Well, with the niceties out of the way here are your company’s new regulations for the year ahead.  As we are now entering a triple-dip recession our ‘open door’ policy will be locked as of your return to work.  This procedure has been implemented to reduce the amount of death threats and violence directed at the management once you have read this notice.  

 Sick days & Surgery: We will no longer accept a doctor’s sick note as proof of illness.  If you’re able to reach a surgery, you can make it into work, and operations are now banned.  As long as you work here, you’ll need all of your organs and shouldn’t consider having any removed.  We hired you in tact and to have something removed constitutes a breech of your contract.

Holidays: Each employee will receive a 104 days paid leave.  They are to be called Saturday and Sunday.  Death is no excuse for missing work.  There’s nothing you can do for a dead friend or relative, and every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements.

Bereavement leave: In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be arranged for the late afternoon.  We will be glad to let you to work through your lunch-hour and subsequently leave one hour early, providing your share of the work is complete.

Absent for your own death: This will be accepted as an excuse, on the understanding that we receive at least two weeks notice.  Remember, it’s your duty to train your replacement.

Toilet use: Too much time is spent in the toilets.  We now require you to go in alphabetical order.  All workers whose names begin with ‘A’ will be allowed to visit the toilet from 8:00 to 8:20.  Should you miss your allotted time, you should wait until the next day.  In extreme emergencies emplyees may swap their time with a co-worker.  Both employee’s supervisors must agree this exchange in writing.

In addition, there is now a strict 3-minute rule in each cubicle.  At the end of 3 minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper will retract, and the door will open.

Lunch & Dress code: Thin workers get an hour for lunch as they need to eat more in order to stay healthier.  Average size people get 30 minutes to maintain a normal figure.  Obese staff will get 5 minutes as that’s all the time needed to drink a Slimfast.  You should come to work dressed according to your earnings.  If we see you wearing new attire we will assume you don’t need a rise.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your loyalty to our company and hope you will take advantage of our new ‘sweat miles’ reward card.

Fondue or don’t (Part two)

I sat in a silent agony with a mouthful of well-chewed salad plants, making nodding gestures at the points were everyone else was able to open their mouths and laugh out loud.  I got an insight as to what an overfed hamster must feel like, and I can tell you now, life’s no fun when you’re just left with your nostrils to breathe through. 

I was left with no other option but to guffaw through my nose, as my throat had signed off for the night and hadn’t bother to book an iron lung.  It relieved some of the pressure, but it didn’t go half way to solving my problem and, in desperation, I resigned myself to prayer, hoping upon hope that Sally was near the end of her story, but she wasn’t.

While I fought with my body’s natural defence against choking to death, Sally began re-enacting the scene with the umbrella and added a running dialogue – and they say there’s a God!  At the precise moment of contact, the woman was about to announce her destination and said, “One to the Mount please.” 

Now, in the cold light of day that statement was about as un-humorous as you could get but, add the sharp end of a brolly to the equation and the sentence takes on a whole new life.  If she said it once Sally repeated the phrase half a dozen times or more and what the pensioner actually ended up saying in a high pitched voice was, “One to the MOOOOOOOOUNT please,” as she was speared from behind.  Well that was it for me; I couldn’t shift the vivid picture from my mind.

I’d had a good run and, considering I’d been breathing through my schnoze for the past five minutes, I thought I’d done quite well.  My lungs, on the other hand, simply couldn’t take another repeat of when and where brolly met jacksey, followed by a mass outbreak of infectious laughter from around the table. 

After a swift confab with my throat, my brain sent an urgent one-word message back which read, “Eject, eject, eject!”  There wasn’t a hint of coughing or gagging, or spluttering of any kind and the velocity of the mulch was purely fuelled and projected by a backlog of my laughter.  Up it came – and out it went, and it all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to put my hands in front of my mouth.

Once I’d begun to laugh my little face off, and unfortunately I found it hard to stop, I had a clear throat again and for the first time in 10 minutes was able to bend my neck forward.  On achieving this position I sprayed my trousers in a fine mix of well chewed flora, but not before I managed to spray a good number of guests, the table cloth and the table’s contents in an arc of 45 degrees. 

I hit the wall behind the guests too, leaving a green silhouette of four people’s heads.  I’d coated the faces, clothing and drinks, and the meals of complete strangers, and they were picking greenery out of their hair and clothes for the rest of the evening.  Thankfully they all thought my eruption was hilarious but the night wasn’t over yet, and I still had an hour or so to go before I could take my final bow.

