28 Jan 07
Thank you for your prompt response to my query. I would like to respond in turn with a number of further queries and comments:

Firstly, Since I received your e-mail, I have been discussing the subject with friends in the area, and we all agree that, given the fact that we will not have a full digital terrestrial service until the analogue signal is switched off, it is grossly unfair that we pay the same license fee as people who receive a great deal more channels than we do. I can only receive 4 channels with a decent signal. When I first moved here eight and a half years ago, I could get a not-too-bad picture on channel 5 from the TV set upstairs which has its own booster aerial, but this has since waned rendering channel 5 unwatchable. Is there no possibility of at least improving the reception for terrestrial while we wait for ‘the big switch on’ (sic)?

Secondly, I recently discovered that we taxpayers subsides the commercial terrestrial channels - this came as big shock to me as I thought the revenue came from advertising, and I am appalled that this is case and I reckon not many people know about it.

Thirdly, I must say that I believe that the BBC does make some excellent programmes and some of the high quality programmes – particularly nature documentaries and costume dramas - obviously have a world-wide appeal. Given the ,money-making potential of these programmes, why are we paying a license fee at all?


I would appreciate your time in responding to these comments.

Regards

Storm in a teacup

Phil now has about 22 tunes, some of them dancey breakbeats and some of them ambient-type electronic music. I think he has decided to compile a dance album first as he has a better chance of finding outlets for it. He has been working almost all his spare time on his music recently, and it’s obviously paying off in terms of number of tunes he’s created.

Mind you, we were a bit distracted from our usual activities towards the end of last week, as we were affected by the bad storms on Thursday. I left work early amid warnings of traffic chaos and got back (freakily easily!) to find we had lost a window in the bedroom. A pane of glass had totally blown out. It has took some effort to find someone to say they can fix it, but typically, they haven’t called yet to give us a day they can come. The most upsetting aspect of the episode has been the loss of the glass fish, but honestly it could’ve been much worse. We were really lucky the window blew out and not in, for a start, or the bed would have been covered by broken glass. And seeing the pictures on the news of gable ends falling onto cars and walls collapsing and killing children, it’s just an annoyance more than anything really.

New Year Revolution

I have had a weird few weeks.. the run up to Christmas was pretty good, then Christmas and New Year were okay – we had almost 2 weeks off and did loads of pottering and dossing about. Had a few trips out of the house – the usual bit of shopping, drinking, country walking (when we got absolutely drenched). Felt very relaxed when we went back to work on the 3rd January, and then, only 3 days later, I get struck by the lurgy and spent the best part of a week in bed. And then, just as I get over that, I am afflicted with stomach cramps so I have had a very uneventful weekend, and feel guilty about not doing very much. Mind you, it’s always a waste of time making new year resolutions because you never stick to them do you?

One thing I have decided though is I really need to get back into doing some creative stuff again. Phil has been making loads of music recently and reckons he has enough for about 2 albums. How and where he’s going to publish them, I don’t know yet. I suggested the internet but he doesn’t think it’s the kind of commercial stuff people will hook into. Well, okay, some of it could be perceived as a bit on the geeky side, but that’s what he does and he’s really good at it. So he should get it out there and let the people decide, that’s what I say.

I have offered to design some album covers but he needs to come up with titles first so I know what kind of collages to do. I used to do a lot of that type of thing and haven’t for ages so this will be a good incentive to get back into it. I also need to start writing my fiction again. I know everyone wants to be an author, but with me it has been an ambition since I was really young and it is hard to come with a good excuse as to why I haven’t got anywhere with it yet. Sure, I’ve written loads of short stories (some of which I have lost) and started a couple of books, but there is very little to demonstrate my talents as yet and I really must rectify that in the near future. I have to stop letting other stuff get in the way and just do it!

A load of Rubbish

So much for good intentions – I have got as far as making a list of things to complain about (I like lists) but have yet to do another formal complaint following my success the other week. Oh well. I guess I will get round to it eventually.

The thing that is bugging me at the moment is recycling. I think I have said before that I am really sick of being told what to do by our bloody government, and it is particularly irksome when they don’t make it easy to do the right thing. I was harping on about recycling and the future of the planet long before the politicians got on the bandwagon. Now of course, in true Tony Blair fashion, we have loads of stupid government targets about how much councils are meant to recycle, by tonne. So what happens? Well, our council takes away the heavy stuff and valuable stuff and sod the rest, that’s what. So, for instance, plastic doesn’t get collected from our homes because it doesn’t weigh enough to make it worthwhile. This is not the fault of the recyclers, who are a social enterprise company who provide training for people with learning difficulties – they used to rely on European funding and even shut down for a while due to a lack of money. Eventually the council did see sense and now fund them (I think) to collect our recyclable rubbish, but as I say, subject to these ludicrous targets. I know for a fact that some other councils in England do collect all recyclable waste from households so it just seems crazy to me that there is this disparity in how councils interpret the regulations. I’m off to write to the council and my MP.

