Tag: Stupidity

“Hit the brakes and he’ll fly right by”

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Another cracker from the “80s film random quote generator” much loved by the hedgehog. Until inconveniently corrected by authoritative references, I used to couple it with “Your ass is grass and I’m a lawnmower”, but that is from an entirely different movie. And someone deep in my withery cortex lies the title, the retrieval of which shall make for a happy day sometime in the future.

I’m sure there is a cheating short cut to the answer, and while that would be entirely wrong for something ready to be winkled from analogue memory, it would – had it been available – have been invaluable during, or for preference just before, a crashette on my morning commute.

Car not bike. Five ton tractor ballasted by four mighty hay bales, not a clear road. Narrowing bridge barriered by armco, not forgiving ditch. Too much speed, not enough time. Too fast for the road, too slow when you’re late.

It was a moment of perfect irony as idle wonderment at the almost total lack of traffic on this unlined, twisty backroad morphed into wide eyed terror as my world was filled with high tyred immovable tonnage and not much else. No way I was stopping in time – unless your definition of “in time” includes frontal impacts and mighty airbag action.

A small slither of blacktop looked too narrow an option for the mini-truck to squeeze through, but it was the only option presenting itself before Insurance and Hospitals became involved.

“Hit the brakes and he’ll fly right by” came unbidden to a mind with far more pressing issues to deal with including steering into the tiniest of gaps, bracing for impact and offering a small prayer to the God of Collisions*.

I nearly made it too, missed the tractor wheel by the width of a badger’s todger at the expense of carressing the barrier with the front wheel arch. Inch either side and I was deep in the cacky.**

I had – conveniently – shuddered to a noisy halt at the window of the impossibly sanguine farmer who offered me this from on high “You might want to take it a bit easy lad, third one I has this year and we had to remove the last daft bugger with a fork lift“. He was joking. Probably.

It occurred to me some fifteen shaken miles later that it wasn’t just speed that nearly lunched the X-Trail, more than that this is the route I’ve commuted on about fifty times which is sometimes enlivened playing chicken with wheeled agricultural machinery. Because there is always room for a bike, and if there really isn’t a ditch works almost as well.

So some important consumer advice here; “Cars are wider than bikes“. I expect the armco scrapings will probably polish out, but nothing short of H2S04 steamed through an industrial pressure washer will do the same for my pants.

Proper bottom clenching it was. More on this theme when I’m left alone long enough to tell great lies through the medium of photography and self serving text documenting our mountain trip.

And in case you’re still struggling to identify the film “Screw this up and you’ll be flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong“. I find such missives comforting at times like this.

* “C’mon cut me some slack here. You KNOW how many times I’ve rammed trees on a mountain bike. I’m bloody well in credit”

** We’ve all been there lads. Easy mistake to make in the dark.

Diggit.

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

It has been made abundantly clear to me that I was fully consulted during the garden planning process. And yet, as part of my life strategy that – boiled down – is essentially blaming other people for everything, I beg to differ. Because I have wasted enough time, mucky spade in hand, to fully comprehend the horror that seven large flower-beds will bring.

Let me bring you with me here; if we exchange the couplet “flower bed” for “Weed Anarchy“, you begin to understand the futility in attempting to repel borders which are being over-run with an army of spikey green.

Somewhere in the dense jungle may be the expensive items we bought and carefully planted last year. But I’m not sure why we bothered, because if the long winter didn’t do for them, all sorts of unwanted aliens appear to be eating what’s left.

n the same way that life would be significantly fairer if lettuce had the taste and texture of sausages, weeds should not be allowed to grow faster than stuff you’d actually like to see. And if we don’t tackle the rampant little buggers soon,they’ll became terrifyingly rocky horror show and impervious to anything short of Napalm.

Happily, I am rarely allowed to weed unaccompanied, or at least supported by detailed drawings of what needs ripping outand what cost a fiver and was recently buried on purpose. I have worked hard on being this useless, honing my techniques and asking “This thing here… yes this one with the flower on it… it’s a weed, yes? No? Oh I’ll put it back then. Or what’s left of it anyway”.

Carol has done a brilliant job sorting it out although somewhat tired of spending days being “Woman with Trowel”. However our efforts have lessened our focus on the bottom half of the garden mostly lost to trampolines, a half completed Poultry Alcatraz, a dry pond and weeds that are bristlingly face high. Honestly, if I don’t get that Chicken run finished soon, I’ll have Kevin Whasthisname from Grand Designs turning up and doing a head shaking piece to camera.