During a lull in the laughter at my expense the kettle was put on and, a short time later, the best crockery arrived displayed on a hostess trolley.  It was mum’s finest high grade, eggshell porcelain – very posh.  I was just thankful I didn’t spray that!

Now, I don’t know what was used to heat the water in my cup but there was no way it could have come from a bog standard kettle.  Sally handed out the drinks and then walked over to where I sat on the sofa to give me mine.  I assumed she was going to put my tea on the table that separated us.  First rule in life – never assume anything! 

I’m not sure whether it was the fact that she had two options of where to place my drink that caused her a directional problem, but as I held out my hand she leant forward and then hesitated, and then for some inexplicable reason Sally bypassed the table and my outstretched hand and dropped the lot in my lap.

She put a hand over her mouth to stifle a string of worried, “Oh’s,” and for a brief moment I remained silent.  Obviously this state was to change when the cataclysmically heated liquid reached my wedding tackle!  In no time at all it had soaked its way through my jeans and boxer shorts, and came to rest on some very sensitive skin.  Now you’d have thought that, by the time the scalding water had reached the old family jewels, there might just have been a drop in temperature?  No – was the short answer to that!  

I began panting like a bloodhound that had just come last in a marathon, only through gritted teeth.  My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but the salad spraying incident did, perhaps this was payback time?  I was trying hard not to swear as Sally’s mum was present but I came very close to giving into temptation I can tell you.   I stood up.  Stupid, stupid, move!  Gravity took over, and I now had rivulets of a boiling infusion heading towards my knees!

Like I needed reminding, my brain flashed up a signal to the effect that 40 percent of my lower half was now on fire.  Soon after my mouth joined in the debate and confirmed the diagnosis.  “Ferrrrrrrrrrr Chriiiist ssssake that hurts,” I winced.  Sally panicked, then turned a bright scarlet and apologised more than once and then asked if there was anything I needed.  Well a bucket of cold water wouldn’t have gone amiss. 

She ran towards the kitchen saying she going to get her nurse’s kit.  I shouted after her, “Don’t bother love the dress will never fit me.”  She stopped in the doorway and collapsed into a heap of laughter and so did the rest of crowd.  Hell of a night!

Well, that’s it for this year, I’m creamed-crackered and need a rest.  I’ve finshed my second book, while writing with the online bipolar magazine ‘Forward’, which is now back in circulation after a break. 

We’ve been working on a new book called ‘A Bipolar Book’ and it covers the creative people through the years who’ve had and still have  bipolar disorders.  Artists such as, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Frank Bruno and many more.  A Bipolar Book will be released in the New Year.

Forward now has 17,000 readers, worldwide, and if you would like to recieve our free mid-week and weekend editions covering international bipolar news and our humour pages, please send a blank email to  ashby300@hotmail.com  and type ‘subscribe’ in the subject box.

Thank you one and all for dropping by my site, I hope I’ve caused a little  wave of laughter over the last 12 months and you’ll stop by in the New Year. 

Take care and have a cool Yule

A true story                   

Along with Schreiber furniture, orange and brown wallpaper, and carpets and curtains to match, the 70’s saw the arrival of the fondue set on British soil, and they sold like the latest mobile phone does today.  Quite why my age group were buying them, I have no idea, but it seemed the ideal gift of choice for the young lady of the day.  My, how things have changed; give ‘em half a pound of mince now and they wouldn’t know what to do with it!

In 1977 I was going out with the love of my life, and one weekend a friend of Lyn’s invited us to a night of food and drink at her house, fondue style.  At the age of 20 I struggled to see why or how this namby pamby, arty farty way of eating had become so popular in England.  I mean it was no good if you were Hank Marvin (starving). From what I’d heard about this style of cooking, it could take you anything up to three days to cook a ten ounce steak as it was cut into half inch cubes first! 

There was no doubt about it – we should have been supplied with a larger pot!  And don’t get me started on why anyone in their right mind would want to cook cheese in the same manner!  The only answer I could come up with at the time was that it might have made a reasonable substitute for napalm.

I also wondered why no one had advised me to take a first aid box with me on the night.  Well, quite simply the information wasn’t available.  We didn’t have the luxury of a website or a support group back then, and up until that point, as far as I knew, no one in the British Isles had ever been scalded while eating a Sunday roast or sausage and mash! 

So I guess it was purely down to the embarrassment factor that the injury rates of fondue cuisine hadn’t leaked out which proved to be costly, as we were all fondue virgins.  Looking back now I think at the bare minimum there would’ve been a member of the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade present. 

