I passed my driving test when I was seventeen years old. After just six driving lessons. And no, I didn't have a man walking ahead of the car with a red flag. I'm not that old. Not quite. Admittedly, I didn’t get off to the best of starts in my driving career. On my first or second lesson, when I was attempting a hill start, the handbrake came off in my hand. I think it had less to do with the fact that I don’t know my own strength, and, more to do with the age of the instructor’s Mini Cooper. It was one of the older ones. Such as Michael Caine may have driven in the original Italian job. The instructor got a new car shortly afterwards. It was a Corsa, or something similar.
Anyhow, I passed my driving test at the age of seventeen, in December, and, on the day that I found out I had won a scholarship to Oxford. I had the morning off school to take my test. When I went in to school in the afternoon I was summoned to the Headmaster’s office to be told the news of my scholarship to the Queen’s College, Oxford University. I was the first member of the school to win an Oxbridge scholarship since Sir Geoffrey Howe some twenty or so years earlier. Suffice to say that the school was chuffed. I was chuffed. I spent the afternoon in the pub with my two history teachers. Celebrating. That was a good day.
That said, I almost killed myself the first time that I drove alone. It was a few days after passing my test. After my celebrations. It was night time, in December and cold. I was driving too fast. And, as I approached the crossroads and as I applied my brakes, I hit some black ice. I didn’t stop. I sailed through the junction. I managed to keep the car straight. It was a miracle that nothing was coming down the road I crossed. I survived. I was quite shaken. I slowed down after that. For a while.
Indeed, I have been fortunate not to have had a serious accident in my twenty three years of driving. I hope my luck holds. I have had just three accidents.
The first accident I was involved in was before I had passed my test. I was on a provisional license, driving the family car, a Vauxhall Viva, under the supervision of my day. I was at traffic lights. The lights turned green and I moved off. I was hit just in front of my door by a motorbike. The biker, who had been overtaking two stopped buses at speed, must have been looking too far ahead to the next set of traffic lights and hadn’t noticed that he was on red. He sailed over the bonnet. He bounced. Twice. I think that he broke a leg but was otherwise unharmed. Unlike his bike. He was very lucky. Our car was written off. The force of the crash had shunted the frame out of alignment.
I was about 21 or 22 at the time of my second accident. Indeed the journey from Preston to London, via Birmingham, proved to be one of my most terrifying driving experiences to date. I had to be at a conference in the Midlands for work on a Friday. So, I borrowed a pool car. They gave me a Ford Capri. Two litres of sheer power and beauty with an automatic transmission and bucket seats. Cool. I took it to Preston to visit my girlfriend at her parents’ home. Her mom loved the Capri and insisted I took her for a spin.
On the way back down to London I was stopping off at my parents in Birmingham for Sunday lunch. This was when things began to go wrong. As I was passing junction 10 of the M6 heading south I was in the outside lane. I was doing about 70mph (!) in a stream of traffic. All of a sudden the car two in front of me span out of control. Fortunately for me, he span into the inner two lanes and I was able to proceed in my lane without hitting anything. As I looked up though I saw one of his wheels bouncing towards me. It bounced in front of me and bounced over me. There was quite a pile up but I drove through, unscathed.
After lunch with mom and dad, I continued my journey south. As I left Birmingham it was pouring down. As I was accelerating along the slip road to join the motorway I hit a puddle. I span out of control and stopped when I hit a sapling. The slip road must have been monitored by CCTV because a police car soon appeared on the scene. The front wing of the car had been ripped off but the nice policeman looked it over and said that I was OK to continue my journey but not to go over 50mph.
I was in the inside lane of the motorway doing a steady 50mph in the rain. I was following a timber truck. A big lorry with huge tree trunks on a flat bed trailer. I was following the timber truck at 50mph when the trailer suddenly became detached from the truck. When it became detached from the truck and headed straight for me. I had to swerve into the hard shoulder to avoid being hit.
Three near misses in the one journey. I was pale as a sheet when I got home to London.
The pool car people were none too happy when I returned with the car on Monday morning. But, they changed their tune when they checked the tyres. They were illegal. The tread had worn. Once they realised that they had sent me out with illegal tyres they soon shut up.
The last time I had a bump was Christmas Day a couple of years back. I was driving Cathy’s work car, a top of the range Peugeot 306. We were heading to my mom and dad’s for Christmas lunch. It was snowing very heavily and there was a good inch or so covering the roads. It was awful. If it hadn’t been Christmas we would have turned round. In fact we nearly turned round at Butt Hill near Kidsgrove. There is quite a steep hill through the village. As we began to climb it the Bedford Van we were following lost traction and slid slowly back down the hill towards us, hitting parked cars on the way. We missed it. Just.
I was extra-specially careful after that. Consequently, as I was dropping down the hill to the first series of traffic islands on the A34 into Newcastle Under Lyme, I was doing maybe 5mph at the most as we entered the roundabout. I tried to take as straight a line as possible. We took a very straight line. Indeed, we went straight through the roundabout. The car didn’t turn when I wanted it to. We slid “gracefully” into the high curb at about a 45 degree angle.
There was no visible damage. We continued onto Birmingham. The steering seemed a little heavy but it was difficult to tell because of the snow. We had a very nice Christmas lunch and returned home to Cheshire. The snow had gone by now and we returned on the motorway. C took the car to the garage at the first opportunity. The front axle had cracked. It was a very lucky escape.
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
Near Death Experiences Part 2
So, having successfully avoided chemical scud attacks on holiday in Israel (see earlier posting), C and I continued to risk life and limb on our various sojourns in warmer climates.
Beware the Goats of Atros! Atros is a small monastery high up in the mountains above the port of Poros on the beautiful island of Kefalonia, the famed setting of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. It truly is a beautiful spot. Indeed, the area in the north, around Fiscardo, is officially the 7th most beautiful spot on the planet. I don’t remember who officially designated it as such, but, I am not one to argue. And, the six more beautiful places must be quite some sight.
There is a story about the monastery at Atros. Apparently the monks there are very sociable. They welcome all visitors who take the time and the trouble to visit them, rewarding them with bread, olive oil and salt, and a glass of ouzo. In return, all they ask is that you send them a postcard from home. Well, this little piece of cultural and social idealism appealed to my better half, C. And so we set off one day, C in search of cultural and social idealism, and me in search of a welcoming glass of ouzo.
The guides all told us that the road cum path up to the monastery was steep and windy. But, I was not deterred. I was not deterred because a) I am generally fearless, b) my inhibitions tend to reduce significantly with proximity to alcohol, and, c) I was driving a four wheel drive Suzuki jeep with the roof down. How cool is that!? Unfortunately, the same could not be said for my diminutive partner. C is not the most confident passenger in the world, while I am the master of under-statement. Nor is she the best at heights. What I hadn’t known until this fateful day, is that she is also not to hot on crumbling edges of roads. I was really enjoying winding my way up the dirt track to Atros. C was not. C was clutching the jeep door like a theme park ride. Even without her glasses, the imminent fall off the sheer drop at the site of the road was clear to her. I decided against an approach of reasoning, and reassuring that my Advanced Motorist techniques were more than a match for the route. When the screaming got too much, I parked. We parked about half way up the mountain path to the friendly monks. We decided to walk.
As we walked we were passed by a couple of other 4WDs carrying labourers from the monastery on high. They looked at us as if we were idiots for attempting to walk up the mountain. They must have fell about in a heap when they realised we had decided to walk with a perfectly functioning 4WD of our own parked below. I just hope to God that they mistook us for Germans. They don’t like Germans on Kefalonia. Don’t mention the war.
We walked. We climbed. We climbed. We walked. The path disappeared into a steep wooded area. All of a sudden we could hear a distant clunking sound. Like a pebble being rattled in an empty coke can. The clunking got louder. The clunking got closer. The clunking was joined by other clunking sounds. C and I stopped walking and we stopped climbing. C and I looked at each other in bemusement. And, then, all of a sudden, the source of the clunking became clear as hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, of mountain goats hurtled through the trees towards us. There were hundreds, and hundreds of them. It was very frightening.
