Another one of those days...

Yes, it has been more than a while since my last post. Not that anyone out there is keeping tabs, I'm sure (except for you, Poppy, I know you are!)

The day started when I woke up, and then got worse. Of all the things to have to do on an otherwise relaxing and resting Saturday, Work was the thing most able to knacker it up. Once in work, finding that the server, phone system and central heating had been well and truly buggered by a power cut was did not provide the most auspicious start. Then having 2 guys call in sick and having to lug 3 large boxes of merchandise up to the second floor office (lift likewise knackered) left me tired, cold, and generally feeling that the world hates me.

If it was feeling in any way guilty for the way it was treating me, this did not prevent it from pissing down the back of my neck as I left for my first appointment. Apparently I was the only person not to notice the waterfall of gutter-water that stood ready to baptise anyone who passed into the church of swearing madly and growling at strangers.

Still, I managed to get through the long working day and even got to see a shoplifter arrested at Tescos at lunchtime... every cloud etc. The Gentlechav in question was running with his trolley full of un-packed goods towards a car containing a female (I think - the sportswear tends to restrict gender-identification somewhat) and at least 2 offspring.

The arrest, conducted by an off-duty copper (are they ever really off-duty?) right in front of my car was in direct view of all of them, and the woman was subsequently nicked for a public order offense involving the questioning of every officer's parentage and a short scuffle with said off-duty bobby.

Paddy wagon, social services on call and half a can of fanta later I was on my way rejoicing the return of justice. At least the kids had the innate common sense to sit quietly and watch their parents (possibly Mum and Daddy #4?) get arrested in the company of a nice looking WPC (if it us not un-PC to describe a lady officer as such). There is hope left for them yet.

So, wet neck, knackered, still got cold feet and now back off to Tesco 'cos I forgot loo roll and washing powder, but at least the Police here are on the ball.

Evening All.

Arden

Another good day!

Today has been a good Sunday - one of the ones where I have actually enjoyed the day rather than simply using it to relax and lie in.

Got up at around 10 - previously almost unheard of on a Sunday - and myself and Mrs Arden took a short trip to a small provintial town we have not been to before, only to find they have a market on in the town square, where we managed to get ostrich burgers and pheasant for the coming week before visiting a luxury chocolate shop (the reason for going in the first place) and getting a last Christmas present for me old mum.

Back at home I cooked a great Sunday roast, ordered my final Christmas pressie online, and am now part way in to a Star Wars marathon brought about by episode two showing.

Some Sundays are started great, some achieve greatness, but this is one of those few which have greatness thrust upon them.

A good day to be alive, methinks.

Love, Arden

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

(Rant) Rip Off Britain - Bah Humbug...

Now, you know me, I don't like to complain, but I thought as I have come accross three separate rip-off scenarios in the last 48 hours I would share some of my thoughts on the state of the nation at this juncture.

The first occasion was at work, where a recent project has involved me in 'lo-jacking' the company cars. To the less well technically informed, this means installing trackers into the vehicles which report back to our computers in the office with the location of the cars as well as important stuff such as the speed it is travelling and whether the driver is breaking too heavily (scary stuff - but since I am becoming Big Brother myself I am getting a buzz out of the control side of things rather than worrying about who is watching over MY shoulders etc). All in all a highly technical piece of modern engineering, along with fairly complicated software for the office (A4 manual = approx 1.8" thick, ALL English) to be installed on our server and other machines.

Bearing in mind we have a lot of operators in the office, it is kind of important that they can all see where the cars are at any one time within a fairly small (say 15 mile square) area - not too difficult you may think, bearing in mind the size of the manual the software must be rather capable. Great. We were told that to get this solution we would need the software installed on the server and one other computer (the ops director) for control purposes... Brill.

So, the equipment is in the cars, a pack turns up with the software and the manual (so naturally a big pack then) and a nice friendly letter asking the ops director (who passed it on to me) to call the tracker company who would guide me through the installation. I have a friend - hooray!

So I call them and speak to the techy on the other end of a phone line, who logs in to my server and sends the mouse pointer madly accross the screen in a manner which, if you have never experienced this before, is rather disconcerting. The power of t'internet eh, bloody marvelous - in the words of the managing director.

And then the phone call comes in. Apparently, our brand new £20,000 server is not capable of handling their 6 year old software. A little suspect, methinks. If we are to run the application so it can be viewed by all of the operators, we will need to purchase another 9 licenses at £150 each. Now, they had our server spec before we ordered the trackers, they had seen the servers before they priced the job, why should we now pay well over a grand more for the system we ordered?

