Zen and the art of Driving.

I used to love driving, I mean it was the be all and end all, it was a skillset to be proud of.
Spending Sundays with your friends, driving to the beach, into the city, fuck it, just parked up and talking shit, my car was a mobile fun machine, it took me to places i'd never been before, places I'd been to too many times, was a thing to talk about and a point of pride.
That was 20 years ago.

Now, sat here thinking about it, the joy hasn't just gone out of driving but car ownership full stop.
Ever higher fuel prices, roads where when you dodge one pothole you hit a bigger one and pay for the privilege. Cant park your car withing 300 metres of another car without some prick dinking your door.

When I passed my test over 20 years ago I could tell you what the meaning of every sign and the braking distances in the Highway Code.
Nowadays my old copy is as useful as a candyfloss cock.
Half the roads signs I see nowadays I haven't got a fucking clue what they mean.
Some i've seen a handful of times before, others spring up and I havent a clue, they go right over my head.

So, it never comes as a surprise to me when I see some young Turk hairing past me today only to realise that he's about to go 3 points heavy on his licence and to compensate for this impending problem brakes from 60 to 30 in the blink of an eye.
Today I saw the outcome of this when some idiot did this live and in living colour, in front of me and on ice.
His car didn't look too good after being hit by the car behind him and him hitting the car on the inside of him. Sadly, their cars also looked a bit worse for wear too.
Now, for the last half mile i'd seen the camera signs on the central reservation, obviously if Captain Saxo had of taken them seriously he'd still have a car without new found creases in.
My biggest surprise however is the fact that nobody was hurt or worse still ,killed.
I'm not a big fan of speed cameras, and this proves the my point that when your looking out for them whether you are speeding or not, your not totally concentrating on what you should really be doing, which is driving.
Today once again proved to me there's just no joy left in driving any more.

On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 2

It's going to Snow.

Its going to snow, yippee.
Snow, white out and, according to one of Michael Fish's offshoots on the BBC we could see up to 10 centimetres in places.
Wow.
Snow.
Oh, it's going to snow.
Now, anywhere else in the Nothern Hemisphere when it snows the kids get excited, some getting time off school for "Snow Days" and adults reminisce back to their childhoods and the joys of making kiddy igloo's, snowball fights, sledging and learning 50 new ways to slide.
But in the UK it means as soon as the first flake hits the deck the country is going to come to a standstill.
The Pennines will be closed because the powers that be dont think we have the sense to to drive in snowy conditions.
Schools will close because they're not insured for your children to slip and slide around the playground just in case the fall and skuff a knee resulting in a claim for a million pound in damages.
The rail system will have to be shut down because the wrong kind of snow will have inevitably fallen on the track, and added with the wrong kind of leaves could spell disaster.
Billions of pounds will wiped off the economy because nobody will be able to leave their houses and shop for non essential items.
Those with non digital t.v.'s will lose their reception and no doubt power cuts will ensue as we put pressure on the Energy Companies as we turn up the heating and plug everything we own into the National Grid.
Even the clocks will stop.
And then, when you thought it was safe to leave the house because the sun had come out, the thawing will start.
The slush will become water and the subsequent flooding alerts will begin.

Meanwhile 600 miles away a group of so called World Leaders have decided to have a meeting about climate change and what to do about it.
Hell, even the Terminator has shown his face to have his thoughts noted on the subject. Seems like theres a new bandwagon in town and everyone who wants to have their photo taken with President Obama has come to town.
So, what's to be resolved?
Fuck all i'm guessing.
The Kyoto Protocol is long past it's sell by date and new measures have to be put in place for carbon reduction.
From what I can make out that means you and I have to use less of it.
Also from what I can make out big business will be able to "Buy" and "Sell" carbon offsets.
So, the middle class suffer again, we take the burden while those who have lots of money and no conscience get to buy their way out of the problem.

Let it snow, let it snow.......................let it snow.

Dude, wheres my parcel?

Royal Mail can trace its roots back to Henry VIII and the early 1500's but wasn't made available to the general serfs until about the middle of the 1630's by Charles the First and back then all postage was paid by the recipient. (Wouldn't be a bad idea bringing that back.)
Its gone through many transitions since then, from officially being the Post Office/GPO and in more recent times when the Bean Counters decided a rebrand was needed and changed the name to Consignia then Consignia Holdings and in one of the most expensive rebrands in British History albeit close to the same as when Burtons the high street clothing store decided to upbrand itself to Burton, losing the "s" with at least the latter not fucking around and sticking to there guns, the ideas men behind Consignia went back to Royal Mail.
Its comes as no surprise that being Government owned the P.O. haemoraged some major money over this fiasco, sorry, should read, "We" the tax payer did.
However, over the years we have been the envy of many a country with our fablulous postal system.
But that time is coming to an end slowly but surely.
In true 21st century Britain style were running it blindly into the ground, along with our badly run over priced Rail system.
Yesterday I sent a few parcels at the Post Office to some friends around the U.K. and was taken aback by a few of the options given to me, but the one that got my arse out the most was Insurance. Yes, Insurance.
In 2004 Royal Mail lost 14 plus Million letters and so many parcels they lost count.
How? How does such a well oiled machine lose that much mail? That many parcels?
It beggars belief.
"Whats the value of the item?" said the clerk.
"Well, about £150 in each parcel" i replied.
"You'll want insurance for those then?"
"Why?" i replied with a sarcastic tint.
"Well, just in case they get damaged or lost"
"Lost?"
"Could get lost in the post mate".
"Sorry," i replied, " your not exactly suggesting you may lose my parcels are you?"
"Well, happens more than you think".
"How?" i said in disbelief, hopefully not letting on that I already knew the answer.
"I dunno", he said. "They just get lost".
" As a matter of interest, will the parcels be delivered or will the recipients just get a note to pick the parcel up at the depot whether they are in or not?"
"Dont know what you mean sir."
"Thought you wouldn't".

So, the same company that not only didn't gear up for the online postal revolution, who unlike every other postal service on the planet or private delivery company didn't ensure it's longevity by taking steps to move with the times also loses parcels it's charged with delivering?
How shit is that?
Would this have happened if this was a privately owned company? Would it fuck.
Do we the consumer pay twice through tax and then postage fees because the Royal Mail is run by inept arseholes? Of course we do.
Do we entrust our parcels to be delivered even though Royal Mail still continues to employ unvetted, light fingered temps? Again of course we do.

Mainly because we have no choice.
However, in the near future dont be surprised to see your postman wearing an Orange uniform, TNT are thinking of moving into a lot of Royal Mails markets and admits it currently uses RM for some of its last mile deliveries.
And, on a final note, Her Madge might want to think about removing it's Royal Charter, lets face it, I dont think she'd want to be associated with such a bunch of idiotic trades union men and light fingered thieving cunts. Do you?

100 Items or Less.

Right, over the last year or so i've got into downsizing in a big way.
Everything from the house to the cars have all been downsized and probably not for the reasons your thinking.
I read an article last year about a guy who was trying to get out of the "things own you, not the other way around" race to own all the shit in the world that has the cheek to have a barcode on it.
This was a fabulous idea, time to get rid of the shit in my life that I had stored up over the last few years, never used or hid in the loft.
Being a big car nut, first thing to do was get down to one car. That was hard in itself but finally bit the bullet and gave up my prize Landrover Defender, keeping my mk2 Audi TT Roadster.
But this threw up another problem, I have a dog, how do I shuttle him about?
So, the TT went and I bought another 4x4.
Then I missed having a car so the 4x4 went and I bought a Porsche. Damn, this was getting to be a nightmare. Then I ended up back to square one and got rid of the Porsche, buying another 4x4 so I could move the dog around.
Then I missed having a car so bought a Golf Gti hoping that would do it, and for a while it has.
To date i've also got rid of a load of stuff on Ebay netting myself about £15,000 which has been banked. (Probably for the next time I change my car.)
So, my 100 item dream is at about the 280 item point now. This doesn't include clothing to a certain degree or white goods items like fridges or washing machines.
But I do have 3 x 50inch plus HI Def plasmas/LCD's, Xbox360/PS3 etc and now its getting to the point where if i'm going to follow this through I have to cut out some other luxuries.
My main issue at the moment is to go Mac or stick P.C.
Its a big deal. I write my Blog on my laptop, I keep my music and photo's on iLife on my Mac in my office.
All is not well.
As a lifestyle this forces you to make some serious decisions. Recently i've toyed with giving up my car and taking on biking everywhere and hiring a car when i need one. This negates issues like people damaging my car, parking fees, fuel, car tax and about 10 things you can't think of but I can.
Heres the thing though. Since I began this quest in the Summer, i've found myself getting frustrated by having to make these decisions, but once they were made it's such a load off, and more freeing than you can possibly imagine.

I can't tell you how much happier i've been since I made the decision to do this.
It's freed me up to think about so many other things, choose what's really important in my life and untie my mind from silly things like thinking about what to buy next. If I dont need it, I rarely browse for shit I dont need, and therefore do something far more interesting instead.

So, all I can say is take the first step of jumping out of the ratrace, sell the shit you dont need or dont use then take another look at your life.
You'll be happy you did.

Bring Back Hanging.

On the day it emerged that Tony Blair would have sent our troups into Iraq whether Suddam had WMD's or not, ( Really, I thought we went in to sit on the oil reserves, silly me) a more frightening story found itself wandering around the Associated Press.
It was revealed that a 12 year old boy, Joel Bradley from Liverpool had been allegedly caught selling a packet of Disco's, ( Circular Crisps) to another pupil at his school for 50p. Turns out the school in question, Cardinal Heenan High School isn't too keen on unhealthy eating during school hours, probably after being contacted by food molestor Jamie Oliver at some point. Eating lard out of tins and spooning margarine out of tubs 'til your heart pops is o.k. just as long as it isn't practised during school hours.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that this exact practice was where Dragons Den star Duncan Bannatyne started off before getting his first ice-cream van.
Joels father feels he is partly to blame for his sons heinous crime.
"I used to sell canned drinks, crisps and chocolate bars to kids from a van parked near the school." A right fucking crack dealer then.
Now, I'm not sure what's worse.
The school for nannying these poor children to the point where "Sweeties" become the new "Crack Cocaine", the fact that it was considered to be a suspendable offence or that Joel had marked his crisps up to 50p.
Or more to the point killing the spirit of enterprise in a young lad before he's even left school.
I'm wondering if they have healthy snack machines at this school? Many do.
Maybe that was the real issue at hand here.
On the day the ex Prime Minister nonchalantly admits he was responsible for the death of thousands for all the wrong reasons a young man under the education system the ex P.M. is also partially responsible for grinding into a state of statistics kills the spirit of another young chap.

Britain died a little more today and I'm becoming less and less proud of my country and what it stands for by the second.

B and Q.

Over the years i've tried to avoid B & Q like the plague, mainly down to the way it is staffed.
A few years ago when I was fitting out my bathroom I had the honour of finding the only person operating a till asleep, slouched over his workstation, out as they say, cold.
When I woke him he seemed as shocked to see me as I did to see him wipe the sleep dribble away from the side of his face.
"Sorry mate, rough night innit".
Where the "Innit" came from I dont know, but I wasn't best pleased.
On pointing this out to the manager, and after he reviewed the video footage of his snoring staff member an argument broke out in which I was referred to as a Wanker and the manager was referred to as a useless prick. Well, he was right in one part, however, I dont and have never taken kindly to being called a wanker and pointed this out to the "useless prick" before "Sleepy" removed his orange apron, threw it on the floor and stormed out of the store.
Mr Prick stood there and nodded his head.
"Can't get the staff".
Just to say, I did leave the store with £90's worth of free stuff, but still, Wanker? Me? Tut.

On a visit last year I got to the front of the queue to find that my item had no barcode on it.
"This doesnt have a barcode on, will have to get someone to get me a price. How much was it?".
"I have no idea" I replied, "not working here and all".
"No worries, i'll just get someone to get a price".
A bit of Tannoy work and some flashing lights later and a young man of "Sleepy's" ilk sloped to the till and was asked to get a price on the item, and off he went at sub snail speed. Eight minutes later he returned.
"Cant find it" he said, and turning to me he asked " do you know how much it was?" At which point I left the store and went online to purchase it.

Yesterday with a certain trepidation I returned to B & Q for the first time in over a year.
Now, to my joy the till operatives have been replaced with self scan units that talk to you in English, which is a step forward in itself.
"Please scan your first item". It said.
I did.
Then placed it in the scanned area as requested.
"Please scan your first item", it requested once again.
"Please place item in the bag".
What fucking bag?
"Please place item in the bag".
At which point a a young chap came across.
"They're a bit tempermental mate, its not scanned the price. Any idea how much it was?"

Progress eh?

The Cooking Equation.

Apparently nowadays men need to be able to cook.
Yes, I know, it's a sad day when a MAN is forced into the kitchen to produce something that a lady might want to eat, but that's the way things are.
So, after taking a gander at the wives of Ramsey, Oliver, Martin et al, I thought venturing into the kitchen may have been something I had missed.
(Even the Hairy Bikers are getting laid, who'd have thought?)

So, with a new found respect for the culinary arts I ventured into some cooking today, but decided to have a go at my own recipe.
If your on a diet, have high blood pressure, on statins or Warfarin, you might not want to read the rest of this post. BE WARNED.

So, after spending the morning at my local Sainsbury i returned with the following items.

1 12 inch square by 2 and a half inches deep white lasagne dish.
2 packets of small skinless sausage.
2 packets of smokey rindless bacon.
3 tins of Heinz baked beans.
1 packet of button mushrooms.
1 packet of lasagne sheets.
1 bulb of garlic.
1 500gm packet of Monteray Jack grated cheese.
1 jar of extra cheesey lasagne white sauce.

Recipe.

Take the bacon and cut into strips approx 1 centimetre wide by 50 long.
Next take the sausages and cut them into 20mm lengths.
Wash the shit off the mushrooms and chop roughly.
Take 2 cloves of garlic and crush using your garlic press, ( Fucking thing cost me £7.99)
Take Wok and throw in some cooking oil, and heat, then throw your chopped ingredients into the wok and let brown of lightly. Add in one cloves worth of your crushed garlic.
Open your tins of beans and cover the bottom of your dish with one tin and then a layer of lasagne.
Next add in a layer of your mushroom, sausage and bacon garlic mix.
Ad infinitum until you've run out of beans and mix.
Add the other crushed clove to your white sauce mix then top your lasagne with white sauce and place in a pre-heated oven at 200c ( I think) for 45 minutes.
Remove lasagne from oven and then top off with the Monteray Jack and place back into the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and let stand for 20 minutes then serve.
So then, that's it.
My recipe for Breakfast Lasagne. Daddies brown sauce seemed made for this recipe. Fuckin' yummy.

And dont ruin it with a ponsey Wine, eat with a nice warm Mackeson stout.

Cooks, chefs, I fuck 'em.
Bon appetite.

The God Complex.

I was recently told by a local P.C.S.O. that he saw me speeding. Tracking me down after some major investigation mainly asking my next door neighbour if she owned a red VW Golf Gti and after watching me drive 70 metres from where he spotted me driving into a cul-de-sac he knocked on my door.
No cameras were produced and his evidence that I was speeding was that I overcut a corner to drive into where I live, a corner that is usually littered with cars parked on pavements and where usually I have to do some creative driving to avoid anyone leaving their residences.
Repeatedly I pointed out that I wasn't speeding.
Repeatedly, without proof he told me that I was and that he could have me arrested for calling him a few choice words.
Eventually he fucked off as it was obvious that he was getting nowhere and this was down to the fact he had the intelligence of a Mudskipper and the looks of a Stork. Well , maybe if I hadn't have laughed at the way he looked as much I wouldnt have got a letter through the post 4 days later in the form of a formal warning about my driving.
For driving I guess.
Apparently if I get another one of these in the next 12 months they can seize my car. Good luck with that.
But heres the thing.
Had a read up about the requirements for his job. Can you spot anything lacking here?

• There are no minimum or maximum height requirements
• There is no formal educational requirement
• The minimum joining age is 18 and all police staff must retire at 65
• We maintain a strict tattoo policy. Each tattoo is judged individually and you must provide photographs with your application
• If you have a current Individual Voluntary Agreement (IVA) or current County Court Judgment (CCJ) then you cannot apply. If you have previously been declared bankrupt, then you would need to have this discharged for a minimum of 3 years prior to applying to us.
• We are committed to making what reasonable adjustments are possible, to enable people with disabilities, including dyslexia, to be an effective member of Essex Police. We need to be aware of any disabilities to ensure we can make any adjustments you may require during the recruitment process. We have an active Disability Support Network incorporating a Dyslexia Liaison Group which works hard to support all officers and staff with disabilities or caring commitments.

So, the way I see it, anyone can get a job doing this. Except me, I have a tattoo of a panther on my right arm and in a situation where I had to tear my clothes off, the image of the big cat might scare small children.
However, the fact the you cant read, write, have limbs missing, cant see, hear or speak shouldn't hold you back.
I'm all for people moving their way up in society, but i'm going out on a limb here, (my own limb) and may I suggest that some of the kids you used to give the occasional kick-in at school might just have moved into one of these jobs and are now seeking revenge for the fact that they used to get beaten up because they were deaf, blind, dumb, could play pinball well or were just twats.

I'm all for every village having to have an idiot, however, I draw the line when you give them any power beyond their understanding.

Fucked For Life.

Alistair Darling ( For the purpose of this Blog, read Cunt.) yesterday said in his pre budget speech that the heaviest burden of the national debt will be placed on the shoulders of the middle classes. Again.
What is this man on?
So, I'm to assist with paying once again for this Governments total FUBAR of the economy and it's undying mission to drive this country to its knees. If Britain was an animal right now you'd have it put to sleep. Yes, were in that bad a shape.
In a bid to make us all feel better about the banking crisis the Chancellor said that all banking bonuses would undergo a one off 50% tax. Woopyfuyckin'do. Within minutes of that statement being made the banking community had worked out 50 ways to bypass this tax, one thats going to be almost impossible to enforce and one that the banks say will only drive the banking talent abroad. Really? That'll be a big loss then. The money,(If recovered) will be used to help the unemployed back into work, oddly into jobs that dont exist.
If this wasn't an election year what measures would Mr.Cunt have taken to sort this country out?
The Irish pre-budget report yesterday showed us what is to come and it doesnt paint a pretty picture at all. This in reality is the shape of things to come and unless somebody stands up and says "well, were in deep shit, we really need to knuckle down and tighten a few belts" soon, were going to be driven into further financial decline.
The Governments own ThinkTank puts it another way.
For every £6 Labour is spending, we only have £5 its as simple as that. Cuts need to be made to stop us getting further into a downward spiral. In 5 years time it is reckoned this country will be in debt to the tune of 1.5 Trillion Pounds. In the writen word it doesnt equate very well, but be prepared to be shocked . This is what it looks like in numbers.

£1,5oo,ooo,ooo,ooo

Now, that's how deep a pile of shit we're estimated to be in 5 years from now.

Well, there is some good news.
Bingo duty will be dropped from 22% to 20% in the 2010 budget.
Not that you'll have time to play Bingo, you'll be too busy working. If you still have a job.

Writer's Block.

3-10-2009

So.
Where to start.

Well, for years now friends and people that have crossed my path have told me I should write a book, or at least consider it. Those that know me know I haven't got a Harry Potter in me, maybe i should rephrase that last comment, know that any book I write isn't going to be in anyway escapist.

So, after nearly no thought at all i've decided to throw myself into this full on and go for it.
Every day, a new blog.

So.
Here's to tomorrow.

No pressure then.