Tag: Stupidity

DTFU*

On By AlexIn Bikes2 Comments
Ive just been done over by the big nasty Dogs
"I've just been done over by the big nasty Dogs"

That was my response to the dog’s expression as he slunk back in, having been put down in the mud by the bigger dogs. He’s such a wimp though, anything from an aggressive shrub upwards will have him lying down supine and looking to be loved, rather than duffed up.

Can’t imagine where he’s learned that behaviour from. Although it wasn’t in evidence during a terse conversation with a certain on line retailer. “Hello, Just wanted to congratulate you on a superb website, excellent prices, next day delivery and easy to contact customer support. Shame your picking system is a one armed blind bloke who breakfasts from a brown paper bag”

My new shiny forks arrived less than 24 hours after ordering. A triumph of logistics and navigation only slightly let down by them being entirely the wrong sort. And even a man with as much hammer-time as I can see no may to make this round peg fit a square hole. It would have been less vexing had I not gone to the trouble of RINGING THEM UP BEFORE I ORDERED TO AGREE THEY HAD THE RIGHT STOCK!

Now I’ve been forced to buy from a place who have no telephone support, an email reply service rated in epochs, and a chequered history of on time delivery. I fully expect to receive half an elephant wearing a Santa’s hat at a jaunty angle. In February. 2011.

I order myself ONE miserly present and all I receive is aggravation and excuses. It’s clearly not fair, and in that vein I shall be drowning my sorrows in about, oh, 3 hours. Day isn’t a complete right off then.

* Dog the F*ck up. The cannine variation of MTFU – a phrase seemingly used to describe any activity that does not involve ripping the head off something large and toothy, and then eating it raw.

Meet Colin

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments
That tree is nekkid!
That tree is nekkid!

This is our first live Christmas tree for many years. Previous attempts, when the kids were much smaller, generally led to frantic calls to NHS direct requesting the correct medical procedure to safely remove pine needles from a child’s internals.

Colin* was dug up by nice, if bemused, man with a spade and dumped in the truck. Where it gave me a nasty dose of “pine rash” every time I changed gear before dumping most of it’s prickly bounty on the seats and assorted children. I’m still finding the vicious little spines this morning – hence the concern of my fellow rush hour motorists on being serenaded with by a a middle aged man thrashing about, and making noises associated with significant pain all while still strapped into the driving seat.

It did provide sufficient distraction to ignore all the desperate marketing hiding behind the season of giving. Or receiving – overdrafts, final demands and the like. I know it is all a bit bah humbug, but Christmas is such a rubbish time. You just sit at home getting fat and wasting your holidays.

Round the other side of the world they’re tossing another barbie onto the shrimp**, catching some rays and thinking “hey it’s warm and sunny, what shall we do with the remaining ten hours of daylight“. Back on this storm tossed and icy rock, we’re left with reruns of rubbish films and the queen looking almost as bored as the rest of us.

Carol and I decided not to buy each other gifts this year. And considering the amount of shit we seem to have accumulated over the years, this feels like a good decision. We did – however – buy ourselves a joint present which should stave off dull days boredom, more of which when it finally arrives.

Anyway considering the never ending fiscal big bang exploding around us, I’ve decided to go long on “big biffin birds, new world reds and sufficient confectionery to silence an entire classroom“. This is a short term strategy I’ll admit, but next year we’ll be investing in timber futures and recyclable energy.

Yes the new years resolution appears to be to dig up the entire house, chop down most of Norway and somehow fuse the two together on top of some right on heating system, which also curiously involves digging up the garden. Well the car park that may one day be a garden.

I can see almost nothing going wrong with that, and as such have gone with my own premature New Years resolution to ram raid Majestics’ warehouse.

Bah Humbug, grumble, grouch, wake me up in spring.

* Yes I named our Christmas Tree. 3/4 of the family found this quite amusing, Carol hid her head in her hands agahst at my Peter Pan inability to grow up. Although I think she was just sulking after her name-that-tree entry of “Bruce the Spruce” was unanimously lampooned by the Colin Jihad.

