» Childhood Ambitions

A Biker
I always loved seeing motorbikes as a lad and my dad would always love to drag me away from them (I think one of his best mates got killed on one). As soon as I got a propper job after leaving home and educating myself I enrolled on a direct access course, got my license and proceeded to the nearest bike shop with my pay cheque.

I definitely had some great years and journeys on my bike but my interest started to wain because of:
a) British weather.
b) Spanish drivers.
e) British drivers.
c) Bristol traffic.
d) About half an hour to get your gear on and off, lock/unlock bike, lock/unlock garden gate to find out that you have left your earplugs inside and could really do with a shit before setting off.
e) Tankslappers.
f) putting your back out while heaving the damn thing around.
g) And finally, I went along to see about joining a Bike club in Swindon. I was the only one who turned up on my bike. The members I met seemed to have limps, pins, plates and worst of all seemed to relish the memory of 'pegging out naked on the ground' any new members who went along to one of their biker/camping weekends. These were grown men age 40+

Never did go back.
(Thu 29th Mar 2007, 14:41, More)

» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade

EasyJet pricing.
There is surely some scam going on here.
A few days ago I booked two tickets to Madrid with EasyJet. On the last screen before accepting the booking the EasyJet web page said something to the effect of "Somebody else has booked in the meantime and the price has gone up by £10". Rather than accepting I decided to retry the booking from the start with the new prices - but the website quoted me the exact same price as it did before! How come? I'd just been told the price had gone up by £10. So, I book one ticket and the same bloody thing happens with the second ticket!

EasyJet. You scamming scamming lying b@stards! There is always some catch with you c***s isn't there.
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 9:00, More)

» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade

LIght bulbs
So the UK government are going to ban incandescent light bulbs because they waste energy and make the ice caps melt and polar bears homeless.

Is it just me, or is this not bollocks?

This sounds like a government ploy to regenerate investment in manufacturing and high-street sales and look green to boot?

The incandescent light bulbs in MY house produce lots of LOVELY HEAT which keeps me toasty warm and reduces my overall heating bill. When the switchover occurs I'll have to turn up my heating to compensate for it! Not to mention I'll have to replace all of my perfectly good dimmer switches with new ones (this cannot be environmentally friendly).

All of this will require new factories, distribution channels, international deals and most likely flying plane-loads of the bulbs out from China to Europe. Net result - lots of wasted energy and a slight shift in the source of heating in our houses: from light bulbs to gas (or other).

Suppose it will create some jobs but I pity the poor polar bears.
(Fri 28th Sep 2007, 13:42, More)

» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade

Pembrey Race Track - Snack Van.
I spied a secret of the snack van trade at Pembrey racing track one day.

My GF asked for a bottle of mineral water with her reconstituted chicken snack. Snack van man says "pound fifty" as he shiftily hands it to her but twists off the lid whilst doing so, making out that the lids are sometimes difficult to open.

Not until thinking about it later did I realise; I'd bet a monkey it was just tap water that he'd put in a used water bottle. Profit: £1.50 from anyone poncey enough to ask for mineral water.

This was all a few years ago, at a time when the pikey locals were renowned for filling their cars with supermarket vegetable oil instead of diesel because it was cheaper.

I hope the snack van man gets a visit from the environmental health.
(Thu 27th Sep 2007, 14:56, More)

» Spoooky Coincidence

Goddam plane holidays...
While studying for a doctorate in Bangor I had a mate called Matt who I used to socialise with. He had a friend called Lindsay, who had a party where she invited her friends from Swansea, Huw and Sara. We all got on fine and after moving down south a year later found myself a good friend of Huw and Sara. A couple more years later, we organised a winter holiday and Sara's brother Dave invited some friends, Phil and Lisa from Bury, who he had made on a previous holiday. We also became good friends and had many other happy holidays.

Now wind back the clock 15 years to me at school in Derbyshire. Completely different location and set of friends. I used to sit next to a guy called Chris in Technical Drawing. That's as much of a link as I have with Chris, as I had lost touch with all of my school friends many years ago.

Clock winds forwards to roughly the present: Waiting at Manchester airport to board a plane to Canada for another winter holiday. Some guy I didn't recognise comes up to me and announces he knows me. Turns out it is Chris from Technical Drawing. We chat for 10 minutes about old times and that he's going on the same plane to the same place on holiday as me and my bunch of friends. Well, that's not such a coincidence in the grand scheme of things. Until... He turn's around, looks at me and also announces he knows Phil and Lisa - as he was on a safari (Fwah, Fwah, and then daddy shot it...) holiday with them the previous year!

Now that's spooky. My long forgotten mate Chris of 15 years ago was on holiday with my mates Phil & Lisa who are friends Dave, brother of Sara who was best friend with Lindsay at Exeter University who later went to Bangor where she knew my mate Matt who I used to socialise with. That link spans Derbyshire, Exeter, Bangor, Canada, Manchester, Swansea, some none uni mates, some uni mates and finally Africa. Apologies, that sure is some length.

Aren't I the holidaying social butterfly? As if that wasn't enough. We get off the plane in Canada and some other guy I didn't recognise comes up to me and says, "you're Mary's brother aren't you?", (which I was), kicking off some other chain of effing coincidences. That was the final straw.

I didn't fancy getting on no Goddam plane to fly back because the odds of being hijacked seemed a dead cert compared with what had just happened.
(Mon 12th Feb 2007, 10:34, More)