The value of friends

I met up for drinks with an old old friend tonight. It was so great to see them after a long time and catch up. Sometimes we don’t value good friends enough, it was nice to natter and catch up and share things that have gone on in each of our respective lives. It was also good to have a bit of a bitch and a moan. The glories of friendship, it is fantastic.

A day of Romance…but not for me

So today is St Valentine’s Day, a day when all the romantic couples exchange tokens, cards and the like. It is also by tradition a day when you can send anonymous messages to a person you fancy. It is a quaint tradition but for the terminally single it is a pretty grim and horrendous day. I will declare that I fall into this category and find February 14th an ordeal as various couples flaunt their happiness and appear to gloat over my lack of a partner. I am sure that I would have different feelings about today were I to not be single but as it is I find it and the hype a little excessive. You can tell I am training to be a Victor Meldrew in old age can’t you!!

War against the Motorist

I am quite angry, my Mum received a notice yesterday with a £70 pound fine for infringing parking restrictions in one of the supermarket carparks in the local town. This fine will be reduced to £40 if it is payed promptly. Now apparantly you can only park for free in this carpark for 90 minutes and according to the cameras she arrived at the carpark at 10:09 and a few seconds (yes they printed the seconds) and left at 11:50 (and a few seconds). So the carpark administrators are going to charge 40 or 70 pounds for a 10 minute overstay, that is either 240 or 420 pounds an hour. Nice work if you can get it!

My anger is twofold, firstly this is the first time since the carpark came into operation that my Mum has overstayed her welcome and secondly why print the time to the exact second? Lets take the second point first, why print the time down to the exact second, would this carpark administrator send out a fine if you arrived at say 09:30:29 and left at 11:00:31 an overstay by their rules of 2 seconds. My suspicion is that yes they would, because the fact is this is clearly an automatic system it relys on cameras and not human discretion and so the minute you trip over the exact 90 minute rule an automatic fine is issued. It doesn’t matter if it is a first offence or if it is 2 seconds or 2 hours over the limit that fine is going to be produced. That brings me on to my other point surely it would have been better in the case of someone who has used the carpark frequently and has overshot by 10 minutes on one occassion to send them a reminder of the rules pointing out that they have been breached and advising them of the penalty in case of further breach?

I think the above story illustrates also the rapid depersonalisation of the UK, and also a worrying trend with regards to surveillance and cross-pollination of data. Firstly the fact that the carpark is monitored by what has to be multiple cameras is worrying in and of itself, Britain is the most spied upon nation in the world. Are Britons that inherently untrustworthy? Second this system of fines has to rely on the DVLA records of vehicle ownership and so consequently this private company has to gain access to the details of probably every driver and car in the country. This to me is staggering and with the attitude the government takes to data security is deeply worrying. We are living in a society that is frankly becoming ever more subtly menacing and it is time we put a stop to it!

Recycling is bad for my health!

Aargh! I have been recycling for a while now, calmly separtating my tins, plastics, and glass from other waste and every so often dropping into my Tesco and claiming the green clubcard points. It is all really rather fun, well it was until today. There I was shovelling milk bottles, coffee jars, plastic biscuit trays and that sort of stuff into the recycling machine when all of a sudden the whole operation ground to a halt and a message flashed on the screen; “Please remove item”. I was wary of doing this as the doors on the recycling chamber look menacing and shut rather rapidly but still the message kept flashing so I thought well I need to retrieve this item, so in went my hand at the same point that the doors decided to slam shut on my wrist!! I got my hand out and within minutes the swelling and blackness was coming up. Cripes! I thought that my wrist was fractured, however after complaining and receiving some ice for my injured extremity I can say that it is just a nasty bruise. I shall report back with updates though as the customer service people were horrified at what had happened. It hasn’t put me off recycling though!!

Diet

Now is a good point to reflect on my diet this year. It went somewhat according to plan, and I am now 3 stone lighter than at the start of the year. I expect I will put on some over Christmas with the excess of festivities. I need to lose a little bit more, but I am actually rather impressed that I have held to my diet for an entire year. My past form was start, lose a few pounds, get bored and start piling into the pies, pastries and biscuits. Not so this year. I am told I look better, I certainly feel better and I have been healthier and less struck by ailment. Well anyway, thought I’d post this while I could boast before Turkey, stuffing, sprouts and sausage rolls take there cumulative toll!

Next year will be a sequel; Diet II return of the killer diet…

In receipt of unsolicited email

I have in the past received one or two dodgy emails supposedly doing security checks for banks but they have been few and far between. I have always ignored them as they are clearly dodgy. However in the last week I have received 20 of them. Now I suspect that this is entirely coincidental to the HMRC data loss although it makes you think.

Tube Strike

Now I am not a great fan of Trades Unions at the best of times, but to my mind when 2 unions out of 3 call off their industrial action because they have managed to get their demands met it seems to me to be sheer bloody-mindedness that the third doesnt. It doesn’t surprise me as it’s Bob Crow’s union that is holding out. This strike appears to go against all financial sense as well as being acute chaos for anyone working in London. It took me 2 hours to get home tonight and will probably take 2 hours to get to and from work most of the week. I sympathise with the frustration of a woman on the tube (jubilee line, which was running) who said ‘Someone should just shoot Bob Crow’.

Underground Journeying

I have recently had to start commuting via Tube, having previously vowed never to do so. I have found though that on average the journeys are not too bad, providing you know where to get on the trains! However I have been pondering the problem of rush-hour overcrowding. It often gets ridiculously cramped on my carriages to the extent that nobody has any personal space at all. Now undoubtedly extra trains and bigger carriages etc will make a modicum of difference I think the problem is never going to go away. I actually think that you could put a TARDIS carriage on the Tube and it would still be overcrowded as everyone will want to get on it. Most overcrowding occurs when people try to squeeze on the carriage when there really isn’t room. Most people behave sensibly and if the carriage is crowded will await the next train which on most lines is only a couple of minutes away, particularly in the rush hour. However you still get the inconsiderate people who will try to squeeze on no matter how uncomfortable they make it for everyone else. My plea, stop it please, be sensible and just wait for the next train