These were huge beasts. Mythical beasts from ancient times. They all had huge, sharp horns sticking out from their heads. They were stampeding. Towards us. C took shelter. C took shelter behind me. I had nowhere to hide. Wide-eyed and nostrils flaring, these huge beasts flew towards us, hooves striking sparks on the rocks beneath them. Fortunately, they all somehow managed to spot us quaking there and changed their course at the last minute. We could smell them as they whipped past. The stampede seemed to last an absolute age. And then, all of a sudden, they were gone. It was quiet. C and I looked at each other. Hugged each other. Sighed with relief.
We climbed a little more until we heard a distant clunking sound. The clunking got louder. The clunking got closer. We had to endure another two stampedes of hurtling mountain goats. It was quite terrifying.
Only when we were confident that the mountain top was goat free did we continue on our way. The path steepened. Unfortunately, C and I were ill prepared for such a walk in such a heat. Expecting that we would have driven to the monastery (!) we hadn’t bothered to bring water with us, or hats. It was very hot. We were very dehydrated. And soon, C began to feel the effects of the heat and the sun. She was sick and dizzy. She went weak at the knees. I avoided all obvious jokes. It wouldn't have been the right time.
And so, as we caught a tantalising first glimpse of the monastery on high, we stopped. C could go no more. Fearing the re-emergence of the demonic goats, C refused to be left while I returned for the jeep. We gathered our strength and trudged wearily down the path to our jeep below. We stopped at the first shop we could find for a refreshing can of coke. Fortunately, these cans of coke were clunk free.
We never did get that glass of ouzo. But we had survived yet another near death holiday experience. But even today, the bleat of a goat or a clunking sound or cow bell in the distance can cause the hair on the back of our necks to stand on end. Beware the goats of Atros! Ignore your wife. Drive to the top!
Beware the Goats of Atros! Atros is a small monastery high up in the mountains above the port of Poros on the beautiful island of Kefalonia, the famed setting of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. It truly is a beautiful spot. Indeed, the area in the north, around Fiscardo, is officially the 7th most beautiful spot on the planet. I don’t remember who officially designated it as such, but, I am not one to argue. And, the six more beautiful places must be quite some sight.
There is a story about the monastery at Atros. Apparently the monks there are very sociable. They welcome all visitors who take the time and the trouble to visit them, rewarding them with bread, olive oil and salt, and a glass of ouzo. In return, all they ask is that you send them a postcard from home. Well, this little piece of cultural and social idealism appealed to my better half, C. And so we set off one day, C in search of cultural and social idealism, and me in search of a welcoming glass of ouzo.
The guides all told us that the road cum path up to the monastery was steep and windy. But, I was not deterred. I was not deterred because a) I am generally fearless, b) my inhibitions tend to reduce significantly with proximity to alcohol, and, c) I was driving a four wheel drive Suzuki jeep with the roof down. How cool is that!? Unfortunately, the same could not be said for my diminutive partner. C is not the most confident passenger in the world, while I am the master of under-statement. Nor is she the best at heights. What I hadn’t known until this fateful day, is that she is also not to hot on crumbling edges of roads. I was really enjoying winding my way up the dirt track to Atros. C was not. C was clutching the jeep door like a theme park ride. Even without her glasses, the imminent fall off the sheer drop at the site of the road was clear to her. I decided against an approach of reasoning, and reassuring that my Advanced Motorist techniques were more than a match for the route. When the screaming got too much, I parked. We parked about half way up the mountain path to the friendly monks. We decided to walk.
As we walked we were passed by a couple of other 4WDs carrying labourers from the monastery on high. They looked at us as if we were idiots for attempting to walk up the mountain. They must have fell about in a heap when they realised we had decided to walk with a perfectly functioning 4WD of our own parked below. I just hope to God that they mistook us for Germans. They don’t like Germans on Kefalonia. Don’t mention the war.
We walked. We climbed. We climbed. We walked. The path disappeared into a steep wooded area. All of a sudden we could hear a distant clunking sound. Like a pebble being rattled in an empty coke can. The clunking got louder. The clunking got closer. The clunking was joined by other clunking sounds. C and I stopped walking and we stopped climbing. C and I looked at each other in bemusement. And, then, all of a sudden, the source of the clunking became clear as hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, of mountain goats hurtled through the trees towards us. There were hundreds, and hundreds of them. It was very frightening.
These were huge beasts. Mythical beasts from ancient times. They all had huge, sharp horns sticking out from their heads. They were stampeding. Towards us. C took shelter. C took shelter behind me. I had nowhere to hide. Wide-eyed and nostrils flaring, these huge beasts flew towards us, hooves striking sparks on the rocks beneath them. Fortunately, they all somehow managed to spot us quaking there and changed their course at the last minute. We could smell them as they whipped past. The stampede seemed to last an absolute age. And then, all of a sudden, they were gone. It was quiet. C and I looked at each other. Hugged each other. Sighed with relief.
We climbed a little more until we heard a distant clunking sound. The clunking got louder. The clunking got closer. We had to endure another two stampedes of hurtling mountain goats. It was quite terrifying.
Only when we were confident that the mountain top was goat free did we continue on our way. The path steepened. Unfortunately, C and I were ill prepared for such a walk in such a heat. Expecting that we would have driven to the monastery (!) we hadn’t bothered to bring water with us, or hats. It was very hot. We were very dehydrated. And soon, C began to feel the effects of the heat and the sun. She was sick and dizzy. She went weak at the knees. I avoided all obvious jokes. It wouldn't have been the right time.
And so, as we caught a tantalising first glimpse of the monastery on high, we stopped. C could go no more. Fearing the re-emergence of the demonic goats, C refused to be left while I returned for the jeep. We gathered our strength and trudged wearily down the path to our jeep below. We stopped at the first shop we could find for a refreshing can of coke. Fortunately, these cans of coke were clunk free.
We never did get that glass of ouzo. But we had survived yet another near death holiday experience. But even today, the bleat of a goat or a clunking sound or cow bell in the distance can cause the hair on the back of our necks to stand on end. Beware the goats of Atros! Ignore your wife. Drive to the top!
Monday, 26 February 2007
Made My Blood Boil!
I got very annoyed on Friday listening to Radio 5. There was an interview with an Anna Taylor who was complaining that she would lose out to the tune of £89 per week if she got a job, rather than claiming benefit!
This is a woman who has been "on the sick" for a number of years but is well enough to have given birth to five children in the last five years. Her husband/partner does not work either. Between them they "earn" in benefits the equivalent of an annual salary of £35k.
It made me so mad. She gets paid £35k per annum so that she and her partner can stay home 24/7 bringing up five kids under the age of five. I don't know for sure, but I guess that £35k is probably more than a properly trained and qualified Nanny would earn. Someone who has worked hard to get a job as a Nanny.
What really grated was the woman's attitude. Her whole defence was that she was only getting what she was entitled to and that it was ridiculous that she would be worse of if (and this is a huge, huge if) she got a proper job. I am sorry! The ridiculous thing is that the Government is willing to use my hard earned tax contribution to fund a family of layabouts and enable them to afford five kids. As far as I am concerned there is an easy way to resolve this dilemma...Cut her benefits by a couple of hundred quid a week and force the parents out to work!!!
My mom and dad were hard up when they were bringing me and my sister up. My dad's final year annual salary before retirement was less than my first year starting salary. And he had worked for some 35 years for the same company! My mom often held down two jobs at a time to make ends meet. She took night shift work in factories so that she would always be at home when my sister and myself came home from school. And dad would be there when mom was at work. And, if dad had to work at night too, then a relative would be called upon to look after us.
The only Government benefit we got as a family was the family allowance and my university grant. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how lucky I was to have had my university education funded in this way. I'm not sure that I could have survived in this current world with loans.
