With a trip to the People’s Republic of Darn Sarf looming, I thought it best to find out how to get there. Obviously, I’ll be needing a special visa and a smart tagging device so that the Darn Sarf special branch will be able to keep tabs on me and make sure that I don’t abscond to join the millions of other illegal immigrants there, but I’ll also need to get there and so I’ve just been on the RAC website to use their usually very good and very reliable routeplanner.

Bearing in mind that my journey will involve the M56, M6, M6 Toll (oh yes), M42, M40 and M25 motorways, I was a bit confused when it came out with this:

Does this mean that recent roadworks on the A556 (near Manchester) have actually been the installation of some sort of worm hole that enables travel across the space/time continuum? How good is that? Hope using it doesn’t mess my hair up.

I bet the services en route are just as rubbish as those on the normal motorways. With brown-coloured tiling in the toilets. And a 50% uplift on the cost of items in the shops.

Can you smell smoke?
Every now and again I experience a strange phenomenon whereby I can sense cigarette smoke as if somebody is smoking on the street outside my office window. It is very bizarre, but quite worrying? I wonder if it’s the smoker in me, luring me out of my abstinence, trying to tempt me back into my old habits.

Fucking annoying, that’s what it is.

Perhaps I’m just mental.

Enter the dragon
Yeah right.

I made both myself and Trump endure an hour’s waiting in the freezing cold for the so-called Chinese New Year parade in Manchester’s China Town yesterday. As we waited, we had to do battle against annoying children who insisted on bumping into us and squashing us against the road-side barriers. But barriers! It must’ve been some parade they’d organised!

One dragon. This was it:

We got one fucking dragon and something that gave up and turned back before it even reached where we were standing. Where were the buff young men in hotpants and rollerskates? Where was the high-energy disco accompanying all the floats? What about those delish girls in uniform? I guess it’s a cultural difference, but my idea of a parade involves a little more than a bunch local school kids waving the Chinese equivalent of a pantomime horse while a bunch of blokes bang drums. They weren’t even Chinese!

Wii are most amused
I’ve been playing with a Wii. I ache like a bastard. Playing the baseball game in Wii Sports, you have the strange feeling that you’re up against a number of celebs:

George Michael
Oprah Winfrey
Gillian Anderson
Jeremy Spake

I’m trying to find images of them on the internet, but there are none. I’ll see if Trump can get some screenshots posted at hers.

Rather than posting the link, I thought I’d just copy and paste this report from the BBC News website. This, good people, is why people should have to be tested before they are allowed to breed. I thank you.

A jury at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court was shown the footage

Footage of four women goading toddlers to fight has “stunned” police and social services in Devon.

The seven-minute footage, filmed at a house by one woman, was shown in a case at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.

In the clip, a boy wearing a nappy was called a “wimp” for not hitting a girl back after she struck him in the face.

Four women admitted child cruelty charges and were released on bail on Wednesday. Det Sgt Andy Kings said the police had been “stunned” by the case.

I didn’t see any harm in toughening them up A defendant

“This was a multi-agency operation with the police and social services working together and every professional that has seen this has been shocked and stunned,” he said.

“Locally this is something that is new to us, but we are aware that similar incidents have occurred elsewhere in the country and it is something people need to be aware of.”

The film was found by social services.

The boy, aged two, is seen crying after being punched in the face by the three-year-old girl and is told by one of the four women in the room “not to be a wimp or a faggot” and to hit her back.

The four women, all from the same family, are heard laughing as the toddlers are urged to keep on fighting.

‘Taunted’

When the boy tries to get away and climb into an armchair, the women shout at the girl to punch him again.

She does and the boy is urged to fight back, but says: “No, I don’t want to.”

The girl leaves the room, and when she comes back the two are taunted and told to fight again.

The court heard that when interviewed by police, one of the women said: “I didn’t see any harm in toughening them up. I done the same with my own children.”

One of the women pleaded guilty to causing or procuring the children to be ill treated in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering of injury.