So far the boss has refused to pay for the system they have installed and knowing his northern influences is not going to open his wallet again until he has the things working as previously described. As he often points out, Yorkshiremen are like Scotsmen with all of the generosity sqeeeeezed out of them.

Next came Royal Mail. I know some very nice people who work for this fine old British institution, and don't wish to cause any offence, but sometimes the red tape trips you up, doesn't it?

We have offices on the first floor of a converted warehouse, while the remainder of the building is occupied by a large chemical testing company. They have a reception behind a glass door downstairs as well as suites throughout the rest of the building. Postie (one of around 15 different posties, that is) has taken to delivering the mail marked for us to the steps in the public area of the building, which I will readily admit is in a non too salubrious area in a rather downtrodden town, so things are going missing.

On calling the Royal Mail to discuss this problem I was informed that they would be happy to deliver our post to our front door (on the 1st floor) on the payment of a £55 "floor fee". Now forgive me - I was led to believe that the SENDER pays the fee and then the mail is delivered to the addressee. The herbert I was speaking to on the other end of the phone was basically telling me that if I didn't pay to receive the mail, it would be left out for the wolves. It took speaking to two managers until I finally got someone who could see sense.

Finally I came home tonight to the paper which is informing people to be wary of taking out loans they cannot afford in the run up to Christmas. There is a firm out there charging 222.7% APR (I have checked - I did not made a typo) for loans. The advert actually states "unemployed welcome" as if these people should be encouraged to take out loans they can't afford to repay.

What can we do about it? If nothing else we must learn from it an move on - without the loan if possible...

Bah, Humbug.
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Northern Monkeys and Southern Hippies.

OK - so I drive for a living, or at least get around the UK to various meetings for a living. So, in MY mind at least, I need to drive a car, because quite apart from the dangers inherent in using public transport (disease, chavs etc) I would need to be on said transport (or succumbing to that particularly british obsession: waiting for it) for approximately 19 hours a day to maintain my current level of productivity, which takes up approximately 4-5 hours per day in a car.

But in this day and age, we have to consider the impact this has on our fellow creatures (this impact in the gloriously free days of the 1980's being confined to the brief squeak as a hedgehog dissappeared under a uniroyal) and the environment.

So, I demand an environmentally sensitive vehicle from my kindly providers. Having been born in northern towns during the 60's and 70's, these are not the most sensitive of chaps, and once they have picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and called me a "southern pansy" a few times, address the request semi-seriously.

They point out that the "green" cars are very expensive. I agree, but tentatively point out that the tax and fuel savings in the long term will mediate this. Excellent - 1 point to Arden.

They point out that the increased 'carbon' cost at manufacture outweighs the enviro-benefits of driving. Bugger. Science. I didn't expect this. And 'enviro-benefits' pronounced in Sheffieldish is a rather scary word. 1-1.

Then they drop the bombshell. After three years of being carefully driven by a perfect driver, these cars have the residual value of a tesco value hairdryer, becaused the only people who are interested in buying them are image consious pop stars, who couldn't possibly be seen dead in a second hand car. Whatever happened to recycling, eh?

So I am given the option of driving a normal car, or paying the difference it would cost the company - nearly FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS.

The result - I still drive a regular car but now I feel guilty about it. Such is modern life.

I still believe we should provide free public transport for everyone - as the savings we could make would be fantastic. Think about it:

ALL public transport (busses, trains, river ferries for foot passengers etc) are FREE. How much would this cost? The answer is almost nothing. With free transport comes zero ticketing, no ticket inspectors, vendors, the hugely expensive barriers at stations - a truly massive saving. And considering the UK transport system is currently underwritten and subsidised by the government to the tune of approximately 80% of the ticket prices it could even pay for itself.

We would also increase usage - increasing the demands on the transport network - but here's why that is not necessarily a bad thing: with increased use comes increased productivity. If a train is full (not southern rail full - just at 100% capacity) it becomes cheaper per tax payer to run. Each tax payer on the train is supporting it. And those scrounging dole monkeys who are claiming a fortnightly giro in order to "seek jobs" will no longer need that part of the allowance which allows them to attend rejections - sorry - interviews.

Tourism goes through the roof: "visit Britain - once you get there, travel is free!" More people take jobs because the previously high cost of travelling does not have to be considered when weighing up the salary offered.

Honestly, I was once offered a job in central london, while living just outside the M25. I needed to clear over £5000 per year to pay for the travelling and was pretty much guaranteed to be standing for all of the 20 miles into and out of london.

