It’s called the moon! That, for the uninitiated, is from an old B52’s song. I LOVE the B52’s. It’s just unfortunate that we don’t get to see anything of them over here in the UK, although I understand there’s a new album on the way if they can find a record label. (And I know it should be B52s and not B52’s, but that’s their name, so that’s how I write it).

Yes, the moon. You don’t seem to notice it that much, apart from when it’s full. However, I’ve noticed how quickly it goes through its phases since I installed that moon phase chart thing on the blog. It’s already a waning crescent. Spooky. It was great the other morning as it was setting around 7am. It’s starting to get light at that time now so it was glowing this sort of orange/yellow colour against a blue winter’s sky – it was MASSIVE and very low in sky.

Planetary movements and concepts of space/time, are things that you can either get your head round or you can’t. I can’t. It’s shameful that I’m ignorant of the order of planets from the sun in our solar system. I couldn’t tell you which one is largest. I always get mixed up between Saturn and Jupiter. I’m not sure I could even name them all. A challenge then: Earth, Mars, Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, errrm, bollocks, Mercury, crap, Venus (I had to look that one up).

Let’s try this… There’s a sun and there are a few (is it nine?) planets that orbit the sun. Each planet takes a certain length of time to achieve this, for Earth, it’s about 365 days. So far so good. The orbits are eliptical. Errrrm, and the planets spin around while they conduct their dances through the atmosphere (is there an atmosphere up there?). It takes the Earth a day to do a spin, and depending on where it is in its orbit around the sun, we get a different amount of daylight. And the temperature changes too (not much in England, but it does).

Nah, too confusing. All I know is it’s bloody cold still and it’s still far too dark. No idea what the moon does; I suppose it just sits there, its shape changing because of its relationship to Earth and the sun sort of shining on it a bit but Earth casting a shadow I suppose.

Why don’t the planets collide?

I think people who work for the space agencies must be off their heads or on drugs or something.

I’ll stick to earthly notions, it’s much better for my mental health that way.

I’m quite bored today. Most of my usual contacts for e-mail exchanges are off sick, so I’m stranded out here with nobody to talk to and nobody to e-mail. Bummer. I think people are just plain inconsiderate at times. Even the BBC News website is pretty poor today.

A person who wasn’t so thick-skinned might actually get upset at the way some people act around here. There’s one woman who completely ignores me; she walks past my office each morning, looking ahead, no hello, nothing. I walk into the office she shares with a few others and she will completely blank me. Weird. It’s just a good job that I don’t give a shit, but I find it really odd behaviour. She must’ve been earwigging when I was slagging her off to somebody. But that’s no excuse; if she’s got a problem, she should tell me to my face! Har, har, har, har, har!!!

Carmelita is rather quiet today, I hope she’s not building up to something. She’s another funny one (funny ha ha AND funny stuurrrange!). This is the one that picked up all the litter from the canal bank and, instead of being the dutiful citizen and putting it in the bin, she threw it all over the local expressway. “Well, you see,” she explained, “the car drivers never see the litter that people throw near the canal so I thought they should!” To say I was gobsmacked is an understatement. I told her that it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard, and that she was a menace and a danger who deserved to be locked up. But it’s the way she speaks, too. She doesn’t half rrrrrrrrrrrroll her Rrrrrrrrrs: “Oh Brrrrrrrrrrrendah, hellooooo!” But it’s not a pure “r” either, it’s said as if she closes the back of her tongue against the back of her mouth as she says it; sort of a bit throaty, but not phlegmy – bizarre. And she pronounces “re” as “ray”, so when she’s referring to a person, you always think their first name is Ray. Fucking bonkers. She acts as if somebody would act if they asked to act “overly eccentric, mad and slightly scary with it”.


I ask myself every day
When you feel that nobody loves you,

Nobody cares for you,

And everyone is ignoring you,

You should start asking yourself…

Am I TOO sexy?

Here is a list of my (current) top ten yoghurts. In reverse order:

10. Danone activia rhubarb

9. Onken bio pot strawberry and wheatgerm

8. Rachel’s organic low fat summer fruits

7. Muller light strawberry

6. Danone activia fruit layer prune

5. Muller fruit corner (blueberry)

4. Longley farm (any flavour, but especially botu-tastic hazlenut)

3. Yeo Valley organic strawberry collection (strawberry) – super full fat

2. Danone Shape Greek style (lemon)

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrum rrrrollllllll…….

1. Muller vitality low fat pineapple

This stuff is fuckin’ delish and I could eat it by the bucket load.

Apart from today though; my guts are giving me terrible trouble today. This could be due to: a) eating priobiotic yoghurt by the bucket load, or b) touching pooey door handles at work where people haven’t been able to wash their hands after using the toilet because of the interrupted water supply. Today I started at number 5 on the Bristol Stool Score and have descended to 6/7 foaminess. My guts hurt quite a lot too. Oh woe is me.