The other three pleaded guilty to jointly inciting the ill treatment of children.

Sentencing was adjourned until 16 March for reports.

The shear stupidity of people never fails to amaze me. Looking at the news headlines, I came across this: “Newborn baby found in wheelie bin”. That’s right, some thick as pigshit teenager gets pregnant without even knowing it, has the baby at home, thinks the baby is dead and puts it in the bin. Two words:

STERILISE HER

I wonder if Bomb is thinking of using a wheelie bin to transport the Bombino around? It’s much cheaper than paying several hundred pounds on a pushchair. Not long to go now and there’s a mood of quiet excitement in the Sniffy household. I’ve been invited to the birth. I’ll probably go so long as I don’t have to be at the business end of things. I’m sure my sister will be grateful for my words of cheery encouragement alongside Connie’s merchant of doom panic attacks.

Thursday
So today is Thursday and here at Base 2a, I am listening to the constant chatter from the adjoining office, as usual. I don’t understand how some people can never shut up. Ever. From the moment people arrive, to the minute she leaves, one person here talks constantly. It’s amazing. I’m sure this is a skill that can be put to some good use somewhere – perhaps the CIA could use her to torture terror suspects – but it gets a bit tiring in the workplace.

This Thursday I am very tired, extremely so. I think the excitement and exertions of yesterday are taking their toll. I can hardly keep my eyes open and I ache like a bastard. But why? Well, partly because of this:

Yes, Trump finally got her heart’s desire and we spent a couple of hours playing on her Wii. I’m not one for games consoles, but I must admit that this is something special. My shoulder is a bit stiff from playing baseball; I can’t believe how engaged I became in my battle of wills against the pitcher. And because the controller vibrates and makes a noise, you actually get the sensation of hitting the ball (or missing it). I was a bit concerned at Trump’s enthusiasm and skill when she was boxing.

I’m waiting for controllers that you attach to your feet so you can play kick-boxing or figure skating.

Blue
For some reason, I keep getting blue dye on the skin around my fingers and I’ve no idea where it’s coming from.

That was the welcome I got from Posh Scouse when I turned up in my Base 2a office after being at Base 2b for the morning.

“I was going to use your office for something, but you’re here, so I can’t.”

Why she felt the need to tell me, I’m not sure. I’d have gladly left and gone round to Trump’s at 1pm, but I don’t think it was particularly justified.

The network here is rubbish. Check out the the mess it’s making of loading pages:

I don’t know what the problem is with it, other than it’s a pile of old shite.

Sooooo, today’s the day. I’ve reached the age of however old I am without having to think too much about Valentine’s Day. I always swore that I wouldn’t cave in to commercialism should I ever find myself in the position of having a special somebody, but that I’d treat them with love and respect every day. I’m sure Trump understands this and will appreciate me saving my money for important things, other than flowers, cards, chocolates. There’s no WAY I’d get her champagne if I couldn’t have any myself. Besides, I wouldn’t want her to get too excitable or she might decide to start stripping the wallpaper in another room of her house and I don’t think I could cope with that.

Joking aside, there seems to be an incredible pressure to buy stuff, when in all reality, your loved one doesn’t expect anything any more than you do yourself.

Or at least that’s what she says, and then she starts pointing at the boxes of chocolates, at the roses and champagne on display in Marks and Spencer. Saying things like “Are you taking note on how it should be done?”. So I’m going to conduct a poll. Please will you express your preference for either of the following:

This, Nitrow heat-responsive Bearbrick

It changes colour in the heat to reveal a camouflage pattern. Cool eh?

Or these things that don’t last more than a week

They die.

The flowers shown are from Tesco. Remember Tesco flowers from last year? They’re dead before they even get to you! I could’ve been dead and those things would’ve been received by poor old Connie. Pile of shite. Still, it would’ve saved on the cost of funeral flowers.

Anyway, I’d like to know your preferences.

Just when you think you’ll get the impetus to start paying off your credit card, you go and do a stupid thing like getting your car serviced and MOT’d. Three hundred and eighty five bloody quid. Bastards.