** Surely this can’t be legal. Even in Australia.

Well that didn’t go quite as planned…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

If a kind soul were to place me in a comfortable chair and administer a double measure of warming medicine, my response to the concerned question “What’s wrong?” would read something like

Most things. Not quite everything, but many grumpy intersects on a linear scale of increasing wrongness. Sometimes to understand why things are so rubbish right now, you must backtrack to the first point of “when stuff goes bad“.

The first trace of the element fuckup had clearly been hoovered up by the endo-Murph who then promptly exploded in the manner of his first day with us. Of course everything is bigger now, his stomach, his range and the volume of multi-coloured yawn to be founnd pebble dashed across most of the house.

This 5am wake up call provided me ample time to notice a gap where once a wheel stiffening spoke had once proudly stood. I had both a spare and the frankly unhinged tool to effect a repair, but the mechanical knowledge was lacking, and – even when faced down with cold, hard cash – the local bike shop was breathtakingly uninterested until about a week on Thursday.

Thankfully my far sighted policy of acquiring random bicycles harvested up a spare, and I was ready to drive myself all the way to Wales where some nice person would continue to do so for the rest of the day. So ready in fact, the bike was in the car, the full set of body and head protection was packed, and I’d gone all a bit OCD counting pedals and shoes.

A last check of emails showed the uplift service was anything but ready. In fact a state of cancellation had overcome it on the grounds it was too dangerous. HANG ON, I’ve been telling everyone how dangerous it is and – viz a viz -why I am so damn brave to go and ride it again. This held no truck with those driving vans on icy forest roads, and I was left with a chilly 8am dilemma.

One I hedged by using every 21st communication method to establish contact with Mike (my fellow downhiller for a day), all of which failed, and I was fresh out of pidgins. In the spirit of ‘fuck it, I’ve booked the day off, may as well go riding“, I carefully chucked the big boys collateral onto the floor to make way for xc stuff that was significantly more gay*

While all this was going on Mike was replying using the exact same talk-to-AL technologies I’d been bothering him with. Which would have worked extremely well had my dumbphone taken to doing what I’d paid it form rather than display a state of passiveness that convinced me it was actually working. Understandably Mike gave up, and I was left to a couple of solo laps of the Cwmcarn XC course.

Which was frozen solid, deserted, occasionally sleety, slightly more frequently cheekily icy on corner apex’s, and probably just what old snug-trousers(tm) needed. But not what I wanted, and even the magic of Titanium was beaten by the unforgiving ground. Although not as beaten up as the pilot who – after 20 miles of this – was suffering from cramp of everything including teeth.

So I didn’t get to go and pretend to be brave. I had to ride uphill and do so uite often. Many other small things were shittiest enough in frequency to to become big things. But on the upside I still got to ride my bike and didn’t have to go to work. Although time enough was left for me to service a set of working brakes that – after 3 hours – were ALMOST as good as when I’d started.

But there’s still a week of 2008 before Children’s holidays cull the riding season so if this sodding ice age would bugger off for 24 hours, I’ll be having it small on a mountain near me. You see while a lack of talent and a delusional complex may hold me back on the hill, bloody mindedness will damn well get me there.

* I’d like to point out the hedgehog is an equal opportunities annoyer. Sexual preference, colour, creed, religion or advanced animal husbandry techniques are all equal here. But I draw the line at trekkies, anyone using air quotes or ownership of folding bicycles. I mean all the hits are welcome, but a man must have some standards.

Still here…

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

… still working. Apparently the weather back in ol’ Blighty is shocking. Sort it out can you, I am kipper smoking back for breakfast tomorrow. That does pre-assume I am allowed out of the building before dark (which hasn’t happened at all this week), the inevitable car jacking doesn’t take me out on the way to the airport, I can find the airport and the plane doesn’t plunge into the ground in a flaming plume of death when hit by one of the fierce electrical storms forecasted.

This morning, a local told me not to run from muggers. Why Not I asked trying to establish the rationale of standing still and getting beaten up, because they’ll shoot you he replied. 2 minutes later, I was asked if I could stay for another week.

I could have been no less keen if they’d offered to shave me naked and apply an all body jalapeno massage applied by an angry hedgehog. I feel this may have come across as ungrateful.