The condition you were most likely to incur was later defined by a Dr Schnooltzberg at the Scandinavian Institute for gob burns, and it was his 20,000 page thesis that described the problem as, FM burns or Fondue Mouth. 

In later years the British Medical Council updated his work for the NHS, and in the London area at least, the condition was known as, FTHM syndrome or, ‘Fuck That’s Hot Mother.’  This ailment was caused by one of five things in Britain alone, rampant starvation, being pissed and/or a combination of hot oil, hot food and an even hotter fondue fork.

There was a mix of people attending that night, some my girlfriend and I knew from the pub, and a few were work mates of our hostess, Sally.  Have you ever been to a social gathering where, no matter what someone does, they’re going to make a prat of themselves? 

Well as it turned out it was going to be me.  The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away… remember that when it’s your turn won’t you.  Overall, I put it down to the law of sod, and if I’d had half a clue as to what I was in for that night, I wouldn’t have left my house.  Not even the bookies would’ve given you odds on the embarrassment factor I was to suffer later on in the evening.

The table was set.  A miniature vat of smoking oil took centre stage, and around it were plates of raw meat and four bowls of salad.  Beyond that were trays stacked high with French bread, so much in fact that if you listened hard enough you could actually make out a feint accent!  

There were ooohs and aaahs as small chunks of dead animals sizzled in the fondue bowl, and for a brief period the room smelt like a knackers’ yard!  The very first thing I learnt from that night was that I wished I’d had a square meal before arriving, I was bloody starving by the time the alcohol had taken effect.

The main ingredient of the evening was an abundance of laughing, and that was largely caused by watching the attempts of the guests as they tried to eat the volcanically heated food and speak at the same time.  There was much burning of mouths, lips and cheeks and some of the blame fell squarely on the microscopic copper fondue forks.  Other injuries came to light the day after when the A & E department at Whipps Cross Hospital did a brisk trade in throat and tongue injuries.

My problems began when Sally began to recount a funny story about a journey to her work place.  She was a real giggler at the best of times and had the whole table in fits before she started her description of this event.  She was about to board a bus. 

In front of her was a bloke with a bag over his right shoulder and an umbrella in his left hand with the point facing upwards.  In front of him on the foot plate of the old route-master was an elderly woman who was quizzing the conductor about her destination and holding up the queue in the process.

It sounded like a typical wet Monday morning, the heavens had opened and it was coming down in stair rods.  The passengers’ delay was lengthened because the pensioner at the head of the queue couldn’t hear what the conductor saying.  At this crucial stage matey boy with the brolly began to rummage about his person for his fare and, let’s face it, it’s never where you left it is it?  And even if it was, you’d still check all of your other pockets first, or is it just me that does that? 

As he went from pocket to pouch and back again, his umbrella took on a different guise as it flailed about in the air.  What used to look like a protector against the rain and wind looked more like weapon now.  As the guy still hadn’t found his change, and the queue moved forward by a massive three inches, his search became more frantic.

At this point, the old dear had made contact with the living world again and was now receiving audible messages about her journey and where to get off.  This positive piece of news flashed to the ranks of the first six sodden passengers behind Sally. Unfortunately the full information on where to depart was still seeping into the pensioner’s memory bank and, instead of moving inside the warm dry bus, she started farting about with her bus pass and handbag and remained stock still. 

 The timing couldn’t have been worse.  The sopping wet sextet surged forward pushing Sally into the guy looking for his fare.  As they made contact, his bag slipped off of his shoulder where the strap came to rest in the crease of his right arm.  His natural reaction was to counter the shift in balance but he didn’t have enough room to undertake this manoeuvre and the degree of weight displacement forced the point of his umbrella straight up the pensioner’s jacksey!

On hearing this, my immediate regret was forcing that extra mouthful of salad in my biscuit chute.  I had plenty of time to chew the greenery but, as it turned out, nowhere near enough time to swallow it.  Laughing out loud wasn’t an option as I was wedged between guests I hardly knew, and almost every one of them was wearing light coloured clothing. 

You name it and it was all within spitting distance.  White shirts, white dresses, and white tops, and let’s not forget about the tablecloth, that was spread out like a target area before me; a parachute regiment couldn’t miss it!  Beyond the table was a wall that looked as if it had been papered recently.  Not with the garish patterned orange and browns of the day, oh no, it must have been the only house in the street that’d picked a plain light lemon, just to be bloody different…

Part two next week.

