It seems that a bag, like a puppy, is for life, and not just for Christmas. Every time I visit my local Waitrose (which is often) I am offered a “Bag For Life”. No, this is not some promotional idea of a charity raising funds for poor children in Africa or for a new scanner of some kind at a local hospital. No, these are eco-friendlier bags; stronger so they last longer, and, presumably more bio-degradable than your typical supermarket carrier bag which is destined to clog up some landfill site for a couple of millennia. On the news this morning there were a bunch of eco-warriors of uncertain sexuality and various degrees of cleanliness, intelligence, and sowing ability who had taken the idea one step further. They had made shopping bags out of old clothes. Nice. Would you want to bring your groceries home in someone else’s granddad’s Y-fronts?
Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for saving the planet and avoiding climate change. But, this Bag For Life thing just doesn’t seem to work for me. I think I have about six of the damn things already. Perhaps they are breeding. But for sure, I think I will be stuck with them for a very, very long time simply because I forget to take them with me to the supermarket. I now have to go through that whole routine where they ask me if I would like a Bag For Life; I say, “no thank you because I have several at home already”; and they reluctantly hand me two old-style carrier bags when I clearly need five or six for my many purchases, and they scowl at me in a way which is clearly intended to make me feel as if I am uniquely and personally responsible for imminent climactic chaos on an unprecedented scale.
And in any case, I recycle the carrier bags. We put our rubbish in them. Our non-recyclable rubbish that is. I am a frequent visitor to the paper bank, the bottle bank, and the plastic recycling place. But we use the old-style supermarket carrier bags to put our non-recyclables in. And, incidentally, our non-recyclables consist mostly of unnecessary supermarket packaging! Let he who is without sin…….
And, why do we need plastic bags at all? Why can’t we use paper bags like they do in America? Surely that would be much better for the planet. It would encourage the planting of more forests, and paper is much more easily recyclable than plastic. And, just think how many of us could have met our soulmates in one of those everything-falling-through-the-bottom-of-a-wet-paper-bag movie moments……
And, while I think about it, why can’t we have those nice carton things that Americans eat their Chinese takeaway out of using chopsticks, instead of those silver carton things and the plastic forks that we have over here? They may not have signed up to Kyoto, but they do seem to have a thing or two to tell us about packaging.
No, it seems that I am destined to feel the full weight of my own carbon footprint in the form of the growing number of Bags For Life that are to be crammed into kitchen cupboards and the millions of wire coat hangers that seem to be taking over the wardrobes upstairs. Every shirt that comes back from the laundry returns with its own hanger. If only I was creative and talented enough to recycle the hangers into children’s mobiles or sci-fi statues, or anything that I could make my fortune doing.
And while, I think about it, the real purveyors of global warming and climate change are those little bastards who keep nicking our recycling bins. This happens far too often. We have already had one brown bin for compostable (is that a word?) stuff (weeds, leftover grub, etc.), and one blue box (for paper) stolen. Our neighbours have all been hit as well. We presume it is just kids doing it for fun, as there is not a lot else to do in sleepy Bradwall, rather than eco-terrorists. But it does seem crazy that I have to burn more CO2 by driving to the recycling place myself as a consequence of some childish prank. Perhaps the council can use those tracker things that they are putting into bins these days to find mine and return it to me.
PS.
Incidentally, on the subject of poor children in Africa and elsewhere, I would wholeheartedly recommend World Vision to you. C and I sponsor a little five year old Tanzanian girl called Sesilia. Her mom and dad are only young themselves and are subsistence farmers. We like to think that our contribution will make a real difference to Sesilia’s life. Hopefully, we will be able to pay for her education. And, hopefully, this will enable her to find her own place in the world. We dream one day of visiting her in her village and saying hello properly. In the meantime, we enjoy sending her the occasional photograph and letter and receiving letters from her, translated into English by one of the charity workers.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Grumpy Old Man Part 5
A Grumpy Old Man On Holiday
It is 07.40 in the morning. A Tuesday morning. The day after Spring Bank Holiday and, I am on holiday. Everyone else is at work. But, I am not. So, what the hell am I doing up at twenty minutes to eight in the morning? Waiting for a bloody tradesman. ‘Scuse my French, but I am not good in the morning.
Actually, the tradesman that I am waiting for is the exception that proves the rule. To start with, he is not Polish. Secondly, he is punctual. And, he is trustworthy. He is competent. And, yes, he is very expensive. But, you can’t have everything. And, today, he is doing me a favour. This morning, before he goes to his paid job, he is helping me to refit the wooden worktop in my kitchen. For nothing. He’s a nice bloke.
The kitchen worktop was removed because the boiler broke down and needed repairing. And, because the worktop was fitted over the boiler it needed to be taken off. It needed to be removed just four months after our very expensive kitchen had been fitted, tiled, and decorated. Decorated by the very man who is coming to help me this morning. He is helping me this morning because I have been let down by the kitchen fitter who should have come to refit the very expensive beach wood worktop that he fitted in our very expensive kitchen just four months ago. Can you sense my frustration?
Now I know that the more handy, savvy, do-it-yourself-knowledgeable types out there are saying that you shouldn’t have fitted a solid wood worktop above a boiler. I know. We knew that at the time it was fitted. We didn’t want to. But, we had no choice.
Planning a new kitchen is worse then any global system implementation project I have managed. Worse than planning the invasion of Iraq. Not that I did that. And not that there is much evidence that the invasion was actually planned at all. No, synchronising the arrival of the kitchen fitter, the units, the skip, the electrician, the plumber, at the prescribed “windows of opportunity” is a complicated nightmare.
People of Stoke, Staffordshire and South Cheshire beware of plumbers named Stuart. It was Stuart that let us down. He let us down badly. We had agreed with Stuart to hand over large amounts of dosh in return for which he would move the boiler. He was going to move the boiler literally next to itself. Half a day’s work. Half a day’s work for five hundred quid. This was going to enable us to cut the worktop in a place that wouldn’t be aesthetically unpleasing. So that a small piece of worktop could be easily removed to get at the top of the boiler.
Stuart, the plumber from Stoke, had one whole day in which to move the boiler. He knew this. He knew that if he missed this window then the whole fitting would be delayed by at least two months. Now don’t get me wrong, we knew Stuart. Stuart has been servicing our boiler for about five years. Stuart had fitted at least four radiators in our house. We had recommended him to at least two of our neighbours. You would have thought that we were considered to be good customers. That he may have wanted to keep us sweet. And, if not, you would have at least thought that he would have relished £500 for half a day’s work…….
Stuart turned up late. Two hours late. Stuart was grumpy when he arrived. In retrospect, Stuart was always grumpy. Stuart declared that it was “stupid” to move the boiler. Stuart walked off the job. Never to return. Over my dead body. And he can whistle for the money that I still owe him.
The boiler is still where it was. As a result, we could not cut the worktop. So, our very capable kitchen fitter designed it that, in the “very rare event” that something went wrong with the very modern, ultra-reliable boiler that we had had serviced every year and had absolutely no problem with ever, then the whole top could be removed to give access to the boiler.