So I didn't take the job, which for the next few years cost the government dearly as it would have put me in that great 40% tax bracket too... The tax would almost have paid for the ticket, bear in mind.

In my mind, the benefits far outweigh the costs, especially as far more people would leave their cars at home or - better still - not buy them.

Life is getting better/worse (delete as appropriate)

Arden.
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Baby I'm Back!

Gosh - what a long time to be away for. To anyone who has, for reasons of their own poor luck, been checking this blog regularly for tasty morsels of chav baiting and life affirming rants, my apologies. I will make every effort to be a little more forthcoming in the future, but will not offer my reasons for being away as it will also give ME away too - something I am not too comfortable with. Needless to say, I am now in the UK, with mobile posting (gotta love blogger, eh?) And an ambition to be back here at the very least weekly. Please berate me for failure to do so.

In response to some of the comments: I do not live in Woking, but did drive through it regularly at the time of writing; I am not an active member of your forum Neil, but do hold it sacred as a lurker and find it an ultimate place of wit and good humour (football strings excepted); Leyton do not know what they missed.

Much has happened in the last few months to give me ammunition for rants and calls to glory, the saddest of which for me was the untimely passing of Fulton, who has gone to take his place at the right hand of the devil dog at last. I had the news from my Mother while I was abroad and arrived home to a smiling family and a new mound at the bottom of the garden, which I have no trouble admitting brought a tear to my eye as well as a wealth of good memories. I don't think I'll be getting another friend like Fulton for quite a while - possibly when I retire...

Missed Old Boys again this year - was really hoping to be there but got back almost a month late. I understand from the pics, blogs and facebook (yes - converted at last) that it went well and Stan/Porl deserves particular congratulations for organising the pub-draining session (really - NO beer left?). To those who have guessed - next year would be good!

OK - have done the pre-post (oxymoron?) read-through and realise that this is lacking a lot, which I will put down to lack of practise and promise to blog again soon.

Honest.

Arden
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RANT - BMW Recall...

If they haven't already considered one, they need to. It would appear that every car that leaves the BMW factory has a problem with the lights.

Nearly every one automatically turns on the fog lights when a forward gear is engaged, blinding both truck and sports car drivers. Unfortuantely, I have the good fortune to drive one at work and the other in my personal life.

As if to compound this, it would also appear that the indicators do not funcion at all, leaving other road users, even if not blided by the lights, completely unaware of the drivers intentions.

I would have thought, in this day and age, that a luxury car company (as BMW stlye themselves) would have access to competent electronic engineers, but am quite obviously wrong.

The other possibility is that the drivers of these vehicles are either blind or stupid, and ever wishing to believe the
best of my felloe man, have taken to turning on my full-beam headlights when faced by fog-belit morons. My logic is as follows:

They are obviously seeing life through a haze, and believe they are driving through fog. Therefore, they turn on their fog lights. I see this, and am aware that their vision is in some way impared. As I am also using the road I need to ensure they can see me, and turn on my high-beam to assist their poor vision.

Needless to say, I am none too popular in Woking right now.

Arden

Begorrah it's cold!

Cold enough to start me crying, or at least start my eyes watering, during my wander to the train station his evening, and make me remember those cold winter mornings on parade, with my fingers freezing in my gloves despite my smuggled handwarmers. And in later years, of course, lips freeking onto the cold, white metal of my band instrument. And they say that corporal punnishment is illegal...

As I write, there are about thirty of us, commuters, student types and tourists snuggled warmly into what must be the only heated (and open, for that matter) train station waiting room in the UK. It is quite cosy, and the sight of the dew freezing on the rails outside the window seems to warm us even more.

Conversations are started about the weather (surprise, surprise...) and then move on to other things. Normally, I am one of those people who start dialogues out of boredom, or a need for contact with the outside world, but not tonight. For once, I am happy to sit back and earwig on the results of these tentative first steps some of my fellow travellers are taking on the path to a new relationship.

In the last few minutes, I have seen a telephone number change hands between two youths, a photograph being proudly thrust beneath the gaze of a cooing sixty-something, and two gents shaking hands furiously, clapping each other on the back as they find they feel exactly the same way about tonights football game.

It makes me think. This is what people do. This is what they are. We are social animals, we need confirmation fron those around us that what we are doing is acceptable. We need friends.