 

He’s got a face you could quite happily slap with a box jellyfish and somehow, from a rock pool in Barking, he’s crawled his way out and is now a member of the European Parliament.  Nick ‘Would you let me kiss your baby’ Griffin made a complete arse of himself recently on Question Time and now the BNP have been investigated by the Panorama team in a programme aired the BBC called, The Fraud Exposed.  The words ‘smoke’ and ‘fire’ come to mind…

Now we all know political parties have their secret funders, and you can’t help but wonder why you would want to remain anonymous?  Some might say it’s because of their integrity and others may say it’s purely down to personal choice, but I’m not sure this is the case when you pledged your allegiance to the British Nasty Party. 

If I didn’t know better I’d say they were spineless coward’s ladies and gentlemen, cowards with something to hide.  Although   from the outside looking in, it seems as if these private funders are embarrassed to be openly associated with this party because of their views on the far right and want to protect their careers.    

I mean, just at a basic level, would you vote for a person who surrounds himself with ‘knuckle grazers’ who only learned to walk upright that week.  Have you seen them?  They all look as if they should be working on the door at an east end night club!  Call me Mr Picky, but wouldn’t it give off a better air if heir Griffin used professional security guards! 

Over the years its clarity and access to information that makes a party popular , that’s why most political parties have a registered HQ which is accessible to the public, and its run by a thoroughly nice chap or ‘chapess’ and an administrator.  Why, there would even be a sign on the outside of the building that would welcome you in for a chat.  Not so for the, so called, British Neurosis Party       

Imagine the meeting somewhere in Barking, east London.  “Where can we set up our HQ so all of our members can drop by and tarry awhile over our policies?  Ooh, I know, how about a low industrial estate in east Belfast!  And who should we approach to set up this base of warm accessibility?  How about that friendly former Ulster Loyalist and fund raiser Jim Dowson?  Perfect!” 

The BNP were resident at this unit for two and a half years, there were CCTV cameras everywhere, but what they didn’t have was a sign outside stating who they were.  Very odd don’t you think?  Surely, if they were that popular they would advertise their party and proclaim their open door policy to their proud members one and all?  Conning the thick and the easily led if you ask me!

As the big bucks began rolling in Mr Griffin had elevated his status to an MEP.  Now would be the perfect time to acquire a decent residence for their party’s headquarters.  Did they aspire to this obvious plan – did they bollocks!  They did   move their operation to Cumbria though, but sadly that’s were the clarity and openness ends, and they left a trail of debt behind them.  In terms of being honest it seems; it doesn’t appear to be the BNP’s most redeeming feature. 

They choose another low key industrial estate for their European Office, unit 3B to be precise, and again they forgot that all important sign outside.  Sound odd to you – I’d say it sounds a tad shady.  But there’s more…  Then they moved their National Office into unit 3A next door, where at some point it’s claimed, the electric was siphoned from their Euro office.  Can you smell smoke?

All claims of the financial irregularities have been denied and this leaves the leader of the British Nazi Party with an unblemished record, for now.  You could he’s whiter than white, I won’t but you could.  So, the date of this text is 00/00/00 let’s see how long it takes the police to catch up with Mr Griffin and his east end tactics, it can’t be long now surely, I’ll give it another 12 months.

On paper, the BNP was technically in solvent in 2009, and again this has been denied by their Fuhrer.  He claims the current accusations have been brought about by former party members with an axe to grind.  Well, if I’d been held hostage in a van in a Tesco’s car park, I think I’d be pretty pissed off! 

Another question you have to ask yourself is, who would you choose to be the party treasurer?  Surely you’d make enquiries with one of the many reputable finance organizations – but no, Mr Griffin chose to employ a former bouncer and lard specialist instead! 

Is it any wonder then, after a 27 year run, the BNP are down to just 10 counsellors  and their membership figures are dropping by the day…

 

Well it’s been just over six months since Japan was hit by an earthquake, and the Daiichi nuclear plant was awash with copious amounts of extra sea water.  As the initial disaster has been out of the news for a while, you might assume that all is well in the orient.  You’d be out of your tiny mind you, but you could!  So let’s have a recap and see if you still fancy a nice long holiday in Fukushima…       

11^th of March, 2011, the facts: it was a sunny day at the nuclear plant where everything was ticking along nicely.  Then WALLOP, a magnitude 9 earthquake shattered part of Japan and this was followed by a 40m tsunami, two natural catastrophes one after another. 

The first two disasters alone wiped out 20,000 people in one hit, and destroyed 125,000 buildings.  The quake was so powerful it lowered the coastline by one metre and shunted Japan two metres closer to the USA!  On the upside, think how much aviation fuel will be saved by the airlines, tickets will be cheaper for a start! 