The boiler broke about six weeks ago. True enough, the worktop was removed as designed. The brand new sealant was cut and removed. Three bolts, a dozen or so screws. All were removed, and, amazingly, I managed to do it without breaking any of the very expensive, brand new, Fired Earth tiles.
The boiler was fixed. But, I couldn’t get the worktop back. Not so it fitted in such a way that it would not warp. Not in an aesthetically pleasing way. And, the tap had developed a very irritating wobble. But not to worry. The kitchen fitter promised to “pop back” to help us in the event of us ever having to remove the worktop. Yeah right. I have been awaiting the “popping back” for six weeks now.
Fortunately (?!?), Mike the decorator popped in yesterday to measure up for some decorating that we need doing. The study, the landing, the hallway, the skirting boards in the lounge, a picture rail, a new heated towel rail in the one-year-old bathroom to replace the one which fell off the wall at the bloody weekend! An arm and a leg. A small fortune no doubt. I sometimes wish that I had forsaken an Oxford education in favour of a plumbing or plastering course.
But, Mike is a top bloke. Totally professional. Perfectly punctual and reliable. Trustworthy. And Mike offered to come around this morning before going to a job elsewhere to help me out. So here I am. On my day off……….
It is 07.40 in the morning. A Tuesday morning. The day after Spring Bank Holiday and, I am on holiday. Everyone else is at work. But, I am not. So, what the hell am I doing up at twenty minutes to eight in the morning? Waiting for a bloody tradesman. ‘Scuse my French, but I am not good in the morning.
Actually, the tradesman that I am waiting for is the exception that proves the rule. To start with, he is not Polish. Secondly, he is punctual. And, he is trustworthy. He is competent. And, yes, he is very expensive. But, you can’t have everything. And, today, he is doing me a favour. This morning, before he goes to his paid job, he is helping me to refit the wooden worktop in my kitchen. For nothing. He’s a nice bloke.
The kitchen worktop was removed because the boiler broke down and needed repairing. And, because the worktop was fitted over the boiler it needed to be taken off. It needed to be removed just four months after our very expensive kitchen had been fitted, tiled, and decorated. Decorated by the very man who is coming to help me this morning. He is helping me this morning because I have been let down by the kitchen fitter who should have come to refit the very expensive beach wood worktop that he fitted in our very expensive kitchen just four months ago. Can you sense my frustration?
Now I know that the more handy, savvy, do-it-yourself-knowledgeable types out there are saying that you shouldn’t have fitted a solid wood worktop above a boiler. I know. We knew that at the time it was fitted. We didn’t want to. But, we had no choice.
Planning a new kitchen is worse then any global system implementation project I have managed. Worse than planning the invasion of Iraq. Not that I did that. And not that there is much evidence that the invasion was actually planned at all. No, synchronising the arrival of the kitchen fitter, the units, the skip, the electrician, the plumber, at the prescribed “windows of opportunity” is a complicated nightmare.
People of Stoke, Staffordshire and South Cheshire beware of plumbers named Stuart. It was Stuart that let us down. He let us down badly. We had agreed with Stuart to hand over large amounts of dosh in return for which he would move the boiler. He was going to move the boiler literally next to itself. Half a day’s work. Half a day’s work for five hundred quid. This was going to enable us to cut the worktop in a place that wouldn’t be aesthetically unpleasing. So that a small piece of worktop could be easily removed to get at the top of the boiler.
Stuart, the plumber from Stoke, had one whole day in which to move the boiler. He knew this. He knew that if he missed this window then the whole fitting would be delayed by at least two months. Now don’t get me wrong, we knew Stuart. Stuart has been servicing our boiler for about five years. Stuart had fitted at least four radiators in our house. We had recommended him to at least two of our neighbours. You would have thought that we were considered to be good customers. That he may have wanted to keep us sweet. And, if not, you would have at least thought that he would have relished £500 for half a day’s work…….
Stuart turned up late. Two hours late. Stuart was grumpy when he arrived. In retrospect, Stuart was always grumpy. Stuart declared that it was “stupid” to move the boiler. Stuart walked off the job. Never to return. Over my dead body. And he can whistle for the money that I still owe him.
The boiler is still where it was. As a result, we could not cut the worktop. So, our very capable kitchen fitter designed it that, in the “very rare event” that something went wrong with the very modern, ultra-reliable boiler that we had had serviced every year and had absolutely no problem with ever, then the whole top could be removed to give access to the boiler.
The boiler broke about six weeks ago. True enough, the worktop was removed as designed. The brand new sealant was cut and removed. Three bolts, a dozen or so screws. All were removed, and, amazingly, I managed to do it without breaking any of the very expensive, brand new, Fired Earth tiles.
The boiler was fixed. But, I couldn’t get the worktop back. Not so it fitted in such a way that it would not warp. Not in an aesthetically pleasing way. And, the tap had developed a very irritating wobble. But not to worry. The kitchen fitter promised to “pop back” to help us in the event of us ever having to remove the worktop. Yeah right. I have been awaiting the “popping back” for six weeks now.
Fortunately (?!?), Mike the decorator popped in yesterday to measure up for some decorating that we need doing. The study, the landing, the hallway, the skirting boards in the lounge, a picture rail, a new heated towel rail in the one-year-old bathroom to replace the one which fell off the wall at the bloody weekend! An arm and a leg. A small fortune no doubt. I sometimes wish that I had forsaken an Oxford education in favour of a plumbing or plastering course.
But, Mike is a top bloke. Totally professional. Perfectly punctual and reliable. Trustworthy. And Mike offered to come around this morning before going to a job elsewhere to help me out. So here I am. On my day off……….
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Who Am I? Part 2
Who Am I? Part 2
Actually, I am quite pleased to have discovered that I am an ESTP. Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking and Perceiving (see previous entry: Who Am I? Part 1). It was quite a relief. It was quite reassuring. It kind of reminded me who I am. Who I am on the inside. Who I really am. And, who I need to be on the outside too. The rediscovery of myself helped to explain why I have been less than entirely happy at work recently. For, being ESTP also makes me a square peg in a round hole in my current job. And the master of understatement.
The company that I work for has recently asked me to become a project manager, driving global process, product and infrastructure standardisation initiatives. And, to be frank, it just ain’t me. Don’t get me wrong, I can do it. I have done it. But, it does not come naturally. And, I do not really enjoy doing it that much. It pays pretty well though. To do this job you need to be good at planning, at detail, and interested in enforcing the rules. You need to be a political animal who is turned on by templates, blueprints, stagegates, rules, and doing everything the same way, everywhere. And, I am not.
As an ESTP, I am more of an entrepreneur. I am good in a crisis. I like to take risks. I like variety. I like to roll my sleeves up and get involved. I am pragmatic and practical. I also do not take kindly to too much direction and doing as I am told. I like plain speaking. I like to be autonomous and able to set my own agenda.
ESTPs tend to work least well with people who complain all the time; take themselves too seriously; or, who discuss ideas to death without ever taking a decision and actually doing anything. Well, maybe not every multi-national oil giant is the same, but the one that I work with is full of people like that. I am irritated by rules and regulations; routine; corporate bullshit; and, people who do not take responsibility for themselves. I do not fit in anymore. If I ever did. And, if you bear in mind that I have worked for the same company now for nearly twenty years, I guess it is time I considered a change.