And we may be on the right road too... Our footballing friends are making plans for a drink on arrival at their destination, which they also share. Maybe this will become regular; best friends have to meet somewhere. Our two lovers-in-waiting both have that twinkle in their eyes that lets me know they are both looking for something more than a hi & bye chat, even if they can't see it themselves. Isn't body language a great thing for those that can speak it?

And as for me, I too have a smile on my face: for once I am in good company and I think that maybe, after all, we are heading in the right direction. Oh, how smug.

Peace... Out

Crazy Mutt (possibly for sale...) and Careful Drivers

Fulton is acting up. After years of patiently training him to crap outside, getting him to ignore fireworks, and stopping him from destroying Ikea's latest variation on a theme of "furniture" I have discovered that once a mutt, always a mutt.

He's off his food, which would normally be attributed to a local lady dog being on heat but for the fact that I'm almost certain he is gay, and has taken to chewing the sofa cushions when I'm not in. Anyone with tips to prevent this please let me know before my shotgun license comes through.

On a more positive front, had a great Christmas and New Year, which is much more than I usually even hope for. I am one of those lucky fellows who comes from a broken home, and as a result usually have to enjoy two christmasses, one with my mother and all of my fantastic siblings, and one with my father, stepmother and her assorted relatives, half of whom now speak English.

This year, in addition to the usual, I was also invited to the Doris's parents for the duration. Having had many years of experience in the parental stress and sibling rivalry camp, I managed to accept said invitation with the minimum of guilt, and we headed to the west country and a house which would not be out of place in the TV adaptation of pride and prejudice. Seriously, it's huge. Four storeys of old wood, crumbling plaster, death watch beetle and open fires. And thank the dear lord for those fires: the weight of generations bears down, and the chill of frozen time does nothing for my bones, but somehow when you chop down half of Cornwall's remaining forests and apply the lumber to the grate, it somehow becomes liveable again.

And so it came to pass that a few days before the eve of that great and holy day (the coming of Santa) we found ourselves beneath four eiderdowns and an electric blanket or two at my darling lady's home. (For Blackadder fans - this is NOT a home for the elderly or criminally insane. Please pay attention...)

My (middle) brother, in the meanwhile, was having to arrange collection of himself and his entire christmas shopping (one small cuddly toy - honestly the man has no idea how to shop) from a pub in Coventry, having been involved in an accident on his National Express coach. Apparently the coach driver had been banned one week before hand until the outcome of an investigation following a crash on exactly the same spot.

The local publican, who naturally benefitted from both accidents by having his hostelry full of dazed albanians and single mothers, informed him that the driver had some kind of fit or seizure (although he referred to it as a "spaz attack" - how utterly, beautifully non-pc!) the first time, and naturally was arrested on the spot on this later occasion.

Had I been in the vicinity (anywhere north of Southampton, if I am any judge) my mother would have insisted I collect the little darling, but as I wasn't, my youngest sibling drew the short straw.

Not according to middle bruv, who claimed it for himself. Apparently after twenty miles of number three's driving, he wanted to be back on the eppileptic bus, figuring that his chances of survival woukld be much better with Grand-Mal Gordon behind the wheel.

Now, in the last week or so, we have all learned that National express coaches are safe as houses, especially houses next to police stations in Baghdad or painted with the flag of the union* in an american airforce bombing zone. They are only in danger when faced with obstacles such as that dangerous accident black-spot - the M4-M25 slip road (w-n) and the like. It's good of the company to check that the rest of the fleet are roadworthy, but how do we know whether the drivers are?

And why, you ask, does it have anything to do with me?

At this moment, I am om the upper deck of the NXL561 london-skipton doing 70mph on the M1.

If I don't get there alive, you can have my CD collection and PSP, providing you come to the funeral.

Still, Christmas was good...

Arden.

(*note to chikes and other lower life-forms, this is the British flag. Now all stand for the national anthem...)

Great days start like this...

It's a wonderful life for me. This morning started by dropping my car in to my local gang of spanner monkeys for it's annual government checkup - not something I particularly relish after having driven the old girl like a crazed argentinian superhero for the last year.

Having left the greased-up expert with my most prized posession (OK, just my most valuable...) I got all of fifty yards down the road when the heavens well and truly opened on me.

I darted into the Costcutter (these guys should be reported for false advertising, I'm sure) to try and stave off the ravages of the great British weather, and while waiting consumed a good 10 minutes queueing at the counter. Once there, I purchased my chocolate milkshake, and with a spare pound bought a scratchcard. Lo and behold the thing was a winner, Camelot now owed me £100! All I was required to do was queue for another 15 minutes or so (these shops make their money while the rain pours, people will do ANYTHING to stay dry, it seems), and collect my winnings.

