Category: Uncategorised

I just got to ring my previous boss up (same company, different department):

Me: Russ, where are you this morning?

Russel: Birmingham.

Me: Oh, for a sales demo?

Russel: Yeah.

Me: A-ha. Who’s the contact?

Russel: A guy called Lee Somethingorother

Me: M-hm

Russel: Yup

Me: So that’ll be the chap sat in our waiting room in Wakefield then?

Russel: *expletives deleted*

Reminds me of another of my previous bosses who was up at 4am to get the redeye to London. Got off the train at Kings Cross at 9:05 and his mobile rang. It was our receptionist passing on a message that the customer he was there to see had rung 2 minutes earlier and said they couldn’t manage the meeting after all.

I’m 30. With any luck I’ll live to be about 90 but I’m never going to get to do and see everything I want. Which is a kinda morbid viewpoint but it’s pissing me off. And that worries me.

I currently have a huge stack of books and DVDs I’d like to see, plus all the ones I’d like to go through that I don’t own. New books and films come out all the time. And then there’s the holidays and places I’d like to go. That worries me, too.

You see, if you die and you’re pissed off then you risk being an upset spirit. This means that you’re more likely to remain on this earth as a ghost. Ghosts are often tied to the place where they died and that would really suck.

You see, I can see me keeling over in however-many years, three days before Shrek 17 or Spiderman 23 comes out. I’ll be one teed off spook. I can just guarantee that whoever moves into my house when I die won’t go and rent or buy decent films for me to watch over their shoulder.

I can see it now. Purgatory forever will be spent stomping round a room with my ethereal fingers in my ghostly ears while some dopey old biddy watches Songs of Praise.

I’ve already decided I want to be a poltergeist when I grow up. There’s a chance I’ll scare her to death and get someone fun in instead.

So who says I never planned for my future? Beat that, crappy daytime life insurance company advert people.

Sadly it seems that this story has been updated since it first went up, so it actually provides some accurate facts. On Tuesday, a big official report came out that says a survey had been done over all of the UK’s 5000+ permanent speed camera and proved that they save 100 lives a year and aren’t just chugging in revenue.

This story made the headlines on most television news programs. Great, says I. Lives saved is good… if they’re in the right place and so forth. But…

Arse, frankly.

A much smaller clarification (or should that be “correction”) was printed in many newspapers the following day but didn’t, for some reason, make it into the main news programs. Funny, that.

Buried in the small notices of one paper, I read that the survey wasn’t across every speed camera in the country. It was, in fact just over “3,376 camera sites in partnership areas”. These partnership areas are the ones where they’ve made a move to shift camera into genuinely dangerous areas where fatalities and serious injuries have occured. Areas where there are a large proportion of correctly-places cameras.

You may recall my problems with the Welsh police (here, here, here, here, and here). Well, Gwent isn’t on of the police forces involved in the sensible rules group. They just shove cameras where and when they want and accuse you of crimes of which you’re not guilty. A picture of an easily-faked piece of plastic with some letters on is categorical proof of guilt unless you can prove otherwise, to them.

So, basically, speed cameras save lives if they’re put in sensible places. And you’re telling me they needed a bloody big survey to figure that out?

Now, why not put some along the “red routes” running through Lincolnshire? Even I will admit to bricking it when I’ve gone round some surprising corners too quickly. A speed camera before such locations would make me drive more safely and that has to be a good thing.

Oh, and one more story for a giggle. I appreciate the poor sod’s vehemence, but he did take both hands off the wheel.

Those of you who know me know that most of my joints make many a wonderful popping noise. You’ll also know that I enjoy saunas. The two combined is a joy. Getting all hot, letting the muscles relax then twisting in front of members of the public while my spine makes a noise like a box of firecrackers going off.

Well, one kine person has recently informed me that saunas can render a gentleman infertile, if only temporarily. Basically, sperm develop at a temperature slightly below that of body temperature – hence the location of the little soldier factories and the fact that is moves away from / in towards the body depending on temperature.

So along with excessive cycling, long periods of time behind the wheel of a car and bashing your balls together with bricks, you can add taking a relaxing sauna to the list of things that you can’t enjoy without fearing your little soldiers are keeling over and dying.

In this instance, so eloquently put as “boil in the bag tadpoles”.

I presume a fair few of you have a mate who’s “in a band”. And a ton of them will have produced a demo that you’ve convinced yourself (or at least convinced them) is pretty good before consigning it to some random drawer in the house somewhere.

Well, I’ve just been pleasantly surprised. I popped over to see Ian and Sam (and their teeny little new addition to the family) and he gave me a copy of Bloodstream‘s album Black Storm Harvest.

I’ve known Ian and some of the other band members for years, but in all honesty have heard very little by them. You know what… after this I’d like to hear more. I appreciate the band are changing members at the moment, the singer’s different and one of the other chaps is handing duties over to someone else. I can only hope they’re as tight as the lot who recorded this.

I don’t do the old Music Page any more, but if I did this would be a featured album. I had it on in the car for a bit and it’ll definitely be making another appearance some time soon. The whoele thing’s a hybrid of classic thrash with some death metal-style vocals let down only by the fact that you can make them out. Though you could take this is a good thing – I did.

Anyway, check out their web site if you reckon you could be interested. Good luck to them.