The Hack And The Knack

A week to go until my summer hols and with typical good timing my nose is streaming and I’ve developed a hacking cough. I sound like General Grievous only with a slightly annoying Midlands twang. Now there’s a movie – “me an’ the lads ‘ave all been trayned actuall-aye in the ways of the Jed-aye...”

It ain’t nice and it ain’t pretty.

And it’s put me in a bad mood.

See, I should be at home putting my feet up, being waited on and reading a good book. But because I’m on holiday next week I kind of feel honour bound to drag my bones into work this week. Otherwise it just looks like I’m taking the pee and caning an extra week’s holiday out of my employers. Cos that’s what they’ll think, oh believe me, they will.

So I’m at work with my hacking cough and my streaming nose and am exhibiting a major case of the grumps and feel like I want to kill someone. Nothing bad has happened, you understand – nothing huge – but I’m being plagued by lots of petty gripes. A veritable hailstorm of trivial complaints.

Now let me tell you, a thousand wasps are far more life threatening than one solitary rhino. Or something like that.

The main cause of consternation in my peers is this: a lock has broken on a door. Not just any old door but the door to the main Art Store. And if that door won’t close properly it means we can’t alarm the building at close of business... so technically we’ve got a huge effing hole punched into our security measures and (more worryingly ) our insurance policies. So yes it’s a bit of a problem. But the door will close if you have the knack. The knack shouldn’t be necessary I admit – the door should just close and the lock engage all on its own – but that’s not how it is right now. You need to wiggle the handle a bit, tease the lock with the key. Caress the mechanism. Show a bit of love. Then the door will close and lock as good as gold.

I’ve told people this. You need to employ the knack until the locksmith arrives. There’s nothing to be done until then. Either use the knack or don’t use the knack. But don’t bother me with it. I need peace and quiet and space enough to cough up my lungs in a manner that befits my station in life.

i.e. All over my kennel.

Bloody dogsbody, me. Bah.

Windy Billets

A 6 year old, a 7 month old baby, two adults developing colds and one sitting a major Uni exam in 7 day’s time holed up in a tent in the middle of tornado conditions in one of the wettest valleys in mid Wales... were we utterly mad?

Quite possibly.

It’s fair to say that the weather could have been better. High winds when we arrived had the farmer guffawing at our efforts to erect our Vango uber-tent in his camping field though I’m at pains to point out that Karen and I achieved this assignment so singularly that ours was one of the few tents in Wales not to be blown out into the middle of the North Atlantic by the end of the day.

When we asked the farmer what the forecast was like for the rest of the week he smiled and nonchalantly replied “first the wind, then the rain”.

And he wasn’t bloody wrong.

Anyone who’s ever sat in a tent while the wind howls around them outside knows how oppressive and claustrophobic such an experience can be. However, we could just about cope with that. The kids were fine and we were definitely getting lots of “fresh air”. The torrential rain on Monday evening however was the last straw. Karen and I were feeling decidedly rough by this point and just could not get warm. All our plans to walk the hills had gone for a burton and we just couldn’t face another few days sitting miserably on a plastic ground sheet listening to the deluge outside fall at a 33 degree angle in an attempt to perforate our tent defences.

We either had to find an emergency B&B or bite the bullet and head home.

Our one and only stroke of good fortune saw us locate possibly the last free B&B in the area – another de-camped family tried literally 5 minutes after us and were turned miserably away. I admit I took sadistic pleasure in their disappointment knowing that we had secured the one-and-only room for ourselves.

Ah. What can one say about a proper bed and a television? A sofa and an en suite bathroom? Cooked breakfast and no washing up? Such things are worth killing for. Honestly.

The rest of the holiday was alas a bit of a wash out – 2 of the museums we went to turned out to have closed down and the weather was still too inclement to risk a walk in the hills. So we mooched around Machynelleth, Corris and Betws-Y-Coed and took comfort in the fact that the weather was ineffably worse back at home in Leamington Spa.

Ho hum. Another Great British Holiday experience notched onto the old umbrella handle.

We got home Thursday afternoon and I then had to get my head around some last minute revision for my Uni exam on Saturday. Poetry In English Since 1945. And what a bitch it was too. One of the toughest exams I’ve ever sat. I had to answer 3 questions. Normally I run through the list of questions at the start and put an asterisk next to the ones I feel competent enough to answer. By the end of the list I’d earmarked just one.

Gulp.

I had to find 2 more. 2 more!?

Suddenly being stuck on a hillside in Wales with a tornado shredding my sleeping bag around my legs seemed a much healthier place to be...

Grot Wars

With all the recent stresses and strains it was inevitable that one the many microbes that inhabit our atmosphere – a nasty flu-like one in this case – should seize on our apparent weakened state and launch a full frontal assault.

Karen and Tom are currently under siege. Boiling oil is streaming from their noses in a vain attempt to stave off the attackers.

I myself am having to engage in flashy sword-play along my air passages just to try and keep my defences un-penetrated. If they wheel out a siege engine, I tell you, I’m done for.

I’ve left Karen and Tom in bed sneezing their bogeys and ballistas over the perimeter of the bedclothes. It’s a dirty war but someone’s got to do it.