Right fiery death not withstanding, normal service shall be resumed next week. You can confidently expect the same drivel but now – at least – it will be drivel with an international twang.

The Reykjavik Express – Part 2.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Today I have travelled home via another country. This would not be unusual if I were airily spanning oceans after being seriously inconvenienced by airports. Or if my train had Chunneled to France to hunt down some smelly cheeses and fine wines.

But no, my journey from London to Ledbury ignored the traditional route of Reading, Cotswolds, Home, instead choosing to detour via Abergevenny. Interesting piece of social mobility there I thought as we passed our fourth hour searching for clues to where we might be.

Much of the problem was that little could be determined by squinting into the rainy darkness. Although our “train host” – where do they dream these names up from? – hardly aided the process as she came over increasingly sulky and refused to explain our random itinerary.

She started well to be fair offering up apologies and excuses as an increasingly number of stations were lopped from the list of stops. But after two hours of the shirts of extreme stuffedness demanding that they be let off right now and helicoptered home at the train companies’ expense, she somewhat lost interest in being polite and helpful.

They were finally abandoned at Didcot where they could be found calling their lawyers, and asking if anyone realised how important they actually were. Not me, I was cheerily giving them a forehead hosted “L” betwixt thumb and forefinger. Mature Response? No. Appropriate response? Oh yes.

Eventually we rolled into Swindon only to roll straight out again after discovering the station was flooded. Surely that’s something you’d check beforehand “Hello Signalman? Yes got 200 pissed off passengers here, anything I should know? Station flooded you say? Right-o, well best carry on until we get there and then reverse straight out eh?”

This reversal of fortunes triggered a tremendous shunting exercise which put me in mind of Thomas the Tank Engine on speed. This worrying grinding went on some way past Cheltenham Spa which first woke and then surprised the bloke opposite me who thought he was heading home to Oxford. He was grumpy enough, when finally let off for bad behaviour at Newport, for me to silently award him a “possible Northerner” badge.

We did finally arrive at Ledbury – albeit by some circuitous route – before the sun came up, but the final scores on the doors were “Working 8 hours” “Commuting 8.5 hours“. It failed the alien test* a million times over, but did give me time to write to First Great Western with suggestions on renaming all their train engines. For this one I’m sure they’ll accept my proposal for “The Reykjavik Express”

* try explaining something you’ve done to an alien recently arrived on the planet. If they look at you strangely and then blast straight back to their home planet, accept you’ve just done a very stupid thing.

The Reykjavik Express – Part 1

On By AlexIn Other stuff9 Comments

I shouldn’t be writing this. I should be entombed in the graceless catacoombs of the tube system, pushing and shoving to gain access to an office that seems to need me more than I need it. But I’m marooned just outside Reading after the train failed to stop at a platform.

Let’s examine that statement shall we. How the fuck can you miss a platform? The vocational sphere of a train driver is surely little more than pressing one button marked start, and another one labelled stop. So rather than abandoning the three confused looking passengers expecting to alight at Charlebury, we backed up 8 trains on the single line and added thirty minutes to a three hour journey.

Which I could have spent reading the paper if they’re were any or working, assuming my oh-so-clever 3G connection would connect to something, anything really. I wasn’t alone in the connectivity isolation as demonstrated by the Crackberry generation grumbling around me. They switched their attention deficit to calling sleepy colleagues, so noisily confirming what a bunch of self important cock ends they really are

“Ah Good Morning Peter, sorry not too early is it? Thing is, I’m a little bored on a late train, so can you listen for a bit while I chunter on about pointless shit to show these other chaps what a thrusting executive I really am.”

I am an imposter here, a cipher in actions but not in thoughts. We all look the same, uncomfortable in suits and encumbered by technology stuff, but these are not my people. The reality of work is just because you’re good at it, is not a fantastic reason for carrying on doing it.

It’s taken me twenty years to work that out – which is a bit rubbish really since it’s quite a simple concept – and the obvious conclusion is that the trappings of a well paid job have absolutely nothing to do with any actual enjoyingment of carrying it out.

In the end I just gave up, plugged white noise into my ears and dribbled off into a broken sleep. The only upside was the volume of my mp3 player must surely be leaking into the general population. And so while they tapped vigorously, clipped brusque conversations and tried extremely hard to out-important each other, what they were really thinking was “I KNOW that riff, is is Tom Petty or the Beatles?”