Obviously I have a solution. And just as obviously it’s grounded in creating the most amount of carnage for the least amount of effort. Enter petrol based powertools – a friend’s strimmer is barely disguised as Lucifer’s motorised hell on earth. It even has a set of handlebars, which are probably designed to provide some form of control once the monster two stroke has spluttered noisily to life.

Largely pointless to be fair. Once it’s running so are you are an unwilling parter in a brutal, random and whirling tango . “Get the kids inside” I shouted over the cacophony of an unsilenced engine on full throttle* while fronting up to inch width nasties giving me the leafball**

The next twenty minutes were lost to a swathe cutting circuit of the garden scattering weeds, grass, plants and the odd fence post amok. Nothing could withstand the whirling death of the brushcutter including my now numbed hands and bleeding ears. I couldn’t stop tho, locked into a grisly dance with anything organic and having the temerity to sprout unasked.

A juddering stop revealed that such actions quickly drain a full tank of petrol, and a quick personal inventory had me laughing out loud at my now “greened up” complexion. Surveying my work, it was hard to independently assert that this part of our garden actually looked any better. One thing no-one could deny though, it was certainly lower.

One half cocked job completed, it was time to beef up the vegetable plot or “Insect Buffet” as I like to think of it. I can almost hear the stamping of impatient tiny feet and twitching of hungry proboscis as we carefully plant a whole raft of leafy goodness. I take a long hard look at natures’ bounty before reconciling myself to a chewed up wasteland some time in the near future. Maybe their is some work for the strimmer here on the insect harvesting front.

Still keen to do something strimmery, disappointment was the chief emotion as my plea to use this somewhat blunt instrument in a surgical strike capacity is firmly turned down. While I backed my ability to sorts the weeds from the daffs, Carol felt my strimming talents could be used elsewhere. Anywhere really even if that meant barely controlled destruction some five miles down the road.

“No I don’t need the car, I’ll strim my way there” I cried. In the pantheon of manly powertools, this rates pretty close to the top, above the whacker plate but possibly still below the jackhammer. Apparently chainsaws are even better, but – let’s be honest about my abilities here – it’d be fun until someone lost a limb. Or a head.

Both Carol and I like gardens. We just don’t like maintaining them which makes me feel that – lovely as it is – the block paving approach didn’t receive sufficient consideration at the design stage. Still, at least it gives me the opportunity to tinker with more oily engines, and I’ve yet to rule out a nuclear upgrade.

* Really this is a proper bloke’s toy. It doesn’t really need a throttle. Unless it has a special “go to 11” setting.

** like an eyeball, only somehow more sinister

Today’s stupid photograph.

On By AlexIn Bikes, PhotographyLeave a comment

Where did I find this do I hear you ask? London, of course where all the nutters live.

This bastard love-child of an£100 Apollo special and a lucky dip into a scrap pile is clearly designed for people to lazy too pedal, or too stupid to realise they’ve been seen from a long way off. Can you imagine trying to pedal that when the battery runs out (about two minutes after full charge I’d wager)

That particular cell type has a little-known feature where over-charging leads to significant explosion. It’d be a kindness, really.

Anyway I need to tell you more about the “breakage contigen” which has now spread into members of my immediate family. And if I don’t write what happened in Exmoor soon, I’ll have to make the whole thing up. Rather than just about half of it as normal.

More of this soon, but first: Chilled Medicine, double dose.

Suits You Sir.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

“I could buy a half decent set of forks for that” was my initial response, when presented with the price for a pair of – sadly non exploding – troons and matching jacket. Okay, the cost may have been somewhat justified by the small detail of them actually fitting but even so…

There is a little shop in Ross that preserves the 1950s shopping experience. You are served by the genial owner who has all the mannerisms of “Mr Humphries” in his prime. I am not sure I needed to have my inside leg measured quite so carefully. Certainly not twice.