I’m at work putting together a master plan that involves vitamin C, Iron tablets and Echinacea tea. My boss has agreed to release me from my duties early at 3pm sp that I can pick up our boy, Ben (currently neutral in this conflict), from school and then head home and rejoin the fray. My boss is sympathetic but unwilling to commit any of his own men to the battle. Reinforcements will not be coming.

If the worst comes... I have a whisky warhead hidden in a secret silo.

The countdown has already begun...

On The Buses

Fame hungry swine that I am, I have this week managed to get my name inserted into the hallowed pages of the Leamington Courier yet again. Lord knows why they don’t ask me to write the entire ruddy paper for them. Hmm. Probably because I’d demand too much money...

Anyway, the background (for those of you that are interested) is that the local bus company, Stagecoach, have launched a brand spanking new bus service this week. All posh leather seats, fleur-de-lys décor and gold trim. And hardly any space for parents with prams or pushchairs – a subject, as you know, which is rather close to my heart at the moment.

The end result was that Karen, Ben and Tom were refused entry to three buses on the trot one afternoon this week because the one and only space on each bus (which is technically set aside for wheelchair users rather than prams) was already occupied by a mum with a pushchair. There was nowhere for Tom’s pram to go so it was a case of “sorry luv, you’ll just have to wait for next one...” By the time they eventually got home they were all tired, freezing cold and very very upset. A 20 minute journey had taken the best part of an hour.

Not good enough! What’s the use of Italian leather seats a-plenty if you’re not allowed onto the bus to use the damn things? Right, thought I: no-one treats my wife and kids like that...

And so you can read the gory details below. The letter was sent to The Courier and to Stagecoach themselves:

Re: Your new Goldline Bus service

Whilst I am very impressed with the aesthetics of your new Goldline bus service as unveiled this week – the Italian leather seats, the plush navy and gold interiors – there has been a huge oversight on the part of the bus designers.

If you are a young mum with baby in a pushchair or a pram your chances of boarding a Goldline bus are severely diminished because of the lack of provision for such devices within the bus itself.

My wife has been refused entry to your Goldline buses on three consecutive days this week because the “space for wheelchairs” was already occupied by a traveller with a pram. On the second day that this happened she was refused entry to three buses in a row. This meant my wife – recovering from a caesarean, our 6 year old boy and our 4 week old baby were left waiting in the freezing cold for over 40 minutes despite three buses having called in at the bus stop during this period. By the time they were allowed to board a bus night had fallen and the baby was due a feed. Both he, my boy and my wife were understandably very distressed.

To be fair I’d like to state that I have no complaint against the bus drivers at all. They were all sympathetic but unable to do anything about the situation. In fact one commented that “this had been happening all day”.

Having used the G1 service myself I couldn’t help but notice that the only space for pushchairs is actually designated as being for wheelchair users only. It seems no provision has been made for mums with young children and babies at all. I rang your Leamington office this morning and asked what would happen if someone with a pram was occupying the space when a wheelchair user wished to board the bus. Reassuringly I was told that Stagecoach would not ask ticket holders to leave a bus once they had paid for a place and the wheelchair user would have to wait for the next available bus as my wife had done.

In this age of anti disability discrimination I can’t see such a response being sanguinely accepted by any wheelchair user. And given the great pains your bus designers have gone to in order to make buses more accessible to the disabled such a notion rather contradicts all your efforts to make buses accessible for all.

Are wheelchair users and parents with newborns to fight it out at the bus stops with the victor claiming the one and only bus space allocated to them? This is shoddy, second class treatment of both parents and the physically disabled. It just isn’t good enough.

I appreciate that a solution might be difficult to achieve but nevertheless something needs to be done. There are clearly more mums with young children in the Leamington and Warwick area than there are G1 buses... this problem is clearly not going to go away and needs to be addressed ASAP.

Yours sincerely...

In the words of Blakey from On The Buses: I ‘ate you, Stagecoach, I ‘ate you! Aw-haw-haw-haaaw!

Pants

Can’t deny it. I feel absolutely pants today. I’m suffering from a raging head cold and all its many accoutrements. All of which seem to be disgustingly snot based.

However, I bet I’m feeling a lot better than dopey dwarf, Leo Sayer, who comically slit the throat of his own already poorly career yesterday (surely a case of euthanasia?) by evacuating himself, little poo stylee, from the Big Brother house in high dudgeon all because BB refused to supply him with a clean pair of underpants.

Leo it seems refused to wash his own underpants on camera because it was “degrading”.

Hmm. It’s only degrading, Leo, if your grundies are horrifically spattered with turd-stains, haemorrhoid cream or spunk.

Or all three, of course.

Hmm. Is there anything you wish to come clean about, Mr Sayer?

Apparently not.

Not on camera anyway…

Bug

The January lurgy is upon us.

I left Karen ill in bed when I dragged myself valiantly into work this morning. Valiantly because I too am slowly succumbing to the virus that is currently decimating my office. The place is littered with empty seats draped with gooey tissues and drying snot. Supplies of paracetamol are running dangerously low.

Everywhere about me I can hear the barking of inflamed throats and congested lungs, the perpetual sniffle of running noses.

In my mind’s eye I imagine the lurgy bacteria floating about the office like a horde of evil faeries. Every one of them has Leo Sayer’s face.

That is how I know I am sick.