Anyway, you’d think that would be enough destruction for one day but no – enter disaster three.  The tsunami headed for the nuclear plant, which went on to cause the multiple meltdown of three reactors.  This intern released more radiation into the atmosphere than any accident since the Chernobyl debacle.  Now, everything’s ginger and peachy, according the Japanese Government, but is it? 

If parts of Chernobyl are still fenced off and uninhabitable, 25 years later, how can Fukushima be safe six months on?  If I didn’t know better I’d say someone is telling porkies to up the country’s cash flow again!

Still, always keen to take in all sides of a story, here’s what the powers at be and the locals say.  The government and the power company say the area is safe.  But the locals say so much information has been withheld they no longer trust them.  Sound familiar?  

And as plain as day here’s why the locals have lost faith.  Ministers have admitted holding back vital information in order to prevent a panic.  (That old chestnut)  What that really means is, if there was a panic it would cause problems when notifying the rich and powerful and moving them to safety first. 

The day after the earthquake, there was an explosion in the No 1 reactor.  A couple of day’s later; reactor three blew its stack, and the very next morning there were blasts at reactors two and four.  

These explosions released a plume of radiation, but the government withheldprojections of its size and how it spread up and down the coast and inland to Fukushima city, Koriyama and Tokyo.  The call went out and the statement to the plebs was, “Dear peasants, there is no immediate risk to human health.”  This was an enormous great fib boys and girls.          

The full details of what occurred at the reactor site are still emerging and they are far from complete, and here’s why.  Government spokesmen initially denied there was a meltdown.  Safety authorities ranked the accident at a mere four on the international scale of nuclear cock-ups.

Not until a month later did it upgrade this to a maximum seven – like Chernobyl.  Fibbing on an enormous scale children!  Well okay, let’s just sweep the death/loss of 20,000 people and the damage to a mere 125.000 buildings under a carpet for a moment, which is probably where they’ll stay, and take a look at what’s happening today.

You wouldn’t know there’d been a catastrophe; the whole area has been cleaned up.  But dig a little deeper and the changes are there.  Umbrella sales peaked due to the poisonous black rainthat fell after the explosions, and Geiger counters are selling like hot cakes that have been eradiated and are still warm!  And the local food well, most food clicks doesn’t it!  The good news, no-one in the contaminated areas will need an X-ray for the foreseeable future.          

Clearly the safety goalposts have been moved and the nuclear figures received a thorough massaging, because what was deemed dangerous 12 months ago is now considered safe and legal?  This leaves nearly 2 million residents living in areas where the annual radiation dose exceeds the safety target set by the government!  Someone should at least write a stiff letter don’t you think! 

Even in Tokyo – 240km from the reactors – levels have risen near to a stage where they would’ve been marked with a radiation hazard warning if they were found in a workplace.  Nice!

So, now the dust has settled and the top 50cm of soil has been removed by bulldozers, another set of invisible disasters is emerging.  Yes, as usual, it’ll be the cannon fodder of society, the workers who will show the true toll of a disaster such as this. 

Now there’s a psychological crisis, which you can assume will go on cause uncertainty and depression amongst the survivors.  Most of the local farmers are in despair about their contaminated soil.  The young people are leaving, and in the past six months there’s been an increase in suicides.   

Unlike an earthquake survivors don’t suffer with post-traumatic stress symptoms of insomnia, shaking and flashbacks.  Instead, the radiation creates a slow, creeping, invisible pressure that can lead to prolonged depression.  Some people say they want to die and others become more dependent on alcohol and many more will complain of listlessness.

But, don’t fret, don’t get down or depressed, all naughty nuclear tackle can be sucked out of the air and heavily contaminated soil with… SUNFLOWERS!

They’re everywhere now.  Is it going to help?  I can’t see it personally, but hey, it will brighten up Fukushima until they have to burn the stalks and petals releasing the concentrated radioactivity back into the environment!  Call me old fashioned, but isn’t time to ditch the nuclear nonsense…

Can you hear clicking…

 

I knew exactly what he was thinking, but he still persisted in ignoring me, so I stormed past the front of the bus like a bull that’d just snagged his wedding tackle on the crossbar of his Rally Chopper, and just before I crossed the road I glared at the operator menacingly.  I even had time to flick though London Transport’s book of ‘How to Piss off a Passenger’. 

On page nineteen, appendix iiii, it states: if a driver makes no eye contact with a passenger at any time they don’t exist!  As luck would have it, the temporary lights held up the queue of traffic that bus was sitting in for over five minutes, giving me more than enough time to reach the next stop.  I light up a cigarette and waited in a smug repose for my quarry to pull up.