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re getting a raw deal? No matter what you do to try to improve things, there’s always somebody trying to stop you moving forward – mainly because of their own selfish motivations. I’m having difficulties with my contract at work, I’m quite disgruntled.

Despite generally enjoying my job I’m feeling forced to look for something else. But everytime something appropriate comes up, something where there’s a strong suspicion that I’d apply, it seems that my current bosses manage to wangle their ways onto the prospective interview panels – despite these being external positions. I don’t think that’s particularly fair. In fact, I think it’s downright horrible. But that’s what happens when you’re a “highly valued member of the team”. If I was so highly valued, I wouldn’t have had to wait over 18 months for a contract, I wouldn’t have gone 4 years without a pay award, I wouldn’t feel like I was constantly overlooked for things and held back, I wouldn’t feel forced to look for something else. They can’t give me what I need, but they keep blocking my attempts to leave.

I try to stay positive and see the funny side of things; there’s usually something humorous to eek out of most situations – something to help you pick yourself up and move on, try a different approach. Today I’m not in that place. Today I’ve had it confirmed that I’m being shafted. Today I am utterly fed up. Today I feel like giving up. Today I want to go to my favourite place to be alone and for it all to be better when I get back…

…it’s just a shame that it’s pitch black and freezing cold.

Today’s National Health Service is a mess, but I guess it was always doomed to failure, or more fairly, inadequacy.

Anyway, it’s a mess, quite literally. And today across the entire NHS we were celeberating “Think clean day”, which means that managers have to get under patient’s bed and see if they’ve been cleaned, while nurses and doctors have to actually wash their hands after going to the toilet (believe me, there are a surprising number who don’t). So today’s purpose was another government waste of money/initiative to highlight the blindingly obvious about keeping things clean to prevent spreading infection.

My department took this to heart: an intermittent water supply that meant there was a game of Russian roulette whenever you went to the toilet (would it flush? could you wash your hands?) and the kettle had to be filled from the water cooler. It was very risky business passing a solid, and with my nervous disposition, I’ve been a nervous (and rather uncomfortable) wreck most of the day. Then the ladies’ toilet flooded. Think clean indeed.

They’ll be having us walk down to the canal with pots on our heads next. I blame Tony Blair of course; I’ve still not forgiven him for eating all my Tesco hot chilli peanuts (it must’ve been him, it’s always him that steals from me – him and his mate Gordon “gasp like a goldfish” Brown).

Living with ninjas
I wish I had ninja skills. As well as the ability to inflict horrible and merciless death on masses of people who piss me off – by a variety of imaginative methods involving my fists and sharp objects – I’d also love to be able to do that thing where you throw yourself up off the floor by swinging your legs over themselves really fast.

Aahhhh, if only I was Beatrix Kiddo….

GE Capital Bank have secured a place on my top 5 list of people/things for annihilation. They provide the most horrendously expensive credit and have the most woeful customer service imaginable.

If you have a UK store card, chances are it’s financed through them. They also provide hire purchase finance for big things like cars and furniture. Their interest rates are very uncompetitive. They are shite.

When I was fat, I had an Evans store card. It’s the usual thing of going into the shop, making some purchases, being offered 10% off if you open a store card there and then. “Duh, oh, ok then”. A lot of people have fallen into that trap. When I lost weight, and started buying clothes from Dorothy Perkins (a sister company selling equally vile stuff), I fell into their storecard trap too – but this is essentially the same card as the Evans store card.

Anyway, I have two of these fucking things. I wanted to pay the Evans one off this week, the balance was £1.46. I chose to use GE Capital’s convenient and easy automated telephone service because a bank transfer wouldn’t go through in time. Having gone through the whole rigmorol of the “press this for this and that for that”, I fell victim to “computer says no” and was informed that the minimum payment was £4. Why?

I needed to speak to a real person about this, so I went through more automated menus and spent another 5 minutes till I got through to the equally automated “Nicole”. I explained and asked her “Why can’t I just pay off the amount I need to and close the account?”,

Nicole: “Because the minimum payment is £4.”

“But I want to know why. I want to pay this amount before you start writing nasty letters and phoning me up to demand money.”

“Because that’s our policy. If you want to pay any less, you have to go to a store, pay through your bank, or send a cheque. Don’t worry about being phoned up because of late payment, you have a few days’ grace”

“If I’d wanted to do any of those, I’d have done them. I want to pay over the phone, now. I want to pay now and close this account. I paid off this balance last year, but I didn’t get chance to close the account before you slapped £30 card insurance on it, I don’t want this to happen again. Why can’t I pay £1.46?”

“The minimum payment is £4”.