I recognise that I am not perfect though. As an ESTP I am prone to look for a crisis where there isn’t one and am often sarcastic. And, when stressed, I can become withdrawn and moody. Abrupt. Snappy. Grrrr. I can also irritate others by being abrupt, and telling them to pull themselves together. If I have done that to any of you, well, sorry. I can recommend a very good counsellor though.
I guess you might be wondering why the sudden urge for self-enlightenment. Well, I am being made redundant. I am being made redundant after twenty years. The wonderful global project that I was asked to lead did not go ahead. It was my own fault really because I was one of the ones who recommended it did not go ahead. I just thought that the company could invest the $40 million better elsewhere. They quite gratefully accepted my recommendation, and, are now making me redundant as a consequence.
Actually, I am quite pleased. Sure I am worried a little bit about getting another job. I am worried about money. But me and the old company have been drifting apart for quite some time now. This is exactly the kind of kick up the arse I needed to get myself motivated to change. So, that is what I intend to do. And, part of the process is to understand the kind of environment that I prefer to work in; the type of people that I prefer working with; the kind of role that best suits my personality. And, that is where the psychometric test came in. It is actually part of the process offered by the outplacement service that the company has kindly given me access to.
So, now I know who I am, I can better focus on the type of job that would suit me. According to the manual that the outplacement consultant has given me, the most attractive occupations for people like me include law enforcement, general management, farming, or, working in a factory. Maybe I could enforce the law in a battery hen farm. Hmmm. Any of you who know me got any ideas or suggestions?
Gizza job!
Actually, I am quite pleased to have discovered that I am an ESTP. Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking and Perceiving (see previous entry: Who Am I? Part 1). It was quite a relief. It was quite reassuring. It kind of reminded me who I am. Who I am on the inside. Who I really am. And, who I need to be on the outside too. The rediscovery of myself helped to explain why I have been less than entirely happy at work recently. For, being ESTP also makes me a square peg in a round hole in my current job. And the master of understatement.
The company that I work for has recently asked me to become a project manager, driving global process, product and infrastructure standardisation initiatives. And, to be frank, it just ain’t me. Don’t get me wrong, I can do it. I have done it. But, it does not come naturally. And, I do not really enjoy doing it that much. It pays pretty well though. To do this job you need to be good at planning, at detail, and interested in enforcing the rules. You need to be a political animal who is turned on by templates, blueprints, stagegates, rules, and doing everything the same way, everywhere. And, I am not.
As an ESTP, I am more of an entrepreneur. I am good in a crisis. I like to take risks. I like variety. I like to roll my sleeves up and get involved. I am pragmatic and practical. I also do not take kindly to too much direction and doing as I am told. I like plain speaking. I like to be autonomous and able to set my own agenda.
ESTPs tend to work least well with people who complain all the time; take themselves too seriously; or, who discuss ideas to death without ever taking a decision and actually doing anything. Well, maybe not every multi-national oil giant is the same, but the one that I work with is full of people like that. I am irritated by rules and regulations; routine; corporate bullshit; and, people who do not take responsibility for themselves. I do not fit in anymore. If I ever did. And, if you bear in mind that I have worked for the same company now for nearly twenty years, I guess it is time I considered a change.
I recognise that I am not perfect though. As an ESTP I am prone to look for a crisis where there isn’t one and am often sarcastic. And, when stressed, I can become withdrawn and moody. Abrupt. Snappy. Grrrr. I can also irritate others by being abrupt, and telling them to pull themselves together. If I have done that to any of you, well, sorry. I can recommend a very good counsellor though.
I guess you might be wondering why the sudden urge for self-enlightenment. Well, I am being made redundant. I am being made redundant after twenty years. The wonderful global project that I was asked to lead did not go ahead. It was my own fault really because I was one of the ones who recommended it did not go ahead. I just thought that the company could invest the $40 million better elsewhere. They quite gratefully accepted my recommendation, and, are now making me redundant as a consequence.
Actually, I am quite pleased. Sure I am worried a little bit about getting another job. I am worried about money. But me and the old company have been drifting apart for quite some time now. This is exactly the kind of kick up the arse I needed to get myself motivated to change. So, that is what I intend to do. And, part of the process is to understand the kind of environment that I prefer to work in; the type of people that I prefer working with; the kind of role that best suits my personality. And, that is where the psychometric test came in. It is actually part of the process offered by the outplacement service that the company has kindly given me access to.
So, now I know who I am, I can better focus on the type of job that would suit me. According to the manual that the outplacement consultant has given me, the most attractive occupations for people like me include law enforcement, general management, farming, or, working in a factory. Maybe I could enforce the law in a battery hen farm. Hmmm. Any of you who know me got any ideas or suggestions?
Gizza job!
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Who Am I?
Who Am I?
I know who I am. I even have it in writing. I found myself without the usual naval gazing, psychotherapy, time on monastic retreats, travelling the world, or doing voluntary work in the Hindukush that most people who want to “find themselves” seem to have to go through. Well, I guess it is not entirely true that my self-discovery is entirely without psychotherapy. It is rather hard to avoid when you are married to a psychotherapist and a huge fan of the Sopranos. But, I am confident that my extensive repertoire of Hilton Hotels and airport lounges of the world does not count as having “seen the world”, man.
I discovered who I am the easy way. I took a psychometric test. Two in fact. The 16PF (I know) and the Myers-Briggs. The latter is apparently based upon Jung’s observation of personality types. Can you imagine the kind of blog that Jung or Freud would have if they were still alive today?
It was quite a relief, finding myself. I have been a little worried about who I might be for some time now. I’m not sure why I have been anxious about it. I am not sure that I have any special reason for worrying about who I am. Sure there were the usual “Who do you think you are!” bellowings from strict teachers at school. The usual teenage musings as to whether I was adopted or left by a superior alien race. Such musings are normal aren’t they? I mean, at that age we always refuse to see ourselves in our parents, don’t we? Not now. Not any more. Not when you see video clips of you walking, talking and standing just like your dad, but with hair. Not when you hear yourself using the same turn of phrase. Not since the “Top of The Pops Moment” when you declare that they don’t write songs like they used to. Or, perhaps, that is just me getting older.
There was, of course, the “You’ve changed!” jibe from my mom after I came home from Oxford, for Christmas, after my very first term there. I was guilty of the crime of wasting my university grant by contributing to the Striking Miners’ Fund (go Scargill!), protesting against Margaret Thatcher’s honorary degree at All Souls, and, for listening to Billy Bragg tapes. It was to my great dismay that Mrs T, the unturning Iron Lady, had avoided our student protest and blockade of All Souls by sneaking through a side garden of my own college. Mom and dad had always voted Conservative because they were in favour of Grammar Schools. How topical eh? What goes around, comes around. Plus ca change and all that. I wonder if my parents will abandon Mr Cameron in favour of Gordon Brown next time around?