He rounded the corner and cruised towards me – change in hand and smiling inwardly I hailed once more.  Bastard sailed right passed me again!  I uttered many expletives in the direction of the vanishing bus, mostly beginning with the letters C, F, W and B, but overall I’d say it was the C word that gained the most attention!  I was so incensed I took his number, it was a 67!  I thought, fuck this for a game of soldiers, I’ll write a stiff letter to London Transport’s complaints department, but I couldn’t find a shop that sold stiff paper! 

A swearing fit lasting way past the 60 second mark ensued; and I began cursing again when I notice that some arse had placed yet another decommissioned sign at the very top of the second bus stop.  When I realised how far away the next bus stop was I blew my stack for a third time, I mean I went absolutely ape-shit.  I kicked the shelter, the bin that no one uses, the seating arrangement and finally the bus stop itself, mainly because it had the words, ‘bus stop’ on it!

As is always is the case when you’re mid-thrombi, I’d lost the focus of my surroundings, and it wasn’t until I turned round to light up the obligatory stress fag that I realised I was standing about 10 feet from a primary school.  My explosive outburst had neatly coincided with chucking out time and the playground was full of children, parents and an entourage of teachers. 

Heads, small and large, began turning in my direction as motherly hands cupped their little cherub’s ears.  Oooops!  Still in full fuming mode; I power-walked the 500 yards to next stop.  I know it was that far because I counted every one of my steps.  There was some good news, however, as I stomped my way between the two waiting zones not one single red lorry passed me.  I arrived at the next stop and joined a group of hopeful travellers who, by the looks of it, had suffered a similar transport fate.

Looking for a positive angle, I consoled myself with the fact that at least it had stopped raining.  In fact, the weather conditions were quite the reverse.  There was so much ultra violet light flying about I couldn’t see bloody thing when I looked back up the road behind me. 

Thanks to just the right amount of surface water, left from the downpour earlier, there was a wash of dazzling sunlight, and it was bouncing off the tarmac in the road, the pavement, every window in the street, and off of the slate tiles of the houses too.  You couldn’t even see the general through traffic it just appeared out of what can only be described as Haringey’s first Stargate. 

Twenty minutes or more had passed, and there was still no sign of a bus, but, when a few of the passengers at the head of the queue adopted the posture of a Meer Kat’s lookout, it caused a stir of hope; I even made a grab for my fare.  It was the kiss of death.  What pulled up?  The only other bus on the route, and it didn’t go anywhere near where I wanted to go!  I was so happy for the crowd that got on the bus! 

A newer set of minutes past and another 341 snaked its way up to the stop and, in the space of the next 10 minutes, two more went by.  There was no doubt about it – I was starting to take this personally!  I knew I was, because my fare was starting to melt in my hand! 

Out of the blue, and in the midst of a cloud of hatred of bus drivers all over the world, came a stirring amongst the remaining crowd.  It could mean only one thing, the approach of another red lorry.  After a group hug and swift prayer I flicked my fag butt to the kerb and looked up and there it was – a beautiful bright shiny 67. 

A group of Christians in the queue broke into a chorus of, “When Jesus walked,” and prayer mats bedecked the pavement but the rejoicing was short lived.  Yes it was a forward moving 67 and yes there were passengers within.  It didn’t have a, ‘sorry out of service’, sign on it and no, it wasn’t about to break down. 

If I didn’t know better, I’d say you waiting for the ‘but’ aren’t you?  Well, here it comes.  All of the upbeat emotions, which included relief, were slashed to ribbons when a cockney Asian driver opened the bus doors and shouted out, “Oi, oi saveloy, everybody off.  The bus terminates ‘ere.” 

Tambourines, triangles, pan pipes and sheet music all hit the deck in unison.  I’ve never felt anger spread so quickly amongst a small group of people before; I mean you could actually see the waves of hate washing over the bus. 

Here’s just a sample of what the crowd thought of the driver and his informative speech, after standing around for over an hour.  “C**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, poo, blast and…, buff-oon.”  Well seven of our party were nuns after all!  I’d left the head clinic with hope in my heart, and glee in my knees, at the thought of a swift return home, as it was I managed to scrape home two an a half hours later!  After a day of recuperation, I wrote my letter of complaint and it read… 

Dear Transport Minister,

Could you please take the entire London Transport system and stick it up your dirt box or, at the very least, use the bloody shambles to find out how ineffective it is when you actually need to get from A to B in the same day.

