NUFC 1 – 0 Leeds United

Quite brief, this one, as I’ve got a ton of work to do. Basically – first half we should have been 4-0 up against 10 men. Shearer’s 4th minute goal was the first of several easy chances we made. Dyer should have had two and Shearer another one. Robinson was incredibly lucky not to be sent off for taking Dyer’s legs out from under him while outside the box – and as last man.

At least the referee was consistantly awful and not in the least biased. Comedy turn of the evening, though, was James Milner. For someone who has been compared to Rooney in a “future of English football” type of way, the kid had all the skill of a duck wearing wellies. Paired up well with Aussie tub of lard Viduka, who kept opening his mouth every time a decision didn’t go his way – seemingly in the hope someone would shove another pie in it. Biggest crying shame was to see David Batty subbed due to a slight injury. May he get well soon!

A certain Mr Gascoigne was guest of honour at half time, and unsurprisingly got a huge round of applause.

Someone lit some kind of fire up Leeds’ backsides during the break, because in the second half they were a much stronger team. Still not strong enough to get the goal they needed. We still had the lion’s share of the possession and clung onto the three points, our closest chance to seal it being a Speed header that whacked off the post/crossbar join.

Despite looking a very poor side in the first half, full credit to the Leeds fans who raised the roof pretty much for the entire 90 minutes of play and stayed right to the bitter end. Not for them the quick sprint off to the car after 75 like the ManUre bunch the other year when we won 4-3 (I mean… how could you leave a match like that before the whistle?!)

Nice to see a decent display by wor lads though. At last.

Blinking Flip! The Cost!

OK, total list of things pinched from my car. And yes, it’s a bizarre bloody list seeing as they left the stereo and CDs.

Two packs of mints, one bag of Starburst (half eaten), one road atlas, one NUFC scarf, one NUFC goalie shirt, 3 x plastic dangly things from back window, several pens & pencils, 1 x rag they were wrapped in, old pair prescription sunglasses, one pair normal sunglasses, little book with car care instructions in, one teeny teddy bear Sharon bought me. I mean, WTF?!

Total monetary value – roughly £75. And the bulk of that are the prescription sunglasses that obviously are of no use to anyone but me (or someone with coincidentally the same poor eyesight).

I’m most pissed off at the bear (that was a gift) and the NUFC stuff off the parcel shelf. Not like I’d not notice one of them walking round wearing that.

But the other belter is the garage fees. They obviously know they’re onto a winner with thefts as everyone claims on the insurance. Roughly £105 for retrieving the car. £80 for specialist lifting equipment (as they had no keys). £80 for the skids or something, presumably also to do with the lift. £35 Man Ex (whetever the hell that is). £60 for 5 days’ storage (not that I had an option). 3% credit card surcharge. Total… £405 and change. Feck.

Oh, and then there’s the new tyre. They had to put the spare on as one of mine had been punctured. If you ask me it looks like a knife went in it. Certainly a big enough hole.

And £1.50 for the car wash to get all the fingerprint dust off.

Then I got a quote for replacement keys and so on… £125 for a new key. Yes. A key. £65 to recode the existing remaining key and car so the old one won’t unlock the car remotely, or start it if they get in. Complete change of locks… £600.

Lesson learned: thank your lucky stars if you can get a job with a company car. They’re too damn expensive even if you do get them back after they’re nicked.

2nd lesson learned: If someone bumps you from behind and obviously has done sod all damage, get out the car with a shotgun. You know. Just in case.

Legal Suggestion of the Day

Reminded of this after reading a small article in AIR (the Annals of Improbable Research). Apparently a study was done in the US some years ago which determined that there was no obvious increase in likelihood that an expensive car was improperly parked in a disabled space as opposed to a cheap car. In essence, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, a selfish lazy fecker is a selfish lazy fecker.

So my suggestion – pass this on to your local council – is this. Now we all notice them. You drive for ages to get a space in a car park, then some ****** tootles up, parks in the first disabled space, then gets out on their perfectly functioning legs, closes and locks the door with their perfectly functioning arms and tootles off to enjoy the sights with their perfectly functioning eyes. No little orange / blue sticker in site.

Now, ideally, I’d like to snap their legs, but that’s maybe a little harsh. So it seems to me that the need to park so close to the shops shows that these people are dependant on their cars. So disabling the car would be disabling them.