More worryingly, there was the “Graphology Moment” in my mid-twenties. We had organised a handwriting expert to talk to and analyse a bunch of our top customers at work. This was our attempt at corporate entertainment. This was at a time when companies were dabbling in the use of such psychobabble to weed out unsuitable types during their recruitment process. This was back in the days before email. When people used pen and ink and their own fair hand when corresponding. Anyhow, this lady, the expert, showed us comparisons of various famous people’s handwriting: Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, other known fascists. She got us to write a few words down and draw a cartoon dog (it is quite significant if you draw the dog looking to the left or to the right apparently) and then analysed the audience.
The audience, being our customer base, was predominantly male, white, middle-class, well-educated and of a certain age, as you can imagine. It was no surprise then that the expert declared that the majority of the people who had been in the room were white, middle-class, well-educated, middle-aged men. She was very good.
Nor was it surprising when she added that the vast majority were “left brain” users, meaning that they relied heavily on their logic rather than their feelings or emotions. What was surprising was that there were just two people in the room who had an unusual balance between “left brain” and “right brain”, albeit they had answered the questions and drawn the dog looking in an entirely opposite way. I was one of those people. And C, the then Assistant Advertising Manager and, subsequently my nearest and dearest wife, was the other.
We both felt quite smug to find that we were atypical, similar to each other, and, that we stood out from the rest by having a balance between our ying and yangs, so to speak. The expert went on to declare that such a balance was highly unusual and “was most commonly to be found in people of genius and in psychopaths”. The jury is still out on that one. But as we scored opposite, the likelihood is we have one of each in our marriage. I am not sure whether it is more reassuring that I be the genius married to a psycho or the other way around. But I suspect that my IQ score of 135 at the age of eleven (and recently reconfirmed in a bout of intellectual competitiveness with a colleague, J, who clearly guessed luckily as she beat me by 2) is significant. Beware people who draw right-looking doggies.
Anyhow, the psychometric test, fortunately did not reveal any tendencies towards a desire to commit mass murder or to conquer the planet, although I will still have to get C checked out. This may come as a bit of a surprise to those closest to me. No, I am happy to share with you that I am an ESTP. Middleman has the personality type of Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving. That is who I am. I am ESTP. So be told.
I know who I am. I even have it in writing. I found myself without the usual naval gazing, psychotherapy, time on monastic retreats, travelling the world, or doing voluntary work in the Hindukush that most people who want to “find themselves” seem to have to go through. Well, I guess it is not entirely true that my self-discovery is entirely without psychotherapy. It is rather hard to avoid when you are married to a psychotherapist and a huge fan of the Sopranos. But, I am confident that my extensive repertoire of Hilton Hotels and airport lounges of the world does not count as having “seen the world”, man.
I discovered who I am the easy way. I took a psychometric test. Two in fact. The 16PF (I know) and the Myers-Briggs. The latter is apparently based upon Jung’s observation of personality types. Can you imagine the kind of blog that Jung or Freud would have if they were still alive today?
It was quite a relief, finding myself. I have been a little worried about who I might be for some time now. I’m not sure why I have been anxious about it. I am not sure that I have any special reason for worrying about who I am. Sure there were the usual “Who do you think you are!” bellowings from strict teachers at school. The usual teenage musings as to whether I was adopted or left by a superior alien race. Such musings are normal aren’t they? I mean, at that age we always refuse to see ourselves in our parents, don’t we? Not now. Not any more. Not when you see video clips of you walking, talking and standing just like your dad, but with hair. Not when you hear yourself using the same turn of phrase. Not since the “Top of The Pops Moment” when you declare that they don’t write songs like they used to. Or, perhaps, that is just me getting older.
There was, of course, the “You’ve changed!” jibe from my mom after I came home from Oxford, for Christmas, after my very first term there. I was guilty of the crime of wasting my university grant by contributing to the Striking Miners’ Fund (go Scargill!), protesting against Margaret Thatcher’s honorary degree at All Souls, and, for listening to Billy Bragg tapes. It was to my great dismay that Mrs T, the unturning Iron Lady, had avoided our student protest and blockade of All Souls by sneaking through a side garden of my own college. Mom and dad had always voted Conservative because they were in favour of Grammar Schools. How topical eh? What goes around, comes around. Plus ca change and all that. I wonder if my parents will abandon Mr Cameron in favour of Gordon Brown next time around?
More worryingly, there was the “Graphology Moment” in my mid-twenties. We had organised a handwriting expert to talk to and analyse a bunch of our top customers at work. This was our attempt at corporate entertainment. This was at a time when companies were dabbling in the use of such psychobabble to weed out unsuitable types during their recruitment process. This was back in the days before email. When people used pen and ink and their own fair hand when corresponding. Anyhow, this lady, the expert, showed us comparisons of various famous people’s handwriting: Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, other known fascists. She got us to write a few words down and draw a cartoon dog (it is quite significant if you draw the dog looking to the left or to the right apparently) and then analysed the audience.
The audience, being our customer base, was predominantly male, white, middle-class, well-educated and of a certain age, as you can imagine. It was no surprise then that the expert declared that the majority of the people who had been in the room were white, middle-class, well-educated, middle-aged men. She was very good.
Nor was it surprising when she added that the vast majority were “left brain” users, meaning that they relied heavily on their logic rather than their feelings or emotions. What was surprising was that there were just two people in the room who had an unusual balance between “left brain” and “right brain”, albeit they had answered the questions and drawn the dog looking in an entirely opposite way. I was one of those people. And C, the then Assistant Advertising Manager and, subsequently my nearest and dearest wife, was the other.
We both felt quite smug to find that we were atypical, similar to each other, and, that we stood out from the rest by having a balance between our ying and yangs, so to speak. The expert went on to declare that such a balance was highly unusual and “was most commonly to be found in people of genius and in psychopaths”. The jury is still out on that one. But as we scored opposite, the likelihood is we have one of each in our marriage. I am not sure whether it is more reassuring that I be the genius married to a psycho or the other way around. But I suspect that my IQ score of 135 at the age of eleven (and recently reconfirmed in a bout of intellectual competitiveness with a colleague, J, who clearly guessed luckily as she beat me by 2) is significant. Beware people who draw right-looking doggies.
Anyhow, the psychometric test, fortunately did not reveal any tendencies towards a desire to commit mass murder or to conquer the planet, although I will still have to get C checked out. This may come as a bit of a surprise to those closest to me. No, I am happy to share with you that I am an ESTP. Middleman has the personality type of Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving. That is who I am. I am ESTP. So be told.
Thursday, 17 May 2007
My Family And Other Animals Part 7
No Luck With The Birds
Indeed it rains quite often in Cheshire. As has often been said – that’s why the Lake District is where it is. And, despite annual clear-outs by a man with an industrial-sized super-cleaner, the soak-away drain at the heart of the car park often does not cope. It is often inundated. As a consequence, from about late September through to March (our grey period) , the car park looks more like a pond. That is when it is mild. When it is cold, it better resembles a skating rink. A veritable death trap to all who would venture upon it.
However, when it is doing its pond impression, it is very convincing. In fact, on one occasion at least, it was so convincing that a passing wild duck decided to make its home at the “side of the pond” in the long grass beside the oil tanks ,alongside the row of garages. There, Mrs Duck (we’ll assume she was married although there was no sign of Mr Duck), built her nest and waited for her eggs to hatch!