Complaining is Good

I really had every intention of doing a mild-week blog entry last week, but just didn’t seem to get round to it. How on earth do people who blog all the time fit it into their lives? Or is it the main focus of their lives? Actually, there was a very good programme on the other night called www.herecomeseverybody.com (a reference to Finnegan’s Wake I believe) saying how t’internet had popularized culture and made knowledge free etc. Actually, this is a prediction my partner made some years ago (in 1995 to be exact – I remember ‘cos we were in the Hacienda in Manchester where Carl Cox was meant to be doing a gig but he didn’t show up and we bumped into an old school friend of mine She thought he was talking a load of rubbish, but she was still into that worker’s revolutionary bollocks).

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit. I really meant to write about the art of complaining, because we really ought to do it more – us Brits anyway – we just winge rather than complaining to the right people. I rang up the customer helpline for the co-op to complain about the stock levels in our local supermarket, and lo and behold! The very next day stocks of fruit and veg were up, and the day after that, I got a letter saying they were really sorry and they were making sure it wouldn’t happen again and to please continue shopping at their store. Wow! I thought. That’s customer service. So I am going to make more of an effort and complain constructively from now on rather than just wingeing.

Justice without Mercy

Justice without mercy is revenge… That is no road to peace’ Thus spoke a holy man in the holy land on telly this morning. What an excellent way of putting it, thought I. It is a great irony that the so-called holy lands are torn apart by conflict and hatred, and yet we still feel this great connection to them. Well, I do anyway. I was brought up religious but no longer practice. Nonetheless, there is definitely something special about that part of the world. We spent two days in Jordan earlier this year as part of a Red Sea cruise and I really really liked it. Predictably, Petra was awe-inspiring. It was even better than I expected. I had failed to appreciate beforehand how big it is. And the colours! Just fab!

What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the country in general. Not that we saw that much of course during such a short stay, but just wandering about Aqaba and people-watching in cafes, I started to get a real feel for the place after only a few hours. It made me want to go back there, as well as explore more countries in the region, especially Lebanon and Syria. However, with seemingly no end to the troubles it’s a tricky business. How do the Israelis justify blowing up the road to Damascus for Christ’s sake? (No, I am not blaspheming, I mean it). It really is such a shame that one of the most interesting parts of our world is torn apart like it is. And as for Iraq, well. Don’t get me started….suffice to say that the cradle of modern civilization has been turned into hell on earth, but at least the American people have at last cottoned onto the horror of war at last (well, it only took 3 and half years, Ha! Ha!). Some of us said the ‘V’ word way back in May 2003, but now there is a lot of opinion that it is actually worse than Vietnam. Reap what you sow, say I!

'unintended consequences'

I am really getting sick of this Blair government telling us what to do on the one and hand, and making life suck for loads of people on the other. Whilst being told not to eat ‘junk food’ (which now apparently seems to be everything apart from veg and salad – I am just waiting for Cadbury’s to sue them!) the infrastructure of services is under threat which many commentators refer to as ‘unintended consequences’ (is this code for 'don't know what the f*** they're doing'? Hmm!) This has been applied to everything from money being taken out of adult education to meet the 16-19 agenda, to targets for doctors meaning you can’t make an appointment more than 48 hours in advance to see your GP.

Well, I’ve decided I’m going to do more ranting about all this, Before we lose everything for ever – so watch this space (and others!)

Shirkers Beware!

I just had to write about this as it is one of those things you’re not sure you should mention.

I was in meeting this morning, and a woman from the Job Centre was updating everyone on changes in approach to giving out benefits, particularly for incapacity benefit, which is going to changed over the next couple of years to make it nigh impossible for people who are sick or disabled to avoid getting a damn job. Anyway, they have a saying in the jobcentre which is part of the Department for Work and Pensions and thus by default beholden to Our Glorious Leader (sic) which is ‘work is the best form of welfare’.

Well, call me cynical, but doesn’t that sound a bit like ‘Arbeit Mach Frei’?
Now who was it said that…..?