But, even then, while a student, I topped funds up myself with two scholarships, that I earned, and by working every Summer holidays! Including a job stripping asbestos from a factory. Wearing full breathing apparatus with an industrial vacuum cleaner strapped to my back up the top of a ladder! And, another job cleaning out oil sumps under tyre presses during the industrial shut-down weeks in Birmingham.
That was one helluva job. It involved being lowered on a rope down a sump shaft that was about one metre square and several metres deep. It was so hot, that we worked in ten minute shifts - ten minutes down the sump and ten minutes on the rope. When in the sump, a bucket would be lowered and you had to dig out all of the gunk, rubber and oil at the bottom of the sump and pass the bucket past your face back up to the top. It was quite horrific when you got to the bottom. Rubber beetles live on this stuff. Rubber beetles are like a cockroach's worst nightmare. Huge. Scary buggers! Not the kind of thing you want to pass by your face by the bucketful!.
My mom and dad worked every hour that God sent; took every and any job that they could to put food on our table and to give my sister and I the opportunity to go to university. They worked hard. They never had a credit card and they only bought what they could afford and when they could afford to have it. They saved for things like camping holidays or for the colour TV. T hey saved so that they could afford their babies. They were hard working, working class, looking to do better for themselves and their kids.
And then this Anna Taylor comes along complaining that she can't find a job paying her £35k per annum to bring up her five kids. She left school at 16 and she aspires to a salary that kids who have put themselves through university would aspire to. And, she sees it as an entitlement. She genuinely believes that she is doing her bit by bringing five kids into the world.
Indeed, many sprang to Anna's defence on the radio chat show, explaining that with our increasingly elderly population, we're more and more reliant upon children growing up and becoming the tax payers of the future to pay for our pension and health care. I'm sorry! It is actually the past generations not the future ones that have paid for my pension and health care. The past generations and the current workers such as myself.
And, are you really trying to convince me that these five kids, given the example of their not-so-hard-working or civic-minded parents will develop a strong work ethic, get themselves a good education and solid jobs, paying lots of taxes into future social welfare funds. They will be unusual if they do. I so hope they prove me wrong.
Or, is it more likely that we will have another five adults living off entitlements/benefits, producing other kids for the state to feed and clothe, while they sit around all day watching Sky Movies, Jeremy Kyle and Judge Judy on their huge plasma screens. I wonder.
Also, when did it become Government policy in this country to pay people to breed? C and I, unfortunately, have not been able to have children. Not through lack of trying. For many years my annual bonus, which is a reflection of how hard I worked, was spent on privately funding IVF or other fertility treatment, without success. £35k would pay for about ten such procedures, every year! Could you imagine the furore if people such as C and I got that.
So, Mr Blair, please review the benefit system in this country. Think a little more about the tax payers, the hard workers. I am not saying that we shouldn't look after the weak, the poor and the needy. Indeed I am more than happy for my tax pounds to go towards the needy and to pay for the pensions and health care of those people who have worked hard all their lives. But, you cannot convince me that giving someone £35k is the answer to anything. That woman's attitude is proof enough.
Why pay benefits for five kids? Why not limit it to two and force would be parents to think about the consequences of their actions and to develop a social awareness? My mom and dad planned their family, why shouldn't these. And, by planning, I mean they worked out if and when they could afford a family rather than whether or not the state benefits would cover the additional cost.
Why not make benefits conditional upon certain caveats, such as attending parenting classes, guaranteeing to take the kids to the park twice a week, the kids' attendance rate at school, etc. And while I think about it, why don't we bring back National Service? I don't necessarily mean putting young men into the army and sending them off to fight an illegal war somewhere. But, why not work as hospital porters, or visiting the elderly in hospices, or as support staff in the fire service, the police, or painting civic buildings. Anything to give them a work ethic and a sense of pride and discipline. I think this would solve your ASBO culture and the underage pregnancy rate in one fell swoop.
It just makes my blood boil.
OK rant over. I think I'm turning into Jeremy Clarkson....
This is a woman who has been "on the sick" for a number of years but is well enough to have given birth to five children in the last five years. Her husband/partner does not work either. Between them they "earn" in benefits the equivalent of an annual salary of £35k.
It made me so mad. She gets paid £35k per annum so that she and her partner can stay home 24/7 bringing up five kids under the age of five. I don't know for sure, but I guess that £35k is probably more than a properly trained and qualified Nanny would earn. Someone who has worked hard to get a job as a Nanny.
What really grated was the woman's attitude. Her whole defence was that she was only getting what she was entitled to and that it was ridiculous that she would be worse of if (and this is a huge, huge if) she got a proper job. I am sorry! The ridiculous thing is that the Government is willing to use my hard earned tax contribution to fund a family of layabouts and enable them to afford five kids. As far as I am concerned there is an easy way to resolve this dilemma...Cut her benefits by a couple of hundred quid a week and force the parents out to work!!!
My mom and dad were hard up when they were bringing me and my sister up. My dad's final year annual salary before retirement was less than my first year starting salary. And he had worked for some 35 years for the same company! My mom often held down two jobs at a time to make ends meet. She took night shift work in factories so that she would always be at home when my sister and myself came home from school. And dad would be there when mom was at work. And, if dad had to work at night too, then a relative would be called upon to look after us.
The only Government benefit we got as a family was the family allowance and my university grant. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how lucky I was to have had my university education funded in this way. I'm not sure that I could have survived in this current world with loans.
But, even then, while a student, I topped funds up myself with two scholarships, that I earned, and by working every Summer holidays! Including a job stripping asbestos from a factory. Wearing full breathing apparatus with an industrial vacuum cleaner strapped to my back up the top of a ladder! And, another job cleaning out oil sumps under tyre presses during the industrial shut-down weeks in Birmingham.
That was one helluva job. It involved being lowered on a rope down a sump shaft that was about one metre square and several metres deep. It was so hot, that we worked in ten minute shifts - ten minutes down the sump and ten minutes on the rope. When in the sump, a bucket would be lowered and you had to dig out all of the gunk, rubber and oil at the bottom of the sump and pass the bucket past your face back up to the top. It was quite horrific when you got to the bottom. Rubber beetles live on this stuff. Rubber beetles are like a cockroach's worst nightmare. Huge. Scary buggers! Not the kind of thing you want to pass by your face by the bucketful!.
My mom and dad worked every hour that God sent; took every and any job that they could to put food on our table and to give my sister and I the opportunity to go to university. They worked hard. They never had a credit card and they only bought what they could afford and when they could afford to have it. They saved for things like camping holidays or for the colour TV. T hey saved so that they could afford their babies. They were hard working, working class, looking to do better for themselves and their kids.
And then this Anna Taylor comes along complaining that she can't find a job paying her £35k per annum to bring up her five kids. She left school at 16 and she aspires to a salary that kids who have put themselves through university would aspire to. And, she sees it as an entitlement. She genuinely believes that she is doing her bit by bringing five kids into the world.
Indeed, many sprang to Anna's defence on the radio chat show, explaining that with our increasingly elderly population, we're more and more reliant upon children growing up and becoming the tax payers of the future to pay for our pension and health care. I'm sorry! It is actually the past generations not the future ones that have paid for my pension and health care. The past generations and the current workers such as myself.
And, are you really trying to convince me that these five kids, given the example of their not-so-hard-working or civic-minded parents will develop a strong work ethic, get themselves a good education and solid jobs, paying lots of taxes into future social welfare funds. They will be unusual if they do. I so hope they prove me wrong.
Or, is it more likely that we will have another five adults living off entitlements/benefits, producing other kids for the state to feed and clothe, while they sit around all day watching Sky Movies, Jeremy Kyle and Judge Judy on their huge plasma screens. I wonder.
Also, when did it become Government policy in this country to pay people to breed? C and I, unfortunately, have not been able to have children. Not through lack of trying. For many years my annual bonus, which is a reflection of how hard I worked, was spent on privately funding IVF or other fertility treatment, without success. £35k would pay for about ten such procedures, every year! Could you imagine the furore if people such as C and I got that.