Anyhow, that’s done I must move on.

People in two bedroom terraced houses should need a licence before being allowed to decorate
This is a conclusion that I’ve come to having experienced three of these houses in recent years; currently Trump Towers. I don’t know what it is with these sorts of houses, but they clearly induce some sort of Overlook Hotel-like psychosis in their single occupants that leads the victims to do very strange things to their properties.

For a bit of background, two bed terraced houses are generally entry level homes for first-time buyers. Many were built in the late 1800s and they generally all look the same with the same layout. Way back in them days, people didn’t have bathrooms, so over recent years, bathrooms have been installed either as ground floor extensions or by splitting the back bedroom in two. Although originally occupied by working class families, they now tend to be owned by single people, like I said as an entry level home for them to get on the property ladder.

I think they need to carry some sort of health warning in that, unless the occupant finds a suitable partner within about 18months of moving in, insanity soon sets in and this is manifested in displays of quirky decorative ideas. I’ve known these houses to be completely pink, with faux country cottage stone fireplaces (nice) and ultra modern (for the 1970s), Blake’s 7-esque suspended ceilings. My sister used to live in one of these houses that could be described as “Dirty protest” with purple radiators. And now Trump’s pad is revealing itself to be a migraine in anaglypta underneath the more sober tones that were put in place by Trump herself when she moved in.

A weekend of stripping back the layers has revealed: 15 layers of paint (satin and matte) on top of industrial strength anaglypta; blood red on top of bottle green paint on plaster in the dining room; orange honeycomb wallpaper in the kitchen. Of course, it being the kitchen, the previous residents had taken anti-steam precautions and used superglue to stick the fucking stuff to the walls.

Blimey.

Still, it was an interesting and rewarding exercise in teamwork, i.e. me being shouted at, and the satisfaction at revealing the clean lines of plastered walls was certainly worth it.

I need a hero
Motorists across the UK are praying for modern day Robin Hood to rescue them from the strangle-hold of a tax-obsessed government that wants to track their every move in the name of having a “fair” road-charging scheme. The government claims that we need an expensive system to track where and when we drive so we pay more for when we drive in congestion. Surely the tax we pay on petrol does exactly this without our every movement being spied on? And it’s billions of pounds cheaper to implement too.

And you could try cutting congestion by giving us some road back. Noticed how much white paint is on the roads at the moment; unnecessary right filter lanes; no right filters when you need them; unused 24hr bus lanes. On top of this, how about phasing traffic lights sensibly?

Oh yeah, and affordable public transport.

Nobs.

So there you have it, road charging the Sniffy way: scrap road tax, do some sums and work out how much to increase petrol tax by to get enough income to fund your next war on Iran or North Korea, perhaps even Zimbabwe?

That’s what I’m doing today – officially at least. Unofficially, i.e. really, I’m sat around doing fuck all except surfing the internet and getting cold while my car is in the garage for a service and MOT. This isn’t too bad, I like sitting around and doing fuck all (it’s what I do at Base 2a all the time anyway) and at least this way, I’m not paying for the petrol to cover the 60mile return journey.

I don’t really do working from home and I can’t believe that anybody works effectively out of the office environment. There are too many distractions, such as my bed, and since I can’t even work from work, I’ve got no chance while sat here.

I am now accompanied by a De Longhi Dragon oil-filled electric heater. I initially scoffed at Dad’s suggestion, but now I’m getting nice and toasty thankyouverymuch. It’s sort of crammed in the leg space under the desk, so I’ll probably end up with crippling back pain and thrush, but at least my knees will be warm.

Detour through your mind
So anyway, instead of walking straight home, I took a detour onto the shopping precinct on my way to Morrison’s, Aldi and B&Q. I happened to look in the window of Gregg’s the bakers, mainly because it was one of the only shops open at 8.58. This is what I saw:

Oh, how I marvelled at the skill of the bakers, at their forethought in reflecting the town’s demographic and morbidity indices when assembling their gingerbread men. Only in Swinton do you get gingerbread men to look like people on Incapacity Benefit. Fantastic.