Yours, sincerely hacked-off of Tottenham

 

A true story…

Well we’ve all used it, and deep down we know it’s largely unsatisfying, so why do we go back for more?  The simple answer is, if you’re minus a car you’re forced to use London Transport’s red lorry service.  Oh don’t get me wrong, they’re a bloody marvel if you haven’t got to be anywhere particular at a specific time, but my advice is, give yourself half a chance and leave the day before!

I’d received a letter from the hospital saying that I needed take a blood test for my Lithium levels, and I also had an appointment with my psychiatrist.  I was dreading it.  Not the meeting or the visit to the vampire suite, the journey!  It meant that I’d be at the mercy of three different bus routes, using six buses in all – in short, a bus traveller’s nightmare. 

It wasn’t a cheap trip either; LT had just increased their fares.  Some twat in a suit had come up with the brilliant idea of a blanket charge which meant that even if you only went one stop you still had to fork out two quid, so my round trip cost a small fortune. 

By car, the hospital was literally no more than a 10 minute drive, but I didn’t have a car at the time so I was stuck with the situation.  And to makes things even less appealing when I checked back over some rough figure work I saw that, even if you took into consideration the bus mileage and timescale, it would’ve still been quicker to book a short haul flight!

So I turned up at the place where the big red lorries were supposed to pick you up.  If you haven’t had the privilege of using this form of transport, the object of the game is this in brief.  You, the ever hopeful traveller, hang around for anything up to an hour in all weathers. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a bus shelter but there’s no point in using it as it’s been built with no sides.  When the bus does finally arrive, you board and hand over a small portion of your life savings, and for this you get thrown around for half an hour by the guy sitting behind the safety cage, and if you’re really lucky you’ll get dropped off roughly 600 hundred yards from where you actually want to be!

After just a few moments of waiting, my first bus turned up, and to my total surprise, we made the first leg of the journey in a reasonable time.  I disembarked and my fingers went straight for my cigarettes, as there was no way the second bus would turn up straight away.  I’d just inhaled a lung full of quality tobacco smoke when heads began to turn at the stop and, sure enough, the second licensed bandit was approaching.  This miracle was repeated at the third stop. 

Unbelievable – staggering even, and up until that point in my travel history unheard of, so I arrived at the bonce department with plenty of time to spare.  I went straight in for my blood test, as there was no one else waiting, and my meeting with the head doctor was over in 15 minutes.  I hit the road at 3.20 pm exactly, with the hope that my return journey would be a swift as my arrival… more chance of being ravaged by a brace of nuns dressed in nurse’s uniforms! 

For one single solitary minute, I did toy with the idea of calling a cab.  I had the money in my pocket, which was about the same as the bus fare, and there was a phone in the hospital’s reception with a cab company’s number to hand.  But I thought no, I’ll entrust my faith in the big red lorry network once more.  What a bloody idiot!

On leaving the brain factory I could see my first homeward bound bus heading my way and could only assume that every one of my stars were in perfect alignment that day.  Then a negative thought crossed my mind, I hadn’t a clue where to hail down my nine ton people carrier, as the council had seen fit to dig up the road that day.  

But I needn’t have worried as, behind me was a fully functioning stopper of buses minus its shelter, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-sult!  I stuck my arm out casually and waited for the comforting sounds of air brakes and a hiss that said, “The doors are open mate, step inside.”  Bastard drove straight past me!

I was immediately filled with a sense of rage which was unusual for me, but before I began shouting the odds I thought I’d better check the timetable to make sure it was on the route I needed, and it was.  My sense of loathing elevated swiftly to a hate status.  But, what I’d failed to see was a small yellow notice at the top of the bus stop which said the stop was out of use due to the road works. 

Now at this stage the transport for the poor was held up by a set of temporary traffic lights about fifty yards away and, as these types of lights generally take longer to change than the fixed variety, I figured I had enough time to walk up to the bus and see if the caring sharing son-of-a-bitch would let me on. 

From my position on the pavement I could see the driver, and I knew that he knew I was there, but he’d obviously been flicking through London Transport’s conduct manual to discover how to deal with the, ‘angry client standing outside his bus.’ 

On page nine there are just two short paragraphs.  The first says, “Just drive off.”  And the second states that, “If you find yourself stuck in traffic for any length of time start playing the ‘looking straight ahead game’ – and then drive off.”  I extended a friendly wave.  Did he offer to open the doors even though he wasn’t at a stop, but there was clearly plenty of time for me to board without causing an accident?  Did he bollocks!