So, Mr Blair, please review the benefit system in this country. Think a little more about the tax payers, the hard workers. I am not saying that we shouldn't look after the weak, the poor and the needy. Indeed I am more than happy for my tax pounds to go towards the needy and to pay for the pensions and health care of those people who have worked hard all their lives. But, you cannot convince me that giving someone £35k is the answer to anything. That woman's attitude is proof enough.
Why pay benefits for five kids? Why not limit it to two and force would be parents to think about the consequences of their actions and to develop a social awareness? My mom and dad planned their family, why shouldn't these. And, by planning, I mean they worked out if and when they could afford a family rather than whether or not the state benefits would cover the additional cost.
Why not make benefits conditional upon certain caveats, such as attending parenting classes, guaranteeing to take the kids to the park twice a week, the kids' attendance rate at school, etc. And while I think about it, why don't we bring back National Service? I don't necessarily mean putting young men into the army and sending them off to fight an illegal war somewhere. But, why not work as hospital porters, or visiting the elderly in hospices, or as support staff in the fire service, the police, or painting civic buildings. Anything to give them a work ethic and a sense of pride and discipline. I think this would solve your ASBO culture and the underage pregnancy rate in one fell swoop.
It just makes my blood boil.
OK rant over. I think I'm turning into Jeremy Clarkson....
Friday, 23 February 2007
Sheep to the Slaughter!
Sheep are stupid! But I like them. Especially roasted and swimming in mint sauce. Fortunately the fields around us are slowly filling up again after the disaster and debacle of the Government's stunning response to the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001. Every lamb and sheep in Cheshire was slaughtered and yet there was not a single confirmed case of the disease in the whole county. What a waste!
In fact it was quite a spectacle the day the sheep disappeared. It was like martial law had been imposed on Cheshire. I arrived home from work to find the lane near home blocked off by the army. I had to wait an hour or so. They were gathering all of the sheep together and putting them onto trains to take them to slaughter. They didn't want anyone watching. After I finally got home we had another army Land Rover come hurtling onto the drive and four squaddies rushed out: "You got any sheep or other livestock?", they barked. We hadn't. At first they didn't believe us. You see the property was still called "School Farm" on the local A to Z. But we did manage to convince them in the end - although they were very suspicious of the old hen coup in our side garden, which was now just used as a shed and dumping ground. In truth though a number of local farmers did foil the army search. Many kept a breeding pair in their homes throughout this period. Foot and Mouth was nothing new and they realised the Government was overreacting. And, they couldn't bear to lose their entire flocks.
The silence of the sheep. It was eerily quiet around the hamlet with the sheep gone, and the cows in sheds. The moles moved in. And the foxes and badgers. The buzzards. The barn owls. These seemed to increase significantly as the fields emptied of livestock. The moles seem to have stayed, much to the chagrin of those of our neighbours who are proud of their lawns.
T and R, our most lawn proud neighbours, suffer really badly with moles. It is a real shame because they love their garden and nature in general. In the summer they live outdoors. They have a split-level pool cum fish pond where they encourage newts and frogs and discourage the herons it attracts. But, R is a big softy. He doesn't like the thought of killing anything. So getting rid of the moles is a bit difficult. There are many myths about moles, you know. Rat poison doesn't work - they can smell it and they avoid it. They just dig another hole. Moth balls don't work for much the same reason. You can't smoke or flood them out because their burrows are far too extensive - they just move out of the way, seek higher ground. There are really only two effective ways to kill them. You can go out at night, wait until you see a mound (mole hill) forming, wait till the little bugger pops his head up, and, whack him with a shovel. Or, you can use razor blades. Moles are haemophiliacs. Their blood doesn't clot. If you push a razor blade into the run of a mole and they run over it, and cut themselves, they bleed to death.....
Moles can be trapped though, and relocated. But, you have to be very careful not to leave your scent on the trap. T approached me one day when R was still at work and asked me to lay a trap. I did. R subsequently sabotaged it by "checking" on it. He touched the trap. He knew what he was doing. He's a really nice guy.
The Foot and Mouth outbreak finished off a number of the farmers around here. They are tenant farmers in the main. They do not own their own land or houses. So, when times are tough they have nothing to borrow against. I once helped a farmer-neighbour when his tractor caught fire at the height of Foot and Mouth. He cried. He wasn't insured. He couldn't afford the premium. He was losing a fortune at the time and thought that the cost of fixing the tractor would push them into bankruptcy. Several of the farms went under. Most are over-priced, poorly designed, badly decorated conversions now. Tis a shame.
But, we still have the moles. And the sheep are back. Sheep are stupid. Have you noticed that they stand in lines. They all look in the same direction. They stare. C says it might be a zen thing. I doubt it. It can be quite spooky when they all line up and stare at you. For no good reason. Spooky. And, it is rude to stare.
On one occasion C and I were walking across the fields to our local pub. At one point we found a sheep with its head stuck in a wire fence. Well stuck. It would seem that it had pushed its head through in an attempt to get at a bucket on the other side which had some kind of food stuff in it. The wire was beginning to cut into its neck. I tried to get it out. I pulled and I pulled. I tugged and I tugged. It budged not a bit. In the end we decided to fetch the farmer.
The farmer didn't seem too happy when we caught up with him. He was just leaving in his Land Rover. Probably off to the pub, or out for Sunday lunch somewhere. We watched him trudge across the field. He found the sheep. He climbed over the fence and he moved the bucket further away. The sheep, realising that there was no way it could get at the food, simply reversed. It backed out, shook its head and rejoined the flock. The farmer shook his head and probably muttered something like "bloody townies". Sheep are stupid? I was only trying to help....
In fact it was quite a spectacle the day the sheep disappeared. It was like martial law had been imposed on Cheshire. I arrived home from work to find the lane near home blocked off by the army. I had to wait an hour or so. They were gathering all of the sheep together and putting them onto trains to take them to slaughter. They didn't want anyone watching. After I finally got home we had another army Land Rover come hurtling onto the drive and four squaddies rushed out: "You got any sheep or other livestock?", they barked. We hadn't. At first they didn't believe us. You see the property was still called "School Farm" on the local A to Z. But we did manage to convince them in the end - although they were very suspicious of the old hen coup in our side garden, which was now just used as a shed and dumping ground. In truth though a number of local farmers did foil the army search. Many kept a breeding pair in their homes throughout this period. Foot and Mouth was nothing new and they realised the Government was overreacting. And, they couldn't bear to lose their entire flocks.
The silence of the sheep. It was eerily quiet around the hamlet with the sheep gone, and the cows in sheds. The moles moved in. And the foxes and badgers. The buzzards. The barn owls. These seemed to increase significantly as the fields emptied of livestock. The moles seem to have stayed, much to the chagrin of those of our neighbours who are proud of their lawns.
T and R, our most lawn proud neighbours, suffer really badly with moles. It is a real shame because they love their garden and nature in general. In the summer they live outdoors. They have a split-level pool cum fish pond where they encourage newts and frogs and discourage the herons it attracts. But, R is a big softy. He doesn't like the thought of killing anything. So getting rid of the moles is a bit difficult. There are many myths about moles, you know. Rat poison doesn't work - they can smell it and they avoid it. They just dig another hole. Moth balls don't work for much the same reason. You can't smoke or flood them out because their burrows are far too extensive - they just move out of the way, seek higher ground. There are really only two effective ways to kill them. You can go out at night, wait until you see a mound (mole hill) forming, wait till the little bugger pops his head up, and, whack him with a shovel. Or, you can use razor blades. Moles are haemophiliacs. Their blood doesn't clot. If you push a razor blade into the run of a mole and they run over it, and cut themselves, they bleed to death.....
Moles can be trapped though, and relocated. But, you have to be very careful not to leave your scent on the trap. T approached me one day when R was still at work and asked me to lay a trap. I did. R subsequently sabotaged it by "checking" on it. He touched the trap. He knew what he was doing. He's a really nice guy.