I’ve just had a great deal of fun getting that photo onto the internet. I’ve no bluetooth on my laptop so I bluetoothed it from my phone to my Palm and e-mailed from there to flickr. Technology eh? All because I couldn’t be arsed to set up an e-mail account on my phone, I mean for fuck’s sake, how many e-mail accounts does a person need? TWO, that’s how many, and I’ve got about 8 that I can’t keep track of, so I’m not having any more.

Right, back to my adventures in Swinton. After dropping in to Morrison’s and Aldi – you see, we have all the big name shops here – I went to B&Q to look at wallpaper strippers, those big kettles with a pipe attached. I looked at one, which was in a nice small and easy to manage box, and ended up taking the one in the bigger, bulkier box to the till. Before buying it, I checked to see that they had a bag I could carry it – black bin liners – and made my purchase. I then walked the mile or so home getting my shins bashed in by the fucking thing. I was so fed up by the time I got in. And my knickers were right up my arse crack, it was so uncomfortable.

Fuck, this is like a proper blog post where people talk about their daily routines and discuss thrush. The way this heater is warming my gusset up, I’ll be getting onto thrush discussions within half an hour.

Valentine, be mine
The next week could be tricky for me since Wednesday is Valentine’s Day. I haven’t got a clue what to do about it. I suppose the wall paper stripper is fairly romantic, but I guess I’ll need to think of something in the rockets, bells and poetry category. I wonder if she’d like a rocket launcher, I know I certainly would.

It’s all a bloody rip-off, but it’ll be worth it just so I can buy a “for my wonderful girlfriend” card in Clinton’s. One of those huge padded things with teddy bears and ribbons. She’ll love that.

I always thought the idea of Valentine’s Day was so mystery admirers could alert the objects of their desire to their otherwise unsuspected feelings. It turns out that it’s for people in stable relationships to spend loads of cash without justification when what they should really be doing is showing respect and love for their partners every moment they’re with them.

Oh well.

There’s no escaping my past it seems. I’ve been found here by my one and only boyfriend from way back. I mean WAY back. It’s a bit odd really, because he could’ve just looked in the phone book and the number is still there. I suppose the phone book doesn’t contain entertaining musings, nice photographs and the word cunt, unless it’s the Scunthorpe phonebook, but that doesn’t really count.

But for fuck’s sake, these people! I don’t go looking for them, yet here I am, pursued like a wild animal being hunted down by a pack of dogs.

I studied melodrama at the RADA, don’t you know.

Anyway…. Poor Glenn, who was very sweet and who I did spend a lot of nice times with (but it really wasn’t for me, obviously), found this post and posted this comment:

Glenn said…
raises eyes……the things you find when you:
a) are working from home and no-one’s watching what website you’re looking at,
b) bored with writing yet another design document which no-one else will ever read,
c) decide to go back on Friends Reunited and see who’s on there
d) think to yourself: “didn’t Tina used to have an entry on here”
e) type Tina’s name into google
f) find Tina’s flickr page (How? for fuck’s sake – should’ve image-googled “normal tits” instead)
g) find Tina’s blog (v. funny, BTW)
h) randomly browse some blog entries
i) find out that you only went out with me ‘cos Mark asked you to as a favour…

That gentle hissing sound you can hear is my ego deflating!

Hey ho. I’ve no idea why his ego is deflated all these years on, it was for the best. And it may have been a favour for Mark, but it was still OK… ish… till I realised it really wasn’t for me, which I sort of knew all along, but had to give it a go.

The Bears’ bear
Bad news on the Bear front for Tazzy and Piggy. What follows is a real text message exchange between me and Connie:

Me: “The bear is very popular. I posted a photo of him on the internet and all sorts of people (homos) now want one!”

Mother: “Got your message in Costco. No more bears, they would become common. I think it will be a golliwog next, then you can put him on the internet and see what comments you get. x”

It’s an age thing.