Answer, neither – but since you only had a tinny base line to work with, on the return journey I’m going to augment it with some air drumming. Musical Charades to puncture the pomposity of the business carriages. We’re going to take the train back. C’mon whose with me?

I wrote something…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuffLeave a comment

.. it’s over there at BikeMagic where Mike was again chronically short of content. I was due to go back and have another go at mincing downhill with truckage the other way, but work got in the way. Which was, too put it very mildly, quite disappointing.

Not quite as disappointing as the train falling to pieces AGAIN this evening, resulting in about 200 people crammed into the two remaining working carriages. And while it resembled the black hole of Calcutta in there, at least the doors didn’t randomly open and spit you head first into some Cotswold stone.

The rest of the train offered that and many other faults including broken heating and a whistling sound which could only have been a precursor to something exploding. I was so grateful to finally get home, only four and one half hours after I’d left London, I fell to my knees on the platform and snogged it – Pope like – to announce my arrival.

I’m starting to get all ‘Chiltern Railways’ about that train journey.

The Reykjavik Express – Part 3.

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

Somewhat out of sequence. Parts 1 and 2 shall follow shortly. But I REALLY needed to get this off my chest this morning.

Picture the scene. Quiet carriage blissfully free from shouty mobile phone conversations , and tedious exec wanabees feebly sparring with their junior staff. Opposite two old school, old blokes greet each other warmly probably surprised the other is still alive.

One is executive director of this, the other retired chairman of that. I know all this because their privileged upbringing is not governed by the same rules as the rest of us. They talk loudly and confidently, either unaware or uncaring that twenty other people are firing up their stares of death.

No one says anything of course because we’re British. Except when a grumpy Northerner, with a bastard head cold, is stripped of even the faintest veneer of social politeness.

Worthy 1: “So have you seen old Bryan Potter at all?”

Worthy 2: “No not since the last ‘Crush the Poor’ black tie do at the Grosvenor“

Worthy 1: “Yes, he didn’t look well did he?”

Grumpy Northerner: “He’s dead. Obviously“

Worthy 1: “I beg your pardon“

GN: “Dead. Brown Bread. Gone to a better place. Oh sorry, wasn’t I included in your conversation? You were just talking so loudly I assumed it was a public meeting“

Worthy 2 Splutters: “How Rude“

GN: “Yeah you are, why don’t you f*ck off to next door where all the other noisy self-important wastrels* are?“

Silence in the carriage again. Embarrassed silence I’ll grant you but silence all the same. Broken only by two old blokes huffing out of their seats, and lamenting the lack of respect from their lessers.I cannot tell you ladies and gentlemen how much I LOVED that. 41 and going soft on the outside, 21 and still railing against the bloody world on the inside.

* I was particularly proud of “Wastrel”. Because normally when I’m that angry the my vocabulary is reduced to “F*ck off you F*cking F*ckers“

Revolving doors

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

Last week, a vicious and unprovoked attack was visited upon my innocent person. What was surprising – since I was in London so fully anticipated being killed and eaten – was that the assault wasn’t some scally with an eye for quick mugging, no it was powerfully executed by a door.

Well a set of doors to be accurate. They guard the portal of our client building, and sport an interesting differentiator in being programmed to commit corporate manslaughter.

These doors and I have previous. They perambulate gently until an innocent attempts the fiendishly complex procedure of entering or exiting the building. As the victim triggers the doors orbital sensors, rotation increases to gently smooth their way into the building.

And right there is a failure to translate design intent into implementable reality. The now terrified occupant of the whirling glass box of death spins at every increasing speeds until reaching escape velocity. There are only two possible outcomes; either he or she is fired out onto the main road – generally into the path of a passing taxi – or launched at the phalanx of security guards who form a protective huddle to the front of the expensive reception furniture.

Now I don’t know much about “valuing our clients” but such door based behavior seems to test the rule “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”

To date, I’ve applied Yorkshire Logic to the problem, eying up my doory nemesis with a manly stare before exiting via a firm shove – ignoring the whooshy nonsense of acceleration. And that has worked just fine until the day the building droids re-calibrated the sensors.