The Foot and Mouth outbreak finished off a number of the farmers around here. They are tenant farmers in the main. They do not own their own land or houses. So, when times are tough they have nothing to borrow against. I once helped a farmer-neighbour when his tractor caught fire at the height of Foot and Mouth. He cried. He wasn't insured. He couldn't afford the premium. He was losing a fortune at the time and thought that the cost of fixing the tractor would push them into bankruptcy. Several of the farms went under. Most are over-priced, poorly designed, badly decorated conversions now. Tis a shame.
But, we still have the moles. And the sheep are back. Sheep are stupid. Have you noticed that they stand in lines. They all look in the same direction. They stare. C says it might be a zen thing. I doubt it. It can be quite spooky when they all line up and stare at you. For no good reason. Spooky. And, it is rude to stare.
On one occasion C and I were walking across the fields to our local pub. At one point we found a sheep with its head stuck in a wire fence. Well stuck. It would seem that it had pushed its head through in an attempt to get at a bucket on the other side which had some kind of food stuff in it. The wire was beginning to cut into its neck. I tried to get it out. I pulled and I pulled. I tugged and I tugged. It budged not a bit. In the end we decided to fetch the farmer.
The farmer didn't seem too happy when we caught up with him. He was just leaving in his Land Rover. Probably off to the pub, or out for Sunday lunch somewhere. We watched him trudge across the field. He found the sheep. He climbed over the fence and he moved the bucket further away. The sheep, realising that there was no way it could get at the food, simply reversed. It backed out, shook its head and rejoined the flock. The farmer shook his head and probably muttered something like "bloody townies". Sheep are stupid? I was only trying to help....
Thursday, 22 February 2007
Anything For The Weekend?
I had my hair cut last week. As you can see from the Little Me (my avatar), I am a little salt n'pepper, in a kind of Clooneyesque kind of way. I wish.
I used to hate going to the barbers when I was younger. It was a chore. Well, I was a child of the 70s. In Birmingham. In a family where clothes were knitted by mom and grandma, or handed down from cousin to cousin. I was the youngest boy at this time. Many of my clothes were third hand. I was not exactly fashionable. I was dressed by my mom. These were the days when teenagers were not financially independent. You wore what you were given. What you were told to wear.
I wasn't really into self-image. Indeed, shopping used to be quite an ordeal. I remember once when I was about 12 or 13 and needed new trousers for school. Mom took me to M&S. These were the days before M&S had changing rooms. Mom insisted that I try the trousers on. She made me strip to my undies in the middle of the store: "Go on! No-one is looking at you!". It was hugely embarrassing. I was beetroot red. Everyone was looking. Especially all the hot girls. Y-fronts. How embarrassing.
Indeed, until I met C, I was never really into clothes or image at all. C is now my fashion advisor. She is very good at it. She chooses very well for me. I am now Mr Designer Label!
I wasn't very good at shopping for myself. And, this was made much worse by the fact that I am colour blind. Totally colour blind. Blue/violet; red/green colour blind. I have to concentrate really hard to spot the grid-lines on maps. Or rivers. I once had a major presentation to make to senior bods in the days before C. When I got to the office the girls sent me straight back home. I had a green jacket and blue trousers. I thought they matched. I made it back to the office just in time and colour-coordinated. I got the investment that I was looking for.
On another occasion I got totally confused by a presentation that I was on the receiving end of. I was getting completely the opposite impression to the one that I was expecting. The presentation was using white text out of a blue background. Apart from the key words that is. Words like "not" and "very" and "must". The key words were in red text. Red out of blue, and totally invisible to yours truly! I blame my grandma. Colour-blindness is carried through the female line.
Anyhow, shopping, when I was a bachelor, involved much reliance upon home shopping from the Next Catalogue - these being the days before the Internet. This had the advantage that "trying on" was a private affair. And, you could send the clothes back if they didn't fit.
In any case, I didn't really enjoy getting my haircut in my teenage years. But, my attitude to barbers and to haircuts has changed significantly over the years. The change is due in some small part to my increased affluence and in much greater part to the advice, nay instructions of my wife, C. Long gone are the short back and sides with a side parting of my youth and the “just a quick trim and a number three at the back and sides” of my early 20s.
As a teenager, my local barber was selected more on the distance that I would have to walk and, perhaps most importantly, on the physical attributes of the female hair stylists. Getting your hair cut was an opportunity to sit ogling the stylist for the 10 minutes or so you were sat in the chair and the 30 minutes or so that you were sat in the waiting area pouring over the Sun or The Mirror newspaper, waiting your turn. If you were really lucky the stylist would rub against you as she danced around you gracefully with her comb, scissors and clippers. Your excitement was carefully hidden beneath the cape thing that they throw over you, so it was a perfectly safe pastime. The haircuts were shite though. I think the stylists somehow knew…..and this was their way of reaping their revenge.
My current “barbers” is a chic gentleman’s boutique-type place in suburban Cheshire. There are no female stylists, only well groomed men of dubious sexuality. The Sun has given way to FHM, GQ and similar blokey magazines. The styling process takes considerably longer and the wallet is considerably lighter than in the old days back in Erdington. But, I do believe that the hair is looking a lot better. The “rubbing against” fantasy is now less frequent, consigned as it is to the occasional appearance in my life of a dental nurse. Dental nurses, however, have the additional advantage of wearing a uniform!. However, when lying down on a dentist’s chair/couch, it is far, far harder to hide any erection. Thank goodness for the pain, it takes your mind off it somewhat…..
In all my years of going to the barbers I have never been offered anything for the weekend. Condoms in the early 80s were still very elusive even at the height of the so-called Aids epidemic. You couldn't buy them in supermarkets like you can today. I can remember the humiliating experience of buying condoms for the first time for the first attempt at “going all the way” with my then girlfriend. I hovered around the pharmacy counter of the local Boots chemist for an absolute age. I was scanning the shop like a would-be bank robber, checking that there was no-one around who knew me. I waited for eons for the OAPs (“Old Aged Pensioners”. I think we call them “senior citizens” now that our own parents have joined the club) to collect their prescriptions or acquire their supplies of germolene and Fisherman’s Friends. How pungent!
Incidentally, there should be separate shopping times, or separate lanes, or separate shops for old people, don’t you think? Especially at Christmas! They have all that time on their hands during the week and then decide to go shopping exactly when you need to. They are so slow and always get in the way. I think that the only reason they do this is because they have all shrunk in size and require the assistance of people like me to retrieve their favourite items from the top shelves. Or, maybe it is just cheaper for them than having to heat their own homes. Maybe it is loneliness or confusion. I am not looking forward to getting old myself.
In any case, I waited until the pretty young sales assistant was free. Pure torture! Why are they always female, pretty and young? I thrust my packet of Durex Extra (ha!) towards her, watched as she slowly, teasingly, placed it in a brown paper bag. Anonymity guaranteed, I don’t think. I thrust my money at her and hurriedly turned on my heels to make my escape. “Don’t forget your change, Sir!” she called after me, loudly. All heads turned. I turned, blushed, grabbed my change and ran with the eyes of every OAP lady and grandmother in Birmingham burning into my back – “we know what you are up to young man…..”
I used to hate going to the barbers when I was younger. It was a chore. Well, I was a child of the 70s. In Birmingham. In a family where clothes were knitted by mom and grandma, or handed down from cousin to cousin. I was the youngest boy at this time. Many of my clothes were third hand. I was not exactly fashionable. I was dressed by my mom. These were the days when teenagers were not financially independent. You wore what you were given. What you were told to wear.
I wasn't really into self-image. Indeed, shopping used to be quite an ordeal. I remember once when I was about 12 or 13 and needed new trousers for school. Mom took me to M&S. These were the days before M&S had changing rooms. Mom insisted that I try the trousers on. She made me strip to my undies in the middle of the store: "Go on! No-one is looking at you!". It was hugely embarrassing. I was beetroot red. Everyone was looking. Especially all the hot girls. Y-fronts. How embarrassing.
Indeed, until I met C, I was never really into clothes or image at all. C is now my fashion advisor. She is very good at it. She chooses very well for me. I am now Mr Designer Label!
I wasn't very good at shopping for myself. And, this was made much worse by the fact that I am colour blind. Totally colour blind. Blue/violet; red/green colour blind. I have to concentrate really hard to spot the grid-lines on maps. Or rivers. I once had a major presentation to make to senior bods in the days before C. When I got to the office the girls sent me straight back home. I had a green jacket and blue trousers. I thought they matched. I made it back to the office just in time and colour-coordinated. I got the investment that I was looking for.
On another occasion I got totally confused by a presentation that I was on the receiving end of. I was getting completely the opposite impression to the one that I was expecting. The presentation was using white text out of a blue background. Apart from the key words that is. Words like "not" and "very" and "must". The key words were in red text. Red out of blue, and totally invisible to yours truly! I blame my grandma. Colour-blindness is carried through the female line.
Anyhow, shopping, when I was a bachelor, involved much reliance upon home shopping from the Next Catalogue - these being the days before the Internet. This had the advantage that "trying on" was a private affair. And, you could send the clothes back if they didn't fit.
In any case, I didn't really enjoy getting my haircut in my teenage years. But, my attitude to barbers and to haircuts has changed significantly over the years. The change is due in some small part to my increased affluence and in much greater part to the advice, nay instructions of my wife, C. Long gone are the short back and sides with a side parting of my youth and the “just a quick trim and a number three at the back and sides” of my early 20s.
As a teenager, my local barber was selected more on the distance that I would have to walk and, perhaps most importantly, on the physical attributes of the female hair stylists. Getting your hair cut was an opportunity to sit ogling the stylist for the 10 minutes or so you were sat in the chair and the 30 minutes or so that you were sat in the waiting area pouring over the Sun or The Mirror newspaper, waiting your turn. If you were really lucky the stylist would rub against you as she danced around you gracefully with her comb, scissors and clippers. Your excitement was carefully hidden beneath the cape thing that they throw over you, so it was a perfectly safe pastime. The haircuts were shite though. I think the stylists somehow knew…..and this was their way of reaping their revenge.
My current “barbers” is a chic gentleman’s boutique-type place in suburban Cheshire. There are no female stylists, only well groomed men of dubious sexuality. The Sun has given way to FHM, GQ and similar blokey magazines. The styling process takes considerably longer and the wallet is considerably lighter than in the old days back in Erdington. But, I do believe that the hair is looking a lot better. The “rubbing against” fantasy is now less frequent, consigned as it is to the occasional appearance in my life of a dental nurse. Dental nurses, however, have the additional advantage of wearing a uniform!. However, when lying down on a dentist’s chair/couch, it is far, far harder to hide any erection. Thank goodness for the pain, it takes your mind off it somewhat…..
In all my years of going to the barbers I have never been offered anything for the weekend. Condoms in the early 80s were still very elusive even at the height of the so-called Aids epidemic. You couldn't buy them in supermarkets like you can today. I can remember the humiliating experience of buying condoms for the first time for the first attempt at “going all the way” with my then girlfriend. I hovered around the pharmacy counter of the local Boots chemist for an absolute age. I was scanning the shop like a would-be bank robber, checking that there was no-one around who knew me. I waited for eons for the OAPs (“Old Aged Pensioners”. I think we call them “senior citizens” now that our own parents have joined the club) to collect their prescriptions or acquire their supplies of germolene and Fisherman’s Friends. How pungent!
Incidentally, there should be separate shopping times, or separate lanes, or separate shops for old people, don’t you think? Especially at Christmas! They have all that time on their hands during the week and then decide to go shopping exactly when you need to. They are so slow and always get in the way. I think that the only reason they do this is because they have all shrunk in size and require the assistance of people like me to retrieve their favourite items from the top shelves. Or, maybe it is just cheaper for them than having to heat their own homes. Maybe it is loneliness or confusion. I am not looking forward to getting old myself.
In any case, I waited until the pretty young sales assistant was free. Pure torture! Why are they always female, pretty and young? I thrust my packet of Durex Extra (ha!) towards her, watched as she slowly, teasingly, placed it in a brown paper bag. Anonymity guaranteed, I don’t think. I thrust my money at her and hurriedly turned on my heels to make my escape. “Don’t forget your change, Sir!” she called after me, loudly. All heads turned. I turned, blushed, grabbed my change and ran with the eyes of every OAP lady and grandmother in Birmingham burning into my back – “we know what you are up to young man…..”
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
"Let's Be Careful Out There!"
I have recently had a job with responsibility for the security of payment cards and combating fraud. I loved it. I like to think I learnt a great deal. I came to the job with almost zero knowledge and left it much better informed, with a huge suspicion and distrust of my fellow man, and of so-called secure technology. It was a huge eye opener.
As a result, I am all in favour of the government’s plan to mark privacy areas around ATMs – holes in the wall. For sure, I will never let that personal space be invaded while I am keying my PIN number. Indeed, I am a bit anal about the whole process of withdrawing money from a cash dispenser. I check for pin-hole cameras. I check for false keyboards. I check for card skimming devices. I check for shoulder surfers (people looking over your shoulder to see what PIN you enter). I check for people with MP3 devices within range. All of these things are widely used to your capture card details and to produce copy or counterfeit cards.
I never let my personal credit card out of my sight – petrol stations and Indian and Chinese restaurants are amongst the most common locations where card details are skimmed. I shred all material containing personal data. I would hate to be a victim of identity fraud. Am I over reacting? No I am not. Fraud is a lot more common than most people would think. You are a lot more vulnerable to becoming a victim of crime than you would think.
Did you know that statistically, 30 to 80% of all job applications contain lies or exaggerations; company employees commit 12% of fraud; management commits 40% of fraud. Who checks your expense claims? Perhaps you should take a closer look at those colleagues you sit with in the office every day. Is he or she a fraudster? How would you tell? Well, the typical profile of a fraudster is someone who does not take holidays, someone who is secretive about business processes, is resistant to supervision, has poor inter-personal skills, has good technical ability, works late, is prone to substance/alcohol abuse, is prone to relationship discord........Sounds like most of my colleagues. Especially those in the security department. Worrying!
Actually fraud, or rather the impact of fraud, has touched me only fleetingly in my existence to date. And that is as close as I would ever like it to get.
I gave back my first ever company car. I had been so looking forward to my first company car. But, I sent this one back. I refused to drive it. How insensitive of the Company to give me a car that had previously been that of a recently deceased colleague. A recently deceased colleague who had taken his own life. A colleague who had killed himself by attaching a pipe to the exhaust of his company car, passed it through a small gap in a window and sat in his car in his garage until he breathed no more. This was a lovely guy. He was an experienced sales rep who, just one month earlier, I had shadowed as part of my sales training. Unfortunately he was also a fraudster. He had been caught exaggerating sales in collusion with a number of dealerships for which he was responsible, meaning that they received higher commission payments from the Company than they had been entitled to. He was splitting the additional payments with the dealers. He got caught. The shame of being caught drove him over the edge. Drove him to suicide. He left a wife and two teenage kids. There was no way I was driving that car.
On another occasion, C and I almost bought a house from someone who didn’t own the house they were selling. A house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. It was a beautiful house. A double-fronted Georgian house with an nice walled garden and a barn that could have been converted into C’s consulting room (she’s a counsellor and trainee psychotherapist). It was a bit dated inside and would have required decorating throughout, a new kitchen, and bathroom. But it was a beautiful house and would have been a wonderful investment property for us. It was going cheap because it needed some work and, we were told, because the owner had recently died very suddenly and unexpectedly.
We were going through the buying process when, on one evening while I was away on business, C was watching a reconstruction on a TV news programme. It was a reconstruction of the killing of the last victim of a notorious serial killer. It showed the killer parking outside of a beautiful double-fronted Georgian house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. I t showed him entering the house through a nice walled garden, next to a barn. It showed him administering the lethal injection to his victim. The killer had forged the poor lady’s will so that it looked as if she had bequeathed him a huge amount of money, and the house in which she lived. The house in which she died. The house in which she had been killed. And, the house in which the killer had subsequently intended to sell to us, before he was caught.
The killer was a doctor. A General Practitioner by the name of Doctor Harold Shipman. Doctor Death. The most prolific serial killer ever to disgrace these shores. After his trial, an inquest decided that there was enough evidence to suggest that Shipman had killed some 215 people, mostly women. His youngest victim had been a 41-year-old woman. Some sources have suggested that Shipman may have killed over 400 people.
I hate to think how we would have stood legally or otherwise (or where we would have lived) if we had bought the house before the fraudulent will had been discovered. It doesn’t bear thinking about. We had a lucky escape.
So, just you take care. Keep your cards close. Be careful what you throw away. Have a healthy degree of caution when dealing with others. And, watch your colleagues closely. Above all, if you are doing something wrong, stop it now. Before you get caught. The consequences don't bear thinking about. As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Hill Street Blues) would have said: “Let’s be careful out there!”
As a result, I am all in favour of the government’s plan to mark privacy areas around ATMs – holes in the wall. For sure, I will never let that personal space be invaded while I am keying my PIN number. Indeed, I am a bit anal about the whole process of withdrawing money from a cash dispenser. I check for pin-hole cameras. I check for false keyboards. I check for card skimming devices. I check for shoulder surfers (people looking over your shoulder to see what PIN you enter). I check for people with MP3 devices within range. All of these things are widely used to your capture card details and to produce copy or counterfeit cards.
I never let my personal credit card out of my sight – petrol stations and Indian and Chinese restaurants are amongst the most common locations where card details are skimmed. I shred all material containing personal data. I would hate to be a victim of identity fraud. Am I over reacting? No I am not. Fraud is a lot more common than most people would think. You are a lot more vulnerable to becoming a victim of crime than you would think.
Did you know that statistically, 30 to 80% of all job applications contain lies or exaggerations; company employees commit 12% of fraud; management commits 40% of fraud. Who checks your expense claims? Perhaps you should take a closer look at those colleagues you sit with in the office every day. Is he or she a fraudster? How would you tell? Well, the typical profile of a fraudster is someone who does not take holidays, someone who is secretive about business processes, is resistant to supervision, has poor inter-personal skills, has good technical ability, works late, is prone to substance/alcohol abuse, is prone to relationship discord........Sounds like most of my colleagues. Especially those in the security department. Worrying!
Actually fraud, or rather the impact of fraud, has touched me only fleetingly in my existence to date. And that is as close as I would ever like it to get.
I gave back my first ever company car. I had been so looking forward to my first company car. But, I sent this one back. I refused to drive it. How insensitive of the Company to give me a car that had previously been that of a recently deceased colleague. A recently deceased colleague who had taken his own life. A colleague who had killed himself by attaching a pipe to the exhaust of his company car, passed it through a small gap in a window and sat in his car in his garage until he breathed no more. This was a lovely guy. He was an experienced sales rep who, just one month earlier, I had shadowed as part of my sales training. Unfortunately he was also a fraudster. He had been caught exaggerating sales in collusion with a number of dealerships for which he was responsible, meaning that they received higher commission payments from the Company than they had been entitled to. He was splitting the additional payments with the dealers. He got caught. The shame of being caught drove him over the edge. Drove him to suicide. He left a wife and two teenage kids. There was no way I was driving that car.
On another occasion, C and I almost bought a house from someone who didn’t own the house they were selling. A house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. It was a beautiful house. A double-fronted Georgian house with an nice walled garden and a barn that could have been converted into C’s consulting room (she’s a counsellor and trainee psychotherapist). It was a bit dated inside and would have required decorating throughout, a new kitchen, and bathroom. But it was a beautiful house and would have been a wonderful investment property for us. It was going cheap because it needed some work and, we were told, because the owner had recently died very suddenly and unexpectedly.
We were going through the buying process when, on one evening while I was away on business, C was watching a reconstruction on a TV news programme. It was a reconstruction of the killing of the last victim of a notorious serial killer. It showed the killer parking outside of a beautiful double-fronted Georgian house in Gee Cross near Hyde in Manchester. I t showed him entering the house through a nice walled garden, next to a barn. It showed him administering the lethal injection to his victim. The killer had forged the poor lady’s will so that it looked as if she had bequeathed him a huge amount of money, and the house in which she lived. The house in which she died. The house in which she had been killed. And, the house in which the killer had subsequently intended to sell to us, before he was caught.
The killer was a doctor. A General Practitioner by the name of Doctor Harold Shipman. Doctor Death. The most prolific serial killer ever to disgrace these shores. After his trial, an inquest decided that there was enough evidence to suggest that Shipman had killed some 215 people, mostly women. His youngest victim had been a 41-year-old woman. Some sources have suggested that Shipman may have killed over 400 people.
I hate to think how we would have stood legally or otherwise (or where we would have lived) if we had bought the house before the fraudulent will had been discovered. It doesn’t bear thinking about. We had a lucky escape.
So, just you take care. Keep your cards close. Be careful what you throw away. Have a healthy degree of caution when dealing with others. And, watch your colleagues closely. Above all, if you are doing something wrong, stop it now. Before you get caught. The consequences don't bear thinking about. As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Hill Street Blues) would have said: “Let’s be careful out there!”
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Where's The Volume Control?
Where is the volume control knob on kids? C and I do not have any kids, apart from the fur baby, Maslow the cat. But we do appreciate the kids of our friends and family. We have been very fortunate to see all of our friends' kids grow from babies.
We recently stayed for the weekend with my best mate, E, and his family. He has one daughter, R, who is five; one son, J, who is three; and, a new baby daughter, A, who is just nine months old. She has that lovely smell that only babies have. They are all adorable. But, they are all so noisy. Adorable and noisy. How can something so small generate so much volume.
We had an hour or two after arrival having a "grown up" chat with E, catching up on old times and then meeting baby A for the first time, after she had woken up. She was great fun. She is very sociable and used to being passed around between adults, due to the fact, unfortunately, that she has spent an awful lot of time in hospital. She is a lot better now though, thankfully. We spent a pleasant hour or so getting to know her - cuddles, playing hide-and-seek, dutifully picking up the things she had dropped, and taking her for a walk in the new three-wheeler buggy. A three-wheeler buggy. Apparently they are so much better for off-road walking! I'm afraid that E, Barnsley-born and bred, is sliding gracefully into the middle classes. He retains his social conscience though, picking up any litter he finds in the streets, and, rescuing "useful" things that have been discarded in neighbours skips. You can take the boy out of Barnsley, but........
And then, mom returned with the other two kids. It was as if a tornado had swept through the house. An adorable tornado though. An adorable, incredibly noisy tornado. Admittedly, they were probably high on e-numbers, having just returned from a kiddies' party, clutching their goody bags in sticky little hands. Apparently, J is at that age when little boys get a rush of testosterone. Well, it showed. The next couple of hours involved J running around laughing and shouting gleefully at all the attention he was receiving, bashing everyone with the balloon he had brought back from the party. He was not quiet. For those of you familiar with the spoof rock classic, Spinal Tap, J's volume control definitely goes up to eleven!
Actually, we had a great time. J and I built flying monsters out of K'Nex, while C helped little R colour in some fairies that would subsequently be turned into badges and fridge magnets. R is big into fairies at the moment. She's a proper little princess. These kids both have really great manners and wonderful imaginations, and, it is a pleasure to spend time with them without the necessity of batteries. Toys without batteries seem to be very rare these days. In any case, they are quite capable of providing their own sound effects.