Locum locusts
I’m doing a spot of evening work at the moment and here I am, waiting for something to cook in the lab. There was a huge tin of what promised to be Cadbury’s Heroes (chocolates, to you foreigners) in the office. I was so looking forward to a miniature Twirl or Time Out, imagine my disappointment (but not surprise) to find that only “Dreams” were left. Cadbury Dreams are white chocolate. Need I say more?

White fucking chocolate, I ask you! Who invented this shite? And why did Cadbury think it was a good idea to mix them in with their otherwise delicious chocs?

Bastards.

Quiz answer
Piggy and IDV were indeed correct, the answer to the “fill in the blank” question was indeed:

“Macs are glorified Fisher Price activity centres for adults”

I don’t think I need to add anything else to this statement.

It’s a lovely day today, hang on, I’ll get a photo…

It’s not brilliant, but you get the idea. Today is the coldest day in the history of mankind – it’s official. Well, according to the people here at Base 2a it is. “It was minus five point five according to my car”, Posh Scouse informed me.

“Yeah, it’s a bit nippy.”

“Strange though, because it doesn’t feel that cold.”

Well no, that’s because your internal thermometer is permanently set to “It’s too hot, we need to open the windows, I CAN’T COPE WITH THIS HEAT!”, that’s why.

When I logged on to my PC here, I noticed that Cynthia had been using my office. I didn’t really need to log on to know this since my office furniture had been rearranged with chairs in the middle of the floor. Plus, the sub-zero temperatures outside had made their way into my office because the bloody lunatic had turned off my radiator, as per.

So February is here and winter has arrived at last. We’ll be getting snow tomorrow and, despite this being forecast, the country will grind to a halt because we just don’t cope with weather here. I’m preparing for this by taking a load of stuff home with me in case I have to “work from home” tomorrow.

Fill in the blank
“**** are glorified Fisher Price activity centres for adults”

Can anybody guess what the missing word is?

Hair bear
Following requests for adoption of Bear by the Bears, I don’t know whether to ask Connie to make a bear for them. Should I do it? If she agrees, what colour should I ask her to use? Should I ask her to do one with tattoos and piercings, as would be fitting for its new life with the South Yorkshire homos.

Wellbeing
I’m starving hungry, knackered and I’ve got a bit of a cough with accompanying faint headache. Can I go home? I think I’ll be doing well to make it past about 2pm.

A campaign of terror
There have been three letter bombs on consecutive days, with one going off at the DVLA (the agency that issues driving licences and administers road taxes and things) today. The first one went off on Monday at the company that collects London’s congestion charge. I’m not sure about yesterday’s, it was some finance company I think.

I think the blasts have done nothing more than singe a few eyebrows and fingers, but it seems that somebody is holding a grudge. I think it’s Convict or Garfer.

I’ve no idea how to make a letter bomb, and it’s not something that I’d ever want to do, but I’d love to find some way of enacting my revenge on those who I feel persecute the law-abiding majority through harsh taxation and draconian legislation (i.e. HM Government). Voting doesn’t work and direct action would be great. But who would I target, and what would I do to them?

Suggestions on a neurotoxin-impregnated postcard please.

I went to a £10 per head Chinese banquet on Tuesday evening to honour the departure of a close colleague. It was nice; there were colleagues from our partner organisations there and the group was split over two round tables. By accident, I ended up on the table that did not contain high-faluting profs, although those who I shared my table with were no less important or influential.

The conversation was initiated by Colleague 1 (to Colleague 2): A team of us are entering for the Manchester Run in May, do you want to join us?

Colleague 2: “How far is it, 10km? I don’t know, I don’t really run.”

Colleague 1: “Well most of our lot are walking it, come on, it’s for a good cause.”

Colleague 2: “Ok then, I’ll ask [partner] if she’ll do it with me too”

Colleague 1 (to colleague 3): “What about you? Do you want to join in?”