She was there a couple of days. In fact, we were quite concerned about her. Although she was quite safe from humans, being almost invisible in her hideaway of herbage, we were worried about foxes, the local polecat that the farmers had been hunting, and, more likely, feline attention from the multitude of pet cats that existed at School Farm at the time (not least Maslow, our very own furball baby cat). We consulted our local farmer, Godfrey, who assured us that she (Mrs Duck) would be alright and that she would up and off as soon as the chicks had hatched. And this is what must have happened as, after a few days, she just disappeared. There was no sign of her chicks and, thankfully, no tell-tale sign of a fight or a killing ground. The pond was still there though.
Mrs Duck was not the only avian visitor to grace our Cheshire home. While we were next door (we moved next door!) we were visited by a “resting” racing pigeon. It collapsed just by our back door. C gave it a name. Something like Tarquin if I remember correctly, after the guy on the Boddingtons’ advert who wears his y-fronts the wrong way round. We know it was a racing pigeon because C phoned the RSPB and gave them the number on the poor little bugger’s ankle bracelet. They assured us it was probably just resting and in need of water and food. We gave it both. We hid him so that he would not fall prey to the local cat (this was the days before Maslow). We left him to rest.
He was dead within the hour. Deceased. Stiff as a Norwegian Blue Parrot in a Monty Python sketch. C asked me to dispose of Tarquin. I did. I threw him over the hedge into the farmer’s field. For a bird, he was not very aerodynamic when dead. He flew like a stone……
Indeed it rains quite often in Cheshire. As has often been said – that’s why the Lake District is where it is. And, despite annual clear-outs by a man with an industrial-sized super-cleaner, the soak-away drain at the heart of the car park often does not cope. It is often inundated. As a consequence, from about late September through to March (our grey period) , the car park looks more like a pond. That is when it is mild. When it is cold, it better resembles a skating rink. A veritable death trap to all who would venture upon it.
However, when it is doing its pond impression, it is very convincing. In fact, on one occasion at least, it was so convincing that a passing wild duck decided to make its home at the “side of the pond” in the long grass beside the oil tanks ,alongside the row of garages. There, Mrs Duck (we’ll assume she was married although there was no sign of Mr Duck), built her nest and waited for her eggs to hatch!
She was there a couple of days. In fact, we were quite concerned about her. Although she was quite safe from humans, being almost invisible in her hideaway of herbage, we were worried about foxes, the local polecat that the farmers had been hunting, and, more likely, feline attention from the multitude of pet cats that existed at School Farm at the time (not least Maslow, our very own furball baby cat). We consulted our local farmer, Godfrey, who assured us that she (Mrs Duck) would be alright and that she would up and off as soon as the chicks had hatched. And this is what must have happened as, after a few days, she just disappeared. There was no sign of her chicks and, thankfully, no tell-tale sign of a fight or a killing ground. The pond was still there though.
Mrs Duck was not the only avian visitor to grace our Cheshire home. While we were next door (we moved next door!) we were visited by a “resting” racing pigeon. It collapsed just by our back door. C gave it a name. Something like Tarquin if I remember correctly, after the guy on the Boddingtons’ advert who wears his y-fronts the wrong way round. We know it was a racing pigeon because C phoned the RSPB and gave them the number on the poor little bugger’s ankle bracelet. They assured us it was probably just resting and in need of water and food. We gave it both. We hid him so that he would not fall prey to the local cat (this was the days before Maslow). We left him to rest.
He was dead within the hour. Deceased. Stiff as a Norwegian Blue Parrot in a Monty Python sketch. C asked me to dispose of Tarquin. I did. I threw him over the hedge into the farmer’s field. For a bird, he was not very aerodynamic when dead. He flew like a stone……
Friday, 11 May 2007
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts? I do. I believe I have seen one, and been in the presence of at least two others.
Once was when I was quite young and at home in Erdington. Dad was not home from work yet and mom and my sister, J, were upstairs doing something girlie. I was watching a report on the local Midlands news programme, which was investigating hauntings in local factories. The interviewer was talking to two “witnesses”. As I watched a shadowy figure of a woman appeared behind the “witnesses”. I thought it was a joke. A special effect. I called upstairs to my mom and sister, but, the article had finished by the time they got downstairs.
My story was, however, corroborated the following day on the same news programme. They had received a number of complaints by other viewers who had reported seeing the “bad taste” special effect of the ghostly woman. But, the programme claimed innocence and replayed the piece, which this time was “spirit” free. Spooky.
Perhaps the best example of things going bump in the night was at the first house which C and I rented together in Alderley Edge. An old Victorian mid-terrace cottage. C woke in the night on more than one occasion claiming to have seen an old bearded man stood at the foot of our bed. Spooky. And no, I was neither bearded nor old at this time.
In the same property, strange things would happen in the kitchen. Drawers and cupboard doors would mysteriously open themselves. This was not the side-effect of poor fitting or cheap appliances. This was a Poltergeist. You could literally walk from the kitchen into the dining room with everything “normal”, and, having forgotten something, immediately turn on your heel and re-enter the kitchen, to find all drawers and doors wide open. Yes it was spooky but there was not any sense of animosity or fear. It was more as if the ghost had a sense of humour and was having a bit of a laugh.
Things did, however, get a bit twitchy one night when we were entertaining friends from London. We were having a meal in the dining room and talking about ghosts and all things spooky. Admittedly, the wine was flowing quite freely. But, all of a sudden the CD which was playing music stopped. The cassette tape switched itself on. The cassette tape switched itself on to “record”. The cassette player was recording us. The cassette player was recording our conversation about ghosts. To be clear, to get the cassette player to tape you would have to first switch from CD to tape, and the hold down the play and record buttons at the same time.
We went very quiet. We looked at each other and laughed nervously. We turned the music back on. And, it happened again. A second time. Even writing about it now I can feel the hairs on the back of my head stand up and a shiver is passing down my spine. Spooky.
We now live in an old Cheshire Reformatory School, a boys’ prison, which is converted into nine properties. The prison was built in 1855 and housed some 76 convicted boys aged between about 6 and 16. Crimes ranged from local boys who had stolen bread, presumably as a way of getting the education that the school also offered, through to convicted murderers. Often these would be boys from as far afield as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow or London, presumably working on the premise that there would be less chance of them running away to get home.
Now we have never felt any presence here, C and I. Our next door neighbour did once claim that a ghost was moving things around his home but as this used to be our old house (we moved next door!) and we had had no such experience, we assumed he was joking. We didn’t like him very much. He used to stand in his lounge window wearing just skimpy underpants. Spooky.
More compelling, however, was the story of Holly. When Holly was just 3 years old or so and her family had just moved into the property, Holly asked her mom if she could go and play “with the boys in the courtyard”. Of course there were no boys. And, of course, little Holly knew nothing of the property’s history at that point. Spooky.