Anyway, he listened – politely – while I explained my ongoing suit buying problem. Other than being a tight-arse northerner. One, I am a strapping six foot individual*, but essentially a dwarf from the hips down. Two, being a cycle obsessed freak, my thighs fit in flappy shorts and not much else. Three, because of one, I need a jacket that would double – for most normal size people – as a full body cape and 4) I don’t like wearing suits

He eyed up my carefully thrown-together ensemble (baseball boots, dirty jeans, ancient paint-stained T-Shirt, baldness – possibly trying too hard) and presented me first with a garment of 1980’s shiny-ness. I have to say I was less than keen as even I know the Crocket-and-Tubbs era has clearly passed. But on slipping it over my wonky shoulders, I couldn’t help thinking somehow this was making me look even more debonair that normal. A tough act as I’m sure you’ll agree.

Sadly we ran into what I like to call “the trouser problem“. Either comedy clown-waist or drain-pipe tight thighs. No matter, off he hummed and harred into a stockroom putting me firmly in the mind of Mr. Ben, before returning with a rather traditional Navy Blue Suit. Luckily Carol was there to stop me launching into a diatribe about how boring and old fashioned it looked, before I’d even thrown a leg in. Amazingly, this one fitted even better, although my purchasing decision was now being made purely as a mitigation strategy to prevent further reach-arounds.

Eventually we agreed that with some minor alterations, I’d stop looking like I had stolen it, and talk turned to prices. Problem is, this is a proven sales strategy get the customer something they think they want and then hit them with a price. I didn’t dare ask for a discount in case he offered – instead – to throw in a Cravat or a Shooting Stick. It’s that kind of place.

And yet, I found myself curiously enjoying the experience. He clearly had millions of years of experience. It wasn’t pushy or disinterested. He did actually seem to care that I wouldn’t stride out in my new threads looking as if I’d just been demobbed. Curious times indeed – maybe this is what middle age feels like.

Anyway, as the Clash famously said London is Calling and I am reluctantly answering that call. 72 hours of logistical hell, congestion charges, tube stations, protocols, procedures and speeches. All with two small-ish children who find it all fantastically interesting, and therefore become even more difficult to control. I shall report back early next week on how it all went, unless the speech was so toe-cringingly unfunny, I’ve booked myself instead into long-term therapy.

* in my own mind, and out of range of a mirror.

For this, we had to put up with that?

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I know, I know two consecutive posts with a political tinge, but we live in tumultous times. Or do we – because after four weeks of lie and counter-lie, endless rhetoric, vox-pop postulation and the continued cynacism of an electorate, we appear to be back exactly where we started.

As regular Hedgehoggers’ will know, my firmly held view is that voting for politicians only encourages them, and therefore should only be undertaken after much thought or much alcohol. And so you cannot help to be a bit proud of a nation that absorbs a month of political saturation, debates it, ponders it and then chooses to entirely ignore it.

Early indications would suggest the percentages of the vote are pretty much where they started on April the 6th. This after one bloke was apparently more popular that Churchill, another performed the kind of “smile at the front/stab in the back” volte face we associate with our esteemed Prime Minister, while the posh lad did his best to pretend he wasn’t really.

If they weren’t such a alien race of self important, power hungry lunatics, you would almost feel sorry for them. An exhausting, country-spanning, photo opportunic sales pitch glossing over the cracks (although Chasm feels like a better word here) none wanted to talk about, and instead promising a glorious future that looked pretty unlikey to anyone with sufficient mental prowess to, say, feed themselves.

And at the end of it, no one actually gives a shit. Those who could be bothered to vote – which doesn’t appear to include the much hyped surge of enfranchised individuals fired up by the campaign – stuck a cross where they mostly always had, shrugged their shoulders and waited for the world to end.

Deckchairs, Titanic anyone? I feel we would have been better represented by Private Godfrey and his “We’re all doomed” prophesy. Stock Markets in free fall, riots on European streets, panic on Wall Street, Budget Deficit with lots of scary zeros, 2.5 million umemployed, the gap between those with and those with not ever widening and, almost propetically, it’s pissing down.

I think I’ll just go and hide under a blanket until someone trustworthy tells me the worst is over.

I only work here.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Well only if the much heralded “Be extremely Charitable to Verbs Day” had finally dawned. We’ve a long and proud history on the Hedgehog of documenting* that the British Service Industry is as much an oxymoron as “A night of song and entertainment with Les Dennis“.