Colleague 3: “Well, I suppose so, OK, sign me up”

Colleagues 1, 2, 3: “Come on Tina, what about you?”

Me: “I don’t think so.”

Colleague 2 (pleading): “Awww, come on.. please??? If me and [partner] are doing it, you can too”

So, under no pressure or coercion at all, I agreed to do it. I’m going to die, I know it. Having just started back at the gym, 2km is my current absolute limit, and that almost kills me.

I have four months to get into some sort of shape that means I won’t die on the 20th of May. For motivation, I have downloaded the Rocky Balboa screensaver. I shall be running around the city and up the steps of the MEN Arena with the Rocky theme playing in my head.

Step back in time
Currently, the time is 10.15GMT, 25th January 2007. Meanwhile, I am back in the 1970s at Base 2a.

My office here has hessian wallpaper, which I have covered with my photos and also Italian travel posters. Up until recently, the windows, in addition to vertical blinds, were adorned with curtains that looked and felt like they were made from an old dog blanket. In an office. It’s like trying to work in a fucking bedroom. Things were looking up when I came here one day before Christmas to realise that it was unusually bright in here – the curtains had gone. Yippee!!

For a couple of months, it has been bright in here, more worklike, I almost felt like being a bit more productive. But today I came here and they were back, this time a brown floral offering that reminds me of something that we wrap dead cats in to bury them. I’ve taken them down again, they disturb me.

On realising the wrong curtains had been put up in her office, Cynthia came running into me and, very close to my face asked “Don’t you want your curtains?”

“Clearly not, since I’ve taken them down.”

Windy
This is my first day back here after the storm of last Thursday. I enquired as to the well-being of everybody and about their journeys home that day. Most people were badly delayed, and their tales make my 3 hour journey home seem trivial. It was trivial, a three hour journey isn’t that bad when you consider that people died.

“There were a couple of deaths around Manchester” I said.

“Yes, that poor woman, she was sixty and sheltered against a wall that collapsed on her, poor thing,” a colleague added.

“Yes, that was in Stockport, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but not nearly as bad as that poor little 2 year boy who died when a wall collapsed on HIM.”

“But why is it worse because he was two, surely it’s just as bad if you get killed by a wall when you’re sixty? You can have another kid.” I was puzzled.

“Oh, that’s a horrible thing to say. He had all his life ahead of him, at least you’ve lived yours at sixty.”

“Yes, and contributed something. You can probably have another child, but you only get one mum.”

Idiots.

The Hitman and Hymn
As the Catholic Church in England tries to make feeble excuses for its bigotry, its leader, Cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor has been in the news quite a bit, saying that Catholic adoption agencies should be exempt from anti-discrimination law and be allowed to prevent gay couples using its adoption agencies. The rights and welfare of the children must come first. Yeah, that’s right, because gay people are renowned for systematic abuse of children and institutional cover ups. Tossers.

Anyway, Cormack is forever going on about the Bible and Catholic conscience, but what the hell does he know? Can’t everybody tell that this man is an imposter? Surely it’s clear to everyone that so-called Cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor is none other than uber successful record producer Pete “The Hitman” Waterman!

If I ever meet “Cormack”, I’m going to test him with some Kylie and Steps lyrics, he won’t be able to hide from “Better the devil you know”.

Still, there is one good bit of news about this “gay people are evil and shouldn’t be allowed near children” scaremongering: “Reports say that Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, who is charged with fighting discrimination and who is a devout Catholic, is considering resigning over the issue.”

How can the Catholic church oppose decent people adopting children when they allow ugly fuckers like this to breed naturally?

Yay!!! Ruth can perhaps get a job as a night-shift cleaner or something instead. Something that keeps her away from unsuspecting members of the public.

US military plan to disarm enemies with sunbeds and slippery floors
It’s true, the US military research scientist have developed a massive heat ray gun with a 500m range that can disperse a crowd or enemy by making it a bit too hot for them. Apparently, it heats, but doesn’t harm. Eh?