Striding confidently towards a decent cup of coffee, I matched my speed with the accelerating door, and made a beeline for a closing gap betwixt door and frame. At which point, the rotational motor was hotwired with a 10,000 foot electrical jolt up the japs eye. That can be the only explanation for the “smoking axle of spin” which turned a simple door into a human blender.

i wouldn’t have been ejected into the road, more likely I would have been transported to a far galaxy had I been bulleted out of that rifling barrel. Fortunately my desperate lunge failed to gain access, and instead I was skewered between door panel and frame. Rucksack to the back, snozzle to the front and arms waving pointlessly in between.

The only thing saving me from major veterbre trauma was the works laptop acting as a rucksack based buffer to the increasing strains of the killer electic motors. But I really didn’t want to break that after what happened last time. However, right now my concern was more the queue of increasing bystanders quietly pissing themselves.

Security came to my aid by pointing out my predicament to anyone within earshot. Eventually after frantic flapping and undignified waving of trapped limbs, the pressure eased and I was ejected outside in the manner of a hand slapping “and don’t bother coming back, we don’t want your sort in here”

The door leered at me. I’m sure it did. Still I’m pretty sure I pulled off my painful exit without the loss of any dignity. Hardly anyone pointed to their friends and said “it’s him, no honestly he was stuck in the door, got it on my phone, I’ll stick it on YouTube later”

Somedays I feel I am pushing at a door marked pull.This experience merely confirms it.

Signs of madness

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Regular victims of eruptions from my venting spleen will know I am much troubled by the idiocy of life as presented in daily packages of stupid. Lately the eye of vexation has strayed to signage – not useful stuff pointing out certain death if you touch that* but the entirely pointless or just plain bonkers.

Let me quote a few representative examples

“Please leave these toilets as you would expect to find them“. So I installed a small bookshelf, line of optics and reading light.

“Turn Left for Guide Dogs for the Blind“. Now that’s just silly, the dog can’t read that. Especially if he’s driving as well.

“Baby on Board“. So what? Want me to make amusing deformed rabbit impressions as I pass?

“Give way to pedestrians“. As opposed to what, just running the poor buggers over?

“You are entering South Yorkshire, a Nuclear Free Zone”. Okay it’s a bit old, but even at the age of 11, I could see that no Russian Bomber pilot was likely to respect the fact that Barnsley had a bloke selling socialist worker.

I could go on, no really I could. Just try to stop me. However, it’s Friday night, Wine O’clock and I’m in the slot for preparing the house for my Dad’s 70th Birthday party. I am not working from a high water mark here either – Having got the kids to sing Happy Birthday down the phone, I excused the lack of card with an airy “No card yet Dad, kids have made you a lovely one”

Tap-Tap on Shoulder. Whisper. “Not now Random, we’re talking to Granddad, anyway Dad as I was saying..” Tap-Tap-Tap”No DAD We haven’t” ‘RANDOM SHUT UP‘ “No Dad, You never asked us, we’ve not done it” ‘RANDOM!’ LEAVE IT “Dad, she’s got a memory problem, probably dropped on her head as a baby“.

So here’s a top weekend tip. Don’t ever work with animals, children or speakerphones 😉

EDIT: And just this morning – although since it is actually before 7am, a chronological value of “still the middle of the bloody night” would be more appropriate – two more missives has reached my analogue inbox:

1) Fresh Fruit ready to eat. Packaged in South Africa and Poland. What is wrong with that sentence 😉

2) A scribbled note on the carriage door “The quiet carriage has a vibration this morning. For customers wanting quiet, please use the non quiet carriage located in the next carriage”

This kind of repetition whiffs of the kind of thing Chiltern Railways’ used to get up to.� It sort of makes sense if you remove any trace of irony, and disassociate it from how Human Beings normally communicate. They can’t help themselves tho, and on my return journey I expect to find a sign “carriage, carriage, carriage, broken, carriage, carriage, late, carriage.”

* but don’t you want too anyway. Just in case it’s a big hoax. And if it isn’t you’ll be far to dead to worry about the embaressment.