The Car Park/Large Note Depository abutting our offices installed a shiny line of mutli-currency payment machines where one can part with a weeks’ wages for the pleasure of parking your car for an hour, and descending stairwells smelling of old tramps and fresh piss. The only obvious wet-wear** in this electronic package is a lonely soul hutted out of harms way and surrounded by a million monitors, which he cheerfully ignores as your homeward transport is being car jacked.

Except not tonight. A snaking, shivering and vibrationally angry queue trod a menacing line to his armoured window. The reason soon became clear – a total systems crash had left the normally chirpy machines dark and silent. Occasionally one flickered fireflying desperate commuters to its’ blinking screen only to accept their ticket but reject their payment. These poor deluded types then attempted to rejoin the now epic queue from whence they’d left. Ranks were closed and cold shoulders turned to indicate the only place for such technology believers was right at the back.

The much chastised attendant was having to ring through every credit card transaction as the cashless economy foundered on the rocks of the minimum wage. From my place mid-queue I idly calculated that five minutes per ticket processed had me standing in an every more grumpy crowd for about 45 minutes. At which point it went properly dark and started snowing. Briefly a rumour circulated that if you had the right change, a combination of two machines and some Fibonacci key sequence may stamp your exit card, but most of us were far too savvy to fall for that queue jumping trick.***

At this point, a second attendant began to police the rank informing us all the ticket machines weren’t working, and – more importantly – how this wasn’t his fault. Bored, I engaged the fella in conversation:

“So tell me, how can all the machines fail at the same time” / “Dunno Mate”

“Isn’t there some kind of backup, fail safe, that kind of thing” / “Dunno Mate”

“Do you know when it might be fixed” / “Dunno Mate”

“Have you asked?” / [receive look of intense trade unionism] “I only work here Mate”

Time passed. Skies turned to black. Feet turned to ice. Brummies turn to near violence. My turn at the booth ended with a brief round of applause, as I was holding real currency and thereby short-cutting the approval process by five minutes. Even exhibiting the first signs of hypothermia I retained sufficient mental collateral not to ask for a receipt. Because I have other things to do this year.

My exit from the centre of this EMP strike was briefly halted by a third “parking operative” stopping me splintering the barrier movie style, by inserting his rather over-fed girth between me and the slot where tickets open Hell’s Portal to the Hagley Road.

“What’s up” I asked innocently “Got to check your ticket”

“But the exit machine is working now isn’t it?” / “Yes”

“So why are you having to check my ticket? That’s stupid” / “Dunno”

“Did you ask?” / “Just doing my…..”

Let me stop you there I thought. Here’s some advice tho, if you’re ever lucky enough to exit via the second exit from the Broad Street car park in Birmingham and you notice a rather lumpy sleeping policeman, you ain’t see me right?

It is become increasingly clear to me, I am the only sane man amongst a bunch of lunatics. It’s like The Matrix with no red pill.

* Or if today was instead “stop poncing about with fancy words” we’d probably have to admit to Moaning.

** I’ve been hanging out with programmers for far too long “Yeah sorry chief, got to net myself some realtime in the blueroom to interface wth the wetwear” which roughly translates as “I’m off outside for a smoke and a bag of chips”

*** In the olden days, we would have RELISHED this. People would have joined the queue merely in the spirit of enquiry. World’s gone to shit, I blame the Internet.

I was so angry..

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

… I wrote a letter. Yes that’ll show ’em. ’em being eON the purveyor of not enough electricity and excuses. We survived last winter on convection heaters and wearing eight layers of clothing. All the time soothed by various identikit representatives from eON that, as the fiasco was entirely their fault and they’d cocked up fixing it not once, not twice but THREE times, they would pay for the eye watering costs of running five 3kw carbon unfriendly heaters.

A year on, and nothing has happened. Well I say nothing, from our end we’ve been polite, considerate and diffident asking for the occasional update on when we might be repaid. The latest email from the jobsworth from engineering this morning denied all knowledge of any agreement, and wondered if he could fob us off with a different department. Attractive as that solution was, instead I went for the nuclear option creating this email and copying it to the head of public relations and the managing director.

I don’t expect they’ll ever pay, but hey I feel better.

”

Dear smartypants,

Your recent email is nothing more than another wasted effort to resolve this problem. eON have shown a total lack of ownership, clarity and urgency to resolve a problem ENTIRELY of their own making. eON further have clear and documented liability in failing to provide us with sufficient power to run our heating system.