It was only arriving at the front of the queue, that Holy Grail of the small shop experience, that I was told that this shop only pays out up to £50, and I would have to go to a post office.

Now, my town decided in the late 90's, that providing an efficient postal service was one of their lowest priorities, somewhere below twinning themselves with a small african village apparently, and abruptley closed the local Post Office. A pack of ferral pensioners and giro-grasping dole munchers roamed the streets bewailing their torment for months.

It didn't bother me much, I had resigned myself to an almost cashless existence years ago. I had reasond that if Blair and all his little demons wanted to know where my hard-earned was going, then they should ask Gordon Brown, after all it all seemed to end up in his bottomless pockets anyway. Since then, I would use my cards instead of cash, and try to keep them guessing.

Right now, however, I was owed filthy lucre, and had no means of getting my hands on it.

Then it occurred to me - in order to prevent the local adorable youths from targetting the old dears returning from the nearest post office on the bus, the powers that be would open a counter or two in a local convenience store (read: toilet shop - try using google or yahoo translator - it works!).

Then it dawned on me - there were two queues in the cost"cutter", and I was about to leave the front of one of them.

Guess what the other one was.

Since joining that yellow brick road, I have had time to write this little blog, and have progressed about as far as an elderly snail with a bad cough and athletes foot.

Still, by the time I get out, it must have stopped raining.

Silver lining? No. My car just failed the MOT.

Bugger.

Arden.

(RANT) The Good Old Days

For the first time today I gained an insight into what the older generations mean when they say things along the line on "Things were better in my day. All this were fields etc, ooh me poor feet, I'm 82 you know. Have you seen me worthers?"

It seems to me that they are not actually wanting to go back in time as the person they are right now (three different prescriptions of spectacles and all) but that they actively want to relive it as children.

This may seem perfectly normal, after all when I visit my old school there is nothing I wouldn't give to have my time there again and actively take more of a part in my own life. But consider for a moment, that when these otegenarian coffin dodgers are saying "Kids had some respect in my day" they mean that THEY had more respect. They were the younger generation, and they had all of the fun. More importantly, they did have more respect, but if you ask Arnold or Betty where the respect was, they would say it was for their parents or the older generations.

I would disagree. I think the respect was greater than a one-way thing. Because although they had a greater respect for their elders than they receive from the great unwashed in todays enlightened age, I would submit that their parents and grandparents had more respect for THEM as children too.

In 'their day' an adult would have given them an order, or requested something of them, and they would have done it without question. In fact, the adult would have had enough respect for the child as to be able to turn away and allow the child to carry on. Adults did not experience back-chat or offence like they do today, and things are not getting any better.

Gone are the days when companies tried to make things better for the consumer. Now it is all about the money. Although ages past had their fair share of unscrupulous businessmen, they were largely kept in check by poular opinion. Now, people expect to get ripped off by shops and businesses - they are happy to complain that their local corner shop is charging them 20p more than Tescos for their 4 pints of milk, although they are appalled that the same Tescos, or Asda, or Sainsbury's is ripping off the farmers by 50p to offer this price. What's more, because the shop owners are, generally speaking, of non-caucasian background, this only strengthens the 'bloody foreigners, coming over here and ripping us off' mantra popularised so well by the BNP.

Even Alf Garnet would have voted Labour rather than the BNP, a ragtag collection of largely illiterate racists who claim that this country is going to the dogs at the hands of 'darkies' or 'pakis'. And can you blame the younger, ill-educated pond life from subscribing to this drivel?

We are living in a world rapidly becoming bereft of all forms of respect; young for old; old for young; business for consumer; customer for company; race for race; man for woman; woman for man.

It is, without a doubt, our lack of respect for one another and our otherwise beautiful country which is leading us closer to an all-guns-blazing, smaller cousin to america. Knife and gun crime are increasing, we don't feel safe in our own homes, burglars have to kill us in order to face any sort of real punnishment: how long until we all want guns in our homes? Until we demand to be able to protect ourselves and our families because the government can't.

Give it some thought. Add your own opinions. If you think Britain is doing well, watch how an old lady reacts next time a bunch of be-hooded kids runs past her. Ask yourself - 'is this what I want for me?' Stand up for the country you love, and support the foundation on which it was built: Respect, Honesty, Truth. Nil illegitimus carborundum.

Arden

Coming soon - Arden's Manifesto. A glance inside the mind of the megalomaniac.