“But if I sent a cheque to GE Capital for £1.46, you’d be able to accept it?”

“Yes.”

“So why can’t you accept a Switch payment for £1.46 now?”

“Because the minimum payment is £4. Do you want to pay £4?”

“NO! I want to pay £1.46!”

“Then send a cheque, go to a store, or pay through your bank.”

Stupid twat. I could’ve stayed on for hours, but I was getting more and more irate and was close to swearing at her. What’s the point of being able to speak to a customer care “associate” if you can’t get any answers out of them? Wankers.

The following day, GE Capital phoned for me while I was at work. They phoned again last night while I was out. The fucking twats phoned again this morning while I was trying to have a lie-in. “I get up at 5.30 am each morning in the week, I’m trying to catch up on some sleep on a Saturday and you phone me before 9am,” Mr Hollingsworth, if you ever read this, you’re a complete nob and I hope your job gets given to somebody in India!

They phone you up and ask YOU what your address, postcode and date of birth are. “But you phoned me! Surely you should know?”

Mr Hollingsworth: “Please answer the question.”

I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d have refused…

So I answered his question and was then informed that I was overdue payment £7.85 on the Dot P card by 3 weeks, would I pay them? Of course! I’d be over the fucking moon to pay them! If only I could open my eyes to see the numbers on my debit card. I wonder if the amount was £1.46 they’d have accepted payment over the phone? Bunch of fucking arsehole cocksucking wankers!!!

Thank heavens the world can start turning again now they’ve got their fucking payment.

Am I being paranoid, or am I being harrassed because I dared to question their terrible systems?

The lesson? Don’t ever have any dealings with this company – ever! I had a car financed through them once and they were constantly phoning me and writing to me to ask if I wanted more finance. They don’t leave you alone. And when you want something from them, they’re shit. They’re basically a fucking racket and should be closed down.

If only I had a Samurai sword…

This is me, on my way to their head office and the call centres so I can do away with the lot of them. Fucking imbeciles.

I’ve been having a few “Computer says no” problems so I’ve not been posting so much. But this is good!

Angry Chimp: Thoughts whilst queuing in McDonalds

I thought this post was quite interesting; nice rolling topics too. It was the picture of the cow that caught my eye. Cool.

People who say “cool” are not quite right in the head. Saying “cool” makes the speaker sound anything BUT cool. Perhaps that’s the whole idea. When a comedy writer writes for the character of a bit of a twat, you can almost guarantee that the character will punctuate their speech with the word “cool”.

Apparently, the Department of Transport is having a look at the stuff that the roads are surfaced with (stone mastic asphalt, SMA) here in the UK after concerns were raised about its safety. In Ireland, there are strict 30mph limits on those roads with this particular surface because they recognise that it’s got exceptionally low skid resistance and vehicles don’t stop on it in an emergency.

BBC News “Hidden menace on UK roads”

Charming. Not content with taxing the UK motorist to death, this bastard government is trying to do away with us in one big multiple pile-up!

Interweb counters
I got a new counter that I’m trying while I see if my other one comes back to life.

Some pics
I was going to post some humorous pics, but I can’t be arsed.

Why do ring doughnuts only come with icing sugar on these days? Yet you can get granulated sugar on a jam doughnut. Bloody stupid.

My tosspot neighbour was knocking nails into the wall adjoining my bedroom till gone 11pm last night. Not that I have to get up at 5.30 and try to work suffering from sleep deprivation because of their fucking low-life selfishness or anything. Wanker wants to try working for a day or so himself, inconsiderate fucking thick as pigshit bastard that he is. The thing is, it’s not as if he couldn’t do this DIY during the day when the rest of us proper people are out at work. Probably too busy whinging to social services. Bunch of useless twats. I wish the roof space between the two houses wasn’t bricked up, I’d get myself in there and set fire to it; making sure that I completely destroyed the wife’s horrendous record collection (she thinks she’s Patsy bleedin’ Kline (“Crazy, crazy for feeling so lonely…”), stupid, useless, thick, noisy and VERY COMMON wench). Perhaps I’ll just continue to live as Beatrix Kiddo in my head and think about what I’d do to them if I had a very sharp Hattori Hanso samurai sword. If only.

Senor Misterioso
This guy would sort them. Is he an extremely dangerous man, or just a harmless socialite in a glowing suit? He’s just a red cross in a box at the moment because the image venue server seems to be having a moment. It may come back, but if it doesn’t it’s probably something to do with Senor Misterioso’s mystery that’s interfering with the server – keeping him of identity unknown! You can check him out at the Archie McPhee website.

I’m so excited because I’m going to be having proper home-made chips with sausage and beans (and perhaps also a regg) for my tea tomorrow night. They’re being cooked for me by my lovely friend. I love lovely people.