The convection heaters were a tactical solution to keep our young family warm during the winter. As parents, the health and well being of our children is of course our primary concern. Whereas eON’s primary concern should be the rather more simple supply of electricity. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, nor should it have dragged on FOR ANOTHER YEAR in which eON have failed to deliver on their promises, comedically failed to sort out our account and attempted to wheedle out of their responsibilities. All this time we’ve been paying for electricity eON had promised to reimburse is for.

You clearly are not interested in us as a customer. You have many others, and I am sure we are nothing more than a difficult issue that you don’t want to deal with. From our perspective however, we are powerless in our attempts to seek closure to a very upsetting and financially crippling set of circumstances that ARE ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT. We are staggered that you offer nothing but lame excuses, and even those have to be dragged out after weeks of silence. Did anyone ever make clear to eON that their customers are kind of an important tenet of their business model?

So here’s some news. We’re not going away. We’re not going to be fobbed off, beaten down by your apathy and excuses, re-directed to someone else who will waste our time. We’ve made our case patiently and politely and you’ve responded cravenly and inconsistently. It is pointless to try and convince you of the justness of our case, although any outside review body would clearly see it as absolutely watertight. Therefore three options present:

1) Pay us the money you promised. Within thirty days.

2) Provide us with someone in your organisation who has authority to resolve this. That person clearly isn’t you. Failing that, we’ll start with the MD.

3) Do nothing (I’m guessing from the history of this fiasco this will be your default position) in which case we’ll opt for OfGen and the local press who I’m sure will be delighted to cover a human interest story where “ as usual “ faceless corporations ride roughshod over poor consumers.

You may take from the e-mail that we are angry and frustrated. And you may feel insulted by the tone. Please understand we really didn’t want to go for the Nuclear option, but you’ve left us with no option. eON have “ for over a year “ failed on their obligations to serve us as a customer. And the only people suffering in this time are us. So we have every right to be irritated with both you and your firm.

Please advise us of your response.

”

Do I sound angry? I hope so, I certainly felt fairly vexed while I was writing it.

Phone Bill.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

The price I paid for losing my mobile earlier was to learn that even our little part of the world is sadly full of cocks. The phone and I parted company on British Camp, the most easily accessed and therefore busiest on the Malverns. It should not surprise regular readers that I’d abandoned it, what with my personal belonging regularly being scattered far and wide over a number of continents. Phones, Wallets, Sunglasses and – I kid you not – on one occasion my car tend to go AWOL, although mostly returned through the kindness of strangers.

Losing the work phone SIM is a bugger because until you’ve smothered yourself with Nutella and been prostrated naked in front of the Vodafone helpdesk, they refuse to even accept you have ever owned one of their products, never mind losing one. I say SIM because it was encased in my old “weekend” mobile which I’d thoughtfully left on silent. Furthermore it’s furnished with only a few names of chosen drinking buddies and my wife via her nickname*.

So the poor sod who found it was faced with a dialling dilemma: “Trousers Jenkins” or “BogDoor Bob” being a couple of the more sensible entries, and this to a man who does not have English as his first language**. Eventually my Mum received an 8PM phone call from a nice fella recently of Poland, who enquired if she had a geographically displaced son with a penchant for lobbing expensive electronics out of his backpack. After initial confusion, she rallied magnificently and soon I was on a mercy mission to re-unite myself with my phone.

Which is where the story should end happily, but it doesn’t. Because this amicable gentleman, out taking an early morning walk with his lad, had attempted to flag down some mountain bikers after failing to get my attention once I’d launched Space-Nokia-1 into a low orbit. Now if it were me, or the guys I ride with, we’d have stopped, exchanged pleasantries, and either taken it into care until an Internet forum burped up the owner, or offered any other help we could have.

Not these cocks tho. A whole bunch of them basically told him to fuck off and get out of their way. I can only assume he was somehow in their way, and their version of shared trail access worked on the principle that some animals are more equal that others. This has made me really bloody angry. For two reasons; firstly how can people of some kind of shared-outdoor-experience be so damn rude and inconsiderate? Secondly – and far worse – was the chaps acceptance that somehow “it’s okay, I don’t mind, some people are like that. Especially to us“. No it bloody well is not okay, it never is and it never will be. The shrug and phrase “especially to us” made me wince with embarrassment.

Sure I only know one side of this story, but riding in London for three years de-constructed the myth that all cyclists are good and everyone else is a twat. Almost the other way round in far too many cases, and nothing since has convinced me otherwise. So I could well imagine this playing out exactly the way it was told, and someone needs a good bloody slap. Forget the fact that cyclists are already demonised by most other trail users in the Malverns, many of who are on a mission to enact a partial or full ban. That’s merely a side show to the fact that we are the most scary people in those popular hills, and we need to show a bit of bloody respect.

That’s why we ride early in the morning or late at night. It’s why we try really hard not to bring ourselves into conflict for the sake of it. It’s because we understand the fragile nature of competing groups on a small set of hills. Well most of us do anyway.

I’m pleased I’ve got my phone back, I’m really fucking angry about how.

* we’re not going there. Glad I got it back tho 🙂

* Kindred Spirit you might say.

Heartless.

On By AlexIn Road RidingLeave a comment

That’s what my dusty HRM indicated after I’d harvested it from the foetid outreach of a forgotten draw to which electronic tattery is dispatched. There is all sorts of esoteric shit in there which considering the high incidence of fadderyness exhibited by yours truly is no real surprise. What was that it seems everyone has a similar repository for stuff too expensive to skip, but not interesting enough to use. Mine is larger of course – including strange shaped beepy things with fading displays that don’t seem to do much other than chirp noisily.

Bit like some people I work with. Anyway new batteries refused to kick start my heart as far as this£20 single use monitor was concerned, and dead it remained until I sprayed my nipples with WD40* while threatening the strap with a hammer. I was going to write a bit about the total pointlessness of such devices, only to find I already had. Back in the days when I was a bit more amusing as well 😉

It will accompany me riding come Sunday, for the sole purpose of knowing how many beats my pounding heart is banging out while I’m involved in some unpleasant hill based action. My theoretical max is pretty low now what with me being old and all that, but I reckon I’ll top that even if I have to die trying. It’d be a good way to go.

Because I may be killed anyway by my mountain bike friends, who are already threatening ex-communication after the public debagging of my furtive roadie-lust. Any further mentions of “The Essex Lightening” ** shall bring down the might of previously mild mannered riding buddies. I am concerned by their threats of exactly what I can expect once they’ve had a chance to forge weapons from the carbon frame. The “It’s all bikes, it’s all good yes?” has fallen on deaf ears this time, so I’d be leaving the HRM, GPS and any visible Lycra behind for our Quantocks trip next weekend.

There is a thing here thought – past years have seen January as a boiling over of Christmas excess not lanced by frozen attacks of random hills. Maybe it’s the new bike thing, maybe it’s a not getting any younger thing, maybe its a wanting to get fit thing but whatever it is, I’d ride every day right now if I didn’t have to go to work. Sadly, those new bikes have to be paid for.

Heart Rate now 51 as I sit here typing. I am off to see if there are Elephants’ in our recent ancestry.

* Not strictly necessary, but having already purchased something called a “mini wedgie” today, I felt it was appropriate to continue the smutty theme.

** Thanks to Ian for naming the road bike. I like that very much 🙂

Customer Service

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

A topic oft returned to on the Hedgehog, although even I must admit to being surprised at the litany of frustration aired in the last four years. And not only that, but tail-gating that thought was the even more scary mental scribble that this blog has somehow limped into its’ fifth year. The only thing that sustains me is the knowledge that – collectively – you’ve wasted more time reading it, then I’ve spent violently plunging forehead to keyboard while writing it. But, really, five years – come on that’s not a bad lifespan for a pet, you’d get four hamsters, a couple of Gerbils and a neurotic rabbit out of that. But enough of my domestic ménage a lot fantasies, and let’s press on.

So we shall – predictably – begin with a complaint. A banker post for those wankers who have heard the phrase mentioned around their job description, yet it continues to pass them blissfully by. I’ve bought and paid for a collection of bike parts to finally complete the new ST4 project. For this week anyway, and a goodly number of them actually serve a purpose other than the pursuit of cosmic blingery. Yes another Internet transaction easily completed some time ago except for the tiny matter of delivery. ParcelForce’s tracking system appears to have been designed sometime during the first flushes of computer software, so spews out unrecognisable codes and truncated messages instead of actual information.

Reading between the runes, it became apparent that the delivery driver had three times loaded up my parcel, only to decide he really couldn’t be bothered with a 300 yard stretch of road that’s been successfully navigated by fleets of tractors, 4x4s, family cars, small hatchbacks, bicycles, a loon on a motorbike and even an octogenarian white knuckling a beige mini metro*. Being the kind of person who always first thinks of others (assuming there’s something in it for me of course), I spent ten minutes I’ll never get back trapped in the ACD** offering me all sorts of spurious services while not-very-gently redirecting me back to the informationally embarrassed web site.

Then it caught me out by a human cheerily announcing “Hello this is Susan, how can I help you?”. Two things sat behind a bitten lip; firstly “is it in your power to eat the person responsible for programming the IVR?” and hard on the heels of that was “Why if my local depot is 10 miles away in Hereford am I talking to someone with a fine cut Geordie accent?”. But no, remember I’m here to help, save them a trip, don’t put yourself out, let me collect the package, that kind of thing, so I opened with a pleasant “You can, I’d like to collect a package please”

I think Susan – lovely as she was – may have been a frustrated secret agent as she pumped me for information*** specifically around “the contents of my package” (Frankie Howerd had nothing on me at that juncture I can assure you), any secret tracking codes I may have fought some Germans for, and the exact nature of the request urgency. I lied – obviously – and told her I was a heart surgeon and budget cuts meant NHS patients didn’t get a bike courier any more. But since it’d only been there three days, it’d probably be fine. And then the conversation stopped being odd, and started being annoying.

“I’ll call the Gloucester Branch for you and see if that’s okay Dr. Leigh”

“Er, okay but my package/heart/bunch of lies is in Hereford”

“Oh I know, but” (Showing her inner workings of Royal Mail) “they never answer the phone there, so we’ll try Gloucester”

I may have gone on a bit here pointing out that the alternate approach of setting fire to the staff at the Hereford Depot until one felt compelled to answer the phone would be my preference. After a minute of this, I paused for breath only to realise I was on hold.

“Dr Leigh? Hello, yes I’ve spoken to the depot and there is some good news and some bad news”

“Right, well I’m looking at the patient, and frankly I wouldn’t want what’s going to happen on YOUR conscience if we can’t sort this out”

PAUSE: “Well, you could get it from Hereford normally no problem, but I’m afraid it is too icy for collections”

“I shall be the judge of that as I am in possession of the might X-Trail that laughs in the face of sheet ice”

“Oh no Sir, you don’t understand, it was too icy for THE DEPOT TO BE OPEN. There is no one there, Health and Safety you see They were afraid there would be falls and bruises”

And I thought “What a bunch of workshy slackers. Scared of falls? Really? They seem to spend 99{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of their time on their arses anyway, so already pretty bloody well practised I’d have thought. Can hardly tell the Post Office is still bloody nationalised can you? Because while normal commerce has happily carried on outside our door for a week, the postman’s been sat in the depot drinking tea and wondering whose turn it is to fetch more biscuits. Jesus, how bloody hard is it? When the bloke does turn up, it’ll be sodding hard suffering as he will from the lashing of my tongue followed up with the sledgehammer of unhappiness”

But I didn’t say it even when provoked with a “And they don’t expect to be in tomorrow, or Wednesday. Some hope for Thursday or Friday apparently if the weather improves”

Because really it’s not that important. I’ve other bikes to ride and I already have. It’s not Susan’s fault the Hereford Depot doesn’t think we’re worth breaking a leg for, and really there are a load of shit things going on in the world and this isn’t one of them. That’s a train of thought that has me cognisantly derailed though, because I don’t do reasonable nor do periods of the serene and the sanguine ever visit my much ruffled person.

I thought on and further realised I’d gone a whole week without a drink, and not for some pointless resolution but because my preference was for a nice cup of tea most evenings. Put this together and I find it troubling. Which is what I’ll be doing to the real Medical profession if it continues, specifically the Mental Health department.

It’s all new for 2010. I’m clearly going mad.

* Okay he ended up in the ditch, but that’s hardly statistically significant.

** Automated Call Director in case you were interested. Oh you were? Well actually, that’s a bit of a generalisation as ACD Is primarily for out-dial. What I was dealing with here was nothing more than a bog standard IVR on a closed loop. I know about this stuff, and you could too. No really, it’s terribly interesting, especially to girls.

*** At my age, that’s as good as it gets at 10am on a Monday morning.