For those of us without kids, it is hard to explain to those of you who have, how loud children can be. Parents seem to have an amazing skill at blocking this sound out. It washes over them. But, if one of the kids so much as misses a breath in the middle of the night, both parents would be wide awake and by their side in a second. They didn't miss a breath as it happened, but all three kids did have a cough. They coughed through the night until it was time to get up and play. Time to make more noise.
This reminded me of the time I baby sat for the neighbours' three year old boy. Michael was also adorable. He was cute. He was like a cartoon boy with a big head, big eyes, and a mop of brown hair that could never fully be stuck down successfully. He could have advertised Bisto. He was an outdoor kid and would spend hours in the garden with just his vivid imagination for company. He collected worms, newts and snails. He let the snails play on his slide......or should that be a roll? He loved to plant herbs with C in our garden. He would water them and come to visit often to see how much they had grown. On one occasion he touched some wild garlic and then smelled his fingers. He declared: "It smells like burps!". Such wisdom.
Anyhow, I had never babysat before. I was a tad nervous, especially about the "toilet things". Moms in the office spent the day reassuring me that three year olds were normally toilet trained. This was reassuring because I had Michael all to myself for about three hours as C was working late that night. His mom brought Michael round just before they left for their night at the ballet (in Crewe?). "He's just been to the loo so he'll just need his teeth cleaning and a wee before bed." said mom. That was reassuring.
Mom left. A fort was constructed out of the cushions off the sofa and our lounge soon turned into a scene reminiscent of a bomb going off in Toys R'Us. And, just five minutes later, little Michael declared, "I need the loo!" and set off upstairs. He always made himself at home. I wasn't worried until I heard a little cry from upstairs: "D, I keep falling in!". His little bum was too small for our toilet seat. And, so it began!
I had to hold Michael over the loo as he did his number twos. How could such a cute little boy produce such a horrible smell! It was clearly hard work. Michael was straining as if he was giving birth to a baby elephant. His teeth were clenched and he was turning red in the face through his exertions. The smell got worse. The noise was incredible. He was pebble-dashing the bowl. It was quite horrible. I began to retch. Fortunately I kept the contents of my stomach to myself. Things could not get worse.
Then things got worse. Michael finished. Michael skipped off the toilet, turned his back to me, bent over and touched his toes. I had to wipe his bum. Yeuch! I hope I never have to get that close to another human being in my life. My hat goes off to all those parents, nurses and other carers out there for which this is a common occurrence. Maslow's litter tray is about my limit.
C thought all this was hilarious when she got home. Mind you her timing was perfect that night. I had the toilet experience. I then spent the next couple of hours keeping Micheal entertained and tiring him out. Tiring him out!? I was exhausted. C arrived just in time for teeth cleaning, which he managed to do himself, and to read him a bed-time story.....Fair-weather babysitting if you ask me.
Adorable. Hard work but adorable. Noisy but adorable. To all my friends and family with kids, the utmost respect. We love them all. We especially love the way you take them back when we have finished playing. See you all soon. xx
We recently stayed for the weekend with my best mate, E, and his family. He has one daughter, R, who is five; one son, J, who is three; and, a new baby daughter, A, who is just nine months old. She has that lovely smell that only babies have. They are all adorable. But, they are all so noisy. Adorable and noisy. How can something so small generate so much volume.
We had an hour or two after arrival having a "grown up" chat with E, catching up on old times and then meeting baby A for the first time, after she had woken up. She was great fun. She is very sociable and used to being passed around between adults, due to the fact, unfortunately, that she has spent an awful lot of time in hospital. She is a lot better now though, thankfully. We spent a pleasant hour or so getting to know her - cuddles, playing hide-and-seek, dutifully picking up the things she had dropped, and taking her for a walk in the new three-wheeler buggy. A three-wheeler buggy. Apparently they are so much better for off-road walking! I'm afraid that E, Barnsley-born and bred, is sliding gracefully into the middle classes. He retains his social conscience though, picking up any litter he finds in the streets, and, rescuing "useful" things that have been discarded in neighbours skips. You can take the boy out of Barnsley, but........
And then, mom returned with the other two kids. It was as if a tornado had swept through the house. An adorable tornado though. An adorable, incredibly noisy tornado. Admittedly, they were probably high on e-numbers, having just returned from a kiddies' party, clutching their goody bags in sticky little hands. Apparently, J is at that age when little boys get a rush of testosterone. Well, it showed. The next couple of hours involved J running around laughing and shouting gleefully at all the attention he was receiving, bashing everyone with the balloon he had brought back from the party. He was not quiet. For those of you familiar with the spoof rock classic, Spinal Tap, J's volume control definitely goes up to eleven!
Actually, we had a great time. J and I built flying monsters out of K'Nex, while C helped little R colour in some fairies that would subsequently be turned into badges and fridge magnets. R is big into fairies at the moment. She's a proper little princess. These kids both have really great manners and wonderful imaginations, and, it is a pleasure to spend time with them without the necessity of batteries. Toys without batteries seem to be very rare these days. In any case, they are quite capable of providing their own sound effects.
For those of us without kids, it is hard to explain to those of you who have, how loud children can be. Parents seem to have an amazing skill at blocking this sound out. It washes over them. But, if one of the kids so much as misses a breath in the middle of the night, both parents would be wide awake and by their side in a second. They didn't miss a breath as it happened, but all three kids did have a cough. They coughed through the night until it was time to get up and play. Time to make more noise.
This reminded me of the time I baby sat for the neighbours' three year old boy. Michael was also adorable. He was cute. He was like a cartoon boy with a big head, big eyes, and a mop of brown hair that could never fully be stuck down successfully. He could have advertised Bisto. He was an outdoor kid and would spend hours in the garden with just his vivid imagination for company. He collected worms, newts and snails. He let the snails play on his slide......or should that be a roll? He loved to plant herbs with C in our garden. He would water them and come to visit often to see how much they had grown. On one occasion he touched some wild garlic and then smelled his fingers. He declared: "It smells like burps!". Such wisdom.
Anyhow, I had never babysat before. I was a tad nervous, especially about the "toilet things". Moms in the office spent the day reassuring me that three year olds were normally toilet trained. This was reassuring because I had Michael all to myself for about three hours as C was working late that night. His mom brought Michael round just before they left for their night at the ballet (in Crewe?). "He's just been to the loo so he'll just need his teeth cleaning and a wee before bed." said mom. That was reassuring.
Mom left. A fort was constructed out of the cushions off the sofa and our lounge soon turned into a scene reminiscent of a bomb going off in Toys R'Us. And, just five minutes later, little Michael declared, "I need the loo!" and set off upstairs. He always made himself at home. I wasn't worried until I heard a little cry from upstairs: "D, I keep falling in!". His little bum was too small for our toilet seat. And, so it began!
I had to hold Michael over the loo as he did his number twos. How could such a cute little boy produce such a horrible smell! It was clearly hard work. Michael was straining as if he was giving birth to a baby elephant. His teeth were clenched and he was turning red in the face through his exertions. The smell got worse. The noise was incredible. He was pebble-dashing the bowl. It was quite horrible. I began to retch. Fortunately I kept the contents of my stomach to myself. Things could not get worse.
Then things got worse. Michael finished. Michael skipped off the toilet, turned his back to me, bent over and touched his toes. I had to wipe his bum. Yeuch! I hope I never have to get that close to another human being in my life. My hat goes off to all those parents, nurses and other carers out there for which this is a common occurrence. Maslow's litter tray is about my limit.
C thought all this was hilarious when she got home. Mind you her timing was perfect that night. I had the toilet experience. I then spent the next couple of hours keeping Micheal entertained and tiring him out. Tiring him out!? I was exhausted. C arrived just in time for teeth cleaning, which he managed to do himself, and to read him a bed-time story.....Fair-weather babysitting if you ask me.
Adorable. Hard work but adorable. Noisy but adorable. To all my friends and family with kids, the utmost respect. We love them all. We especially love the way you take them back when we have finished playing. See you all soon. xx
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