One house that does have a feeling about it, an eeriness, is Trivor. Trivor is a house in Monmouthshire which is owned by the father of a good friend of mine from university. My closest friends, and subsequently their wives and partners, and subsequently their children, have visited the house every year for nigh on twenty years or so now. Trivor is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Most of the current property dates back to the sixteenth century, however. A Catholic Priest was caught practising an illegal Mass there during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 and was apparently hanged, drawn and quartered. It must have smarted a bit. I guess something like that can leave a bit of an impression on an old place like that.
So, what about you? Do you have any ghostly tales that you wish to share?
Do you believe in ghosts? I do. I believe I have seen one, and been in the presence of at least two others.
Once was when I was quite young and at home in Erdington. Dad was not home from work yet and mom and my sister, J, were upstairs doing something girlie. I was watching a report on the local Midlands news programme, which was investigating hauntings in local factories. The interviewer was talking to two “witnesses”. As I watched a shadowy figure of a woman appeared behind the “witnesses”. I thought it was a joke. A special effect. I called upstairs to my mom and sister, but, the article had finished by the time they got downstairs.
My story was, however, corroborated the following day on the same news programme. They had received a number of complaints by other viewers who had reported seeing the “bad taste” special effect of the ghostly woman. But, the programme claimed innocence and replayed the piece, which this time was “spirit” free. Spooky.
Perhaps the best example of things going bump in the night was at the first house which C and I rented together in Alderley Edge. An old Victorian mid-terrace cottage. C woke in the night on more than one occasion claiming to have seen an old bearded man stood at the foot of our bed. Spooky. And no, I was neither bearded nor old at this time.
In the same property, strange things would happen in the kitchen. Drawers and cupboard doors would mysteriously open themselves. This was not the side-effect of poor fitting or cheap appliances. This was a Poltergeist. You could literally walk from the kitchen into the dining room with everything “normal”, and, having forgotten something, immediately turn on your heel and re-enter the kitchen, to find all drawers and doors wide open. Yes it was spooky but there was not any sense of animosity or fear. It was more as if the ghost had a sense of humour and was having a bit of a laugh.
Things did, however, get a bit twitchy one night when we were entertaining friends from London. We were having a meal in the dining room and talking about ghosts and all things spooky. Admittedly, the wine was flowing quite freely. But, all of a sudden the CD which was playing music stopped. The cassette tape switched itself on. The cassette tape switched itself on to “record”. The cassette player was recording us. The cassette player was recording our conversation about ghosts. To be clear, to get the cassette player to tape you would have to first switch from CD to tape, and the hold down the play and record buttons at the same time.
We went very quiet. We looked at each other and laughed nervously. We turned the music back on. And, it happened again. A second time. Even writing about it now I can feel the hairs on the back of my head stand up and a shiver is passing down my spine. Spooky.
We now live in an old Cheshire Reformatory School, a boys’ prison, which is converted into nine properties. The prison was built in 1855 and housed some 76 convicted boys aged between about 6 and 16. Crimes ranged from local boys who had stolen bread, presumably as a way of getting the education that the school also offered, through to convicted murderers. Often these would be boys from as far afield as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow or London, presumably working on the premise that there would be less chance of them running away to get home.
Now we have never felt any presence here, C and I. Our next door neighbour did once claim that a ghost was moving things around his home but as this used to be our old house (we moved next door!) and we had had no such experience, we assumed he was joking. We didn’t like him very much. He used to stand in his lounge window wearing just skimpy underpants. Spooky.
More compelling, however, was the story of Holly. When Holly was just 3 years old or so and her family had just moved into the property, Holly asked her mom if she could go and play “with the boys in the courtyard”. Of course there were no boys. And, of course, little Holly knew nothing of the property’s history at that point. Spooky.
One house that does have a feeling about it, an eeriness, is Trivor. Trivor is a house in Monmouthshire which is owned by the father of a good friend of mine from university. My closest friends, and subsequently their wives and partners, and subsequently their children, have visited the house every year for nigh on twenty years or so now. Trivor is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Most of the current property dates back to the sixteenth century, however. A Catholic Priest was caught practising an illegal Mass there during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 and was apparently hanged, drawn and quartered. It must have smarted a bit. I guess something like that can leave a bit of an impression on an old place like that.
So, what about you? Do you have any ghostly tales that you wish to share?
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Planes, Trains and Automobiles Part 4
A Grumpy Old Man’s Trip To London
Well, it has not been a good start to the day. I am currently sat on the 07.13 Virgin Pendolino inter-city train from Crewe en route to London Euston. It is 07.35 and we have just left the station. This means that we will be behind all of the still-on-time trains with the likelihood that we will be further delayed. They seem to work on the principle that it is better to have one very delayed train than lots of slightly delayed trains. But, that seems like a very strange principle upon which to run a train company. Whatever happened to punctuality?
As ever, they haven’t thought up a decent enough reason for the delay with which to share with the paying customer. And I have paid. Through the nose. £275 for a First Class return! Extortionate. It is cheaper to fly to London from Manchester but, unfortunately for me, it is still less convenient.
Crewe station is just ten minutes from home, and, after a couple of hours in which you can stretch your legs, read a paper, hopefully complete the Times 2 Crossword (although I am struggling with 5 down at the moment) and the Killer Su Doku, and maybe do some work, you are delivered to Euston station. Then it is just 15 minutes by Tube, unfortunately, before I am delivered straight to the office alongside which is alongside Waterloo station. Door to door in two hours forty five minutes if I am lucky. But, as with today it would seem, I am rarely that. Lucky.
Manchester Airport, however, is a good (or bad) 45 minutes drive away itself. With the heightened security you definitely now need to be there at least one hour before the flight is delayed. And you have all that hassle with your luggage and your clear plastic bag for your toothpaste and eau de cologne (Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein). And, Heathrow is just not as convenient for central London, although the Heathrow Express is much better than the old crawl in on the Underground.
At least when travelling care of Sir Richard Branson, the food is generally OK, and the tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages (not at breakfast of course, unfortunately) flow much more abundantly than they do in the air these days. I am currently sipping tea, having already partaken of a grapefruit juice and a passable sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The bread was a little dry though.
And, there is generally more to see out of the windows. And, every so often, you get to meet a celebrity. Those of you who have read my earlier postings (Celebrity Spotting) will know that I had a very enjoyable chat with Pete Waterman once and nearly had sex with Sarah Lancashire. The more I think about it the more I realise that she wanted me. And, these new toilets in the Pendolinos are so much more accommodating than in the old days. Another opportunity missed.
I have also seen Patrick Moore, the male chauvinistic stargazer who recently complained about there being too many senior placed women running the BBC, and, the diminutive and foxy news reader Sian Williams recently. Which reminds me, I literally bumped into Suzannah Reed, the other foxy if midget morning newscaster with the BBC, when buying my lunchtime M&S sandwich at Waterloo Station last time I was in the Smoke. She was quite startled and seemed a little spooked when she realised that I had recognised who she was. She was dressed all in white with a very long flowing coat. She had very white face make-up and very red rouged lips and cheeks, which made her seem even more alarmed. It was probably my fault. Living in the countryside and frequenting only small towns such as Sandbach and Holmes Chapel these days I get quite alarmed by the crowds in the big cities. I seem to have lost that knack of walking through a crowd without bumping into people. It can feel quite claustrophobic at times.