I think you get my drift. The law should state that any member of the public should find it part of their civil duty to disable (or at the very least damage) a vehicle so placed if not displaying the regulation badges and so forth. In addition, if the person in the vehicle pulls out a disabled pass and pops it in the windscreen, despite them not being accompanied by a disabled person… same rules apply.

Lights, windows, paintwork, tyres. All are fair game. These lazy sods get away with it far too often. Don’t let them! For the really hard-nosed, stand behind the car when they come to get it and refuse to move until a traffic warden has come to give them a ticket. Don’t forget, if they insist on moving the car and hit you… it’s their license and insurance.

I do recall one night in Luton. I was staying in a hotel at the airport and took a drive to Sainsburys for some provisions. The supermarket had a “bouncer” on the door, something that seems quite common down south. I’d parked about 25 spaces down and was just heading back to my car when one of the above feckwits turns up, drives the wrong way through the one-way system and parks 15 yards from the front door in a disabled space.

He gets out of his car, locks up and strides to the door.

“Good evening, sir,” says the bouncer.

“Hi!” says Mr Confident.

“And how are we, sir?”

“Well, fine thank you.”

“No aches or pains? No serious limp? Able to stroll comfortably around?”

“Errr… yes…?”

“Well in that case, sir, would you mind moving your car? There are people who actually need those spaces. Thank you.”

Priceless!

Thieving ********

OK, to the point – I was carjacked on New Year’s Day. In broad daylight (about 2:30 pm). On a busy road, at some traffic lights. By the biggest clown-show bunch of amateurs you ever saw. Mind, amateurs or not, I’m not taking on 4 people over a car I don’t own anyway so I let them drive off.

Basically, the usual trick. Sat in traffic, bump on the rear end, get out to look at the damage and they force their way into your car. Only they didn’t so much “force” and “bungle”. The whole idea of carjacking (and bank robbery, I suppose) is speed and shock. While the victim’s still off-balance, do everything quick and shoot off before they start thinking.

I could have sold popcorn for this performance. And perhaps soft drinks.

First off, one of the muppets opened both passenger-side doors, despite only one of them actually getting in on that side. I think the other guy bottled it. That delayed their driving away. The driver of the car that hit me looked like he was about to crap his pants. If I’d have gone “boo”, I fear he may have.

The two who eventually sat in the car didn’t put their seat belts on. This would have made it ridiculously easy for me to pull them out. After a brief bit of holding back by the somewhat underweight driver, nobody stopped me approaching the car, nor did they close the doors. I mean, come on. Elementary, people.

I got the car back – the police and several people who stopped afterwards were very helpful – and it’s pretty much undamaged. OK, they’ve tried to rip out the crappy hands-free kit that work gave us and instead only succeeded in pulling out the air blower it was attached to. Only thing is, it’s taking Scene Of Crime officers a while to look at it (due to backlog – too many robbing scum out there) and it’ll be Monday before I can touch it.

So – 4 days without a car when I’ve been supposed to be visiting people. Great. It’s the inconvenience that’s the worst thing. And the feeling that “If only I had….”. That thought goes round in my head a lot.

If only I had spat at the driver and pushed him in front of moving traffic.

If only I had dragged the other guy out of my car and stood on his face.

If only I had taken the keys out of the ignition and locked the doors.

But the best riposte to any of these is… “But what if one of them had a knife?”

I did the right thing. Bumbling, stupid and pathetic as they were, I did the right thing. And I’d urge anyone reading this who ends up in the same situation to bear that in mind. It’s only a car. In this case, not even mine (it’s a company vehicle).

The one thing I do await, though, is news that these same four simpletons try it again. On someone who turns out to be ex-army, or a bouncer. He’ll rip the ******** apart.

Sorry For Interruptions

For those who can be bothered checking this page regularly, my apologies for the lack of updates recently. For some reason I’ve been getting errors whenever I try to publish new entries and Blogger support staff didn’t seem to know what was going on.

I’m sorted now, though – I think there was some data corruption in my original files. Creating a new Blog and shifting everything over manually seems to have cured it. Of course, now my ISP’s FTP and Web server has died…

Fortunately, Elly has kindly lent me some FTP space to get the site tested, up and running. Everyone say “thank you” to Elly! 🙂 Once Pipex comes back online (hopefully tomorrow as they’re too cheap to have support staff on a Sunday), I’ll shift all the pages back over there. At that point the “Current Posts” link on the left there will work again.

More posts to follow to detail the last few days.