I was more than a little pissed off to say the least, but in the distance I could see a glimmer of hope, about a hundred and fifty yards away was another hailing post.  A couple of minutes had ticked by at this stage, so I decided to make my move, especially as I could see that the driver was beginning to lose his cool. 

Oh yes, even though his head was fixed in a facing forward position his body language was beginning to let him down.  There was much gripping and un-gripping of the steering wheel, and from time to time he’d roll his head from side to side in attempt to relieve the stress in his neck.  Boo-wa-ha-ha!

Final part next week…

 

Money, it’s said, makes the world go around, and there I was thinking it’s the gravitational pull between a bunch of planets…

If this is the case, soon the world is going to come to a grinding halt, and the rumour is, it’s the euro that is to blame or should I say the countries that use it, and the twits in charge of finance.  Now I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned our Government can take the euro and stick up a slot where the sun don’t shine.

I believe the initial use for this foreign ‘shrapnel’ was for businesses in the European Union, well if that’s the case why is it circulation on a wider scale?  Well, I’m glad to say I have the answer.

Overall, the banks keep saying they’re short of cash, which really means they’re short of our cash.  So, how do you stump up some extra wonga for your bank in times of crisis, one of the answers is to make up a new monetary system.  It confuses the pensioners for a start, and as we’re all living longer, right there is your source of extra income.  They won’t be able to work out if they’re being ripped off mostly, and this will generate a greater circulation via over paying people like cab drivers, stall holders and disreputable milkman! 

How else could a bank up its income?  Well, once you’ve fashioned your new coinage thus: 2 and one euro coins, 50c, 20c, 10c, 2, and 1c denominations, in order to avoid the use of the two smallest coins, some transactions are rounded up to the nearest 5 cents!  Well excuse me for sounding irate, but you’ve got to be a bloody idiot if you agree to that practice.  Sod it, why not just chuck all of your loose change down the nearest drain! 

Now let’s take a look at the difference between having a gargantuan debt problem as apposed to Joe Bloggs who is 10 months in arrears with the rent.  At a certain stage you notice a lot of letters building up, and they’re all from the same creditor.  More arrive, and in an attempt to deal with this financial crisis, you start putting the letters at the bottom of a draw.  Yes, even bankers to this.

Then one day the financial minister of, let’s say Greece gets a visit from a friend, who advises him to pop along to a meeting for a chat and some sandwiches with lot of other important people who are loaded.  Once there, all of his ‘friends’ say, “We understand you’re a trifle short this month, so we’re going to bail you out.”  Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-sult!

“And to confuse the plebs, when we release this statement to the media we’re going to say you debt has been ‘written down’, rather than ‘written off’.” 

The hope is using this terminology will offset the predict riot, when the masses realise your ‘friends’ have slashed your debt by 50%!”  Ooh, and don’t worry about your job, pension, bonuses, sick pay, health cover and your 16 week holiday package, just look very, very glum when you come into work on Monday morning. 

So, all things being equal you’d expect Joe Bloggs, and man of some means but with a cash flow problem at the moment, would receive the same form of treatment well; it’s only fair isn’t it.  Sadly, when you’re at the bottom of the financial pyramid any shortfall in the Bloggs account is seen as an act of high treason and your life is made a living hell. 

Firstly, more official letters arrive from a concerned Housing Association or Council, in pristine white envelopes.  Like the banker, Mr. Bloggs has so much unopend post now, he has to find anther drawer to put it in!  The only difference between the two parties is the head of wonga cock-ups at the bank shreds his. 

Then… the brown envelope arrives, a sure sign the creditor has passed your arrears on to a debt collection agency, ‘Menace, Menace & Threat Ltd.  “Better put that one right at the bottom of drawer one.”  You think to yourself.

By shear fluke, you pick up the phone one day, and it’s your creditor’s area housing officer, and by and large the games up.  Fortunately, after worrying yourself to death for months on end, the officer is sympathetic to your circumstances, and for the most part the pressure is off.  A meeting takes places and a way of repaying your arrears is put in place, without too much of a dent to your income.

It’ll still cut into your food and other household bills of course, so Joe Bloggs puts forward a solution of his own.  He says, “Couldn’t another borough or boroughs lend me the money for my debt and you slash my arrears by 50%, and I’ll repay the money, say in, 20 years?”  The officer stops and ponders on the question and replies, “Mr. Bloggs – now you’re just taking the piss, if we all did that the country would be in a right state!”  Here endeth the first lesson.

Note to bankers: stop handing out credit like confetti to people YOU know can’t afford to repay it.  And start telling people, if you can’t afford to pay for something with cold hard cash there and then, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT!