Your store

Both Currys and PC World tell me today (with big signs in the shop) that they're working to 'make your store even better'. I didn't realise I had a 'store' (the modern shit word for shop) at all until today, let alone two. Then when I decide to go in and take some of the stuff home for safe keeping while the building work is going on they get all arsey about it and threaten me with criminal proceedings.

Some people!

The signs of a cold and damp home

And today at work the ‘Hot News’ newsletter arrives courtesy of npower 'Health Through Warmth' – the December edition (with this being 15th February...) It includes a page entitled ‘Do you know the signs of a cold damp home?’

It then tells you how to spot a cold damp home...

Point 1 is ‘The room feels cold’
Point 5 is ‘the house smells damp and musty’
Point 2 is ‘there are no visible sources of heat – e.g. radiators or heaters’ and point 6 is ‘someone is wearing lots of layers, maybe gloves and a scarf indoors’

So there you go – if you go into a house that feels cold and smells damp and a little old lady is wearing scarves and gloves inside – they may be living in a cold damp house. It took a 2 and a half month late glossy brochure to tell me but now I know.

It’s good to have a little technical knowledge

Money saving Valentine's

I just saved £3.99 on a box of chocolates! Them chocolate sea-shells. I was in Tesco's (normally I send a runner obviously but today I thought hang the autograph hunters, I'll go mesen).

I picked up the box vaguely aware of a nice reddish coloured pattern on the front. I was about to put it in the trolley when I realised that it had a red heart on the front - Pigging Valentine's day special box! I froze...then I put it back and moved swiftly on - £3.99 saved!

My one regret is that I'm unlikely to be around in town tomorrow to laugh at the poor saps who 'do' valentine's day miserably shaming themselves with shit bunches of flowers, over-priced crowded meals and the rest.

No one actually believes that I (and 'we' as it happens) don't do Valentine's day - people seem to think you're joking - either that or it's a bit like announcing that you collect photos of 8 year old boys.

People who you thought were OK turn out to be stupid and mad after all.

Happy Valentine's - IDIOTS!

Go Max!

I definitely heard (OK, I'm fairly sure I heard) Sir Max Moseley on the Today programme on Radio 4 today use the phrase 'that was a private matter between me and the 5 young ladies involved...'

Fantastic! How many people get to use a phrase like that? He may be the son of a nasty Fascist but he's definitely my kind of guy!

Go Quo!

Got a letter today - a reminder about a 'voluntary contribution' (I'll tell you about the Lord Mayor's Fund in Leeds at some point...). £2.50 needed - why? BECAUSE STATUS QUO'S DRUMMER IS DOING A DRUM WORKSHOP AT MY DAUGHTER'S SCHOOL!!!

It would seem that the junior school kids are gunna learn how to drum like you do when you're in THE QUO!!! Staus Quo!

You may not think this is cool and the world has gorn mad. I think it's cool! THE STATUS QUO!!!

Perverts!

These cyber types - crazy! They're either telling me off or grooming me for sex - sometimes at the same time.

I've been posing as a 57 year old man 'on the net' using a pseudonym and chatting with my mates about gout and halitosis in chat rooms and putting photos of myself on Facebook and the like.

All these under age girls keep trying to cop off with me - perverts. String 'em up, that's what I say

Now there's posh

Ainsley Harriot the chef bod has his fizzog on a range of - cupasoups.

Sometimes one has to remind oneself that one could not make it up.

Cupasoup. By a celebriddy chef. Yeah, I know. Don't bother telling me it'll have knob all to do with him apart from the picture.

Cupasoup. Chef related. Cupasoup...

Mistrakes like yer grammar used to make

My grammar has been corrected. I said 'no less than' rather than 'no fewer than'. A big harrumph from me - I'd call the corrector a pedant but they'd probably have their windows put through. I'm not that great at grammar I admit - but on the grounds of popular usage changing the language I nearly decided to argue the point. I decided not to...

Thirty four squid ink

My friends at Epson have been in touch again - they sent me an email saying 'John, are you running low on ink?'

It goes on - 'Ha, we know you fucking are because we give you fuck all when you buy the printer - but if you want more it'll cost you £34.30! No, we mean it! Not only do we mean it but we're going to call it a special offer and pretend that other people's ink is dangerous and rubbish - so screw you! You bought one of our printers and now we're going to bleed you dry! We own you and you owe us a living! What are you gonna do to us? - We're Epson and we don't care if you hate us!'