They’re also trying to develop artificial black ice to make it too slippery for the enemy to get about. I’m going to tell them about the people who laid the new pavements at work – slightest drop in temperature and they’re treacherous.

I had a slight parental panic on Friday. Having spent Thursday night at Trump’s, I’d not been in touch with Mother with regard to storm damage. I’d assumed that everything had been OK, since Connie hadn’t phoned me in a panic to tell me that the shed had collapsed and that she needed me to come and hold it up for a few days while they emptied it. At about 11am on Friday, I decided to phone home to see what was what and whether my new mobile had been delivered (see below – if I remember) – the landline was dead and there was no answer from her mobile. Hrrrrm, odd, I thought.

After trying about ten more times, on both numbers, I started to worry: what if the house has burnt down and all records of my parents’ contacts had been destroyed, so the police couldn’t find anybody to contact? What if all that was left was the singed and stiffened body of Little Max? Oh my GOD! I’m an orphan!!!!!

I checked the BBC News website for stories of fatal fires in Salford – nothing. Then at 2pm, just as I was about to shut off my work PC and head home, I tried Mum’s mobile one more time. After ten rings, she answered.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to phone you since this morning, the landline is dead and you weren’t answering your mobile!”

“Well the phone is working, the hospital phoned for your dad this morning. And my phone was in my handbag, I’ve just taken it out.”

“Didn’t you see that there were 20 missed calls!? And why can’t Dad learn to put the phone back on the hook properly? I’ve been worried, I thought Max had died in a fire! Did my new phone arrive?”

“Yes, it came at 9am.”

“Good old Orange. See you later then, and check that phone upstairs!”

Orange five a day
I like my mobile phone operator, Orange. They’re not the cheapest, the handset choice is limited, but they have fantastic customer service. I phoned up to enquire about an upgrade and a tariff switch the other day. After slagging off Samsung and Motorola, and having a general laugh with the adviser, I asked what phones they had available for upgrades and what I could have for free.

“Well, you could have this one, but they’ve all been recalled and they’re out of stock. And this one is… oh, that’s out of stock too, but I don’t think we’re getting any of those back. Errm, this one is nice, oh, it’s out of stock. Honestly, we might as well be selling fruit and veg!”

“Oh right, well I only phoned up to enquire, I can try again in a few weeks.”

“No, hang on, what about this one, it’s a Sony Ericsson, very nice phone, lots of features, 3G, good camera. Oh, it’d cost you £50 though. Hang on, I’ll just talk to our customer retention people to see if we can get it for free, won’t be long.”

various chart music…

“Hello, thanks for waiting, I’ve spoken to them and they’re prepared to give it to for free because of what you said about leaving if you’re made to pay for the handset. I’ll just put you through now.”

Bu’… I never said anything about leaving if I didn’t get a handset for free… I was confused, then cottoned on to the fact that she was nudge-nudge, wink-winking me.

And there it was, delivered in less than 24hr. Nice one Orange! Let’s just hope this departure from Nokia doesn’t turn out to be as upsetting as when I tried a Samsung. Fucking horrible phones, absolute rubbish.

A photo
Here’s one I took yesterday…

For fuck’s sake, stay in the closet, you ugly bitch
Senior Labour politician, Ruth Kelly is a bit butch. And she’s fuck ugly with it. She screams “I’m queer”, but claims to be straight. She is married, has four children and probably doesn’t believe in contraception because she is a Catholic. Nothing wrong with being a Catholic, until your fundamentalist (with the emphasis on mentalist) bigotry interferes with your position as “Communities Minister”. This role means that Ruth Kelly has a duty to look after the interests of all sections of the community to ensure fairness, equality and all that. But Ruth Kelly is rumoured to oppose the recent bill to ban discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

I don’t think Ruth Kelly is a very nice woman. I’m glad her Catholicism means that she has to hide her queerness. She can stay firmly in the closet alongside the rest of the bible-bashing queers who are so afraid of coming out that they hide their sexuality by apparently opposing it in others.