12/01/2023

One month on from my last blog and it seems like only yesterday I was having a rant of sorts.  Could be worse though, I could be a member of the Royal family!  It doesn’t matter where you are in life, the poorest of the poor or the richest of the rich, there are always problems, you just swap one set for another.  Just ask one of those lucky, lucky, lucky b*stards who win the lottery!

So what’s bothering me right now?  Incompetent people.  Everywhere.

Take your pick from Big Business to Governments (yes plural as it seems to attract a particular type of incompetence).  Lets start with the UK Government.  I read yesterday that they getting less revenue from the motorist as EV drivers don’t use petrol/diesel so one plan they are looking at is to slow down the roll out of charging points in a bid to put people off buying them!  At the very moment in history when we need to sort out our greenhouse gas emissions, our Gov’t is going in the opposite direction.   

Worse, they are pressing ahead with the coal mine too.  I contacted my MP (a rarity, I’m usually one of the silent majority) to lodge my objection.  One of his team came back to me to assure me that the coal wouldn’t be used for electricity (good) but for use in the steel industry (ah).  So still going to be burn it then?  Well, the reply said indignantly, we still need steel!  I get that, but why is it that Gov’t’s assume that if we used coal to make steel in the past, then that must be the only way to make steel.  Guess what, here in the 21st Century there is an alternative way that uses electricity to get the high temperatures, which could be provided by one of Rolls Royce Small Medium nuclear reactors we will be getting shortly.  But no, full steam ahead with our precious tax money on obsolete coal mines providing a career no one wants (we can’t even get people to go into fields to pick fruit and veg, a job one million miles better than breathing in emphysema in a 3 mile deep cave for 12 hour shifts).

As a typical Tory voter (normally), I freely admit to being disillusioned and depressed.  Thats starting to change, I am beginning to get cross now. They are clearly fresh out of ideas so we have to bide our time before we get a chance to change things.

So what’s next on my list of gripes?  I recently bought a piece of gold from abroad and it was delivered by a well known delivery service head quartered in the US, who, despite having the correct paperwork, tried to charge me import VAT.  This is investment grade gold so attracts 0%.  I rejected the parcel because it immediately made the investment unattractive.  I tried to speak to them about it and got nowhere.  They couldn’t find the email with their form attached to it on so I helpfully re-sent it.  I got the company in Germany who supplied the coin to speak to them and they all came together and said all was good – I ended up paying the delivery company £16 odd instead of the £300 odd they wanted, just to put it to bed, and the parcel was delivered.  Two months later, I was very surprised to get a new invoice from them asking for a further £26.  No explanation or anything, just a random invoice demanding a random amount.  I must have made 5 phone calls and several emails against the brick wall they call ‘customer services’ before I took to Twitter.  This got an instance response and they gave me a fresh email to try.  A week on and nothing so tomorrow its back to Twitter again…… 

Overall, I have to say life isn’t all bad despite all of the above.  I watched the Prince Harry interviews and Netflix and as you may have gathered I am a big supporter of the Royal Family.  Fair to say that still includes Harry and Megan.  Would I have mentioned how many people I have killed on active service?  Maybe not, but fair to say I haven’t read the book yet.  I for one, wish him and his family all the best.

21/01/2023

Despite the cost of living crisis, I’m not as riled as usual.  I managed a chuckle at Rishi Sunak’s faux pas this week, giving a speech from the back of his Ministerial car with no seat belt on.  As hard as politicians try, they just can’t seem to get onboard that they also have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.   Things feel like they are on the up, there is an optimism in the air – it may be cold, we may be poor, nothing good coming out of Davos from World Leaders, but yet, there is something good starting to happen.  The markets are up slightly (big news if you were invested in them last year).  Even my commute on the new Lizzy line now is stress free and seems to have people on it who know the rules and are polite (unlike the Jubilee line out of Stratford when it was everyone for themselves and a shove in the back for good measure.

Maybe Arsenal will win the league?  Maybe Hamilton’s Merc will finally be the car the team hoped it would be last year?  Yeah, I know its still January so lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.  Enjoy the rest of your January!

04/03/2023

In the last week I ended up in a social occasion where I commited a social faux pas.  I was collecting a prize for my good lady who’s raffle ticket had come up and as I was presented with the basket of chocolates and wine, I went to shake the prize giving persons hand before they were ready.  I managed to abort mid swing but they had clearly noticed and their hand came up as mine was going back down…. Next thing my hand is coming back up – well I didn’t want to leave them hanging – just as theirs was going back down again!  

To an onlooker, we must have looked like two people taking part in a semafore competition.  We decided, in silence of course, to stop waving our hands randomly at each other at this stage and go our separate ways before any harm was done.

25/03/2023

I was recently down at ‘the Wharf’ for the day and was rather disappointed to discover how poor 5g is in that area.  I know, I sound all ‘woke’ having a moan about a First World problem but you don’t realise just how used to the tech you become and the convenience of checking email/banking/share portfolio/Ring doorbell/etc.  This is especially true as you get older, you need to look up these things there and then, otherwise you’ve forgotten 30 seconds later.  Working in tech, I’d suggest maybe someone needs to go and turn the mast off, then on again?  Possibly even put in a second one?  5g promised the ability to stream movies and everything but I couldn’t even get a web page to load.  All day.

Then to cap it all I suffered the usual train cancellations on the way home so ended up on a crowded train back to the Countryside.  It seemed especially bad as everyone seemed to be having a ‘sniff off’.  First the chap to the left gave a slight sniff, then not to be out done the chap on the right.  Then the one in front, and on it went, each sniff getting longer, wetter and more violent than the last.  It felt like I was playing wack-a-snot-a-mole with my eyes and ears trying to guess where the next one would come from.  Given the frequency was measured in seconds between each one over the 20 minute journey, its easy to work out how I ended up a little obsessed with it all.  No chance of concentrating on the Daily Mail.  The shenanigans got to me in the end and I felt positively flu like when I finally departed the carriage along with a sore throat to boot. 

27/11/2023

Its been a busy year, the months have flown by hence writing this in November.  This month saw the Daughter of the House turn 18.  After a nice family dinner, we threw a party in the grounds for her and her friends.  This was always going to be a concern given she was pushing for a house party which was promptly and flatly refused!  We compromised and a marquee was set up in the garden.  I spent an hour in the afternoon clearing a load of leaves from the driveway to create a designated sick area.  As it turned out the evening passed off without incident and was very civilised, shame in a way as the Lady of the House and I had turned down all drinks in case we had to drive potential revellers, that had over imbibed, to the nearest field where the Air Ambulance could pick them up.

Seeing as we had the marquee for a few days, we had our own adults Winter Ball the following evening.  I say evening but I remember talking to one of the neighbours around 2:15am and mid sentence she turned round, picked up a bottle of Prosecco and expertly flipped the cork off.  So guess we are going to party on for at least another 45 minutes then!  

I’ve been commuting again recently, my fellow travellers have been vaguely civilised for the most part except for one young man on my way home.  I’ve seen him twice now and despite wearing headphones he has a habit of chewing gum.  Nothing bad so far, but he does this thing where he takes in some air mid chew then captures it in the gum then somehow makes an annoying, and very loud, clicking sound.   Given he can’t hear it, why do it?  What is it achieving other than everyone around him labelling him an entitled knob?  Thank goodness for Black Friday, one quick purchase of some Bose noise cancelling ear buds later and thats what I’ll be doing to my fellow travellers.  Cancelling them.