Actually, they didn't say all that. They did want £34.30 for a set of inks though. I'd rather never print anything ever again and melt their printer over a brazier than pay that though. Come on people, let's start stringing them up. Special offer - for £34.30 I'll do a bunch of 'em.

And don't forget to keep the hate flow aimed at Firstbus - they'll be putting up fares by an inflation busting amount again in the spring like they do, you mark my words

It's capitalist profiteering gorn mad!

If you buy a car it costs maybe about £7,000. That nails my demographic...Anyway, the petrol so you can use it for about a month costs about £40. So the stuff that runs it costs about 0.57% of the purchase price.

An Epson Stylus printer (for example) costs £59.98 (down by a penny from the advert they sent last week). A set of inks so you can use it for about a month costs £33.57The stuff that runs it therefore costs about 56% of the purchase price.

So, yes, a set of printer inks costs well over half the cost of buying a new printer. It’s capitalist profiteering gone mad!

Everyone knows that it's rip off but no one dies. I suppose I've gone on about this before. Drag them out of their offices and beat them to a pulp!

Why, Mr Tesco, you are surely spoiling us...

Call me a useless consumer but I had a Tesco’s ready meal the other day. It contained an item or items they call ‘bacon lardons’.

Well, I’ve been looking at stuff on the internet. I’ve got a big fat steaming bacon lardon now. I’m going to stalk Mr Tesco and I’m going to stick it right in his profit bloated face!

Stay in your homes!

It’s odd to think that perhaps we did quite well with salt on the roads – until recently of course. Since the Council have bailed out and left us to our fate the roads are really really icy! Main roads are clear but you can’t get to ‘em. And don’t start me on the paths. But like I say, it does look like whatever it was they did before was better than I thought!

Funny how these once in a generation freak weather things happen every year though. It wasn’t long ago that I travelled to Warrington on the train and everything was cancelled because it was too hot and the rails were buckling. And then there’s that one off from last Feb. I think the list goes on.

The buses pretty much stopped for hours this week in Leeds too. I wonder how much I get back on me annual pass?

And the price of Council swimming went up by a double figure amount from 1st Jan. The cost of making the toilets stink must've gone up. And why can't I find a postbox anymore? Whine, whinge, moan. Off to hell in a handcart etc.

Sage and onion and 'erb

Soemtimes a pun coms along that it would be difficult to make up. Just before Christmas for example, a colleague of mine was apparently asking all visitors if they'd like 'some Baileys'. Sounds natural enough in the run-up to Christmas you might think (though I didn't run up to it - or jump when I got there...) - but we are a healthy living organisation and part of the brief is encouraging people not to drink too much...

Turns out that in fact the invitation was to 'some bay leaves' - and there in his office was a basket of fresh bay leaves.

Celebrity time

The modern definition of 'celebrity' I find most accurate is simply 'someone who you haven't heard of'.

Imagine my disappointment therefore to discover on reading about the new series of Celebrity Big Brother that I'd heard of no less than 2 of the contestants. Vinnie Jones - who was a thug footballer and went on to be in a film and Stephanie Beacham who was in a US soap and no doubt did 'some other stuff'. The rest are all made up.

This shouldn't bother me of course it's just TVs way of getting people to do something more interesting, but a small part of me wants 'celebrities' to be people 'celebrated' for something. Must be getting old.

I hope Sir Alex is OK

I do hope Sir Alex is alright - I hope he didn't stumble or anything on his way to tell ITV how his team had been outclassed (and dumped out of the FA cup) by a team from the third division. I presume he would have made every effort to give credit to the Leeds lads - and he'd probably have wanted to compare the prices of the 2 teams I guess.

I'll wait for the news to see how he is - must've been something serious though to keep him away from the cameras...

Me and Dave

I read a report recently about the ‘Integrated Processes Development Day’ which involved ‘the third sector’ (my speech marks for those who don’t talk like this) in the development of the ‘Children Leeds Workforce Development Strategy’. One of the follow-ups is to see what training people require ‘to enable engagement in workforce strategy development’. The evaluation will ‘contribute to the development of the Children Leeds Workforce Strategy and in particular evidence the position the sector is in with reference to the development of the Children Leeds Strategy and will be presented to the Directorate of Children’s Services and also to the Children’s Workforce Development Council’. Meanwhile the Council hasn’t got enough money to pay the binmen...

I wonder now if I’m a Tory because when I hear David Cameron going on about getting rid of useless quangos I say ‘right on Dave’ or perhaps I’m some sort of Maoist for wishing everyone involved in the ‘Integrated Processes Development Day’ had been forced at gunpoint to empty the bins when the bin workers were on strike.

Nearly all the conferences and meetings and stuff about strategies and partnerships that I have anything to do with all seem to be based on the concept that people are useless at their jobs and if they only signed up to ‘partnership working’ and whatever else the clever people who meet each other think is a good idea they would work much more efficiently. The trouble is that so many people are at meetings they can’t get any work done. There should be NO jobs in the world in my view that only involve meetings. People should either DO STUFF or BE PAID TO STAY AT HOME DOING WHAT THE HELL THEY LIKE!

It seems to me that if people ‘out there’ found out what their money was being spent on there’d be riots.

The 'Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance'

Sometimes the best way to express dismay, concern and perhaps a soupcon of scepticism is to simply state the name of something. For example, the 'Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance'. I assure you that this is not made up. It exists. And they were having a workshop! ‘Surely not’ you cry. Oh yes they were; the lathes went in yesterday and they produced 300 widgets last week. No, they didn’t. They had a ‘workshop’ for ‘Active citizens, people on learning programmes, Local Authority staff, learning providers’ and apparently ‘Take Part pathfinder projects’.

I present their draft programme below. I’m not picking on them but it is so typical of the sort of thing I occasionally go to where people collude in pretending they’re learning or doing some good for somebody. This is verbatim:

“Draft Programme

Brief Input from
• Learners stories
• The Radical Hillbillies – inspiring video from America

Story Tables
• Showcasing what has worked (and what hasn’t) from around the region using an accessible storytelling style – the chance to hear and discuss several ‘stories’

Inter-active Noticeboard
• The chance to ‘post’ your ideas and comments throughout the day via computers in the room linked to a big screen noticeboard – a rolling discussion forum open to all

Lunchtime Market place for stalls
• Bring and share information about your project

Put your Project on the Map – literally!
• A large map of the region will be on the wall – bring details of your project to pin on to the map

Contribute to RACLA development
• A fun exercise to collect your views about the Alliance – what you want and what you can contribute. Open session to agree outline programme and priorities for the next 6 months”

There you go, ‘the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Active Citizenship Learning Alliance as Harry Hill might say. They are a caution!

The Digital Activist Inclusion Network (DAIN) is "an exciting innovative transnational project which aims to develop, test and deliver approaches to challenge the digital divide, ultimately helping to widen participation in employment and learning."

Just so you know.

There was a conference to "explore practical approaches to challenging digital exclusion"

Just so as you know. The world is full of this stuff...

Degrees of madness

How does this all work then? I want my mileage in miles per gallon though I only know how much petrol costs per litre. I want my low temperatures in Celsius so I can say it’s ‘4 below zero’ or whatever but I want my high temperatures in Fahrenheit so I can say ‘it’s 85 degrees’. I want my big distances in miles but small ones are fine in centimetres. I would never of course consider measuring anyone’s penis – but if I did it would absolutely have to be in inches. Am I normal?

Wages

Here’s a simple question. Why is it that if you do something helpful for society like emptying the bins or wiping old people’s bottoms you get paid about £13,000 a year? If you sit in ‘strategy’ meetings deciding whether to put ‘resources’ into things you get about £30,000 a year. If you gamble with other people’s money, lose and then fleece the people who earn £13,000 a year when it all goes wrong you earn £100,000+ The less actual use people’s job is the more they seem to earn.

‘Ah yes, but what about doctors?’ I hear the annoying twat at the back ask. ‘They have to train for 7 years’ they go on. Here’s where you get into the argument about people being suited to things and where people somehow think you’re saying that everyone should be paid exactly the same whatever they do. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m suggesting that it would be good if pay related to how hard people worked and how useful what they do is – EVEN A TINY BIT! So there!