Well listen to me extolling the virtues of Virgin Trains. Mr Branson are there any jobs going in your marketing department?
On the downside, things can get a bit tense on board train. Especially in the Quiet Zone. Of course, the Quiet Zone is hardly that. Quiet. You still get the normal train announcements, and that strange beep beep noise as the Pendolino seems to tilt precariously when taking a bend at speed. You still get passengers chatting, passengers snoring and the like. No, things get tense when some jumped up self-opinionated, self-important oik decides that the “No Mobile Phones” sign does not apply to him and proceeds to have a loud if disjointed conversation. Conversations are disjointed because the signal quality is so poor, conversations require a lot of redialling after thirty seconds of “hello, hello, can you hear me?” or, “I’m in a tunnel”). These noise abusers can often be found wandering up and down the carriage to annoy as many people as he (it is invariably a he) possibly can. Or they stand at the end of the carriage, in the vestibule as Mr Virgin calls it, next to the loos. They seem to think that they are less annoying there. They are not, it is even worse listening to the self-important oik on his phone with the carriage doors sliding open and then shut again, and again, and again, as he triggers them with his proximity.
Things can also get tense when the staff forget to reserve pre-booked seats or all reservations are cancelled because of a train cancellation requiring two or three trains to be merged into one. Pandemonium. Even on “normal” days, people ignore the seat reservations and assume that just because they are a party of eight they have the right to sit next to each other. I can feel myself getting tense. I shall move on.
Unusually, the train staff this morning are not Eastern European. They seem to be Scousers. So, they are as good as Eastern Europeans. Homegrown Eastern Europeans if you like. But it is unusual. Have you not noticed how, in the last couple of years or so, the service industries of our great nation have been overwhelmed by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians and the like?
I learnt at the weekend of a very successful restauranteur and property developer who only employs Bratislavans. He does this because they are reliable, polite, and punctual and have excellent language skills. So, nothing like Scousers then. He pays them the going rate so they are not cheap.
Every London bar, every hotel reception, every waiter and waitress, every shelf-filler in Waitrose, every bricky, carpenter and electrician. They are all Eastern European. Crewe has shops selling “Polish Food” now, and in parts of the country road signs are now displayed in both English and Polish. The influx of devote Poles has now resulted in the Catholic Church becoming the biggest religion in the country again.. Henry the Eighth must be turning in his grave.
No, it is the Australians I feel sorry for. And the New Zealanders. They used to have the monopoly on the London bars. I can only assume that all the Kiwis and Australians are now serving drinks in Warsaw, Prague, and wherever the capital of Bratislava may be. Although at least a couple of our Antipodean cousins could be found at this weekend’s Home & Garden Design Show in Tatton Park, selling Magic Shammy Leathers. How the Empire has fallen.
The train now seems to be crawling along. I don’t think we’ve even reached Nuneaton yet. Now, where’s that girl with the tea……….
Well, it has not been a good start to the day. I am currently sat on the 07.13 Virgin Pendolino inter-city train from Crewe en route to London Euston. It is 07.35 and we have just left the station. This means that we will be behind all of the still-on-time trains with the likelihood that we will be further delayed. They seem to work on the principle that it is better to have one very delayed train than lots of slightly delayed trains. But, that seems like a very strange principle upon which to run a train company. Whatever happened to punctuality?
As ever, they haven’t thought up a decent enough reason for the delay with which to share with the paying customer. And I have paid. Through the nose. £275 for a First Class return! Extortionate. It is cheaper to fly to London from Manchester but, unfortunately for me, it is still less convenient.
Crewe station is just ten minutes from home, and, after a couple of hours in which you can stretch your legs, read a paper, hopefully complete the Times 2 Crossword (although I am struggling with 5 down at the moment) and the Killer Su Doku, and maybe do some work, you are delivered to Euston station. Then it is just 15 minutes by Tube, unfortunately, before I am delivered straight to the office alongside which is alongside Waterloo station. Door to door in two hours forty five minutes if I am lucky. But, as with today it would seem, I am rarely that. Lucky.
Manchester Airport, however, is a good (or bad) 45 minutes drive away itself. With the heightened security you definitely now need to be there at least one hour before the flight is delayed. And you have all that hassle with your luggage and your clear plastic bag for your toothpaste and eau de cologne (Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein). And, Heathrow is just not as convenient for central London, although the Heathrow Express is much better than the old crawl in on the Underground.
At least when travelling care of Sir Richard Branson, the food is generally OK, and the tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages (not at breakfast of course, unfortunately) flow much more abundantly than they do in the air these days. I am currently sipping tea, having already partaken of a grapefruit juice and a passable sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The bread was a little dry though.
And, there is generally more to see out of the windows. And, every so often, you get to meet a celebrity. Those of you who have read my earlier postings (Celebrity Spotting) will know that I had a very enjoyable chat with Pete Waterman once and nearly had sex with Sarah Lancashire. The more I think about it the more I realise that she wanted me. And, these new toilets in the Pendolinos are so much more accommodating than in the old days. Another opportunity missed.
I have also seen Patrick Moore, the male chauvinistic stargazer who recently complained about there being too many senior placed women running the BBC, and, the diminutive and foxy news reader Sian Williams recently. Which reminds me, I literally bumped into Suzannah Reed, the other foxy if midget morning newscaster with the BBC, when buying my lunchtime M&S sandwich at Waterloo Station last time I was in the Smoke. She was quite startled and seemed a little spooked when she realised that I had recognised who she was. She was dressed all in white with a very long flowing coat. She had very white face make-up and very red rouged lips and cheeks, which made her seem even more alarmed. It was probably my fault. Living in the countryside and frequenting only small towns such as Sandbach and Holmes Chapel these days I get quite alarmed by the crowds in the big cities. I seem to have lost that knack of walking through a crowd without bumping into people. It can feel quite claustrophobic at times.
Well listen to me extolling the virtues of Virgin Trains. Mr Branson are there any jobs going in your marketing department?
On the downside, things can get a bit tense on board train. Especially in the Quiet Zone. Of course, the Quiet Zone is hardly that. Quiet. You still get the normal train announcements, and that strange beep beep noise as the Pendolino seems to tilt precariously when taking a bend at speed. You still get passengers chatting, passengers snoring and the like. No, things get tense when some jumped up self-opinionated, self-important oik decides that the “No Mobile Phones” sign does not apply to him and proceeds to have a loud if disjointed conversation. Conversations are disjointed because the signal quality is so poor, conversations require a lot of redialling after thirty seconds of “hello, hello, can you hear me?” or, “I’m in a tunnel”). These noise abusers can often be found wandering up and down the carriage to annoy as many people as he (it is invariably a he) possibly can. Or they stand at the end of the carriage, in the vestibule as Mr Virgin calls it, next to the loos. They seem to think that they are less annoying there. They are not, it is even worse listening to the self-important oik on his phone with the carriage doors sliding open and then shut again, and again, and again, as he triggers them with his proximity.
Things can also get tense when the staff forget to reserve pre-booked seats or all reservations are cancelled because of a train cancellation requiring two or three trains to be merged into one. Pandemonium. Even on “normal” days, people ignore the seat reservations and assume that just because they are a party of eight they have the right to sit next to each other. I can feel myself getting tense. I shall move on.
Unusually, the train staff this morning are not Eastern European. They seem to be Scousers. So, they are as good as Eastern Europeans. Homegrown Eastern Europeans if you like. But it is unusual. Have you not noticed how, in the last couple of years or so, the service industries of our great nation have been overwhelmed by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians and the like?
I learnt at the weekend of a very successful restauranteur and property developer who only employs Bratislavans. He does this because they are reliable, polite, and punctual and have excellent language skills. So, nothing like Scousers then. He pays them the going rate so they are not cheap.
Every London bar, every hotel reception, every waiter and waitress, every shelf-filler in Waitrose, every bricky, carpenter and electrician. They are all Eastern European. Crewe has shops selling “Polish Food” now, and in parts of the country road signs are now displayed in both English and Polish. The influx of devote Poles has now resulted in the Catholic Church becoming the biggest religion in the country again.. Henry the Eighth must be turning in his grave.
No, it is the Australians I feel sorry for. And the New Zealanders. They used to have the monopoly on the London bars. I can only assume that all the Kiwis and Australians are now serving drinks in Warsaw, Prague, and wherever the capital of Bratislava may be. Although at least a couple of our Antipodean cousins could be found at this weekend’s Home & Garden Design Show in Tatton Park, selling Magic Shammy Leathers. How the Empire has fallen.
The train now seems to be crawling along. I don’t think we’ve even reached Nuneaton yet. Now, where’s that girl with the tea……….
Friday, 4 May 2007
Grumpy Old Men Part 2
I am not as young as I was. My powers of recovery are not what they were.
Twenty odd years ago, when I was at university, I used to be up late on a Friday night, having sunk ten pints of watered beer at the Sweaty Bop only be up again at 6am, to jog down to the Boat House on the River Isis (which is what the Thames is known as as it meanders its way through the Dreaming Spires of Oxford), throw up behind the Boat House, before taking an hour and a half training session as stoke of a sporting eight, being a racing eight crewed by people who cannot row very effectively but claim to be good at other, non-public school sports such as football.
The stroke is the one who sits at the front facing the cox and attempts to beat out the rhythm for the rest of the boat to follow. The cox is the little one with the big mouth and bigger attitude who steers the ship, and who in my case, would belch last night's chili kebab and Guinness into my face every time I came forward.
Having rowed, I would jog back to college in time for breakfast only to spend the afternoon captaining the Animals football team, being a team made up of blokes, well, lacking the finesse of Christiano Ronaldo, before returning to College in time for a quick shower and back to the Beer Cellar for another heavy bout of watered down Marstons.
These days it takes a little longer to recover. It has taken me the best part of a week to recover from last weekend's walking weekend with the lads. Admittedly, I was cheered a little bit when super fit P (he of the 300k cycling event in the Alps) phoned to check how I was and admitted that he was suffering big time too. Myself, I have been limping and wincing all week and avoiding stairs whenever possible. I had no idea how much you used the muscles at the front of the shin. Ouch.
Nevertheless, I am proud of myself today. As promised, I went out on my bike. It was forty five minutes of sheer agony. The Cheshire plains felt like the Massive Central today. And, I am saddle saw! Is it my imagination or have saddles got much, much narrower over the years? And not for the better if the state of my bum is anything to go by. Now where did I leave that jar of Vaseline. It helps with the chafing......
Indeed, bike technology has moved on alarmingly too. When I was in my teens and early twenties I used to do a lot of cycling and would do all of my own maintenance and repairs, although I was not so big on cleaning. I have to admit, reluctantly, that when my mates and C clubbed together to buy my new cycle, I had to resort to reading the instruction manual before I could operate the gears. An instruction manual for heaven's sake. I thought they existed just for the benefit of women and the incredibly stupid.
So it would seem that I am descending into middle age. I am becoming a grumpy old man. This has been hammered home none too subtlely of late - being made redundant, with conversations with my mates focusing far too much on how to combat nasal and ear hair, gardening and growing your own vegetables (apparently purple sprouting broccoli is to be recommended). And, only this week I joined in a conversation with a colleague, J, which was essentially a tirade about the arrogance of the Germans. All of them. Every last one of them. Clarkson for President.
Well, I might be getting older and I might be getting grumpier. But, I have no intention of going gracefully, quietly, or soberly. Bring it on!
Twenty odd years ago, when I was at university, I used to be up late on a Friday night, having sunk ten pints of watered beer at the Sweaty Bop only be up again at 6am, to jog down to the Boat House on the River Isis (which is what the Thames is known as as it meanders its way through the Dreaming Spires of Oxford), throw up behind the Boat House, before taking an hour and a half training session as stoke of a sporting eight, being a racing eight crewed by people who cannot row very effectively but claim to be good at other, non-public school sports such as football.
The stroke is the one who sits at the front facing the cox and attempts to beat out the rhythm for the rest of the boat to follow. The cox is the little one with the big mouth and bigger attitude who steers the ship, and who in my case, would belch last night's chili kebab and Guinness into my face every time I came forward.
Having rowed, I would jog back to college in time for breakfast only to spend the afternoon captaining the Animals football team, being a team made up of blokes, well, lacking the finesse of Christiano Ronaldo, before returning to College in time for a quick shower and back to the Beer Cellar for another heavy bout of watered down Marstons.
These days it takes a little longer to recover. It has taken me the best part of a week to recover from last weekend's walking weekend with the lads. Admittedly, I was cheered a little bit when super fit P (he of the 300k cycling event in the Alps) phoned to check how I was and admitted that he was suffering big time too. Myself, I have been limping and wincing all week and avoiding stairs whenever possible. I had no idea how much you used the muscles at the front of the shin. Ouch.
Nevertheless, I am proud of myself today. As promised, I went out on my bike. It was forty five minutes of sheer agony. The Cheshire plains felt like the Massive Central today. And, I am saddle saw! Is it my imagination or have saddles got much, much narrower over the years? And not for the better if the state of my bum is anything to go by. Now where did I leave that jar of Vaseline. It helps with the chafing......
Indeed, bike technology has moved on alarmingly too. When I was in my teens and early twenties I used to do a lot of cycling and would do all of my own maintenance and repairs, although I was not so big on cleaning. I have to admit, reluctantly, that when my mates and C clubbed together to buy my new cycle, I had to resort to reading the instruction manual before I could operate the gears. An instruction manual for heaven's sake. I thought they existed just for the benefit of women and the incredibly stupid.
So it would seem that I am descending into middle age. I am becoming a grumpy old man. This has been hammered home none too subtlely of late - being made redundant, with conversations with my mates focusing far too much on how to combat nasal and ear hair, gardening and growing your own vegetables (apparently purple sprouting broccoli is to be recommended). And, only this week I joined in a conversation with a colleague, J, which was essentially a tirade about the arrogance of the Germans. All of them. Every last one of them. Clarkson for President.
Well, I might be getting older and I might be getting grumpier. But, I have no intention of going gracefully, quietly, or soberly. Bring it on!
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